Jump to content
The Community Blog (An Invitation)

Arkan

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    2271

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Posts posted by Arkan

    Windows 7

    in Skeeter's Junkyard

    Posted

    Ok, so I was feeling especially Christmas-y and decided to try out Windows 7 and give it a chance. I ripped out every piece of hardware in my computer case, vacuumed them (!) and put them back together with a fresh install of Windows 7 waiting.

     

    The actual install process was very slick. It asked perhaps two questions and then it didn't bug me until it was finished. The entire process took perhaps 20 minutes. I was surprised at how well all my previously undiscovered hardware worked directly under Windows 7 (XP had big problems getting anything to run without official drivers), but I installed the latest official drivers anyhow and everything worked smoothly.

     

    Then I started installing all the applications I use and they all seemed to work fine. Spotify, Paint.net, Visual Studio 2008, Notepad++, MSN Live Messenger, everything works like a charm. I was actually very happy with how it behaved up until then.

     

    But then I wanted to get all my backup pictures back on my hd. I had (for convenience) archived them in a zip archive and burned them to a DVD. It was easy to copy the file from DVD to Windows 7, but then I started unpacking it. It was close to 10,000 pictures and at first Windows 7 just.. stopped. Then a small counter started moving in the bottom left of Explorer. It took probably up to three minutes to just count all the files in the archive. That felt like a bad sign, but I wanted to unpack it anyhow. I directed it to my pictures folder and started unpacking. One hour later it was done. It took XP perhaps 10 minutes to PACK them! W. T. F.?

     

    Anyhow, I got this version of Windows 7 from my university so it's legit.. and in English. But they supplied a language pack on another DVD, so it didn't bother me at all. After a while I was tired of the English everywhere so I decided to install the Swedish language pack. But how? I checked the Windows help and it guided me to a button.. that didn't exist. So I tried installing it from the setup file on the CD. It couldn't recognize the format. I went googling for help.. and after hundreds of useless Microsoft "help" pages, I realized that my version of Windows 7 (Professional) doesn't support language packs. Gee, thanks.

     

    Slightly pissed off but still quite positive about Windows 7 (hey, it works) I started installing a few start-up applications (Catalyst Control Center, EasyTune 6 etc.). They demanded a restart. "Windows, haha", I thought and restarted a few times. Every time I did so, an annoying pop-up appeared saying something like "Do you really want EasyTune 6 to be able to affect your computer?!". Uhm, yes.. that's why I just installed it..? So I clicked yes. But for every program I installed I got an additional warning pop-up. I stopped after three start-up programs, because now, every time I start my computer, I am greeted by three angry looking warning signs asking me if the three start up programs I want to automatically load on start up are really safe. The ****ing OS doesn't understand after the hundredth time of answering "Yes", that maybe, just maybe, I intentionally installed those programs because I wanted them to start up automatically.

     

    Very pissed off I installed ImgBurn to be able to burn a Christmas present to my mom (a years worth of pictures of me, who wouldn't want that?) and set it up the way I want (large cache, automatic write speed etc.). It's an ordinary DVD, but.. Windows 7 somehow manages to have the hard drive spinning at max at all times so my expensive 100+ MB/s throughput Hitachi hard drive can't keep up with the gigantic demand of 4x speed on the DVD burning (that's like.. 5 MB/s)! It actually had to stop and refill all the caches two times during the burning because Windows 7 prioritized something else (even though I put ImgBurn at the highest level of priority). FFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUU..

     

    By that time I was so angry I just turned off the computer and went to bed. This morning, a few hours before writing this post, I woke up and turned on the computer again.. only to be greeted by Windows 7 closing down all my applications and saying "You are not using a genuine copy of Windows 7". So again I go to Windows help to figure out what's wrong.. except the help is online based and Windows 7 doesn't allow me access to the Internet because I am not genuine enough. Enraged I stumble through all the incredibly unintuitive menus in the Control panel (while Windows 7 is nagging me about how unsafe I am via a dozen of pop up windows) and finally find an option where I can change my product key. So I do that and Windows 7 tries to activate it.. through the Internet.. which does not work.. because Windows 7 doesn't allow Internet on non-genuine copies..

     

    I managed to borrow a laptop from a friend, hooked it up on my home network, found a Microsoft phone number (that wasn't toll free for us cell phone users!) and finally managed to activate it, through the phone. What else could go wrong then? Oh, nothing much.. except I just discovered that I am getting some weird ass bug with my system tray.

    post-262-1261488360_thumb.pngpost-262-1261488368_thumb.png

    Yes, everything except volume control and Spotify is invisible. I can't touch the programs, I can't reach them, I have no way of telling what they are. Lovely. Just lovely.

     

    So yeah, that's basically my experience of using Windows 7 for a day and a half. ****ing fantastic.

     

    That's the first I've heard of such problems, but then, I don't do half the things you do, it seems. So far Windows 7 works like a dream for me. It's fast, stable, and pretty (hurr!).

    Dual Windows 7 installations

    in Skeeter's Junkyard

    Posted

    1.press windows+r to start the run prompt

     

    2. type "msconfig" and press enter

     

    3. go to the "boot" tab

     

    4. select the windows installation you want to remove and click delete

     

    5. reboot

     

    6. manually erease the windows folder the installation was in

     

     

    done!

     

    This won't have any ill effects since it was the default set by Dell? I just don't want to brick my mother's computer.

     

    After I do this, is it possible to repartition the original C:\ into the D:\?

    Windows 7

    in Skeeter's Junkyard

    Posted

    What? No matter what I did to the Vista computer it never crashed.

     

    Vista itself never crashed for me, either. It was other programs that had problems. Thankfully, I only had it for about a week until I got the greatness that is 7.

    Windows 7

    in Skeeter's Junkyard

    Posted

    As I stated earlier in this thread, on a 1GB netbook with 1.6 GHz Atom processor, Windows 7 works fine with all the bells and whistles enabled (Aero, peak, etc). The memory/processor gauge gadgets showed it was using about 60% of memory while idle. This was a clean install.

     

    On my older laptop (Inspiron 1520 bought in Nov 07) had XP on it, so I wiped the drive and installed 7 on it. Everything is very responsive and snappy. Of course, it's a clean sytem, so it really should. But as a gamer and casual user of XP, I'm glad I made the switch.

    Windows 7

    in Skeeter's Junkyard

    Posted

    I have an odd question.

     

    On my desktop and my mother's netbook, I was able to pin Windows Media Center to the taskbar/superbar. However, on my laptop, when I rightclick on the WMC icon (in the taskbar while it's open), I don't get the option to 'pin to taskbar'. Am I just missing something, or what? It's really odd. It's not a huge deal as I have WMC on my desktop, but I just like having a clean desktop with as few icons as possible.

    Dual Windows 7 installations

    in Skeeter's Junkyard

    Posted

    So my gift for my mother this year is a Dell Inspiron Mini10 netbook. I had it shipped with Windows 7 Starter (as the other option was XP, and well...I love 7 so far). After ordering it, I realized my error and did some research and realized my error. Win 7 Starter is a majorly gimped verion of 7, when the basic configuration of the Netbooks can run Home Premium perfectly!

     

    So I created another partition on the drive, installed 7 Home Premium and got everything set up. What's the best way to go about getting rid of the original 7 Starter partition (C: )? I'd like to have it reclaimed with the new OS partion for ease of use. Can I safely remove it without borking up the boot up process of entire system?

     

     

    PS: I had to install this way because the Netbook has no DVD drive and I have no external DVD drive to use.

    Windows 7

    in Skeeter's Junkyard

    Posted

    I keep getting a weird ATI driver crash when my computer attempts to wake up from sleep mode in Win7. For the moment I just disabled sleep mode, but that's going to be a waste of power going forward.

     

    Apart from that I love Win7. It's smooth like butter. My only other complaint is that the folder view options don't seem to be saved very well. I want everything to be in Details view, but attempting to apply that view to all other folders inevitably leads to me finding one that has everything as thumbnails. So that's annoying.

     

    I hear you! I prefer everything in thumbnails (large icons in 7), and I often get detailed view. Everything else, as you said, is smooth like butter.

    Windows 7

    in Skeeter's Junkyard

    Posted

    Wasn't 7 supposed to hide or 'make invisible' inactive windows? Mine seem normal, and it's not that I'd find it a particularly useful feature, but I'd like to see it in action.

    Not sure about invisible, but you can grab the top bar of the active window and "shake" it to make all other open windows minimize (Aero Shake).

     

    The only hide thing I know of at the moment is hiding icons in the notification area of the taskbar.

     

    Doh! After a little research, what I was thinking about was "peeking". In the taskbar, if you hover over one of the open windows, it will turn all the other windows into "glass" so you can see the window preview you're hovering over.

     

    Here's the link to what I'm talking about, halfway down the page:

     

    http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2008...t-windows-7.ars

     

    It's pretty swank.

     

    Now I just have a problem with my usb wireless router not working after I come back from standby. I have to unplug it and plug it back in every time.

    Windows 7

    in Skeeter's Junkyard

    Posted

    So I finally got Windows 7 installed, and it is sleek, but I have a question. Wasn't 7 supposed to hide or 'make invisible' inactive windows? Mine seem normal, and it's not that I'd find it a particularly useful feature, but I'd like to see it in action.

    Question about older hard drive with new computer

    in Skeeter's Junkyard

    Posted · Edited by Arkan

    Since my last PC died on me, and I got my new DELL pc, I wanted to install the 250GB drive from my old pc to my new one for extra storage. Well, the old one seems to be ATA, and the new setup seems to be SATA (I think?)...at least, the new cables are all small wires and power cables, whereas, of course, the old one has the wide flat cables and such. Is there any way to get the old HDD installed into the new PC? Or do I essentially have a 250GB brick on my hands?

     

    Edit: Or am I looking for an IDE to SATA type of thing?

    Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2

    in Computer and Console

    Posted

    That was pretty funny, but I'm pretty sure they were serious all the way through.

     

     

    The whole "jump into this dying person's POV for two minutes" is getting pretty old by now...

     

     

    I was just about to come here and comment on that aspect of the game. How many times can you experience dying as a part of the narrative? Hah!

    Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2

    in Computer and Console

    Posted

    I just finished the game myself, and it was pretty crazy. The trenches and whatnot at the whitehouse seemed weird - it would take longer than that to get like that, right? - but it was also really spooky fighting on ground near where I lived for a year, hehe. As someone else put it, it was a rollercoaster ride, and it was a fun game. I'm looking forward to MW3. I hope Soap lives!

     

    I wish the Americans had more to do. You finish on top of the whitehouse narrowly avoiding destruction of the whole area, but I wanted to continue on with that platoon or whatever after than scene.

    Commentary re DLC

    in Computer and Console

    Posted

    Is the Expansion pack economic model pretty much dead?

     

    As we know it, probably. But it's really only being replaced by DLC. You could consider Operation Anchorage, The Pitt, and Broken Steel from FO3 (which I haven't gotten yet!) to be small expansion packs. In that sense, no, they aren't. But truly expansive expansion packs that retail individually in stores? Yeah, they're probably dodo'd.

    Mass Effect!

    in Computer and Console

    Posted

    Mass Effect was a good game, but it gets easily beaten down by the excellent Dragon Age.

     

     

    Really? Bioware topped it that much? I can't wait to play, but I have to take an RPG break and have some FPS fun with Crysis and Mirror's Edge for a while.

×
×
  • Create New...