AAAARRRGGGHHHH! REady to ditch Win7

[puternoobie]

I can't believe I fell for it. Everybody said Win7 was easy to use, the best thing since sliced bread. Now I'm in a mess. Am I going to have to spend MORE money to get a working computer?
1. Since my motherboard died and I didn't have a suitable backup, the Geek Squad at Best Buy "transferred" my files. But I can't get them on my new computer with Easy Transfer or Restore. The instructions SAY such and such will work but it doesn't.
2. When I followed Brother's advice to get my printer to work, my screen turned yellow and I can't get it back to its original color.
3. When I send an email, I can't tell if it's going or not. I hit the send/receive button and there is no action on the screen that tells me it's going and it doesn't show up in my Sent mail.
4. My new keyboard has " for the @ sign and @ for the " sign. Can't find a way to switch them. Found some other anomalies too but forget what they are.

My next step, I suppose, will be buying Win7 for Dummies. And dadgummit, I ain't no dummy!

 

[C1]

Im not even a Win 7 user, but a friend asked me to configure his new Samsung notebook with Win 7. In so doing, nothing like you are seeing was experienced. All the needed "hooks and handles" pretty much were eventually located in Win 7 to be able to configure to hearts desire. You just have to spend sometime with it.

It does seem though that the Geek Squad should have left you with an OS tailoring a bit more toward conventional.

For now, just work with the OS and dont expect to resolve everything instantly or in one sitting. Try to resolve only one or two issues per session and you'll find in the process of discovery how to change other settings you havent even thought of. When it's all over then you will have much better learned/become familiar with the new OS's features/capabilities.

BTW, my friend was very happy with my configuration choices for him in Win 7 (as I knew well his taste for "old school" look, style and feel).

 

[puternoobie]

That's encouraging, C1. Thanks for taking the time to answer. I've been working on this for a week and I expected more progress. But of course I had been using Vista for 3 years and it seemed normal to me.

 

[wayliff]

If you have been used to Vista using the Aero interface, you should have no trouble using Windows 7. If however you used the classic windows look in Vista then yes there will be some learning but not much...the essence has not changed a lot.

I provide support for XP, Vista and 7 machines...and 7 is just fantastic to work with...even at beta stages I enjoyed it much more than the ones before.

The mistake on step 1 was to take it to the geek squad...you should hire someone who knows what they are doing and care about your PC.

I'd say take it a step at a time and you'll work out the kinks that are bothering you.

 

[airdata]

Don't blame windows 7.

Blame the geek squad. I'm surprised a member of this forum would even admit that they paid money to take their system to geeksquad.

If it was so bad, you probably could have just rolled the lost money into a new computer instead of paying them who knows how much to bs and probably put very little effort into actually fixing the system.

 

[THRiLL KiLL]

how did they get your files? if the mobo was dead, they probly just copied the files and didnt use a convention where the "Easy Transfer" doesnt read them.

 

[superccs]

Wait I thought ignorance was bliss...

 

[airdata]

I just remember best buy having my wifes laptop for some 6-8 weeks and claimed over and over they were waiting on parts before they gave up and told her to come pick a replacement.

And then there's the salesman telling me I need a 100Mbps router or my internet will lag.

 

[gmaster456]

The problem isn't windows 7. Its because you let a geek squad employee go near your computer, and if that wasn't enough, you actually let them work on it . You should have had backups of your original files from the beginning. Salvage what you can and reinstall windows, or if you can't have someone knowledgeable about computers do it (a.k.a not geeksquad). And make sure from now on you back up your important files.

 

[splat_ed]

You can select the keyboard layout in Windows.

Start -> Control Panel -> Clock, Language and Region -> Change Keyboard

Select your format. My UK keyboard setting puts the " on Shift-2 but other keyboards (e.g. US) will put it elsewhere

Michael

 

[spherrod]

I guess for Problem 3... what e-mail client are you using?

For the files issue, what are they on at the moment (USB stick, DVD etc) and how does it display when attached to the Windows 7 computer?

 

[jhansman]

I'm surprised a member of this forum would even admit that they paid money to take their system to geeksquad.

Amen to that. Knew a guy who worked for them for about a month. He said they spent as much time in the back laughing at customers who brought their "broken" PCs in for "repair" as they did "fixing" them. He also refused to drive around in the gay VW.

 

[MtnMan]

User signed on with the moniker "puternoobie" so obviously not that computer savvy......

......... oh wait, that was 3.5 years ago

 

[puternoobie]

Obviously I should have consulted with this group before depending on the Geek Squad. But I didn't. This is a small town and there aren't that many people I trust. I figured these guys were trained and paid to know what they were doing. Maybe that WAS a mistake.

I've ordered a copy of Windows 7 the Users Manual. Hopefully I can find some answers there By the way, Splat Ed, I did the keyboard change and it didn't work. "@ (shift-2 and shift-"). Maybe I should back up to the beginning and shart over?

spherrod, I'm using Windows Live Mail for email and the files are on a USB stick and on my desktop and on an external disk.

And mtn man, compared to you guys I am a newbie but I have been able to find my way around since 1988 when I bought my first Mac II for doing newsletters at work. Six years later I could take it apart and put it back together. The newspaper where I worked later used Macs exclusively. You may not think much of Macs but when it comes to graphics, they'll take Windows down any day of the week.

I'll try one more time to get some help: I have backup disks of my Vista system when it was new; and I have a file backup from about 5 months ago. Would Vista install on top of Win7? or do I have to wipe the disk and start over?

 

[gmaster456]

You'd have to wipe the disk and start over.

 

[spherrod]

Yeah, you'd have to start afresh. If you want me to take a look remotely then I don't mind doing that - it should be easy enough to get the mail sorted out and at least work out what they've done with the files at any rate.

 

[puternoobie]

I'll keep that in mind spherrod. I'll wait for my Windows for Dummies book and see how far I get. Thanks.

 

[spherrod]

I'll keep that in mind spherrod. I'll wait for my Windows for Dummies book and see how far I get. Thanks.

No problem, hopefully soon things will be working well under Windows 7

 

[earthman]

Windows 7 works fine, Geek Squad doesn't. You should always have a reinstall disk available.

 

[Venom20]

Start -> Control Panel -> Clock, Language and Region -> Change Keyboard

While this is correct, I would also recommend that you also remove any keyboard layouts that you don't want to use and only leave the one you do.

Also, is this version of windows legal?

1) do you still have the HD with your files on it? When you get your new mobo, just connect the drive to the new mobo and see what you can pull off manually. Try this YouTube video to assist you in connecting it. Also, while I agree that ubuntu has a learning curve, you should be able to use it to recover files. Try using the live version to boot up and just use the file navigator to save your files to a usb drive.

2) What the frell did you actually do, as in what steps were you told to do? I have never heard of anything like this

3) This issue can be easily remedied if you think your emails are hanging. Also, are you attempting to send giant files? I have no experience with the Live client. May I suggest something like Thunderbird.

4) see above

 

[Venom20]

Also, yes Geeksquad is about as useless as tits on a nun (sorry to you religious types). I also "loled" at the router comment. Most old routers are already 100, new routers are gig-routers anyways. Also I doubt that this would cause any issues whatsoever with your internet. Perhaps your modem, but generally not.

 

[frozentundra123456]

1. You might be able to recover your files by buying an external USB cage for the hard drive and hooking it up to any working computer with the USB cable.
2. Dont really understand this, what do you mean by the screen turned yellow?

Cant help you with 3 or 4.

And as someone else posted, if you have been using Vista, Win 7 should be no problem. I am using Vista on my home comp and Win 7 at work, and like both of them.

 

[paul878]

Don't blame Windows 7 for all those problems you are experiencing.
Sound like you have a combination of software and hardware problems, get some professional help, and I don't mean the geek squad.

 

[puternoobie]

OK, it's now 2 weeks since I posted that first message. Thanks for all the input, although I didn't need to be told I "shoulda, woulda, coulda." I had that figured out myself. Things are much better now. I called the printer mfg. and got help with the yellow screen (it went away after being hooked up properly), the email is working now (don't know what happened), I changed the keyboard to International English and I think that will work after I reboot, and I found an old backup from March, which is better than nothing. I got a 50% refund from the GS for messing up on my files. I DID get some of them, btw. I have to say this local bunch seems to be better than your experience indicates.

The reason I wrote to you guys was that I was so frustrated I wanted to scream and I knew there were people here who might be able to help me. I appreciate the responses from all. They made me stop, back up, and calm down so I could think straight. Thanks again.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

That's encouraging, C1. Thanks for taking the time to answer. I've been working on this for a week and I expected more progress. But of course I had been using Vista for 3 years and it seemed normal to me.

Windows 7 is just Vista SP3 to me, they fixed all the issues and now its usable. Vista was a complete mess in every aspect possible.