NoelC

I submit that the people willing to go out and open their wallets care less about running a circa 1999 game now than a lot of other things. You can wish for new hardware support all you want, but XP's basically dead. With declining market share and zero support from Microsoft what company is going to be spending money and time creating new solutions for XP? In my company our next product releases are going to be compatible only with Vista and above. And we haven't begun to discuss 64 bit vs. 32 bit (yes, I know there was an XP x64 - I used it for years). 64 bit computing is not the future, it's already here. For what it's worth, I have XP Pro (among others) in a VMware virtual machine for when I need to do testing or evaluations. I don't feel dual/multiple-boot is a good way to go if you want a system to be stable long term. Even NTFS is moving on, so dual-booting e.g., Win 8.1 and XP brings some peril. By the way, you argue that XP gives greater performance than a modern system. I don't agree with that. You may have one game designed for XP that delivers greater FPS in XP, but there's a lot more to computing than that one game. With a bit of tweaking and 3rd party tool installation one can bring back a lot of the goodness of the XP desktop to even Windows 8.1 (I know it's possible - I'm living that dream, and have even written a book on it). And there's goodness from Windows 7 - e.g., desktop composition - that's here too that makes it all the more pleasant to use, and which XP can't dream of having. XP was a landmark, a watershed, a Great System, and now it's over. -Noel

You're testing a game developed at the time of XP - of course it's going to run very well on XP. But there are no doubt features in new games it doesn't have - things you may not even be able to run on XP - that will run well on newer systems. And no, XP is not really the king any longer. WIndows 7 now has just over 50% adoption, and has been ahead of XP for quite some time. A lot of folks just buy more powerful hardware and keep moving forward. I imagine there's a computer/video card combination that will run whatever you're doing much faster than what you're seeing on the newest OS. Don't get me wrong - I agree that it's irritating when the newest version of an OS is slower than its predecessor, but the additional features that perhaps you don't use but others do take extra cycles to implement. Personally I'm not into games, but rather using Windows for professional engineering activities, and the fact that the file system in a well-tuned Windows 8.1 is not quite as fast or responsive as that in a well-tuned Windows 7 system still gets my goat. By the way, Windows versions newer than XP are likely to be more reliable. XP wasn't bad, but it's been getting consistently better. Windows 7 or 8 don't suck if you set them up adeptly. But it takes some work. All that you've learned in 15 years of tweaking XP won't apply, and there are bunches of other things to learn. That's why forums like this one are great. -Noel

LED Lighting Then: 10 Lumens Now: 1000 Lumens Stagnation in the last 10 years, LOL. -Noel

I don't presume to know what you use your system for, but... An alternative to multiple-boot setup might be to have one and only one main boot system then use virtual machines for running the other systems. It's just a thought. It's how I work. -Noel

Ah hah! Good point jaclaz. I DID find one of Microsoft's original design drawings for lower floor windows... -Noel

You'll need to work harder at expressing yourself in English. No one knows what "lower floor windows" means. -Noel

Thanks, Andre. Indications are, so far, that it's cleaning up old stuff, no longer used. It seems an interesting coincidence that an ongoing Tcpip warning that I've been seeing pretty regularly stopped at that same time, but of course it could be a coincidence. -Noel

Yes, it's a bit concerning since I have disabled automatic download and installation of Windows Updates. I don't think Windows Update is without merit, but I want this stuff done on my terms, not Microsoft's. -Noel

A bit more investigative info... The last update "remove" above (KB2964358) describes a security fix to Internet Explorer. I looked at one of the files (mshtml.dll) which that fix was supposed to bring up to version 11.0.9600.17105. It's currently at 11.0.9600.17126. The implication is that this "cleanup" activity isn't affecting current files. -Noel

I periodically look over my Windows logs to make sure nothing unexpected is happening that I need to be aware of. Something unexpected DID happen. A Tcpip warning, event 4230 that had been logged every few days had STOPPED happening, since June 16.. EVENT_TCPIP_TCP_CONNECTIONS_PERF_IMPACTED TCP/IP has chosen to restrict the congestion window for several connections due to a network condition. This could be related to a problem in the TCP global or supplemental configuration and will cause degraded throughput. I thought to myself, it's nice that's no longer happening, but problems don't normally fix themselves, so I looked a little further into why... It seems that on the 17th, in the wee hours (2:43 am) Microsoft initiated some kind of automatic cleanup activity. Specifically, I found these 29 events logged: Initiating changes for package KB2894179. Current state is Installed. Target state is Absent. Client id: CbsTask.Initiating changes for package KB2894179. Current state is Absent. Target state is Absent. Client id: CbsTask.Initiating changes for package KB2894853. Current state is Installed. Target state is Absent. Client id: CbsTask.Initiating changes for package KB2894179. Current state is Absent. Target state is Absent. Client id: CbsTask.Initiating changes for package KB2894853. Current state is Absent. Target state is Absent. Client id: CbsTask.Initiating changes for package KB2913270. Current state is Installed. Target state is Absent. Client id: CbsTask.Initiating changes for package KB2894179. Current state is Absent. Target state is Absent. Client id: CbsTask.Initiating changes for package KB2894853. Current state is Absent. Target state is Absent. Client id: CbsTask.Initiating changes for package KB2913270. Current state is Absent. Target state is Absent. Client id: CbsTask.Initiating changes for package KB2926765. Current state is Installed. Target state is Absent. Client id: CbsTask.Initiating changes for package KB2894179. Current state is Absent. Target state is Absent. Client id: CbsTask.Initiating changes for package KB2894853. Current state is Absent. Target state is Absent. Client id: CbsTask.Initiating changes for package KB2913270. Current state is Absent. Target state is Absent. Client id: CbsTask.Initiating changes for package KB2926765. Current state is Absent. Target state is Absent. Client id: CbsTask.Initiating changes for package KB2933809. Current state is Installed. Target state is Absent. Client id: CbsTask.Initiating changes for package KB2894179. Current state is Absent. Target state is Absent. Client id: CbsTask.Initiating changes for package KB2894853. Current state is Absent. Target state is Absent. Client id: CbsTask.Initiating changes for package KB2913270. Current state is Absent. Target state is Absent. Client id: CbsTask.Initiating changes for package KB2926765. Current state is Absent. Target state is Absent. Client id: CbsTask.Initiating changes for package KB2933809. Current state is Absent. Target state is Absent. Client id: CbsTask.Initiating changes for package KB2961887. Current state is Installed. Target state is Absent. Client id: CbsTask.Initiating changes for package KB2894179. Current state is Absent. Target state is Absent. Client id: CbsTask.Initiating changes for package KB2894853. Current state is Absent. Target state is Absent. Client id: CbsTask.Initiating changes for package KB2913270. Current state is Absent. Target state is Absent. Client id: CbsTask.Initiating changes for package KB2926765. Current state is Absent. Target state is Absent. Client id: CbsTask.Initiating changes for package KB2933809. Current state is Absent. Target state is Absent. Client id: CbsTask.Initiating changes for package KB2961887. Current state is Absent. Target state is Absent. Client id: CbsTask.Initiating changes for package KB2964358. Current state is Installed. Target state is Absent. Client id: CbsTask.Detail from the last one: Log Name: Setup Source: Microsoft-Windows-Servicing Date: 6/17/2014 2:43:41 AM Event ID: 1 Task Category: (1) Level: Information Keywords: User: SYSTEM Computer: NoelC4 Description: Initiating changes for package KB2964358. Current state is Installed. Target state is Absent. Client id: CbsTask. Event Xml: <Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event"> <System> <Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-Servicing" Guid="{BD12F3B8-FC40-4A61-A307-B7A013A069C1}" /> <EventID>1</EventID> <Version>0</Version> <Level>0</Level> <Task>1</Task> <Opcode>0</Opcode> <Keywords>0x8000000000000000</Keywords> <TimeCreated SystemTime="2014-06-17T06:43:41.057645800Z" /> <EventRecordID>863</EventRecordID> <Correlation /> <Execution ProcessID="9700" ThreadID="11392" /> <Channel>Setup</Channel> <Computer>NoelC4</Computer> <Security UserID="S-1-5-18" /> </System> <UserData> <CbsPackageInitiateChanges xmlns="http://manifests.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/windows/setup_provider"> <PackageIdentifier>KB2964358</PackageIdentifier> <InitialPackageState>Installed</InitialPackageState> <IntendedPackageState>Absent</IntendedPackageState> <Client>CbsTask</Client> </CbsPackageInitiateChanges> </UserData> </Event> Interestingly, there's not a lot of documentation on this out there, though I found a few folks inquiring on forums for occurrences of this they spotted last year. Any idea what CbsTask is and why packages are being removed? I assume it's some kind of normal cleanup, and I can't complain if it reduces logged Tcpip problems. "Curiouser and curiouser". -Noe

I didn't say having multiple cache levels necessarily hurts things, but it can. It's not always better to move data. it's good to see the drive makers improving their controllers still, but they've hit the wall of not being able to reduce the latency below a few microseconds. Frankly the Intel approach seems to have more long term promise: Eliminate the SATA link altogether and more closely integrate the controller with the CPU using an optimized protocol. I imagine we'll be seeing some improvements on that front. I'd love to know what's going on in the minds of designers of the chipsets at Intel. -Noel

Write-back RAM caching inside the drive... Write-back RAM caching in the Intel RST driver... Write-back RAM caching in the file system... Where's the benefit of where it's done besides being able to game the benchmark programs? If you have your system set up well your file system RAM cache is already handling your I/Os anyway, and probably far better than a small cache inside the SSD. Your software is not waiting. In fact, having more data copy operations (to and from too many different RAM caches) can actually slow things down in a big picture throughput sense. Do you have your file system Write Back Buffer Flushing disabled? Because it can be affected by caching, this is a good example of where a specific reading in a specific benchmark result isn't all that representative of real-world results. Again, I advise not focusing so hard on the single simple "issue a single I/O and wait for it to finish" process. Real world operation is not that simple. I've mentioned it before in this thread and posted screen grabs - try the Passmark Advanced Disk benchmark for Workstation in the PerformanceTest package, and set it to either the "Standard C/C++ API" or "Standard Win32 API (Cached)" setting if you want a VERY good measure of system responsiveness that actually gauges the performance you'll see in real use. -Noel

I don't know where you got those benchmarks from, but I'd be willing to bet in large part that that enviable 4K speed is more because it's being measured on a really happenin' computer system, and less because an 840 EVO is somehow especially good by comparison to its peers. By all accounts an 840 Pro should be better. Note that the average access times are not as small as seen on other drives, for example. -Noel

That's good to hear. Also keep in mind that there's a certain amount of self-tuning the OS does after it's been running a while. -Noel

Well, knock on silicon, I've been relying on 4 SSDs in RAID 0 since April 2012 and they haven't even hinted at a single glitch. I am thinking I accidentally coupled the right level of in-box smarts with on-RAID-card smarts with file system smarts. -Noel

I had closed it before but I remembered where I saw it: -Noel

Now that my backups have filled the external ReFS USB drive, I've been reading hundreds of gigabytes of backup data back in and comparing it with the original data from my SSD array. I'm seeing no problems at all. Per Resource Monitor, read speeds on mixed files from the ReFS volume are averaging consistently about 40 MB/sec with peaks in the 60s and 70s on big files. This is about what I saw with NTFS on it though the peaks may be higher. Another observation: Since the drive is normally spun down to save power, I've seen that the first attempt to access it is delayed as expected while the drive spins up. Other than the application attempting access during this time nothing else is blocked, which is good. As I mentioned before, I'm feeling no system impact at all from the disk activity. Everything's smooth as butter. It's a surprisingly good and well-behaved implementation for something touted as not ready for prime time. -Noel

By the way, Big Muscle, your site still has some links back to berlios.de still. -Noel

Bob, if the new site works like what it did before jumping to a new server, you are expected to download your own donation key from it. It's all spelled-out on the Support page. -Noel

BY the way, occasionally my system accesses its ReFS volumes for no direct reason. Background scrubbing? Could be. -Noel

By the way, SSD manufacturers have been fond of saying that they have tremendous proprietary technology in their SSD controllers that watches the file system and what's going on with free space, etc. - all in an attempt to be smarter about managing the flash blocks. That's always seemed like a REALLY BAD idea to me, but if it's true it's not hard to imagine that a completely different file system could upset that delicate dance and cause all kinds of havoc. I haven't tried ReFS on an SSD yet. -Noel

Well said. NTFS, by the way, is reputed to have gained some self-healing capabilities in recent times. SOMETHING's slowing it down. -Noel

I've read altogether too many horror stories about folks just losing all their data on the Microsoft forums. Do folks lose data off just plain disks? Regular RAID arrays? Sure, but somehow the Storage Spaces reports just seem more like the typical almost-right implementation by Microsoft rather than user-caused failures or hardware failures. I don't remember the specifics right now, but I've read just enough of them to want to stay with more traditional array setups. -Noel

Sorry I haven't been able to concentrate here, guys. I only need BIOS booting. But a general purpose recovery disc is of course more flexible. At this point after having only a few more minutes to look into this, I am not at all certain that I have a valid recovery USB drive (shows you shouldn't assume anything). I couldn't get it to boot - it booted from the system volume on the SSD array regardless of whether I enabled the USB for booting and the boot order I set in the BIOS. Seems to me I had some trouble when I originally set things up as well, but I didn't write down what I had to do to get it to work at the time. I think it was a matter of disabling something in the BIOS temporarily. It will come to me I'm sure when I get a chance again to poke around in the BIOS screens. I am going to switch over to doing this research using my WIn 8.1 VM I think, then when the dust settles and I have something to test I'll go back to doing it on the real hardware. -Noel

You need to add the value. Be careful with your registry editing if you're not familiar with how to do so.. -Noel