I needed a Windows 7 PC, but like many home CIOs I’d refused to let Vista into my house so had no upgrade path for any of the existing machines. So I begged the home CFO (aka wife) who reluctantly allowed me to go and buy the parts to build a new PC. I don’t usually go down the self-assembly route with hardware because I realised decades ago that assembling software is a lot more fun. But occasionally my masochistic streak comes to the surface; so yesterday I bought a bare bones case, plugged in a few drives and a graphics adapter, installed Win7 and amazingly it all works wonderfully. It was my least painful Windows installation ever, and I now have a shiny new quad core desktop running Win7 and Aero for a very modest price. However networking is a mega-pain, I can’t find an 11n network adapter (card or USB) that has 64 bit drivers. I’m reduced to wired networking which is an embarrassment for an analyst who covers wireless, not to mention a huge inconvenience.
So although I like Win7, in the wireless area it doesn’t yet seem ready for enterprise adoption.
UPDATE – Good news, I was being a little harsh to Win7 there. My colleague Steve Kleynhans has pointed me at some products that can do the job. Part of the problem here in the UK is that the online retailers haven’t got up to date information on their web sites, many don’t admit that the 11n cards they stock support Win7, let alone 64 bit Win7. So when you’re browsing the site it’s impossible to tell if the product will work, which tends to give a poor impression of the availability of 64 bit drivers and 11n cards. Now my only challenge is to get a card delivered despite the postal strike that’s going on in the UK.
UPDATE 2 – THE SAGA CONTINUES – I drove to a local electronics store to buy a WiFi adapter, because I’m basically too impatient to order from the web and risk postal delays. Instant gratification beats waiting any day. Nothing on the shelf in the store actually admitted to working with Win 7, but that doesn’t matter because Netgear helpfully put a 24 hour tech support number on the side of the box. This is what mobile phones are for, so I called it. I got through to someone in a call centre somewhere and asked the simple question: “I’m holding a box containing your xxx WiFi adapter, does it have drivers to work with 64 bit Windows 7”. And he didn’t know the answer. So I still don’t have WiFi on my Win 7 system and am feeling that some retailers and hardware manufacturers need a few lessons in customer service.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Video | Enjolt.com | Innovate for Success // Oct 30, 2009 at 12:08 am
[...] Is It was released, promising a look back at the rehearsals and build-up to Jacko’s final gigs. Win7 would be nice if only I could find 64 bit wireless drivers – blogs.gartner.com 10/29/2009 I needed a Windows 7 PC, but like many home CIOs I’d refused to [...]
2 Michael Silver // Oct 30, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Nick,
You rightly point out some of the growing pains of going 64-bit. For enterprises that are moving quickly to Windows 7, 32-bit is going to be a much smoother transition and give them much better driver support, especially for the huge amount of older and odd vertical-specific devices many organizations own (Steve Kleynhans wrote a Research Note on this which is accessible by Gartner clients). Thus, your statement “So although I like Win7, in the wireless area it doesn’t yet seem ready for enterprise adoption.” is a bit harsh as it does not differentiate between 32 and 64 bit. Further, you would probably be better off going to the vendor’s support site on your mobile browser and perusing the downloads for the card in the box you held in your hand. Unfortunate, but often I get better information talking to a machine than a support rep, especially for such a straightforward question. The answer may easily have been that there was a driver on the web, but not in the dusty 4 month old box you had in your hand. Meaning that you would need to connect to the web site wired to download that 64-bit driver.
3 Nick Jones // Oct 30, 2009 at 5:35 pm
That’s not going to help if (as was the case) you’re trying to buy an adapter. Perusing the average hardware vendor web site on a mobile phone browser isn’t practical (believe me, I tried). Staff in the average retailer have little idea what a 64 bit driver is, let alone whether or not there is one on the web. The dusty 4 month old box had a phone number for a support line, who I had rashly expected could answer the question; because if your own technical support people don’t know if you have a 64 bit driver who does? But they didn’t. It would be dumb to buy an adapter without knowing if drivers were available.
Maybe I should reword my criticism. If you have experienced tech support staff who have time to test all your wireless devices and drivers that’s great. If you’re a consumer trying to buy add-ons in a shop you’re in trouble. There may be lots of compliant adapters listed on the MS web site but the chance of one being stocked by your local retailer AND their staff knowing that it’s Win7 compliant seems small. Maybe it’s consumer deployment where Win7 still has the biggest challenges.
I eventually found an adapter – sadly only 11g not 11n. but only by taking a list of products from the MS web site along to the shop. And now it’s all working I think Win7 is excellent, the best Windows yet.
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