Windows 7 questions

[Darat]

Well for me everything is a lot faster - but then I was moving from an old Athlon XP 2600 based system to a Phenom II X4 system so I would expect at least a slight increase in speed!

However that aside all the reviews do mention that Windows 7 "feels" smoother and quicker than Vista even if the benchmark results are very similar.

 

[Darat]

Have to say I do like Windows 7, there are a few things I'm having to unlearn (for instance where "show desktop" is) but all the changes do seem to make sense, even if I don't always agree with how they've been implemented.

 

[lionking]

Have to say I do like Windows 7, there are a few things I'm having to unlearn (for instance where "show desktop" is) but all the changes do seem to make sense, even if I don't always agree with how they've been implemented.

So do I, apart from the fact it conflicts with Diablo II and there is no work-around.

 

[Darat]

That is terrible! Microsoft should be ashamed of themselves!

ETA: - Are you sure of this Lionking - I've found several forums and the like that seem to indicate it is possible - for example : http://windows7forums.com/windows-7...ning-diablo-ii-w-lod-expansion.html#post80311

 

[lionking]

Thanks, I'll look into it. Windows 7 itself told me that there were no solutions (with accompanying dire warnings about proceeding), and who am I to question the great lord?

 

[Soapy Sam]

It seems that the M$ definition of "Upgrade" has changed for W7.
An upgrade from XP requires a custom (clean) install anyway, so why not do the same from Vista as well? So I did.
On a Dell XPS420 (a year old) it took 45 mins and 4 auto restarts to reach the "Enter product key" stage; 50 mins to load updates and now, at the 55min point, I have (apparently) a working PC. (Not the one I'm on now. ) Painless enough. My sole gripe is that having autoselected a screen configuration so hi-res that it's using a fractional font size, SETUP.EXE slipped in a pre-selected microscopic "Activate automatically when online" box which I only caught as I was already clicking the "Next" button. As there was no back arrow, I shut down and restarted, carefully unselecting said box.
It restarted without problems.

That was sneaky. I'll activate when I've decided I'm keeping it on that PC and not before.

Another surprise was that I had expected a choice of browser to be offered. Was there not a great deal of pant-wetting over this in Strasbourg this very year? I find myself running IE8 for the first time, with no other option offered. It takes me straight to a Microsoft IE8 welcome page which thanks me for downloading IE8, which I was wholly unaware I had done. This was in the auto-updates I assume?

Anyway, it worked very effectively , taking only a minute or so (and one brief encounter with UAC) to download and install Firefox 3.5. Oddly, the install routine for that offered to create a shortcut in my Quick Launch Toolbar, of which I understand I have none by default.

So far so good though. As uncomplicated an install as I recall. I shall go and play.

 

[GreNME]

It seems that the M$ definition of "Upgrade" has changed for W7.

How so? The policy looks to me to be the same as it's been since Vista came out.

An upgrade from XP requires a custom (clean) install anyway, so why not do the same from Vista as well? So I did.
On a Dell XPS420 (a year old) it took 45 mins and 4 auto restarts to reach the "Enter product key" stage; 50 mins to load updates and now, at the 55min point, I have (apparently) a working PC. (Not the one I'm on now. ) Painless enough. My sole gripe is that having autoselected a screen configuration so hi-res that it's using a fractional font size, SETUP.EXE slipped in a pre-selected microscopic "Activate automatically when online" box which I only caught as I was already clicking the "Next" button. As there was no back arrow, I shut down and restarted, carefully unselecting said box.
It restarted without problems.

That was sneaky. I'll activate when I've decided I'm keeping it on that PC and not before.

How is that sneaky? It auto-selects when it finds a NIC it has a driver for, and can connect to the internet. Otherwise, it defaults to unselected. It also is not auto-selected when doing a clean install.

Another surprise was that I had expected a choice of browser to be offered. Was there not a great deal of pant-wetting over this in Strasbourg this very year? I find myself running IE8 for the first time, with no other option offered. It takes me straight to a Microsoft IE8 welcome page which thanks me for downloading IE8, which I was wholly unaware I had done. This was in the auto-updates I assume?

No. Win 7 ships with IE8.

Anyway, it worked very effectively , taking only a minute or so (and one brief encounter with UAC) to download and install Firefox 3.5. Oddly, the install routine for that offered to create a shortcut in my Quick Launch Toolbar, of which I understand I have none by default.

The FF installer doesn't have different setup screens depending on which version of Windows you're installing on. The installer screens are identical between Win 7 and Vista (which I can verify), and likely XP as well (which I can test if you need verification).

 

[I Ratant]

I gifted myself with a Windows 7 computer, and picked the Home Professional upgrade, and the Easy Transfer cable/disk.
Mostly everything transferred from the XP computer tried to work, but most of it needed to be re-installed.
The data comes across OK, but not the programs.
Not having the original disks (get the original disks when doing an online upgrade/download!) a lot of the programs transferred won't work without a full installation.
As many of the programs I have been using are seriously out of date/production... I will need to keep the XP machine operational.

 

[Soapy Sam]

How so? The policy looks to me to be the same as it's been since Vista came out.

Could be. I never upgraded to Vista (Though I did "Downgrade" a Vista laptop to XP). I don't call moving from XP to W7 an upgrade. I call it installing a new OS. The Vista to W7 move is an upgrade. That's what most folk would expect of the word "upgrade" who have moved from 3.1 to 95 or 95 to 98 or 98 to XP. Shove in a disc. Push a button. Fill in the blanks. Your files don't vanish in the process. Upgrade. I always do clean installs anyway, so it's no biggie, but I think some folk may get a surprise.

How is that sneaky? It auto-selects when it finds a NIC it has a driver for, and can connect to the internet. Otherwise, it defaults to unselected. It also is not auto-selected when doing a clean install.

This was a clean install and it was auto selected. That's what I thought sneaky. It was sneaky IMO, because it was slipped in way to early in the installation process.
I feel no software should ever, under any circumstances, go online and do anything, until the owner has had time to think if that's what he wants it to do. The middle of an OS install is not the appropriate time or place. Most folk will just click "Next" without realising what they signed up to.

Once the OS is installed and running and the owner chooses to go online is the appropriate time and place. At that point a pop-up (Activate Now?) window seems reasonable, given you feel activation is reasonable at all. Matter of opinion, I suppose. My point is that I may- or may not leave W7 on this machine. I may remove it and install it elsewhere. Once activated, that can be problematical.
For the same reason , I don't feel the updates should load till the OS is in place and the user is happy with that.

No. Win 7 ships with IE8.

So it seems. I thought the compromise with the EU was that W7 installations should offer a choice of browsers. Maybe it does. But it surely doesn't advertise it.

The FF installer doesn't have different setup screens depending on which version of Windows you're installing on. The installer screens are identical between Win 7 and Vista (which I can verify), and likely XP as well (which I can test if you need verification).

No, I'm sure you're right. There's no variation. I was fooled by the new W7 text boxes into thinking it was a Windows install routine. That's what happens when you install software and drink beer at the same time.

W7 made a neat job of locating the drivers for my Epson 4490 scanner, though I was a bit surprised it didn't ask for the install discs, rather than jumping online to get the drivers. Fine if you have a reasonable connection, bit of a pain otherwise. I had carefully located my driver discs too!

So far, I'm pretty impressed though. No serious problems as yet....
...except UAC took over three minutes to decide it was ok to install sun office. WTF?

 

[GreNME]

Could be. I never upgraded to Vista (Though I did "Downgrade" a Vista laptop to XP). I don't call moving from XP to W7 an upgrade. I call it installing a new OS. The Vista to W7 move is an upgrade. That's what most folk would expect of the word "upgrade" who have moved from 3.1 to 95 or 95 to 98 or 98 to XP. Shove in a disc. Push a button. Fill in the blanks. Your files don't vanish in the process. Upgrade. I always do clean installs anyway, so it's no biggie, but I think some folk may get a surprise.

Well, the process changed a lot from XP to Vista, as well as where the User stuff resided (and how it was treated). Still, I agree with you that XP to W7 counts as a new OS and not an upgrade. I think MS is trying to pander to hangers-on by allowing XP upgrades, though.

This was a clean install and it was auto selected. That's what I thought sneaky. It was sneaky IMO, because it was slipped in way to early in the installation process.
I feel no software should ever, under any circumstances, go online and do anything, until the owner has had time to think if that's what he wants it to do. The middle of an OS install is not the appropriate time or place. Most folk will just click "Next" without realising what they signed up to.

Once the OS is installed and running and the owner chooses to go online is the appropriate time and place. At that point a pop-up (Activate Now?) window seems reasonable, given you feel activation is reasonable at all. Matter of opinion, I suppose. My point is that I may- or may not leave W7 on this machine. I may remove it and install it elsewhere. Once activated, that can be problematical.
For the same reason , I don't feel the updates should load till the OS is in place and the user is happy with that.

Hrm, well that is odd. Every routine I've run of Vista and Win 7 have left the box unchecked when clean, auto-checked when upgrading. Now I have to pay closer attention (or ask some friends with more connections in MS) about the logic behind whether it's checked or not. Thanks for giving me another niggling task to get an answer on that will nag me until I know the answer.

As for whether or not the way it is happens to be the "proper" steps to take, my guess is that for some it's not and for others it is, depending on how much manual input one wishes to put into the process of activation.

So it seems. I thought the compromise with the EU was that W7 installations should offer a choice of browsers. Maybe it does. But it surely doesn't advertise it.

Good question (implied). I think the choice was to either have or not have IE, but perhaps there's something more complex in the wording that allows them to ship it with the browser installed automagically. I definitely wouldn't expect MS to be required to offer competitors' browsers on their install disk, though-- I could think of a few IP lawsuits that could come from such a condition.

No, I'm sure you're right. There's no variation. I was fooled by the new W7 text boxes into thinking it was a Windows install routine. That's what happens when you install software and drink beer at the same time.

Substitute beer for Irish whiskey or white russians and I can sympathize greatly.

W7 made a neat job of locating the drivers for my Epson 4490 scanner, though I was a bit surprised it didn't ask for the install discs, rather than jumping online to get the drivers. Fine if you have a reasonable connection, bit of a pain otherwise. I had carefully located my driver discs too!

So far, I'm pretty impressed though. No serious problems as yet....
...except UAC took over three minutes to decide it was ok to install sun office. WTF?

I think the wider drivers acceptance is a very cool aspect. As for why UAC hung for a few minutes on the Sun Office deal, your guess is as good as mine. I've found some installers that prompt UAC just fine (when needed), and others that seem to sit there and spin until Windows catches on and shoots up a prompt. I've not run any file monitoring to watch when and where this is occurring, though.

 

[jsiv]

This was a clean install and it was auto selected. That's what I thought sneaky. It was sneaky IMO, because it was slipped in way to early in the installation process.

Maybe, but Microsoft has been trying to cut down on all the wizards. Most people actually do want it to just activate on its own. The option is left there for those that won't.

So far, I'm pretty impressed though. No serious problems as yet....
...except UAC took over three minutes to decide it was ok to install sun office. WTF?

Do you mean the UAC prompt show up instantly and sort of locked up, or do you mean it took ages to show up at all? If it's the latter, chances are it wasn't UAC (which doesn't "decide" anything), but actually Windows trying to verify the integrity and digital signature of the executable.

 

[jsiv]

So it seems. I thought the compromise with the EU was that W7 installations should offer a choice of browsers. Maybe it does. But it surely doesn't advertise it.

No, the case was stalled past the launch date and no court decision has been made. It's still ongoing. Regardless of what the outcome eventually is though, it won't affect you if you're not in Europe as it only applies to the European versions.

 

[Soapy Sam]

I downloaded the Sun Office installer file.and ran it. UAC asked if I really meant this. I clicked "Yes" and everything just. . . . stopped. No feedback from the YES button.
But if I've learned one thing from the Zen Masters of Redmond over the years, it's patience. I waited. And Lo! it started again. Beats me.Right now, the Dell is copying 36GB of data files back from it's evil twin the hp9090; photos mostly, - and my bizarre notion of a data file hierarchy. Seems to be doing ok, so I think I'll let it crack on while I head for bed.

I'm in the Peoples' Republic of Scotland, by the way. It's like Svalbard, but the bears drink Guiness.

 

[jnelso99]

If you accidentally checked the "activate when online" checkbox during installation, I believe you can say "no" when it does try to activate, and then there's a registry key to modify to turn off the automatic activation (you'll have to google that). I did that on one of our test systems at work. I like to fully patch and update the system before activating to make sure everything works right.

You can also put off activation for months by logging in as an administrator, running a command prompt as administrator, and typing "slmgr -rearm". That will give you another thirty days before you have to activate. It can be done up to three times.

As of Win7, you have the ability to uninstall IE8. The HTML rendering engine is still there for things like html help, but the front end can be removed. Software developers cannot assume that ANY browser is installed on a system anymore.

ETA: Why is "administrator" highlighted above?

 

[Soapy Sam]

Where? I'm not seeing that.

The file copy went flawlessly. I several times had the experience (with Vista) of copying a large number of directories of photographs - only to find that while the directories copied perfectly , they were completely empty. I never used the "Move" command with Vista.
W7 also boots 22 seconds faster than the Vista installation it has replaced, which is nice. (And, according to my notes, some twelve seconds faster than Vista did when first used a year ago- but that's partly because the Vista install was Dell's OEM version and loaded with startups the DVD install doesn't have.)

So- so far , 9 and a bit out of ten, but these days, we expect an OS to install and run on a standard machine.
The next q that arises, - as with Vista - is what does this OS let me do that XP did not? Too early for me to say. What do the more experienced users think on that?

 

[GreNME]

The next q that arises, - as with Vista - is what does this OS let me do that XP did not? Too early for me to say. What do the more experienced users think on that?

It lets you not have to worry as much about stuff installing in the background when you visit a web page. It makes better use of the RAM and (if you have them) multi-core CPUs to run more programs at once without them hampering each other as much. This will take some time (took me a few months), but the new way the Taskbar works should become a pleasant change to dealing with loads of window boxes cluttering your taskbar with lots of stuff open. Better driver support. More flexibility with various types of removable media. I hear it handles cameras and mobile (computing) devices as their own "type" or taxonomy now (I have nothing to test with). You have this thing called "HomeGroups" now, where home users that have multiple Win7 systems can share files, pictures, and video back and forth with little hands-on configuration.

In other words: a bunch of little stuff, some of it "under the hood" where you'll hardly notice it except in passing observation (mostly performance-wise). Nothing "wow" in any major sense, but a lot of "finally got it right" or "about time" stuff with user interface, consistency of working with pluggable devices, and doing general tasks.

 

[jnelso99]

Hmm - when I made my post, the words "administrator" were red and underlined and behaved like hyperlinks. Now they don't. Wacky.

 

[Terry]

Hmm - when I made my post, the words "administrator" were red and underlined and behaved like hyperlinks. Now they don't. Wacky.

In the forum management section, certain words relating to forum management auto-hyperlink to their definitions as used here. Administrator is one, rule is another, I think. For some reason, when the thread page has been updated by AJAX, these show up regardless of the forum. But once you reload the thread, they don't any more.

 

[Soapy Sam]

It lets you not have to worry as much about stuff...

That agrees withwhat I read in the PC press and blogs - it's essentially the generally better upgrade Vista should have been, - but no "killer app" differences from XP.

Which is fine, so far as it goes, but I wonder if it is enough? I read today that while take-up is way ahead of Vista at the same stage (4% already), it seems that the XP diehards are mostly staying put, while Vista use is dropping at exactly the rate of increase of W7.

The people who just like tinkering with PCs are trying it and in general are giving it the thumbs up - but will the corporate buyers upgrade?

 

[BlackCat]

I'm trying it out, mostly because I lost my XP Pro disc, and that computer really really needed a fresh install. It's nothing that's so fabulous that I'd drop XP on my other computers, but it works fine.

It had a few quirks though, things which I haven't seen others talk about. Things like refusing to see other drives (I have a partition and a separate drive), until I'd allocated the empty one, and forced a letter drive on the separate one. That scared me for a second, because I have a lot of back-up on that separate drive. (It's not my only backup, don't worry!)

The other was it refused to see my network, insisting that it could only connect to other Win 7 computers, which is a lie, of course. I had to look up settings on how to change the workgroup name, cause it doesn't just let you do that like in XP. I'm so silly, I changed my workgroup name away from the default! How dare I? But once I did that, and changed other settings, like letting users change files, rather than just look at them, it works just fine now.

One nice thing was that it had the drivers for things already. (I build my own computers.) I was wondering what I would do because I didn't have drivers for Win 7, just XP. But everything seems to work just fine, which is nice for once.

I'd say, if you're happy with XP, don't upgrade. But Win 7 isn't that bad, either. Fortunately, I skipped over the Vista fiasco.