Windows 7 Saga

Windows 7 was officially released on Thursday October 22, 2009. I pre-ordered it from Amazon back in June when there was a promotion. Vista Home Premium to Windows 7 Home Premium cost only $50 back then. Now it is $120.

Amazon was nice enough to send me the upgrade Yesterday, the official release day. I started the upgrade process last night. First I ran the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor to make sure I didn’t have hardware or driver issues. In a few minutes I was notified that I was all OK except that I should uninstall a couple of applications such as Apple iTunes and VMWare Player then reinstall them after the Windows 7 upgrade. I did that. The upgrade process took quite a while to preserve my 750K+ files so I went to bed. By the morning it was all done. During upgrade, the installer told me that my computer would need to restart a few times. It was all done without me acknowledging it with a click.

Just like what I heard all along, the new Windows is nice. It is uncluttered, snappy, and user friendly. My softwares all appear working. The only thing I found not working is Nikon Capture NX 2. Somehow the software thought my installed version was an expired trial version. Not a problem, I just had to re-enter the license key. If you don’t have the license key, you may be in trouble. Even if you have backed up the files, the key is likely hidden in the Windows registry.

I had little time to play with it before I had to go for work. Unfortunately things turned ugly by the time I got back from work. I saw an unresponsive dark monitor screen. I tried to power off the computer by holding on the power button. It did power off. But I was not able to power it on again.

This may not have anything to do with Windows 7 upgrade. It looks like the power supply is dead.

I really want to get the computer up running again. It contains all the photos I have ever taken. I have backup copies of them on an external drive. However they are in an archive format that I cannot easily access.

Update: The problem was indeed caused by a dead power supply. Replacing the power supply wasn’t a challenge but it did cost me $50 and a trip to BestBuy. At the end, I think the upgrade is well worth it.

Posted in Miscellaneous, Other on October 23rd, 2009. No Comments.

NEF Raw Codec for Vista 64bit and Windows 7

According to Nikon, NEF Codec is a module that makes Nikon RAW (.NEF) image files as easy to work with as JPEG and TIFF images. In a less nebulous explanation, it allows users to view the thumbnails of NEF raw photos and embedded metadata and preview raw images from within Windows Explorer and Windows Photo Gallery. There is no official 64bit support yet. The demand for official 64 bit support has grown louder and louder but Nikon is still slow to respond. That has caused some grief among certain Nikon RAW shooters.

Well, if you really want NEF raw codec with 64 bit support, there is a third party codec offered by Ardfry Imaging, LLC. It is not free, unlike the official Nikon codec, but it is not very expensive either: $19.95.  Some even reported that it works in the upcoming Windows 7.

On NikonCafe forum, a visitor called Greg_B mentioned the following:

FYI…I was playing around with Windows Photo Gallery on my Vista 64-bit system today and discovered a way to view NEF photos using the available Nikon codec. 

How I did it? I just ran the 32-bit version of Windows Photo Gallery which is located in the ‘\Program Files (x86)\Windows Photo Gallery\’ directory. When using this 32-bit version of Windows Photo Gallery the Nikon codec works fine and you can see NEF files properly. I then just created a shortcut to the 32-bit version on my desktop, so that I could access it easily.

I know this isn’t an ideal solution, but I don’t think it’s too bad until they release a proper 64-bit version.

Greg

I haven’t tried it because I don’t have a 64-bit system. Please let us know if it does work this way.

Personally I found raw codecs little useful even on the supported 32bit system. It seems to be able to display thumbnails only for unedited NEF photos in Windows Explorer. NEF photos edited in Capture NX show up as not thumbnails but only small part of the photo. If you don’t want to spend the extra money, you can get by with the Capture NX 2 that is not officially supported on 64-bit vista but actually works fine.

Posted in Digital photography, Tips and techniques on March 3rd, 2009. 9 Comments.
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