If you read the other days of this series you will see that there is a known problem with Windows 7 and certain DVD roms. That was the main reason for the lockups.

Until I fixed the issues via the command line Windows 7 was nigh unusable.

I want to say for the record that your experience is VERY ATYPICAL. I’ve been using Windows Vista and Windows 7 since they were released (about a solid 3 years now). I’m not going to lie and say there have been no crashes at all, but there’s no way you’re having the problems you’re having unless that laptop has a piece of faulty hardware in it.

My desktop has bluescreened exactly once, ever, since I upgraded to Vista. My video card driver used to crash frequently (once a week or so), but Vista was able to recover from that non-destructively and without requiring a reboot. Additionally, I have a flaky USB wifi driver that stops working about once a month or so, but merely unplugging and re-plugging it fixes that.

I upgraded this machine from Vista to Windows 7 in-place, and I’ve had zero stability problems. The Windows 7 upgrade advisor actually told me my USB wifi driver wouldn’t work in 7, despite that, it works flawlessly.

I find this all especially ironic after your criticism of the Register for their Ubuntu coverage.

Also: why are you using IE to update Windows 7? Use the control panel specifically designed for that. Or just do nothing and let Windows 7 take care of itself.