November 2009: Win7 - Microsoft's Defiant Child

Background

The internet is sure to be flooded with Windows 7 reviews.  Some reviewers may feel that they can't say anything negative about Microsoft's new kid on the block but those who know me, know that I tend not to sugar coat and I speak my mind.  For me, the transition to Windows 7 was far from smooth and I'm hoping this article will serve to open a few eyes for those who think they are about to jump in a brand new car, turn the key, and drive off into the sunset.  Like all reviewers, I'm new to the public release of Windows 7 but having upgraded from and to just about every prior MS operating system, allow me to share my views on why Windows 7 is by far the worst transition to date and why, as an end user, you may not (at least immediately) realize much benefit from what is being touted as the "fix for the Vista blunder".

Okay.  So here is where I tell you that I decided on the clean install and everything went smoothly, right?  Oh how I wish!  The install itself went relatively smoothly as did the check for (and installation of) Windows updates.  Of course, I made a backup before I started it, and I was greeted by a fresh Windows background and a desktop with no software: all as expected with a clean install.  No problem so far.  My monitor didn't look quite right, however, and I soon noticed that Windows 7 had installed a video driver for my Nvidia graphics card and a driver for my HP w2408H monitor that would not even allow the true resolution of the monitor (1920x1200).  Never had a problem with that in Vista, but I figured that's okay, I'll just go to Nvidia and download their latest Windows 7 driver.  Windows 7 would only allow 1920x1080 resolution which as you may know, doesn't look very nice on an LCD monitor that doesn't use that native resolution.  So, a half hour later and a new Nvidia driver installed, I had 1920x1200 and things were looking up.  Let's ignore for now the fact that as soon as I installed the (three day old and much newer) Nvidia driver, Windows 7 started complaining immediately that it wanted to install an "update" that would put the 5 month old 1920x1080 driver back in.  So I just checked the box to "hide" that upgrade.  Step one complete.  Now I have a computer I can boot up.

Next I dug out my ColorVision Spyder and proceeded to calibrate and profile my monitor.  The software installed, the driver for the monitor colorimeter worked fine, and I had a profile.  But now the problem.  When I first boot Windows 7 I can see the Colorvision startup program change the color in the graphics card to look nice, and about 2 seconds later, Windows 7 overrides it and brings it back to the uncalibrated state.  Seems Windows 7 now has a horribly convoluted scheme for color management and a new calibration option that can be turned on or off.  Well, even after turning that off and trying every trick in the book, Windows 7 still overrides the "gamma ramp" function in the monitor profiling software and I just couldn't get it to work.  My only solution at this point was to uninstall the monitor calibration tool and calibrate using the Nvidia control panel: the useless "calibration" option in Windows 7 couldn't touch what needed to be corrected on the monitor but fortunately the Nvidia control panel (software that comes with the video graphics card driver) worked well.  Step two complete: the monitor is now such that I can read it without getting a headache.

Now that I have an operating computer and viewable monitor, the next step was to start reinstalling my applications and data.  No problem.  I have those backed up and I'll restore my data folder and subfolders with Acronis.  Did that and all went smoothly.  Or so I thought.  I keep all my purchased and downloaded software and their associated serial numbers in subfolders where I can get to them easily.  For example, I have a subfolder named "SureThing" where I store the install file for Sure Thing CD Labeler and the associated "password.txt" file that holds the serial number for that program.  No problem, just click on the "stcd5setup.exe" file to start the installation.  To my surprise: "Access Denied".  What!?  I have admin rights!  Okay, let's calm down and search the internet to see what others have found.  Well, looks like the "System" owns the folders and files.  So I'll just use properties and change security settings.  Now I'm the owner.  Let's try this again.  Access Denied!  I can't even open EXE files that are in folders I own.  After a second look, my user account, even though it has admin rights, doesn't have "full control" rights on the folders and files.  Let's try changing my access to "Full Control" making sure to check the box that propagates subfolders and files too.  Now I'm the owner and I have all possible access rights.  Let's try again.  Access Denied! 

Okay.  Calm down.  Let's search the internet some more.  I tried a clever little utility that adds an option to the right click menu called "Grant Full Admin Rights".  Tried that.  Access Denied!  I found a few references saying that the Windows Installer actually owns and prevents access to things like install files.  The recommendation was to give full control to the "Everyone" group.  OK.  Did that.  In fact, I got mad and gave every account on the list including "Authenticated User" and "Everyone" full access.  Should work now.  Let's try again.  Access Denied!  Let's search the internet some more.  Now I find a reference that says you should get rid of some of the "superfluous" user groups in the access rights.  Now I'm one step shy of exploding, so I'm angry enough to select the main folder, delete every group/user in the access list that I could possibly delete.  Let's get rid of everything that could be causing trouble that is "deletable" by the administrator and then add myself back as the owner with full access rights.  Done.  Now let's try again.  IT WORKED!  At this point I had been at this for hours, maybe close to half a day, just to gain access to my own data in my own folders.  I was so giddy at this point that I may have peed just a little.  :-)

Now that I had access to my data, I began installing software.  A few, like Pegasus Mail, had minor glitches but I was beyond that at this point.  If I could get my machine "usable" I would be happy.  At this point I had been at the Windows 7 upgrade path for three full days.  When I took a break from my routine and decided to play some streaming media (WMV videos), ones that I had streamed many times before, on other computers on the network, they played about 20% too slow with the video and audio both running slow.  People had deep voices, singers sang a half octave too low, and so on.  I tried tweaking the WMP12 interface every way possible, but I still haven't figured that one out!  I was more interested in why my Canon Pro9000 printer couldn't be used from other networked PC's. 

There was no problem with Vista installed on the print server machine but now that Windows 7 is installed, all PC's on the network inform the user that the print server has the "wrong" driver installed.  After some poking and prodding, I found that I had to install a supplementary driver on the Windows 7 machine: an x86 driver because the other computers were x86 and not 64 bit.  OK.  So I check the box that says install an additional "x86" driver and at that point, Windows 7 responds with "tell me where to find it".  How should I know?  If Windows doesn't know, where would I go to get that?  All the installable drivers on the Canon site are EXE files.  Well, being the "hacker at heart" that I am, I decide to download the x86 EXE install from Canon, open WinZip on the EXE, and unzip the files embedded in the EXE to a folder.  Yeah, that's lame "hackery" but it's still "hacking" because most people wouldn't even realize they can unzip an EXE.  Sure enough, there's the .INF file that Windows is looking for.  I point the additional-drivers dialog in Windows 7 at that folder and I get "There is no Canon Inkjet Pro9000 in this folder".  It seems in MS's infinite wisdom, they decided to add "Inkjet" to the printer name.  Now Windows sees the printer as "Canon Inkjet Pro9000" instead of "Canon Pro9000".  So then I open Notepad and manually search and replace every instance of "Canon Pro9000" in the .INF file, changing them to "Canon Inkjet Pro9000".  IT WORKED!  Wow!!!  That process sure seems logical for the average end user to be able to accomplish doesn't it?

 

The above just touches on the "highlights" (if you can call them high) of my install.  There were other more minor issues that I had to "hack" to fix, like using a hex editor to change machine code in my compiler, but those were easy compared to the above.  Some of it is a learning curve, but you have to ask yourself why things like printer names were changed to make them incompatible or why the upgrade stalls on a device I don't even have, forcing me to do a clean install.  Maybe all this effort will be worth it.  Is Windows 7 really so good that it is worth going through the equivalent of eating razor blades?  We'll see.  Honestly, I haven't even had the time at this point to check out some of the new features in Windows 7.  People talk about things like "Aero Snap" and some cool features.  Those might be nice and I'm sure there are some more things I'll appreciate over time.  I'll tell you, however, in no uncertain terms that if I didn't have to upgrade to Windows 7 due to my business and the fact that I have to support it to my customers, I wouldn't do it!  To me, Windows 7 is all the things people hated about Vista and more!  When XP just started to get really stable, here comes Vista, the new kid on the block.  Vista is a bit of a punk, defiant in some ways and a bit unrefined yet having such potential.  Fast forward and now that Vista honestly has become quite stable, here comes Vista's demon seed: Windows 7.  Win7 is even more defiant than Vista and it seems has lost some of its roots, forgetting a few things about where it came from and thumbing its nose at those who choose to be friends with XP or Vista.  Maybe that's a good thing and I'm just getting too old for this, eh?  :-D  Time will tell.  I guess around the time I get used to living with Win7 and all it's idiosyncrasies, Win7 will give birth to yet another punk kid that will kick my butt for good!  Win7 gave it a good try and to be honest, I was a gnat's hair from just restoring my Vista backup and calling it quits.  I may be (a little) over 40 but the hacker in me made me keep going.  Who knows, maybe the punk kid will grow on me and you'll see another article soon!  :-)  Still, I can't help feeling sorry for "the masses".  If someone with a computer science degree who has been programming computers since the first IBM PC with dual floppy's hit the road in 1981 can go 12 rounds with Win7 and barely pull off a win in round 12, Apple is going to have a field day making new "Hi, I'm a Mac" commercials.  Buy your Apple stock now!  ;-)

Oh, and if you're just visiting this site, go buy some of my software.  Looks like getting software that actually works is becoming more and more difficult these days.  If not enough people buy it, I may have to add some animated controls, glowing buttons, raise the price, make it so the underlying "guts" don't work as they should, and claim that everything is much better than before.  Maybe then everyone would run out and buy it.  :-}

Mike Chaney