Hitorishibai

Equipment:

• Lenovo Thinkpad T61p
• Intel Core 2 Duo – T9300, 2.50GHz
• 1680×1050 w/NVIDIA QuadroFX 570m 256MB
• 4GB RAM

My laptop originally came with Windows Vista Ultimate x32. Upon arrival I immediately committed to a clean install and switched to Windows Vista Ultimate x64. That said, it was a daunting task on which version of Windows 7 to use: Professional or Ultimate. Alas, an empty wallet made the decision for me, first I heard about the $99 upgrade to Windows 7 Professional and then just a few days ago, ‘The Ultimate Steal’ returned Windows 7 style with either Home Premium or Professional to choose from.

Fast forward and here I am with a copy of Windows 7 Professional x64 in my hands. I decided to do a clean install on a new hard drive that I got of eBay for cheap (unfortunately they sent me the wrong one, but I will save that for another day).

The installation was quick and in less than 20 minutes I was up and running. Windows 7 took care of most drivers for me. I took advantage of Lenovo’s Windows 7 Beta driver page and snagged up the UPEK driver/software, Power Manager 2 and hit up Laptop Video 2 Go for a working driver.

This was by far the easiest install I have ever done. Windows XP was okay, but had its moments. I think we all experienced the ‘wow’ with Vista in every shape and form and have no desire to go back to that lonely place of long install times, disk thrashing and other OS shenanigans.

There has been a lot of huffing and puffing traveling along the Internets in regards to Windows 7 (a.k.a. Seattle’s band-aid to the black eye formerly known as Vista). Well, I decided to find out what all the complaining was about.

First, I’m far from a tech guru, I experiment here and there on several systems, I consider myself an early adopter, enjoy the occasional beta test and do what I can to create a very fluid experience on my machine.

Secondly, I am not against Vista. Yes, I prefer XP due to its simplicity and speed and heck when you’ve had that many years at the quarterback, your team (vendors/software makers) is bound to know the entire playbook; in other words everything just worked. Vista had its hiccups, it was hardware heavy and vendors were slow to adapt. A few service packs later I would have to say that things ran fairly well. I’m still disappointed with the lack of x64 drivers/software, but overall I have been using Vista since beta and today I make the change to Windows 7 Professional x64.

Absolutely glorious. It’s marketing like this that gives me a sense of hope. He we have one out of a set of new print ads for the Volkswagen BlueMotion diesel technology.

The image says everything: from the surreal gas pump clouds to the drained fuel tanker to the ant holding a micro-sized gas can. The caption reads: “Absurdly Low Consumption.” Indeed.