The upgrade process

As I suspected, the hot topic surrounding Windows 7 upgrades was just how far one could go toward performing a clean install with upgrade media.  First to clear up a couple of technical terms. Upgrade media are the disks that Microsoft sells that allow you to install Windows 7, but only activate if you have a qualifying installation of a previous version of Windows. In contrast the Full version of windows by definition can be instlalled on a clean hard drive with no previous Windows install present. The other big thing is that Upgrade media costs less than the full version.

Here’s how my upgrade went. I removed my original 160 GB drive with XP on it, and installed a new 320 GB drive. After printing out the Windows 7 upgrade guide by WinSuperSite’s Paul Thurott,  I booted the system with the Windows 7 upgrade disk in the drive and followed the prompts to do a custom install.  The install went smoothly.  It’s a relatively quick install, but the question was, would it activate successfully once it phoned home to Redmond?  The answer was no. At least not initially.

Paul did a great job researching and experimenting with the upgrade media. His suggested next step after a failed activation was to do a “registery hack”.

Method #2: Registry hack
Note: This workaround is not supported by Microsoft but my understanding is that it has a 100 percent success rate.

The registry hack worked for me. Activation was successful after performing the steps outlined and re-booting my laptop.

On a side note, I have also upgraded my wife’s Vostro 1520 laptop. I ordered upgrade media from Dell (which they sent at no charge). They will only send an equivalent disk. In other words, since the Vostro came with Vista Home Premium 32 bit, they sent Windows 7 Home Premium 32 bit. We decided we might want to upgrade the RAM in the future from 3GB to 4GB or more which really requires a 64bit OS. So I backed up and then did a custom install with MY 64 bit upgrade disk from Amazon. After entering the license key from the disk from Dell the activation went smoothly. I wanted to throw that in there in case anyone else is wondering about doing a similar upgrade.

Windows 7 Review

During the summer I got my first case of Mac fever. I read MacBook Pro reviews, watched videos and read message boards.  I made up my mind that I would get a MBP, but would wait at least a year. I think the best compliment for Windows 7 is that I no longer have Mac fever. Well . . . maybe a little!   Microsoft has really closed the gap. Despite the warnings by the aforementioned Mr. Thurott, I have come to really like the new task bar. I can see where it might confuse some people, but pinning programs and re-arranging icons is great.

I wrote about Libraries in Seven during my beta test and that remains my favorite feature I think. On the visual front, I like the semi-transparent task bar and window frames and the “slideshow” wallpaper that changes on set intervals. Speaking of wallpaper, I just downloaded some great wallpaper images from National Geographic. These are great if you like landscapes.

This is getting long so I’ll just mention a couple more things that have worked really well for me. One is networking. Windows 7 calls it Home Group.  It’s just easy. “It just works” is a phrase that Apple fans like to use. Well, so far Windows 7 “just works” for me. The other thing I use all the time is sleep-mode. That’s a simple thing, but XP would lock up coming out of sleep half the time so I never used it.  Now it’s like near instant boot-up out of sleep.

It really is time to move on from Windows XP.   Windows 7 is rock solid, clean looking and runs all my apps and hardware flawlessly. Way to go Microsoft!

Brett

Since I’m running Windows XP Pro I’m going to be doing what Microsoft refers to as a custom install. My 160 GB laptop drive has 25 GB free so I’ve decided to do the install on a clean drive (hopefully). I haven’t found a definite answer that this is even possible or not.

At any rate I placed an order this morning for a new 320 GB drive for my laptop, expecting to get it on Friday with my 2-Day Prime shipping. The delivery esitmate is Monday the 26th. My stuff almost always ships the same day. I placed the order early this morning so I’m wondering if all the Windows 7 shipments are slowing up the normal pace of things at Amazon?

Anyway, I’m definitely making the move to Seven, but I’m going to move in deliberate steps. Hopefully someone else will have experience doing an XP upgrade to a new drive over the weekend. If that’s you I’d love to hear from you! I will return the favor as soon as my new drive is delivered.

Here are my personal priorities and considerations for picking domains:

1. Shortest .com that I can live with while avoiding dashes or special characters. If you’re lucky enough to find your preferred address ending in .com then stop reading this and register it! Now! Even for churches and organizations I recommend at least parking the .com even if you decide to use the .org version.

2. Will I be communicating the domain verbally? If so it needs to be memorable. Also consider the savvy-ness of the audience you’re communicating to. If your audience is relatively new to the web it’s even more important to stick with the familiar dot-com domain. If you run with a tech savvy crowd, then they are most like ready for anything you throw at them.

3. If people will be finding the site using primarily links online from your other profiles (Facebook, MySpace, etc.) then they’re just going to click on it mainly and the length and memorable factor is less important.

4. Will you print it on business cards? If it’s too long it might not fit well. Also three words are more difficult to remember than two. Keep it as short as possible.

5. If it’s a commercial site that you want to make money with then the decision is much more important than if it’s a personal / business card / blog type thing. If somebody wants to really wants to see your site (they know you or want to get to know you) they will spend the time to figure out what it is. If you’re trying to catch the general population of casual surfers you better make it as easy as possible because you only have a couple of seconds (literally) to hold their attention. Commercial sites need relevant, memorable names. Don’t get cute with it.

I know I promised five tips but here’s a bonus. Try NameBoy.com. You’ll know what it does when you get there so no further explanation is necessary. I’ve never registered a domain without running it by NameBoy.

So those are my top five considerations for choosing a domain name. I’ll give some registrar and hosting recommendations in a later post. Hint: Don’t default to Godaddy. There are other alternatives that don’t use questionable advertising practices.

Brett

I’m way behind in updating my Windows 7 experience. There’s a good reason! I have had no further experience with Windows 7. No, I haven’t given up on it or changed my mind about how good an operating system I think it is. Fact is I got busy over the summer and had to go back to my XP drive.

I’m not that dependent on MS Office, but I need it every once in a while and I decided it just wasn’t worth the trouble of re-activating it. Also I didn’t want to invest any more time in this operating system that I would have to re-install come October.

So right now I’m just waiting for Windows 7. I took advantage of the pre order for Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade at Amazon.com so I should get my copy on October 22nd.

I plan to install Seven on a fresh hard drive. I need a bigger drive anyway and it would just make me feel better if I had the old XP disk intact just in case I need to revert. There’s probably some licensing issues with that strategy and it’s still not clear if that will even be possible. I’m confident someone will figure out how to do it though. I will report my experiences here so stay tuned.

Brett

I do remember the computer lab in college having some type of Apple computer. Probably an early Macintosh operating system. I never paid much attention to Macs because they wouldn’t run games like Wing Commander, which I spent hours playing between classes.

Lately though, I’ve been bitten by the “Mac Bug”. I don’t play games any more and I just want to get some work done. My main work is processing photos and web development and from what I hear a Macintosh PC is great for that.

I stopped at an Apple Store a couple of months ago and I have been reading a lot of reviews about MacBook Pro since then. I’m wondering if the 13″ Macbook Pro screen will be big enough for those infrequent times that I’m on an overnight photo shoot. Otherwise I’d have it connected to a 22″ Dell 2209WA monitor which is due to arrive here within the hour ~8-)

——–
Sidebar:
The Dell 2209WA display (I got two) arrived as I was typing this. Of course I had to hook one up and I’m looking at it now as I type this. Out of the box it looks great. Maybe too bright, but I’ll adjust it later and maybe do a full review post.
——–

During my Mac research I noticed a bunch of people recording “Unboxing Videos”. So instead of immediately opening their new MacBook they set up a video camera and record their experience. I wanted to make an exaggerated version of those as a parody, but I ended up just doing a “for the record” type of thing with my wife’s new Vostro 1520 from Dell. Her school sytem is actually almost anti-Mac so she decided to go ahead and fit in with a Windows PC this time.

Anyway, enough rambling. Here’s the video I recorded on my Sony Hi8 camcorder and imported and edited with Windows Movie Maker that comes with Win Vista Home Premium. Enjoy!

Here are the specs on this Vostro 1520:

• Intel Core2 Duo 2.24 Ghz
• 3GB RAM
• 320 GB HDD
• 15.4″ Widescreen
• Vista Home Premium (Make sure you specify the Windows version you want when ordering a Vostro. They were going to put Home Basic on this one until I caught it.)
• Webcam built into the monitor
• Express Card slot.
• 4x USB 2.0 Ports (2 left / 2 right)
• IEEE 1394 (Firewire) port on right.
• CD/DVD Burner (Tray-loading)
• LAN and VGA on the back (No DVI)
• SD/MMC Memory Stick/Pro slot and headphone/mic jacks on the front.

Last week I wrapped up an event video project for a client. They wanted ten copies of the movie on DVD. I burned the first two or three with no problem, then the software (Sony DVD Architect Studio 4.0) locked up, or so I thought. Turns out it was looking for the optical drive to no avail. Apparently Windows 7 had eaten it!

To make a long story short, even after re-booting my laptop, the optical drive would intermittently drop out of device manager when I inserted a blank DVD. It’s like the operating system just ate it. Sometimes I could burn two discs before it would happen, sometimes three.

I ended up uninstalling the driver for the burner and letting Windows reinstall it. That seemed to help, but today I needed to simply rip an audio CD. The process goes along fine until the end and then stops without finishing. Sony Acid throws up an error, but Windows Media Player 11 just sits there saying it’s 100% complete, but never actually generates the file. I haven’t found a way around this particular problem yet. I’d love to hear from you if you’ve had a similar problem and found a solution.

On a lighter note, I snagged a pretty nice graphics tablet from Woot.com last week. It’s a Digipro T-8000U. If you haven’t discovered Woot.com take a look. Every once in a while they have what they call a Woot-off and instead of the normal one product per day, they list one product after another as they sell out.

I got this Digipro graphics tablet for under $40 including shipping. I thought it would be a good way to get started with a tablet without breaking the bank. I took it out of the box, plugged it into a USB port and within 30 seconds, Windows 7 had identified it and installed a driver. It did require a re-boot, but after that it works fine. I never even touched the included driver CD. Pretty impressive for an “off-brand’ and somewhat obscure piece of hardware.

I still like Windows 7 for the most part, but if it won’t give back my optical drive, I may have to revert to XP. Let’s hope not!

Brett

One of my favorite new features in Windows 7 are the Libraries. This feature alone may be worth the upgrade. Instead of having just a “My Documents” folder or a “My Pictures” folder (those are still there) you can bring together multiple folders from locations on your local hard drive (C:) and even from external hard drives into a special type of folder called a library. If you are a photographer who has used Lightroom or a similar program you’ll know what I’m talking about. The Windows help and support file says it best:

Think of a library as a signpost to different folders. Libraries don’t actually store your files—they just display them as a set, and let you access and arrange them in different ways. For instance, if you have music files in folders on your hard disk and on an external drive, you can access all of your music files at once using the Music library. You won’t see those folders or drives in the Music library; you’ll just see the files they contain.

Windows 7 Libraries

There are built-in libraries for documents, music, pictures and videos. I created a new library called “websites”. So instead of drilling down through the documents library I can jump directly to the Websites folders which I access often when I’m working on one of my sites or a site for a client.

Windows 7 New Library context menu

An easy way create a new library in Windows 7 is to browse to the first or main folder you want to include in the library. Right-click the folder and choose “Create new library” from the context menu. Your new library is created instantly and is given the name of the folder you pointed to. After that you can right-click any folder you want to add to the library and the new library will be included in the fly-out menu list. Very intuitive and easy I thought.

Until next time,

Brett

Kelly Poe is a big fan of Windows 7. So big he started a site to campaign for the release of Windows 7, the newest operating system from Microsoft. I just voted yes!

As Kelly says though, I want Microsoft to take all the necessary time it needs to make sure it is fully baked. Just don’t put it off waiting on more Vista revenue. It ain’t gonna happen!

Just a note to all of you that are saying that I don’t understand about the Beta process…I understand bug fixes and taking the time to make sure it’s ready for mass consumption. I’m simply trying to create a community of people that say they are ready for Windows 7 (when the times right…which we hope is soon) and were proud of it.

I wasn’t getting the full effect of Windows 7 on my old Athlon machine so I formulated another plan. I had a spare laptop hard drive, (sometimes it’s good to be the family tech-guy ’cause you get to keep the spare parts when you fix a pc ), and I also have a Thermaltake BlacX eSATA Hard Drive USB Docking Station. Basically I’m doing a dual-boot the hard way, but I can still get to the data on the other drive with the drive dock.

Anyway my main machine is a Dell Inspiron 9400 with an Intel Core2 Duo T-5300 and 2gb of RAM. It’s a 17″ laptop and I normally have my desktop extended to an older KDS 19″ tube monitor. I swapped my “XP-Drive” for the spare drive, loaded in the Win7 Beta DVD and booted up. I just let the installer wipe the drive. Once again (with a clean install anyway) Windows 7 installed very smoothly.

At first I was disappointed because the graphics driver was “generic” and I couldn’t set the display to the native resolution of my screen (1400 x 900). I’m not even sure what I did, but it seems like Win7 sort of “learned” my system. After I connected my tube monitor back up and changed the desktop theme to the landscape theme included, I was able to set both displays to my desired settings.

Also, the Aero functions started working as well. When you mouse over the extreme right hand end of the task bar the windows go transparent. Move your mouse away and they come back. I also got the gesture based functionality and the window snapping. If you haven’t been keeping up with Windows 7 lately, you can catch up on Paul Thurott’s WinSuperSite.

Another impressive thing was that Windows 7 included a driver for my Canon MP600 multi-function printer/scanner that actually works better at scanning than did the original XP driver that came with the printer. No downloading necessary.

Similarly there was a driver for my IOGear eStata express card adapter. Window 7 didn’t blink when I inserted it.

I have a network attached hard drive (NAS) where I store a lot of the installer files for programs like Firefox, flash, etc. Those installers wouldn’t run from the network drive (although they will with XP), but I ended up getting them to work by copying them to the local drive.

All the software that I’ve tried works just fine. That includes Sony Vegas Movie Studio 7.0, DVD Architect Studio 4.0, Acid Music Studio 6.0, Flock, Firefox, and others. I’ve hesitated on installing Microsoft Office so far due to the activation issues. I haven’t tried the virtual tour builder software and the stitching software that I use in my business either, but I don’t expect them to be a problem.

I had some real work to do that required me to use my Office installation, so I had to swap back to my XP-Drive. The couple of days that I ran Windows 7 hooked me for sure.

My next steps are to set up my libraries and media center and be the guinea pig on my proprietary software. If all that goes well I will be ready to Release Windows Seven!

Brett

Fast forward a couple of years and I still have only touched one system running Vista. I’m going to be a bit more brave with Windows 7. I downloaded the beta over the weekend and installed it on my old system.

My test system is a home brew box vintage 2000 with an Asus main board, an Athlon XP 2200+ processor and the mininum recommended 1GB of memory. I thought this would test whether the system requirements were more forgiving than for Vista as Microsoft clamis.

I did a fresh install on the system partition and it installed without a hitch. I had a major problem right off the bat. The ethernet card wasn’t recognized. It was a Wal-Mart/Linksys/Network Everywhere card. After some research I found out that the drivers were never even developed for Vista.

Luckily I had a couple of other NIC cards in the closet that I had picked up at a computer show out of the two dollar bin. The first one wowrked. I’m not sure what the make of the card is, but Windows 7 recognized it right away.

Ok, so now I’m on the net and I have a clean device manager, but my display is not optimal. My card is an Nvidia GeForce4 4200 with 128mb of memory which should be adequate to run the more advanced features of Windows 7 beta. I guess Nvidia hasn’t bothered to update the drivers for this card for Vista/7 because all I’m getting is the “Standard VGA” card driver. That means 1024×768 max and the refresh rate is noticeably slow.

Summary: It seems stable, it connected to my home network easily and I like the window snapping feature. I just wish I could find drivers for the video card. i really don’t want to sink any money into this old system just to try out Wwindows 7 beta. If anybody can help I’d appreciate you leaving a comment.

I plan on posting again on my Windows 7 beta experience.

Brett

If you spend any amount of time online and you use a Microsoft Windows based PC you know, or at least I hope you know, that you need to be on your toes to protect the security of your computer and the data stored on it.

I want to share one of my core resources for keeping up with the latest news and information about keeping your Windows PC safe and running its best. That resource is Windows Secrets.

I have subscribed to the Windows Secrets newsletter for several years. Then this past summer I upgraded to their paid version. I read it thoroughly each week. It’s not always a home run for me, but this week was good enough that it prompted me to write about it. Click this link to read this week’s Windows Secrets Newsletter.

If you don’t have time to read it, at least install the NoScript plugin for Firefox (if you don’t use Firefox, you should). NoScript is a defense against “click-jacking” where a bad guy can install something on your computer when you click a seemingly legitimate link on a website. Be aware though that NoScript also blocks friendly scripts, but you can turn those on when you are on a trusted site.

The other good article in this week’s WS (you have to upgrade to the paid version to get it) is an explanation of how Adobe Flash player stores information on your computer similar to browser cookies. Too much to explain here but you really need to read it if you have the Adobe Flash Player plugin installed.

Check out Windows Secrets.

By the way for the record, Microsoft Windows based computers and Apple computers are both PC’s (Personal Computers). They just run different operating systems. Apple PC’s are not totally immune to viruses, etc. The bad guys don’t bother creating viruses for Mac PC’s because there are relatively few of them. For now. Just had to get that out there!

Brett