It’s not like Microsoft hasn’t been patching Win7 though, I get told there’s a new update that I need to install 3 or more times a week. On the one hand that’s a good thing that MS is fixing problems and taking care of issues. On the other, damn that’s a lot of problems and issues to fix.

But the big deal about a Service Pack is that Microsoft has been known to completely change or include functionality with a true SP. However, Ballmer has already stated that this SP won’t be that big a deal. Considering Windows 7 itself is just a massive Service Pack to Vista, yeah, he’s probably right.

I’ve gotten used to Windows 7 now. I’m not saying I like it, because really I still don’t, but I’ve gotten used to the things you can and can’t do with it.

It is funny though that even though Vista was bad, Windows 7 is almost exactly the same OS and people love it. People can say what they want, but Windows 7 is Vista SP3. The dialog boxes, UAC, Control Panel and so many other components in Win 7 are simply reused from Vista. It has some cosmetic changes to the UI and Taskbar and the widgets have been taken out of your way, but at the hear of things, Windows 7 IS Vista, just without the stinky name.

http://www.neowin.net/news/steve-ballmer-quotwe-tried-too-big-a-taskquot-with-vista

But anyway, using CloneDVD and AnyDVD I made a copy of the disc and using VirtualCloneDrive mounted the ISO image into Windows. However, I was stymied by the Windows 7 error that no DVD playback codec was installed. Really? You couldn’t include the damn playback codecs in the Starter Edition?

And it seems I’m not the only one who wants to play a DVD on a Netbook. As soon as you do a Google search multiple articles come up, but they all have the same answer. You either need to upgrade Windows (which is a crap answer) or install the free VLC DVD player.

Within minutes of finding the answer I had VLC loaded and the movie was playing. And it played just fine. It got choppy every now and again, but it obviously works. But it’s not so much that the DVD codec was missing, it’s more the total contradiction of how Windows works. If you right click on the ISO image you get the option to "Burn the image". My question is, how? To what? There’s no DVD burner! If the argument is movies don’t play since there’s no DVD drive, why the hell does Windows 7 Starter offer a choice to burn a DVD to a non-existent burner? And then if it did burn the DVD it couldn’t use it, it doesn’t have the codecs!

Make up your mind Bi-Polar Windows, are you going to work with DVDs or not?

I hated the feature from the moment I used it a few months back. You get this minimalist dialog box that wants you to enter a tag but doesn’t give any other information about what’s going on (is this metadata or the filename?). You can’t tell anything about where the files will end up. Then if you click Advanced, you can make changes, but then have to start the import process over again for them to take effect.

The major problem I have with this is that there is no way to selectively import photos; it’s an all or nothing proposition. For example if you take pictures at one location, then take another batch somewhere else, when you download them you can’t separate them out into individual folders. What the hell kind of thinking is that? And what really goads me is that this functionality was available and worked perfectly fine in XP!

I mean seriously, you take something that worked pretty well in the previous version, then strip everything down, remove most of the features and functions then package it up as a new and improved edition? What are you thinking? The only thing the XP photo import needed was a way to remove the trailing space before it appended the number to the end of the file. Other than that it was just fine.

But this photo downloader sucks. I hate it. I can barely tell how it’s going to work, I can’t move my photos around, it STILL puts a space then appends the number (which I then have to use another program to remove that damnable space), and I can’t tell it not to import a picture. The feature is useless to me. I guess I’ll either use Lightroom or Paint Shop Pro to import the photos now. The way Windows 7 does it is just too annoying. I guess I just need to shoot RAW all the time and just bypass this feature altogether, but I don’t believe most photos need to be shot in RAW so even that is a little overkill. Once again, Windows 7 just adds another layer of frustration.

And as a final thought, since this feature is identical to the one in Vista it still makes me wonder why everything feels Windows 7 is so much better than Vista. Microsoft recycled the same code all over the place; they’re basically the same OS. I think people are fooling themselves into liking Windows 7.

Just for the record, I don’t like Vista or Windows 7.

Windows 7 manages to take this simple concept, throw it out the window, set it on fire, piss on the ashes and come up with a whole new, more complicated way of doing it.

Two co-workers and myself use Windows 7. We aren’t on a domain. I don’t think we’re even in the same Workgroup, Homegroup or whatever super cool name Windows calls it now days. We are however connected into the same hub and want to share files. You would think this would be easy. Not so anymore.

The simple act of setting Everyone – Read on a folder doesn’t do a thing. It’s not shared like you would expect. The only way we got this to work was to actually create a new machine account, set a password, then when the user connects they’re prompted for credentials and then low and behold you can see the files. This also means they can log onto my machine if they want to! Nice security!

Clearly being an Administrator on your own machine doesn’t mean anything anymore, and the word Everyone has a different meaning in the Microsoft world than it does for the rest of us. Everyone is some group of people nobody knows about. Seriously, why does it have to be this hard to use this stupid Operating System? An no, my server and workstations at home aren’t in a domain, or part of the same workgroup, and yet, they share files with no problems what so ever.

Yet again, another function that used to work, ruined by Windows 7, or rather Windows Vista SP3 as it should be called.

OneNote 2003 is great and OneNote 2007 is amazingly better. I use 2007 everyday at work and am a huge fan. I even write all my blog posts in it now. I can’t remember the last time I used Word.

Dropbox is also an awesome sync tool which lets me sync files across the web and across multiple machines without even thinking. Just drop a file in there and now I have access to it no matter where I log in.

And now I’ve combined the power of these two apps by storing my OneNote Notebook inside of Dropbox. I create reminders for myself, jot down notes, links to articles, solutions to computer problems, and even article ideas and can work on them wherever I am. It’s an incredibly useful and simple way to transfer ideas and projects around.

What’s funny, I can put files in Dropbox and use the Linux client to grab them and transfer files between Operating Systems. It’s faster than trying to use a thumbdrive.

If you do a lot of writing or need to keep track of ideas, OneNote is the way to go. If you’re working on multiple machines you need Dropbox. When you put the two of them together you can work on your projects no matter where you are. Fantastic!

Then came the Uber test. Using PlayOnLinux I actually got Office 2007 to install and run. I was able to use Word and OneNote within Ubuntu. Word seemed to run flawlessly, while OneNote had some issues at shutdown. It seems to crash on exit, which is noted on the WineHQ site, but it doesn’t seem to lose any data. I’m note sure I would actually use Office in this configuration, VirtualBox seems safer, but it was one heck of an experiment and incredibly interesting to get it working.

I’m starting to get the hang of Ubuntu. By no means am I versed in it’s workings, but I’ve been able to install a ton of useful software and it seems there’s plenty of ways to get some old Windows app to run on it as well. Again, VirtualBox seems the smarter bet, but as I get more comfortable with the platform I become more convinced that I will be replacing Windows 7 in the not too distant future.

I now shut down all the apps before I put it to sleep so I don’t lose anything I’m working on. Windows 7 seems to have issues galore with Sleep mode (just look it up in Google); can’t control the network when it comes out of sleep and now most of the time I can’t get the thing to sleep without it crashing. It’s stupid garbage like this that just infuriates me. My Dell Dimension with XP goes into and comes out of Sleep mode dozens of times a week without issue.

Nice work Microsoft, way to improve on your previous OS.

I recently bought a Dell Inspiron 630 to replace an older Dell Dimension 5150. The Inspiron is an AMD Athlon II X4 chipset since I didn’t want to go with Intel this time around. Instead of using the onboard video I installed an Nvidia 8500GT PCIe video card and an Nvidia 6200 PCI card. I have two monitors plugged into the 8500GT card and one into the 6200 card for a total of three monitors across two video cards.

The funny thing, the system and Windows both recognize the cards. The drivers are installed and updated. And, when Windows initially starts it can see both cards and puts a display across all three. On the surface everything looks fine.

Until I start arranging windows. Within a minute or two of trying to use this configuration all three screen will lockup and it looks like the entire machine is hung. However, most of the time I can press Ctrl-Alt-Delete, lock the machine, log back in, and the video will respond again (at least on the main monitor, the video on the other two is completely locked and unusable). This usually gives me enough time to get to Control Panel and disable the 6200 video card. Once that card is disabled, everything works fine. I can drag and drop across monitors without issue and it doesn’t lock up. As soon as I enable the card, the problem comes right back.

As I mentioned, the drivers are updated and they use the same driver download. Windows doesn’t show any conflicts or errors in Device Manager. And since it can power that card and monitor it appears everything is fine. But alas, it simply can’t use it correctly.

Under Windows XP these same cards in this same configuration worked correctly. It just baffles me that Windows has a handle on the card to begin with then fumbles all over itself.

Is this a problem with Windows and dual video cards or is this some hate between an AMD mother/chipset combination and Nvidia? I’ve noticed hundreds of articles about problems with Windows 7 and multiple video cards and no one seems to have a solution. Since multiple monitors is extremely common, and multiple video cards is just as common I can’t see why Windows 7 can’t make this work. I’ve seen all sorts of comments about buying two identical cards, but Win7 isn’t worth $100 bucks to me, it’s certainly not worth me spending a few hundred more on video cards just to get it to do something an older version could handle.

Anyone else running into something like that? For the time being, I guess I’m just SOL and this is another problem with the latest and greatest Microsoft has to offer.

And the funny thing is, I can’t go back to Windows XP because I don’t have the 64-bit version and even if I did, that OS is such a horrid piece of junk I would be facing just as many compatibility issues since nothing runs correctly on XP64. Talk about red headed stepchild.

It’s pretty ironic that Microsoft started off the decade with the launch of Windows Me, the completely unnecessary and instantly forgettable sequel to Windows 98. When it comes to OS duds, I’m pretty sure most people would agree that Windows Me is at the top of the list.

As the decade came to a close Microsoft comes out with Windows 7, the hurried yet completely necessary upgrade to the second worst OS they ever put out, Windows Vista. Vista was a dog with fleas from the day it hit the shelves, but the part that puzzles me is that Windows 7 looks and acts just like Vista that I can’t understand why people say Win 7 is so much better. The UAC is the same, the dialogs are the same, Control Panel is the same; the only thing that looks different is the Taskbar. If anything, Windows 7 should have been called Vista Service Pack 3, but MS was desperate to put Vista behind them so they had to make a new name for it.

I’ve tried to like Windows 7, really I have. I use it both at home and at work and I just can’t deal with it anymore. The constant updates are one thing, I’d rather MS fix the bugs as they find them rather than waiting six months, but come on, do we really have to have an update every other day? It’s a bit much and makes me wonder about the stability and security of this wreck.

The updates I can handle, it’s the constant crashes and fights to get the OS to do what I want. I’m tired of being told I don’t have permissions to files or don’t have permissions to run executables. I’m tired of all the compatibility issues with 32 bit apps running. Where are my 64 bit apps? Out of all the apps I have only 1 is 64 bit and that’s Photoshop Lightroom. Oh wait, I lied, I have a 64 bit disc defragger, color me impressed! It’s not that every other OS has 64 bit apps and Windows doesn’t, but let’s be real here. 64 bit processors have been around for more than 5 years and we still don’t have anything that truly takes advantage of them. We get four cores and can barely tap their potential.

As it stands now, my plan is to get rid of Windows 7. I’ll hold out until the first Service Pack comes along (remember, never buy a new OS until the first Service Pack hits the street) but unless things drastically change, and I doubt they will, I’m going to reformat this machine. I know I can’t get rid of Windows completely, I have far too much money invested in software, and quite frankly some apps just don’t exist on other platforms. Switching to Ubuntu would be my first choice, but what are my choices when it comes to Banking and Photo Editing apps? Ubuntu is a fantastic OS and serves my needs extremely well, but there’s a few places that still need work. But I have a plan. I plan to use Ubuntu as my main OS, I think after 10.04 comes out in April, then I will run Windows XP SP3 under Virtualbox. I think XP is infinitely more usable than Windows 7 and since nothing is truly 64 bit anyway, what am I losing? If I give the Virtual Machine 4GB of RAM I’ll still be in the same boat I am today. And then, within another year or so, I truly believe I will buy a Mac and use that for all my other software needs – banking, photo editing.

There is no advantage to Windows 7 so why should I keep using it? Worst case, I could just put the 32-bit version of Win 7 in a VM and use it that way. At least I wouldn’t have the compatibility issues, the network problems or shutdown hassles. The 32-bit apps wouldn’t know the difference would they?

Anybody else try a crazy idea like this? Even if I don’t do it at home, it’s what I’ll be doing at work. I have no need for photo editing and money management there. Everything we do is web based and that’s been working a lot better under Ubuntu than Win 7.

The clock is ticking, the days of Windows 7 are numbered.