I gave up on the Win 7 upgrade that Amazon sent out groundinstead of Blue Label. So did Amazon; they sent a replacement even though UPS said it would get here in due time. On Turkey Day, I ordered another copy for Saturday delivery.
This morning, it showed as being prepared for shipment on Amazon’s web site. I called customer support. A gentleman in Asia assured me that I would get the software today, or, at the very latest, tomorrow. I asked if they had prevailed on their carriers to make Sunday deliveries. Without missing a beat, he said I would get the software today, or, at the very latest, Monday. I asked if it had been shipped. He said, “How close are you to Nevada?” This wasn’t going well, so I said goodbye and rang off, expecting to see the software next week sometime.
This afternoon about 12:30, there was a rumble in the driveway, and a FedEx truck pulled up and disgorged the software. With the OS upgrade safely in hand, I checked the Amazon web site; the software will ship soon, it said. [I just checked it again, with the same results.] I wasted no time installing it. The process took two and a half hours, on a fairly fast machine with a lot of software installed. A couple of times it looked as though it had hung, with no progress being indicated for twenty minutes, but patience won the day. The longest part of the operation was transferring programs and files, which took about an hour and a half. During this phase, somehow the Roxio Creator installation software got triggered, and complained that there was no installation CD in the reader. I cancelled out of it.
When it came time for me to log on to the newly installed OS, the only problem was that wmdc.exe (the Windows Mobile synch software) couldn’t find RAPI.dll. I said OK; I’ll sort this out later.
The new Win 7 installation looks great. It’s fast, and I’ve found no glitches except the ones I’ve described.
To review the bidding, I started with a Vista installation that was so trashed as to be unusable, upgraded it to SP1, which improved it immensely, then to SP2, which improved it a bit, and then to Win 7, which looks solid. It’s too soon to draw any definitive conclusions, but the conventional wisdom that in-place updates just perpetuate old problems looks suspect.
Leave a Reply