Known issues with Windows 7 RC?

Joe average, that link is exactly the sort of thing that is so heartening with W7. Vista was so poorly instrumented - not only could it be a dog at times, but you would struggle to figure out exactly why it was a dog. Microsoft has instrumented W7 in a manner not dissimilar from an enterprise RDMS kernel from Oracle or DB2, and they've provided enough tools to let end users tap into those hooks. Now I know exactly what devices tap into given hardware, or what processes hit what disk. W7 developers also know this, which gives them a fighting chance of improving the efficiency of the OS.
 
Vista recently received power saving improvements to better match 7's so there is no way that Vista = 7 when that article was wrote.
 
well I just installed Windows 7 x64 on my new i7 machine and I'm liking it a lot!!
don't know if it was because my old install was just slow or what, but everything feels faster, even the internet
 
Been using the RC at home and at the office for several weeks now. About half of our technical support staff are running the RC as a main operating system.. working pretty much perfectly across the board.
 
well I've got a problem
during installation I got the message "windows 7 may create additional partitions for system files" or something along those lines
hadn't seen that with vista and wasn't too worried about it, but now I see it created a partition on one my hard drives without asking me or giving me any options

I was planning on putting the drive in a RAID0 array, how can I get rid of this extra 100MB partition? and what is it for?

692jkg.png
 
It's new with Windows 7, and created to hold recovery info and files necessary to do a repair of the boot files if necessary. It'll only be created when you install Windows 7 to a bare drive - if there's already another OS on it with a boot sector in use, it'll simply use that one.
 
Joe Average said:
It's new with Windows 7, and created to hold recovery info and files necessary to do a repair of the boot files if necessary. It'll only be created when you install Windows 7 to a bare drive - if there's already another OS on it with a boot sector in use, it'll simply use that one.
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so can I delete it?
 
Uhmmm... I wouldn't, unless you feel it's absolutely necessary. It's 100MB, it's not like it's a lot of space, and it's a hidden partition that isn't "seen" by OSes in place, only by Disk Management, so it's not even getting in the way to be honest. It doesn't even use a drive letter either.

Leave it alone.

If you intention is to install Windows 7 on a RAID 0 array, then get rid of that 74GB drive (a Raptor, I'm guessing) and pull it out of the machine when you set up the RAID and install Windows 7 on it - only keep the drive(s) in the machine that will be holding the OS when you install it, saves you a lot of hassles later on. If it's two of those 640's for a RAID 0, redo the install, pull the Raptor (disconnect it completely) and the other 2 640's (disconnect 'em completely), set up the RAID in the BIOS as required, install Windows 7 on it, then when it's totally done and finished, shut down and re-attach the other drives as required.
 
Joe Average said:
Uhmmm... I wouldn't, unless you feel it's absolutely necessary. It's 100MB, it's not like it's a lot of space, and it's a hidden partition that isn't "seen" by OSes in place, only by Disk Management, so it's not even getting in the way to be honest. It doesn't even use a drive letter either.

Leave it alone.

If you intention is to install Windows 7 on a RAID 0 array, then get rid of that 74GB drive (a Raptor, I'm guessing) and pull it out of the machine when you set up the RAID and install Windows 7 on it - only keep the drive(s) in the machine that will be holding the OS when you install it, saves you a lot of hassles later on. If it's two of those 640's for a RAID 0, redo the install, pull the Raptor (disconnect it completely) and the other 2 640's (disconnect 'em completely), set up the RAID in the BIOS as required, install Windows 7 on it, then when it's totally done and finished, shut down and re-attach the other drives as required.
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that's a Intel X25-M
guess I'm going to reinstall with only it connected
I gotta say, this is pretty fucking gay of windows to install a partition on an unpartitioned drive without asking me
 
EnderW said:
I gotta say, this is pretty fucking gay of windows to install a partition on an unpartitioned drive without asking me
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It really bothers you that much? You don't even see it unless you go looking for it... its only 200MB!

:rolleyes:
 
It's 100MB, and it's a necessity, it's hidden, you won't even notice it unless you're that much into knowing every damned thing about your machine down to the last byte (which, if true, is a bit OCD and there's help for that stuff nowadays).

It's a non-issue in the big picture, get over it and go out for a walk. :D

And if you've got an Intel SSD in there, why bother with RAID 0 for the OS... you'll get roughly the same performance from 2 of those 640's as the single SSD, and Windows 7 has a smaller footprint anyway - ~80GB is plenty for it.
 
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the issue of horribly slow network file transfers and slow transfers from one PC connected directly to another. I mean, it is really bad. I'm averaging like 12MB/s from box to box. And yes, this is over a gigabit connection. I've seen this issue mentioned on other boards, but no resolution thus far.
 
I'm not putting the OS on the RAID0, it's for other stuff
I forgot with the Intel Matrix RAID, you don't have to have a full drive, but it's still retarded and it's not like it's going to be a lot of work to put the DVD in and reinstall - I've only installed a couple programs so far anyway
it's more the principle of the matter
and I don't know what you're talking about slow network transfers, I got about 70 MB/s when I transferred the Office 2007 iso over from my WHS
 
criccio said:
It really bothers you that much? You don't even see it unless you go looking for it... its only 200MB!

:rolleyes:
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"you don't see it unless you look for it"
um, well fucking duh, how else would I know how much space I had without looking?
 
I had my first auto repair while overclocking a new system.
Windows 7 detected a corrupt file while booting after a crash and promptly re-installed tcpip.sys.
It booted and has rolled back to the last Restore Point but is otherwise perfect.

No intervention required, it self repaired, cool !
 
kompulsive said:
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the issue of horribly slow network file transfers and slow transfers from one PC connected directly to another. I mean, it is really bad. I'm averaging like 12MB/s from box to box. And yes, this is over a gigabit connection. I've seen this issue mentioned on other boards, but no resolution thus far.
Click to expand...

I'm getting 20MB/s with Win 7 RC over a gigabit connection and that's mainly due to the fact that my router doesn't support larger jumbo frames.
 
HOLY FUCKING SHIT THE WINDOWS 7 INSTALLER IS RETARDED
I just reinstalled it and this time I went in and manually made a partition on the SSD and told it to install there. It gave me NO MESSAGE about additional partitions. What does it do? Installs everything, but the system partition that it boots from to the SSD. Then wipes out the partition and all data on one of my hard drives and installs only the boot partition there. I'm so fucking pissed I'm about to just say fuck it and go back to Vista.
 
So go back to Vista, won't bother none of us any more than the whining about how things are done now. My god man, it's 100MB, it's inconsequential and not even something to make a stink about FFS... geezus.

IT'S HOW WINDOWS 7 WORKS, AND THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT.

There, does that make it blunt like a hammer to the forehead? :D
 
EnderW said:
I just reinstalled it and this time I went in and manually made a partition on the SSD and told it to install there. It gave me NO MESSAGE about additional partitions. What does it do? Installs everything, but the system partition that it boots from to the SSD. Then wipes out the partition and all data on one of my hard drives and installs only the boot partition there.
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I have never seen that. What version is this you are installing?

Anyway, there is an easy way to make it use a single partition for everything including the system.
Create a primary partition. Do not format it.
Set the partition as active. This can be done from another XP or Vista or W7 installation or from GParted live CD.

Now start the W7 installation and tell it to install in that partition. Since you set it to be active, W7 considers it to be an existing System partition and uses it for its boot loader. It formats the partition itself and will not create any additional partitions.

Edit:
Forgot a very important part:
Before you install, make sure the physical drive you are installing on has boot priority in the BIOS or else there will be other surprises!
 
MrF said:
I have never seen that. What version is this you are installing?

Anyway, there is an easy way to make it use a single partition for everything including the system.
Create a primary partition. Do not format it.
Set the partition as active. This can be done from another XP or Vista or W7 installation or from GParted live CD.

Now start the W7 installation and tell it to install in that partition. Since you set it to be active, W7 considers it to be an existing System partition and uses it for its boot loader. It formats the partition itself and will not create any additional partitions.

Edit:
Forgot a very important part:
Before you install, make sure the physical drive you are installing on has boot priority in the BIOS or else there will be other surprises!
Click to expand...
RC x64
if I decide to install it again, I'm just going to remove all the other drives during the install process, which was my original plan this time, but I thought I could get around it
 
Windows 7 will always write a system partition on the boot physical hard drive if one does not already exist.
So, if you give boot priority to the wrong physical drive, you cannot expect W7 to know that and avoid creating a system partition.

But, if you are saying that you gave boot priority to a drive and W7 created a system partition on another hard drive, I would be very surprised and I would consider that to be a bug. I highly doubt this is the case though.
 
I would use something like fdisk and make sure no other drives have Active partitions because if the installer finds one drive that has one prior to you selecting another drive/partition on it, bam, there ya go...

It'll put the boot loader on that drive/partition and not make the actual target drive you chose manually into an Active bootable one - can't have more than one, so if one (meaning an Active partition) already exists, it's going to use that for the bootloader, then the target drive/partition for the actual OS installation.

Hence, regardless of the OS, or the bootloader, or how many drives you have or plan to have in use, disconnect all of 'em till the OS is installed and working without issues, then attach however many you wish afterwards and do whatever with 'em.

That's just how it goes...
 
I have a computer with multiple physical hard drives on it.
It has XP on one of the drives. So obviously, the XP partition is active.
When I install Windows 7 on the other physical drive, I make sure that it has boot priority over the XP physical hard drive in the BIOS. I have never seen Windows 7 install anything into the XP partition.
I have never disconnected the other drives while installing an OS.

Mind you, that is the safest way if you want to be absolutely sure.
But, it is hardly necessary.
 
kompulsive said:
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the issue of horribly slow network file transfers and slow transfers from one PC connected directly to another. I mean, it is really bad. I'm averaging like 12MB/s from box to box. And yes, this is over a gigabit connection. I've seen this issue mentioned on other boards, but no resolution thus far.
Click to expand...

I get about 60-70MB/s depending on what computer I'm copying from and to. I sustain this speed throughout the entire transfer, most folders are 2-12gigs and copy pretty damn fast.
 
EnderW said:
HOLY FUCKING SHIT THE WINDOWS 7 INSTALLER IS RETARDED
I just reinstalled it and this time I went in and manually made a partition on the SSD and told it to install there. It gave me NO MESSAGE about additional partitions. What does it do? Installs everything, but the system partition that it boots from to the SSD. Then wipes out the partition and all data on one of my hard drives and installs only the boot partition there. I'm so fucking pissed I'm about to just say fuck it and go back to Vista.
Click to expand...

I think you screwed this up. its fairly clear on the drive options screen what is going to happen with your drives. also if you lost data without a backup by installing a test version of an OS, that makes me chuckle.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
 
ocellaris said:
I think you screwed this up. its fairly clear on the drive options screen what is going to happen with your drives. also if you lost data without a backup by installing a test version of an OS, that makes me chuckle.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
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yeah I fucked up because the other drive was higher in the boot order in the BIOS, I should have known Windows 7 would just decide to erase the partition and install shit there even though I picked a completely different drive, made a partition on that drive and told it to install there
makes perfect fucking sense :rolleyes:
and it wasn't any important data, just some torrents from the night before
I can't believe everyone just considers this acceptable behavior for the installer to put shit on different drives without asking you
I've never had such a problem with the close to 100 installs of XP/Vista I've done
 
Joe Average said:
So go back to Vista, won't bother none of us any more than the whining about how things are done now. My god man, it's 100MB, it's inconsequential and not even something to make a stink about FFS... geezus.

IT'S HOW WINDOWS 7 WORKS, AND THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT.

There, does that make it blunt like a hammer to the forehead? :D
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I don't give a flying fuck about the 100MB of space, it's the fact it's getting put on drives other than the one I specified as the install to location
 
Is there a way to get "my computer" to open as a tool bar like you could in xp? When I drag it to the top or side, it just stays there instead of displaying as a bar. I have several HD and flash drives that I use constantly and the auto hide tool bar was really convenient.
 
ok, this is weird
I just installed Windows 7 for the third time
and that drive that it installed to last time now shows up in My Computer, the old partition is fully intact and all the data is there
before it would not show up in My Computer, and under Disk Management it did not even have a drive letter

here is the procedure if you want to make sure everything goes on one drive
1) set the drive you want it on as number one in the hard drive order and the boot order in the BIOS
I went a step further and disabled all other boot devices
2) I used F8 to get the boot pop up menu and went to the DVD drive that way
3) once it loads, find the drive you want it installed on and delete any partitions that are on it
then create a new partition on that drive
you should get a message about "windows may create other partitions" and it should create a 100MB partition on the drive you just partitioned and adjust the partition you made down 100MB to accommodate the small one
4) select the big partition as the install location
everything should be good then

basically you just need to 1) put the drive you want it installed to as #1 in boot order and 2)create a partition on that drive manually
 
That's pretty much what they told you to do about 1 page ago in this thread...
 
Impulse said:
That's pretty much what they told you to do about 1 page ago in this thread...
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are you talking about MrF's instructions?
yeah it's pretty much the same thing, just a few less steps since I don't care about it making the 100MB partition as long as it's on the correct drive
those instructions came after my problems if you didn't notice
also, 40 ppp, noob
 
I just found something this evening. When trying to make themes and deleting other themes, my computer(which is incredibly responsive otherwise) basically locks up for 20-30 seconds at a time. I would say that MS has a problem that needs to be addressed here.
 
bigdogchris said:
Trying to say Windows 7 can't beat OSX in battery life by showing a OSX vs Vista article ....
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here you go
http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=3582
That’s nearly a 26% drop in battery life from OS X to Vista. When I first published these tests I spoke to a few PC OEMs to see if they had noticed any similar results. No one was willing to go on record but some OEMs did at least admit to seeing a ~20% difference between battery life in OS X and Vista.

The situation is apparently a bit better under Windows XP but not significantly. Even more depressing is the fact that Windows 7 doesn’t appear to make the situation any better. I still have a couple more hours in my Windows 7 run but I’ll update this page once I have the results. Right now it’s looking like ~6 hours for the new MacBook Pro under Windows 7 x64 RC1.
Click to expand...
 
That’s nearly a 26% drop in battery life from OS X to Vista. When I first published these tests I spoke to a few PC OEMs to see if they had noticed any similar results. No one was willing to go on record but some OEMs did at least admit to seeing a ~20% difference between battery life in OS X and Vista.

The situation is apparently a bit better under Windows XP but not significantly. Even more depressing is the fact that Windows 7 doesn’t appear to make the situation any better. I still have a couple more hours in my Windows 7 run but I’ll update this page once I have the results. Right now it’s looking like ~6 hours for the new MacBook Pro under Windows 7 x64 RC1.
Click to expand...

No surprise here, long battery life without anything sticking out of the laptop has been a reason that we keep buying Macbooks for people that travel a lot where I work. No amount of configuration wizardy or tuning has given us much success in letting Windows approach OS X battery life in actual use. Once people leave the building, they are in OS X mode for web/email and usually just VPN into a Windows box if they need one.
 
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