Installing Windows 7

I have been running Windows 7 RC (Release Candidate) on my laptop since June of last year. This was a freely available beta version distributed by Microsoft. It was so good that I installed it on Carla's new Vista laptop.

There was one catch with this version of Windows. As of March 1st, 2010, Windows would start rebooting every two hours, and as of June 1st, 2010, Windows would stop working. Well, I finally received my upgrade discs to official version of Windows 7 last week and was frantically trying to upgrade to the official version before March 1st.

Upgrading computers from one to another operating system is a big pain. It is pain^2 if you have as many programs installed on your computer as I do. I had to:

1. Backup all my media, documents, and configuration files.
2. Install new version of Windows.
3. Move back all media and documents back to my computer.
4. Install and configure all the software that I had running previously.

This whole process took me DAYS! Having learned from upgrading my computer, I was able to upgrade Carla's computer in 1/3 of the time, but even that took a few days. Sheesh! I am not upgrading my laptop for another couple of years. :-)

Everything seems fine on the new computer except that it won't go to sleep. It just goes to black screen and does not turn off. This is really annoying, as I put my laptop to sleep all the time, instead of shutting it down.

I believe I have found the cause of my troubles. It seems that the laptop would go to sleep just fine when the wireless card was turned off. So, I looked for newer drivers for my wireless device and sure enough, it works just fine now.

Lesson learned, get the LATEST drivers for your computer if you are having problems. Hope this tip helps others.