Official Windows 7 Discussion

[robbalvey]

To me, it seems that it's the exact same windows, in a pretty package. Same problems, same errors, but it looks better.

Yes, my thoughts exactly. The only difference is that I was led to believe it would be a HUGE improvement! I was under the impression that I'd be able to run the same amount of programs I did at the same time under XP, but with less hassle.

 

I'm getting exactly the same hassle as before.

 

And like I said, really, the only difference I can tell with Win 7 is the support for HD in Windows Media Player. It IS really nice to be able to double click a file and it opens quickly without having to open up another program, like Premiere, to be able to play these videos.

 

To be perfectly honest, if there was the same support added to XP, I'd be uninstalling Win 7 in a heartbeat!

 

--Robb

Edited May 2, 2010 by robbalvey

[Ibztone]

Mine just started saying windows needs to be authenticated. When I enter the code, it says it doesn't work.

OMG! I went through that too! I entered the code that was on the actual product, it didn't work, and an hour later having to convince Microsoft that I wasn't using a pirated version of the software they finally gave me a new code. I even went as far as taking a picture of my product packaging with my phone and emailed it to the person I was talking to.

 

Seriously, at this point, if Windows 7 did not handle those .mts files so well, I would be un-installing it and putting XP back on my machine.

 

I will say though, I have only installed Windows 7 on the machines I do HD video editing on, and I have NOT installed it on any other machine because I really do feel that XP is far more stable and if there aren't any features of Windows 7 I would be using on a specific machine, what's the point on installing a less stable operating system?

 

--Robb

 

Wow I can't believe they still haven't fixed that yet. You think they would have learned something from all of the people that like to reformat there systems every year to clean out the windows directory and had to deal with a XP code issue.

[robbalvey]

I am un-installing Windows 7 from my laptop. I just cannot handle the constant program crashes and instablity I'm experiencing. Today, somehow all of my printer drivers became un-installed and I had to go back and re-install them all. Screw that. Windows 7 comes off and XP goes back on.

 

I'll think about re-installing Windows 7 again when a more stable version is available.

 

And as soon as there is an upgrade to Windows Media Player that allows you to play an .mts file under XP, I'll un-install it from my desktop computer as well.

 

--Robb

[Wes]

Would this codec pack work for allowing mts to play on XP?

 

http://www.codecpackguide.com/klcodec.htm

[netdvn]

And as soon as there is an upgrade to Windows Media Player that allows you to play an .mts file under XP, I'll un-install it from my desktop computer as well.

 

Have you tried using VLC Media Player? I've never had a problem with using it over WMP and it can run pretty much any media file you throw at it.

[robbalvey]

Thank for these! I will give them a try on my XP machine and see if they work. At this point I would *LOVE* to have the luxury to get rid of Windows 7 on my main PC. I've just run into more problems, like "appplications data" that I used to be able without any problem in XP I'm unable to browse in Windows 7, and even after following instructions that I've googled, I still can't figure it out! I just don't have the time to spend 20 minutes having to figure out something that used to be self-explanitory in XP.

 

And for some odd reason, every once in a while Windows explorer will open up like 20 different folders at a time...and then crash on me! Causing me to have to re-start my computer. And this happens at random times....when I'm in a program trying to open a file, when I'm clicking on a "my computer" folder, just totally random and I can't figure out what's causing it, and I've tried to Google search this and nothing comes up.

 

At this point, I DO NOT recommend Windows 7 anymore.

[mightbeawannabe]

Has anyone else had the problem of when turning on your PC, it says that Windows needs to be activated, click 'Activate Now,' and then it says the pre-release version has expired? This happens every time I turn it on and it doesn't seem to affect anything but it's annoying. I might need to call Microsoft to get it fixed. I've already had the code problem as mentioned before and resolved that but this is just ridiculous.

 

I need to reinstall XP.

[Ibztone]

Wow, thanks for posting all of your issues with Windows 7. I was thinking about running Windows 7 on my mac just to mess around with it, but I can totally see how it's not even worth it now.

[robbalvey]

^ Keep in mind though, I am certainly far from your "average user" so I'm sure people who are running it to do rather basic stuff should have no problem at all.

 

--Robb

[Ibztone]

True, but it seems it's not much better then XP outside of maybe memory restrictions if you run the 64 bit version.

[robbalvey]

I've just had to do a hard re-set of my PC because Windows 7 was "cancelling" a program for more than 15 minutes and nothing else on my computer would work. Nothing I could do would get the OS to respond. Nothing. Having to hold down my PC's power button was the only option.

 

Is there a patch or SOMETHING coming to Windows 7 at some point to make this a "good" operating system???

 

--Robb

[Ibztone]

Have they released a service pack 2 yet? I'm sure when that happens they will have hopefully worked out some bugs.

[robbalvey]

For the first time in Microsoft history, their operating system sucks so bad that Windows 7 is seriously making me consider switching back to getting a Mac.

 

At this point now, where I went from being happy with Windows 7, to on the fence about it, I will honestly go on record to say that I think the operating system flat out sucks and it's unbelievable how unstable it is.

 

I am now looking into other options so that I can both edit HD video and *NOT* have to use this terrible operating system.

 

It F**KING BLOWS being in the middle of something and then having the operating system just randomly crash on me.

 

I seriously hate it.

[AJClarke0912]

lol

 

Despite me being SLIGHTLY Windows/Linux sided, I just have to say...

GET A MAC.

 

iMovie does super with HD video (though I might be on the more "amateur" video guy) and has great effects. Mac programs I have to say are well designed and easy-to-use. The only slight gripe is "Pages", the Word of Mac. It's kinda stripped on features and is a bit different. However, I think there is Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and more available for Mac but I could be wrong...

 

Given your circumstances, switching could be a good idea.

 

 

BTW, made THIS video with iMovie...

[spaceace12]

I did something to my linksys router. Can't access the menu page even though I put in the correct address (192.168.1.1). Why is this a 7 issue. Linksys' software for the router does not support 7.......at least the router still works.

 

 

In other news, I might be buying a Macbook Pro. 17" MBP, 4 gigs of ram, 320 gig HD all for 800 dollars. It is a refurbished one, but the only reason the person is selling is because it was sorta sluggish when he had 34 tracks on his recording software.

[robbalvey]

Well, my complaining in this thread should diminish now...After the operating system was crashing left and right while I was trying to edit video the other night, I've said "screw you" to Windows 7 and I went out and bought a MacBook pro.

 

While I'm always skeptical of change and I'm not one of those people to all of a sudden be "pro Apple', I'm going to give OSX a fair chance for success or failure, just like I did Win 7.

 

I will say this though - I installed Premiere and I edited my first photo update and video (The Rage POV) with the Mac and I didn't one single "Program not responding" error or crash.

 

When I edited the Joris en de Draak video a couple of days ago, Win 7 was crashing on me every 10 minutes.

 

But we'll give it a few months and see if I still sing praises of OSX.

 

Bottom line, since this will probably be one of my last posts in this thread, my closing thoughts on Windows 7 is that it's an epic fail for what I needed to use it for.

 

I'm sure it will be fine for people who are not putting as much stress on the operating system, but I personally found it to be an unstable mess and I wouldn't recommend anyone switching over to Windows 7 until a more stable version of it is released.

 

Thank you for listening to all my rants!

 

--Robb

Edited July 10, 2010 by robbalvey

[Thuur]

^Good luck with your Mac Book Pro. i always wanted one, but the 3D software doesn't run on a Mac

 

We have one of our guys working on Windows 7 at the office. We haven't experienced any big crashes yet (Nothing not-regular-windows). We are doing heavy video/3D renderings and compositing. So I hope it will stay that way. Fingers crossed!

 

A bit of-topic, but I don't think it's worth opening a thread for: which HD output format do you prefer? Windows doesn't seem to like the H.264 codec (Crashing after finishing the render). Mpeg2 seems to go a lot better

Edited July 12, 2010 by Thuur

[chadster]

I've been working with Windows 7 for almost a year in one form or another (yes, we developers get stuff early) and I have to say, while some things are better, and for me it is stable, XP is still the better products in regards to deployment. I have not yet in six months been able to consitantly image and delpoy Windows 7 in a manner that does not take 2 to 4 hours a machine. They have taken away the ability to copy over a default profile, the only support way is via sysprep which does all sorts of other wonderful things to your OS, and when you are talking deployment to 1500 nodes, ouch. Bottom line, for deployment purposes, it sucks major donkey doo. For instance, I just imaged a sysprepped machine, and bam, no active partition, thank you microsoft! (yes, I can fix it and get it up and running, but damn man, lets make it easier)

[chadster]

I should also say that from a file strucutre stand point and the abilites to copy and manipulate files are vastly improved over XP. Wish I would've read this thread sooner, Robb, might have been able to help you out on that crashing thing.

[robbalvey]

I have now edited 4 HD videos on the Mac - not one single crash. I switched over to my Windows 7 machine this morning to check email - browser crashed within 30 seconds. *sigh*

[chadster]

^^honestly, it almost sounds like your registry has become corrupt or a device driver that is fouled, i'm guessing a corrupt registry or installation. If it's happening in Adobe Premier and your email program as well, I would lean more towards an OS corruption. If it was an upgrade from Vista, there might be some hangover there. Without physically seeing the suspect, I would start with a nice system repair which can be accessed from the install disk(if you have it) or the manufacture's partition (if it's still there) The repair menu is actually fairly nice, once your reboot the system and select boot to disk, click next on the first screen, at the bottom of the second screen is a repair function, choose which one you like the best (complete do over, repair sys files, etc) and I would almost bet it would fix it. I have 64bt Win7 Pro and Enterprise, both to this date have performed well, also have office 2010 on one of the boxes including the laptop I'm using now with no issues. Another thing you can try before a repair is to run said program in XP mode. Right click the shortcut, properties, compatibility(insert joke here) and select run in windows XP SP3 mode. If that stops the adobe issue, then a reinstall or a reset to factory defaults of ie8 (tools, options, advanced, reset) might cure your ailment. Bottom, line, I hate having to troubleshoot microsofts stuff, but thats life for me. Glad to hear the Mac is working well at the moment, we have exactly two of them in our organization and the internet browsing on them is horrible, takes forever to bring up a webpage even on a direct connect 10meg cox circuit(for testing to rule out our web filters) MAC's tend to be much stronger for graphics and video, which is what they are used for with us.

 

*edit* just seen you installed the 32bit version of windows 7 with 6gb of RAM, you will not be able to use all 6 GB of ram, the most you will actually be able to use is 3. The 64 bit version of windows 7 will run quicker and allow you to actually use all 6gb of ram which could be another reason you are crashing. Had I noticed that when I first *skimmed* the post, I might not have wrote all that above, but maybe someone will find is usefull Unfortunatley to switch to 64bit, you will lose everything. If you have an extra HDD laying around, you can always image that and go forth with testing out with your programs, just a suggestion.

[robbalvey]

^ Thanks for the response but it's about 6 months too late, sorry!

 

Also, not sure where you got some of that info (might have been from some older posts I made) but all of my most recent installations were 64 bit (on my machine that can handle it) or 32 bit due to system requirements.

 

They were all clean installs since I was running XP before onto brand spanking empty hard drives.

 

I've had similar results on 4 different machines.

 

End of the day, with all the problems I've had, I just feel that Windows 7 is junk. And I've spent the past 6 months trying to make it work. And it's not like I'm a tech newbie, I actually do have a bit of insight as to what's going on (remember, I develop software for a living!) so anything that requires this much tweaking and creates so many headaches...is total garbage in my mind.

 

I'm actually in the process of backing up everything on my machines at home so that I can un-install Win 7 and put XP back on those machines.

 

Now that I've got the Macbook Pro and I will most likely be doing all my video editing and website updates on that computer (provided it doesn't crap out on me in 6 months too), my Windows machines really just need to be able to browse the internet, check emails, burn DVDs, and run the online based TPR store and Club TPR utilities.

 

Thankfully I don't need a garbage OS like Windows 7 to do it, so I can go back to an OS that actually worked (for me), Win XP.

 

I do really appreciate the post though, I'm just sorry it's come so late when my mind is now made up. Hopefully you'll be able to help out the next person that comes along with Windows 7 problems before they give up and buy a Mac too!

 

--Robb

 

EDIT: I just read through this entire thread again, and it's amazing to see how Windows 7 deteriorated on me and watching my patience run out and frustration level rise was hilarious! I don't have a preference really of Apple or Microsoft but I do have a preference for things that "just work." Like you plug it in, and it "just works." Sadly, Windows 7 eventually failed that test.

Edited July 13, 2010 by robbalvey

[chadster]

^^Yeah I figured I was a little late, but when I saw you still had high opinons of it recently I thought I might try to convert you back to a win7 man,

 

But hey, I 100% agree that Win7 has made life more difficult, I have spent many months on finding a way to image 1500 nodes with win7 without any issues consistantly, and today, I hit pay dirt and a few items (and for that, I will treat myself to the Kemah boardwak and Johnson Space Center this weekend) They have taken away many options and require various methods of sysprep and whatnot, and jeez, I don't have all year to figure this stuff out!

 

The 32bit did come from a post on around page 9 or so while i was skimming and glad you tried the 64bit and it never ceases to amaze me at what will and won't work with these things. Although I did enjoy watching your opinon go down hill, it was almost like the joke about the couple that moves up north and writes the diary: day 1 love it up here the air is great, day 4 snow!, day 6 snow and I'm sholving, day 15 more @$#@$^ snow, day 28, more snow, and I hurt my #$^@#^ back, day 45, I'm packing up and moving away from this #@$^%%#

 

Anyway, I know what a pain it is to go back from one OS to another and I wish you the best on that. XP is much more stable for many applications and is way more friendly with hardware. We have CS5 on 32bit workstations (yeah, I know, 32 bit, not my call) and it's solid as a rock.

 

Good luck and if you decided to make the jump again and run into issue, hit me up!

 

*edit* i am hearing win 8 is in development, might be 18 to 24 months before we see a rc version

[Ibztone]

Robb, I'm really glad that you have this thread. I've been debating on which operating system to use for a new custom machine that I'm building and I think I'm going to stick with XP for now.

[Vekoma Fan Boy]

Well I was planning on building a brand new gaming computer and putting Win7 on it, but after reading this thread, I'm not so sure.

 

Anyone willing to give a confused 16 year old a push in the right direction?