These next two tricks are documented and will continue to work in future versions of Windows:

If you’re a command line person, you can run shutdown.exe, but that program supports only shutdown and restart; it doesn’t do stand-by or hibernate. But the shutdown.exe program has a serious flaw: It requires you to have administrator privileges. If you are a limited user with shutdown privileges, the shutdown.exe program will complain. (Which means that I don’t use it.)

Finally, if your computer isn’t using Fast User Switching, you can type the Ctrl+Alt+End hotkey, which is the Remote Desktop version of Ctrl+Alt+Del and consequently takes you to a dialog where you can do various system-type things, among them logging off and shutting down.

1. MSIE8 => Tools => Options => Tabs (subsection) => Settings (Button) => Opens Tab Settings Window
2. Tabs Setting Window => When a pop-up is encountered (subsection) => Always open pop-ups in a new tab

Nothing I want on my computer has blown up yet, and I’ve had no real issues.  (It helps that I was out of town for 2 of the last 3 days.)

I started by downloading the Upgrade Advisor.  Once downloaded, I ran it.  Largely, it ignored 80% of the applications installed on my computer.  But it did give me warm fuzzies that my hardware would support Windows 7 and except for my network drivers, all my drivers would support Windows 7.  I upgraded the network drivers (it took a bit of digging around to find the chipset on my NIC so that I could download the latest drivers direct from the manufacturer… since Dell has stopped supporting my hardware… go Dell… Spend over five grand on a XPS 720 H2C  system and you don’t even support the hardware for more than 2 years.)

Everything else was pretty much up to date.  It did have a curious recommendation that I uninstall iTunes prior to upgrading and then re-install.

So next was to read up on the Upgrade how to.  It was not very helpful.  It basically suggested that I put the install DVD in to the reader and press Next, Next, Next, Next… “Trussssst Microsssssoft” (images of the Snake from the Jungle Book with his hypnotic eyes and voice).  One of the useful recommendations (how useful, I don’t know since I did what it suggested), disable the Anti-Virus prior to upgrading to prevent Windows 7 upgrade from being treated as a virus during the upgrade process.  Good idea.

So I did.  Upgrade.

First thing, after agreeing to share debug information with Microsoft to help everyone else through the pains of upgrading to Windows 7, it tells me that in order to upgrade I have to reboot.  Of course, I didn’t believe it so I ran the upgrade again and got the same message.  Ok, now I trust you Microsoft (wink wink, nod nod)

After a reboot, the upgrade proceeded to inventory all of my settings and files.  This is part of the process of maintaining your profile during the upgrade so that you don’t have to rebuild all of your Vista personalization in 7.  If you’re on XP, you don’t get this option by the way.  If you’re XP, you’re in for a fresh install of the OS and every other application and configuration setting.  Goody me for being on Vista.

I walked away to grab a bite to eat, it was very late (after midnight, having been kept up by work) and I was hungry.  I came back to see that there was an error copying or reading some file (I’m fuzzy about the error, I’m writing this after about 6 hours of sleep, and I’m just waking up).  So I re-started the upgrade again.  Next, Next, Next, I trust you Microsoft.

About 2.5 hours after starting the process, I finally am able to log in to Windows 7.  It looks slightly different from Vista.  I’m not at all enamored with Vista.  It seems a bit faster, but not significantly.  Further testing is warranted as my suspicion gene currently thinks I’m having a knee jerk reaction to 2.5 hours of watching a progress bar, by comparsion, everything is faster.

I re-installed iTunes.  No problems there, I downloaded the latest version prior to upgrading so I had the 80MB install file sitting on my HDD ready and waiting.

I ran Windows Update to get the latest and great hotfixes (yup, Microsoft is already fixing things on Windows 7, I only just got my copy in the last couple of days and already there are patches.)

After the reboot, “Tages Protection” “Tages SA” driver was deemed incompatible with Windows 7 and disabled to prevent instability.  Never saw that on Vista (granted, that driver was almost certainly compatible with Vista, so I would never have had a chance to see it.)  I went digging around to see what Tages was.  It’s a CD protection scheme used to prevent CD duplication and software piracy.  I have no idea which of the various games I’ve installed came with Tages, but it has been removed.  I’ll know sooner or later whether that affects the games I play.

I don’t think I mention before, but when I first got this computer I foolishly upgraded my Outlook Express mail to the Windows Mail format…  I would have re-installed XP on my computer if not for the fact that I’d foolishly converted my mail store without a backup of the original Outlook Express mail store… But once my mail had been converted, I was stuck on Vista.

Interestingly enough, 7 does not come bundled with an email application.  You can download the latest revision of Outlook Express cum Windows Mail cum Windows Live Mail from Microsoft for free, which I did (also before upgrading in the first place, the Upgrade Advisor was useful for pointing out that I had to download Windows Live Mail to replace Windows Mail which no longer came bundled with the OS… but it didn’t catch that Tages SA, nor did it even look at 80% of the installed apps and games… ah well, no one’s person, especially Microsoft.)

Windows Live Mail isn’t much better than Windows Mail.  I’ll learn to live with it.

How to change from window to fullscreen mode:

CTRL-ALT-BREAK

SERVICES.MSC

From a CMD batch file:

mmc %systemroot%\system32\services.msc

Enter the Microsoft Technet Knowledgebase:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307881