Gildner Solutions

I'm now on Windows 7 RC

Filed under General

I'd been running Windows 7 beta 1 on our "home" pc since it came out.  I didn't want to touch my dev machine until Win 7 was more complete and ready to roll.  Now that Windows 7 RC is out, I thought I'd give it a shot on my main development machine.  After making a backup using Acronis 2009 Home, I booted from my newly downloaded Windows 7 RC DVD, the 64 bit version, formatted the drive, and installed the Ultimate edition.  Vista had a nice install, but this one is even better, and faster too.  One of my favorite things is that it recognizes you have a wireless connection and asks you to connect *during* the installation.  Not after!  So it was able to download the latest bits and apply then right away.

It only took a few minutes and then was there was a lot of praying to make sure all my critical apps would 1) a version that works with Win 7 x64, 2) install and 3) actually work.  The main thing I was concerned about was my SonicWall VPN client.  After a little searching, I found a 64 bit beta client that installed and worked flawlessly.  Joy!  Next, my dev stack -  VS2008/SQL2008/Blend 2/Resharper 4.5/VisualSVN.  I knew from attending DevConnections and seeing Scott Guthrie and some of the other Microsofties that VS2008/SQL2008 would run fine on Win 7.  After a lengthy install, including service packs, those were up and running.  Next was Subversion/TortoiseSVN.  Flawless!  Joy again.  

Now, I occasionally need to maintain a .NET 1.1 web site, so I have been using Sun's excellent VirtualBox to run a Windows XP virtual machine from which I use VS2003.  Flawless install on Windows 7 RC and it runs great.

All my bread and butter apps were working just fine but them I remembered Microsoft Office.  I had no fear there, why would Office 2007 not work...well I've seen strange things before, but luckily that was a flawless install.  So now I have my email working.  Good to go.  Antivirus - how could I forget.  I downloaded Eset Nod32, the 64 bit version, and that went off without a hitch.

Lastly, I need to make money, so Quickbooks was on tap.  I have the latest 2009 version, and that was uneventful. 

So, now after a day of downtime, I am back in action.  I must say that my experience so far is very pleasant.  Windows 7 is a much improved, less intrusive, gorgeous OS.  Dual monitor support is better, the taskbar is nicer and less cluttered, and I just love the "shake" where you grab and window, shake it quickly, and it minimizes all others.   And drag a window to the left, right, and top of the screen.  Docking!  Love it.  More to report as I start using it more and more.  If there are any problems, I'll post here.