Hmmm,

My parents NEVER yelled at me. Used a belt, switch, etc, etc, but never yelled.


I was doing all the yelling....

You know it just occurred to me I'm still using a RC9500 which is about the same age. Any computers I had that would deal with the software are long gone and for the last few years any changes have been entirely manually entered into the remote itself. Still going strong though.

I have few 9600s (both remotes and base stations) that I'm not using, but hate to just throw out.
I'm hoping that someday I'll owe someone a favor and will be able to settle it with a trade.

Just over a year ago my Lenovo died during an out of town project. It was replaced with a top of the line Mac Book Pro ($3500+). I immediately hated it because it was so slow when running Windows 7 via VMWare. Everything was slower including the internet. If I had to download a big file I would swipe over to the MAC OS side because it was so much faster.

I kept telling myself that one day I would install windows with bootcamp to see if that would make it any faster but because loading software and syncing data is always a whole day thing I put it off until now. I decided to go with Windows 10 Enterprise and I also updated Office to 2016.

It took me about 4 hours to figure out how to delete the old VMWare installation and then to figure out why bootcamp kept hanging at "Installing realtek drivers" and then I had to figure out how to get RoboForm working in Internet Explorer because I cant get it working with the new Edge browser or the latest version of Firefox. I still need to sync about 500GB of data via egnyte and sync tens of thousands of emails to outlook.

The plan was to give bootcamp a try and if that didn't improve things I would sell the Mac Book for a grand and buy a new computer. Wow this thing is fast now. I should have done this a long time ago. It reminds me of when I put the SSD drive in the Lenovo and it felt like I got a new computer. As long as the hardware doesn't fail I should be able to get another 2-3 years out of this machine. Windows 10 is what Windows 8 should have been. I am sure there are things about it that I will discover and hate but so far I can say that navigating around in windows 10 is as easy for me as windows 7.

I get that VMWare is convenient if you are a MAC user but I spend 99.9% of the time in Windows so I am sticking with bootcamp. Next machine will definitely be a Windows PC. I will go up to a 17" to get the physical screen height that is lost with the 16:9 15" laptops on the market. Apple is the only company still making 16:10.

I am convinced a group of engineers got together to create the worst Windows experience ever on a Mac, they came up with VMWare.

What?  I've been using Fusion on my MBP for years with Windows 7 with no problems.  I've never had any of the issues that I read here.  I run full AutoCAD (not LT), DTools, Visio, the entire Crestron suite of software, and RTI without issue.

I spend most of my computer time on the Windows side, and when I'm at my desk I run three external monitors with no loss of graphics or processor performance.  And when I'm not working in the field, my computer often stays on with Fusion running for days at a time.

Haven't jumped to Windows 10 yet because I have no compelling reason to do so.  Maybe when that time comes I will have a different opinion?

My experience was similar to Mac's. When connecting to Crestron I had to set the Windows side with a static address. Fun when you were bouncing from job to job. I also could not connect to Panasonic phone systems. It was so bad I went and picked up my own PC to work with.

My boss has the same MBP i have with the same VMWare/Windows 7 install...i mean literally the same because he actually copied his after a clean install and used that to load mine. He never complains about speed issues. So maybe its some machines or some mix of software causing the problem. All i know is that i haven't noticed speed issues once since i switched to boot camp. Restarting the computer takes seconds. Lutron QS software loads instantly and i can work with files every time. Before i would open up the QS software, open a file and 1 out of every 4 times i would have to crash the app because it would hang when i tried to switch to program view tab.

Forgot to mention that I have no issues connecting to Pany TDE or TVA systems either.

TDA via USB is another issue.  I'll pull out my old Dell machine to connect to them, and but will add an IP Gateway card to get them on the network.

Sometimes I need to change the Fusion Network Adapter from Bridged to NAT in order to for Fusion to be happy on a clients network, but that is a pretty minor inconvenience.

Did you build your VM off of the Bootcamp partition, or is it completely separate?

On my last MBP, I started with Bootcamp and then imported that as my VM.  On my current MBP, I just run a straight VM.  Don't even have a Bootcamp partition.

I will say that I do a completely fresh Fusion / Windows install about every 14 to 18 months.  Just normal housekeeping as Windows (even on a Dell, HP, whatever) just bogs down over time.  I used to do this with my older Dell machine too.

My boss built the VM with a full copy of Win7Pro. He installed office, typical control system software and software we use to run the business and manage projects. Once he was done he created a backup of that clean/new install so that he could have multiple VM's. He was able to use that to load my laptop with everything he already had installed.


We call it windows rot. This wasn't the issue though because i noticed it immediately...and whined about it for over a year.

Try this: [Link: netsetman.com]
You set tabs for different network environments and switch between them with a simple double-click.
I have my first tab setup as DHCP, next is x.x.1.20, I have one for x.x.88.20 and similar for UniFi, Araknis, Dahua, etc.

I got a call from potential client.
He wants to get his home theater setup and already purchased all the equipment.
He asked if I could help him install it, and asked how long it would take.

I said that I would have to see the installation site, equipment involved, etc. before I could give an idea of time involved.

He asked how much that would cost, to which I replayed that service call (or consultation) is $140 and covers up to 1 hour of my time, after which it's $85/hr.

He asked if we could meet first and talk before he commits to my consultation charge.

I informed him that rolling a truck, spending time away from other, billable services, and most importantly, away from my family IS a billable charge.

He doesn't want to, and I quote, "throw away $140 if the actual installation charge is something ridiculous, like $900", end quote.

I even offered to go as far as a credit for the initial consultation charge towards future work.

That was not good enough and an option for free visit was once again requested.

I ended a conversation by explaining that if the initial $140 fee for evaluating scope of work and providing installation options was too high of a cost, that perhaps my company was not the right fit for this man.


What would you have done differently?

Do you offer free estimate, which requires research into client provided equipment or site visit?

I feel confident in my decision, and understand that I'm not going to be the right fit for every potential person out there, but I want to make sure that free consultation is not the norm in our field.

We do free on site consults for what could be decent sized jobs. Not for what you described. That is T&M.

Translation:

"Waste a couple hours out of your life teaching me how to do the installation myself."