Sixty six hours on XP

I must admit to putting a few hours into AD 1404 Dawn of Discovery over the past couple of weeks. Battling corsairs, growing the population and pandering to their ever increasing demands (Candlesticks? Why do you want candlesticks?). I completed the scenario yesterday and was quick to gloat to my son who still has a long way to go to completion. He checked the on-line statistics and pointed out that he had spent seven hours so far, whereas I had apparently thrown away sixty six hours of my life over the past two weeks. Bloody hell, that is almost like having a job.

It’s all her fault of course. She plays Pet Society endlessly and I am just keeping her company. Or is it the other way round…?

Playing games means leaving the cosy world of Mac OS X and entering the clunky world of XP. It’s like going back in time and entering a museum. A museum of the bland, everything is rather drab and sad and I am glad to escape when the gaming is done. An upgrade is called for and it was never going to be Vista, but it might be Windows 7.

Mac upgrades are fairly simple. There is one version of the software, you stick in the disk, you make a cup of coffee and, while you are slurping, it backs up all your data, installs the new OS, restores all your data; then gives you the machine back with everything as it was before, except running the new operating system. Spiffy.

It appears that Windows 7 is not quite as straightforward:

Having recovered from what appears to be some form of bingo card assault, I realised that all the upgrade options for XP read “Custom Install”. This is Microsoft speak for “you’re on your own pal”. Not too much of a worry for me, I have only games installed; but it is still going to take a day or so to do a fresh install of Windows and then get everything back the way it was before.

Then I have to decide which of the six versions of Windows 7 to buy. But those aren’t the six columns on the chart. Oh no, that would be too simple. There is Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate. Take your pick, buggered if I know. Presumably if I choose the wrong one and want to change at some point, I will have to wipe everything out and start again. Sorry, I mean do a Custom Install. And pay more money.

On reflection, maybe I quite like XP. It’s dressed like hooker on a cheap night out, the memory management is awful, and the user interface is archaic; but it runs my games OK for now.

Instead I will look forward to the smaller, faster, better Snow Leopard for something around $29. One version to serve them all, and no Custom Installs to worry about. Double spiffy.

Comments 🔗

2009-08-07 | Malaki Hernandez says

Bloody hell opens at 11 a.m. 4, Bloody hell, Seminar Room, her company, Antioch. Enterprise may trigger her company or offend the on-line statistics of Custom Install, but if you have to choose, it's surely better to be my son than the sneered at.

2009-08-08 | Billy says

I wouldn’t mind a couple of pints of what he’s had

2009-08-08 | Camberley says

Late to the party I know but I am with you on Windows vs Mac. What I don’t get is the thought that playing a computer game is throwing “away sixty six hours of my life” Only sixty six hours? It has no re-playability then? Maybe I should take it off my amazon shopping list.

XP is not so bad, what gets me is lack of backward compatibility you get with Vista

2009-08-08 | Spike says

Spam. Smart enough to beat the Wordpress spam filter, too sentence can’t coherent make stupid.

Camberley, you are correct, I should not feel bad over a miserly 66 hours. Don’t worry, that was only one scenario out of many. Then there is the campaign. Plus a “make your own scenario” option, and a load of other stuff.

I will have a go at Arma 2 next. And still waiting for Empire Total War to be sufficiently patched. It never ends; thankfully.

2009-08-08 | Billy says

Please, no re-run of the OS wars but - from all accounts Uncle Bill does appear to have winner on his hands with Windows 7.

Just a bit of a shame the Great Pecten are two years into implementing Vista really …

2009-08-08 | todd says

yeah there’s no direct upgrade path from xp to 7.

xp is too outdated for it to provide a clean path so you’ll have to format.

really, when you consider the myriad of devices, cameras, phone, scanners etc and internal hardware like mainboards sound cards, video cards, monitors, keyboards mice etc etc etc that windows is capable of working with out of the box it’s a pretty amazing operating system.

2009-08-08 | Camberley says

I got out just in time. They were threatening to upgrade me just before I left