W7-64bit USB release problems, icons missing.

[rower30]

All,

First, when I try to release a USB device (thumb drive) from W7, it says, "OK to remove USB storage device" but, the device STILL has power applied to it. XP cut the power prior to allowing you to remove the drive. What gives? W7 has corrupted the drive several times already, and WILL NOT remove power even though the device drops off your explorer.

Second weird problem is missing icons after a program is installed. I install Fallout 3 for instance, and the program start icons are missing. I have to manually copy and paste the launcher into my Games folder in the start menu from the explorer files. Where are the start icons going? Never happened in XP, ever.

Third, how do you arrange your start menu like XP with the "open all users" from the start menu? W7 did away with this. I like to GROUP my programs into folders so the start menu stays managable;
Applications
Games
Accessories
System Tools

Fourth, it seems to interpolate to a CRT! on many resolutions, resulting in a terrible blurry mess Why? A CRT has no native resolution, that's why I keep it (Dell 19" Trinitron). Are there 64-bit drivers I can't find? It will only accept it's "generic" drivers. XP allowed any resolution I want with 100% clarity. It isn't the monitor. AERO makes it WAY worse, too. Same Nvidia 260GT card in both systems, but with 64-bit drivers video card drivers.

I have all new 64-bit drivers and hardware, and W7-64 bit has all manner of BSOD's and lock-ups. Thank God the, "roll back to last bootable configuration" works. I've used W 3.11 on up and this OS is driving me nuts right now. First BSOD I had to reset the CMOS to fix a "hardware" issue that would not let it boot into windows. But, that's SOFTWARE. Then, it seemed to not keep time right, so I shut down and removed power, replaced the CMOS battery just to be sure and AGAIN it would not boot to windows. I had to roll back the install to the last good configuration to fix this BSOD. So, I have issues all right. I can't tell what so far. It may be a bad mainboard (MSI P55 GD80). It isn't heat as the CPU has never gone above 40C. I hope it was a bad Lithium cell that was corrupting the BIOS. We'll see.

Once it is running, my experience with this hard to operate OS has not been too good compared to XP's super polished user interface. W7 seem text based over visual, as in GRAPHICAL user interface. W7 control panel is awful. There are a lot of good updates, but the interface is not easy to work with quickly. Too busy and too text based interface. I turned off all the AERO stuff as it just gets in my way.

Once I forget how good XP is, I guess I'll learn to live with this OS. But if this OS is like Apple's, leave Apple alone!

 

[sminlal]

> W7 has corrupted the drive several times already, and WILL NOT remove power even though the device drops off your explorer.
I've noticed this power issue as well, although I've never seen a drive corrupted due to it.

> Third, how do you arrange your start menu like XP with the "open all users" from the start menu?
You can still do this, but you have to right-click on the folder name (ie, "Accessories") rather than on the Start button itself. Or you can just navigate to the "All Users" folder directly by typing the following into the Explorer address bar (assuming that "C:" is your system drive:

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Accessories


> I have all new 64-bit drivers and hardware, and W7-64 bit has all manner of BSOD's and lock-ups.
It sounds like you have a suspect driver or perhaps some flaky hardware. I've run Windows 7 on three different machines now and I've never seen any hint of instability.

> W7 control panel is awful.
I've always hated the "user friendly" Control Panel because I have to guess which category I'm likely to find the setting I'm looking for, and I always seem to guess wrong (same reason I hate the Office 2007 ribbon). I always avoid it by Customizing the Start Menu and selecting the "Control Panel -> Display as a Menu" option. That way I can instantly see ALL of the options in alphabetical order. I had to get used to a few changes in Win 7 (such as the old "Add or Remove Programs" now being called "Programs and Features") but that's not been a big problem for me.