Trying Windows Vista
I had a package turn up from Singapore the other day. 3 copies of Windows Vista Beta 2. After playing around with it for a few hours, I wonder if they will return my money if I send them back.
Firstly, this software is so far from a Beta release it isn’t funny. Microsoft has obviously caught the Beta bug from google and the rest of the Web 2.0 world. There is one small difference between Google Beta and Microsoft Beta, Google Beta has some bugs ironed out. Lets talk about the installation process:
On my laptop: Booting from the DVD gave me white error boxes with white text which I couldn’t read. Clicking ‘Ok’ brought up more error boxes of different sizes. It was kind of cool to hold down enter and watch the boxes dance around the screen, even if I couldn’t get past the very first install screen. I decided to install XP and do an upgrade, and so 5 hours later I had vista on my laptop. My laptop is about 18 months old, and it couldn’t run Vista at a speed that would allow me to use my computer.
On my desktop: Booting from DVD and upgrade from within XP both gave error messages saying Vista couldn’t identify my disks. That’s the only info it gave me… no error code… no URL for more info. Being the smart guy I am I unplugged two PATA drives and it installed.
So here I am typing on my desktop. XP’s great for IT admins, because people are going to fall asleep before they install that screensaver packed with adware. Installing anything is about a 10 click process as windows checks over and over again that you are sure you know what you are doing:
“IE needs to install an addon”
ok
“IE is trying to install some software! Do you want it to do this?”
ok
“Windows is trying to run ieinstall.exe”
Did I mention the interface is cluttered, buggy and fucking annoying. I don’t know what dtb(CommandModule, 5 ,1) is, but it’s on every explorer screen on both my Desktop and Laptop.
In conclusion, Vista’s great. I wasn’t sure if I should get a Macbook before, but now I’m sure. Thank’s for making it an easy desicion Bill.
Backup USB Drive on Insertion
I use my USB drive for everything. It runs Portable Firefox, Portable Thunderbird and also holds most of my files. While it’s great having these programs run no matter where I am, frequently backing up the data is a pain. I wanted an automatic solution. Unable to find a good solution on the net, I created one for myself.
Step 1: Create the folder you want to backup to (Mines c:\removablebackup)
Step 2: Create the backup batch file for your USB key. You can do this by inserting the following in a textfile and saving it as backup.bat. An example is provided below:
@echo off
echo -------------------
echo Removable Device Automatic Backup
echo -------------------
echo No Rights Reserved, do whatever you want with this.
xcopy "*" "c:\removablebackup\" /Y /E /R
echo Backup Complete!
Pause.
Make sure you change the section in bold to reflect your individual backup location.
Step 3: Place the following in a text document, and save it directly to your removable drive as autorun.inf:
[autorun]
action=Backup
open=backup.bat
label=Backup
includeRuntimeComponents=True
Step 4: Your done! Now whenever you insert your USB key you should see this nifty backup option:
