Windows 7 Questions

Yes the programs you used in Vista or even most for XP will work in Windows 7. Remember that Windows 7 is still in pre-release

I installed 7 and everything was working fine, so I ran windows update and restarted after it prompted me to and then after the starting windows screen it just goes to a black screen with a mouse. And then after a few seconds it loads my wallpaper and the evaluation copy build 7100 text, but that's it. The taskbar won't load and when I do ctrl+alt+del, I get a black screen. I've tried doing a system restore to a point when I only had firefox installed. Didn't work. Should I make an install dvd and try reinstalling it from a dvd rather than straight from an iso on my old OS?

When you install Windows 7 you should do a fresh install. That is, format the drive and start installing Windows 7 on a fresh hard drive

File this one under another petty Win7 irk. I have been looking for a replacement for WMP. I finally settled on J River Media Player. Very nice. Anyway, after installing then uninstalling a bunch of different media players, I went to defrag my root drive. I'm using Defraggler which I downloaded here on TechSpot. I really like how it shows the individual files and the amount of fragments in that file. I noticed a 10.4MB file from WMP. It was the album cover thumbnail cache from the songs I'd played so far. it was in C:\Users\my account\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Media Player\Art Cache\LocalMLS. I go in there and the folder is empty. Properties showed it still had 10.4MBs (I had already cleared the cache files on the privacy tab in WMP Options) Tried undoing read only, tried taking ownership (with administer account), nothing. So I ended up having to go to folder options and changing system file settings to show them so I could get in there and clean out this file.

It worked fine, but why oh why Mr. MS, did it have to be so difficult? Or was there an easier way to do it I missed.

^All that trouble for a lousy 10MB cache? Unless you have a 10GB hard drive or something I wouldn't really worry about it...

I'm gonna be honest I haven't used Win7 in weeks, mainly because I don't have that much installed for it. Is there any way to edit the registry in 7 so that it recognizes all of my installed apps? Like, for example, all of my steam games are located in D:\Game Files and I don't want to reinstall them to the same place just so 7 recognizes they are installed. Could I make a copy of some of the entries in XP and import them or something? If not, it's gonna be a real hassle when I want to play my games under 7.

Have you tried? If I load the CD or MDS file (with Daemon) and click on the icon for whatever drive, in "my computer", Win7 wants to install the game. Like you I have my games on my D partition. If I go to the games installation folder in D:\ and click on the exe. file it runs just fine. However since I also have some games in game files on my H partition that were installed with Win7, and are also installed on D, regardless of whether I start the game from the D file exe or the H file exe, it automatically plays the installation on H:\. I can tell because the saves are different.

Hmm, I'm gonna have to give it a try one of these days... I just don't want to reinstall them all just for the sake of Windows 7 recognizing them in the same exact spot. All of my games are actually on a separate drive (which is E:\ not D:\ - I messed up) away from my OS(s) and personal files, not that it would matter. I'm gonna create some shortcuts in Win7 and see what happens. Now what is Win7 going to use, DX9 or DX10? That's another thing that came to mind, could the computer run games under both or would i need to configure each game via the different operating systems?

dx10 is backwards compatable. DX9 game will run fine with a dx10 OS and GPU. The games just runs at dx9

I reformatted and reinstalled twice now and I'm still having the same problem. Everything works fine until I restart. Once I restart I get a black screen with a cursor after the starting windows screen and then after a few seconds my wallpaper will show up and the evaluation copy text, but nothing else. No taskbar or desktop icons. I can boot in safe mode just fine though. I've tried to repair from the install disc and do a start up repair, but neither found any problems. Anyone have any ideas for me? I suppose it could possibly be a bad .ISO, but I got it directly from MS, so it doesn't seem like that would be it. I guess it could also be hardware related, but I've already run a harddrive and memory diagnostic and both turned up no problems.

Boot into safe mode do run\msconfig. Go to the services tab check the box that says Hide all Microsoft services. Then uncheck everything that's left hit apply / OK. Then reboot normally. If it boots up OK then go back to msconfig and recheck half of the group that was left. Then if it boots up OK uncheck them again and check the others. Reboot normally. If it boots up OK then it's an operating system problem. Before you do all that though, disconnect the ROMS and any pnp devices and maybe even your mouse and keyboard and try booting. The bottom line is if it boots up in safe mode then it's probably a driver/hdware issue. You just need to play detective. Did you look in the event viewer to see if there was any info on the bad startups? do run/msinfo32 and hit OK. Go to the left panel at the bottom and hit windows error reporting. Any entries in there?

My guess is it's a gpu problem though, with your card and the ms generic drivers for the card. But I'm guessing. You might want to try uninstalling the graphics display adapter with device manager in safe mode and rebooting.

Dang, I just tried running Steam under Win7 and all it does is create a bunch of minidumps when I double-click the exe file. I'd much rather it just give me an error message -_-

EDIT: Well this is pretty embarrassing. The whole time windows thought that I was running dual screens when really I was only running one. It was displaying the second screen which is why it wouldn't display my taskbar or desktop icons. Haha. Well thanks for the help guys, but I've got it all sorted out now.

WMWare server (free version) doesn't work on Windows 7. It is a problem for me cos I have a virtual network running on Win03 that I'd like to use under Windows 7.
So far the only WMware product that seems to be working with Windows 7 is WMWare Workstation 6.5 but is only on trial.
Gotta have a problem with M$ Win7, and I don't think that the finish version will suppot WMWare server.

Any way to access Windows 7 NOW!?

I need to reformat my hard drive and start a new load. Interested in doing Windows 7, but can't wait until OCT 22. Is there any way to get a copy now? The technet site doesn't allow it any more.

If it matters, I'm running XP Home Edition Version 2002, SP3 on a Pentium 4, 2.8ghz with 2.5 GB RAM.

It may still be available from a "torrent" source, but MS will still provide keys

What is this "torrent" source of which you speak?

That'll be really good LNCPapa, vmware is such a beauty that to my believe M$ sees it as another threat to its empire, this could be their motto =NO vmware, use Virtual PC instead

Do a Google search for "Windows 7 RC download" without the quotes. Be prepared to burn a DVD using the downloaded iso file.

Try here, Windows 7 Download

Go to C:\Users\user name\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch. See that Switch Between Windows shortcut? Anybody know if there is a way to pin that app to the taskbar?