Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Upgrading Windows 7 - Ultimate Success & Sacrifice

Wow. I wrote an email to the MS-Captain championing the upgrade programme to Windows 7 in Singapore and was surprised that they were able to check my record, contact me within 24 hours and had an engineer (Ramaesh) speak to me to arrange an online remote assist session the next working day. Firstly, that is "tops" and next, is that the engineer Ramaesh is the eptiome of patience and logic, and a sheer inspiration to work with. I can only imagine how tough a job like his was, dealing with a dozen thousand calls and a myriad list of weird (and maybe wonderful) problems that need to be solved daily. You must enjoy working with the maze of the OS and the manufacturer's specifications to successsfully troubleshoot and present a working, efficient, solultion.
Anyway, after a tireless session, the laptop seemed to jerk back into working fine, being able to shut down and log off a few times.
Sadly, after we got offline, and I let the Windows Updater download the latest updates, the laptop simply eased back into the redolent self and refused to shut down properly.
So, I forced shut-down after letting the CPU try and work itself through the processes for about one hour. Then starting it up again I decided that "enough is quite enough" and it was time for me to handle the situation I felt was best, and was prepared to try. Here is what I did:

>Control Panel >Recovery
Then indicated that I was wanted to reinstall Windows (7) and had the disk at hand.
Inserted the disk but found that it was not needed yet. FYI.
The system then successfully shut down and rebooted with a new light blue screen with command selection options on it.
First was, to reboot from CD or DVD, and >DVD, inserted the Windows 7 disc into the drive and waited.
It booted up and the 1 - 2 - 3 task bar begin filling out as the DVD whirred to life. Good!
Then I had a choice to select where to load the OS.
I selected "advanced" to view the options and could see the manufacturer partitions:
0 partition 10GB for OEM content - which I , and
1 partition 490 GB for program content - which I .
Then with these all cleared, I allowed the Windows loaded to download the new OS into <1 partition>, letting the original OEM 0 partition of 10 GB to be sacrificed. It was empty and that was more important. Within that cache, I knew I lost some cool stuff (PowerDVD) but also finally got rid of some very intrusive and troublesome application software (MyWinLocker).
The Windows 7 loaded perfectly and before long, after keying in the Product Key, the Windows 7 Home Screen popped up and I checked the Programs list and found everything clean.

So, the tip about upgrading your laptop with Windows 7 is this:
Wipe your OEM apps clean. Smarter folks can save some of these drivers and apps in a HDD and then reinstall these with an updater online. I just wanted to see what an average Joe with low IT EQ can do.
So far, what I did worked beautifully.

The added tips:
(a) ensure there is no Internet Security installed beforehand, and do not wire up/connect to the Internet until after you have successfully installed the new OS;
(b) do download ALL required/essential update content in sequence and DO NOT use your PC while this is being done. Just be patient. Do shut down or restart the laptop after each successful download.
(c) download any updated driver for your hardwire after Windows is well-updated and stable (no further essential updates). I avoided ALL optional updates until the last stage when I had loaded in other software I needed.
(d) now I loaded in Office 2007 and its updates. There was a small problem with the service pack 2 not being successfully installed, but I knew this was not an issue, as the system will notify me later on when I needed to do this.
(e) then I loaded back my Easy Transfer File (5GB) from my back-up notebook, so that basic preferences and favourites will be automatically transferred to this upgraded laptop. During the migration process you must not (absolutely NOT) use the PC until the process is complete. Accept and skip any errors, if you can.
(f) after restarting to put the migrated content into effect, I was now prepared to install my Windows Live Mail and its essentials. (Or do this before your Migration process. Either way, just one installation at a time is safer, but takes a longer time.)
(g) Now I opened up Ramaesh's last email to me which linked me to the updated Windows 7 ESET Smart Security 4 version for download online. (Thanks, Ramaesh. By going back to your software support site, you usually can view and download new drivers etc. but have your product key or password/ID at hand and ready). I did not even need my ESET disc as inputting the password and ID immediately recognised my valid account and the download went ahead smoothly. After my ESET was launched, I awaited some time before running the updater and it worked sweet!
(f) I restarted again, and now looked around to prioritise what other application software I needed and had to get the updated version online. My HP C5280 All-in-One printer had the biggest cache of files to download and I did this overnight. Then next was my SONY PMB software for both my videocam and two cameras (a850 and NEX-5), and wonderfully, SONY.jp had a notification screen that popped up after you have installed the software and launched it, to download the updated version from their website. This is being done as I blog this. Sweet again.

So, ultimately, it means this:
1. OEM applications pre-installed in your laptop is very likely to have elements which can be disruptive to your Upgrade to Windows; you can back-up drivers and apps into a separate back-up drive if you know how to do this;
2. Be prepared to wipe and reformat the laptop HDD and work from scratch to rebuild your PC.
3. Do it progressively, and take your time, doing each task successfully before the next.

So, now, there are just a few more applications to work on, and so far, all my drivers are working via the Microsoft platform and not the manufacturer's pre-installed drivers. I think that says something about Windows 7, and of course, that terrific after-sales customer support service! I am happily back with MS as a fan.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Spectacular Lunar Eclipse Spoilt By Shrouds of Clouds

I woke up at 0030 hrs this morning, after hitting the sack early at 9 pm last night. The motivation was to awake at 0130 hrs on 16 June 2011 and set-up by NexStar reflector telescope and 200mm telezoom Sony a850 to capture what promised to be the longest full moon eclipse for the next 18 years. For a moment, the moon, which began losing its perfect disc of light rather early, was becoming quite well doused in the earth's shadow by 0230 hrs. Unfortunately, huddled in a deeply dark spot near my flat and with two sets of tripods with equipment mounted atop and pointing south-west into the sky above, I looked like a hapless ET hopeful, or a dorky nerd with a cosmological fantasy.
But it turned out to be a long and futile wait, as the skies remained ruddy pink and despite the strong wind, strove wilfully to shroud the sight of the blood red moon from me and my equipment. So, even with the best might and preparedness, one hapless observer could only note the local meteorological details, and virtually nothing of the orbital delight that was unfolding above the shrouds of cloud overhead.
I will have to await the news reports tomorrow to see what I missed, and the only consolation I got was getting online and looking at my Google homepage. The middle "O" was a large moon, waxing slightly, and below the brand was a sliding bar which moved from left to right, and as it did so, the moon was hid in shadow, turned ruddy red with the finest deep burgundy wine, and then unabashedly lost its dark and returned to its silvery light.
I found myself smiling,and actually silly but actualised, just being caught offguard and surprised by the people at Google for doing what they did.
For this grown up little boy, it was quite good, and almost the same thing, even if was not the real thing at all. It was about being surprised and observing an ancient phenomenon which is also rare.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Why Windows 7 Upgrade was all about laundering

My Vista Premium OS Acer 4810T laptop is less than two years old, running on the Pentium Dual Core chip, before the new i-3, i-5 and i-7 Intel multi-core chips were launched. Since then, the Vista had many problems, which I survived. One burnt out motherboard, and two damaged HDDs and one replaced LCD TFT. If you consider all these, you would think that Acer makes cheap and lousy laptop notebook personal computers. But the history and facts require some objective delving, and some of those failures were because my notebook was travelling alot, and I could have protected it better.
The after sales service by Acer was good enough for me to feel loyal and I did not hesitate to buy an extended warranty for the notebook for another five years.
Just then three weeks ago, after my Vista 4810T was quite stable, the only real bug was that the CD-DVD player would hang with any disc placed inside the tray and cause the dreaded Vista Blue Screen of death. Playing around with CDs to DVDs and other discs became a mini-scientific laboratory business. Do this, it sort of works, but do that, and it simply hangs; any other time, you get the Blue Screen of Death, and the notebook reboots.
So, after running the Windows 7 Advisor and all things looked great - just a Toshiba Bluetooth application and the Intel Pro wifi application did not have Windows 7 drivers, it warned. Checked other websites and found that users noted that these two would still work, except if you ran their respective diagnostics.
So I went down to Challenger and bought a Windows Upgrade Anytime key at around 10.35 pm. Back home at around 11.15 pm, I excitedly tried to launch it and found that the website said that this application was no longer available. It looked like a US site. I tried the Singapore Microsoft site and it showed that this was available, but click the links here and there and you realise that the SG site only featured a store catalogue of products but nothing you can buy online or download.
You then realise that Intellectual Property zones actually is far from globalisation... Like the Warner Home Video digital download you get free with Code 1 DVDs, when you try to download it, you find that your player codec (Code 3 or Singapore/South East Asia) prevents you from doing so. Left hand in US sells you a Code A Blu Ray disc with free digital version to download but Right hand does not recognise your right to do so, even if your disc is legitimate. I wonder if this may ever be a contributing factor to piracy? LESSON LEARNT: do not buy Blu Ray discs with Digital Copy included. Why waste the money or time.
Now, at 11.45 pm, and rather exasperated, I quickly decide to return to Challenger by taxi which cost me S$12. When to the Customer Service and spoke to Ivan Tham and indicated that I could happily buy the Windows Upgrade Home Premium version at S$235 but asked him to help me with getting a refund. Wisely, he could not guarantee me but said that after Microsoft verifies that the software key was not unlocked, then it may be possible. I think now that the S$139 paid for the Windows upgrade is a "write off" as was all the time and cab fare spent.
For the sake of the idea that Windows 7 is so well approved by so many people, it may be worth it. So I thought. Now, I finally got the disc and I needed and at 1.30 am the next day, I sat down on my desk, with my laptop all ready. Backed up and removed key content, and even used the Windows Easy Transfer so that my Acer W500 Iconia tablet PC would have everything I needed installed and set up. The tiny built-in memory was somewhat tricky but I was consummate about making it work and put some niffy effort and thinking into how I used the 32GB SD card slot to park all other non-program data in it.
Then I launched into the Windows 7 Upgrade on my laptop, which in theory, just meant that you could keep all your existing software and this would simply, well, upgrade the OS.
Yeah.
Hahaha.
They designed it that way for maybe two PCs in the whole world and every body else is a sucker. And those experts who got suckered, were too wounded to admit and must have conspired to simply gloat - "Oh yes, it was really easy, and mine worked perfectly" while they secretly squirreled off and bought a replacement PC with Windows 7 pre-installed. The others, simply and finally learnt their lesson and migrated to Mac.
Did I tell you that I dated a MacBookAir last year because my Acer 4810T Vista notebook was having serious hiccoughs? Well, after holding fast in belief and consorting to all sort of pragmatic solutions (like using an external disc player unit instead of every touching the built-in unit on the Acer 4810T), I decided that I could live with the whacky Vista Acer notebook. Buying the Acer W500 Iconia with the Windows 7 showed me that I did in fact like Windows 7, and the Acer tablet technology more. In fact, the Iconia W500 made me a bigger Acer fan and a better Windows (7) fan.
So, back to the fateful Monday three weeks ago, when I began installing the Windows 7 Home Premium upgrade on the Acer 4810T. For starters, it seemed fine and wow, really, cool.
I logged on to Facebook and bragged about it and quite simply, jinxed it all.
Firstly, the ESET firewall could not be re-started.
Then the real Windows 7 Balrog began the attack like a zillion arrows across the hallowed depths and darkness of Khazad-dum. The Windows Updater seemed to have heaps, and heaps to download and install, and after attempting to re-start, the machine began to hand. Logging off... but never. Shutting down... but never.
This went on for two days, and I skipped any winks, staying awake to download, repeat, shut-down, repeat, force re-start, repeat, wait, download, repeat, re-start. The experience could make Alan Ginsberg write 21 new poems and 4 new novellas on the evils of technology as drug and hell, and we are all the abused victims of rich and fat corporations that skimmed off our insatiable need for efficiency. Whatever happened to the human mind, memory, and fingers clicking away at key strokes hitting through a carbon ribbon and striking paper.
Came to a certain point, I knew my Acer 4810T was "Lost". Euphemistically and plainly. Some facts are wonderfully simple in truth and you cannot argue any other way.
So, ensuring that my Acer W500 Iconia was good enough for me to use for my work assignment the following week (that was, last week) to Hiroshima, Japan, I brough the notebook down to Acer and abbreviated the whole experience: Blue Screen of Death when loading disc in player, and yes, upgraded to Windows 7 and system constantly "hangs".
So, finally I was doing my laundry out in the open, and it is all hung out for the fact. Windows? Why just hang out the laundry outside on the clothes line to dry, right? Yes, Windows does not work and all it does it drive you outside to hang yourself, after your system hangs, hangs, and stays, hung!
Now, I look at th Windows logo on the screen at start-up and marvel.

1. With all this crappy problems, why there can not be another company like Adobe to create a really simple and great OS to rival Windows and Office?
Answer (from Steve Jobs): Mac, dummy!

2. So why can't Mac work with Flash?
Answer (Jobless Steve): Darn, you can't trust them Adobe folks. Did you notice how your Adobe Reader 9.2.0 now does not launch or work after installing Windows 7? (Yeah, wow, that is so true!)

What is the lesson, three weeks later, and with an Acer 4810T Windows 7 upgraded personal computer that is whacky and wonky and really slower than when you ran Vista on it, and now can't even run some software, or install, or uninstall, or well, even run reliably?

LESSON: never get Upgrades. Buy exactly what you want, use it and then dump it. At this rate, the greatest waste of our time is really TIME and ENERGY to simply keep things running.