Jump to content

KB3000850 - BIG update - Windows 8.1.2?


NoelC

Recommended Posts

Yes I certainly have noticed!

I think it's an absolute disgrace that over two years after Windows 8 was released the majority of the supposed help and further information links in the UI still produce no results.

Why have them there at all if they're not going to actually work? Compare that with XP, where almost every link brings up useful information.

I realise that XP has been around an awful lot longer of course, but releasing an operating system with most of the reference documentation missing at launch, and still not added now two years later, is quite unbelievable!

:no:

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Well, to be fair things like Visual Studio offer local help files.  But they're often out of date - regardless of whether you keep the software updated.

 

I still keep "Googling for info on the wild Internet" as a last resort, but more often than not it turns up the info needed, while the documentation falls short.

 

-Noel

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We talked about the VS docs a few months ago. They suck. :) The last good viewer/format was the CHM based one used up until 2003. I think it coexisted for a while with the newer, worse, version.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Still haven't installed it. When I checked for updates today, this 700MB optional update was no longer listed. Anyone encountered this?

Edited by shae
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm sorry that I can't help you on that, specifically, as I did install the big update not long after we had the discussion here, and after reading a lot of other anecdotal info.

 

Not sure I can give it ultimately a positive recommendation or a thumbs-down, based on experience since...  As far as I can remember there were no new features brought by it that I found useful.

 

I've had mostly stable operation, but I did experience a system crash on my main workstation late last year.  However, the crash was when I was trying a 3rd party block caching system (PrimoCache) that had tested out seemingly okay on a VM but failed on my hardware, so it's hard to say whether the crash was due to anything other than my choice of unstable system software to try to run.  Without the caching software, which I promptly removed, I haven't had instability since.

 

Performance seems about the same now, though one key subsystem, Direct2D, dropped markedly in performance right after the November 20 Windows Update, then magically seems to have popped back (mostly) with the most recent updates of February 12.

 

PerformanceTest2D.png

 

PerformanceTestSummary.png

 

All in all, so far my strategy of keeping up to date with each Windows update - after of course waiting a bit and learning what others find with it - has been workable.  My development and test systems still seem to run fine.  But I'm always wary of the next update.

 

-Noel

Link to comment
Share on other sites

By the way, speaking of being wary of updates...  Did you notice that the Lithuanian currency update released a few days ago required a reboot?

 

1.  Why a reboot?

 

2.  Couldn't it wait until the next scheduled set of updates?

 

I haven't put that one in all my systems yet.

 

-Noel

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks. Today I noticed KB3000850 is back. It's been promoted to "important" rather than "optional", and it's now dated March/2.

Haven't noticed that currency update. Maybe checking what file(s) it changes will provide a clue to why the reboot.

Edited by shae
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 months later...

@NoelC

1.  Thank you SO much for your continued posts and benchmarks!  I find them to VERY insightful and interesting!!!

2.   I was wondering what your thoughts were on PrimoCache?  Is it snake oil?  

 
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Skrell,

 

You're welcome.

 

I tested PrimoCache pretty thoroughly.  The short story is this: 

 

  • It does what it advertises, but it doesn't really help all that much with actual performance increases, because Windows already has a file system cache.
     
  • I had one system crash when testing it on a system that never crashed before and hasn't since.

 

The longer story...

 

Windows maintains a very effective file system cache that can be set (see below) so that your application does not have to wait for a write operation to complete before continuing .  So for virtually everything the system is already giving you true write-back cache performance.  Having to copy the data to yet another cache will use up RAM and can actually slow things down, and in fact I found it to add about 5% more time to my Visual Studio system builds, even though it reported that its "lazy write" process resulted in a fair reduction in disk write activity.

 

Where Primo Cache SEEMS to shine is for benchmarking.  Since it's a block-level cache that essentially writes clusters of data normally headed to the disk drive to RAM instead, it makes your benchmarks, which try to measure actual disk performance, really glow.  No doubt it's how many of the top performers on the benchmark sites get such great scores.  But practically speaking it's not adding to your performance at all if your Windows file system cache is already working for you.

 

PrimoCache requires you to dedicate RAM to it.  That's generally not a good thing.  By contrast, the Windows file system cache will dynamically shrink if your applications need the RAM.

 

It does have one good feature:  If your intent is to reduce the write load on your disk (e.g., SSD), it WILL do that, because its strategy of not writing data to the disk right away means that any file - say a temporary file - that's deleted a short time later doesn't actually ever get written to the disk.  Since it's a block-level cache, when the OS emits a TRIM command it knows the block never needs to actually be written to the disk.  The effectiveness of this will differ depending on what you do with your system.

 

I have otherwise a perfectly stable system.  It's well-tuned, and very high performance (I have an array of 6 SSDs, and my I/O throughput is a bit shy of 2 gigabytes per second).  It normally runs all the time 24/7 between reboots mandated by Windows Update.  Usually that's a couple of weeks to a month, and I use it pretty hard (I run my software engineering business, as well as doing a fair bit of engineering work, with it).  The only crash I've had is while testing Primo Cache, in the middle of the night while the system was doing a backup.  My conclusion is that, while it's pretty stable (it had run for a couple of days without fault), Primo Cache CAN introduce some instability.

 

Primo Cache has an excellent statistics reporting interface, so if you like to see how it's working it doesn't disappoint.  I liked that feature very much.

 

By the way, if you want to increase your file system performance to true write-back cache levels, do this:

 

1.  Right click on a drive in Explorer and choose Properties.

2.  Click the Hardware tab.

3.  Choose the hardware drive from the list for which you'd like to maximize performance and click the [Properties] button.

4.  Click the Policies tab and see to it that you have the boxes checked as below:

 

CacheSettings.png

 

With the above you need not pay for a cache program nor dedicate RAM to get write-back cache performance from Windows.

 

-Noel

Link to comment
Share on other sites

FWIW, I still haven't installed this update, it still shows as optional- and based on what I'm reading, it'll probably cause more hassles than it solves.

Notwithstanding, ClassicShell is probably fixed, but what other bugs are roaming about.

You only have to ask my 8 yr old, how many times has our Nexus 7 updated itself, and borked her favorite games.

Updates make everyone in this household quiver, its not from blind fear- but bitter experiences with them.

-Sean

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...