Oh for crying out loud!
Look, there's a standard for what happens when you buy a software upgrade. Either that's just done on the honor system or the upgrade install asks to see your original software disc. Not so Windows 7 (which I'm learning to hate just as much as you might think). No. The plan for installing a Windows 7 upgrade on a freshly formatted hard drive is to install XP or Vista first and then install Windows 7 over top of it.
The product key is for an upgrade version of Windows 7 and a previous version of Windows wasn't on your computer when Windows 7 was installed. To install an upgrade version of Windows 7, Windows Vista or Windows XP must be installed on your computer. If you formatted the drive before starting the installation process, you won't be able to use the upgrade product key to activate Windows 7. To activate Windows 7, you'll need to install your previous version of Windows, and then reinstall Windows 7. For help with the activation process, go to the Microsoft Support website.- from the Windows support site If only XP and Vista had a bullshit registration system such that Microsoft could identify product keys for those products ... then this could simply ask for two 25 character strings - the original license and the upgrade. But nooooo. I'm going to try copying an old XP virtual machine and see if I can upgrade that. We'll see. Grrr.
Look, there's a standard for what happens when you buy a software upgrade. Either that's just done on the honor system or the upgrade install asks to see your original software disc. Not so Windows 7 (which I'm learning to hate just as much as you might think). No. The plan for installing a Windows 7 upgrade on a freshly formatted hard drive is to install XP or Vista first and then install Windows 7 over top of it.
- from the Windows support site
If only XP and Vista had a bullshit registration system such that Microsoft could identify product keys for those products ... then this could simply ask for two 25 character strings - the original license and the upgrade. But nooooo.
I'm going to try copying an old XP virtual machine and see if I can upgrade that. We'll see. Grrr.
The product key is for an upgrade version of Windows 7 and a previous version of Windows wasn't on your computer when Windows 7 was installed. To install an upgrade version of Windows 7, Windows Vista or Windows XP must be installed on your computer. If you formatted the drive before starting the installation process, you won't be able to use the upgrade product key to activate Windows 7. To activate Windows 7, you'll need to install your previous version of Windows, and then reinstall Windows 7. For help with the activation process, go to the Microsoft Support website.
- from the Windows support site
If only XP and Vista had a bullshit registration system such that Microsoft could identify product keys for those products ... then this could simply ask for two 25 character strings - the original license and the upgrade. But nooooo.
I'm going to try copying an old XP virtual machine and see if I can upgrade that. We'll see. Grrr.
Interesting D&D Interview at the Escapist
If you're interested in D&D I think this interview has a lot of interesting tidbits in it: discussions about what they changed and why.
AM: What is the audience for today's Dungeons and Dragons, and how is that different from the audience for my Dungeons and Dragons, growing up in the '80s and early '90s? AC: One thing we certainly saw over the course of 2nd edition was the audience did tend to age along with the game. The game was a very playable, a very entertaining system, but it didn't necessarily speak to the people who were coming up into the optimal RPG age category through new ways. When we were all playing 1st and 2nd Edition, we didn't cut our teeth on MMOs or console gaming or Facebook or any of those things. At best, maybe we had experience playing Monopoly or games like that, Risk, so that D&D was a totally foreign thing. That's just not true anymore.
If you're interested in D&D I think this interview has a lot of interesting tidbits in it: discussions about what they changed and why.
AM: What is the audience for today's Dungeons and Dragons, and how is that different from the audience for my Dungeons and Dragons, growing up in the '80s and early '90s?
AC: One thing we certainly saw over the course of 2nd edition was the audience did tend to age along with the game. The game was a very playable, a very entertaining system, but it didn't necessarily speak to the people who were coming up into the optimal RPG age category through new ways. When we were all playing 1st and 2nd Edition, we didn't cut our teeth on MMOs or console gaming or Facebook or any of those things. At best, maybe we had experience playing Monopoly or games like that, Risk, so that D&D was a totally foreign thing. That's just not true anymore.
Upgrading from Windows 7 RC
Are you somebody who has been running the Windows 7 RC until its last gasp like me? Were you troubled to find out that you can't upgrade from the RC to a release copy of Windows 7? Well, here's a site explaining how to talk the release version into upgrading a RC machine. This saved me several hours this weekend as well a probable trip onsite to get domain & admin stuff sorted out. (And a hat tip to Lifehacker, where I saw the link.)
If you did go read that you might be shaking your head to yourself and going "it can't be that easy". It is - I just finished the upgrade and everything is working fine. I had to reinstall some system-level tools - the VMWare Fusion tools and the Cisco VPN client but after that it looks great.
The reason you can't upgrade Windows 7 RC to a legitimate purchased copy of Windows 7 is that there's a text file listing a minimum version number that blocks it. Edit that text file to include the RC version number (7100) and there's no problem at all. Microsoft deliberately chose to screw over the RC users.
Note that even as it was it took several hours to install. I bought a legal copy of the software, my RC install was completely patched. It really should have been a simple "Oh OK here's a legitimate license key that I paid for. We cool?" five minute thing. Really the whole mess is just hostile. Fuckin' Microsoft ....
Are you somebody who has been running the Windows 7 RC until its last gasp like me? Were you troubled to find out that you can't upgrade from the RC to a release copy of Windows 7? Well, here's a site explaining how to talk the release version into upgrading a RC machine. This saved me several hours this weekend as well a probable trip onsite to get domain & admin stuff sorted out. (And a hat tip to Lifehacker, where I saw the link.)
If you did go read that you might be shaking your head to yourself and going "it can't be that easy". It is - I just finished the upgrade and everything is working fine. I had to reinstall some system-level tools - the VMWare Fusion tools and the Cisco VPN client but after that it looks great.
The reason you can't upgrade Windows 7 RC to a legitimate purchased copy of Windows 7 is that there's a text file listing a minimum version number that blocks it. Edit that text file to include the RC version number (7100) and there's no problem at all. Microsoft deliberately chose to screw over the RC users.
Note that even as it was it took several hours to install. I bought a legal copy of the software, my RC install was completely patched. It really should have been a simple "Oh OK here's a legitimate license key that I paid for. We cool?" five minute thing. Really the whole mess is just hostile. Fuckin' Microsoft ....
If you did go read that you might be shaking your head to yourself and going "it can't be that easy". It is - I just finished the upgrade and everything is working fine. I had to reinstall some system-level tools - the VMWare Fusion tools and the Cisco VPN client but after that it looks great.
The reason you can't upgrade Windows 7 RC to a legitimate purchased copy of Windows 7 is that there's a text file listing a minimum version number that blocks it. Edit that text file to include the RC version number (7100) and there's no problem at all. Microsoft deliberately chose to screw over the RC users.
Note that even as it was it took several hours to install. I bought a legal copy of the software, my RC install was completely patched. It really should have been a simple "Oh OK here's a legitimate license key that I paid for. We cool?" five minute thing. Really the whole mess is just hostile. Fuckin' Microsoft ....
Registering as a user
If you've registered as a user (in order to comment) and never received a password please try the login link again and click "Lost your password?" and hopefully it will work. If it doesn't let me know. I don't think there's anybody registered who doesn't know my email address, or you could DM me on Twitter.
Turns out that it was working for me but if your mail host was restrictive on the domain name of the mail sending machine the mail would get bounced. But now you'll get an email from Gmail so it should work fine.
If you've registered as a user (in order to comment) and never received a password please try the login link again and click "Lost your password?" and hopefully it will work. If it doesn't let me know. I don't think there's anybody registered who doesn't know my email address, or you could DM me on Twitter.
Turns out that it was working for me but if your mail host was restrictive on the domain name of the mail sending machine the mail would get bounced. But now you'll get an email from Gmail so it should work fine.
Turns out that it was working for me but if your mail host was restrictive on the domain name of the mail sending machine the mail would get bounced. But now you'll get an email from Gmail so it should work fine.
More Muppets
I posted before about the new Muppet video so I imagine I should as least point out this new one.
I don't know, I'm of mixed mind. I chuckled but I don't know that all that thrilled about Muppets becoming internet commentary meta-memes. I just think that's ultimately limiting. I was hoping this was starting somesort of bigger comeback for the Muppets but I don't think making fun of YouTube will lead to anything bigger.
I posted before about the new Muppet video so I imagine I should as least point out this new one.
I don't know, I'm of mixed mind. I chuckled but I don't know that all that thrilled about Muppets becoming internet commentary meta-memes. I just think that's ultimately limiting. I was hoping this was starting somesort of bigger comeback for the Muppets but I don't think making fun of YouTube will lead to anything bigger.
I don't know, I'm of mixed mind. I chuckled but I don't know that all that thrilled about Muppets becoming internet commentary meta-memes. I just think that's ultimately limiting. I was hoping this was starting somesort of bigger comeback for the Muppets but I don't think making fun of YouTube will lead to anything bigger.