Darkfaith

That could be it....though, logically, mine should do it too then >.< well, I'll play around with it this weekend. Or maybe after school tomorrow...

Edit: Maybe see if adding the CoH folder as an exception will help?

True...it would be nice if it didn't have to be turned off. Thing is, CoH is the only program I've seen in 10 months that disables it. I did notice for a while that after one of the updates it started reinstating the aero desktop when alt-tabbing out, and that's when the freezing issue stopped. After another update, it stopped reinstating aero, and that's when the issue started back up again.

I wonder if it's possible that something about the way CoH itself is interacting with the OS is causing it not to issue the order to reinstate the desktop composition when you alt-tab, and then when it gives the order to disable it again it can't because it never reinstated it in the first place. Hm...

I've got AVG too, and I got it to stop....now, that doesn't necessarily rule it out though. There may be some unexpected interactions going on.

The architect CD is the very same client, but more up to date. So while installing off it would make the install faster, the result will be the same.

And for drivers...if you're updating to a different driver version, it's usually a good idea to uninstall the old driver first and then install the new one. For that nVidia driver, however, the Windows Update installs that version of the driver by default, it's just missing some settings and the control panel. I've had no problems installing the nVidia version that I linked you to after Win Update has done it's thing.

One thing you may want to watch for is 64-bit versions of your drivers. That nVidia one I linked is 64-bit.

Also, the OS comes with Direct X 11 by default, but some of the settings on it are disabled (discovered this when trying to play Aion). I know you said you installed Direct X after install...was it this version? I know that's 9, but installing it is the easy way of activating those settings 11 has disabled. The other way is messy and kinda long. If that wasn't the version you installed, then that's another thing you can try.

I'm thinking you guys must be running something that I'm not...simply turning off desktop composition was enough to fix things for me. Maybe we should compare what we're running? When I run City I also run the following:

Drivers (non-native to Windows):

vNidia 191.07
Creative SB X-Fi drivers

Hardware Applications:

Logitech Profiler (for my gamepad and joystick)
Logitech Setpoint (keyboard)
Belkin n52te (keymapping app for little keypad)
MMO Gaming Mouse Software (for mapping keys to my mouse)
Control Center 3 (printer stuff, probably not an issue)

Other Apps:

AVG
Windows Live Messenger
Winamp v5.56
Herostats
Firefox
Teamspeak 2 client

The only other service I can see running that isn't an MS service or related to one of those is the Teamspeak 2 service I have set up to run as a service on my comp.

Edit: also, I have the UAC off and a couple little desktop gadgets for weather and CPU/RAM monitoring.

Well shoot >.< there might be other additional factors then, because that definitely fixed things up for me. Well, hopefully Support can come up with something else that works for you.

An excuse is generally something that could have been reasonably avoided, but wasn't. A plausible reason usually doesn't mean that it couldn't have been avoided, but that it required unreasonable effort or resources, or it was understandable why it couldn't be done. Not the same thing. Seriously, are you even reading the body of these posts? Many people have given you plenty of reason as to why this kind of thing can't be avoided. It seems that you're just cherry picking the parts of our posts that you can visibly disagree with and ignoring the rest. Do you have a reasonable way that they can do a proper load test on every single possible hardware/software/OS combination that can run this game? Of course not, you're not "financially invested" in this. I'm betting you don't even have a realistic idea of what's involved. Cherry pick all you want, it doesn't make you any more right.

Things happen. While we aren't necessarily excusing it, we are understanding it, and realizing that our Devs are doing everything they can to make it right. They wouldn't have rolled back that patch otherwise.

Not the same thing at all. A given car has set routines that they go through for testing, and a limited number of things it can do unless they're introducing something new. Also, a given model of car (or a specific drug) isn't constantly evolving, changing and getting more complicated. Once the testing for it is done, it's done unless a problem outside of the normal parameters comes up.

There is a huge different between making excuses and giving plausible reasons.

No one is saying that it's impossible to write good software. What they're saying is that with a codebase that is complex as any MMO's is, and with so many different people working on it (and different programmers think differently and code differently), mistakes and unexpected code interactions are bound to happen. Those are not always immediately apparent.

No one is saying that either. You really need to stop blowing things out of proportion...the fact is, with as many powers, systems, combinations, missions, it's literally impossible to test everything every single time a patch goes out without thousands of manhours devoted to it, and even then things are bound to be missed. Yes, basic tests are performed. I'm sure the QA team is very good at basic testing, but it's impossible for them to cover every single angle, and some things just can't be artificially simulated. The QA team doesn't have the ability to test code on every single possible hardware and software combination that can possibly play the game either, so there's a problem right there.

Also, humans are funny in that when you're testing something, you get into certain routines, and certain expections. It's unavoidable, and unconscious. And players tend to think of things that the developers and testers just didn't think of...really, if you want to break a given piece of code, there's no better way to do it than to give it to your player base. If someone doesn't know that something isn't supposed to be able to do something, they'll try it. Things happen. I know that's what the test server is supposed to be for, but there just isn't enough people on there to cover every single possible problem either (though our players sure do try!). And, even then, our amateur testers can fall into the same trap as the professional ones after testing for long enough.

What is "pretty damned obvious" to you doesn't make it correct *shrugs* but it seems you don't want to hear that. I'm not going to assume that you're not open to hearing it, but you certainly give that impression.

Even if the software is capable, or can be made to be capable, how would it not be immersion breaking to be on a team with say....a "Catgirl@Somedude" and a "Catgirl@Someguy"? That, to me, would be far more immersion breaking than not being able to get my first choice in names. Is it annoying when my first choice is take? Yes...but does that mean that I want to have names tied to globals? No, not at all. I'd rather take the time to pull out the thesaurus, or go looking in other languages. If they could come up with a way for me to tell which "Catgirl" is which without appending that global name onto the end, in a way that seems natural in-game, then maybe. But really...do I want to be on a team with six people named "Catgirl" anyways? Probably not.

Definitely try the old keyboard, just to make sure that it's a keyboard issue at least. If the old one does it too it may be a software issue, but chances are it's the keyboard.

Yeah, I was overjoyed by how many of my device drivers were included right in Win 7. I went from having to install vid, sound, motherboard (for USB hub functions), DVD-burner and networking under XP, to just having to install vid and sound.

The only reason I know about the whole Direct X CoH/Aion thing is because I've been running Win 7 since beta. City has worked beautifully right from the start, with no additional installs, but during the Aion beta it was....interesting, trying to get Aion to work. Between Game Guard (which has since been disabled for Aion, but wasn't throughout the entire beta) and the disabled Direct X settings, it took me nearly a week just to get to the login screen (would have been shorter, but I was apartment hunting >.<).