Windows 7 – the start of a journey

Windows has been my choice of poison continuously since Windows 3.0 in 1990, followed by 3.1, NT 3.5 (buggy), 3.51 (not so), 4.0, 2000 and finally XP for the past nearly 10 years. After missing Vista, it is past time for a change.

The hardware is Intel i7 860 (4 core hyperthreaded), 4GB memory, 950GB disk, ATI Radeon 4770 with 512MB, dual 1680×1050 panels. Nice. Software is Windows 7 Ultimate from MSDN.

Installation is remarkably smooth. First, install off DVD and get the partition layout just right. The CD supplied for the video card has no Windows 7 driver, but the network connection works almost instantly and the driver is up there on the ATI site. No surfing yet, until updates are installed.

Configure desktop, explorer, network printer, turn on IIS, enable IE8, install Firefox, pick up some other useful software and that’s enough for Xmas eve.

Xmas day: install Office 2007 and Visual Studio 2008. Now Windows Updates: 40 of them. Why so many for an O/S just released?

Boxing Day: use Windows Easy Transfer to pick all the data off the old system. The SATA drive from the XP system drops straight into an external eSATA box and Easy Transfer copiea 5.6GB of data including Outlook PST and My Documents in around 30 minutes. The wonder is: It Just Works! A few more minor tweaks and it’s fully operational. All up, around 12 hours which is a vast improvement on the previous system build.

Make sure to keep detailed logs of every piece of software installed and every item configured, so next time should be even faster.

Windows 7 is nice, really nice. More later.