Ever since 1984 when I first used PC-DOS floppies on my IBM PC I've been on the Microsoft bandwagon. I've scorned and ignored unix, both proprietary (Apple) and open (Linux); and although I've been stung and burned by Windows, I've upgraded to each version except the disaster that was Win-ME. Hopefully 7 is the lucky number.

The aim:

Evaluate Windows 7's performance and features on various PCs to see if it is possible to have a single homeogenous connected system with all the built in features (needing no/minimal third party apps) and lose no functionality (or at least, none that I can live without).

The environment:

For this experiment there is a collection of 6 pcs (virtual,server,media,moviemaker,home,testing) and a 1 laptop (demo) running vista, wxp, w2k and w98. There are 2 routers, 1 acting as the adsl2+ dynamicdns voip gateway and 1 acting as a wireless bridge, plus a 3g dongle and even a fallback modem in the laptop which doubles in a pinch as a fax (send only), plus a mobile phone. Everything is peer-peer without a dedicated server or nas. Most of them talk to each other to some degree and I use a basic combination of free tools like mstsc vnc ftp over a wired and wireless lan, and logmein over the internet to interact with them.

The challenges:

The new PCs don't support the old equipment like a hp scanner, whilst the old PCs don't support new equipment like a digital camera. Some old applications can't installed on new PCs. Sharing files between PCs is never drag and drop and usually ends in a usb drive being plugged in or switching accounts and trying to remember passwords.

The methodology:

Create virtual images of the old pcs using sysinternals pc2vhd, then wipe the hard drive and install fresh copy of Windows 7. Evaluate each pc against specific requirements, and then evaluate all together as an integrated group.

Success factors (in addition to simply being able to continue to do basic things that previously worked) for each pc:

• Virtual is a full spec core2duo modern pc running vista64 running vmware running various other vms. Unlike other pcs it will not be virtualised itself. A pass means being able to run virtual pcs created above (especially "Server") using virtual pc, and using xp mode to run old apps as if they are native apps. Another pass means being able to run previous vmware virtual machines using virtual pc. The benefit is to not need to run vmware workstation v6.5 or upgrade to v7. Another pass is to be able to use the legacy scanner. The benefit is to be able to use old equipment on any pc.
• Server is an older p4 but capable wxp pc that runs legacy apps that I can't find install disks to reinstall on another pc. A pass is to be able to do whatever Virtual can. Another pass is to be able to sync files between Virtual and Server as it is the backup. The benefit is having an operational backup.
• Media is an older compact p4 media pc running windows2000 that also connects to the TV and hifi. A pass is to be able to quickly sleep and resume everytime. Another pass is to be able to recognise my digital camera and use it as a usb drive without installing vendor software. Another pass is to be able to communicate with the dnla tv. The benefit is to connect with new equipment.
• MovieMaker is another full spec core2duo vista pc that has a capture card to encode old video cassettes and do editing and burning. A pass means being able to produce edited dvds. The benefit is not using multiple thrid party applications to capture/edit/distrubute. (NB There are additional benefits for MovieMaker and Home. See below)
• Home is an older p3 wxp pc that connects to a scanner, printer and camera dock. There is no real reason to upgrade but a pass is to be able to continue to run old apps with old equipment *without* virtual server xp mode as it can't support virtualisation. (NB There are additional benefits for MovieMaker and Home. See below)
• MovieMaker and Home are standalone pcs with a lan cable plugged in between them so files can be transferred. A pass means being able to drag and drop without logging in as a user on the remote pc. They have a single usb 3g modem (plugs in to either) and need to share the internet connection with the other. A pass means the un-3g-connected pc can cause the 3g-connected pc to dial and route internet traffic. They also need to be able to talk to the rest of the system via the internet using the 3g modem. A pass means being able to use remote assistance or mstsc between either of these two and the rest of the system. The benefits of this working is not needing to wire/wireless connect them up to the rest of system (which would require a 4-port 3g-optional and/or wifi router, or maybe a home-network-powerplug kit).
• Demo is a old wxp laptop. It works just fine although I usually have to drop the firewall when copying files between pcs (or resort to ftp). A pass is to be able to share files and connect mstsc and remote assistance to other pcs. It also has a built in modem for the very rare occasion I need to send a fax, or dial in when the 3g connection can't be made. A pass is to be able to send a fax and connect via modem. So whilst I have no reason to upgrade it, I am interested to see because of reports that windows7 works great on netbooks. The benefit is, well, we will see if there is any.
• Testing is a super old win98 pc from the last century. I never turn it on. It is probably less powerful than a netbook. Will it even install Windows 7 without a dvd drive or being able to boot from usb? A pass is just to install and run. The benefit is to learn if it is possible.
• mobil phone is a win-mob-5 htc tornado (also known as an i-mate sp5). A pass is to be able to control it (add/remove apps) and copy files to/from it. The benefit is that activesync on xp only works sometimes. Another pass is to be able to copy files over wi-fi. The benefit of this is to not require ftp to transfer files.

The results (so far):

So far there have been no problems (e.g. lock ups) when installing, and it has been plesantly fast and simple (without ever pressing f6 or installing drivers). Once running, there have been some hiccups that I am now trying to fix (see below)

The conclusion (so far):

It is far too early to say. A week ago I was quite positive but the more I explore the more problems I find. Hopefully I will also find solutions to problems like ICS not working (and not "buy a router"), and having one machine accept the credentials of another machine (and not just "use public sharing"). A major disapointment is not being able to run old-pc images from within Virtual PC, but at least I've had no problems installing old programs and getting them to run under Windows 7 so maybe that problem isn't as big as I am thinking...

  HOME

• Virtual (installed 64bit by usb) - can't easyconnect after trying real hard (even put box in dmz and turned off firewalls). Virtual PC could not use vhd to boot image of Demo under virtual pc (probably due to wierd Dell OEM paritioning).
• Media (installed 32bit by dvd) - built in sis650 video card not supported (shows as basic vga) so installed ati-5200 video card which also not natively supported BUT could use vista drivers which appear to work suprisingly well.
• Demo (installed 32bit by usb) - no support for altos trackpad (seen as ps2 mouse). Wireless settings could not find my network because ssid was hidden (has to advertise it for windows7 to see it). After finding and connecting to my network, wifi worked once then stopped (after update, co-incidence?). Overall wireless very dissapointing, thinking of trying to go back to wxp.
• phone - no real problems, i.e. mobile center running on Virtual works perfectly, but PC can't connect using wi-fi (could be settings on phone?).

• Demo - trackpad not supported by Dell or Alps, but fortunately Toshiba came to the rescue with vista-32 drivers. See http://uk.computers.toshiba-europe.com/innovation/download_driver_details.jsp?service=UK&selCategory=2&selFamily=4&selSeries=151&selProduct=816&selShortMod=783&language=13&selOS=null&selType=null&yearupload=&monthupload=&dayupload=&useDate=null&mode=allMachines&search=&action=search&macId=&country=8&selectedLanguage=13&type=null&page=1&ID=65296&OSID=26&driverLanguage=42 for driver "alps touchpad windows 7 7.2.303.107" ( or download directly from http://support1.toshiba-tro.de/tedd-files2/0/tpdrv-20081027104556.zip ).
• Demo - also found that had to tick "connected even when not broadcasting its name" for wireless connection. Since then, occasional wierdness with lost connections, but otherwise behaving well.
• Demo - connected using modem = fine. Send fax = fine.
• Demo - cannot get Aero interface to work even though Windows Experience shows it should be able to do so with "ATI MOBILITY RADEON 9600/9700 Series 4.0" cranking 4.0 in the Aero Graphics and 3.6 in 3D gamining.

• Virtual - used disk2vhd on "Server" but only converted c: and d: which are 5gb and 10gb. There are also e: f: g: drives which are data drives that I don't want to virtualise. Problem is that the virtual pc still considers e: f: g: to be part of the vhd which in total is more than 127gb, which is not supported. This means I will have to archive off and delete the e: f: g: partitions BEFORE running disk2vhd (arrgghh).
• Demo - enabled Aero by starting the "Desktop Window Manager Session Manager".

• MovieMaker - used disk2vhd but the vm could not run on Virtual as total size bigger than 127gb. This limit is really annoying me, particulary as I do not include large data partitions. I am taking an image of MovieMaker's boot partition in case I have to revert back to Vista as I can't use the vhd created by disk2vhd as a safety blanket.

• MovieMaker - installed 64 bit to c: drive and left d: drive with user data folders from previous vista installation. Once Windows7 started I had to edit the registry to change the UserProfiles location from %SystemDrive% to D:\ in HKLM\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList. HOWEVER there were 2 problems with this: (1) the existing Vista accounts e.g. D:\Users\Tony were ignored when I created the accounts in Windows7 so I had to rename the existing as ..XXX and then copy them over the top of the newly created profiles and then reset the permissions; and (2) the instructions on the internet say to also change the registry setting for the default user profile which means it had to be moved from c: to d: which is a huge annoyance as I ended up rebooting in to system restore command mode to do an xcopy.
• MovieMaker - with my lack of success on running virtual pcs on Virtual I installed xp mode on MovieMaker and tried to set up multiple user accounts as per the previous vista installation only to find that this is not supported on xp mode. To support multiple accounts I would have to create a new vm. I still have an image of the previous Vista boot partition so there may be a way to turn that in to a vhd but at this stage I'm leaving the virtualisation part of my scenario for another day.
• MovieMaker - almost all of my hardware has been automatically recognised except for a scanner Medion 90093 also known as a 4800h.

• Home - is a xp pc with multiple accounts and a c: boot, d: system and userdata, e: data drive. To get under 127gb I moved e:'s data to another disk and deleted the partition completely, then defraged and shrunk the d: drive to 64gb. This time I was sure disk2vhd would give me a usuable vhd for use on Virtual but disk2vhd 2.1 would not run at all!! The "We are sorry for the inconvenice" message did little to calm me down. I did a checkdsk /f /r which did not help. I downloaded every single windows update possible which did not help. I checked the event logs for clues which did not help. I checked that the 2 shadow volume related services were started and set them to start automatically which did not help. Well over a day of time gone and I can not get disk2vhd to run.
• MovieMaker - found the original disk that came with the scanner and disk 1 of the ScanWizard program included Vista drivers for the scanner which seem to work ok on Windows 7.

• Home - as I don't have all the disks to reinstall old software, plus there is no guarantee that the software disk I have will work for Windows7 (or have updated available) I am paranoid about moving Home from Xp to Windows7. So I downloaded the competition's free answer vmware converter and used it to create a virtual image. Installed vmware player on Virtual and the virtual xp booted HOWEVER it hanged on agp440.dll and whilst I could mount the virtual c: drive I could not mount the virtual d: drive to try and remove that file from stoppping the boot up. So, vmware player doesn't support the old xp's hardware and I can't get in to try and change it, and disk2vhd won't even run.

  This issue is important to me, and maybe to others: So far I can't get a free solution to get a virtualised version of Home before it gets blown away, and once blown away it will not support virtualisation. I have a copy of vmware workstation which may or may not allow me to mount the d: drive which may or may not allow me to fix and boot the vm but that seems a long shot. Browsing the web it looks like I might be able to use LAPLINK to do an in place upgrade from xp to 7 but that costs $20 and I'm trying to do this on the cheap (and preferrably all from the same vendor).

• Home - installed Windows Easy Transfer and saved the user data to another disk. Interestingly I had to use the "advanced settings" to get it to not save some microsoft settings and temp index files, and to save some other settings like google-earth and browser cookies that I want to take across.
• MovieMaker - used built in Windows Easy Transfer to move the user data saved from Home to MovieMaker and was pleasantly suprised at how well it supported multiple user accounts.
• MovieMaker - Used Windows Easy Transfer to save the user data on MovieMaker which now also includes previous data from Home.
• Home - saved the partitions to see if I can virtualise them later and then blew them away to install Windows7 32 bit on a pc P4 2.4ghz with 768mb ram. Slower to be sure but it seems to work ok. Used regedit to change the profile location BUT this time left default on c: drive as it is unlikely to change much and I am more interested in keeping user data on D: separate from the system files on C:.
• Home - connected to the internet to update but still both the GV-AR64S-H (ATI 7500LE) video card and monitor Philips 180P2 are unable to be identified and so are generic.
• Home - Used Windows Easy Transfer only to find that it does not support going from 64 bit Windows 7 to 32 bit Windows 7! What sort of ridiculosity is this?!! Checked the web for solutions but there doesn't appear to be either a technical reason nor resolution for this. Had I know of this arbitrary limit I would have transferred only from the original XP which worked great. AAARRRGGGHHH.
• MovieMaker - installed the free SyncToy tool and set it to 'Contribute' the files from MovieMaker to Home to transfer the user files. I could have done a one time file copy across the network but as this is possible to be repeated I thought I'd give SyncToy a try. There were only 2 permission related problems: (1) I can't give access to the distination folders e.g. d:\Users\Tony to a source account (e.g. MovieMaker\Tony) as Windows 7 directory lookup only sees the current pc (e.g. Home\Tony) so I had to add 'Everyone' to have permission to the d:\users folders which is hardly secure; and (2) after SyncToy had run and the files were copied over I had to reset the permissions on the newly copied files and folders on the destination pc with again the local user's account name. Once the extra steps were done, it seems that the transfer was successful and the user's profiles were more or less cloned between MovieMaker and Home.

• MovieMaker - is an Intel DG33TL motherboard and Windows7 keeps informing me about a problem with the Intel Management Engine Interface (MEI, a pc management system that can run without the OS) not being supported. I read on Intel communities forum about downloading drivers from Intel and installing using Windows Vista (Service Pack 2) compatibility mode but I'd like to just turn it off. Which I can't seem to be able to (sigh).
• Home and MovieMaker - both share a single network cable each with a static ip v4 address and can communicate fine. Both are in the same HomeGroup and can see each other's resources. HOWEVER once the 3G modem is installed the previously "Home" cable network is changed to "Public" in line with the correct settings for the 3G network and so sharing stops working. Seriously, I am not making this up. I am extremely disappointed that Windows 7 appears to not support both a public and private network at the same time. Possibly related to this is the problem that I can't plug the modem in to 1 pc and have the other browse the web as the Internet Connecting Service doesn't work. AAARRRGGGHHH again.

• Home and MovieMaker - ICS relies on a static ip address on host and dynamic address on client so can only get ICS working in 1 direction at a time (as I don't want to change ip settings on adaptors each time).
• MovieMaker - Could not get audio from VCR in to line-in port at back of pc (windows7 could see it, but it never registered as being connected). HAD I some common sense I would not have tried downloading the Intel drivers from http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProdId=2806&DwnldID=10884&lang=eng but since sound was coming out the speakers I figured that I'd leave that for later. Instead I plugged in another device to the back panel with same lack of result, so tried instead to use the mic input at front of pc. DISASTER. Motherboard appears dead. I'm guessing it might be two much voltage or that the stereo 1/8" plug shorted something when the mic input was expecting a mono plug. Anyway, unplugged everthing except power to the motherboard and jumped the pins for power-on but cpu fan doesn't fire up. The only good side is that I'd use SyncToy to duplicate the data from this pc to Home so not a total disaster.
• Home - is a old pc with 768mb ram which can't be expanded (or even if it could, I'd rather not) so I got a $8 2GB usb drive from officeworks and ReadyBoost really does work. Best (easiest and cheapest) upgrade I'd ever done.

• Home - this pc has a lot of really old documents and I was going to re-install Office97 for total document fidelity but after reading about the UAC problem (for which Microsoft has since posted a simple fix to the registry http://support.microsoft.com/kb/978591/ ) I gritted my teeth and installed office 2003. Good news is that it works fine with Windows7 and seems to like my Word97 and PowerPoint97 files (only problem is some old fonts don't see to be working, and have to change to newer fonts with the same name).

• Home - downloaded the Windows7 32bit ATI drivers from http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx for the ATI 7500 video card. What a p.o.s. ! The installer defaults to "c:\program files\ati technology" but ends up installing to "c:\program files\ati". Ok, someone forgot to handle spaces in the folder name, but installing the software does nothing depite the log file saying everything is ok. Not happy, Jan. Tried http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/Pages/index.aspx and could not find 7500 listed for Windows7 only XP (http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/Pages/radeon-prer300-xp.aspx) , and looking at the 9500 series info (http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Legacy/Pages/radeonaiw_vista32.aspx?type=2.4.1&product=2.4.1.3.35&lang=English) it looks like I'm probably out of luck.

• MovieMaker - after a lot of unplugging and testing I got the motherboard to work again after it died last Christmas. The audio section was dead, so I bought a cheap audio card. The drivers for the audio card were for xp so I let Windows7 find me the drivers over the internet. Not only did it find them, but it also figured out that I could not open the 7zip file and gave me all the steps required to uncompress and install the drivers (which worked well). True, I already know how to do this, but for the less savy I rate this software installation guide as Excellent! Really.

• Home - got tired of swapping the 3G usb modem between Home and MovieMaker and instead connected them to a Billion 7402GXL router and put the modem in to it. Despite a decent 3G connection Home would drop the LAN connection and then Windows7 could not diagnose the network problem. When it happened to both pcs at same time I stopped blaming Windows and changed the router from "Connect on demand" to "always connected" which fixed it. As both pcs are now connected via LAN (instead of a cable with ICS being a pain) the network type are now "Home" instead of "Public" (required when using 3g modem directly) and homegroup works and as a bonus the IPv6 addresses are now assigned by DHCP and EasyConnect also works. Sadly Home still has generic svga video driver but apart from being slowish is working fine.

• Media - I like the idea of "Play To" because my TVs suport DLNA and so Windows7 sees them on the network and can stream to them. Unfortunately, despite the TVs being able to play divx and mp4s, it seems all the processing is done on the PC, which in Media's case maxes out the CPU. Also, the scaling does not seem to work correctly as the picture does not get expanded to full size and there does not seem to be a setting to change it. Since the TVs can also see the files shared on Media's hard drive, it is actually better to use the TV as the controller and the pc as a NAS drive. Bottom line, DLNA in both Windows and TVs works each way, but for me works better from the TV.
  Also, after spending way too much time than I should have, I gave up on ever using Media's SIS650 chipset video drivers as anything other than "standard vga". Disabled and instead used an old 9250 pci board that works fine but has no Aero support even with the Vista registry tweak http://www.blogsdna.com/1996/registry-hack-to-enable-aero-in-windows-7.htm. I also installed VLC to see how it performed against MediaPlayer (the same) so until I run into a codec MP can't handle VLC is in the recyling bin.

• Home - connected an old 32" Samsung TV and came up aganst the "default vga adapter" limits of 1024x800. Fortunately the ATI All In Wonder 7500 could also use the vista xddm drivers, and almost as is by magic the old pc was on the big screen. After all the hassles with the SIS 651 chipset, the old ATI drivers have been a real treasure on Windows 7. For the record, extracting the files in Vista_ATI_Radeon_XDDM_6.14.10.6606_for_WIN7.rar and then updating the video driver (in device manager) was all that was required (unlike other instructions to install the ati utils) and worked for both 9250 and 7500 (but sadly without aero effects).
• MovieMaker - previously when the network cable was plugged directly between Home and MovieMaker I could (from MovieMaker) enter \\home\c (which I had shared) fine. Now, with the router in between, this works fine from Home but MovieMaker tells me it can't resolve the host (ox80070035 network path not found). I've done everything that anyone has ever suggested on the windows forum but all of Microsoft support's answers can't fix it (enable netbios, add to etc\hosts, fixed ip from dhcp server, turn off firewall in router, turn off firewall on all pcs, disable vireus checker, run homegrup troubleshooter, run network troubleshooter). I added Media7 to their isolated network and it could browse both MovieMaker and Home fine, and Home could find Media7 fine, but MovieMaker was still unable to map a drive or browse the shares of the other two. All three appear in the network map for all three pcs, and all consider themselves to be in the same homegroup and workgroup. Weird. The main difference is that MovieMaker is 64 bit (all are Ultimate) and the other two are 32 bit.
• W7-64 - added a compro e750 dual digital tuner card and enjoyed it (for a while) but now it constantly complains of low signal desipte every other device (tv,pc,vcr) having fine reception. Apparently I am not alone (see http://www.comprousa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=1840) and again the common element seems to be 64 bit. The next step is to download another copy of Windows 7 32bit x86 (since I somehow managed to delete the iso) and reinstall and then test that.
  
  BIG Q: If 32bit does turn out to be more stable (i.e. for the compro), and allow hostnames to be resolved (i.e. for Moviemaker to connect to Home) then do I give up on 64 bit or do I stick with it and wait/hope for beter drivers in an unpredictable future???

• W7-64 - installed W7 32-bit and ran for a week without any stuttering from Compro e750 using only Windows Media Center and the device drivers (i.e. did not install all Compro software, but did install every w7 patch and update for nvidia card). Formatted drive and re-installd 64-bit (again, drivers only plus all possible updates) and worked fine *until* tried recording 2 shows at one time. It's true that it not exactly the same config (e.g. I have a 2nd drive in 64-bit and have Security Essentials turned on) but I'm reasonably certain (say, 99%) this is a problem with the compro e750 drivers (v510) for Windows 7 64-bit.
  p.s.: after each install I added non Microsoft software that *should* already be built in: Virtual Clone Drive (why can't "Ultimate" mount ISO files?), MCE Standby Tool (why can't Media Center set PC to hibernate after scheduled recordings are done?), and My Channel Logos. It also wouldn't hurt to put the debug info (press 4 1 1 info buttons on remote or type 411 ctrl-d on keyboard) as an icon somewhere.
  update: 2 weeks later and I'd be prety confident blaming the 64 bit compro drivers since runnning Windows 7 32 bit is so far fault free.

• COMPRO provided a new driver for e750 and Windows 64 bit VMS8001.0.51.51.rar and have asked me to test it. Thing is, 32 bit Windows 7 has been so reliable and for the most part trouble free that I'm reluctant to go back to 64 bit.

• W7-64 - (should be called w-32 for accurancy, but anyway..) something else missing from "Ultimate" is *good* solution to edit the recorded .wtv files. Microsoft's solution, download Windows Live Movie Maker, can happily open the file but can only save as .WMV which is a huge loss of quality OR a hugh amount of disk space. I tried divx xdiv h264 codec with dvrmstoolkit, mcebuddy, handbrake, mctvconverter, avsynchronizer, aovideosplitter, virtualdub (and many others that I've also uninstalled) but none of them provided correct avsync (i.e sound was out by a little or a lot). So far the best solution has been
  run C:\Windows\ehome>wtvconverter "h:\recorded tv\convert\*.wtv" /showui to convert to dvr-ms then
  run dvedit.exe (from http://www.jeffreygriffin.com/downloads/) to cut and join
  but I'm still looking for a reliable way to compress while maintaining sync.