Tag Archives: Windows 7

Teaching an old dog new tricks

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My Dell Inspirion 6000 is an aging laptop dating back about 4 years. It runs on an Intel Pentium 1.6 GHz processor with 2 GB of DDR2-667 RAM, an ATI Radeon Mobility X300 and a 5400RPM 80 GB hard drive. Windows 7 x86 went on it today, replacing the old Windows XP that it has been running. It was very usable, even more so than Windows XP, I dare say.

The installation took about 20 minutes, with the slow timing attributed to the slow hard drive. Graphics and WLAN drivers were obtained from Windows Update right after the installation completed and hit the desktop. Within 45 minutes from inserting the Windows 7 DVD into my drive, I had Office 2007, FoxIt Reader, Windows Live Messenger, FileZilla, KeePass, Wireshark and Eraser installed, almost a fully functional system for the stuff I do on my laptop. Since Windows 7 has a build in a firewall that supports both incoming and outgoing filtering, I didn’t need to install a 3rd party firewall, which are notorious for having a huge negative impact on system performance.

My old notebook is comparable to a modern day netbook, and if the netbook market is what Microsoft has in mind with it’s release of Windows 7, it would definitely find acceptance in it.

Windows 7 initial impressions

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There’s no denying that I’m a geek. I took leave today just so I could be there to install Windows 7 when it is released on TechNet.

Windows 7′s installation is largely similar to Vista’s. It has been ages since I last did an installation of Vista, so I can’t say for sure if it was any faster. Things went without a hitch until I reached desktop and tried to copy over my Everquest 2 installation off a network share. Windows locked up right away. I did a hard reset and tried a couple of times but fail was still the result. Unsure if it was an issue with the network transfer or writing to disk itself, I tried copying for another source. Thumbdrive and DVD copies went through okay, it had to be the network.

The NIC that I’m using is an Atheros Gbe onboard controller. I had the driver for it downloaded, but it wouldn’t install probably due a version check. To my knowledge, Windows Vista drivers are forward compatible with Windows 7. At this point, I thought I’d give Windows Update a shot. Despite Windows 7 being so new, maybe Microsoft did already start addressing issues that slipped through the earlier RC.

Looks like my faith wasn’t misplaced, an updated driver was there which rectified the issue. It would have been nicer if it had been included with the Windows install itself, which would have made for a better out-of-the-box experience. Overall, I was still pretty pleased.

Asides from the network driver, I have not run across any other issues yet. The UI changes would take me awhile to get used to, but it’s definitely a nice touch. I’ve already begun using some of the new features, such as aggregating multiple folders using libraries. More on that later. Right now, I’m gaming away in EQ2, doing Kurn’s Tower x1 on my new Windows 7 installation.

I am such a Microsoft fanboy

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Windows 7 was officially RTM’d and released to OEM’s on July 24, but consumers won’t get their hands on it until October 22. However, certain other special groups are able to eat it earlier, such as MSDN and Technet subscribers, who will get it on August 6.

I couldn’t wait, so I forked out cash for a TechNet subscription, which ended up costing me in the area of SGD$500 after a 15% discount. All in all, it isn’t a bad deal, considering I’ll have access to numerous other Microsoft products to play with, such as Windows Server 2008. Being an aspiring system administrator (once I finish my army term), it works out great to have a bundle of software to tinker around during my (admittedly) free time.

Oh, I posted this from Internet Explorer just to top it off.