ok. another bashing. win7 is for the pits.
none of my older (not ancient) hardware works including, printers, scanners, telephone center (although siemens says that the s/w is compatible minus CAPI), usb tv (the second one), and gadjets.
if my DSLR + my videocam fail to connect, its format time. Ubuntu 10.04 works fine on my other laptop, with all my hardware (not the brand new hp scanner/printer, that got as a gift buying a netbook).