Tag Archives: Vista

Windows 7

Posted by on June 6, 2009 No comments | 1,320 views

Last week my Vista key on my laptop would no longer activate. The installation was from my old job, so I have no idea what happened to the key. Anyway, I decided to download the last RC of Windows 7 instead. It is available through Microsoft websites and you can get a trial key with your Live ID. It will last until March next year.

I have to say, the first impression (keeping in mind I came from Vista) was surprisingly good. Now, I have done a lot of graphic design work in the past, and I have to admit design is a factor when I choose software and OS. I think most will agree that Vista and Win7 looks great, and with 6gb of RAM, the wasted memory is something I can afford.

The first thing I noticed was the redesign of the taskbar. It is just that little bit better. The file explorer is also slightly improved. I was finally able to set the viewing properties I wanted as default, i.e the detailed view with name, size, type and date like I’m used to from the old Windows versions. Also they put back in the name of the file you’re currently copying into the file-copy dialog/progress box. The differences in appearance to Vista is minimal, with a few minor changes here and there in system panels and control panels. The real bonus is that Win7 seems to run much smoother than Vista, my games have better fps and less latency and I have less compatibility issues with software than I had on Vista (thus far at least). The list of improvements are located here.

Win7 seems to run fine on Vista drivers, so I have really had absolutely no installation problems or compatibility issues even though I’m running the 64-bit version. That is an absolute first for me when it comes to new Windows versions, and I have run them all since 3.11 and NT3.51 when I went from Amiga to PC. I must say that compared to Windows in the 90s, the NT5 and NT6 cores are rather nice to work with (Windows 7 is version 6.1). I have had a few Linux installations when I have had need for them, but at the end of the day, Windows is much more useful to me than Linux because of gaming, which is a bit tricky on Linux.

Oh, and let me also link in xkcd‘s little comment on Vista/Win7 :)

Restore Vista MBR

Posted by on May 30, 2009 No comments | 1,314 views

If you have played around with test installations of other operating systems on your computer on other partitions or disks than your main OS, you may have run into boot problems when removing these other test installations. If you have, like I have, had Linux installations, you may be left with a non-working GRUB boot loader and maybe even no Windows CD to fix the problem. Well, this happened to me today, but no worry. There are easy solutions. Microsoft made a Windows Vista Recovery Disk, which Neosmart are hosting as torrent files. They can be found here:

All you need to do now is start it up, select repair instead of install, open the command prompt and type:

C:\>bootrec /fixmbr

…and you’re back in business.