Right, here we go

[floppybootstomp]

Fresh install of Win 7 on my main machine. Why? Cos a coupla months ago I was messing about changing optical drive ports (can't remember why) and as a result all my software and games links don't work, I have to open some of them with the .exe file which is a pain.

That and I have a load of detritus floating around so time for a spring clean.

I have burnt Win 7 SP1 to a DVD, gathered all latest drivers and patches and have managed to find most saved games though not all. I hope some of those saved games I couldn't find - like Assassins Creed 2 - are on a cloud save, we shall see, but it's not all that a biggie anyhow.

I wonder whether Win 7 will activate ok or I'll have to do that annoying telephone thingie?

Now 19:00 hours, wish me luck...

 

[TriplexDread]

I've had to do reinstalls a couple of times recently thinking the issues I had were maybe Software related I didn't have any problems activating really

Recently past couple of weeks I kept having a smal text appear in bottom right window saying "this copy of windows is not genuine"

WHAAAT I thought.

Contacted MS live online support

They have confirmed Serial key is perfectly fine and ran me through a manual activate
So far nothing has appeared

Good Luck

 

[Anon_F]

I did a fresh install 2 weeks ago with Win7 and all was ok.
Good luck FBS.

 

[General_K]

Hope all goes well, Flopps!

 

[bootneck02]

Got my fingers crossed for you, must admit I havent had any probs with reinstall

 

[floppybootstomp]

It's now 23:30 and thus far:

Win7 / Activation / SP1 /Updates
Motherboard drivers
Graphics Drivers
Soundcard drivers
Microsoft Security Essentials
Gadget: Applauncher / Disable desktop Recycle bin icon
2 x Xbox 360 wireless controllers driver and connection
Disable UAC
Change desktop pic / small fonts in taskbar / use desktop theme to enable lilac taskbar
Turn off screensaver and set all power savings to zero
Install Opera / Opera Bookmarks / download Opera skins / Set homepage icon

And that's about it so far. Windows 7 activated no prob, probably because my hardware hasn't changed since last activation.

Installing SP1 from disk and updating (I selected 102 updates) took the longest time, at least an hour.

Had a prob with installation not recognising my Logitech G500 mouse so used an old cheapie USB mouse. Same thing happened again with the G500 at early install stage trying to navigate UEFI Bios, G500 wouldn't work. It worked after primary Win 7 install, odd that, I thought BIOS was independent of OS, or maybe it was just one of those things.

So far all is working well and I cannot believe the increase in speed with a near enough empty OS, if there's one thing all Windows OS's have in common is that the more you load, the slower it gets.

But I guess that will soon change as I load stuff up. Next up I think I'll load Steam. I've deleted all in Steam folder (Drive G) except Steam Apps and Steam.exe so here we go.

To be continued

 

[bootneck02]

Great going Flops, last time I did it it took a while, hours and hours

 

[floppybootstomp]

Installed Steam, all good so far, only about 20% of games showing as incomplete and I know from experience most of those will take only a coupla minutes to complete once I start them.

Started Dishonored, last save point started ok without me putting saved savegames into relevant folder, which leads me to believe their 'Cloud' save system works. Mixed views about Cloud saving and storage but have to say in this instance it was good.

Now 01:00 hours which by my reckoning makes that six hours spent so far on fresh install. And for now, that's it.

Goodnight

 

[floppybootstomp]

Have now installed all 'serious' software and some games.

Loaded these:

Office 2003 + SP2 (Primarily for Publisher only, I use Libre Office mostly now)
Added 3 email accounts (Zen ISP; gmail & PCRUK) and Hotmail address to Outlook 2003
Mailwasher Pro
Foxit
7-Zip
Crap Cleaner
Winamp & Skins
Auzentech soundcard software
Gigabyte keyboard software
Mouse software
Set up WiFi printer
2 x Microsoft wireless Xbox 360 controllers
Adobe Photoshop CS5
Nero 11
Cyberlink Power DVD 12 (For Bluray disk playback)
iTunes (Purely for iPhone 4, not much music on it)
Acronis True Image 11
Windows Movie Maker (For Youtube uploads)
Canon Camera software
WS_FTP Pro
Speccy
Avery Label Wizard

Games so far:

Non Steam:

Far Cry 3 (Ubisoft client had saved all save games)
Dragon Age II - Managed to load all saved games ok
The Witcher Platinum Edition - Managed to load all saved games ok
Call Of Duty 4 (& all 6 patches) - Multiplayer Player Profile reinstated ok
Race Driver: GRID: could not get saved games to work, bit of a bummer, was at least six or seven hours into that game (every reinstall has casualties )

Steam:

Elder Scrolls Skyrim - SKSE installed ok, all saved games reinstated ok, Nexus Mod Manager installed
Dishonored - 'Cloud' saves reinstated ok
Assassins Creed 2 - Ubisoft's 'Cloud' service had saved savegames ok
DIRT 2 - Manually reinstated savegames ok

All other Steam games show as fully loaded but haven't tried any others yet.

The system seems a little faster now and all links work, everything, so far, is near enough as it should be.