A few weeks ago Microsoft released Windows Vista RC1 (Build 5600) and I got a little excited. I've been telling myself that Vista was not worth the trouble until it hits RC. There have been too many other things to spend my time on than struggling with a Beta OS (no matter how fun that can be). This is my (ongoing) story of setting up and exploring this new piece of software.
First up, Where to Install
I'm pretty much a virtual machine junkie but I don't want to install Vista in a VM. I've read enough about it to know that it has some hefty hardware requirements to get all of the cool new effects and I've got a fairly beefy machine (Details on my machine are here) but VM performance is still not optimal. I think I'll install it on a separate hard drive on my main machine (I'm not ready to have it completely replace my WinXP install yet. It has to prove ready first). I wonder if it will install on an external USB drive? I'll have to find out. All right, lets install this sucker. Uh oh.
Really First up, Get the Software
Told you I was excited. So excited I forgot to get the images. A looong download and some DVD burning later I've got 2 DVD's of Vista RC1 (build 5600). One for x86 and one for x64. Lets get to installin'
The Install (First try)
Flip a mental coin and I decide to try and install the x86 version first. I reboot the machine with the DVD in the drive and make sure I boot from it. I get a nice screen with a progress bar that says Windows is loading and after a few seconds that screen goes away and a bright greenish colored background image shows up. Hard disk and DVD are still showing activity and a few seconds later a mouse cursor appears in the middle of the screen. I can move the cursor around with the mouse, cool. Wait a minute or so, nothing. Hard drive and DVD are quiet. Wait another minute or so, still nothing. OK, maybe the DVD burn was bad (it has happened before) so I'll try again. Burn another DVD image and follow the steps above to the exact same point. Background on the screen with a moveable mouse cursor and nothing else. x86 is obviously giving me some problems, lets try the x64 and see how it goes. Reboot with the x64 DVD in the drive and I get the same thing as the x86 version. This is getting frustrating. After a few more attempts I got lucky and somebody knocked on my front door while the x86 version was loading. I was gone for about 15 minutes and when I came back I had a dialog that let me proceed with the installation. It takes me about 4 minutes to go from the mouse cursor appearing to having a dialog on the screen. I guess I'm just impatient.
The installation is nice and graphical and will not let me install on an external USB drive. I'll skip my swearing and the part where I ordered an external SATA drive which it will install to. What I ended up doing was disconnecting my internal drives and just connecting the external SATA drive. The install routine lets you create and delete partitions and decide where to install. I split the drive into 2 partitions, one for x86 and one for x64. The install proceeds without error and is pretty zippy.
Once the install is done it will ask you for a few things like a user name, time zone etc. and then it will proceed to measure the performance of your computer. This is the first place I ran into problems with the x86 version. A short while after starting the performace measurements I briefly saw a blue screen of death that had some sort of memory error and then the system reboots. Vista starts again and asks you the same questions as before: user name (have to pick a different one than before since that one already exists), time zone, etc. Luckily this time it skips the performance check and I can log in. Wow, this OS is kind of pretty. Oh, so that is the sidebar I've been reading about. Let's look at the BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH with some memory error and a reboot. Yup, it appears that Vista x86 just refuses to work on my main machine for more than a few seconds at a time.
The Install (Second Try)
Well, x86 isn't working I wonder if x64 will work? I put the x64 install disk in and reboot (remembering to boot from the DVD of course) and run through the install with x64. Exact same install with the exact same annoying 4 minute wait. This time I enter a user name, time zone, etc and it starts to do a performance check on my machine. It keeps doing a performance check on my machine longer than the x86 did. Wait, it just finished! Yippee! I can now log in to a working copy of Vista.
Excellent, they just released build 5728. Maybe they fixed my problem with x86 and BSOD. Tune in next time to find out.