Windows 7, Upgrading from Vista Options

[Duffanator]

Has anyone done an upgrade from Windows Vista to Windows 7 yet? I had recently bought a new computer and it came with a free upgrade to Windows 7 when it comes out later this month. I'm just wondering if anyone has had any experiences (good or bad) with doing the upgrade. The computer in question has Vista premium 64 bit. I know at least one of you Techno-freaks has done this already!

[BobB]

Have a look here - some helpful information
You may have to join. The send out newsletters too.
http://www.windowssecrets.com/

[NeTree]

I am thinking it will be best to wait just a little bit to not have problems with our software and PLC's?

[Crossbow]

If you're programming PLCs with it, don't upgrade yet. It will be many many months before vendors release new versions certified to work on a new OS. There are many things about PLC software not written as cleanly as other PC titles, or using little known functions that suddenly disappear during an upgrade.

Our company still has Windows XP on all our PCs, and has no plan to even consider an upgrade to Windows 7 for at least a year, since Microsoft usually spends about 6 months fixing the bugs in a new OS. I know companies still using Windows 2000 for their PLC programming, as it was smaller, faster, and much more stable.

I use VMware, and keep different OS loaded in different virtual machines, so I can pick any one I want.

[kaare_t]

I also agree with Crossbow and others, you should not use Windows 7. We also use XP in our computers at the office since XP now runs pretty stable and all (not just Mitsubishi software) seems to run pretty fine on XP. In my experience, Vista has just started to work pretty OK for all my applications (I would say about 6-9 months ago) so I think it will take some time before I'm comfortable with upgrading to Windows 7. In any case I would never upgrade before SP1 is released! I never upgrade my OS before the first service pack has been released and this has often proven to be a good solution!

I could also mention that the current version of GX Works I'm testing does not support any kindof 64bit OS (won't install at all).

Basically, if you have time to spend and you want to try new things I would upgrade to Windows 7. If you're a busy man I would stick with what is known to work.....

[Crossbow]

I can run the Mitsubishi software (which does not support 64-bit OS) on a 64-bit machine. You just install it on a virtual machine using VMWare, and install a 32-bit OS on that virtual machine. I've had no problems communicating with any PLC products through VMware.

[paulengr]

I also agree with Crossbow and others, you should not use Windows 7. We also use XP in our computers at the office since XP now runs pretty stable and all (not just Mitsubishi software) seems to run pretty fine on XP. In my experience, Vista has just started to work pretty OK for all my applications (I would say about 6-9 months ago)

That hasn't been my experience. I bought a laptop in March and it came with the Vista virus. After 2 weeks of nothing but frustration on my part, and note that I'm not even referring to PLC software since it was for home use only, I finally erased it and put a copy of Ubuntu on it with XP running in a virtual machine on top of that for the few applications that don't run native in Linux or under Wine. I noticed a 500% speed increase almost immediately. Including BIOS time (which is half of it), I can boot and be web surfing in 45 seconds. I've checked this with a stop watch. With the Vista virus, I wouldn't even be clicking on the application for at least 90 seconds, even if I constantly ran in hibernation mode. To say nothing of the wonderful browsing experience of feeling like I'm way too drunk and operating in a huge alcohol induced brain fog that makes everything seem to slow to a crawl, and the constant nagware about "security violations" such as creating a new folder on the local hard drive. Why do I have to quadruple click on everything? (double click to anything that would require a single click on any other OS, followed by double clicking again after being asked if I really meant to do something benign) Why is it that every time I try to install an application on Vista, my gut feeling is "oh no, here we go again"? How come other OS's look like a Nike commercial..."Just Do It!"?

Windows 7 is supposed to be Vista done right. Why can't Microsoft just simply scrap Vista and start over with something they actually did right, such as starting with XP or DOS 5.0? DOS 5.0 is still to this day the one OS Microsoft ever wrote that I would consider "done right the first time".

[kaare_t]

Hehe......
Well, I had myself a good laugh reading your post and having my first cigarette this morning and all the constructive feedback (a bit fed up with Microsoft are we??)

No, seriuosly, I've had some problems with Vista myself so I kind of understand you. However I would say that most of your problems are probably caused by a "too small" computer. I have a stationary computer at home running Vista with a quad core CPU and 8Gb of RAM and it runs Vista smoothly. I've also tried some brand new laptops with Vista and they also run pretty OK, so I think we have to face the fact that Vista is here to stay for some time...

In addition, the security "problems" you are experiencing can be switched off (just turn of the UAC). By the way, when you run Ubuntu you also have to log in as an administrator when you need to make system changes, right? The UAC will also (according to Microsoft) be adjustable in Windows 7 so lets hope they'll do that!!

Good luck with running Mitsubishi software on Ubuntu

[BobB]

I have been using Vista Business since SP1 without a hitch.
I use Omron and all there software is Vista compliant.
So is all the other software I use.
Have not had a blue screen of death - more than I can say for XP Pro.
Used to have to completely re-install XP Pro every 3-6 months!
Vista has been absolutely great with no problems at all.
I also have Vista Business on my Dell Vostro 1710 laptop.
Once again not a problem at all.
Best OS Microsoft have ever produced in my view.

This post has been edited by BobB: Oct 14 2009, 03:38 PM

[Nathan]

Bob - if you love Vista, you'll certainly love 7! It's pretty much the same at the core, with a lot more done right.

[paulengr]

Hehe......
Well, I had myself a good laugh reading your post and having my first cigarette this morning and all the constructive feedback (a bit fed up with Microsoft are we??)

No, seriuosly, I've had some problems with Vista myself so I kind of understand you. However I would say that most of your problems are probably caused by a "too small" computer. I have a stationary computer at home running Vista with a quad core CPU and 8Gb of RAM and it runs Vista smoothly. I've also tried some brand new laptops with Vista and they also run pretty OK, so I think we have to face the fact that Vista is here to stay for some time...

It's a Core 2 Duo Intel processor with 4 GB of RAM. Compared to what it should be doing, it was slow as all get out.

In addition, the security "problems" you are experiencing can be switched off (just turn of the UAC). By the way, when you run Ubuntu you also have to log in as an administrator when you need to make system changes, right?

I don't see where that matters. A system change should be flagged. Linux systems do not have or need virus checkers, partly because users are walled off from the kernel unless they specifically permit access. Creating a new folder in a user directory is NOT, I repeat NOT a security violation and shouldn't require an end user to login as anything.

The UAC will also (according to Microsoft) be adjustable in Windows 7 so lets hope they'll do that!!

OK, then when/if I upgrade or change machines and I've recorded home movies of my daughters on Microsoft software, why do I need to call Microsoft for permission to access my home movies? Or if I am using my desktop as a DVR and then of all the sneaky evil things I try to do, I try to watch it from my laptop. That sounds like a huge security violation to me!

Good luck with running Mitsubishi software on Ubuntu

It's not a problem. How did Microsoft make it so that you could do that with Windows Vista/Windows 7? They created the XP compatibility mode, which is nothing more than a virtual machine running Windows XP. I use the same trick to run Allen Bradley software. And guess what else, it works on every operating system out there that supports virtual machines.

[kaare_t]

paulengr:
Maybe you should start a topic describing how to run PLC software on Linux then. I bet several people would be interested in that

[TWControls]

It's not a problem. How did Microsoft make it so that you could do that with Windows Vista/Windows 7? They created the XP compatibility mode, which is nothing more than a virtual machine running Windows XP. I use the same trick to run Allen Bradley software. And guess what else, it works on every operating system out there that supports virtual machines.

Paul, you have successfully ran AB and Mitsubishi software with some flavor of Linux and Vmware running XP?

[paulengr]

It's not a problem. How did Microsoft make it so that you could do that with Windows Vista/Windows 7? They created the XP compatibility mode, which is nothing more than a virtual machine running Windows XP. I use the same trick to run Allen Bradley software. And guess what else, it works on every operating system out there that supports virtual machines.

Paul, you have successfully ran AB and Mitsubishi software with some flavor of Linux and Vmware running XP?

On servers, I've successfully used Xenserver. It is much more cost effective, efficient, and doesn't have the nasty single-point-of-failure problem that VMware has. Plus, their licensing scheme doesn't require an advanced accounting degree to figure out and take up 45 pages of the manual to explain it. I have a friend who has had a similar level of success with Virtual Iron which is designed as a much larger overall system involving potentially dozens of servers. Either way, all of these server (and hardware support-based) systems actually use the Xen virtual machine code which was a PhD project and has since been overseen by the xen.org folks as a free code base. I don't know what Microsoft's Hyper-V is based on but I have a sneaky suspicion that it's probably a Xen hypervisor as well. I've tested VMWare once in a while and it does OK but I prefer Xen for simplicity and reliability reasons. Xenserver requires hardware (VT type) assistance from the CPU, but most server-grade processors already have this.

On a hypervisor platform, it doesn't matter if you run XP, 2000, or Vista. Those systems don't know what a "hypervisor" is and will not detect it. They run just fine. Windows 7 and Server 2008 actually recognize hypervisors (mostly for licensing purposes), so YMMV when it comes to these two. I have no experience running them on a hypervisor. The biggest hassle is that EVERYTHING is virtual. You have virtual drives, virtual NIC cards, virtual displays, virtual keyboards, virtual mice, and especially, virtual everything else to talk to the outside world. For the most common items, this isn't a problem. However, USB ports especially are a big problem. You just can't "get there from here". However, you can get "device servers" with USB or serial ports (often called an ethernet USB extender for the USB variety). These come with a software program that you load (on your virtual machine). The real device hangs off an IP port and the virtual stuff talks to the virtual device driver. This even works with Aladdin USB key dongles (I've tried two different ethernet USB port extenders), in spite of the fact that those dongles often give me all kinds of hassles when they are attached to USB hubs.

If you are running a type 2 virtual machine, which means you are running a virtual machine hosted in another operating system, this gets a lot more dicey. In this case, the virtual machine has to intercept the code stream and rewrite key components of the virtualized operating system in order to make things work relatively well (unless the host OS is running on a processor that supports virtualization). Xen is behind on this sort of thing and just recently managed to get a true type 2 virtual machine capability. The three leaders in this area are VMWare, Parallels, and Sun VirtualBox. Note that performance is not going to be nearly as good without hardware virtual machine support, but then again, not too many people are buying laptops with Xeon processors in them either. VMWare is the most popular on Windows but has some odd habits that I can't quite explain. Parallels is probably the most polished. VirtualBox is the one I'm most familiar with because it seems to work the best for me in anything I throw at it, and it works flawlessly under Linux, Mac, and Windows. It is trivially easy to interface VirtualBox to the host machine's serial ports (if any), which solves the problem of interfacing to Allen Bradley PLC's. If you have some other kind of strange hardware and you can get it in a USB form-factor, again, VirtualBox will interface to it and give you USB ports.

[Duffanator]

Where do you get Ubuntu from? I've always been interested in trying it but I never knew anything about it. Is it just something you can download off the internet or do you have to buy it from somewhere? The only thing I've ever know is Microsoft products and since another one of my Xbox 360's just died I'm looking for something other than Microsoft. haha.

[kaare_t]

www.ubuntu.com - free to download/use

Try google and you'll find a lot of information

[paulengr]

Where do you get Ubuntu from? I've always been interested in trying it but I never knew anything about it. Is it just something you can download off the internet or do you have to buy it from somewhere? The only thing I've ever know is Microsoft products and since another one of my Xbox 360's just died I'm looking for something other than Microsoft. haha.

www.ubuntu.com

You can download a "Live CD". Performance-wise this isn't all that great because accessing the CD drive is slow. But, you can simply turn your machine off, boot from a "Live CD" and try out Ubuntu. If you don't like it, restart your machine and it's gone. If you do like it, then go ahead and click the "Install" button on the desktop right off the Live CD. It also leads you through repartitioning your hard drive so that you can move over some of your Windows partitions and make space for it to fit on your hard drive, and handles dual-booting automatically for you. This allows you to boot into Ubuntu or Windows natively any time you want.

Ubuntu is essentially a "Windows" flavor of Linux. It's the best version I've seen for "home" users or newbies to Unix systems. No worries about doing your own compiling and such. Everything "just works" right out of the box, at least far more often than it does with Vista. It comes with an amazing amount of free (and high quality) software. Unix has always come with so much software out of the box that it makes Windows seem very bare bones, but getting and installing (or removing) software can be a very frustrating experience for nonprogrammers with Unix systems. Ubuntu made all that almost too easy. Right at the bottom of the Applications menu (similar to the Windows "Start->Programs" menu), you can just check off boxes to add/remove any applications in their vast library. If you want even more software, you can configure it to access further software servers. Also, the help menus "just work".

VirtualBox which I mentioned is available right off that "Add/Remove Programs" application (now called Ubuntu Software Center under version 9.10). Just find it and check it off, and it will download and install for you without any clicks at all. Virtual machines are created via a wizard system that leads you through the build process that takes all of about 1-2 minutes to complete. I believe that it is possible to get VirtualBox to boot directly off your Windows partition (if you have one) but I never tried to do this.

[TWControls]

I'll have to look into VirtualBox. Thanks for the info Paul!

[Sleepy Wombat]

TW, I run vista, and then run Virtual box running a XP Pro Virtual machine for AB software and programmed a SLC via an Omron USB - RS232 convertor etc. I have not reinstalled siemens yet but when I do it will be on its own Virtual PC so it can infect that machine only since it behaves and runs numerous services like a virus.
Recently on site commissioning, the hotel had a wireless network, could not get on with Vista, run the Virtual XP and could get on.. go figure.... ?

[paulengr]

TW, I run vista, and then run Virtual box running a XP Pro Virtual machine for AB software and programmed a SLC via an Omron USB - RS232 convertor etc. I have not reinstalled siemens yet but when I do it will be on its own Virtual PC so it can infect that machine only since it behaves and runs numerous services like a virus.
Recently on site commissioning, the hotel had a wireless network, could not get on with Vista, run the Virtual XP and could get on.. go figure.... ?

Vista has yet another incarnation of the Windows "home networking" (what to do if you don't have a domain controller) stuff (aka Windows for Workgroups for those who were around in the Windows 3.1 days). This sometimes causes network conflicts where you can't connect to anything. The TCP/IP driver might be fine but since a lot of hotels try to do all kinds of strange authentication, Vista (or any version of Windows) may fail inexplicably.

[TWControls]

TW, I run vista, and then run Virtual box running a XP Pro Virtual machine for AB software and programmed a SLC via an Omron USB - RS232 convertor etc. I have not reinstalled siemens yet but when I do it will be on its own Virtual PC so it can infect that machine only since it behaves and runs numerous services like a virus.
Recently on site commissioning, the hotel had a wireless network, could not get on with Vista, run the Virtual XP and could get on.. go figure.... ?

Hadn't thought about creating a Virtual box for different PLC brands. Good idea Sleepy!