My Move to Windows 7

So, after one of the Updates for Windows XP, my system started to suck, horribly bad. It was slow, poor screen refresh etc. Which is not what I would expect from a laptop that is only 6 months old. I made the decision to do a clean install (which for me, was not an easy one, being in the middle of a huge project - but I fugured the delay caused by reinstalling the OS would be better than the delays caused by an unstable OS).

Anyways in prepping my system for the move (I had a few files to move over to an External HD) I was thinking about what else I could do. I was chatting with Paul Kukiel about some choices, as I was adding VMWare to the mix as well, so I could run Ubuntu if I felt like it. Paul suggested that I perhaps go with Windows 7. Well I was just in time! The download for the RC was taken down on August 20th. I made my download on the 19th!

So at 11pm on the 19th, I started, inserted the Win7 Disc (64-bit btw) and began the process. Now the format/install took maybe 30-40 minutes in total, I am sure it was done before midnight. I then spent the next couple of hours installing CF, CFBuilder, Flex3, downloading Office, VMWare, and getting more familiar with Windows 7. So, within about 3 hours, I had a working system again. (so I packed it in, although I felt like I could keep going, but figured I needed some sleep!)

Anyways, its been a few days now, and I have had a few issues, but in general Win 7 is quite nice, and fast! Of course the speed could be related to my change from 32-bit to 64-bit...

Now, the things that bothered me:

1. Icon Size on the desktop - they were huge, and I could find NO way to reduce them, but Paul (who has been running Win7 successfully for some time now) said that it was a combination of holding the right-ctrl key and then using the mouse wheel to scroll out. I thought it was a bit weird, but it worked!
2. Permissions! - Okay, I have never worked with Vista, but wow, the permissions thing (which will be advantageous I am sure) sucked! I copied all of my website data over etc, and I could not edit anything, as I wasn't the owner, so I had to take ownership, then restart (to apply that ownership change) then I had to change the permissions to allow the CREATOR/OWNER full control over the files. To allow me to change the permissions, I of course had to turn off UAC.
3. UAC - I left it on while I was first setting up the system, because it seemed fine, but as soon as I needed to change the permissions on files, I HAD to turn it off. It really wasn't a big deal though
4. Configuring the IIS to accept CF files. Pretty easy following Paul's guide, except that IIS still needs to be told about index.cfm, oh, and it didn't work the first time for me, so I had to remove IIS and then do it all again.

Now, for the things I like:

1. Task bar - you can basically put all of your favorite programs down there, and access them via their icon. If there is more then one window open from the program you can access any of them visually
2. 64-bit - OK, I was 32-bit before, and 64-bit is awesome!
3. Themepacks - kinda ot important, but really cool. I have made a CF one, using the backgrounds that Andy Matthews made, as well as one of my own :). Maybe I will post it, although I think it needs a little more work.
4. The fact that except for the touchpad and some of the HP drive guard stuff, all of the drivers were found without my interaction, and the system just worked. Which I thought was pretty damn sweet. I had just re-formatted a system at work (that didn't need anything carried over) and after the like hour of install, I still needed to get all the drivers so that the network/sound cards would work.

All-in-all, I am satisfied with my move to Windows 7, and it seems to be a nice stable, fast platform, with some nice improvements to my ability to manage programs etc. I think I am going to experience a productivity boost. Now I just need to replace my 2 - 2GB RAM sticks with 2 - 4 GB sticks :)