Thursday, November 12, 2009

Windows 7 Upgrade - Use VMWare, XP & Multiple IEs for IE6/IE7/IE8 on one PC

After upgrading to Windows 7, doing a clean installation, and rebuilding the desktop for a web development & graphic art machine, most web designers are going to need to go with a Virtual PC or VMware solution to get multiple copies of Internet Explorer running again for CSS testing. I skipped the Vista upgrade like many and am really impressed and happy with Windows 7. The advantage of the new hard disk space on PCs - 500GB+ standard - means it is easy to create virtual partitions running different operating systems. Since the browser market is still fragmented by XP users generally running IE6, Vista users on IE7, and Windows 7 users on IE8, the web designer has to test themes and site designs on all these versions of IE as well as FireFox, Safari, Chrome, Opera, etc.

Previously I was using Tredosoft's Multiple IEs for years, running XP with IE7 native. A quick tip - installing the same program on a Windows 7 machine will wreck your registry and require a "Back Up & Restore". Tredosoft's Multiple IEs doesn't work in Windows 7 so the solution immediately goes to a choice between Virtual PC (400MB+ download from microsoft.com) using "XP Mode" in Windows 7 and running IE7 + Tredosoft in the virtual environment for testing purposes only, or go with VMware player and do the same thing. Craig Buckler wrote a good article on setting up through the Microsoft route on sitepoint:

"Virtual PC is Microsoft’s alternative to VMware and VirtualBox. It’s available as a free download for most versions of Windows. As a standalone product, it’s functional but offers fewer facilities than the competition. However, XP Mode is Virtual PC’s killer feature. It provides:
  • a fully licensed, stripped-down, virtual copy of Windows XP SP3.
  • a clever facility which integrates the guest Windows XP OS with your Windows 7 host. In effect, you can run XP applications as if they were native Windows 7 programs. Although the XP application is isolated, it can still access the host’s files and systems.
This benefit to web developers is obvious: you can run real versions of IE6, IE7, and IE8 on the same desktop at the same time without any conflicts."

Source: http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/ie6-ie7-ie8-win7-xp-mode

Download: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx

Tip: For Cross-browser CSS testing required by web design - RunXP in virtual mode with IE7 and Multiple IEs, recommended to use VMware Player.

Multiple IEs: http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE

"VMware Player is the easiest way to run multiple operating systems at the same time on your PC. With its user-friendly interface, VMware Player makes it effortless for anyone to try out Windows 7 or the latest Linux releases, or create isolated virtual machines to safely test new software and surf the Web."

VMware Player: https://www.vmware.com/products/player/

Virtual Box - Open Source Solution: http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Documentation

Untested - "Final Builds" Site: http://finalbuilds.edskes.net/iecollection.htm
Posted by Jeffrey Scott at 11:42 PM 1 comments

Watch out for Seagate Barracuda 7200-11 500GB - Firmware Problems = Known Issue

I upgraded my PC about a month ago, and was shocked to reboot on Monday morning and find the hard drive crash. I have had bad sectors and complete HD crashes before, but really didn't expect it from a brand new system. What was different this time is that the PC would not even enter Bios settings or register the drive. After doing some research, I discovered it is a known problem affecting thousands of irate users of the Seagate Barracuda 7200-11 500GB hard drive.

"SEAGATE'S FLAGSHIP desktop Barracuda 7200.11 drives are failing at an alarming rate and prompting outrage from their faithful customers. A new self-bricking feature apparently resides in faulty firmware microcode which will rear its ugly head sometime at boot detection. Essentially the drive will be working as normal for a while, then - out of the blue - it'll brick itself to death. The next time you reboot your computer the drive will simply lock itself up as a failsafe and won't be detected by the BIOS. In other words, there's power, spin-up, but no detection to enable booting.... No official stats are available, but at least one RMA middleman has told us there's about 30-40% failure rates."

Source: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1050374/seagate-barracudas-7200-11-failing

Also see:


"The only major issue with this drive is the prevalence of batches still being sold which have faulty firmware. If you search for ' 7200.11 firmware' you'll find lots of information about this issue. Basically, the firmware shipped with earlier batches of this drive has a fault that can cause the device to 'brick' - basically the drive/data is OK but the controller refuses to talk to your BIOS, making it completely inaccessible. Once the drive has bricked firmware updates will not resolve it and you have to return it to Seagate for replacement."

Source: http://www.amazon.co.uk/review/R296S6C8FE0VX7

The hard disk crash means that the users have to:

1. buy a replacement or submit the issue under warranty to the sales company,
2. physically install the new drive, re-install the OS, and all of the additional programs,
3. transfer all the archived data to rebuild the desktop environment.

In my instance, this is a multi-day process, so the loss of work as a full-time web designer is significant. What is worse is that it is a known issue, and I should have researched all aspects of the assembled system before purchasing... or, more importantly, it should not have been sold by Seagate / dealers at all.

More Links:


Solution, Repair, & Data Recovery:

Here is the only link I could find on how to fix the problem with the hard drive and recover the data:
Posted by Jeffrey Scott at 9:54 PM 0 comments
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