Upgrading to Windows Vista/7

Most people tend to think that when you want to get a new version of Windows you’re only option is to get a new computer. This is not the case, you can upgrade to a newer version of Windows usually pain free.

Fresh Install

Note: If you’re upgrading from Windows 7 Beta to RC1 you should install using this method.

I have always discouraged people from upgrading to a new version of Windows, by installing it on top of the old one, because often it leads to system instability, errors, slow computer performance and in makes Windows seem “old”. When you do a fresh install Windows performs much better, and in many cases gives you computer a new lease on life. Unfortunately a fresh install is often painstakingly hard and slow, so people who are not computer savvy may not want to try this. A fresh install requires:

• That you back up all of you files
• Find all of your application disks and product keys
• Erase everything on your hard drive, which can take a long time
• Install the new version of Windows
• Restore all of your settings
• Install your programs all over again
• Restore all of your files

Doing all of those things depending on how fast you computer is can take up to a day to complete. The pros and cons to doing this are:

Pros	Cons
Your computer should be much faster	Takes a very long time to complete
Your computer feels newer and fresher	You have to be computer savvy
Less system errors, and crashes	There is some risk
Often fixes computer issues

 

If you decided that you want to upgrade here is what you need to do:

1. Make sure you have lots of time on your hand

2. Gather up all of your applications and product keys. If you don’t have your product key the software maker may be able to give you a new one

3. Get an external hard drive or an other storage device

4. Back up all your documents to the storage device

5. Format (erase) your hard drive. You can find out how to do this from your computers owner’s manual or from technical support.

5. Install Windows

6. Restore all of your documents to your computer

7. Re-install all of your programs

As you can see this method of upgrading is not an  easy task, but in the end pays off. I recommend this way most times.

Traditional Install

The traditional install is very basic and is the method that most people use to install. You can view some screenshots of what a traditional install looks like here. A traditional install requires that you:

• Install Windows

A traditional install can take about 1 hour to complete but the end result is not as good as a fresh install.  The pros and cons of a traditional install are:

Pros:	Cons:
Easy to do	Can often lead to computer instability, errors and application not working properly
Quick	Not as satisfying
Don’t have to be computer savvy	More dangerous that a fresh install

If you choose to do this you’ll need to

1.Insert the Windows DVD/CD into you’re PC

2. Follow the on screen setup instructions

3. Install

 

Like I said above I recommend a fresh install of a new version of Windows, but if you don’t feel comfortable doing that you should do a traditional install. Anyway you choose to install Windows it will still be Windows, and there is no changing that.

Note: Windows 7 is not yet released, and this guide applies to installing any version of Windows. People upgrading to Windows 7 RC1 should always do a fresh install, or install on a separate hard drive because it is still a beta Operating System.

Louis

May 7

Windows Live Photo Gallery Will Soon Have Facial Recognition

Imagine, plugging in your digital camera, tagging someone’s face once and then having Windows Live Photo Gallery find the rest of the photos with that face. For a few weeks now people who have iPhoto have had this luxury.

Very soon, Windows users will be able to have this luxury in the next version of Windows Live Photo Gallery. The software will automatically recognise different faces and tag them for you.

The first beta is expected sometime in September.

This news comes from a Chinese website (translation). Unfortunately these tags will be available only in Photo Gallery so you will not be able to view them in the Windows Explorer.

I’m very interested in seeing how this works. Ironically I just spent a hour tagging all of my photos. This feature would have saved me, and many other people lots of time.

Some of the first things that I’ll be trying when the Beta comes out is whether it can recognize your face when it’s been obscured or cut off in a photo. For example, what if the person isn’t looking directly at the camera… would it still be able to recognize the person when only part of their face is visible? I’m a bit sceptical about its accuracy in situations like those, but I’ll keep my fingers crossed!

Tripp Zao

May 6

Is Internet Explorer 8 Really the Worlds Fastest Browser?

Internet Explorer 8 is Microsoft's newest version of the popular browser. For a few years now Mozilla’s Firefox has been claiming that it is the worlds fastest browser but it now looks like Internet Explorer 8 has stripped the title from Mozilla.

When Internet Explorer 7, and Firefox 2 were released in 2006 the speed difference between the two browsers where only a few milliseconds. Both companies where determined to create the fastest browser. Firefox 3 and Internet Explorer 8 released within weeks of each other with both having many innovative features, and both having an incredible speed increase.

The video below shows how you need a high speed camera to catch the speed difference between Firefox 3, Chrome and Internet Explorer 8.

The results show that Internet Explorer 8 loads fastest on:

• 5 of the top 10 most popular websites
• 12 of the top 25 most popular websites
• 3 times as fast as Firefox
• 1/3 times as fast as chrome

 

Safari, Oprah and other browsers where not shown because they are no where as close as fast as Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome.

It seems like Microsoft has beaten Firefox this time, but lets see how secure these browsers are.

Tripp Zao

May 5 2009

Microsoft is Giving Away Windows 7 RC for 1 Year

Microsoft, has announced that Windows 7 RC will be allowed to be used for one year without being deactivated. I have tried the Windows 7 RC and it seems complete, it will not expire until June 1, 2010.

The sad thing is that when you want to buy the full Windows 7 you cannot just install it over the Windows 7 RC. In addition Microsoft has not made it clear if users will be able to just reactivate the RC with a Windows 7 release product key.

RC includes a couple of new features, mainly Remote Media Streaming ,and in pro versions, Windows XP Mode.

Steven Wilcoski

The Story Behind the Windows 7 Boot Animation

For a few years now versions of Microsoft Windows  have had very boring boot screens with either a scrolling or loading bar.

Microsoft decided that the “personality” of Windows was too boring so they worked hard to reinvent Windows. Microsoft started the reinventing of Windows at the boot screen. 

The Vista boot screen nicknamed, “The Boring Screen or Death”.

Microsoft knew that the theme and look of Windows determined users opinion of the operating system. During the development of the boot screen over 2 dozen boot suggestions where handed in. Designs varied in the saturation and/or brightness of color, the complexity of motion, and lighting effects. Here are some of the suggestions:

 

 

The final design has colours “chasing” each other around the screen that coming together and exploding to form the Windows logo. A small pulse continues to move after the colours have come together.

From a design perspective, Microsoft had perfected the Windows 7 boot animation, but there is the problem of speed. Most people care more about how fast the OS boots up instead of how cool the boot animation is.

Performance

 

If Microsoft had kept everything the same from Vista and simply updated the boot animation to the new Windows 7 look, Microsoft would not have achieved new levels performance and quality that they aspired to.  In fact, significant code changes were required in order to make the new boot animation even possible in Windows 7. 

In Windows Vista the boot loader uses a low resolution of 640x480 and the file that the green loading bar is in is very small. In Windows 7 the boot loader uses a higher resolution of 1024 x 768 and the files needed to load the boot animation are much larger. Since the native graphics driver for the display is not loaded into memory and initialized yet, the animation is run by using the CPU, and by updating the frame buffer for the graphics display. Microsoft had to achieve the boot speed increase be stripping down many of the processes that load during the boot.

Microsoft also increased boot time by removing the pearl animation. The pearl animation seemed outdated, and it was unnecessary to have a boot and pearl animation during a boot sequence. As a result one stage of the boot sequence was removed, which helped to increase boot speed.

   Vista boot

Windows 7 Boot

Many people have also been wondering what happened to the Windows start-up sound. In Windows Vista the sound has to be synchronized with the animation which took lots of time and power to do.

Omar Hoolgs

May 3, 2009

More Zune HD Details

A few weeks after the leaked photographs of the Zune HD leaked to the internet there are now details about the top secret device.

The Zune HD is set to have a multi-touch OLED 16:9 and will have a HDMI port on the side. We now know that the HDMI will be used to connect the device to TV’S but, it is unclear if it will be used to transfer data. The Zune will come in 16 and 32GB and will support wireless syncing with PC’s. There are also some rumours that it will be powerful enough to play 3-D Xbox games.

There have also been some speculation about a multi-touch browser. We don’t yet know what browser it will be but lets hope it’s not something similar to Internet Explorer for Windows Mobile. The Zune HD is set to be launched this fall, along with Windows 7. It most likely will be sold in Canada, the U.K, and the U.S. and France.

Louis

May 2, 2009

Microsoft Releases New Laptop Hunter Ads

Today, Microsoft released a new new ad, as part of their very successful laptop hunter ad campaign. Sheila is the star of the ad. She was looking for a computer with

• A fast processor
• Big Screen
• Something that will “cut” video

For under $2000.00

This ad was designed to attack Apple’s Mac’s by pointing out the high cost of it. Microsoft made sure of pointing out that a relatively weak Mac cost over $2000 while a powerful PC sells for less than $2000. Surprisingly Mac users have not had much to say about this latest ad campaign.

Take a look at the ad:

Also take a look at some other ads: Laptop Hunters The Windows Ads you never saw

Omar Hoolgs