Windows 8.

[Mac]

As most people here know i only like windows NT, 2000, xp and windows7,
BUT,
Rhonda has a new Dell laptop which came with windows 8,
but it is SOOOOOOOO SLOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

I've done a fresh install with all the bloat ware not installled, and its a clean (minimal) install.
but its still slower then treacle.

To open chrome and get the home page up which is www.google.co.uk takes between 60 & 120 seconds, nothing i can do changes it.
Internet explorer is even worse.
as for opening other pages, its cup of tea time.

tracing to google is fine
14 steps nothing slowing the connections down.

I've checked the CPU, thats sitting at 98-100% idle.
Opening chrome, you get the normal spike 10-15%, then back to idle.

The internal network is fine, I can connect to both my desktop and Server and get transfer speeds of 50-51M so the hold up is not there.

Most software takes forever to open,
I've checked all of the setting and turned off everything that makes it look pretty,
no difference,

any ideas before i dump it and install win 7 pro

Mac.

[The Thing]

Sounds like a hard disk access issue or possibly the RAM needs reseating as it sounds like there may be access retries happening if the CPU is not doing much.

[Mac]

ok, i'll give that a go and get back.

[RobertM]

I'm investigating the same issue on my Dell Win 7 laptop. in the last month or so it started opening programs really slowly.  Once they we open they were ok.  Have virus scanned/MalwareBytes with nothing shown.  The symptoms are the same - hardly any CPU (Core i7) and it's an SSD so should be ultra quick (like it was).

I have a win 8 machine with a normal hard disk and that is quicker at opening progs so I'm sure it's not Win 8.

Will keep you posted when I find the culprit...

For 1 check the cpu frequency in the resource monitor..  10% cpu = 10% of the Maximum frequency... which may not be 100%

Robert

[Mac]

Ram is seated all ok,
Hard disk is fine, there are no issues with reading or writing,
Resource monitor shows the cpu as 100%
all the power setting show max cpu setting all sleep has been disabled, as i know there are some issues when certain machines come out of sleep.

So it looks like windows 7 is going to be put on today.

Mac.

[Mac]

How about this for an answer.

I have a full version of windows 7 professional which i have installed on my machine at home.

I rang microsoft store this morning and said that I need to purchase a new product key for windows 7 pro so i can install it on another machine.

The answer i got back was this.

We no longer sell product keys for any operating system other then windows 8 & 8.1

I told them that windows 8 was crap, slow and useless and that i wanted to install windows 7.

The answer was nope. end of conversation.

Mac.

[mickw]

If they no longer sell W7, what was an "illegal" version must now be legal 

What happens if you use your existing key ?

[Carole]

All that bullshit really annoys me.  They update systems to ones that don't work properly and shut down ones that do.  Surely customers have a right to buy what they want and a system that works.

To be honest that's why I don't like upgrading stuff, if it works why tempt fate.  I only replaced my XP desktop because it was getting really slow and I knew it would only get worse when they stopped supporting it.  All my imaging stuff still runs on Vista which was the operating system at the time and I have no intentions of upgrading that until it stops working as everything works fine on that, I know I will have drivers issues once I have to get a later system.  It happened to me before a few years ago when I changed from XP to Vista, there were no drivers for Vista on my Phillips webcam so the camera became redundant.

Carole

[Mike]

This is why i've gone over to OSX and Linux. Both free operating systems with free updates. I decided to do this after a legit purchased copy of Windows I had stopped working and I was told by Microsoft I had exceeded my maximum number of installations and needed to buy a new key at full price !!

I have Windows 7 only on one laptop for astro stuff and only because the software I want to run is Windows software. There are Linux and OSX versions of similar things if I really decided to abandon Windows altogether. You can also run Windows software using emulation in both OS's.

[Mac]

What happens if you use your existing key ?

It will register that key against the new machine, and then make my old desktop say its no longer a legal machine.

I've sorted it for the time being................................................

No names no pack drill.

Mac

[The Thing]

...when I changed from XP to Vista, there were no drivers for Vista on my Phillips webcam so the camera became redundant.

Carole

Not on my Vista, SPC900 works just fine.

[Mike]

...there were no drivers for Vista on my Phillips webcam so the camera became redundant.

You can always run programs in Compatibility Mode.

[Carole]

Not on my Vista, SPC900 works just fine.

the SPC900 works fine on mine too, this was a different webcam, can't remember what the model was now as I managed to sell it a while back to some-one still using XP.

I checked with Bern and he said there were no drivers for it on Vista, and I found a lot of posts on the internet where people were complaining about it. 

Carole

[The Thing]

Was it a Vesta? I had one once. I believe they can be flashed with SPC900 firmware.

[Carole]

I think it was a Toucam.  Phillips PCV then 3 numbers I can't remember. It had a bulbous body.  

No-one suggested that anything could be done at the time, and there were a number of threads on the subject on various forums, it wasn't just me having the problem.  Anyway water under the bridge now, but it puts me off upgrading my operating system as I don't have either the IT or electronic skills to sort out these sort of problems.

Carole