Like the rest of the throngs, I excitedly installed Windows 7 beta sometime back onto one of my computers when it became available. This required a little planning as I going to put it on a computer that runs Vista, which also has everything I use installed on it. I didn’t want to mess up a production machine, so I elected to do the next best thing. I ran out to Fry’s Electrons and purchased a shiny new terabyte hard drive and used it to install the shiny new operating system. Just doing my part for the economy!
This approach accomplished a couple of things, though. First, Vista, along with all the software I use, is still there and by switching a cable or two, it comes right back as a Vista machine. Second, I can slave the Vista drive and access all my data on it from Windows 7. But my handy work is a little messy. Since this is temporary, and I want to be able to swap back and forth between Vista and Windows 7 at will and did not want to set this up as a dual booting system, I have left the case open, and poor Windows 7 is sitting loose in its packing material on the side.
I didn’t even bother to mount the drive as I only planned on installing the beta and “kicking the tires” a bit. I justified buying that new Windows 7 hard drive because I’m building a new machine, and it needs a hard drive too. So, in effect, the beta is just borrowing this drive before the other machine is ready.
But now I’m using the release candidate, and I’m not wanting to switch back and forth so much. I find myself just staying in Windows 7. I actually did slave the Vista drive to access the data on it, and I’ve also installed a slew of software that I use, and even some I don’t use so much.
I’m hoping to test this theory that Windows 7 is faster than Vista. And as I expected, after installing Live Essentials, Microsoft Office 2007, SQL Server Dev Ed., Visual Studio, TiVo Desktop, AVG and a lot more, I found that a little bit of the snappiness was gone. But I’ve decided that under this load it’s fair to compare to Vista, which was running on pretty much the identical hardware, except of course the hard drive. And I’m happy. So far it still starts and stops faster than Vista, and resuming is about the same. Anyway, this is not a scientific study under identical circumstances, but I really like what I’m seeing.
ISO Like It
One of the new features included with Windows 7 allows you to burn an ISO file to your burner without installing additional software. Now, if your asking what an ISO file is, then you’re probably not going to need this feature. But, in short, an ISO file is an image file of a disk, usually a CD or DVD which can be burnt back to a blank recordable disk to reproduce the original – including the ability to boot from it, if the original disk was bootable. In previous versions of Windows, you were required to install a separate application for this, such as Nero or Roxio, but there are also numerous freeware apps to chose from as well.
Windows 7 beta and RC were themselves released as ISO files. But, if this is your first install of Windows 7, you’ll need another method to create the disk or bootable device to do the install. There are a lot of free and commercial software products to do this. So, I won’t go into any detail here.
But another interesting feature of ISO files is that, if you have software installed that allows this, they can be directly mounted without having to burn a disk. Windows 7 doesn’t appear to support this functionality directly, but again, third part software does. So, my copy of Office, and Visual Studio, etc., are all ISO files. I really don’t want to make a disk just to do the install. So, I need some of this third party software goodness. For this task, I’ve been using Virtual Clone Drive which allows you to add one or more Virtual drives to your system. And I’m happy to report that it works great with Windows 7 64 bit.
Eating Crow
Now, for my humble apology to Microsoft… I’ve been using Vista since it was in beta, and I was thrilled it included the Close Tray option that closes your CD or DVD tray. I thought it was weird that it didn’t appear right next to Eject, but I was happy that it’s no longer something that Mac’s do and Windows doesn’t. But, to my surprise, Windows 7 didn’t have it at all. And I complained. Damn Mac’s are now better than Windows again! Why did they do that? I truly thought they would fix it so “Eject” and “Close” would be next to each other. But instead – they removed it entirely!
Or so I thought. Foolish me! It was never added by Microsoft, even with Vista! This whole time, it was Virtual Clone Drive! Once I installed Virtual Clone Drive in order to install Office, I immediately noticed “Close Tray” returned. Yay!
So, while I’m happy it’s back, I wish they would just make it “official” in Windows 7! It could be a “new feature!” It’s simple things like this that make me happy. And I would like nothing more than for Windows 7 to be much, much better than a Mac.
The Big Mystery
Also, along my road to discovery, Windows 7 solved a mystery that’s several years old. My machine that now runs Windows 7 for testing was originally an XP machine several years ago. And, just like I’m doing for Windows 7 now, I installed Vista back then – not as an upgrade, but as a clean install on a fresh drive.
After the install, I noticed in the device manager one device with the big yellow question mark. I had a dreaded unknown device. And for a couple years, I had no idea what it was. I used the disk that came with the Abit motherboard and it installed most everything on it, but the yellow question mark persisted. I eventually learned to ignore it, but I hate that! And along comes Windows 7 beta.
I was so disappointed. Windows 7 beta also had the damned yellow question mark. *sigh*
Then Windows 7 RC came onto the scene. If it doesn’t fix it with this, then I’ll probably just have to resign myself to the fact that I’ve been beaten. So, I installed it. And yet the yellow question mark remained. I tried installing the original Abit motherboard disk, and it doesn’t even want to run. So, I just accepted the unknown device and moved on.
Then, one day, the Action Center flag appeared in my system tray, or whatever it’s called now in Windows 7. So, I figured it was a security issue or something. It usually tells me to update my virus software or a solution to a program crashing, but to my surprise, it told me I had an unknown device! How clever of it to notice this. But even better, it knew what it was and how to fix it.
I was told I needed to manually download and install the Abit µguru Overdrive software and driver. Happy days! It also provided a link to the download, but it didn’t work. But armed with the knowledge of what I needed, I went hunting. The Abit website was acting strangely, so I searched for it with Live Search. I discovered that Abit has sadly gone out of business. So, now I know why the link failed.
But, to make a long story short, I was able to access the Abit ftp site, which is still operational, and using parts from the link address provided by Windows 7 Action Center, I easily located not only the suggested file but the most recent version of it. And now, all devices are accounted for and fully operational.
Since the new machine I’m building also uses an Abit motherboard, I was able to get all the firmware flashes and all the most recent software for it too. Score two points for Microsoft! Of course, the very next day the Abit web site started working normally again…
Cleaning the Mess
Traveling further down this road to discovery and adventure, I thought I would try out some of the new features of Windows 7. One of these is Libraries. This feature seems simple enough. The idea of being able to reference many folders as a single library could be helpful to some, but I wondered how useful to your regular average Jane Consumer.
Windows 7 comes with several preconfigured libraries. They are for the standard things like documents, music, pictures and videos. The libraries join together the user’s personal documents, music, pictures and videos folders to the equivalent folders of the “Public” user. The Public user was introduce with Vista as a way to easily share files between users, and these default libraries make both places appear as one big, happy folder. This is nice, but where else can it be used?
Well, in my case, since I have slaved my old Vista drive, I have discovered that it also contains all these same folders in parallel but on another drive. And, most of my data is actually on that drive. So, I can add the “Documents” of the Vista drive, as well as the public documents of Vista’s drive, to the Document library on Windows 7. Neat! And to further exploit the great new feature, I can search my Documents Library and it searches all four folders across two different drives. How sweet it is!
After doing all this, I decided to create a library of my own. In Windows Explorer, an item under Desktop is Libraries. Click on it to open it, and on the right hand side you’ll see all your libraries. You can click the “New library” button near the top to make one for yourself. I did this, and then I named it “My TiVo Recordings.” I then visited the folder that contains “My TiVo Recordings” on the Windows 7 drive. Once you’re at the folder, in Windows Explorer, several buttons appear at the top like a menu. One of these is the “Include in library” button. Clicking it opens a drop down menu of existing libraries or the option to create a new one. Since I just made one for the recordings, I selected it. Then I went to the “E:\” drive – where Vista lives, and I found the TiVo Recordings library over there. And I added it to the same library. Now, there is one place to go to see all the TiVo recordings. I still have to add the external drive. It also has a lot of recordings. The fact of the matter is, I actually have recording spread out all over the place on my home network. I have to hunt them down and add them all.
Next up – I’ll make libraries for all my downloads. Those too are all over the place on different machines. I have, over the years, learned to systematically create the same folder structures on different machines in order to keep track of stuff. Libraries will make this a thing of the past. But once I have it, it’ll be a simple matter to search the library for something good to install.
Making a Mesh of it
A while back I lamented about the planned demise of Microsoft Encarta coming nigh. I’ve been a fan for years, and now I have my niece hooked on the version for kids. So, I installed it on Windows 7. It works great – for now, but eventually, in October (2009), the updates will stop coming. That’ll be a sad day indeed, but the program will still function for those who bought the desktop software version.
Funny thing though, is that the Encarta update function refuses to work on my Vista! So, it would tell me it couldn’t automatically update and provided a link to a place to get the files. It instructed me where to put them, and then the update worked. But in Windows 7, click the button, and it just works.
But, I though to myself that I’d better keep a copy of these update files. Once Microsoft lays Encarta to rest, I’ll be on my own. So, where are those files? Well, because Windows 7 works so well, I didn’t know. Encarta wouldn’t tell me because it had no trouble doing it all for me. But, with a little research, I found the folder.
And I thought to myself, “what a pain this will be. Every time I update Encarta, I’ll have to remember to go get a copy of the new files and keep them in a safe place.” And then I thought of Mesh. Mesh is such a great program. I’ll be very happy when it’s out of beta, but it’s very useful even now. In this case, I just right clicked on the folder that contains the updates and added it to Mesh. Now, that automatically made a copy of my update files in “The Cloud” for me so I didn’t have to back them up manually. But even better, now when I go into Encarta and perform an automatic update, each time the files come down from Microsoft (thank you Windows 7) they go into this folder. And, each time, Mesh sees that stuff changed and performs its magic. It automagically uploads the new update files into “The Mesh Cloud”, and I don’t even have to notice this going on.
When the real Windows 7 becomes available, I will probably start with a freshly formatted drive. I will eventually reinstall Encarta, and the updates will be Meshed back into Encarta’s update folder. A very happy plan!
Throwing the Feed into the Sync
Along this line of thought, and remembering a discussion in the past in one of the Groups, I thought I might try this for my feeds. But, alas, Live Mesh and Live Sync work between folders on different machines. My old Vista drive contains all my regular feeds, of which I was beginning to miss dearly, and my Windows 7 drive had some new ones. But they are mounted to the same machine.
Well, I could just copy and past the feeds, but then, if I ever turn Vista back on, it’ll already be out of sync.
Solution: Microsoft SyncToy v2.0. This handy and free program lets you set up, in a variety of ways, folder pairs. It’s very easy to use, and it works on Windows 7. I used this program to set up a folder pair between the feed store on the old Vista drive with the feed store on the new Windows 7 drive, and the folders where synced in both directions. Now both Vista and Windows 7 see the same feeds. Further, I can run it at anytime or add it as a task to keep them identical from here on out. The main difference with the SyncToy and Mesh or Sync is that it will work on folders connected to the same machine.
Really Making a Mesh of It
But then, I thought to myself, that, if I could do this, then why not try out my “solution” to the proposed Windows Live equivalent of a Google Reader. Everything else is in the cloud. We have our email, calendars, events, pictures and files, and now, even our favorites, if you run the Windows Live toolbar. So, my idea was along the lines of how favorites are handled. The toolbar syncs them. Why not have the toolbar sync the feeds too? Well, nobody else thought that was a good idea. The feeds, unlike favorites, keep track of read and unread feeds, etc. How could you possibly do that? Never ask me a question like that!
So, of course I thought of Mesh because all I needed was a proof of concept. So, basically, I Meshed to the RSS feed store for IE 8 (but this could probably be done for any feed reader), with the Mesh Live Desktop. I located the feed folder, and I right clicked it, and added it to Mesh and synced it with the Mesh Live Desktop. Simple enough.
Now, I’m going to give the standard warning here. Kids, don’t attempt this at home! This stunt is being performed by a trained monkey. So, with that warning, I am going to be intentionally vague on how I do this. If you want to try it, (at your own risk) you can either figure out how to do it on your own or ask me, but I don’t want someone to blow away all their feeds because they messed up. (I also don’t want 50 million questions from people trying it out just because they can. This is really more of a proof of concept.)
So, then I went to my Vista laptop, and I Meshed its feed folder to both the Windows 7 machine’s feed store and the Mesh Live Desktop feed store. More or less, this worked, and it’s pretty fast. Mesh seems to be a little flakey, and I hope that improves as the official release becomes available. But overall, once you close the feed reader, Mesh detects updated files and syncs them. By syncing to the Mesh Live Desktop you are not required to have both machines online for the sync to occur, and the feed files are not that big. So, it won’t hog a bunch of Mesh space and the syncing is fairly fast. It also remembers which feeds have been read, adds new feeds wherever they are added (provided the machine is in the Mesh), etc. Anyway, this is just a proof of concept, and a suggestion for Microsoft to include in something like a toolbar in the future. I will have to “experiment” with this further to see where it breaks down or fails, but I think it’s a novel way to use Mesh. I will be applying this concept, in a similar fashion for other applications and operations. Hmmm. Can I patent this concept? If I can, you saw it here first! (Well, maybe…)
And while I’m at it, I would like to patent the idea of using Microsoft SyncToy v2.0 to sync with SkyDrive via the Gladinet Cloud Desktop. Oh my, I am dreamin’ now! But seriously, think of the possibilities. If the Softies don’t Mesh SkyDrive, then we can do it for ourselves. Now, how’s that for a patent?
Anyway, I would also vote for an online version of a Microsoft feed reader to rival Google’s as well. But this is probably not something Microsoft is working on. And that’s my motivation for this approach. Only time will tell if it’ll be a good one or not. But so far, it’s pretty slick but not issue free.
Anyway, that concludes my adventures along the road to Windows 7 so far. Stay tuned for the sequel, Further Adventures… But first, I’ll have to undertake them.
-Jeff
