Windows 7, Rain, & Stepford Snow

Windows 7 Upgrade

Yeah, I know.  I’ve always been a Mac guy.  Build quality of the Apple hardware far exceeds anything I’ve ever seen on the PC side.  The Mac operating systems have always made more sense and offered more and better control of the computing environment. 

Well, as you know if you’re one of the people  who read this blog, I’ve recently purchased a factory refurbished HP laptop.  It shipped with Windows Vista installed, which I really enjoyed.  Sort of a monster the functionality of which was fun to discover.  But, because I purchased before 31 January 2010, HP offered a free upgrade to Windows 7.  Because free is where it’s at, baby, I signed up.

In due time the envelope containing the two-DVD upgrade suite arrived.  Disc One is a proprietary HP upgrade helper sort of thing containing a user interface and progs that evaluate the hardware and C-out reports and advice.  And here’s the thing – the advice printing to screen is worth following.  First time around, I ignored the suggestion to abort the upgrade then find and uninstall the program that uses “keyboard filter” before running the upgrade stuff again.  After what seemed like a very long time, with the actual Windows 7 disc running its install, the entire system and upgrade hung completely on a chkdsk countdown at 1.

After using the Macintosh to get online and research the problem, I rolled back to Vista on the laptop, found and uninstalled the HP Quick Keys program, and a couple of days later successfully ran the upgrade to 7 without the slightest hitch.

I have never had any similar problems upgrading Macintosh computer operating systems.

Anyway, I do like Windows 7, but it’s not as funky-genie-like as Vista.  Just pretty stable and functional using far fewer system resources.

Rain

What was it, a week ago, that we got all that rain.  Like Waterworld around here for a few days.  Got me thinking about the feasibility of installing a dry well out back and in front.

Snow

Got a bunch of snow here at Stepford yesterday.  Our offices were all closed at noon – I got home before the atmosphere began to really resemble a shaken snow-globe.