Two Days, Completely Wasted

Yesterday, my sure and steady laptop - a Lenovo - accelerated what it started doing a few weeks ago, which is to push the screen to stand-by mode all on its own. Over time, the frequency of it came to every 60 seconds. The only way to un-blacken my screen was to actually put the computer in stand-by mode, and then revive it. Awkward...

So I bought me a new laptop, the HP TouchSmart, replete with 64-bit dual quad processors and Windows 7. Now I'd heard all of the horror stories of Vista, and I thought that by getting Windows 7, I'd be fairly problem-free.

Au contraire...

I'll spare you my agony, but suffice it to say that while Windows 7 looks cool and runs fine, there are a few things you want to avoid:

• Don't try to connect your Windows 7 machine wirelessly to your XP machine to conduct file transfer.
• Don't have any confidence that your 32-bit apps will function adequately on a 64-bit machine.
• Keep the caffeinated tea handy for the late night and long days of conversion.

by Brett Rogers, 1/7/2010 4:58:22 PM
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Just out of curiosity, once you worked out your issues, did you decided to run 7 in XP mode for familiarity or are you rocking the new UI?

Posted by Casey Head (http://www.thewarning.us), 1/8/2010 12:14:37 PM

I am rockin' the new UI. The UI isn't difficult at all. But behind the scenes, things like IIS 7, the persistent "run as administrator" that I have to do, and the communication between the various computers I have to get this back up and running has been tedious. All of these are getting worked out...

I did find that I needed to run my old installation of Outlook as though on XP. But other than that, I am pure Seven.

Posted by Brett Rogers (http://www.beatcanvas.com), 1/8/2010 12:31:38 PM

Yeah, that kind of echoes my impressions of the OS. 7 while certainly more user friendly and powerful that Vista, it is still a little too locked down for power users.

If you right click your shortcuts and access the program properties, you can set permanent "run as administrator" status for individual programs. That way as long as you're logged on under an account with administrator privileges they will automatically launch in admin mode.

Posted by Casey Head (http://www.thewarning.us), 1/8/2010 2:12:51 PM

How compatible are the older Microsoft Office Programs (Word, Project, etc.) with 7?

Posted by Pale Rider, 1/9/2010 12:32:46 AM

I'm successfully running Office 2000. To get Outlook to run, I had to run it in XP mode. But the others seem to work fine.

I have yet to find a compelling reason to upgrade the Office suite at the tune of a few hundred dollars. Nothing about the new releases excite me at all, and only offer the frustration of dealing with a new interface.

I do notice that running service packs for O2K is stiffarmed by M$. The service pack says, "I can't find O2K" when I try. I'm sure that was intentional on M$'s part.

Entice me, say I, but don't force me.

Posted by Brett Rogers (http://www.beatcanvas.com), 1/9/2010 2:41:06 AM

Vista sucks so bad Ive been debating upgrading to the 32 bit. I think I'll pull the trigger on it since it looks like it should work for me.

Posted by Pale Rider, 1/9/2010 12:39:38 PM

I'm over my grumpiness about changing. Overall, it's good for me. The operating system seems stable and I'm once again able to do the things that I need to do. The one thing that I still don't like about it is running a program and being asked every time whether I want to run the program. There has to be an option to shut that off somewhere...

Posted by Brett Rogers (http://www.beatcanvas.com), 1/9/2010 1:50:08 PM

You can deactivated user account controls under your user profile in control panel, and stop getting the confirmation prompt. CNET has a good guide to optimizing 7.

Posted by casey head (http://www.thewarning.com), 1/9/2010 2:11:28 PM

Just finished my Win 7 32 bit upgrade. Other than taking 2.5 hrs it seems to have worked well. I've already noticed improved system performance.

Thanks for the tip Casey! I seldom buy electronics without checking CNET first. I never looked for software there though. :)

Posted by Pale Rider, 1/13/2010 9:44:49 PM