Author Topic: Windows 7  (Read 8912 times)

Andrew the Great

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Windows 7
« on: December 12, 2009, 05:37:48 AM »
I spent the last 5 hours trying to fix a problem with windows 7 - every time I would try to access something from My Computer or use any of the Windows Search Functions, Windows Explorer would stop working. After much googling, several possibilities tried (and failed), I finally got it to work. Still, I'm currently using Ubuntu just because I don't want to deal with windows right now.

Anyway, I was curious to see if anyone else had tried windows 7 or had similar problems with it.
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Miyabi

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Re: Windows 7
« Reply #1 on: December 12, 2009, 05:46:31 AM »

I have been running 7 since one of the early beta releases and updating with every new release.  I haven't had any problems.

What are your specs?
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Re: Windows 7
« Reply #2 on: December 12, 2009, 09:57:49 AM »
I haven't had any problem remotely like that, in my beta experience or in the actual release. Very bizarre.
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Re: Windows 7
« Reply #3 on: December 12, 2009, 04:12:44 PM »
Yeah, I'm with everyone else, I haven't had a single problem, and I used the beta, RC, and full versions as they came out.
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Re: Windows 7
« Reply #4 on: December 12, 2009, 09:42:30 PM »
Heh, I'm sure you'll never have a problem with Ubuntu that takes hours to fix. :P

(As a Mac user, pretty much every hours-long head-scratching how-the-crap-do-I-make-this-WORK episode I've had is with open source software...)
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Miyabi

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Re: Windows 7
« Reply #5 on: December 12, 2009, 09:46:15 PM »

Ubuntu only takes at MOST a half hour to fix if you have a decent amount of experience programming in Linux.  I never have problems with it.

I try to use mostly Open Source software.  It's usually the best there is, minus the lack of support.
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Andrew the Great

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Re: Windows 7
« Reply #6 on: December 13, 2009, 07:26:01 AM »
I agree. And with Ubuntu, there's even extensive support for most problems. I've never spent more than a half hour fixing a problem, largely because I can google the issue and there are fifteen other people who had the exact same issue and fixed it, kindly posting how they did it online for all to see.

With Windows 7, it's been like me googling the various things I could find, and everybody saying, "Hey, I have this problem too! I wish I knew how to fix it." Then you go to a page that supposedly has a solution, except it's actually unrelated to the problem. There's no support on the issue to speak of from microsoft, and actually calling them results in a lot of holding and no results. So then I have to start going through Windows Error logs and trying to figure it out on my own. This is not fun, trying to isolate one system crash error from another, figuring out which was caused by what. Especially since they all claim that different things caused the problem.

Then, after five long hours of essentially screwing with everything that I could think of to screw with, my system suddenly begins working normally again. And I have absolutely no idea why.

I'm not particularly happy, but I figure that there's some random issue that caused the problem, and I still do like windows 7 quite a bit. I'm just not particularly eager to go back to it after my happy little adventures yesterday. I almost just reinstalled windows, since I really don't have anything important directly on that disk. It's all on a external hard disk. But then I decided I wanted to know what was wrong so that if I ever had issues with it again, I could fix it. Dumb idea.

But yeah, this fun little adventure is hopefully over for a while.
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Miyabi

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Re: Windows 7
« Reply #7 on: December 13, 2009, 07:33:20 AM »

If all else fails update drivers. xD  It's weird how much that can screw up Windows.
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Andrew the Great

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Re: Windows 7
« Reply #8 on: December 13, 2009, 07:36:18 AM »
Yeah, I did that too, but the problem was, it started working after I'd given up completely and had just started to use it in broken mode since it was more annoying than anything else (I mean, while it's annoying to have windows explorer crash again and again, as long as I can still access my files, it's not that bad). Then all of a sudden, everything started working. I'd done so many things to try to fix it, but none of them recently (like, not even within an hour) so I had no idea what finally did it.
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Random girl: "That explains so much about the way my professors have been teaching..."

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Miyabi

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Re: Windows 7
« Reply #9 on: December 13, 2009, 07:47:16 AM »

Did maybe Windows updates finish installing?
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mtlhddoc2

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Re: Windows 7
« Reply #10 on: December 13, 2009, 05:57:05 PM »
Ok, well, I would love to help with this issue, but you really have not given us any information to go on.

What brand of computer are you using?
How much RAM do you have?
Hard drive size?
Laptop or Desktop?
Was it an upgrade or a clean install?
dual boot with Ubuntu?
Processor speed?
Anti-virus software?
Anything "Special" about the computer?

Andrew the Great

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Re: Windows 7
« Reply #11 on: December 13, 2009, 10:50:34 PM »
Well like I said, the problem seems to have solved itself, but since you asked/ if you still want to try to figure out what went wrong:

HP DV6000 Laptop
3 GB RAM
160 GB Hard drive
Clean Install of Win 7
Yes, Dual-boot with Ubuntu
AMD Turion TL-60 X2 Processor (2.0 GHZ clock)
AVG Anti-virus

And nothing particularly "special" about my system. I haven't made any modifications to it since I bought it.

Like I said, the problem seems to have solved itself. I posted here more out of the need to rant than to actually get help with the issue.

miyabe, It might have been updates, but they were one of the first things I tried, so if so, then they took forever to install.
« Last Edit: December 13, 2009, 10:52:50 PM by Andrew the Great »
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Miyabi

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Re: Windows 7
« Reply #12 on: December 13, 2009, 11:27:14 PM »
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mtlhddoc2

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Re: Windows 7
« Reply #13 on: December 13, 2009, 11:32:48 PM »
Always be concerned with a problem that "solves itself" lol.

One of my concerns is the dual boot. Sometimes, Windows, any version, will act "funky" if the primary ("C") drive is not formatted to that version of windows specs. For example, if your ubuntu partition is Fat32, and your primary drive, but your Windows is NTFS, that could cause the issues you have experienced. (or vice-versa). this issue is not as uncommon as you may think. Soemtimes, it will work fine, others, well, you may have run across the issue. (This is not specific to non-Windows with windows, i experiences a similar issue about 10 years ago with a Dual-boot NT4/Win2k).

The other could be, like mentioned above, driver related. Since that particular model of laptop was designed with Vista in mind. and since Vista was a complete joke, in order for it to work well, the manufactures jumped through hoops. It could be that updating the drivers worked out the kinks, or you silently downloaded a patch.

If the problem recurs, I would, unfortunately, recommend reloading Vista onto the machine and doing an upgrade instead, as much as I hate upgrades, sometimes it is the best way to go, especially from bad versions of windows and the computers made specifically for those versions. (Think "Windows ME" <shudder>)

Good luck!

Andrew the Great

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Re: Windows 7
« Reply #14 on: December 14, 2009, 02:00:14 AM »
Thanks for the tips! I'll keep them in mind if the problem pops up again.

And the whole thing with the dual boot makes sense, though I really hadn't thought of it at all.

As to the problem "solving itself," I'm hoping that it's something that I did that fixed it. Thanks again!
Sign on wall: "We're doing everything we can to get you to the math lab and get you help."
Random girl: "That explains so much about the way my professors have been teaching..."

"Look! I can play Mary had a little lamb on my rape whistle!"

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