Tech Review

I upgraded my computers to Windows 7 yesterday. Some thoughts:

1. I partition my drives. I place all of my music, documents, and video on one partition and the operating system and programs on another. This allows me to perform a backup without using an external drive. You may partition using Paragon, Acronis, or the built-in partition tool in Vista.

2. It might be a good idea to reinstall an operating system anyways. Hard drives can get pretty nasty after a year or two of constant use.

3. I bought the 3-license Family Pack. Good deal.

4. I upgraded the family computer "in place," or over the old, broken installation that wouldn't connect to the internet. It connected to the internet but I'd click on programs like the Windows Explorer and they wouldn't open. My point is that a Windows 7 install won't necessarily cure all that ails a Vista installation. I recommend a clean install, especially if you have the disks and/or serial keys to all of your programs.

5. I performed a clean install. I received a "10" from all of the judges except for my son who gave me a "4" for erasing his game saves.

6. It then worked flawlessly. In fact, all of my Windows 7 installations have worked perfectly. I feel that Windows 7 is to Vista what XP was to Windows Me.

7. I installed the 64-bit version on all of my computers. I haven't had any problems with drivers or 32-bit programs. Even my Icewind Dale II game works great.

8. The killer feature of Windows 7 is its solidness. If I had to name two injuring features, they'd be the easier home networking, the superb Windows Media Center, and the newly non-sucky Windows Media Player 12.

9. I installed all of my favorite apps: Roboform, Clipmate, Directory Opus, Adobe Photoshop Elements, 7zip, Openoffice, and Firefox. I was too scared of using any registry-fixing software and switched from my previously favorite anit-virus app, Avast, to Microsoft's Security Essentials, which is unobtrusive. On my own computer, I added Nuance PDF, and some Army smart card and document readers. I also had to force-feed myself Microsoft Office 2007 instead of OpenOffice.

10. These nerds will tell you more than you need to know. By the way, have you noticed that many of these shows pair super-nerdy guys with Martha Quinn-like, thin, wispy, Elven, goofily-fun waifs that the guys have little chance of dating?

11. They recommend Secunia, Drop Box, and some other programs that I'll try later.