TechnoLawyer

Originally published on April 28, 2010 in our free SmallLaw newsletter.

We've all heard that bad things happen in three's. I'm tired of negativity. Why not focus on the positive? With today's column, I'm kicking off a series of monthly columns, each of which will offer three tips to help your small firm tackle a technology hurdle. Today, let's explore whether it makes sense to move to Windows 7. Is it safe? Should you upset your reasonably stable Windows XP apple cart? Can you avoid the nightmare otherwise known as Vista?

Vista Be Gone

I have written extensively about the product I quickly came to refer to as Windows Vista or MOPH (My Own Personal Hell), and the time it wasted, the angst it engendered, and the outpouring of public vitriol at the sheer callous offensiveness of the product.

Continuing to berate Vista serves no practical purpose, largely since with the release of Windows 7 in October 2009, Microsoft seems to have made a comprehensive mea culpa for the errors of its previous operating system ways. These included:

• Incompatibility With Peripherals: The inability to reliably use even relatively recent vintage printers, scanners, and other devices confounded more than a few Vista victims.


• Unreliability: Vista was so bloated with running services and its own clumsy applications that its raison d'etre as an operating system was short-circuited. It just didn't really … operate.


• False Security: Absurd and thinly veiled attempts to create a false sense of digital security through a series of marketing-driven warnings and notifications in the form of the dreaded UACs (User Account Control) messages. Some users could literally see 50+ of these permission requests in an hour of work. And the technology behind the "warnings"? Often nothing more than a fraudulent intent to create a sense of security where none really existed.

We could go on, but to what end? Microsoft effectively acknowledged its colossal mistake by continuously extending the life of Windows XP. Enterprise buyers refused to drink whatever minimalist Vista Kool-Aid Microsoft offered and stayed away in droves. To its credit, Microsoft routinely indirectly acknowledged Vista's inadequacy, largely by rapidly accelerating the development and release of its successor, Windows 7. After perhaps the largest and longest public beta testing process this side of Google's products, Windows 7 rolled out after months of positive reviews of its surprisingly stable "release candidate" versions.

Tip One: Windows 7 Actually Works

Let's explore the conclusion first. Yes, Windows 7 is reliable and worth the upgrade/migration process. It works. Finally an operating system from Microsoft that does in fact … operate.

It's safe. Safer to use earlier in its life than any Microsoft operating system in memory. It's actually good enough to draw semi-positive comments from Mac users (i.e., "It's actually not that bad" — yes, that's high praise from any Mac user when referencing a Microsoft operating system).

Tip Two: The Best Things About Windows 7 Are Substantive

Vista, may it not rest in peace, supplanted substance for fluff — silly eye candy that was both superfluous and insulting in its utter lack of respect for a user's ability to accomplish anything of functional value.

Windows 7, however, excels in several distinct areas including the following, all of which could be said to be the virtual opposite of corresponding Vista functions:

• Reliable access and exploitation of systems with more than 2 GB of RAM courtesy of a more compatible 64-bit version than Vista offered.


• Less intrusive sub-applications and less menu clutter.


• Feels more "XP-like." That it is a compliment of the first order, referring to the perception of workmanlike operability of XP.


• Peripheral compatibility is dramatically improved. Windows 7 also benefits from years of driver automation and refinement.


• Performance — Windows 7 is smart enough to know when to get out of its own way. About time Microsoft — and frankly, nicely done.

Tip Three: Best Practices for Windows 7 Upgrades

The best approach is to move your practice to Windows 7 by buying it pre-installed on new, Windows 7-certified/compatible/friendly PC systems. If you're a Windows XP user, just wait out the lifecycle of those systems and retire them. If you're a Vista victim, by all means, rescue yourself as soon as you can. However, going the upgrade route is possible.

Upgrading to Windows 7 for most law practices will involve a "bare metal" process on an existing Windows XP system. Windows 7 cannot perform a direct upgrade from Windows versions earlier than Vista — a fresh installation is required. However, as part of the process, the prior Windows system is saved under a Windows.Old file structure — the older files can still be accessed, although the older version of Windows cannot run (unless of course the system's drive is partitioned and the prior version of Windows is maintained, with a dual-boot structure being created).

As always, performing an operating system upgrade is cleaner and much less problematic when a fresh installation is involved. The process of overwriting a prior operating system with "in place" upgrades has virtually always yielded a digital mess — the detritus of the old operating system tainting the reliability of the new. So even Vista users — the few out there in a law practice situation — should serious consider clean installations rather than in-place upgrades.

Windows uberguru Paul Thurott recommends a three step process for a Windows 7 upgrade on non-Vista systems.

1. Backup your crucial data and settings using Windows Easy Transfer (it's on the Windows 7 Setup DVD). Make note of the applications that are installed, because you'll have to manually reinstall them again after the fact.


2. Perform a clean install of Windows 7 using the upgrade media.


3. Restore your crucial data and settings using Windows Easy Transfer (part of Windows 7) and then reinstall your applications.

Microsoft has a helpful online resource to help small businesses through the upgrade consideration process. You'll find un-Microsoft-like simple explanations of the volume license process when five or more systems are involved, and learn about the upgrade compatibility/compliance testing to determine the success likelihood based on your present hardware platforms.

Written by Ross Kodner of MicroLaw.

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