March 20, 2008 | Comments: (0)
| Change/Feature | Details | Impact/Benefit |
| Revised Network Stack | "Black Hole" router detection; WAP2 Wi-Fi security support; NAP (Network Access Protection) support | Improved performance; works with newer wireless security standards; policy-based protection of network against unhealthy PCs |
| Internet Explorer 7.0 | Latest version of Microsoft’s Web browser | Tabbed browsing; phishing filter; better standards compliance |
| Windows Media Player 11 | Latest version of Microsoft’s audio/video playback application | Bug fixes and security improvements; supports broader range of media types |
| Performance Improvements | Better throughput at a variety of business productivity tasks | Gives IT shops one more incentive to stay with Windows XP |
Read Randall Kennedy's guide to the Vista and XP service packs.
Posted by Doug Dineley on March 20, 2008 03:00 AM
March 20, 2008 | Comments: (0)
| Change/Feature | Details | Impact/Benefit |
| Revised Network Stack | "Black Hole" router detection; WAP2 Wi-Fi security support; NAP (Network Access Protection) support | Improved performance; works with newer wireless security standards; policy-based protection of network against unhealthy PCs |
| Internet Explorer 7.0 | Latest version of Microsoft’s Web browser | Tabbed browsing; phishing filter; better standards compliance |
| Windows Media Player 11 | Latest version of Microsoft’s audio/video playback application | Bug fixes and security improvements; supports broader range of media types |
| Performance Improvements | Better throughput at a variety of business productivity tasks | Gives IT shops one more incentive to stay with Windows XP |
Read Randall Kennedy's guide to the Vista and XP service packs.
Posted by Doug Dineley on March 20, 2008 03:00 AM
March 17, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Windows XP TKO's Vista in 10 rounds
Here at Save Windows XP campaign headquarters, we're not all anti-Vista. Some of us, notably Test Center Chief Scientist Tom Yager, have begun to see the light. For Tom, if you like Windows Server 2008 you'll want Vista too, because only Vista takes advantage of some nice WS08 features. This about-face from Tom's originally lukewarm reception of Vista was sparked by his quality time with the head-spinning new Server 2008, chronicled here.
And then there's our man on the Enterprise Desktop, Randall Kennedy, who refuses to abandon old prejudices. For example, because Vista requires significantly more resources than XP in order to run half as fast, Randall has the idea maybe Vista is a bloated pig. Randall's going so far as to argue that businesses can afford to skip the Vista upgrade entirely, and ride XP until the dawn of Windows 7, which is expected in 2009 or 2010. No, performance isn't the only reason to stick with XP. Read Randall's 10-point analysis, then consider adding your name to our Save XP list.
A torch for Frankenvista: Microsoft engineer Vijayshinva Karnure blogged his instructions for creating a "super" workstation OS based on Windows Server 2008 in mid February, and Randall Kennedy has been putting the concoction to the test ever since. For one, "Workstation" 2008 is snappier than Vista. For two, WS08's Server Manager rocks as a central control panel. For three, it can run Active Directory, Exchange, and other server applications, which of course can be wonderfully convenient for developers. If Server '08 sounds like your kind of desktop, don't miss "Weird, wild, wonderful Windows "Workstation" 2008."
Posted by Doug Dineley on March 17, 2008 06:00 AM
March 17, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Clocking Vista and XP performance: About OfficeBench
I created the OfficeBench test script back in 1999/2000 while my company, Competitive Systems Analysis (CSA), was under contract to Intel's Desktop Architecture Labs (DAL). CSA was responsible for a great deal of internal benchmarking and white paper development surrounding the Pentium III and Pentium 4 CPU launches.
OfficeBench was designed from the beginning to be a "run anywhere" benchmark. By "run anywhere" I mean that the script will execute reliably under almost any Windows runtime environment. At the time it was being developed, this meant Windows 2000 and Terminal Server. As Windows evolved, so did OfficeBench. Today it supports every version of Windows since 2000, including XP, Vista, Server 2003, Server 2008, all flavors of Terminal Server, and all known application and desktop virtualization environments.
OfficeBench is also version independent. That is, it's designed to work with any version of Microsoft Office. When it was originally conceived, the state of the art was Office 2000. Since then, Microsoft has rolled out three additional versions: XP, 2003, and, most recently, 2007. OfficeBench runs unmodified across all four versions. Combined with the support for the various Windows platform releases, OfficeBench is the only test script of its kind that allows you to compare performance across multiple generations of Windows and Office.
OfficeBench uses OLE automation to drive the applications. This is different from most test scripts, which use window messages or keystroke and mouse click simulation. Using OLE automation has numerous benefits, including allowing test scripts to run unmodified across the four Office versions. It also factors out any input-related anomalies while eliminating the chance that a UI change or third party modification will somehow break the script.
Key OfficeBench tasks include the following:
Reformat all section headers and subheads in Word.
Generate multiple chart objects in Excel.
Generate complete multi-slide presentation in PowerPoint.
Multi-page scroll w/copy paste of chart objects into Word.
Slide sort/apply multiple templates in PowerPoint.
Multi-page scroll/print preview/print-to-file in Word.
Multi-chart print preview/print-to-file in Excel
Global search/replace in word (multiple).
Multi-slide preview/print-to-file in PowerPoint.
Navigate simulated research Web site in IE (multiple).
The above are just some highlights. There's a lot more going on than meets the eye, and the key is that it's the exact same set of tasks executing across all versions of Office.
OfficeBench doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's delivered as part of a sophisticated, extensible, multi-process testing framework we call DMS Clarity Studio. DMS Clarity Studio provides a variety of scalable workload objects for testing everything from client/server database connections to MAPI-based message store access to streaming multimedia. OfficeBench has been engineered to run in parallel with these workloads, providing for a rich variety of targeted test scenarios spanning the range of Windows client and server platforms. It's all coordinated through the DMS Clarity Studio framework and also seamlessly integrated with the exo.performance.network's Clarity Analysis Portal.
Note: DMS Clarity Studio is offered for free as part of the exo.performance.network. It's also part of the larger DMS Clarity Suite framework in use across thousands of trading workstations and other mission critical systems in the financial services sector. Some of the largest trading firms in the world trust DMS Clarity Suite to tell them when their systems are under-performing.
In summary, OfficeBench is part of a proven testing ecosystem that spans the range of Windows platforms and runtime scenarios. It is a sophisticated, version-independent benchmarking tool that executes reliably under almost any Windows runtime environment, allowing IT organizations to accurately assess multi-generational performance across all versions of Windows and Office.
Posted by Randall Kennedy on March 17, 2008 03:00 AM