Windows 7 Service Pack 1 beta now available

[theystolemyname]

They still haven't fixed the battery bug on laptops that have been upgraded with Win 7? Are you effing kidding me?

Are you referring the critical battery level in power options being stuck at 98%, with any attempt to change it from within power options just flipping right back to 98%? This one has aggravated me for a while, requiring a trip to the general policy editor to fix it.

I also propose that when you perform a full 'clean' install of windows 7, during the install process there's options to have the following components not even written to disk on install, because I've had problems with them turning back on after I've turned them off:

1. disk indexing
2. windows firewall
3. windows defender
4. user account control
5. action center

And that's just scratching the surface of the components I'd like to have control over, having them not even written to the banana-ing disk because of Windows changing my banana-ing settings all the banana-ing time.

[itznfb]

They still haven't fixed the battery bug on laptops that have been upgraded with Win 7? Are you effing kidding me?

This only occurred on upgrades from Vista to 7 correct?

[saaya]

They still haven't fixed the battery bug on laptops that have been upgraded with Win 7? Are you effing kidding me?

what battery bug do you mean?
for me win7 reads battery life wrong all the time, is that what you mean? max it will display is 10:00 for some reason...

[Sparky]

what battery bug do you mean?
for me win7 reads battery life wrong all the time, is that what you mean? max it will display is 10:00 for some reason...

How did they manage to break that? Heck the battery meter works fine in Vista (I have Vista on my laptop).

[Mats]

I really hope you can slipstream the official final service pack like XP, it was stupid that Microsoft disabled this option with Vista.

Eiher use some app to do it, or just download the new iso from µS.

[ripken204]

i have never experienced any battery issues and i have been using win7 for about a year on my laptop..

[SKYMTL]

Are you referring the critical battery level in power options being stuck at 98%, with any attempt to change it from within power options just flipping right back to 98%? This one has aggravated me for a while, requiring a trip to the general policy editor to fix it.

I also propose that when you perform a full 'clean' install of windows 7, during the install process there's options to have the following components not even written to disk on install, because I've had problems with them turning back on after I've turned them off:

1. disk indexing
2. windows firewall
3. windows defender
4. user account control
5. action center

And that's just scratching the surface of the components I'd like to have control over, having them not even written to the banana-ing disk because of Windows changing my banana-ing settings all the banana-ing time.

This only occurred on upgrades from Vista to 7 correct?

what battery bug do you mean?
for me win7 reads battery life wrong all the time, is that what you mean? max it will display is 10:00 for some reason...

It affects new installs of Win 7, upgrades, etc.

It seems like Windows 7 has a major issue when it comes to recognizing the batteries of most laptops. This only seems to affect laptops that never had Win 7 originally installed on them. However, many (including myself) have reported the issue with laptops that were offered with two OSes at the time; basically, Vista for one SKU and Win 7 for another SKU.

Due to the battery not being recognized, the OS will always have a message saying "Consider replacing your battery". It misreports the life and output of the battery which means the profiles it uses for battery management are incorrect. This caused my battery life to go from ~4 hours on XP and ~3.5 hours on Vista to 35 minutes the second Win 7 was installed. To make matters worse, this bug destroys batteries almost overnight. Mine went from 95% life remaining to ~42% in about three weeks. Aftermarket battery management software does nothing to help fix the problem either.

If you want more info about it, there is an epic 10-part thread on Technet. MS knew about this from all the way back in the RC days of Win 7...

[n!Cola]

It affects new installs of Win 7, upgrades, etc.

It seems like Windows 7 has a major issue when it comes to recognizing the batteries of most laptops. This only seems to affect laptops that never had Win 7 originally installed on them. However, many (including myself) have reported the issue with laptops that were offered with two OSes at the time; basically, Vista for one SKU and Win 7 for another SKU.

Due to the battery not being recognized, the OS will always have a message saying "Consider replacing your battery". It misreports the life and output of the battery which means the profiles it uses for battery management are incorrect. This caused my battery life to go from ~4 hours on XP and ~3.5 hours on Vista to 35 minutes the second Win 7 was installed. To make matters worse, this bug destroys batteries almost overnight. Mine went from 95% life remaining to ~42% in about three weeks. Aftermarket battery management software does nothing to help fix the problem either.

If you want more info about it, there is an epic 10-part thread on Technet. MS knew about this from all the way back in the RC days of Win 7...

hmm, now i know why my toshiba battery is forked when i installed win7(it had vista), this is bad news !
And no response from Microsoft ? ?

[SKYMTL]

hmm, now i know why my toshiba battery is forked when i installed win7(it had vista), this is bad news !
And no response from Microsoft ? ?

Nadda. Their silence is deafening. In addition, any warranty you may have likely does not cover consumables like the battery.

[n!Cola]

Nadda. Their silence is deafening. In addition, any warranty you may have likely does not cover consumables like the battery.

I guess if they acknowledge the problem in win7 then they need to replace a lot of batteries.
So there is no way to fix it by switching to i don't know a ubuntu ?
I gave them money for upgrade and this is what i get ffs

[itznfb]

Hmm... I haven't experienced that on any laptops with a straight install of Win7. I used to see it during the beta and rc during upgrades.

[saaya]

How did they manage to break that? Heck the battery meter works fine in Vista (I have Vista on my laptop).

idk... but i get 10:00 with 100% and the laptop sitting idle for a while, and if i continue to use the laptop very lightly, ie no big load on cpu or gpu, it stays at 10:00 until i hit somewhere around 70-60%... only then it starts to count down...

It affects new installs of Win 7, upgrades, etc.

It seems like Windows 7 has a major issue when it comes to recognizing the batteries of most laptops. This only seems to affect laptops that never had Win 7 originally installed on them. However, many (including myself) have reported the issue with laptops that were offered with two OSes at the time; basically, Vista for one SKU and Win 7 for another SKU.

Due to the battery not being recognized, the OS will always have a message saying "Consider replacing your battery". It misreports the life and output of the battery which means the profiles it uses for battery management are incorrect. This caused my battery life to go from ~4 hours on XP and ~3.5 hours on Vista to 35 minutes the second Win 7 was installed. To make matters worse, this bug destroys batteries almost overnight. Mine went from 95% life remaining to ~42% in about three weeks. Aftermarket battery management software does nothing to help fix the problem either.

If you want more info about it, there is an epic 10-part thread on Technet. MS knew about this from all the way back in the RC days of Win 7...

OMG! yes thats what happened to my vaio!!!
from the day i installed xp and win7 as a dual boot the battery life went down BIG time... it was already bad in vista, barely above 2h, but once i installed xp and win7 rc battery life went down to 1.5h and less within a few weeks, and last i checked it barely held out 1:15...

so there IS a battery bug!!!
i had a feeling it had something to do with win7...

[SKYMTL]

Yes, there is a battery bug but it seems like MS has nicely swept it under the rug.

[damha]

any plans on dropping signed drivers, nm, one can dream

What, are you kidding? A hassle to you is a mercy to all users.

As for the battery bug.. it's strange I have never heard of this. There are several laptops near me that have Windows 7 installed, all different brands, none ever had this issue (Lenovo, gateway, one other brand don't remember, sony, and hp).

I'd love to see the issue first hand.

[SKYMTL]

Was Win 7 originally installed on those computers? If so, it wouldn't be an issue.

Any laptop that has a "consider replacing your battery" indicator on an otherwise healthy battery has the issue.

[Aleki]

It affects new installs of Win 7, upgrades, etc.

It seems like Windows 7 has a major issue when it comes to recognizing the batteries of most laptops. This only seems to affect laptops that never had Win 7 originally installed on them. However, many (including myself) have reported the issue with laptops that were offered with two OSes at the time; basically, Vista for one SKU and Win 7 for another SKU.

Due to the battery not being recognized, the OS will always have a message saying "Consider replacing your battery". It misreports the life and output of the battery which means the profiles it uses for battery management are incorrect. This caused my battery life to go from ~4 hours on XP and ~3.5 hours on Vista to 35 minutes the second Win 7 was installed. To make matters worse, this bug destroys batteries almost overnight. Mine went from 95% life remaining to ~42% in about three weeks. Aftermarket battery management software does nothing to help fix the problem either.

If you want more info about it, there is an epic 10-part thread on Technet. MS knew about this from all the way back in the RC days of Win 7...

So you're saying it only happens for upgraded machines? Mine came with xp pre-loaded + a spare vista disk, and it has never given me issues.

If you want to turn off device driver signing in Windows 7 completely, do the following.

Hit the Win+R keys together to open the run dialog. Type gpedit.msc to open the local groups policy editor.
Expand ‘Administrative Templates’ (it’s under ‘User Configuration’). Expand ‘System’. Click ‘Driver Installation’.
In the right panel, double click on ‘Code Signing for Device Drivers’.
Choose ‘Enabled’ in the window that appears. In the underlying options, choose ‘Ignore’. This disables drivers signing in Windows 7, and now you can install unsigned drivers in Windows 7.
Click Apply, OK. Restart your computer to install unsigned drivers.

Does this mean I wont need to hit F8 every time I want to use unsigned hardware? I have to conciously do this every friggin time I want to log some engine data with the HPTuners software.

[SKYMTL]

So you're saying it only happens for upgraded machines? Mine came with xp pre-loaded + a spare vista disk, and it has never given me issues.

That sounds like my Dell.

But yes, that is what people are saying and what I have experienced. However, there are some computers from Lenovo and HP that don't experience the issues for some reason. Likely because their battery profiles match those in Win 7.

[ripken204]

thank god i bought a lenovo laptop

[Clint]

Well, I have since a couple of years back a 2003 server machine that is dedicated to primary WSUS (Windows Server Update Services). From there I get ALL updates from all windows versions to Office and SQL and whatnot. No activation or registration needed, everything gets pulled and stored no questions asked. Updating after a fresh install takes a only few minutes. I tend to stay away from service packs, and pull home only the critical updates (well, XP SP2 is mandatory, but SP3 for example is bad). I have some 20GB of updates now. Best money spent on hardware ever.. A bit Off topic but might have value to someone.

[tiro_uspsss]

Finally Bluetooth support for Windows Server 2008 R2?

+1, do want!

[Sparky]

Just throwing this out there on the battery thing - I recently upgraded from Vista to 7 on a customer's laptop at work. HP doesn't list 7 as a "compatible" OS, no drivers or anything (but vista drivers work fine of course). No battery issues, it doesn't give a time estimate but the battery doesn't drain any faster in 7 than it did in Vista.

Well, I have since a couple of years back a 2003 server machine that is dedicated to primary WSUS (Windows Server Update Services). From there I get ALL updates from all windows versions to Office and SQL and whatnot. No activation or registration needed, everything gets pulled and stored no questions asked. Updating after a fresh install takes a only few minutes. I tend to stay away from service packs, and pull home only the critical updates (well, XP SP2 is mandatory, but SP3 for example is bad). I have some 20GB of updates now. Best money spent on hardware ever.. A bit Off topic but might have value to someone.

What's wrong with XP SP3? You do know that MS is dropping pre-SP3 support soon I hope.

[Serra]

That is how their done. I'm just saying its frustrating to sit around for 30mins to an hour while the SP does all the updates, only for 10 mins after the update finishes a popup appears saying updates are available. WTF M$ those updates were ready same time the SP was why not include them with the SP? That is their fail.

Validation. Those updates were ready, but they were not tested with one another in concert like the SP was. The service pack was planned long before those updates were, I guarantee it. Tossing in last-minute updates would border on lunacy. A Service Pack has to work flawlessly on a system, if there were any chance that it would cause major issues it would be a big black eye for MS, especially in the business arena.

Still, I would like to see a single update available for download from MS which does have all service packs/updates in it. I'd never use it for business purposes, but for home use it would be great and I can't imagine it would take much more work.


Edit: Out of curiosity, what are those of you who were hoping for bluetooth support for server products going to do with it? I'm guessing you're running it as a home platform, because I can't think of what you would want it for in an actual server environment...?

[Clint]

What's wrong with XP SP3? You do know that MS is dropping pre-SP3 support soon I hope.

In short, they added two Cryptographic Modules that have the same DRM and supporting functions as Vista introduced. If you dig around a bit you will find the info. Also you see a rise from memory usage from a fresh install from around 40-50MB to 80-90MB, which is a direct result from the extra load. As for support, the hotfixes will still be given out. SP3 did not alter much, so you wont loose the ability to install hotfixes on SP2. Network stack and install procedure simplified basicly, and which the "improved" network functionality actually has gone to worse. SP3 doesnt add squat, other than a convenient hotfix bundle...and ofcourse the extra Cryptographic Modules.

[Sparky]

In short, they added two Cryptographic Modules that have the same DRM and supporting functions as Vista introduced. If you dig around a bit you will find the info. Also you see a rise from memory usage from a fresh install from around 40-50MB to 80-90MB, which is a direct result from the extra load. As for support, the hotfixes will still be given out. SP3 did not alter much, so you wont loose the ability to install hotfixes on SP2. Network stack and install procedure simplified basicly, and which the "improved" network functionality actually has gone to worse. SP3 doesnt add squat, other than a convenient hotfix bundle...and ofcourse the extra Cryptographic Modules.

Well given that any half-decent PC should have at least 1GB of RAM, a little more memory used is no big deal. I've not seen under 100MB used on an XP load for a long time anyway. And I haven't found any issue with those crypographic modules in any XP machine I've worked on, or on my Vista laptop or 7 desktop for that matter. Network works the same on SP3 as SP2, no issues found there. I work on these machines all the time, that's my job

[Clint]

Well given that any half-decent PC should have at least 1GB of RAM, a little more memory used is no big deal. I've not seen under 100MB used on an XP load for a long time anyway. And I haven't found any issue with those crypographic modules in any XP machine I've worked on, or on my Vista laptop or 7 desktop for that matter. Network works the same on SP3 as SP2, no issues found there. I work on these machines all the time, that's my job

My point was more that the modules are there and are used for DRM and supporting functions. Obviously you don't see issues as a direct indication, they are a part of the kernel. They do however have other implications, mostly performance wise but also a matter of integrity. Network work the same on all applications that communicate with each other, I don't see your argument there honestly. However, network stack and related API is different between SP2 and SP3. Also NAP (Network Access Protection) is something SP3 has inherited from VISTA/2008...and to be honest is a pain in the ass because it's not really flying that well in XP. There is a reason MS decided not to implement it in 2003 server...