OK now I am impressed... Windows 7

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Nety

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#53214 9-Dec-2009 08:56

I just gave my media Centre a birthday and bought a new Mobo, CPU and RAM for it. I thought just for giggles I would start it up and see how Windows 7 handles it. I did not remove any drivers or make any changes before shutting it down with the old hardware.

Started it up and the boot process froze when the very shortly after the windows logo started pulsing. Was just about to turn it back off when the load started progressing again. Windows booted and is currently loading drivers...

Media centre PC - Case Silverstone LC16M with 2 X 80mm AcoustiFan DustPROOF, MOBO Gigabyte MA785GT-UD3H, CPU AMD X2 240 under volted, RAM 4 Gig DDR3 1033, HDD 120Gig System/512Gig data, Tuners 2 X Hauppauge HVR-3000, 1 X HVR-2200, Video Palit GT 220, Sound Realtek 886A HD (onboard), Optical LiteOn DH-401S Blue-ray using TotalMedia Theatre Power Corsair VX Series, 450W ATX PSU OS Windows 7 x64

Nety

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#281033 9-Dec-2009 21:45

Just an update it did all work. I will rebuild at some point but this way saved me a lot of work and meant that I could get the MC back up and running quickly. The only downside was having to resetup the tuners and the EPG.

This is the first time I have seen effectively putting a HDD with OS from one PC into a different PC and Windows not blue screening on boot and needing a rebuild to sort out.

NoelMac

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#281036 9-Dec-2009 21:52

Cool.

I upgraded from Vista to Win7 Home Premium last weekend. Had to find a driver for the screen, but otherwise all good. Question though - the Bluray isn't working... I had trouble finding any reference to it on the web, but have heard that Win 7 doesn't support Bluray - seems odd to me, it's been out for a while now. Any idea??

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#281055 9-Dec-2009 23:14

Only think lacking really from Win7 in my opinion. It should support Bluray natively (it does for DVD!)

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Nety

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#281139 10-Dec-2009 10:55

I heard somewhere that MS will never support bluray videos natively because of the need for Java but might be completely wrong. Windows 7 does support bluray from a data standpoint but not video.

You have to use a third part app like TotalMedia Theatre, Cyberlink or Power DVD. I use TMT.

I would like to know what MS have done to allow Windows to handle having completely different Mobo chipset etc. I am thinking it might detect that the hardware has changed and perform some sort of sysprep on the fly.

I did have to reactivate Windows over automated phone service but that is to be expected.

chiefie

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#281144 10-Dec-2009 11:03

Every since Windows Vista where it is basically loading up an OS image (WinPE), with significant changes in hardware, it does a sysprep-like process to re-interrogate the hardwares and install the right hardware drivers before it continues with rest of the start up.

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#281150 10-Dec-2009 11:15

Thanks for the confirm on BluRay - a bit annoying because I was hoping to be able to play BR movies through the Media Centre extender onto the TV... ah well then, never mind ;-)

Nety

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#281162 10-Dec-2009 11:34

I take it the extender is a xbox or similar? If so I think you are out of luck.

@chiefie can you clarify what you mean by loading WinPE? Are you saying that Vista/W7 starts by loading WinPE type environment before loading the full OS or are you talking about a OS deployment environment?

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Nety

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#281163 10-Dec-2009 11:35

NZCoderGuy

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#281189 10-Dec-2009 13:18

WinPE is the environment loaded when the Windows Installation loads - its the GUI and base shell of windows running from DVD/USB Drive - that allows a better experience than the previous types of installation (Windows XP). Vista was the first to take advantage of it.

There are a few secret functions you can perform whilst in the WinPE environment, such as SHIFT+F10 will open a Command Prompt - then typing 'taskmgr' in, you can view how the system is running whilst installing Windows Vista/7 - including resources, processes etc - and also can run applications etc.

When i recently installed Windows 7 - i tried running Explorer.exe during the 2nd or 3rd stage of installation - and i loaded up the taskbar, desktop etc, while it was still finalizing things haha.. was amusing..

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Nety

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#281196 10-Dec-2009 13:40

Sorry I may have been unclear. I know what WinPE is, I use it almost on a daily basis. My point is that I did not load into WinPE or a prebuild environment. I just booted Windows normally but effectively in a different PC to the one that Windows was setup on. In the past unless the hardware was virtually identical the result has been that the Windows OS would fail to load.
So my question is still has MS done something to the load stage of Windows 7 to allow it to handle a massive change in hardware?

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#281220 10-Dec-2009 15:05

Possibily have - wouldn't suprise me..

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