I'm Upgrading to Windows Vista and Office 2007
My only work computer (laptop w/ XP Pro) died this morning. Since we just RTMed Windows Vista, I figured it was about time to upgrade! Unfortunately our internal support won’t have Windows Vista RTM ready for network install for another four days, but I’ve got to have something now, so I’ll be wiping out my system again and reinstalling in just a few days.
So far… arg! I’m using RC1 and while it’s a whole heck of a lot better than the beta, there are still so many little issues. I really hope they’ve fixed these in RTM or I’ll be doing a lot of bug logging. 1. Just little things, like when you're in an Open File dialog, press Shift-Tab from the “File name” text box and focus goes to the file listing’s column headers, not the actual files themselves. Arg! 2. There are just way too many dialogs to elevate user permissions, it is a pain (work around). 3. Right off the bat IE sais that “Your security settings do not allow websites to use ActiveX controls installed on your computer…. Click here for options…”, you click the gold bar, and there are no options, just a help topic that doesn’t have anything to do with the msg. 4. many more. Again, this is RC1 and I reserve final judgment till I try RTM. Right now it is just frustrating and quite unproductive.
I’m sure there are many cool new features. The graphics are nice. I like that the user accounts are now under “C:\User” instead of “C:\Documents and Settings”. I know .NET 3.0 has some amazing new technologies (WPF, WCF, etc). There's just a lot of new stuff to get used to. If I can get things running, then I’ll be able to appreciate the cool stuff.
Long story short, I have several blog posts ready to go, but I’ll be focusing on getting Windows Vista up and running in the next few days, then out on vacation all next week, so there may be a week or two lull in my postings. Cheers!
P.S. I’m writing this blog post via e-mail using blogmailr.com.
Update (11/14/06): I'd like to point out that the work around provided above to disable User Access Control (UAC) is not generally recommended. The concept is that yes, it may be extra steps along the way of setting up your system, but in the long run it significantly helps improves the overall security. I agree with this. In my case, I'm consistently performing administrative tasks (installing new apps, moving files in and out of system folders, modifying restricted file attributes, etc), and disabling UAC helps. It is not recommended for most customers and I would definately leave UAC on for other system's I maintain (my wife's, Mom's, or sister's).
Update (11/15/06): Well since yesterday afternoon, Vista apps have been crashing every three minutes or so and I'm getting a blue screen or random reboot every half hour. It is unusable. It is a standard Dell D610 laptop, no special hardware. I'm restoring WinXP till I can get Vista RTM.
Update (11/17/06): Come to find out, one of the two 1GB memory modules was bad. That would cause all sorts of problems! It's getting replaced and in the mean time I'm installing Windows Vista & Office 2007 RTM as I type this on a backup PC.
Update (1/8/07): I'm back w/ WinXP, but am running Office 2007. So far so good! I'll try Vista out again in the next few weeks. I'm looking forward to writing Windows Media Center plugins with Avalon. My Uncle has also pointed out a handy tool, the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor.
Comments
Anonymous
November 13, 2006
Why the heck are you using RC1 instead of RC2? RC1 still had a lot of problems, whereas RC2 is a lot better.Anonymous
November 14, 2006
tzagotta, I wish I was using RC2! Unfortunately, our IT dept does not have RC2 as a net boot install option. They'll be providing RTM in just a few days. I understand the amazing rush to QA Vista, but am surprised at all the remaining issues in any build called a "Release Candidate".Anonymous
November 14, 2006
When navigating files in Windows Vista, either in Windows Explorer or a File Dialog (like "Open File"),Anonymous
January 08, 2007
Hi Noah, I've survived my vista and office 2007 upgrade. Took a lot of guts but so far I'm only reloading a couple times a week. At one point I had outlook 2007 on xp and that cause lots of xp hanging. That actually convinced me to go all the way! By the way, they made me an MVP this year! whopee! See you. -Peter