R i g h t a r d i a: Windows 7 Home Pros and Cons

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Windows 7 Home Pros and Cons

Rightardia has been running on Linux for two years now but we purchased a low cost Gateway laptop from CompUSA that came with Windows 7 Home.

As expected, we started to get nickel-ed and dimed.

First we bought the Advanced system Optimizer 3 utility from Systweak for $39.00. but really wanted Advanced System Care which is only $29. We had used the latter utility on some Windows XP PCs. Regardless, Advanced System Optimizer worked fine.

We also had to purchase MS Office 2010 Plus because we needed Access for a database application and Libre or Open Office Base didn't work work correctly because of an ODBC issue.. We were able to download MS Office 2010 Pro for about $110 with a key. We also bought a proprietary version of Amcap for imagery capture for S29 for use with a special camera.

Norton AV was about to run out, so we purchased a version of it on Ebay and discovered we had ordered the Netbook version for about $20.. However, it works fine on Windows 64 bit Home Premium.

We are impressed with the Noton AV Netbook edition. Its only limitation appears to be it cannot do a compete hard drive scan, just the quick scan.

It comes with a tools you can download, too: the Norton Bootable Recovery Tool Wizard and a hard corp virus scanner called Norton Power Eraser that removes crime ware and root kits.

However, if you open Windows Explorer, you can right click on the hard drive to perform a complete C: drive scan with Norton Netbook edition.

The Norton Netbook edition can also scan network drives which is essential because Rightardia uses Networked Attached Storage (NAS) for backup.

We did find a limitation with Windows 7 Home Premium, It does not support to backup to a network drive, although you can create networking shares. .

This means you can backup to a local folder or a thumb drive and then you will have to copy the backup to the NAS device.

Why does Microsoft cripple its software like this?

AlmerBackup

We did find a backup utility called Almer Backup that can backup to a network drive in Windows Home Premium.This suggests that the windows backup software has the network limitation rather than the Windows 7 OS.

This is the windows tab so far

$ 39.00--Advanced System Optomizer utility
$110.00-MS Office 2010 Plus
$ 29.00 AMCAP
$ 20.00--Norton AV Netbook Edition
$ 29..00--Almer Backup
------------
$227.00 total

So we are up to nearly to another $230 in software that we would not need in Linux.

We were not surprised. Typically, a windows upgrade will cost close to $1000 after all of the new software you need is purchased.

That's why Rightrdia went open source. With Linux, we did not have to do the 3 to 5 year upgrade on our PCs because the older hardware ran faster on Linux than on XP Pro. The software for both clients and servers was was no cost and Linux networks using samba shares works with any Windows systems we need.

What is the big advantage of Windows over Linux. Well, windows games are hard to beat and it is challenge to get Windows games to run in Linux.

Of course, no would play computer games while at work, would they?

Subscribe to the Rightardia feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/UFPYA
Netcraft rank: 6266 http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http://rightardia.blogspot.com