However, I really wanted to run IE6 from my Windows 7 Start Menu, and was pretty pleased with the Windows 7 VPC’s option for this: you can either choose to run the complete VPC or individual apps (but not both). You can have multiple virtual apps running side-by-side, but not an app running alongside a complete VPC – which kind of makes sense. The applications that are exposed in the Windows 7 menu (and which can be dragged to the Start menu if desired) are all stored in the VPC’s “C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs” folder. Any applications added to the VPC’s Start Menu are automatically added to the Windows 7 Host’s menu too – pretty nice.

Memory management was quite good, too. After it was instantiated (which did take quite some time…) it was only using 15MB of RAM. VPC seems to persist in memory, even if you shut down a virtual app, and so restarting it later is almost instantaneous. However, the VPC does need to be reinitialized after every reboot.

Overall, it was pretty painless, and works well. I now have IE6 running side-by-side with my other browsers on Windows 7.

I received my camera (a new Canon SX1IS) and all its accessories from Newegg, and have been working to understand all of its bells and whistles. It’s interesting in that this is the first camera I’ve ever had that I really NEEDED to read the directions on; it’s relatively complex and some of its features are pretty obscure. So far, the images I’m getting are good, and the videos are fun, but its autofocus is not all that effective at close ranges, and the manual focus feature is a huge PITA. The size is definitely in-line with my expectations – it’s much smaller and easier to manage than our previous Sony DSC-R1. More later when I have the time for a complete run-down.

Windows 7 Release Candidate officially available

I had already downloaded (via a .torrent) Build 7100 of Windows 7, but it’s now available on Microsoft’s site. I haven’t installed it yet over my existing build 7068 installation, but will soon. The keys may have changed from the beta release; in any case, though, they’re readily available from Microsoft’s site or via a quick google.

My advice to anyone running Vista: get Windows 7.

Digital Photography Reviews (dpreview.com – a very good site) posted a review of the Canon SX1IS. While they didn’t pan it, some of the issues they spotted have certainly given me pause in my intent to purchase one from Amazon as soon as it’s released. I’m not a big fan of Nikon offering in this space (the P90). The Pentax Optio X70 looks promising, but there’s very little published on it yet, and while it’s sure to be less expensive ($400 instead of $600), I’m not sure the lack of full HD video and no swivel on the LCD display makes it a better choice. The Olympus SP-590UZ, the Kodak Z980, and the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ28K look about the same as the Pentax (while differing in some areas, like optical zoom, etc.), and I think I’d choose the Pentax over those, all things being equal.

The only camera that has really stuck out to me in my research is the Casio Exilim EX-FH20. The 40 fps option look pretty intriguing. The 1000 fps “movie” mode looks gimicky. It doesn’t have the flip-out and rotatable LCD, and HD-mode is limited to 720p, but the very forgiving “capture images before you even press the button” feature does look pretty cool.

All-told, I still think I’m going to get the Canon, but am mulling our other options, too.

Windows 7 update

Windows 7 Build 7068 is available as a torrent – both 32bit and 64bit versions are available. I’m downloading them both as I type. It doesn’t look like any radically new stuff has been added, but we’ll see. I’m hopeful that they’ve fixed some driver issues and added some tweaks for the taskbar.

But, as I said, it’s still better than Vista. Some new features such as “Aero Shake” and “Screen Edge App Maximize” are pretty convenient for owners of larger screens.

Anyway, I decided to push my luck, and tried to install it onto my wife’s older PC (a 3GHz P4 based on Asus’ P4C800-E Deluxe with 3GB of RAM and an ATI Radeon 9700 Pro) and things seemed to go smoothly – at first. I created a new 50GB partition for Windows 7, and tossed the DVD in. It installed properly, if a bit slowly, but the drivers for the Analog Devices AD1985 Soundmax integrated audio device didn’t work. No problem, I thought, because I’ve got a ton of older boards, including sound cards, lying around. I tossed a Creative Sound Blaster Live24 in, thinking that Windows would play nicely with that… right?? No dice, and things actually got messy: I got my first of several BSOD’s, and my virus-scanner of all things (I’m using AVG right now) started acting wonky. I finally had to decide to give up on audio on the PC for now, and disabled the devices in BIOS.

I’ll work with it some more today. Mary Lou doesn’t particularly care what OS she’s running, as long as it works (which is why I’ve avoided installing Vista for her), but even she admits that Windows 7 with Aero looks very nice.

I think 7048 actually took longer to install than 7000 (the ‘public’ beta). From the time I put the DVD in to the time that I booted into Windows, it was a bit over 30 minutes. I remember 7000 taking around 20 minutes.

There aren’t an incredible number of new features to report, and other folks have already done a more complete job. All I’ll add:

• Uninstalling IE8 completely was surprisingly comprehensive (2 reboots?? wow) but satisfying.
• Creative finally broke down and released beta drivers for Windows 7. Thank goodness – I can now listen to my expensive 5.1 sound system in Windows 7.
• On my system, Windows 7 insists upon messing with (and breaking) my BCD (Boot Configuration Data) file, so it’s necessary to use something like Vista Boot Pro to remedy this. No huge deal, but it’s annoying.

I’ll continue to play with the installation. I’d love to switch over completely from Vista – on my main boot drive (32GB: smaller, but very fast and RAID-0), the WinSXS directory is just over 15GB. That’s in addition to the Windows directory itself, and Program Files.

A few installation notables:

1. Windows Media Player can’t be installed without participating in Microsoft’s "Help us Improve our User Interface, and we promise not to do anything with your data unless someone forces us or pays us to" program. So… no WMP for now.
2. There are no native Creative (Soundblaster) drivers. This is remedied by downloading the latest set from Creative, and running it in Compatibility mode, but even then, 5.1 Surround Sound doesn’t work for any program I could find, except for the Audio setup utility.
3. Daemon tools doesn’t work, and, thus far, I have not found a Virtual ISO mounter.
4. I installed Windows 7 on a test partition as a clean installation. All good, but it wiped out my BCD (Boot Configuration Data), and for awhile there, my Vista 64 O/S entry was nowhere to be seen. OOPS. I fixed this with VistaBootPro, and things are back to normal.

I really like the new taskbar approach. I’m not going to bore you with the details here, but it seems really intuitive, and took me about 10 seconds to get used to.

I do not like the new Program Manager launching mechanism. There’s probably a setting for this somewhere, but as it stands, you have to explicitly click on folders to open them instead of just hovering. I’ll keep playing with this.

I used IE for all of 30 seconds (to install Firefox), but as far as I can tell, there’s nothing new here. It’s IE7, as opposed to IE8.

Even the dreaded UAC seems to have been dramatically improved. Rather than turn it off completely, as was my initial impulse, I decided to mess around with the settings. It looks like you can tune it to your preferences (warn me on THESE actions, but not THOSE) and also seems to be much less intrusive and needy than the Vista version. If you decide to turn it off completely, you don’t have to live with a permanent reminder of Microsoft’s disapproval (yes, I know you can turn it off, but you HAVE to turn it off).

Speaking of which, notifications and reminders are now handled via a nice little facility called "Actions". If Windows wants to talk to you, it puts a reminder there and leaves you alone otherwise. No more flashing red "Danger, Will Robinson" shield. I’m not going to miss it.

More as I feel like it.

I have to admit to being a Vista (64) user on my main PC. I’ve gotten over many of the hurdles associated with Vista (UI, drivers, &^%DJH’ing useless UAC), and it allows me to run all the stuff I want with as much memory as I want. So when I saw that MS was going to be offering an Open Beta of Windows 7 (aka Vista SP2), I figured I’d give it a whirl.

It was supposed to have been downloadable on January 9th to a limited number of users. However, Microsoft’s release and the subsquent downloading didn’t go all that well for most users. If this is a publicity stunt by MS, it’s a bad one, and if not, it’s just plain stupid. Or, as some people think, Microsoft has been so bashed over Vista that they themselves didn’t think anyone would be interested. Anyway, the experience was SO bad that Microsoft had to issue an apology, fix their servers, and offer it for publid downloading again.

Fast forward to this morning. The site is up, and I can log in. I can select the version I want, and get a product key generated. The only thing I CAN’T DO is download the frickin’ software. In Firefox, it does –nothing–, in IE 64, it bombs out (I even tried installing Silverlight… but nooooo…), and in IE 32, I have to install an ActiveX control.  Even after doing so, and trying to download, it was going painfully slow.

As an aside, one good byproduct of this process is that every time you load a new version of the download page, it generates a new key. So, now I have a bunch of ‘em. Email me if you want one. There are 5 keys. For everyone. Hrm… could it be that the Key Generation process was so complex that that’s what was causing the servers to bomb? Must be a .net process!

The Answer? BitTorrent. I’m happily downloading at a great speed right now. I can see how Microsoft would be reluctant to use BitTorrent for standard users, and expose them to the "free warez" underside of the web, but everyone with a technical bent knows about it and uses it on occasion.

TTFN! I’ll probably post about my experience with installation.

But don’t give up hope… there will likely be some new games included.. multi-touch Pinball? Oooh… maybe Mahjongg that you can ONLY play with 2 fingers because that’s the way Microsoft has decided it should be, of course – screw "legacy interfaces".

My guess is it’ll cost $300 for the entry package, and there’ll still be 5+ versions ranging from "stupidly crippled version that’s bundled with low-end PCs" to "wickedly overhyped with a techy color-scheme".

/sigh