Upgrade Vista to Windows 7 (beta)

After trying Windows 7 in Virtual Box and and a fresh installation on its own partition a last I checked the upgrade option.

The first part the upgrading required reenlargement of my careful reduced partition with ca. 7 to 10 GB free space and deinstalling some (not Vista compatible) Citrix program. It took about 4 hours, but afterwards it is Ok. The fingerprint scanner running ( here the fresh install failed). It even needs less discspace than before the upgrade.

Restoring the partitions was rather easy, but setting up the dual boot took some trials.
I want the system partition in both systems to be called C:, I dare not clean up the registry.
Setting the second partition active and repairing with the Windows 7 Setup disk did the trick.

The result seems rather good. I have the known issue in PowerShell ISE concerning hot-key internationalization (that would be no problem for English installations).

I'm not going to compare it to XP which I use regularly in virtual environments, but I'm not going to try a dual boot.

I claim that my Lenovo notebook was not Vista ready when it was preinstalled with Vista . The current Windows 7 beta seems better than those Vista.

I just found some interesting link about downgrade to XP.

Next reboot to Vista at release of Windows 7 release candidate, only to upgrade it again.

Windows 7 in a Windows 7 virtual Box

You ask, what thats good for, where are the benfits?

Well you can use different local settings in the two machines or you set up on of the machines with a different beta downloads. I did the german and the english.

You do not believe that the different download behave differently ?
Just take a look at my PowerShell Blog.

In the beginning I had Windows 7 in a virtual Box on a Vista host, but having only 2GB RAM that is no fun. There are no resorces left to run something usefull.

Windows 7 in Windows 7 just runs fluently. It is better than XP.

I tried to use the same virtual Windows 7 drive from both hosts. It worked for some time, but after some changes it didn't start any more from Windows 7.

I restored a backup and now I start it only from Windows 7, when I need to see both of the different versions.

What I like most of Windows ? The short shutdown and reboot time.

Bernd

PMEBLib.dll missing

After lenovo update I get the following message:
The program can't start because PMEBLib.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem.

I have a Lenovo 3000 N200 notebook with the english download of the 32-bit Windows 7 Beta running with german country settings.

Fingerprint scanner AES 2501 A still not working.

Windows 7 in virtual Box on Windows 7

Absolutly cool.

The host is the english download and the guest is the german. Both run with german country settings.

Conclusion: better try the englisch download, if you have the choice. The german download contains some funny bugs.

And I can still run some other real application at the same time. Remeber my notebook has only 2 GB RAM.

Back to PowerShell

I just spent last week defragmentating my Vista and changing the partion-scheme,.
One day later I had a dual boot system Vista (de-De) and Windows 7 (en-US).

Next step is copying my PowerShell profiles with some nice ISE-Extensions.

What happens ? I get an error messgae in the following line:

$null = $psIse.CustomMenu.Submenus.Add(
"Copy Output to Editor", {ISE-CopyOutPutToEditor}, 'Ctrl+O').

Hhm... Ctrl is allready used for Open file. Why didn't I get the error in my german Vista System. Reboot, start up ISE, open the filemenue and start laughing load:

New Strg + N
Open Strg + O
...
Close Ctrl + F4
New Power Shell Tab Ctrl + T.

You get no error defining a shurtcut-key Ctrl+O and your new shortcut will be invoked. By the way the new File Strg+N works as well. The Problem is that Strg+O and Ctrl+O are not recognized as the same key and no error is thrown.

Sorry I didn't succeed in taking a sreenshot of the opened Menue. Any hints how to do are wellcome.

Fakt is that german IT-translators are mad. Some fool decided that Steuerung is more german word than Kontrolle and afterwards all the german keyboards had a Strg-Key instaed of the Ctrl-Key. [Stupid Translated Regular Garbage]

The observation refers to the CTP3 Version (there is no german Version yet). Part of the Shortcuts are translated, but only a part.


And the next question goes to http://www.codeplex.com/psisecream. What have we to do, to provide i18n clean shortcuts?

Rebooting (to Windows 7)
Bernd

Back to routine

The fingerprint issue is still unsolved, but I can go on without it for a while.

While trying memory test from the boot menue my Lenovo 3000 N200 stopped overheated at approximately 85 %.

Energy options with this modell allways seem to be a little critical. I read something about it concerning XP.

Using Vista I learned that it is best to allways use power savre mode and increase the times for sleep mode and darkening display manually.
In the other modes the temperature of the CPU seems not to be controlled and I suffered some unexpected automatic shutdowns.

My first impression about the behaviour under Windows 7 is to keep to this strategie.

Well it was the right decision to try Windows 7 using dual boot Having a free partion it is absolutely painless and it gives a realistic impression of performance and possibilities and the feeling is completely different from running it in a 640 MB virtual box on Vista Host.

Now I'm just going to use it in a more or less normal way and resume work on PowerShell.

VPN & WLAN work

If only Vista was as good as the current beta of Windows 7.
I have no problems connecting to office shares via VPN and WLAN access makes no trouble.

Only the finger print scanner doesn't work. I got the driver from http://www.authentec.com/win7beta32.cfm and it shows in the device manager, but it isn't used at login.

Testing the real thing

Hello again,

when I got my notebook, I had no opportunity to select the operating system.
Vista was preinstalled, XP was not supplied.
I found that Vista was definitely not ready for a business notebook and even today is not.
The Filesystem is garbage and produces even more.
Vista doesn't keep system files consolidated. There are a lot of services producing such scattered junk:

First of all the index service - invented to keep disks busy,
and second Offline files - syncing starts allways in the wrong moment.
and at last the shadow copies - zombie service for those who do not use real backups


The best joke I just read , is the statement of a german computer magazin Computer Bild, that Vista compared to XP needs no defragmentation.

I suppose that effective defragmentation of a mounted Vista system partion is not possible.

After starting Vista, and installing some Applications, perhaps Outlook, another producer of a highly fragmentented file (outlook.ost), there is no chance to reduce the size of system partion in a reasonable measure using only built-in capabilities.

Now I succeded in repartioning my notebook and I just installed Windows 7 (en-US) on a second partion. So I need no longer play in a virtual machine, but can test the real thing with aereo and the mediaplayer showing its capabilities.


Wow fascinating to see all the resources at hand, that Vista wasted.

The only thing, I miss at first glance is the fingerprint sensor, I must remeber my password.

Yours

Beta Bernd

Windows 7 Virtual Box and Shared Folder workaround

Using VirtualBox 2.1.2 shared folder are accessable.

If you have difficulties to connect to the shared folder with the explorer, start an elevated command.com ( create a link to command.com on the desktop, right click it- and select run as administrator).
Execute:
net use X: \\vboxsvr\
net use X: /d

Afterwards you can map the share using explorer, it will not be found, if you search the network.

And after a reboot, you have to repeat the procedure.

I'm used to this, since I tried Vista in a VirtualBox.

Definitely it is not as seamless as with an XP Client.

I'm not going to name this issue s*o*l*v*e*d before the shared folder reconnects automaticly after reboot.

By the way my host is Vista Ultimate 32-bits

First Crash

I'm eager to learn what crippled software they will bundle with new PC's when they sell the real thing.

Task No 1: Defragmentation while free in XP, since Vista the free tools seem not to be able to handle system files.

What happend I tried defrag in my virtualbox hosted Windows 7 VM (dynamic allocated disk-image) . Well after some time the VM crashed and didn't start any more.

I'm really glad, that it happend so early, before activation. So new setup, than backup. I had tried a lot of free defrag tools on a VM running Vista, and they never crashed before.

I'll leave this alone, there are other things to test than defragmentation.
Next comes folderSize, a second thing that run free on XP and mad on Vista.

Cu Bernd