The W7 RC booting "Starting Windows" splash screen (showing the color dots/win logo) is good, then the next screen showing the user login welcome with the light blue background is corrupted and then once you are past that its good again. The same thing happens on shut down, as you pass through that screen its corrupted. Whenever I need administrator rights for something and the dialog pops up the screen is corrupted again, I click "yes" in the corrupted screen and I am back to a faultless screen. I have also noticed that if you right click on the desktop quickly after reactivating the screen from sleep? (blanked out), you also get a corrupted pop up box. If you wait a second or so before right clicking on the desktop its nice and clear. I noticed that with my old Office2000 the assistant "Clippy" is displayed with a pick background instead of a transparent one. Not that I use it, I mention it in case it tells you something. W7 RC runs fine, no issues other then this display oddities. I have tried changing the drivers for the video card. no difference *I had the beta version running previously on the same video card, and monitor (although it was a different motherboard and processor back then) and did not have any problems, so really am thinking its not the video card. Other people have also noticed the same thing, so I',m not the only one. I was reading about how the boot up screen has a minimum resolution of 1024x768 so I tried changing the login screen to a higher resolution picture and it improved that although not perfect. However that may be a clue. The ( UAC)User Account Control box is the worst and is mostly unreadable. Hardware: Intel E6300 Core2 Duo Nvidia 7300 GT AGP card. (latest driver tried as well as one installed by win7RC) Screen 1440x900 LCD DDR 2GB Ausrock 4CoreDual-SATA2 rev2 M/Board *Previous Hardware used sucessfully with Win7beta: AMD XP3000+ Nvidia 7300 GT AGP card Screen 1440x900 DDR 2GB Albatron KX18D ProII *Brfore you ask, I can't try it with the old hardware because the m/board has developed a BIOS probem. Rocky10

Rocky - Just to clarify things - is THIS the motherboard you've got? I've got a similar video card - an EVGA branded Nvidia 7300 GS card in PCIe - and I'm not seeing any of the effects you're reporting. Now then, we need some more info here. You mentioned your old motherboard developed some BIOS issues - and you're no longer able to use it. 1.) Did you ever have the RC running in the old motherboard?2.) Did you have the Beta running on the new motherboard?3.) If the answer to either of the above is yes, did you see the same sort of effects on the system?or 4.) Didyou just take advantage of the RC's release to replace the old hardware?5.) Do you have a spare video card you could swap into the computer to test?I'm wondering if perhaps the video card itself may be having problems....

"Just to clarify things - is THIS the motherboard you've got ?" apart from mine being rev2.0, yes 1.) No I never had the RC running on the old motherboard, it was running XP normally, I just put the beta on to see what it looked like, no issues other then didn't like some of my applications. 2.) No I haven't installed the beta on the new motherboard, and I think that the betas now expired? 4.) The reverse in fact, I actually took the required new install of the new motherboard to load the RC 5.) Yes, I do have a slightly slower PCIe card that should fit into this board, its a 7300GS, so would use the same drivers. Note* others who have reported this issue, have other Nvidia cards, (although they seem to have all been AGP cards from memory)

Rocky - Cool... Was kinda surprised that anyone still makes a board with an AGP slot on it. 1.) & 2.) Ok... Though the Beta hasn't expired - yet. It's still "valid" until August 1st. 4.) Cool - so it is a clean install - not an upgrade from Vista or the Beta. 5.) Very cool on having the same video card in PCIe... If you get the chance, pop that one in and see if the issue gets fixed. You may be right - it may be an issue with AGP cards vs PCIe...

"surprised that anyone still makes a board with an AGP slot on it. " Its a great idea having a board that takes not only two formats of video card, but older and current memory types. (most boards take two types of HDD formats, the old IDE and the newer SATA.) I get sick of throwing away perfectly good hardware just because the new M/B only takes the latest format. I was thinking about how the install(s) of RC went (did it twice) and don't recall that I saw any option to create multiple partition's, but since I just selected the full size for the partition that might be why. Some extra info (that doesn't change anything) When I installed W7RC, the install(s) went smooth but the screen (which is the same welcome screen) where I needed to input name, pc name, Key, keyboard etc. the screen was corrupted (I could barely read where to click yes or no), obviously much the same deal as the UAC screen. As soon as W7RC started the screen was perfect. Some more info that may provide more insight. *Have discovered that booting in "safe mode" has no corrupted screen?and no UAC issue (comes up with the old permission box which is clear) *Have discovered that turning user control down one notch to "Notify me only .....(do not dim my desktop)" results in the UAC pop up window being perfectly clear! so just what is win7RC doing when its dimming? (the startup welcome screen is still the same) I'll try the other video card tonight, let you know what happens. And then I might try installing the beta on another partition (have to make one first) However I'm thinking its the VGA mode change is not being handled correctly by win7RC since it all seems to centre around the lower res image display. [a AGP/VGA switching bug perhaps?] Thanks for your help so far

Rocky - Eh.. Yeah.. I suppose it's a good enough idea. You're right - if you've got expensive hardware, might as well make use of it if possible.The option to create multiple partitions is only available if you do a custom install - under the advanced options. I'm not surprised that logging into Safe Mode yields no corruption issues. When you log into Safe Mode, you're loading a bare minimum of drivers - and most of those that are loaded are Windows generic, default drivers. When you're in Safe mode, for instance, the video is being supported by the VGASave driver - which is about as basic as it gets.The Dimming of the desktop is a feature mainly used for laptops when they're not plugged into the wall - it's a power saving feature.Yes, please let us know how the other video card works out.

"When you log into Safe Mode, you're loading a bare minimum of drivers - and most of those that are loaded are Windows generic, default drivers. When you're in Safe mode, for instance, the video is being supported by the VGASave driver - which is about as basic as it gets ." except you have to consider this: When I was installing W7RC, before any other software (drivers etc) were available it had only the generic default drivers and it was really bad where I needed to input name, pc name, Key, so you can't blame the updated drivers for that. Unless it uses different drivers when it is installing by detecting the hardware? I bet the answer is going to be something obvious, but other then an AGP bus or resolution type issue I can't think what else at the mo.

The results; First off I remembered that I had two hard drives installed, the second one being for backup, but not yet used, so I installed the win7beta into that. No change same corruption as the RC, so that takes the blame off the RC. Next I swapped over the AGP 7300GT for the PCIe 7300GS. Corruption gone. So on the surface of it, - either the AGP video card has started to fail, or the new motherboard is not totally happy running an AGP card. Its a funny sort of fail though? running as it does the main screens perfectly and only affecting a select 2 low resolution ones. but since I have no other AGP board or card here, I have no further way of testing either item. The odd things here in my opinion are a.) several other people have suddenly had a video card start to fail in exactly the same select way upon installing win7. b.) you can stop the corruption of the UAC pop up window simply by turning off dimming of the screen? c.) as mentioned, a very very select sort of fail only affects a few images, very odd. link to another forum I've disscussed it in for those wanting to read others opinions. http://www.sevenforums.com/graphic-cards/9766-corrupted-bootscreen.html

Rocky - I kinda figured that'd be the fix... Very cool that it's solved.

Jessica - Um.. You DO realize your link points right back to these same forums.. Right?