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.