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Windows 7 and 8 issues!


Jack M

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i used to have win7 on my computer and decided to try the beta of windows 8 without realising it deletes the hidden partition with a backup win7...

its now driving me mad because the resolution is slowly getting lower, it wasnt right to start with but im down to 800x600 now and its driving me mad!

my comp is an Acer Revo RL100 which used to run win7 home edition.

acer say i need to fork out £52ish to fix the problem, anyone got any ideas where i can find a copy of win7 for cheaper? i reeeeeeeally need to fix it!

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What OS was on it? Home premium, pro? 32bit, 64bit? If so i have a CD for that ;)

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I suspect that after getting a decent system with Win 7, MS went back to the bush, and lost the plot. I've heard too many bad things about win 8 - thsat many that I won't try it . Perhaps after Win 8 & 9 ,they might ask users ( not programmers) what they want ,and come up with Win 7 re -invented .

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I suspect that after getting a decent system with Win 7, MS went back to the bush, and lost the plot. I've heard too many bad things about win 8 - thsat many that I won't try it . Perhaps after Win 8 & 9 ,they might ask users ( not programmers) what they want ,and come up with Win 7 re -invented .

Or realise that Win XP was reliable, had a tried n tested kernal and that Vista was a complete abortion of an OS. I run 7 pro 64bit, but always keep an XP loaded hard disk, that's swapable.
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Or realise that Win XP was reliable, had a tried n tested kernal and that Vista was a complete abortion of an OS. I run 7 pro 64bit, but always keep an XP loaded hard disk, that's swapable.

Just run a VM - MS Virtual PC is free. I have never used my XP VM since i set it up....thats how reliable Win7 is besides the annoying fact that i can't find out system details through computer management on a remote machine which you could do in XP!

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Oh here we go... the windows bashers are out! ;)

Vista failed mainly because of the woeful effort by third parties to produce decent quality drivers for the new driver framework. I ran Vista from beta with minimal issues.. the only issues i had were with Nvidia drivers...

From an IT pro perspective, it does make me giggle to myself when people say vista uses loads of ram.... when win95 was first released.. the minimum requirement for that was 4mb ram... the benchmark for slow was set there!

I have the burden of still having a XP machine at work.. and i hate it... its an antiquated operating system and needs to die!

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Oh here we go... the windows bashers are out! ;)

ooooo only 8. 7 works just fine. 8 is just change for the sake of change.

Just run a VM - MS Virtual PC is free. I have never used my XP VM since i set it up....thats how reliable Win7 is besides the annoying fact that i can't find out system details through computer management on a remote machine which you could do in XP!

Wait for 7 to start, then for Virtual XP to haul it's sorry rse into life? no thanks, just multi-boot, XP is native then. :D :D

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ooooo only 8. 7 works just fine. 8 is just change for the sake of change.

Wait for 7 to start, then for Virtual XP to haul it's sorry rse into life? no thanks, just multi-boot, XP is native then. :D :D

You need a SSD then as my VM takes about 15-20 seconds to boot whether it be a 7 or XP VM. ;)

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Wait for 7 to start, then for Virtual XP to haul it's sorry rse into life? no thanks, just multi-boot, XP is native then. :D :D

I kept XP on a seperate HDD, any idea if I can plug it back in and alter 7's boot mgr, so I can multiboot again? Or is it a partition, clean install, from XP up and more sodding updates?
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I kept XP on a seperate HDD, any idea if I can plug it back in and alter 7's boot mgr, so I can multiboot again? Or is it a partition, clean install, from XP up and more sodding updates?

Sadly, I think it's more sodding around. You have to install the oldest O/S first, i.e. 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8 would give you 5 ways round. ;)

I think (and am thinking back 2-3 years here) I did manage to get my son's to dual-boot in the way you're talking about. I know it involved BCDEdit and that 7's boot is nothing like XP's (Boot.ini). But it was some time ago and there has been much water under the bridge since then..........

Although if you've got the right sort of BIOS you can hit F<something> and select which drive to boot from.

Edited by RainbowFore
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Sadly, I think it's more sodding around. You have to install the oldest O/S first, i.e. 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8 would give you 5 ways round. ;)

I think (and am thinking back 2-3 years here) I did manage to get my son's to dual-boot in the way you're talking about. I know it involved BCDEdit and that 7's boot is nothing like XP's (Boot.ini). But it was some time ago and there has been much water under the bridge since then..........

Although if you've got the right sort of BIOS you can hit F<something> and select which drive to boot from.

I think I'll make a switch, to swap HDD's before power up.
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Oh here we go... the windows bashers are out! ;)

Vista failed mainly because of the woeful effort by third parties to produce decent quality drivers for the new driver framework. I ran Vista from beta with minimal issues.. the only issues i had were with Nvidia drivers...

From an IT pro perspective, it does make me giggle to myself when people say vista uses loads of ram.... when win95 was first released.. the minimum requirement for that was 4mb ram... the benchmark for slow was set there!

I have the burden of still having a XP machine at work.. and i hate it... its an antiquated operating system and needs to die!

The 'Vista uses too much ram' is one that amuses me because frequently people measure ram usage by task manager and point out that Vista is very inefficient because it's using so much ram at idle when in reality Vista is trying to make as much as use of the ram as possible, releasing it when programs are needed whereas XP wouldn't use it. It clearly makes more sense to have the ram in use rather than doing nothing but clearly some people prefer to have it doing nothing because it looks better. Similarly I used Vista from the beta (where it was better than XP was initially at its production release) and it's interesting to see the same comments about Vista being made here by people who apparently won't even use the operating system they're complaining about, as with most things these days image is everything.

With regards to the topic, did you manage to load the graphics card driver ok? Is the machine showing any issues in device manager?

Although I do find the interface a bit messy at the moment on Windows 8, I've been surprised how well it runs on older hardware. I'm using an old Dell XPS M1330 with a C2D 2.2Ghz processor, 2GB ram, 320GB 5400rpm hard drive and an Nvidia 8400m graphics card and the machine runs noticeably faster than it did with Windows 7 particularly with the new hybrid hibernate/shutdown system.

John

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I think I'll make a switch, to swap HDD's before power up.

You can get caddys to convert internal disks to removable ones. ;)

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Make sure it's not a VW Caddy or a golf caddy, as these are the wrong types of caddy. ;) ;) ;)

Edited by RainbowFore
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Make sure it's not a VW Caddy or a golf caddy, as these are the wrong types of caddy. ;) ;) ;)

ok, so we can rule out a VW Golf Caddy, a golf caddy, a tea caddy, a VW Caddy Life, a hose caddy, in fact pretty much any caddy that isn't designed to house a 3.5" HDD? Am I correct in assuming this or is there anything else I need to be aware of :giggle:
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  • 2 weeks later...

Oh here we go... the windows bashers are out! ;)

Vista failed mainly because of the woeful effort by third parties to produce decent quality drivers for the new driver framework. I ran Vista from beta with minimal issues.. the only issues i had were with Nvidia drivers...

From an IT pro perspective, it does make me giggle to myself when people say vista uses loads of ram.... when win95 was first released.. the minimum requirement for that was 4mb ram... the benchmark for slow was set there!

I have the burden of still having a XP machine at work.. and i hate it... its an antiquated operating system and needs to die!

Hi Neo,

Can't disagree with some of your sentiments here about XP, good though it was in it's day...now it's far to insecure with some other issues too when used in business systems. We still have it on one of our main systems at work (soon to be upgraded to Linux), but everything else has been superseded by Linux Ubuntu 12.04LTS Server edition. It's heaven now, no problems whatsoever. Would just point out though that with Vista, it was the biggest disappointment due to several factors. All Microsofts fault and nothing to do with the third parties not supplying good drivers! Do you not remember that MS wanted Vista to be the marvelous Windows 7 of it's day but they ran into so many problems (for lots of reasons, but mainly crap code writers and very poor planning!) that they developed it, then changed it, then changed it again. Then made it a stop gap version and continued to work towards Win7. So the poor old third parties such as HP, Epsom, board & grahics manufacturers etc etc just didn't know which way to turn. They had spent a fortune developing drivers and having MS authenticate them, for their products, only to be told they had got to do it all again and pay for the privilege. Many refused to pay again and rightly so in my book. Since HP for just one example had already paid £3m for this privilge, they refused to pay again, as did many other third parties since it was MS always moving the goal posts causing the problems. So Vista went live with few authorised drivers, and we all know about the results of that. Vista was so bad that after we paid out £75,000 to change up to this new marvelous product that few of our machines worked and we just couldn't make them work. The MS rep was just so embarrased as there was nothing he could do. So we were offered the famed 'downgrade' to XP to make everything work ok again. A costly and big mistake for our organisation and it cost the tax payer huge amounts. Did MS care? Not much at the time it seemed to me....

And people wonder why MS gets a bashing now and again!!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Vista was a dog. Whatever you want to lay the blame on, 3rd party, MS, fact is, it ran like a dog. When SP2 came about it was quite a lot better but the damage to reputation had been done.

7 is great.

8 is fantastic in that the OS has been further streamlined. It's much more efficient under the bonnet and becoming more component based like Linux. The problem for me is, they have ******ised the desktop metaphor with Metro. It's just jarring when you switch into it, and pointless on a desktop. I can see it working on a tablet, but for heavens sake give me the classic GUI when I'm using a mouse.

Anyway, back on topic. If you need to re-install Windows 7, the important thing is that you have the Windows install key on a sticker on your PC. Find someone with the same version on DVD and use their disk. The key is the part you're paying for. I'm sure you can find it cheaper than £56. Maybe go to a local independent computer shop, explain the si****ion, offer a tenner for a copy of the CD without installation key.

If you're looking to dual boot take the advice above to install the oldest OS first as the most recent boot manager will then take priority. Otherwise look into GRUB which is a great third part boot manager. Personally I run XP and 8 in Virtual Box rather than dual booting.

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