I like Windows 7, it’s a massive improvement over Vista and my PC’s now work more responsively than a geriatric tortoise. I’ve installed Windows 7 on about 15 different machines now and my installation and upgrade experience has been painless. Until the other day that is…
A friend of mine who runs his entire business (and thus supports his family) from a single PC asked me to upgrade his PC from Vista Home Premium to Windows 7 Ultimate. So we set the upgrade going around 10pm one evening.All appeared to be progressing smoothly so I went home and we left it going over night. My friend called in the middle of the next morning to say that something was wrong and that his screen was blank. I know the upgrade can be slow but it should have finished long before then so I advised my friend to power cycle and reboot his PC. The Windows 7 startup screen appeared, then the display went blank and remained like that for several more hours. At this point I started to panic and feel guilty that I’d scuppered my friends PC and ruined his livelihood, at least for a few days if not more permanently.
I went round to look at the offending machine that evening. Sure enough, every time it was rebooted the Windows 7 splash screen would appear then the display would go blank. I tried booting into safe mode only to be greeted by the message that the computer needed to be restarted to complete setup; this rebooted the machine normally but then the blank screen returned. I managed to use the Recovery Console from the installation media to get up a command prompt and examine the log files. I was extremely reticent to attempt any corrective action given how important this PC is to my friends business so I spent 4 hours poring over the installation logs and searching Google. I looked to see if there was a way to roll back the installation and return Vista to the machine (I know Windows 7 does this automatically if the upgrade fails) but I could not find a way to manually trigger this and to all intents and purposes Windows seemed to think that the upgrade had completed. However errors were appearing in the log files indicating some sort of unexpected error (0x8007000A – Bad Environment) every time the machine rebooted.
I concluded that Windows thought the upgrade had been successful but was unable to complete the last bit of configuration that occurs the first time the machine boots properly after the upgrade. After many hours looking at Google I stumbled across a two-line post on someone’s blog which suggest that if the PC had an nVidia 82xx series graphics card and there is a monitor connected to the DVI output you will experience this blank screen behaviour and setup fails to complete. It advised plugging the monitor into the analog output on the graphics card and rebooting at which point the setup would proceed. My friend’s machine had such a graphics card and he has dual monitors, one in each output but the one connected to the DVI was not even detecting a signal and powering up.
So I unplugged the (working) monitor from the analog output, left the other connected to the DVI output and rebooted and that solved the problem! Windows rebooted, setup completed, everything was fine. I suspect the issue was with the analog output in this case as my friend had swapped over the desktop so that the primary output was to the DVI. I could not believe that something as simple as unplugging a monitor fixed what I thought was a pretty serious failure. Several other people I have spoken to have reported similar problems when installing Windows 7 on dual-screen systems.
I thought that was the end of it once we got the system up and running but it seems not. The graphics card will no longer display an output on both outputs/monitors, only the analog output seems to work now. I’ve upgraded the drivers from both Windows Update and the nVidia site to the latest Windows 7 driver I can find but to no avail. The system thinks that there are two monitors connected (which there are) but fails to send a signal out to the DVI output, causing that monitor to sit there blankly. My friend had decided on a pragmatic solution to this – he’s going to buy a big widescreen display and go back to using a single monitor. That’s my kind of solution
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And I am. Back that is. It’s been well over a year since I last posted a blog entry.
So why the long absence? The short answer is because my life turned upside down 12 months ago and I found myself separated from my wife, and now I’m in the midst of an acrimonious divorce. It is a horrible place to be and I wouldn’t wish it on my own worst enemy. It has had a massive impact on my life and caused me to lose interest in all the things that used to interest and occupy me. For instance, and this is only one example, I used to write code every day although I’m not a full-time software developer; following the separation I went for 6 months without writing a single line of code and technology and everything else associated with it lost all appeal for me.
Some people wonder why bloggers post all kinds of personal stuff out on the web for anyone to read, and that thought may occur to you as you read this. I have one simple reason for mentioning it; to offer some simple advice and hopefully prevent you being where I am now. If your relationship is faltering recognise that most problems can be sorted out by rational adults talking, and listening, to each other’s issues, needs and desires and that in almost every case there are issues on both sides that need addressed. Don’t underestimate the emotional effect that separation and divorce have on you, your spouse and your children. The hurt and turmoil goes way beyond all the things you might initially think of and is best avoided if at all possible. So if you do find yourself in this position – please, just keep talking to each other, go seek the help and advice of relationship guidance counsellors who can help you understand each other better and, for the sake of both of you and your children, do everything you can to avoid a divorce.
So why have I returned to blogging now? Partly because life is starting to settle down a little and assume a new sort of pattern, with the things that used to interest me starting to interest me once more. I started coding again and have thrown myself headlong into Sharepoint and Graffiti development and have experienced new things that are worth blogging about.
But mainly I’ve started blogging again out of guilt! I was enthusing about viral marketing to some of my colleagues the other day, particularly about the impact that blogging can have, and encouraging them to blog. One of my colleagues thought that suggestion a little rich given that I haven’t posted anything to my blog for over a year [shameful blushing]. So I decided it was time to get the blog going again and here we are. Watch this space!
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