Last weekend I upgraded from Windows 7 Release Candidate to Windows 7 Home Premium. I have used many flavors of Windows over the years, and this is certainly the best to date.

I personally find it quite enjoyable to be running a brand new fresh-and-modern operating system. Everything looks better, runs better and so on. And there are many features that make 7 totally worth the upgrade.

So why am I writing an article about not upgrading to 7?

It’s because there are growing numbers of people that simply do not care about the OS anymore, citing the reason to the tune of, "All I want to do is turn my computer on and have it do what I want. As long as it can do that, I don’t care what runs it."

This is heresy to a fervent computer geek, because how dare anybody run something that isn’t modern, and why on Earth would you consciously choose to use something old?

There are several good reasons for this.

Cost

The upgrade price of $119 US for Home Premium Upgrade (which is what most people would use) simply does not resonate well with people in the current economic climate.

There have been arguments aplenty that even though this is a price drop compared to Vista, it’s still too expensive and that it should have been priced between $50 to $75. And it doesn’t help that the $119 price tag comes dangerously close to half the cost of a new nettop or netbook computer.

It doesn’t bring anything new that’s usable

The emphasis here is on the word usable.

If somebody asked me, "What can Windows 7 do that my XP can’t do that would convince me to switch/upgrade?", it’s doubtful I’d come up with anything compelling enough to convince anybody to take the plunge.

The only instance where I could truly convince anybody that 7 is better is for Vista users, because 7 is notably slimmer and faster than the Vista OS even with applied SP2 and all other available updates installed. That makes 7 much more usable and is a compelling reason to upgrade.

But for XP users, I haven’t any compelling reasons such as the above. Everything I’d mention would most likely be dismissed as, "Nice. But that’s not really anything I could use."

The migration process for XP users going to 7 is painful

When upgrading Vista to 7, everything is carried over. But from XP to 7 this is not how it happens. Everything you have is kept, but shoved into a folder called Windows.old. So you’ll have to reinstall all your apps all over again. Many consider this no different than formatting the hard drive and starting from scratch.

This is a situation absolutely nobody wants to deal with.

Now I want to make clear that there is no operating system on the planet that has ever been able to make migrating from one major version a newer one easy – not even Mac OS X. And certainly not Linux or UNIX. Migrating always and without fail just plain sucks. In fact it could be argued that Microsoft operating systems qualify as the "least worst" when it comes to migrating up from old to new. Even so, it still sucks because you will spend a good amount of time reinstalling apps, tweaking settings and so on. It will occur, and there’s no escape from it.

This is a huge, and I mean huge, reason people don’t like upgrading.

If it’s all about the browser, what reason is there to care about the OS?

The primary reason anybody owns a computer today is to do things on the internet. And this means the most important app that you use is your web browser.

Windows XP will run Internet Explorer 8 or any other popular browser offering such as the latest version of Firefox, Opera, Chrome or Safari.

Every browser that 7 can run, XP can run. The only real difference is that 7 has more security to it because of the internal underpinnings of the OS. But XP’s internet security deficiencies can be patched up with a good security suite. Maybe it won’t be as streamlined as 7 is, but you can protect your PC reasonably well with third-party offerings.

If the vast majority of what you do is in the browser, you already know the OS doesn’t matter as long as a modern browser can run in it, and that the network security in place by the OS and optional third-party software is good enough to protect your PC.

XP will continue to hang around for a few years

When Windows XP was introduced in 2001, Windows 98 took roughly about 3 years to wean itself out as what people primarily used. This was a fairly brisk transition. Then again, people and corporations were buying computers left and right back in those days which I’m certain helped that along quite a bit.

Vista was supposed to kill off XP. It didn’t. The market viciously demanded that XP stay right where it is, so Microsoft complied until the launch of 7.

Win 7 will kill off Vista and XP in one fell swoop. Of that I have no doubt.

As for how much longer XP will continue to remain the #1 OS people use, I’m betting that it will be a longer span of time compared to the 98-to-XP transition. Possibly as long as 5 years. This is because the extended support lifecycle for XP will end in 2014.

I’m not saying to stick with XP until 2014 because chances are your computer has little chance of lasting that long, but if you’ve seen what’s new and aren’t too hot on the idea of switching to 7, I can’t blame you.

It’s not that 7 isn’t better than XP, because it is by leaps and bounds. But I do understand why there are so many who refuse to switch.

Windows 7 had its wide release yesterday, and there are a few of you out there who are still nervous about upgrading. In response to that, I decided to put together a list of things I don’t miss about XP.

1. XP’s taskbar

 
Windows XP Taskbar

I have a few gripes about XP’s taskbar.

First is the fact that in single-tier view (which is the default,) you don’t see the date next to the clock. If you want to see that, you must extend it to two-tier view. But then that makes the Start button look messed up with a big space underneath it, and if you have any QuickLaunch icons, those get all shuffled around. If you have many taskbar icons next to the clock, the taskbar by default "shrinks" them with a clickable arrow that expands to the left. But by the time you find the icon you want, that menu shrinks again too quickly.

 
Windows 7 Taskbar

You get the date in default view along with the clock. Running programs can be "pinned" (very cool feature) for easy-access in the future. That maddening "shrinking" of taskbar icons has been replaced with a small up-arrow which is clickable that opens a menu that stays there (important) to find the stuff you want.

And let’s not forget the program previews, the nicely shadowed borders over open programs, and.. well.. it’s simply wonderful to work with.

2. XP’s search options

The quickest way to find a file in XP using a mouse is to open My Computer then click the Search button at top. At that point you are not presented with a search box but rather the question, "What do you want to search for?", accompanied by a stupid animated dog. Yes, a dog. This is the "search companion," as XP calls it.

Windows XP Search Companion

Let’s say you clicked on "All files and folders." At that point you’re simply given too many options:

 
Windows XP Search Companion, "All Files" search

When searching, this is what it looks like, and it just takes way too long to finish.

 
Windows XP Search Companion, actively searching for a file

(The dog by the way is not bowing his head in shame, although he should be.)

As for the results you get, I can guarantee it won’t be what you’re looking for.

Where’s the search in Windows 7? Right on the start logo:

One click and ta-da, search is right there. And the moment you start typing, search results start showing up. And not only will it search for files, but content within files, programs and anything else you have. You don’t have to tell it what you want. Just type it and Windows will find it.

That’s awesome.

3. XP’s Help

The Help and Support area of XP is something I’ve never known anybody to use. When you click Start and then Help and Support, XP has to "think" about it before actually doing it. Then when it finally loads, you’re greeted with a bevy of tiny text.

Windows XP Help and Support Center

To date, there is absolutely nothing in the XP help area that has actually helped me. Sure, it contains oh-so basic information, but for almost anything advanced, it’s simply not there.

Windows 7’s help area on the other hand is something I actually have used.

Before continuing – my screen shots are probably going to differ from the full release as I’m still using the RC at the time I write this.

Windows 7 Help and Support

Right up front the whole experience is friendlier, and it loads faster too.

There was a point where I was trying to load something from a command prompt where 7 stated I needed "elevated" privileges. Confused as to what that meant, I headed to the help section and searched for elevated.

I found exactly what I was looking for in seconds:

 
Windows 7 Help and Support search results

I found the information I needed; that’s what we call legitimately helpful.

4. XP’s lack of native software monitor color calibration

XP does not natively have any monitor color management options other than "Color Quality" and "Color Management" that uses what’s called "Color Profiles" that nobody ever uses. In order to get real calibration options, you must use 3rd-party software by nVidia, ATI, Intel or whatever OEM made your video card. And of course when you use one of those, that in itself is a challenge to figure out because it’s not native to Windows (the menu systems in those 3rd-party apps are seriously messed up.)

Windows 7 has a Calibrate color option:

Windows 7 Appearance and Personalization / Display

This to me was a very big deal because I did not have to manually adjust the color via the monitor itself (which you can never seem to get right,) or use some wonky 3rd-party program. Calibrating the color on a native level is built-in to 7, and it’s easy. Very cool.

I don’t want to claim that 7 doesn’t need nVidia or ATI specific drivers, because it does. But the point is that you don’t have to use them just to make simple adjustments.

5. XP’s infamous disappearing status bar

For whatever seriously stupid reason, XP’s status bar for Explorer windows will periodically disappear.

Example:

Windows XP My Computer without status bar

Okay, so I want the status bar active so when I highlight drive C that it will give me information about the drive. So I click View then Status bar so I see it:

Windows XP My Computer with status bar

You see at bottom the status bar right there as it should be. But then it will magically go away for literally no reason at some point in the future. It doesn’t matter how often you reset this feature, because it will happen.

This has irritated me to no end ever since I’ve been using XP. Windows NT and 2000 did not do this. XP does and it’s always been a mystery as to why.

Windows 7 "Computer"

The Windows 7 OS on the other hand never loses the bar unless you specifically, and I mean very specifically, instruct it not to be there. And that’s the way it should be.

Are you are 7 user? What do you like about it over XP?

The default Windows XP theme is called Luna. This is the rather disgusting blue taskbar, program title bars/borders and the big green Start button. It looks awful.

Luna can be changed to either Olive Green (equally disgusting) or Silver (the only which looks good out of the set for Luna).

Many people can’t stand Luna and switch to the “Windows Classic” theme. But wouldn’t it be great if there was a theme in between Luna and Windows Classic that feels “just right”? HmmXP is it. It’s got the perfect blend of form and function as far as an XP theme goes.

HmmXP works for Windows 2000 (will not work in 2000), Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP. I guarantee you will like it.

The video below shows exactly how to get it installed and running. It only takes a few minutes and it’s easy.

AIM is the primary instant messenger I use. Out of all the IM services I’ve used over the years, it is the most reliable. In addition, it runs flawlessly on any operating system. Whether you’re on Windows, Mac or Linux, you can run AIM.

The latest client offering on the Windows platform is AIM 7 Beta 2.

Short review:

It’s awesome. If you use AIM, get it.

Long review:

This is best given in points.

• If you run multiple computers at home, you can run it on each computer at the same time. Previously I was only able to do this with AIM Lite.
• Following in the footsteps of AIM Express, messages from those not on your contact list will prompt a window asking if you want to chat with them or not. Previously this wasn’t there.
• Linked accounts work great. In addition, you can have them all set to invisible on login instead of having to set each individually.
• The interface is a whole lot cleaner and a lot less "cartoony" (something Yahoo and Windows Live suffer from in abundance).
• "Me" tab makes it super-easy to manage blocked users in just two clicks (you had to really dig for this previously).
• Integrates with Facebook and Twitter easily with new "Lifestream" tab.
• Integrates with Delicious and YouTube.
• Runs light and doesn’t eat up memory.
• I tested on my XP laptop and Win 7 PC. Runs great on both.

AIM 7 is full of awesome stuff. If you use AIM, you will really like this client.

Judging from the overwhelming positive response from Windows 7 users (including myself), I guess it’s no surprise that Gartner is telling clients to skip Vista entirely and just go straight to 7.

What’s more is that it will happen relatively quickly as Microsoft appears to be on target for a late 2009 launch – and that’s ahead of schedule as it was speculated to appear in 2010.

As many people know, what happens in enterprise is what happens to consumers soon afterward. And when Big Corporate says "Don’t bother with Vista", well.. you know the result.

Dell has said that the price of Windows 7 could possibly be a roadblock, but in the same conversation is also noting that 7 is beating the ever-loving crap out of Vista every which way but loose. One thing is clear: There is legitimate demand for 7 both for consumer and enterprise. But the price point will be a very important factor.

Vista was obviously not an XP killer. But 7 is geared up to be. It will kill off Vista for good, and after a short period of time, XP with it.

It’s not just a keyboard, it’s the whole computer. A keyboard with the computer built in and an 800×480 touchscreen display/trackpad on the right.

I had two initial thoughts when I saw this thing on Engadget.

First, there’s going to be a lot of strained necks. This is absolutely not ergo-friendly whatsoever. Cool, yes, but not ergonomically sound.

Second, I immediately thought, "Hey, this is reminiscent of the old Commodore 64!" Several comment posters on the link above said the exact same thing.

This computer is not available for purchase yet, but most likely soon will be. Yes, it will have XP on it.

I find it interesting that when it comes to computers, history repeats itself often. The Commodore 64 to this day is the best-selling computer of all time. The Eee Keyboard essentially goes back to that winning formula Commodore had, that being a small, low-priced, feature-rich, easy-to-use computer.

Will the Eee Keyboard sell as much as the Commodore did? I doubt it.

But I do admit I’d really like to own one. More so than a traditional laptop.

Using NewEgg, here’s the scoop on what hard drives cost right now.

Cheapest of the cheap: Hitachi Deskstar, 80GB, $32.99. And yes it is a SATA 3GB/s. Bear in mind a Western Digital flavor is just one dollar more.

King of the hill (price-wise): HP 347708-B22 147GB, $499. What makes this hard drive expensive is its 15,000 RPM. If you feel inclined to buy one of these, bear in mind it’s a SCSI interface.

Solid State Disks: All of them are still too expensive and makes the HP listing above look like a steal. See, the deal is that if you want SSD now, you’ll most likely need the controller card to go with it. And this can easily bust over $1,000. But even if you have the controller card and just want the SATA II SSD alone, 120GB can cost $400.

Drives that normal people would actually want

The 500GB drives are now below the $60 price point, many of which have free shipping.

1TB drives are now below the $80 price point. I can’t believe this is true but it is. If prices keep dropping at this rate, 1TB will be had for $50 by fourth quarter 2009.

Make no mistake, 1TB is huge. It will take you a good long time to fill that. But the problem that presents itself is how to back it up. The solution is to buy two 1TB drives. One for your primary; the other as backup.

Important note to Windows XP users concerning hard drives

A basic NTFS volume has a maximum recognized size of 2TB. With 64KB clusters, it is possible to achieve a 256TB dynamic volume.

If you intend to go over 2TB with NTFS, get educated on how to create or convert to dynamic volumes. Everything you need to know about those type of volumes is in that link. Read it and bookmark it.

For a while now I’ve been using the Zune Windows XP theme (download). That one is by Microsoft and a complete theme compared to Royale which is incomplete (there are "rough" spots here and there).

I like the "Classic" XP theme but it’s a bit too bland. However there is an alternative called HmmXP. It is not by Microsoft and requires a DLL hack to get it to work.

Before explaining how it’s installed, this is what it looks like:

Above: The Start Menu is modified so "Start" is gone and replaced by a small flag icons, words are eliminated to show icons only. This is called the "Compact Menu".

Above: This is the "Normal Menu" view. Still minimal but more in line with how XP usually looks.

Above: HmmXP has several options on how the theme can look.

Above: With "Codename Whistler" selected, the top right of windows get a pixelated fading look.

Above: Applications in the taskbar do not have dividers, but it’s still easy to select anything you want.

I personally give this theme a thumbs up and have switched off the Zune theme to use this. It’s sort of like a "Classic Enhanced" of sorts. Looks very nice and is very functional.

HmmXP Download: http://fugacious.deviantart.com/art/HmmXP-2-0-1-5514034

But yes I did say this requires a DLL hack to get it to work.

The tool required to install this hack is  Uxtheme Multi-Patcher 6.0. You must run it, follow the instructions carefully and slowly, then reboot once.

Once you do that, you extract the HmmXP theme into the following directory:

C:\WINDOWS\RESOURCES\THEMES

This is what mine looks like:

"Luna" is the standard Windows XP theme everybody is familiar with, as is "Windows Classic". "Zune" is the one I downloaded prior from Microsoft, and the new one is HmmXP.theme along with its HmmXP folder that came with the archive file.

The archive file is a RAR file. You can extract with WinRAR or the freely available 7-Zip to "unzip" the file so you can extract it to the proper folder.

After the Uxtheme installation, the reboot and the extraction of the archive to the themes folder, you will be able to select it from Display Properties.

Final note: If this doesn’t suit your fancy and want to undo what Uxtheme did, just run it again and it will restore your old DLL for you.

ZoomIt v3.01 by Sysinternals will allow you roughly the same screen-zoom capabilities that you have in a Linux desktop with 3D effects enabled (Compiz) or Mac OS X. It’s a nice small utility (only 129k before install!) and works in both XP and Vista.

If you use your computer screen on a live webcast or make presentations to people often using your computer, this is a must-have utility and you’ll make very good use out of it.

And yes, it’s free.

To those wondering if it has the same "smoothness" as Linux or OS X does, not quite. But it’s close and it works well.

This is particularly directed at laptop users as most desktop users would have no need for the hibernation feature (or then again, maybe you do? I’m not the boss of you.)

Enabling hibernation

You need to first enable hibernation in order for it to work. This is done via the Power Options icon in the Control Panel.

Once viewing Power Options, click the Hibernate tab and check the box to enable it, then click OK.

Looks like this:

A quick shortcut to hibernate

After enabling hibernation, you go to shut down as you normally do by clicking Start then Turn off computer.

On the next menu that appears you have three icons. Yellow (Stand by), Red (Turn off) and Green (Restart).

Press and hold SHIFT. "Stand by" will change to "Hibernate". While holding SHIFT, click "Hibernate" and your computer will do just that.

There are other ways of getting to the hibernation option but I find that the SHIFT method is the easiest to remember.

From TG Daily:

The final shipment date remains a moving target as Microsoft granted system builders a “flexible” delivery date of Windows XP licenses to customers beyond the official phase-out deadline of January 31, 2009. PC vendors still have to purchase licenses before that date, but can now choose to take delivery of those licenses through May 30, 2009.

I swear, this is getting comical at this point. Microsoft wants to kill off XP and has tried to do so but vendors and OEMs simply won’t allow it.

The blunt honest truth about XP is that it’s attractive to vendors and OEMs for the fact the system requirements are so minimal. A computer box with a 233MHz processor, 64MB of RAM and 1.5GB hard drive will run XP. It will be really slow, but it will run. In other words, it will run on computers that are ten years old easily.

In addition to that, newer computers that are "green" and designed for ultra-portability – like netbooks – run XP happily. Since they can’t have blazing-fast processors, RAM, hard drives and otherwise (not as green/portable at that point), if someone wants Windows on a netbook, XP is the only choice because it absolutely will not run Vista.

I am praying that when Windows 7 is introduced it will finally put the nail in the coffin for XP. I agree that XP, while good and solid, really needs to be put out to pasture for good. Win 7 is a re-think in the way Windows is done with a lot of emphasis put on "light". I champion this and it needs to be done.

Or else XP will be around forever (shudder).

This article covers the following:

1. Setting up a workgroup in Windows XP.
2. Setting up a workgroup in Ubuntu 8.10.
3. How to share out files from your Windows XP computer on your home network so you can access them with Ubuntu 8.10.
4. How to access files shared by your Windows XP computer on your home network in Ubuntu 8.10.
5. How to share files out from Ubuntu 8.10 to a Windows XP computer on your home network.

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

As a long-time Windows user I’ve seen a few BSODs in my day. The version of Windows I had the most BSODs with was Windows 3.10. Not 3.11. Not 3.11 WFWG. Just plain ol’ 3.1. I never really had BSOD trouble with Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000 or XP unless I had a hardware failure (usually right before the hard drive was about to go FUBAR on me).

There is actually a Microsoft TechNet article called Demystifying the ‘Blue Screen of Death’ that does truly help in making sense of that blue screen, should you get one.

Some of the BSOD messages I’ve received have been:

INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE

This simply means Windows can’t read the hard disk correctly. I’ve encountered this when an older hard drive develops a few bad sectors. It doesn’t mean you have to throw the hard drive out. You can perform a regular (meaning not "quick") format which will mark those bad sectors, making the drive hopefully usable again.

NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM

In my experience this usually happens when your hard disk just has too much stuff on it and the data corrupts easily. For example, if you have a 120GB hard drive and 118GB is in use, you might get an NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM error until you free up some space, DEFRAG it (and run a CCleaner too just for safe measure).

Poorly programmed or too-old driver

In extremely rare instances I’ll download a driver and Windows doesn’t "agree" with it too well usually because it’s too old. For example, if I install a brand new nVidia video card but then use the drivers meant for a GeForce 6 (several generations ago), yeah, you most likely will get a BSOD out of this – and will be listed as such.

Solution: Always use current drivers. Head into "Safe Mode", kill the driver, reboot normally, install the newer version and this fixes driver-specific BSODs 99% of the time.

~ ~ ~

The TechNet article has a ton of info on how to read BSODs and understand what one is trying to tell you. So if your Windows installation happens to be "going blue" a lot, that article will certainly help.

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.

One of the lesser known – but very handy – features of Windows XP is the ability to select multiple separate running applications in the taskbar as a group, then using the right-click context menu to do things you more or less can’t do anywhere else.

To select running apps in the taskbar, you click the first one so it’s "indented", then hold down CTRL and left click the others you also want to select. After that, you can right-click any one of them and get your context menu.

It looks like this:

From here you can do the following:

• Cascade – Resizes windows of selected applications to cascade on screen.
• Tile Horizontally – Resizes windows and "stacks" them one on top of the other.
• Tile Vertically – Resizes windows and puts them in "columns".
• Minimize Group – Sends all apps selected to the taskbar
• Close Group – Will close all selected apps

You will find these features most useful when you want to group apps that "relate" to each other but are inherently separate. For example, if you have open Firefox, Mozilla Thunderbird and another Firefox with an RSS reader page in it, you can group these, then tile horizontal or vertical, then when done just minimize the group.