As I mentioned, I recently just “upgraded” my primary machine to Windows 7, since my netbook is running it, I like it, and want to be running it on my PC. I guess it’s supposedly a little safer to be running, since as it was so astutely pointed out to me, Windows XP has been around so long that there are fucking Shaolin Jedi Hacking Masters who have perfected the art of fucking up XP users with their clever trojans, viruses, malwares, and in my case, rootkits. Anyway, the sheer volume of time consumed to backing all my shit up, auditing my entire system of needs, wants, and can go’s, and loading up the new operating system, the last thing I ever thought was going to give me any issues was integration of my monitor to the new OS.
It turns out that despite being less than five years old, my model of Samsung monitor is apparently no longer supported by Samsung itself. They do not have any drivers available for this monitor beyond Windows XP. So for the longest time, I was running my machine in a bastardized stretched to 16:9 version of 1298 x 1024, which was absolutely horrendous. I’ve called Samsung and just recently sent them an informative e-mail describing my plight, but the bottom line is that neither is going to get any drivers magically whipped up for me in the next 24 hours.
My brother then pointed out that I probably had an incorrect VGA adapter, and lo and behold, it’s the generic old Standard Graphics VGA Driver; supposedly tracking down the original graphics adapters should alleviate the meat of the problem, and at least allow me to get back to the 1680 x 1050 I’ve grown so accustomed to running. So I track down the old graphics drivers, download, and install them. An error hits immediately, but hey, Windows 7 is all friendly and shit, and re-installs it “with recommended settings,” and bam, the drivers are installed. Restart and reconfigure later, and now I’m allowed to use a 1600 x 1200 resolution. Not quite correct, but it’s slightly better, I’m sure there’s just an issue with integration between VGA and monitor.
Long story short, Sony’s own website states that my machine just wasn’t made to run Windows 7 or Vista, and subsequently there are no drivers available for anything not running XP. So now, even if I did go out and get a new monitor, it apparently wouldn’t have mattered, because there are no legitimate drivers out there that would support it, because I’m now running Windows 7.
I thought Windows 7 was supposed to be the seamless pinnacle of Windows operating systems. Considering it loaded effortlessly onto my netbook, my much older laptop, as well as Jen’s laptop, I didn’t realize it was going to give me as much grief as if I were trying to be running fucking Ubuntu here. Seriously, at this point, I’m pretty much at a complete loss. I’d rather not have to start all over again, and go back to Windows XP, but I’m, as hard as it to believe for some nowadays, an artist too, and what I see on the screen is vitally important to my career and livelihood, and XP might be the only chance at salvation. Man, I fucking hate computers.
