After getting pumped about Windows 7 and being too antsy to wait for the DVD to come in the mail, I figured I would just download the public beta. Little did I know I would have to download the beta four times before I received an iso that was NOT corrupt!
By the time I had a valid iso, I was not in the mood to burn the image to DVD prior to installation so I enlisted the services of MagicISO to mount the iso virtually. I figured it might speed up the file copy process as an added bonus. So here I am, at the point where I’ve seen the installation fail 6 times before, because of data corruption, with my fingers crossed. To my amazement the installer finishes copying all the files to the drive and moves on to the next step! I let out a half-sigh of relief as I hold my breath while the installer continues and I nervously watch the installer reboot the machine. Time goes by, I attend a staff meeting followed by a quasi happy hour in our multipurpose room all the while, the installation continues at a sluggish, yet steady pace. Seemingly hanging at 74% completion on the final step, I leave to pick up Emily from work who wasn’t too happy about having to come back to my office to grab my laptop. To my surprise, the upgrade/installation was complete when we returned. As an added bonus, the happy hour was still in full swing. Snacks & drinks are always a win.
Thoughts for anyone else thinking of participating in the Beta:
- If you haven’t already downloaded and installed the Windows 7 Beta, get it now before general availability ends!
- Don’t upgrade, do a fresh installation from a USB jump drive. I wasted a TON of time burning DVDs and upgrading from Vista as opposed to doing a fresh installation. Dennis Chung has a video on TechNet Edge detailing the process with links to his blog for even more detail on some of the tools he uses
Throughout my beta experience, I’ll update the section below with issues that arrise
Open Issues
- Outlook 2007 w/ Exchange 2003
RPC over HTTPS is not always functional, which means I don’t always have access to my email. Discussion @ http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itproappcompat/thread/a501c9c1-cc29-48ab-af03-fffe531fbde0
Resolved Issues
- Cisco VPN Client
Experienced Issues with an older client so figured I should upgrade. Worked with another users solution to get the VPN Client running on my machine @ http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itproappcompat/thread/d880dfe5-7f44-4955-8620-2a9355d8ea8b/
- Multiple Monitors
I’ve never had much luck with the graphics cards in Dell’s D630s so I wasn’t too surprised when one of my Dell 1907FP monitors (with a VGA connection) wasn’t displaying the signal properly. To resolve the issue, I needed to go into the Advanced section under Screen Resolution and set the refresh rate to 75hz.
- Brother MFC-7840W Scanner
Scanner was not recognized. Uninstalled via Device Manager and re-installed only the scanner driver with the Installer from Brother.