And here’s a shot of the various Windows 7 upgrades. So far, I’ve installed several onto the five gaming systems I have set
up here. Some, of course, have already been running Windows 7, which I obtained from my Technet account, and have been using in articles on Windows 7.
There’s not really a lot I can add to the hoopla about Windows 7. Like any new OS release from Microsoft, there is good and bad. But for our weekly LAN party group, I’m looking forward to moving everyone to 64-bit Windows 7.
Four of five gaming rigs in the basement lab are now running Windows 7.
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It’s inevitable that whenever Microsoft does something, someone will complain about it.
That’s happening with Windows 7, with the actual official launch date still ten days off. The most visible slam against Windows was from my old boss, Jim Louderback, who wrote of his woes with Microsoft’s new OS, stating that Windows 7 is Vista all over again. Whoa, now that’s harsh.
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This is all kinds of awesome.
Yes, I’m being snarky. A little.
So the Windows 7 House Party Kit arrived. Now, I signed up through an email blast I received, well before that lame ”Hosting Your Party” video hit the street. Since I host our Friday Night Follies LAN party most weeks, I thought that having some weird theme like this to one of them might be mildly amusing.
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The box arrived on August 31st. Nestled in it was a shiny new Nikon D300s body.
What follows are impressions of using the D300s. I’m comparing it mainly to the D300 I’ve been using for the past eighteen months. I may also comment a bit on the D90, since I used that fairly extensively last during the first few months of 2009, but most of my comparisons are to the D300.
This is also not meant to be an exhaustive review, but a set of impressions based on what interests me as a photographer.
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Every now and then, you come across a little utility that just makes life easier.
I’m one of those people whose virtual desktop is as messy as my real world desktop. Yes, I’m one of those terrible users who love to have launch icons for every possible app on their desktop. I also like to have key folders on my desktop. (Note that I don’t hold a candle to Patrick Norton. I once saw his Windows desktop, and it overflowed with icons. I wonder how many browser tabs he opens?)
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Microsoft and Intel gathered a bunch of the tech media to talk up their collaborative efforts during the development of Windows 7. As is usual with these events, there was a mix of very technical media (Gordon Mah Ung and Will Smith from Maximum PC were there) as well as mainstream media. The main content actually offered some good technical info on some of the underpinnings of Windows 7.
As is also usual with these sorts of events, both Microsoft and Intel representatives spent time dodging pesky, “off message” questions from mainstream media. Questions about AMD, Apple and other similar topics were deftly and sometimes not-so-deftly dodged.
While what was all very amusing, the tech content is worth talking about. I’m going to touch on a couple of topics near and dear to my heart: multicore performance and energy efficiency.
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I’ve been thinking about the issue of feedback in operating systems, games and applications. I’m the type of person that likes a lot of feedback. If the app seems to be sitting and thinking for some reason, I’d like some sign that it’s alive, at least, and hasn’t hung or crashed for some reason.
But how much feedback is enough? When does it become too much? Then there’s the problem of feedback accuracy. What if what you’re being told is just wrong?
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Welcome to the third in the series of Windows 7 RTM diaries. This one is about upgrading 32-bit Vista to 32-bit Windows 7 on fairly average hardware.
In the previous two articles, I wrote about clean installs of 64-bit Windows 7 onto pretty high end hardware. Not everyone has a Core i7 and 12GB of RAM, however. And more than a few users will want to take the upgrade path (as opposed to a clean install) from 32-bit Windows.
So this time, we’re taking the upgrade path. I upgraded one of the gaming rigs that’s used for the Friday Night Follies LAN parties. This particular system has been running Vista Home Premium for about a year now.
So how did the upgrade go?
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This is a first of a series of articles that are more a diary on my experience bringing up the Windows 7 RTM, and not so much a how-to – though it’s my hope that this series will help users who are looking to upgrade.
The Windows 7 RTM (release to manufacturing) is gradually making its way into the hands of users. Subscribers to Microsoft’s TechNet and MSDN already have it in hand, but it will be several months before most users can actually pick up a copy.
I’ve got a Windows 7 reference system running, and it’s humming along nicely. I don’t have much on it yet, although I just downloaded the Windows XP Mode release candidate), which I’ll be checking out for a freelance assignment.
Of course, having the shipping version in hand leads me to my next step: upgrading my primary production system to Windows 7. I’m running the Win7 release candidate now. Since it’s my production system, it’s a little complicated. So here’s what I’m doing to prep for installing Windows 7 RTM on my main machine.
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So now the madness begins.
There's a New Kid in Town
This isn’t about Windows 7 itself. That’s for a later post. It’s about building a reference system to test Windows 7.
I’m working on various Windows 7-related projects. For that, I need a reference system.
What’s a reference system? Glad you asked.
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