Posts by Taylor Campbell4

If the moderator could move this into its own dedicated thread titled "library issues," I’d really appreciate it. Honestly, I’m not sure we’ll get much traction or any real help in this current discussion.

I’m seriously considering rolling back to Windows XP at this point.

My files are scattered across three different drives—it’s enough to drive me absolutely crazy.

Honestly, I haven't the slightest clue what caused this mess; whether it was my own mistake or something else entirely, I just don't know how to fix it...

I've got this one: C:\Users\John\Documents (this is where I saved things from my browser)
Then there's this: D:\Users\John\Documents
And then there's this—honestly, who even created this? I have no clue if it's even a system folder or not: C:\Users\John\Documents — and my browser decided to save everything right here...
Edit: Not to mention I also have D:\Users\John\Documents
So, basically, my documents are scattered across four different spots (and that's not even counting the public folders...)

That’s where I’m getting tripped up. I moved my entire My Documents folder over to the D: drive, but it looks like the default save location didn't actually change. Windows was supposed to handle that automatically, but it failed me... back when I used XP, it just worked without any drama.

Now I have to figure out how to fix this mess... what a headache.

To get your documents to actually stay on the D: partition instead of C:, you practically have to perform surgery on the OS.

I just wanted to mention how much Windows 7 is driving me crazy. I can't say if it's the same deal with Vista, though—I skipped right over Vista.

The way they've organized folder navigation is just a mess—honestly, it's a nightmare. I'm talking about these "libraries." On paper, it’s supposed to be this great, convenient, user-friendly feature, but in reality, it’s the exact opposite!

For instance, I'll save some files I received via email into the /Documents/New Folder directory, then I head over to Libraries -> Documents, and nothing is there. It’s like everything was moved to some completely different location.

So, you end up with two separate system folders both labeled "documents" for the same user! One shows up as "Documents" and the other as "My Documents"—you're basically left to figure it out yourself. It's ridiculous. You have Documents and then you have My Documents, meaning files are scattered across two locations, and if a library is meant to pull from multiple spots, why isn't it updating?

It really frustrates me when they take something perfectly simple and functional and ruin it with one of these "smart" updates.

As for these libraries... honestly, I just don't get them.

rustydriver23 said:The truth is, Vista runs just fine—you just have to know how to handle it properly.

Well, according to the benchmarks, Vista lags behind both XP and Windows 7 during most standard user tasks—like copying files, for instance. While Windows 7 keeps pace with XP, Vista ends up being nearly twice as slow in certain areas...

Is anyone else running into issues with thumbnails in Windows 7? I’ve noticed that in certain folders, the file previews—like for images—and even other folder icons just won't show up at all. It happens quite often, and honestly, it's getting pretty irritating.

Has anyone dealt with this before, or does anyone have a fix?

boldfox45 said:Which way is better? Upgrading Windows 7 over Vista, or just doing a fresh install?

If I were in that spot, I'd give the upgrade a shot.

Worst case scenario—if things go sideways—you can always fall back on a clean installation.

Drew Garcia said:Maybe try deleting the part where it says "screen resolution"...

That shouldn't matter—it doesn't play a role here.

Does anyone else run into this issue when they capture an edited photo directly from a program?

I’ve gone ahead and made this thread private for a bit, but I was wondering if anyone could help me out—why is it that when I look at my photo thumbnails, some show a preview while others just stay blank?
Take a look at this image; it should give you a better idea of what I mean...

So, does anyone happen to know if there are any decent little utility programs for tweaking Windows 7 or Windows Vista? There used to be a ton of them back when I was running XP.
For instance, I’d really love to find something similar to what I used to have on my old XP machine—specifically a tool called Resize It for images. It allowed me to just select some photos, right-click, and hit "resize it" directly from the context menu. It saved so much time since I didn't have to launch a separate application every single time.

PS: Actually, looking at it now, it seems more like what PowerToys does rather than pure system tweaking.

Anyway, I managed to track down exactly what I was looking for.
http://www.vso-software.fr/products/...ge-resizer.php

It's a great little tool—it actually offers quite a few extra features beyond just resizing, like various effects, borders, and renaming options. Plus, it runs perfectly fine on Windows 7.

Well, I'm finally back in Windows after a bit of a chaotic stretch—I honestly thought I was going to have to wipe everything and start from scratch.
Anyway, I managed to get all my partitioning sorted out (shrinking the C: drive to beef up the D: partition) using a little tool called Easeus Partition Master—it’s completely free. It took its sweet time, though; it hung at 99% and then sat there at 100% for a good five or ten minutes.

It’s funny how much I love it when a tiny 8 MB utility, totally free of charge, outperforms the bloated software from those big-name manufacturers. If you want to try it, definitely grab the full version here http://www.partition-tool.com/download.htm. My only hesitation is whether it plays nice with 64-bit systems; I suspect it might not work unless you opt for the paid version.

Alright, has anyone actually managed to partition a drive on Windows 7 using an external partition manager?
I just downloaded Acronis Disc Director—the final version of Acronis—and the software won't even launch, regardless of which compatibility mode I try. It's not even getting close to actually performing the partitioning.

I’d suggest grabbing that extra 1 GB just to give yourself some peace of mind. Besides, you can always test the waters with 1 GB first—though, honestly, I think you'll start feeling the squeeze once you have a few more programs running at once.

Sam Perez22 said:I'm not sure if it's just some weird setting error. That partition isn't exactly huge—maybe try moving the files off to another drive, reformatting that partition, and then you'll see what happens. Looking at my own setup, I don't have any partitions like that.

Honestly, I'm a bit lost on your response. I can't tell if you actually caught what I was asking, nor am I quite sure what you mean about not having those kinds of partitions...

PS: I'm not planning on formatting anything right now since I need all my data intact—everything with the drives seems fine for the moment, so there's really no reason to go through the hassle of formatting.

I know I don't actually need 250 GB allocated to my C: drive, but the system won't let me shrink it any lower than—to be exact—244.1 GB. It keeps telling me there isn't enough available space to perform the shrink. Apparently, it can't shrink past the location of certain unmovable files. I’m going to try running a defrag, though I have a feeling I’ve already attempted that without much luck. If that fails, I'll probably just give Acronis a shot.

In my experience, there isn't much deep philosophy behind working with partitions—I've looked into this quite a bit over the years—but I do know you can still mess everything up if you happen to have a run of bad luck...

BTW, I'm not sure if I've missed something here... take a look at this screenshot http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/1953/capturefpa.jpg

So, I have two drives here: one is a primary drive (it's new to this PC), and the other is an 80 GB drive that was the primary on my old computer.
The way this is displayed is throwing me off a little. For instance, E: shows up as Healthy, Active, Primary Partition, while C: and D: are also listed as primary partitions—meaning I have three primary partitions total. But is E: acting like a logical drive?
I'm not sure if this points to some kind of error in my settings?

Hmm, looks like I’ll need to spend some time this week moving those five main folders—My Videos, My Documents, My Music, My Pictures, and Downloads—from my C: drive over to the D: drive. Back when I was using Windows XP, I only ever had to worry about messing with My Documents.

Now, my next step is probably going to be using a partition manager to shrink the C: partition; if my files aren't living there anymore, there's really no reason to keep it sitting at 250 GB. The built-in Disk Management tool in Windows 7 just won't let me shrink the C: drive, though. I tried using Partition Magic—or whatever it's called—but it wouldn't work for me. I think I saw some mentions online about specific programs designed to shrink system partitions on Windows Vista... so I'll try to track one of those down and see what happens.

I have a question that might be a bit complicated, but I’d really love an answer from someone who knows their way around a system (though please, don't feel pressured to reply immediately if you're busy...). I didn't want to start a whole new thread since this covers Windows 7 and a few other things, so here goes:

Up until now, I've been running Windows XP, and I always made it a point to keep my documents—My Documents, including photos, videos, app installers, and so on—on the D: drive. I started doing this years ago after hearing an expert during a seminar suggest it was much better practice, so I won't bore you with the backstory. My process was simple: just right-click My Documents, go to properties, change the folder location from C: to D:, and the entire My Documents folder would migrate to the D: partition.

Now I'm wondering how this works in Windows 7. Since we have these Libraries now, does that change anything? I'm a little worried it might make navigating my folders more confusing than it used to be.

I'd love to hear from the more advanced users here—how do you handle this on your own PC? Do you follow the same setup I use, or do you do things differently?

I know most people have a D: drive for extra data, but I haven't seen many people actually moving their My Documents folder over there; it seems like most people just manually copy files to the D: drive, which feels inefficient to me. I want my documents, videos, photos, and everything else to automatically land on D:. I'd like to do the same for "Downloads" too. I'm currently trying to figure out the best way to set this up in Windows 7, given that the default folder structure isn't quite the same as it was in XP...

It’s a shame we can't just upgrade between builds...

Well, it works for me
Daemon Tools Lite, 4.30.4.0027

I just took a look—honestly, I can't even remember how I originally set this up—and realized the installer was running in compatibility mode for Windows XP Service Pack 3. Curiously, the actual .exe file I'm using right now isn't in compatibility mode at all; it’s just running normally...

I decided to go with Windows 7 because, based on my own testing, certain tasks feel much snappier than they did on Vista—things like file transfers, boot times, deleting files, and so on. It feels just as fast as Windows XP, whereas Vista felt roughly 20-30% slower—that's a bit of a guess on my part, but it felt significant.
But really, it's best to just play it by ear if you're running into issues; it all depends on what you actually need to do. For instance, a buddy of mine can't get Archlord to run. I don't really play those types of games myself, and everything runs fine for me, except for the Nokia file manager—basically, the Bluetooth drivers are a headache, though I ran into similar trouble back on Windows XP.

Just right-click the .exe file you're trying to run, head over to the Compatibility tab, and pick whatever setting makes sense—you could try Windows XP SP3 or even Windows Vista, for instance. Usually, that does the trick and gets most programs running smoothly!!
Of course, you’d need to have Windows 7 installed already to see those options.