Windows 7 nonsense

Chewy509

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Found this one today...

If you set a static IPv4 address on a LAN adapter that has no gateway or DNS setting, then Win7 will revert that connection back to DHCP on next reboot. (confirmed by using ipconfig /all from the CLI). BUT if you look at the IPv4 properties, it will show the correct configured address.

eg.
VirtualBox Host-Only Network
IP: 192.168.56.1
Netmask: 255.255.255.0
Gateway: <blank>
DNS: <blank>

This is typically found when using VMs to create a LAN between VM Guests and the Host PC/Server, but not giving the guests general internet access.

PS. Hope everyone had a good break (if you did manage one)?

Looks like a recent patch fixed this one... (one fixed, so many more to go).
 

Santilli

Hairy Aussie
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typing this from 2003 Server/VM.

The connection works sometimes, and not others. Sometimes I get 4-10 mb/sec, sometimes
75 mb/sec. Doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason.

I can deal with that...
 

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
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I just got my copy of Windows 7, the Missing Manual.
I sincerely doubt anyone here actually needs it or anything like it, but holy cow is it fantastic as a guide for the non-nerds of the world. Totally, completely recommend the book if helping people with Windows 7 is something you have to do.
 

LunarMist

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I installed the "7" and it is worse than I thought. :crap::frusty:
Windows Explorer and the Control Panel are just awful. I can't find anything.
 

LiamC

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I installed Windows 7 Home Premium on a K6-III 400 with 768MB & NVIDIA GeForce 4MX 440 just for shits and giggles. Was it usable? Sort of--the odd pause for a few seconds. It wasn't painful to load apps, but I didn't load a lot of things simultaneously. No where near as painful as Vista on a Core 2 Duo notebook with 512MB RAM. With a bit more CPU/RAM/better Video, it wouldn't be bad at all. In other words, the MS system requirements aren't far off.
 

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
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I installed the "7" and it is worse than I thought. :crap::frusty:
Windows Explorer and the Control Panel are just awful. I can't find anything.

Small icon view in control panel is very useful, and for some people it may just be easier to search for the stuff you want than to navigate. I like the ease of customizing my favorite folders but I miss the Up button terribly.

Still, I'm not a big fan of UI mods; I don't want to get used to having something on my screen that other people don't have. Like an Up button.
 

MaxBurn

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Still, I'm not a big fan of UI mods; I don't want to get used to having something on my screen that other people don't have. Like an Up button.

I totally get that, but more for me to get used to tools/things that I know for sure will be on every machine I touch.
 

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
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What's so bad about just clicking in the address field? You can even go back multiple folders with just one click.

The UI is inconsistent. Sometimes it's breadcrumbs, sometimes it's the pathname as a chunk of text. This is obnoxious when trying to talk someone through things on the phone or instruct them in class, particularly for people who don't grasp the concept of nested folders.
 

sdbardwick

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The UI is inconsistent. Sometimes it's breadcrumbs, sometimes it's the pathname as a chunk of text. This is obnoxious when trying to talk someone through things on the phone or instruct them in class, particularly for people who don't grasp the concept of nested folders.
At least it is consistently inconsistent. It is breadcrumbs until you click somewhere not a breadcrumb; then it reverts back to pathname.
 

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
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At least it is consistently inconsistent. It is breadcrumbs until you click somewhere not a breadcrumb; then it reverts back to pathname.

Again, it's one of those things I wouldn't expect a new Win7 user to know. I'd rather have a button that always does a predictable thing. The Back button is also problematic in that respect if you don't understand the filesystem.
 

Sol

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I found the best way to talk someone through anything on Vista or 7 is to figure out exactly what you have to type after hitting the windows key to jump right there. I guess that doesn't work as well when you have an unknown nested folder structure that you'll know when you see/hear (Although auto-complete is at least always consistent) but for a lot of things it's much faster, even if it's not how I would normally do whatever it is they're trying to do. This technique is especially useful for things that moved between vista and 7 since I don't have a vista box to cross reference things with but windows+whatever usually hasn't changed that much.

On MacOS-X I use the command line... Consistent isn't necessarily better, but POSIX helps...
 

Adcadet

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Quick question: for light office work (simple web browsing, maybe using Word or Excel at the same time), do you think an Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (dual core, 2.0 GHz) with 1 GB of RAM would be usable with Windows 7? I have such a computer and am debating puting Windows 7 on it versus a light weight Linux versus versus trying to re-use it as a HTPC (only 35W, I believe).
 

Stereodude

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I think it would be fine with Windows 7. The amount of RAM might cause you problems if you get too crazy with it though.
 

time

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+1 but check your RAM usage while browsing multiple pages, the modern web experience requires truckloads of memory.
 

CougTek

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If it's an AM2 socket, there's little reason not to add another 1GB of RAM since it's quite cheap right now. If it's an older s939, then that gigabyte of RAM will cost you twice as much. Windows 7 runs ok with 1GB, but better with two. Above that, it won't make a big difference for office-like usage.
 

Chewy509

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I've used Win7 on a netbook (Atom 1.6 w/1GB RAM), and it was very usable.

I only found issues when trying to load too apps at once, would exhaust the free RAM, but otherwise it was just as good as XP on the same hardware.
 

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
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I don't think I'd waste a Windows 7 license on a system that old, Adcadet. You're talking about tying the software to a motherboard with uncertain reliability going forward. That board is four or five years old. It's not going to live forever.
 

LunarMist

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with enough effort, everything, including humans, can live forever.
/sarcasm

Apparently you have not seen enough electronic components burn, burst, or literally explode. :bounce: When the smoke detector alarms or when parts bounce off the ceiling, emit toxic gasses, etc. it is time for the funeral. :dwarf: I've been there and done that for well over 40 years, including a few electrocutions for good measure. :pale:
 

paugie

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+1 but check your RAM usage while browsing multiple pages, the modern web experience requires truckloads of memory.
I noticed this. Every now and then, my PC would say the virtual memory is low... blah, blah, blah.
I have 2Gb of RAM on WinXP Pro. and the only thing I would have on is Firefox. Admittedly 25 or so tabs but it is very surprising.
Just bought 2Gbs more memory and will try Windows7 shortly.
Am a bit apprehensive.
 

time

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Well that's something, I suppose; the Reality Distortion Field doesn't extend to the afterlife.
 

Stereodude

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So, I discovered over the weekend that the administrative shares on a Windows 7 box are not accessible (at least from an XP machine) unless you edit the registry. You have to create a DWORD LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy and set it to 1 under HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System and then reboot. :tdown:
 
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