windows 7

Topic: windows 7 (Read 1779 times) previous topic - next topic

windows 7

August 08, 2009, 10:28:30 PM

I just installed the windows 7 rc. So far so good. Everything seems to be working.
Some of the programs on my computer have questionable backgrounds.
It has some kind of theme thing. I'm not sure what it does yet.

windows 7

Reply #1 – August 08, 2009, 11:23:17 PM

We've installed the RTM/MSDN one on Thursday at work to begin application testing. It's a decent OS and has been since RC. It will become the new "xp" in longevity.

windows 7

Reply #2 – August 09, 2009, 07:45:33 AM

I installed it the first day it was available for download and was impressed, but had to uninstall it a few weeks ago and go back to Vista. It wasn't 7's fault, though, it was the fault of a beta video driver that I had to hack to get to work at all (because ATI does not offer drivers for laptop graphics, I had to use a hack called "Mobility Modder" to get it to install), that started blue-screening every time I closed the lid on the laptop (the blue screen message stated that the driver went into a loop).

windows 7

Reply #3 – August 09, 2009, 03:24:52 PM

I have an ati video card on my laptop and haven't been having any problems so far. My ati catalyst program even seems to be running and the install said it probably wouldn't. As far as I know my drivers are up to date. I game on my laptop and I monitor my graphics performance. I'm using a radeon 2400 driver.

windows 7

Reply #4 – August 09, 2009, 05:16:24 PM

Mines an old Radeon X600 in a Gateway laptop. When I tried to install Catalyst it didn't say it "probably" wouldn't run, it simply refused to install, saying that if I want graphics drivers to go to Gateway (who has not even released Vista drivers for this machine, much less 7, even though I bought it one month before Vista was released). I had to run the Mobility Modder hack to get the new drivers to install. It worked perfectly up until two weeks ago, when the driver started going into a loop and bluescreening every time the laptop lid was closed. I probably could have fixed it, but this old laptop is on its last legs anyway and only has to last me until fall, when I can buy a new one with 7 (and 7 drivers!) already installed. This poor old Gateway has had two broken hinges (I actually took the screen apart and welded them back together, I even cut a patch for them out of a steel putty knife!), the CD part of the DVD/CD drive doesn't work (It'll read and write DVD's but not CD's, apparently the CD laser is burned out), and the screen flickers, indicating the cold-cathode backlight is starting to fail. I know I could buy one now and get a free upgrade in Oct, but I'd rather not deal with the hassle. Besides, late Oct is close enough to Christmas to justify buying it and calling it a present to myself :hick:

I also had another issue with 7: Any time a windows explorer dialogue box opened up, no matter which program requested it (such as when you want to upload photos to this forum, the window that comes up when you click "browse") would cause that program to crash. It happened with Firefox, Explorer, Word, Paint, and any other program - when I tried to open or save a file it would crash the program when the Windows Explorer dialogue box opened. It probably happened about 75% of the time, so often that I got into the habit of copying the work I was doing into memory (highlighting and CTRL+C for text, or PRT SC for an image) so if the program crashed when I tried to save it I could open the program again and paste everything and not lose my work.

I really did like 7, I just didn't want to troubleshoot it on this old shiznitbox. 7 ran better (faster) on it than Vista does. I chalk most of my problems up to old, underpowered and unsupported (by Gateway) hardware. I mean, I was running 7 (and am currently running Vista) on an Athlon 64 4000+ with a paltry 1.5GB RAM, a 128B ATI Radeon X600 graphics card, and a monster 80GB HDD. With all of the eye candy (Aero) turned on.

windows 7

Reply #5 – August 09, 2009, 05:46:45 PM

I'm finding that my computer is running much faster, as well.
The only problem I'm having is that no programs show on my start menu "all programs" but I'm working on it.
I can see that you might have problems with an older graphics card.

windows 7

Reply #6 – August 21, 2009, 03:06:14 AM

The problem with my Start Menu programs was caused by having too many programs in my Start Menu/programs folder. If you have more than 70, the list goes blank.