Sunday, May 23, 2010

Vista's Last Stand

When I bought this netbook a year ago, it was a couple of months before Windows 7 was released. I preferred XP to Vista, but there wasn't such a choice. And Vista was a pain in my butt from the beginning. It would freeze up mysteriously and regularly. At first it mostly had to do with iTunes and Sleep mode. Once I solved a few problems there, it would still freeze, but not as often. Nonetheless, I hate Vista with the fire of a thousand suns. And before you ask, the software named after the company that I work for doesn't run on a Mac without quite a bit of rekajiggering, and I do run it at home, so no, I'm not interested in a Mac.

When Windows 7 came out, it was exciting because everybody got free upgrades. One of my computers at work now runs XP and the other runs Windows 7. I prefer 7. I was looking forward to my free upgrade. Oops, unless you're running Vista Basic, which is what nearly every netbook came loaded with at the time. Vista Basic wasn't eligible for the free upgrade. So I waited. It was a lot of money to spend on a computer that was only $300 to begin with.

I couldn't stand the freezing any longer, so yesterday I bought the Win 7 upgrade. And installing it was an offense that Vista wouldn't tolerate without a fight. The computer froze up no fewer than SIX TIMES and required 18 hours of installing, rebooting, etc. Vista was not about to walk away easily.

At last, though, it died and Windows 7 is running. And I am happy. It hasn't crashed yet. I want Microsoft to pay me for those 18 hours at my consulting rate.

No comments: