The Professor's Notes

Okay, so it’s not really his God mode.  But he wrote about it.

I’ve gotten a number of emails about a Windows 7 “God Mode” feature, and while I haven’t had time to check it out thoroughly, it’s now making the rounds internally at Microsoft too, so that (somewhat) suggests it’s legit. What it basically is, is an extended control panel that allows you to control various aspects of the OS that are not typically surfaced via a GUI.

Here’s how you enable it:

Create a new folder (right-click and click on “New Folder”). Right-click on the folder and click on rename, copy and paste this:

GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

What comes up is a Control Panel like window with sections for Action Center (“Check security status” and so on), Administrative Tools, and AutoPlay.

Nothing major, frankly, but interesting. Use at your own risk, of course.

So I did it.  And when you rename the folder, it changes to this icon (captured directly from my screen):

Click away, and you end up with this (Screen capture on the right):

There is nothing really “new” here that I can tell.  Most of the more “advanced” features have always been accessible.  What makes this particular “GodMode” useful is that it puts most of the more advanced system management features in one place and, since I placed the folder on my desktop, makes it quite easy to access.

For instance, you may recall I was having some challenges when I switched over to Windows 7.  The problems were ultimately all induced by my own failure to properly seat the RAM in the slots, but I found that the reliability history was a very useful tool to see what was crashing, and what was causing the crashes.  I even used that feature today to see what was apparently slowing down my machine.  Apparently Google Earth was having problems, and couldn’t install an update. So–bye bye a hardly ever used Google tool.

The question left for me is:  Do I start reviewing each of these features, and post them on the blog?

My brother brought up an interesting topic the other day.  We were having a discussion on twitter about various dictation software packages.  He had just bought Mac speech dictate published by the same people who do Dragon Dictation.  He made the comment in twin are that purchasing Mac speech dictate and the Macintosh OS X snow leopard upgrade was about the same as purchasing windows 7. (To be fair, he admitted later that he got the price wrong on purchasing Windows 7.)

I looked at the numbers.  You can purchase a windows 7 home premium from Wal-Mart for about $110 as an upgrade.  The software on his blog was $154.99.  So I see a savings of $45.00.  But that’s just comparing upgrading the operating system with purchasing the software and operating system.  Purchasing window 7 new is about $200.  That is significantly more.  But I guess the question is, “who purchases window 7 as an operating system new and not as an upgrade?”

Typically people buy the operating system knew when they purchase a new computer so let’s compare the purchase of a good sized, powerful, notebook computer for windows to a Mac OS X notebook.  I compared to the low end Mc book from Best Buy with a middle of the road HP at Best Buy.  The Macbook for a 13 inch screen 2.2 GHz processor cost $1000. Read the rest of this entry »

After further review it appears my initial install troubles would have been avoided had I installed the device drivers for the SATA drives that I was NOT going to use when installing Win 7.  It seems to have installed, but a brief heart-skip when I saw a “blue Screen of Death” (BSOD) with a USB error (perhaps the mouse problem?)  Unfortunately, the Microsoft tech forum I checked with made no mention of this possibility/problem.  And it wasn’t on the forefront of my thought, since I wasn’t planning to install to those drives anyway.  Make no mistake–I should have thought about it, but on the other hand, the “average” user won’t think about this either.  Read more after the break Read the rest of this entry »

After disconnecting all the other drives, the install went off without a hitch.  The computer booted into Win 7, took me through the first time user screens (adding the license code, setting up the username and password, and selecting the time zone, for instance) and took me to the main screen.

Win7 doesn’t see my mouse!  And this is no trivial matter–it’s a MICROSOFT MOUSE!  The same mouse that Win 7 saw throughout the upgrade process.

I chose “Add a Device” and the computer has been searching now for several minutes.  I suspect a reboot is in order.

*Fingers crossed*

UPDATE:  I have posted an update, with a re-install attempt that seems to be working.

Okay, here we go!  I was excited to have been selected for the Win 7 Launch Party.  I received my “party pack” with my signature edition of Win7 Ultimate (“signed” by Steve Ballmer) and decided to install on an existing partition, keeping my Windows Vista install working until I am convinced that all my software will work under the new (64 bit) OS.

Alas, things did not go smoothly.

First, one of my DVD drives is apparently failing.  Not Microsoft’s fault–but annoying.

Next (and this is MS’s fault) when I went to install, I found that I couldn’t.  Let me explain.

The first few steps (splash screen, select install, select “custom install” and check off the license agreement) went well. What could go wrong there?  But from there, things did not go so well. Read the rest of this entry »