Microsoft Windows

Windows 7: Upgrade or fresh install?

As a general rule in the IT industry we generally advocate clean install vs upgrade, however  when it comes to my home PC I can be lazy at times. I decided rather than doing a clean install I would upgrade my PC from Windows Vista Ultimate to Windows 7 Ultimate. I ran through the upgrade process and was immediately impressed with Windows 7 and disappointed with some weird issues my computer started having immediately after the upgrade.

1) Any time I opened an application (any application) the PC would free for about 4-5 seconds

2) After any reboot my Internet connection would not work unless I went into device manager and uninstalled and reinstalled my NIC

I attempted to troubleshoot the isssue to no avail. In the end I wiped the thing and did a clean install of Windows 7 and now everything runs beautiful.

So to answer the question of upgrade vs clean install, always do clean install. Really, I should have known better.

External Blu-ray drive coming to the Xbox 360

And the last horse finally cross’s the finish line ….

Steve Ballmer has confirmed that an external Blu-ray drive will be coming to the Xbox 360.

Check out the article:

 http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/10/22/…

All I can say about this it’s about time, way to catch the last train out of the station on this one.

Running 16 bit applications in a 64 bit OS

So as many know Microsoft did not include any support for 16 bit applications in it’s 64 bit windows Operating Systems. What does this mean if you want to have a 64 bit OS but still need to run 16 bit applications? Well you have a couple of choices.

You could certainly use a product like VMware workstation or HyperV or such to run a virtual machine within your system that uses a guest OS that can run the software. This is a great solution but not a free solution.

If you are looking for a free solution I can recommend using an application called DosBox  http://www.dosbox.com/). This runs great inside my Vista 64 box and is completely free. I highly recommend it.

Windows 7 - Cracked product key

Check this out:

 http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/29/…

You know, its stuff like this that forces legitimate users to have to put up with crap like high licensing costs and stuff like Windows Genuine Advantage. On the flip side it’s  high licensing costs and stuff like Windows genuine advantage that causes people to pirate in the first place so I guess its a pretty vicious cycle all around.

Microsoft announces free upgrades and discounts for Windows 7

Check it out here:

 http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2009/06…

My 2 cents on this. Microsoft should give a free copy to every poor soul who purchased Windows Vista along with a hand written apology.

Microsoft to add new features to Windows 7 to make it more secure

Check out this article

 http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/28/…

I commend Microsofts decision to put out a client based OS which isn’t overflowing with security holes and exploits … and it only took them 30 years.

I don’t know why I continue to hope that Microsoft will one day release a product that you might want to use on there advertised release day rather than having to wait till the real release date (SP1). Like a battered spouse I keep going back. Sigh.

TS Roaming profiles in a mixed server 2003 and 2008 enviroment

Here is an interesting tidbit and a rare kudo to MS. When you setup a TS roaming profile for users who connect to server 2003 TS boxes and then start introducting 2008 TS serversas well you will not need to make any changes to your TS profiles. By default when they connect to the 2008 box, it will create a TS profile in the same directory as your TS profiles regularly are and append the 2008 profile with a V2. For example if your TS profile path is \\server1\users\userA, it will create a new folder \\server1\users\UserA v2. From then on in it will auto sense the TS server they are logging into and user userA for the 2003 TS box and userA v2 for the 2008 TS box.

Pretty cool stuff.

Wireless not working after HyperV install

I am running server 2008 on my laptop and decided to install HyperV so that I could have an XP VM.

As soon as I installed HyperV my wireless connection stopped working. Though the wireless connection is there in manage network connections it is missing when doing an IPconfig and won’t locate any networks.

I have since uninstalled hyperV, reinstalled both the wireless card driver and the wlan service and nothing has resolved this. I will likely have to reinstall my OS.

If you have 2008 on a laptop and decide to install hyperv fair thee warned.

Windows 7 RC released today

Hey all

Windows 7 RC is being released for download today by  Microsoft.

I have taken a look at it, and I have to say, it seems pretty good way better then Vista.

I encourage you all to check it out.

Microsoft releases Windows 7 RC go live dates

Check it out here:

 http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/26/…

I’m really excited about Windows 7, from everything I have seen it may be Microsoft’s best client OS yet (ok I realize that’s not a high bar to set ….)