What's happening?

[chrisrob]

I HATE Windows 7! I know it's supposed to be better but my new netbook with Windows 7 isn't a patch on previous one with XP. It won't multi-task (I assume it needs a multi core processor; Windows Explorer keeps crashing and I have to wait ages for it to restart.

However, it has now changed how it addresses my hard drives and removable devices. I keep a 32GB card in the SD slot which the computer had recognised as a second hard drive and named drive E: However, yesterday between putting it to sleep (by closing the lid) and waking it up again, it decided to rename the drive drive F: and now calls it a removable device! This is most annoying as I had set up many links to files and folders I have preferred to keep on that card.

Any comments?

[VHG]

Windows can multi task with any processor, it does not need a multi core processor.

In fact there are probably 50 "tasks" going on in your computer at any one time (Windows itself is made up of many many tasks).

Are you perhaps saying that you have trouble running more than one program, or switching from one program to another.

If so that is probably a sign you have too little memory (RAM). Windows can struggle if it does not have enough RAM for itself and all the programs that have been started.

If you have say 1Gb of memory see if you can add another 1Gb.

[chrisrob]

Thanks VHG, I realise it is trying to do many things at once and that the speed is affected by memory. I did have two identical netbook machines - same processor, same memory etc except the older one had an SSD and the newer one has a conventional hard drive.
The older one ran XP and I could run different applications at the same time or call up more than one tab on Google Chrome at once. The one with W7, however, just won't accept a request to run a second program or open another tab if it is doing something in the foreground.

But that's not my gripe - it's why did the thing suddenly decide what it had regarded as hard drive E: is now removable device F:?

If it weren't for the fact I have programs that require Windows, I'd use Linux. And that's another thing. I was able to set up my older netbook to dual boot into XP or Ubuntu but trying it with W7 machine, although Ubuntu is there, I cannot dual boot into it. - I hate Windows!

[Mobius1]

In fairness, an SD card in an SD card slot IS a removable device and is not a hard drive. Are you using the SD card as ReadyBoost cache or something?

Although you can use them as a hard drive of sorts, that is not what they're designed for. You shouldn't really have anything permanent like linked or addressable files stored on what is essentially a transient device in computing terms. You might be able to get away with it, but that's not how it's designed to work.

Furthermore, Windows 7 would benefit phenomenally from having an SSD as it's hard drive, even more so than XP. It is completely unfair for you judge between these two systems, as that component difference alone throws everything out of balance. 7 is like 8 years newer than XP. It is more complex and resource hungry and yet you seem to expect better of it on the same or, in this case, inferior hardware. That isn't how anything works, Linux included.