Windows 7 and Essential Apps

The migration continues...

Firefox up and running - back up using the FEBE extension and restore to FF on win7 so your online life follows you.

GIMP installed. Love the latest version. It hung when first run and i let windows diagnose and 'fix' the problem. Ran perfectly the second time.

Audacity installed but the beta version. Nervous about beta but we shall see. Ran fine. The lame and ffmpeg add ons installed fine.

VLC installed and runs ok. We searched and found a windows 7 codec pack which looks like it could solve the media problem. Will test it out later.

Lightscreen - installed ok but took a bit of diddling to get the screen region set by default and keys that worked. Finally settled on CTRL aLT PgUp. Also have to create the Screenshots folder in My Documents. Which exposed one annoyance. When i click on the folder icon on the dock or taskbar it shows a finder-like arrangement with useful links to network, downloads etc, everything except your HOME. Must be a way to add it to the view...Another annoying problem is that while the Network bit shows the other machines which have shares, i can only copy files from the Ubuntu box, not the windows xp box. That's right, windows 7 works out of the box with Linux but not with Windows. All the machine are on the same workgroup and the win7 user name and password has share privileges. It is probably related to that new home group stuff, but wouldn't a better approach would be to respect what is working and then offer to migrate it to the new home group setup? So now if i want to network with xp i have to figure it out. Don't waste the time of the user!

WAMP - downloaded and installed and the wamp control panel works fine, it is under the little UP arrow on the far right tho, took me a few minutes to figure that one out.

Greenstone installed and ran fine. I'm running it out of the user folder to see how that goes.

7zip and clamwin installed no problem.

The scanners are a problem. The USB canon does not work but we expected that as it did not work with Vista. However, it works perfectly with Ubuntu so maybe it changes desks. The big HP scanner is more problematic as it is SCSI and there is no room in the case for a scsi card unless i take out the 64bit network card. Shame as this is a quality built scanner (I have two) and the HP software has worked flawlessly since i bought it 12+ years ago. It even acts as a copier.

Installed a new DVD burner but haven't tested it out yet. I used Roxio on windows xp because there is no port of Brasero. But it may not be a problem as most burning takes place on the Ubuntu desktop anyway because that is where Brasero lives.

And we need to install a lan scanner, i run one once a month just to check up on all the network devices and to make sure nothing is wrong...

Last to do is to install the network postscript laser, which i did for the test install, not intuitive but i think i noted the process here so that's ok. Of more concern is the not almost as ancient epson stylus photo 2200 printer, a real beast (one of the few firewire printers in existence) but a workhorse. I don't think the RIP software for xp will work on win 7. We shall see...

Summary

All my must need apps (which are all open source) installed ok which is a relief, if they do not work with Win 7 then there is no need for Win7 and i've have to downgrade. Since they do there are no shop stoppers so all in all, i should be ready to switch off the old xp machine next weekend...