My first experience with Windows 7

Recently Microsoft has knocked out Windows 7 beta and published the build for testing purposes. I was not excited about the new version of Windows at all. I remember the experience with the first beta release of Windows Vista - I installed it and then stopped using in 2 or 3 days. The main reasons were - I was not able to install drivers for the sound card, the new interface seemed terrible for me, Windows Vista seemed working slowly than Windows XP and so on. As far as I know, in our days Windows XP is still being chosen over Windows Vista for the majority of business computer sales, so I am sure that I am not only person who stopped using Vista once looked at the first beta release. However, for now I had the new motivation to install Windows 7 - I wanted to see whether the product I work on - Data Dynamics Reports - can be used on Windows 7. This is what I really excited about. In this post I briefly describe the Windows 7 installation experience and the point where I decided to stop using it - yep, again!

The Installation
The installation of Windows 7 is pretty intuitive and requires very few actions from end-user. The thing I loved is my motherboard integrated devices were detected and installed properly. I thought that it would be a problem because the motherboard drivers for Windows XP and Vista are not compatible with the new OS. However, this fact didn't become the problem at all. The only problem with the installation I faced is "applying personal settings hang" during the first run. However, this problem isn't specific for Windows 7 and I managed it by rebooting the machine several times, starting windows 7 in safe mode and then starting it normally. Sounds crazy, but it works:)

The first run.
During the first run I faced the problem with WinMail service. It used 100% CPU during the first run. I managed it by running Windows 7 in safe mode and erasing WinMail.exe file. Sounds crazy but it works.

The end.
Well, I successfully installed and run Windows 7 and I thought that I probably was wrong and Microsoft did the great job this time and probably I can use Windows 7 as the primary OS. The new OS interface looks great and it is very convenient. Various software is being installed just fine. The idyll finished when I tried to install Visual Studio .NET 2008. I was not able to install it. The setup is run, the first window with choices to install VS.NET, install MSDN and check for the new releases appeared. I selected install VS.NET and nothing happened. The main window closed, no new processes were run. I tried to run VS.NET 2008 setup with administrator privileges, this doesn't help. I tried setting the compatibility mode for setup.exe and this doesn't help as well. Visual Studio .NET 2005 can't be installed as well with the same symptoms. This looks as weird fact for me - Microsoft software can't be installed on Microsoft OS. And indeed I don't want using OS that doesn't allow installing Visual Studio. This is how my experience with Windows 7 has finished...

PS. If someone reads this blog and uses Windows 7 beta and was able to install VS.NET 2005(2008) please tell me the secret of the success.