No, I’m not talking about a cardiac wonder drug; I’m talking about sites and services that won’t let you in if you’re running the latest and greatest operating system – which just happens not to be on the shelves yet. Unlike the medication by the same name, this one makes my blood pressure rise.

Since release of the public beta, I’ve been running Windows 7 as my main OS on my primary desktop machine. I love it. It works better than Vista did at final release (and heck, I loved Vista, too). Almost all of my software applications that ran on Vista work fine on 7. All of my hardware works fine with it. It’s fast and it’s stable and I really prefer not to go back to Vista or XP for my everyday computing. And based on mail from readers, there are many of you out there who are doing the same thing.

But GoToMeeting.com wouldn’t let me use their service because I don’t have the “right” operating system. When I tried to join a meeting, I get this unfriendly message:

Click to enlarge: this is the message I get when I try to use GoToMeeting with Win 7

Now I could understand this if there were some reason to think that Win 7 wouldn’t work with GTM. But by all indications, it would – except that the site does this check for the “right” OS and pops up this message if you’re using something that’s not on the list.

If I try to install a piece of software that does a check like this, I can just right click the installer file, select Troubleshoot Compatibility and use the Program Compatibility Wizard to fool the software into thinking it’s installing on Vista or XP or an even older OS:

Program Compatibility Wizard in Win 7 makes it easy to install software made for an older OS

Unfortunately, there’s no easy right click solution to tricking a web site this way. There is a way to change the User Agent string – the information that the browser sends to the site, identifying the operating system and browser version – but it requires you to edit the registry. It’s not a big deal, but I find it a little annoying that I have to lie about my OS in order to use this site. You can find the instructions for editing the User Agent String here.

deb@shinder.net    www.debshinder.com

Microsoft has announced that the blocker tool, for preventing the installation of Vista Service Pack 1 and Windows XP Service Pack 3, will be removed in the upcoming months. The Vista SP1 tool will expire on April 28th and the XP SP3 tool will expire on May 19th.

The Windows Service Pack Blocker toolkit is currently available for download here. The blocking tool can still be used to block installation of Vista SP2 and Windows Server 2008 SP2 for 12 months following general availability.

Even after the Service Pack Blocker tool expires, service packs won’t automatically be installed by Windows Update. Instead, you’ll be alerted that an important update (the service pack) is ready to install. You must accept the offering before installation starts. You can decline to install the update if you wish.

The toolkit is provided to allow organizations to block the installation of the service packs to give time for testing. "

deb@shinder.net    www.debshinder.com

Here’s something I just discovered about the Windows 7 Media Center desktop gadget. This is the only new gadget in Win7 that wasn’t also included in Vista, and it’s quite handy. The gadget shows, in a small window, your recently recorded TV programs as shown here.

But if you click on one of the program names, an information panel flies out, showing the channel, time recorded and a synopsis of the program.

Click the program title in the fly-out, and it opens up Media Center and starts playing that program. This is one of the most useful gadgets I’ve encountered and really brings Media Center front and center on your Win7 computer.

deb@shinder.net     www.debshinder.com

Windows XP and Vista supported Software Restriction Policies, a means by which administrators could create rules to restrict what programs particular users or groups could run, by either specifying that all but certain programs could run or by specifying that only certain programs could run. Now Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 improve on that with the new AppLocker feature.

Like SRP, AppLocker lets you create rules defining what programs are allowed to run, and assign them to security groups or individual users (but not to individual computers). You can make three different types of rules: Path Rules (which allow you to restrict users to launching apps only from specified folders); Hash Rules (which identify allowed programs based on a cryptographic hash); and Publisher Rules (that identify allowed programs by the digital signature).

Publisher Rules replace the Certificate Rules in SRP, except that they work for more different types of applications and they’re more flexible. You can restrict applications based on the publisher (software company), program name or file version. This information is in the digital signature. You can apply any of the rules to executable files, scripts, installation files such as .msi packages and .dll or .ocx libraries.

You configure AppLocker rules through Group Policy (either domain policies or local security policies). In the local security policy in Windows 7, you’ll find AppLocker under the Application Control Policies node, as shown here:

AppLocker is configured via Group Policy

When you select to create a new rule, a wizard guides you through the steps:

A wizard takes you through the steps of creating an AppLocker rule

Microsoft has said that AppLocker will be included in “some editions” of Windows 7 (and in all editions of Server 2008 R2). Presumably the Home editions will not include it since they are not designed for the business environment.

You can read more details and find out how to create and test AppLocker rules in this review of the feature by Michael Pietroforte.

AppLocker promises to be a more robust and administrator-friendly version of SRP (and definitely has a cooler name).

deb@shinder.net    www.debshinder.com

After spending the afternoon getting Windows 7 installed on the HP MCPC and tweaking Media Center, I decided to install a little Pinnacle USB tuner on my desktop computer to serve as a second tuner (along with the excellent AutumnWave OnAir Creator). I picked this little tuner up at Circuit City during their liquidation sale and it was cheap - $49 – for a card that was advertised as supporting clear QAM (unencrypted HD) viewing and recording.

Well, sometimes when something seems too good to be true, it’s because it is. I got a Monster high-end signal splitter and finally rustled up enough pieces of coax that I had here at the house to do the job. The hardware connections were easy, and Windows 7 searched for the drivers on the Internet and installed them. I opened Media Center and got a message that a new tuner was detected. So far, so good.

However, when it went to set up the signal, it only detected the analog cable channels. No digital, HD or otherwise. I started doing some research on the web and found that everyone else has the same problem. Even the software that comes with the tuner doesn’t support QAM (what kind of misleading advertising is that?). Apparently a few folks did get some HD channels to work but everyone said they looked awful, sound sometimes didn’t sync and the software was generally buggy. Here is one such discussion thread: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=eb7077b32b4e24ab7dd61abae867ec97&t=920712&page=2 

What a disappointment. I have dual tuners on this computer now, but it’s not what I was hoping for. I just set it up to record two programs at the same time at 8:00 p.m. and I’ll see if I can tell a difference in the quality of the one recorded with the AutumnWave vs the Pinnacle and report back on that.

deb@shinder.net    www.debshinder.com

I got Windows 7 installed on the main Media Center PC, although not without a few minor bumps in the road. Win 7 installed faster than on my primary Dell desktop (in this case, in about 23 minutes vs. 35-40 on the Dell) but unlike with the desktop, it did not recognize and install the drivers for the TV tuners. I discovered this when I went to set up Media Center and it said it couldn’t detect a TV signal. A check of Device Manager showed that they were not listed there, either.

The desktop uses a single tuner AutumnWave OnAir Creator USB tuner, whereas the HP Media Center has two Hauppauge 1600 internal combo tuners. I went to the Hauppauge web site and downloaded the drivers for the 1600 and installed them. They now showed up in Device Manager, where it indicated that they were working properly, but Media Center still didn’t find them. A reboot fixed that; when I booted back into Windows 7, it proceeded with the signal setup and a test of live TV showed it to be working fine.

After a reboot, Media Center proceeded to set up the tuners and signal

Unlike with the desktop, my sound card was recognized and worked right off the bat. That’s interesting, since they are both Soundblaster X-Fi cards.

 
Live TV on Win 7

Everything is working now, but we can’t use Win 7 as the main OS on this machine because it records TV programs as .WTV files. Now there’s an advantage to that: the files are a good bit smaller than the old .DVR-MS format used by XP and Vista Media Centers. But there’s a big problem with it, in that you can’t view .WTV files in Windows Media Player 11 or any other program in Vista or XP. I have a feeling Microsoft is going to address this, but for now it’s a deal breaker for us because Tom likes to sometimes watch programs that we’ve recorded on the Media Center with his Vista laptop.

The only problem with Win 7 Media Center is that it records shows in .WTV format, which can’t be viewed on a Vista computer

I’m a little disappointed that we can’t transition to Win 7 permanently for the Media Center, but I’m happy that it installed and worked (after a little tweaking) and look forward to being able to do so after the final release if we can get that .WTV compatibility issue resolved.

deb@shinder.net    www.debshinder.com

Something that will surprise many folks when they install Windows 7 is that your drive letters change. No matter what drive you install it on, Windows 7 calls that drive C: . Now, I can see the advantage of this; no more confusion with programs that expect the OS files to be on the C: drive. But it can be a little disconcerting at first.

I noticed it but didn’t pay much attention when I installed Win 7 on my primary desktop, because the C: drive only had an old copy of XP on it that I hadn’t used in two years. Vista was installed on a different drive, V:, and that didn’t change when I installed Win 7 on another partition on that same disk.

However, today when I installed Win 7 on the main Media Center PC, it was more noticeable. Vista had been installed on the lone 500 GB disk that came with the computer, which was the C: drive. I installed a 1.5 TB disk and made two partitions (from Vista), one of which was W: (I named the volume Win7) and the other Z: (BigDisk).

I installed Win7 on the Win7 volume, and when I booted into it, that volume was called C:. That didn’t surprise me, but when I went to look for the drive that had been C: in Vista – so I could add the music files that were stored on it to the library in Win 7 Media Center – that drive wasn’t there by any letter.

Of course, my next step was to go to Disk Management tool (in the Start menu, right click Computer and click Manage). There I saw that the original Disk (Disk 0) was there and shown as healthy, but had no drive letter assigned to it in Win 7. I right clicked the volume, selected Change Drive Letter and Path, and assigned V: to the original volume so I would remember that it was the one on which the Vista OS files are installed. Now the files and folders on that volume showed up when I went to add folders to my libraries in Windows Media Center, and all was well.

I can just imagine, though, that a few people are going to panic when they see Win 7 installed on C:, thinking they’ve overwritten their previous OS when they intended to install in a dual boot configuration. Don’t worry. You can still pick your old Vista installation from the boot menu and when you boot into it, your drive letters will be as they were before you installed Win 7.

deb@shinder.net     www.debshinder.com

I finally got the newsletter finished and all the email taken care of (it seems that since we have icy roads today, everyone in town stayed home and emailed me) and other chores out of the way, and now I’ve started installing Windows 7 on the main Media Center PC ( an HP d5200t ATX). So far, so good.

Setup never looked so impressive as it does on the 65 inch Aquos TV screen.

Starting the Win7 installation on the main Media Center PC

More later.

 
deb@shinder.net    www.debshinder.com

Just finished writing an overview of some of the changes to security related features in Win7 for Windowsecurity.com. Look for it to be published in February. Meanwhile, one of the things that I really like is the new BitLocker to Go, which allows you to apply BitLocker encryption to your removable drives as well as the fixed disks. This new feature, called BitLocker to Go, greatly enhances the usefulness of BitLocker.

All my removable drives show up in the BitLocker applet in Control Panel:

Removable drives show up in Bitlocker applet (click to enlarge)

As you can see, in addition to the computer’s fixed drives, you see three removable drives: H, K and N. These represent a flash card, an SDHC card and a USB thumb drive. The N drive has already been BitLocker-encrypted, so you see the options to turn off BitLocker or to Manage BitLocker.

To encrypt one of the unencrypted drives, you just click Turn On BitLocker. Then you’ll be prompted to choose the method for unlocking the drive: either a password/passphrase or a smart card.

 
You can set a password/passphrase or choose to unlock the drive with a smart card

For fixed drives only, you can choose to have the drive automatically unlocked when you log onto Windows, but you get this option only if you encrypt the drive on which Windows is installed.

Next you will be given the option to create a recovery key and save it to a USB drive (if one is inserted), save it to a file on the hard disk, or print it out. You can’t save the key to the same USB drive that you encrypting (but you can save it to a different encrypted removable drive). You can save the key to a hard disk on the computer, but that’s not the best option for security purposes.

You can select how to store your recovery key

You can choose any or all of the recovery key options. That is, you can save it to the hard disk, save a copy to a USB drive and print it out if you wish. The recovery key can be used to unlock the drive if you forget your password/passphrase or to access an encrypted removable drive on a different computer  if your computer can’t access it.

The recovery key is a 49 digit number divided into 8 blocks of 6 digits each. It’s saved as a .TXT file, by default in the Documents folder.

Recovery key can be saved to a .TXT file

Of course, anyone who has the recovery key will be able to access the drive, so the most secure option may be to save it only on an encrypted USB key or print it and put it in a safe or other protected location.

Once you start the encryption process, it can take a while depending on the size of the drive. It took me about 9 minutes to encrypt a 2 GB USB drive. Encrypting a 151 GB fixed hard disk took a little over 80 minutes.

You can also start the encryption process directly from Windows Explorer or My Computer. Just right click the drive you want to encrypt and select Turn On BitLocker in the right context menu.

After a drive has been encrypted, you have several management options:

• Change the password
• Remove the password
• Add a smart card
• Save or print the recovery key again
• Automatically unlock the drive on this computer (only for fixed disks)

You have several options for managing your BitLocker encrypted drive

If you insert an encrypted removable drive into a Vista or XP computer, you will see the option under Install or Run Program to install the BitLocker to Go Reader. If you try to just open the folder and view files as you normally would, you’ll see lots of files with the extension .NG which you can’t open. If you run the BitLockerToGo.exe file, you will get a dialog box asking you to enter the password to unlock the drive. When you enter the correct password, you will then see the real file names and be able to access the files.

For IT admins, Win7 includes policies that let you control the behavior of BitLocker. You can require that any removable drive to which users can write data be encrypted. This is incredibly useful for preventing users from copying sensitive files to a flash card or USB drive in a format that could be read by anyone who happened to gain physical control of the media.You can also set policies regarding the length/strength of the BitLocker password or to require a smart card or domain credentials to access encrypted drives.

By extending BitLocker encryption to memory cards, USB drives and other removable drives, Microsoft has made this feature much more useful.

deb@shinder.net    www.debshinder.com

Got a new toy without even trying. Tom bought himself a Microsoft Laser 6000 wireless keyboard a couple of weeks ago. He liked the feel of it but decided it was “too wide,” and thus made him move his trackball too far to the right. So he went back to his old one, and the new one was just sitting on a table by his desk, abandoned.

I figured I’d give it a try. I immediately liked the fact that it’s lower and more compact than the one that I was using (the Natural Ergonomic model). This one has the curved key layout but it’s less pronounced. It also has about half a billion buttons. Once I installed the software so they all functioned, I was impressed. There are dedicated buttons to start the IE, Outlook and Messenger, to open and close the file or program you’re in, to open Pictures and Documents folders, to reply, forward and send email messages, to save, print and invoke spell check, to mute, increase or decrease the volume, to fast forward and go back in Media Center and Media Player, to invoke Flip 3D and to right click. Wow.

All those little buttons at the top proved to be incredibly functional

Then there are five programmable buttons, which I set to open Word, PowerPoint, Opera, the snipping tool and Live Writer (programs I use most often that didn’t already have dedicated buttons). I’m finding that with this setup, I have drastically reduced the number of times I have to take my hands off the keyboard. That not only speeds up my typing but also makes it less likely that I’ll have the wrist pains that sometimes come from using the trackball too much.

 
Here you can see the low profile footprint it makes on my desk (leaving plenty of room for the cat)

I had never particularly wanted a wireless keyboard before (except of course for the main Media Center PC, with its 10 foot experience) but I was surprise to find that not being tethered by a USB cable, even on my workstation, is rather nice. I can pick it up and put it in my lap if I want.

And the wireless connectivity hasn’t been flakey at all, as I feared. All the features work great in Windows 7, which I’m using full time now (except when I need to go back to XP or Vista to write about them). It’s a real nice little upgrade that I didn’t even know I needed or wanted.

deb@shinder.net    www.debshinder.com

Okay, it is a beta, after all. There was bound to be something that didn’t work right, although for a while there, I was hard pressed to figure out what it was.

Then yesterday, I was getting ready to attend a Microsoft Live Meeting for the first time since making Win7 my primary OS. Five minutes before the meeting was to start, I downloaded the LM client – and it wouldn’t install. I got an error message saying the installer had stopped. Tried installing in compatibility mode, since it had worked fine in Vista. Still no dice. Tried running the install program as an administrator, but that didn’t help either.

Ironically, the Live Meeting was about … Windows 7. But I couldn’t attend it using Win7; I had to go to another (Vista) computer to do so.

There’s another Live Meeting today at noon and this time I decided to tackle the problem early. I downloaded another copy of the installation file, just in case I’d had a corrupted one. Same problem. But this time, I found this:

An issue with the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) client in Windows 7 beta is causing Explorer and some MSI-based installers to stop working properly.

To solve this problem, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start button , click All Programs, and then click Accessories.

2. Right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator. In the User Account Control window, verify that Program name is Windows Command Processor, and then click Yes.

3. In the Administrator: Command Prompt window, type or paste the following text at the prompt:

   reg delete HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SQMClient\Windows\DisabledSessions /va /f

4. Press Enter to install the solution.

5. If The operation completed successfully displays, close the Administrator: Command Prompt window to complete this procedure. If "ERROR: Access is denied" displays, repeat this procedure from the top, making sure you clicked Run as administrator in step two.

I followed those directions, and lo and behold: the Live Meeting client was installed in less than a minute. So if you’re having trouble installing a program using an MSI package, give this a try.

Success! Live Meeting client installed and works fine now

Just goes to show that Win7 isn’t perfect (yet) after all. But it’s still as close as I’ve seen in a beta or even a finished OS.

deb@shinder.net
www.debshinder.com

I’m still looking for something not to like about Windows 7, but I haven’t found it yet. I am now seriously considering installing it on my Sony laptop (the one that was horrifically slow running Vista when I got it, and is now acceptable after a lot of tweaking, but still not what anyone would call fast).

I don’t know if I just got lucky or if the new OS is really that good, but each time I use it, I like it a little better. At least on my hardware, Win7 seems more stable in its first public beta than previous versions of Windows were at final release.

Speaking of betas, I had someone ask about the default Win7 wallpaper. In case you don’t get it, that’s a Siamese Fighting Fish, but its real name is Betta Splendens. I used to raise them, years ago. They are very cool fish, but you can’t put two males in the same tank or they’ll kill one another.

The beta is represented by a betta

The Betta is a great mascot for Win7, because it’s gorgeous, fast and strong. However, they differ from the new OS in one important way: Bettas don’t play nicely together. Based on my experience, Win7 computers get along splendidly with other machines on the network.

What I’m wondering is whether we’ll get a new wallpaper with a goldfish when the software “goes gold.” :)

deb@shinder.net
www.debshinder.com

Gold fish for RTM?

Microsoft should hire Jeri Ryan to do the ad campaign for Windows 7. :)  I started to name my Win7 computer 7of9 but we have more computers than that on the network. Somehow 7of15 didn’t have quite the same ring to it.

Today I’m exploring Windows Media Center’s TV/PVR functionality. Setup was much faster and easier than in previous versions of Media Center. The tuner was recognized immediately, the Guide downloaded fast with no problems.

One big advantage of WMC is that the Guide is a free service, not subscription

The programs that I set to record did so without a hitch.

Recorded TV in Windows 7 Media Center

As with Vista, by default programs display as thumbnails and you scroll through them left to right. Also as with Vista, if you want to be able to see more items at a time (more like in XP MCE), you can select to View List. This option automatically pops up when you have more recorded programs than will fit on a screen:

 
If you have more recorded programs than will fit on the screen, you get the option to View List

Selecting View List changes the layout of the listings as shown below:

 
The View List option makes it easier to see all your recordings

Adding folders from another Media Center computer is easy: just go to Tasks | Settings and choose Manage Libraries. Media Center will discover other computers on the network that contain media files and you can select which ones to include in your libraries. Before, you had to edit the registry to make the programs from other computers show up in your local Media Center.

 
It’s easy to add folders from other computers so you can watch their recorded programs on this computer

When you select a recorded program to view, you get an expanded information screen, from which you can record the series (if you aren’t already doing so), watch or delete the recording:

New info screen gives you more options

You can also click Actions at the top of the info, and get the options to configure the “Keep Until” setting and/or burn the program to CD or DVD:

The Actions menu makes it easy to burn a recording to CD or DVD

There is also an Other Showings option, by which you can view other times the program airs; clicking one of them gives you the option to record it.

 
You can also see (and set to record) other showings of the series

Watching a recorded program works in the usual way, with the same controls. Now, though, you can click anywhere on the progress bar and go to that point in the program.

 
Watching a program works in the same old way

Maybe it’s just fluctuations in my cable signal, but it seems that the picture quality in Win7 is better than it was in Vista Media Center on the same computer with the same tuner.

One interesting change is that if you go back to the menus while either live TV or a recording is playing, instead of having it continue to play in a little box, you see it continue to play full screen in the background behind the menus:

Programs continue to play in the background instead of in a small box

Cosmetic changes aside, there are some interesting changes “under the hood” as well. All the enhancements that were in the TV Pack for Vista Media Center (that was only made available to OEMs) are included in Win7. Win7 Media Center also provides H.264 support, which means it should now be possible for DirecTV subscribers to watch and record HD TV on their Media Center PCs.

Probably the most exciting new feature for many Media Center fans is the ability to record clear QAM (unencrypted HD) cable channels without a cable box. These include the major networks (ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX) and a few others.  You need a tuner that provides QAM integration with WMC such as the AverMedia AVerTV Hybrid Volar Max).

Another new feature is Internet TV. If you scroll to the end of your list of channels in the Guide, you’ll see the Internet TV channels (MSN Series, Sports, News, Music Videos, Concerts, Movies and Channels.

Another new feature is Internet TV

This allows you to watch free shows that are available via the Internet. You don’t have to have cable or an antenna or tuner attached to your Media Center TV to watch Internet TV.

Although at first glance many of the changes to Media Center may not be apparent, as with other Win7 improvements, they all add up to a greatly improved user experience. I’m looking forward to upgrading our main Media Center PC to Win7.

deb@shinder.net
www.debshinder.com

Well, one and half days into using Windows 7 as my primary OS, I am unabashedly in love. I remember when I first started using Vista, I was very taken with its good looks and some of the new features … but it took quite a bit of configuring to get things the way I wanted them. Seven required much less tweaking, and didn’t include any of the little frustrations that went along with getting used to Vista. Of course, that’s partly because of Vista and the fact that driver issues and such were worked out in that OS and now consequently aren’t an issue in Seven.

But this OS has also changed my attitude toward many aspects of computing. For instance, I have never been a fan of the minimalist desktop, but I’m growing to love the clean look in Seven and don’t feel any compelling need to fill it up with extra toolbars, icons, etc. because I can get to everything I need so easily via the pinned programs and the Libraries.

My Vista desktop

You can see in this photo of my Vista desktop that I had numerous toolbars, icons, and gadgets to help me do what I wanted to do.

My Windows 7 desktop

My Win7 desktop has a much more minimalist look, but just as much functionality.

Something I really like is the way I can get to any file on any computer on the network, from the custom toolbar I created from the Network system folder. it takes up almost no room on my desktop, but expands in columns across the desktop from Computer to Share to folder to subfolder to document:

 
Getting to any document I want on the network is easy.

Another nice surprise is the changes that have been made to some of the built in Windows applications. For instance, WordPad gets an update, with a Ribbon interface similar to that in Office 2007. There’s also some new functionality, such as the ability to easily insert a picture or a Paint drawing. Here’s the interface:

 
WordPad with a new look

Likewise, Paint got the Ribbon treatment and now serves as a very good basic drawing and photo manipulation program. You can insert shapes, fill them with solid colors, oil, crayon, natural pencil or watercolor.

Paint has been made more robust, too

Here’s a cool treat that I discovered today: the calculator in Win7 has been given a makeover, as well. Now when you perform a calculation, you can see it in the results window above the total. I love that; if I accidentally key in the wrong number, now I can see what I did wrong and why the total is different than expected. But what I really love is the conversion tool that’s now built into the calculator. It will convert temperature, volume, weight/mass, length, area, angle, energy, power, pressure, time or velocity. Now I don’t need all those conversion gadgets that I had cluttering up my Vista desktop. Here’s the new and improved calculator:

New calculator does it all with conversion utility

And in addition to standard and scientific modes, it also has separate Programmer and Statistics modes. There’s a Date Calculation utility, too, that will determine the difference between two dates, or let you add or subtract days relative to a specified date.

 
Calculator in Programmer Mode with Date Calculation tool displayed

Finally, there is a Templates option that allows you to calculate gas mileage (distance, fuel consumption) and lease and mortgage estimations.

 
Calculator in Statistics mode with Mortgage Estimation utility displayed

A new program is the XPS Viewer, which allows you to open and view XPS documents, set permissions, and apply digital signatures to them.

 
The XPS Viewer is a new application in Win7

Another new program that’s small and simple but useful is the built-in Sticky Notes app. We’ve been installing third party sticky notes programs for years; now it’s part of Windows.

The Sticky Notes program is another new one that’s small and simple but useful

These examples are all small things, but they all add up to significantly more functionality and an OS that’s just easier to work with right from the beginning, without a lot of tweaking or installation of a bunch of new programs.

I’m already sold on Seven. In fact, I’m wondering how I ever got along without it.

deb@shinder.net
www.debshinder.com

Okay, I am officially switched over to Windows 7 as my primary OS now. On the third try, I got it to install on the Dell XPS last night. I did end up having to install the 32 bit version. Don’t know why the 64 bit version wouldn’t install.

The installation took less than 40 minutes and proceeded smoothly. I was impressed that Win7 recognized all three of my monitors during installation. With all previous operating systems with which I used multiple monitors (Vista, XP and Windows 2000), only one monitor worked during installation and I had to go in and extend the desktop to the other monitors after setup completed. With Win7, I had all three monitors from the get-go.

Startup is much faster than Vista, about half the time on the same computer.

One thing I noticed was that my WEI (Windows Experience Index) score was lower than it was in Vista on the same machine – although responsiveness seems much faster. Turns out the bottleneck is the hard drive. All other components are rated the same as they are in Vista (in the 5s) but the hard disk brings it all down to a 3.0. Well, I did install Win7 to a different physical disk, and apparently it is not as fast as the one on which Vista is installed. No big deal, since Win7 is very fast.  Win7 also shows the entire 4 GB of memory, whereas Vista only showed 2.8 GB:

It’s nice to see all 4 GB of RAM show up in the System properties

One thing that I discovered is that if you try to join the domain using the Network ID wizard, it doesn’t work (if you haven’t already created a computer account on the domain controller). However, if you select the “Change” option (on the Computer Name tab in Advanced System Properties), then you can create the computer account in the process of joining the domain (as long as you have domain administrator credentials).

 
Use the Change button, not the Network ID button, if you need to create a new computer account when you join the computer to a domain

The only device problem I had was with the Creative SB X-Fi sound card, which was not recognized. A Windows search for the drivers was unsuccessful. I manually downloaded the Vista drivers from Creative’s web site, but got a message saying my operating system was not supported and that I should upgrade to XP or Vista. At Tom’s suggestion, I then tried running the driver’s .exe file in compatibility mode (right click the executable and select Troubleshoot Compatibility) and that worked. The drivers installed and a few minutes later, I had sound.

While I was troubleshooting the sound problem, I had occasion to open Device Manager and noticed that I didn’t encounter a UAC prompt to open it, as you do in Vista. That was nice (at this point, I had not made any modifications to the default UAC settings).

My OnAir Creator TV tuner was recognized and worked in Media Center with no problems. My HP 6310 printer was also recognized – but I do have a gripe there. The Preferences page no longer allows me to select the print quality. That’s an annoyance because I usually print in “Fast Draft” mode to save time and ink, and it appears that there’s no way to adjust that; everything prints in the slower medium quality mode. I’m hoping a driver update will fix that.

The new Paper/Quality tab for the HP Officejet 6310 has no setting for printing in draft mode

I installed Office 2007 Ultimate and Visio 2007, and those went off without a hitch and work fine. I also downloaded and installed Live Messenger and Live Writer, both of which work great (I’m writing this blog post in Live Writer).

So far, I’ve had no problems with the IE8 that comes with Win7. In fact, I can play Flash on it – the reason I had switched to Firefox as my primary browser was because Adobe’s last update broke Flash in IE 8 on Vista. It’s nice to be “home” again.

I have my desktop arranged to my liking, with the gadgets I like (minus the sidebar, but still lined up on the right side of the main monitor screen). I’ve decided I really like the new, cleaner look of the Taskbar, but I have “pinned” all my most-used programs to it. Here’s the desktop of my main (middle) monitor, the HP 14 inch:

 
My main Win7 desktop

After some experimentation, I decided to go back to having the taskbar on the left side of the screen. That works really well with the icons-only design, and it gives you more usable vertical space on a wide screen monitor.  I love the clear taskbar!

That’s it for today. More good Win7 stuff to come tomorrow.

DS
deb@shinder.net   
www.debshinder.com

I’m liking the subtle and not-so-subtle changes to Windows Media Center in Win7. It immediately picked up all the music folders that I added to my Music Library (which I did over in Windows Explorer, not through Media Center itself). That includes folders on other computers on the network.

Searching the songs is much easier and faster, and I like the way the album covers all display and scroll in the background while a song is playing:

Here’s what it looks like when you play a song in Vista Media Center:

You’ll also notice that the TV + Movies category in Vista MC has now been separated into two different sections. Here it is in Win7:

And here it is in Vista:

Here’s another interesting difference: even if you don’t have a TV tuner, when you open the Guide, you’ll still see a number of choices for Internet TV, including several channels “on demand” from the ‘Net:

I’ll be exploring Win7 Media Center more in the next few days, when I get it installed on a system that has a TV tuner. Meanwhile, the changes aren’t dramatic, but they are definitely improvements.

I like Windows XP. I love Windows Vista. I'm quickly falling for Windows 7. Because I write about all three, I need access to those operating systems without having to reboot. And, thanks to Remote Desktop, virtualization and multiple monitors, I can have it all.

On both my downstairs primary system and my upstairs office system, I run with three monitors. Upstairs I run XP, downstairs I run Vista. Windows 7 runs in a VM on our Hyper-V Server. So lately, this is what I do:

When working downstairs, I use my main (24 inch HP) screen for the Vista OS that's running on the machine. I open a Remote Desktop connection to the Win7 VM, full screen, on my left hand monitor. When I also need XP, I open that in an RDP window on the right hand monitor. When working upstairs, it's basically the same: the native XP OS in the middle with Vista and Win7 remote desktops on either side. My three monitor desktop looks something like this:

 
Click to enlarge

Yesterday I was going to take the plunge and install Win7 "on the metal" on my Dell XPS 710 and dual boot it with Vista. That didn't work so well. I booted the DVD and got as far as the "Starting Windows" screen with the nice little colored fireflies ... then that's all she wrote. Black Screen. I let it run for a while, but never got any more video. There seemed to be hard drive activity, so it might be a video card problem. I tried unplugging some of my USB devices, but that didn't help. And the new OS selection didn't appear in the boot menu, so it obviously didn't get that far. Oh, well.

I may try putting it on a different system in a few days. I really wanted to run it on the XPS, which has a TV tuner, so I could try out the new Media Center's TV PVR functionality. That's about the only thing that I can't do with the RDP/VM setup. Meanwhile, for everything else, what I have now is working great and I love being able to instantly switch to whichever Windows I want.

deb@shinder.net    www.debshinder.com
"Never enter a battle of wits unarmed"

This is my first blog post from Windows 7. Live Writer works fine on it, as you can see here.

I was a little surprised to see that Messenger wasn’t already installed. I installed WLM and it works. Hurray! I’ve not had a working Messenger on Vista since I tried to install the beta a couple of months ago and it screwed the whole thing up. I’ve been using Trillian there ever since.

I’m impressed with how well Win7 performs in a VM with just 1 GB of memory. Was running on 512 MB at first, and it was acceptable but not snappy. Vista wouldn’t even get off the ground with 512 MB. :)

deb@shinder.net
www.debshinder.com

Since the release of the public beta last week, everybody’s talkin’ about Windows 7, and those who were under NDA can talk about it now, too. I’ve been getting acquainted with the new features and am starting to really like what I see. Here’s my Win7 desktop:

As you can see, I’ve done a little customizing. I wasn’t so sure at first about the new taskbar with its big icons and lack of text. But it’s starting to grow on me. It really does provide for a cleaner look and I’ve had no problem identifying the programs that the icons represent (also, you can switch to smaller icons if you want).

The gadget in the upper right hand corner is for Windows Media Center and it comes in the Gadget Gallery. It’s a new one; it wasn’t included in the Vista default gadgets. I like it. I also like having the gadgets “free” to place anywhere on the desktop by default, even though I end up lining them up down the right side of the screen like the sidebar.

I think my favorite thing, though, is the new way of organizing files in Libraries. The first time I opened Explorer, I was dismayed. Where in the heck did the file system go? But I was already a big fan of the Favorites section in Vista Explorer, and when I found out how easily you can add folders to your Libraries and access files according to type, date, author, etc., I began to understand the changes and appreciate them.

Here’s the new Explorer:

You’ll notice that the left pane doesn’t show the file system tree as it does in Vista and every other previous version of Windows. You can get to all that by clicking Computer, but you may find that you don’t do that much anymore once you start taking advantage of the Libraries.

A Library is a collection of certain types of files (or combinations of types). By default, the Documents library contains your My Documents folder on the local computer, as well as the Public Documents folder. However, you can add other folders to the library. Maybe you keep documents in a folder on another drive, called Data. Or maybe you want to add the My Documents folder from another computer on the network, as I’ve done.

The Documents library on my Windows 7 computer contains the Documents folder on my Vista computer. At this point, you may be saying “so what? You could have just accessed the Documents folder on your Vista computer through Explorer before.” Yes, but by putting it in the Documents library, now its contents are sorted along with those of the local Documents and Public Documents folders.

Here’s how that works: Let’s say I want to sort by file type. I open the Documents Library, click Arrange By at the top and select Type, and I get all the docs (from my local folders and from the folder on my Vista computer) sorted and “stacked” according to file type, as shown here:

So I have a stack of all my Acrobat docs, a stack of Application files, a stack of HTML docs, a stack of JPEG images, a stack of Word docs, a stack of PowerPoint presentations, and so forth.

I can also create stacks based on the author, date, tag or name. For instance, here I opened my stack of Word docs, and then sorted that stack by author:

I can do the same thing with my Pictures library. Here, again, I added the Pictures folder from my Vista machine to the library. If I want to find all the pictures that I took in November of last year, I can just sort the library according to date, as shown here:

As you can see, hovering over the November 2008 stack shows me how many files are in that stack, as well as the total size of the stack. I think this is going to be incredibly useful when I’m trying to find things quickly.

Then there’s the Search feature itself. Here I’ve done a search in my Documents library for all docs that contain the word “Microsoft”:

I can sort within those results by author, tag or date.

This is all very cool and I’m thinking that the improved organization and search features alone are going to be worth the price of admission to Windows 7.

More good Win 7 stuff to come!

When it comes to technology, sometimes bigger is better and sometimes it’s not. One thing holds true: you usually pay a premium if you want the biggest – or if you want the smallest. We paid the extra dollars for our Sharp Aquos HD TV because it was the largest LCD that was economically feasible. Yeah, I know about the Sony 70 inch behemoth, but that $20,000 price tag is more than a little off-putting.

When it comes to TVs, bigger is better – up to a point. But, impressive as it is, I’m not sure Panasonic would sell many of these 150 inch plasma models to the consumer market even if the price was right. Getting that 65 inch LCD set up took a couple of strong guys.  I don’t even want to think about what these giants would weigh. Not to mention the size of a home theater room you’d need for the proper viewing distance.

TVs are one thing, but computers are quite another – especially portable computers. That’s an area where the tiniest models take the prize (again, up to a point). I paid $2200 for my little Sony VAIO T series notebook, in order to have the light weight and small form factor that enables me to take it with me when I wouldn’t want to lug around a big laptop.

Then came the netbook craze, and suddenly itsy bitsy computers were everywhere. Asus led the way with the EeePC, and I snapped up one of the first ones, only to find that it didn’t offer any real advantage over the Sony and lacked the power of the latter. Now, though, it appears they’re coming out with an EeePC Tablet, and I have to admit I’m interested in that one.  It’s not on the market yet, but the company introduced it at CES this year.

In fact, the annual show brought several items of interest for we who fortunate few with hands that are small enough to comfortably handle more miniaturization. Naturally the latest Sony ultra portable, the P series, caught my eye. It has an 8 inch display and the keyboard area is “cut off” to eliminate the touchpad (there’s a J mouse instead), which makes the whole thing not much bigger than a standard white business envelope. Not sure how I feel about the J mouse, but I’d love to get my hands on one and try it out. And with a reported price tag of under $1000, it makes me want to cry over the dollars I spent on the T series machine.

Of course, it’s possible to go even smaller. Another small star at CES was the latest OQO ultra mobile PC. What makes it special is its OLED display, with a million to one contrast ratio. I’m intrigued by the little UMPCs, even though I can’t find a good reason to justify buying one. It’s a little too big to carry around with you all the time like a cell phone and it’s a little too small to really serve as a production laptop. But they certainly are cute.

Not everyone likes the little guys best, though. Tom is completely in love with New Tank, our 17 inch HP laptop that weighs a ton but truly can function as a desktop replacement. It’s all a matter of personal preference. The good news is that consumers have more choices than ever this year.

Now I’m going to go sit in front of my great big TV with my little tiny laptop and do some serious multitasking. :)