Yesterday, Windows 7 release day, I got my download link and product key. I downloaded the ISO file and burned a DVD. The DVD was corrupt. No problem, I just downloaded it again on another computer (the first computer has had issues with burned media in the past, so it wasn’t too surprising). I got a working copy and gave it a go.

As an IT person, I do a lot of tech support. One thing I’ve learned is that you always, always do a clean install of an OS. Not an upgrade, a clean install. The point was moot in my case anyway, as you couldn’t do an upgrade from XP to 7, but even if I was upgrading (shudder) Vista I’d start from scratch. That way, you start with a clean slate, free of the cruft that accumulates after years of computing.

A nice new partition in front of me, I started the install. It went very quickly, surprisingly so. But when it came time to enter my product key, the product key that I had in an email from the Microsoft Store, the legitimate product key that I paid $50 for, it said it was invalid. Invalid? On release day? Googling around I saw that I could get around this during the install process by simply leaving the key blank. Doing a Twitter search showed me that sadly I was not the only person with this issue.

I get Windows 7 set up and successfully get to the desktop, and noodle around a bit. I then try to activate from within Windows. Again, it says that the key is invalid. It was getting late, and I was tired, so I decided to leave it until later; I had 30 days to activate, after all.

The error message the second time around at least gave me a hint: it said that the product key was only valid for “upgrades”, not clean installs. First of all, it is impossible to do a true upgrade from XP to Windows 7, and Microsoft knows that, so I didn’t understand quite how I could do an upgrade install. Second, Microsoft also knows that you should always do a clean install anyway, so discouraging people from doing that will just cause problems and make Windows 7 look bad. Third, this was completely different from how Windows upgrades used to work in the past: with all the Windows versions I was familiar with, if you did a clean install with an upgrade version, all you had to do was pop in the previous install DVD (in my case, my Windows XP install DVD, which I still have along with a valid product key) and all was well. But apparently not for Windows 7.

So today when I got home from work, I charged up my Bluetooth headset knowing I would need it, and called Microsoft. The first call to their automated activation line told me that the code was invalid. Well, duh. They suggested I call tech support. I did, and got somebody who was less than useless. That person sent me back to the activation line, where (surprise surprise) my code was still invalid 15 minutes later after calling the exact same number the first time. My urge to kill rising, I called tech support again and said I needed to talk to somebody with a clue who could get it to work.

I did talk to a real tech, but when I explained what I was doing, he insisted that the upgrade version of Windows 7 would not work with XP. I was flabbergasted: this directly contradicted the Microsoft Store’s own website! I very sternly insisted that what he was telling me was flatly untrue, and after conferring with his supervisor with a few minutes, his mind was changed. He then told me the solution: not a new product key, not somehow inserting my XP disc during the install, but doing an in-place upgrade of Vista over Vista!

This took about an hour and a half, and did eventually work. And to tell the truth, this is the solution I found earlier in the day after Googling around for a bit. I had debated just doing this from the get-go instead of calling Microsoft, but I figured that surely there would be a more elegant solution than that. Sadly, I was wrong, and two and a half hours of my night went down the drain.

So what have we learned? First of all, if you have Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade version, you do a clean install from XP, and you get an “invalid product key” error, an in-place upgrade will fix it. Simply leave the product key field blank during the Windows 7 install, then once you are in Windows 7, insert your install DVD and do an upgrade. It will take forever, but it will work and you can successfully activate your copy of Windows using the product key you have.

Secondly, we’ve learned that Microsoft thinks that its customers are not important to them. Instead, customers are treated like criminals. It doesn’t matter that I’ve never pirated Windows or other Microsoft software, it doesn’t matter that I have a legitimate copy of XP, it doesn’t matter that I bought Windows 7 from the Microsoft Store itself. What Microsoft cares about is an activation procedure so ridiculous it frustrates average users who are trying to avoid problems by doing a clean OS install. Not only that, but Microsoft’s own tech support people don’t know that the Upgrade version of Windows 7 can, in fact, be used to upgrade from XP. And instead of simply giving me a new product key that works, and trusting me, they make me waste over an hour doing a install over an install (and, incidentally, why does installing Vista over Vista take four times as long as a new install?)

I don’t know why Microsoft decided to change their install procedure to remove the quick, put-the-previous-install-DVD-in-the-drive method of verifying that yes, you are upgrading from a qualifying OS. Probably to cut down on piracy or other such nonsense. Well, I hope they enjoy that extra 0.5% of revenue.

As a result of all of this nonsense, I’m taking a much, much dimmer view of Microsoft from here on out. I’ve defended Windows to plenty of Linux and Mac fanboys, and I’ve always done it truthfully. I’m using Windows 7 right now to write this, and frankly I like the OS a lot from my short time using it. But if Microsoft is going to treat a paying customer like a pirate, then they can forget my support, not only as an individual user, but as somebody who works in IT and has input in purchasing decisions.

If Microsoft doesn’t turn this around, their decline will be well-deserved.

• Current Mood: Frustrated

I recently purchased a third monitor for my home computer. Why, you ask? Well, the extra screen area is useful, especially when it comes to using programs like Lightroom, but yes, the coolness factor of having three monitors staring back at me also played a part. I was looking forward to getting things up and running, but before long I ran into a show-stopper of a problem.

But before I get too far into that, some background and context is needed. I run Windows XP Professional 64-bit edition on my computer and have ever since I built its first incarnation almost four years ago; it currently has SP2, which turns out to be very important.. The two monitors I already had were running on an ATI Radeon HD 4800 video card, with no problems. The motherboard I have is an Asus M3N78-EM with integrated NVidia GeForce 8300 video.

I never used the integrated NVidia video before since I had the Radeon card, but the new monitor meant that I would have to enable it and use it for monitor #3. I did so, and at first, everything appeared normal: desktop on all three monitors, things working well enough. But when I started up a program with video, bam, BSOD: “The driver is mismanaging system PTEs”. After more experimentation, it appeared that ANY video on any monitor would crash the system, even something as simple as looking at the radar loop on the NOAA website. Obviously, this wouldn’t fly.

So I did some research, and it didn’t take long at all before I determined that this is a known problem, and a widespread one at that: turns out that people running Windows XP 64-bit with SP2 see this all the time with NVidia drivers. Solutions were very few and far between, though, and plenty of people were very upset that NVidia had not come up with a fix despite many complaints, and despite the time that had elapsed: I found reports of the bug as early as March 2007.

I tried mucking about in the registry as described here, but it did no good. I tried removing all of the video drivers and using Driver Cleaner and CCleaner to get everything out, then installing the latest drivers, also no good. Most of my research devolved into finding threads like this, where there is no solution and everybody vows never to buy NVidia again. Finally, though, I found this magic thread, and a possible solution.

I downloaded the file and gave it a try. At first, when I tried to copy the SP1 version of the videoprt.sys file, Windows System File Protection service simply replaced it with the current, SP2 version. After booting into Safe Mode, though, I was able to make the switch stick, and voilà! Three monitors without crashing!

Thus, my solution was as follows:

1. Download the SP1 version of videoprt.sys
2. Boot into Safe Mode.
3. Rename the existing videoprt.sys files in both Windows\system32\drivers AND Windows\system32\dllcache to something else.
4. Copy the SP1 version of videoprt.sys to both of the above folders.
5. Reboot into normal mode.

Who’s to blame here? Well, despite the fact that NVidia says this is an “Operating System” issue, the fact that they let this go on for years without a real driver fix puts the blame squarely on them. Yes, Windows Update breaks software. It will continue to break software. But when this happens, it is the duty of the software makers to fix it, not blame Microsoft. I doubt that the technical issues surrounding the fix were so daunting that NVidia could not have figured out a solution. That they didn’t shows that they don’t care much for their users, even if Windows XP 64-bit users make up just a tiny slice of their user universe.

As for Microsoft, I like the concept of System File Protection. I don’t like that I can’t easily get around it or explicitly say “Yes, I know what I’m doing, get out of my way”. I realize that given your security philosophy, System File Protection is useful in protecting Windows against malicious code, but it seems hacktacular. Find a better way.

Finally, I’ve learned my lesson: I won’t be buying NVidia anymore either.

• Current Mood: TGIF