Vista Does Not Like Being Ignored

From the my previous post you will note I went a solid two weeks on Windows 7 without running Vista on my dual boot laptop. Boy...Vista doesn't necessarily like being ignored. Everything...and I mean everything...made a mad rush for the internet connection when Vista came to life. NOD32, Windows Update, Windows Defender and several assorted product update checkers just about pounded my laptop into submission. I just walked away from it for 30 minutes to let it come to terms with being brought to life again. It was fine when I came back excepts for the 7 updates that wanted to be installed on shutdown. It might be worth my while to spin Vista up a little more frequently.

Finally had to boot up Vista today

So my I had a solid two weeks on Windows 7 without needing Vista or even a reboot for that matter...until today. Never fear, Windows 7 has been running very well but I got punched between the eyes with some Word documents I needed to open. I only have Office installed on the Vista side of the house. So here's the questions:
(a) Will my single user license of Office 2007 set off the alarms in Redmond if I try to install it in Windows 7 without uninstalling in Vista?
(b) Maybe I should just try live with Google Docs or perhaps OpenOffice?

Any other ideas out there.

Ding! Its Re-Up Time...could be tough.

My Sprint contract is up again, for me and the whole fam-dam-ily. My last negotiation with Sprint went nicely with some better than average deals on a Sprint Mogul, 700wx and a couple of Katanas for the kids along with some nice concessions on monthly rates. I went from 2 lines to 4 and dropped my payment $25/month.

Overall, I like Sprint. The coverage and cost have been good to us. But there are some dark forces at work and I think this re-up could be spendy.

First up on the side of the dark forces is the Palm Pre. I'm interested...IF it can live up to the hype. Windows Mobile has grown a little long in the tooth and I don't see it making any game changing progress with version 6.5. But the Pre requires an Everything Plan. Could be rough, especially if my wife likes it too.

Next up are the kids who I am going to hook up with data this year. Along with phones that have easy access to Google Calendar without being full on smartphones. No idea how this is going to factor in with the whole Everything Plan.

Finally, we may add the in-laws if its economically beneficial for us all and assuming we can find a nice simple phone with a nice big screen. Do you have any idea how hard that is?

Windows 7 - Software Installed so far

Sony VGN-CR320E with 3GB Ram

Firefox 3.0.10
- Adblocker Plus
- Java
Google Chrome (latest beta)
CutePDF
Flash Player

No issues with any of the above so far.

Windows 7 vs Sony Vaio SD slot

Next on the missing driver hit list was the SD card slot built into my Sony Vaio (VGN-CR320E). I installed the driver for Vista from the Sony Support website and the SD card slot started working immediately. Missing drivers remain the only real "issue" I have encountered and the Vista drivers all seem good so far. The Beta continues.

Windows 7 vs Synaptic

First little hiccup with Windows 7. My Sony Vaio's touchpad wasn't quite right. I noticed pretty dang quickly that (a) the scrolling areas on my laptops touchpad didn't work in Windows 7 and (b) I am pretty dependent on scrolling with the touchpad. I am thankful to report that the Vista driver from Synaptics driver page installs without issue and appears to function perfectly. My touchpad and I are in harmony again.

Goodbye to Ubuntu, Hope to See You Again

For the record I like nearly everything Ubuntu does as an OS. The install was painless, updates worked well and it was fast. Stuff generally worked well...except for one glaring and unforgiveable failure...the wireless driver. My Vaio uses the Intel 4965AGN which for some reason just won't play nice with Ubuntu. The result was highly throttled bandwidth, completely intolerable.

Sorry Linux folks, I am NOT going to go through the monkey motion required to try out the other wireless drivers that may or may not work if I manage to get all of the dot commands right. Not for me.

So Ubuntu got tossed, Windows 7 is in (but I am waiting Ubuntu community...and watching)

New Battery, New Life for the Sprint Mogul

So I took a chance on a cheap but supposedly OEM replacement battery from an eBay vendor for my Sprint Mogul. The old battery was so grim that even the power management system on the phone had pretty much given up on it. But the battery is indeed OEM and so far has cured the power problems. It was outstanding to get two days of battery life even with Exchange running and a dead zone at my desk that causes the phone to constantly search for a signal. Maybe the Mogul will indeed survive until contract renewal in June. For the record this marks the fourth phone in a row that had a battery failure within 6 months of renewal. Brilliant engineering.

Windows 7 RC Rockin the Dual Boot

Just got Windows 7 RC instaled on my Sony Vaio VGN-CR320E. I always regretted not jumping on the first beta chance so I figured I'd get on the Windows 7 train right away the first time. Plus I had been looking for a reason to re-purpose that partition with Ubuntu installed from my last dual boot experiment(a subject for another post).

And there was the issue. One of those tiny nagging whispering in your ear issues. You know, the thing that you think about when your finger is a fraction of an inch above the "your going to screw things up button". One word...GRUB. Oh sure Vista makes repartitioning very easy so I just blew away the Ubuntu volumes and moved on...not so fast Sparky. GRUB still owns your master boot record...suddenly that nagging issue switched to shouting to get my attention. A quick Google led me to the prescribed method for reclaiming my MBR from GRUB and all was good.

Once that monkey motion was complete Windows 7 installed without a hitch, wireless hooked up (using full bandwidth...are you listening Ubuntu?...again...that's another post) and here I am posting using a box stock Windows 7 install.

Slow Death of My Sprint Mogul

My Sprint Mogul seems to be dying a slow death that no hard reset can fix. The power management has gone wonky. Hopefully the cheap but purportedly OEM battery I got off eBay will remedy it until my June renewal...I'm looking at you Palm Pre