Is Windows OS 7 becoming problematic ?

[astronobob]

Hi all gentlemen & astro-lianos.

Well, I am still running Win 7 but my basic stacking sofware, DDS, RegiStax & even Nebulosity are all failing with allignment on my widefields with 20mm lens, have not done any recent longer F/Lengths but feel Win 7 is becoming more the cause than anything else ?
Also having probs with my USB's 2's and 3's becoming slow..
So I may take to the putta guy for some upgrades, maybe an updated to more current motherboard/proccesser and boost my 16G ram further aswell ?

I'm not even sure what the latest Windows OS is but basically would like some feed-back on which one is most favourable among you guys and astro progs etc.
Much appreaciated :question:

[multiweb]

Good day Bob, I still use win7 on my laptop with Nebulosity, Gemini, Ascom, PHD1 and it's fine. It's an old HP pavillion with 8GB of RAM.

[bojan]

I am using w'7 for work and astro (DSS, CdC, PIPP, Autostakert etc.) without problems..
Slowing down may be caused by driver crashes (I had that in the past, re-installing drivers helped to restore performance).

[mura_gadi]

Hello,

I would say most certainly so... you had virus support cease in Jan 2020.

That means any network, wireless remote or whatever may contain viruses and bots that you are no longer protected against. ie, all those new variants since about second quarter of 2020 onwards...

So, you need to think what you have stored on your puter, cookie wise, personal data and everything else.


Steve
If you never go near a network np, but means you can't have wireless either.

Ps. You might want to do some basic checks, defrag/scandisk, check your free disk space, Windows 7 I think liked virtual drives. If the machine is old enough, memory and chip upgrades at the end of the shelf cycle can get very cheap.

[bojan]

Re virus protection.. Avast works OK.

[leon]

I even know a few people that use Win 7, and they are happy with what it dose for them, however Steve dose have a point, and as Bojan mentioned Avast is free and also dose a good job.;)

But as some would say here, what do I know about Puters :lol: :lol:

Leon :thumbsup:

[sharkbite]

Hi Bob...

When you say "Failing with alignment" do you mean that the programs crash? (or just fail to align?)

Either way, the OS is not likely to be the culprit here...



If you are think of ugrading machines - My AUD $00.02....

w7 is ok but w10 is far better. (and you can't really buy w7 any more)

There may be howls of protests from others, but all my machines
run w10 and have done so relatively flawlessly since i built them.

When the same machines ran w7, i had to re-install the OS at least once a year (i tend to try out a lot of new software, and the w7 registry always got screwed)

w10 seems to handle this much better, and also seems to handle memory management much better - meaning fewer program crashes and no BSOD's.

The included virus checking works great, and does not suck resources as bad as the third party stuff. This is important - my trash lappy that i use for capture has a processor that couldn't blow the froth off a beer,
but can handle 120fps from my camera no worries. It even runs DSS almost as fast as my 6-core monster.

as far as getting new hardware - well not knowing how old or what you have now, the symptoms you describe do sound like h/w or driver issues....and there are some cheap mobo/processor deals to be had (if you need an excuse ;-)) 16G ram to me is 'enough'. others may find different, but even running with all cores on my monster, memory usage barely cracks 8g. Might be different for image editing.

Hope this helps...

[Saturn488]

Agree with the below. Windows 10 is much, much better than 7 (and has been for quite a while now).

There were a few issues with Windows 10 upon release but those days are long gone.

Also, you should get onto 10 as 7 is no longer supported so more vulnerable to security risks.

I have been running 10 for my main astro rig running all sorts of hardware and drivers and havn't had any issues.

We also need information on the hardware you are using as well.

[astro744]

Windows 11 release is imminent with Win 10 to be retired 14 October 2025. Win 11 demands Microsoft TPM 2.0 (hardware security feature).

If shopping for new PC check that it is Win 11 ready and if so will likely be free upgrade when available. Win 11 requires 8th Gen Intel Processors but reports are that older machines may find the update available in time for 7th gen but no guarantees on that. I think current machines are 11th gen. (Not familiar with AMD processor requirements)

Of course 2025 is still 4 years and a brand new Win 10 PC would be a great upgrade from 7. When Win 10 was released I took the free upgrade offer from Win 7 and opted for the clean install only to find there were no drivers for my film scanner and multifunction laser printer. (Still none!). Not only that the application software for this hardware was not being developed for Win 10. So I switched back to Win 7.

About a year later I tried the upgrade again but this time as an upgrade not a clean install and to my surprise everything I had installed under Win 7 continued working under 10 including my film scanner and multifunction laser. (And this hardware still going after 13-15 years, Win XP/Vista vintage). The film scanner is great for 35mm slides and the multifunction has toner cartridges that go over 5 years before needing replacing that’s why I’ve kept them both.

Provided you can get drivers for your hardware and your software is Windows 10 compatible then Win 10 is recommended over 7. If shopping new get something that will support 11 and you should be set for a while.

[astronobob]

Thanx everyone for your imput, Marc, bojan, Steve, Leon :thumbsup: I dont think I ave virus protection, never seems to be any obvious problems, thought it was built in with Win 7 service pack ? I do use malwarebytes now and then tho, , prob wise to install Advast, had it a long time ago before win 7.. Cheers..
------------------
Re: sharkbite, Thnx, and no not crashing, just not alligning stars when stacking,, was doing it perfectly a few months ago with nebulosity, but now not.
DSStacker was stacking 10-12 images in about 5 minutes when I 1st intalled it bout 5 yr ago, now it takes like 10 minutes to just 1/4 register the 1st frame, so I just stop it, task manager,, and registax keeps saying it runs out of memory and doesnt agree with over 5000 or something pixels long side of frame, my 6DII has 6240 long side ? :shrug:

RE: sharkbite & (Chrys)

I had the system rebuilt back in 2015, everything seem quiite fine with it, except stacking astro,
I dont run any capture or scope/mount control on it, thats done with the field lappy..

This desktop consisting of
1 Gigabyte motherboard GA-B85M-D3H LGA1150 with 2 x Kingston DDR3 8GB 1600MHz RAM
2 x SSD SATA drives 240GB each, 550 MB/s read
Intel i7 4790 3.8Ghz 8MB Quad core CPU

soo, no slouch even consideriing its over 6yr ago,, just thinking Win 7 maybe the culprit, I uninstalled DDS and could not download the latest version as kept coming up with multiple endless error reports, therefore thinking other bugs and what have you may be creeping in considering no continued support ?

--------------------
Thanx also astro744, will definatly take that onboard if upgrade, much appreaciate :thumbsup:

Cheers all and for any further insight, recommendations :question:

[RAJAH235]

Hi guys 'n' gals,
This is just a FWIW post re; WIN7 & those who choose to run AVAST.
My specs are...
WIN7 HP, 32 bit, 4 Gig DDR3 RAM, CPU Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz, "C" drive = Seagate 500 Gig Sata HDD, ATI/AMD Radeon 1024 Meg 5450 graphics card, ASUS 19" monitor running at 1440 x 900 Pix

I used to run AVAST free for many, many years but noticed that my desk top PC was getting rather slow to initially load & also to shut down.
Programs were slow to load as well.

PLUS, I got sick & tired of all their damn pop-ups wanting me to buy this New feature. No thanks!

I decided to remove AVAST about 4 weeks ago, using their AVAST CLEAR tool & did so by starting the PC in Safe Mode & then running their tool.

The normal Window's Un-install procedure from Program & Features will not remove all the AVAST garbage.
Neither will their tool.

There's always crap left over.

All in all, it took me about 2 or 3 hours to remove most, if not all, that I could find in the registry, Program files, Program Data & a few other directories....

After a couple of cold starts to check/search a few other places, my PC now runs a hell of a lot quicker. Start up is noticeably quicker as is the shut down time.
Programs that used to take ages to start now are almost, not quite, but almost instantly available.
I do run a stack of old/er programs that will NOT run on WIN10.

I now just run the built-in Window's Defender which works fine, along with a couple of other free anti-malware, anti-spyware programs that I keep updated & run about once per week.
The free COMODO firewall also runs in the back ground & keeps check of all
"Ins 'n' Outs", just like a good firewall should.

NOTE: I use ACRONIS TI & do weekly back-ups of my C drive.

So, if your WIN7 M/C is showing it's age in any way, then I suggest that you try
un-installing AVAST ASAP.
It's just an AV program, NOT an "Out-of-date" program checker, Password Manager, Safe Browser? or anything else "they" chuck in their damn free program.

Good riddance I say.

Anyway, your choice but beware, because they also own AVG & now AVIRA have joined the clan.


Stay safe out there.

Regs, Laurie..

[mura_gadi]

Hello,

Just looking at your processing rig, the specs are still mostly good. The I7, SSD, great the only thing I might suggest is a GPU upgrade. The card is getting really long in the tooth.

Your CUDA/Stream processors (Nvidia/AMD) are really small in number by even entry levels standards today. From my brief reading you really want to beef those up for video/imaging processing.



Steve
Ps. Its still best bang for buck at FPS on gaming reviews if you want to grade the cards.

[sharkbite]

Your problems sound much more likely to do with your stacking software or images...

(As you say, your hardware is no slouch)

given it appears to affect both your stacking programs - have you changed anything on the mighty 6dmk2?

I know older versions of dss struggled with canon RAW, not so much with jpgs.

re: re-installing DSS...

there are some instructions here that should help you get around this.
http://deepskystacker.free.fr/english/download.htm

4.26 supports canon RAW pretty well in my experience ;-)

[astronobob]

Appreaciate this very much Steve, have taken onboard :thumbsup:
---------------
--------
-


Yeah cheers sharkbite, dont think changing any camera settings would interfere, still a file at the end of the day, unless I'm missing something ?

Regards DSS, like mentioned before, keep getting error messages, screen shots attached

Thinking may get some upgrades and go Win 10 - might be best for this duck in the long run.
Cheers

[sharkbite]

Hi Bob...

looking at those errors, it seems that DSS is trying to open a

".zip" file and "Bob Clark.html"...

neither of which are image files ....so i'm not surprised its stopping....

question is - why is DSS trying to pick these up at all? (i also notice that its looking in your downloads folder....is this where you keep your images?)

If you are only processing .CR2 files from your 6D, i'd uncheck all of the other file types....and make sure that you are pointing to the correct directory to pick up the files.


P.S. by all means get some new kit - but i don't think either W7 or your rig is the problem here...

[astronobob]

Thanx sharkbite, what you say is interesting, because when I down load some things the process often gives the option on where to save parts of it, so I change the directory and save to my download folder so I can easily find them, but by the sounds of what you mentions is that, maybe I should Not do this and let the download put thiings where it wants to ? Would that be the better way to go, I assume, I get lost with t his sort of thing :rolleyes:

BTW, I usually convert raws into tiff before stacking, old habits... And all my photos, images go into the main pitchers folder -- if that helps.

Cheers

[astronobob]

For what its worth,

I spoke with the PC Builders I've had look after me for near 20yrs, decent fellas and after some deliberations we have chosen to just update to Win 10, this will clear all the background rubbish and I just re-install progs from scratch, I can handle that reasonably ok,,, & the system will atleast have a clean registery & rid out any prog conflicts etc.

The other thing that was suggested is they said if I opt for any hardware Upgrades, then it would be better to upgrade the motherboard aswell, this was advised for the fact that the newer CPU's will not fit on my current motherboard, and the Ram not fit aswell, and the rest of it.

Sooo, I will for now just update to Win 10, should keep me out of trouble for a while yet and maybe build a whole new system a year or two down the track..

Cheers

[AstroJunk]

Your pc builders are leeches sucking your blood, this is 2021.

But a fresh machine, solid state everything, monster graphics card, (but with a bloody great HDD to store data) running Win 10 pro with guaranteed Win 11 upgrade path.

Oh and get an ultra wide HD display too with at least 1440 vertical pixels.

Seriously, life is too short.

And don't buy anti-virus s/w. Windows have this covered as well as anyone these days.

Rant over :rofl:

[astronobob]

Cheers Jonathan,,, cant trust many these days :mad2: mate & glad I start a thread here :thumbsup:

[sharkbite]

Hi Bob...


It's your money and i'm just jealous you will be getting more kit....


But....


To fix your DSS live issue, you need to change the monitored directory.
I just tried it here.....if i use my downloads folder, DSS tries to open every file in it.....despite none of them being images, and giving the same errors as you got. This would seem to be a design flaw with DSS - it should ignore anything thats not an image...



I recommend you create a folder like c:\DSSMON and use that for nothing else but loading images that you want to stack.


Please note - if even if you get new kit and a new OS, and still try and use the downloads folder in the same way - you will end up with the same problem.


Give it a go and let us know how you go.



Unfortunately i haven't used nebulosity but i'm sure others could help with that problem!


PS for DSS at least you should not have to convert to TIFF - it should be able to read .CR2 natively.....this should save you some time, and might result in better images.(conversion processes sometimes loses you data.)

[AstroJunk]

Back in the day, it was the norm to upgrade stuff - i've re-built many a PC over the years, but technology as moved on a lot since anything that will have had win 7 installed on it. Its a key component of your imaging system, so worth investing in.

[astronobob]

Thnx again sharkbite, no new kit for a while yet.
Well, I didn't make a new folder, but instead uninstalled everything I could find DSS wise, then deleted everything related I could find, then empted the recycle bin, did a restart and download DSS again, then up showed that window ( as in my previous attached) but I did Not follow the instruction and just hit the Moniter button, mainly because it looked like a 'Play' button, Lol, yup, I just dont understand puutas,,, anyway, then the DSS main interface window showed up and I went from there, Loaded about 6 tiffs into it, registering was very slow indeed, approx 15-20 minutes per sub, so I went to bed and had a pleasent image in the morning, ,
I know its not working as it should, I can remember stacking 20 tiff subs in DSS and it would register and stack the whole lot in approx 7-8minutes.

Anyway, not sure if I want to go further in sorting it, except maybe upgrade to windows 10 and start over,, I have a weird suspicion that my un-orthodox ways are at fault here,,, I just cant make sence of these things, puutas, yeah, can play real good in photoshop, but the rest of it, hopeless, half the reason why I didnt go Mono imaging, doing my head in, but give me an engine that does not work and I will most likely fix it while experiencing a fun time doing so, no matter how challenging :-)

Kind Rgrds & Thnx again..
---------------------------------------------
---------------------------
-------------




Yes, Thanx for that Jonathan, and agree, I recognise and use to keep up with it 5-10 yrs ago, but its all becoming to much for this duck, some of us are at home infront of a screen, sorting issues etc !
Maybe Win 10 will be the answer in this situation, if not, I'll just simply give up on stacking astro and just go with terrestrial etc !
Cheers