Windows 7

OEM Install Issues Are Real and Serious

In the wake of my latest blog on bargain Win7 versions, I got an e-mail from a former student and regular corresponent, asking about some problems with an install from a Windows 7 OEM version. Seems that he couldn’t get the install to run correctly on his target machine, no matter what he tried. This can be a real problem because the company that builds systems that use OEM versions of Windows is supposed to provide first-line technical support for Windows on those machines. When you build your own machine and run an OEM version of the OS, you’re technically on your own hook for system support and troubleshooting.

I recommended that he start troubleshooting by running the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor on his target machine and see what it reports. It may very well be the case that the hardware fails to meet minimum requirements, and something is impeding the usual warnings and error messages to that effect that would normally appear inside the install process itself.

Next, he might try booting from the install media (after burning an ISO if he is working from a download), or perhaps using the ultra-snazzy new (and free) Windows 7 USB DVD Download Tool. By booting from an installable image, he may be able to sidestep whatever is hampering his install difficulties in the present circumstances (assuming, of course, that the Win7UA doesn’t flag issues that need to be addressed before an install can complete, or even begin–in that case, he must first remedy those issues before trying again).

But this, alas, is the real nub of the potential problems with a quasi-legal version of Windows 7. While MS will cheerfully and thoroughly support upgrade or full retail install problems by phone or Web chat, you won’t get a peep out of them on OEM versions. That means you’ll need to turn to somebody else who knows more about Windows than you do for help instead, and hope they’ve got the time to assist you in figuring out what wrong, and how to fix it.

Ed Bott Scores Again with money-saving Win7 suggestions

Everybody who reads this blog is probably on the clock for an IT job of some kind. But let’s face it: that means you’re probably handling systems off the clock as well, for family and friends. Everybody can benefit from money-saving tips for software, and Ed Bott has put together a real nonpareil of a blog for Windows 7 savings entitled “Seven perfectly legal ways to get Windows 7 cheap (or free).”

This blog makes passing mention of the promotions that let buyers of PCs with Vista installed qualify for free Windows 7 upgrades (as long as they purchased on or after July 1, 2009, that is). It concentrates the savings deals available in the form of upgrade offers, student/teacher discounts, and via subscriptions designed for technical professionals and developers.

Of these the best deals include:

• Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade Family Pack: covers up to 3 PCs for $150 or less. Killer deal. Here’s one still available at Staples ($150).
• Buy a new PC, upgrade the old one for half off (at this rate Home Premium goes for about $50, Professional for about $100, and Ultimate for $120). Ask your retailer, and use this MS Web page if you must.
• Students who can prove enrollment at an accredited institution qualify for a single copy of Win 7 Home Premium or Professional for a mere $30. Unbeatable. Apply at this Windows 7 Web page to see if you qualify.

Check out Ed’s blog to get all the details, and links to the deals.

Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor Helpful Even Post-Upgrade

The obvious use for the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor (W7UA) program is to evaluate and report on hardware running some earlier version of Windows to help professionals prepare for an upgrade to that OS. But it’s also the case that if you run the W7UA on a machine already running Windows 7, it will still identify potential issues with installed hardware or software even after the fact.

At the bottom, W7UA tells you which programs need upgrades for Win7

I was forcibly reminded of this the other day, when I ran the program to refresh my memory about its operation to answer a question from a student in a class I’m teaching right now. At the time, I noticed several programs that needed updates, including Acronis True Image Home (now available in a Win7-friendly 2010 version) and also Norton Internet Security (also now available in a 2010 flavor as well). The only program still showing–Alex Feinman’s handy little ISO Recorder utility–is actually also updated to version 3.1 (which supports Windows 7 and works fine on my system), but mis-reports itself as vesion 3.0 (which predated Windows 7 and didn’t support the new OS 100%).

Contrary to what you might expect, it may be worth running this tool again on systems you upgrade to Windows 7 after the upgrade is complete, just to make sure all the software is up to snuff as well.

Super Windows 7 Mouse/Keyboard Shortcuts

Whenever Microsoft rolls out a new OS, it’s always interesting to see what kinds of shortcuts get eliminated, added, or changed in that process. From my own experience, Windows7 offers plenty of neat and usable shortcuts to help savvy users make the most of its runtime environment. Thus, for example, my personal favorite at the moment is a quick right-click on any icon in the task bar. Instead of opening the linked application (or providing a list of active windows if it’s already running) as it would with a left click, this pops up a jump list of previously accessed views, documents, or related data objects (above the line), and gives you the option to close any open Windows, unpin the app from the taskbar, or launch a new instance of the same application in its own window instead (below the line).

Above, frequently or recently accessed items, below launch unpin or close commands

But that’s just the tip of a formidable iceberg of hidden, or at least, non-obvious shortcuts that Windows 7 makes available to it users. Here’s a list of interesting resources on this subject that you should find entertaining, if not downright useful, as you begin climbing the Windows 7 learning curve:

• Lifehacker.com: Best New Windows 7 Keyboard Shortcuts
• Microsoft Windows 7 Home: Keyboard Shortcuts (organized into 13 categories, of which general keyboard shortcuts and Windows logo key keyboard shortcuts are very much worth exploring)
• ExtremeTech: 12 Must-Know Windows 7 Shortcuts

Shoot! I’ve even written an article/guide on this topic myself (with my frequent “partner in grime,” Justin Korelc) for InformIT.com. As soon as that story posts, I’ll add it to this list. In the meantime, the preceding items should give you plenty to chew on and play with. Enjoy!

An MS (!*) Tool for Building Installable Windows UFDs

This weekend I got an email from my old buddy Mike Drips, who informed me he’d found a nice little tool for building a bootable, installable UFD for Windows 7 at the Microsoft Store. Alas, I had to call him this morning to get the full title of the tool — namely, the Windows 7 USB DVD Download Tool — because no amount of searching around with purely descriptive titles on that site helped me turn it up. But turn it up I did with title in hand, at the aforementioned link.

Given this free download and a valid Windows ISO image file, you can create a bootable UFD (that’s a USB Flash Drive, for those not in the know about this MS acronym) or burn a DVD from which to install Windows. Although the tool specifically identifies itself as for Windows 7, I was able to confirm by experiment that it also works with Windows Vista ISO image files as well ad Windows 7 files of the same variety. Reset your PC’s (or notebook’s) BIOS so it will boot from a UFD and presto! you can boot from the UFD to run the Windows installer.

Here’s a gallery of screenshots from installing (first four images) and using (next seven images) this tool that will give you a pretty good idea of what it is and how it works. Definitely worth grabbing, for those installs you plan to do “by hand!”

Initial set-up screen

Standard EULA page to which you must agree

Click the button to install the tool

Click Finish to complete the install

So much for installing the software. The next series show how it’s used to create a bootable UFD (warning: copy everything on that drive before you turn a UFD over to this program, because one of its first actions is to format the drive).

Start by picking the ISO file to install

Choose your target device: USB or DVD

Next, you must insert and select your target UFD

The UFD must be at least 4GB in size and you get multiple erase warnings along the way

Finally, the software gets down to work

On my test PC, it took about 2 minutes for the copying process to complete

The tool provides a successful completion message at the end if everything works

All you need to do to use this tool is to access setup.exe after inserting the UFD into a Windows machine (only works when installing a 32-bit OS from a 32-bit OS, or 64-bit OS from a 64-bit OS) or after booting from the UFD itself. Check it out! I think you’ll like it…

Slowly but surely, moving to 64-bit Win7

As far as I can recall, Windows XP was the first Windows version to support 64-bit operation (in fact, according to the 64-bit software timeline in the Wikipedia article “64-bit” the first such version was released on April 30, 2005 quite a bit later than the 32-bit XP release date in August, 2001). I haven’t messed with 64-bit versions of XP much, but came to appreciate them with Vista (where both 32- and 64-bit versions released simultaneously).

My appreciation is only improving with Windows 7. That’s because while the requirement that all drivers be signed might seem restrictive it is actually proving to result in more stable and reliable 64-bit systems for me as compared to the same systems running in 32-bit mode on the very same hardware. This observation has been dawning for me slowly as I migrate more of my production and test systems to Windows 7, and observe the differences in reliability and stability between the two OSes.

Here are three cases in point, to help illustrate my contention:

1. My primary test machine is built around an Asus P5K motherboard with an older QX6800 quad core processor, 8-12 GB of DDR2-800 RAM (I vary the amount of memory according to current usage patterns), an NVidia GeForce 9600GT, and three Samsung 1 TB SpinPoint drives. I’ve got Windows 7 Professional 64-bit running as the host OS, and also run 32- and 64-bit versions of Windows XP, Vista, and Win7 as guest OSes as well. This machine has had exactly 1 (!) runtime error since I updated the machine to that OS on August 8, 2009. Remarkable!
2. One of my test notebooks is an MSI PR200 with a T7300 Mobile Core 2 Duo, 4 GB DDR2-667 RAM, Intel GMA X3100 graphics, and so forth (details appear in this Tom’s Hardware Review from 2007). I’ve run both 32- and 64-bit Win7 versions on this platform and while the 64-bit version maxes out at about one minor hiccup weekly, the 32-bit version easily triples or quadruples that experience.
3. My primary production machine has always and exclusively been 32-bit since I first built it in 2006 for Vista. Readers of this blog and my ViztaView blog know that I’ve been plagued with bizarre and interesting hardware issues on this machine for years, and seemingly conquer them as they appear only to have them replaced by other, equally bizarre and mysterious issues. Guess what? I’ve now switched to 64-bit Windows 7 Professional on this  machine, and it’s quieted down considerably (from a dozen or more error items in Reliability Monitor weekly to one, or at most two).

Yes, I know, this is far from a sufficiently large enough sample to be statistically significant. But for me it’s significant in another, even more important way: I now spend less time troubleshooting systems, and more time working. The boss (my wife, that is) likes this, and so do my creditors and my bank balance. And thus, maybe — just maybe — the 32- to 64-bit switch may also be worth considering for those of who you’ve yearned for a more stable and reliable Windows desktop environment, especially on machines subjected to constant tinkering and upgrades (as mine, and I have to believe also, some of yours are as well).

More Windows 7 Downloads

Gosh! There’s so much hype and hoopla surrounding yesterday’s Windows 7 launch that I’m almost disinclined to add to the clutter myself. But hey: a guy’s gotta blog, so there’s plenty of interesting new stuff going on around this “big event” to provide grist for the mill. So far my favorite fluff coverage item is a snapshot of Linux father Linux Torvalds squatting in front of a big Windows 7 display in a Japanese high-tech outlet giving the thumbs-up sign (he’s in Tokyo to attend the Japan Linux Symposium, apparently).

But enough fluff, already. There were no less than 21 items released to the Microsoft Download Center yesterday, and at least three of them relate to Windows 7 and may therefore bear download and inspection. Here goes:

• A revised Windows licensing fact sheet, that adds Win7 coverage to Windows 2000, Windows 95, Windows Vista, and Windows XP.
• The Windows 7 Training Kit for Developers, which includes presentations, hands-on labs, and demos designed to help developers get up to speed on building Win7 compatible applications (I’m not sure, but I think this is a final release of a beta that’s been out for months).
• The Windows 7 Product Guide: a PDF (62 MB) or XPS (30.5 MB) version of the color, glossy MS Windows 7 intro, with a detailed tour of the new OS’s capabilities, interface, and design features (140 pp)

A few other potential items of interest amidst the plethora of recent downloads include:

• Installation Instructions and Release Notes for Windows Virtual PC and Windows XP Mode: pretty much self-explanatory, but the Download Windows XP Mode page now offers access to the final version, instead of the release candidate. Those already running Windows XP Mode are advised to uninstall the RC or beta version and download and install this version instead (be sure to back up your VHDs and ancillary files first, and you can run them inside the new version without a hitch).
• A new version of the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer 2.1.1 is available, modified to also work with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

Lots of new stuff to look at, and some of it actually interesting and/or informative, too. Enjoy!

Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor Final Version Released

In anticipation of the upcoming GA (general availability) day for Windows 7 tomorrow (October 22, 2009) I’ve been checking in on the Microsoft Download Center regularly to see what’s popped up there since my last visit. Though I checked on Monday, it was probably too early in the day to see then what I saw this morning upon my visit there — namely, the final (non-beta) release of the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor aka W7UA. It’s gone up a bit in size since the last release in mid-September, so obviously there have been some changes under the hood since then as well. Nothing loathe, I downloaded and install the software on my Windows 7 Ultimate production PC.

As far as I can tell the only change to the initial screen is that the word beta no longer appears anywhere thereupon.

After firing off the program, it shows the same “checking compatibility screen that earlier versions did.

After running the program, however, lots of changes are evident, as shown in this final results screen.

W7UA now recognizes that Win7 is installed, and pinpoints possible software compatibility issues

Earlier versions didn’t report that I was already running Windows 7, nor perforce address possible upgrades from lower- to higher-tier versions of that OS. Even better, I’m seeing much more helpful and useful information about upgrades to software with potential compatibility problems, including download links to grab such materials, when available. That’s really neat.

Even if you’ve already got a copy of the W7UA beta, it’s worth grabbing the final, production version. It will serve you better than the old one did!

Let’s trade one Reliability Monitor mystery for another, OK?

Anybody who’s been reading these blogs for any length of time knows that I am enamored of the Reliability Monitor in Windows Vista and 7. Back in early September I wrote a blog entitled “Why doesn’t Windows 7 post a reliability index any more?” At the time I was (and remain) a bit miffed because MS has to store a stability index value to graph out the basic reliability history, yet it chooses not to explicitly display that value when it draws out the graph for your information and edification. Here’s a somewhat squeezed down display from my system this morning, so I can point out a few bits and pieces.

Today, the stability index is less than great, but better than awful

Notice the absence of numerical values for the stability index anywhere on the display, and the categories for errors (red X), warnings (yellow exclamation point), and information (white “i” on a blue background) that the utility reports day by day. Note also the links at the bottom of the window.

As it happens, I jumped into a great blog by the inimitable Ed Bott at ZDNet this morning entitled “Windows 7 in the real world: 10 PCs under the microscope.” It’s a fascinating recitation of his experieces with 10 different PCs running Windows 7 over the past year or so. Throughout he cites specific stability index values from those machines, and I found myself asking “Where is he getting this data?”

That’s when I returned to the tool, and clicked the link at the lower left of its window (in case you can’t make out what it says, the link reads “Save reliability history…” I clicked the link, and saved the resulting data as an XML file, which I then opened in Internet Explorer. Bingo! As the following snippet illustrates, this is where you can find the actual numerical stability index value for any given day, captured at hourly intervals.

The graph data is right there in readable form

If you really want this data, you can go get it for yourself. But my question is: given that MS has to read this data to draw the graph in the first place, why can’t they add the few necessary lines of code to report the value in readable numeric form. They did it for the Vista version, but not for the Win7 version. I’m confused… and I hope they decide to fix this in an update or Service Pack some time soon.

That said, Bott also makes some great points about the value and meaning of the stability index in the aforementioned blog, on page 2. I’ll quote it verbatim:

And yet… My experience with this machine has been overwhelmingly positive. It runs nearly everything I throw at it and has no annoying bad habits. It doesn’t crash. It sleeps and wakes up reliably. The Reliability Monitor algorithm deducted huge amounts from the stability index (a total of more than 6 points) for two incidents that consumed 2-3 minutes each. In once case, an IE8 tab crashed four times in the space of a minute or two because of a problem with Adobe Flash in a single tab. Solution: Close that page. Two days later, I updated the excellent MediaMonkey music organizer/player to the most recent release, which proceeded to crash when I tried to run it. A quick trip to the support forums turned up the cause (an incompatibility with an iTunes 9 component) and the temporary fix (renaming a DLL). Although each event was annoying for a few minutes, neither one had even the slightest impact on performance after it had passed.

Lesson learned? If you’re happy with the way your system works, don’t obsess over a perfect 10.

On my production machine, I’ve had similar problems with several bits and pieces that have cost my stability index dearly. Until Dell came up with a bona fide Windows 7 driver for my AOL 968 combo device (print/scan/fax) I might see anywhere from three to ten “Printer Filter Pipeline Host stopped working” errors a day. Likewise, PC Doctor (the new beta version that supposedly works well with Win7) includes PC Tools Security Service item that crashed 7 times on 10/7/09, leading to the precipitous drop you’ll see in my stability index earlier in this blog. I’m happy to report that a switch to NIS 2010 took care of that problem, and that everything’s quiet with the AIO 968 since I upgraded the driver on 10/14. And now, I guess, I’m going to learn to live with a less-than-perfect stability index as long as my problems aren’t too serious or vexing.

Table of Features Exclusive to Win 7 Pro and Ultimate

All the way back on June 29, Ed Bott at ZDNet compiled a table of features that appear only in Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate (and by extension, also in Enterprise as well). Since early August, a lot of us have been installing the RTM version like mad and have learned more about which of those features that really matter. Here’s my own short list of same, that enterprise admins may want to consider, especially when pondering which OS to order, install, or allow on traveling notebooks — especially for those “gray area” machines that might be described as “purchased by the end user primarily for personal use, but upon which they may occasionally do real work, including e-mail and possible remote access.”

Pay attention: it’s the remote access that turns out to make many of the most important differences.
Of the 14 features only available on either (or all) of these higher-end Windows 7 versions, my experience has been that the following items are most likely to make a real difference, either to the users who work on such machines, or the IT professionals who must occasionally (or regularly) do likewise:

• Encrypting file system: matters for those organization or users too cheap to spring for an add-on encryption product (also addresses the final BitLocker item at the end of this list as well, in most cases). Some kind of encryption is absolutely essential on any machine upon which sensitive, confidential, or potentially “compliance-busting” data (HIPAA, SoX, PCI, and so forth) will reside.
• Windows XP mode: matters when users will want to run legacy applications that won’t work on Windows 7, but do work on Windows XP. Of obvious relevance when organizations use legacy apps that users may want to run on their machines for work purposes.
• Backup to network: Doesn’t sound like a big convenience, but beats the pants off having to provide and/or manage plug-in external USB drives when big storage or backup servers are readily available.
• Offline files: new improvements to this capability which manages synchronization between local and network copies of files, especially those that support policies about which ones sync and which ones don’t, may be appealing or convenient for IT professionals (but probably not to end users).
• Join Windows Domain: Absolutely, positively essential for most corporate or organizational networks. If users want to get any work done on the business network, they must first log in. If they can’t interact with AD, no dice.
• Remote Desktop Host: A huge convenience for IT professionals who might need to poke around on, or manage end-user machines remotely. Unless your help desk/IT staff have some kind of analogous third-party toolset (GoToMyPC, Remote Control Pro, numerous versions of VNC, and so on–see this list at Wikipedia for more candidates) this could be pretty important.
• AppLocker: requires Group Policy support (and hence by extension, AD/Windows Domain support). In the unlikely (but conceivable) event that you want to control which apps an end-user can run on a personal, quasi-business machine, this is an invaluable tool. I don’t see this happening on most end-user machines, however, because of the intrusiveness factor. But if security or official policy mandates such control before machines are allowed on internal networks, it might still happen anyway. In that case, this can indeed be a useful feature.
• BitLocker drive encryption: Basic, built-in “whole drive” encryption. Same observation as for EFS earlier: if the company (or user) is too cheap to spring for commercial 3rd-party add-ons, this could prove a must-have. Otherwise, not.

In my own personal experience of late, RDC (that is Remote Desktop Host) and Windows XP Mode have proved to be the biggest inducements for me to install and run Windows 7 Professional on production or test machines. RDC because it lets me jump over the network to do stuff on such machines; and Windows XP Mode not just because of its legacy app and dll support, but also because it provides a quick, easy way to let PC’s run custom-built virtual machines configured just the way I want ‘em. And BTW, backup to network is really, really handy if your network includes any kind of Windows server with sufficient storage space for backups.