Installed Windows 7 on the Dell Mini 9 October 30, 2009
Posted by AlisterComputeron in Reviews, Windows.Tags: Dell Mini 9, Windows 7
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Before the official release of Windows 7, there was a lot written about how it was going to be netbook-friendly. I decided to see first-hand what the folks at Microsoft referred to as “friendly,” by installing Windows 7 Enterprise.
I’m not going to go into a full review of Windows 7 on a netbook (there are plenty of reviews on the web with all the details you would want), but I will throw in my two pennies and say that if you have the means and want a change from dusty, old XP, Windows 7 will not disappoint. My Dell Mini is spec’d out with 1GB and a 16GB SSD. After installation, and installing Firefox, I’m left with 5.6GB free on the hard drive.
Windows 7 is zippy, boots quickly, and looks amazing on the Mini 9’s glossy screen. The Windows Aero themes are even enabled on the Mini. Streaming video from Hulu works well, too.
Overall, I’m impressed with Windows 7, both on my Dell Latitude D830 and the Mini 9. I think Microsoft got this version right, or at least as right as Microsoft can get something. Mac OS X is still my favorite OS, but Windows 7 has “wowed” me.
My Adventures in Installing Windows 7 October 23, 2009
Posted by AlisterComputeron in Windows.Tags: Windows 7
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Anyone upgraded to Windows 7 yet? I did mine earlier this week, and what an adventure it was!
I wanted to format my hard drive and do a fresh installation. I chose the Clean Install option in Win7, thinking this would allow me to format the drive. But, we got the upgrade disk, so the Clean Install takes the previous Windows folder and renames it to Windows.old, and basically does an upgrade (?).
Any way, so I’m doing the Clean Install from Vista, and the installation hangs. I shut off my PC thinking the installation would just pick up from where it left off. That didn’t happen, and that’s when I discovered that the upgrade disk wasn’t bootable.
So I installed XP, formatting the hard drive in the process, because I still wanted to do a clean installation, rather than an upgrade. I got Windows 7 installed, but I wasn’t able to connect to company’s wireless network. The network showed up in my list of networks, since it was downloaded from the GPO. But I could never get it to connect. A web search yielded similar stories, but no resolutions to the problem.
So my next strategy was to do a fresh installation of Vista, formatting the hard drive in the process, and do an upgrade from Vista. I got Vista installed and made sure I had everything working, including my wireless connection. Then I upgraded to Windows 7. And I’m happy to report, that it worked this time. It only took a day and half to get Windows 7 on my PC.
Google beats Bing, Even when Searching for Microsoft Stuff October 21, 2009
Posted by AlisterComputeron in Internet.add a comment
In a totally non-scientific test of two leading Internet search sites, Google beats Bing, even when it comes to finding stuff on Microsoft’s web page. I did a search today on Microsoft’s web page, which uses Bing. I was searching for the admin tools to manage Windows servers that will run on the Windows 7.
These were my search terms: “administrative tools windows 7″
At Google, the top result was what I was looking for. At Microsoft’s web site, I found a hit for the admin pack for XP, but no listing for the admin pack for Windows 7 on the first page. At Bing.com the results were even worse: nothing on the first page was even relevant to what I was looking for.
So there you have it: Google continues to rule in web search.
