Windows 7 Slow Network access

I've seen a similar problem on Server 2003 machines a few times, but I've just recently encountered it on a Windows 7 machine. It's always on a machine with a Broadcom 57xx chip, and in this case it was a Dell Precision 690.

The issue is browsing file shares on other machines. File transfers will be very slow, as will just browsing between folders on the share. If you are experiencing network performance issues on Windows 7, try running the following from a cmd prompt with elevated privileges:

netsh interface tcp set global chimney=disabled

Windows 7 and Vista Classic Login Screen

To get the classic XP style login where the user must input their username and password every time, some settings can be changed in the Local Security Policy.

Open the Local Security Policy management console. Open Control Panel->Administrative Tools->Local Security Policy. You can also do Start->Run->secpol.msc

Expand Local Policies->Security Options. Set Interactive Logon: Do not require CTRL-ALT-DEL, and Interactive Logon: Do not display last user name to Enabled.

Reboot.

ATI Radeon 4770 Windows 7 Drivers

UPDATE: The newest Catalyst drivers work just fine and should from here on out.

There are Catalyst 9.5 beta drivers out that will support the 4770 under Windows 7. You can find them here.

Google Chrome and Windows 7

To get Google Chrome to work properly in Windows 7 you need to modify the Chrome shortcut. Right-click the Chrome icon and click properties, then click the Shortcut tab. Where it says target you need to add --in-process-plugins after chrome.exe. The final line should look like this:

C:\Users\mondo\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe --in-process-plugins

Also, there's an issue with Chrome crashing when you hit the back button if the page you are currently on has a Flash element on it. Just install the latest Chrome beta. It seems to help a bit but doesn't fix it completely.