Windows 7 Utter disaster, system crippled, please read!

[Dimebag]

Hi.

Been using Windows 7 Beta and on release date downloaded Win 7 RC through Technet.
Using it as my primary OS until er... well today.

I have a logitech 4000 webcam, I plugged it in and without fail the RC grabbed the files from the web and installed the camera. However there was no control of the camera outside of an app that uses it, such as MSN live messenger or skype etc.. So I grabbed the installation files to the quickcam studio on the logitech site for Vista x64 (assumed this was the closeset match).

Program would run and unzip but before installation would say "this product is not designed for your OS" and it would promptly quit. I decided to emulate Windows Vista x64 with SP2 in this case and ran the program with admin rights. This proved to be quite a major disaster, to say the least. As the application tried to install it ran through normal procedures but in very slow time. Every time the installer tried to do something to the system, various applications would crash and cause memory page fault errors saying the memory couldnt be read.

This affected regedit, the windows fault logging / reporting utility, the login GUI menu system, wdm,exe and quite a few various other critical executable files. The installation did not complete, by this time I was a bit worried about all the constant errors so powered off the machine and turned it back on.

Windows 7 RC now actually boots, but all the files mentioned and more must be utterly corrupt. Upon logging in the screen goes to black, the circular mouse cursor just spins conintuously and over the period of about 5 minutes various critical services and executables die on their asses with the message about memory not being able to be read.

Whilst I can see that this is my fault and I can't really lay blame with the OS for this happening I'm a little distrubed at the options I have presented to me when trying to recover the system.

I booted off the DVD and hit "repair my system". The auto check assumes everything is perfectly fine as it says the OS "Booted last time around" and that's where it stops checking, even when all the critical system files are absoultely stuffed. I managed to get a command prompt up and ran a thorough chkdsk on the installation drive and it found 0 errors. I tried to go back to the main installation prompt for Win 7 and there is no "repair" feature.

Now this boggles my mind, back in the days of XP you could run the recovery console, but better still you could enter the installation process again and point the installer at the partition / installation of windows. It would then go off and verify/copy back over all the system files it believed to be corrupt or otherwise, thus restoring windows back to normal without any issue at all.

7 years on an 2 iterations of Windows later and as far as I can see this feature has been totally removed.
The automatic "check my system and repair it" functions seem to be totally useless if vital system files corrupted and there doesn't seem to be any choice at all to run a repair of this fashion? The only thing left for me is an option that says to install windows to the same partition where the existing installation will be renamed as Windows.old, which I REALLY do not want to do.

Am I missing something here?
Can someone set me straight and tell me how the hell I'm supposed to recover the system with these tools?
They seem completely useless to me.

PS- I have no system restore points to revert to, I feel I shouldn't have to rely on system restore points when there should be an option to repair like XP had...

Paul

 

[Dimebag]

Just an update... and it doesn't look good in the slightest...

I tried to run sfc from within a repair, it wouldn't let me because it said there was a repair pending, it's obviously aware that I'm in repair mode and thus refuses to run. Which is mind boggling to start with because sfc is a system resource verification / repair tool.

I finally managed to get into normal safe mode with command prompt and ran sfc, it checked all the files but said there was no issues at all with the system files.

On rebooting I started normally and tried to login to windows, which then obviously keeled over again complaining about all the system files that were reported ok by sfc. I'm really at a loss here, without previously creating a system restore point or an entire image of my system the entire OS is now completely lost. 100% lost, I'll leave you to judge for yourselves how acceptable that is in this day and age to let this happen without ever even prompting the user in question (me) to ever create a system restore point in the first place. The fact that your entire repair procedure hinges on it makes it more than a little bit vital.

I've tried to reinstall the OS and let it rename the previous install to windows.old but even this has failed saying "windows cannot install the required files, they may be corrupt or missing".

Time to ditch this rubbish and move over to Ubuntu I reckon, I've just about lost my patience with this heap of garbage. Removing a system repair utility that worked flawlessly under the installation process of windows XP in windows 7 is nothing short of pathetic. I am not a fan. I'm also totally and utterly shocked that you are able to attempt to install a product using the vista emulation mode and the operating system allows itself to be screwed over at the system level without any warning / prompting at all.

 

[twincitybulldog]

System repair disk

I made a system repair disk using Windows 7 system. I haven't had to use it yet but decided it would be a good thing to have. Probably wouldn't do you any good now but would be a good tool for other users to boot up and repair the problems.

WalterLink Removed

 

[JessicaD]

Dimebag,
When you installed Windows 7 RC did you download the ISO directly from Microsoft or from another site by chance? Also, did you perform a clean install? These answers are very essential to arriving at a conclusion.
For more help and resources check out the Microsoft Springboard site as there are many IT professionals over there that may be able to provide more insight and help with this.
Link Removed
Jessica
Microsoft TechNet / Springboard

 

[twincitybulldog]

Windows 7

I downloaded ISO from Microsoft's website and used Roxio software to burn a DVD. I have found Roxio's Easy Media Creator 10.0 to do a good job in burning DVD's. I performed a clean install on an Acer laptop computer.
I am running Vista on another hard drive and had been using it as my main OS, but found that Windows 7 was doing such a good job that I am now using 7 as my main OS.
I am saving all of my files on a second partition of this hard drive and using a portable hard drive as a backup.
When I installed Windows 7, I don't think I had to load any of Acer's drivers for my laptop as Windows 7 performed all of this for me. All of the software I am using, eg. Quicken, Roxio, Automotive Wolf and etc. loaded flawlessly.
HP,s printer software would not install, but using Vista compatibility, it loaded with no problem. The wireless network worked, with no problems. USB hub worked with no problems. I downloaded Windows Mail from MS and am using it as my main mail client.
The bottom line is, I have found Windows 7 to be the easiest OS I have ever used and I go back to the days before Windows. I have not had a single problem with Windows 7.

Walter Coleman