The Official PC building thread - 4th Edition

I can understand your frustration but still I think 7 is a nice upgrade from XP.

Best of regards,
Stevo

 

You two and your long quotes lol...

 

Yeah I always get rid of the sidebar widget, no need for it. I don't actually use the in-built bar, preferring a proper runbox instead, as otherwise commands can be ambiguously combined with searches. Windows+R shortcut still works, but you can add the 'run...' button to the start bar as well if you so wish.

This sort of thing happens so rarely, I can only assume you're getting malware.

I have never once encountered this, and I use photo preview on a daily basis.

I see what you mean. Thumbnail view no good I presume, as you want to only see ones you select, and not preview pictures you might not want to see?
Still, there is a preview bar, it's just on the right hand side instead of the left. Not really much of an issue. You do have to enable it, as it's not on by default - it's the middle button of the three on the right hand side at the top when in a folder.

Usually I find this means the file is still corrupt, but the program tries to extract what data can be extracted anyway, whereas winRAR doesn't allow this. I've not seen a working file that's shown corrupt in winrar, but fine in 7zip.
Downloading from Japan is rife with problems as the connection from the US and europe to Japan is so poor.

Buggy yes, but unstable? Not really. Vista drove me mad with random problems, but stability was not one of them. Me was far worse for stability.

 

Here's a pretty inexpensive Intel setup that has a reasonable amount of power:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116399
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128527
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233202

$181 shipped with no need to faff with rebates. Gets you the solid G620 processor (not to be confused with the 35W G620T), a compact board with integrated graphics and 8GB of memory for well under $200.
The G620 reliably outperforms the Athlon II X2 265 at basically everything.

 

That's pretty impressive! I must admit, building a comparable AMD system, appears to be impossible!

 

The comparable AMD system would be a Llano based system with an A4 dual core CPU.

 

And those aren't cheap I suppose you don't have the full build though.

This would probably smoke my brothers current setup.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226193
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128530
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103957

 

Actually they're a similar price:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103955

 

Sam,

There is no Malware in my system. In fact I've only had one threat pop up since I installed Win7-Pro.

The winrar or 7Zip files show corrupt because the final file size is a different size than it's file information tells it it should be. Neither program will open a real corrupt file, anyway.

Yes, the thumbnail view is the problem. I'm currently sorting about 25,000 pictures, that eventually will be honed down to about 250, to use in a book I'm writing. I can bring up the Preview screen, but you can't scroll through it, without closing it to look at the next one. What really get's me is it opens IE to show the gifs, and plays them, but these dead brains can't give you action gifs in picture viewer, only the first frame

I've never had a Vista machine come in my house that didn't Blue-Screen at least once while I was repairing it, upgrading memory, or replacing a defective component. If it was any good, M$ would have fixed it, rather than bringing out Win7 when they did, and extending XP support until 2014. Don't get me wrong I like Win7, but it isn't a finished product. Far from it! Please try not to forget that a lot of folks bought Vista, while I didn't. You have experience with the newer control panel than I have, so you are more used to it. I'm learning things now some like you, learned a couple of years ago. I do understand that my lack of knowledge with vista and Win7, hurts me and my understanding about Win7's ins and outs! As I learn to use the search function better, I'm able to do more things with it every day.

What makes things harder is that some of Win7's issues are strictly errors in the software, and incredibly stupid errors at that! Dumb stuff like sorting the desktop! You have to do it twice, because it switches Alphabetical order from A-Z to Z-A, every time you sort. This is the third time this problem has appeared. The next update will probably fix it again. Another annoying thing is links! Windows security look at all urls as Unclean Links, so you have to click on open unclean link or it duplicates the entire page and will continue to do so adding a new tab every time, until you click "Open Unclean Link." The maddening part is that it doesn't do it for every link. I have link scanner turned on in my AV, so all links are checked, and I can't find a way to turn it off permanently because I don't need it on!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Absolutely not true, you can Preview the first picture and use the arrow keys or the forward buttons in the player to scroll through pictures. If I start on the first picture it will scroll through all pictures in a folder and even keep going from the top all over again.

Another fix and it has always been better for what you are doing is to install Picasa. It has a very nice preview system that can span all folders in one GUI/screen display, I'd use that if I were you Russ.

They did bone head on this feature no doubt but it's a minor failure and certainly not a deal breaker.

Vista is a moot point we are talking about Windows 7. Yes, Wista sucks and it does show MS's arrogants which they are repeating with Windows 8 it seems, but like Wista they will shoot themselves in the foot, and of course it will be too late. Windows 9 will be the cleanup from Windows 8 just like 7 is with Wista and will have a short life cycle.

True, but other OS versions have had the same issues, it seems to be a bad approach that the software team can't get over. poor management I'd say and nothing new with most large companies.

So really it bakes down to 3 or 4 things you really don't like;

CCE incompatibility
Picture Viewer & GIF's
Automatic Sorting
MS 300 mouse

This is truly a small list I can actually come up with a much bigger one but even at that Windows 7 is a decent upgrade from XP and none of what you have listed should be deal breakers. If I wanted to keep using an old version of CCE I would just have a cheap second system that is setup for transcoding, which is actually what I do.

Regards,
Stevo

 

Stevo,

CCE works now. It worked when I installed it, but stopped working for over a month. It's not just those few things I pointed out. It has a ton of glitches. What bothers me the most, and the reason I might just switch back to XP for a while because of all the time I waste trying to figure my way around problems.

Regards,
Russ

 

I've ran CCE for months on end, with zero issues. I don't run an antivirus. Rarely need one. When I do recognize something that requires attention, I run malwarebytes. Usually in safemode. Sorry about your problems Russ. The only real issue I've had (Like others), is the Gif support in picture viewer. Why it's changed, is anybodies guess.

 

Yep, and more than that, this functionality was in XP too!

You would expect to risk BSODs when doing these things on any version of windows...

I have literally no idea what this is about. Could you explain?

 

Russ, I'm pretty sure that I have as many old programs as you do, in fact I'm running Win 3.1 stuff still, and most of them I can get to work without worry. The ones that don't I have to add up to progress and either give them up or find something new. However like I stated early I do have an older rig setup that I can do some of that stuff in and I can always run VM's for other stuff.

I love it when people come into the store I work at now and they ask me if we have any Gameboy games or anything in that vein, it just makes me laugh since that system has been so dead for so long. Then they look at me like what do you mean you don't have games for this even after I've told them that the game system hasn't been around for many generations.

Unfortunately there is a thing called progress and it may not always be good but these days you just have to realize that in 10 years everything will be different. I certainly don't always like it and sometimes it is good but it is something we all have to live with.

I wouldn't go backwards if I was you but that is your choice of course. And I still don't see Windows 7 being that bad and I have a list of at least 20 things I don't like.

Best regards and hang in there,
Stevo

 

Oman7,

I can't see you buying that motherboard though. Not with only 4 Sata ports, no IDE and. not much bang for the buck either. You would do a lot better with this one and spend the extra $15!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128516

Personally I wouldn't settle for less than This. This one's got all the bells and whistles!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128515

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Yah, those are definitely better boards. I don't really factor IDE in my builds anymore. I have only two optical drives that are IDE. They're quite aged. And besides, if I do continue using them in another build, I have an IDE to USB converter.

When I'm looking at Micro atx boards, I generally have cheap HTPC's in mind I very likely will be building some for people over the next year. So micro atx is an obvious must. I'll be avoiding many factors. High power consumption, Nvidia chipsets, etc. Unless those Nvidia chips have a VERY nice looking heat sink LOL!

 

i'll take practical application over looks any day, it could look like a rock strapped to a Pound for all i care as long as it works.

 

4 S-ATA ports might be a bit limiting if you need to plug in several ODDs as is popular on this board
But no IDE doesn't really make any odds to most people nowadays. It's so antiquated very few people use it, and those that need it can just buy a $10 SATA-IDE adapter anyway.

Generally omegaman is right, these sort of systems go in HTPCs and the likes which rely on mATX boards, or often these days, mini-ITX, so a full on ATX board for basic low-end systems like these is of limited appeal.

The A4-3300 doesn't really have a great deal of performance either, though it will serve as a replacement for ageing (6+ years) systems that were low-end at the time.

 

Here's a shot of the XIGMATEK Aegir SD128264 Mega Killer inside the Haf932. Yes, it's in need of wire management LOL! 3 bluray drives See how beastly it is? I love it!

 

Just because you posted yours