An important thing I know about installing multiple OS's is to install the oldest first and work your way to the newer. I learned that lesson the hard way.
Newb time! I have Windows 7 installed, but no dual boot with Vista.
This is what I did:
- Changend the boot order in BIOS to CD/DVD drive.
- During installation I selected the "Custom" option (second option, not first)
- Then selected C: as the drive for Windoes 7 to be installed
- Installation formatted C: and installed Windows 7
- This is where I am now. On Windows 7 and no Vista.
So what did I do wrong? Not much was on the laptop so I'm willing to start over and try again.
Installed the Windows 7 64 bit beta on my box last night
Flight Simulator X gives an error at the end of installation, so it does not finish the installation correctly. This causes Acceleration expansion to not detect it and then it won't install. The Simulator DOES run fine though.
Steam installed fine, Rome Total:War is CTDing more often. Fallout 3 runs great, had a 2 hour game session earlier with no crashes.
City of Heroes is a graphic mess. I'm going to try swapping in my Nvidia 8800 (I'm running a 4870HD now)when RC1 comes out to see if that helps at all. Other than that the OS has been rock solid and it hasn't crashed or given any sort of serious error. I like having all my 4GB of RAM available. I just hope Creative and ATi gets off their ass and bring out some good drivers once the RC1 goes out.
Back to topic. Can you run an install of 32bit vista and a 64bit win7? I'm thinking no, because vista32 wouldn't be able to read the dvd for win7 64bit.
Mt_GoatHead Cheezy KnobPflugerville (north of Austin)Icrontian
edited February 2009
I now have 3 rigs running like champs on 7. Just loaded the 64 bit on my media rig w/ Asus P5Q Pro, Q9300, 4GB G. Skill 8500, 2x HD4830.
So far, anything I have had a problem with has been remedied by running in compatibility mode as Vista or XP PRO. Other than that it's just minor stuff that I can live with.
I've been really tempted to throw this on my main machine. I'll probably wait 'till RC1 hits, since it's been announced already. I have a spare HDD, E7200, and 8GB of RAM just waiting for some sweet Win7_x64 goodness.
If you're referring to the MSDN Academic Alliance, then no. That program is designed to provide students with the software they require for their chosen academic field. Windows 7 does not fit the bill.
Thought I'd post this, in case someone else has the same problem.
Win 7 32bit picked up/ recognized all my hardware and installed drivers for them except I couldn't get it to recognize my Radeon PowerColor HD 3850 512MB GDDR3 AGP.
After trial & error and researching a bit I found ATI Catalyst 9.1 Display Driver for Windows Vista (32 bit). worked. There is a 64 bit & Linux version too. ATI Catalyst 9.1
And the Catalys 8.12 AGP Hotfix - Radeon HD 3000 and Radeon HD 2000 Series AGP products. Catalyst 8.12 AGP Hotfix
I installed the hotfix first and then the 9.1's and it recognized the card in device manager/hardware monitor/ etc.
Win 7 picked all up except the Mitsumi 7in1 Card Reader.
It just read it as a floppy drive.
Installed Steam, it runs no problem, installed 2forts but it fails to launch.
It starts to load and then shuts off. I'm working on that one.
Took a while to get used to the layout/start menu/control panel/ programs etc but I think I really like it.
Programs that run great so far...
ATI CCC 9.1 -- Foxit Reader--Firefox--CCleaner--Free Windows Registry repair--CPUID Hardware monitor--Auslogics Disk Defrag--Driver Sweeper--QuickZip4--Threatfire--Steam-- and working on tf2.
Here's my pc specs.
MSI K8TNeo MB/AMD Athlon 64 3400+ ClawHammer CPU /2250 MHz
Corsair TX650W PS
2X1G OCZ PC3200 (200 MHz) 2.5-3-2-5
1X WD 36G SATA Raptor/1X WD 160G SATA
NEC DVD_RW ND-3550
Mitsumi 7in1 Card Reader
ATI Radeon PowerColor HD 3850 AGP 512MB GDDR3
DELL 2005FPW 21" Widescreen LCD
Sound Blaster Audigy/Bose Media Mate speakers/Playtronics headset
Logitech MX700 Duo KB/Mouse combo
Logitech G5 gaming mouse
I'm running windows 7 64 and everything is running flawlessly on my laptop, even the wacom active digitizer, except for my fingerprint reader. Which had dodgy support in vista.
I tried Daniel's beta drivers and set the card to SPDIF. After about an hour of listening to music with my son the sound began to buzz. Switching back and forth between standard output and SPDIF stopped it for awhile but it came back on and finally I actually got my first BSoD in 7. Back to the drawing board.
New report. I formatted the drive using DBAN Nuke and Boot. Loaded stock drivers, then Daniel's betas. Surround is back and the Audigy seems to like them. I'm not using the SPDIF setting.
After loading nVidia's 181.22 Vista x64 drivers, all of my games are running fine. I think the trick was to get rid of any tell tale vestiges of old builds by writing zeros to the drive first.
Well I've finally installed a copy of win7 and I like it lots. I'd have to agree with those that say it is vista done right. Since I have been useing vista I found it a very natural transition. But it surprised me on how much faster everything seemed.
Multimedia:
x264 Encoding
Cinebench R10
CDA to 192-320Kbps VBR MP3 (LAME)
DVD Ripping
MPEG2 to XViD
8 Photoshop filters to a 7680x1600 PNG
Productivity:
100MB/1GB/10GB WinRAR maximum compression
100MB/1GB/10GB WinRAR extraction
100MB/1GB/10GB Windows ZIP compression
100MB/1GB/10GB Windows ZIP extraction
100MB/1GB/10GB disk to disk transfer
100MB/1GB/10GB network transfer
CD/DVD burn time
OS install time
OS boot time
OS shut down time
8GB Avast! virus scan of compressed files
Unfortunately, due to EULA limitations in the release candidate and the beta, this article could never be produced. I intend to revisit it around the time the OS is released.
Comments
This is what I did:
- Changend the boot order in BIOS to CD/DVD drive.
- During installation I selected the "Custom" option (second option, not first)
- Then selected C: as the drive for Windoes 7 to be installed
- Installation formatted C: and installed Windows 7
- This is where I am now. On Windows 7 and no Vista.
So what did I do wrong? Not much was on the laptop so I'm willing to start over and try again.
Thanks guys.
If you put the disc in while Vista's running, it'll do everything correctly, haha.
Also, it is the Custom option I want rather than the Upgrade option?
Flight Simulator X gives an error at the end of installation, so it does not finish the installation correctly. This causes Acceleration expansion to not detect it and then it won't install. The Simulator DOES run fine though.
Steam installed fine, Rome Total:War is CTDing more often. Fallout 3 runs great, had a 2 hour game session earlier with no crashes.
City of Heroes is a graphic mess. I'm going to try swapping in my Nvidia 8800 (I'm running a 4870HD now)when RC1 comes out to see if that helps at all. Other than that the OS has been rock solid and it hasn't crashed or given any sort of serious error. I like having all my 4GB of RAM available. I just hope Creative and ATi gets off their ass and bring out some good drivers once the RC1 goes out.
Back to topic. Can you run an install of 32bit vista and a 64bit win7? I'm thinking no, because vista32 wouldn't be able to read the dvd for win7 64bit.
So far, anything I have had a problem with has been remedied by running in compatibility mode as Vista or XP PRO. Other than that it's just minor stuff that I can live with.
btw, the dl is slow as all get out. I'm putting it on my laptop because I can afford to mess it up as nothing important is on it.
No duel boot, just gonna choose which drive at teh boot time.
Win7/64
Win 7 32bit picked up/ recognized all my hardware and installed drivers for them except I couldn't get it to recognize my Radeon PowerColor HD 3850 512MB GDDR3 AGP.
After trial & error and researching a bit I found ATI Catalyst 9.1 Display Driver for Windows Vista (32 bit). worked. There is a 64 bit & Linux version too.
ATI Catalyst 9.1
And the Catalys 8.12 AGP Hotfix - Radeon HD 3000 and Radeon HD 2000 Series AGP products.
Catalyst 8.12 AGP Hotfix
I installed the hotfix first and then the 9.1's and it recognized the card in device manager/hardware monitor/ etc.
Win 7 picked all up except the Mitsumi 7in1 Card Reader.
It just read it as a floppy drive.
Installed Steam, it runs no problem, installed 2forts but it fails to launch.
It starts to load and then shuts off. I'm working on that one.
Took a while to get used to the layout/start menu/control panel/ programs etc but I think I really like it.
Programs that run great so far...
ATI CCC 9.1 -- Foxit Reader--Firefox--CCleaner--Free Windows Registry repair--CPUID Hardware monitor--Auslogics Disk Defrag--Driver Sweeper--QuickZip4--Threatfire--Steam-- and working on tf2.
Here's my pc specs.
MSI K8TNeo MB/AMD Athlon 64 3400+ ClawHammer CPU /2250 MHz
Corsair TX650W PS
2X1G OCZ PC3200 (200 MHz) 2.5-3-2-5
1X WD 36G SATA Raptor/1X WD 160G SATA
NEC DVD_RW ND-3550
Mitsumi 7in1 Card Reader
ATI Radeon PowerColor HD 3850 AGP 512MB GDDR3
DELL 2005FPW 21" Widescreen LCD
Sound Blaster Audigy/Bose Media Mate speakers/Playtronics headset
Logitech MX700 Duo KB/Mouse combo
Logitech G5 gaming mouse
After loading nVidia's 181.22 Vista x64 drivers, all of my games are running fine. I think the trick was to get rid of any tell tale vestiges of old builds by writing zeros to the drive first.
Anyhow, I came across this article about customizing desktops with widgets in win7 and will be giving it a go. http://lifehacker.com/5159056/the-sleek-wood-desktop Looks like a pretty smooth setup.
I'm looking for the article, is this around?