I have just recently taken advantage of a deal to get Windows 7 Professional [upgrade only] for $29.99. I bought it and spent the rest of the night downloading. By the time I woke up, the download was done. However, I discovered that it wasn’t an ISO disc image Like I had expected, rather it was an executable with a folder and two .box files. Is is kind of aggravating as I wanted an image so I can burn a few backup discs and all that. But, conveniently during my normal news perusal I found an article on Lifehacker which helped me convert the files into a bootable disc image. Dude, it’s like magic!

However, I ran into some issues along the way during the install/upgrade. First off, I wanted to do an in-place upgrade.. meaning I don’t lose all my data and my installed programs. Turns out, since I had Windows Vista Home Premium I could upgrade to Windows 7 Professional using this disc, however I could not do an in-place upgrade, only a custom install, which results in losing all my files, install programs, settings et cetera. This was annoying, but I backed up all my data (music, pictures, et cetera) however, I’ll still have to re install all my programs again. Aggravating.

But that’s going out of order. At first, I didn’t know I couldn’t upgrade, because I had problems getting to the upgrade screen. First, I booted up from the DVD I created, however clicking the upgrade button demanded that If i want to upgrade, I have to run the CD from within the installer. Ugh, I just wasted 10 minutes in the shutdown, restart, screen navigation just to have to go back into the OS. Ugh. So it takes me 10 minutes to reboot (Vista has been taking FOREVER lately.. gosh) back to my desktop. I run the executable provided by Digital River, and I first get a splash screen.

I click “Install Windows” (exciting!)

I get a screen that says “Copying Temporary Files…” and then “Setup is Starting…” But that’s it the screen doesn’t update for about 5 minutes. I quit, and restart. Same thing, this time I wait 10 minutes. Still nothing. Then I thought “I’m being impatient, I’ll let it sit.” So while I sit watching COPS 2.0 on G4TV, I let it sit at the Setup is Starting screen. It’s still not progressing after an hour!

I turn to my good ol’ friend google and try a few queries. I found a few people with the same problem, some unresolved, some resolved but the solution seemed irrelevant (It wasn’t a problem with my harddrive or motherboard.) Then I found an article on Microsoft’s knowledgebase. It said something about “This screen is the stage Windows is checking your hardware for compatibility.” Then for some reason, a lightbulb goes off in my head. I look down and notice how my zune data cable (with no zune attached!) was plugged into my computer. Sometimes I’m in a rush in the morning before work and I don’t unplug the zune datacable, just the zune itself.

So I remove the ‘empty’ USB cable. The moment I did that that, my install screen advanced to the “Would you like to check windows update for updates before completing install?” screen. TADAA! Three hours for a damned deviceless USB cable. I honestly never even thought it would care about a cable plugged in with no device. I take it that’s probably a bug in the installer. It’s checking for hardware components and it gets stuck in loop while it waits for a device to registered. Oh well. Good job Microsoft.

So, I click through all the screens and I see the coveted “What kind of install do you want to do, young padawan?” screen. I click upgrade, because I want to keep all my stuff intact. However, I’m immediately greeted by a message saying “Windows Vista™ Home Premium cannot be upgraded to Windows 7 Professional. You can choose to install a new copy of Windows 7 Professional instead, but this is different from an upgrade, and does not keep your files, settings, and programs.” Ugh. I spent 3 hours trying to get to the upgrade screen, only to be told I can’t upgrade. Ugh. isuehfgudehgeiuhtiuehteiutahtiuerghsgihua. Okay. I’m done.

So, I reboot, again, and boot from DVD. Then I do a custom install. The install procedure was actually fairly quick. Once I was in, I liked what I saw. Everything is cleaner and faster. When idle and not running applications (called the baseline) the OS used less than a gig in RAM. While I remember Vista using one gig when idle. It’s a nice operating system.

So I take time and copy all my backed up data back to my folders… all my music and pictures and such. Sweet. There are a few annoyances I have that I’m still ironing out, for example, everytime I enter a link in internet explorer (havent had time to download firefox yet), I get a feedback sound effect. Yeah, gonna have to disable that.

All in all, it’s a pretty good operating system. I immediately switched my taskbar back to not group similar windows into one icon. It makes it quicker to get to the exact window i want. Maybe I’ll get used to the combined feature one day.

Another thing I wanted to mention was an issue i had with DIgsby. I love digsby, it’s awesome. It’s the first thing I downloaded (yeah yeah, shoulda gotten Firefox first, oh well). However, apparently there’s this issue with Digsby when using a brand new account on Windows 7. Basically, it’s not detecting full screen applications right, so as a result, Diggsby is incorrectly hiding IM windows. To fix this, go to your preferences, and make sure to uncheck “Hide IM windows when full screen window is active.” This will fix this. From what I understand, this glitch only occurs when the windows account is brand new. How new is defined, I’m not sure. The guide  I read said “about 1 hour.” But there you go.

Over the next couple days I’ll be going through and experimenting and optimizing it to my needs and comfort.

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This past friday, Windows released Windows 7 Beta for public release. However, due to unanticipated (well, should’ve been anticipated, anyway) demand, the world brought the windows 7 web and distribution servers to their knees. There was a large amount of downtime involved due to the overwhelming load placed on Microsoft’s webserve division.

Honestly, I think Microsoft needs to think their launch strategy, including having mirrors and also distribute through torrenting. Someone please deliver a clue to their main office, please.

However, Windows 7 has restarted the download process and an because of the epic failure, has removed the previous download cap of 1.5 million downloads, and is now allowing unlimited downloads of the beta. I suggest that anyone interest grab one before something changes.

I haven’t personally gotten around to getting windows 7, but I will once I have a machine to put it on. I might put it on my old work computer.

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It appears that only older films by sony are now playable. I now see videos like Fifth Element and Look Who’s Talking, but I still don’t see Bad Boys or Superbad. It appears to be pre-2000 films.

So one of two things is happening. Either Netflix, Sony and Microsoft have come to an agreement  is slowly unlocking Sony films, or Sony has slightly relented and will only allow the older films to be streamed via the xbox live service.

It’s a step in the right direction

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Netflix
We can watch sony-produced films now! My brother was watching seaquest, aftwards I went back to the queue, and what do you know.. I had like 20 extra movies popup in my xbox 360 queue. Nice

Community Games Marketplace
Yes.. of the 3 or 4 games I looked at, you had to pay Microsoft Points (like 200-400) to download the full version. I guess this is fair, developers need money too!

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This is a pretty cool premise. You can find games you might like then download them to your machine. However, I am not sure if you have to pay for the games (maybe it’s like the Apple AppStore, some you buy, some you don’t have to), but this looks very promising. You’re guarenteed to get some kind of quality too, because in order to be part of the XNA developer community, you have to pay a subscription fee (and I believe for some developer software too).

I’m curious to see how this ends up. Will this turn out to be a dumping ground where lame games are put? Or will it be the proving ground where Microsoft can scout for future developers? *cue dramatic music* We’ll find out.. soon enough!

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Netflix
Fricken sweet! Any (well, maybe not any) watch-instantly film can be streamed on your xbox, thus watchable on TV. I say maybe not every film because any film that is produced by sony is not available to be viewed on xbox 360. This is because Sony is a little whiney baby who wishes to control their license with netflix a little too overzealously. Jerks. One small caveat, in order to add films to to your instant queue is through your computer.  You can’t (yet) add stuff to your queue by navigating through the catalog via your xbox. Maybe soon.

Avatars
Hmm. This is a cool but unnescessary part of NXE. It’s kind of (well, completely) like the Wii’s Mii system. Basically you create a figure using a few preset figures, then you can modify the shape and features of this person through a set of sliders. It’s a lot more indepth than the Mii, you can barely modify your Mii besides a few features, and it’s not detailed at all. Your avatar also has clothing that you can modify. The point of this? Not really sure yet, besides it appears to your friends and in your gamerpicture.

Download Game to Console
This is a feature I haven’t really tried. But I will explain my understanding of it. Basically, this allows you to download your games that you have on disc to your harddrive. Whoa. I can rent a game, download it, then return it? That’s kind of.. odd that this is allowed. People like me (20 Gig harddrive) probably wouldn’t use this feature much, but I’m sure those with 120 GIGs could do this a lot. Though, Halo 3 gives you a funny message saying something like [paraphrase] “this game was written to be loaded from a disc, thus downoading to your console WILL cause problems, glitches, freezes, latent load times and other stuff. DONT DO IT!” Well, I guess that’s that.

Revamped Market Place
This feature is something that doesn’t affect me. I’m poor. I’m not going to spend my money fruitlessly buying “Microsoft Points” so I can get music videos and stuff. But apparently the entire system has been completely revamped. It also allows you to edit your download queue online. So let’s say you wanna download something but you’re at your friends house. You can queue it from a computer and the next time the machine is turned on, it’ll start the download. That’s pretty cool. Ohhhh… you have to download a plugin from Microsoft to do this? That’s not cool.

Party!
Basically, this allows you and your friends (and random people that you cross in games )to group up and go from game to game and match to match together. This makes sure you’re always playing together. It’s cool! In Halo 3, i meet some cool people that I wouldn’t mind playing with again. So instead of going to a new match, inviting all of them, etc, it just groups us together and the system finds a new match that can accomodate the size of my group. Nice.

That’s really all the notable features. I’m sure that microsoft has a few more surprises coming up, so I look forward to that.

So, I’m going back to watching NCIS on my xbox.

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First off, Microsoft really took care of me. I’m surprised. They were only legally obligated to fix the three red-ring-of-death issue and that is it. Well, they fixed the controller port flaps (they were extremely loose and just hanging there, basically worthless) and they fixed the rattling in the machine (it sounded like a loose pebble or something.). And, they gave me a month subscription to xbox live to compliment my year subscription.

So I went to turn it on, I put in the hard drive I got from an eBay seller. WHAT!? It’s red rings and gives me an error code relevant to a screwed up hard drive. I email the company and go out and buy a new (used) one. I come back and they have replied with an offer to exchange it. I tell them that I’d like a refund. So I’m working on that.

So, while I picked up the harddrive from the store, I also got Assassin’s Creed. Fun game. Kind of confusing as sometimes stuff you need to do isn’t laid out for you. Also, I have a copy of Burnout Paradise. Well.. I did. Last night I was playing it, but because I have a standard-def TINY television, I couldn’t read the instructions. I moved closed and knocked the 360 over. The disc is done.. the laser chewed it up pretty bad. Uh.. oops.

Last night i spent some time playing some demos. Bioshock, Iron Man, Force Unleashed and TOB: HL Episode 2. I know they are demos but they are insanely short. TOB didn’t even finish the level, you just walk around for about 5 minutes and it’s done. Oh well I guess. I also downloaded the Bourne Conspiracy, but I haven’t had a chance to play it yet. It’s nice to finally be able to play the 360 though.

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