Posts by Taylor Morales31

What on earth is this???



👍

Look, I’ve been messing around with computers for 28 years now—most of you weren't even born when I started. Regarding whether I can switch over to XP since I run it in a dual boot setup: yes, I can. And the idea that I can't run any browser or software above the taskbar on XP or Vista? That’s just plain wrong. Sure, I know how to hide the taskbar, but that isn't always a practical fix. And let me tell you, I don't care about being "modern" or "cutting edge" like some of you losers who think running Windows 7 makes you special. I don't get anything done any faster on 7 than I do on XP or Vista. Everything I do on this OS, I can do on the older ones. So, stop acting like Windows 7 is some holy grail. You guys act like this is the greatest thing ever, but mark my words: when the next version comes out, you’ll be the first ones complaining about how much Windows 7 sucks. I'm not being rude; I'm being realistic. From my experience dealing with Spectrum, Commodore, and Apple, all the way up to today, I actually know what I'm talking about. Windows 7 isn't some massive revolution like some of the tech from back in the day actually was. Thanks for nothing.

Noah Ruiz73 said:ha... what on earth are you guys talking about? Peaks, valleys... what is actually such a massive issue with this superbar 🤔



Anyway, you can find every single detail right here, for anyone interested. And regarding that whole mess with WMP that's clearly driving some people absolutely insane—those who refuse to just switch to a different player that minimizes perfectly into the system tray with all the essentials like play, fast forward, rewind, and volume. I've already posted this before!



Though, honestly, I don't see such a huge deal here, aside from the lack of a volume knob!

I was thinking that if this superbar always has to sit at the top above everything else, where am I even supposed to move it? And WMP is driving me nuts. Try this: go into the folder, click a song—that's how I do it—and every single time, it jumps up over the song list. Then I have to click the song list window just to get it back down under the bar, and it happens for every single track I start. If I moved the bar down by the tray, it would stay at the bottom, but would that be "smart" enough for everyone?

I haven’t run into any major roadblocks at work during this two-week stretch on Windows 7, except for three specific things that are driving me absolutely insane. First, I can’t get WMP to sit right in the system tray. Second, I can't move my taskbar back to the bottom of the screen. And third, for some reason, when I open images in Picture and Fax Viewer, they pop up in a window behind everything else instead of being front and center—and I can't find a single setting to fix it. Honestly, even if the options were just moved elsewhere, I could deal with the muscle memory, but this is just broken. On a side note, I told my colleague that I'm running an American version pulled straight from an update; it works fine, though I did have to manually rename the "Music" folder in the Start menu because everything else was properly capitalized while that one was stuck in lowercase.

Look, I don't know, man. Every time I try to play a song from a folder, it keeps popping up above the folder window, you know what I mean? If I could just set it to pop up below the folder... or if I put it by the system tray, then it’s always stuck down there at the bottom. It doesn't matter where I put it, honestly, it's not worth getting worked up over. 😛

Anyway, speaking of software—is everyone else having issues? I couldn't get Norton 09 to run on Windows 7 no matter how much I messed with compatibility settings. A buddy of mine says the same thing about TuneUp Utilities 09. Those guys are total jerks; they definitely did it on purpose just to force people onto the newer versions. I've switched over to Avast for now, running version 1.7, until I can dig up a decent resetter for Norton 10 like the one I had for 09. This current one I'm using is just full of junk. 😛

Keith Bennett38 said:As far as I can tell, you can't 👎

A total blunder, honestly... just pure incompetence.

You spend years getting used to a specific workflow, and then suddenly they strip it away and force these useless "eye candy" features on you that nobody actually asked for...

It’s the exact same nonsense as trying to move the taskbar from the top of the screen—they just tell you to "hide it," and then offer some half-baked workaround as if that's a real solution.

Look, I'll give them credit where it's due—Microsoft did a decent job this week—but this? This is ridiculous.

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Someone please just tell me: how do I get Windows Media Player down into the system tray by the clock, like you could back in the day on Windows XP? I’m seriously about to lose my mind here. Is this even a thing anymore???👎

@wearycyclist43/">@@wearycyclist43
I see you weren't at the Vista conference where they were also doing evaluations. For what it's worth, I gave the aero setup a 3.4 at the lowest—look, as long as I've got the aero advantage, that's all that matters to me!

I’m not even burning anything because my fryer isn't even working 🤣

and as far as I know, there hasn't been any discussion about it on the forum, according to the rules... 👍

Thomas Hernandez21 said:But he posted his own explicit photo... he doesn't even have a laptop 😁

Seriously, which soft-headed designer decided to put an Fn key on desktop keyboards just so we could deal with this kind of nonsense? It’s absolute stupidity!

Arthur Booth49 said:Where exactly in TuneUp do I go to adjust this?
Also, how do I stop ZoneAlarm from constantly eating up about 10% of my CPU via the
zlclient process? I'm running the free version...

Which version of TuneUp are you running? 09 or 10? If you're on 09, head over to "Increase Performance," then scroll down to the "TuneUp Startup Manager." Just switch everything you don't want launching at boot from a green dot to a gray dot, hit refresh in the top left, and you're done. If you have TuneUp 2010, click "Increase Performance" in the middle option on the first page, select "All Functions," then go to "Configure System Start" near the end. Same deal: flip those green dots to gray for anything you don't need starting up, hit refresh up top, and exit. As for ZoneAlarm, I wouldn't know—I don't use it. Anyone else out there actually use that thing?

Man, I’ve gotta say, I actually envy that guy. On both of my laptops, I’ve got this specific setup: left Ctrl, Fn, Win, Alt, Space... and that Fn key? That’s my function key. When I hold it down in those specific combinations, I can dial in my volume and brightness levels directly, completely independent of whatever OS I'm running. Honestly, good for him!

I hear you loud and clear, but let me ask you something first. Which key is sitting right there to the left of the Windows key and to the right of your left Ctrl? You know, that specific key sandwiched between those two?

copperhawk19 said:I wasn't using some special setup either; I just used those hotkey apps where you hold down the Windows key and hit the arrows...
but now I can't find any way to do that this week...
and I have no clue if it has any default key combos for volume control by default... (I'm on my PC, but I don't have dedicated multimedia keys on my keyboard)

Look, sorry, but I honestly don't know because—as I've already pointed out—on both of my laptops, regardless of the OS (XP, Windows Vista x64, or Windows 7), the keys for volume and screen brightness always work the same way. I have no idea if you actually installed your audio drivers or if you're just running on the defaults. Try updating the driver and hunting through the keyboard functions—try holding the Fn key or just hitting them plain—and you'll probably find it. Speaking from my own experience, this has nothing to do with the operating system; it’s about the audio hardware. Those combinations are baked right into the driver, and that's what makes the hardware respond.

Andrew Wilson90 said:sorry for barging in here...

I've got Windows 7 installed, but I'm running into an issue where certain games just won't work right. Basically, the screen freezes completely, but if I listen closely, the game audio keeps playing perfectly fine as if nothing happened. Does anyone know how to fix this?

First thing you need to do is either uninstall or update your graphics card drivers.

copperhawk19 said:There should be some kind of software for this... or maybe there's a shortcut built into Windows 7 where I can just use a keyboard combo to adjust the volume?
🤷

Well, what kind of key combinations were you using before? It doesn't really matter, personally I always use the Fn (function) key plus the up and down arrows. On my new laptop, I just hold Fn along with F11 or F12—those keys have the little volume icons printed right under them, you know, the speaker symbols with the single and multiple bars for adjusting the sound.

Why don't you just head down to a repair shop and have them enable that service manually?

If you’ve got a tune-up utility installed, you can just pull everything right from there!

I honestly don't know, man; I'm not exactly a pro at this stuff 😁
Pardon, but you can just install Windows 7 from your XP drive onto your D partition, just like I did. My DVD drive was acting up, so I had to go that route—it just gives you the choice right at bootup: earlier version or Windows 7. That way, if something fails, you've still got XP as a backup

It’ll run just fine without any issues. I’m running a Turion X2 2.20 setup myself—2GB of RAM paired with a Radeon HD 3200 (256MB)—and everything works perfectly!