Comments on: Vista flexes its power

Large companies can save millions of dollars by using the new OS and letting their PCs go to sleep at night, Microsoft says.

[iBuzz]

Vista PCs will use MORE power!

You've got to be kidding me! With the higher system requirements needed to run Vista, these more powerful PCs will use more power, not less.

[Splashes]

This story reads like a parody . . .

. . . right out of "Dave Barry in Cyberspace."

"Buy the wonderful new version, because it does what the old
version should have done but didn't, and finally fixes the inane,
utterly indefensible problems in the old version that for some
reason we just never got around to fixing in the past five years.
We promise there won't be nearly as many problems in the new
version. We think. Sign here."

What a racket.

[notgonnatellya]

Whatever

Who cares what OSX does. It's a f****** OS. Does it have games? Not really, so it's not a terribly good OS for gamers. Can you do a lot of overclocking on Macs? Not that I know of, so that knocks it out of the enthusiast market too.

When OSX has the game and app and H/W selection of Windows machines, come talk to me. When i can overclock if I want to and/or build my own machine, come to talk to me. Until then, shut up already. It's an OS. I buy an OS because it runs the apps I want on the h/w of my choosing.

[verucabong]

You mean current computers can't sleep all on their own?

Looks to me that XP has an option to sleep the system after as little as 1 minute and as long as 5 hours. Mac OS X (and OS 9 if you want to include that) also has similar options. It sounds to me that companies (if they want to save power) need to change the default setting in XP (no sleep) or OS X (sleep after 1 hour) and roll that out. Do they really need to purchase Vista to see a power savings? I think not.

It's just another way for Microsoft to say "hey look what this can do" without telling you that your current computer does that already.

[jones_8099]

Window 98 could sleep also?

Although if you are still using Windows 98, I would not advise it
because the system doesn't always want to wake up and thus
requires rebooting the computer half the time.

[matt_parker]

Your Missing The Details

XP sometimes will not sleep even if you set it to sleep because it allows applications to dictate this settings.

[matt_parker]

You're Missing The Details

XP sometimes will not sleep even if you set it to sleep because it allows applications to dictate this settings.

[fred dunn]

"On State" Power Requirements Higher.....

This is just a spin on what the real story is all about and that is that Vista is the most resource hungry desktop operating system (if you can really call it that) ever coded.
So by the time you figure the average consumption of your multiple core, multiple gigahertz CPU, your minimum 7200 RPM (yes that is a Vista spec) hard drives, your 2GB of fast system memory, your PCI Express video card with a DirectX 10 GPU and 256 MB of Video Ram then compare that with it's sleep mode you will not come out ahead of a decent power mode on windows XP.

Vista is a joke. Microsoft totally wasted millions on this bloatware resource hog. It offers a very small incremental increase in usability in trade for expensive hardware and rewriting a lot of programs not to mention redesigning your desktop PKI.

Do yourself and your company a favor...SKIP VISTA.

[pgp_protector]

Vista Requirments

Umm I'm currently running Vista on a 1Gig Laptop (4200 RMP 40G HD) no PCI Express (just ATI Gfx Chipset w/64M Video Ram), and it works fine.

[rapier1]

not this again

Yes, Vista will use more resources than Windows XP. And XP, if anyone recalls, used more resources than Windows 95 which used more resources than 3.1 which used more resources than DOS.

Likewise, OS X had heavier requirments than System 9 which had more requirements than 7 and so forth.

The exception *might* be various unixes. Until you try to run the GUI and various applications. But as demand increases - especially on multiuser machines so do the requirements.

Does anyone really think that new OSes, with more features and more options won't use more resources? Do they think cycles just magically appear? If you want to do more you need more power. The progressing needs of the OS and applications (especially games) really pushes the advanced development of hardware. If resource requirements now were the same as they were say... 15 years ago does anyone actually honestly believe that we'd have the computing power we have available to us?

As a note: I use OS X every day 8 hours a day. I like it. Its a good OS. I also have been using Linux since the pre 1.0 kernel. I also use windows boxes. In fact at home thats what I generally use. Each system has its strengths and weaknesses. Only a tool get religious about a freaking hunk of software.

[andyking-pit]

No need to wait for Vista - you can do this Already!

http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=power_mgt.pr_pm_ez_gpo

Energystar provides a free utility to enable power management via group policy and provides free support. Now THAT is somthing you should write an article about.

[drmdwhitley]

Vista flexes its power

Huh? Mac OS X has had this for years. I suppose Vista Reviewers will be gaga over that, but really...innovation is a Microsoft PR, not a Microsoft reality when it comes to Vista.

[matt_parker]

There Is No Microsoft Innovation!

Microsoft is all about getting you to buy their upfront license and then they hand you a bloated piece of unstable, insecure crap that you are stuck with because you have already invested $300+! Save your money and download Solaris 10 6/06+ and experience the best OS on the planet!

[richsevent4]

Yawn...

Just something else easily done by Mac OS X client/server way
before Vista

[Will Freeman]

Mac feature for 10 - 15 years!!

My Macs have had this same NEW ADVANCED feature for at least 10
years, probably more like 15. Sounds like another amazing
Microsoft innovation.

[FutureGuy]

ohh shut up!!!

XP can do it too, I guess with Vista this integates with the active directory and may be even remotely trigger it to wake up from the network.

[Christopher Hall]

Keep your pants on

Windows boxes have been nodding off automatically for years, too. It's just never been pitched by marketing as a cost savings to corporations.

[erniescar]

Magentic power cord...

You are right, my 3 and 1 year olds continually pull the magnetic power cable out. My Mac is sleeping all the time.

[Andrew J Glina]

Incorrect

Most Macs cannot hibernate without a hack. It is Windows that has had the feature for years.

http://matt.ucc.asn.au/apple/machibernate.html

[ahazelwood]

Need Remote Desktop or Network Services

Unfortunately, they still haven't enabled the ability to wake the machine when I need to remote desktop into it, or need to serve web traffic off of it.

Add that capability, and I'll let the machine catch all the ZZZZ's it wants.

[I.T. Garage]

Sure they have, it's called Wake on Lan

If a motherboard has an integrated NIC, it usually has a "wake on lan" feature. Using the MAC address you use WOL.EXE (Google it) and a batch file you can wake it on demand. Alternately you can set many desktops to wake up at a given time I (and certainly other administrators) have been doing both of these for many many years! Like 40MPG cars, this is not new technology nor a new achievement. Why it makes news with Vista is because MS is informing the (generally uninformed in this kind of stuff) computing public.

[verucabong]

But guess what *does* let you do that...

Apple Remote Desktop.

[I.T. Garage]

PC's already do this, OS independent It's called Wake on Lan

If a motherboard has an integrated NIC, is probably has Wake on Lan capabilities built in. An executable called WOL.EXE (freely available on the 'net) sends a "magic packet" (or sometimes other similar pakcet). This has been around for at least 10 years and is not new, I'm sure I am not the only admin who has been using this feature for some time. Has notrhing to dow ith the OS - do even a DOS 3.3 PC could be powered on remotely.

[Peter Bonte]

There is no sleep mode in XP?

Hard to believe XP has no sleep mode but if MS is saying so it
has to be true.

[KTLA_knew]

The article isn't about sleep mode

XP has had both hibernate (sleep) and standyby mode for years, I think Windows 2000 had both of them as well.

The article is about improved policy for corporate environments.

[garyfields]

read the whole story

b4 everone takes sides and starts a war, read the whole story. before we react and make inflammatory remakes we should think. the power savings feature is related to group policy, for instance at my old job they had the sleep mode on,but i bypassed it. with these new claimed settings the network admin can't be bypassed (easily).

[Jim Hubbard]

How to put XP monitors to sleep - BY MICROSOFT!

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/learnmore/tips/monitorsleep.mspx

And, let's not forget that XP knows how to hibernate - essentially putting the PC to sleep too - http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/mobility/getstarted/hibernate.mspx.

I mean really, CNET! Why don't you get someone to write articles that can at least Google about the subject before wasting our time?

[cacarson]

Sell It Baby!!!!!!

I can tell the sales team is working overtime on this one. By putting your system into suspend mode when the system's not in use you can save energy? Really? Duh!!!

And doesn't wake on LAN work with XP? It has for me. I always figured that was more a factor of the BIOS than the OS. Glad the Microsoft has set me straight (humor).

Sounds like the #1 way to save energy is to use an LCD monitor (another duh). That way you get the savings 24-7.

If Microsoft wanted to really save some trees they'd completely overhaul their OS so it didn't take a supercomputer (and thus an average system load of 200-400 watts) to run responsively.

CNet is doing their readers a disservice by publicizing this Microsoft fodder.

[Aryugaetu]

Mac Energy Saver "How To"

For those Mac users wanting to know more on how to use the
Energy Saver Preference to easily schedule their computer to
automatically Start-Up, Shut-Down, or Sleep (display/CPU/both),
you can find it in the Finder's Help menu or here...
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.4/en/
mh1614.html

Don't forget, you can always open System Preferences and type
in "sleep" in the search field, and your Mac will highlight where
to click (Energy Saver).

You will also find many options available such as "Wake for
Ethernet network administrator access".

It is nice to see MS Windows users finally getting the features
they deserve. If you want to see Vista 3.0 for 2014, stop by any
Apple store today.

[KTLA_knew]

Mac has finally caught up?

MS has had both standby and hibernation states for YEARS which sounds like even more options than you list for the Mac. (Does Mac have standby?) It's nice to see that Macs have caught up with Windows.

This article was about improvements in policy settings in corporate environments. Things that could be done before are going to be easier for admins.

But yes, congratulations on catching up with the Windows world!

[hybris06]

Dumb Mac Users

Why are Mac Addicts so defensive? No one even mentioned apple and they get defensive.

I don't care for OS X but if your os was so good then you could let it speak for itself and the mac addicts wouldn't have to hawk how great OS X every second of every day.

Perhaps OS X isn't that great? My experience in OS X is this: pretty looking graphics but very mouse intensive. I find I am much more productive in Gnome or Windows 2000/XP.

OS X, Windows XP, Linux all have their fans. Can't the Mac people realize that if Linux and Windows people want to switch they will and that they should stop shoving down an inferior operating system our throats? There are Apple stores all over the country, if I want to learn more about macs I can.

[cgamboak]

even my cell phone can do that

and my old tv, my heater system , mu fridge mhhh even me.

[sispersonal]

Vista flexes its power

It should be more of a concern for us all. We love are electrical appliances, but do we stop and think, "Should I buy this product, am I wasting energy". Do us hell. We purchase more and more. It?s as bad as societies need for fashion. Luckily for me, in my area of England are trash is divided in to recyclable bags, but we still don?t worry about the energy we consume. More and more households are investing in electric readers that are easily attached to the electric meter and they tell you how much electricity you are using and how much it?s costing you. It?s about time these devises were built in to are electric meters.
Savo
Worcestershire England

[dmm]

"our", not "are"

You English wouldn't have a problem spelling "our" if you pronounced things correctly, like us Americans.
;-)

[ajbright]

uhuh..

try turning your stuff off, funny how that saves money with any operating system installed on any make or model of computer.

Actually the thing that people forget, particularly in these days of power saving peripherals, is that if 300+ staff turn off their monitors there can be a dramatic effect on the electricity bill - so that if you work somewhere where turning off computers is not an option, just turning off the monitors can make a real difference.

As for the OS power saving thing - I believe you'll find that just about every piece of modern hardware, from HDs to laptops, printers to monitors, can do this with no intervention of over-priced and what will probably be an over-hyped operating system.

[i,Jimbot]

Wow! What Technical Advances!!!

I am amazed at 2 things here. First, MS thinks that this bold new
technology that allows your computer to sleep is either bold or
new. Second, that C|Net would write such a large story about a
non-news item.

[Macsaresafer]

Why amazed?

MS is constantly claiming 'innovations' that aren't innovative, and c/
net has a habit of publishing non-news.

[ed9]

breaking news!! wow! groundbreaking!

microsoft is at the cutting edge!! what a concept! why did it take
MS 10-15 years to copy this from the Mac OS? news worthy??? cnet
news needs a new editor.

[bw94382]

Big Deal - Micorosft Technologies Never Work Properly

Microsoft operating systems have had some sort of 'energy saving' feature for at least ten years, and they have never worked effectively. This smacks of desperation on Microsoft's part -- they're trying to build a value proposition to drive corporate customers to upgrade when they know Vista offers no real benefit over Windows 2000/XP.