Beta meets Release Candidate: Relationship does not last

On Jan 30th, 2007 GWMicro released a public beta of Window-Eyes 6.1 for Microsoft Vista. As a proud owner of a copy of Microsoft Vista Ultimate Release Candidate 2, I decided to give Windows-Eyes a try.

The download from the GWMicro website was a mere 8.4 MB - hardly an issue with today's high-speed Internet connectivity. The install fired up with the well-known double-click on the downloaded file and off it went. The dialogs throughout the easy install are clear and to the point, and before I could get myself a drink (typically an indispensable tool during an install - kind of like a Phillips screwdriver for changing batteries in children's toys) the install was on its way without needing further assistance from me.

Unfortunately, after a while it seem to require assistance from "elsewhere" with a dreaded pop-up informing me (in rather pleasant terms, actually) that the application had encountered an error and needed to close down. And would I like to send a report?

OK - so the install didn't complete as nicely as it could have. Time to uninstall and try again. Find 'Control Panel', figure out where they hid the old 'Add & Remove Programs', and... um... Well, it wasn't there. No Window-Eyes to uninstall. But the icon was on the desktop, so playing the typical user I took the approach that this was probably one of those typical Windows quirks and I therefore proceeded to try launch Window-Eyes. No luck.

A reboot later I got a blue screen. Nice to see they kept that feature from Windows XP and before...

A reboot later I tried again. No blue screen. Well, not at first. Once Window-Eyes was running for real, it quickly presented the BSOD yet again.

All further reboots left me with Window-Eyes starting, only to end with a spontaneous reboot initiated after presenting me with some nice blue screen with debugging info.

So, now I am left with an instance of Microsoft Vista Ultimate Release Candidate 2 with a Window-Eyes 6.1 Beta installed that I apparently cannot get rid of (largely due to a lack of being able to do anything useful prior to the auto-reboot). Clearly, this is not a match made in heaven or elsewhere for that matter. Better keep these two separated. Perhaps things fare better with the official release of Microsoft Vista. But I am not ready to buy Microsoft Vista Ultimate just yet.