Book Commercials & Misanthropic Observations

Day 2: Windows 7 RC

I downloaded the Windows 7 Release Candidate yesterday. This evaluation version will quit working in June 2010- giving me a year to play around with it for free. I suppose the downside is that I will have to purchase the full OS next year instead of a less expensive (I’m assuming) upgrade version.

This OS is loaded on my Everex stepnote – not a powerful machine by any standards. I timed the start-up this morning: 48 seconds. Not bad. And this is the full version of Windows 7 RC- not stripped down in any way for netbooks.

I really, really appreciated the partition control interface in the boot menu. I was so frustrated with the forced partition in vista and tried many things to shrink and expand and delete volumes, even partition magic- no dice. This netbook only has a 70gb hard drive and came partitioned in half, 33gb each (plus the tiny recovery partition. I kept that of course) I pointed my documents to the 2nd partition as well as a couple of programs - but was soo limited in my c:drive space-augh! All better now.

Well, so far the interface feels familiar, a little like Vista with the less heavy graphics and user account control. I knew how to turn UAC off in Vista, in Windows 7 you “turn it down” by degrees. Huh? I want it off. Oh well, I’ll leave it as is for now. It’s not bothering me.

The interface for choosing to log onto “this computer” or my domain at work is confusing to me- instead of a drop down and select which one, you must know the name of the computer or domain and enter it before the username, separating with a slash. I’m sure I’ll get used to it.

We are in the middle of a huge server switch in the office and I’ve opted to wait to join the new domain when it’s all up and running.

Not only have I not run into any troubles in my 2 whole days of vast experience, I had a surprisingly easy time loading work printers, even without joining the domain, AND accessing the shared folders on the old server. So with those 2 things out of the way, why would I even need to join the domain at this point? No applications install trouble yet, even with Adobe CS3 suite.

I needed the touchpad driver to disable the touchpad while my mouse is plugged in. I can’t stand when your cursor jumps around while you type. I downloaded the Vista version and it worked beautifully. I read online that most vista drivers will work with windows 7.

I could go on and on- by now your eyes are glazing over. I’m just gonna go play with my new machine.