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After being a very happy user of both the Windows 7 Beta and then the Release Candidate for quite a number of months, I have made the switch to the release version of Microsoft‘s latest OS. Truth be told, this is probably the first time I’ve purchased a copy of a Microsoft OS outright, with all previous versions I’ve run being pre-installed on notebooks and desktops I’ve used.

The process was reasonable pain-free and assisted by a remarkably fast installation time: I started off with a dual backup of all my documents, downloads and other temporary rubbish a hard disk accumulates. The folder My Documents contains roughly 15GB of data – mainly PDF‘s, archived mail folders and many, many files I simply migrate from machine to machine to make sure I always have everything I need. The backup of that data quantity took quite some time and I dumped those files to both the Drobo and an external hard drive before proceeding. Each one of those backups ran for a long time – I left G2S on over night and let the job complete.

After having ensured that both copies looked similar to the original (and after opening one or two files just as a confirmation) I slotted the Windows 7 DVD into the drive and rebooted. The Windows 7 installation is blisteringly fast, compares favourably to modern Linux installations and requires virtually no information to proceed. My installation included a format of the existing hard drive and an installation of the 64-bit Ultimate edition. When I next looked at the machine less than 30 minutes later, everything was ready to roll. That included a driver for the wireless network card (which had already found and connected to my home network) and the audio drivers. From a hardware support perspective, the only driver I loaded was the latest NVidia driver that is already certified for Windows 7. Another reboot and the system was ready for use. I connected my external drive and copied My Documents and various bits and pieces back – oddly, the same data quantity copied in a fraction of the time it initially took to back up in the first place. Whether this is due to a complete disk defragmentation, I don’t know. Suffice to say that it was many orders of magnitude faster than the initial copy to exactly the same drive.

With the OS activated, I proceeded to install the remaining applications I needed to get going and started working. The experience promised with the beta and RC has been maintained: Windows 7 is, in my opinion, one of the best operating systems Microsoft has ever released. It’s modern, slick and speedy. Whilst it won’t replace Mac OS X as a current favourite of mine, it has proved crash resistant and pleasant to work with since I started using it. If you’re in the market for an upgrade, you should consider it – though XP was certainly robust and stable, Windows 7 improves tremendously on that platform.

The Windows 7 RC is humming along quite nicely, and I promise that this will be the last Microsoft post for a while. The additional download of a Virtual XP environment intrigued me enough to download and install it. I can’t quite understand what the purpose of a Virtual PC running XP in Windows 7 can be, but here goes.

First off, it is a requirement that the target machine has a modern Intel processor capable of Virtualization Technology. Most Intel Core Duo‘s or better have this feature, but to be sure I downloaded Intel‘s CPU identification utility. The utility provides a basic overview of the CPU‘s capabilities

and the all-important Yes for the required virtualization support.

With the basic hardware requirement met, I downloaded the first of two files from Microsoft‘s site. Initially, a support package needs to be installed. The installation is quick, but requires a reboot. After the reboot, the system is ready to accept the installation program to complete the setup of Virtual Windows XP.

A few clicks is all it takes. The setup routine basically installs a virtual machine environment, then populates a pre-built disk image containing a functional Windows XP system.

There is no option to enter a user name for the OS, only a password. The name of the user is…User. That should be difficult to forget. Multiple logons are not possible with the free copy of XP Microsoft provides in the virtual PC environment.

Since we are talking about a vulnerable OS inside another vulnerable OS, it may be prudent to permit this XP to check for updates…

Once the setup has completed, you are left with a guest Windows XP system inside a virtual machine running on top of Windows 7. A nice feature is that the host OS drives are available automatically, permitting easy sharing of files from one environment to another. How this affects the overall security of the system as a whole is a totally different question: Windows 7 requires some form of virus protection, as does XP. That means installing anti-virus measures in the guest OS to ensure that no nasties bite the host. Anti-virus is not exactly a performance improver, and we are talking a basic virtual machine here. Extra functions to handle USB devices, power the VM off and send a Ctrl-Alt-Del to the guest OS are accessible from the Virtual PC menu bar.

I can’t see any corporate wanting to upgrade existing systems to Windows 7 only to run legacy applications inside a virtual machine environment. The headaches that would cause, not to mention the wasted administrative effort is simply not worth contemplating. Then, there’s the issue of the guest and host being very interoperable which makes most security types a bit nervous and requires two anti-virus licenses, at the very least. The virtual machine environment is dedicated to the single instance of XP, so it’s unusable for, say, Ubuntu or anything else, for that matter. It’s a lot of software for a simple XP setup that already runs well enough on a low-end desktop.

In my opinion, the provision of an XP emulation mode is not a bad thing, but the implementation by way of a complete, separate VM makes no sense: wouldn’t it have been possible to simply provide an XP wrapper in the main OS to run programs that require such support? Overall, I’m a bit confused as to what the Virtual XP thing is all about. Take one free copy of Virtualbox, add as many operating systems as you wish on top of your host OS and you have a much better, more flexible solution. With Virtualbox, the guest OS can be backed up, snapshots created and moved around as an image. That’s not possible with the Microsoft Virtual XP environment.

The installation of the Windows 7 RC and subsequent installation of necessary applications (all of the latest possible version) has eradicated an annoying issue my Firefox browser exhibited: when opening a new window from a link on a landing page, that page would be unable to display any content when a proxy setting had been entered. In fact, clicking on such a link would reset the proxy to “No proxy“, necessitating a visit to the network connections windows to change the the proxy settings in Firefox back to the intended setting.

I’m pleased to announce that the issue has been fixed. I’m assuming that it’s something that was wonky in the Windows 7 Beta, as the Firefox 3.0.10 version had already installed itself while I was running the Beta. A closer look at the error seemed to indicate a reference to the built-in Java virtual machine, but I can’t confirm that as the source of the problem.

Nice to be able to navigate the Interwebs once again as they was intended

Yesterday’s quick test installation of the new Windows 7 RC OS took place on a 32-bit platform. Today, I bit the bullet, made sure I had a double backup of all documents, downloads and other assorted stuffs and then placed the 64-bit Windows 7 RC DVD into the drive of G2S. Once again, the installation completed without incident, taking less than 30 minutes to get the basic OS up and running.

64-bit. No touch device installed, this is true. That could be interesting…

As with the Beta installation, there are some non-essential devices that require a third-party driver. I haven’t pulled these in yet – in the Beta version, the Vista drivers I had available wouldn’t work.

No matter. The generic NVIDIA driver seems to be working well enough, though I’ll probably load the latest one I have at some time.

Within a period of two hours I had all most-needed applications reinstalled and had all documents restored. Anti-virus too. Don’t forget that… If you got your copy of the Windows 7 RC ISO off a torrent, you may be the victim of a Trojan…

Performance is snappy and so far, no issue as with the Beta. It’s still no replacement for OS X, but it’s streets ahead of Vista…

After today’s quick download of both the 32-bit and 64-bit Windows 7 RC ISO‘s, I decided to check out the 32-bit release by installing it for a quick look. As with the Windows 7 Beta, the installation of the OS is streamlined and reasonably quick. There are very few questions or prompts to respond to and the overall installation takes place without much intervention.

An upgrade option is available, though this purportedly won’t upgrade an existing Windows 7 Beta installation.

I’ll try that out one when I install on G2S, so I can’t comment on that for now. I did a clean installation and, as mentioned above, that does most everything without further intervention. After a single restart, the OS proceeds to set itself up to be ready to run.

There is little new to see once the system starts up and is ready for use. With the exception of a collection of new themes and backgrounds, this is the Windows 7 well-known from the Beta release. It’s still fast and responsive and detects most basic hardware without too much effort. I didn’t fiddle with additional drivers at this point in time – in the Beta, I had some issues with the NVIDIA driver. Here, the generic driver works well enough.

The only other piece of eye-candy I noticed is the animation or glow on the icons in the taskbar. Some very detailed icons (especially for removable devices) make the Explorer windows attractive. The same functionality with the quick list to access open windows remains and the Finder-style search field makes finding programs and files very easy. I expect the changes in Build 7100 are more than skin deep.

That’s basically all there is to see. If this release is anything as stable as the Beta was, Microsoft is making good on the promise to provide something a lot better than Vista. There is some additional media support provided out-of-the-box for the Media Player (specifically Quicktime support) which will reduce the number of additional codecs needing to be installed.

Two notable changes to core Windows applications are identifiable once Write

and Paint

are launched. They include the new Office-style ribbon bar and enhanced user interfaces.

The RC does not change anything the Beta showed, which makes the Beta release even more impressive, in my opinion. Provided the RC shows the same stability as I’ve experienced with the Beta I’ll be very happy to go to the effort of re-installing.

After a few days of exclusivity during which the new Windows 7 RC ISO was available for download only to developers and Technet subscribers, Microsoft has made the software available to the general public. There’s no rush, as both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions will be available for download for quite some time from the official site. I’m rather keen to get the RC as I intend installing Windows 7 on katana II to co-exist with the new Ubuntu 9.0.2 release, so I was eagerly waiting for the download link to appear this morning. The ISO‘s are large, weighing in at roughly 3.5GB for both the 32-bit and the 64-bit version.

I’m not too keen on the Java download manager Microsoft insists on installing to handle the download

I parse the URL out of the download link and give it to DownThemAll to sort out. The direct download link for the 32-bit version is here and for the 64-bit version here.

There is no official way of upgrading an existing Beta installation with the RC, though a workaround is available. The recommended installation method is a fresh installation which involves the backup of all important data. I need to find some time to get the RC installed on G2S and on katana II. Feedback once I’ve done that…

Windows 7 is still functioning flawlessly and I’m happy to repeat that this is one of the best OS releases Microsoft has ever mustered.

With the exception of CutePDF, I’ve had little hassle getting most of my favourite applications to work. As with CutePDF, a viable and free alternative is often at hand. For CutePDF, substitute BullZip PDF Printer, an excellent replacement.

A rather odd experience with the Firefox proxy settings has been occurring, however. I’m usually behind a very stringent proxy with all sorts of nonsensical filtering and URL checking going on. So normally, Firefox runs with a manual proxy setting by default.

But every now and then, it is necessary to escape the shackles of WebNonSense. So I jack in the E220 modem and get onto the MTN HSDPA network. For that sesssion, I turn the proxy setting off.

Everything works fine until I need to open another window from a URL or link.

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Where there’s a will, there’s a way. No truer is that statement than in my confounding quest to get hold of a legal copy of Microsoft Office for the Mac. You’ll recall the story: Office for the Mac in the home or student edition costs around about ZAR 2500. A hefty price by any standard, but even more ridiculous is the fact that the Entourage included in that pack is crippled and cannot access Exchange. POP3 support, but little else. Want Exchange support? No problem! But that’ll cost ZAR 5500. It’s a seriously crap, yet effective, way of making money. Own a Mac and want to use Exchange? Simply pay up and the pleasure is yours. It’s a bit like a hostage situation you’ll never get out of…

I did some digging and asking around. If you are in the corporate fold and happen to have access by way of your company’s licensing agreement to the Microsoft Home Use Program, then I suggest you take advantage of it. Depending on what the agreement covers, you may well discover that you have the opportunity to purchase Microsoft Office for a nominal fee. Believe it or not, but I paid ZAR 166 for a fully-fledged copy of Microsoft Office:mac 2008. It includes Exchange support, too. The kicker is that the ZAR 166 includes ZAR 55 for shipping, making the cost of the DVD ZAR 111 (Schnapszahl!)

The black and white cover art is the only way I can explain the saving. It’s spartan, yet functional. After all, it’s what’s inside that matters.

The software is licensed and may be used only for as long as the purchaser is part of the organization that owns the main license. It’s the cheapest way of gaining access to a legal copy of the Office suite until opensource initiatives challenge the ridiculous stranglehold Microsoft has on the messaging infrastructure of corporates.

My wish to remain legal with the software I use almost made me spend some cash on Microsoft Office for the Mac recently. That idea changed rather quickly…

Being attached to corporate networks and having to spend inordinate amounts of time documenting things makes compatibility with certain file formats a necessity. I’m very happy with OpenOffice on Linux and iWork on the Mac. Unfortunately the standard for corporate documents is the Microsoft Office Suite. But it’s not just about documents. Interacting on a corporate network by email and maintaining contacts and a calendar is possibly even more critical. So there’s no getting away from using Outlook on Windows, which is one of the better integrated applications I’ve come across. The new Outlook may be somewhat bloated and slow every now and then, but it gets the job done and is indispensable.

Hence, one of the biggest challenges to overcome in shifting platforms to Linux or Mac away from Windows in a corporate environment is the ability to connect successfully to a groupware system like Exchange. Microsoft Office for Mac is a logical choice, and I was reasonably happy to pay the roughly ZAR 1800 for the Home and Student Edition. It has Excel, Word and Powerpoint plus the all-important Outlook for Mac, Entourage. And that’s where I’m pleased I had a look at the packaging in a bit more detail. Entourage is included, yet the ability for this application to connect to an Exchange Server isn’t.

Of course the included Entourage will connect to an Exchange Server, but using POP3. That precludes its use for all-important groupware functionality, such as scheduling and the like. Microsoft has thought of this, of course and offers Office for the Mac. It’s essentially the same as the Home and Student Edition, but includes Exchange support. The pricetag for this bundle? A rather cool ZAR 5300 or so!

I understand Redmond‘s hatred for the Cupertino-based Apple. I understand that corporate licensing for software attracts a higher price. But such a high price for a single function that is a native feature of a client application is simply ridiculous. RoadSync for my E90 makes total use of a variety of Exchange features, including push mail. It costs a lowly USD 49. Surely the primary cost is built into the backend without which none of the clients have the ability to provide rich applications. Surely it is fair to charge a bit more for this feature, but it’s daylight robbery to increase the price for the application suite by more than 100% simply to permit access to calendaring, mail and contact storage on a client machine.

Another criticism is Microsoft‘s inability to clearly state the crippling of the Home and Student Edition on the packaging. I’ve spoken to more than one person who has spent the money on that software suite only to find the required Exchange connectivity missing. My advice: check what you need and be sure you get what you are paying for. Also, start supporting open source alternatives that are aiming to provide rich clients for minimal cost or even no charge. There is no reason individual users should be held to ransom by large corporates!

Microsoft struggled to deal with the demand for their Windows 7 Beta release. So much so that the download was not available on the promised date. The availability of the beta software has been extended for two weeks and seems no longer to be restricted to the first 2.5 million applications. The shift of the download date meant I could take advantage of a no-payment download option. This is particularly useful for large files…

Getting the rather large (2.24GB) ISO for the 32-bit version down the first time was unsuccessful for some or other reason. I attempted to get the software installed in a VM and subsequently test-booted on nx8220 only to be greeted by the following error

Somehow, the ISO image had been corrupted, possibly by one or more restarts of the download. For good measure, I started the download of both 32-bit and 64-bit ISO‘s once again. Mercifully, both completed in a reasonable two hour period. This time the 32-bit image seemed to be error free, confirmed by the fact that VMWare recognized the ISO image as a Windows Vista installation medium.

The fact that the download has been extended to any number of interested hackers was confirmed by the new issue of a serial key each time I attempted the download. I have a few spare, just in case

The installation in the VM was absolutely painless. VMWare suggests using the quick installer, which presents the opportunity of entering user name, password and serial key into a dialog box for the Windows installer to utilize. There was no other information required by the installation program as it proceeded to copy and uncompress files, then install and reboot a few times.

It all looks very much like Vista, from the look and feel of the dialog boxes to the logon screen that is presented once Windows 7 has rebuilt the registry and checked the performance of the graphics card it will be relying on.

The desktop is attractive and clutter-free and the Start menu is still where one expects to find it. On the whole, no major changes at all. The well-known Vista gadgets may be dragged to the desktop and Internet Explorer 8 is a standard part of the installation.

Though I ran the installation and initial test in a VM on G2S performance seemed brisk and rather snappy. This is one of the promises the Microsoft development team has made: no huge resource requirements and the ability to run on hardware that has not been upgraded to the max. I’ll be trying the installation on a two-year old notebook sometime this week to see how well that hardware copes with Windows 7 – Vista was a no-go for that platform.

Here’s another screenshot showing the new calculator and Explorer window.

A clever change is the show desktop button – it has moved all the way to the far right of the task bar, next to the time and date display. Network connectivity is automatically detected at startup and the network wizard requests how the network is to be set up. This also enables media to be shared automatically on a home network, for example. Once I have the OS installed on a dedicated system, I’ll try out Microsoft Office and a few other applications to give a better appraisal of its functionality, reliability and performance. For now, I like what I see, especially the apparent performance improvements.