VOTD: Too late, Windows 7

I got sent this by a friend and I’m sure a lot of people share the same sentiment. It’s a parody video by Tobuscus of OneRepublic’s “Apologize” [via Koukla]

Sorry Google, Chrome has been vindicated!

Last week I ranted on about Google’s Chrome browser hanging my laptop and after non-use of Chrome the problem went away. Well, it seems that I had spoken too soon. The very next day my laptop hung again, and I had not used Chrome since before I wrote the blog post.

So, frustrated with the hanging, I did a little more digging and found out that there was a known problem with one of Microsoft’s Windows updates, MS09-065 (969947), which caused hanging of the OS (with mouse movement still working) for users with Nvidia and ATI video cards. Now, I know, it’s an XP problem but the update applies to Vista as well so I thought it might be exhibiting the same problems with Vista so I removed that update as well as the Nvidia driver update and re-applied the Nvidia driver update again.

It was a short-lived experience, as the problem returned.

So, I gave in and restored my laptop back to it’s clean, factory-install version of Vista and began rebuilding it again. Many, many long hours later and about 1.7GB of various windows updates later, it seems I have a usable laptop once again.

And yes, this post is being written and posted using Google Chrome, again my browser of choice!

Vista Source Code

I’ve managed to get my hands on the much asked for, source code to Microsoft’s Windows Vista operating system. Here it is below, now it’s open source 😉 [via BG]

Vistarising XP

There have been a number of posts on Lifehacker and How-To-Geek about nifty little tips, tricks and tools to add nice Vista features to XP. Yet, of those I’ve come across few seem to work without glitches. 

I tried installing the Vista Sidebar and Gadget pack but without success. Alky installed fine, but the actual Sidebar tool kept on failing to load. [via gHacks] So much for having gadgets in XP.

Then I tried installing Shock Aero 3D to get the Vista-looking WinKey+Tab feature which seemed to work nicely and it has various options for display and background effects. [via Lifehacker] This seemed to load and works well without any problems. 

Next thing I liked and wanted to try out was Visual Task Tips which shows you previews of windows as you move your cursor over the item in the taskbar. [via How-to-Geek] Very handy feature which seemed to work well. Doesn’t like Google Chrome Application Windows though.

I’m really keen to see more from Windows 7 – if they can get rid of the need for their OS to run on Deep Blue and fix hardware compatibility issues (which also relies on vendors delivering drivers) then maybe one-day more people will move to Windows 7 than they did to Vista. But for now, I’m sticking to XP, thanks!

Wondering about Windows 7?

By now you’ve proably heard all the hype around the new version of the Microsoft Windows OS to be released sometime next year, currently called Windows 7 (although most feel  it will just be Windows Vista SP2). I’m still a Windows XP user and will be for sometime – but I just came across an article on the Windows Secrets website which got me thinking maybe the 64-bit route is the better route to go (making better use of your hardware and allowing the OS access to more physical RAM (since the cost have RAM has come down significantly in recent years).

If you’ve not seen any screen shots of Windows 7 yet, you can see them here (some say a lot looks the same in Vista). It also appears that Microsoft are moving away from including accessories in their operating system (such as Movie Maker, Windows Mail, Windows Calendar, etc) and rather using the new Windows Live online applications (means less overhead on the machine for those applications to run and Microsoft don’t need to push updates to your machine when needed).

One of the other reasons I was not in a rush to upgrade to Vista was because it was too early to ensure most hardware manufacturers had been able to provide updated drivers that would make their hardware compatible with Vista – a little over 18 months down the line and taking into account almost another year before Windows 7 is finally released to the public, maybe by then it might be safrer to upgrade to Windows 7 and not have many hardware problems like those plaguing early adopters of Vista.

And for those who want to stay with XP but are jealous of friends with Vista and want the same look and feel take a look at this How-To-Geek guide on tools to update your XP to look like Vista.