Aftermath of Windows 7 Migration

As many of you know Windows 7 came out about a month ago and some people had major issues upgrading. Microsoft has yet to offer a fix for those users short of doing a clean install on their bricked machines. For those people that tried to do the upgrade rather than custom install option on the upgrade discs without backing up your data very bad idea. Anytime you do an upgrade you need to back up your data. However, all of you cannot do anything about it now. For those of you who did back up your data bravo! At least you could try doing a custom install and see if the upgrade disc would let you.

For me, I upgraded my desktop computer to Windows 7 and I need to say it is nice, but I really missed the quick launch bar as it was in Xp. However, there is a way to get that quick launch tool bar back on seven forums. I used this method and it has worked perfectly since! Just like with Windows Xp I could click and drag items onto the quick launch tool bar or else remove them by deleting them from it. What about my applications though?

Well, I was able to install all of the applications that I previously used: Microsoft Office 2003, ImageBurn, Symantec EndPoint, Trillian Basic, miscellaneous video games, and a variety of other applications. Overall I would say that Windows 7 has been fairly easy to migrate to. The only really beef I have with it is that 7's menus in the control panel are annoying.

Trying to unhide hidden folders was just a fiasco. The difference is that you have to go to the control panel and navigate to folders in 7 where as in Xp you would just have to right click go to properties and then choose to unhide folders. Oh well, I guess Microsoft is working to keep users out of important system folders. The other issue that I take with 7 is that they moved a lot of the advanced options around and made some buttons not even look like buttons. Overall though, I believe that I just need to get used to the design changes in order to really enjoy Windows 7.

As a side note be sure that you have at least 2GB of system memory otherwise 7 will run slower. Since I did not have 2GB of memory I had to purchase more, which is not the end of the world. With the extra memory my computer has run nice and smooth with only an AMD athlon 64 2.0GHz processor. My take on Windows 7 is that it is definitely what Microsoft needed to happen otherwise I could see Apple and Linux thriving.

Windows 7

The long awaited Windows 7 release day has come and gone. Will 7 be able to restore our trust in Microsoft? Will 7 be everything that Vista should have been and more? Well, we have all seen whether or not Windows 7 has lived up to expectations.

Early feedback showed that Windows 7 is amazing, faster than Vista (Just about anything is though). For all of those Windows enthusiasts, it really sounds like 7 will be the answer to your woes if you were stuck with Vista for the last few years. I can only hope that 7 lives up to all of the hype surrounding it. Speaking of hype, I wonder what happened to those poor souls trying to upgrade from Vista to Windows 7...

Apparently, for some users when they tried to upgrade from Vista to 7 they would end up in a cycle of endless reboots. To me that says lack of testing. Furthermore, I recently did a clean install from an upgrade disk over my Xp OS. I still question why on earth Microsoft did not give Xp users a way to upgrade rather than be forced to do a clean install. Granted, I would have done a clean install anyway simply because when people upgrade really weird stuff can happen and the computer could potentially get messed up.

So, really 7 has had the same damn problems that the other versions of Windows have had. Lack of testing translates to big problems for end users. However, I will say that 7 is very nice once it is installed. Currently I am running 7 professional and the only real upgrade I have to do is put in another gigabyte of RAM to make 2 GBs for my computer to run 7 well. To those of you that plan on upgrading, I recommend doing a clean install to bypass headaches that upgraders have run into.

Cute PC Mod!

I saw this on Gizmodo today and thought that it was so cool! Its a little den in a computer case. You gotta check this out!

Caring for Your PC

This is for the never-ending number of people that know how to operate their computers, but really do not know how to maintain their computers. I know some people that can program but can't seem to figure out how to deal with viruses or spyware on their computer(s). Then there is the another group that assumes that all that they need to do is install the anti-virus software and that will stop all viruses from getting onto their computer. Lastly, there is the group of people that think that a virus is a cold, something only humans can get. Do a few simple things each month to keep your computer running in tip-top condition. These things that I refer to are scanning for viruses, scanning for spyware, cleaning the registry, and deleting temporary internet files.

Scanning for viruses seems to be the most simple thing to start out with. I personally use AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition for virus protection. For Spyware I use either Malwarebytes, Spybot Search and Destroy, or Ad-Aware 2009. For registry cleaning I use Ccleaner.

First, update your anti-virus, spyware, and registry cleaning software. Second, restart your computer in safemode:

1. Turn off your computer.
2. Turn your computer on.
3. Immediately start tapping the F8 key.
4. A list of options in black and white should appear.
5. Use the arrow keys to navigate to safemode and press enter.
6. Login to your account.
7. Click "yes" to tell the computer that you want to work in safemode.
8. navigate through the start menu to find your anti-virus software.

Congratulations you are now in safemode and ready to scan for viruses! Most anti-virus software has options for a quick, custom, or full scan. Run a full scan. Be warned that this may take 1 or more hours depending upon how large your hard drive is and if your computer has many viruses on it.
...waiting...
Great, its done...what now? Now check and see if it found any viruses if it did remove them and if it cannot remove them quarantine them. Close your virus scanning program.

Thirdly, clean your computer of spyware! Open your spyware scanning program from the start menu. Then tell it to run a full scan it may also say something like check for problems. This can also take 1 hour or more.
...waiting...
Nice! Its done, now what? Now look and see if it found any infections and tell it to fix them or remove them depending upon the program.

Fourth, its now time to clean your registry and delete any temporary internet files. I like to use Ccleaner to clean my registry and clear out my temporary files. If you use something different find that or Ccleaner in the start menu. On the Windows tab tell it to "Run Cleaner." This should only take a few minutes unless you have a really bogged down system.
...wait...
Then on the applications tab click "Run Cleaner."
...wait...
Then click the Registry Button and tell it to scan for issues. Finally, tell it to fix selected issues. Now you have gotten rid of your old temporary files and any registry issues.

Is your computer still running slow. Now might be the time to tell your computer to check for errors the next time you restart and to run disk defragmenter to help speed things up. Open "My Computer" and right click on drive C: and choose properties. Then click the tools tab and tell it to "Check for Errors." It will ask if you want it to do that the next time your computer restarts, say yes. Then choose Defragment Now. Click the Defragment button to start. Wait until that finishes and then tell your computer to restart and let it run error checking before it goes to your login screen. Now, your computer should be happy and healthy for another month.

Other Tidbits:
Do NOT click on pop-up windows unless you clicked a link in a website and it belongs to that website.
Reputable anti-virus or spyware cleaning software will NEVER pop-up and tell you that you have however many viruses on your computer, don't buy or install this crap under any circumstances!
Use alt+F4 to close unwanted pop-up windows.
If your computer seems to be slowing down start looking for issues by completing the steps above.

I hope that this helps anybody that has been wondering why their computer is slow.

Windows 7 Beta Review

Windows 7 beta is a pleasant surprise after seeing the horror that Vista was/is, it has all of the good features that are in Vista, but cuts down on resource consumption. However, it still is in Beta and I did find a few gaming hang ups. For those of you that are tech savvy my box is AMD Athlon +3200 Venice processor, 1GB Corsair RAM, Epox 9NPA+SLI motherboard, 2 Western Digital hard drives one 80GB (IDE) and 160GB (SATA) respectively, Nvidia Geforce 8600 GT graphics card, and optical drives. I will review generally how well it runs, user interface, compatibility, gaming, and other odds and ends.
Firstly, I was surprised that it booted as quickly as it did with my older processor and low level of RAM (for Vista it would be). The install portion went like a dream, it was done in about an hour, even Xp can't do that. I hope Microsoft does not bog it down with promotional software as that will ruin this beautifully quick install. The first boot after I installed came as a shock after seeing computers struggle to load Vista, I applaud Microsoft for this drastic improvement. Windows 7 boots as fast as Windows Xp on the same machine! Over all 7 runs as well as Xp does on my machine with the same antivirus and IMing software running as well as web browsers and music! This is just almost too much for me to handle, as much as Vista is a resource pig 7 is a resource bird! As such I do not have to wait for things like my web browser, windows media player, and/or other applications to load like I would on Vista. The sad news is that it still looks like Vista so, if you did not like the user interface in Vista you will be sad to see it again in 7. More sad news is that sometimes compatibility and gaming can be a little quirky.
Compatibility in general is quite good as I have not had any driver issues or a problem with any of the peripherals: keyboard, mouse, monitor, camera, mp3 player, etc. that I have plugged into it. Kudos to Microsoft again. Gaming, well...that is another story. I installed classic StarCraft and was met with splash screens and a main menu that had the colors distorted. I tried to run it in compatibility mode and then it wouldn't start so, I searched around until I found a way to change the color settings to 16-bit from 32-bit to see if that would help. No such luck. A classic game will not display properly in the menus, videos, and splash screens, but the game play is still excellent and displays properly so, it is possible to play the game...the menus, videos, and splash screens are just oddly colored, but still readable. Then I hit up my old Age of Empires game to see if that would run, its only issue is that the video codecs it requires are so old that 7 does not have them, but otherwise the game runs like a dream. After installing various citybuilders, War Craft III, and Halo then test running them I conclude that gaming compatibility is a little iffy but, still significantly better than Vista's ever was and ever will be.
I hope that this helps all of you users that are trying to decide whether to wait until Windows 7 rolls out or bite the bullet and buy Vista. I plan to continue using Xp until Windows 7 comes out and then build a new system using that or maybe Fedora or Ubuntu Linux if Microsoft messes up again and rolls out a bloated version of this promising Beta of Windows 7.