Two peculiarities in Windows 7...

cubby1223

Lifer
May 24, 2004
13,518
42
86
Bought a used system off ebay and it came with Windows 7 installed (legitimate oem coa, I know what the fakes look like), everything looked like a simple install of the OS, couple drivers, and Windows activated.

However, there have been two peculiarities that I still cannot explain...

(1) Windows still fires off the standard startup sound event even though I turned off all sounds through the control panel. And what's even stranger is it plays prior to Windows reaching the login screen, the audio should play when it reaches the desktop.

(2) Windows updates will not install from the control panel page, it just sits at the message "Preparing to Install" forever. If I hit Shutdown then Windows 7 begins successfully installing some of the updates that were queued up.

What's the possibility there is some funny business going on in what was pre-installed by the ebay seller? Everything else works fine, no sign of anything wrong. But I'm considering sacrificing the time I already spent setting up the machine and going back to a completely new install of Windows 7.
 

razel

Platinum Member
May 14, 2002
2,337
93
101
Since it's still brand new, I'd get a Win7 ISO and reinstall using the key. Remember during the 'choose disk' phase to delete all partitions. At least you can verify the key and avoid any questions about 'rouge' apps the previous owner may have 'installed'
 

Puffnstuff

Lifer
Mar 9, 2005
16,256
4,930
136
DL sp1 by itself and install it then rerun windows updates. I've also noticed that allowing windows updates to run in the back ground on its own will allow it to perform updates when trying to run it manually fails. The update mechanism itself probably needs to be updated.
 

JimKiler

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 2002
3,561
206
106
(2) Windows updates will not install from the control panel page, it just sits at the message "Preparing to Install" forever. If I hit Shutdown then Windows 7 begins successfully installing some of the updates that were queued up.

This is normal, the OS is doing the install in the background and you are trying to do a second instance of windows update in the foreground. This happened to me when i reinstalled the OS once. I even had it error out saying it could not install the updates but then the background update worked. You can turn off automatic updates if you want to see the progress since it is annoying that it is not displaying what is happening behind the scenes.
 

SimMike2

Platinum Member
Aug 15, 2000
2,577
1
81
Sometimes I just restart it until most of the updates install. This might take a few reboots, and waiting a little while in between for Windows to download them and get ready.
 

FrankRamiro

Senior member
Sep 5, 2012
718
8
76
Bought a used system off ebay and it came with Windows 7 installed (legitimate oem coa, I know what the fakes look like), everything looked like a simple install of the OS, couple drivers, and Windows activated.

However, there have been two peculiarities that I still cannot explain...

(1) Windows still fires off the standard startup sound event even though I turned off all sounds through the control panel. And what's even stranger is it plays prior to Windows reaching the login screen, the audio should play when it reaches the desktop.

(2) Windows updates will not install from the control panel page, it just sits at the message "Preparing to Install" forever. If I hit Shutdown then Windows 7 begins successfully installing some of the updates that were queued up.

What's the possibility there is some funny business going on in what was pre-installed by the ebay seller? Everything else works fine, no sign of anything wrong. But I'm considering sacrificing the time I already spent setting up the machine and going back to a completely new install of Windows 7.

Hi; i just bought also from Ebay a SMF tower for 160 bucks, a Lenovo thinkcenter m81, i5,3.1ghz 2400,H61 1155 chipset with win7 installed and had also same Tower Lenovo Thinkcenter M71e chipset G65 i5 2400 3.1ghz with Linux OPS installed , i swapped the HDD from M81 tower and and put it in M71e and activated win key i downloaded all updates and when installing updates also did same,i also think it's normal.
 
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