Windows 7

Windows 7 at 50% off?

Hello again folks, as you know the Windows 7 launch is getting closer and closer to us. Well as of late I just saw this new offer from Microsoft.

Microsoft is offering Windows 7 at 50% off for a pre-order deal. You can go to Amazon and pre-order it now. You can also check out the offer here at Microsoft. So what’s going on you might ask?

In my opinion, Microsoft has decided to take advantage of all the buzz surrounding Windows 7 and take a much needed break from all the crap they’ve been getting about Vista. By selling Windows 7 for 50% off, they will instantly generate good will towards themselves after the Vista boondoggle. This is a smart move on their part and it should be interesting to see how this plays out.

So if you were on the fence about upgrading from Vista, let me tell you now, do it! Windows 7 is way better than Vista and the early releases I have tried have been great!

-RP

Using Windows Server 2008 as a desktop OS

Hi folks, as you know I have been trying out various OS’ as of late on my laptop to see how things work. I used to use Windows XP Professional for the longest time on my laptop but finally got bored of it and wanted a change.

The next thing I tried was Suse Linux but unfortunately it couldn’t do everything I wanted it to do due to the large amount of Microsoft centric programs I needed to run in my daily work. So what I did was dual booted Suse Linux and Vista and that seemed to suffice for quite some time. The downside of this was that Vista wasn’t that much better at running my Windows world apps either. That’s pretty sad in my opinion.

You see I need 64 bit in a Windows world so I can use more memory because I’m an avid user of VMware workstation. When you’re using lots of virtual machines on your laptop you need more RAM. There really is no way around it. Of course using VMware workstation under Vista isn’t the best case scenario. Basically my laptop would become way too sluggish. Not surprising, I really didn’t expect anything less.

So then I switched to Windows 7, and as you saw in my blog, I couldn’t really get too far due to the issues I had. But for what I was able to run I was impressed with it. Frankly, I can’t wait until Windows 7 comes out, I’m looking forward to it and I hope Microsoft gets it right this time.

So what did I do next? I wiped my hard drives clean and I installed my copy of Windows Server 2008 on my laptop. Talk about a huge difference! All my hardware worked perfectly and my laptop performed way better than Windows Vista! Who would have thought that a server OS would make a great desktop OS!?!? Anyways, I disabled all the unneeded features and services and I turned on the “desktop user experience” that is included with Windows Server 2008 to “Vistaify” the OS.

I have to say I have been pretty happy with this, and I think this is what I’m going to stick too as my OS until Windows 7 comes out. Give it a try and let me know what you think!

-RP

EnergizeIT 2009

So Microsoft has a bunch of events running across Canada soon. These are the EnergizeIT 2009 events. Durings these events they will be discussing Windows 7 and Windows 2008 amongst other things.

This will be a good opportunity for you guys in the IT community to get out there and see what’s new on the horizon. After the whole Vista debacle, it’s nice to see a product like Windows 7 on the horizon. From my experiences using it (as I’ve blogged about before), I can’t wait for it to be released. As a matter of fact, it’s so popular there are petitions circling the Internet for Microsoft to release it even sooner. I think this wouldn’t be a good idea because even though we hate Vista, we don’t want Microsoft to rush Windows 7, we want them to get it right instead.

The nice thing about this EnergizeIT event is that the day before the event you can go to a local user group forum regarding the event, and then the day after the event you can go to what they’re calling an “Installfest” for Windows 7. Basically you get to install and play around with Windows 7 with techs on site to help you out and answer any questions you might have. Sounds like a great idea to me!

-RP

My Experience with Windows 7

Hi folks, so I tried out the recent beta of Windows 7 on my laptop having been absolutely fed up with my Vista 64 bit installation. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. My computer ran really slick as compared to the Vista OS. It looks like they ‘ve come a long way to making this OS better.

I didn’t experience any of the constant headaches that I was having with Vista. Things actually seemed to be running smoothly. I currently use Windows Server 2008 64 bit with the desktop experience enabled on my laptop and it runs great. I found that the Windows 7 installation ran quite similarly to Windows Server 2008 if not a little quicker.

I do have some gripes however. I got some really strange errors that seemed to be related to the .NET Framework when trying to install Microsoft Office 2007. I tried using the released .NET sdk and framework for Windows 7 that Microsoft released but it wouldn’t install. Also Windows updates worked for a while and then they completely bombed out. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t get the Windows updates part of Windows 7 working again. I can forgive these things for the time being because they are still in beta.

I have now wiped Windows 7 from my system and am using Windows Server 2008 as my laptop OS. I will try Windows 7 again on my laptop when the next release comes out.

-RP

Rumours regarding Windows 7 upgrade from Vista

So unless your head has been under the sand lately, you’ve probably heard the latest rumours. The rumours are that Microsoft is considering providing a Windows 7 upgrade to recent Windows Vista buyers for free or for a substantially low upgrade price.

There is a post out there on a site called Tech ARP that lists a timeline for rollout of Windows 7. The question is if this is legitimate or not?

Regardless if it is, I think it’s a great idea for Microsoft to offer Windows 7 as a free upgrade or at least as a low cost upgrade to it’s current Windows Vista user base. This would go a long way to gaining trust and support from a user base that feels that Microsoft has largely given them the shaft.

-RP