Windows 7 | Martin Crownover

A list of four things in the world of tech that I find annoying, submitted for your approval in no particular order.

Unboxing videos

I've ranted about this elsewhere, but it's worth repeating; unboxing videos are awful. If there's anything more pathetic to me than sitting around wishing you had some piece of technology, it's doing so while also seeking out and watching other people open up boxes with the desired tech inside.I understand doing research on products you're thinking about buying, but I don't see where the unboxing video fits in with all that. If you want to find out what's actually inside the box, you can find that info on websites or in stores. If you want to see little bits of molded Styrofoam, you've probably got some in boxes you already own sitting around in your house or apartment somewhere.

If you want some new thing that badly, watching someone open up its box isn't going to get you any closer to that goal. Spoiler alert: it's going to be boxed up the same as everything else you've bought. Lots of tape, lots of Styrofoam, lots of plastic. Whoopdy doo.

Purposefully misspelled website/service names

I know that this is probably something that can't really be helped, considering the ever-decreasing amount of URL's available, but there's something that really annoys me about every new website being named in some "edgy" or "cute" misspelling of a simple word.

Flickr. Digg. Pownce. Blippr. Tumblr. Mixx. The lyst goes on.

Have we completely exhausted our reserve of real words for domain names? Has the well of creativity run dry? Seriously annoying.

And you can add to this all the various websites with the words "pop", "crunch", and "mash" in their domain names. Not necessarily misspelled words, but still awful. I don't think I've ever found any site with any of those words in their URL useful in any way whatsoever.

Network searches with Finder

I work in a creative field, and have for years. Unfortunately, this means that most of the time, my employers equip me with a Mac and by extension OS X, which you probably know, is not my preferred operating system.

I don't hate OS X, and actually wish one or two of its features would creep into Windows someday, but there are many quirks and problems with it that nobody ever talks about when they're in the middle of trying to convince you it's worth buying over-priced Apple hardware for. One of those things is the fact that, if you're planning on using it over any type of network, you could be in for some frustration, especially where search is concerned.

The other day I tried searching for a file on our network at work, both of which use OS X. No results were returned, and the spinning "beach ball" appeared, signaling network wait time. So I let it run its course and got back to my work. 10 minutes later, the pinwheel was still showing, and Finder wasn't responding. I forced Finder to quit and then tried to re-open it, but no dice; OS X informed me that Finder can't re-open. And since Finder handles the file saving functions for all the programs I was running, I couldn't save any of my work for a restart. Gah.

And this isn't an isolated incident. In all my years of using OS X, the most problems I've had with it have involved network problems. The only advice I can give, if you absolutely have to work on a Mac, is that if you're planning on doing any major network activity, save your work first.

Organizing media files with Win 7

I've been happy with Windows 7 since I picked it up last year on launch day. It does just about everything better than XP did, and it's nice and snappy to boot. But one thing that absolutely annoys me to no end is the problems I've had trying to organize my music files.

Like many people out there, I've been collecting digital music files for years. A good portion of my music consists of files I ripped myself from CD's I've bought, and most of the rest is digital music I've purchased from Amazon. Over time, as I've bounced between two iPods and about four computers, all with varying amounts of storage, my music has become a bit disorganized. With big hard drives being pretty cheap these days, I've managed to consolidate most of the recent additions to my collection onto one drive, and now I've begun trying to organize it.

Problem is, about 75% of the time I try to move around my music folders, Windows 7 is telling me that there is a file in use and prevents the operation from happening.

After an hour of pure frustration, disabling all music sharing, disabling the folder from being read by Windows 7's music library, disabling Windows Media Player from scanning the folder, and disabling all folder thumbnailing the OS does, it's gotten better. But I still get this error now and then, and it still hurts every time it happens. The file is in use by the OS that is trying to move it.

Isn't it reasonable to suspend the OS from reading the file if a move is being requested? It kills me that with all the great things Windows 7 can do, it still stumbles over something so basic, and so stupid.

So now I have to choose between letting the OS thumbnail my folders, so I can see what's in them without opening them, or making the whole thing look like some kind of file system ghost town, but with the ability to easily move my music around. Awesome.

The one good thing about this is that I've discovered the Local Group Policy Editor, which offers a lot of interesting customization options for Windows 7, under the hood.

Anyway, it feels good to get all that off my chest. Some of it may be unreasonable, and you might disagree with me, but there it is. Sound off in the comments if you have any extreme likes or dislikes in my list or let me know about some of your own tech world annoyances! I'm sure I'll be back with more in the future.

Image unironically courtesy of unpluggd.com.

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Though I would normally shun someone who would buy an operating system on launch day, a week ago I bought, downloaded, and installed the newest version of Microsoft's OS, Windows 7. It's nice to have a modern OS on my recently assembled machine, and though the transition from XP was a bit jarring in some respects, any unexpected problems have been minimal so far. Overall, I'm glad I made the switch.

Of course, I went into this only after reading a lot about the upcoming OS and playing around with the beta version for a while. Despite its many criticisms, Vista represented a big leap forward in terms of the underlying systems of Windows, and a lot of growing pains for the platform were felt upon its release. Most of the issues that plagued Vista in its early days have been resolved however, and this makes for a far more comfortable Windows 7 experience.

Here's a quick run-down of how the (mostly painless) upgrade process went for me, from my old rig turning into a massive paper weight to the re-birth of Windows on my new machine.

If you completed the homework assignment, you've already read about my old computer breaking down, and my quest for parts to rebuild a new one. Gold star for you. If not, you can read about it here - there's no use in going into that much detail about it again.

Once the new computer was built, I put a minimal number of games on it, but held off on installing a massive amount of other software. My reasoning for this was twofold - first, I would save myself a great deal of time backing up data for the Windows 7 install, which was only a month away, as well, I would be avoiding any licensing problems that would arise from too many installations of protected software. This happened anyway, but I'll get into that later.

After a month of having only two major games on my computer, World of Warcraft, Windows 7 launch day finally came. I failed to find a copy of Win 7 Professional in stores (Best Buy only had upgrade copies, and Office Max/Office Depot had nothing but Vista), so when I got home from work I jumped onto Microsoft's online store and bought a digital copy directly. Since Win 7 Pro comes with both 32-bit and 64-bit versions, I was given the option to download either. I chose the 64-bit version and started the 2.3Gb download. It took about two and a half hours to finish.

I burned the ISO file to a DVD and dropped the stuff I wanted to save onto one of the other hard drives in the machine, and then I restarted the computer and began the install.

Having so recently done an XP install, I am happy to report that Windows 7's install process is much more streamlined, and possibly even faster (I didn't time it, but it seemed to take about 20-25 minutes). Win 7's disk partitioning and pre-install setup is now done in a much more modern environment, with mouse support and a slick GUI. It asks only a minimal number of questions, and lets you set up the details later on once the install is finished. I was impressed by the speed and simplicity of the whole thing, especially compared to the old XP installer. Ars Technica actually has a great 15-page review of Windows 7 up, including a good portion on the new installer.

Once 7 installed, the system restarted one last time, and before long I was staring at a shiny new OS, all ready for my antics and exploits. Not too much had to be tweaked for the system to be the way I like it, either. UAC is relaxed in Win 7, so the interruptions aren't as annoying. The OS also seemed to find drivers for just about everything in the system, save for the GPU. That was really the only piece of system software I've had to install so far.

The only trouble I've really had with Windows 7 so far rests on the software side of things. On the first install of my Adobe software, something happened (I think I left the system waiting for the next disc for too long at some point) and the installation failed. All the programs seemed to install fine, but their licensing software was broken, so I had to re-install them. Then I had to call up the Adobe licensing support line because I'd already used my allotted two installs and wasn't able to de-activate my old computer's software before it died.

Aside from that, and a couple of times where a program crashed or froze, I've had no problems. Some of these issues may stem from the fact that I am running mostly 32-bit applications/games on a 64-bit OS, so I've expected a few hiccups.

Overall, however, things have been great. I'm finally able to use more than 4gb of RAM (I've got 6gb of RAM in triple channel mode now), and most everything seems to run solid. The improvements to the taskbar have taken me a lot less time to adjust to than I thought they would, and I actually feel like the new features, like Aero Peek, have helped me be more productive with my machine.

I'll probably have more to report as my collection of games and software trickles onto the new computer, and I start using it for other multimedia purposes - but for now you can consider me impressed.

And of course, glad that I don't feel like a sap for being a day one adopter.

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I spent part of my weekend fiddling around with the Windows 7 Beta, and though it took a little getting used to, I'm largely impressed with the quality of the product so far.

Saturday morning, I got up around 10:30 AM, realized I had nothing better to do, and so decided I'd try to download the Windows 7 Beta a second time, having failed to get into the initial batch the day before. I was pleased to find out that the limit of 2.5 million downloads had been removed, so I loaded up Firefox, navigated to the Windows 7 website, found the link, went through the registration process, clicked the download link – and nothing. I clicked a few more times just to make sure, and then loaded up Internet Explorer to cover all the bases.

After re-registering and receiving a second (and different, oddly enough) CD Key, I was directed to the download page again. I clicked the button, and instantly understood why Firefox had failed to initiate the download; a warning about installing an ActiveX control popped up at the top of IE.

At this point, I believe I must have sighed audibly. I think it's great that Microsoft is making strides to correct the problems they've had over the years. They've been slowly but surely coming around to accepting web standards with Internet Explorer, and they've been taking cues from other companies like Google to make more user-friendly and fun websites and software. Kudos to them for that. But after all these small steps toward progress, this was a large leap backward. For everything Microsoft is trying to do to fix their image, it seems completely counter-intuitive to not only force users to use their much-maligned browser, but then impose an ActiveX control on them as well. I almost have to wonder if Microsoft is just willfully ignorant of its many criticisms that have rang out over the years. In any case, I pressed on with the download, only slightly deterred.

Windows 7 Beta is currently being distributed as a DVD image, which you can burn and then use just like an ordinary Windows install disc. The download clocks in at 2.4Gb, so once the installation of the ActiveX download manager was finished, I was looking at a 3-hour download, and thus, 3 hours of waiting. I flicked my monitor into its secondary input mode, fired up my Xbox, and spent some time vanquishing foes in Prince of Persia and traversing the wastelands of Fallout 3. Surprisingly, I was even able to download/stream an episode of Venture Bros. (go Team Venture!) over my Xbox during the download. It was a good time.

In between my game-playing and video-watching, I also got my older computer ready for the beta. The Windows 7 Beta expires on August 1, 2009, so I didn't want to overwrite my XP install on my primary computer and then be forced to buy Windows 7 later in the year. I also don't think it's a great idea to use a beta version of an OS for your regular computing. I backed up my data and cleaned up the older machine.

After the download finished, I burned it to disc and popped it into my old computer. A window appeared, asking me if I wanted to install, and I accepted. Installation of the Windows 7 Beta was quick and painless, and though the machine restarted a few times during the process (this is supposed to happen, apparently), there was no weirdness whatsoever. The initial part of the install has the new OS extracting and unpacking files, and this takes quite a bit of time, so I went out to return a video to Blockbuster and grab myself a late lunch. When I returned, Windows 7 was just about done installing, and had a few questions for me to finish the setup. Once completed, Windows 7 fired up for the first time on my older machine.

I always tend to have a slight feeling of "Now what?" every time I get done installing a new OS, and there was no exception for Windows 7. I spent a few moments gathering my bearings, and then went about checking out all the OS's newest features the media has been talking about over the last few months.

New Taskbar

The revised taskbar in Windows 7 isn't quite as alien as other sites have made it seem – put simply, it's the same taskbar you're used to, but a little bit taller, and a little bit abbreviated. The default settings do away with text descriptions in the taskbar, and instead use only icons for Start Button, quick-launch, and running apps. In previous versions of Windows, you've had the option to group similar windows into groups, and Windows 7 takes this a step further - not only does it group windows of the same flavor into one icon, but upon hovering the mouse over this icon, it allows you to view all the grouped windows as thumbnails. You can hover over these to show a full screen preview, and click to restore the window.

Notification icons are also present in their usual place, for security, networking, etc. The system clock retains its position in the lower right corner, but is now next to a special button which will preview the desktop when you hover the mouse over it, and minimize all windows when clicked (the same way the Show Desktop button in Win XP works).

Though I felt that the new taskbar was more visually attractive than previous iterations, I was happy to see that grouping can be disabled and text labels are still available. I might be able to make the jump to the fully new taskbar eventually, but for now I think I'll make it look like my old XP taskbar, just for the sake of familiarity.

Start Menu

The Start Menu is very similar to the new style menu that made its first appearance in Windows XP – a design I'm not entirely sold on yet, but which is growing on me. With Windows 7, recently accessed programs appear in the main list, a button to access all programs is placed below that, and commonly accessed locations, like My Computer, folders for photos and documents, and Control Panel are all accessible from a list on the right column. The menu also expands to show more options for certain items on the list, which is a cool addition for quickly navigating to more specialized areas of the OS. Like the Taskbar, the Start Menu will take some getting used to for users of older versions of Windows, or who have refused to adapt to the newer versions of it (like me). Nevertheless, I enjoyed the experience with it, and didn't find it to be too counter-intuitive.

Look 'n Feel

There's no doubt that Windows 7 is leaps and bounds ahead of its predecessors in terms of eye candy. The glassy look of Vista's Aero theme is applied liberally throughout. Windows cast shadows, buttons glow, and shines of light move dynamically across the surface of windows as you move and size them around the screen. Icons are high resolution and look nice and sharp. A handful of themes are available for customizing the OS, and the colors of Aero can be changed to just about any color you want. I was also happy to see that multiple wallpapers can be set up to automatically change out now and then, and that windows animate as you open, close, minimize, and maximize them.

Overall, Windows 7 is a visual feast; so much so that at times I found myself surprised I was even using Windows. For users of Vista, it may not be a huge step up, but for me, an avid XP user, it was a very new experience, and I came off liking most of the changes. There were a few trifling issues here and there, but I've never used an OS that I haven't found graphical faults with, and this is beta software, so I won't complain much. Windows 7 is much better looking than other versions of Windows, and in my opinion is graphically superior to Mac OS X in some areas. We'll leave it at that.

Software Updates

Since I've not used Windows Vista for more than a few seconds, I don't know how extensive some of the updates to Windows 7 are, however I do believe that the updated versions of the calculator, MSPaint, and other built-in tools are new to 7. Calculator has been given extra 'programmer' and 'statistics' modes, and Paint has received a complete redesign, including a new ribbon-based GUI, like MS Office. I've not used either extensively yet, but the new features are always welcome.

Technical Issues

I've installed Windows 7 on the same computer twice now, once on top of a previous install of Windows XP, and once (after a botched attempt at installing Mac OS X on the same hardware) as a fresh install, and both instances were easy and trouble-free. I've used the OS for a few hours now, and so far I've had only two problems.

The first, which was slightly expected, was that the installation disc didn't contain drivers for some of my hardware. After all the driver problems Vista had, I expected something far worse, but it seems that Microsoft has ironed out most of the kinks this time around. Unfortunately for me, the drivers I was missing were for my motherboard's built-in networking and sound.

The sound drivers weren't all that important, because I have an ancient Soundblaster 16 installed (which strangely, did have drivers). The networking drivers however, were sorely missed, and even after fiddling with drivers downloaded and burned to disc from my primary computer, I could not get the Windows 7 machine connected to my network without installing a newer Ethernet card (a $10 purchase from Fry's). After installing the new card, the machine connected practically on booting up, and within moments I was online – at which point Windows 7 proceeded to download and install the correct drivers for my onboard networking and audio!

The only other issue I've had was one where Internet Explorer began to hang when I tried to open it. I've been submitting all the errors I find to Microsoft, however, so hopefully things will be even more smoothed out by the time they decide to launch Windows 7.

In the coming weeks I hope to try out some games and other applications on Windows 7, to test performance and compatibility. I'll report back on that as I do it.

Altogether, I came away from my initial Windows 7 experience impressed. Sure, there are things that I'm not entirely thrilled about, but I think that even at this early stage, the pros far outweigh the cons. I'll definitely be interested to see what the coming months bring to Microsoft's new OS, and I hope that each change is for the better. If you decide to take part in the beta, be sure to submit bug reports and suggestions as you test things; it'll ensure that we all have a better experience with WIndows 7 in the future!

By the way, I'll post some screenshots of my system when I get home from work!

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Martin Crownover

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