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Filthy lucre

Posted on 30 Mar 2009 at 16:06

Steve Cassidy sticks up for the moneymakers - sort of - and has a run-in with a few Broadband router products.

Windows 7, stop press!

The download of Windows 7 beta only just overlapped with my rigorously enforced deadlines at PC Pro, so rather than risk being strapped to an oil rig and whipped with seaweed for lateness, I offer you a rapid scan of the story so far, which might give some indication as to the likely outcome. My home network is definitely a heterogenous one, sporting a Netgear NAS, a Windows Server 2008 box, a Windows 2000 server, several VMware virtual machines, an OS X Server and a bunch of workstations. On top of all that I've recently come across some newer PCs that won't load from an original Windows XP retail CD at all, so pouring the Windows 7 beta into that mixture was bound to flush out a few little curiosities.

The first one shouldn't come as a shock, namely that a PC made by HP to run Red Hat Enterprise Linux, which refuses to load XP, loads and runs the 7 beta not just well but blindingly fast. The other surprise for those who came to networking in the post-Novell age, is that Windows 7 has no trouble seeing my Server 2008 box, but currently refuses to see any of the rest. Some of this is the old problem with browse mastering, but it wouldn't connect when I typed in the server and share names manually either. This is an old Microsoft game, played in similar form with every release of Windows so far, and the solution always involves Registry hacks and policy edits (preferably accompanied by a reduction in overall system security).

I find myself more annoyed by this limitation when it comes up in Windows 7, though, than with past releases. Everyone round the table at an RWC meeting we held before Christmas seemed to agree that Window 7 damn well better be the company-saver for Microsoft, because competitors are snapping at its heels and starting to look credible at long last, while Vista just isn't doing the job. Battling such silly incompatibility games on my network again is a waste of everybody's time, and part of my wrath is because, for once, there's time to feed the issue back, and slightly more hope that Microsoft might see the light than with previous releases.

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