Wait For Windows 7 SP1, Support Firm Warns Users 433
CWmike writes "Users should wait for Microsoft to work out the bugs in Windows 7 before jumping on the new OS, computer support company Rescuecom said on Friday. 'From the calls we're getting, as well as our own experience in the past with all Microsoft's operating systems, we're recommending that people stick with their time-tested OS and wait for the dust to settle,' said Josh Kaplan, president of Rescuecom. Citing a litany of reasons, ranging from the risk of losing data during an upgrade to tough economic times, Kaplan urged Windows users to put off upgrading to Windows 7 or buying a new PC with the operating system pre-installed. 'There are some compelling reasons for both businesses and home users to move to Windows 7,' Kaplan said, 'so we're saying "just wait for a bit."' Upgrading an existing machine — whether it's running the eight-year-old Windows XP or the much newer Vista — is particularly risky, he added, especially if users haven't taken time to make a full backup before they migrate their machines. Some users have found that out first hand. Among the top subjects on Microsoft's support forum is one that has put some PCs into an endless reboot loop when their owners tried to upgrade from Vista to Windows 7. Microsoft has not yet come up with a solution that works for all the users who have reported the problem, sparking frustration."
I work for a software development company... (Score:2, Informative)
and we have seen a plethora of issues with people who have upgraded to Win 7. For example:
1.) SQL 2005 and SQL 2008 both have known compatibility issues. SQL 2005 will ALWAYS fail an upgrade to SP3 under Win 7 without a reg hack.
2.) We've had a ton of issues with other things like: Drive mappings, printer compatibility issues, memory leaks from Win 7 processes, just to name a few.
I agree with the FA to the point that if you have an intelligent IT dept who has the time and resources to debug and work these issues AND have a need or value added motivation to upgrade to Win 7 then you should do so, otherwise you should just let the "dust" settle and then migrate.
It works fine for techies (Score:2, Informative)
Hey, I upgraded Vista SP2 Business to W7 Ultimate and it worked great. There are two things that I would caution on though. My printer driver doesn't work well anymore because HP hasn't upgraded their printer drivers and my Motherboard drivers had to be refreshed as I was having some problems with the chips that drive the ethernet ports. Printer and motherboard drivers are not a Windows 7 flaw though, but are dependencies. By the way, HP isn't planing to upgrade their printer drivers until Jan '10. What's up with that ?
Waiting for SP1 isn't a bad idea if you are not a techie. For those of us who are techies, bring it. W7 works great !!!! Unless I have to print something, which I still can, but I can't get any advanced functionality like duplex printing.
Some things change... (Score:5, Informative)
As to upgrading, when has it ever been a good idea to perform a Windows upgrade installation? If you've been running any old version of Windows for 6 months or more, a fresh install is probably indicated anyway (although, I have been running RC on my home system since the day it came out, and I haven't had any Windows Rot yet, still runs as well as when I installed it). Backup your data, wipe the drive, and start from scratch. Bit of a pain in the ass, but that's pretty much a fact of life with Windows.
So you disagree -- with Microsoft? (Score:5, Informative)
Because the is a Knowledge Base article (KB975253) [microsoft.com] about this problem?
Re:But why? (Score:3, Informative)
1) Don't. Seriously, upgrade installs on OSes are bad news over all. Can they work? Sure I know people who've done upgrades that have gone off without a hitch. I also know people who have hosed their system that way. Windows, Linux, all the same, a reinstall is the way to go.
I haven't reinstalled the two main ubuntu laptops here in at least two years. I upgrade them twice a year from dpkg. I am sure it is the same with debian as well.
Re:Ok well I disagree (Score:5, Informative)
Yes and no.
While Windows 7 is less sucky than Vista (and is roughly comparable to XP SP3), simply plopping it in doesn't always make sense.
Most enterprises (mine included) are still just barely testing the things, and the help desk is still trying to determine what the gotchas will be (not only with specific in-house apps, but in general). As a group (like so many others out there) who held out with XP, there's going to be a shitload of user re-training that you simply cannot avoid, unless you really hate your help desk (which is likely why you don't hear Microsoft claiming that training costs are gonna inflate one's TCO these days, eh?) From a cold-hearted BOFH standpoint, it's much easier to let the users get that training at home for awhile first, on their personal equipment, if for no other reason than to minimize the re-training costs you'll have to spend at work.
I will be the absolute last human being stupid enough to demand that all the relatively new (and even not-so-new) multi-million-dollar tools out on the production floor get bumped from XP to Windows 7. I doubt even the tool vendors would have the temerity to ask for the massive downtime required to do such a thing. Move away from manufacturing, and you still have a whole lot of hospitals, service orgs, and etc who will also refuse to bump their machines and tools up as well.
Sure - XP Mode is great for a lot of things, I cna admit that. OTOH, most home users aren't going to have that option, and most small businesses are going to require a whole lot of persuading to buy an XP mode streaming app server for distributed apps.
At home? Meh - I have exactly one Windows machine - the missus' XP laptop. I figure I'll worry about that when I get her a new one next year sometime... and I'm almost willing to bet that I'll still be installing XP on that one - less than a week after she gets it. I doubt she's going to be the only one who does that.
One final question that's going to be asked a LOT by typical users: "Unless/until app makers start making Windows 7 -only apps, why would anyone waste their time with the upgrade, instead of simply waiting until the next time they buy their Dell, HP, whatever? " Security? Meh - they'll claim their home router firewall and sundry for that.
Okay, one more: Too many folks out there have jacked/pirated/whatever copies of XP installed (courtesy of friends, relatives, TPB, whoever), and will likely wait for a jacked/pirated/whatever copy of Windows 7 to come out.
Sorry... I'm just not seeing the rush to convert just yet, save for those who have no real choice (that is, typical users buying new computers).
Works okay for me. (Score:5, Informative)
The only problems I've had, and I only use my Windows box for games and keep my data on a server anyway, are
1: Quake 2 and derivatives do not run
2: My Turtle Beach surround sound USB headphones make Windows 7 bluescreen.
Otherwise everything I've tried on it works as well as it did under XP. I'm not happy with the new interface, but I remember not liking Windows XP when it first came out.
Re:Works okay for me. (Score:0, Informative)
Any chance that bluescreen is an "IRQL Not less or equal" error?
Is your proc a hyperthreading proc?
I had that problem for YEARS with Tascam's horrifyingly shit-awful US122 external "Pro Audio" sound module. Tascam's solution was to advise users to turn off hyperthreading in the bios. Fuck Tascam.
Quake 2 won't run? Is this with RTM release? And what do you mean by derivatives? What games? I want to test this out myself.
Re:I work for a software development company... (Score:5, Informative)
1.) SQL 2005 and SQL 2008 both have known compatibility issues. SQL 2005 will ALWAYS fail an upgrade to SP3 under Win 7 without a reg hack.
I have been able to install SP3 for SQL 2005 on exactly one (of 5) Windows 2003/2003R2 servers. That one success was a clean, fresh install that had nothing else on it. Every other system STILL fails to install SP3, after the 3rd (or 4th?) release of SP3. I don't blame that on the OS, I blame it on the patch. Or maybe on SQL 2005 itself, I don't know. But it isn't specific to Win7, at any rate.
Re:But why? (Score:5, Informative)
WIndows 7 uses the same drivers that Vista does... there isn't anything to wait for.
Re:Say what? (Score:5, Informative)
And only with a thunderstone.
Don't wait. (Score:5, Informative)
While I hate "Me too" posts as much as the next guy, I have to agree that this article is FUD for the management types. I installed 7 RTM as soon as it was available from TechNet, and haven't had problem one yet.
Well, I have one problem - it doesn't seem to connect to Windows 2000 Server shares, and it doesn't like my (very outdated) Samba network. Apparently it requires Samba 3.3 or higher. However, that aside, I have to say my existing PCs (original P4 3ghz, 3gb or 4gb memory) are noticeably snappier than they were with XP - granted, some of that may have been the accumulation of crud that happens with any windows installation. Clean installs are always speed-boosters.
Speaking of which - yeah, don't bother with an upgrade. With as cheap as USB drives (even USB HDs, not just flash) are these days, you have no real excuse for not doing a clean install. I'll be deploying Windows 7 starting in April to the 500+ workstations at my company, and every install will be a wipe & reinstall using Acronis TrueImage with a nice sysprep'ed image. All of the testing I've done so far has made me a happy camper and Win7 evangelist.
Prior releases... yeah, waiting for SP1 was always a good idea. Hell, we waited for XP SP2 before deploying it. I really think they've finally gotten this thing right.
But of course, I could be wrong.
Re:But why? (Score:1, Informative)
Are you kidding? You want to imply that a full upgrade on Debian is like switching to the next version of Windows? It really is not. What you are talking about is like applying a service pack.
A switch from Sarge to Lenny could be compared. And this is serious business. You really don't want to do that without a recovery plan. Expect things to break. Things that would be fine if you build new from scratch.
The same is true for the Ubuntu upgrades. There is no reason to assume a upgrade will be without trouble. The internet is filled with reports of all kinds of issues every half a year. Most of them problems that you don't encounter with a fresh install.
And now just take a step back. Windows XP was released in 2001. About a year later Woody was released. Imagine upgrading from Woody to Lenny.
Re:Works okay for me. (Score:3, Informative)
1) Windows 7 seems to play "old" games that no hacking in the world could get to work on anything but windows of its era on hardware of its era (Phantasmagoria2, TLC). Phantasmagoria 2 would just GPF if it wasn't on Windows 9x and hardware of the time (VMs would GPF too). TLC was an interactive movie that REQUIRED a dedicated hardware MPEG decoder card. I don't know what it does, but every Windows OS previous, it would flat out refuse to work. These are only a couple of examples of games running better that I have experienced.
2)Older DirectX games have issues. Age of Empires II has a corrupted pallet when playing in Windows 7 (I found killing explorer fixes this for some reason). Also, if you have a multi-monitor setup, then old DirectX games won't change the resolution of the monitor (so if you are playing Diablo II at 800x600, instead of setting the monitor resolution to 800x600, you get the game in an 800x600 box with a black border filling in the rest of the current resolution).
Re:But why? (Score:2, Informative)
Well to be honest I can't even think of any bugs that Win 7 has, or at least the normal user will see. Now maybe after using the RC from week 1 of its release right up to the reinstall of the Win 7 the day it came out and never once running into a problem I just don't see these bugs, or maybe its for corporate users or people trying to use Windows 95 software or something but honestly I have yet to have a problem except some non support of the hotkeys on my keyboard in Win 7 RC but thats been fixed in the final release.
Re:But why? (Score:1, Informative)
Probably has a hardware problem. My Vista box hasn't crashed in.. Ever. I've never seen it BSOD.
Re:Ok well I disagree (Score:2, Informative)
Do a full install no matter what. Anything but a full install from partitioning to installation is a disaster waiting to happen...no matter what version of Windows you are running. Saving time and money doing something futile is not saving either.
Re:But why? (Score:2, Informative)
The easiest way to prevent an in-place Windows upgrade operation from going badly:
Make sure the system is disconnected from the network.
Disable -all- unnecessary services, and stop them, including Networking services. Volume Shadow Copy or similar related service should be left Enabled and set to Manual. Important when doing an in-place upgrade to Vista or Win7, as they install their components from inside *images*, and not the older-style binary/compressed file duality that Windows has used at least since 3.11 for Workgroups.
Uninstall -all- drivers for hardware that is extraneous to the upgrade (Printer, Wireless Device, Network Card, 3rd-Party video card drivers such as Omega or NGO, all non-native Mouse drivers).
Uninstall -all- AV and Firewall software that isn't native to the OS.
Uninstall -all- 3rd-party software that makes kernel hooks or replaces default Windows system files with their own versions. Patched Uxtheme.dll files, extra MSS styles, etc. Font packs also.
Make sure you have your backups ready to go.
Run the upgrade install.
Go through the normal Windows system setup nonsense, check running services, restore your backed up data, programs, and device drivers. Reboot when necessary.
Reconnect to the network after your Firewall and AV software is setup again.
Install any updates it pulls down, reboot as necessary.
Run it for a few days without installing anything new. Create an image of the OS drive for future use if nothing goes funky.
Enjoy your new OS as normal.
I've done it several times before and it's worked every time. I don't know where some people have gone to school, but where I went, we were taught this in *basic* PC Repair classes. It was also taught this way in several Windows Internals and Windows Backdoor manuals. It's not a short process, no, but it has a rather high success rate.
I mean I've read the horror stories. In most that I've come across, the author either forgot to do one of the above steps (or didn't know about some of them) or got lazy and thought they could just skip all the steps they wanted and be just fine, and then reaped the dubious rewards for doing so.
It's insane that the world has gone this long with using Windows, MacOS, Linux, Unix, etc and still manage to screw up everything possible on their computers. Computers that they use -!every single day!-
Re:But why? (Score:3, Informative)
It has faulty hardware. That's about the only thing that can cause a bluescreen in Vista/Windows 7. If it's still under warranty, he should get it fixed/replaced... any OS he puts on it will bluescreen (or equivalent), since it has bad hardware.
Re:I work for a software development company... (Score:1, Informative)
99 times out of 100 it's a borked up MSXML 6 patch that breaks SQL Server 2005.
Neither team will take ownership. Easiest thing to do is manually install MSXML 6 SP1 before attempting to install SQL 2005 and SQL 2005 will see that a newer version of MSXML 6 than it wants to install is already in place and will skip trying to install the version is has.
Re:Help me out here... (Score:2, Informative)
OK, leaving out 1.x and 2.x (3.x was where most people started after DOS...were 1 & 2 ever even released to consumers?)
Yes, I've used 1.x (well, used may be overstating, I played a bit with it, but since you could not run any DOS program in a window, and nothing was available for Windows yet, you basically just closed it and used DOS anyway). I also tried 2.x, and I still have the originals 5.25" floppy. Was pretty much the same as with 1.x, you could run Calc, Notepad and Paint (which stayed pretty much unchanged since then), but that was about it.