^^Whole install has never taken more than 20 minutes for me. Sounds like you got something borked on your video card

8/17/2009 9:04:28 PM

well when i installed the RC it was fine and took < 30 min like you said. either way, it's irritating.

8/17/2009 9:16:38 PM

I've had what you describe happen to me during a Windows XP install. What seems like hangs that take forever with each step along the way.

Unfortunately I can't remember what resolved it for me. I think it turned out to be the install media.

8/18/2009 8:53:48 AM

Upgraded from Vista x86 Ultimate to 7 RTM x86 Ultimate on my Thinkpad T61p last night (w/ 4 GB RAM, 2.2 GHz centrino pro and a 320 GB disk), running like a dream. Upgrade took a good 4/5 hours due to all the files and settings, but it's working almost flawlessly. I'm surprised because I fully expected it to run like a dog until I got around to a clean x64 install

Only issues were:

- Needed to download the beta APS driver: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/WIN7-BETA.html (direct links to beta drivers here: http://forums.lenovo.com/lnv/board/message?board.id=Beta_OS&thread.id=1015 )

- I had to re-install Eset Smart Security (no biggie -- the f/w wouldn't work otherwise, guess it had to re-create the virtual network adapters)

- Had to repair my VMWare Player install, though I'm not entirely sure it was necessary (recommended by compat checker)

- The torrents in my Vuze queue disappeared: just re-opened the torrent files and they resumed after a quick check

- Had to install 3 updated drivers from Windows update

- The built-in LCD's color profile was a little off -- this solution worked for me: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=214257

I'm definitely going to upgrade to x64 with a clean install as soon as I get around to buying 2x4GB sticks of RAM ($$) and a 500 GB 7200rpm (prolly a Seagate Momentus 7200.4).

Some pleasant surprises that I didn't spot in RC:

- 'Taskbar buttons: Combine when taskbar is full' (I find small icons more useful)

- Latest Ultramon beta is working fine

- Search/indexing seems to be far less of a hog and it's very easy to build playlists from Explorer

- The MRU functionality on Start menu shortcuts is excellent; it even picked up my latest torrents for Vuze (not always a good thing, but you can turn it off!!)

- Lots of small UI niceties I hadn't spotted previously, mostly around window behavior

- I had an extremely annoying Flash issue on Vista: irrespective of the browser involved and even after a fresh install, on opening a web page with Flash, the browser would completely stall for 5-15 seconds before loading the page properly Don't want to speak too soon, but that seems to have resolved itself

So far so good... I can definitely see my productivity increasing a little, especially b/c of that last point!

[Edited on August 18, 2009 at 9:23 AM. Reason : ]

8/18/2009 9:21:08 AM

sounds like it would have been faster to do a clean install

8/18/2009 9:26:02 AM

hehe, nah, that took all of about 15 minutes

i left the installer go over night

clean install would literally take a full working day, though maybe a bit less w/ 7 b/c the driver support seems much improved

[Edited on August 18, 2009 at 9:54 AM. Reason : ]

8/18/2009 9:54:07 AM

^^i do notice occasional stalls in multiple programs. not sure why, i did do an upgrade from vista64, could be part of the problem? still find it pretty annoying.

8/18/2009 9:54:12 AM

i'd def give a clean install a go in that case

i did a clean install of x86 RC on a consumer Lenovo laptop and it ran very smoothly

8/18/2009 9:55:25 AM

Anyone know if there's an easy way to have the gadgets snap to a grid, or line up nicely please? Finding it difficult to manually position them and it irks the obsessive-compulsive in me

8/18/2009 2:09:03 PM

its up on the msdnaa for ncsu

gogogogogo

8/19/2009 5:49:56 PM

woah, there are people on thewolfweb who haven't graduated yet?

8/20/2009 1:26:29 AM

gtfo n00bs

8/20/2009 1:41:18 AM

at what point will new machines on sites such as slickdeals come preloaded with this...i'm not buying an upgrade so the only other option is finding someone with msndaa(sp?)

8/20/2009 1:45:50 AM

Is there any way to be added to the MSDNAA list without being in a CSC class? I no longer have access to it anymore and I want to download some stuff.

8/20/2009 1:53:40 AM

^^damn near every new OEM machine that comes with Vista is bundled with a free voucher for Win7 when it's released to OEM's

8/20/2009 6:38:59 AM

explorer.exe is crashing all the time, mostly when I'm using my networked drive. on the plus side, it restarts itself pretty quickly.

8/20/2009 10:25:37 AM

I don't get the hype at all. I installed it over XP on an older machine at home, and my reaction was, "Oh, hey, it's Vista all over again." So far, I wish I'd kept XP.

8/20/2009 10:38:18 AM

would you say you're an average user, or a power user? what do you use your PC for?

i've found it to be a huge leap forward

we use freebsd and linux at work as well and windows 7 is top of the heap for me

8/20/2009 10:51:06 AM

That particular PC was originally my personal gaming desktop, then it became our media server, and now it's kinda just up there for when I want to play Dungeon Siege, plan D&D sessions, or do some Web development work at home. I'd say I'm closer to a power user in terms of my skill set, comfort level, and experience, but that machine sees very light use.

I should also qualify my comment: I've spent a total of one evening with Windows 7 so far. Maybe it will surprise me.

8/20/2009 10:54:57 AM

It's not up on the CNR MSDNAA page. I don't have access to the CSC or ECE page.

8/20/2009 11:34:27 AM

^^ Did you do a clean install or just an upgrade? I don't remember the limitations on if 7 will allow an upgrade or force a format/install.

8/20/2009 1:17:24 PM

I did an "upgrade," but it was basically a clean installation that gave me a chance to transfer some files and settings.

8/20/2009 1:22:39 PM

^its not until week 2 or 3 of regular usage that you really start to notice and appreciate all the subtle differences.

Here's one I found out about last week:

You know you can drag a window up to the top of the screen to maximize, drag left to 1/2 size left, drag right to 1/2 size right, and just drag down on a maximized window to bring it back to previous state.

You can do the same thing with Window Key + Arrow (arrow up maximizes, down restores or minimizes, left docks left, right docks right). Very handy.

8/20/2009 2:22:07 PM

It took you a year to figure that one out?

[Edited on August 20, 2009 at 2:23 PM. Reason : or 6 months..however long this has been out]

8/20/2009 2:23:19 PM

Not to mention I'm 80% sure you commented on an issue I had with that exact feature some ~3 months ago.

Quote :

"speaking of resizing, when you move a maximized window, is it really supposed to snap back to the same spot when you release? If so, why even allow the window to unhook? 6/10/2009 8:59:46 AM"

Quote :

"if you move it far enough it doesn't snap back nvm.. in the original version i installed it worked how it should (i.e. would kind of "un snap" when you moved it..) but it seems to be snapping back all the time now no matter what. wtf [Edited on June 10, 2009 at 9:05 AM. Reason : asdf] ok now it's working how it should and i've changed nothing. PLZ TO FIX THIS BUG Noen ? [Edited on June 10, 2009 at 9:27 AM. Reason : moar]"

Ok so you must have just missed those comments. Lol

^^FWIW though, with dual monitors Shift + Window Key + L or R throws it on either display 1 or 2.

[Edited on August 20, 2009 at 2:42 PM. Reason : shift]

8/20/2009 2:35:30 PM

^i couldnt decipher that gibberish description of the behavior then, or now

And yeah, it's not suprising that I am far behind the times

8/20/2009 3:30:59 PM

yea, that was a pretty awful description by me, haha.

and i think ultramon was causing the problem anyways. basically if i tried to drag a maximized window from one screen to the top of another screen (so it would stay maximized, basically), it would not work. it would just stay maximized on the original screen

works fine now though so whatevaaaa

8/20/2009 3:34:54 PM

today is the last day to download win 7 rc?

8/20/2009 4:11:19 PM

just installed the 64 bit version of Windows 7 Professional from MSDNAA.

Install took forever because I screwed up something in the bios and got stuck installing over and over again as opposed to booting to the hard drive (was using thumb drive to install).

Overall, really fast installation......I hadn't tried any of the RC builds and I am very impressed with the slickness and reorganization of everything.

This is coming from Vista.......I have to give MS credit for really simplifying and improving a lot of interface issues.

P.S. how much space does a freshly installed copy of windows 7 pro take up?

[Edited on August 21, 2009 at 1:19 AM. Reason : sds]

8/21/2009 1:18:38 AM

^Depends. 16gb is the smallest partition size supported for Win7. Why does it really matter?

8/21/2009 4:10:28 AM

Quote :

"FWIW though, with dual monitors Shift + Window Key + L or R throws it on either display 1 or 2."

Nice, thanks!

http://www.blogsdna.com/2023/windows-7-keyboard-shortcuts-list.htm

Call me a n00b, but I hadn't seen ctrl+shift+N for a new folder before

Interestingly, the shift+win+l/r shortcut causes it to scale the window on a smaller secondary monitor. Be sweet if you could turn that off because it doesn't seem to scale up, only down

This is money: http://gizmodo.com/5139691/windows-7-tip-the-windows-key-is-actually-useful-now-with-tons-of-hotkey-shortcuts

[Edited on August 21, 2009 at 6:02 AM. Reason : $]

8/21/2009 5:44:10 AM

^is there any way to get the side-of-screen maximization on a per-monitor basis? At home it works on the far left side of my desktop and the far right, but it would be awesome if it worked on each monitor.

8/21/2009 11:15:01 AM

Quote :

"ctrl+shift+N for a new folder before"

this one makes me happy. one of the few i didnt know and really need.

8/21/2009 11:20:46 AM

Quote :

"Depends. 16gb is the smallest partition size supported for Win7. Why does it really matter?"

I don't know that person's reason, but the only reason I'd want to know is for partitioning purposes. I usually go with an OS partition/apps partition, and data partition. That way I can simply reinstall the OS without losing my data. I've never had to do that, but it's going to come in handy when I eventually get some time to upgrade to Win 7.

I hope the existing partition is large enough. I really just need to buy a larger drive.

Either way, if a clean install currently takes 11 gig or so, you're going to want to leave a lot of space for things like patches/service packs. I recently created another XP VM and was a bit surprised at how much more disk space the OS took up by just installing SP3. Maybe most of that is temp files/uninstall references/system restore.

[Edited on August 21, 2009 at 12:03 PM. Reason : -]

8/21/2009 11:59:32 AM

I like to give Windows a 40gb partition, then another 20gb for the swap/hiber/tmp files and the rest for applications and document libraries.

8/21/2009 3:06:29 PM

is it true that the bad ass computer ppl dont have page files at all? i think mines like 2gb.

8/21/2009 3:08:07 PM

i'm giving win7 a second shot, see if they've changed any of the things that made it a pain in the ass (for me)

has microsoft fixed that annoying bug from vista where they won't let you easily relocate your user (my documents) folder to a second hard drive/partition?

8/21/2009 3:16:45 PM

isn't it true that having swap file on a different partition than the OS doesn't matter if it's not on its own dedicated hard drive? i mean,

[Edited on August 21, 2009 at 3:19 PM. Reason : i mean it's not like having two partitions gives the hard drive an extra read head]


^^ not having a page file is generally worse. windows is pretty sophisticated in managing its use. you'll almost certainly just end up with more disk thrashing if you do that

[Edited on August 21, 2009 at 3:22 PM. Reason : .]

8/21/2009 3:18:52 PM

^^win 7 has "libraries" that you can add any folder to. you can just create a folder on the new drive and call it "documents" and add it to your my documents library.

so, yea, it's different..but will most def do what you're wanting very easily

[Edited on August 21, 2009 at 3:21 PM. Reason : a]

8/21/2009 3:20:10 PM

i've really been liking the libraries thing. i was never really comfortable with the Favorite Links approach in Vista Explorer, but the libraries feature is integrated well into save/open dialogue and is even picked up in media center and my xbox360 for the video/music/photos libraries. i've got about 4 extra libraries i've been using for other common accessed areas

8/21/2009 3:24:27 PM

^^^ i would assume that the advantage isn't really in speed, but in fragmentation...if you have a dedicated partition for the page and you set the page file to max out that partition, you're going to get very little fragmentation (though i suppose you could accomplish this same feat by giving the page file a dedicated size from the beginning)

^^ that sounds much better than the clusterfuck that vista made of something that should be incredibly simple...however, my main goal is that when i click the user folder on the desktop, it goes to that partition where all of my files are...can you change where that folder points to? if not, i guess i can always add a link to that partition on the desktop and use that and the libraries feature will make it so my default locations will be within that partition

it seems that win7 just wants to add more clicks for things that used to be simple...and before Noen joins in to let me know how dumb i am to think that i know better what i want than microsoft does and/or that i'm the only person in the world that wants this feature and that it's stupid of me to want windows to be simpler and not more complex, i realize all of this already (though i'll bet cash monies he still feels the need to comment on this...he can't possibly pass up on an opportunity to tell people how wrong their preferences are)

[Edited on August 21, 2009 at 3:32 PM. Reason : carats]

8/21/2009 3:29:17 PM

i see what you mean

but you'll see that it's completely different than you're used to. it'll do what you want though, i think.

the "users" thing has been replaced with libraries. users still exists if you want to get to it through explorer, C:, users, etc.. but nothing is actually in there in terms of documents/pictures/whatever unless you tell it to be via making the folder and adding it to a particular library.

[Edited on August 21, 2009 at 3:36 PM. Reason : a]

8/21/2009 3:35:06 PM

cool...that was my only complaint about vista since i never ran into any instability problems (though i understand that win7 is much much smoother and less resource-intensive)

woot

[Edited on August 21, 2009 at 3:36 PM. Reason : ]

8/21/2009 3:36:28 PM

it took me a while to really understand bc i hadnt done any reading about it.. i was like wtf why isn't my 'my documents' folder showing up

but yea, it works great after you get used to it. and easy to manage/setup default save locations, etc. blah blah blah. you'll like it i think

8/21/2009 3:38:22 PM

what's this homegroup thing? i have an XP machine on the network with some shared folders that aren't showing up in computers near me...without any tweaking at all, vista found the shared folders

8/21/2009 4:02:22 PM

http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/01/13/windows-7-homegroup-overview ?

8/21/2009 4:04:58 PM

Quote :

"Ever wanted to share your music, pictures and documents within your home computers and found the task to be difficult?"

not especially, no

interesting, though...now if only i had all win7 machines

8/21/2009 4:59:20 PM

my xp media server has no problem working with my windows 7 laptop for transfer/networking purposes

8/21/2009 5:04:32 PM

no shit, really?

you mean networking works between OS's?

you'd think there was a standard for things like that or something

8/21/2009 5:29:56 PM

Quote :

"an opportunity to tell people how wrong their preferences are"

It's not that you're "wrong", it's that you tend to have blinders on. If you give the new interactions a chance, you might actually like them. There's a difference between "more clicks to do the same thing", and "more clicks to do something the way *I* always did it before".

If a common operation takes longer now that it did, there's a good chance that there's a better way to do it now.

Quote :

"my main goal is that when i click the user folder on the desktop, it goes to that partition where all of my files are...can you change where that folder points to?"

Why does it need to go to a partition? Use libraries, they are disk independent. It took me several months to get over this too (I have always done the same thing keeping my files on a separate disk and redirecting my doc folders). Once you get over the hump, it's a much better way of doing things

8/21/2009 7:19:44 PM