I'm new to Windows 7

Hello!

I'm a long time user of XP (also 98, 95, DOS) but now I've bought a new Sony VAIO laptop which has Windows 7 x64 OS. I have some questions/problems, I hope you will help me:

1. The biggest problem I DELETED THE FOLDER IN THE LEFT PANE INSTEAD THE FOLDER IN THE RIGHT PANE - SO I DELETED ALL MY STUFF (I have the recycle bin and system restore set to off): How to disable deleting in the navigation pane? I really don't like the W7 Explorer. How can I set it to be functional as the XP one? And how do I set the Start menu to be like the one in XP, a classic start menu showing all programs and opening to subfolders?

2. Why do some icons have a shield pic on them? I'm confused with all the file and folder permissions, locks and UAC settings - is there a fast and safe way to turn all that off so that I can use my PC as I want (I'm the only one using it, I need no separate user accounts).

3. Firewall settings - how do I set them, why is W7 asking me for every program if I want to let it modify my system (even if it's not such a program)? How do I disable this and still keep my PC protected from intruders?

4. I'm getting a lot of "this program didn't install correctoly" messages even if programs are installed correctly - why?

5. When I click on a link in a notepad it only selects a part of the link - why? In the XP it selected whole link.

6. I will be recording audio on this system via an external USB soundcard. I tried it but got lot of breaking and noises, do you know what do I have to set different to make it work?

Thank you! :)

1. That functionality can be changed by right-click on the recycle bin and choosing properties. You apparently already changed it, as the default is to work as it did in XP.
2. Same as Vista...it means those things could possible ask for permission to run, based on how you have UAC configured.
3. This is not the default behavior. It sounds like you, or someone else changed the settings on the Firewall. You should have a listing for Windows Firewall in the Control Panel, just like in XP, to configure.
4. Sounds like you have an underlying issue, possibly from all the non-default customizations you have on your systems. Or, you are using some incompatibly software.
5. I'm not sure what you mean by this. In Notepad, there is only text...no links at all.
6. Check for updated drivers and make sure your chipset drivers have been loaded for the motherboard as well. I seem to recall a lot of people complaining about poor quality in USB audio devices.

Hello and welcome to the forum. I am just now getting use to windows 7 myself I run vista home premium but we can start.

1. I would update IE7 to IE8
2. Right click your start button and select Properties to get your classic look.

The more you use Vista, windows 7 etc, you will love it, your going through what I call the break in mode, you can do so many things in vista, 7 and so on.

I would also make sure that I had the best AV...
Download malwarebytes and save it to your desktop, free version of course...

So I am hoping someone that has more experiance in windows 7 come to your aid.

Thank You

Tom

americancritic said:

I would update IE7 to IE8

Windows 7 ships with IE8 already. I also wouldn't disable the Windows 7 Aero in favor of the classic look unless this was an old or woefully underpowered system. You'd be missing out on the enhancements of Aero, such as offloading that work to the GPU.

Thank you for your help it is very much appreciated as I am just now learning about 7, I have been over in the sister forum which is vistax64 as I know vista. I am hoping to catch up soon so I will be a asset to this forum.

Thank You

Tom
americancritic

You'll be coming over just in time to watch people move to the Windows 8 forums.