So everyone’s been talking about the hype of Windows 7 ever since the beta release dropped this past year. And then people really went crazy when Microsoft released it for real. And then university students discovered you could get Windows 7 for very cheap or even free! (Cockrell School of Engineering students, check out this link).

This is how my install went… If you just want the screenshots, scroll to the bottom :)

I decided I’d go ahead with a reformat and install Windows 7. My Sony Vaio 645P came installed with Windows XP, so I held off installing until I was totally sure I wanted Windows 7. It’s running 2 Ghz Intel processor, 2 Gb RAM, 160 Gb hard disk space. I’m really into customization of my desktop, and XP was much better for that than Vista. Upon running the install, I discovered that the installer actually saves my old “Program Files” and “Documents and Settings” folders. This is pretty nifty for saving all the music, pictures, fonts, program configurations, etc. I backed those up on an external anyway. Total install time took about 30 minutes.

First thing people will tell you about Windows 7 is that it boots up very fast. I’m used to the three minute wait on XP, but I could definitely get used to booting up in about 45 seconds. The aero theme is one of my favorites, and I always tried to emulate it with WindowBlinds on XP. The user interface is pretty much the same, just a lot prettier. But dig deeper and you’ll realize that Windows 7 has a lot of improvements in how it runs files too.

I had to pause the honeymoon for a moment because I had to install my drivers. Most people will find that Windows 7 does a very good job of discovering what drivers are needed and automatically searches the Internet for them. Sony Vaio drivers, however… You’ll need nerves, patience, tenacity, and determination. But hey, that’s the whole reason you got a Vaio, right? With my Vaio, I have a wireless switch, a Memory Stick reader, video card switch, Fn keys, and two macro buttons. Time to hit up the Vaio support site and get those drivers. Well, first things first, I had to install the latest nVidia driver for my GeForce 8400M GS. Latest one, check. Restart, Windows doesn’t detect it correctly so Aero is still disabled. Wtf? I search Google for a fix, I find out I have to install a modified nVidia driver. So, download, unzip, install, repeat. I finally find one that works. Aero graphics activated. Suite. In the process I had also downloaded and installed a utility driver update from the Vaio support page that makes all my hardware stuff work. I restart, everything is gravy. Until I check my wireless and it’s disabled. What… the fuck. No matter what I do, I can’t re-enable it. I download a ton more drivers, uninstall some random crap but I just don’t know what to do. Well, I do, there’s only one choice left. Full format of the drive. At this point I could care less about all those fonts I didn’t back up or the config files for some programs. I have all my music and pictures backed up, who gives a shit. Five o’ clock in the morning, I’m getting hella tired. Move my wires and stuff to the nightstand, put in Windows 7 disk and reformat the entire drive. Sleep.

Wake up. Okay Windows 7 is back and so is the wifi. Drivers are all gone, so let’s go again. At this point, I didn’t realize it was the utilities driver messing it all up. Vaio has a program that works with the wireless switch to enable 2 Ghz, 5 Ghz, and Bluetooth functionality. I think it got set to 5 Ghz somewhere along the way and I got owned. So I install utilities again and my wireless works fine. Oh well. Pop up. Battery is detected as not correctly inserted? Wtf. It’s in there good. One of the utilities is the battery light. Uhhh this pop up won’t go away. Choices are “Restart” or “Restart.” I try to hide it to try and find a fix but it just re-focuses itself every 15 seconds. Okay! Shut down, check battery connection, everything is fine. Boot up, battery problem again. Oh carp.

Where’s that Windows 7 disk… Full reformat, again. This time not installing utilities driver. So now my battery light doesn’t light up, bluetooth is always on and my S1 S2 buttons don’t work. Not like I used them or anything. Now, I get that video driver installed and aero enabled.

So right now I’m itching for some Team Fortress 2. Haven’t played in like… two days. I have all the files backed up on a drive, get it installed. Run. Everything boots up perfect, until I spawn and I get a ton of lag. I’ll save you the bloody details but I was just being a dumbass and not disabling Aero graphics. I get all the essentials installed: Photoshop, Winamp, Chrome, Office, Digsby, and uTorrent. At this point I’m itching for some customization. Windows 7 does has a really cool feature that allows it to change the background every now and then. For someone who changes their background way too often, this is perfect for me. I look online for some visual styles. I install a bunch.

Then I discover all those themes just look like crap and the only theme that has everything I want is the original Windows theme. It takes me a whole week of tweaking and configuring to discover that.

Now that you got past the tl;dr part, here are some screenshots for your viewing pleasure!

Son Dambi

Just really useful

Aero Peek allows you to hover and thumbnail that window. It’s so simple yet so entertaining. Photoshop is minimized in the last picture, but if I hover the Photoshop button on the taskbar, it will show Photoshop’s original position and hide the other windows:

I also discovered a way to make the taskbar even smaller than when having the option “Use small icons” is checked. It looks a lot like the old taskbar from Windows XP. I was fiddling around in the appearance window, and I found that “Caption Buttons” not only controls the size of the Minimize, Maximize and Close buttons on a window but the size of the taskbar also. So to make your taskbar even smaller: right click your desktop > Personalize > Window Color > Advance appearance settings… Then change the “Caption Buttons” size accordingly. 17 pixels is the smallest it will go, any smaller won’t make the taskbar smaller, just the action buttons on your windows. Only downside is that your system tray icons are really tiny.

Left: small taskbar. Right: original taskbar

While all this was happening, I found Nujabes’s new compilation album, “Mellow Beats, Friends & Lovers.” At first, I thought it sucked. And then I listened to it again. And I found this song. Reformatting and installing Windows isn’t so bad when this song is stuck in your head. Granted, there are a bunch of good songs, and there’s something for every kind of Nujabes fan. Great driving music.

No.9 – After It
http://limelinx.com/files/d87f211d54ffe62f8daf25004815d2bd

I use Winamp for my audio needs. It’s user-friendly and lightweight (in comparison to iTunes and my older favorite of Windows Media Player). Big advantages are the skins that make Winamp look even cooler. Best of all is the “Enhancer” plugin, which to me gives an awesome boost in audio quality. No seriously, check it out. I also use Winamp to sync my 5th generation 30 Gb iPod. I had removed iTunes from my computer a couple months back. Everything is fine and dandy, yesterday I did my regular morning sync of my iPod. I walk out of the dorm and I press Artists, and the iPod was blank. Hmmmm… strange. Did Winamp accidentally remove all of my music? No matter, I’ll just re-sync it when I get home. I plug it into Winamp, all of my music is there. More plot twists. I have my iPod skinned, so maybe it was the firmware that was conflicting with the music. I re-download iTunes to restore my iPod, sync again with Winamp and the same result. Hell, the music even shows up on iTunes. My only hope is to sync with iTunes now… Which is a memory hog. It’s lagging this typing as it is “Processing Album Artwork.” Weaksauce. I’ve got nothing against Apple, but not everyone is running 2 Ghz, 2 Gb RAM machines. Oh wait, I am. But what the hell, iTunes is using so much RAM. Maybe it’s just warm in my room and I feel like complaining. I just want to listen to music while I walk to class, is that too much to ask?

And hey wtf, did I just get the BSOD?

That was me messing around with older firmwares. Apparently if I try to downgrade the iPod firmware the music will disappear. So in the course of one blog I have solved my problem. Except not really, now I have some generic looking iPod.

I much prefer this over the original, but my #1 Justice fan friend Tony thinks otherwise. I think it’s quite spunky and adds some more flavor and catchiness.

Justice – D.A.N.C.E. (CF CF Remix)
http://www.zshare.net/audio/59633188c64d8425/

Yeah, thanks. iTunes just crashed on me. It’s not even a bad program. Thanks a lot Winamp for copping out on me.

I remember when back when I was designing Xanga layouts two or three years ago when Firefox really started picking up. I remember it was version 1.0.1, I tried it out, sure why not. At first, I thought it was just for people who liked it because they hated Microsoft. Yeah, it had tabbed browsing, which was really cool, even back then. Integrated pop-up blocker and built-in RSS feeds. The only things I didn’t like about it were the things I needed Internet Explorer to do for me. Things like CSS attributes. Like how positioning is all wrong. Not wrong, just different. So users on Internet Explorer and Firefox get two different results. Oh, and those scrollbars. It’s just convenient on Internet Explorer to mouse over the box you want to scroll in, instead of having to click inside. Speaking of scrollbars, Firefox doesn’t render scrollbar colors, either. Maybe I’m just stuck up and I’m stubborn about Internet Explorer, but it’s just the look and feel of it that I like. The buttons look good, everything is in reaching distance. Internet Explorer 7 uses tabbed browsing too. I guess I’m just trying to defend Internet Explorer, Firefox isn’t a bad program, and I encourage everyone to download it. I even have it installed, just in case Internet Explorer crashes on me on a specific site. The only thing I don’t understand is why Myspace and Xanga users would want to use it to browse those sites. The design schemes would all be thrown off, right?

The reason I’m wrecking on Firefox is because, those of you using it right now should already know, my blogs content is positioned below the sidebar. Looks fine in Internet Explorer, I swear! I’ve got a hunch on what is causing this mismatch in design. I’ll try to fix it, we’ll see. Otherwise, I’ll have to put a big sign on my main page stating that this blog is not Firefox compatible. And I know, from the majority of blog readers, that y’all love and swear by Firefox. Or Safari. Just not Internet Explorer. 

If you have any suggestions on what I should do to fix it, I’m still new to PHP and I’d love to hear from you.