Not digging Windows 7 at all

I consider myself not a novice but not an expert user.
I am currently running windows 7 professional 64BIT on a 6 month old Sony Vaio laptop with Intel Core 2 Duo [email protected], 4.0gb of DDR2-800RAM and 160gb hd, dvd. I am enrolled in online grad classes and use it for research, papers, some low level multimedia stuff (really low level animation for class, audacity recording,etc) emails, browsing (IE and Firefox). It had vista originally which stunk, now I have windows 7 which I hate (it really takes over your browser and usage experience and has too much proprietary crap, in my opinion, it appears to stop working and slows down a lot, I hate the everyday windows shutdowns (windows needed to close messages) without much indication why and of course, most of the classroom stuff doesn't work on the first try. Would XP still be an option on my system and would it be okay for class?

I know MS is not supporting it but I still see it retail all the time and friends have legit copies they never used. If not, I am welcome to other system suggestions and/or new browsers ideas. I don't know anything about Linux though some friends tell me it is very smooth on a decent powered laptop. I would even be willing to do a dual boot if necessary.
Any opinions or ideas?

 

If you're having performance and program issues like that then there's probably something else causing the problems.

How did you install 7; Clean or Upgrade?

I forget if that processor is capable or not, but you could try Windows XP mode for the older programs.

 

Yup, sounds like a duff Vista installation upgraded to become a duff Win7 install. If you're thinking of installing a new o/s from scratch, you might as well install Win7 from scratch first. It should run really well just as a fresh Vista install should too.

 

The "duff" install of vista in question came directly from Sony and I did a brand new nuke and pave for the 7 install.

 

I don't understand your complaints. If things are constantly crashing, then that means either the programs you're running are poorly written, or your system is improperly set up. I don't know what you mean by "proprietary crap". All Windows OSes are proprietary and owned by Microsoft. Linux is open source, but it doesn't sound like you've used it.

 

I'm not sure what you mean, either - Windows taking over your browser isn't something that sounds normal for any Windows version. Maybe "Restart now or later?" prompts coming up while you browse, or IE asking if you want to open a popup/ActiveX control or not, but that's about all I can think of.

I don't know what proprietary software you mean, either. Before you said it wasn't the case, I was guessing you had upgraded your Vista install and still had a bunch of proprietary Sony apps installed that weren't useful. For a fresh install, Windows 7 probably has less than XP - it has Windows Media Player, Paint, Wordpad, a few other accessories and games, and IE (which can be disabled), but not Windows Movie Maker or Windows Messenger, for instance, both of which are present in an XP fresh install (and the former also in Vista). If you mean proprietary software in general, there are plenty of open source alternatives out there if you search them out. They might not all work well as the proprietary options for what you need, but there are options out there.

Really, it sound like you might have virus or other malware problems. The stop working/slow down bit indicates something intensive running in the background, and could well be malware. Everyday shutdowns/Windows Needs to Close messages sound even more suspect. I can't recall ever having received a message that Windows itself needs to restart for a reason other than installing software or drivers, or Automatic Updates. Taking over the browser also indicates strongly towards malware. And depending on your habits and how much of your hard drive you carried over from Vista to Seven, I could very well see malware transferring to your new Windows 7 installation very quickly. If you haven't already, I'd run multiple anti-virus softwares (but not at the same time), all from reputable vendors, and do complete system scans (including of any often-used external drives or USB drives). These include Microsoft Security Essentials, AVG Anti-Virus, and Avira! Anti-Virus. Trial versions of Kaspersky or Norton couldn't hurt, either. Not all virus software catches all viruses, and if you only ever run one, it's possible that you have a malware infection that it just doesn't catch (I've had this happen myself). Also try anti-spyware software, such as Windows Defender (which should be installed by default on Windows 7). And make sure you have a firewall (such as Windows Firewall) turned on. If your system still comes back clean, then maybe XP would help, but a suspiciously high number of these symptoms, at least as you've described them so far, sound like malware.

 

i think your the first person ive heard of that says these things.
anyways the only things i can think of are driver conflicts, and malware - and leaning more towards the malware side

 

Go ahead with the dual boot then - XP and Windows7. Your challenge is probably finding the necessary drivers (and special apps) for the Sony.

In the mean time you might want to review all the applications that you are using under W7 and see if any updates are being available if there are compatibility issues, that caused system slowdown.

cheers ...

 

Thank you for your comments. I will scour the Sony discussion page and look for similar cases. I wonder if the Sony Companion Disc which came with the new 7 install might have some flaws. I will see if most used that disc or if they found the new drivers on the sonyusa site.
I feel another nuke and pave may be coming.

 

I would care to wager that the Sony companion disc you use to install Windows 7 also installed crap loads (yes that's a technical term) of bloatware.

Sony, HP and Lenovo are notorious for that.

 

Perhaps, but most of Lenovo's ThinkVantage suite comes in handy at one time or another.

 

Try win7 32bit. Win7 64 seems to crash a lot for me.

 

I have an Asus U81a with a T6500 that runs flawlessly. I did the Asus upgrade disk (Win7 HP 64bit) but only installed Asus apps I wanted and for drivers nore relied on the ones M4 would upgrade to via autoupdate. There are some newer drivers obtained direct from Intel for the wireless, chipset - video, MM card reader (non intel) and AHCI.

Proprietary bloatware can always be an issue. Since your issues do not seem to widely reported, and I'm sure there is other similar hardware configurations out there that have upgraded, I would suspect what you use that others may not be. That is the Sony companion disk or some part of it!

 

Yeah I own a T60 and some of the utilities are nice and they do come in handy but Lenovo like the others I mentioned tend to load up on the bloatware to the point that your computer feels like a subcompact car trying to drag a 40 foot yacht.