I want to like Windows 7, I really do. When it works, it works well, and it makes life easy. But when it doesn't, and this is most of the time, it makes me want to burn my apartment down.
So I ordered
this computer several months back. At that time, it came with Vista Home Premium. I was using it as a media center PC with a Hauppauge 950Q tv tuner and all was well with world. When Win7 came out, I downloaded the professional version through my university and the horror began. Although the addition of digital channels was nice, it took
days to get the tuner working. The magic combo of installing Hauppauge's latest WinTV v7, letting it find the available channels, then asking Media Center to do the same finally did the job. Oh, and prayer, lots and lots of prayer. The main problem with the tuner was that Media Center would hang when searching for channels. This was a sign of things to come.
As of now, there are two or three main problems, and they seem like they might be related. Windows Media Center will hang at the drop of a hat. This means I can no longer use the machine as a DVR, as when I return to watch whatever show it should have recorded, I'm greeted with a still image of whatever was on TV at the time the machine decided to poop itself.
The other problem is with Windows Update. For some reason, when I attempt to install any updates, the computer tries and tries to install them, but never gets anywhere. It can sit for a day or more with the "Please do not power off or unplug your machine. Installing update 1 of x." dialog up. Every now and again, if you wait about an hour or two, it can
sometimes get to update 2 of x. It seems if I kill the power to the computer and let it boot back up enough times, the updates will finally install. However, I've currently got an update that is resisting this trend. It may be worth noting that the first handful of updates installed with little trouble.
On occasion, the computer will hang on the shut down dialog even if there are no updates to install.
I've formatted and reinstalled Windows 7 twice (two formats, three installs). I
do have my Vista install backed up, and am thinking about reverting to it, but I really don't want to lose the digital channels that 7 lets me access. So are there any ideas as to what may be causing this? Or, does anybody know if/when Vista is going to start to play nice with digital channels? Obviously I'd like to be able to stay with 7 due to future developer support, but as things stand, the machine useless as a media center box.
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The only piece of specific advice I can give is to try updating manually via the Windows Update website, rather than trying to do it via automatic updates. Unless Win7 is really different from previous versions of Windows, you should be able to choose and install the updates while Windows is still running and then reboot once the installs are done. If nothing else, maybe it will give you a more specific error as to why the updates are failing to install.
I don't know what the use of a tuner compatibility list is if that is the underlying problem though. Also, a media center sans tuner just doesn't seem like much of a media center. If there's a resource out there with better drivers, I'd love to hear about it.