The Windows and Windows Software Megathread

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Windows and Windows Software Megathread

Rent: Jul 20, 2004; Steal the warm wind tired friend

I'm enjoying Windows 7 so far. I was cursed that sometimes Vista would hang up on stupid poo poo like emptying the recycling bin. Windows 7 performs nicely and boots up about as quick as XP did. And it's pretty.

Anyone who hated Vista for the annoying UAC or general issues in performance should enjoy Windows 7.

# ¿ May 16, 2009 05:31

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# ¿ May 5, 2024 09:36

Rent: Jul 20, 2004; Steal the warm wind tired friend

How do upgrade discs actually work? Does it just simply see what I have installed and then proceed to do a clean install?

I'm dreading having to find my XP discs, install XP, then install 7. I'm on RC right now

# ¿ Oct 29, 2009 23:13

Rent: Jul 20, 2004; Steal the warm wind tired friend

NihilCredo posted:

Hibernation is just a full shutdown where your computer copies the current RAM content on the hard drive; when you turn it on, instead of doing the regular boot it restores the RAM back to what it was before.

In terms of energy it's the best since it consumes 0, in terms of HDD life it means you're writing and reading a few gigabytes of (continuous!) data every time you hibernate, which shouldn't be that stressful if you're not doing it more than once or twice a day.

That said, as long as your desktop in in any energy-saving mode its power consumption will be minimal compared to when it's fully operative. The best way to reduce your energy usage is to set everything (particularly the screen) to automatically sleep / hibernate / shut down as fast as you're willing to tolerate.

So for laptops, sleep vs hibernate? I just got my first laptop, and I'm confused as to how to treat it when it comes to "shutting it down" and carrying it around.

# ¿ Jul 14, 2011 18:48

Rent: Jul 20, 2004; Steal the warm wind tired friend

Just bought a new Asus laptop and I ripped out the HD and tried to install an SSD. When I pop a legitimate Windows 7 disc in, it gets stuck at "Expanding Files 0%". Apparently looking around, this seems to be an issue with some CD drives, and people recommend installing from USB. My bios doesnt seem to support USB drive under boot options. Any advice I can do short of putting this HD in my desktop and installing it from there?

Also gently caress this laptop: One of the HD screws was already stripped of its threading so I had to basically drill the screw's head off :ssj:

# ¿ Aug 4, 2011 05:20

Rent: Jul 20, 2004; Steal the warm wind tired friend

I just got a new HD and reformatted, and I can't see my spare HD anymore. It was apparently formatted as a "dynamic disk", not that I know how/what that is. I installed all the drivers I can think of my for motherboard. Any advice?

# ¿ Jun 22, 2012 23:55

Rent: Jul 20, 2004; Steal the warm wind tired friend

stubblyhead posted:

Do you mean you can't see it in Explorer? If so your disk might have gotten marked as offline in disk management somehow. Run diskmgmt.msc and find your drive in the lower pane. If it says "Offline" on the left hand side, then right-click and choose "Online." If your drive's not listed here, then I'd say it's either not connected or just FUBARed.

Thanks for the reply. Turns out the cable kept coming loose everytime I'd reattach it, and then I had to go in and "import Foreign disk" under the command you gave me.

# ¿ Jun 23, 2012 03:48

Rent: Jul 20, 2004; Steal the warm wind tired friend

I originally had 1 partition for Windows 7, and one for Windows 8. I reformatted the Windows 7 one, but now I can't extend the Windows 8 partition. When I do "extend volume" it is greyed out. Any idea how to merge these?

# ¿ Jun 13, 2013 03:59

Rent: Jul 20, 2004; Steal the warm wind tired friend

Flipperwaldt posted:

I used AOMEI Partition Assistant to do exactly the same thing he wants to do (even though that was on an old XP computer at the time). This program doesn't need a boot disk but does its thing in a special Windows mode between boots, I think. As an advantage that's only noteworthy if you don't have some external boot medium at hand, though.

Despite the disconcerting amount of Engrish on the site and in the program, it did work properly.

I believe GParted would be the more usual recommendation, probably. Easiest way to get that booting form an usb drive would be TuxBoot.

Whatever you use and despite the promises of being able to do this without data loss, make sure you've got at least your personal documents backed up somewhere!

AOMEI worked great. Thanks a lot!

# ¿ Jun 15, 2013 03:32

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# ¿ May 5, 2024 09:36

Rent: Jul 20, 2004; Steal the warm wind tired friend

I have a SSD thats my windows drive, then an old hard drive for files. Today, my computer took a poo poo long time to boot. I had to turn it off completely, turn it back on, and it took about 2 minutes to boot for some reason. I log in to realize my HD for files isn't showing up. I unplugged it and plugged it back in to no avail. Is it just toast? It still seems to be spinning.

# ¿ Aug 16, 2013 07:06

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Windows and Windows Software Megathread