Windows 7 and Launch Party
A couple of months ago I read that Microsoft had made Windows 7 Release Candidate available to the public for download and evaluation. Unfortunately, when I checked the download link had been disabled just a day before.
But a friend told me he still had the download and Microsoft was still handing out activation keys. So he gave me a copy and I received my activation key by email. What I lacked at the time was room on a hard drive because I still hadn't cleaned out the hard drive on my old computer and life continued to get in the way of doing this.
Then one day last month I received an email from Microsoft. They planned to have Windows 7 Launch Parties throughout the world and invited me to host one. In return I would receive a limited edition of Windows 7 Ultimate plus a Party Pack with promotional materials (yay, balloons!) and Windows 7 napkins.
Last week I received it all and a local computer store happened to have a sale on hard drives so I picked up a Seagate 1TB drive. The next day I installed the drive and Windows 7.
All in all the installation of the drive took longer than the installation of Windows 7. Probably because I had to dismantle quite a bit of the computer to pry loose the SATA connector. The little latch tab had broken off so releasing the latch with my finger had become impossible.
Windows 7 asked me just a few questions, then installed quickly off the DVD and required for separate reboots before the installation process completed. Luckily, these reboots were fast.
Once installed my sound card was not being recognized properly and kept reporting the cable to the speakers was unplugged. But my wireless network USB dongle worked so I could check Windows Update and found a new driver for my sound card so everything is working fine now.
At first sight, Windows 7 pretty much looks and feels like Vista. I haven't found any significant changes but under the hood it may be completely different.
So today we're one week away from the world-wide Windows 7 Launch. And today there were already six Windows Updates to this brand new operating system totaling over 20MB worth of downloads....
Let's see how things go. My Launch Party is just ten days away. I'll post feedback to the blog, perhaps even as they happen.
But a friend told me he still had the download and Microsoft was still handing out activation keys. So he gave me a copy and I received my activation key by email. What I lacked at the time was room on a hard drive because I still hadn't cleaned out the hard drive on my old computer and life continued to get in the way of doing this.
Then one day last month I received an email from Microsoft. They planned to have Windows 7 Launch Parties throughout the world and invited me to host one. In return I would receive a limited edition of Windows 7 Ultimate plus a Party Pack with promotional materials (yay, balloons!) and Windows 7 napkins.
Last week I received it all and a local computer store happened to have a sale on hard drives so I picked up a Seagate 1TB drive. The next day I installed the drive and Windows 7.
All in all the installation of the drive took longer than the installation of Windows 7. Probably because I had to dismantle quite a bit of the computer to pry loose the SATA connector. The little latch tab had broken off so releasing the latch with my finger had become impossible.
Windows 7 asked me just a few questions, then installed quickly off the DVD and required for separate reboots before the installation process completed. Luckily, these reboots were fast.
Once installed my sound card was not being recognized properly and kept reporting the cable to the speakers was unplugged. But my wireless network USB dongle worked so I could check Windows Update and found a new driver for my sound card so everything is working fine now.
At first sight, Windows 7 pretty much looks and feels like Vista. I haven't found any significant changes but under the hood it may be completely different.
So today we're one week away from the world-wide Windows 7 Launch. And today there were already six Windows Updates to this brand new operating system totaling over 20MB worth of downloads....
Let's see how things go. My Launch Party is just ten days away. I'll post feedback to the blog, perhaps even as they happen.
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