Well I spent most of this past Saturday upgrading my Laptop to Windows 7 Ultimate, which I have to say was not a bad experience. If you are planning to do this, I suggest that you run the Windows 7 Upgrade advisor, which can be downloaded from here, prior to running the upgrade. After it completed, a report was provided that that stated that I may have a few minor issues with the following applications:
- SQL Server 2008
- Visual Studio 2008
- Dell Web Camera Software
- Microsoft Virtual PC
Of the four listed, detailed information was only provided for the first. I clicked on the link, and it stated that I need to install SQL Server 2008 service pack1 (sp1). No problem, I downloaded sp1 and installed it. I left the other three application as is. I crossed my fingers and began the upgrade. The entire process took approximately 3 and a half hours. It appeared to get stuck on the step that was actually doing the upgrade, but that was just my impatience. Once it completed, I tested the applications in questions and here are the results:
- SQL Server 2008 service pack One – Success!
- Visual Studio 2008 service pack One – Success!
- Dell Web Camera Software – Success! – Even though the Upgrade Advisor said it wouldn’t.
- Microsoft Virtual PC – Success! (With a few modifications). When I initially tried to open Virtual PC I was prompted with the error:
I clicked YES, and then I was prompted with this:
I searched around a bit, but couldn’t find anything. I clicked CANCEL and the first screen shot from above was shown again. I clicked NO and this dialogue box appeared:
I clicked OK and Virtual PC was available. It allowed me to start a Virtual PC and everything worked fine. But since I can’t accept imperfections, I decided to do a quick web search to see what I could find. The first page in my results led my here (http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2009/01/13/windows-7-on-virtual-pc-on-windows-7.aspx), which was the answer. The author, stated that all I needed to do was reinstall Virtual PC and all would be well. My only concern was that I would lose all my existing Virtual PCs. I read a little further and the author assured the readers that nothing would be lost. I decided to roll the dice. I reinstalled virtual PC and started it up. Not only did all the prompts go away, but Virtual PC and all my saved PCs were there in tact. Thanks Virtual PC Guy.
I have been using Windows 7 for about 5 days now and I really do notice significant improvements in the software. It appears to run nice a quiet in the background (i.e. using very little resources).
Talk to you soon
Patrick LeBlanc
SQL Down South
