Windows 7 - Tweaks, Problems and Fixes

[TheGame240]

We've all had a week to play with the release candidate, so I thought it might be a good idea to have a thread consolidating some of the quirks and their fixes to make life a little simpler. So far my experience has been pretty positive, just a few hiccups here and there. I've been working with the x64 RC.

1. Creative X-Fi drivers. The beta drivers on Creative's website were horrible. Simple fix can be found here. It's Vista drivers modified to recognize Windows 7 as a valid OS. Still no volume panel, but I've read that if you install it off the OEM CD after installing the driver pack it will work. I'm downloading it now (since Creative released the Vista CD via torrent it's coming in pretty slow). Great support Creative.


2. X1900 series drivers. According to ATI's site 9.3 was suppose to be the last version to support the x1900 series. They're completely missing from the drivers. (x800 series is there). Solution. Use 9.2 series catalyst instead.

3. Print drivers (Canon S600). I had this install on a networked machine.

a. First I tried to just add the printer, no driver could be found.
b. Then I rand Canon's driver add-on that adds Vista/Vista 64 support on the networked computer. Tried to use the "install additional drivers" on the hosting PC and none could be found.
c. Ran the installer update on the Win7 machine. Tried to connect to the printer, again, no drivers could be found.
d. I was about to give up, but on a whim decided to install the printer on the Win7 machine directly.
e. Printer installed to my surprise as "Canon Inkjet S600". All of Canon's drivers identify the printer simply as a "Canon S600".
f. After finding the ".inf" file, "oem11.inf", and removing "Inkjet" from the description, printer installed correctly.
g. The opposite also works. Adding "Inkjet" to the existing ".inf" files will allow additional drivers to be installed and network sharing with an XP/Vista 32 machine.
​

4. Coming from XP I was a little annoyed with the Start Menu. this Vista tweak also works with Win7. You can also use the Documents menu instead of favorites (which I recommend since it will mess up your IE favorites). Not really sure why that wasn't included as an option to begin with without reverting to a desktop that looks like Win95. If anyone knows a more elegant solution, I'd love to hear it.

5. Not a specific problem, but several programs will generate a "this may not have installed properly" message. Double check before allowing any kind of reinstall because every program that has done this has run fine for me.

6. Win 7 (and Vista) will create a thumbs.db file in network folders where the you have write permission.

a. In Windows explorer "tools->folder options->view" or "Control Panel->folder options->view" check the box "always show icons, never thumbnails". This will disable thumbnails everywhere though.
b. Registry fix. Under HKEY_CURRENT_USER->Software->Microsoft->Windows->CurrentVersion->Policies->Explorer add a new DWORD(32 bit) named "DisableThumbnailsOnNetworkFolders" without the quotes and set its value to 1.​

Otherwise I think we've got a winner here. It runs about the same as XP did for me (boot times, app load times, etc.). If anyone else has had any other quirks or major problems with solutions, feel free to post. Hopefully we can build up a decent knowledge base since I have a feeling a lot of us will be using this OS until next March at least.

 

[Rattle]

on the xfi extreme music 7.1 and xfi titanium the xfi beta drivers have been awesome for me....

 

[Rider200]

5. Not a specific problem, but several programs will generate a "this may not have installed properly" message. Double check before allowing any kind of reinstall because every program that has done this has run fine for me.

I noticed this on two programs, dameon and AVG (8.5) but after a second restart (for another reason) they quit doing it.

Here is what I found for VM Ware:

I had version 5.x for a long time and with Win 7 I could not get the drivers for the network or an older Creative PCI 512 to load, so I bit the bullet and went and downloade version 6.5.2. The sound card drivers loaded but there isn't any network drivers?? I looked in the VM Ware tools dir they are there but when I opened the cab all the files were zero bytes. ???? So I went to an old Vista VM on my server and looked at the network drivers they were there so I copied them to the VM directory on the Win 7 VM and they work.

I haven't sent an email to VM Ware asking why the drivers were zero bytes yet but will soon.

Also I figured out why VistaBootPro wiped my boot sectors when I installed it - The help file suggests you back up the registry before you make any changes, it needs to insist you back up the registry before making changes. I do! So now I have a dual boot manager I can change the boot sequence and time on. Cool...

Back to the Fun!

 

[Goateh]

2. X1900 series drivers. According to ATI's site 9.3 was suppose to be the last version to support the x1900 series. They're completely missing from the drivers. (x800 series is there). Solution. Use 9.2 series catalyst instead.

I believe the x1900 and older are considered legacy by ATI now. A bit lame, but the default drivers also work well. I had some problems and couldn't get the 9.2 catalyst drivers to work for me

 

[TheGame240]

I believe the x1900 and older are considered legacy by ATI now. A bit lame, but the default drivers also work well. I had some problems and couldn't get the 9.2 catalyst drivers to work for me

They are. 9.3 was suppose to be the final version with support, but the 1900 series was missing, while the x800 series was included.

on the xfi extreme music 7.1 and xfi titanium the xfi beta drivers have been awesome for me....

That's odd. Had some problems with "crackling" with my Xfi Fatality and the beta drivers.

 

[Pntgrd]

I am using the Beta's with my X-Fi Platinum with no issues. They work great, so far.

 

[Ekko]

all drivers seem to be fine for me ..
i tested a lot of ati drivers and a lot of rampage formula drivers..
i also tested all the drivers for the p5k deluxe and the x38 series..
all them are fine no issues except for the fact that im done fussing with windows 7 and other builds beyond 7000, they just dont run punkbuster period..
thats like every good frekin game out there worth anything..LAME...
im going to wait until i see mass amounts of people saying its working on rc2 or whatever..

 

[Myv]

Don't update the below, for some reason every time I do it my computer cannot get an ip address at all from router/home network, just roll back driver to fix the problem.
"Realtek - Network - Realtek RTL8168B/8111B Family PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet NIC (NDIS 6.0)
Update type: Optional
DriverUpdate: Realtek Network software update released in June, 2007"

 

[Goateh]

Just an addition to this thread, my 1950 pro didn't seem to want to work with any proper ATI drivers. I went back and installed the 9.1 catalyst drivers. Works sweet

 

[Shadowmage]

Just an addition to this thread, my 1950 pro didn't seem to want to work with any proper ATI drivers. I went back and installed the 9.1 catalyst drivers. Works sweet

That's because ATI just recently stopped supporting cards from the X1900 series and older.

 

[Janus67]

Only issue I am having is my computer not staying in standby. I hit the standby button, it 'shuts down' and then 2 minutes later comes back for no reason. I have it set on a timer too to go into standby when I am afk for more than 2 hours. So every 2ish hours it is standbying then coming back, and 2 hours later, rinse and repeat

 

[Goateh]

That's because ATI just recently stopped supporting cards from the X1900 series and older.

Yeah, I realize that. I just prefer to use actual catalyst drivers to the built in Microsoft ones. Granted the ones that came with Windows 7 were fine to use for gaming etc...

 

[Insane Scyth]

Everything went pretty smooth for me. The only problem I had was getting MATLAB to install correctly. After about an hour it turns out there was another executable in a random folder that worked just fine

 

[Trombe]

Build 7000 worked flawlessly for me, but build 7100 no longer detects wireless networks. At all. Even with my laptop sitting on my router. It also hangs on every shutdown. 7100 is entirely incapable of turning itself off now. Also, I get random BSOD's now when I use Windoze Media Center (harddrive intensive), but it isn't hardware caused since XP and Ubuntu use the same hardware just fine. It has to be built in driver related. Also, about once in every 10 boots, 7100 fails to boot all the way. (see pic). I have to say build 7100 is actually worse than the previous public beta build, and I wish I still had my build 7000 dvd.

 

[Paradoxmaker]

I've got issues with Media player 12 in Windows 7.

The dang thing will not recognize any updates anymore to my media folder. I've tried resting the library and changing the directory and neither one made it update the new additions...

Is there a reliable way to force it to update?

 

[TheGame240]

I've got issues with Media player 12 in Windows 7.

The dang thing will not recognize any updates anymore to my media folder. I've tried resting the library and changing the directory and neither one made it update the new additions...

Is there a reliable way to force it to update?

By resetting do you mean "tools->advanced->restore media library"?

I don't use WMP media library (still using Winamp for that) so I not too familiar with it. Have you tried setting to the option to add files to the library when you play them and then playing some of the new files and see if add them that way?

 

[Tserrof]

issues i've noticed:

- general software incompatibility (to be expected)
- pinning items to start menu sometimes causes pinned list to disappear
- video skips and stutters during aero peek and flip 3d (vista did not do this on the same computer)
- gadgets sometimes activate 'always on top' mode seemingly spontaneously
- other stuff i can't remember

overall minor issues with an extremely robust RC. the fact that it's free is just icing on the cake.

 

[Paradoxmaker]

By resetting do you mean "tools->advanced->restore media library"?

I don't use WMP media library (still using Winamp for that) so I not too familiar with it. Have you tried setting to the option to add files to the library when you play them and then playing some of the new files and see if add them that way?

Yeah,the restore Media library.
I changed my directory name then deleted the folder monitor in WMP starting with what i thought was a clean slate.
Then deleted EVERYTHING that WMP said was in the library.
Then i told it to restore, after that it had no media showing.
Once i pointed the library back to my media folder and it searched the library it found all the same OLD songs but still none of the new ones i added.

I moved over to Winamp myself for the time being but i'm not sure i like it to much since i can't figure out how to sync my player without it asking me to upload all 8000 songs to it

 

[gigabit]

Deleted the orignal question.After rereading the email i got my answer.Ive had a ruff week with mom in the Hospital and and GF jobless my nerves are shot.

 

[sobe]

That's odd. Had some problems with "crackling" with my Xfi Fatality and the beta drivers.

I had that too, with the VISTA beta drivers. But the Windows 7 beta drivers work amazingly well from Creative.

With the Vista beta drivers when using WinVista Business x64, every now and then when I have vent open with a game and music playing, or a youtube video or so, the sound will just resort to everything sounding like static/crackling. Once I closed out of all applications using sound, it reverted to working again. Annoyed me to no extent -.- These Win7 beta drivers on the other hand, work amazingly well on my X-Fi Titanium.