As much as I ever have been a UNIX guy for 23 years, today’s experience has thoroughly impressed me. Convinced by the performance advantage of Windows 7 64 bit over Windows XP 32 bit on the computer in Carinthia, I have bought two Windows 7 licenses more, one for the desktop in Vienna (so far a Vista 64 bit machine) and the other for the laptop, so far running Vista 32 bit.
There is no upgrade path from a 32 bit to a 64 bit system, thus I will have to install the laptop from scratch, but as it is supposed to be possible to upgrade a 64 bit Vista to a 64 bit Windows 7, I just tried it today.
Early in the morning I made a backup of the images taken in Vienna this week, and then I terminated all programs and started the setup from the installation DVD. Really, after some introspection, it offered the option to upgrade in place, connected to find a newer version of itself, asked me to reboot once, and then I was ready to upgrade.
I left the process, went to work, and when I returned, the system just asked for the product key. Then it was done. All users had been preserved, and there was only one program, that I needed to reinstall: ESET Smart Security was not able to fully take over its firewall settings, thus, instead of fiddling around, I just reinstalled the program. Now, I wouldn’t say this came unexpected. A firewall / virus scanner is so deeply integrated into the operating system, that I was surprised it started at all.
Apart from that (and this was, if anyone’s, ESET’s fault), everything just worked as it did on Vista. All programs were there, so far all have worked, heck, even the wallpapers were the same. Amazing! I never would have expected that.
This only leaves the laptop, and I won’t do that before next week, most likely on Tuesday. Should something go wrong, I don’t want to risk not being able to work on the train.
As for the image, well, this morning I passed a garbage container at a construction site, and there was really a lot of glass in it 🙂
The Song of the Day is “Walking On Broken Glass” from Annie Lennox’ 1992 solo debut “Diva”. See the video on YouTube.