My Experience Installing Windows 7RC

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my project last weekend was in upgrading my laptop from Windows 7 Public Beta to Windows 7 Release Candidate. (Win7RC is being made available to the general public starting today, but it was released through MSDN and TechNet last week.) I thought I’d write a few words on my experience.
Overall, the process was mostly uneventful. The public beta was surprisingly stable, with only a couple of bugs at the “minor annoyance” level:
The wallpaper shuffler under 7 Beta would occasionally hang.
The icons on the task bar were too widely spaced, and differentiating between “pinned” and minimized apps took getting used to. (Not a bug per sé, but an annoyance.)
The Nvidia video driver used by my laptop under Windows 7 was prone to crashing.
Other programs and drivers required installing under Vista-compatible mode.
The first two items in that bullet list have been addressed. The video driver seems more stable, but still at risk of crashes. And the program/other driver compatibility headaches still exist, as they are probably due to restrictions in the installers for those apps/drivers.
Other than the build number changing, in the branding on the desktop, and the visual fixes…to be honest, it’s very hard to tell a difference between 7 Beta and 7RC.
There were a few things that did annoy me with the process…although they are more gripes about the state of personal computing (and the burdens borne by playing with beta software) than issues with Windows 7 itself:
I did a system wipe/complete reinstall when upgrading. The little bit of early grumbling I saw of 7RC seems to have come from folks who may have attempted an upgrade. The reinstall path is a hassle, but it avoids issues caused by post-upgrade messes and conflicts.
While the Windows 7 installation was quick, reinstalling all my software took forever (in particular, the 1.2 gig required to bring Office 07 up-to-date). I remember back in the day, reinstalling software could be as simple as just restoring from backup. It would be nice if the software-reinstall part of the process could be streamlined. At least, the hassle provides a great excuse to lose programs I don’t actually need installed.
Having learned from my experience with rsync in January, moving from Vista to 7 Beta, I used Microsoft’s Easy Transfer utility to move personal files to/from an external drive for the wipe/reinstall. It really was easy, if a bit slow. For most users it probably would Just Work. I did, however, run into a couple of annoyances:
.lnk files (shortcuts) weren’t brought over, but I could recreate them manually
Taskbar-pinned icons migrated as undeletable white icons; I had to re-pin the apps (after reinstalling) and then un-pin if I wanted to get rid of them.
Customizations to the shortcut bar in Office ’07 apps were lost, and had to be recreated.
Office 07 custom themes weren’t migrated; I had to recover those style files from a backup of …AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Quick Styles
My Outlook macros weren’t migrated. I was had to scrounge a copy of VbaProject.OTM from a backup of …AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Outlook to regain my GTD customizations.
I’m glad I remembered another couple of lessons from past experience: exporting firewall profiles and scheduled tasks, and importing them post-reinstall was quick, and saved me quite a bit of tweak-work.
Outlook 07, Windows 7RC, and AVG don’t currently play well together. Microsoft seems to have made a minor modification to how Windows and antivirus software talk to one another, causing Windows to not be able to verify AVG’s status. As a security measure, Outlook 07 locks down programmatic access…which can be a headache. (I haven’t been able to use “Send to Email Recipient” from Office apps since the reinstall.) Hopefully, that will be addressed by a future update to AVG.
I’m a little concerned about the warning I got when bringing iTunes back, about how I had authorized my account on a third computer…and that the maximum number of authorizations was 5. Considering that I’ve only used iTunes on this one machine (which I’ve wiped/reinstalled/upgraded twice), I’m left to wonder if Steve Jobs is seeking to discourage PC users from being responsible in discincenting major system cleanups. I’ll have at least one more reinstall (when Win 7 is officially released), and someday I will move to a new computer. I wonder what sort of bribe I’ll have to give to Apple to permit me to keep the few apps and songs I’ve bought.
Despite those gripes, I’ve been pleased with my Windows 7 experience. It’s more stable than any prior version of Windows I’ve worked with before (knock wood), and it’s aesthetically pleasing (which is important when you spend all day at a computer). 7RC also feels a little snappier than 7Beta, but that could be a fringe benefit of wiping 5 months of crap off the hard drive and starting over.