Tech One CC's Blog

Update Windows 7 “IT’S GREATTTTTT”

Paul Galloway — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 01:51:20 +0000

Sorry for the delay in commenting further on Windows 7. Since I last checked in I have moved on from RC versions of 7 to the RTM version (Release to Manufacturing). Well my first thoughts were:

Install: Went smoothly, Windows 7 picked up most of the drivers with the exception of my Dell touch pad. I jsut needed to go out to Dell’s site and download a 64 bit Vista driver and it worked perfectly. The speed of the install is just amazing, after starting the DVD the and a few inputs from me, the OS was loaded in about 15 minutes, that’s fast.

Boot times: No problems here the system booted up quickly into a clean desktop, the themes and aero that comes with 7 is much improved from what we had in Vista. The aero peek is worth getting the OS, it tabs windows of the same type in a single tab, as you mouse over them it gives you a thumbnail preview of that window you can expand it, close the window or close the entire group of windows. Its pretty slick.

The single biggest complaint of Vista was that it took a super fast processor, lots of ram to get the system to be even on par with an XP machine. Not the case anymore, even with only a gig of memory on the laptop, the performance for everyday browsing and word processing was good.

Start Menu: is much improved as it is so much easier to type a few letters for the file, document or program I want and windows 7 displays it for me. This is really great when you have saved that nice picture and don’t know the location you saved it at. Just search by file type like jpeg and there it is.

Back later with a look under the hood Windows 7.

Windows 7 in the Business and Price Tag

Paul Galloway — Wed, 20 May 2009 04:47:20 +0000

I must say that I am really engaged in a ll things Windows 7. From what I can tell with my testing, MS finally got it right and has corrected alot of the issues we saw at launch with Vista. Don’t get me wrong, Vista works for me; but I have to admit that was after alot of tweaking, not to mention making sure that my hardware was really good.

What Vista lacks in compatibility, speed and ease of use, Windows 7 makes a lot of good improvements in these areas. I am a bit concerned with rumblings I am hearing that MS will make 7 even pricier than Vista. I guess with all the excitement around 7, they feel that they can really charge what they want. That really irritates me with the current state of affairs with IT budgets and the economy. I actually agree with some, that since there were quite a few headaches with Microsoft’s Vista, they should consider offering a least some version of Windows 7 at a reduced price tag.

Otherwise I think businesses will continue to stick with XP and if the price goes up on this OS, can’t say that I blame them. I have several clients looking to move to 7 since they have skipped Vista altogether, yet MS will have to do a better job of courting them. Delivering a new operating system with a new look is one thing making it easy and viable for the business with its existing apps and software is another thing.

So I have been inching closer and closer to working with open source software. Not saying that I am giving up on Windows; just that until I am convinced that Windows 7 is the real deal, I will have to look to economical alternatives in the Unix/Linux world.

VMWare Tools in Windows 7 Beta VM on ESX Host

Paul Galloway — Thu, 07 May 2009 04:53:19 +0000

I ran into an interesting problem when attempting to load my shiny new Windows 7 operating system into a virtual machine on an ESX 3.5 host. The install went fairly straightforward, I actually added it as a 64 bit “Other” virtual machine since ESX 3.5 obviously does not natively support Windows 7. I was able to boot into the W7 desktop and like always, the first thing to do with a new vm is to install VMware tools for that extra oomp. I mean without it your vm will crawl. Anyway kept getting an error when trying to run the installer for VMware tools.

Then it hit me, because W7 is in beta and not supported by VMware I should switch the type of VM from 64 Bit Other to 64Bit Windows Vista, and lo and behold when I did the tools installed perfectly. BTW, I will give my thoughts on Windows 7 a bit later but the way it is looking now 7 appears to be shaping up to be what Microsoft claimed Vista would be. I like it!

Hello world!

Paul Galloway — Thu, 07 May 2009 04:36:45 +0000

Finally got this thing up and going. I have been putting it off for quite sometime but clients and business have made doing it a necessity. Anyway this blog will mainly encompass all the things I learn or have been doing with various technologies.