Like many people I've been keen to upgrade my computer to the shiny new Windows 7 OS. I ran the beta on my laptop for a while at it really is how Vista SHOULD have been. Lot of fixes. Better usability. Clean. I did the install on the laptop without incident, going from Vista to Windows 7 allows for an 'in place' upgrade that keeps programs and files intact. While a clear slate is always best, my laptop wasn't loaded with crap and the results were good.
My desktop however, runs XP. You cannot upgrade XP to Vista. You have to do a clean install and then re-install ALL your programs. For me, thats a LOT of programs. But I was resigned to it. My system has been running slow, giving me plug and play errors. Nothing game stopping, but annoying. But just as I was getting ready to do the deed I came across a program from Laplink that promissed it could actually backup and move my XP programs to Windows 7. I did some research and it looked like a good deal. The software is about $20 or $9 if you download it from Amazon.com. I did the backup. Installed Windows 7 (which went quite fast) and then started the unpacking process. Bam! Sorry mate, you don't have enough room. But I'm just moving files around, why do I need gobs of space?
No answer from their website.
Actually, no website.
It seems that my wireless card wasn't working. No internet. Luckily I have my trusty laptop. I won't bore you with the gory research details. Suffice it to say I wasted about 4 hours downloading drivers, updates, software, more drivers. At one point I got my onboard soundcard working. Great! I didn't know it wasn't woking, but okay. (I use USB wireless headphones that bypass the sound card).
Eventually, out of desperation I went back to the Linksys support site. I did searched for Windows 7 info. I looked up my card again and carefully read the FAQ's. Funny thing, there's no info on Windows 7, but there IS info on Vista drivers. I click a link, download a 500k file, use a thumb drive to move it to the desktop system, clicky clicky and guess what... internets.
Really Linksys?
You've known about this OS for about a year, just like everyone else. It's not like it just sprung forth from the sea like Venus on the Half Shell. It's not like this hardware is old or from an obscure maker. It's f*cking Linksys! And you can't bother to build a driver for your product? Or ever put up a LINK to a blurd that sayd 'Hey, Windows 7 users, use there Vista drivers, they're just peachy" ???
This is the sort of thing that makes me want to buy a place ticket, fly to California to their corporate headquarters, wait patiently in the waiting roon and then, upon meeting the person responsible for not getting this driver in place, punch them squarely in the balls.
Repetitively.
Now that I've got my internets back I will call the Laplink people tomorrow to see if indeed I can do this in place upgrade. Computers... indestinguishable from evil pixies.
Happy Halloween all!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
3 comments:
My new computer came with a free upgrade from Vista to Windows 7. My techy friend who set up and installed my computer advised me to pass on the upgrade because of the need to reload and reset all of the other programs on the computer. Given your experience, I am glad that I took his advice and just put the free upgrade in a drawer. I do not need it for gaming and conquering the world and other bad guys when I play Company of Heroes. I feel your pain. Open fire! Rounds out! Rockets away! ...man down! Medic!!
Sir Constantine.
I like to reload my OS every once in a while just to spruce the place up. If you keep all your files and databases and what not on a separate partition, it really isn't that much hassle.
It's like painting a room every once in a while: You clear out all the dust bunnies, and it keeps you from getting layers of clutter, and it prompts you to ask yourself if you really need something you haven't touched in years, so close at hand. (box and label, or pitch)
And really, if it eats up time that you could have spent watching tv, is it all that bad?
Constantine, what I did was a bit unorthodox. I went from XP to Win 7 using a third party program. Going from Vista to 7 went pretty smoothly on my laptop and I really do like it.
I was able to restore my programs into Windows 7 and had only a few quirks. My HP printer did not work. It turns out HP didn;t make a Win 7 driver. After all, it's like.. 4 years old. That's almost ancient. Luckily more clever monkeys than I found an answer by using another printer driver and all it well.
iPhone wouldn't synch. That took a few hours to track down. Had to reinstall drivers. Music played fine, ever the apple DRM'ed stuff.
Quicken wouldn't print checks. The google's found the answer and by deleting 1 file it was back up.
I haven't been able to reinstall Adobe CS3 but that was a pain to install under the best of conditions. Other than that, I'm back up 100% I think.
Post a Comment