Windows 7 release candidate feels a bit more like a proper version of Windows – it says “Windows 7 Ultimate” on it and everything. However, it’s back to the naughty step with Microsoft, as it overwrote the MBR.

Now to be fair it is a 64-bit OS overwriting a 32-bit OS. But an “overwrite MBR” prompt would be nice. (more…)

I’ve installed Microsoft Office 97 on Windows 7 (and just leeched that spiffy download page I found on the MS website…). I suspect this may be the longest lived version of Office, working as far back as NT 3.51, Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000, XP, Vista, and now Win7. I never install that accursed paper clip though…

…and it’s a Microsoft product, of course. Actually, it’s the setup for Visual Studio 2008 Express. Everything works fine, other than SQL Server Express 2008 and Visual Web Developer 2008. Given that VWD was what I was really interested in, it looks like back to 2005… (more…)

Well, I’ve finally got my PC back, and have now installed the Windows 7 beta (sorry, downloads aren’t available any more).  It’s the AMD-64 version, so it really can’t be compared speed wise to either XP or Vista, but it’s performing pretty quickly compared to XP, and quicker than Vista – although I haven’t yet installed everything I usually use yet.

Of course the first thing I did – before I even installed Firefox – was to use Norton Ghost to back it all up.  Then Firefox went on (with Foxmarks, NoScript, Extended StatusBar, Web Developer Toolbar and Download StatusBar).  Finally, I installed ScribeFire, which is what I’m using to write this post, (it also takes away my one reason for installing Flock by adding a blog editor into Firefox).

Fortunately there are 64-bit versions of Directory Opus (unsupported, but working fine so far), 7-Zip (but sadly not WinRar, or OpenWatcom yet).

So far, only one crash – ironically, Windows Explorer just after a startup.  But once all the usual gubbins is loaded and clogging the system up it probably won’t be the last.  I’ll keep you posted…