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~~~This post will be updated with more content over time. Note that many of these also work in Windows 7, except for the Server > Workstation conversion stuff.~~~
Xxcom9a: More tweaks and a full conversion guide for the final version of R2 can be found at http://www.win2008r2workstation.com/.Windows Live Messenger – Return To System Tray
Annoyed with the new behavior of WLM appearing in the taskbar and not the system tray? Simple fix – first close WLM completely, and change the shortcuts’ Compatibility > Windows Vista. Now it will go into the system tray or “notification area” instead of your taskbar =)Libraries – Add/Remove Desktop Icon
The new Libraries feature in Windows 7 is pretty cool when you set it all up the way you want it. To add the icon to your desktop, run the registry file here. There is also a second key in this ZIP file that removes the icon (back to default).
[attachment=2:16tmhwf0]Libraries Desktop Icon – Add Or Remove.zip[/attachment:16tmhwf0]Windows Server 2008 R2 > Workstation Checklist
Whenever I try out a new OS, I always make a textfile checklist of the things I do and plan-to-do whenever I reinstall. I decided to share my personal one for 2008 R2, especially in regards to converting to a Workstation this may be useful for some of you. Many things are similar to Server 2008 R1.
[attachment=1:16tmhwf0]Server 2008 R2 To Workstation.txt.zip[/attachment:16tmhwf0]Add Custom Shortcuts To My Computer
Like this screenshot…
…I find the Network Connections one especially useful! Grab this ZIP file, it currently only has “Recycle Bin” and “Network Connections”, as well as removal/undo ones to get rid of them. If you have a request for other Windows system things you’d like a My Computer shortcut for, let me know and i’ll find it!
NOTE: This also works for Windows Vista/2008 R1. The icons added apply to all accounts (system wide), not just the current user (if you only want current user, change the reg keys yourself to point to HKCU instead of HKLM :D)
[attachment=0:16tmhwf0]Custom My Computer Shortcuts.zip[/attachment:16tmhwf0]Drive Letters First in My Computer
I don’t like the default Vista+ behavior of how drive letters go last, it sorts by the harddisk label instead of drive letter. Sure it’s nice if you remember your file location by label, but if you have lots of partitions and virtual CD/DVD drives then it can be easier to put the drive letters first so its sorted alphabetically that way. Should also work on Vista.
Drive letters before:Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorer]
"ShowDriveLettersFirst"=dword:00000004Drive Letters after (Default):
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorer]
"ShowDriveLettersFirst"=-{All that REG file does is delete the key, restoring the default}
Custom Icon View on Desktop
OK, you’re either one of two people when it comes to Windows. You love to keep your desktop spotless and empty, or you use it as a spot for junk and uncategorized work files. I’m the later. I work with a lot of different filetypes, photo’s and videos and documents and images… it’s nice to customize the folder view of the Desktop too. I like the Tiles mode. Here’s how you do it:Desktop Icon Mode
01) Start Regedit and browse to
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsShellBags1Desktop
02) Kill explorer.exe in task manager
03) Change the key LogicalViewMode to whatever you want. 2 for example is Tiles, you can try others upto 5 I think (from memory).
04) Change the IconSize too if you like. A decimal of 64 is nice with Tiles on a decently large resolution like 1680x1050.
05) Restart Explorer. Nice.You can even make the Desktop in Details and List mode with this 😆 But it looks a little strange!
Install Windows 7/Server 2008 R2 from a USB drive
I havn’t tested this myself, but others have reported it to work very well. Here’s how.01) Insert the USB stick to prepair it
02) In a CMD window (as admin), do the following...
diskpart
{Enters the disk partition tool}
list disk
{Find the number of the USB stick you inserted}
select disk #
{Substitute the # for the number you found in list disk}
clean
{Deletes all partitions - MAKE SURE all your files are backed up!}
create partition primary
select partition 1
active
format quick fs=ntfs
assign
exit
03) Extract the Windows 7 DVD ISO to the flash stick. Should be bootable now!@exodan wrote:
I just wanted to add that I was able to change the blue log on screen in server 2008 R2 build 7127,it was something i found a while back called tweakslogon-by the way,thanks for all the tips here!
Nice little app! I’d been using Vista Visual Master, but this little app is smaller and more to the point.
Appreciate the update! Does this build of R2 still have the Vista UI or does it feature the new Windows 7 UI enhancements? Also, have you tried running any 3d applications or games to see how they perform?
The fact that Server 2003 Web edition not only consistently out performs XP running DirectX 9 applications (and games for those interested), but is so much better behaved — has made it a superb production platform for Game Development…
I’m hoping there will be a Web edition of R2, and that it will offer similar capability of installing a very clean build environment that offers similar performance and relieability advantages with DirectX 10-11 — Server 2008 SP2 isn’t quite there, and Windows 7 still looks and performs like a bloated Consumer/Idiot OS…
😕
@hoak wrote:
Appreciate the update! Does this build of R2 still have the Vista UI or does it feature the new Windows 7 UI enhancements? Also, have you tried running any 3d applications or games to see how they perform?
The fact that Server 2003 Web edition not only consistently out performs XP running DirectX 9 applications (and games for those interested), but is so much better behaved — has made it a superb production platform for Game Development…
I’m hoping there will be a Web edition of R2, and that it will offer similar capability of installing a very clean build environment that offers similar performance and relieability advantages with DirectX 10-11 — Server 2008 SP2 isn’t quite there, and Windows 7 still looks and performs like a bloated Consumer/Idiot OS…
😕
Server 2008 R2 has the Windows 7 UI in full, the Superbar is all there and thanks to AsciiWolf we also have the Desktop Gadgets too (not sure if he made it or just found it though) anyway here’s the things:
Server 2008 R2 Desktop Gadgets: viewtopic.php?f=17&t=739&p=4327&hilit=sidebar#p4327
Server 2008 R2 GameUX Patch: viewtopic.php?f=17&t=861#p4134
[Above does not give Game Explorer however, just fixes some Vista-Only game detection]
Server 2008 R2 Gamepads Control Panel Applet: viewtopic.php?f=17&t=861#p4136
[With the above installed you need to do Start > Run > joy.cpl because it doesnt appear in control panel, however my PS3 SIXAXIS Controller is working GREAT in Server 2008 R2 😉 ]I’ve been running Server 2008 R2 Release Canidiate for a month or two now, and games run very well. Command and Conquer 3 (and Red Alert 3), The Sims 3, Fallout 3, BioShock, Doomsday Engine [Doom sourceport using OpenGL], DOSBox, WinUAE [Amiga Emulator], gaming works great hoak!
The only two quarrels I have is that Superfetch is not present at all in Server 2008 R2 – but it still is fast, it just doesnt reboot super fast like Windows 7 does. However I never turn my computer off anyway, I always put it to Sleep – which brings me to the second quarrel; sleep is not in the start menu. You have to go to CTRL+ALT+DELETE and go to the power-button in the bottom-right and choose Sleep from there.
Thanks, I still wonder if DX9 and 10 games will perform better on the Sever OS’s then they do on the Client as was the case with 2003 vs XP…
I’m not sure what you mean by ‘sleep‘ mode but if you mean Hibernate, I think the same method should work as with the other OS’s and you can just create a shortcut with:
“rundll32.exe powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState Hibernate“
…for the ‘location‘ and name it and name it “Hibernate“. Now that I think of it I seem to recall reading they changed the Hybernate parameter to Sleep in Vista, so you might try that if Hibernate doesn’t work — though most versions of Windows preserve legacy parameters and command line arguments…
:geek:
@hoak wrote:
Thanks, I still wonder if DX9 and 10 games will perform better on the Sever OS’s then they do on the Client as was the case with 2003 vs XP…
I used RC1 of Windows 7 [build 7100] and found that many games on my Athlon X2 5000+ with 9600GT would crash and glitch up, no matter what nVidia drivers I used and even on a fresh Win7 install. However switiching to Server 2008 R2 Build 7100 when that came out, and using the exact same nVidia drivers, it no longer crashed or glitched or had any “hitches”.
I think the main reason why Server is sometimes faster than Workstation [not for everyone] is that it doesnt have all the bulk behind it and extra services. Windows Search, Media Center extenders, all that stuff. But some people dont have much of a speed improvement, I imagine that a current-gen computer – such as an Intel i7 with 8GB of RAM and a 10,000RPM SATA-II harddisk – would probably make no difference.
@hoak wrote:
“rundll32.exe powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState Hibernate“
Yup, I have that command bound to WINKEY+F12 😉
Most of the bloat in vista is the audio/video overhead. Also they have alot of extras like you said that I don’t use. Also i belive the driver catalog is slimmer on server 2008 becuase they got rid of alot more legacy stuff becuase people normally update server hardware more often then home hardware and servers have alot less legacy hardware on it then a desktop does. windows 2008 r2 is 64 bit only I belive. (still has 32 bit compats.)
@RemixedCat wrote:
windows 2008 r2 is 64 bit only I belive. (still has 32 bit compats.)
Yes, Microsoft dropped the 32-bit OS for Windows Server 2008 R2. I think I read somewhere that Windows 7 is the last 32-bit client OS, but that may not be the case.
@shahed26 wrote:
Although this means no x86 apps can be installed, but atleast developers will start coding native x64 softwares.
Incorrect. I install many programs, both 64-bit and 32-bit, to E:Program Files, it makes no difference where they are installed. The reason why ProgFilesx86 exists is because of WoW64 (Windows on Windows 64) internal duplicates – for example there is both a 64-bit and 32-bit version of the Sidebar.
To get rid of it would be the same thing as getting rid of System32 😯 It’s for backwards compatibility with legacy programs (in this case, it’d be some sort of Vista gadget I think – it installs to the ProgFilesx86 folder but the 64-bit version still sees the installed gadgets from the 32-bit version).
Yeah, I hope so too. For old schoolers like myself, they would be much better off with a fully seperate, core virtualization/emulation of traditional Win32 binaries.
Windows 8 probably won’t exist by the way, but that’s only my sort-of-expert opinion. Chances are it will be something completely new – and I REALLY hope it’s based off Microsoft Singularity rather than continually-expanded Windows NT.
[FYI: Virtualization is practically the same as emulation, however a “virtualized” guest does not emulate the CPU (sometimes other components too) since the hardware is already capable of doing it natively]
EDIT: Sorry, not Singularity. I ment Midori.
You’re kidding, right?
The x86-64 extension is a complete crapheap, the computer i’m using right now is still based on technology invented in 1981. So that side of it is true. But if legacy support was REMOVED, a new system was invented to replace the x86 architecture, but still capable of hardware emulation (as I mentioned previously) then… well, it’d be BRILLIANT and there are definately advantages to a true 64-bit system. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/64-bit#Pros_and_cons
Of course it won’t happen for a while, but it will one day.
If you don’t care about the technicals, basically the reason why Mac is still the dominant machine in high-end production and creative industries is because they are pure 64-bit (well not ALL, but the ones that are 64-bit are REAL 64-bit, not like IBM-based PC’s we’re using here). If you try editing a 2 hour long BluRay-definition video on any 32-bit Mac or Windows machine; you’d need a crazy RAID rack to compensate for the constant swapping. And of course the application has to be 64-bit compiled to get all that extra bandwidth to the CPU too.
@JonusC wrote:
Yeah, I hope so too. For old schoolers like myself, they would be much better off with a fully seperate, core virtualization/emulation of traditional Win32 binaries.
Windows 8 probably won’t exist by the way, but that’s only my sort-of-expert opinion. Chances are it will be something completely new – and I REALLY hope it’s based off Microsoft Singularity rather than continually-expanded Windows NT.
[FYI: Virtualization is practically the same as emulation, however a “virtualized” guest does not emulate the CPU (sometimes other components too) since the hardware is already capable of doing it natively]
EDIT: Sorry, not Singularity. I ment Midori.
Midori FTW!!!! I hope windows 8 is based off this! MANAGED CODE FTW!!!!
@JonusC wrote:
You’re kidding, right?
If that was directed at me, then no, I’m not kidding. Look at the examples in the Wikipedia article (data encryption software, complex numerical analysis algorithms), or your own example (hi-def video editing software) – does that sound like the vast majority of the software people are using? Not to me. I’m not denying the advantages of a 64-bit system, they’re definitely there, and numerous. What I’m saying is that the majority of applications (not necessarily users) out there wouldn’t benefit from being converted to 64-bit. Browsers, email and IM clients, office and multimedia software – that’s what most people are using most of the time, and they don’t need massive address space or 64-bit registers. Since there’s no need for the conversion, I doubt it’ll be happening soon enough and massively enough for MS to drop 32-bit support completely from their client OS in the near future. That’s all I’m saying. Whether or not the x86-64 architecture is a crapheap is completely irrelevant.
Of course it won’t happen for a while, but it will one day.
Well, yes, I suppose eventually office documents and websites will grow to gigabytes in size, at which point even the most stubborn developers will have to make the jump.
64 bit IE and WMP11 are a TON more stable becuase they are 64 bit that I use. (I still gotta use 32 bit IE though becuase of adobe’s laziness of not having flash 64) WMP11 x32 crashes harder becuase I got a HUGE music collection. x64 can handle loading my ENTIRE 120GB music collection in one list without crashing! x32 sits there and dies on me profusely.
32 bit does not have multicore support, cannot access more then 3 GB RAM.
*shrugs* 32-bit versions of IE and WMP work perfectly well for me (although my music collection is but 1/6th the size of yours). I suspect whatever problems you’re having with 32-bit IE might be caused by add-ons, rather than any inherent instability of the x86 platform, perceived or real.
And at any rate, we can keep bringing up niche scenarios like 120 GB music libraries until the cows come home, but that doesn’t change the fact that there’s currently no need for the entire home computing industry to move to 64-bit.@RemixedCat wrote:
32 bit does not have multicore support
Come again?
@RemixedCat wrote:
32 bit does not have multicore support, cannot access more then 3 GB RAM.
with a little trick you can allocate more then 3GB by PAE ( physical address extensions ) and optionally ( on my board ) there is an option for it 🙂
@Indrek wrote:
*shrugs* 32-bit versions of IE and WMP work perfectly well for me (although my music collection is but 1/6th the size of yours). I suspect whatever problems you’re having with 32-bit IE might be caused by add-ons, rather than any inherent instability of the x86 platform, perceived or real.
And at any rate, we can keep bringing up niche scenarios like 120 GB music libraries until the cows come home, but that doesn’t change the fact that there’s currently no need for the entire home computing industry to move to 64-bit.The AMD x86-64 architecture along with a 64-bit operating system gives full hardware DEP to boost the Driver Signing to a low-level, this has made Vista/Win7 x64 the most secure x86 OS in existence. You heard me, more secure than Linux – there’s a reason why ParadoX, Skidrow and Fairlight run Vista as their OS of choice. Anyway, all that’s an extremely important security aspect of 64-bit machines – keeping that Driver Signing enabled along with UAC, DEP and in this example i’m about to give – running a 64-bit browser – makes the system practically immune to rootkits and a variety of other memory pool overruns and thread code injections. Basically, you don’t even need to run antivirus on Windows 6 x64 if you know how to navigate the web safely. {FYI: I’m only saying that as a disclaimer, i.e. there’s no excuse for a stranger not in our current conversation to go click a commercial on a torrent site and run a file called “omg_hot_chick_wif_huge_bewbz.jpg.exe” then accuse me of being wrong}. 😀
@Indrek wrote:
@RemixedCat wrote:
32 bit does not have multicore support
Come again?
32-bit only supports dualcore CPU’s, that is – it can only simultaneously process two threads at a time. A 3-or-more core CPU I think is still detected on Vista 32-bit (not sure about XP, but XP is complete crap with thread management anyway) but the quantum scheduler can’t actually handle more than two threads simultaneously. It’s a laneway limitation with the L1 cache from memory, it needs to be in x86-64 mode (and whatever Intel’s equivalent is) to use it all properly.
Anyway, yeah – x64 is not as useless as you might have thought. It was at first, but it’s slowly taking off as developers take advantage of the additional extensions. SSE2 instructions for example, in 64-bit realmode, is at least 10% faster in every test I remember seeing (video encoding, JPEG decoding, RAR extraction/compresion, etc). Take a look at these benchmarks of Firefox 32-bit Vs Firefox x64. And that’s a 1 year old article, running an experimental/unofficial 64-bit compile of Firefox.
Times are a changin’ 😉
with a little trick you can allocate more then 3GB by PAE ( physical address extensions ) and optionally ( on my board ) there is an option for it 🙂
That won’t work for me since I have a 1GB PCI-e v2.0 graphics card. I’ll actually get ~2.8GB max with this card if I only ran 32-bit, otherwise I will have to start pulling out wireless card/firewire controller/USB hubs/mouse/etcetera 😛 And BTW, PAE slows your CPU down because it has to translate 32-bit calls to 36-bit calls with every memory request. Try it – do a CPU becnhmark in Everest with PAE on, then repeat with it switched off.
EDIT: 32-bit OS’s also can’t use Hardware Virtualization featuresets. VMWare, Virtual XP Mode in Windows 7 and the exotic nature of encoding my DVD’s to WMV for Windows Media Center with CUDA acceleration, they are all faster in 64-bit. So is DXVA playback – I couldn’t imagine playing a BluRay movie on one monitor while working in Adobe CS4 on the main one in 32-bit 😉
It’s true, the majority of grandpa’s and girlfriends will have no use for 64-bit really so you still have a good point. They won’t care that it takes 2 seconds quicker to skip through a movie, or load an 8Megapixel photo (my GF does tho she’s a hardcore photographer lol), just as long as it works. And we all know that 32-bit wins in compatibility.
@JonusC wrote:
Anyway, yeah – x64 is not as useless as you might have thought.
Pardon, but I don’t think I ever said x64 was useless. Quite the contrary, in fact. However, since most of the software we use is produced by businesses, usefulness is only part of the equation. Even a lot of non-commercial and open-source software is x86 only.
@JonusC wrote:
32-bit only supports dualcore CPU’s, that is – it can only simultaneously process two threads at a time.
Ah, I didn’t know that, thanks.
@JonusC wrote:
as long as it works
That’s the key here, I think. x86 works just fine. Yes, x86-64 is technically superior, but for most people the differences are either minute, or too complex to understand. Until the consumers don’t fully understand the benefits, there won’t be much demand for 64-bit software. Until there’s any real demand, there won’t be a large-scale move to it. And for as long as there’s a significant amount of 32-bit only software, Microsoft is unlikely to drop support for it.
You’re right, though – times, they be a-changin’.@Indrek wrote:
Pardon, but I don’t think I ever said x64 was useless. Quite the contrary, in fact. However, since most of the software we use is produced by businesses, usefulness is only part of the equation.
I ment no offence at all sir, i was politely trying to say that you are wrong in stating that x64 “is not worth it to most people”. The binaries are known to be faster and more secure in every way, and yes – even E-Mail, Web Browsing, Playing/Converting music in iTunes/WMP and Desktop Publishing/Typing are faster in x64 for the reasons i stated already. Namely, faster decoding and encoding of compressed data (Images and Music) and why an x64 Browser is indeed very worthwhile.
Not to mention the memory hog that is IE8 😆 Whenever I open a new tab in IE8 it takes a second to load it. The x64 version of IE8 is nearly instant. But I am still on Firefox 3.5 32-bit anyway, because Adobe STILL havn’t released an x64 runtime of Flash 10 😡
@JonusC wrote:
I ment no offence at all sir, i was politely trying to say that you are wrong in stating that x64 “is not worth it to most people”. The binaries are known to be faster and more secure in every way
None taken.
I respectfully disagree, though – most people care about usability and features, not pure speed. Security probably falls somewhere in the middle. At least, such is my experience. Yours is obviously different, hence our disagreement, which I think we will just have to settle with.Just so the point isn’t lost in the discussion – I do wish we’d move to full 64-bit, I just don’t see it happening in the immediate future.
Nono, i do agree with that part. Your completely right, as I said – most people don’t care if it’s half a second faster or whatever – just so long as it works. And 32-bit is still much more compatible thus more popular 🙂
But yeah, for those of us who depend a lot on fancy production stuff, or even who just like to be on bleeding edge, x64 has it’s obvious advantages. And that varies per person.
P.S. Thanks for the link to the new site Xxcom9a, I moved it to the top 😉
P.P.S. I’ve added a couple of new things.@RemixedCat wrote:
I think they have better luck when they release as a yearversion rather then a vanity name like Millenium Edition or Vista (marketing) did.
windows 2000 did good, 2003, and s 2008 did.
Yeah, I never replied to that one. Microsoft has a tick-tock development process, Me and Vista may have been failures but they were made by different dev teams than XP and Win7. The Me/Vista team pioneered a lot of new and even experimental/buggy features (tick phase), then XP/Win7 refined, improved and streamlined these (tock phase).
Windows Me is actually better than 98 though, when it’s all patched up it is a faster and more stable OS than 98SE. It was just a crap-pile when it first came out (like Vista was). Me was the first OS to have System Restore 😉
@JonusC wrote:
with a little trick you can allocate more then 3GB by PAE ( physical address extensions ) and optionally ( on my board ) there is an option for it 🙂
That won’t work for me since I have a 1GB PCI-e v2.0 graphics card. I’ll actually get ~2.8GB max with this card if I only ran 32-bit, otherwise I will have to start pulling out wireless card/firewire controller/USB hubs/mouse/etcetera 😛 And BTW, PAE slows your CPU down because it has to translate 32-bit calls to 36-bit calls with every memory request. Try it – do a CPU becnhmark in Everest with PAE on, then repeat with it switched off.
EDIT: 32-bit OS’s also can’t use Hardware Virtualization featuresets. VMWare, Virtual XP Mode in Windows 7 and the exotic nature of encoding my DVD’s to WMV for Windows Media Center with CUDA acceleration, they are all faster in 64-bit. So is DXVA playback – I couldn’t imagine playing a BluRay movie on one monitor while working in Adobe CS4 on the main one in 32-bit 😉
Well, a few corrections. Vista 32 does use PAE – in fact, it’s a hardware requirement to use Data Execution Prevention – you need the 64bit TLB registers. So you’re translating all 32bit addresses to 64bit registers in the TLB anyway (unless you specifically boot a no DXP 32bit kernel). Secondly, vista32, while having PAE enabled for 99% of users, does happily ignore any reported RAM above the 4gb mark. This means if your BIOS remaps 1gb of RAM to 5gb to make room for the videocard, you’re capped at 3gb. It’s actually an identical kernel to server 2008, there’s a single license key that unlocks >4gb on 32bit processors.
You’re partially correct about virtualization as well – there are hardware VT extensions in 32bit processors (or 64bit in 32bit host mode), but they’re not as complete as the 64bit AMD set (Intel is (was?) missing some of the IO virtualization, moving more of the work into the hypervisor. VMware refuses to use the 32bit extensions, but Virtualbox does (apparently, I haven’t tested).
I’d imagine that running a modern dualcore CPU with a decent videocard could play a bluray (GPU decoding offload) on one monitor while running CS3/CS4 on the other – in either 32 or 64bit mode.
Aside from those minor nits, I agree with you.
@harik wrote:
Well, a few corrections. Vista 32 does use PAE – in fact, it’s a hardware requirement to use Data Execution Prevention – you need the 64bit TLB registers. So you’re translating all 32bit addresses to 64bit registers in the TLB anyway (unless you specifically boot a no DXP 32bit kernel). Secondly, vista32, while having PAE enabled for 99% of users, does happily ignore any reported RAM above the 4gb mark. This means if your BIOS remaps 1gb of RAM to 5gb to make room for the videocard, you’re capped at 3gb. It’s actually an identical kernel to server 2008, there’s a single license key that unlocks >4gb on 32bit processors.
I’m not sure I understand any of that. PAE and DEP are two completely different things for a start, you don’t need PAE for Software DEP. For Hardware DEP on a 32-bit machine, I was never sure it was possible – but maybe that’s what you mean. To get hardware DEP instead of software/emulated DEP, you need 64-bit or PAE?
4GB of RAM is the hard limit for 32-bit systems, it’s impossible to have more than 4GB on 32-bit OS. With PAE, the limit is slighlty increased. But you need to remember that all preipherals, every PCI device, requires it’s own chunk in the memory pool for Device Drivers to properly address it once the CPU enters Protected Mode because it’s then impossible for the OS to probe the BIOS. If I ever see a 32-bit machine with 4GB of RAM available, I will eat my hat. And if I ever see a 32+4=36-bit (PAE enabled) machine with more than 4GB of available RAM for Windows memory pooling, I will eat my entire wardrobe of hats and shirts and etcetera.
Unless there’s some freaky new tech I don’t know about.
You’re partially correct about virtualization as well – there are hardware VT extensions in 32bit processors (or 64bit in 32bit host mode), but they’re not as complete as the 64bit AMD set (Intel is (was?) missing some of the IO virtualization, moving more of the work into the hypervisor. VMware refuses to use the 32bit extensions, but Virtualbox does (apparently, I haven’t tested).
Yeah, that’s what I pretty much ment. You can get some hardware virtualization in a 32-bit host, but true hardware virt. comes with a 64-bit OS; i.e., all the fancy extension sets become available when the CPU is in x86-64 mode.
I’d imagine that running a modern dualcore CPU with a decent videocard could play a bluray (GPU decoding offload) on one monitor while running CS3/CS4 on the other – in either 32 or 64bit mode.
Except I work with 100megapixel+ images half the time, and CS4’s private working set ranges between 3GB-4GB of RAM usage as I apply filters. But otherwise, yeah maybe so.
@RemixedCat wrote:
I remember the humoungous hell that was ME it came with my parent’s dell. It cause many a fight, and it was a blight, shocked the world of computing and thier sales were muting, it was loads of stress, just like PMS.
Me went down in history as the king of the BSOD. I remember with my 3DFX card, it would just blue screen before even logging in. Every time 😆 one of the millions of hotfixes for Me eventually fixed it though.
Lol… not sure, I never have that column visible in Task Manager. From what I remember, Commit Size is a bad way to rate memory usage because it just shows what the size of the current Pool block Windows has allocated to it, rather than how much it’s actually using…? Can’t remember. But the Private Working Set actually shows how much is physicially in use, minus the caching and swap overhead, without rounding it up to the next pool block limit. Something like that. I need to find a page which describes in detail what all the seven or so (!?!?) different columns for ‘Memory’ mean.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commit_charge
In computing, commit charge is a term used in Microsoft Windows operating systems to describe the total amount of virtual address space for which the backing store is the pagefile. It may be thought of as the maximum potential pagefile usage.
I have Windows System Resource Manager kill any IE tab where my commit charge is over 500MB. This reduces thrashing of the hard disk. If something is taking up too much commit charge then it is taking space on your paging file and you compie is taking way too much resources for that program and since it is disk activity only basically, it is wearing your hard drive down for something that is not being very productive.
I watch 5 youtube vids and this kicks in! or look at 15 listings on realtor.com for example. This shows that websites need to clean up thier coding. I’ve seen blogs take up over 10,000 lines of code! and they use flash slideshows and geo widgets and all kinds of mess the commit charge may kick in after just ONE MINUTE on those sites!!!
I have about 20 tabs open in Firefox right now; most are forums, message boards or simple blogs, although three are Facebook and two are YouTube, and my Commit Charge for Firefox after sitting here for 5 minutes hops around 171,828KB to 181,304KB.
For IE8, hmm… lets both do a test. I started it fresh, on the first tab I went straight to youtube.com. I opened a second tab and went to bigpond.com.au – a great example of a bulky, poorly coded, resource hungry page. The page source alone is nearly half a meg in total.
You probably already know, IE8 does things differently to Firefox – each tab is a seperate process (makes IE8 excel on quad cores and higher), and then ‘core engine’ stuff (like Flash 10 and JS engine for example) is it’s own process again. So with two tabs open, I have three iexplore.exe *32 processes in TaskMan. I refreshed both pages simultaneously (as quick as I could anyway) and then let it sit active in the foreground on the second bigpond.com tab for 60 seconds, then screenshotted TaskMan.
Results:
[attachment=0:3n4ln968]TaskMan_IE8.png[/attachment:3n4ln968]
[Note that the java.exe below it is unrelated, I have jDownloader running – a Java based Download Manager]Conclusion:
Along with Internet Explorer’s JavaScript interpreter still being among the slowest of all browsers [Offtopic]], IE8 is still a massive resource whore. But at least it supports Hardware Acceleration via WDDM – Firefox crawls to a standstill when you’re viewing PNG-sprite-heavy CSS2.1-rich webpages, IE8 however still scrolls and switches tabs like a dream.this site has been pretty dead lately since windows 7 came out. most people prolly won’t bother with R2 since you cannot convert it 100% like R1 and people don’t want to mess with conversion when 7 is ready for most people. Also R2 isn’t as much of a change as I hoped it would and some things don’t work in R2 yet. Hopefully superfetch gets fixed as well as my architecture software support (but I might not be using it that long cause my contract is running out)
Also this is good to talk about mem usage since we were in the topic of x64 vs 32…
Yeah, i’m on Windows 7 myself – I don’t have time to experiment with R2 these days, but if I did I definately would be. The main let down was indeed missing Superfetch, and I spent days trying to bring it over from Win7. But I gave up…
Yeah, we keep bumping this handy thread too so I won’t complain 😆 We may be off topic, but yes as you said – it’s fair useful and on-topic knowledge/conversations.
No becuase running 32 bit OS on 64 bit hardware is still bad. I had xpsp3x32 and it would bluescreen alot, and also when I had too many browser tabs open, photoshop would not load completely. I had to close at least 3 tabs in FF/IE, reload PS again, and then it would load completely. it was annoying. I switched to server 2008 R1 x64 and it’s been so much better.
I would install R2 but I am running a full legal version my company has purchased and they will not upgrade to R2 becuase of a few issues.
I do have a copy of R2, however I am saving the 120 day trial version for later.
(Just so you aren’t confused I am remixedcat. I just had an issue with my login and I cannot reset my password becuase of email issues)
I wouldn’t say running a 32-bit OS on 64-bit hardware is bad, per se. People have been doing it for some time without any significant problems (at least problems they wouldn’t also get on 32-bit hardware). Yes, you’re wasting some of your hardware’s potential, but if the 32-bit OS/64-bit hardware combo is working fine for your needs, then more power to you.
To be honest i have Dell XPS M1530 – Intel Penryn T9300 – 2.5GHZ and Nvidia M8600GT. I was running Vista x86 2 years ago, then switched to Linux x86, then after a while switched to Windows 7 x86 and after that found about Windows Server 2008 R2 and switched to it, but it is x64. It was my first system x64 that i installed to my notebook. I have 2GB of RAM, and it seems enough, but i think 4GB would be better for x64 system. Also i had some BSODS, but found the reason about them. External Card Reader driver caused them
Lal, my first computer was equiped with Windows ME 🙂 So it seems Windows 2008 R2 is working well on my laptop. Watching movies, play games – no complaints about it. But theres still something, that i want to do. With firefox running(4 tabs atm) system uses 550-560MB of RAM. I want to make that number *if its possible* lower. I have tweaked services already, tweaked some processes, still cant figure out what to do next x.x
there isnt much you can do, it just plainly uses more ram.
I have converted to R2 after reading about the conversion.
I dont really care about superfetch, not missing it.
I also managed to edit imageres.dll so i dont get the blue and yellow noobie admin icon on system tasks. Happy so far!
Still have some changes i want to put in though, but im getting there.
FF has always been bloated. ever since version 2.0.x. I use IE8.
The issues with RAM is that I would rather have an application smartly using RAM and using less commit charge.
commit charge usage is more important then RAM usage becuase using excessive commit charge causes your HD to “thrash” and possibly wear it down quicker and causing servere system slowdowns. RAM can take more of the beating then your HD can.
Now the commit charge of FF with 10 tabs that I had open for a week was 6.7GB just for FF alone! the same for IE8 was 2.6GB! commit charge is what is only being used in the paging file and NOT in RAM.
my IE8 RAM usage with 15 tabs is 430MB and commit charge is 3.8GB. Not bad for leaving this session on for more then 1 week. I always go into task manager and kill a process taking up more then 320MB in my commit charge for more speed.
However on windows server 2008 R1/R2 you can install a tool called Windows System Resource Manager, to automatically do this for you. I have mine setup to kill any IE8 process that uses 512MB or more commit charge, and then it will close it, the tab will recover, and no worries. This is specially good for using on youtube since 8 youtube vids will often get the commit charge that high!
I have an article on this forum somewhere describing this technique. However with FF you cannot do this as all the tabs run in a single process, whereas IE8 runs each tab in a seperate process. You might do this with chrome, however the results were’nt so good.
@Kiske wrote:
Lal, my first computer was equiped with Windows ME 🙂 So it seems Windows 2008 R2 is working well on my laptop. Watching movies, play games – no complaints about it. But theres still something, that i want to do. With firefox running(4 tabs atm) system uses 550-560MB of RAM. I want to make that number *if its possible* lower. I have tweaked services already, tweaked some processes, still cant figure out what to do next x.x
Firefox has kind of a bad reputation, which isn’t at all deserved.
Make sure you are using the 3.5 series, get rid of any addons and keep it updated.
It will allocate some memory just as it should, but it certainly shouldnt be hogging it.
I’ve had my FF open for quite a few hours, and have 3 windows and maybe 60 tabs, and I’m not using more than 270mb.
does it have a 64 bit flash plugin?? adobe doesn’t want anything to do with x64 systems, yet thier president spends 200K a year on ‘aircraft expenditures’… adobe has always sucked. x64 bit systems have been out for a long time and yet adobe with over 10,000 employees cannot make a simple plugin that’s 64 bit.
MS doesn’t have MSDN for nothin’ yah kno.
Please nag at adobe for not having an x64 bit version of flash plugin. we need as many as we can.
@Kiske wrote:
rmxcat, yeah correct! THeres no x64 adobe flash plugin, and that makes me sick 🙁
64bit plugin need 64bit web-browser… And, afaik, there’s officially no 64bit Firefox nor Opera (and probably nor Chrome) for 64bit Windows…
For Firefox, the best you can get are unofficial x64 builds:
http://wiki.mozilla-x86-64.com/Firefox:Download
Or you can of course grab the source and compile it yourself.Chrome should also be (largely) open-source, but with Opera or Safari I think you’re pretty much stuck with 32-bit.
@rmxcat wrote:
What sites do you have open JF?? wow that’s the smallest ram usage for FF I’ve seen.
Hi RC
I had open this forum, one youtube video, a bank site that uses java, and the rest were mostly news sites or the such, with lots of flash and whatever.
This is with the browser being open for many, many hours and retaining all history and such.
Really, FF does not deserve the bad rep. Use the latest build, don’t use any unnecessary plugs, and its extrmely fast.
It won’t load as fast as IE or Chrome, but once you have it open there is no difference.
The Minesweeper builds are still considered unstable, although I agree there should be a supported 64bit version by now.
what EXACT BUILD???
and also are you uisng ABP or any noscript or cookie handling addons? ABP greatly greatly reduces the load on your system with all those nasty flash ads going bye bye!
to the person who started the flash ad craze—you suck and you unleased a monster. hope you are happy whereever you are.
Just a note, but I find using caps for emphasis quite rude, as it doesn’t make anything clearer and can come across as condescending….IMO…
I said I am using the latest, which is 3.6.2
No, I am not using the addons you refer to or any addons.
There really is no issue with FF, they fixed it ages ago but the reputation still hangs around.
@Kiske wrote:
Lal, my first computer was equiped with Windows ME 🙂 So it seems Windows 2008 R2 is working well on my laptop. Watching movies, play games – no complaints about it. But theres still something, that i want to do. With firefox running(4 tabs atm) system uses 550-560MB of RAM. I want to make that number *if its possible* lower. I have tweaked services already, tweaked some processes, still cant figure out what to do next x.x
Install the Windows System Resource Manager feature in Server Manager. This program allows you to allocate processor and memory resources to applications, users, and other settings.
Create a “Resource Allocation Policy”
Set the Working Set Maximum and Committed Memory Maximum limits to a more user-friendly acceptable window. Make sure you set the policy to “log an event message” and no “stop the application” when the memory limit is exceeded. Don’t set your limit too low because it will constantly page. You can do it but its not practical. Set a reasonable memory window like 200MB. I set a 20MB memory limit for firefox.exe application just to show you how it works:
P.S – Make sure you right-click on your RAP and select “manage” or else the policy won’t go into effect.
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