Not everything that has gone wrong at Microsoft is due to internecine warfare. Part of the problem is a historic preference to develop (highly profitable) software without undertaking (highly risky) hardware. This made economic sense when the company was founded in 1975, but now makes it far more difficult to create tightly integrated, beautifully designed products like an iPhone or TiVo. And, yes, part of the problem has been an understandable caution in the wake of the antitrust settlement. Timing has also been poor — too soon on Web TV, too late on iPods.

He’s right about the iPhone and TiVo: they are “tightly integrated, beautifully designed products.” Here’s how I know: my wife uses — and loves — both of them. And she’s basically a Luddite. She’s not interested in the ups-and-downs of technological innovation. She wants her tech to work, period. She doesn’t like tinkering with computer settings — and she resents ever having to tinker with computer settings. And, no, she could never program the VCR, but she can record and watch shows on the TiVo, because its interface makes sense to her.

I bought our first TiVo on impulse after perhaps a few too many drinks during a faculty recruitment dinner. My two dinner  companions spent a considerable amount of time singing its praises. My wife and kids were away, visiting Grandma. I went home, wobbled onto the TiVo website, found that they were having a sale, and the TiVo appeared a couple of days later. My wife eyed it skeptically, but she soon realized that she could not only program it herself but also use it to skip commercials, which she loathes. Instant love affair.

Same with the iPhone, which I persuaded her to get when the 3G came out. She was skeptical about the need for mobile e-mail, text messaging, and the other features that the iPhone offers, though she was willing to be persuaded because she saw it as a souped up iPod (another piece of tech she immediately loved despite never really being a Walkman person), and it would allow her to carry one device instead of two. Now she can’t imagine life without the iPhone: she texts, e-mails, takes pictures, and I think she’s even Twittering.

The Kindle, on the other hand, was a bridge too far. She loves books too much to contemplate reading a novel on a Kindle, despite my assurances that after a little while you forget it’s not a book because you’re engrossed in what you’re reading. For me, the Kindle doesn’t replace books: it’s just another way to consume text, and it allows me to read at moments when I wouldn’t otherwise (because the hardcover book I’m reading is too heavy to carry around or because the newspaper is too inconvenient to take out, assuming that I have it and she doesn’t).

Admittedly, the Kindle isn’t so good for newspapers or magazines or anything that requires color or vibrant images to make its impact. Hence the title of this post: I can’t wait to get an iPad in my hands. I’m not one of those many commentators who is disappointed by the specs of the device, because I don’t want it to replace my laptop computer, and I don’t want to make video calls. I want an iPad so that I can read the digital texts that the Kindle can’t display to good advantage, and I want to be able to read these texts not only on the go but also in bed. (Bringing the laptop to bed immediately results in the hairy eyeball.)

Moreover, I think it’s going to be a great device for my dad, who’ll use it in lieu of a laptop when he’s sitting in the living room, and for my kids (the New York Times pointed out that Apple had perhaps just unwittingly created the world’s greatest toy). Who knows, maybe my wife will even enjoy reading on it: after all, she’s already used to the interface. And  I’m quite certain that the iPad is going to be the kind of tech that she has always liked: the kind that just works, and works well. Unlike, say, WebTV, one of my least successful tech purchases ever.

So we’ll be getting a WiFi-only iPad about 60 days from now, with a high-end WiFi+3G version 30 days later. I’ll let my dad and my kids sort out who’s going to end up with the WiFi-only.

As I’ve documented here, I switched to Apple as my primary computing platform in the past year, but I remain tied to Microsoft: my wife still uses a Dell computer running Vista, and we have a home-built Windows Home Server with which I’ve been quite happy. I’ve even subscribed to Microsoft Technet so that I can play with various versions of their operating systems and applications software, and I’ve installed Windows 7 64-bit on one home-built system and upgraded both a laptop and my media PC to Windows 7 32-bit. When HP released the Windows 7 software for my Officejet 7590, I decided to upgrade the Vista machine that had been my previous workhorse and that I still use for certain tasks such as scanning and some video editing. I was planning to upgrade my wife’s laptop as well.

I found myself in agreement with various reviewers and users who deemed Windows 7 to be a big success.

And then I encountered the Black Screen of Death (KSOD for short on some internet sites to distinguish it from the old BSOD — Blue Screen of Death — that many XP users came to know intimately). You get a mouse cursor on a black screen after login that moves around, but nothing else: no desktop. This happened on the Vista machine. Luckily, I had it backed up on the Windows Home server, so I reinstalled it. Next morning, KSOD once again. I did a little research on the internet and discovered that last fall an computer security company called Prevx had claimed that the problem was called by a bad patch from Microsoft. The folks at Redmond investigated, decided that the problem was due not to their software but to some malware. Prevx issued a retraction of their earlier claim.

Funny thing is, the KSOD seemed to appear on my system shortly after an automatic Windows update. I’d restore the system from a backup and it would seem to be fine and then the next morning — kabluey! I tried a different saved backup. This time the system started fine, but then after a restart and an endless CHKDSK that found innumerable errors … yup, KSOD. Again. And again. And again. Six times in all.

I checked the media PC in the living room. KSOD. Oddly enough, though, on that computer I was able to use CTL-ALT-DEL to get the task manager, which meant that I was able to execute the workaround provided by — you guessed it — Prevx. It cured the media PC (knock wood, fingers crossed, it still seems to be okay). But the Vista workhorse: forget it. CTL-ALT-DEL produces no reaction from the computer. Can’t get the task manager.

Luckily, I’ve been moving to more of a cloud computing model, so I don’t have any precious data stored on the VW, and I can get whatever I need from the Windows Home Server Backup (at least in theory). So what to do? Well, both the VW and the Media PC were upgrades from Vista, so I’m currently performing a clean install on a spanking new WD Velociraptor hard drive. We’ll see what happens.

Meanwhile, I’m not upgrading my wife’s computer anytime soon. And when I do, it’ll be on a fresh hard drive, so we can pop in her old drive if the new one goes KSOD.

Or maybe we’ll just get her a MacBook Pro.

I’ve taken advantage of the pre-order special on upgrades available until July 11: you can get the Home Premium upgrade for $49 and the Professional upgrade for $99. It’s available, among other places, at amazon.com and newegg.com (generally my preferred site for computer gear, but they’ve imposed a limit on the pre-orders). I’ve ordered three Home Premiums and two Professionals. I know, I know …

I’ve tried Windows 7 on a number of different machines. It didn’t work very well on my old Inspiron 3500 because of an inadequate graphics processor, but it works like a charm on my Dell Inspiron Mini 9s — yes, I have two, because after I installed OSX on my original white mini in place of the Windows 7 beta, I picked up a refurbished black one and loaded up the Windows 7 RC in place of the Ubuntu it came with. (In case you’re interested, Windows 7 has a much smaller foot print than OS X and fits on a 16GB SSD; OS X gets the 64GB Runcore.) Tomshardware.com (one of my favorite tech sites) has a good article on using Windows 7 on netbooks.

Windows 7 has also been working smoothly on my HP tablet. But I haven’t installed Windows 7 on my Vista desktop, primarily for one reason: the HP software for my Officejet 7590 refused to install on Windows 7, claiming it was an incompatible operating system. Windows 7 would recognize the machine as a printer, but not as a scanner.

And then I discovered a tip while browsing around on the net: run the setup program in Vista compatibilty mode. Specifically, once the installer file is on the Windows 7 system, right-click, choose “Properties,” then “Compatibility,” and select Vista (probably SP2).

The HP software installed without a problem on both the netbook and the tablet, and Adobe Acrobat Professional sees the 7590 scanner just fine. So I think I’m going to take the plunge on the desktop.

And why, having professed that I’m the process of switching to Macs — in fact, I’m writing this on the MacBook — do I need all that Windows 7? Well, in addition to not yet knowing how to manipulate video sufficiently on a Mac, I also have a Windows Home Server with about 4 terabytes of storage. And you need a Windows machine connected to it to make it work well. And my wife has not intention of switching to Mac.

So I won’t be abandoning Windows. Far from it, if my upgrade pre-orders are any indication.

After poking around the Net, I discovered that I wasn’t the only one having this problem. The solution involved 1) re-registering the Microsoft Update; 2) re-installing Microsoft .NET framework 2.0; and one one-computer re-installing Microsoft Office 2003.

Step One

To re-register Microsoft Update, I followed these steps (taken from Microsoft KnowedgeBase article 943144):

1. Stop the Automatic Updates service. To do this, follow these steps: a) Click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then click OK. b) At the command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER: net stop wuauserv.

2. Register the Wups2.dll file. To do this, follow these steps: a) At the command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER: regsvr32 %windir%\system32\wups2.dll. b) Click OK on each verification message that you receive.
 
3. Start the Automatic Updates service. To do this, type the following command at the command prompt, and then press ENTER: net start wuauserv

4. Exit the command prompt. To do this type exit, and then press ENTER.

(Actually, I didn’t bother stopping Automatic Update. I just did step 2.)

This alone wasn’t enough, however, so I proceeded to the next step.

Step Two

I then un-installed .NET Framework 2.0 using the Add/Remove Programs applet in Control Panel. These were actually listed as .NET Framework SP1. In one case, I wasn’t allowed to uninstall because SP1 because its files were supposedly in use. On a hunch, I un-installed .NET Framework 3.0 successfully and then was able to un-install .NET Framework 2.0.

I then re-installed the program using this download page from Microsoft.

And I repeated Step 1, although I’m not sure if that was actually necessary.

On two computers , these two changes allowed me to use Automatic Update successfully for updates to both Windows XP and Microsoft Office 2003.

Step Three

On one computer, however, the Windows XP update worked, but the Microsoft Office 2003 updates failed. So I un-installed the suite completely, re-installed it from my CD, and then applied a stand-alone version of the latest Office 2003 SP3 downloaded from this page.

The stand-alone update failed before the re-installation of the suite, but this time it worked. I then allowed Microsoft Update to apply some other fixes to Office 2003, which had failed before. This time everything was successful.