Note to self: Windows 7 will be half-price if pre-ordered from Amazon UK during 15th July – 14th Aug. £79.99 seems to be the likely price. (Update: it was actually better, £48)
Although I’m also thinking of dual-booting Ubuntu. Much as I dislike the seemingly endless dependencies of Linux apps, there are some rather tasty ones.
Sadly, Europe gets a crippled version of 7, thanks to meddling by the European Commission. Microsoft are apparently being forced to leave out the basic anti-virus that’s always offered at least minimal protection for newbies. Eek! And the dimwits at the European Commission have also apparently forbidden the U.K. sale of a cheaper Vista-upgrade version. We’ll all be expected to do a format and clean install, with the full version or nothing. Which is fine for me, because that’s what I’m planning anyway. But many people won’t be up to the task, even if they could find the time to backup all their data and re-install all their software.
Less choice, more expensive, less secure, more hassle — thanks, EC. I guess the bureaucrats in Brussels will be shipping their upgrade copies in by Air Mail from the U.S., then having a minion install it.
by Meanwhile...
25 Jun 2009 at 19:57
Ubuntu’s Synaptic Package Manager GUI should resolve your dependency issues fairly seamlessly by comparison with older distros – no need for faffing with the Terminal; it simply detects and resolves the dependencies (very effectively, nowadays).
All the problems tend to centre around the interaction with hardware optimised for Windows – so best Google any issues beforehand so as to get the irks out of the way.
Good luck.
by site admin
27 Jun 2009 at 16:44
Update. I was thinking of installing in July, but it seems not. The official word from Microsoft is that…
“All users of the Windows 7 Release Candidate (including Windows Vista users who have upgraded to the Release Candidate) must do a clean installation of Windows 7 RTM (retail version). Please keep this is mind as you consider downloading the Release Candidate as opposed to waiting for the general availability release.”