New
#1
Back to Vista!
Back to Vista!
I’d anticipated Windows 7 RC with relish, looking forward to improved speed, slick interface, new features. I now read all the many accolades in this and other forums with little cheer.
All went well with the upgrade to my laptop (HP DV6680, Core Duo T7250, 4GB), everything worked, even Skype and the HP Quickplay buttons which the check said might not work. The new interface was indeed slick.
But speedier? No. Start-up and restoration times after hibernate? No perceived improvement. Sleep mode however seemed more incisive. A couple of glitches – odd blackouts and restarts, some problems with Google Chrome unable to find pages where IE8 had no problem, something I’ve not seen under Vista.
But the crunch came yesterday when I got a load error with the reassuring message that Windows will resolve the problem (corrupt Registry). But then – “Windows is unable to resolve the problem”. Restore system from last know good image? – same result; Shut Down, or Restart! Restart produced the same. Safe mode – no difference. Then tried loading and repairing from the Win 7 DVD – this time got options to recover from any of 9 system restore points. Looked promising! But — alongside an option to choose the restore partition (just the one option, C), a message stating that the disk needed System Protection set (I have never interfered with System Protection). The option button wasn’t selectable. No way forward.
So after all the hassle of installing Win 7, and the anticipation, I now had two possible courses of action: (1) re-install Win 7 from scratch and rebuild or (2) re-install Vista. I chose the latter – once bitten etc. I’m now back on Vista as was, thanks to HP factory restore and the excellent Acronis True Image.
Quirks I can forgive in an RC, but the lack of perceived performance improvement was disappointing. Failure to recover from System Restore points is inexcusable – surely this is fundamental during beta or RC?
I also discovered through trial and error that (1) you can’t upgrade from 32-bit Vista to 64-bit Win7; and (2) if you create a dual-boot system, the new partition has to be a fresh build (i.e. loses all settings from the previous installation). Both obvious I suppose, but not (as far as I could see) clearly stated in the instructions.