Help me with those annoying things in Windows 7

[raygg]

You know what's annoying with Windows 7? Well there are a lot of things and I am sure there will be more that I discover (See my thread 'Help me with those annoying things in Windows XP).

I totally replaced XP on my Lenovo T61 laptop With Win7Sp1Pro 64bit two months ago, upgrading the HD at the same time. It is 4yo but had 4gb ram from day1 and higher end graphics so win7 runs well. In fact at first I thought it ran faster than XP. I was skeptical - thinking win7 was just a smidge better than (Cr8ppy) Vista - which I avoided - but for the fist few weeks I became impressed with win7pro.

Now I wonder....

You know what's annoying???????

1. At shutdown there is this message that you should not turn off your machine because Update 1 or 8 is being made to your machine. I turned off automatic updates and this did not help.

2. Wifi is screwy - How come the default is set to automatically turn off wifi when not being used? At first wifi worked ok. Now it turns itself off and I have to put 'Turn Radio on' to bring up the Lenovo (not Windows) tools package that turns on wifi. It was so much simpler and faster with XP You just clicked REPAIR and wifi would adjust itself with the router - now there must be 4 or 5 clicks involved so win7 can fix the problem. And there is no qick positive feedback. With xp the little balloon 'Connected to Wifi' or something like that would pop up in the right corner.

3. Logon is iffy sometimes. the display screen comes up to enter my password and the screen is frozen in one of two ways. Either the cursor AND keys give no response and a totla shutdown and reboot is needed or it will not take the password and I have to click logoff user and then I can logon when the screen comes back

4. Whenever I want to bring up Task Manager it is two clicks instead of one. In XP CTL=ALT-DEL started Task Mgr - now it brings me to a selection screen where I have to click again - why can't I just bring it up with CTL-ALT-DEL?

5. The gadget gallery allows me to put a clock, the weather info etc on the desktop. How come those gadgets keep moving around all the time? If I put the clock in the corner on a subsequent (maybe 4 o5 ) visit to the desktop I see it is drifted 1/4 eway across the screen - why can't it remember and stay in its x,y coordinate where I put it?

 

[xwb]

#1 Let it do its 8 updates and then shut it down, restart and switch off updates. You didn't catch it quickly enough to switch off updates so it has already started that and once it has started, it has to finish.

#2 Haven't experienced that - are you logging in or resuming from sleeping? I've only seen that happen when someone resumes from hibernation. Under the card configuration, make sure that it doesn't switch off the card to conserve power.

#3 Can't give you any pointers but what I've found is W7 has a lot of image enhancements. It has features for sales people to dazzle customers with but under the hood, everything is as slow as XP. It appears to be faster because the screens are loaded up while the machine is still starting up. If you click on something, it still has to load up before it will respond.

#4 Right click on task bar and select task manager. Alternatively type taskmgr on the command line

#5 No idea whatsoever. I don't use gadgets: they take up too much screen real estate.

If you treat it like XP and wait one to two minutes after switching on before you login, and then wait another one to two minutes, everything works. If you try to operate it while it is loading up, it doesn't work even though the screen is fully populated.

On W7 many OS type things take one or two clicks more to access. eg connection speed of WiFi. On XP, just hover over the icon and it tells you. On W7, open network sharing centre and click on the adapter. Just really annoying.

 

[guitarzan]

#4. re bringing up Task Manager: use CTRL-SHIFT-ESC (this worked in XP also)

 

[hairlessupportmonkey]

this search yields lots of fun things.

http://www.google.com/search?q=wind...s=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

ACSS - SME
General Geek

 

[cdogg]

1. Agree with xwb, perhaps you didn't catch it soon enough. You can take it one step further if needed though and disable the "Windows Update" service. Launch services.msc from Start.

2. What you're looking for is your power settings. Windows 7 has a ton of advanced settings you can tweak including wireless. Go into "Change plan settings" -> "advanced power settings" and find the "Wireless Adapter Settings". Also realize that if you right-click the network icon in your system tray, you no longer have repair but you have "Diagnose". It will do more than what repair did in XP and take longer, but it's essentially the same thing.

3. Occasionally this happens to me too, even on high-end Xeon 6-core systems. We believe our issue is related to an older version of Symantec Endpoint we're running, but perhaps your issue is Antivirus related as well. You should comb through your event viewer logs to see what's going on during each time interval.

4. Ditto guitarzan. I've been using CTRL-SHIFT-ESC for years. You can also right-click any blank area in your taskbar and select "Start Task Manager".

5. No idea on the gadget issue. I don't use them either. Perhaps you can test 3rd-party gadgets to see if they have the same issue. Could just be the gadget?

-Carl
"The glass is neither half-full nor half-empty: it's twice as big as it needs to be."

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[strongm]

> In XP CTL=ALT-DEL started Task Mgr

No. It casued a soft reboot, and the response to that soft reboot depended on how your copyof XP was configured:

If the computer is configured as a part of a domain the combination brings up the "Windows Security" dialog, where the user can lock the computer, change their password, log out, shut the computer down, or invoke the Task Manager (And this is the default behavior in Windows 7, regardless of whether or not the computer is part of a domain)

If Windows XP is not connected to a domain

* and the Welcome Screen and fast user switching are turned on, Ctrl-Alt-Del directly invokes the Task Manager.
* and the Welcome Screen and fast user switching are turned off, Ctrl-Alt-Del will open the Windows Security Dialog, as described above.

CTL-SHIFT-ESC as already metioned in previous posts will always bring up the task manager, no matter what

 

[BadBigBen]

5. The gadget gallery allows me to put a clock, the weather info etc on the desktop. How come those gadgets keep moving around all the time? If I put the clock in the corner on a subsequent (maybe 4 o5 ) visit to the desktop I see it is drifted 1/4 eway across the screen - why can't it remember and stay in its x,y coordinate where I put it?

actually that is a bug since VISTA...

When you start a Windows Vista-based computer, the arrangement of Windows Vista Sidebar gadgets changes, or some gadgets do not appear

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/930277

Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[dilettante]

Pretty late in the day to whinge about most of these things anyway, since most have been with us since 2006.

If you want to feel true discomfort install the Win8 Preview.

 

[Leozack]

Sorry but I can't take seriously anyone complaining about win7 who thinks ctrl+alt+del always brought up the task manager ;P Ctrl+Shift+Esc ftw!

If you're getting pc freezes then don't blame the OS, I've been using win7 64bit happily and haven't had a logon screen freeze. It's your setup (dodgy hardware or dodgy software config).

There's a reason systems need to be kept uptodate - it stops you being the latest zombie DDOSing a website at a hackers will. Keep your systems uptodate!

I doubt you will run out of the room faster than it take sto update on shutdown so why try to stop it?

_________________________________
Leozack

MakeUniverse($infinity,1,42);

 

[Ratage]

Many great answers to some great questions, the only one that I am going to contribute to is #5...

I have many client workstations (laptops) that get plugged into a dock or sometimes just a second monitor at the beginning of the day, unplugged and plugged back in a few times throughout the day, then unplugged at the end. Every now and then I happen to see a gadget out of place (lucky me I don't get help tickets for thing like this) and have noticed that it tends to happen when removing the extended display while the desktop is open. Everything gets moved around, and all of a sudden the clock is on the left or the calender is in the middle. I have alwaays jusst put it off to the desktop rearranging its self to compensate for its area being cut in half.

 

[ANFPS26]

Ctrl+Alt+Del once always did bring up the task manager in Windows 98 and XP, still does. Hit it twice and you get a soft reboot. Ctrl+Shift+Esc works, too. I've always used the 3-fingered salute and was happy with it. I never saw the need for Ctrl+Shift+Esc, IMO. Just my 2 cents.

Jim

 

[cdogg]

Ctrl+Alt+Del once always did bring up the task manager in Windows 98 and XP, still does

Actually, that depends. If Windows XP is joined to a domain, CTRL-ALT-DEL brings up the Windows Security dialog box that gives you options like logging off, changing your password, starting task manager, etc. Then you would have to click Task Manager every time, whereas CTRL-SHIFT-ESC takes you right to it.

-Carl
"The glass is neither half-full nor half-empty: it's twice as big as it needs to be."

[tab][navy]For this site's posting policies, click [/navy]here.

 

[strongm]

>Ctrl+Alt+Del once always did bring up the task manager in Windows 98 and XP

Sadly not correct, as described in my post of 16 April in this very thread. And as cdogg says above.

 

[ANFPS26]

It always did for me. My PCs are on a home network. I have never not brought up the task manager any other way. I'm sure you can configure it to bring up whatever you want, but the default for me has always been as stated. I'm only speaking of my personal experience. Mileage always varies, I'm sure. It may not be the "right way" to do it, but it works for me.

Jim

 

[Leozack]

It's not a MMV issue. A home network is not a domain. The fact is simple -= CTRL-SHIFT-ESC is task manager. When you are using a dumbed down version of XP then CTRL-ALT-DEL also brings up task manager because it doesn't want to give you the domain options to change your password, log off, shut down, lock the machine, or cancel - so it just brings up task manager regardless. Therefore to say it is the otherway round and CTRL-ALT-DEL was always task manager shows a lack of experience - or varied experience at least. IIRC CAD did bring it up in 98? But none of this matters - fact remains if you want task manager and you're too lazy to rightclick the taskbar and select it - then CTRL-SHIFT-ESC is for you no matter which version you're running ;P

_________________________________
Leozack

MakeUniverse($infinity,1,42);

 

[Andrzejek]

[blue]
"Ctrl+Alt+Del once always did bring up the [/blue](screen from which you can start, among other stuff like 'change password') [blue]task manager in Windows 98 and XP, still does"[/blue]

Have fun.

---- Andy

 

[Sympology]

Daft question, you have download the Lenovo specific drivers as well?

E.g. graphics, sound, chipset, keyboard hot-keys etc?



Robert Wilensky:
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[dvk1]

The whole thing is one big bug - but looking at your question #5 - sounds kinda like my desktop icon issue - Pls look at my new thread and if u have any ideas pls let me know - misery loves company