For those of you who are fed up with Vista but don’t feel like paying for Windows 7, consider returning to the last stable version of Windows: 3.1. Of course, it may have been a while since you last used 3.1. Don’t worry, Microsoft has your back with this free training video.

[via TechCrunch]

Windows 7 Installation Media

We have a Microsoft open license. Consequently, I downloaded an ISO file rather than receiving a DVD. I then used ImgBurn (there are other alternatives) to burn the ISO to a DVD containing the installation files. You can install using an ISO file or a bootable USB stick, but why complicate matters?

Device Preparation

I fully charged the laptop battery and plugged the laptop into a reliable power source. Belt and suspenders perhaps, but why take a chance on running out of power during an install?

I made sure the BIOS was up to date. It wasn’t. So I flashed it.

I also made sure I had a reliable wired Internet connection, rather than relying on WiFi. You should have an Internet connection during the install process, and wired is more reliable than WiFi. Indeed, as discussed below, I had some compatibility issues with my WiFi software and drivers.

Similarly, I used a USB wired mouse rather than a wireless USB or Bluetooth mouse. If you’re using a wireless keyboard with your desktop or slate MD/UMPC/Tablet PC, a USB wired keyboard also is advisable.

Of course, make sure you have sufficient remaining space on your disk. You may also want to check the disk for errors, and defragment if you have a HDD rather than a SSD.

I’m sure there’s other things to mention, like having your product key available, making sure you have enough free time and aren’t tired (and therefore prone to making dumb mistakes), wearing clean underwear in case there’s an accident (sorry, bad recycled joke), etc.

Starting the Install

I ran the setup.exe file on the DVD from Windows, as opposed to from a boot.

Checking Compatibility

I’ve watched enough eHarmony commercials on TV to know that compatibility is important. Here though the issue is whether your hardware and software are compatible with Windows 7.

The image at the beginning of this post shows the startup screen when I ran the setup.exe file on the DVD from Windows. You have two choices: (1) Check compatibility online, or (2) Install now. Resist the temptation to start installing. With OS upgrades, as with other issues in life, remember “sin in haste, repent in leisure.” So I chose Check compatibility online.

This choice directed me to download the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor. I downloaded, installed and ran the advisor. It pointed out some advisable software updates. I applied those updates.

The advisor also told me to uninstall certain programs, such as the WiFi software and driver, which I could reinstall after Windows 7 was installed. I did so, choosing the option to save my settings.

I then closed the install program, rebooted, and ran the advisor again to confirm I had a clean bill of health.

Installing

After confirming compatibility, I again ran the setup.exe file on the DVD from Windows, and this time chose Install now.

My first choice is whether I wanted to download installation updates or proceed directly to installation. I chose to download installation updates. No duh.

After the updates were download, and I accepted the license terms (e.g., Microsoft gets your first unborn child), I then had to choose between an Upgrade and a Custom installation. The latter involves a fresh install, requiring reinstallation of programs. A fresh install has its advantages, but my objective was a simple upgrade. So I chose Upgrade.

The setup program then checked compatibility. If you ran the Upgrade Advisor first, and implemented its recommendations, presumably nothing will be flagged here. At least for me nothing was.

Installation then started. Get a cup of coffee; it took me about 1 1/2 hours (YMMV). This is why you want to have a fully-charged battery and a reliable power source before you begin.

Installation, while lengthy, was uneventful.

Activation

Since we have a Microsoft open license, activation is different than if you have the key on a sticker on your installation DVD case. I’m using a MAK (Multiple Activation Key) instead of Key Management Services (KMS).

I used the usual Windows Activation applet. Wrong. I didn’t know that, the obnoxious and uninformative Microsoft help videos didn’t tell me that, and the Microsoft Helpdesk guy in India didn’t know it either.

But Google search is your friend. Evidently I wasn’t the only poor schnook who had run into this problem and pounded his head into the wall until he heard the mushy sound. The (relatively easy) solution:  In Control Panel > System, you have to first change your product key to your MAK key (which you don’t enter during installation). Then activate. That was fun.

Aftermath

Now I need to run Windows Update … a whopping 432.5 MB download. I also need to visit the unintuitive Dell Support site for Windows 7 drivers. Then I’ll see how much better my Dell Latitude XT2 runs under Windows 7.  But that’s another story.

James my friend, I dunno about this. My experience with the HTC Advantage x7500, a similar device except the OS is Windows Mobile, is that this form factor may not be pocketable, unless you walk around in a lab coat. Think also about your (and my) Viliv S5. It’s also a similar device with the 3G option, except it doesn’t have a slide out keyboard. I wouldn’t want to carry that mini-brick around as my phone.

Does a 4.8” phone make sense? And what implications does this discussion have for the upcoming 4.3” HTC HD2 (aka Leo) and the Archos Android phone?

Another Twitter friend,  Steve “Chippy” Paine of UmpcPortal, questions in Are MID-Phones Too Big to be Buddies? whether even a 4.1” phone is too big. His point is a bit different though. A 4.1” phone is pocketable, though still pretty big in your pocket. Chippy believes that the 4.1” screen is still too small for browsing, perhaps not much better than, say, a 3.5” phone which would be much more comfortable in your pocket. “800×480 in anything less than 4.8” is going to be sub-optimal for full web browsing. [With a smaller screen] either you bump the font sizes up on and reduce the screen real estate or you suffer with a time-consuming zoom operation.”

Chippy’s reference to the 4.8” size brings us back full circle. Web browsing is OK, but 4.8” likely is too large to be pocketable. So under his analysis, 4.3” may be a “tweener”, too big to be comfortable pocketable, but too small for good web browsing.

Perhaps it’s wishful thinking, based on my lust for the HTC HD2, but I hope Chippy is wrong about the 4.3” form factor. But I just don’t know because I’ve never had a 4.3” (or 4.1”) phone. There’s really no way for me to tell without some hands-on experience with that form factor.

The optimum phone size is an interesting question that likely will be further discussed in the coming weeks since the HTC HD2 will be available later this month in Europe.

The solution, as I mentioned in my prior article, seemed straightforward. In Device Manager, USB controllers, some entries have a Power Management tab. I unchecked "Allow the computer to turn off the device to save power." Problem solved.

Or so I thought. After a while, the sleep of death problem recurred with my Viliv X70. I went back to Device Manager. For the USB controllers which had a Power Management tab, "Allow the computer to turn off the device to save power" was checked again. Obviously my unchecking wasn’t sticking.

The solution: Control Panel, Power Options, Edit Plan Settings, Change advanced power settings, USB Settings, USB selective suspend setting, choose Disabled (instead of Enabled) for On battery and Plugged in. This is for Windows 7; the exact path to this setting may differ for XP and Vista (I haven’t checked yet). This change should be made for each power plan you use.

Hopefully my change will now stick, and this will help those of my readers who also may face this issue.

However, after installing Windows 7 RTM, I had issues. I’m not talking about my personal ones; this isn’t a psychiatric blog. Rather, for example, touching the screen did nothing. And touch wasn’t the only thing that didn’t work.

Fortunately, the issues could be solved easily enough. But apparently the siren song of an upgrade install preserving your settings isn’t always true.

Touch

Touching the screen did nothing. The solution was to uninstall and reinstall the touch software. The X70 comes with “Touchside” touch drivers available on the Viliv support site. However, that driver version doesn’t appear to work in Windows 7, RC anyway. Initially I reverted to an older version which for whatever reason did work in Windows 7 RC. Later I upgraded (?) to the eGalax Windows 7 beta driver. Frank Garcia aka CTitanic of UMPC Tips has posted extensively on the eGalax touch screens (see eGalax Touch Screens are not always USB-HID Compliant among other recent articles). Excellent and very useful reading.

But back to my troubles. I uninstalled and reinstalled the eGalax Windows 7 beta driver. Problem solved.

GPS

GPS didn’t work either. Reinstallation once again was necessary. Fortunately I had to get GPS working initially so I already knew what to do. I followed the advice in this Pocketable forum thread. The only difference is the COM port is 2 on the X70, instead of 1 as it is in the Viliv S5 that was the subject of the forum thread.

Sleep of Death

I had a lot of trouble resuming my X70 from sleep in Windows 7. Moving the switch to the left sometimes turned it back on. And sometimes it didn’t, even though the HDD indicator seemed active. Also, when I did get the X70 to resume, it took a seemingly long time to get back to my desktop.

By contrast, my S5, which still has XP Home, resumes from standby reliably, and very fast.

I wasn’t sure if this was an XP standby vs. Windows 7 sleep issue? Or an X70 vs. S5 issue? But first I took the tack that it might be a so-called USB sleep of death issue. So In Device Manager, USB controllers, some entries have a Power Management tab. I unchecked "Allow the computer to turn off the device to save power." Problem solved.

Or it was until I upgraded. “Allow the computer to turn off the device to save power” was magically re-checked in a number of USB entries. Of course, I unchecked them.

What Else?

I dunno. I have to go to work to support my gadget addiction. So I haven’t checked everything yet. However, if there are other issues, I anticipate re-installing will resolve it. If not, you’ll hear from me.

I successfully upgraded the OS on my Viliv X70 from Windows 7 RC (Release Candidate) to Windows 7 RTM (Released to Manufacturing). The magic word is upgraded, as opposed to a clean install. By upgrading, I don’t have to reinstall my applications.

Of course, it’s never easy. There are two hurdles to overcome. However, in the spirit of Martin Luther King, “We shall overcome.”

The Windows 7 RC edition is Ultimate. The installation checks if your RTM edition also is Ultimate. If yours isn’t (mine is Professional), installation stops.

How to Upgrade Windows 7 RC Ultimate to RTM Enterprise gave me the idea of how to solve this. My edition is Professional, not Enterprise, but the concept is the same. Start the Registry Editor (regedit). Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\Current Version. Replace the word “Ultimate” with “Professional” in ProductName and EditionID. Now my RTM and RC editions match, as far as the installation program is concerned.

The installation also checks whether your current Windows 7 version is pre-RTM by checking if the version number is lower than RTM’s 7233. If it is, and RC is at 7100, installation stops. However, How to Upgrade the Windows 7 RC to RTM (Final Release) (and this older blog entry) explains how to solve this issue by editing a file in the install to accept a minimum current version of, say, 7000, low enough for RC to qualify. The process requires copying files from your DVD to your hard drive, but is explained well in the articles and isn’t difficult.

These two hacks seem perfectly legal. You still need a legal copy of Windows 7 RTM, and your legal copy entitles you to an upgraded or clean install of the edition you purchased.

Of course, the usual caveats. No guaranties. Your mileage may vary. Back up everything. Make sure you know what you’re doing. Follow directions. Fully charge your battery + plug the X70 into external electric power. Wear clean underwear in case there’s an accident.

Good luck!

Many of us plan to leave Vista in our rear view mirror and upgrade to Windows 7 after 7 is released on October 22. You should be able to do an upgrade install of Vista to 7. This means that your applications and their settings also migrate to the OS. In other words, you avoid the headache of reinstallation.

However, what about us XP users? There apparently is no upgrade install path from XP to 7. Instead, XP users have to perform a clean install. This means you need to reinstall your applications, which can be a real PITA.

This is a meaningful issue to me since I own XP as well as Vista computers. Indeed, I purchased a couple of the XP computers recently, so I’m eligible for a free upgrade to 7. (I bought Vista with an XP “downgrade”, a characterization I might disagree with).

Well, maybe us XP owners can in effect perform an upgrade install to 7 also.

LapLink’s PCmover, per this press release, will support an in-place upgrade of XP to 7:

“When Microsoft® releases Windows® 7, many XP users will have a serious problem – no upgrade path provided by Microsoft to Windows 7.  The new release of PCmover® solves this problem with an option for performing a special "in-place" migration, allowing XP users to perform a full upgrade to Windows 7 with the same result as if Microsoft had provided an "in-place" upgrade.”

This feature matrix compares the two PCmove editions, Professional and Home. Cost is in the range of $40 – $60, depending on which edition or whether you’re buying a Laplink USB cable, or instead using a  Windows Easy Transfer Cable you may already own.

[via SlashGear]

No, not that type of flasher. WinToFlash enables you to create a Windows install on a USB stick from, typically, the install DVD. This is convenient, especially on small devices, when you don’t have an internal DVD, and an external USB DVD isn’t available, or you don’t want to cart the burner around from device to device when performing multiple installs.

I haven’t tried it. But JK of JKOnTheRun reports success. Interestingly, a comment to his post reports an alternative, described in this article and shown in this video. (There’s also this guide).

Of course, you’ll need a USB stick of sufficient size (8GB should do the trick), and to set your BIOS to boot off the USB stick before the hard drive. And (duh) you’ll need the OS install DVD as a source and (duh duh) a license key for each install.

Happy flashing!

Viliv X70 – Windows 7 Update told you that I’d successfully installed Windows 7 RC on my Viliv X70. I also told you I’d try to document the process this weekend when I have some free time, and after I had resolved some remaining issues.

Well, I’m not there yet. Partly because work got in the way. And partly because I’m trying to hit a moving target.

Viliv X70 Drivers and Software Now Online and Viliv X70 Online Drivers and Software Update told you that Viliv’s online downloads now include drivers and software for the X70 as well as the S5.  However, these downloads didn’t resolve issues I had with Viliv Manager and the Cube. Today, Viliv posted a new download for Viliv Manager (simultaneous Bluetooth and 3G!) and the Cube. Also included are installation instructions (about time!).

I haven’t yet had a chance to try out the new software. I will soon of course, and report back. Promise!

Update: The Viliv Manager indeed now supports simultaneous Bluetooth and 3G! Near as I can tell, also simultaneous WiFi and 3G.

“What does not kill me, makes me stronger” is credited to Friedrich Nietzsche, a 19th Century German philosopher. A little known fact is Nietzsche was an early adopter of Windows Vista, and came up with his saying while trying to find the bright side of dealing with Vista’s many “challenges.”

If Nietzsche’s saying is true, I’ve certainly gotten stronger lately battling with ATI Vista video drivers that are as stable as Charles Manson on crack. However, my most recent challenge concerned Windows Explorer itself. And based on my Google search, it’s a common problem. So it could happen to you. And perhaps with OS versions other than Vista.

The latest challenge occurred when I right-clicked a file in Windows Explorer to display a shortcut menu from which I could choose to move, copy or rename the file. Windows Explorer, and the system generally, just hung.

A quick Google search confirmed I was not alone. The excellent WindowsXP MVP article Right-click is slow or weird behavior caused by context menu handlers explained the issue:

“These problems are caused by a bad context menu handler. A context menu handler is a shell extension handler that adds commands to an existing context menu (Example: cut, copy, paste, print, Scan with Norton etc). A poorly coded context menu handler may be causing any of the above symptoms.”

The WindowsXP MVP article suggested two methods of solving this problem. The first concerns mucking around in the registry. The second is to download, install and run the excellent freeware tool ShellExView. Being lazy, I chose the second method.

However, even with ShellExView, trial and error is required to pinpoint the problem. You disable various context menu handlers, either one at a time or using a “divide and conquer” approach, until the problem goes away. In my case, a SnagIt context menu handler appears to be the culprit.

I thought I should share this with you since this problem appears to come up a lot.