Installing Windows 7
Windows 7 looks excellent. I loaded it up a few days ago on my primary laptop and don’t expect to roll back any time soon. I may be back on Vista when the August beta expiration rolls around, but from what I’ve seen so far, I’ll be on Windows 7 until then. Here are my installation notes:
Getting off Vista: There is a beefed up version of the files and settings transfer tool from previous Windows versions, blogged about here. I should have tried it since it seems to offer transfer of programs as well as files and setting. Instead, I just grabbed a big USB drive and pulled my key folders off. I made sure to grab the “Favorites” folder.
Ready for install: Since I put this on my main work laptop (Lenovo x61 Tablet) I made sure I had a fast route back to a working image by getting a second hard drive. I burned the Windows 7 ISO image to a DVD but apparently could have installed off a USB Flash Drive.
Partitions: Boot from DVD into setup is fast and the whole setup experience is streamlined. One “feature” that I had to look into when I partitioned the new drive for the first time, was the creation of a hidden 200 MB partition. Apparently Windows 7 uses this for recovery information, so I left it alone and went on with the installation.
Install: After setting up the new drive, the rest of the installation went pretty quick. It asks for the key and then lays down the main OS image. Most of setup at this point looks like Vista. It walks you through setting up an initial local user account. I recommend not using your network login name if you plan on joining a domain to prevent confusion later when reviewing user accounts. It then gives you Windows Update options, which you want to turn on right away for the first patch that will save your MP3s from being corrupted. After the usual time zone screen you get the new option to set up a HomeGroup, a sort of mini-domain for home PCs.
Installation complete: When the desktop comes up for the first time it goes out to windows update for you, if you have a network connection active. You want to get the first patch out there asap as I mentioned above. Once that is done you are ready to go.
Start to finish it took around 35 minutes to get to first login and the fish (yes, there is a joke there if you know what the common name is for that kind of fish.)
From there I set up my domain account, main Windows settings and get my files and apps loaded back on. I’ll write up some notes on that in my next post and talk more about what I like about Windows 7 so far.
Anyone else have tips on the installation? Anyone else like the fish as much as I do?
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