Hi,

In work I have win7 and it has been great since IT set it up from an uptodate image. However installing win7 at home has been a major headache.

During installation I selected "Install updates automatically (recommended)" - this was a big mistake.
It silently installs about 60 major updates. Since I am unaware of this process I begin installing wireless drivers (imo this should be unneccesary, my wireless is quite standard, its belkin).
BSOD During driver install
Restart
Install again -> success
Download other drivers
Install...
BSOD
Repeat for about 10 BSOD's until I realised this automatic update has been screwing with my system while I install device drivers.

Many more random BSOD's as other random security updates are applied.

The BSOD's stop when all but 3 updates have successfully installed. The remaining 3 throw errors and still do.

Sometimes my wireless drops and there are several ways I can potentially fix this:
- Select "Troubleshoot problems" <- this used to work, its not so good now, I have a 20% success rate.
- Briefly unplug wireless device <- used to work, not so good now, sometimes it takes minutes to detect that I have unplugged it and typically crashes windows explorer
- Uninstall device, reinstall device <- sometimes works, sometimes locks up device manager.
- Restart machine <- works but wireless could drop at any time.

Some days it is fine, others it is not. In device manager I sometimes have #3 and #4 of the same device.
I've reinstalled drivers several times with no luck.

My last problem was when I restarted (to fix wireless problem) it said "Installing updates 1 of 3. Please do not power off your machine". This completely froze. I manually restarted.

WTF?!!

I've had Windows 7 for a few weeks installed at home - I really like it, but I have run into the internet connection issues. I think it has something to do with the auto IP and DNS configuration stuff on my setup - but it looks like it has issues all already in that department.

Other than that though, I really like it (internet is resolved 99.9% of the time). My computer "feels" fast and I like the look of everything. Still running Linux on my other machine for some development and other odds and ends, but Windows 7 is a much nicer fit for my daily use.

Have connection issues with Win 7 and WIFI as well. Once or twice a day(putting laptop into sleep mode by closing) Win7 decides to confuse the crap out of the router and crash it.

On the upside the BEQ router is just a small reach away.

Have connection issues with Win 7 and WIFI as well. Once or twice a day(putting laptop into sleep mode by closing) Win7 decides to confuse the crap out of the router and crash it.

On the upside the BEQ router is just a small reach away.

I haven't had BSOD problems with updates, but it always seems like my puter will start auto-updating when I'm in the middle of a game sending my fps and ping to unplayable levels, and as far as I can tell it's impossible to stop an auto-update that's already started.

Only comments I have about Windows 7 are cosmetic.

The task bar and quick launch icons were downgraded in functionality. I made a few changes to restore it to the Windows xp look and restore the functionality and efficiency.

Windows 7 32-bit has no trouble spanning wide backgrounds across dual monitors using 'tile' but windows 7 64-bit cannot do this.

Other than that, Windows 7 has been great for me.

The task bar and quick launch icons were downgraded in functionality. I made a few changes to restore it to the Windows xp look and restore the functionality and efficiency.

why do you think they are a downgrade? That's actually one of my favorite parts.

I fixed my wireless issues completely by switching to HomePlug. Then again, I do have a desktop and had been using USB adaptors (no free PCI slots); the Belkin one would frequently hard-lock Windows, the unbranded "made in China" one (Realtek chipset) would overheat and the expensive wireless N one would only see the router if the phase of the moon and wind direction were exactly right.

I recently hit a BSOD on the latest Win7 updates (last week). I reverted to the "last known good configuration", disabled the optional driver upgrades and everything seems to work correctly now.

How old is your computer?

Is there any errata for USB or motherboard you're using?

Are you running a Phenom chip?


BSOD is quite uncommon these days and is almost exclusively related to faulty hardware. Many of these issues are identified and documented. Often googling for BSOD message returns useful results.

Some hardware is "incompatible" and/or lacks proper drivers. There is not much one can do about it except replace it.

my wireless is quite standard, its belkin
I used to have a Belkin but at some point it simply went crazy. As soon as its wireless mode was enable it started crashing (the router). It also had some other issues and unfortunately wasn't upgradable to tomato or other firmware.

Apparently, these days I have a Linksys. I honestly don't know since I didn't need to look at it since the day it was installed.

Just recently got a new PC with Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit. Everything works fine, just the WLAN USB stick gave me troubles. Meaning frequent hardware crashes (driver shut down) and two blue screens. That's merely a driver problem though. I switched to Devolo (looks like the HomePlug thingie) and had no trouble since then.

The taskbar grouping is something to get used to. Sometimes I'd wish to have several windows separate but the preview is helpful in that regard. The settings department seems to have exploded and scattered all the settings everywhere (I still don't know how to reach the network adapter IP settings if not going by the start menu search).

Some tiny downsides: My old Turbo Pascal games now really won't run anymore. VS 2003 also is not running sound anymore (it works partially).
Bigger downside: The file search is completely gone. There's a cute little file name filter, but you can't simply search any folder; just the active one. Search IN files works after digging through settings and setting searching non-indexed files (one of the dumbest moves since XP).

One of my bigger gripes just vanished: The new file open dialog, you can choose the drive roots when clicking on the right arrow after "Computer".

All in all I'm pretty satisfied. And I get to use shaders finally