Possible XP > Windows 7 Upgrade

[Gary]

I can read the font on a 15" 1920x1080 screen fine, but I needed glasses for reading and for long distance too. They made a huge difference and like Steve the deterioration has stopped being so drastic. I cant use my iPhone without my reading glasses anymore though.

[Simon]

I can use my iPhone fine.  The only time I struggle a bit is when I'm tired, but I can still read it OK. 

[Simon]

Might try this:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-hardware/fonts-in-windows-7-are-fuzzyblurry/0d76de45-0e87-4554-b14c-2aef6eb6ea29

[Steve]

Perhaps I'm out of date but I thought the resolution of a 17in 4:3 monitor was 1280x1024

[zappaDPJ]

I can't help thinking I'm missing the obvious here. A couple of questions; is your monitor CRT or LCD Simon? What is the maximum resolution it will support and what do you have it set to? All of your visual issues could be explained if the VDU is an LCD employing interpolation. That's the problem being described by a few of those users on the Microsoft community site but nobody seems to have realised it.

[Simon]

It's a 17" Xerox LCD, Zap, and the resolution is set to 1280 x 1024, so apologies, that was my mistake.  It sort of looks OK now, but oddly, some of the smilies are displaying incorrectly, and I can't work out why that should be.

[zappaDPJ]

OK, 1280 x 1024 is the native resolution for that VDU so there will be no interpolation and the display will be as good as it gets subject to some fine tuning. The clipping is odd but I'd certainly try browsing in IE to see if it does the dame thing.

[Steve]

Is there still a clear type tuner in Windows 7

[zappaDPJ]

There is, it's built in by default I believe.

[Simon]

There is, Steve, and I've been through it several times, but it's very hard to tell the difference with some of the test screens.

[Simon]

OK, 1280 x 1024 is the native resolution for that VDU so there will be no interpolation and the display will be as good as it gets subject to some fine tuning. The clipping is odd but I'd certainly try browsing in IE to see if it does the dame thing.

Hmm... The smiley clipping isn't evident in IE.  I wonder what's causing that then?  It didn't do it on XP. 

[Gary]

Thats really odd, Justina's Win 7 laptop has no issue with its display using firefox. Does seamonkey use hardware acceleration? Cleartype can be turned off I think, it helps with some LCD panels but others I have seen the font look blurry with it on. I wonder if it is something to do with F Secure possibly? You can download driver cleaner (used to years back) to remove all traces of the display drivers, then install the latest for you card again from whatever manufacturer you use.

Turn off the AV when installing them. Apart from hardware acceleration and bad drivers I cant see what else it could be, the refresh rate is 60 Hertz for most monitors and Windows generally finds that by default. The only other thing would be is a bad install possibly, but its odd IE works ok. If you cannot fix it I would be tempted to start from fresh maybe, zero the drive before install, and don't but the AV on till driver's and patches are installed. Possible use Windows Essentials instead of F-Secure, some AV's put hooks so deep into the system they can cause problems. 

[Simon]

You must be mad if you think I'm going all through this from scratch again, Gary!   

Tomorrow, I will try Firefox, and if the smiley clipping isn't there, I'll try a new profile for SeaMonkey, and if that makes no difference, a clean install.  Trouble is, I don't want to lose all my bookmarks, passwords and other settings, so I have to pull some bits over from previous SeaMonkey installations.  The fonts just look odd all over the place to me, like the user info in the header is much smaller now, as is the text in the forum toolbar buttons.  Actually posts here look fine, but on other forums, the posts are in very small text now, yet, if I increase the font size in the browser, that rectifies the header text here, plus the small text on the other forum, but breaks the templates on another site I visit!

So, what I don't understand is, why ALL sites displayed well on XP, but now I have different issues on different sites!   I really don't think it's anything to do with F-Secure, but I've just had another idea as I'm typing this, and that is to try SeaMonkey in XP compatability mode and see if that makes any difference.  It's got to be something blindingly simple, and I'm buggered if I'm going to start again for the sake of a flattened smiley! 

[Gary]

Just export bookmarks etc save all you need on a thumbdrive. A a clean install should take no more than 6 hours , then a few days tweaking to get it how you want. I can see your point of view though, but if the system fonts have got messed up...Honestly XP and Sevens fonts looked the same to me pretty much size wise, so something has gone a bit awry to say the least. Also remember it takes time to get used to new things. Did you check before hand if seamonkey is windows seven compatible? Zeroing out a drive gives you a nice clean slate, that's why I mentioned that, also checks for bad sectors while you are at it.

[Gary]

Seamonkey seems fully compliant with Windows Seven from looking at the site, Simon, it should not XP compatibility mode at all.

[Steve]

Doesn't look like Sea Monkey to me, as I spent some time yesterday trying to get a Windows 7 guest install running on VirtulBox to install a usb video camera, complete waste of time. Sea Monkey display the forum fine for me- no truncated icons.

[Gary]

I still think its a dodgy install...possibly. Install windows, install chipset drivers as needed, then graphics and sound card drivers, then patch (with windows firewall up) Then install AV, it should be that easy tbh. All fonts should look fine from the get go. Trouble is once you start changing things unless you remember what you changed its hard to get it back to the way it was. I would avoid F-Secure, use Windows essentials with windows firewall, and malwarebytes, that should be fine.   

[Steve]

I wonder Simon with Sea Monkey are you using a different theme? I only tried the default.

@ Gary . No idea I've never had an issue with the few 7 installs I've done , apart from the updates it's been fairly seamless with little intervention required from me. I do use the upgrade versions so they need a bit of help to activate.

[Gary]

I have done a couple of installs, tbh it all went well, I an order I like to follow but that's my OCD coming though. They all worked well. 

[Simon]

I'm not going to reinstall it, and that's that.  I've already spent  too much time on it to have to start all over again.  It was a clean install as the C drive was deleted prior to installation.  I'm not going to 'nuke' the whole drive as there's hundreds of GBs of stuff on a second partition that I can't afford to risk losing.   All this is, is a font issue.  There must be a way to reset all the system fonts to default.  But then I'll still have to change them, because the default fonts are too small - that's where all this started from.

[Gary]

Default fonts are fine as I see them Simon on every Windows 7 install I have seen. Hope you get it sorted. As to the C drive being deleted, if its a quick format its not, its just marked as 'empty' then re-witten. Running a full chkdsk would be a good idea at some point.

As far as hundreds of gigabytes of stuff I would say back that up, because its not 'if' but when your hard drive will fail, same as anyone else's really. Always have at least two backups just in case. Tbh an install of windows seven should not be this complicated, which is why I would have started again, easier than mucking around, but that's just me. No offence meant.

[Simon]

Well, my problems have all been solved by changing back to my old screen resolution, nd adjusting the fonts again.  Doesn't mean I don't need an eye test, but at least I can read the screen now! 

[cavillas]

Get Windows 8, best MS OS to date and getting better.

[Simon]

It couldn't have got any worse! 

But seriously, Alf, I've had enough of upgrading for now.  I've even resorted to buying a new monitor, as I couldn't get a satisfactory display on my old one, since upgrading to Win7. 

[Gary]

Get Windows 8, best MS OS to date and getting better.

Sadly not what the general public, and computer manufactures and review sites think. Its been the biggest flop since Vista.