"There's a sucker born every minute", is a well-known phrase, most often accredited to American showman P. T. Barnum, and which pretty accurately describes that geek desire to have the newest gizmo or latest upgrade in the world of technology the minute it's released.
A few years back when Windows Vista first came out, I was one of the early adopters of the operating system (OS), because I fell for the "greatest thing since sliced bread" marketing hype of Vista at the time.
And why is it sliced bread, anyway? Don't get me wrong, I love a good piece of toast or ham sandwich like the next fellow, but surely by now we've developed a few things that could be considered slightly greater than cut-up bread?
What about waffles? They're pretty great.
Anyway, I, like many PC users, quickly learned that the term "early adopter" was interchangeable with the term "guinea pig" and the aforementioned "sucker".
Upon installing Vista, I found my old printer, my old web cam, my wireless keyboard and few other things just plain refused to work anymore, and I had to buy new ones (with the special "Works with Vista" sticker).
It also crashed a lot - at least on my machine.
I got really used to seeing that good old blue screen of death (BSOD) pretty much once a day.
So you can imagine I was more than a bit wary of Windows 7 when it was first announced to the world at large, and this time I wasn't the first in line at the local computer store to buy my copy when it was released.
But over the past few weeks I've been seeing those pithy Windows 7 commercials on TV saying how this new OS really is the greatest thing since sliced waffles, and it's y'know the newest thing - so being a good little geek I broke down and bought it with the intention of replacing the forever accursed Vista with something that finally works right.
Before even buying the Windows 7 box, I installed a program (available at Microsoft's website) that looked at my system to determine if Windows 7 would run on it.
Basically, the program happily said my system was fine and with the exception of a couple minor (it did say minor) items that could easily be fixed, Windows 7 would roll onto my computer like hot butter on a waffle.
So I put my disc in, told it to "easily" replace Vista with Windows 7 while retaining all my settings, files and programs - and let it run for a while.
However, after the lengthy install period, it came up with a message simply saying "Sorry, we couldn't install Windows 7, we're reverting it back to Vista".
Three times I tried to install the OS, and three times it said, "Gee thanks for trying, and thanks for the $189, but it ain't happening."
After a whole lot of research on how to fix the problem, I finally broke down, backed up my important files, wiped my hard drive and installed Windows 7 from scratch.
I can say Windows 7 is indeed a superior OS with lots of nifty new features, my machine runs faster and so far I've not seen one blue screen of death.
But I'm someone with somewhat more computer knowledge than the average Joe, so if my experience was painful, confusing and frustrating, I can only imagine someone with less experience in the same situation.
So if you've been thinking about upgrading from Vista or XP, Windows 7 is definitely an improvement and worth the effort, but if you want to avoid any hassles during the installation, it may be a good idea to find some suck er "early adopter" you may know who's already gone through the process before to help you.
Some of us even take payment in waffles.
