Posts Tagged Windows 7

The Vastly Improved Windows 7 Update Process

Posted by Spencer in Technology on September 14th, 2009

Just a quick note today to document one of my favorite improvements in Windows 7. It’s not one that gets a lot of press or is listed on any set of features I’ve seen, but it makes a practical, day-to-day difference in the overall usability of the computer. It’s the Windows Update tool, which today installed the most recent Nvidia drivers, Office 2007 Service Pack 2, a Malicious Software Removal Tool, and several other odds and ends… and then it was done. No rebooting the computer. Just done!

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DRM Pokes Me in the Eye and the Funnybone

Posted by Spencer in Technology on August 29th, 2009

I’ve installed Windows 7 Professional (RTM) on all of my computers now–two laptops and two desktops. Overall, it’s an excellent operating system. Memory management appears to have improved significantly, UAC prompts are sparse, and of course the UI has some nice tweaks. Oh, and most system updates don’t require a reboot.

I need to vent about one thing, though, and it may seem small but my goodness it is frustrating. Kind of like getting poked in the eye, or slammed in the funny bone, or like both happening at once. That one thing is the so-called broadcast flag, where broadcasters can flip a digital switch and prevent end users from recording content.

I have a Hauppauge WinTV-HVR 1600 TV tuner with one analog tuner and one ATSC tuner. It worked flawlessly under Windows Vista. We never once had a problem with the broadcast flag.

Now, though, when Emily tries to record an episode of “What Not To Wear” or “More to Love” (I mean, these are seriously popular shows and you can see how broadcasters would want to be REALLY careful about not letting people–oh, the horror–record their precious TV shows and possibly watch them at a later time)–it’s these shows that will record for 5 minutes then we get a little notice in the taskbar: “A recording has been cancelled” and then in Media Center, this now-dreaded popup: “Restrictions set by the broadcaster, yadda-yadda-yadda”:

recordedtv

In some cases a re-run will record just fine later that night.

I think–I hope–this is a bug somewhere, since as I understand it Vista Media Center obeyed the broadcast flag and we never saw this issue.  But, since Windows 7 is so new, and technically isn’t even publically available (my copies are perfectly legitimate), there isn’t much discussion going on and certainly not about this problem.  So, I’m not sure if it’s a driver problem, a Media Center problem, or what.

So poke my eye out, media  conglomerates, operating system, world at large.  Cheap-shot my funny bone.  I don’t care.  Mostly.

P.S. “Food Lovers Fat Loss…” just happened to be on this morning when I needed a screenshot for the blog.  I mean it.  Seriously.

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