Windows 7 impressions

I've recently been working on a Windows 7 machine (32-bit).

My impressions:

* much faster than Vista, not hard to do.

* printer drivers were painful. This is not Microsoft's fault. HP hasn't written printer drivers for 7 and instead are choosing to rely on the HP Universal Printer Driver, which doesn't work. Solution: Don't use it. I was trying to connect using an HP 2200 which has an internal print server and trying to print via IP. I used the HP 4200 printer driver instead and IT WORKED. The printing might be wonky, but it hasn't so far. How to write up instructions for end users? I'm not really sure. This might have to be one of those things where we do everyone one for new Windows 7 users.

* the U has special activation instructions for our Windows 7. It amounts to an 180 day lease of a license and you have to be on campus to do it. This is a pretty big change, but I can see why they'd do it. Licensing was a huge headache for us. Some of those license numbers have made their way onto the internet. But I don't think that normal end users can do the activation themselves. I may have to write a batch file to do it.

* upgrading from Windows Vista, required SP1. Most users already have SP1, but getting it is pretty easy. It's big though, and required a lot of downloading. I think we ended up blowing away the Vista install anyway, but hey, good to know the way these things work.

How to Troubleshoot Sound

So, the computer my nephews are using doesn't have sound. This is often something that is forgotten about on a reinstall of Windows. It is because Windows doesn't have a lot of the specialized sound drivers that are needed for the internal sound cards. It is...in my opinion...kind of annoying.

First....check your cables. Green cable from the speaker goes into the green jack in the back of the machine. Also, check THE entire back of the computer for other sound cards. Sometimes, you have two places to plug in the cable, and you are plugging them into the wrong one.

Next, check to make sure, in the lower right hand corner of your Windows, that your sound isn't simply muted. It looks like a speaker and if you click it you should be able to adjust the volume.

Next, go to Start, Control Panels, System, Hardware, Device Manager.



Click on Sound, Video and Game Controllers.

There should be stuff here. If not, check in Other Devices. Are there unknown items in Other Devices? If so, chances are one of them is your sound card.

So, you have to make it understand that it is not just an Other Device and is actually a sound card. How do you do that?

You get the driver. If you have an internet connection, you can go to the manufacturer and look up the model number. In my nephew's case, they do not have an internet connection so they'll have to do this on their Mom's computer and transfer the data using a USB memory stick.

So, in my nephew's case, the computer is a Dell Dimension 2400. (I think).

If I go to the http://www.dell.com/support and click on Drivers & Downloads, tell it what model you have and you'll see a page come up with your specific drivers. Not ever manufacturer is this good about finding their drivers.

Click on Audio. Look not for the Patches and Upgrades, but the Driver. Download it. In my nephew's case, copy it to the USB key to take it to the computer, or just run it to open the setup program for the audio driver. It should find it and install the driver, thus moving it from "Other Devices" in the Device Manager to Sound, Video and Game Controllers.

It may want to reboot. And that is how you fix sound on a Windows machine.