One day of Windows 7

Having set up a PC at work with the Windows 7 x64 RC installed on it a few weeks ago, I decided that today would be the day that I would start doing as much as possible of my day to day work on 7. It has been reasonably straightforward so far although this PC grunts a bit with only 1 GB of RAM. This is not a long term solution, of course. Where we go to with 7 is very dependent on getting a new Schools agreement between the MOE and Microsoft. As such it may be that the RC’s time limit runs out before 7 becomes available to schools. So it is hard to say where any school will go in terms of 7, as I expect the agreement will have to be renegotiated, but also because it isn’t very clear at this stage what the MOE has planned for schools in terms of these agreements in the future. To administer a server from a Windows 7 PC you must have the Windows 7 version of the RSAT (Remote Server Administration Tools). Microsoft released a new RSAT soon after the RC of 7 came out, but have now withdrawn it. Fortunately, I downloaded the x64 edition of the RSAT when I first installed 7, and therefore I have been able to install it on this PC.

To use one of the more interesting features of Windows 7, the XP Virtual Mode, your PC must have a CPU that supports hardware virtualisation. This is of course the same requirement for running Hyper-V on a Windows 2008 server. Of course, Hyper-V isn’t available on desktop OSs, and previous releases of Virtual PC for desktops have run on any old CPU, but now the version of Virtual PC that XP Virtual Mode is based on (renamed Windows Virtual PC) requires the VT-x feature. It turns out that my main work PC that I bought two years ago to run Vista, which is the same hardware spec as the box that I’ve got running Windows 7, will only need the CPU changed (the cheapest VT-x model is the Pentium E6300 dual core) to make it compatible with this feature (and possibly a BIOS flash). Same goes for some of our other newer PCs that we have in our school. It would be preferable just to change the CPU, for example, in three relatively new PCs that our office staff got last year, since these are expected to have a life of several more years. At home it is different of course, I would need to replace the motherboard, CPU, memory and power supply all in one hit to get the full works of 7 there. Sometime I will look at that kind of upgrade, probably just swap that PC with a similar aged one from work that has had the new bits put in.

Last time I posted about options for upgrading older PCs to Windows 7. In respect of that particular discussion, the main issue we would face for our PCs is getting the right power supply for this particular case. As far as I can tell, FSP of Taiwan is the only company that makes power supplies that will fit the Foxconn DH153A chassis, and then I would have to find a supplier. The 300 watt model provides the rails that newer motherboards need, although there is some question over peak power ratings, but I wouldn’t expect power use of this type of PC to be high, so it may be OK, since the CPU power rating is practically the same. The model number needed is the FSP300-60GLV. I would want to do a good bit of testing of a prototype before committing anything towards production because of questions like the power supply. The cost that we can get these parts for makes it quite a favourable option in our present economic climate where prices have risen sharply in the last year.

So here ends the first blog post made on Windows 7…

Rebuilding vs Replacing?

With the imminent introduction of Windows 7 and consequent phase-out of XP, all schools in NZ (and elsewhere) will be compelled to consider upgrading older PCs if their spec is insufficient to be able to run Windows 7. I am currently interested in whether this would be a viable option for some of our school’s older PCs, which are almost 5 years of age. The economics are favourable if you have access to wholesale or nearly wholesale pricing, and can rebuild the PCs within your school. To get a Windows 7 PC which has a reasonable amount of memory, 64 bit and Intel hardware virtualisation capability, the following are examples of what would need to be purchased

• Intel DG31PR mainboard (may be available cheaper in a 10 pack)
• Intel E6300 Pentium Dual Core boxed CPU (including heatsink and fan in the box)
• DDDR2-667 memory: 1 GB or 2 GB
• If you have only CDRW drives, you may wish to purchase a replacement DVD writer.
• If your power supply is less than 300W it may need to be replaced. In our case, a TFX supply is the type required and should fit into the case (Foxconn DH153)
• A card reader is desirable in today’s media-conscious environment. Sony make the MRW6202 which is internal and can be installed in the FDD bay (the nearly-obsolete FDD being discarded). You could buy one or two USB external FDDs to keep for a rainy day when an occasional Floppy might turn up from somewhere.

The key questions needing to be answered include how well everything will fit into an existing case. This depends very much on whether there has been much change to the microATX form factor in the past five years. Another question is how much life you can expect the existing HDD to provide. However an HDD replacement is a fairly straightforward procedure to carry out where it is required.

The main benefit is in recycling the case and Windows XP Home license. We are assuming here that the MOE will get a new license deal for 7 that will give effectively a free upgrade from XP. I’d prefer to wait until the new licensing comes out to be able to confirm that will be the case before proceeding with any upgrade programme. However the case and license together could be worth as much as $300 depending on specs. Since most cases are well made, they can be expected to give many years of useful service and as such can be effectively recycled without problems. If reuse of case and license work out this would be extremely worthwhile since this value would never be recoverable in resale of these items. In our situation our existing LCD screens which are four years old can be expected to last for years yet. In fact it is fair to say that no one really knows how long LCD displays will last because they haven’t been in production that long.

Assembly is relatively straightforward if you are confident about your skills of putting a board together and inserting it into a case. If you can find assistance within your school community for the assembly then it could be cost effective and economic to consider a rebuilding rather than replacement option.

The Windows 7 lock-in / lock-out

Everyone knows that Windows 7 has progressed through its various stages and been well-received. It is now in production having been released to manufacturing a few weeks back and will appear in retail channels towards the end of October. Windows 7 is a mixture of new technologies and features, and fixes to parts of Vista that have caused endless trouble to users who adopted version 6.0 of Windows when it was released in January 2007. Here lies the rub. W7 fixes a lot of problems people have been having with Vista, particularly the Business edition on corporate networks. It is smoother and more stable, but Microsoft expects you to pay an additional license fee, rather than releasing additional service packs to Vista to fix all those problems with it. This situation is called lock-in or lock-out, and its previous appearances in Microsoft products led directly to the well-known anti-trust case against the company by the US Department of Justice and similar cases in other jurisdictions such as the European Union and Korea.

In a previous post I referred to the lockout that my site had experienced with ISA Server that has forced us to set up an additional server because of non support of ISA on the Windows Server 2008 platform. The latest example of this approach in the server market is that Windows Server 2008 R2 will not be able to support Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. I think it is very likely that the 2008R2-EX2007 and Windows 7-Vista scenarios in particular are likely to result in further legal action against Microsoft in major jurisdictions, and probably (political) pressure in the US to extend the anti-trust case.

To me, Microsoft is something of an enigma. Sysadmins like me recommend and install Microsoft products because, in the education market at least, they offer the best combination of features, value and support out there. The Linux community at large is yet to get their head around the idea that a GUI, integrated documentation and professional levels of support are worth having. Until we see that kind of commitment from that community I would hesitate to suggest that they have any idea of what is needed by administrators who don’t want to have to learn the nuts and bolts of a new unfamiliar operating system. The comparison between the Linux startup screen with screeds of text gibberish, compared to Windows’ graphical initialisation with occasional progress messages is a case in point. Against this we have the constant monopolistic behaviour resulting in the lock-in/lock-out situations with the results of extra expense to end users. Hmmm…..

I have already made my views known also on what appears to be a diminishing standard of free end user support, where Google searching will usually turn up answers on half a dozen third party or “community” sites before any official Microsoft site.