I've been using Windows XP Pro as the operating system on my primary desktop computer for a long time but I want to move to Windows 7 when it arrives. Microsoft says that it will not have an upgrade from XP to Windows 7; a clean install will be required. So I mulled this over a little and decided to move to Windows Vista so I would have an upgrade bridge to Windows 7. I rationalized that the furor over Vista had died down a little as Microsoft whittled away at the problems. Also, the 64 bit version of Vista seems to be working okay for a lot of developers (my peers).

 

Okay, I would migrate to Vista Ultimate x64 and therefore be ready for Windows 7. Let's pause and check compatibility. Microsoft provides a nice little tool that scans your hardware and your software and gives you the good and bad news. Hardware wise, only my rather old Visioneer 7300 USB scanner didn't pass muster.

 

After making a backup of the current system, I started the install of Windows Vista Ultimate x64 SP1. First issue – the upgrade option was disabled; only a clean install was allowed. Web research found that there is no upgrade path from XP 32 bit to Vista 64 bit. I should have stopped right here. After all, the primary reason to upgrade was for a smooth transition to Windows 7; if I continued, I would still have the pain of a clean install and myriad software installations. But I had new system fever! I wanted to use more memory than the 3+ GB limit in 32 bit XP. I wanted some change in my environment. Besides, my office needed a good cleaning and I could clean while my PC was busy with the various installations. Actually, I could probably clean most of the neighborhood while waiting for installations to complete.

 

I bumped my PC up to 9 GB of RAM. I wanted to run multiple virtual machines and the extra memory would be useful (I thought). Back to the Vista installation. Except for answering the normal questions about keyboard and time zone, it was pretty much a hands-off experience. I now had 64 bit Windows Vista Ultimate running on my PC. After a little visual customizing, I attacked the hardware drivers. Most of the necessary Vista 64 bit drivers were on a CD and they all installed without complaint. Everything was working okay. Once the NIC driver was installed, I was able to connect to the LAN and also the internet. Downloading and installing the latest NVIDIA drivers allowed me to turn on Aero. My Vista experience test rated my system at 5.9. What the heck does that mean? I know that it is a good value but 5.9 is kind of an odd number – perhaps a bit overly precise.

I added some gadgets to the sidebar – more on Vista gadgets later. Then I got started on my long list of software to install. Here is my list and the compatibility issues I encountered. The draft of this blog entry included a list of all the software that I installed, the majority of which installed with not anomalies. Since most of that was superfluous information, I have reduced the list to just those programs that had some sort of exception (not necessarily bad).

WinZip

Always my first install on a clean system. I'm using an older version, 9 and it installed and works fine on Vista x64. No issues. I did decide to upgrade to version 12 Pro, even though I had to purchase it anew.

NOD32 Anti-Virus

With “32” as part of the name of my anti-virus software, I thought I might be in for some shopping. However, a quick check of the NOD32 website showed that they have a Vista x64 version. I downloaded and installed it. My existing registration info worked and the PC was protected from evil-doers. Version 4 of NOD32 has a completely new interface so I'll have to figure out later if I have an optimum setup. For now, the basics seem to be in place.

Windows Mail

My preferred Email client is Outlook Express. In Vista, OE has been replaced by Windows Mail, a slightly improved version. I imported my old Emails and Address Book from the backup I made before the Vista Install and setup my Email accounts manually. This was relatively painless and only took a few minutes. What I wasn't able to retrieve were the numerous Message Rules that I had created in Outlook Express. The rules are stored in the registry and are a pain to migrate, so I started over. They needed a good house cleaning, anyway. Windows Mail includes a Junk Email filter which, so far, is reasonably effective at screening Spam. I was using Cloudmark for Anti-Spam filtering but may not need it any longer.

Using Windows Mail was short-lived due to Palm issues documented below.

Directory Opus

This is a replacement for Windows Explorer and is very important for my work style. A check of the GP Software website revealed a version for 64 bit Vista. I downloaded and installed it. The existing registration info worked and it was up and running. I am, however, having to re-customize it. This probably could have been avoided with a little preplanning, but, c'est la vie!

Remote Desktop

This wasn't really an install, just some configuration work. I use RDT to control and monitor six different servers and the first thing I noticed was that, under Vista, my remote connections startup much, much faster. This is the most positive difference that I have seen with Vista; though, by itself, doesn't justify this amount of work.

Printers

Had to download new drivers for both network attached printers. However, when I got around to testing the printers, they were very, very slow. Again, on the web, I found a very easy fix. I installed the printers by specifying a local port (even though they are on the network) and the local port points to the UNC name of the printer. This totally fixed the problem with printing speed.

Palm Desktop

I have been using the Palm Desktop software for many years as my calendar and contacts. I've tried using MS Outlook but didn't like it much. However, Palm Desktop doesn't have a 64 bit USB driver so I can't sync my Z22 PDA. A little Google work found that I should be able to sync using the Z22 infrared port. For about $20, Amazon is sending me a USB-IRDA dongle. Hope it works.

Follow-up: received the USB to IRDA dongle. Installation was simple; plug it in and Vista found a driver on the internet and installed it. That was the good news. The bad news is that I can't get the Z22 to recognize the IRDA and the PC. Also, the new Palm Desktop version 6 does not import my calendar and contact categories when it imports the rest of the data. I think my solution will be to share the Palm Desktop data with my laptop and sync the Z22 with the laptop. Since I don't have to sync very often, this should be an acceptable bypass. I am very disappointed in Palm – they have steadily deteriorated over the years and I think if the new Pre isn't a super hit, they are not long for the world.

This particular issue turned out to have huge ramifications. See my future article on “How Vista Changed My Life”.

MS Visual Studio 6 SP6

VS6 installed okay but got a compatibility error warning about C++. Since I was only installing VB6 to support some legacy apps, I ignored the warning. Seems to run okay. SP6 went on okay, as well.

Follow-up:  Uninstalled VB6 and moved it to the Legacy Virtual Machine.

MS Visual Studio 2003

Installed okay (slowly) but got compatibility warning for entire product. There is a long list of issues that I can maybe live with; however, this might be a good candidate for running in a Virtual Machine. I'll decide later as it is also for supporting legacy apps. Maybe I should put all tools for legacy support in a single VM running XP.

It is a little later and I have removed VS 2003 from the Vista system, installed Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 with a copy of Windows XP Pro (32-bit). I installed VS 2003 on the Virtual Machine and worked out a scheme to backup development changes to a network drive. This VM will be my legacy development system (more on MS Virtual PC later).

Install Note

About here I noticed that System Restore was not working. When I tried to restore a checkpoint, it got an error near the end and then, all of my checkpoints disappeared. During the process of investigating this annoyance, I found that my non-defragable system space was scattered all over my C drive. I guessed this was because I installed Vista on top of XP which already had some restore space. Again, a long quest for a solution, but the only real fix was to start over and begin by formatting the C: drive. I did this and reinstalled everything up to this point; so from here back, I did everything twice, except for the single format and two previous legacy installs. This time around, I cloned an XP virtual machine and installed VB6, VS2003, and Access 97 to use just for maintaining legacy applications.

Bioshock

Had a little trouble here. After installing and updating to version 1.1, I fired it up and did not have any sound after the first cut scene. Poking around on the internet, I found a suggestion to enable XP compatibility mode in the Bioshock shortcut and Viola!, it fixed the sound and the game is working great. Also, my first experience with DirectX 10 (don't notice anything different, though).

iTunes

Installed version 8.2 along with the required QuickTime. This was the first iTunes installation that went perfectly smoothly. Before I installed iTunes, I relocated the “Music” folder by editing the properties and changing the location field. It used to be necessary to use TweakUI (or hack the registry) to make this change. This is an improvement. After installation, iTunes actually found my music correctly; I was quite surprised. iTunes will become a big player in “How Vista Changed My Life”.

QuickBooks 2009

Installed okay but location of company data has moved so I had to adjust my backups. By the way, QuickBooks 2006 would not install at all; the setup program immediately exits after Vista gives an incompatibility notice.

Summary

At this point, a couple of weeks later, the Vista system is running smoothly. With the few exceptions above, all necessary software installed with no problem. I disabled UAC fairly early on as it is a big annoyance. My PC is pretty well protected otherwise so I don't think UAC helps me at all.

 

Though Vista has some changes to the look and feel, my day-to-day usage is about the same as before. Putting my legacy development software into a virtual machine has worked quite well. My memory utilization has improved with the 64-bit system so the swap file is not as active. The extra memory in this computer is really only useful for running virtual machines as it looks like Vista never uses more than about 3 GB.

On Sunday (May 17), Hollis and I drove the Red Menace down to Monterey and attended the Verizon Festival of Speed. That's the sponsor's name for the Rolex GrandAm Race at Laguna Seca. For those of you that don't follow this form of road racing, two classes of race cars compete simultaneously. The DP (Daytona Prototype) are special-built racing cars in an aerodynamic coupe body. The slower class is GT (Grand Touring), replicas of street cars.

DP body/chassis combinations are built by a just a few manufacturers. Riley is the most common. There are also a few from Dallara, Lola, and Crawford. The real variety comes from the many engine manufacturers involved: Ford, Pontiac, Porsche, BMW, Lexus, and Honda. Over in the GT class, the contenders include Mazda, Porsche, and Pontiac, along with a couple of very slow (comparatively) Corvettes. The Mazda's look like normal RX-8s but have a tubular chassis with a carbon-fiber replica body and a three-rotor Wankel engine that produces about 420 HP.

The GrandAm rules are constantly jiggered in an attempt to maintain parity among the top group of competitors. This often results in some interesting racing. Sunday's winners in the DP class were Jon Fogarty and Alex Gurney (yes, son of Dan) in the Gainsco Pontiac-Riley operated by Bob Stallings Racing. The GT race was dominated by the SpeedSource Mazda RX-8 driven by Nick Ham and Silvain Tremblay. A selection of pictures from before and during the race are in the gallery. The complete results are listed at MotorSports.com.

Well, I haven't blogged for awhile and I am sorry to have to resume with some sad news. Our dear Max, the orange cat in the DosGatos picture, has passed away. About a year ago, Max was diagnosed with fibro-sarcoma in the form of a large malignant tumor. He underwent surgery but the prognosis was that he would not live out the year. Well, he beat that and up until about three weeks ago, we thought that he was going to beat it completely. Then his cancer returned with a vengeance and his suffering ended today, May 11. Doris and I are extremely saddened by his passing but we are both happy that he was with us these last 12 years.

 

We got Max from Nike Animal Rescue Foundation (NARF) in mid-1997 when he was about eight weeks old. Max and his two sisters were raised by a foster family after his mother died when he was three weeks old. I had always wanted an orange cat, and Max was an orange tabby (though Doris always referred to him as butterscotch). He was cute and he loved people. Unfortunately, Muffin didn't think he was so cute and never did any more than barely tolerate his presence. As he grew, we realized that he had just about the longest and densest fur of any cat we had seen. That hair, combined with his general lack of personal hygiene, made grooming Max a never ending but mostly fruitless task.

 

Max sleeping in a hat (about nine weeks old)

 

Baby Max could sleep anywhere, anytime (about nine weeks)

 

Max was a big cat, peaking out at over 19 pounds. He had many aliases but Sweetie Boy was the most common and the most descriptive. Though he loved almost all people, he loved Doris most of all. He liked to sleep on her pillow with his body wrapped around her head like a hat with ear muffs. If she sat in a chair, he wanted to curl up on her lap. He liked to stretch out on your body and touch your face with his paw. And he had the best purr. It is so soothing and comforting to pet a cat and listen to that purr.

 

Young Max and Muffin sleeping in with Doris.

 

Max loved being outdoors. When we lived in Santa Clara, he would wander all over the neighborhood, sometimes more than a block away. His wandering worried us a lot and we often combed the block when he didn't come home at a reasonable hour. Once, when he didn't come home, we called the Humane Society, and sure enough, he was there. We bailed him out and then I went door to door to find why someone had trapped him and sent him to kitty jail. I finally found the culprit - his excuse was that Max was hunting and killing wild doves that frequented his backyard. He didn't like this very normal cat behavior and then went on to tell me how he was a dove hunter himself and enjoyed the "sport" of shotgunning those creatures. He didn't see the irony!

 

First time outside and he immediately climbed a tree (about three months old)

 

 

Max returning from a foray into the neighbor's yard (about one year old)

 

Since I work at home, my day was never complete without spending some unproductive time with Max on my lap. He always had to be in the same position: head on my left, feet facing me. He would sink his claws into my side and proceed to knead my torso. It was painful for me but heaven for Max; he would purr and purr. At night, we often fought over part of the bed - he liked to sleep on the corner of the bed where I liked to put my feet. Even when I won the battle at night, I would wake in the morning to find him stretched out on his corner with my feet moved to another part of the bed.

 

Max was not too fond of fast-moving little people and usually went outside when the grandchildren visited. He hated the sound of loud machinery; lawnmowers and vacuum cleaners terrified him. And he liked to bully Muffin for no discernible reason, reinforcing her disdain. But otherwise, he was quite mellow and mostly liked to just hang out. Want to watch TV? Max would watch with you, albeit with his eyes closed. Eating something tasty? Max would be glad to share it with you. Want to sleep? Sure, move over a little for Max.

 

When we moved to Morgan Hill in 2003, Max finally had the yard that he wanted and he almost never went beyond it's boundaries. He let Muffin have the house and he took the outdoors. He spent most of his time outside in one of his favorite sleeping spots: the front deck in the corner, the back deck against the railing, and behind the back deck in a bare spot under the trees. He is buried under the latter.

 

Max in his Morgan Hill backyard (seven years)

 

Max, we miss you. And we always will.