Windows 7 installation experience | The Coffeehouse

Dr Herbie
Horses for courses

So, I bit the bullet and decided to retire Vista Ultimate and install Win7 Home Premium.

First attempt: from Vista desktop I put the Win7 DVD in the drive and selected the install option. Started well, rebooted partway through the 'expanding files' section, picked up again from where it left off, but then froze; frozen mouse and no disk activity. Rebooted.

Second Attempt: decided to just wipe the hard disk (had already backed up Users directory). Started well, rebooted partway through the 'expanding files' section, picked up from where it left off, but then froze again (at an earlier point, only 17% done instead of previous 39% done).

Third attempt (getting worried now because I had blown the previous Vista install away entirely now): decided that something was switching off a some hardware or something, decided to keep mouse moving while installation executed (also had vague idea that OnIdle processing was being used so moving the mouse might help). No freeze! Hooray. installed.

First boot: All set up with admin user. First things first, install USB Wifi from the Vista drivers I had thankfully remembered to backup to thumbdrive. Halfway through driver install and it froze! Oh no, here we go.

Second boot: got further this time, managed to install USB WiFi and get to internet before freeze.

Third boot: kept mouse moving at all times. Got to internet, googled Win7 Freeze, got pointer to change power settings to 'high performance' to keep everything on all the time.

Two hours later: no freezes yet, but time to go to work. All drivers installed and a Windows Updaet ran (interestingly Windows7 has updates already, nice to know they haven't gone on holiday!).

So tip: if you get freezes during install, keep the mouse moving. If you get freezes after install, change power settings.

First impressions: not staggeringly different from Vista, but so far so good. Media Centre works with slightly different UI, found my tuner and found all the Channels I had before.

Will no doubt spend this evening restoring all user files and installing applications, so we'll see what differences there are when there's more to do than play Solitaire.

How did everyone else get on?

Herbie

Maddus Mattus
Do, or do not. There is no try. - Yoda

decided to keep mouse moving while installation executed

lol

maybe you have some weird BIOS setting enabled?

I had none of those issues. I popped in the DVD and it installed flawlessly, both on my laptop (Enterprise) and my home machine (Ultimate). MediaCenter is awesome now, because it does not share the libraries.

I like the new taskbar.

I like shake.

I like dock.

I like that I don't use pearl anymore.

And I honoustly tried to come up with something I dont like,...

But I cant come up with anything,...

Dr Herbie
Horses for courses

In reply to Maddus Mattus

#Oct 22nd @ 12:45 AM

I used to have problems with Sleep in Vista (not waking up again) until I managed to get newer drivers for something (I forget what, possibly motherboard), so it's probably another symptom of the same thing. I'll just dig around for driver updates later.

Keeping the mouse moving is the sort of idea I get at 5am and as far as I'm concerned, it worked! In Win95 you could speed up some operations my moving the mouse because the apps used OnIdle processing which uses the message queue to trigger actions on unused messages; WM_MOUSEMOVE would therefore prevent the queue from running dry. I had half an idea that the installer, not being a full version of Windows, might be using OnIdle processing, but it's more likely that it just stopped it putting any hardware to sleep by making it look like I was busy!

Big Smile

Herbie

stevo_
Human after all

Bizzare as it is, it seems very strange to be getting freezing in two environments (install and os), generally hard freezes are usually hardware faults, but given you were using the machine fine before it would seem unlikely to be a physical fault.

Also the mouse thing has worked for me in the past, I remember one time xp not shutting down, I left the machine came back hours later and it was still 'shutting down'.. I hit the ctrl key once and there was a brief blip of activity, 5 minutes later the machine finally shut down.

Dr Herbie
Horses for courses

In reply to stevo_

#Oct 22nd @ 1:23 AM

Addendum: Time taken from DVD insert to first boot as administrator was < 30 minutes, which I though was quite impressive.

Herbie

figuerres
???

before you installed did you try the upgrade advisor to see if it saw any pre-upgrade issues ?

it's a program you can download from the msft windows area.

it will list known hardware and software issues like drivers etc...

Dr Herbie
Horses for courses

In reply to figuerres

#Oct 22nd @ 3:52 AM

Yes I did run the advisor and it pointed to out of date sound drivers (Soundblaster) and to my SQL Native Client installation as having a potential problem.

I then proceeded to wipe the harddrive and install from scratch, rendering any problems with existing stoftware moot.

There were no warnings about hardware.

Herbie

figuerres
???

I upgraded / re-installed on my TX2 laptop yesterday at a microsoft loadfest event out of the box i only had 3 device item that were not recognised and working on startup.

the hp web site had drivers for multiple devices ready for 7 and they left me with just two things i had to use the vista drivers to fix.

that was the TX2 fingerprint reader, the driver for 7 was ok but no UI to have the os login - had to use a vista installer to get that bit.

the other was the buittons on the tablet screen - usb device buttons.

now thats working and i am loading my apps and developer tools.

my second pc - desktop is wating for microsoft store to give me the keys and download link.

hoping they get that done asap...

Dr Herbie
Horses for courses

In reply to figuerres

#Oct 22nd @ 4:09 AM

The only devices I had to deal with were the ancient USB WiFi dongle (A Thompson Speedtouch that I only found Vista drivers for a year ago) and my GuitarPort. Once I got the WiFi working and ran MS Update, it found drivers for everything else (like the TV card and various USB bits) . So all I had to do was go the Line6's GuitarPort driver page and download. Pretty good going.

Herbie

figuerres
???

In reply to Dr Herbie

#Oct 22nd @ 4:38 AM

Glad to hear that once you got past the wonky startup that it's going good.

spivonious

I had blue screens after install and tracked them down to the driver for my wireless card. Updated that and haven't had a problem since. Of course I had zero problems with the same machine with both the beta and RC.

blowdart
Peek-a-boo

In reply to figuerres

#Oct 22nd @ 4:09 AM

Hmm, my fingerprint device was detected automagically and added the logon UI. That's built into Win7 now

Maddus Mattus
Do, or do not. There is no try. - Yoda

In reply to blowdart

#Oct 22nd @ 5:23 AM

Can't get it to remember other passwords though,..

And did you know it recognizes other body parts then the tips of your finger? ..............................

figuerres
???

In reply to Maddus Mattus

#Oct 22nd @ 5:27 AM

i can see how it would... but what part?

login by ..... elbow? toe? kiss? Smiley

Bas
It finds lightbulbs.

In reply to Maddus Mattus

#Oct 22nd @ 5:27 AM

True, I had it scan my nose as well. I mean, what if the mob sawed off both my hands?

CKurt
while( ( !succeed=try() ) ) { }

In reply to Maddus Mattus

#Oct 22nd @ 5:27 AM

The basic Windows 7 Biometrics does not remember other paswords, but if you click trough the biometrics control panel and install the free basic version or payed better version from a different company.

Maddus Mattus
Do, or do not. There is no try. - Yoda

In reply to figuerres

#Oct 22nd @ 5:30 AM

let's just say, my collegues look at me funny when I log in Smiley

spivonious

In reply to Maddus Mattus

#Oct 22nd @ 6:24 AM

Just don't get arrested Wink

LeoDavidson

In reply to Maddus Mattus

#Oct 22nd @ 5:27 AM

I used to use one of these:

The fingerprint reader on the side wasn't able to recognise other bodyparts when I tried it. Smiley Perhaps mine isn't distinctive enough.

It also flickered on and off constantly which was very annoying/distracting. I had to keep a business card over the top of the reader to block out the bright flashing red light, moving the card out of the way whenever I wanted to use the reader. I figured the first one I had was faulty -- surely nobody would design and sell a device which does that!? -- and took it back to the shop but the replacement was identical.

blowdart
Peek-a-boo

In reply to CKurt

#Oct 22nd @ 5:35 AM

Oh you mean browser plugins? Meh, I'd rather let the browser do the work, and have a single login to the OS.

Harlequin
http://twitter.com/TrueHarlequin

In reply to blowdart

#Oct 22nd @ 7:01 AM

I'll be putting Home Premium on my Motion LE1600 Tablet PC tonight...I'll update how it went.

CannotResolveSymbol
{insert caption here}

Who made this machine? (So I can not buy from them)

mastermine
See.Hear.Frag

In reply to LeoDavidson

#Oct 22nd @ 6:37 AM

Nope i had its constant blinking drove me mad i made to make cardboard flap to cover it

Dr Herbie
Horses for courses

In reply to CannotResolveSymbol

#Oct 22nd @ 8:24 AM

My machine? -- you needn't worry, its from Evesham Micros who went bust about a year after I bought it. I don't know if it's just this specific machine that's a lemon; I bought from them because that was what I was using at work and it worked like a charm for three years until I got upgraded to my current HP workstation.

Herbie

magicalclick

What a sad story. When I install Win7 OEM, everything was so fast. It feels faster than WinXP install actually. Never heard of stopping when on idle, why would that even exist on the PC world? When idle, usually it should do anti-virus, defrag, or anything you left running like downloading stuff. Otherwise, it should just sleep/hybirnate instead.