Many unfortunately remember the infamous "Vista Capable" logo disaster. A whole bunch of new computers at the time Windows Vista was launched had a little logo that was supposed to indicate yes, they were capable of running Vista. But as we all found out, many of those new computers were barely "capable." Instead computer owners were treated to a less-than-pleasant computing experience – putting it very nicely.

One of the best things Microsoft ever did was release Windows 7 RC to the general public for testing. A ton of people, including myself, use this OS. I use it as my primary right now. This allowed everybody on both sides (corporate and consumer) to do the best live field testing of Windows since the product came into existence; this has served everybody very well.

Microsoft will be using a logo program again for Windows 7, so you will see those little stickers on new computers if you haven’t already. This time around the requirements to get the sticker are far more stringent compared to the Vista logo debacle.

The logo means the product must work with both 32 and 64-bit editions. This is particularly important for peripheral devices, because it means the driver disc included will have 32 and 64-bit versions included. It also means more rigorous testing has been performed to ensure that yes, it will work.

Part of this program includes "Ready. Set. 7." You can check out right now what developers are building 7-compatible items at www.readyset7.com. The list is extensive, and that’s great because it means that many of the products on store shelves will be compatible right out of the box.

In the end however, what has mattered most concerning 7’s readiness has been end-user testing from Win 7 RC use. I use 7 RC, and this OS proved its worth beyond any doubt by running nearly flawlessly on my Dell Inspiron Mini 10v netbook, which houses only a single core 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU, 1GB of RAM, shared video memory and a 160GB 5400rpm HDD.

As far as I’m concerned, if Win 7 can run on this smoothly (which it does,) it can run on just about any computer made in the last 5 years without the need to upgrade.

The logo program is good and is being far better managed, granted, but it’s been the users of this OS that have had the most influence on people. If I thought Win 7 sucked, I would say so without hesitation. If other people thought it sucked, they would say so as well. We’ve all been nothing but honest in our reviews of this OS. And it’s the general consensus that Win 7 doesn’t suck. Not in the slightest. In fact, we all really like it. That’s why we dare to run an RC as our primary operating system. Ordinarily that’s considered computer suicide, but the blunt honest truth is that 7 really is that good.

This is not a review of Windows 7 the operating system, but rather www.windows7sins.org. I suggest reading thru that web site before reading this article. Some will agree with every point made on that site while others will say, "Um.. I don’t think so."

Here’s my two cents on each "sin".

1. Poisoning education

I disagree solely for the reason that Apple computers, which all run OS X, have a large presence in schools, colleges and universities.

You could argue that Apple equally "poisons" children just as bad as Microsoft does.

2. Invading privacy

I agree. I’ve never been comfortable with the fact you have to "activate" Windows and "validate" software just to use it.

3. Monopoly behavior.

I disagree. Large PC manufacturers, Dell included, have sincerely tried to get people to use alternative operating systems like Ubuntu. When netbooks (the hottest selling computer at the moment) first appeared, most of them came preinstalled with Linux. What happened? Returns aplenty. What happened when they started getting shipped with XP? Sales went thru the roof and continue to do so. That’s not monopolistic behavior on Microsoft’s part, that’s the market demanding what they want. It is painfully obvious just from return figures alone that people wanted Windows.

4. Lock-in

I agree and disagree.

Disagree: Windows 7 requires far less hardware requirements than Vista did. On YouTube there are even videos of people running 7 on Pentium III PCs. I’m not kidding. Doesn’t look like lock-in to me. On my own netbook, which is a 1.6GHz with only 1GB RAM, Windows 7 runs flawlessly. I’m using it right now to type this article on.

Agree: Windows does force updates if you have auto-update turned on, and it is aggravating when you leave the computer on overnight only to find it rebooted itself automatically from certain updates that came down the pike. Not cool.

5. Abusing standards

Agree. Microsoft does try consistently to make Word’s DOC the only format anybody would use. It is well known that the OpenDocument format is better, safer, easier and runs on any OS. Microsoft really needs to get with the times here and understand that proprietary software formats are a dumb idea. That time has long passed yet Microsoft clings to it viciously.

6. Enforcing Digital Restrictions Management (DRM).

Disagree. Microsoft would have happily left the Windows Media Player DRM-free but were essentially forced to do it by Big Media due to preexisting relationships. You will notice Microsoft didn’t lift a finger to enforce DRM until Big Media, such as NBC, specifically asked them to do it. Some would say, "Microsoft should have refused!" Should they have? And shoot themselves in the foot? I think it’s obvious why they agreed with NBC in the first place.

7. Threatening user security.

Agree – but to a point.

Nobody knew in the mid-1990s that the internet was going to take the world by storm. Then came in the tsunami of new computer users and it caught Microsoft completely off guard.

Why did Windows have the security of a wet napkin for so long? Mainly because prior to internet, Windows didn’t need any as a not-connected-to-internet PC.

Even in 2001 when XP was released, the internet was still an unsure bet back then.

Where I agree is that Windows had more holes than Swiss cheese for far too long. The stretch between XP and Vista/7 was far too long. The stretch between IE 6 and 7/8 was far too long. Only now, finally, in 7 do we have a Windows OS that is at least on par with other major offerings.

I know there will be those that vehemently disagree with me on this point, and if that’s the case, so be it. Win 7 is the most secure Windows to date. In some instances it’s even safer than a Mac. But the jury is still out on that one because we’ll see what really happens when Win 7 is officially released in October ‘09 and how it stacks up to Apple’s latest Snow Leopard.

The true threat as far as I’m concerned comes from OS activation and WGA. I see that as an invasion of privacy as noted in point 2 above. I find it absolutely disgusting that Windows requires "activation" just to work after a set number of days. It is absolutely wrong that the OS takes inventory of what you have installed and sends it to other places (Microsoft) thru this validation process.

Windows may even come to a point where it’s required for it to be connected to the internet just to work. At present that’s not necessary. If you have to, you can still mail in a registration card (which is almost just as bad). But if it happens that all future Windows OSes are "internet required just to work".. I don’t even want to think about it.

What do you think?

Is Windows7Sins.org correct with all points? Some? None? Voice your opinion.

Microsoft has recently achieved the milestone of Release To Manufacturing (often abbreviated simply as RTM) for the Windows 7 product. This is the last step before the final shipped product arrives on store shelves.

As most of you know, Windows 7 will be widely available on October 22, so you can be sure to see tons of deals on laptop and desktop computers. It is a given that all the OEMs (ex: Dell, HP) and online retailers (ex: NewEgg, TigerDirect) will be offering some really good deals come later October – so watch for that.

The RC of Windows 7 is still available for download, and will continue to be until August 20. Product keys for that will be available until March 2010.

For those that want to get ahead with announcements concerning technical resources for the OS, it’s suggested you subscribe to Microsoft’s Springboard Series Insider.

If you are using Windows 7 now and wanted a way to provide feedback to Microsoft now, the easiest method is to use input.microsoft.com. Yes, you need a Windows ID (ex: Hotmail account), and once in the system you can weigh in your opinion on a boatload of different stuff:

…so if you wanted a voice, there you go. There’s no better way.

Remember all those complaints that Microsoft never listened to its user base? That’s certainly not the case any longer.

Lastly, if you want to see the blogs authored by Microsoft concerning the Windows 7 product, they are all here: http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/

Big name players post blogs there, including but certainly not limited to: AMD, nVidia and Lenovo to name a few.

Did you find any of these resources useful?

Microsoft put a huge effort into not only informing but listening to the audience (that’s you) concerning the Windows 7 product. Do you find any of it useful or was it not what you were looking for? Weigh in with a comment or two.

The fact Microsoft is offering Windows 7 free for an entire year to anybody who wants it is definitely a change for the better. It used to be that whenever any software maker released a product, they would do so, wait for the mountain of complaints to come in, then provide fixes. Concerning operating systems, that’s typically how commercial releases worked for many years.

It is impossible to release an OS that is bug-free. But with Windows 7 I can honestly say that when official, this will probably be the least bug-laden version of the OS ever put to market. And a huge reason for that is because people like myself and many others who are running Windows 7 RC are providing valuable information to Microsoft by using the OS, talking about it, describing what works, what doesn’t and so on.

Linux users have been doing this for years, so the idea of letting the users give feedback before official release is nothing new. It is the strength of the Linux community that contributes largely to a Linux distribution’s rock-solid reliability. When there’s a problem even to the slightest degree, it’s reported, discussed openly (keyword there) and addressed.

Finally, after all this time, Microsoft is now following suit and taking advantage of the power of the internet community. This is a very large step in the right direction because it gives the home user a much louder voice than before.

The voice of the consumer was largely overshadowed by corporations up until this point. Why? Because corporations spend the most money on Microsoft products. Am I saying that the consumer is now on an even playing field with corporate? No. But we are being listened to more, and that’s better than nothing.

Microsoft will never be at the level of user empowerment that Linux is. Of that I have no doubt. Linux, being largely non-commercial, has the advantage of having the user as its loudest voice first and always. When you’re commercial, the user is shunted to dead last as far as "this is who we listen to concerning issues", and I don’t deny that.

However, in all my years of using Windows this is the first time I’ve really seen Microsoft actually pay very close attention to its consumer base and make it well known that it is.

As said above, this is a huge step in the right direction because it makes for a much better end product.

Put simply, I don’t upgrade operating systems. Ever.

I install any OS new and recommend the same to anyone else. It doesn’t matter if it’s Windows, OS X or Linux. Don’t upgrade. Back up your stuff, wipe the drive and start from scratch with the new OS.

To note, I don’t do this with incremental updates (e.g. XP Service Pack 2 to 3) but rather with significant version changes (e.g. Ubuntu 7 to 8).

In my personal experience, my OS upgrades have consisted mainly with Linux and Windows boxes; neither of them know how to do major version updates correctly and never have.

With Linux, I will encounter some type of upgrade issue without fail. If it’s not X that screws up, it’s the network connection. Or maybe Samba decides to drop all the network shares. Or maybe some other service just magically decided to stop working and absolutely will not work again no matter how many configuration files you manually edit or services you stop/restart or reboots you perform. Or maybe the OS won’t load properly at all. But when you install fresh, ta-da… everything works like it’s supposed to and you can go on your merry way.

With Windows, any OS upgrade will leave an enormous amount of crap left behind by the previous version – always. The drivers that used to work in the old OS will try to load in the new one and BZZT… sorry Charlie, that doesn’t work anymore. In addition, the computer runs slow because it’s got all the preexisting crapola it’s still trying (and failing) to use. But when you install fresh, there’s no crap Windows has to deal with and therefore runs better.

I have never recommended that anyone take an existing OS and install an upgrade on top of it, and I never will.

Most of you out there will be upgrading to Windows 7 from XP when it comes to market. What I suggest you do now is the following:

Take inventory of your software

For every app you use, open up a spreadsheet app like Excel or Calc or Google Docs and list them all there. Include your downloaded stuff, your games and everything else. Consider it to be your own personal how-to guide to “build” your OS the way you like it.

For the downloaded apps in particular, make a separate column with the download link so you don’t have to go hunting for it later.

Keep this spreadsheet up-to-date.

For those that would ask why this is even necessary, the answer is that it’s easier to read a spreadsheet than it is to fumble thru a huge list of files and folders. Also, there’s probably at least a few apps you have to install in a specific order. Having the inventory on spreadsheet makes that easy to follow.

(For Linux users I also recommend doing the software inventory spreadsheet. Note the apps you have installed from your respective repositories. Just because you use Linux doesn’t mean you don’t take inventory of what’s on your box.)

Burn any/all downloaded app(s) to CD or DVD or copy to USB stick

CDs and DVDs are cheap and readily available. Buy a 50-pack of a decent brand (one can never have too many) and a set of fine point Sharpie markers. Set aside some time to burn all your stuff.

Recommendation: I suggest burning each disc twice just in case the first one fails or an optical drive decides “I don’t want to play nice with this disc” and scratches it all up.

Alternative: Use a large-capacity USB stick. 16GB versions start at 25 bucks. And it’s most likely true that all your downloaded app-installer files don’t get anywhere near that capacity when combined.

Need more space? Get a 32GB stick. Still need more? Get a 64GB.

Before you wince at the price of the 64’s, bear in mind this is a little USB stick we’re talking about.

If you can fit all your app installer files on a single USB stick, trust me when I say that’s darned convenient. Having all your must-have apps on a single stick is so much easier to deal with compared to flipping thru disc after disc.

Why don’t I recommend external hard drives?

Because you’re most likely using it as a primary backup for other things besides downloaded apps, and you’re probably using it routinely. When doing an app-inventory backup, it’s best use a store-and-forget method until you need it. Discs and USB sticks allow you to do that.

Collect any/all from-OEM discs, put them all together and categorize

These are CDs supplied with your printer, digital camera, camcorder, digital dictation device, GPS, etc. Buy a disc folder or box and stuff ‘em all in there. The software is probably more important to you than the manuals so you might as well keep it all together.

I’m not saying to throw out the boxes or manuals – but put the discs together.

If you don’t feel like doing that, burn copies of the driver/software discs and do it that way.

If you do this stuff now, it will make your new-OS install a whole lot simpler in the future

Most people do the above the day they buy a new OS. Wrong. Don’t do that. Doing it all in a day means you’re guaranteed to miss something along the way. That OEM driver disc you thought you had will end up missing. That file you thought you had won’t be there or backed up anywhere.

And let’s say that you don’t plan on jumping to Windows 7 the week it’s released. That’s fine – but you should still do inventory and back up your apps regardless. There is never such a thing as being too prepared when it comes to computers and operating systems.

Dumprep.exe is a non-essential (according to Microsoft) process that may be in your system startup. It is OK to remove this but obviously it’s not done by deleting dumprep.exe (that would be bad).

Instead we follow these steps:

1. Go to the Control Panel.

2. Double-click the System icon.

3. Click the Advanced tab.

4. Next to Startup and Recovery, click the Settings button. (Note: There are three buttons labeled as this – click the one specifically next to Startup and Recovery).

5. Under Write debugging information, click the drop-down menu and select (none).

It looks similar to this:

Click OK after that. You’re done here.

Next we have to check to see if this is listed in the System Configuration Utility.

6. Click the Start button.

7. Click Run.

8. Type msconfig in the field and then click OK.

9. From the window that appears, click the Startup tab.

10. Look to see if dumprep 0 -k exists. If it does, it would look like this:

You can safely uncheck this as it is not a vital system process (again, that’s according to Microsoft).

Once done you exit the utility.

Why do any of this?

Anything Windows doesn’t have to load on boot (especially that stuff that’s not required like dumprep.exe) will make it start up faster. Every little bit helps!

In this series I’m going to covers the ins and outs of using Linux as your primary home computer operating system. It will cover in a realistic sense what you can and moreover cannot do with it.

Please Login or Register to read the rest of this article. Gold/Silver Membership required.

From DesktopLinux.com: "gOS Cloud can boot in seconds, into a barebones browser-based environment not unlike the locked-down "kiosk" set-ups at libraries and cafes everywhere. Yet, here, the browser has taken on OS-like features, such as the familiar Mac OS X-like application dock shown in the screenshot below."

You’ve used several locked-down forced environment (i.e. "kiosk") systems and probably didn’t even realize it.

A few examples:

• Automated Teller Machines (a.k.a. the "ATM")
• Video game consoles
• Cell phones
• The menu system for DirecTV, Dish Network, Verizon, etc.

All that stuff is kiosk-style.

The good

With a proprietary OS environment, operation and apps are all supposed to work optimally.

Any kiosk-style system is designed with speed first, "fluff" second (this is good).

It’s a Linux distro so you can get into the "guts" of the OS easily.

The bad

There is a such a thing as "too much cloud". If it ever gets to the point where the OS simply will not function without internet, that’s not good.

The reality

gOS states on their web site:

Cloud allows users to switch to the main operating system with a single click, or just power off.

If you’re already using Windows or Linux, what’s the point of even using it then other than boot-up speed?

I think it’s a safe bet to say most people (including beginners) would prefer a "full" OS like Windows or Linux instead of a forced environment.

Incidentally, this is why many people jailbreak iPhones. When you force users into a controlled environment, that’s not the true spirit of computing – and people will find ways to break the chains every time.

CPU-Z is a freeware application for Windows that is as easy as it gets when it comes to getting quick – and useful – system information about your computer.

Let’s take a look (see screenshot below):

Above is a screen shot taken from my older Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop. On the first tab, CPU, you’re told what kind of processor you have, it’s socket type, supported instruction sets and a whole lot more.

Above is the Mainboard tab. This will tell you who made your motherboard, the model, chipset and so on.

Above is the Memory tab. You’re told what type of RAM you have, its size, channels and other information.

The SPD tab will give you information on RAM based on what slot its in – and will even give you the manufacturer information of the RAM (even if they differ from slot to slot).

This is a cool free little app that’s sometimes necessary to have to answer quick questions like:

• Who made my motherboard?
• What family of processor do I have?
• Who made my RAM?
• What’s my overall speed (core, bus, etc.)?

This is definitely a handy app.

You can get it here: http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

And yes it is periodically updated to support the newest/latest/greatest processors.

For those of you out there that run a dual-boot system with Windows XP and Ubuntu, you’ve noticed that Ubuntu is the default OS that loads on each system startup. There is a way to change this so that XP is the default OS instead.

Full documentation:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/GrubHowto/ChangeDefaultOS

What that documentation instructs you to do:

The boot order list is in a text file called menu.lst. You can edit this using a terminal text editor or by using gedit (a GUI-based text editor).

The OS choice in menu.lst is defined by the default line and title.

If for example the default num is set to 0 and you have the following in your grub.lst:

title      Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.15-27-amd64-generic
...
title      Ubuntu, memtest86+
...
title      Other operating systems:
...
title      Microsoft Windows XP Home

“0″ is representative of the first title (it starts from 0, not 1), so you would want the default num to be 4 to start Windows XP first.

For those asking “Um.. okay, so Other operating systems: is technically treated as an OS choice?” Yes it is. That’s the way it’s done in order to display it in the menu on boot.

On my personal system, Windows XP Professional is listed as title 6.

This may sound confusing but it isn’t. All you have to do is when counting the title entries, find the first one (which is 0) then count down until you find the Windows XP entry. Change default num to that number, save the file and reboot. If successful, XP will start first on boot.

I’ve mentioned on the PCMech Live show many times my disdain for the fact that if you’re one of the few running a 64-bit processor, your options for native 64-bit applications are few and far between on the consumer end.

Chances are very high that the computer you’re using right now has a 32-bit CPU in it.

Here’s the short-short definition of the difference between 32 and 64 concerning your CPU: Continued

I broke into the world of computers and technology at around the ripe old age of 10. Not so amazing really, but remember…that was in 1984…back when most people on the street didn’t know what a computer was. The day my father came home from Radio Shack with a brand new Tandy 1000 was the beginning of what has turned into a passion for technology. Continued

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: APRIL 1, 2008

Apple and Microsoft have finally buried the hatchet, hung up their greedy nature for the bottom line and released a 100% free open source operating system, S.U.C.K.S. This is an abbreviation for Standard Universal Computer Kakistocracy System.

S.U.C.K.S. will employ all the best features of both the Microsoft Windows and the Apple Mac OS X operating systems into one convenient free operating system that will run on any personal computer.

Such features will include:

* Your choice of wait cursors when apps fail to work, the “beach ball of doom” or the “hourglass of agony” Continued

Some have asked me off and on why I’m not using a Linux distribution full time as my primary operating system. Over the years (yes, years) I’ve tried but never found a Linux that did it all for me. The video below explains a bit of why I feel that way.