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ComputerGeekGal's Computer BLOG
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Here are some
photos of my upgrade (June 2007)
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I was really excited to do this upgrade. It's been 4 years or so since I've
done a full upgrade. I'm glad to say I really did well with my last build
that I was able to keep it as long as I did without many problems. I would
say it took about an hour or so to remove the old parts and put in the new
ones. If anything, the worst part was trying to get my old install of Vista
with all my apps back. After several attempts, it just didn't happen and I
ended up starting over fresh. Of course, since I had already activated Vista
previously, I had to call Microsoft to get them to re-activate it. I talked
to a pleasant woman from India, lol. So I ended up taking my previous drive
with Vista and putting it into an enclosure, I was able to at least pick
some of my system stuff from there. I found out that windows Vista backup is
worthless. oh well, live and learn |
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| Windows
Vista - Ultimate Edition - RC1 |
| Ok so I downloaded the free preview of
Microsoft Vista RC1 from their website. I thought I'd give it try and be
ahead of the game when everyone buys it after the release. Well I know this
would take a computer of decent power, so I decided to run it on my mac. Ha,
that was fun. I went and got a copy of Parallels Desktop from their web
site, which is fantastic! I highly recommend it for all the mac users who
need to run another OS. It runs windows xp very well. So, I decided to try n
run Vista. I visited their forum at parallels, and they said it would run
the beta1. So I had some wine, and said wth, let's do it. I had a tough time
getting that going, I couldn't get the internet going and had a beatch of a
time trying to figure out how to boot off the disc n such. Of course being
half in the bag didn't help. Finally I got it. But I was so damn tired so I
went to bed. The next day I visited the P forum again, and I saw that
someone got RC1 to go after a couple of last minute and probably nightly
release of PDesktop. Well I tried that, and it installed just fine almost
without a hitch. After I got it booted, I got a BSOD. (Geez already) but I
felt impressed with all the pretty eye candy I was looking at. Below are
some screen shots of the various places you should be familiar with already. |
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I have mixed feelings about the whole thing,
a lot of it is still the same old XP with a new face. I see a lot of things that
were taken from the Mac OS, the search bar in every window, the gadgets, the 3D
flip reminds me of Expose, those are nice. 3D flip is cool but probably useless
you know about it. I couldn't get that to work with my configuration. You will
need a good graphics card with a decent amount of memory I would say preferably
256 and also a good amount of system memory, at least 1 gig. Internet Explorer
(sorry I forgot to get a screen of that) is a resource hog. I could barely run
it. I have 604 megs allocated to Vista, and well, my graphics card doesn't quite
have the right config, which is probably the problem here. I think it's ugly,
and hard to use. I had to install firefox to keep my sanity, lol. The biggest
thing I had troubles with is finding stuff that I used to know where it was.
That goes for internet explorer and the whole Vista too. I had a bear of a time
trying to find where to go to configure my internet settings for a static IP
address. It seems I did a lot of extra clicking to find stuff. Add remove
programs has been renamed to programs and features. They also took the Display
settings out of the control panel. Why? I don't know. Again, I did a lot of
clicking about to find it. The best thing is the new start menu. It's well
organized and doesn't get in your way or fly out 20 times when you need to open
an app. it's more navigatable (is that a word?) and it stays in one place. The
only thing I couldn't find was the run menu, but I just typed "run" in the
search bar and it popped right up.
There's no more hour glass while you're waiting, now you get a spinning "O"
which is cool looking, but of course you'll get sick of it waiting for stuff. I
thought they did a nice job with GUI, it is very pretty to the eye, very glassy.
Microsoft has also did a lot of stuff to try and protect you from virus' and
malware, they've incorporated they're "Defender" app in the security section, and
you'll notice when you try to install apps, you'll be asked for permission
often. I got sick of that real quick. I suppose it's for your own, er my own
protection. In fact I had Windows tell me I needed administrator permission to
install CorelDraw. Funny, I am the admin. I had to google for the results on
that one. ha.
Anyhow, there are a lot of things I could go on and talk about, but who wants to
read?? So I'll let you look at the pics, and if you have questions, or want to
see more shots of other stuff send me an email or hit the contact link below. |
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Paul n Cin fix comp in
Pittsburgh - May 2005 |
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