How long does it take to upgrade to Windows 7?
Long enough to: read a New Yorker, cook and eat a plate of pumpkin ravioli (update from the farmers market: the ravioli lady is still making amazing pasta and still more serious than you would expect, but the milkman had just told her how his little boy needs heart surgery, so that may have contributed), take a nap, and watch 12 Angry Men.
Granted, half this time was necessary upgrading/uninstalling of half a dozen apps, but I'm still holding that one against Microsoft. iTunes and Skype were on this list, come on. The install proper went quickly and without issue, and never having upgraded an OS before (Win98 lasted me until '08), I take Randy's word that ease is wild. He's certainly right that 7 is an underwhelming upgrade from Vista. The upgrade only cost me $50, so I can't complain. But it boggles my mind that Vista haters now love 7. Did XP-to-Vista upgrading ruin the whole thing for them?
The ravioli was fantastic. And so was the movie, on my list for a while. Still deciding if Fonda or Cobb's character fascinated me more.
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:15 PM
iTunes and QuickTime are really intrusive pieces of PC software, so I can understand why MS required iTunes to be booted out before an upgrade. iTunes in particularly has been crash-happy with some past versions; both iTunes and QuickTime install "helper applications" that run when you start up your PC, sucking away processor cycles and memory. All the helper apps do is cause iTunes and QuickTime to load slightly faster when you use them. I don't use iTunes or QuickTime because of this annoyance and intrusiveness.
I think some of the criticism of Vista was just general rage about a bunch of things Microsoft did in a row to annoy people, which was capped by issuing an operating system that was genuinely bloated and really late to market. Part of it also was that lots of older hardware didn't work with Vista — because the hardware manufacturers didn't create the drivers needed to make things work. That's a problem that should be blamed on the hardware manufacturers, not Microsoft.
Windows 7 is better, but a lot of the "better" is really under the hood.
November 3rd, 2009 at 7:16 PM
Life without iTunes? Aren't you the guy who just became an iPhone convert? I agree on life without QuickTime, though. And Real Player.
This better under the hood… when might the engine start to benefit me? And I ask that only halfway sarcastically… because I'm the guy who used Win98 for a decade.
November 4th, 2009 at 1:21 PM
I did become an iPhoner, and I do have iTunes on my work PC because there's no other way to get at the app store (again, the Apple Way is to control everything and call it "freedom.") At home, I use Media Monkey to move files back and forth.
I'm supposed to give up the iPhone soon and I'm already lobbying to get the Motorola Droid from my employer, but I'm not holding my breath on that. The Droid, one of the new Google Android devices and almost certainly the best, would keep me on Verizon (AT&T is just bad) and provide me with a touchscreen, powerful device that actually had a real keyboard, flash camera and removable batteries (it is INCREDIBLE that the iPhone has no removable batteries — an absolute no-no for a phone).