November 2, 2009

• The monster in the box

  Every couple of years, I format my computer just to clear out the clutter and I do so love the adventure of it all. There is nothing to compare to spending an entire weekend attempting to put things back together the way they were. It's an even bigger bonus when it's time to upgrade to a new operating system because there is mystery as to whether things are going to work properly. Windows 7 is overall a very stable and workable operating system, but there are a couple things that I think Micro$oft have toyed with a little too much with this version of their OS.

  I will state for the record however, that the user experience of this brand spanking new version of Windows is a lot better than the one I had using Vista on a laptop for a week in 2008.

  On the positive side of things, all of the programs that I can't do without are working fine even though I was assured that, after running a compatibility program, some of them were incompatible and would need replacing. I am still to install a few of my multimedia programs for audio/visual editing so I won't say that things are 100% just yet - let's say 95% and counting. At least it recognises my camera - Vista, on the other hand, didn't.

  Negatively, the issues are more or less just cosmetic or inconvenient. For starters, I miss my old XP Classic Start Menu - I am a bit of a control freak when it comes to putting things in order so I am a tad perturbed that the W7 start menu doesn't allow me to go and create new folders to sort things into categories. The ad hoc dumping of everything in one long list (albeit in alphabetical order) just doesn't do it for me. I like to have all my start menu short and ordered.

  Unfortunately, the speed at which technology becomes outdated meant that I had to buy a new modem since it appears that the drivers for my old one won't be upgraded to work with the new operating system. As for my webcam, well Logitech abandoned my particular model around the time Vista was introduced. The program package works fine, the camera doesn't. Luckily, I rarely used my webcam anyway so it isn't a great loss to my day to day used of the computer.

  Anyone looking for either a modem or webcam that works with Windows XP is welcome to get in touch with me - I'm sure we can come to an amicable arrangement (as long as your bodily parts are all healthy that is).

  I also lost a dandy little program that changed my desktop wallpaper on start up and for now, I have to live with one desktop, even though I have checked the box in W7 to randomly change it on start up.

  It's still early days though and it did surprise me a little that there were already 7 updates to W7 that needed to be downloaded and installed on the day I installed it which was about a week after it was released. Constant updates to itself seems to be the standard with any Windows operating system though.

  At this point I would give it a rating of 8/10 - it loses the 2 points simply because of the things that don't work anymore that I liked, even though they weren't absolutely necessary for the computer to work efficiently.

  If it doesn't end in tears, it will be good.

  Later days.

  Trivial fact number 205:- The Russian mystic, Rasputin, was the victim of a series of murder attempts on this day in 1916. The assassins poisoned, shot and stabbed him in quick succession, but they found they were unable to finish him off. Rasputin finally succumbed to the ice-cold waters of a river - and Boney M sang a very boppy song about the whole sorry affair in the 70's

  • 7:14 am
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