Windows 7 / IE8

[Old Timer]

Hi folks,

Starting to become less and less enamoured with Windows 7 and especially IE8

Unfortunately Windows 7 will only work with IE8, which has once again stopped working properly and will not "go back" a page.

I also get an error message saying the previous session closed suddenly when it didn't.

Cannot re-install as the download version is reported as not being compatible, FFS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Before ditching Windows 7 and going back to XP, does anyone have any experience with Google Chrome and Windows 7.

Did try Chrome some while back but it lacked an awful lot.

 

[devon_metro]

Other browsers deffo work on windows 7. If I were you I'd make the move away from IE8, I've never looked back. (havnt used ie by choice since ie6)

 

[ukrob]

You can use pretty much any browser on Windows 7 - there are dozens.

Have you tried Firefox?

 

[poshbakerloo]

Firefox is real good!

 

[Old Timer]

Its not only IE 8 which I have so far managed to avoid because of the conflict problems, but Windows 7 is not as easy for me as Vista to be honest. They seem to have taken away some functionality, such as the shortcut to the desktop, and there seem to be more "geeky" options and layouts.

Me, I am just a simple old codger.

No one seems to have used Google Chrome though ?

 

[generalvegitable]

on win 7 if you click the bottom right hand corner of the taskbar it will show the desktop, but browser wise I suggest firefox I'm using 7 now, but as of yet I have not tried chrome but I know it will have improved since you tried it, I am guessing that you tried it when it was a beta, so alot of the missing functionality will be there now

 

[MCR247]

Its not only IE 8 which I have so far managed to avoid because of the conflict problems, but Windows 7 is not as easy for me as Vista to be honest. They seem to have taken away some functionality, such as the shortcut to the desktop, and there seem to be more "geeky" options and layouts.

Me, I am just a simple old codger.

No one seems to have used Google Chrome though ?

I use Google Chrome and I think its really good, and that the tabs are better than Firefox & IE and the downloads come up in a bar at the bottom of the browser. Also, my PC just crashed and all of the programs stopped working, as i was typing this. But when I opened Chrome again, it didnt just have an empty reply box, it had all of the text I had writen which IIRC dosen't happen on IE. Chrome is also faster starting up and loading pages
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Google Chrome also comes with its own Task Manager so you can close individual plugins & pages like you'd close windows in the Windows Task Manager

 

[TrainBrain185]

Its not only IE 8 which I have so far managed to avoid because of the conflict problems, but Windows 7 is not as easy for me as Vista to be honest. They seem to have taken away some functionality, such as the shortcut to the desktop, and there seem to be more "geeky" options and layouts.

Me, I am just a simple old codger.

No one seems to have used Google Chrome though ?

Hi OT, I'm too old keeping pace with computers. I dread going onward from Vista because I am just getting used to that. I really enjoyed using Windows XP. Can you advise how easy it is to upload current new software such as new printers, scanners, digital cams etc etc as I had to renew stuff like that for the Vista because I am too backward to find relevant drivers.

 

[Old Timer]

Hi OT, I'm too old keeping pace with computers. I dread going onward from Vista because I am just getting used to that. I really enjoyed using Windows XP. Can you advise how easy it is to upload current new software such as new printers, scanners, digital cams etc etc as I had to renew stuff like that for the Vista because I am too backward to find relevant drivers.

As far as I can see, and in my limted experience, most Vista based drivers will work in IE 7.

Where yo may get trouble is where Vista Drivers have not been provided.

For example last time I checked, Canon were not intending to produce Drivers for their EOS series DSLR RAW downloading software. THis meant having to buy a card reader to read the memory card as MS does not recognise .CRx files, or at least in my experience.

Upgrading to 7 is dead easy, but you will find that alot of what I think were good things in Vista have been moved about or "geeked". After a very, very rocky start I did start to like Vista and to be honest its interface to me is preferrable to Win 7 The Start menu for example is really poor and I cannot seem to tweak it like Vista. Also the way of arriving at your photo files is cumbersome, and the way it displays the folders is also poor - I cannot seem to work out how to get it to show ALL the folders as was previously the case in XP, Vista.

The troubleshooting facility offers much promise but still tends to return no results when it spots an error. This is obviously no use so why tell me I have a problem and then not find an answer

It might be worth looking in say PC World and having alittle play around with Win 7. You could say you were thinking of buying a laptop and wanted to see if the system suited you.

There is a work around to remove Win 7 and revert to Vista, provided you upgrade from Vista.

If you go straight into Win 7 with a clean install there is no recovery option but to reformat and go down to Vista / XP, HOWEVER many new machines have Drivers that will only work with Win 7. All in all not so good. And of course XP is about to be left without any future update.

 

[Geezertronic]

As I understand it, if you are running Windows XP Home or Professional (Service Pack 2 or lower), then you'll get regular security/patch updates (or at least monthly) from Microsoft until July 2010.

However if you are running a fully patched Windows XP Home or Professional (Service Pack 3), then support should continue until April 2014 (unless they release a Service Pack 4 then you'll have to upgrade to that to continue to get security/patch updates till that date).

Mainstream support has already ceased so XP is officially under Extended Support

A better explanation is here:
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/ne...ream-support-retired-but-no-need-to-worry.ars

As time goes on, you may have trouble getting drivers for new products for XP though

 

[mbonwick]

You're spot on Geezertronic.
MS are no longer developing for XP, beyond patching security holes.

 

[Broken Viking]

Starting to become less and less enamoured with Windows 7 and especially IE8
Unfortunately Windows 7 will only work with IE8, which has once again stopped working properly and will not "go back" a page.

Before ditching Windows 7 and going back to XP, does anyone have any experience with Google Chrome and Windows 7.

I've taken the opportunity to avail myself of a couple of Windows VII upgrades that I qualified for (Mainly because £12.00 P&P is a good deal for a Windows end-user licence, IMO!) though I havn't installed them yet. I'm going to be trying a tri-boot setup between XP Pro, Vista and VII though just to ensure that I always have at least one OS that'll work for my needs.

Incidentally, I've heard reports that XP Pro SP1 (The only copy of XP Pro that I possess) doesn't seem to be compatable with large drives over 160-200Gb. Can anyone confirm if this is the case? I'm planning to install XP on a couple of systems with 500Gb S-ATA drives soon, and could do with knowing of any problems and workarounds in advance. 8)

...They seem to have taken away some functionality, such as the shortcut to the desktop...

In XP and Vista, pressing the [Win]+D keys minimises all windows and returns ye to the desktop, and I'd imagine that this'll still be the case in VII.

No one seems to have used Google Chrome though ?

Personally, I'm avoiding Chrome like the plague - Mainly because I'm not convinced that Google are anywhere near as "net neutral" as they claim to be, but also because the original release of Chrome had a very nasty clause in the T&Cs/EULA that basically gave Google full IPR and ownership rights to anything that the user posted or uploaded using Chrome! hock:

As I understand it, if you are running Windows XP Home or Professional (Service Pack 2 or lower), then you'll get regular security/patch updates (or at least monthly) from Microsoft until July 2010.

I can confirm this; A number of systems that I maintain are still running XP Pro SP1 (SP2 and above isn't good for slower CPUs with less than 256Mb RAM) and they still receive automatic security updates from Microsoft.

Farewell...
>> Death <<

 

[mbonwick]

Incidentally, I've heard reports that XP Pro SP1 (The only copy of XP Pro that I possess) doesn't seem to be compatable with large drives over 160-200Gb. Can anyone confirm if this is the case? I'm planning to install XP on a couple of systems with 500Gb S-ATA drives soon, and could do with knowing of any problems and workarounds in advance.

As I understand it, XP SP1 and lower can't see (and therefore format on first use) disks over 132GB. What I really mean is, max partition size is 132GB.

This can be worked round by creating a 132GB partition with XP and then expanding it to fill the drive with a 3rd party tool (the names of which escape me ATM)

HTH
Michael

 

[Geezertronic]

This can be worked round by creating a 132GB partition with XP and then expanding it to fill the drive with a 3rd party tool (the names of which escape me ATM)

It's actually reported as 137Gb for XP SP1 and you cannot expand a partition beyond that unless you have made the changes in the MS TID below:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;303013

It's difficult to expand the System partiton ( C: ) without 3rd party tools so the best thing to do would be to create your system partition using 20Gb of space (only an example) then create a D: with the rest of the space once the changes have been made.

Alternatively, apply the latest XP Service Pack

 

[LMS6202]

Hi folks,

Starting to become less and less enamoured with Windows 7 and especially IE8

Unfortunately Windows 7 will only work with IE8, which has once again stopped working properly and will not "go back" a page.

I also get an error message saying the previous session closed suddenly when it didn't.

Cannot re-install as the download version is reported as not being compatible, FFS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Before ditching Windows 7 and going back to XP, does anyone have any experience with Google Chrome and Windows 7.

Did try Chrome some while back but it lacked an awful lot.

What do you want to dump W7 for? The thing in itself works OK. It is IE8 [painfully slow and unreliable] and windows explorer [bloody useless] that impair the OS. Try Chrome once more or another browser before throwing away your investment. You can disable IE in W7 you know.
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If one has to dump W7 then why not try another OS or buy a Mac.. I personally have had experience of Linux Ubuntu which is fabulous and works in a similar way to windows. Ubuntu and Linux generally are far superior to any windows rubbish.


As for Firefox, it may be fast but I have heard nasties about it so I avoid that like the pox. Chrome is now much better.