I have written about how Vista runs on mobile computers often because it affects everyone buying them currently. Sure a few OEMs are still offering their mobile PCs (UMPCs) with Windows XP, but most of them are being configured with one of the flavors of Vista. I still find Vista runs very poorly on mobile PCs without a Core 2 Duo processor and at least 2 GB of memory, but this isn’t intended to address that once again. Let’s just say that I am happy with how well the HP 2710p runs on Vista Business, but then it meets my preferred specs for doing so. No, today I’m addressing something that has been affecting me personally and that’s "casual" usage of Vista.
What on earth is that? Well, it’s no secret I have multiple devices at my disposal, Mobile Tech Manor is constantly seeing gadgets coming and going. This means I may be using 3 or 4 mobile PCs over the course of a week so that I can get a good feel for how each one performs. Not a problem, this is something I’ve been doing for years. But now there’s Vista. I am finding that Vista does not like casual usage. What is casual usage of Vista? It can be easily defined as the practice of letting a given device sit for a couple of days or longer and then picking it up to use. Turn it on or resume from sleep mode and then wait. And wait some more as Vista does the housekeeping that it apparently does in the background on all PCs, especially those that are slept a lot. I am sure it is running the search indexer to put all emails and files into the index so you can search them. It’s also getting ReadyBoost up to speed if that’s turned on, along with other system functions like Super PreFetch. All of these take a long time to do and unfortunately on most mobile PCs the hardware is not up to letting much else take place while this is all happening.
Casual usage of Vista can prevent me from picking up a device that hasn’t been used in a day if time is tight so it means I often don’t pick up device A as I’m heading out the door. I have to plan 30 minutes or more before I need to leave because Vista is not pretty when it’s getting ready for work in this scenario. Until the background housekeeping is done it can take minutes to just put the device to sleep, and once awakened it’s going to finish what it was doing anyway which means the device won’t be very useful once it’s resumed at the destination. That’s where real work needs to get done and it’s bad enough that I just won’t take a device with me that’s not been used for a while. I understand the need to do OS housekeeping but it’s obvious to me that Vista is doing far too much of it. Microsoft obviously assumed that users are going to leave their PC on all the time and that’s not the case with mobile devices. So the message here is clear- don’t be casual with Vista and you’ll probably be OK. As long as you have stout components in your PC.
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