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Posted on September 7th, 2009 by Steve Cassidy
Cast away with Windows 7
Well, not strictly cast away – and not strictly Windows 7, considering it was the Release Candidate. However, I did indeed spend a week on a boat with Windows 7 and a Vodafone 3G data dongle as my only contact with the outside world. Was this a careful benchmark test? No. It was getting up at 5:45am to catch the ferry and snagging the rucksack nearest the door.
The test was pretty low key. For one thing, Lough Erne doesn’t have great 3G signal strength; for another, the boat wouldn’t run the inverter for my T60 Thinkpad without the engine going, so opportunities to download mails and surf (that is, spread discord in various online fora) were limited by the need not to throw up from diesel-fume inhalation.
But Windows 7 RC1 grabbed the Huawei device that Vodafone package up, and inserted that in the dial-up networking pop-up (which for some weird reason shows in the taskbar under an icon that looks like a flat-screen monitor with a mouse stuck to the top left corner). It would connect from that presence when in Lower Lough Erne (that is, not roaming) but in Upper Lough Erne (on Vodafone IE) I had to run the Vodafone application so the roaming would kick in.
Nothing exploded, nothing ran slowly (that wasn’t the fault of the flakey connections off places with names like Inishmacsaint) and I never saw a crash dialog box. We played DVDs in the evening, armed with the Altec Lansing Orbit Speaker for enhanced sound, and VLC to handle the DVDs – the only irritating part being the need to pop the battery out of the T60 so the wheezy inverter could use the boat’s accumulators without alarms tripping left, right and centre.
It’s always frustrating to report things going well, and I was expecting lots of the kind of frustraiton I am sadly used to with Vista, where practically every machine boot kicks off with a 20 minute update session, even on a fast network. But, at least for purposes nautical and leisurely, I must say I found RC1 a good companion.
Tags: holidays, Mobile data, testing, Windows 7
Posted in: Random, Real World Computing, Windows 7
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16 Responses to “ Cast away with Windows 7 ”
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September 8th, 2009 at 7:24 am
I’ve also been using the RC on my work laptop for some time now, along with my 3G dongle. I’ve not had any problems at all and I find Windows 7 to an all round superb product.
September 8th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Ah, Loch Erne. I spent a week there some thirty years ago on school camp.
Wooden dorms, lots of rain and spam sandwiches every day.
September 8th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
it’s not quite like that now! Though it does help as a fellow tourist put it, if they give you “a quarter of a million pounds worth of boat after ten minutes of lesson”…
September 9th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
You mean you went on holiday with your computer. The family must have been pleased.
September 9th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
I’m not quite sure what you expect as a response to that… I think I’ll just say that it was her DVDs, not mine, and leave you with all the other presumptions you evidently have. Perhaps life is a bit less proscribed than you think, in an all-freelancer relationship.
September 10th, 2009 at 10:11 am
…you mean… there are actually people who go away WITHOUT a computer? Who are these people? Are they aliens? Do they wear sandals and socks?!
.
Wouldn’t be without my trusty netbook for keeping a backup of all my holiday snaps, and reviewing them during calmer moments when armed with a sample of local tasty beverage (even if it does have ganky Vista still on it). Nice to know they seem to have gotten 7 right – I’ll be upgrading (term used as loosely as ex-lax) to 7 as soon as it arrives on my desk. Thanks for testing the pains… or lack thereof… for us, Steve!
September 10th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
Niall, you know I can’t resist telling the truth: there is every chance that you are as weird, or weirder, than me… Actually to be serious for a sec, I think you’ve got one of those RAID0 SSDs in your NetBook? Proceed with some caution – the RAID0-ness may be as confusing for Win7 as it turned out to be for Snow Leopard on my MacBook Pro
September 11th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
If I reach the illustrious heights of weirdness that you’ve managed to accomplish, I shall consider myself a blessed man. (or is that… cursed?. Fine line there, me thinks!)
Actually, I was slightly jealous when you bought yours, because mine doesn’t have the(what sounded to be quite groovy) internal RAID0. On reflection, not a terrible thing, because mine has performed fantastically, with no problems, and to be honest is limited by processing speeds elsewhere in the architecture of the netbook anyway. Ergo, I don’t think I’d actually have gained anything by having the more expensive RAID0 version.
Is it not the case that they’ve made a few more tweeks to 7 between RC and general release, in the netbook arena? (Guess I’ll find out and let you know, anyway!).
Now… if Samsung would just release an Ion based netbook that’s 10″ again…
September 12th, 2009 at 11:03 am
This just goes to show that caution when reading Net opinions is always a good plan. I get the idea that there’s certainly a population of early or simple SSDs which can be truly pants, but that the super-early-adopters fit the old description of fools that rush in where wise men fear to tread – so all the stuff about declining performance and fiddle-about erase utilities is a phase that’s well and truly passed.
I dunno about Netbooks. I have a Tosh one here and it tends to stay here. The next time YOU BUY ME LUNCH (oops, caps lock oh dear never mind) I’ll have to show you the Tosh Satellite U200 – not a netbook, not that modern, but only 20% bigger and now with 4Gb and 320Gb of disk…
(damn, just thought of a better joke about “next time you get in de beers” but that’s too smarmy)
September 14th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Indeedy… I spent more than a little time scrutinising netbooks and SSD’s (especially as I was a relatively early adopter). Needless to say, anything with one of those awful 4/8/16gig SSD’s is about as useful as a Fisher Price “My First Laptop” – having said that, even some of the “proper” SSD drives were trully pants as well.
Netbooks either float your boat or not, it seems. In my case, it very much fits my requirement and lifestyle (that is to say a constant need to be organised, “plugged in” at a moments notice, all my files to hand, music, photos… and 12 hours between charges).
And, of course I’LL BE BUYING LUNCH NEXT TIME (oops, that caps lock thing seems to be catching).
September 19th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
Was quite happily running my laptop on RC1 at 32 bit ~ but once the RTM code was released I fitted a new 7200 HD and loaded the 64 bit RTM version. So much better and it uses all 4Gb of ram as before it only showed 3Gb and using the inbuilt card reader with a 4Gb SDHC fast card under Readyboost the laptop is so much more responsive and battery life even better.
Readyboost in the RC1 said the SDHC card wasn’t better than my 5400 HD but with the RTM code it uses it to great effect.
SO much better now than the old 32 bit Vista!
September 19th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
Joe: which laptop, what HD? My T60 doesn’t have an SD hole, unfortunately – but the Tosh U200 does, and 4Gb too…
September 20th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Using a Tosh U300-15l which I replaced the old HD with a new WD Black 320Gb 7200 and upped the memory to 4Gb. Using an Extreme 4Gb SDHC card in the in-built card reader. Finding it flies now in 64 bit RTM Windows 7 and better battery life. There’s an extended battery you can add too which allows a whole evening without being plugged in.
Got this model as a low cost ultra portable that’s a real laptop too. Compromises in areas but get all the performance I need in a smaller than most ~ model.
September 28th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
I have got the Elonex Webbook with the alpha chip,, rumour has it there is a dual core in the pipelien that will knock spots off the atom, with upto 8 hours battery life.
as to to ssd’s, memory sticks are now availalbe in 16/32 gb flavours with ready boost enanbled, much better bang per buck. 16gb can be purchased for under £20 if you know where to look.
Along with a 10″ screen, the refurbs are available for about £160 with a years warranty, instead of the the full £299 retail price.
October 1st, 2009 at 11:09 pm
Dell currently have two new models with dual core. Also unless you’re running 64 bit readyboost holds at 4Gb limit of 32 bit bit addressing?
Here’s Dell’s Inspirion 11Z
http://www1.euro.dell.com/uk/en/home/Laptops/inspiron-11z/pd.aspx?refid=inspiron-11z&s=dhs&cs=ukdhs1&ref=lthp
October 2nd, 2009 at 10:17 am
But Windows 7 is really scalable.
I’ve managed to get in running on a 10 Y.O. Dell Latitude C600. It has 512Mb ram, 20 Gb HD and a Rage 128 graphics processor. On Windows 7 it’s runnign beter than it did on the upgraded version of XP, it originally shipped with Windows 2000. I had to search out drivers for lots of hardware even using old Windows 2000 drivers for some items but it’s very responsive with memory scalable to about 56% on desktop alone. Unfortunately I can’t find a Rage driver for Windows 7 so just defaulting to the 1024×768 VGA which works fine, even running Aero.