The constant grind of upgrading

I know I'm all fired up when it comes to computer stuff, as I'm pretty sure you all know, too, since I will keep harping on about it on these very pages.

However, last year I downloaded the Release Candidate of Windows 7 (supposed to allow me a year of free Windows 7 - wow!) and finally got round to installing it in September/October time. It was quite exciting, after only 10 months of working with Vista (which didn't bug me nearly as much as it's obviously bugged a lot of other people), to upgrade to a fresh, new OS. And I always feel it's generally a Good Thing to refine ones programs, and get rid of anything one just doesn't use, but has forgotten to uninstall.

So I spent 5 months working with Windows 7, and thoroughly enjoyed it - there are so many things to recommend it, although I'm not going into them here, because there are many other blogs/reviews/articles in which they are far more completely covered. So, five months, and much time (really, much time) spent getting the system to do exactly what I wanted. Five months of saving bookmarks on Chrome. Five months of downloading and installing the useful little utilities without which any system is but a pale imitation of a computer. The system was singing like a Nightingale!

Until a couple of weeks into February when I get a message from Microsoft telling me that it's now time to upgrade my RC version of Windows to a "real" version. Which is all very well, you may think. I've got until June before it'll stop working, haven't I? Well, not exactly, no. Apparently, from 1st March the system will start shutting down every 2 hours. What? Two hours? WHAT?!

OK, it's no trouble. Surely I can just upgrade. Again.

It actually becomes a fag, after a while. Especially since I've also just upgraded my phone, and have to get that doing what I want it (and there's a year and a half of installs going on there!)

So, anyway, I thought, at least I can go back to my Vista partition (I did set up the RC as a dual boot with the originally installed Vista), but to my sincere annoyance, it wouldn't let me upgrade. Oh poop - but this is a Very Good Thing! It will force me to refine my programs all over again. If I'd realised that I wasn't going to be able to upgrade, I'd have got the 64-bit version of the software, though!

So I'm feeling massively grumpy because I've got SO much work to do during evenings and weekends for a while, and with all the working out I'm doing on my nordic ski machine, I really don't have that much time to spend on the computer at the moment. What with my newly discovered social life, movies on a Saturday night and all, you'd almost think I'd stopped being a sad, lonely git!