Get answers to these 7 frequently-asked-questions, courtesy of PCMag.com

Q: Will my 32-bit applications run if I’ve switched to the 64-bit variant of Windows 7?

Q: Can I install Windows 7 to a netbook with no DVD drive?

Q: What’s the difference between upgrade and full retail versions?

Q: What’s the difference between the Upgrade and Custom installation options?

Q: How can I qualify for the Student price of Windows 7? What about the OEM pricing?

Q: Can I change from one Vista Edition, say Home Premium, to another of Windows 7, say Professional?

Q: Clicking on a Quick Launch icon in Windows Vista would always launch a new instance of that app, even if one instance was already running. But in Windows 7, clicking on an icon you’ve pinned to the taskbar doesn’t do this. Can I replicate the Vista functionality?

The answers are found here.

Got a Windows XP tabletPC, netbook or desktop?  Wanna go fresh, clean and brand new to Windows 7?

Or running Windows Vista system, that you want to do a clean install of Win 7 ?

But why clean installs?

Because it clears out the old stuff and let you start afresh, faster, cleaner machine. None of the old registry, uninstalled program leftovers or junk/bloatware.

So check out this link on how you can do it, even try with the Upgrade versions of the OS.

Do remember to backup all your data/stuff before you try this!

Ever since my post on the Asus Eee PC T91 with multi-touch using Windows 7, I have been waiting for a chance to play the touchscreen netbook.

Is this going to be a replacement for my favourite HP TC1100, the tablet pc? Or, gasp!, a bigger more usable version of the Nokia N810?

So far, its been released in the UK for months and just last week for the US. There’s still no official word for Singapore or pricing yet. It’s retailing of US$499 for the basic set.

My first impression was how SMALL and light it is!

To give u a idea, I have a A5 sized notes folder and its just a little smaller than that!

This is prety much the standard set, not sure how close this is to the release final hardware, though it has a 30gb SSD (Solid State Drive) and a digital TV tuner, and NO multi-touch, NO Windows XP Tablet Edition, no GPS, no 3G circuit board.

As it came straight from Asus’s Taiwan factory and I have to return it, I will be trying to preserve the original Windows XP Home Edition, and install Windows 7 RC to put it through the paces.

Over the next few posts, I’ll share my experiences with the touch netbook.

So do take note… especially from March 1, 2010, your computer will only operate for 2 hours and shut down.

Since Windows 7 is rumoured to be released by Christmas 2009, that should give all users, with enough time to switch to the new OS.

Till then, enjoy the Ultimate version of the OS for Free for another 9 – 12 months!

You can find this under My Computer and letting the program run.

The program runs a series of tests to see how well Win 7 will run, rated between 1.0 to 7.9. Your machine score is based on the lowest component score.

The lowest score coming from my Intel Pentium 4 2.4ghz processor a 3.3 rating. This coming from a 5 year old computer. I think it’s not bad, since I’m still able to run most applications so far.

The only component that is rated higher than 3, is my harddisk with a
4.9.

I wonder how high will the new Core 2 Duo machines rate??

Let me do a quick summary.

1. My old C: drive (40gb) was dying. It contains my WinXP operating system.
2. Consideration – all my old programs/data -> I still want to be able to access them if I need to.
3. So I emptied my D: drive (80gb) and swap the hard disk switches (40gb -> slave, 80gb -> master)
4. And installed Win7 from the DVD straight into the new C: drive (80gb) and the old 40gb is now the D: drive.

All that was done within 2 hours! Fast!!

The most fun I had so far, was the Windows Media Center on my 26 inch Samsung LCD TV.

I just have to add the videos/pictures/music directories (NOT Copy! Just add the folder address, this is a new Win7 feature).
And WOW…. watching the slide shows of my pictures with music… its just beautiful.

Together with my wireless keyboard/mouse.. I can control everything comfortably on my bed…

This is what I mean by technology making living easy/better.

So anyways, I do like Internet Explorer 8… but frankly.. I like Google’s Chrome better and have installed the beta version 2. and its fast and stable so far.

So before you decide to take the big leap and download the 2+gb ISO file and do all the formating/backing up..

Microsoft has released this little tool.. still in beta (which means just not really ready for the world but can be used).

Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor Beta Tool

Download, Install, Connect ALL your Devices and Run.  It will tell you if your hardware is good enough, and what programs are not compatiable to running Windows 7. Most of the programs will need you to upgrade to the latest version… some will run with minor issues.

For this to work properly, you need to give the program access thru your firewall, as it gets live data from Microsoft servers to check the latest drivers/programs.

Windows 7 Advisory results

A good opertating system makes a lot of difference for making tech living easy…

After reading many good reviews on the new OS, I decided to give it a try too. I started with the public beta back in January and  created a new partition on my C: drive to do a dual boot from my Windows XP Professional.

It worked really well and surprisingly almost all my devices on my old Pentium 4 2.8ghz, with 1GB RAM and an ATI FireGL 32mb worked fine.. including my logitech wireless keyboard and mouse.

But my C: drive is dying.. the hard disk has been having clunking sounds and is really slow.

I used HDD Health from Panterasoft.com. It’s a free program to help monitor the health of your hard disks. Windows only.

It has alerts to let you know if your hard disks are opearting at temperatures too high, send you alerts via email or logs while using no system resources.

And the health for my C: was at 30%.. so time to change.

As the experts say, hard disk failures are not a question of ‘IF”, it’s a question of ‘When’.

So do backup your important files!

Downloading Windows 7 RC Built 7100 from Microsoft – Click here [You'll need a Hotmail or Live account to proceed]
I had problems using Chrome and even IE downloading the file. Probably the plug in issues. So finally got it to work with Firefox, via a Java applet.

The product key will be given on the download page (as you can see above).

You will be downloading the .ISO file -> which means u need to burn this onto a DVD.

Boot from the DVD to run the installation. The ISO image is 2.36gb, so it’s gonna take a while to download… alternativetly you can try the torrent downloads.