Yesterday the release version of Windows 7 became available to MSDN subscribers. I
got on and started downloading it about 20 minutes after it was available. The expected
download time jumped around between 33 and 21 hours depending on the current download
speed. I left the download running overnight and was expecting to burn a DVD this
morning. When I checked I found that I have only downloaded 63% and that the message
says it is trying to connect. Bummer. At least I was able to get in and download some
of it. I remember other releases where the servers were overwhelmed and you couldn’t
even connect.
I need to fix my machine in a bad way. Start up times have been going up and this
morning the wired network connection refused to connect to the external world (it
appeared to not get a DHCP address) even though it worked fine last night and hardware
wise it seems to be working. I have been holding out for Windows 7 to do the format/install
because I didn’t want to lose two weekends.
I have loved testing Windows 7 and am looking forward to having the better performance
(even if it is only perceived) and learning more about the interface as I use Windows
7 as my primary OS. I have been testing in a VPC until now so I haven’t tested the
XP emulation. I have some software, most notably for a digital camcorder, that only
runs under XP and when I upgraded my last machine to Vista I was unable to get the
video off of tape and onto DVD. I hope this fixes the problem. I may find I am going
to have to go back and build out a XP virtual machine and boot into it just to transfer
video. I hope I don’t have to go all the way back to installing on metal to get the
XP support that I need.
I am also looking forward to learning more about programming for Windows 7. I think
a lot of the negative press about Vista came from early applications that “didn’t
work the Vista way”. Which means they didn’t necessarily take advantage of the Aero
UI or didn’t work well under UAC. With the excitement around Windows 7 I hope more
applications will be updated to run better under Windows 7.
My general plan for upgrading my machine is
-
Back up the files using at least 2 different methods. I will do a Windows backup and
use Acronis TrueImage to snap an image of the hard drive that I could restore back
to if everything fails.
-
Install Windows 7 as a clean install.
-
Set up VPN connectivity and rejoin the domain.
-
Set up my domain user and make sure that my remote connectivity VPN, RAS, etc. works
for that user.
-
Create another backup with Acronis TrueImage so I can get back to this point easily.
-
Install KeePass, Office 2010 beta (I got an invite last week) and Visual Studio 2008.
At that point I should have most of what I need to work on Monday morning. Other programs
that I need to install would include things like Camtasia, Firefox, SQL Server, and
Zune. I will blog again on Monday about how my “lost weekend” went.
