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Now that Windows 7 is finally out (for us pirates anyway) the issue of migrating from Windows XP is once again a hot issue. I am one of many who actively skipped Windows Vista for a number of reasons, and Windows 7 is basically Vista take two, but on the other hand one has to move on at some point. It’s funny because ten years ago I would have installed the beta or rc or whatever without blinking. Nowadays, not even the rtm has any hold over me.
Apart from the fear that some software and hardware wont play nice, there are a number of gripes.
The most obvious problem being that no one really needs Windows 7 … yet. The real breaking point here is whenever Direct X 11 becomes mainstream and new games thus will require 7 (or Vista). Much like 7 is Vista as it ought to have been, DX11 is DX10 as it should have been. But even so, migration to DX11 isn’t happening over night and will obviously require new gpu hardware.
Also, there obviously has to be some sort of permanent activation option for us pirates before I take the jump. And I’m guessing that wont happen until 7 has been properly released and master keys can’t be retracted.
Oh, and Truecrypt doesn’t seem to work properly with Windows 7. I don’t know the full details, but obviously since all my computers are encrypted I’m not keen on taking a chance on Windows 7 in case it decides to trash the boot loader (just imagine dual booting). Realizing this also brings up the issue of the extra 200 MB partition that Windows 7 creates at the beginning of the hard drive unless you know how to manipulate the installer. Kind of like the bs you get from a brand name pc manufacturer.
And upgrading directly from Windows XP isn’t possible obviously. Clever, really clever. And moving from a 32 bit XP to a 64 bit 7 wouldn’t have been possible anyway. So if you are like me and have a million different applications, and do not use migration friendly solutions (like say web mail) you are in for quite an ordeal.
I’m thinking of plugging in an old PATA drive to evaluate the maturity of Windows 7. If I can be bothered.
Major fail! What an awkward experience. I must admit the installation went like a breeze, and pretty much every last piece of hardware was recognized. But I have not been so lost in a backward excuse of a GUI since I briefly installed Linux six years ago. No options are where they are supposed to be. And everything is hidden behind layer upon layer of misguided user friendliness. For starters I want my XP taskbar, quick launch and tray back. Nothing in Windows 7 made any sense. I got a nagging feeling that this had been an ill-conceived concession for touch panels. Or retards. In other words people who use Mac and might be fooled by baubles. I foresee a trend where people will spend much time and energy to make Windows 7 look and behave more like XP.
And no matter what you tried to do there was a prompt asking for permission. Sleep mode was functional but slow and reset the screen to 1024×768 (60Hz) upon waking up. The conclusion being that besides changing how everything looks, you’ll probably have to spend hours and hours tweaking every little detail of the OS.
The PATA drive I used for the test was indeed slow, and it became the one factor that put a dent in my Windows Experience Index. The score for this 120 GB WD drive made in 2003 was 5.3 and obviously that also became the final Experience Index for this setup. The next hurdle would have otherwise been the RAM which indexed at 5.5 (2 GB). CPU was at 7.1 and GPU at 6.8. Boot-up times were on par though with this XP setup and this considerably faster Samsung 500 GB drive. Which in reality means well over a minute from switching on the PC until the desktop has loaded. Even if you don’t count the bios checks (10 seconds or so) and cut a few seconds off the other end you’re still looking at a full minute. So no real change there. This is the reason I rely so much on STR / sleep obviously and if that isn’t working either there is really no point in migrating.
And, sadly, I could not get my Enterprise version of Windows 7 to activate using any of the supposedly foolproof loaders and whatnot. I ended up installing an all-in-one (x64+x86 in the same ISO, gives you the choice during the install) of W7 Ultimate instead. It even came with an activator pre-installed. One that worked. A couple of notes though. First, Enterprise was the better version. It had the right programs removed from the beginning (media center etc). Also, it launches the administrator account. With Ultimate you have to re-activate the real admin account. I also managed to master the USB Boot method for putting the install files on a thumb drive. But then I found out you could just as well burn ISOs to USB flash media using UltraISO. And when I understood how Gigabyte had fashioned the F12 boot media menu, I kind of liked it and I now use it for a dual boot of sorts.
W7 Ultimate had the same problem with sleep though. I managed to speed up the process to be as fast as XP by disabling the hybrid sleep function, the monitor always came back at 1024×768 and had to be refreshed in the screen resolution window. Could be that the graphics drivers aren’t loaded properly coming out of S3. Or that this is what you get for using a CRT screen. I suspect that disabling the DDC and going manual could be a first step to fixing this but upon meddling with this I all of a sudden was forced to a number of crude fixed resolutions. Like 1280×1024 (instead of 1280×960 that I normally run). I suspect that since I have the monitor on the slave outlet of an automatic switch, W7 isn’t able to pick up the screen hardware as it always has to come back from a cold start. I do vaguely recall having a similar problem on XP that I managed to solve … or if it perhaps solved itself.
I should also note that the activation was lost after resume from S3 / sleep. It’s not entirely unheard of from what I understand and the solution seems to be to remove whatever emulation you have and flash your bios with a SLIC version if that is indeed possible. And even then I’ve seen stories of people with S3 problems.
At the end of the day, meaningful deployment of Windows 7 seems ways off.
