I'm no fan of Anti-Virus software, but unfortunately we need it all. So - on my Windows 7 box, I was intrigued to see that the prompt to find a solution online did not include OneCare as an option.
Actually - it was not too much of a surprise, as I guess Microsoft won't be pushing OneCare much more. (I think Microsoft just *had* to jump into the AV market as it got a beating about security and partners just did not make it easy and cheap enough to AV protect Windows. But time have changed, OnceCare had redressed the balance in the market to some extent… so I don't expect OneCare to live much longer.)

Yet - I had a paid subscription to OneCare, so I wanted to install OneCare rather than anything else that might cost me money. I probably have to say that I think OneCare is reasonably good, not too much of a CPU drain, and has successfully protected my machines over the last few years. (OK - I'm probably biased: I recall taking the first beta of OneCare to market in the UK for Microsoft... and I especially recall the first meeting with a bunch of journalists... having to endure an hour of mockery with the dodgy “OneCare” name. I'm not going to spell it out, but the UK have other words that sound very similar ;))

So - How did Ii install it? Easy.

• Download OneCare from Onecare.live.com
• Set Vista compatibility mode (to get past install check error).
• Then run the following from an elevated command prompt the following to disable the Client Experience code that interferes with the installation:
  reg delete HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SQMClient\Windows\DisabledSessions /va /f
• Run setup.

Bingo - A working copy of OneCare on Windows 7.

I fed my diesel car petrol over the weekend, and it did not like that. In fact, it cost me hours and hours of frustration and lots of money to fix things... And I've only got myself to blame!

Equally you can apply this to our eating habits, and I'm sure some have already forgotten their New Year's resolutions about not stuffing themselves just with unhealthy food...

Then, why is it that we sometimes allow our brains to be fed rubbish? That's why I listen to carefully selected pod casts on my way to work, rather than radio. And that is why I think photographs are so powerful. Pictures as per flickr can be stunning, but photographs which triggers personal emotions and memories can really enhance our lives on multiple levels.

Have a lovely day!

Although it's true, I'm talking like a real marketer to present it in a bit more optimistic light :)

During my time @ Microsoft, the Windows 7 team hunted for desktop pictures, and some of my pictures made the short list and.... the beta build!

To see it, "simply" download the 2.6Gb, install Windows 7, choose the UK as your locate (I've possibly got some photos in other geographies like France...) and then when all is running, choose a desktop picture and you'll see my blue bells photo proudly amongst the others. Easy :)

Or you can find it in the strangely hidden folder of c:\windows\Globalization\MCT\MCT-GB\Wallpapers and it's gb-wp2.

(gb-wp5 was taken by Sam Hammami, a friend of mine.)

Scary to think that 6.5 MILLION Gb of Internet traffic and storage has been dedicated just for *my* photo! (OK - I realise that not even I downloaded it for the photo... it just happen to be part of the payload... but since bragging rights is all I get for this, I've got to use it...)

It's good to see that the I'm even credited for it in the properties...

Let no man say that I don't manage a production system. I do! Our Windows Media Center machine (MCE) @ home is a production system. When it goes out of production, I'm quickly called in (day or night) to fix it, as we don't have a Telly other than this thing.

Why are we so dependant on it? All my music is playing through it (although the music now comes from a Windows Home Server). All my (26 000 at last count) photos are shown through it (and a Sharp 32" LCD), and all our TV is watched (time shifted) through it. Gone are the days of struggling to find that photo. Gone is the days of wanting to play a CD, but with no chance of finding it. Gone are scratched CDs. Gone are adverts. Gone are the oh-there's-nothing-on-TV-but-I'll-watch-any-rubbish evenings, and now we always have relevant stuff recorded waiting for us to be watched.

Many moons ago (still in the Windows XP time) I bought the notorious Carrera system through Microsoft's employee purchase scheme, and it served our family well since then. True, early versions had many problems and a army of technical people trying to resolve these issues, but the hardware eventually died (after running MCE 2005 and later Vista MCE on it) and I replaced my setup six months ago with a £200 Dell Vostro 200ST machine, still with the old analogue eHome Wonder ATI card in it... despite only having XP drivers available ;)

However, my Sky decoder (for FreeSky) (that fed the analogue ATI tuner card) died for the nth time developed a "green feature" to switch itself off, which made recording from it difficult, so I took the plunge and bought a BlackGold GBT3540 card. Even though this card is supposed to give me the FreeSky by directly connecting it to my Sky dish, it also requires this funky dvb-s virtual driver to make MCE work with dvb-s (satellite) work as if it's a dvb-t (digital terrestrial TV) tuner. BlackGold say it's included, but the box I received, did not, and their site also did not have it.

So, as these things happened, I was left with an open machine, a new toy (the BlackGold card), "production down time" and no way to resolve it other than wait for BlackGold to hopefully deliver the virtual driver when they wake up.

Fast forward... and you get to me deciding I'll try Windows 7 (from my MSDN subscription, so test is the right term), especially after Simon Davies (from Microsoft UK, always on the safe side) told me yesterday that it's very stable.

The installation was extremely simple:

1) Pop DVD in drive & boot

2) Point Windows 7 @ an empty drive. (This served me well, as the new Dell came with a dodge Samsung drive that has already started ticking like you know what!)

3) Install the Vista BlackGold drivers & reboot. (BTW - it detected *all* my hardware except for a smart media bay for reading all memory cards on the Dell - I'm sure I can resolve that easily.) I was particularly impressed that Windows 7 had no trouble with my odd wide screen LCD - it knew the resolution and just worked via the HDMI cable.

4) Fire up MCE on Windows 7, and answer all the basic questions... and a few minutes later I was watching not only dvb-s (Freesat from BBC & ITV) on my Windows 7 machine, but also BBC HD.

The *only* down side is that FreeSat does not yet include five.tv and Sky's version do - so I've got to find a solution to the wife's "Home and away" requirement... quickly! Or it will fail the UAT :)

Windows 7 (the beta) and the BlackGold 3540 card did an astonishing job!