What was the last thing you did on your computer that you really screwed up

I installed Windows 7 Beta and even though it's beautiful it has slowed my computer down to a crawl, has been unresponsive, and plus I lost many of my computer's drivers and had to hunt them down online. Yuk..going back to good ol' reliable XP

Tags: 7, windows

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Permalink Reply by Dan on March 12, 2009 at 12:44pm: Opened a file I downloaded from Limewire when I knew full well it could not have been an MP3. I'm glad Windows machines has the 'System Restore' feature!

Also poked around inside a computer that was running, dropped a screw that shorted out the motherboard. Poof!

Also, been using the Windows 7 Beta, it has run exceedingly great, but you must remember, it does not contain drivers for many many many machines and hardware, after all it is a beta, and because it doesn't, your machine went into a "limping' mode. What it really means is that Windows 7 probably will not be compatible with your system, or at least until drivers are written for your stuff for Windows 7.

The best way to test Windows 7.0 is with a completely different partition, or even better yet, another separate hard drive.

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Permalink Reply by Debbie Chamberlain on March 12, 2009 at 1:00pm: Ouch to that screw thing. I just remembered another oops. I once spilled wine in my now ex - bf's (wonder why) brand new Gateway laptop.
That was the end of that. It let out an ear piercing whiney sound, and it was declared dead. It was needless to say NOT covered on the warranty.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Cookenstein on March 12, 2009 at 12:45pm: Something went really wonky when I installed new HP software on my Mac pro. I ran a permissions check and repair, and this finally worked, but for awhile there I sweated it a little, because things would not start. This happened about a month ago.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Debbie Chamberlain on March 12, 2009 at 12:58pm: Remember in the day (not sure if this still happens with OS X) If you did a major league F UP on your older Mac you would get that upside down icon that if I remember correctly it looked like it was torn in half on the boot up screen - obviously not a smiling one either. (the Mac version of the kiss of death); ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by CK13 on March 12, 2009 at 1:31pm: hmmm, downloaded a screensaver, despite my reservations about where it came from, but hey, sometimes ya have to do the dumb thing to remind you how much it can screw the pooch; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Debbie Chamberlain on March 12, 2009 at 1:36pm: lol...those are the worst! They put so much adware and crap on your computer. I once downloaded I think one of those screensaver adware infested sites at work in my office, and it downloaded this spyware that popped up Adult Friend Finder screens in rapid succession, it was almost like a video game trying to "x" them out and close the window. Before I know it I had 100's going and my boss within a few feet walking around. Yeesh; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by CK13 on March 13, 2009 at 8:43am: the worst is the new ones use your location to bring up local people, i once saw a picture of a friend of my wife's, showing all she had to show, so i can't look at her without laughing now; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Robert on March 13, 2009 at 1:39pm: Wow! I always thought the things where it says the location was just fake.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Debbie Chamberlain on March 13, 2009 at 5:29pm: Yea, me too. i doubt very much if girls looking that good live in this hood; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Zune80 on March 13, 2009 at 9:34am: Honestly Deborah, when you installed Windows 7 Beta...did you do it as an upgrade over your existing installation? It sounds like you did which is a big no-no. Microsoft specifically tells people NOT to use it as an upgrade, and not to use it as their primary system. It's only to mess around with to get a feel for new features and how your existing programs and drivers may or may not work.

The reason I ask it because you said you lost many of your computer's drivers. The only way you could lose your drivers is if you installed over an existing copy of some other version of Windows. Otherwise, with a fresh install it would have been expected that you would have to go online to find drivers that would work with the beta.

I hope you're not judging Windows 7 based on this experience because number 1...it's a beta...and number two...because even when you install final releases as an upgrade over any existing Windows version you're just asking for trouble. It's always best to do the fresh, new install on a clean drive. :); ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Mad Max on March 13, 2009 at 1:19pm: This is something I've never understood with Windows. Why should doing an upgrade fuck things up so much? Other OS's manage it just fine, but no, Windows needs a clean install or things go tits up. You have to love incompetent programming.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Branhower on March 13, 2009 at 1:34pm: Yeah, it seems like with each upgrade, Windows gets a bit more sluggish. A lot of experts say a clean install of Windows each year helps improve performance, but that shouldn't need to be done. I just do a disk cleanup and defrag once a month, and performance remains its "best".

Slipstreaming the service packs into a Windows install CD is the best way to apply the updates. I don't know if you can do this with Vista, but I definitely did it with XP. It helped out a bunch.; ▶ Reply to This