Windows 7

Jamie Phillips4 said:Ever since I installed 7, my router keeps dropping the connection. I just get local access for maybe two or three minutes before everything starts working perfectly again, but then after a while, the whole thing repeats itself... anyone else dealing with this kind of mess?

So what am I even doing wrong with 7 and my internet connection?...

So, I’ve had Windows 7 installed for about ten days now, and honestly, I have nothing but good things to say. It feels way more stable than either XP or Vista. It actually runs quite well on lower-end hardware—I'm running it on a laptop with an Intel Atom 1.6 and 2GB of RAM, and it holds up. The only real hiccup is that Media Center feels a bit sluggish, but otherwise, everything is great. I managed to find most of the drivers without much trouble, and everything works smoothly. The updates are straightforward and fast, Internet Explorer is significantly quicker, and the taskbar is excellent. After the mess that was Windows 98, it finally feels like we have decent Windows operating systems again, haha. I just hope it stays this reliable.

I fail to see why people are talking so much trash about Windows 7. This OS is brand new, and frankly, it is incomparably more stable, higher quality, and faster than Vista SP 2. I remember when XP first launched; everyone was complaining that it was a complete disaster. Now, those same people claim Windows 7 is garbage and that XP is the gold standard. Why the sudden change? Just wait a year or two for the service packs to roll out, then we will see how many of you actually stick with XP. I have been using win7 RTM for two months now 😁 and it works flawlessly. All my drivers are exactly where they should be, and both older and newer games run perfectly. About 99% of software is just as compatible as it was with XP or Vista. So, to the novices out there: put in a little effort and actually explore this new Windows 7. You won't regret it. Personally, I suspect this OS will outlast XP by quite a margin 👍

I'm looking for some tips—you know, those little tweaks—like which programs I can just kill off to stop win 7 from eating up all my RAM...

I've gone ahead and installed UltraVNC Vieweri 1.0.8.0 on my computer, and while I'm hoping to establish a connection with another machine, I find myself a bit stuck on what the next logical steps should be... if anyone happens to know the way forward, I would truly appreciate any guidance you could offer... thank you so much in advance

Bryan White61 said:I just installed UltraVNC Vieweri 1.0.8.0 on my PC. I'm trying to remote into another computer, but I'm totally lost on what the next step is. If anyone knows how to make this work, please help me out. Thanks in advance!

Look, you gotta have that same viewer installed on the other machine too. Then, check the system tray—you know, down by the clock? There should be an icon, maybe looks like a little blue eye or something. Just hover over it with your mouse and it'll show you the IP address. That's the magic number you need to type into the viewer on your own computer so you can actually connect to the other one. Pretty sure that's how it works... it's been a lifetime since I messed around with this stuff.

TeamViewer is just simpler and better.

placidheron19 said:I honestly don't see why everyone is trashing Windows 7—this OS is practically brand new! It’s incomparably more stable, higher quality, and just faster than Vista SP 2. I remember back when XP first dropped, everyone was complaining about how much of a mess it was, and now those same people are acting like XP is the absolute gold standard and 7 is garbage. Just give it a year or two for the service packs to roll out, then we'll see how many of you are still clinging to XP. Personally, I've been running win7 RTM 😁 for two months now and it works fantastically—all my drivers are exactly where they should be, and both older and newer games run perfectly. About 99% of software is just as compatible as it was with XP or Vista. So, listen, you n00bs—put in a little effort to actually explore the new Windows 7, and I really think you won't regret it. In my opinion, this OS is going to outlast XP by a long shot. 👍

I had quite a few headaches with 7 myself (check page two), so I think I'll just wait a year or two for the patches. Besides, if you read your own post more closely, you're basically just making fun of yourself—first you say it's great, and then you say we should wait for updates...
Well, goodness gracious, I don't intend to spend my entire day hunting for fixes on the internet! I'd much rather wait for the big shots at Microsoft to polish things up a bit before I make the jump to 7. As for the fact that Windows 7 installs in fifteen minutes and looks absolutely gorgeous? Well, you can sell that line to the kids bragging at school about having the newest Windows—to them, it's all very cool. HEHE👍
And as for those geeks who keep complaining that it's too much work—acting like the average person should be expected to troubleshoot everything themselves? Wrong answer Mcfly. 🙂

Well now...

I decided to pick up Windows 7 based on a recommendation from a colleague at work, though I did opt for the Home version instead...

So far... To be perfectly honest, my biggest headache is that everything feels completely out of place; instead of the layout I’ve been accustomed to for over 15 years, it feels more like I'm navigating through macOS. On top of that, I have nobody to blame but myself—the installer defaulted to an American version of Windows, which is something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. Between all the talk of "downloading," "servers," and various "utilities," half of the terminology goes right over my head, and I suspect there might be some underlying confusion there.

Initially, a few of my games wouldn't launch, and we eventually figured out that the cracks were 32-bit while I was running the 64-bit version. So, we tracked down the right ones. Even then, things were still glitchy until tech support kindly pointed out something called a "Compatibility" tag, where you can set a program to run as if it were running on Windows XP service pack 2.
And lo and behold—everything worked perfectly. 😁

However, the real nightmare I'm facing involves Outlook. You see, I installed the exact same Office suite I used back in the XP days. When I exported my PST file to a dedicated external drive (which I use as a permanent backup) and tried to import it into the Office version here on Windows 7, it threw an error saying it was "not compatible with Personal System information, contact your administrator."

No matter what I tried, I just couldn't get it to work.
It also keeps pestering me for some Microsoft Personal Assistant 2.0 or some other phantom software... which, quite frankly, I don't have.

So, if anyone has any advice that isn't "format C!", or "Forget it, just go back to Windows 3.11 because it works like a charm!", or "I'll give my left arm before I ever switch to Linux!", I would be immensely grateful.

My overall impression is that Windows 7 is definitely the future and will eventually succeed even XP. There's no doubt about that. For instance, XP can't even recognize a full 4 GB of RAM, capping out at around 3.6 GB or something similar. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. So, I feel relatively secure... even if there are plenty of growing pains to deal with.
I certainly don't want to revert to XP right now and risk a total system meltdown.

The only thing I'm looking forward to is Ultin, because honestly, having localized OS terms forced upon you is ridiculous. It's not about politics; it's simply that the technical terms and components are natively English. It's like trying to translate anatomical Latin terms into slang—it just doesn't fit. Sure, you can try, but does a server really need to be renamed to something else? It's absurd...

By the way, does anyone have a good antivirus recommendation? Ideally something powerful, BUT NOT INTRUSIVE?
And please, spare me the suggestions for Norton; it has trashed two of my previous Windows installations in the past just by hogging all my system resources.

Give Kaspersky Internet Security a shot.

Jamie Hughes6 said:maybe give Kaspersky Internet Security a shot

Yeah—even though I don't personally use it myself—people seem to rave about that Russian antivirus software quite a bit!

nah, Avast actually rocks xD they have this free version that gets the job done perfectly, plus a Pro version if you feel like "treating yourself" 😬
errrm, for Office, you're probably better off just sticking with Office 2007—it runs without any issues, kind of like how Outlook works.
Though, I honestly don't get why people still use Outlook when they could just use Gmail or Yahoo Mail??
It's like, you're always worried about losing your contacts, or it takes up too much space on your hard drive, or it's just unnecessary, I guess xD
Oh, and what exactly is this OM version you're talking about?
From what I know, here in the States, Windows usually comes with both English and American language options. Maybe try going into the language and regional settings to change it, since I doubt you only have American installed.
Trust me, I felt the exact same way when I switched over to Vista—I had no clue where anything was—but once you get used to it, maybe in six months, you'll be able to sit down at XP 🙏
Like, "wtf, where did my start search go?" 🙏" 😬

To be perfectly honest, Hotmail is absolute garbage. It’s just a buggy, broken mess. I can never get it to function properly regardless of which OS I'm running... Gmail is clearly superior, though I have to admit the interface doesn't quite sit right with me either.

Furthermore, the old 2003 version of Office worked much better for my workflow than this current iteration. They completely botched the design for no good reason...

1. Is there any point in installing Nero il something similar on Windows 7? I noticed it comes with a DVD burner... if so, what's the actual benefit?

2. This media player—or whatever they're calling it now—is playing AVCHD 1920x1080 files perfectly fine without any stuttering. That's a huge win since that format is usually a nightmare, but there's zero sound...
MP3s work fine. My sound card is an EMU 0404 USB.

3. I'm trying to figure out how to get my WLAN card to actually hit those "transmission speeds of up to 108M." Both the card and the router support it, but I'm stuck at 54 Mbps and can't find any settings to bump it up... apparently, there aren't any other drivers available besides the standard ones from Windows for 64-bit.

I've got a whole list of other questions, but I can't wrap my head around them all right now.

neonmaker12 said:1. Do I really need to install Nero il or something similar on Windows 7? I see it has its own DVD burner built-in. If so, why bother?

If you're happy with the built-in Windows burner, just stick with that. Personally, I use Nero Burning ROM. You can grab it for free, it gets the job done perfectly, and the interface is pretty straightforward—easy to use, plus it has support for American English (not that I care much). Installation is quick and easy enough. 🙂

2. As for those files playing in the media player, I guess I don't really have a solid answer for you on that one. 🤷

Jonathan Morris40 said:. honestly just buggy crap.

LOL

I haven't really messed around with that burner much—only used it once to burn an ISO file...
now I'm not even sure how well it plays with different file types?

John Clark6 said:yeah, even though I don't actually run it myself, people seem to swear by that Russian antivirus software quite a bit.

I used to run it back when I was on Windows 7, and honestly, I can see why people praise McAfee too.

Has anyone actually messed around with Power Cinema 5 on Windows 7?? Does it even function properly? I see they’ve released Power Cinema 6 which is supposed to be compatible with Windows 7, but there’s this massive, glaring issue: "time-shifting" stays stuck in the ON position, and there isn't a single way to disable it if you want to...
..hey everyone...

Can I post questions about Windows 7 here, or should I head over to the IT help subforum? 🙏