updates

Still some lingering issues . . .

/ Tony / 3 Comments

After the last issue with my laptop, when it turned out I was using the wrong profile (see this post) I have been most careful with updates. Touch wood, the last couple have not been a problem. In fact (groping for more wood to touch) the computer start-up has improved from a poor 8 minutes to a more appropriate 3 minutes. Not too sure how long that will last though.

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I think I must be one of the very few people that are not really bothered about this Jubilee stuff. I just cannot get excited about it. Especially at this time with the current issues facing the country. I think of the billions being spent on these four days of ‘celebrations’ then I get angry at the people that say my youngest cannot be fully funded in his care home..

And all the plastic! Everywhere you look there are plastic Union flags. The great majority of them are upside down. Most people don’t know there is a correct way to show the flag. The red ‘X’ is set slightly off centre of the white ‘X’ which means (bear with me …) that the left-hand lower and upper legs have narrower lower white parts. This rotates to the right-hand and narrow bands become the upper side of the bands.

To the great majority of the country, I suppose it doesn’t matter, but it’s just another part of our culture being eroded. It’s as bad as the poor use of the English language that has pervaded the way some people speak. I get quite tetchy when I hear someone say “fustrated” instead of the correct “frustrated”. That and the incorrect use of the word “done” in phrases usually by football pundits. Phrases like “The boy done good!”

Sometimes . . . Grrrr

/ Tony / 9 Comments

There are occasions when Microsoft Windows will make life so difficult that murder becomes an attractive option. I can usually have a go at fixing a problem when I know what the problem is. But then there are times when even knowing the problem leaves you in the dark when trying to fix them.

Windows 10

Today was one such occasion. It started yesterday evening when my laptop informed me that Windows needs to restart to complete the latest update. I like to get things like that out of the way as soon as possible, so I did the required restart and cracked on with some other stuff I needed to do.

It became apparent after about 40 minutes that something was amiss. The screen showed the usual blue update screen warning me not to turn my computer off as it was ‘working’ on the updates and was at 0%. Twenty minutes later, it was still at 0%!

It was then that I took drastic action and put my laptop into ‘sleep mode’. Upon waking up again everything seemed fine until it got stuck again 10 minutes later. A bit more sleep mode and then the update finished. By this time it was getting late and I decided that I needed to go into ‘sleep mode.’

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SFC.exe

This morning new problems appeared. Everything was running very slowly and some applications were simply refusing to open. I remembered from my previous job that if there was a problem, I should run the “System File Checker” (sfc.exe). This would find the problem and I could then look for a solution. It took about 2½ hours to run, but the system still seemed slow. I was contemplating how I could explain that I needed a new machine when a pop-up occurred telling me that ‘Windows needs to restart …” again. A quick look in the update settings told me that the previous update had not been installed.

Once again I restarted my laptop and after a good 30 minutes, I was back up and running. This time everything was back to normal speed and all the applications were behaving themselves. I’m thinking that yesterdays update file was corrupted somehow and a new version of the update fixed everything. But who knows?

Just lazy … that’s all … or maybe not …

/ Tony / 1 Comment

I started to write this post on Friday, but put it off. I didn’t have a title then and was trying to think of reasons excuses why I haven’t posted since 5th July. And they were just excuses … ‘didn’t have time’ … ‘nothing to say’ … ‘too late/early/drunk/tired etc ‘ … you get the picture?  The only one that really seems to crop up the most is (not ‘too drunk’ although …) ‘nothing to say.’ I often sit down at one of my laptops, or the iPad with good intentions, and then nothing. So I’m going to try a bit harder over the coming months/weeks, after all now I have a paid blog, I need to get my money’s worth Be right back

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Now it may sound a little extravagant to have two laptops and an iPad, but there is a reason. Since I got my first PC back in 1995, I have had a money management application (or program as it was called back then) called Microsoft Money. It was discontinued some years ago, although Microsoft did bring out some cut-down versions, but I understand even these are now extinct. It has always worked fine with the upgrades up until Windows 8.1 came out and users were advised that ‘some’ software would not work properly in future editions of Windows. I don’t use it as part of my online banking as it never really worked with my bank, it just keeps a record of my future, past and present incomes and expenses. A a pinch I could use a spreadsheet, but I think that over the years, it would get a little unwieldy.

A couple of years ago, I decided that my laptop was running very slow and convinced K*** that I needed a new one which I got. I thought it would be a good idea to keep the older one, just in case R***’s home laptop gave in. So the old one was consigned to a wardrobe shelf to gather dust. Then, along came Windows 10 and everyone was urged to upgrade with the free upgrade. This latest version was said to be the worst for compatibility of older software, so I held off upgrading for a long time. I then had a thought Thinking smile . What I should do is keep the old laptop on Windows 7 (which I knew would run the Money program) and upgrade my new(ish) laptop to the latest version of Windows 10. That way, if Money didn’t work I could always use the old laptop. Thankfully it did work and I now have Windows 10 on both machines. I’m still very wary when updates come out and I will not update the old laptop until I know Money works on the latest Windows version.

Doing a bit of computer housekeeping …

/ Tony / Leave a comment

I (currently) own two laptops. My main one sits on my computer desk in the living room but the previous one lives in S****s (the spare bedroom) bedroom. Both work fine but the old one was beginning to get a little slow. So on Friday I decided to give a good clear out and try and bring it to a more reasonable speed. I first spent about three hours getting the system up-to date. As I tend not to use it as much as I use the more recent one, it had fallen a little behind with the “up-dates”.

On Saturday morning I ran a small piece of software that checks most of my applications to see if there re any updates for them. The list was quite large, but as I was not going to be using all the applications on the laptop, I only updated a few. Later in the day I began to uninstall some of the bigger software apps. I managed to get three done before I got fed up with it. Started again this morning and after around four hours, I was in a position to write this post. The machine is now much faster, and it is my intention to use this one to work on any creative writing I happen to be engaged in.

The problem I had was the the Microsoft cloud storage on the ‘old’ laptop was called “SkyDrive” whereas on the ‘newer’ laptop it’s called “OneDrive”. It caused me a bit of grief to get the two synchronised, but I eventually got it sorted. You see if I wanted to do any work, such as write this blog on a Sunday, it was a problem. R*** like to use my newer laptop before he has his lunch, and this has now become part of his routine. It meant that any ideas I wanted to write down had to wait until he had finished.

A bit of a worry

/ Tony / Leave a comment

The impending event that is the “Windows 10 Anniversary Update” is becomming a bit of a worry. Ever since I upgradred my original Windows 95 to Windows XP, I have been using Microsofts banking software called Microsoft Money. Up until I upgraded to Windows 10, I was using the 2002 version which worked perfectly. I have never used the Online Banking features and I have no intention of using them in the future. So the worry is if this application will work after the latest so called Anniversary Update. The update does offer a lot of things and because of the version of Windows 10 that I’m using (Home Edition) I’m not going to be able to stop it updating.

This time next year, it may be all academic. K*** is all for us both changing banks to use a single bank. At the moment, we both have various seperate accounts with two different banks. The idea of just using one bank for all our accounts is an attractive idea and would negate the need for an offline banking application. But that’s for the future, the worrying is for now. I think I may just pull the Internet plug on one of my laptops. That would stop the updates until I’m sure that everything works okay, but that laptop was going to be the spare incase the older one that R*** uses fails! A bit of a quandry!

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