Vista’s performance is one of those topics that won’t be exhausted until Windows Seven hits RTM. It all comes down to trade-offs. Ever since the features of Vista were finalized, Microsoft tried to tip the scale the other way by focusing on performance, with the obvious limitation of not disabling any services. Updates regarding performance and stability are numerous, but most have not hit Windows Update as they are not quite ready (preview releases). The Windows Serviceability Team wants feedback on one such update, available for download at the Microsoft Download Center, before its expected release on Windows Update in January.
This particular update improves “previous issues affecting going into or resuming from sleep/hibernate under some scenarios”, addresses “a previous issue with the disk spindown feature to improve battery life for portable systems” and supposedly has “up to 15% improved performance of disk I/O (i.e., copying/moving/deleting large files).”
This is a reliability update. This update resolves some performance and reliability issues in Windows Vista. By applying this update, you can achieve better performance and responsiveness in various scenarios. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer. This is a preview release. At the conclusion of this preview phase, the final version of the update will be released via Windows Update. This update is provided to you and licensed under the Windows Vista License Terms.