I totally understand why Apple continues to increase market share, but more importantly mind share.
Since getting my cooling problems sorted out I have been spending a lot more time focusing on experimenting with system configurations, installing and trying software, and generally getting a feel for how I want to crystallize my system. By "crystallize" I mean -- that point in time where I stop changing configurations, do my final installation of Windows 7, and declare this now my main computer.
I recon that I've installed Windows no less than 20 times on Gemini now. Each time I learn a little more about the installation process and some of the pitfalls. More recently I learned how truly abysmal Windows Setup is about actually setting up a computer for first use. To Microsoft's credit few people actually ever have to run Setup this way as most people just buy a computer with Windows pre-installed.
A couple of weeks ago I was reading about the back-up features in Windows 7 and I thought I would try them out. This should be simple, you just go to the Control Panel, find the back-up page, configure where and when you want your back-up, then click the back-up button. Unfortunately mine barely started before it failed. I spent a couple of hours trying to understand the error messages I was getting and using Google to find similar problems. Eventually I ended up going to the Microsoft forums. Fortunately there are some really knowledgeable people on those forums and eventually I was guided to the source of the problem.
When you install 64-bit Windows 7 on a system with a blank disk Setup created two partitions. The first is 100 MB and called "System Reserved." This is set to the active partition and is where the computer boots from. The second partition C: takes up the rest of the disk and this is where Setup actually installs the Windows 7 operating system. The problem it turns out is that 100 MB is too small for the backup to work. After going back and increasing the size of my System Reserved partition, and then reinstalling Windows 7 yet again, I was finally able to make a backup of my system.
It took me 2 or 3 days to finally solve that problem just because Microsoft are too stupid and/or lazy to properly test Windows Setup. I can only feel better in knowing that I had caught this problem before crystallizing my system, in which case it would have been a lot harder to go back to increase the size of the System Reserved partition.
The backup will create a system image that can be used to fully restore a system from the Windows 7 Setup DVD. I was playing around with something and decided I had to reinstall Windows 7 yet again, but this time when I tried it would not work. When Setup fails it gives these really cryptic messages and tells you to look in the "log" for more information. The first insult is that it does not tell you where the log is. When you use Google to find some information on Windows 7 Setup you finally find a web page explaining where the logs are. The second insult is that the web page is wrong, the log is not where it is documented to be. After farting about looking through the file system I finally found what I thought might be the correct log file, but when I tried reading it - the third insult - the log is huge, huge, huge, and fully of really cryptic information badly formatted. Of course the command line tools are not very helpful in viewing the log information either. Out of desperation I tried doing the system restore from Setup, and guess what - it does work like a charm. After taking a rest for the remainder of the day it finally occurred to me that I should disconnect the new backup drive I was using. Ta-Da! After that Windows installed normally again. Somehow the second drive was interfering with Windows 7 Setup. Setup is this incredibly fragile tool. The slightest thing wrong or different and it throws up its hands and say "I can't do this, and I can't tell you why."
I thought it would be cool if I could backup Deena's computers (running Vista 64-bit Ultimate) on my computer - the networking should just work right? WRONG! For some stupid reason when I tried accessing the file systems on Gemini from Deena's computer it kept prompting use for a login name and password, but no matter what we typed it always said it was wrong. I've said it before and I'll say it again:
Microsoft do not have the first clue about how to run a network!
What really makes this frustrating is that previously Deena's computer was easily able to see the files on Gemini without any problems or password prompting.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results.
However, when Microsoft is involved
The definition of insanity is doing he same thing over and over again and never getting the same results.
Microsoft finally shipped me my Windows 7 upgrade DVD so I can finally install a legal copy of Windows 7 on my system. Up until now I have been using an MSDN version that I never activate. When I crystallize Gemini I will install the version I paid for with the correct key, and finally activate Windows.
Also I bought a copy of Windows 7 for Deena's computer because it turns out that Windows 7 can actually share files with other Windows 7 system just fine. Strangely Windows 7 can also share files with Windows XP systems too. It just cannot share files with Windows Vista systems.
Cheers, Eric
