MWP 2010 - it *IS* slow!

[Daledoc1]

Longtime, loyal user of earlier versions...

Recently installed MWP 2010 (latest build) on my pretty robust laptop, on which v. 6.5.4 runs great.

MWP 2010 ***is*** VERY slow to load (I don't have it configured to run at Windows start up, but clicking the desktop shortcut does take several seconds to load, esp "waiting for server app ready flag (?I think that's what it says?)).

Another poster put it well: In the time it takes MWP2010 to load, I can already have 6.5.4 loaded and all my mail already checked and washed....

Now that I finally got all my mail accounts to behave properly in MWP (I had to delete "duplicates"), it otherwise performs pretty well.
Downloading and processing messages is not all that slow, but it does seem to be slower than 6.5.4 (I don't have a huge # of emails and I get very little spam).

PLEASE improve the speed, especially with program start-up. Will probably wait for a few more improvements before taking the plunge on my desktop.

Thanks, for all the hard work!!!

daledoc1

[stan_qaz]

Loading speed is partly due to MW having to load the .net stuff it uses, haven't found a good way around that but at least if you restart it the load time is closer to 5 seconds than the initial 30 or so.

Mail checking is interleaved with the spam tools running so if you reduce the load from the spam tools you'll see faster downloading. I spent a good bit of time optimizing my filters for speed that helped a good deal. Limiting your source of spam servers to two or three is also helpful.

You can also adjust the number of lines you download, I find 100 to be about the minimum I'm happy with, below 80 you will see some degradation in accuracy of FA and possibly the Bayesian.

Another thing you can experiment with is Pipelining in the account setup, if your server and MW can agree on using it you'll see a nice speed boost.

Not a help on initial account checking but handy if you re-check accounts with old mail on them is the Cache option in accounts, it stores the previously seen but not deleted messages locally so it does not have to be fetched from the server.

Still I'm in basic agreement with you, more speed is needed in checking/classifying and the initial startup needs to happen faster even if it means having to pre-load some of the .net stuff at boot.

[mcullet]

Longtime, loyal user of earlier versions...

Recently installed MWP 2010 (latest build) on my pretty robust laptop, on which v. 6.5.4 runs great.

MWP 2010 ***is*** VERY slow to load (I don't have it configured to run at Windows start up, but clicking the desktop shortcut does take several seconds to load, esp "waiting for server app ready flag (?I think that's what it says?)).
(my highlight)

Another poster put it well: In the time it takes MWP2010 to load, I can already have 6.5.4 loaded and all my mail already checked and washed....

Now that I finally got all my mail accounts to behave properly in MWP (I had to delete "duplicates"), it otherwise performs pretty well.
Downloading and processing messages is not all that slow, but it does seem to be slower than 6.5.4 (I don't have a huge # of emails and I get very little spam).

PLEASE improve the speed, especially with program start-up. Will probably wait for a few more improvements before taking the plunge on my desktop.

Thanks, for all the hard work!!!

daledoc1

Thanks for this well considered post.

Stan_qaz has already given some accurate info on .NET so I won't repeat him. It's not MWP2010 that is slow but what is involved in loading all of the bits and pieces of .Net. See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/318738 (one of the 82 M results I obtained from a Google search on ".Net" is slow. I recall someone who is using a superfast solid state drive is also experiencing load speed issues - pity we don't have actual load times for us to compare and monitor.

The link I gave includes suggestions to help minimise the slowness issue but IMHO, a lot depends upon which operating system you are using, and how many services you might be running unnecessarily. (Not all programs and services appear in task manager BTW)

.Net (in some form) is probably here to stay. It has plenty of upsides for coders and users alike, among them are stable programs, 'easier' ability to create and maintain programs, and enforced coding standards. MS has a huge amount of momentum in terms of program development and like it or loathe it, the company does have a huge portion of the PC operating system (program) market. My point is that we are going to see a lot more .NET based applications over time and a lot less code written in pure C (or some other similarly fast / lean programming language) - as in, we (everyone) have to adapt and maybe keep annoying MS to make .Net faster.

I've seen similar issues about slow start-ups in almost all programs that migrate to .Net - initially. Over time most were resolved but can't recall any instance where a .Net program loaded faster than a pre-.Net version. I run MWP2010 at start-up (WIN 7) along with a slew of other programs so I really don't notice the delay as much as other might. Laptops, even the best, rarely have the same muscle as a fast standalone PC so i suspect any slowness might be even more pronounced (more noticeable).

If you are able to follow the instructions on the MS site (and they have links to more tips) but still find nothing much has improved, I "might" be able to offer some additional suggestions to improve your specific situation - but that depends upon your operating system and technical skill. BTW - I'm not particularly clever, just impatient and have learned a few tricks over the years.

Please (everyone) keep providing feedback on this subject so that the Firetrust coders can gauge the success of their efforts.

HTH - if only to give context to the issue.

[stan_qaz]

Rusticdog mentioned in another post that they are still beating on startup speeds...

http://forum.firetrust.com/viewtopic.ph ... t=0#p35770

The main issue with .NET is the loading of the libraries that aren't loaded on startup given we're using 3.5, if you see how long MailWasher takes to start after first booting, then exit and restart MailWasher you'll see the difference.

That said we haven't full optimised the startup and removed everything that isn't necessary for MailWasher to open, so we might be trying to load libraries that simply aren't required. So I wouldn't blame .NET as being the only reason MW is slow to start. A large blacklist and friends list too will also cause delays, something we've improved on for the coming version.

I've fooled with trying to see just what is slow in the initial startup using process explorer and what I saw looked to be more disk access speed than anything else, the CPU certainly wasn't very busy. Bought a much faster hard drive, WD Black, to replace the older clunker drive and saw a nice improvement in startup times. On sale the smaller black drives are cheap and I'd consider one if your memory is at 1 GB or more (2 GB on a busy system) otherwise I'd put my first $50 towards more RAM.

[banditfan]

I agree that it's slow. I've given up using it and gone back to 6.5. I'm really not interested in trying to figure out why it's slow as 6.5 just worked and 2010 doesn't. I have this expectation when I buy software that I should not have to spend my time trying to get what in this case seems to be beta versions working. I will run 2010 every once in a while to see if any upgrades come along to help and I'll check the forums occasionally, but for now, it's back to the previous version.

[mcullet]

I agree that it's slow. I've given up using it and gone back to 6.5. I'm really not interested in trying to figure out why it's slow as 6.5 just worked and 2010 doesn't. I have this expectation when I buy software that I should not have to spend my time trying to get what in this case seems to be beta versions working. I will run 2010 every once in a while to see if any upgrades come along to help and I'll check the forums occasionally, but for now, it's back to the previous version.

Thanks for the helpful comments. BTW - the released version of MWP2010 is not beta software and Firetrust is not responsible for .NET nor does it have any (much?) influence over the direction of programming languages or operating systems. Feel free to drop Microsoft a comment about your feelings regarding .Net - I have, and so too have others.

I can't (and will not) fault anyone for being frustrated over speed issues and like most people, if I shell out my $$'s on a program then I expect it to work properly / promptly with minimum fuss or effort from me. Sadly, with few exceptions, things rarely work out that way. While no help to you or anyone else here, I do know that most computer science courses are including more info on usability / customer centric coding than might have been the case in earlier years. IT is an evolving science - no comfort, I admit - and along the way there will be some real clangers and some real breath-taking advances.

Placing things in perspective, it wasn't all that long ago that 28 k dial-up speed was king and people were amazed that any program worked at all: look at PONG (an early game). Maybe we have become less 'amazed' and a little more prone to instant gratification? Dunno - just a thought.

But buying software is not like buying a toaster. Toasters either work or not, and if they fail you can replace them fairly easily.

One major comfort to any Firetrust customer is that they will refund your money - no questions asked. This is truly a rare event in any IT company (any business).

Hopefully over time .Net might improve (speeds) but it's been out for quite some time and although there have been lots of improvements, I doubt they will ever get to a point where .NET programs are faster than pre .NET ones. just my personal opinion.

[banditfan]

Thanks for the helpful comments. BTW - the released version of MWP2010 is not beta software and Firetrust is not responsible for .NET nor does it have any (much?) influence over the direction of programming languages or operating systems. Feel free to drop Microsoft a comment about your feelings regarding .Net - I have, and so too have others.

In the interests of fairness I tried to figure out what .net was and why it is an issue. I gave up wading through geek talk after finding out (I think) that it is a way of shortcutting many lines of programming code for common functions particularly in distributed computing. All of which is totally irrelevant to me as I use a computer for what it can do for me, and not for what I can do for it. If writing software using .net slows down a program, then why is anyone using it? I assume that previous versions of Mailwasher Pro do not use .net.

[rusticdog]

.NET is only a part of it, general speed issues aren't .NET related, it's only the time it take to load any required libraries into memory on startup. We're still working on various optimisations we can make to improve the speed.

[stan_qaz]

Programmers today use a lot of functions that come in as outside modules, .Net is one big set and tailored to provide a lot of Windows related stuff, the mail grid is another external component as is the regex engine. Best to think of them as extended versions of the standard programming libraries for your development language that provide mid-level functions in the same manner that the standard libraries provide low-level ones.

As to why they use these modules it comes down to a simple issue of needing years of programmer time to create the same functions that the modules provide, free in .Net or for a small fee as the grid. The programmers also get the maintenance on the module code done by the module creator saving more of their time.

Aside from a very small program with few features it is really almost required to use this sort of thing if you want to be cost-effective.

[Chris1808]

just a quick thought on this, does mail waher 2010 load all the .net stuff or only the parts it needs to run?
If all parts, any way to only load what is necessary?

[rusticdog]

just a quick thought on this, does mail waher 2010 load all the .net stuff or only the parts it needs to run?
If all parts, any way to only load what is necessary?

Only what's needed, but we haven't yet gone through and looked at everything that is definitely necessary. Still a few stability issues to work on, then we'll be doing that.