TOPIC: WINDOWS 7
11th December 2011
During the week, I needed to go to a client to upgrade the laptop that they'd given me for doing work for them. The cause was their migration from Windows XP to Windows 7. Office 2010 also came with the new set-up, and they replaced the machines with new ones too. As part of doing this, they carried out upgrade training and this is when I got to learn a thing or two.
While I may have been using Windows 7 since the beta releases first were made available, I am under no illusions that I know all there is to be known about the operating system. Included among the things of which I wasn't aware was a shortcut key combination for controlling display output from the HP laptop that I'd been given. This is the Windows key + P. This brings up a dialogue screen from which you can select the combination that you need and that includes extending the display across two different screens, such as that of the laptop and an external monitor. Going into the display properties will fine tune things such as what is the main display and the placement of the desktops; there's no point in having Windows thinking that the external screen is to your left when in fact it is on the right.
Another interesting shortcut is the Windows key + TAB. This affects the Aero application view and repeating the combination cycles through the open applications, or you can use a mouse wheel to achieve the same end. With ALT + TAB and the taskbar still about, this might appear more of a curiosity, but some may still find it handy, so I've shared it here too.
All in all, it's best never to think that you know enough about something because there's always something new to be learned, and it's always the smallest of things that proves to be the most helpful. With every release of Windows, that always seems to be the case and Windows 8 should not be any different, even if all the talk is about its Metro interface. A beta release is due in the spring of 2012, so we'll have a chance to find out then. You never can stop learning about this computing business.
6th November 2011
Even if it has been a little while, I have managed to set up a VirtualBox virtual machine to have a look at the Developer Preview of the next version of Windows, something that I and others continue to call Windows 8 though Microsoft has yet to confirm the name. When I tried the installation before, it failed on me, though that may have been due to having an earlier release of VirtualBox on my machine at that time. 4.1.14 has a preset for Windows 8 and I also happened to notice that it can create virtual hard disks that can be used with competitors like VMWare, Parallels and Virtual PC too. It's an interesting development, even if I am left wondering why you'd need to do that when VirtualBox runs on most platforms anyway.
To get back to Windows 8, the installation ran near enough without any intervention apart from stating the language you wanted to use, U.K. English in my case. On startup, the operating system presents you with a lock screen that you need to get out of the way so you can log in. It can be dragged out of your way, or you can double-click on it or use the carriage return key to get rid of it. Quite why someone thinks it's a good extra is a little beyond me, when a log in screen would suffice. Logging in gets you the new start menu or, as I prefer to think of it, screen. By default, there are a good few Metro apps installed, though I decided to rid myself of most of them.
Regarding those apps, one irritation could be that there isn't that obvious a way to switch away from them to something else. Thankfully, ALT+TAB does seem to work and it has the most instantaneous effect. Otherwise, using the Windows key or hovering over the bottom-left corner of the screen to get the menu that brings up the start screen. From the PC user's point of view, I could see this needing a little more thought because it took a little while for me to figure out what to do. Closing Metro apps isn't an option either unless you resort to the Task Manager to do so. Microsoft appears to want to leave them open from the point at which you start them until the PC is shut down. It's a design decision that leaves me unconvinced, though; thoughts of rogue apps running riot on a system come to mind. Then, a stop button could be handy.
There is no start menu as we have come to know it any more with the start screen replacing it. However, it is possible to limit what's on there to the software that you use most often and rearrange panels as you'd like them to be. Apart from hosting shortcuts for starting applications, it also acts as a task switcher like the task bar in Windows 7 and there is one of those in Windows 8 too when you jump to the desktop; handily, there's a panel for that too. Installing Firefox added a panel to the start screen, so a little thought has gone into such a common situation, and that's just as well. Still, there's more work to be done because, currently, there's no way of changing the background colour of the start screen without resorting to a hex editor or third party tools. Still, since you can pick your own picture for the lock screen, things are not all locked down on you.
A preview of IE 10 is included and, apart from the occasional artifact when displaying one of my websites, it seems to work well enough, as does Windows Explorer. However, aside from these and a smattering of Metro apps, the Developer Preview does feel barer than previous versions of Windows. However, it does appear that applications like Notepad, PowerShell and the Command Prompt are on there, yet you need to search for these. That also means that you need to know about them too, so I'd suggest a better way of browsing the applications that are available too. This is one of the weaknesses of Ubuntu's Unity interface, and you need to search in the Dash to find them. Just starting to type in the Metro start screen (and other screens too, it seems) in Windows does trigger the completion of a search box, much like what happens in the GNOME Shell Activities screen on systems with GNOME 3. While it's good to see good ideas being reused from elsewhere, Microsoft might do well to note that you still can browse lists of applications in GNOME 3 too.
Shutting down Windows 8 also is seemingly more convoluted than is the case with Windows 7. Logging off and then powering off from the log in screen is one approach, and that was my early impression of GNOME 3 too. With the latter, I later discovered a status menu plugin that added in the option where it was accessible or that using the ALT key when clicking the status menu when the plugin wouldn't work would do what I needed. Without logging off from Windows 8, you can do a shutdown using the sidebar that appears on selecting Settings from the menu that pops up on hovering near the bottom-left corner of the start screen or the Start button of the task bar of the desktop. Then, look for the power icon and select what you need from the menu that clicking on this icon produces. Of course, you may find that the ALT+F4 key combination when issued while on a clean desktop is the cleanest of all.
All in all, the Developer Preview of the next release of Windows looks fairly usable. That is not to imply that there aren't things that need changing. Aside from this being an early sight of what may be coming to us Windows users, it isn't unknown for Microsoft to roll back on a radical move to make it more palatable to the user community. After all, it has to watch how it treats the corporate market too. The strong possibility of there being alterations is one thought that needs to be shared with those who are inclined to lose their tempers at the moment and I have seen comments with unpleasant language out there on the web (none of that here, please, by the way). As for me, I like to look ahead to be forewarned about what's coming my way in the world of computing. What I have seen so far of the next Windows release is reassuring, though there are rough edges such as PC shutdown and Metro app switching, yet Microsoft cannot commit commercial suicide either, so these have to be fixed. It appears that the world of Microsoft operating systems is in flux, with the company's keeping a firm eye on the world of mobile computing, with tablets being a major concern. While others may disagree, I can see Windows 8 working well on conventional PC's and that's no bad thing.
1st July 2010
One of the nice things about working with Linux/UNIX is that you can organise your open applications so that they are open in different workspaces or virtual desktops. When I return to working on Windows, having everything open on the same desktop is something that I find less tidy. However, there is an open source application that adds virtual desktops to Windows and very useful it is too.
It is called VirtuaWin, and it adds an icon to the taskbar for switching between workspaces when it is running; there might be a bit of tweaking to be done for it to stay visible all the time, though. You can have it as a startup application in the same way that you have your security software, and I have been using it smoothly on both Windows XP and Windows 7 running in VirtualBox virtual machines. Insofar as I have seen it, you can have as many workspaces as you want and switching from one to another is achievable using keyboard shortcuts. Using CTRL, ALT and one of the arrow keys does it for me, but you can set up your own. All in all, it's a small download that brings a little sense of Windows desktop computing.
23rd October 2009
Quite possibly, THE big technology news of the week has been the launch of Windows 7. Regular readers may be aware that I have been having a play with the beta and release candidate versions of the thing since the start of the year. In summary, I have found to work both well and unobtrusively. While there have been some rough edges when accessing files through VirtualBox's means of accessing the host file system from a VM, that's the only perturbation to be reported and, even then, it only seemed to affect my use of Photoshop Elements.
Therefore, I had it in mind to get my hands on a copy of the final release after it came out. Of course, there was the option of pre-ordering, but that isn't for everyone, so there are others. A trip down to the local branch of PC World will allow you to satisfy your needs with different editions: full, upgrade (if you already have a copy of XP or Vista, it might be worth trying out the Windows Secrets double installation trick to get it loaded on a clean system) and family packs. The last of these is very tempting: three Home Premium licences for around £130. Though wandering around to your local PC components emporium is an alternative, you have to remember that OEM versions of the operating system are locked to the first (self-built) system on which they are installed. Apart from that restriction, the good value compared with retail editions makes them worth considering. The last option that I wish to bring to your attention is buying directly from Microsoft themselves. You would think that this may be cheaper than going to a reseller, but that's not the case with the Family Pack costing around £150 in comparison to PC World's pricing, and it doesn't end there. That they only accept Maestro debit cards along with credit cards from the likes of Visa and Mastercard perhaps is another sign that Microsoft is new to the whole idea of selling online. In contrast, Tesco is no stranger to online selling, yet they also have Windows 7 on offer though they aren't noted for computer sales; PC World may be forgiven for wondering what that means, but who would buy an operating system along with their groceries? I suppose that the answer to that would be that people who are accustomed to delivering one's essentials at a convenient time should be able to do the same with computer goods too. That convenience of timing is another feature of downloading an OS from the web, and many a Linux fan should know what that means. While Microsoft may have discovered this of late, that's better than never.
Because of my positive experience with the pre-release variants of Windows 7, I am very tempted to get my hands on the commercial release. Because I have until early next year with the release candidate and XP works sufficiently well (it ultimately has given Vista something of a soaking), I'll be able to bide my time. When I do make the jump, it'll probably be Home Premium that I'll choose because it seems difficult to justify the extra cost of Professional. It was different in the days of XP, when its Professional edition did have something to offer technically minded home users like me. With 7, XP Mode might be a draw, but with virtualisation packages like VirtualBox available for no cost, it's difficult to justify spending extra. In any case, I have Vista Home Premium loaded on my Toshiba laptop and that seems to work fine, despite all the bad press that Vista has got itself.
10th May 2009
Now that the Release Candidate for Windows 7 is out, I have been giving it a whirl in a VirtualBox session and it, like the Beta that I had been trying too, feels a sold enough affair. I went for the complete installation route in place of the upgrade path. I was surprised to find that it bundled my old files into a single folder called Windows_old and that my old user bits and bobs were folded in with this too. There was nothing there that I wouldn't have missed, but this is a nice touch.
However, I have a spot of fixing to do after adding Kaspersky Internet Security 2009. Like the beta, mixing Windows 7 and Kaspersky seems not to be the way to a stable system. Whether this is down to the virtualisation aspect of the business is something that I don't know, but I have found that removing Kaspersky and replacing it made everything sing along together. Booting into Safe Mode and using msconfig to remove any incidences of Kaspersky being called at start up provides a partial restoration of service. Because the msiexec service isn't running, you need full mode before any software but pulling out any cause for execution of Kaspersky gets that back. I suppose that I could go and put Windows 7 on a real machine to see if Kaspersky causes problems there, but that's not a road that I really want to travel.
17th January 2009
The latest buzz surrounding Windows 7 has caused one observer to suggest that it's about to blast Linux from the desktop. While my experiences might be positive, there are still things that I like about Linux that make me reluctant to consider switching back. Here are a few in no particular order:
Virtual Desktops (or Workspaces)
I find these very handy for keeping things organised when I have a few applications open at the same time. While I think that someone has come with a way of adding the same functionality to Windows, I'd need to go looking for that. Having everything cluttering up a single taskbar would feel a bit limiting.
Symbolic Links
If you have not come across these before, they are a little difficult to explain, but it's great to have the ability to make the contents of a folder appear in more than one place at a time without filling up your hard drive. While it's true to say that Windows 7 gets Libraries, I have a soft spot for the way that Linux does it so simply.
Lack of (intrusive) fidgeting
One of Windows' biggest problems is that it's such a massive target for attacks by the less desirable elements of the web community. The result is a multitude of security software vendors wanting to get their wares onto your PC; it's when they get there that all the fidgeting starts. The cause is the constant need for system monitoring that eats up resources that could be used for other things. Though I know some packages are less intrusive than others, I do like the idea of feeling as if I am in full control of my PC rather someone else taking decisions for me (unavoidable in the world of work, I know). An example of this is Norton's not allowing me to shut it down when it goes rogue, even when acting as Administrator. While I can see the reason for this in that it's trying to hamper the attentions of nefarious malware, it ends up making me feel less than empowered and I also like to feel trusted too. Another thing that I like is the idea of something awaiting my input rather than going away and trying to guess what I need and getting it wrong, an experience that seems typical of Microsoft software.
Command Line
Though this is less of a miss than it used to be, there is now a learning curve with PowerShell's inclusion with Windows 7, and it's not something that I want to foist on myself without my having the time to learn its ins and outs. Though it's not a bad skill to have listed on the proverbial CV, I now know my way around bash and its ilk while knowing where to look when I intend to take things further.
After these, there are other personal reasons for my sticking with Linux, like memories of bad experiences with Windows XP and the way that Linux just seems to get on with the job. Its being free of charge is another bonus, and the freedom to have things as you want makes you feel that you have a safer haven in this ever-changing digital world. While I am not sure if I'd acquire the final version of Windows 7, I am certain that it will not be replacing Linux as my main home computing platform, something that should come as no surprise given what I have said above.
12th January 2009
With all the fanfare that surrounded the public beta release of Windows 7, I suppose that the opportunity to give it a whirl was too good to miss. Admittedly, Microsoft bodged the roll-out by underestimating the level of interest and corralling everyone into a 24-hour time slot, with one exacerbating the other. In the event, they did eventually get their act together and even removed the 2.5 million licence limit. Thus, I suppose that they really needed to get 7 right after the unloved offering that was Vista, so they probably worked out that the more testers that they get, the better. After, it might be observed that the cynical view that the era of making people pay to "test" your products might be behind us and that users just want things to work well if not entirely faultlessly these days.
After several abortive raids, I eventually managed to snag myself a licence and started downloading the behemoth using the supplied download manager. I foresaw it taking a long time and so stuck with the 32-bit variant so as not to leave open the possibility of that part of the process using up any more of my time. As it happened, the download did take quite a few hours to complete, but this part of the process was without any incident or fuss.
Once the DVD image was downloaded, it was onto the familiar process of building myself a VirtualBox VM as a sandbox to explore the forthcoming incarnation of Windows. After setting up the ISO file as a virtual DVD, installation itself was an uneventful process, yet subsequent activities weren't without their blemishes. The biggest hurdle to be overcome was to get the virtual network adapter set up and recognised by Windows 7. The trick is to update the driver using the VirtualBox virtual CD as the source because Windows 7 will not recognise it using its own driver repository. Installing the other VirtualBox tools is a matter of going to Compatibility page in the Properties for the relevant executable, the one with x86 in the file name in my case, and setting XP as the Windows version (though Vista apparently works just as well, I played safe and depended on my own experience). While I was at it, I allowed the file to run under the administrator account, too. Right-clicking on executable files will bring you to the compatibility troubleshooter that achieves much the same ends but by a different route. With the Tools installed, all was workable rather than completely satisfactory. Shared folders have not worked for, but that might need a new version of the VirtualBox software or getting to know any changes to networking that come with Windows 7. I plan to stick with using USB drives for file transfer for the moment. Though stretching the screen to fit the VirtualBox window was another thing that would not happen, that's a much more minor irritation.
With those matters out of the way, I added security software from the list offered by Windows with AVG, Norton and Kaspersky being the options on offer. I initially chose the last of these but changed my mind after seeing the screen becoming so corrupted as to make it unusable. That set me to rebuilding the VM and choosing Norton 360 after the second Windows installation had finished. That is working much better, and I plan to continue my tinkering beyond this. I have noticed the inclusion of PowerShell and an IDE for the same, so that could be something that beckons. All in all, there is a certain solidity about Windows 7, though I am not so convinced of the claim of speedy startups at this stage. Time will tell and, being a beta release, it's bound to be full of debugging code that will not make it into the final version that is unleashed on the wider public.
30th March 2007
At work, we still use Windows 2000 on our desktop and laptop PC’s. This may (or may not) surprise you, but the XP upgrade seems to have been thought a premature move, only for Vista to turn up later than might have been expected. Now that Microsoft is winding down support for Windows 2000, thoughts have started to turn to a Vista upgrade, but the realisation soon dawned that a move to Vista was a major one, and it now looks as if we will be on Windows 2000 for a little while yet, until 2008 at least.
I, too, have Windows 2000 lurking around at home as a testing platform, not a work copy I hasten to add, and software vendors increasingly are not supporting the operating system any more. Symantec is one of these, with the 2006 versions of its products being the last ones to support Windows 2000. Initially, I was left with the impression that Kaspersky was the same, but this does not seem to be the case. While the open-source community can continue their supply of productivity applications such as OpenOffice, the GIMP and so on, it is the security side that is of most concern as regards the future of Windows 2000. That said, its successors are not the prime targets for cracking, but shared code could mean that it falls foul of the same exploits.
I have yet to notice it with the hardware that I am using, but hardware advances may yet put paid to Windows 2000 like they did to members of the Windows 9x line, especially when you consider that the operating system dates from 1999. Then again, you may find that you don’t need the latest hardware, so this might not affect you. This is not all that unreasonable given that the pace of technological progress is less frenzied these days than it was in the nineties, when Windows 95 was more or less out of date by the turn of the millennium. Having the gold OEM version of Windows 95 as the basis for a Windows 9x upgrade treadmill meant that my move into the world of NT-based operating systems was a clean break with a full version of my new operating system and not its upgrade edition.
Nevertheless, there remains a feeling that Windows 2000 is being cut off prematurely and that it could last a while longer with a bit of support, even if there is a feel of the late nineties about the thing. After all, Windows 2000 probably still supports a lot of what people want to do and without the Big Brother tendencies of Vista too.
15th February 2007
There are things in the Vista EULA that gave me a shock when I first saw them. In fact, one provision set off something of a storm across the web in the latter part of 2006. Microsoft in its wisdom went and made everything more explicit and raised cane in doing so. It was their clarification of the one machine, one licence understanding that was at the heart of the whole furore. The new wording made it crystal clear that you were only allowed to move your licence between machines once and once only. After howls of protest, the XP wording reappeared and things calmed down again.
Around the same time, Paul Thurrott published his take on the Vista EULA on his Windows SuperSite. He takes the view that the new EULA only clarified what in the one XP, and that enthusiast PC builders are but a small proportion of the software market. Another interesting point that he makes is that there is no need to license the home user editions of Vista for use in virtual machines because those users would not be doing that kind of thing. The logical conclusion of this argument is that only technical business users and enthusiasts would ever want to do such a thing; I am both. On the same site, Koroush Ghazi of TweakGuides.com offers an alternate view, at Thurrrott’s invitation, from the enthusiast’s side. That view takes note of the restrictions of both the licensing and all the DRM technology that Microsoft has piled into Vista. Another point made is that enthusiasts add a lot to the coffers of both hardware and software producers.
Bit-tech.net got the Microsoft view on the numbers of activations possible with a copy of retail Vista before further action is required. The number comes in at 10, and it seems a little low. However, Vista will differ from XP in that it thankfully will not need reactivation as often. In fact, it will take changing a hard drive and one other component to do it. That’s less stringent than needing reactivation after changing three components from a wider list in a set period, like it is in XP. While I cannot remember the exact duration of the period in question, 60 days seems to ring a bell.
OEM Vista is more restrictive than this: one reactivation and no more. I learned that from the current issue of PC Plus, the trigger of my concern regarding Windows licensing. Nevertheless, so long as no hard drive changes go on, you should be fine. That said, I do wonder what happens if you add or remove an external hard drive. On this basis at least, it seems OEM is not such a bargain then and Microsoft will not support you anyway.
However, there are cracks appearing in the whole licensing edifice and the whole thing is beginning to look a bit of a mess. Brian Livingston of Windows Secrets has pointed out that you could do a clean installation using only the upgrade edition(s) of Vista by installing it twice. The Vista upgrade will upgrade over itself, allowing you access to the activation process. Of course, he recommends that you only do this when you are in already in possession of an XP licence, and it does mean that your XP licence isn’t put out of its misery, apparently a surprising consequence of the upgrade process if I have understood it correctly.
However, this is not all. Jeff Atwood has shared on his blog Coding Horror that the 30 grace activation period can be extended in three increments to 120 days. Another revelation was that all Windows editions are on the DVD, and it is only the licence key that you have in your possession that will determine the version that you install. In fact, you can install any version for 30 days without entering a licence key at all. Therefore, you can experience 32-bit or 64-bit versions and any edition from Home Basic, Home Premium, Business or Ultimate. The only catch is that once the grace period is up, you have to license the version that is installed at that time.
There is no cracking required for any of the above (a quick Google search digs loads of references to cracking of the Windows activation process). Though it sounds surprising, it is none other than Microsoft itself who has made these possibilities available, albeit in an undocumented fashion. And the reason is not commercial benevolence but the need to keep their technical support costs under control, apparently.
That said, an unintended consequence of the activation period extensibility is that PC hardware enthusiasts, the types who rebuild their machines every few months (in contrast, I regard my main PC as a workhouse and I have no wish to cause undue disruption to my life with this sort of behaviour but each to their own… anyway, it’s not as if they are doing anyone else any harm), would not ever have to activate their copies of Vista, thus avoiding any issues with the activation limit of 1 or 10: an interesting workaround for the limitations in the first place. And all of this is available without (illegally, no doubt) using a fake Windows activation server, as has been reported.
With all of these back doors inserted into the activation process by Microsoft itself, it makes some of the more scary provisions look not only over the top but also plain silly: a bit like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. For instance, there is a provision that Microsoft could kill your Windows licence if it deems that you breached the terms of that licence. It looks as if it’s meant to cover the loss in functionality at the end of the activation grace period, but it does rather give the appearance that your £370 Vista Ultimate is as ephemeral as a puff of smoke: overdoing that reminder is an almost guaranteed method of encouraging power users jump ship to Linux or another UNIX. And the idea of Windows Genuine Advantage continually phoning home doesn’t provide any great reassurance either. However, it does seem that Microsoft has reactivated XP licences over the phone when reasonable grounds are given: irredeemable loss of system, for example. That ease and cost of technical support returns again. There is a corollary to this: make life easy for Microsoft, and they won’t bother you very much, if at all. Incidentally, if they ever did do a remote control kill of your system, the whole action would be akin to skating on legal thin ice. And I suspect that they may not like making trouble for themselves.
I think I’ll let the dust settle and stay on my XP planet while in a Vista universe. As it happens, Paul Thurrott has a good article on that subject too.