Cast away with Windows 7

Monday, September 7th, 2009

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. (more…)