freezing

Windows 7: Upgrade or fresh install?

As a general rule in the IT industry we generally advocate clean install vs upgrade, however  when it comes to my home PC I can be lazy at times. I decided rather than doing a clean install I would upgrade my PC from Windows Vista Ultimate to Windows 7 Ultimate. I ran through the upgrade process and was immediately impressed with Windows 7 and disappointed with some weird issues my computer started having immediately after the upgrade.

1) Any time I opened an application (any application) the PC would free for about 4-5 seconds

2) After any reboot my Internet connection would not work unless I went into device manager and uninstalled and reinstalled my NIC

I attempted to troubleshoot the isssue to no avail. In the end I wiped the thing and did a clean install of Windows 7 and now everything runs beautiful.

So to answer the question of upgrade vs clean install, always do clean install. Really, I should have known better.

Xbox360 freezing after update

Like many in the IT industry I enjoy ending a long day of working with technology by occasionally playing with technology. Over the weekend I decided to sit down and play some Fable 2 when I was immediately notified that there was a new update from MS. After installing the update I continued to load up Fable 2 only to have my 360 freeze. Rebooting and trying again caused another freeze. I tried some other games and had the same issue. So I called Xbox support to have them inform me that this is a known issue and they were dealing with it and to call back tomorrow if it wasn’t resolved.

The next day I tried again and had the same issue, so I called back to Xbox support where I was informed that apparently this wasn’t a known issue. After some troubleshooting with the tech I was informed that the issue was the HDD and I should try formatting it and if that doesn’t work to replace it. I found this odd that the issue began right after an update.

While I had been talking to the tech I had started a download for the Mirror’s Edge demo and it had completed right after I got off the phone. I figured why not give it a shot. Demo came up fine and I was able to play through it with no issue.  Out of curiosity I figured I would load up Fable 2 again and this time it worked fine, as did all my other games. So apparently the Mirror’s Edge demo is capable of fixing a defective HDD issue which is both a known/non-known issue that occurs coincidentally after the latest Xbox update. Brilliant.