31% of Windows 7 Issues Related to Installation?

Yesterday, I posted a brief report about Windows 7 usage from our readers, and the results were quite impressive. As it stands today, almost 30% of our Windows readers use Windows 7, and for an OS that’s been out for just over two months, that’s quite a feat. I also mentioned that that Windows 7 suffers far fewer issues than Vista did at launch, and while that’s true, it appears that a fair number of issues still remain.

One issue that came to light shortly after launch was related to the actual installation. Even some in our forums have complained of such issues, but I didn’t realize until now that it was just so widespread. According to a report, a staggering 31% of issues with Windows 7 were related to the installation. As I’ve installed Windows 7 successfully at least 30 times since launch, I’m amazed at this figure because I’ve yet to run into such an issue.

I don’t think the precise explanation behind the issue exists, but I believe it to be various, related to hard drive controllers, graphics cards and so forth. Aside from install issues, 26% experienced missing applets or components, which again, is far, far too high of a figure. Aero’s inability to function accounted for another 14%, but I’m willing to bet almost all of those cases are related to not having a proper graphics driver installed. Also, to be clear, these percentages are of 100,000 people who sought help with iYogi, so they may not be entirely definitive, but they’re definitely worth a look at.

There are a slew of other problems reported, but all are relatively minor in severity compared to these other ones. It’s interesting that install issues account for such a large portion of user complaints, though, given that the OS went through such an exhaustive beta-testing phase. You would have imagined that such issues would have been found long ago, but I guess the fact is, the vast majority of consumers don’t beta test, enthusiasts do.

The FTC’s administrative complaint charges that Intel carried out its anticompetitive campaign using threats and rewards aimed at the world’s largest computer manufacturers, including Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM, to coerce them not to buy rival computer CPU chips. Intel also used this practice, known as exclusive or restrictive dealing, to prevent computer makers from marketing any machines with non-Intel computer chips.