Windows 7

Ecuadorian · 31 Oct 2009, 08:28

You're right. Even now with just XP and ESET antivirus, I have zero malware problems, so I hope not to have them in 7. The worst fear for me are clients and friends who bring USB drives, so I hope 7 ignores autorun files in such media by default.

tomot · 2 Nov 2009, 18:54

My experience with Windows 7 Ultimate: I Installed it on an Acer AOD250 netbook:

Can't find and install the following:

WiFi
Intel VGA so you can display on larger LCD Monitors

The Wireless LAN_Atheros driver and VGA_Intel drivers which work for an XP SP3 install, wont work with the Windows 7 install.

Microsoft is a joke! Imagine spending all this time and effort and the install still cant
recognize an internet connection. Thank god we have access to open source OS's like Ubuntu etc.

solo · 2 Nov 2009, 20:25

Just out of curiosity, did you use the update analyzing tool?

I'm sure if you did it would have told you what is and what is not instantly compatible, and it would have directed you to a site that would explain how to resolve these issues.

tomot · 2 Nov 2009, 21:09

@solo said:

Just out of curiosity, did you use the update analyzing tool?

I'm sure if you did it would have told you what is and what is not instantly compatible, and it would have directed you to a site that would explain how to resolve these issues.

I'm not updating I'm doing a new install. It should be noted that all net books come with a pre-installed OS, be it ASUS, ACER, DELL etc. they all pay bigbucks to MS so the average person has no problems getting his or her laptop running. However should one engage in doing a new install they will find out how really inept any MS OS is when it comes to installation.

solo · 2 Nov 2009, 21:16

Regardless of update or clean install the update tool would tell you what is and what is not compatible before installing. It scans your machine and then reports to you about any issues you will have based on your system hardware.
I can tell by your tone that you had a preexisting hatred for anything Microsoft to begin with, must be a karma thing then.

Ecuadorian · 2 Nov 2009, 21:32

Windows 7 Ultimate on a netbook?
The "starter" version is the one for netbooks.

As Pete pointed out, I ran the sys requirements test before even daring to buy Windows 7, and I'm confident that I'll eventually solve the problems I'm experiencing. Yes, Ubuntu seems to magically recognize everything without needing drivers, but then again SketchUp can't run on Ubuntu.

tomot · 2 Nov 2009, 22:04

@solo said:

I can tell by your tone that you had a preexisting hatred for anything Microsoft to begin with, must be a karma thing then.

I would never use the word hate. maybe!

Ecuadorian · 3 Nov 2009, 18:03

Ok, people, I have finished backing up all the stuff in my data drive. I backed up this year's projects twice, just in case. Now I'll switch to 7 and format the data drive. Let's see how this goes...

tomot · 3 Nov 2009, 18:19

@ecuadorian said:

Ok, people, I have finished backing up all the stuff in my data drive. I backed up this year's projects twice, just in case. Now I'll switch to 7 and format the data drive. Let's see how this goes...

a new install on my quad core cpu computer was quite painless, and faster than vista 64.

Ecuadorian · 3 Nov 2009, 20:02

Small update:

After formatting it in Windows 7, the hard drive now works perfectly from both XP and 7. I'm currently copying again all my stuff to the drive.

I'm also faced with some decisions: Which RAR program should I install? Which media player should I use? For media player, I decided to forgo the native one and install VLC instead. After the VLC install finished, I double-clicked on a movie to open it, and... Zap! my second Windows 7 Blue Screen Of Death. I guess in 7 you always have to restart after installing something new, so I'll try to keep that in mind.

UPDATE: I keep getting Blue Screens every time I try to access screen options or open a video with VLC, so I guess the nvidia driver provided by MS via Windows update is buggy. I'll try installing the one from nvidia's page. Oh, and the keyboard mapping is wrong, I'll have to solve that soon.

honoluludesktop · 3 Nov 2009, 21:43

Miguel, Were you able to identify the issue? Why both OS can see the drive only after reformatting?

Ecuadorian · 3 Nov 2009, 21:48

No idea. When I check the drive properties there is no difference at all. It was, and still is, formatted in NTFS, with indexing activated, and without encryption or compression activated. Sounds pretty absurd, I know.

Now, about my current BSOD problem, I went to NVIDIA's site and used the automatic driver detection tool. Paf! Another Blue Screen of Death. After restarting, I manually located the driver and I'm downloading it now. Let's see how this turns out. At least I now know it's related to the graphics card... the same one that works perfectly in XP.

UPDATE: It seems I'm not the only one. There are more than 100k results for: geforce "windows 7" BSOD.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=geforce+%22windows+7%22+BSOD&aq=f&oq=&aqi=

honoluludesktop · 3 Nov 2009, 22:09

How about the Win7 driver. Any chance that on the previous install of Win7 that the wrong driver was selected for the second drive? Would be nice to know, but don't need to mess with it when working, sometimes "kicking the tires" makes things better:-)

Ecuadorian · 3 Nov 2009, 23:22

I have no previous Win7 install.

Now, returning to my BSOD problems in Windows 7, I have just downloaded the correct driver directly from nvidia's site and tried to install it. More BSOD.
I think I'll just continue working on XP for the time being until Microsoft solves their problems with nvidia. Ironically, the upgrade advisor said nothing about the graphics card.

UPDATE: I changed my mind and decided not to give up so soon, so I entered the BIOS and changed a setting from its default value. It's working now!
I'll try to write down what I changed and post it later.

ANOTHER UPDATE: So I installed SketchUp and tried to open it. BSOD again. While in Error-free mode, I installed the drivers I downloaded from the nvidia site. Now Windows 7 goes BSOD on start. Now I really give up, at least for today.

Phil Rader AIA · 4 Nov 2009, 02:22

After following the instructions in the windows 7 upgrade adviser I upgraded windows vista ultimate to windows 7. So far no issues. Sketchup and AutoCAD are working fine. I will need to get a new twilight license as that License is OS specific

Ecuadorian · 4 Nov 2009, 04:14

Thanks for the reminder, Phil. I did check that all my hardware was compatible before venturing into 7, and I've just checked again and everything should just work. Thye only warning I saw is that my GeForce 9600GT, which is fairly new, can't run Aero, but it IS listed as compatible with Windows 7.

UPDATE: After seemingly infinite restarts, Blue Screens, driver install/unistall sequences, visits to support sites, BIOS manipulations and even a couple of bad thoughts ("I should get a Mac"), I think I finally nailed the problem: The Windows 7 theme I was using was not compatible with my graphics card... or so it seems. I was using the "Windows Classic" theme. Now I'm on the "Windows 7 Basic" theme and I've been able to run an HD video tutorial on VLC, and run SketchUp 7 without any more Blue Screen problems. Weird. Both themes seem to ahve no Aero, so I don't see the problem. Sounds stupid, but I've used even more stupid solutions to my PC problems in the past. And I certainly do NOT want to retest with the other theme to see if I get BSOD's again.

Still, keep your eyes open for more episodes of "2009 - A Windows 7 Odyssey".

(Thanks to Mac owners for not poking fun at me on this thread.)

notareal · 4 Nov 2009, 09:04

@ecuadorian said:

Small update:

After formatting it in Windows 7, the hard drive now works perfectly from both XP and 7. I'm currently copying again all my stuff to the drive.

I'm also faced with some decisions: Which RAR program should I install? Which media player should I use? For media player, I decided to forgo the native one and install VLC instead. After the VLC install finished, I double-clicked on a movie to open it, and... Zap! my second Windows 7 Blue Screen Of Death. I guess in 7 you always have to restart after installing something new, so I'll try to keep that in mind.

UPDATE: I keep getting Blue Screens every time I try to access screen options or open a video with VLC, so I guess the nvidia driver provided by MS via Windows update is buggy. I'll try installing the one from nvidia's page. Oh, and the keyboard mapping is wrong, I'll have to solve that soon.

VLC do have some serious Win 7 issues. So far Media Player Classic Home Cinema , seems to work fine with Win7 64bit.
For archive, 7-Zip is my favourite. It do have a 64 bit version.
nVidia divers are always best to download from nvidia (there might be some beta divers too to solve some particular problems). Have to say you have got really strange problems with nVidia. Have you made a search if there generally some issues with that display card and Win 7, just to eliminate that the display card is not broken.

notareal · 4 Nov 2009, 09:15

Miguel, about BSOD, do you have also a on-board display adapter? If so, make sure that it's not enabled.

chango70 · 4 Nov 2009, 14:57

Another thing about windows 7. My toolbar haven't gone crazy YET! Yes I have been adding plugins so go figure.

troyhome · 4 Nov 2009, 15:42

My beef is that the menus don't scroll in Sketchup- I have so many extensions that they need to scroll to fit on my tiny 17" monitor, but they don't scroll automatically; i have to click a down or up arrow to get to my off-screen extensions.
Worse yet, i can't change the Win7 system font size to my liking- they only let you go down to a 9 pt font!!! i want 7 or even 6 pts. and the DPI control doesn't help either! I need a registry hack for something i could do natively in XP and Vista.