August 7, 2009
Earlier this week I reported that I was unable to get my Windows 7 machine to recognize the XP machines in our network and vice versa………well I was finally able to do it! YIPEE!
Basically, it’s like this:
- On the Windows 7 machine (logged in as the computer Admin) I had to go into Control Panel -> Security & System -> System window. In the computer name, domain, workgroup settings section there is a button named Change Settings - click on that button and follow the prompts on the screens to where it asks you for your WorkGroup name. Enter the name of your current workgroup. You will need to reboot your computer in order for the changes to take effect.
- On the XP Machine -> My Network Places window -> click Add a network place. Click Next on the Welcome to the Add Network Place Wizard window, click the Choose another network location option and click Next. Click the Browse button -> Entire Network option -> find your workgroup name and double-click on it (mine was under the Microsoft Windows Network BUT YOURS MAY HAVE BEEN SET UP DIFFERENTLY) so you can see the names of all the computers in your network. Select the name of the Windows 7 machine and JUST BE PATIENT as it takes a few minutes for it to “think” (you’ll see the hourglass). The “Users” folder on the Windows 7 machine should appear, click on it and click the OK button.
- If this works correctly you’ll be asked for a user name and password – I entered the Windows 7 Administrator user name and password. Again there will be a delay while XP “thinks” about all this; but once it’s through thinking the Windows 7 machine showed up in the My Network Places window.
- My laptop, which runs Vista business automatically found the Windows 7 machine when I clicked on Start -> Network, and I can access the Windows 7 machine from Vista without an issue.
Whew!!! I made some progress today and it was POSITIVE progress 
so now I’m quitting while I’m ahead!
For those of you that are “more technical” you can download a .pdf of the instructions that I found in the Windows 7 Help from the Technical Support Area of our main website, by clicking here.
Well I have my Windows 7 RC1 test machine setup – it’s a 64-bit machine instead of a 32-bit.
There is NO UPGRADE path from an XP machine to Windows 7, so you will need to do a clean install……this means that you had better back up all of your data to an external source and I mean ALL of your data, your Word files, your Excel files, your pdf’s any document you’ve ever downloaded from the internet that you would “die” without; because a clean install will erase everything from your hard drive.
Aren’t I just the bearer of good news? NOT!
But there is more…..
While the installation of Windows 7 was quick and painless all was not joyful.
I have a Samsung SyncMaster 213T Monitor (one of the really cool ones that you can pivot so that you can look at your monitor in Portrait rather than Landscape mode) well the monitor works, but the pivot ability doesn’t anymore and Samsung hasn’t updated the drivers and probably won’t. So bye-bye pivot feature 
My next “unjoyful” discovery is that Windows 7 doesn’t recognize the XP machines in our network AND our XP machines don’t recognize the Windows 7 machine.
Moral of this section of the story is – Windows 7 doesn’t play nice! And if you have a computer network that includes XP machines don’t expect your network to work like it used to and be prepared to replace your XP machines if you want to continue to work in a networked environment.
Ok, the good news (if you can call it that) is that Windows 7 recognizes my Vista Business Ultimate laptop and the laptop also recognizes the Windows 7 machine. So far, I haven’t really done much to check out how well they network – that’ will be next week so stay tuned.
More bad news…..as of yet, I cannot get Windows 7 to recognize either my LexMark T644 B&W duplexer printer OR my LexMark C524 Color Laser Printer – I’m sure that is mostly because both of those printers are connected to my XP machine and “shared”.
I was able to install my Cannon Pixma MX330 Multi(dys)functional printer and I can print from Windows 7! Wooo-hooooo!
The other interesting thing about Windows 7 is that in addition to allowing you to store things in Folders, you now also have Libraries. Gonna have to give me a day or two to figure that one out, but jeeze how many ways do you need to store your documents?
Ok, that’s it for now, stay tuned as I’ll be doing frequent (can’t guarantee daily) updates.
Over the last few months I’ve been reading everything I could get my hands on about Windows 7, in order to prepare myself for supporting yet ANOTHER version of the Windows Operating System. (Can you tell I’m just thrilled?)
Windows 7, according to all the “techie magazines” will start appearing pre-installed on new computers beginning October 22, 2009. Read this article for more information.
So with the news, I’ve decided that I need to jump on the band wagon and build a “test” machine using the Windows 7 Release Candidate (a “Release candidate ” is the version that is the last beta or test version that is released prior to a “final release” for the general public”. )
I’ll be posting updates as I work with the new version of Windows. But as always; we recommend that you do not run right out and buy the newest or latest & greatest version of anything.
I’m anticipating trouble with obtaining drivers for some of my existing equipment (which really isn’t all that old) and I’ll tell ya, I’m NOT looking forward to this; so be on the look out for “rants” in the upcoming weeks.
