Windows Upgrading Problems
February 25th, 2009 by ComputerBob
Regular readers of this Journal know that I began using free and open-source Linux operating systems full-time instead of Windows back in July, 2006. My desktop looked very much like a Windows desktop, but Linux was completely free — and came with hundreds of completely free software applications.
Then, after using Kubuntu Linux for a month, and Mepis Linux for over a year, I switched to Debian Linux in December, 2007.
In May, 2008, I upgraded from what was then the “Debian Stable” branch (Etch) to what was then the “Debian Testing” branch (Lenny). At the time, I chose to do a brand new installation of Lenny in a different hard drive partition than Etch, but I could have done that upgrade by simply changing my Debian software repositories to point to the Lenny software and then issued a couple of commands to tell my computer to automatically upgrade to all of the latest packages in that new repository.
You see, when you upgrade a Linux installation, you aren’t just upgrading your operating system — you’re upgrading all of your system’s software applications, drivers, libraries and everything. All in one step — by just issuing a couple of commands. There are even several different GUI interfaces that allow you to do updates/upgrades even easier — by pointing and clicking.
I used the typed commands a few days ago, when I upgraded my Debian PC again — this time from Debian Lenny to Debian Squeeze (the newest “Debian Testing” branch).
The entire upgrade took less than 15 minutes, including downloading 210 upgrades and waiting for my computer to automatically install and configure all of them. I didn’t have to reboot my PC after any of the upgrades, and when the upgrade was complete, I could have simply continued to use my PC without rebooting it. (In my case, I chose to reboot it, just to confirm that the upgrade hadn’t caused any problems that would have kept it from rebooting.)
I built my PC about 6 years ago, from parts that I ordered online. It’s got an AMD Athlon XP 2100+ processor and 1GB of RAM. I’ve never had to upgrade any of my computer’s hardware in order to be able to use Linux. In fact, when I upgraded from Debian Etch to Debian Lenny, my computer actually ran noticeably faster with the newer Lenny than it had with Etch — a speed increase that continues with my recent upgrade to Squeeze.
On the other hand, anyone who’s ever done a Windows upgrade knows that it’s a very long, complicated, and usually-expensive process that almost always requires you to upgrade or replace one or more components of your computer’s hardware. And it almost always involves having to manually find, download and install several different drivers to make Windows work with your particular hardware. And it always requires you to reboot your computer several times.
And deal with the often-problematic Windows validation processes and issues.
And don’t forget all of that Microsoft DRM stuff, too.
And when you finish all of that, your operating system has been upgraded, but none of your software applications have been. So you have to manually find, download and install newer versions of several of them.
And reboot your computer one or more times during/after each upgrade.
And when you’re finally all done upgrading Windows and all of your software applications, you end up with a computer that runs slower than it did with the older version of Windows.
And has more DRM and licensing restrictions than the older version had.
Since Microsoft hopes to release Windows 7, the Windows Vista replacement, later this year, all of this upgrade information is really relevant for users to consider.
Especially since now there is evidence suggesting that users who upgrade to Windows 7 may run into previously unreported problems.
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Tags:
Consumer Info, Debian, Hardware, Linux, Microsoft, Software, Tech Support, Windows