Windows 7 Preorder Coupon Sale!
I just preordered Microsoft Windows 7 Home on Amazon, because right now it’s over 50% off. For just $49.99 (58% savings) you will get it delivered to your door on the official release date of October 22, 2009 (if you’re a PRIME member, which I am).
As fas as I can tell, the only difference between Home Premium and Professional is that you don’t get their virtualization for XP software support (which is probably like VMWare Fusion on the Mac), no automatic backup features, and it’s missing some enterprise Active Directory thing called “Domain Join” that I doubt I’d ever use. So I’m not paying any $ for that.
One advantage I’ll get out of this is the ability to (a) run DX10 for the latest games, and (b) 64bit support, so finally I can run all 4 GB of RAM properly without PAE and any other proprietary crap. Right now my 4GB only shows up as about 3.4 anyway. Also, SSD support is much better in Windows 7, from what I’ve read. So my Intel X25-M will continue to serve me well!
Update: If you missed this, but you are a student or know a student, you can get a super cheap deal ($10 cheaper!) by visiting the Windows 7 Student Discount Page. It’s $30 for Windows 7 Pro, and another $13 to get a physical DVD.
Vista Bug #1: Can I? Can I?
Windows Vista likes to play “Mother may I?” and ask you EVERY damn time it wants to do something if it’s allowed to, even for services that should be certified as its own:
Why should I have to approve its own activation component? Its rundll components? It’s hardware installation components? I believe in a more secure architecture, but really Microsoft, this is taking the security iniative a little too far. As a consumer, I just want it to run–security decisions should be made behind my back. Especially for operating system components. What does it say for your system when it doesn’t even trust itself?
Windows Vista on an Apple 12″ Powerbook
Ever wondered if you can run Microsoft Windows Vista on, say, a non-intel Apple computer (like the 12″ powerbook)? Well, here’s proof that you can:
This is not a fake screenshot or photo–Microsoft Windows Vista is really on that Apple Mac instead of OSX, and it’s not an Intel x86 chip in there, either, it’s running OSX on a single traditional G4 processor. How did I do it? Simple: I got Windows Vista running in VMware 5 Workstation, which is a major pain, and then used Remote Desktop from the Mac. Did you know there’s a remote desktop client for the Mac? That’s the easiest way to get Vista on your mac.
Installing Vista on a virtual machine is a little more annoying. First, you need a 16GB virtual disk before the Vista beta will let you install it. Second, you need to format this space and then on reboot manually boot from CD again. Third, the virtual shared folder abstraction doesn’t work in Windows Vista for some reason.
