Requirements for W8

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Last autumn I tried to install Win8 preview on a Dell Inspiron 1545 laptop, created the ISO but it would not load. After Ted mentioned that it needs extra features, I assumed the laptop did not have them and gave up.

As the end of the offer period is fast approaching I decided to see what they are and whether they can be installed if absent. The MS site says that the processor must support PAE, NX and SSE2 for installation to succeed. I looked up the T1600 processor on the Intel site, but there is no mention of these, but then I have doubts about it’s accuracy, as it claims to be 64 bit, but the laptop is 32 bit.

I’ve just run the Upgrade Assistant, it did not say the machine was incompatible with W8, but mentioned 5 items I need to review. Unfortunately they leave me confused, especially points 2 and 4.

[*]It says I may need to install software to play DVDs, so presumably the Roxio installed with the DVD writer will need to be replaced.
[*]Secure boot is incompatible. Does this matter?
[*]MSE is incompatible, yet the other day I read that Ted runs MSE and Malwarebytes on his PC. But not a major problem, there are many AV programmes.
[*]WinPcan 4.1.1 is incompatible. I’ve no idea what that is, is it important or replaceable?
[*] iTunes ‘remove authorised PCs’. What does this mean.

I would appreciate any comment on whether it is worth buying the DVD, presumably it is necessary if the system needs to be reinstalled at some point.

Tucked away at the bottom is the comment that the quoted £24.99 is only an estimated price, and it may cost more.

Finally there was mention of purchasing the Media Centre for £50, but it’s not at all clear whether this is an additional £50, or includes the W8 Pro. I doubt that I need it, my wife has it on her Vista PC but has never discovered how to use it.

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Secure Boot is found on newer style PCs. Do not worry about it. I do not have this and mine is fine

MSE is the Win 7 version. Win 8 includes Win Defender (later version of MSE) by default

Until Jan 31st you can get Media Centerfor free. This will play DVDs. You can also use VLC Media Player.

I do not know about WinPcan, but I believe you can say bye, bye

I do not use iTunes at all, sorry.

You can check in your PC Bios about PAE/NX compatibility, or there may be a Bios update. 32 Bit OSs can be installed on 64 Bit processors. The entire system must be 64 Bit compatible to install a 64 Bit OS.

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Use Sysinternals CoreInfo to determine whether your CPU supports the Windows 8 requirements or not.

I am not sure about the compatibility report. Are you using any form of secure boot? If you don’t know what WinPcan is, seems it won’t matter much, so you can uninstall it before proceeding. I would probably uninstall MSE too (Windows 8 natively includes a different version).

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Use Sysinternals CoreInfo to determine whether your CPU supports the Windows 8 requirements or not.

Thanks ruirib. Unfortunately CoreInfo doesn’t seem to work on the laptop. The info flashes on the screen for about half a second and is gone – there doesn’t seem to be much there anyway.

Bios only shows the version and the Tag number.

So as the Upgrade Assistant didn’t mention PAE, etc. I’ll go ahead and download this weekend, as everything else seems to be OK.

George

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I would appreciate any comment on whether it is worth buying the DVD, presumably it is necessary if the system needs to be reinstalled at some point.[/quote]

You have the option to burn your own DVD (rather than perform the upgrade immediately) during the download process – you’ll only get the version (32- or 64-bit) that matches the system you used to download, but if you redownload using a system running the other architecture you can get that as well (the same product key works for both). If you’d like commercial DVDs for both versions Newegg has them on sale (including product key) through 1/23 for $54.99 (but I think you need to subscribe to Newegg’s ‘e-blast’ newsletter to use the promo code).

Finally there was mention of purchasing the Media Centre for £50, but it’s not at all clear whether this is an additional £50, or includes the W8 Pro. I doubt that I need it, my wife has it on her Vista PC but has never discovered how to use it.

I think that the Media Center upgrade will cost only $10 in the U.S. after February 1st, and as Medico noted until that time it’s free (though you have to install it, not just obtain the relevant key, by February 1st). The package you saw may have been the ‘Windows 8 Pro Pack’, which upgrades a Windows 8 system (rather than an XP, Vista, or Win 7 system) to Windows 8 Pro and does include Media Center.

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As Bill mentions, you will get the bitness of the system you download on. If you have a 32 Bit OS now and wish the 64 Bit, perhaps you know someone who will let you use there system for the ISO download. Just choose Install using Media you create when you get to that point in the process. In this way the installation of Win 8 will not continue on the borrowed PC. You would then burn the ISO file to DVD or Flash Drive and boot to this to install on your PC. Obviously to change the bitness of your original OS will require a Custom Install.

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Medico, I thought this was all hashed out eons ago on the Windows 8 forums.

PS:
I just installed Win-8/64 on a seven year old eMachine and it’s running great!
Some brands of PC’s may not take well to Windows 8. Eh?

Y’all have a great day now, Y’hear?

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There are many who are just starting the Win 8 adventure. As a similar thread gets pushed further down the list of threads as new threads are created, they tend to not get read. Unless a member uses the correct search words, these older threads sometimes hide quite well. I know whenever I wish to find a particular thread, I seem to always have a problem, then a some time later I hit upon the thread I was trying to find. Hmmm, perhaps my older mind is just tired! LOL!

I guess much of this info will be brought forth in new questions from time to time. I don’t mind this so much as seeing almost identical threads back to back. We saw this quite a bit in the Win 8 forums and that did get irritating after a while.

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@ – bill
Just to be clear what is involved, I burn the DVD during the download, then the ISO, or is that replaced by the DVD?

You are right about the ‘Windows 8 Pro Pack’ – I was puzzled as to why anyone would buy the Pro Pack for £50 when they would have already bought W8 Pro for half the price. Hence my query about Media Centre.

@ Medico
I am not bothered about 64 bit, as the existing Vista is 32 bit. It was only mentioned as a reason for not being impressed by the Intel information, but it seems they are right.

Something has occurred to me since my original posting, namely the offer price is described as an upgrade, this presumably means it can’t be installed alongside the Vista already on the laptop. That was my intention until today, however, last year I wanted to try W8 in view of much criticism, and if I didn’t like it I would have replaced my aging XP PC with W7 whilst still available, but it’s now probably too late for that, and your strong advocacy of W8 has done much to reassure me.

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the offer price is described as an upgrade, this presumably means it can’t be installed alongside the Vista already on the laptop

While you might be ABLE to install it that way by going through a few contortions, it would unquestionably violate the license agreement if you continued to use the Vista system after having used that same system for the upgrade. Whether Microsoft has the ability to detect (and if so the inclination to take action to correct) such a violation is not clear.

If you used the Win 8 Release Preview and still have a saved image you could, I believe, legitimately use it instead of the Vista system as the basis for the upgrade, thereby allowing you to continue to use the Vista system legitimately as well: while the EULA does not mention using the Release Preview as a basis for the upgrade, Microsoft representatives formally stated that it was acceptable and it does work (some might claim that this is at best a gray area, and they might be right – but it’s no ‘grayer’ than the trick used to install the Win 7 upgrade over itself, which credible sources claim was not an oversight on Microsoft’s part).

And if you have some other now-unused XP, Vista, or 7 system that could (I think legitimately but I’d have to go back and re-read the EULA to be sure) be used as the basis of the upgrade as well.

Edit: Whoops – I think that Medico’s reply above addresses your question about how to go about creating a DVD (first save the .iso file to disk, then burn it later). And ruirib explained how you needed to run CoreInfo to see its results.

Edit2: I’m afraid our single Vista system (a laptop) succumbed a while ago, but on Win 7 you need to open up a Windows Explorer window and right-click on a drive or directory, click ‘New’ in the resulting menu, and you’ll get the option to create a new directory in the parent.

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George, make sure when you get to the section:

32367-14

make sure you choose Install by Creating Media. This will allow you to save the ISO file to your PC then burn the ISO file to DVD or a Flash Drive for installation purposes. Plus this allows you to choose the Custom Install and gives you media to use when the Repair Console is needed.

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You need to open a command prompt and run it from there.

I suggest you create a folder, say c:temp. Download coreinfo and extract the contents to c:temp
Open a command prompt and type cd temp and then simply type coreinfo.

When all is done you can remove the temp​ folder.

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You need to open a command prompt and run it from there.

I suggest you create a folder, say c:temp. Download coreinfo and extract the contents to c:temp
Open a command prompt and type cd temp and then simply type coreinfo.

When all is done you can remove the temp​ folder.

I’m really impressed! A reply within 9 minutes, when I hadn’t even started on the next reply.

But can you tell me how to create a folder In Vista? It is so easy with XP and Office 2003.

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But can you tell me how to create a folder In Vista? It is so easy with XP and Office 2003.

If you are already at a command prompt type

> mkdir c:temp

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1.It says I may need to install software to play DVDs, so presumably the Roxio installed with the DVD writer will need to be replaced.
2.Secure boot is incompatible. Does this matter?
3.MSE is incompatible, yet the other day I read that Ted runs MSE and Malwarebytes on his PC. But not a major problem, there are many AV programmes.
4.WinPcan 4.1.1 is incompatible. I’ve no idea what that is, is it important or replaceable?
5. iTunes ‘remove authorised PCs’. What does this mean

.

1 Go to Microsoft and have key for Media Center emailed now.
2 Does not matter.
3 Does not matter. Newer Windows Defender included in OS.
4 Not needed.
5 Open iTunes>Controls then deauthorize this computer. Once Win * is installed you can reinstall iTunes and authorize the computer again.

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After ages spend trying to create a new folder in Vista or Office, finally discovering it
under ‘organize’ of all unlikely places, and downloading coreinfo to it, the real problem began.

I have tried everything I could think of, only to hit a brick wall. It is impossible in command prompt to enter cd temp and then simply type coreinfo. I believe the first problem is that it begins ‘C:UsersEsteri>’ and there is no way to get rid of the >, which I’m sure should not be there. But no matter how I manipulate the entry, it always says that ‘temp’ is not recognised as a command or programme.

Having spent an hour or so on this, I’m truly grateful that I only have to maintain the two Vista machines and not actually use them. Hopefully XP and Office 2003 will survive as long as I do!

Tomorrow I shall try to contact Intel and get the required information about their processor, or give up on W8, at least until it’s necessary to buy a PC with it installed.

I would try the download without a definitive answer as to whether the processor is adequate, but if W8 fails to install and has wiped out Vista we are left with a laptop with no OS.

But I would like to thank everyone who has helped me.

George

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Actually if you see ‘C:UsersEsteri>’ in the command window the ‘>’ is fine, it is part of the prompt.

try:

C:UsersEsteri>mkdir c:temp

C:UsersEsteri>cd c:temp

C:temp>coreinfo

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You can create a new folder in Windows Explorer in Windows XP and Windows 7. Can’t that be done in Vista?

In MS-DOS (CMD, Command Prompt) the system automatically tells you which folder you are currently in, followed by the >. You type your command after the >. mkdir (make directory) makes a new folder. cd (change directory) changes your current location to a different folder. Folders were called directories in MS-DOS.

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You can create a new folder in Windows Explorer in Windows XP and Windows 7. Can’t that be done in Vista?

He already found that:

After ages spend trying to create a new folder in Vista or Office, finally discovering it
under ‘organize’ of all unlikely places, and downloading coreinfo to it, the real problem began.

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@ John259
Thanks for the info. It was useful to know what mk and cd referred to.

@Prescott
Many thanks!
I got there in the end, but must have typed ‘command prompt’ about 50 times today.
It kept opening with C:UsersEsteri> and still would not work, regardless of whether the remainder was typed or pasted in. Eventually there was just C: and it was possible to use your third option.

It would appear that I can forget W8, although there was nothing I understood apart from ‘prefetch supported’ there was no mention of PAE, etc.

After all this it’s a relief to know I won’t have to battle with Win8.

PS.
There was an unexpected bonus from all this. The laptop has not worked wirelessly for about 2 years. After a struggle to connect the new TV to the net, I decided to have another go at the laptop. Meeting with no success there, I started playing with the network folder on my PC, resulting all three machines losing access to the net. It took some 30 on the phone to get connected again.

This afternoon when packing the laptop away I noticed the Ethernet cable was not plugged in, and did not remember pulling it out. So this evening I tried the wireless and it works. In fact when I plugged the cable in a network error message appeared.

Isn’t technology a wonderful thing – sometimes.

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Hi
I downloaded the ISO file and burned it to DVD, but am not quite sure how to proceed.

When the DVD ejected the on screen options were back or continue, if I remember correctly. ‘Continue’ just repeated the choice of transferring the ISO to DVD or flash drive. When I selected ‘close’ I was asked if I really wanted to, thus raising doubts in my mind. Choosing ‘back’ allowed me to select ‘Install later from the desktop’ and close without further query – but it won’t be from the desktop.

What’s next? Do I install from the ISO DVD, then create a recovery disk later, and if so how? or does this disk cover both purposes?

Also, Ted mentioned the option of a custom install, but I’ve no idea how this differs from a straight forward install. If possible, I would like a clean install rather than building on Vista, based on my experience of moving from W95 to W98.

George

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Boot to the DVD, then choose Custom Install to do a Clean Install or Upgrade install to upgrade your present OS. I always recommend Custom Install because this is NOT dependent upon the original OS. Another thing I have been doing is after the screen to choose Custom Install you will see a screen that shows Disk Options (Advanced) in the lower right corner. Choose this link. On the next screen, highlight the disk containing your original OS and choose Format from the options below. This gives you a clean, formatted disk on which to then install Win 8. I believe this gives the most pristine installation. Good luck George.

The Custom Install replaces the old OS (Vista in your case) whereas the Upgrade Install would simply upgrade Vista to Win 8. Problems in the original Vista installation can be carried forward.

The DVD you burned the ISO file to will also act as a Recovery DVD. It does include the Recovery Console.

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After spending so much time on the W8 upgrade, I have to admit defeat.

The only result of changing the boot order was to prolong the boot process, as Windows tries to boot from the DVD drive. There is no way of knowing whether the cause is a faulty disk or lack of support for PAE, NX and SSE2: Intel told me they would be on the motherboard rather than the processor, and all I could get out of Dell was that if the Upgrade Assistant said the system was OK they must be present.

I would try installing W8 from a flash drive, if MS allowed another download, but both my 4 and 32 GB drives are FAT 32, not NTFS.

And I assume the likelihood of getting my money refunded by MS is almost nil.

George

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The lack of support for PAE, NX and SSE2 wouldn’t affect the ability to boot from the DVD. The install process would fail with a clear message about the cause.

You can use your ISO file to create a bootable USB disk: Here is a brief description of how to download a tool to do it: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/window-on-windows/transfer-a-windows-8-iso-to-a-bootable-usb-flash-drive/6672

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The lack of support for PAE, NX and SSE2 wouldn’t affect the ability to boot from the DVD. The install process would fail with a clear message about the cause.

You can use your ISO file to create a bootable USB disk: Here is a brief description of how to download a tool to do it: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/window-on-windows/transfer-a-windows-8-iso-to-a-bootable-usb-flash-drive/6672

Thanks Rui,
Your first paragraph has halved the probable blocks to installation.

However, Ted’s reply seems to suggest that I may be able to burn another DVD, rather than go through the download process again, so I shall try that first as I don’t have an NTFS flash drive at the moment.

I returned to the thread to see if anyone had suggested a way to get a refund from MS, and was pleasantly surprised to find another couple of things to try. The Lounge is a never ending source of help.
Thank you

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You can also start the process (download) over if you can’t find your original ISO file that you used to burn the DVD. The email receipt you received when you purchased Win 8 has a link near the top that will allow you to start the download over.

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A FAT32 drive can be converted to NTFS. Google will find instructions for doing that but you’ll probably need to find the specific instructions for your current operating system. The process will delete the contents of the drive so copy anything you want to keep to hard disc first. The process isn’t easily reversed so if you need the drive to be FAT32 for use with another device then you might prefer not to do it. Hope this helps.

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You can right click any flash drive and format it as you wish.

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Upgrading to W8 seems to be two steps forward and one back.

Before making a new disk I checked the first one, and there was 2.01GB on the disk. Next I double clicked the ISO download and it prepared to install W8, at the end of which it recommended downloading the latest updates to facilitate installation. At this stage I closed it down, as that was not part of the script, and there was the probability of not being able to create a recovery disk or clean install. But this seems to suggest that the ISO was OK.

The next disk booted at the second attempt, but did not recognise the registration key. I checked several times that I have entered exactly what I wrote down at the download stage, which matches the key on the confirmation email.

Fortunately there was a link to MS Support in the email, but they only work Mon – Fri in the UK, unlike the US where they are open until 9pm weekends. We pay more but get less service.

Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to report that it is sorted and W8 installed. We will need to get a move on to install it, along with all updates and give my wife enough time to try it out and if she likes it install by next Friday.

George

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Good luck George. If you make a few customizations, she won’t even realize she’s using Win 8 (assuming you actually do get it installed).

If you booted from your original DVD the section where it wants to download updates will have no bearing on the DVD what so ever. Generally when it gets to the point where it reboots the first time, the DVD can be removed and the installation proceeds without the DVD from that point. Unless you tell the PC to burn something to the DVD, nothing more is done with the DVD.

“Next I double clicked the ISO download and it prepared to install W8, at the end of which it recommended downloading the latest updates to facilitate installation. At this stage I closed it down, as that was not part of the script, and there was the probability of not being able to create a recovery disk or clean install. But this seems to suggest that the ISO was OK. ”

Not sure what you mean here George. Hopefully my last paragraph will ease your mind on this. Downloading the updates is a good thing and helps facilitate the installation. Has nothing to do with creating recovery disks. The original DVD does contain the recovery console as well.

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Well, I finally have W8 running.

I rang the dedicated phone number for installation problems, they confirmed the product key was valid, then referred me to a MS Partner, who then passed me on to someone in the Philippines, which is just about as far from London as one can get. But he could have been in the next room, the line was so clear, and his accent was much easier to understand than the previous two.

He installed W8 by remote control, which meant foregoing Ted’s suggestion of a reformat first, but at least he set it up. He was going to test DVD for errors, but I could not find the network password – it finally turned up under my desk. This was a shame, as there are still doubts about both the discs I burned. I had left the second one in the laptop overnight and tried to boot from it, to see if the product key issue had been resolved , but it would not boot.

Initial impression of W8: less intimidating than Vista, but seems to be full of junk.

IE always opens with some rubbish called Sweetime, closing which closes I.E. The next step was to install FF and resolve never to use IE unless absolutely necessary. I was surprised that there were no updates for Windows, but after installing Office 2010, updating encountered a problem, and a new window offered to scan the PC for a solution. It found 1300+ errors and wanted payment to fix them. I had to shut down to get rid of that.

Later, after installing Superantispyware and doing a quick scan they came up with 60 odd instances of tracking spyware, this on a clean install and only a few programmes installed, but much less than 1300.

Finally, I would again like to thank all who helped resolve this issue, espec. Ted and Rui.

George

PS I didn’t notice anything about how to get Media Centre.

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I am glad you got it running, George :).

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Media center. I hope the Philippines guy did not load some undesirable stuff. When I installed from DVD had none of the errors you are describing. Oh well, glad it’s working.

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Hmmm. Among the first few Google hits for sweetime are a couple of virus alerts, which (combined with the fact that I don’t think I’ve seen sweetime on IE the couple of times I’ve run it on Win 8 Pro) suggest that you may have a problem.

a new window offered to scan the PC for a solution. It found 1300+ errors and wanted payment to fix them

That DEFINITELY sounds like you’ve got a malware problem – possibly inherited from your upgraded system (since you didn’t perform a reformat first, though some malware can survive even that). I’m not any kind of expert on malware removal, but Malwarebytes seems to be the most popular exterminator around here for it – and since you’ve already got some protection built into Win 8 you should probably first run a complete scan of your system using (I think it’s called) Defender, if the malware hasn’t blocked it from functioning.

Now that you’ve ascertained that your hardware IS capable of running Win 8, you might want to perform the kind of ‘clean’ install that’s been talked about earlier here (after, of course, making sure you’ve got a backup of anything you may need).

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Yes, since Win 8 does work, I have to agree, the stuff the guy from the Philippines loaded sounds very phishy! I would definitely do the Clean Install from DVD with the Format during the install. Something just does not sound right with that whole episode.

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Complete scans with Malwarebytes and Superantispyware found no errors. 1300 on a new installation is unbelievable – I think it is a typical ‘free scan offer’ that finds 100s of non-existent errors and then wants money to remove them, which we see in Windows Secrets from time to time, although it is unclear why it opened when trying to update Office.

With regard to Sweetime, I found 4 instances of Sweet Packs in Control Panel – after the scans. I deleted a couple, then tackled Sweet packs bundle uninstaller, which said to open I.E., FF and Chrome and replace SweetPacks as the default search engine – and likewise with Messenger. Opening I.E. SP had been replaced with MSN for Win8, and closing that again closed I.E. I have not seen SP in FF or Chrome. Clearly it was installed by the chap in the Philippines and it will be necessary to spend more time on this, but I think the laptop is fairly clean.

I phoned MS to ask how to obtain the Media Centre, and was told to go to windows.microsoft.com, but am unable to find it there.

– bill’s suggestion of a reformat and clean install sounds attractive, but there remains the problem of my dubious discs. Remember, W8 was only installed by the chap in the Philippines, so it’s probably advisable to stick with what I have, unless serious problems arise.

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George, My post #33 has a link to media center.

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George, My post #33 has a link to media center.

Thanks Ted,

Somehow I missed the link in your post. Now ordered, MS say the key will be sent within 72 hours, which may be too late. Not sure what the advantage is over Real, QuickTime, etc.

Something else has cropped up. Checking the compatibility of the wife’s Vista desktop, the only problem is screen resolution. Upgrade Assistant states 1366 x 768 is the minimum for snap apps., but the closest she can get is 1280 x 1024, a long way from the 800 x 600 I find easy to read. I’ve no idea what snap apps are, unless they refer to the Metro tiles, but are they critical for Win8?

Thanks

George

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MS say the key will be sent within 72 hours, which may be too late.[/quote]

I recently ordered a third WMC key and it was emailed to me within 24 hours, so you may be in luck unless there’s a last-minute rush now. I don’t think that Ted is correct in suggesting that you’re OK just having ordered it, though: as I recall it must not only be received but installed and activated on line before February 1st (or possibly before February 2nd).

Not sure what the advantage is over Real, QuickTime, etc.

If WMC still works the way I think it used to it includes access to an on-line program guide (well, here in the U.S., anyway) and supports special remotes that include many WMC-specific functions. In other words, it’s more than just a music and video player (though there’s a free alternative called XBMC that I haven’t tried but many claim is a viable substitute).

Something else has cropped up. Checking the compatibility of the wife’s Vista desktop, the only problem is screen resolution. Upgrade Assistant states 1366 x 768 is the minimum for snap apps., but the closest she can get is 1280 x 1024, a long way from the 800 x 600 I find easy to read. I’ve no idea what snap apps are, unless they refer to the Metro tiles, but are they critical for Win8?

Ted seems to have answered this, and in any event if you don’t know what ‘snap apps’ may be (as I don’t) it seems unlikely that the lack thereof would seriously compromise your use of Win 8.

Your wife’s monitor sounds like an older, traditional monitor (with a 4×3 screen aspect ratio rather than the wide-screen – typically 16×9 – format that’s now the norm). However, the rest of the system would likely support a wide-screen monitor at 1366 x 768 or likely higher resolution should you want to purchase one (Newegg has what looks like a pretty good 23″ LED-backlit 1920 x 1080 and lower ASUS on sale this week for its ‘e-blast’ newsletter subscribers – subscription is free – for $120, but I doubt that it ships free to England).

Note that use of a higher screen resolution need not force you to squint harder to read: among the many screen settings available in Windows (at least since Win2K and I suspect much earlier but I don’t have an earlier system handy to check it on) is a ‘font size’ setting that allows you to increase the default font sizes used in text to whatever makes you comfortable (I tend to use 150% of the ‘normal’ value of 96 dots per inch with 1920×1080 resolution). Applications that may not honor the new default that you’ve set often have similar application-specific settings that will do the job.

I would personally not be comfortable continuing to use the system that you had help from the Philippines installing: it was obviously compromised and who knows what defects (even if not active malware) it may still contain. I’d suggest sorting out exactly what was the trouble with your attempts to download and install Win 8 Pro yourself until it succeeds.

You could start by using a program called winmd5sum (free download from http://download.cnet.com/WinMD5Sum/3000-2381_4-10115916.html) to validate the .iso file which you created on your disk to burn to DVD. The checksum value for the file I downloaded for a 32-bit installation (I think that’s what you said you wanted to use) is 52fb28326fca1d3e365f0dba37478876, and the one for a 64-bit installation (just in case that’s what you wanted) is 507dd23e2b2b1ad86526504f9043b471. I’ve successfully used both to install the Win 8 Pro Upgrade.

You could then make sure that you burned a bootable DVD from that file (which entails using a program like ImgBurn and selecting the option to create a DVD from an image rather than simply copying the .iso file to the DVD as you would copy a data file). If you still run into problems try booting the DVD on another machine just to make sure that the hardware on yours isn’t defective in this respect.

Ted described in post #22 the steps to take from there. I may be confused, but it sounds as if you’ll still need to perform an installation on your wife’s system anyway, in which case the above won’t really be much extra work (and should leave you with a much cleaner installation on your own system).

Edit: I mentioned ImgBurn because old fogies like me tend to continue to use the applications they’ve always found reliable, but Windows itself has (I think since XP) included DVD-burning facilities that may do as good a job. Just make sure to burn an image rather than just copy the .iso file to the DVD.

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As long as you have requested the key I believe you will be OK.

Snap Apps. This is a link George, LOL.

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I also would not trust an installation from someone in the Philippines. That seems to be one of the hotbeds of malware and spam. Any installation that has suspect apps right from the start, and shows many “errors” that need to be fixed is very suspect. What else might have been put in there, keyloggers, other malware that is not readily seen?

I would not trust that installation at all. Bill has pointed out an app that will allow you to check the checksum of the ISO file you downloaded from MS. I would really use that ISO file, burn it to DVD and start over. Imgburn will work fine. The Windows built in burner allows you to simply right click the ISO file and choose Burn Disk Image. This opens the burner and burns the ISO file to a DVD that will allow the installation. (This is very easy and straight forward)

I know it seems to be a PITA, but you do want a pristine installation, and it’s my belief you do not have one yet. You are in the early phase of your installation. This is the best time to attempt it from a DVD you burn. By the way you can use that very same DVD for both your and your wife’s PC. The only difference is the key you enter during the installation. No need to do that download and burn twice.

It does appear Bill is correct about the Media Center installation. Ed Bott discusses this. My sister very recently did this (2 days ago) and received her Media Center key within hours. You might be safe, but the installations would have to be done by tomorrow. Otherwise there is a $9.99 USD charge for Media Center.

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-bill,
There’s a lot here to research, so I will be back later for more information, but for the moment I would like to concentrate on my wife’s monitor.

Yes, it is an old monitor, more square than 4 x 3, 37.5 x 30 cm to be precise, and she is reluctant to buy a new one at present. Given that she is unlikely to use snap apps, the question is will the rest of W8 run on her machine.

She is in fact reluctant to make the change, fearing she will lose the 1,000 or so emails in Windows Mail – I have still to look into email for W8 – and she has money deposited with the VOIP programme she uses. The only way to convince her is to point out that it will cost much more for a new OS or PC when Vista is no longer supported. I am under the impression support for XP ends Match or April 2014, and Vista a year later. When I checked the MS site it said support for both was passed, but as patches are still being issued they must have been referring to the MS Strategy, rather than actual fact. I must try and get more info on this from somewhere.

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I found this on another forum:

1024×600 is the minimum resolution to run Windows 8. 768 vertical resolution is the minimum to run Metro apps (below 768 and you can only run desktop applications). 1366 is the minimum horizontal resolution needed to enable the app snapping feature. At 1024×768 you have access to all the features except app snap.

Presumably the Metro home screen only requires 1024×600 and not 1024×768, otherwise it wouldn’t be possible to get to the desktop.

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She is in fact reluctant to make the change, fearing she will lose the 1,000 or so emails in Windows Mail – I have still to look into email for W8 – and she has money deposited with the VOIP programme she uses. The only way to convince her is to point out that it will cost much more for a new OS or PC when Vista is no longer supported.[/quote]

I think the observation has already been made that (save for the WMC freebie) there appears to be no need to install and activate the Win 8 Pro Upgrade right now as long as you already have purchased it: you could wait until you’ve acquired enough experience with the installation on your own machine to make your wife more comfortable with the change.

I am under the impression support for XP ends Match or April 2014, and Vista a year later. When I checked the MS site it said support for both was passed, but as patches are still being issued they must have been referring to the MS Strategy, rather than actual fact.

They’re referring to the end of ‘mainstream’ support, not ‘extended’ support. You are correct that XP patches will continue for more than another year, though Microsoft’s interest in releasing non-security-related patches (i.e., fixes for mere annoyances) may already have waned. Vista extended support ends in April, 2017.

Opinions vary in terms of how much you should worry about running a Windows system after extended support ceases: for example, extended support for Windows 2000 ended in mid-2010, but I’m still happily using it for most things (definitely including Internet access: I’m using it right now) and haven’t encountered any problems (and my Web surfing is not always confined to ‘safe’ sites). Part of my confidence comes from using a router (effectively a separate hardware firewall) that isolates our computers from unsolicited outside probes. More comes from using an anti-malware product (AntiVir) that still receives current updates on Win2K (both malware definitions and some engine updates) even though the current installs no longer support Win2K. Still more comes from using Firefox rather than Internet Explorer (whose version 6 – the latest supported on Win2K – is hardly robust any more for any use save Windows Update without the kinds of unofficial, unapproved updates available at places like msfn.org). The latest Firefox version supporting Win2K (without those unofficial operating system updates, which so far I haven’t explored) is version 12 (still less than a year out of date), but when you use the NoScript extension to limit Javascript operation to when you decide you need it and eliminate Java support entirely (since most sites no longer use it) it still seems quite solid. Of course, current Firefox versions still support XP and may well continue to long after Microsoft’s support ends next year (Firefox supported Win2K for nearly 2 years after Microsoft’s Win2K support ended).

In any event, the bottom line is that you really don’t have to rush your wife to upgrade very soon: except for saving $10 on WMC (if she actually cares about it at all: as has been noted there are other free options available for just playing DVDs on Win 8 and at least one free option for a Media Center alternative), anything you can do now you can also do at any time within the next 14 months (if she’s running XP) or 4+ years (if she’s running Vista) without venturing into the realms of running an unsupported version of Windows.

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Bill,
A fascinating and informative post.

Your opening sentence removed the pressure on my time, so I was able to spare half an hour to go in the garden and smoke a cigar.

The fascinating part was to learn that you are still running Windows 2000. I use a router, Avira Internet Security and NoScript, and recently removed Java, but will almost certainly replace XP next year at the latest, if only because the machine is getting ancient. The side panel has become distorted, so opening the case involves levering it off with a screwdriver, then the use of brown parcel tape to keep it closed afterwards, in order to reduce the amount of dust getting in. That’s getting to be a bind. The only thing I shall miss is knowing where to find everything in XP.

Also, I have never paid for extended support.

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I have never paid for extended support.

The only people who need to pay for extended support (at least while a Windows version hasn’t passed out of the ‘extended’ support phase) are those who either require a lot of hand-holding from Microsoft or who require non-security updates: if all you want to do is continue to run your system safely, you get the required security updates for free until the ‘extended’ support phase ends.

Just to flesh out the precautions one might want to take running a Windows system after extended support ends, I should have mentioned that I also run the last version of the Online Armor firewall that supported Win2K: it was a top-of-the line product in its time, it and AntiVir support heuristics that help catch bad behavior even before formal malware definitions for it exist, it supports a ‘run safer’ feature that partially ‘sandboxes’ programs you use it with to keep them from getting access to vital system areas (I use it for mail client, browser, and other applications that may conceivably encounter malware like editors, pdf programs, video…), and firewalls remain pretty effective even after being superseded by newer versions since they don’t require the very frequent updates that anti-malware products benefit from. The other thing I like about it is that it controls out-going connections as well as in-coming ones (which the native Windows firewalls have never done unless tweaked by third parties), so if something nasty DOES manage to get into your system you’ll have an opportunity to clamp down on any ‘phone home’ activity before it can do damage.

Still, all other things being equal it’s preferable to run a more up-to-date version of Windows – it’s just that for me, all other things are NOT equal, so I take what precautions I can to help even the playing field in other ways. If/when I grudgingly move to Win 8 as my main system I’m hoping that it will last me for as long as Win2K has (and I’ll still run Win2K for those things that don’t run as well on Win 8).

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Bill,
Referring back to #40, I should mention that the Media Centre key arrived within hours and was waiting for me when I woke up. MC is already installed, but not yet used. So your point about activating it was timely, as it’s unlikely I would have looked at it again this week. Thank you for that.

Your comments on screen resolution were also useful. Ever since reading that most instances of money being taken from bank accounts fraudulently are due to not logging off, but just closing the browser, I have made a point of logging off from sensitive sites – when I remember to do so. Unfortunately my stockbroker has a very wide site, with no scroll bar, so logging off involves changing the resolution two stops to 1152×864, then back to 800×600, consequently I avoid using the site whenever possible. A test has shown that using the zoom in FF slightly quicker, and less irritating. Again my thanks.

WinMD5Sum is another matter. Deciding to try it last night, after the laptop had been put away, and as it was only testing a DVD, I downloaded it to the XP machine. It requested permission to download several items, which for all I knew were part of the application, so were allowed. This was a mistake! There was app for putting stupid cartoons in documents, emicons was the name. Then there was Iminent, purpose unknown but clearly nothing to do with testing the DVD, and Coupon Discount. By the time these had been removed it was time to go to bed.

But this reinforces the suspicion that the rubbish on the laptop may not be due to the Windows partner in the Philippines, but my not noticing a tick that should have been removed during the installation of W8 – after all, quite a few apps such as flash and Real try to install search engines each time one updates.

This morning I installed WinMD5Sum on the laptop, without any extraneous apps, but there are no instructions, and I’m at a loss as to how it works.

Then there is the question of whether I created proper disk, which has been in my mind all along, and your mention of ImgBurn rings a bell. I’m fairly certain that’s what was used some years ago when XP had a major mishap and the HDD had to be reformatted. On this occasion, the download was listed as ISO@activeburner, or something similar, it no longer appears in downloads, so must have been deleted when W8 was installed.
Unsure of how to proceed, I clicked the entry, and burning commenced, but doubts have remained in my mind as to whether this was the correct procedure.

It appears to have been the wrong move! I am somewhat confused by the next part of your post. After checking the DVD with WinMD5sum, you advocate checking that I had selected the option to create a DVD from an image rather than simply copying the .iso file to the DVD as you would copy a data file. I only clicked the download. It may be possible to get another ISO from MS – the receipt just says ‘click here if you need to download’ without clarifying whether this just the initial download or includes reinstalls. Would ImgBurn then sort it out, or do I need to learn how to create and image from the ISO?

George

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George,

Do you know about using CTRL/+ and CTRL/- to zoom in and out in browsers? It works in Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome. Hope this helps.

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George,

Do you know about using CTRL/+ and CTRL/- to zoom in and out in browsers? It works in Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome. Hope this helps.

If you have a wheel mouse, you can accomplish the same thing by holding the ctrl key down and rolling the mouse wheel up or down. Works in Microsoft Office apps as well.

Jerry

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Taking your points in order:

1. It’s generally preferable to set your screen resolution fairly high (and on LCD screens to the native resolution of the display, if supported) and then increase the text size appropriately by changing the default font size as I described rather then ‘zooming’ (unless the application doesn’t honor the changed default font size, but Firefox does unless the Web site in question takes steps to defeat this, which few do). That way, you get good display resolution for non-text material and avoid the kind of problem you had when the Web site assumed a wider display resolution than you were using. This limits the need to use other facilities (like application-level or system-level ‘zoom’) to rare situations: otherwise, everything just works.

2. My profuse apologies for having provided a CNet link without checking to see what it did: when I went to the actual download just now rather than simply downloading the application it used the CNet installer (a completely unnecessary ‘download assistant’ that includes adware and may have been the source of the additional trash which you encountered, unless your XP system has a malware problem of its own). Softonic does something similar, and I usually remember to avoid both. A link that just downloads what you asked for is http://www.softpedia.com/get/Programming/Other-Programming-Files/winMd5Sum.shtml, and as a bonus it includes a brief description of how to use the tool.

3. I may not have made it clear that you needed to use the .ISO FILE that you told your WIn 8 Pro Upgrade download sequence to create (rather than the DVD that you subsequently burned from that file) to validate against the checksums that I provided (I’m not even sure that if you recreated a .iso file from the DVD you burned and then checked that file it would wind up being the same). You can drag-and-drop the file to the running winmd5sum window, or just right-click the file after having installed winmd5sum and use ‘send to’ to send it to winmd5sum.

4. Yes, if you follow the link near the top of the email you can re-download again as many times as you need to (at least for the next couple of years): you just need to provide the product key from the same email to verify that you actually bought the product. You can even move to a machine using the other (64-bit vs. 32-bit) operating system architecture and download the other flavor, just in case you ever want to convert to it (the same product key works for both, and when I tried out the reinstall it activated immediately on the same hardware without complaining that the key was already in use, though I had previously reinstalled the previous upgradable system so you might have to do that rather than simply try to reinstall the other architecture over the existing Win 8 Pro system).

5. Start ImgBurn and click on ‘write image file to disc’. In the right-hand portion of the top-left panel in the resulting menu you can click on something yellow that may look somewhat like a folder to browse to the image file you want to use for the burn (though after you’ve installed ImgBurn you may just be able to right-click on the .iso file and find an option to burn it to disk using ImgBurn – I haven’t tried this); after you have chosen the file, click on the graphic in the lower-left portion of the menu to start the burn.

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Bill,
Thanks for another comprehensive reply, and for your patience. This thread is getting pretty long, due to my ignorance: I hope not to become another Cowboy Phil.

WinMd5Sum was downloaded yesterday from softpedia, free from rubbish: I particularly liked the facility to send other apps to it by right clicking. Unfortunately the .ISO is no longer on the laptop, presumably deleted when W8 installed, or perhaps I removed it in a moment of madness.

I can download it again using the confirmation email, but there is an alternative. I bought W8 yesterday for my wife’s PC, along with the DVD, although she is unwilling to change until I get a new machine with W8 sometime in the next 12 months or so. She was only persuaded by the argument that it would make sharing the printer possible again. Would the single .ISO work for both PCs, or do they differ according to the configuration of the individual machines?

Whichever method I use, it will be done between midnight and 8a.m., as I have received and email from my ISP pointing out that I have used 9.13 GB of the 10 GB monthly allowance (16/1 – 15/2), after which it costs an extra £5 per 5 GB. So any large downloads during the next two weeks will be during the free period. No real hardship, as I rarely go to bed before 1.30.

Thanks again for your assistance.

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I bought W8 yesterday for my wife’s PC, along with the DVD[/quote]

If by ‘W8’ you mean ‘the Win 8 Pro Upgrade’, then the answer to your question is that yes, you should be able to use the product key you downloaded from Microsoft to install it from the DVDs you purchased (whether you choose to install the 32-bit or the 64-bit DVD version). If you actually bought Win 8 (non-Pro-Upgrade) it might still work, but I can’t vouch for it from personal experience (for that matter, I haven’t actually tried installing from a purchased Win 8 Pro Upgrade DVD while using the key downloaded from Microsoft, but I’d be VERY surprised if THAT didn’t work – the only reason I’d have any doubt at all is because the checksums for the two .iso files (the one created by the download and the one I used ImgBurn to create from the purchased DVD) don’t match, so there COULD be something functionally different between the two.

She was only persuaded by the argument that it would make sharing the printer possible again.

Someone with a lot more experience sharing printers should really address this, but my impression is that it should be possible to set up your home network to be able to share a printer among XP, Vista, Win 7, and Win 8 systems. My main beef with Win 7 and Win 8 is that despite some claims to the contrary on the Web I’ve never managed to get NetBEUI working for local file sharing as I can with Win 98, Win2K, and XP (because NetBEUI may have marginally superior protection against external threats), but what is now ‘normal’ (though not ‘Homegroup’) TCP-based file and print sharing should work for you even though it may be more hassle to set up than a Homegroup would be.

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As long as both machines are the same (either both 32 bit or both 64 bit) the same iso will work. You will only need the product key from the purchase for her machine.

Rich

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I was able to get printer sharing to work between Windows 7 32, Windows 8 64, and Windows XP 32 (Windows 7 was the host) without any problems.

I also bought Windows 8 Pro upgrade from Microcenter and it came with one product key and both the Windows 8 32 and 64 bit disks. I later bought another key form the Microsoft site using a 32 bit computer for later use. I did a test install using the 64 bit Microcenter disk and it worked fine with the downloaded product key.

Jerry

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Bill,
Yes, I bought the Win 8 Pro Upgrade.

As Rich has confirmed that the same .ISO can be used for both installations, I was planning to download the .ISO, test it with winMd5Sum and burn a new disc tonight, using the wife’s desktop, to avoid any chance that the burner in the laptop might be faulty.

However, reading your last posting again, it occurred to me that it might be advisable to wait a few weeks for the DVD to arrive, and use that to install the 64 bit version, as it seems to be very prevalent nowadays, so presumably most applications are available in 64 bit versions, hopefully without having to pay for an upgrade.

What do you think?

George

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What do you think?

I’m glad Jerry chimed in here because I have minimal experience with ANY x64 Windows version: everything I do runs just fine in 2 GB of RAM on 32-bit versions of Win2K and XP and the little experience I have so far with Win 7 and Win 8 suggests that the 3+ GB that 32-bit Windows can use out of larger amounts of RAM will work equally well there (though I’m still tempted to investigate whether there’s some way to use the unused RAM above 3+ GB for, e.g., a RAMdisk to place at least a portion of the page file on).

Furthermore, the little testing I HAVE done with 64-bit versions of Win 7 and Win 8 indicates that they use more RAM than the 32-bit versions do for comparable activity, so the bottom line seems to be that unless you’ve got MORE than 4 GB of RAM installed (and your activities on the machine can make good use of it) or need to run an application that is ONLY available in 64-bit form there’s no reason not to use the 32-bit version.

As I mentioned before, I’ve installed the 64-bit version of the Win 8 Pro Upgrade after first having installed the 32-bit version on the same hardware using the same product key without any activation problems (though I did first reinstall the previous upgradable system rather than simply try to install the 64-bit upgrade directly over the 32-bit upgrade), so if you wanted to try out the 32-bit version you presumably could do so until the 64-bit DVD arrives and decide then whether you felt the need to change to it (though if you did decide to change you would then have to migrate over any data and applications accumulated on the 32-bit version in the interim).

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Thanks Jerry,
I’m not really interested in sharing the printer at the moment. My wife used to be able to print on my printer, but that ended a few years ago, either after the switch from Ethernet cable to wireless, or when her PC had to be reinstalled – I forget which. I find changing a network very difficult – at least when the base machine runs XP – so we will continue as at present until all 3 machines are on Win8. She bought a cheap HP printer at one stage, but that didn’t last long.

I remember reading that setting up a network when all machines are running W7 is a piece of cake, and assume that continues with W8. This was the only thing that persuaded my wife that it would be worth upgrading – when I have a new PC – and if she no longer had to email me anything for printing, or use a flash drive, she would not consent to switching from Vista.

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There aren’t a lot of 64 bit applications yet but the 64 bit OS will run all the 32 bit apps. I’ve read the main benefit is that the 64 system may run faster than the 32 bit one. I still haven’t upgraded my 64 bit capable Windows 7 desktop to 64 bits from its current 32 bit operation and it runs fast enough so that I don’t see the need to upgrade. I originally installed 32 bit Windows 7 because I had a peripheral (no longer in use) that wasn’t supported in 64 bit mode. As long as you don’t have something that doesn’t have a 64 bit device driver, I would go 64 bit. Otherwise, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over a 32 bit installation.

Jerry

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Thanks Bill, very useful.

“I’m glad Jerry chimed in here because I have minimal experience with ANY x64 Windows version: everything I do runs just fine in 2 GB of RAM on 32-bit versions of Win2K and XP and the little experience I have so far with Win 7 and Win 8 suggests that the 3+ GB that 32-bit Windows can use out of larger amounts of RAM will work equally well there (though I’m still tempted to investigate whether there’s some way to use the unused RAM above 3+ GB for, e.g., a RAMdisk to place at least a portion of the page file on).”

As the laptop only has 3GB of RAM, and a peek inside shows that it needs someone like a heart surgeon to change anything there, I’ll stick to 32 bit. Thanks for making the decision simple.

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What laptop is it? Changing memory has been simple in any one I have looked at. There’s usually an access cover held in by a couple of screws. Once removed to expose the memory boards, it’s just a matter of pushing the retention springs on both sides of the board to release the memory. There’s a video showing the process at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1oTz-F6xME

Jerry

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What laptop is it? Changing memory has been simple in any one I have looked at. There’s usually an access cover held in by a couple of screws. Once removed to expose the memory boards, it’s just a matter of pushing the retention springs on both sides of the board to release the memory. There’s a video showing the process at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1oTz-F6xME

Jerry

Dell Inspiron 1545. Thanks for the video, not least for the reminder to remove the battery first, which had not occurred to me with the mains lead unplugged.

However, there appear to be two RAM strips, and I have little confidence in my ability to remove both without damage.

In any case, it appears that the only purpose of 64 bit is to allow the use of more than 3GB of RAM. As this is a laptop, used for about two weeks a year whilst on holiday for email, access the news on the web and to keep abreast of the markets, that would be overkill. I do far more than that on my XP desktop with 1.5GB RAM

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Since Medico’s MD5 hash for the Win8ProUpgrade 64-bit .iso created by the download process differs from mine, I can only assume that for some reason (whether by intent or by happenstance) they’re all unique. If so the only reasonable way for you to verify the integrity of your own download would seem to be to perform the download twice and compare the two against each other: if they match, the chance that either download is invalid should be vanishingly small.

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Once again I could do with some advice.

I downloaded WinMD5Sum 2-3 times on the wife’s desktop, and each time received a message that it might not have installed properly. As it looked OK I sent the Windows ISO file to it, but the result bore no relationship to the code –bill said it should be, other than the fact they both consisted of 32 characters. So I removed it and downloaded again, with the same result. I believe the code was the same as previously, but can only vouch for the first two characters, not having written down the previous one. Unfortunately, I have no idea whether the differing sums (from Bill’s sample) mean that the ISO is faulty, or just merely that it can’t be confirmed.

Next Irmburn was installed and the ISO image burned to it. But now I am undecided: use it to reformat the laptop and reinstall W8, or order a new ISO for the laptop, where WinMD5Sum installed without problem, and proceed from there. The second option seems somewhat safer, in view of the discrepancy between the sums, but will mean waiting till the 16th, as I wish to limit the amount of ISP excess fees. On the other hand, there is no real hurry.

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I have never used the MD5 number, I have use the file hash. When I use the hash, after I have installed Hash Tab, I right click the ISO file and choose properties. In the properties box there is a new tab called hash which calculates the hash number for the ISO file. Hash is another way to verify an ISO file. This actually shows the Sha1 Hash, MD5 number and the CRC32 (whatever that is)

Here is my Sha1 Hash and MD5 for my downloaded Win 8 Pro 64 Bit ISO file

33036-Sha1-HashMD5

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That is very strange. I checked the Sha1 hash just before posting the screen shot. I wonder what could be the difference. When I search for the Sha1 hash I get different numbers than I have as well.

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You could create a backup image of your Vista installation first to an external HDD. As long as you have the vista installation CD if all went wrong you can restore back to your vista as it was before started. But best to make sure you use the custom method to delete Your boot drive first so as to be restoring to a clean drive.

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A few thoughts on those files with differing MD5’s etc:

Are the file names identical? Do they include mention of bittedness (32-bit or 64-bit) and/or version number?

Does right-click > Properties > Details display any useful information such as versions numbers? If so, is that information identical?

Are Microsoft publishing updated versions of the downloadable files, so as to reduce the number of updates which have to be performed after installation?

If the files are legitimately different in even the slightest respect then their MD5’s etc will be very different.

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A few thoughts on those files with differing MD5’s etc:

Are the file names identical?[/quote]

The file name is part of the file ‘metadata’ (edit: if it’s even included there rather than only in the parent directory – I’d have to rummage around to see exactly what lives where) rather than part of the data payload of the file used to generate the contents checksum. Changing it does not affect the checksum/’hash’.

Are Microsoft publishing updated versions of the downloadable files, so as to reduce the number of updates which have to be performed after installation?

I don’t see any version numbers in the files that I created during my downloads, which at least suggests that Microsoft may be adhering to its normal policy of not altering the contents released to manufacturing (RTM) save when a Service Pack is released (at which time they begin releasing a new version that includes incorporation of the Service Pack.

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Changing it does not affect the checksum/’hash’.

Agreed. I was just wondering if the filenames and properties might give us any clues regarding whether the files are legitimately different or whether one has been corrupted.

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When Bill quoted his MD5 checksums for the 32 and 64 bit versions of Windows 8 in #40, I assumed these were definitive, and had been confirmed on a MS site. Hence my surprise on enlarging the image in #62 and seeing that Ted had a different sum. My conclusion was that they must be different versions of W8 Pro, and I decided to ask about the site where one obtains a list of correct MD5s.

Today’s posts suggest that the checksums are completely arbitrary, and hence of no use whatsoever. Bill’s suggestion in #64 seemed promising, only to be negated in the very next post. This leaves me puzzled as to why anyone would go to the trouble of creating apps for checking MD5s or hashes when they appear to serve no purpose.

In view of this, I think I shall use the most recent disk created.

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Checksums aren’t random. Checksums are extremely useful. If checksums agree then the contents of the files are almost certainly identical (the chances of them not being is very close to zero). If checksums differ then the contents of the files definitely differ.

Why these files differ remains a mystery (well, it does to me).

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If checksums agree then the contents of the files are almost certainly identical (the chances of them not being is very close to zero). If checksums differ then the contents of the files definitely differ.

Why these files differ remains a mystery (well, it does to me).

Agree with what? Someone else who has the same programme?

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Agree with what? Someone else who has the same programme?

If two files have the same checksum then they have the same contents. It doesn’t matter whether the two files are on the same computer or different computers.

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I suspect the checksums differ because the .iso files are generated dynamically from the information downloaded rather than themselves downloaded from some common .iso file, and that either that downloaded source information is customized in some way according to the customer or the .iso generation process itself incorporates some site-specific information. In neither case do I have any idea why this would be done, but depending upon exactly how it is done downloading twice in the same environment and then comparing might (or might not) be a way to validate the integrity of the download (matching checksums would pretty well validate it, though differing checksums wouldn’t necessarily mean that anything was amiss).

Edit: One could also use a byte-by-byte comparison utility to see exactly WHERE the differences occurred and what those differences were, which might conceivably shed some light on what was going on.

The reported sizes for my own generated .iso files are 2,229,665,792 bytes and 2,896,756,736 bytes for 32-bit and 64-bit upgrade versions, respectively. If Microsoft is generating files with different sizes for different customers, that would seem even stranger (since it would open the door to random corner-case issues that could have nothing to do with the actual upgrade content – one of the reasons why I suspect Microsoft usually limits its released software quite strictly to a few, standard versions).

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Does the downloaded ISO file already have the key in the download? If it does, then every download would be different, and the MD5 hashes will not match.

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I do not believe it does because we have to enter the key, even when using a DVD we burned from the ISO file.

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I would like to ask a question before deleting everything from the laptop and installing Windows 8 Pro upgrade.

In December 2011 I purchased a WD 3 TB external hard drive, only to discover that it would accept images only via Acronis WD Edition – a free download from WD of an older version of Acronis. However, it did not work, and I think it was Fred who advised removing the WD software, installing Macrium, and using it as an ordinary HDD.

This enabled a Macrium image to be placed on the drive, and it was possible to open files in the image to check they were OK. But when I replaced the drive in my XP machine with a new one, to test that the boot disk (or whatever it’s called) was effective, it could not see the external drive.

Fred thought that there was something wrong with my settings, and any other external drive would have the same problem, so I replaced the original drive and the external has remained unused ever since.

So my question, which did not occur to me at the time is;
Does a new hard drive need formatting, like a floppy or some DVDs? This would explain why the PC was unable to see it – I don’t remember whether it saw anything else.

If the answer is negative, there is the supplementary issue of whether after reformatting the drive in the laptop, if the W8 ISO doesn’t work, would it be possible to reinstall Vista from the installation disks, or would the reformat have destroyed that facility?

Sorry to keep asking questions, but my technical knowledge of computing is fairly limited.

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when I replaced the drive in my XP machine with a new one[/quote]

You purchased a new, internal drive to replace the existing internal drive in your XP system, right?

to test that the boot disk (or whatever it’s called) was effective

You wanted to test that the Macrium backup on the WD external drive would reinstall on the new drive, right?

it could not see the external drive.

The first thought that comes to mind is that the version of Macrium you were using might not yet have included support for drives larger than 2 TB in its boot disk (though with USB external drives usually no special support should be needed). Another idiosyncrasy that I’ve noticed with what may be a slightly older Seagate Disc Wizard version of the Acronis software is that it can sometimes take a while (perhaps on the order of a minute) to recognize a connected USB drive (I have no idea why, and it may have something to do with the presence of other connected USB devices).

Does a new hard drive need formatting, like a floppy or some DVDs?

Yes, but the Macrium boot disk should have handled that automatically (possibly prompting you for directions).

If the answer is negative, there is the supplementary issue of whether after reformatting the drive in the laptop, if the W8 ISO doesn’t work, would it be possible to reinstall Vista from the installation disks

I would hope that if the W8 DVD doesn’t work it would itself detect its corruption at a point in the process well before it allowed you to format the target disk. But if it didn’t, then it certainly should be possible to reinstall Vista from its installation disks if they’re normal Microsoft installation disks (and likely even if they’re proprietary disks that don’t perform a Microsoft-standard install, but that could possibly vary by vendor).

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Taking the your comments in sequence:

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. Good point! I used the version of Macrium recommended by Fred, but it wasn’t the most recent, and he may have overlooked the fact it was a 3TB drive. I would certainly have waited some time before accepting that M was not going to find the external drive. When Win 8 is sorted I will create another image of my XP machine using an up-to-date version of M and see if that succeeds. It would be nice to have images of my system.
4. Well that removes one of the possible reasons for the failure.
5. This is fairly reassuring. I had assumed that Win 8 .ISO would start by reformatting the hard drive, and any problems would come to light later. The Vista SP1 installation disk is from Dell, but hopefully won’t be needed.

Bill, I wish to express by sincere thanks for your patience. This has become a long thread, and you have been a constant source of advice and information. Thank you very much.

George

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Win 8 reinstalled, with quite a few obstacles along the way, and no reformat. Skip the next four paragraphs to avoid the gory details.

You may remember that I burned an installation DVD, which didn’t work, then another which also failed to install, followed by a call to Microsoft Support who passed me on to a MS partner, and from there to a chap in the Philippines, who installed it remotely, along with extraneous material. Next I purchased another copy of Win 8 for my wife’s PC, to be installed later, and this time burned a disk using ImgBurn, ensuring it was done as an image.

As several loungers recommended a reformat and custom install, I used this last disk, feeling it would be more reliable. It started installing, then stated that a system driver was missing, without further details. It offered to search for it, presumably successfully, as it then asked for the product key, which was rejected. It may be that the key is included in the ISO file, and I was using a different disc to the original installation, which would account for differing MD5s and hatches mentioned previously. Or it could have been a repeat of the original failure to recognise the key. Either way, it was impossible to proceed.

Following this the second of my discs was used, which didn’t get past the missing driver stage. There was no offer to search for it, so I chose the option to repair the PC, which proved fruitless. This was repeated with the original ISO disc, so I decided to download another ISO file from the confirmation email. Much to my surprise, instead of a new file, it started downloading on my XP machine, which only has 1.5 GB of RAM and is too old to support W8.

Copying the email on to a flash drive didn’t work, as the laptop asked what I wished to use to open it. It turns out that I.E. is unable to open .eml files, and Wordpad opened a meaningless collection of letters and numbers. At this point I was resigned to leaving the existing W8 in place, which I might as well have done.

However, this morning I had an idea. I forwarded the email to my Yahoo account and was able to install from there. But there was no option to install from media, so no chance to reformat. It did ask whether to save my settings or nothing, but choosing the latter did not include a reformat.

Once installed, I opened Computer to see what was there. As feared, there was a recovery drive left over from Vista, confirmed later when a registry scan with JV16 revealed quite a few leftovers from 2012. I started by installing Firefox, and whilst adding the add-ons a pop-up said that Yontoo wished to alter the PC, which I refused. Later, an interim scan with Superantispyware, which doesn’t take long with not much on the laptop, found 33 instances of Yontoo, then the JV16 found another 8 in the registry, so the whole exercise has been a waste of time, as we are back to where we were before.

Today has really turned me off W8. It’s ridiculous that to access Control Panel, Computer, Windows Update, etc one has to go into Search and type the name, and Shut Down is almost as laborious. Also, during the initial settings I deselected ‘automatically install updates’, yet when I went to update it said I was on automatic updates. When I turned this off a message said that I would get no updates –there was no option to inform me of updates without installing them. This is a step back, not forward!

I will look around to see whether it’s still possible to get a PC with Win 7 to replace XP.

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Check out the sticky threads in this forum. They will answer some of your questions about CP and Shutdown, etc.

I have no idea why you are having the problems downloading and/or installing. I downloaded Win 8 one time, chose to Install by creating media (see screen shot), burned one DVD and used that same DVD to install 3 separate copies of Win 8, with only one try each time, all with different keys. The installation took approx. 20 minutes, then the remainder of my time was involved in my customization and app installation. There was not a single hiccup for 3 separate PCs.

32367-14

This whole process was so smooth I almost couldn’t believe it. It was far easier than XP, Vista or Win 7. I do not know where your downloads came from. Perhaps there is a difference between versions in the US and those available in England. Perhaps in your case ordering a DVD would have had far better results.

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Check out the sticky threads in this forum. They will answer some of your questions about CP and Shutdown, etc.

Hi Ted,
I wasn’t asking questions about CP and Shutdown, merely citing them as examples of the clumsiness of Win 8.

Many thanks for the reference to Classic Shell, it has now been installed – a somewhat strange hybrid of the traditional style and W8 desktop. I was not well yesterday, so have not investigated it fully yet, but it seems to be a great improvement. I will have a look at sticky threads for any reference to CP, etc as you suggest. I have often wondered how sticky threads differ from the others.

#82 gives the technical reasons for the lack of opportunity to reformat, although I had already deduced by then that installing W8 Pro on an existing W8 Pro led the system to decide that there was no need to create media and just dropped that page of the process, which had been present on other occasions.

So it would appear that there is no way to perform a reformat until Win9 appears, unless it’s possible to completely wipe C drive, restore Vista from the recovery drive and start all over again from there. Which is probably even more risky than assuming no keylogger has been installed. Trusteer Rapport claims to block keyloggers on my selected sites, but I’m not convinced they can do so.

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I have often wondered how sticky threads differ from the others.

Sticky threads generally offer advice that will be applicable to a wide range of readers for a significant amount of time. They’re normally created by forum adminstrators or moderators with enhanced permissions, and usually locked so as to avoid unwanted posts. They’re a feature of many forums, not just this one.

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#82 gives the technical reasons for the lack of opportunity to reformat, although I had already deduced by then that installing W8 Pro on an existing W8 Pro led the system to decide that there was no need to create media and just dropped that page of the process, which had been present on other occasions.[/quote]

That;s possible, but if so it’s just one more example of Microsoft deciding what it thinks you want to do rather than giving YOU the option to decide. Just because you’re downloading on a Win 8 Pro system (the option occurs during the download process, not the installation process) doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the intended target for the installation.

Even if that’s the case, you should be able to download (using the link in the confirmation email) on your XP system and get the option to create a DVD/USB drive .iso file.

So it would appear that there is no way to perform a reformat until Win9 appears, unless it’s possible to completely wipe C drive, restore Vista from the recovery drive and start all over again from there.

That should be eminently possible unless you have neither a backup image of the Vista system nor the original disks that came with it to reinstall from. In the former case the product key information is included in the image, and I suspect (though don’t know for sure) that in the latter case you would not even need the original Vista product key to activate with (since I think that the Win 8 Pro Upgrade will install and activate even over an unactivated previous system as long as it’s a legitimate upgrade variety).

Which is probably even more risky than assuming no keylogger has been installed.

My suspicion is that very few things would be riskier than than assuming that the Philippine system is secure. And while the reinstall/re-upgrade process should work fine, if you’re worried about that simply create an image of your current Philippine Win 8 Pro system so that if anything DOES go wrong you can always just restore it to get back to where you are today.

Trusteer Rapport claims to block keyloggers on my selected sites, but I’m not convinced they can do so.

Not to mention the possibility that OTHER information which you enter elsewhere might be logged that might provide clues to the information you use on the supposedly protected sites.

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As several loungers recommended a reformat and custom install, I used this last disk, feeling it would be more reliable.[/quote]

You were installing on the same desktop system you’ve been working with all along, right? Had you restored an image of the pre-existing system (was it Win 7?) beforehand? If not, attempting to ‘upgrade’ the Philippine-created Win 8 Pro system might be why the product key was rejected (because they’re specific to an upgrade that’s only allowed on XP, Vista, Win 7, and Win 8 Release Preview systems).

It may be that the key is included in the ISO file, and I was using a different disc to the original installation, which would account for differing MD5s and hatches mentioned previously.

That’s one possibility that I’ve wondered about (given that the created .iso files all seem to differ).

Or it could have been a repeat of the original failure to recognise the key.

Is this the failure that you referred to in post #29? I recall being a bit confused (as was Medico in his response to that post) about exactly what you were describing, but if in fact when you said that you “double clicked the ISO download” what you meant was that you double-clicked the downloaded installer (which I suspect is not a .iso file) then a) you then actually installed the Win 8 Pro Upgrade (apparently successfully) and b) when you then attempted to install the upgrade AGAIN using the DVD that you had burned it saw the existing Win 8 Pro installation and quite possibly rejected the key you entered because Win 8 Pro is not a valid target for the upgrade (as I just described above).

If indeed this is what happened (and if you also attempted to upgrade Win 8 Pro over itself above), it would not leave any reason to suspect that the created .iso files are specific to the product key associated with the purchase.

Following this the second of my discs was used, which didn’t get past the missing driver stage. There was no offer to search for it, so I chose the option to repair the PC, which proved fruitless. This was repeated with the original ISO disc, so I decided to download another ISO file from the confirmation email. Much to my surprise, instead of a new file, it started downloading on my XP machine

What happens when you use the link in the confirmation email is that it executes (on whatever machine you’re using for the contact, which in this case apparently was your XP machine) a remote, fairly small executable file which accepts your product key and then downloads the main installation data (which is not in the form of a .iso file, though you’re given the opportunity to create a .iso file from it after the download has completed).

which only has 1.5 GB of RAM and is too old to support W8.

It might not be, unless its processor doesn’t support some required feature (and the required processor features have been pretty standard for quite a while now): 32-bit Win 8 nominally requires only 1 GB of RAM.

Copying the email on to a flash drive didn’t work, as the laptop asked what I wished to use to open it. It turns out that I.E. is unable to open .eml files

Good Ol’ IE6 on Win2K knows enough to use my default email application to open .eml files: is it possible that you had no email support set up at all when you tried this?

and Wordpad opened a meaningless collection of letters and numbers.

Hmmm. Microsoft, in its usual infinite wisdom, seems to have elected to encode its confirmation emails in Base 64. Both Wordpad and Notepad on Win2K normally open .eml files in a usable manner, but not when they’re encoded internally in this manner.

I forwarded the email to my Yahoo account and was able to install from there. But there was no option to install from media, so no chance to reformat.

As Medico just noted, what you get is an option to CREATE media (a .iso file which you can then burn to DVD or USB drive and install from later).

It did ask whether to save my settings or nothing, but choosing the latter did not include a reformat.

It can’t, really: it’s usually executing from the partition that would be reformated, after which continued execution would be difficult. To be able to reformat, you must execute the upgrade from somewhere else (e.g., DVD or USB drive).

Once installed, I opened Computer to see what was there. As feared, there was a recovery drive left over from Vista, confirmed later when a registry scan with JV16 revealed quite a few leftovers from 2012. I started by installing Firefox, and whilst adding the add-ons a pop-up said that Yontoo wished to alter the PC, which I refused. Later, an interim scan with Superantispyware, which doesn’t take long with not much on the laptop, found 33 instances of Yontoo, then the JV16 found another 8 in the registry, so the whole exercise has been a waste of time, as we are back to where we were before.

While it didn’t preserve your settings, it certainly seems to have preserved your malware. That’s one of the reasons why a reformat is desirable.

Today has really turned me off W8. It’s ridiculous that to access Control Panel, Computer, Windows Update, etc one has to go into Search and type the name, and Shut Down is almost as laborious.

If you’re already on the Desktop, ‘computer’ can be accessed through the File Explorer icon on your taskbar and you can use the ‘charms’ (though hardly ‘charming’) bar to access Control Panel and everything thereon, just as you do to access power options and then shutdown. If you use something like Classic Shell, I assume (haven’t tried it yet) that you can get to all these just as you would have on Win 7.

Also, during the initial settings I deselected ‘automatically install updates’, yet when I went to update it said I was on automatic updates.

Windows does have a nasty habit of re-enabling automatic updates ‘automatically’ under some circumstances (e.g., it may have done so when I upgraded Win 8 Pro to Win 8 Pro with Media Center). But I’m pretty sure that I remember similar (and similarly-annoying) behavior as early as Windows 2000.

When I turned this off a message said that I would get no updates –there was no option to inform me of updates without installing them.

Actually, I suspect there was but that it just wasn’t visible on the screen without clicking on the down-arrow to the right of the “no updates and don’t bother me about them” option (the default). I’d have to check a Win 7 system to see whether it behaves any differently in this respect.

I will look around to see whether it’s still possible to get a PC with Win 7 to replace XP.

While I fully understand your frustration (and you’re certainly not at all alone in this), if you DID get Win 8 Pro set up I suspect you’d find that the level of frustration dropped dramatically as soon as you installed something like Classic Shell (or a similar third-party mechanism) to make it work a lot more like Win 7 does. That would be a far less expensive solution than buying new hardware that you don’t otherwise need just to get Win 7 (and considerably less expensive even than just buying a Win 7 package – they’re still available – to install on your existing machine).

An optimist would consider all this a great learning opportunity – but that would assume that you’re interested in learning about this particular area and I wouldn’t think of criticizing you if you’re not (it’s entirely reasonable simply to want a computer to WORK, and work the way you’re used to working with one).

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Windows does have a nasty habit of re-enabling automatic updates ‘automatically’ under some circumstances (e.g., it may have done so when I upgraded Win 8 Pro to Win 8 Pro with Media Center). But I’m pretty sure that I remember similar (and similarly-annoying) behavior as early as Windows 2000.

Actually, I suspect there was but that it just wasn’t visible on the screen without clicking on the down-arrow to the right of the “no updates and don’t bother me about them” option (the default). I’d have to check a Win 7 system to see whether it behaves any differently in this respect.

You were bang on the money here. Once I knew what to look for it was simple. Checking back later, it still said to ‘inform but not download’

An optimist would consider all this a great learning opportunity – but that would assume that you’re interested in learning about this particular area and I wouldn’t think of criticizing you if you’re not (it’s entirely reasonable simply to want a computer to WORK, and work the way you’re used to working with one).

I am interested in learning as much as possible about computing, which is why I look at every article in WS and thread in Lounge Life, though I skim through things that are irrelevant to me. However, this is mainly in order to maintain security and keep everything running as well as possible, rather than any natural inclination for the subject. Yes, it would be ideal if computers just worked.

It’s turned out that Yontoo may not be malware after all. When installing the Firefox add-ons that I have on XP, and coming to the newly installed Easy Youtube Video Downloader, I was offered an upgraded version supporting more formats, but with adverts and a slightly different name. Looking through the list of downloads and seeing Yontoo, I clicked delete, only to be informed that would prevent the video downloader from opening. So Yontoo must be part of the video downloader. Who said computing was easy?

PS. See note my reply to the first quote is included in the quote above.

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Yes, it would be ideal if computers just worked.

I suspect that desire is part of the reason for the current popularity of tablets and Chromebooks – but I also wonder to what extent the hope for simplicity and reliability is actually realised with those devices. (Sorry, I’m wandering off topic).

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(Sorry, I’m wandering off topic).

We did that way back. But thanks for all your help.

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While I fully understand your frustration (and you’re certainly not at all alone in this), if you DID get Win 8 Pro set up I suspect you’d find that the level of frustration dropped dramatically as soon as you installed something like Classic Shell (or a similar third-party mechanism) to make it work a lot more like Win 7 does. That would be a far less expensive solution than buying new hardware that you don’t otherwise need just to get Win 7 (and considerably less expensive even than just buying a Win 7 package – they’re still available – to install on your existing machine).

Missed this from my reply above. Buying a Win 7 PC would not be an unnecessary expense, just bringing it forward, as the XP PC is 9.5 years old and virtually clapped out. I also make lots of typing errors, due to many of the letters have worn off the keys.

I have no intention of buying Win 7 for the laptop, unless it was being sold off at a low price.

Regards
George

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I also suspect something going on with that “Philippine” installation. The Install from created media happens right after the download and verify steps as shown in these screen shots:

32406-1132407-1232408-13

The next screen is shown in my last post.

I use both Classic Shell (free) on 2 PCs and Start8 ($4.99 USD) on my laptop. Both are very similar in allowing a person to boot directly to the Desktop and disable hot corners on the desktop as well as customize the way this replacement “Start Orb” looks and works. There are several others as well, one just started appearing, can’t place the name right now, that looks exactly like the Win 7 Start Orb. Just this one change allows a Win 7 style experience.

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There’s a list of utilities which revert the Windows 8 user interface to that of earlier Windows versions here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Start_Menu_replacements_for_Windows_8

The article is a little misnamed. As Medico says, they can not only restore the Start button and its menu, but also make the computer boot in desktop mode instead of Metro mode and disable the Charm icons. Many people feel that these utilities can convert Windows 8 from being completely unacceptable into very tolerable.

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A sticky thread just allows the thread to be kept at the top of the threads in a forum. If you look at a regular thread, it moves down the line as new threads are posted. A sticky thread stays on top.

We generally leave sticky threads unlocked as well to allow more useful posts to be added to them. Fpr example in my tutorial on taking the scary out, several others added very useful posts to it.

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http://www.yontoo.com/Support.aspx has some information about the product, including how to uninstall it. It appears to be legitimate but IMHO their description is extremely vague and I’m not much wiser regarding what it actually does. Perhaps another member can take a look and try to decipher it?

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Hi Bill
The first thing to strike me from your post is that I really should have tried creating an image of the laptop, long before attempting to install Win 8 Preview. You may recall that a year ago I had problems with a WD ext. drive, after removing the WD software it was possible to load an image of my XP set-up, but when trying to test it on a new internal drive it could not be seen.

I assumed the ext. drive was useless and have not used it since – hence my question about whether new drives need to be formatted – but I should also have tried to create an image of the laptop, to see if it was the desktop at fault, rather than the WD drive. Though it may not have been possible to test it, as the Vista laptop has a 240 GB drive – mostly empty – whereas the test drive is 120 GB to match the XP desktop. I suppose it’s worth following your suggestion of creating an image of the existing Win8 system, in case it is needed and works.

The next question is Macrium. You have suggested that the failure might have been because the older version of Macrium I was using did not support 3 GB drives, so I installed the latest version Friday evening, intending to burn a rescue disk. Last year I used Linux for this, but this time went for WinPE, which M. recommended as being more versatile – the welcome email received next day seems to suggest that Linux will not restore an image. It was very slow and appeared to be enormous, and eventually a message said it was about to download WAIK – or something like that – which I thought it had just done – and that it was more than 1GB in size. At this stage I aborted the rescue disk, as I started the day with less that I GB remaining of the extra 10 GB I had purchased.

So the question is whether to use a Linux rescue disk, persevere with WinPE – possibly downloading it overnight – or try another brand?

Next, to the nitty, gritty of how to achieve a clean install from here. When one clicks on the Vista recovery drive it restores Drive C to the same state as when it left the factory – I recall using it once to do just that. But what is likely to happen when Win 8 now occupies C – will the recovery drive erase W8 and reinstall Vista, or will it throw a fit? It seems to be too small for the former, and I don’t know where we go if it’s the latter.

I have the Dell re-installation disc for Vista SP1, but not the product key, and am uncertain as to the exact procedure for removing Win8 if necessary. Should I erase the entire disc and use the installation disc w/out product key, or do I retain the recovery drive, so as to install with no key?

I’m sorry for being such a pest, but I am no technician.

Your final sentence fills me with foreboding, bearing in mind the uncertain security status of the laptop.

George

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The first thing to strike me from your post is that I really should have tried creating an image of the laptop, long before attempting to install Win 8 Preview.[/quote]

I may be getting confused. It sounds as if you have a (formerly Vista) laptop on which you tried to install the Win 8 Preview a year ago and very recently installed (but did not ‘clean-install’) the Win 8 Pro Upgrade, a desktop on which you tried to install the Win 8 Pro Upgrade and eventually wound up with the dubious Philippine-assisted system, your wife’s computer on which so far no sort of Win 8 installation has been attempted, and an older XP system which likewise hasn’t had any kind of Win 8 installation attempted on it.

If so, while it would indeed have been prudent to have taken an image of the laptop system before attempting that Win 8 Preview installation unless you have reason to believe that that attempt garbled the existing system you seem to have gotten away with that particular omission.

I should also have tried to create an image of the laptop, to see if it was the desktop at fault, rather than the WD drive. Though it may not have been possible to test it, as the Vista laptop has a 240 GB drive – mostly empty – whereas the test drive is 120 GB to match the XP desktop.

It seems likely that the ‘test drive’ is a 3.5″ drive, which would not fit into the laptop anyway. But if I recall correctly your problem was that your desktop system running the Macrium boot CD would not see the WD USB drive at all, so you could at least have tested that on the laptop without actually restoring anything.

I suppose it’s worth following your suggestion of creating an image of the existing Win8 system, in case it is needed and works.

Making a backup image before doing anything that might cause you to need it is usually prudent, and it would also give you a better idea of whether you can actually use the WD drive productively in the future.

The next question is Macrium. You have suggested that the failure might have been because the older version of Macrium I was using did not support 3 GB drives, so I installed the latest version Friday evening, intending to burn a rescue disk. Last year I used Linux for this, but this time went for WinPE, which M. recommended as being more versatile – the welcome email received next day seems to suggest that Linux will not restore an image.

I’ve never used Macrium, but one might reasonably ask why the Linux version of the rescue CD exists at all if it won’t restore an image. Given the difficulties you encountered with the WinPE approach, I’d suggest at least giving the Linux version a shot.

It was very slow and appeared to be enormous, and eventually a message said it was about to download WAIK – or something like that – which I thought it had just done – and that it was more than 1GB in size.

The Win 7 WAIK .iso file which you need to BUILD a Win PE system is indeed close to 2 GB in size, but I would have expected Macrium to provide a pre-built WinPE .iso which should be much smaller (though for licensing reasons they may not be able to do so with their free version).

So the question is whether to use a Linux rescue disk

Since you’re already at least somewhat familiar with Macrium I’d suggest trying that.

persevere with WinPE

If you actually have to build the environment rather than just build the rescue disk, that sounds like more of a pain.

or try another brand?

There are many free options available that should do the job – see http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-drive-imaging-program.htm – but of course there’d be some associated learning curve.

Next, to the nitty, gritty of how to achieve a clean install from here. When one clicks on the Vista recovery drive it restores Drive C to the same state as when it left the factory – I recall using it once to do just that. But what is likely to happen when Win 8 now occupies C – will the recovery drive erase W8 and reinstall Vista

If indeed you’re talking about a several-GB separate recovery partition (I can’t recall just how large the one on our now-defunct Vista laptop was), that’s exactly what it should do.

or will it throw a fit?

No competently-designed recovery mechanism should do that.

It seems to be too small for the former

See above: how big is it?

and I don’t know where we go if it’s the latter.

That’s why you make an image that you can use to return to the status quo ante before trying it.

I have the Dell re-installation disc for Vista SP1

If this is something that came with the laptop when you got it, it should do the job as well.

but not the product key

You may not need it – it may be a generic product-line key present in the BIOS or possibly on the reinstallation disk itself . Even if neither of those is the case, you still may not need it if all you need to do is reinstall Vista (without reactivating it) to get the Win 8 Pro Upgrade to run successfully.

and am uncertain as to the exact procedure for removing Win8 if necessary.

My guess would be that the reinstallation won’t care what may be present on the target partition (and possibly not in the recovery partition either). Do you have any documentation that describes how to use the reinstallation disk (and for that matter the recovery partition)?

Should I erase the entire disc and use the installation disc w/out product key, or do I retain the recovery drive, so as to install with no key?

I’d certainly retain the recovery drive in case you need it, and would first try without erasing anything, as described above. If you eventually get to the point of re-doing the Win 8 Pro Upgrade, you can then consider whether to erase the recovery partition to recover its space (perhaps after having created a full-disk image that includes the recovery partition just in case).

There are likely quite a few people around here with more experience than I have in all these areas, though, (I don’t play around with vendor-provided recovery mechanisms much) so you might wait at least a bit to see whether any of them chime in.

Your final sentence fills me with foreboding, bearing in mind the uncertain security status of the laptop.

It sounds as if you still have two computers that may be just fine (your wife’s and your old XP system). Perhaps you’ll be able to restore your previous system to your desktop (over-writing the dubious Philippine system after first perhaps making an image of it) and then perform a clean Win 8 Pro Upgrade install to give you a third.

As for your laptop, all I can say is that after a quick Google check Yontoo is not something I would allow to be present on any system of mine. There are plenty of YouTube downloaders available (I use the Firefox ‘Download Helper’ extension) that don’t include Yontoo (if indeed Easy Youtube Video Downloader does include it, rather than that simply being a manifestation of Yontoo’s misbehavior). If the laptop were mine, I’d take the steps necessary to perform a ‘clean’ Win 8 Pro Upgrade installation as described above.

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Bill,
I would like to thank you for your patience and yet another detailed response to my problems. I must also apologise for not explaining clearly enough what has occurred.

I have a desktop running XP, my wife another with Vista, and the laptop came with Vista but currently has the dubious Philippine-assisted system, as you so eloquently expressed it. The wife’s machine has the W8 install file on the desktop, but she has deleted the confirmation email, despite my instructions not to touch it, so it looks as though that is unavailable. I have not tried to install W8 on the XP pc, although I did try to download the .ISO, with the intention of creating a new installation disk, but had to abort when it started downloading W8 itself. In summary, there are two desktops and the problematic laptop. Hopefully that has clarified the situation.

Taking subsequent points in order, I had no intention of trying to fit the spare HDD in to the laptop, but to replace the drive in the XP machine, test whether the Philippine image could be restored to it, then replace the original drive, otherwise my main PC would be knackered. Hence my doubt as to whether an image from a 240 GB drive can be restored to one of 120 GB. I was advised last year to get another drive of the same or larger size.

so you could at least have tested that on the laptop without actually restoring anything.[/COLOR]
How does one test an image without replacing the original, except on another drive?

The instructions in Macrium are somewhat unclear, but rereading the welcome email received the following day says it restores the complete system.

I decided to create a Linux rescue disk for ease of use, and the WinPE in case it was needed. Trying to burn the disk on the laptop was unsuccessful, W8 not including the requisite software, so the old Macrium on my desktop was replaced with v. 5.1 and I did it there. Hopefully rescue disks do not need to be produced on the same OS as their intended use. The WinPE can wait until needed, as can installing any more software on the laptop.

Now to the most important part of your post. You say that activating the recovery drive should remove Win8 and restore Vista, so from there it may be possible to do a clean install of Win8, thus removing the doubts aroused by the guy in the Philippines, or, more accurately, the grave misgivings expressed by you and Ted, and you are both far more experienced than me.

My main concern now is the recovery drive. It is only 14.65 GB, of which 8.64 GB is free. Is 6 GB enough for the entire Vista OS? Yet my first PC with W95 had only 6 GB, but that was before Windows become so bloated. Much to my surprise, Macrium shows another drive entitled Dell Utility, which does not appear on the laptop itself. It’s quite small, 39.2 MB, with 8.5 MB free. Is this for the junk invariably found on a new PC?

Thanks to you,Bill, I feel more confident than for some time. My only concerns now are whether the rescue disk created on the desktop will work, whether the Vista recovery is large enough contain the whole of Vista, and your use of the word ‘should’ and ‘may’ as in that’s exactly what it should do, referring to the recovery drive, and You may not need it, relating to the need of a product code to reinstall Vista. But I don’t suppose there was a product code when I had to reinstall XP years ago.

Again, my sincere thanks for all your help.
George

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My main concern now is the recovery drive. It is only 14.65 GB, of which 8.64 GB is free. Is 6 GB enough for the entire Vista OS?

That partition is just where Vista is stored; once activated if it can be, it will reformat the rest of the drive and recover (install) itself to a state identical to the day it was sold. If such an action is taken, it will probably recover as a fully activated Microsoft OS if the key is embedded in the BIOS. Since it seems this is a Dell system that is very probable. The Dell utility partition is just for running start up checks on the system to see if the RAM is good, if the hard drive(s) is still properly accessed, things like that. Perhaps you see (or did see at one time) a start menu that indicates a key to press when starting to begin those utility processes.

I’ll let Bill answer the rest, you’re talking about too many systems at once for me to understand the particulars about any single one.

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The wife’s machine has the W8 install file on the desktop, but she has deleted the confirmation email, despite my instructions not to touch it, so it looks as though that is unavailable.[/quote]

The link address in my own confirmation email appears to be the generic http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=262204 so losing that may not be a problem. However, if you didn’t note down the product key in that same email you’ll have to obtain it again from Microsoft (if that’s even possible) in order to use the upgrade that you purchased.

I did try to download the .ISO, with the intention of creating a new installation disk, but had to abort when it started downloading W8 itself.

You can’t download the .iso: you tell the download procedure to create one from the Win 8 Pro installation that it downloads (and that you aborted).

I had no intention of trying to fit the spare HDD in to the laptop, but to replace the drive in the XP machine, test whether the Philippine image could be restored to it, then replace the original drive, otherwise my main PC would be knackered.

You referred to not being able to test a laptop image because of the capacity (not the physical size) of your test drive: are you saying that you meant that you just wanted to test the ability of Macrium to restore that image (not test the functionality of the image itself)?

Even if that’s what you meant, wasn’t it your XP machine that couldn’t recognize the WD external drive over a year ago when booted from the Macrium rescue CD? Unless you’ve gotten a newer version of Macrium on a rescue CD to try out, that would still be a problem.

Hence my doubt as to whether an image from a 240 GB drive can be restored to one of 120 GB.

A good imaging program should be able to do that (especially at the single-partition level) as long as there’s noticeably less than 120 GB to restore (there are minor complications associated with the placement of the NTFS ‘Master File Table’, but it should be able to handle them) – but as I said before I have no personal experience with Macrium.

so you could at least have tested that on the laptop without actually restoring anything.[/COLOR]
How does one test an image without replacing the original, except on another drive?

What I was suggesting was that you try booting the old Macrium rescue CD on a different machine (the laptop) to see if it could recognize the WD external drive there.

The instructions in Macrium are somewhat unclear, but rereading the welcome email received the following day says it restores the complete system.

I strongly suspect that it’s a lot more flexible than that, but I’ll let someone actually familiar with that product handle this.

I decided to create a Linux rescue disk for ease of use, and the WinPE in case it was needed. Trying to burn the disk on the laptop was unsuccessful, W8 not including the requisite software,

Interesting. Still, your copy of ImgBurn should do the job (if Macrium allows you to create a .iso file).

so the old Macrium on my desktop was replaced with v. 5.1 and I did it there. Hopefully rescue disks do not need to be produced on the same OS as their intended use.

They certainly shouldn’t need to be.

My main concern now is the recovery drive. It is only 14.65 GB, of which 8.64 GB is free. Is 6 GB enough for the entire Vista OS?

Consider that your new Win 8 Pro system (and it IS the entire system, despite being called an ‘upgrade’) occupies only about 2.8 GB in its .iso file and on the resulting DVD (or 2.1 GB if talking about the 32-bit version). That leaves 3 GB – 4 GB for all the bloatware that vendors typically package with their PCs without exhausting the 6 GB that you can see is in use.

When you install Win 8 Pro you may well find that well over 10 GB of space is used in its partition, but over half of that may be occupied by things like the page file and the hibernation file that are generated on the fly (and hence need not occupy space on an installation or reinstallation medium) and much of the rest may be compressed on the (re)installation medium: this explains the difference in size.

My only concerns now are whether the rescue disk created on the desktop will work, whether the Vista recovery is large enough contain the whole of Vista, and your use of the word ‘should’ and ‘may’ as in that’s exactly what it should do, referring to the recovery drive, and You may not need it, relating to the need of a product code to reinstall Vista.

I qualified those remarks because I really can’t speak for your specific configuration. I do recall that the restore partition which HP included on our now-defunct Vista laptop claimed to be able to reinstall the system in its initial state (including activation), and that it was approximately the size of the partition on your laptop.

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UPDATE
Monday I connected the external drive to the laptop. Apart from a few data backups from the XP machine, made when having problems with the previous DVD writer, there were just two images from last year, neither of which the desktop had been able to install. I decided to keep them for now and deleted the data backups. Next I made an image of the laptop before making any changes. I assume that I checked that it was on the ext. drive, see why below.

Yesterday, I decided to do the monthly data backup to DVD, having completed my monthly accounts on Sunday, and backing up before there are any changes helps resolve future problems. Unfortunately Nero 9 had ‘Read Error’ problems whilst verifying the disk. Deciding the disk was faulty I aborted it. But the same thing happened with the next one.

So Nero was removed then reinstalled today, but at the end of installation another problem caused it to close. As it appeared to be installed I again tried to burn the back-up, loaded the 16 main folders, but the bar graph indicated just under 2GB, rather than the 4.5 it should be, also only the first folder was listed, so I aborted the third disk.

Deciding to put my back-up on the external disk, I noticed that it contained only the two old images and a small 1kb file replacing the image from the laptop. So now I must make another image and hope this time it actually stays on the WD drive. Plus finding a reliable replacement for Nero.

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Plus finding a reliable replacement for Nero.

You might like to try CDBurnerXP (freeware). Despite the name it is compatible with Windows 2000/XP/2003 Server/Vista/2008/Win7/Win8 (32-bit and 64-bit). I’ve used it on XP and 7 and can recommend it (I’ve no connection with the company).
http://cdburnerxp.se/en/home
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cdburnerxp

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So now I must make another image and hope this time it actually stays on the WD drive.

If I were doing this I’d create the image of the laptop system using the bootable Macrium CD, rather than try to create it from the running system. Then, after ascertaining that the image actually existed (so that if worse came to worst you could restore it), I’d forget about it, restore the Vista system, and perform a clean install of Win 8 Pro. If that works, you can wave a thankful good-bye to the system that’s giving you all these problems without bothering trying to solve them; if not, you can still restore the flaky system and try to figure out what’s wrong with it.

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I have often said, there are times that wiping things out and starting from scratch is much faster than trying to T/S these problems. I agree with Bill, your best bet is to do as he says.

On a personal note, I always create my Images (using Acronis) from the boot disk. I never do this from within Windows. There probably won’t be a problem, but why take the chance.

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@John 259
Thanks for the suggestion, I tried that yesterday, it’s certainly quick, but has serious defects. Password protected PDFs burn to the disk but will not open.

Also, I noticed during the burning process there were several messages about files having names that were too long, something I have not experienced since W98. Checking the disk afterwards there were only 498 files in the folder involved, compared with 523 on the PC.

@ -bill & Medico
Are you both saying that one can add an image to the boot disk? I had assumed that the disk was finalized and could not be added to. I’ll get the laptop out tomorrow and have a look, not feeling sufficiently awake this evening.

I must say it’s amazing that a simple question about installing Win 8 has resulted in over a hundred replies, nearly half of which must have been me asking for further information. This is a tribute to your patience and testimony to my complete incompetence where computers are concerned, for which I apologize.

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@John 259
Thanks for the suggestion, I tried that yesterday, it’s certainly quick, but has serious defects. Password protected PDFs burn to the disk but will not open.[/quote]
I haven’t tried password protected PDF’s, but it might be worth contacting the program’s publisher to see if they can assist.

Also, I noticed during the burning process there were several messages about files having names that were too long

There’s a possible workaround for that: build a zip file with a short filename that contains all the relevant folders, then burn the zip file to CD or DVD. I do that for routine weekly backups.

Are you both saying that one can add an image to the boot disk?

I’m just guessing, but I wonder if possibly there’s a confusion here between installing an ISO image on a hard disc (which will completely overwrite its previous contents), and copying an ISO image file to a hard disc (which will merely add another file to it)? Provided the storage medium has sufficient space, ISO files can be copied just like normal files. Apologies if I’ve misunderstood, or if all this is obvious.

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John,
Thanks for the workarounds for the burning software, but they seem yet more hassle, as though there wasn’t enough with computers already. I’ll have another look in WS to see what’s available, or even purchase the latest Nero. That can wait until the W8 issue is resolved, as they may not be needed if I get imaging working.

Please make allowance for my advanced middle age, but my brain doesn’t work as well as in the past, especially where technology is concerned, and despite reading your last paragraph several times, I am still confused. What is the difference between installing and copying ISO files? Also, I’m not sure whether your ‘hard disc’ refers to a CD/DVD or the C drive/external hard drive. Assuming ‘installing’ means downloading and burning to the DVD, as when I created the rescue disk, how would one then burn the image to the external drive? I am at a loss here. Sorry.

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John,
Thanks for the workarounds for the burning software, but they seem yet more hassle[/quote]
Fair enough, it was only an idea.

Also, I’m not sure whether your ‘hard disc’ refers to a CD/DVD or the C drive/external hard drive.

It’s probably best if I try to answer that question out of sequence because the other question’s reply depends on it. I think most people use these terms in the same way as I do:

A hard disc is a device with rotating platters on which data is recorded magnetically, or a solid-state disc (SSD) which performs the same role but the data is held electronically. SSD’s are a relatively new development. On Windows computers the first hard disc, from which the computer boots and which contains Windows’ own files, is normally C:.

I never use the term “hard disc” to refer to a CD or DVD.

What is the difference between installing and copying ISO files?

By “installing an ISO file” I mean restoring the entire contents of a hard disc drive by using a previously created ISO disc image of that drive.

By “copying an ISO file” I mean copying the ISO file in any of the various ways that you can copy any file, with the same results. For example, using Windows Explorer or My Computer to copy it from a folder on one hard disc to a folder on another hard disc.

Hope this helps. I agree that it does get very confusing and terminology is at least half the battle.

This might be worth a read, at least in parts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_image

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No not an Image to the Boot Disk. Create you Images to whatever removable media you normally do. I store my Images on an ext. HD. What we are saying is insert the Boot Disk you created using your Imaging app, boot to the Imaging app from the boot disk. (this then happens outside of Windows) then create your Image and store it to your Ext. HD.

All Imaging apps have an option to create a Bootable Rescue Media (this fits on a regular CD, no need to waste a DVD). This CD you create will become your Rescue Media. I create Images by booting to this media. If your PC will not boot you MUST use this Rescue Disk to allow you to boot into the Imaging app to allow you to restore your OS from your Ext. HD to your PC HD.

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Also for further clarification, boot disk is often referred to as the hard drive that the system OS resides on; a boot disc is a CD or DVD which can boot a system for any further action(s) it is designed to perform.

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Ted,
That didn’t work. After booting from the rescue disk it asked for the location of the image to be restored, for other options use WinPE. I recall that as being fairly large and slow to download, so I’ll do it tonight, and if that doesn’t succeed it will be time to get Acronis.

Thanks for your guidance.

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I have used Acronis from day one. There is only one Boot Media Option, not 2 as I believe Macrium Reflect has. I have NEVER been let down. I use version 2013 which works well with Win 8 as well as all previous OSs. Some others have reported problems with previous versions of Acronis, but I never had such problems.

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I’m still not sure of exactly what you are trying to do and with what but some of the points I can clear up are; John probably should have said optical disc, not hard disc. ISO files are designed to be burned as an image to a CD or DVD, which is not to be confused with making an image of your hard drive. An ISO file could also just be copied (burned) to an optical disc but then it would have none of the properties it was designed for, it would just be a file copied to an optical disc.

From post 107, it sounds like your rescue disc booted fine and was asking for the correct thing but possibly you do not have the image made or available that it is asking for. In this case that image is the image of you hard drive that would be made at some point prior with the installed Macrium software, if that’s what you are using. I’m sure Acronis would work too but its going to involve the same procedures. I use EaseUS ToDo free version 5.6 and it is pretty much procedurally identical as well.

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Rats – this is getting confusing.

1. ‘Disk’ is a term used by IBM at least as early as 1961 for a magnetic storage device (first introduced in 1956 by IBM) employing rotating platters and recently extended to include devices with similar purposes that have no moving parts at all (e.g., SSDs, as John noted). Rotating optical storage media (e.g., CDs and DVDs) are called ‘discs’ (as, for that matter, are phonograph records). However, ‘disc’ and ‘disk’ may sometimes be (loosely?) used synonymously.

2. Complicating things is the occasional usage of ‘disk’ (possibly even ‘disc’) to refer to the contents of a partition (or other container – e.g., a ‘virtual disk’) on a disk rather than to the entire disk, though the word ‘drive’ (e.g., “the C: drive”) is often used instead to help keep the two concepts separate.

3. Microsoft, unfortunately, uses the terms ‘boot drive’ and ‘system drive’ opposite to the way one might expect: the ‘system drive’ is the partition booted at the behest of the BIOS by the Master Boot Record (the new GUID partitions work differently) and contains a boot manager (e.g., ntldr on NT-based systems through XP and bootmgr for Vista and later) plus associated data that, automatically or interactively, decides which partition on the system contains the operating system to be started up (Microsoft calls this target operating system partition the ‘boot drive’).

4. Two very different kinds of ‘images’ are being discussed here: 1) the kind of bit-for-bit image of an optical disc (CD, DVD, Blu-Ray) that is typically contained in a .iso or similar file and can be ‘burned’ (rather than merely copied) to a blank optical disk to create a new copy (a similar mechanism exists for floppy disks) and 2) an ‘image’ (typically NOT a bit-for-bit but rather a logical representation) of the content of one or more ‘drives’ (or an entire disk) that an ‘imaging’ application like Macrium uses to capture the relevant data and preserve it in a file (typically NOT a .iso file) which the same application can use to restore the data if necessary.

5. I think that what post #107 was saying was that the Linux-based Macrium ‘rescue disc’ can only restore an image, not create one. I was not aware of this when I suggested using it to create an image, since (as Medico noted) Acronis rescue discs (which are also Linux-based) do not have this limitation.

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Two very different kinds of ‘images’ are being discussed here

Thanks Bill, I fear my earlier post was getting terribly confused between the two.

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Many thanks for the learned and comprehensive explanation, especially regarding disc and disk, which I had assumed were just different ways of spelling the same thing.

Last night I waited till just after midnight – so that it wouldn’t be included in my 10GB monthly download allocation – and made an attempt to create a WinPE rescue disc, which I found very complex. I don’t remember the exact sequence of events, but I was instructed to ‘Check that the rescue media can access your drives’ without any guidance on how to do that in the middle preparing to create the disc. There was an option to choose between what I took to be a standard or advanced download, but they used different names, so I selected what I took to be the standard. Finally the choice between downloading to a file on the PC or the CD/DVD writable drive; I selected the latter as it was supposed to be creating a rescue disc, but with some misgivings, remembering at some stage previously I had been advised to use IMGburn, but unsure how to get there from this point.

After clicking next, and expecting it to take well over an hour, I logged in to the Lounge – on the XP machine – and read # 110 and 111, not seen previously. But after a few minutes there was a peep from the laptop. The operation had failed due to ‘Device not present’. Only then did I remember that the initial attempt had failed due to the absence of burning software in W8, and subsequently I created the discs on the XP desktop. So I had an early night, intending to try again tonight.

However, this morning, in an attempt to make the whole thing less complex, I created a Linux rescue disc on the Vista desktop. As before, it booted the laptop, but asked for the location of the image to be restored, thus confirming that Macrium free edition does not allow the creation of an image from the rescue disc, as has been advised.

5. I think that what post #107 was saying was that the Linux-based Macrium ‘rescue disc’ can only restore an image, not create one. I was not aware of this when I suggested using it to create an image, since (as Medico noted) Acronis rescue discs (which are also Linux-based) do not have this limitation.

I think it best to start by trying to create WinPE on one of the desktops, despite the complications, as after buying Acronis my technical incompetence could again lead to failure, and all of the free systems may have the same limitation.

In fact, I am already considering whether, if WinPE fails again, to give up on imaging permanently and use the existing set-up on the laptop, always bearing in mind that it may not be safe. Even before all this I was reluctant to use it to access my bank, having little faith in the security of hotel connections, so there would be no major difference.

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In fact, I am already considering whether, if WinPE fails again, to give up on imaging permanently and use the existing set-up on the laptop, always bearing in mind that it may not be safe. Even before all this I was reluctant to use it to access my bank, having little faith in the security of hotel connections, so there would be no major difference.

It’s your decision to make, obviously, but I think it’s not a good one. If you are having problems with other apps, I would suggest you do take a look at Acronis. You can even use it freely for 30 days, and it is fully functional.
I have used Acronis since version 8, quite a few years ago and it has saved me countless times. The last time was a couple days ago, when my SSD hit a problem, from which I was able to recover with no other loss than time spend changing disks and restoring backups, resorting to an image done with Acronis.

With Acronis you have no need to worry about WinPE or whatever. Install it, execute it to create your images on an external disk and be done with it. Create a rescue disk, from within the app, just to be able to boot in a system where your boot drive when down, so that you can restore from your previously saved image.

I would never, ever do without an image based backup system. It’s not just about saving your data, it’s about saving your time, your effort, heck, even your sanity. Acronis works fine from within Windows, 2013 version works fine from within Windows 8. There is no risk attached. 98% of the images I have done have been made from within Windows. The only exceptions were done in circumstances where Windows just didn’t run, for whatever reason and I decided to image even the faulty system, just to have a known point to recover unsaved data.

I would say that on a Windows system, the greatest risks are malware and hardware failure. This means that the software that minimizes this is good backup software and the best possible security software. IMO, in both cases, the best options come from paid software – which does not mean that there isn’t good free software out there. I use paid software in both situations, because I truly think I have best of breed software in both cases. Your choice to not use imaging would leave out possibly the best and fastest way to get back to a working system when something goes wrong with your hard drives.

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It’s your decision to make, obviously, but I think it’s not a good one. If you are having problems with other apps, I would suggest you do take a look at Acronis. You can even use it freely for 30 days, and it is fully functional.

The 30 day trial with Acronis is great news. My reluctance to buy Macrium Pro was due to the risk of not being able to make that work either, but with Acronis there would be no financial loss.

Macrium WinPE was already downloading when I read your post, or I might have tried Acronis last night. Once again a somewhat troublesome experience, unable to find WAIK it continued, then later installed WAIK – which must be what puzzled me when I previously tried to download it and thought it was repeating something already completed. As before there was the exhortation to check that M could access my drives, irrelevant as the download was being done on another machine, and the choice of whether to send to a file or the DVD writer. I considered the former, remembering being instructed earlier to use IMGBurn, but decided that as it was M asking whether I wished to send to the writer it would be OK.

The final ‘Rescue disc successfully completed’ message was reassuring, but this morning when trying it in the laptop, it would only boot to Win8. So I’m ready to try Acronis.

I would never, ever do without an image based backup system. It’s not just about saving your data, it’s about saving your time, your effort, heck, even your sanity.

I have spent so much time on this W8 installation, and been frustrated so many times, that I am beginning to doubt my sanity. It would probably have been possible to manually reinstall two PCs in the time already used. Hopefully, if I get imaging to work, it will have been worthwhile in the long run. HOPEFULLY

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Is there some reason an image of a system has to be made from a rescue boot disc? Pardons if I missed something along the way.

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I just feel better making my images outside of Windows. Acronis does seem to work fine within Windows, but my Images seem to create faster when I boot to the Rescue Disk (c) Not sure any more whether to use K or C. Now I’m confused.

I guess it’s just the method a user is accustomed to.

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I just feel better making my images outside of Windows. Acronis does seem to work fine within Windows, but my Images seem to create faster when I boot to the Rescue Disk (c) Not sure any more whether to use K or C. Now I’m confused.

I guess it’s just the method a user is accustomed to.

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As Medico says, its user preference and comfort level. I make my image backups with Acronis while continuing to use the PC. Don’t really pay attention to how long it takes.

Jerry

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I think it best to start by trying to create WinPE on one of the desktops, despite the complications, as after buying Acronis my technical incompetence could again lead to failure, and all of the free systems may have the same limitation.[/quote]

Older versions of Easeus ToDo Backup Free’s Linux-based ‘rescue disc’ indeed had this limitation, but allowed you to create a WinPE-based rescue disc that would do the job. Can’t speak for the current version (perhaps FUN can answer whether it allows this).

Older versions of Seagate’s free DiscWizard software (a constrained version of Acronis) performed image backups from their rescue discs (again, can’t speak for the current version), and while they nominally required the presence of a Seagate disk somewhere on the system in order to be used up through 11.0.0.8326 there was a ‘technical override’ (Google it) to bypass this requirement (http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ still appears to provide this version if you want to try it – but use ONLY the bootable CD, which you should be able to create on your Vista system, rather than install it on Win 8, which it is not designed to run on).

Paragon’s Backup & Recovery Free 2011 Linux-based ‘rescue disc’ claimed that it allowed making backup images as well as recovery using them (haven’t checked to see whether the current 2012 version also does).

Is there some reason an image of a system has to be made from a rescue boot disc?

Because in this particular case the system you’re taking an image of is suspect and might not create the image properly if you used it rather than the bootable CD. I prefer to not to use a system to take an image of itself regardless (and it’s particularly easy to avoid in a multi-boot environment) simply because depending upon a system’s ‘shadow copy’ or similar facilities to create an image is just one more thing that might go wrong, but that’s just me.

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Ok, just wondering, I think even the free software is very good at freezing a status snapshot when it begins from within Windows and I’ve all but forgotten to image outside of Windows. I’ve never even had an image fail verification or restoration, so I’ve come to believe it is all but foolproof and the days of Ghost are behind us, but I can’t argue the absolute stability from outside of Windows. Speaking of which…good question…according to the ToDo literature, the free version supports disk and partition cloning but not imaging or incrementals.

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I hope you have better luck with Acronis now. I know how frustrating it can be when you need to “fight” the computer, be it because of the hardware or the software. Sometimes I also question my own sanity. Fortunately, in many recent situations, Acronis has been a reliable help. I hope it works for you too :).

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Acronis True Image 2013 trial installed – result chaos.

Immediately after installation there was an option to download the pdf manual, but I chose to create the rescue disc first and look at that this morning. Big mistake, as that’s the only chance to access it within the programme, and by no stretch of the imagination could ATI be described as intuitive. After some time spent trying to work out how to create the rescue media I went to bed.

I had more success today, despite my concern over the instruction to close any antivirus software, which was impossible as Windows Defender, like MSE can not be turned off. However, the disc worked and booted into Acronis. Then the real problems began. After a long delay at the start there was a message ‘Error while loading shared libraries. Libnet SO1: cannot open shared object file: no such file on directory’. I’ve no idea what that is about.

It took me some time working out how to create an image: finally thought I’d cracked it and chose the whole drive to be sent to drive H: My Book. Under ‘Engender a name’ I entered ‘26.02.2013. Faulty Win 8’ so as to know what it referred to, unlike the long meaningless numbers on the Macrium images, only to be told that was not found. At this point I decided to let Acronis choose a name but nothing happened. In fact we now had complete stasis, no going forward or back, and impossible to close Acronis. As the PC was not in Windows it couldn’t be closed in the normal manner and I had to resort to literally pulling the plug out from the laptop.

After much searching I located the manual on the website, and downloaded all 240 pages of it, which would just about use up the remaining 28 days of my trial it I need to read it all. But I certainly need to find the instructions for making images, which at least WAS intuitive with Macrium.

I’ve had a look at the Media Builder section and the following sentence caused some surprise. “For this, you will need a blank CD-R/RW, a blank DVD+R/RW or any other media from which your computer can boot, such as a USB flash drive”. I don’t have any blank CDs, and only DVD-R, apart from DVD+R dual layer, yet it booted up OK.

Tomorrow I must go out and buy a suit, those I own having shrunk, and my other work is piling up, so it may be a day or two before I return to the task of sorting out the laptop. The break may do me good.

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These are the steps to use Acronis from within Windows: The steps when booting to the Rescue Media is similar.

Click on the Backup and recovery tab:

33254-TrueImage1

Step 1 (see blue number 1): Click Disk and partition backup

Step 2 (see blue number 2): Select the source for the B/U. I can choose either C Drive, D Drive or both. Just put a checkmark on the partition (drive) you wish to include.

Step 3 (see blue number 3): Select the destination drive. In my case I would use the drop down box to choose my External HD.

Step 4 (see blue number 4): Choose a name for this Image File. I also add a date. Booting to the Rescue Disk, there is an option using the drop down menu next to the name to have the app add the date.

Last Step (blue square box): Select Back Up Now.

33255-TrueImage2

As I said the Rescue Disk options are similar. There are other options such as verification, compression rate, etc, but for a simple step by step this will do.

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Really? It says Engender? One of my pet peeves is engineers who use 25 cent words; they should be rounded up and every user who stopped and asked themselves ” now what does that mean exactly,” gets to punch said same engineers once in the arm for free.

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Unfortunately, it looks as though the marathon effort to achieve a clean installation of Win 8, not forgetting the considerable time several of you have spent helping me, has been wasted.

Today I started on my first image using Acronis. Initially impressed when it estimated only 14 minutes to complete, the next time I looked it said 37 minutes, which steadily increased to just over an hour, then the screen when blank, which I took to be the screen saver cutting in. Later, refreshing the screen to see how it was progressing, I realised it was dead. Fitting a new fuse made no difference, all the connections were firmly in place, and I noticed that the light on the external drive was also out, confirming that the laptop is dead.

Tomorrow I shall take it to PC World and ask if there is any way to check that the transformer is OK, if not, or it proves to be in working order, the laptop is probably scrap. If it’s the hard drive that’s gone, having a new one installed is a marginal decision, anything else is not worth the expense of repairing.

A laptop with a 15” screen is quite convenient for use, but lugging it around on holiday is a burden. My wife is already thinking of buying a tablet, and we may well settle for that.

I must thank all who have contributed to this thread, Bill and Ted in particular, and apologise
for wasting so much of your time. That’s life.

George

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Sorry to hear the news.

My wife is already thinking of buying a tablet, and we may well settle for that.

Just a thought – have you considered a Chromebook as an alternative?

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George, Never a waste of time. You learned something, I think we might have learned something, and anyone with the fortitude to read this entire thread will definitely learn something.

You troubles just kept multiplying. I did not wish to say it, but a H/W failure could have been causing the problem right along.

Acronis does that at times. The time to complete is not always linear. Not really sure why but it does at time change the amount of time remaining, both faster and slower.

There are some very nice tablets that can be converted to laptops, many that are touch enabled. Good luck with finding a replacement.

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Very sorry to hear about the laptop, but, as you say, that’s life. It might be worthwhile checking to see whether its hard drive is OK, though: never hurts to have a spare around for various uses, and USB enclosures for 2.5″ drives can often be purchased for less than $10 US. If its RAM is recent that might be worth salvaging as well.

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X2 It does sound like the failure is not related to the HD, or possibly Ram in this case. I would more think PS or perhaps CPU??? It might be worth saving these. As Bill says, and extra HD could be used as an Ext HD by using the enclosure.

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FALSE ALARM
It turned out that the laptop was OK, as was the transformer. The problem was the lead between the transformer and the wall socket. Either the replacement fuse I inserted was faulty, or a wire had become detached inside the plug, which was of the sealed variety. So I was unduly pessimistic.

In fact, we have been fairly lucky with PCs. The first (W95 > W98) was stolen in a burglary whilst we were on holiday, but it was already five years old and running out of space. Next came the trusty old XP – 9.4 years old and getting long in the tooth. My wife’s Vista desktop will be six years old this summer, and the laptop 3.5 years. Three out of four that have survived five years without even needing a new HDD is probably fairly lucky. And it may yet become 4 out of 4.

So it’s back to harassment. I have created an image, except it’s probably not an image. It shows on the external drive as ‘My backups, 01.03.13 Philippine set-up’, described as a file folder, as is the data back-up from the XP pc, whereas the two images from last year are listed as ‘Macrium image’. I must do another, watching out for the option to choose ‘image’ rather than ‘back-up’ – it must be there somewhere.

Finally, another question. Is there any way to confirm that an image will install, other than by replacing the HDD in the desktop with the spare drive bought last year for the same test purpose?

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If its an Acronis image, you can open Acronis, click on Tools and Utilities tab, Scroll down to image mounting and click on Mount image. If the image mounts to a virtual disk OK, you are 99.99% sure the image will install. I assume Macrium has a similar facility.

Jerry

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If its an Acronis image, you can open Acronis, click on Tools and Utilities tab, Scroll down to image mounting and click on Mount image. If the image mounts to a virtual disk OK, you are 99.99% sure the image will install. I assume Macrium has a similar facility.

Jerry

When I click on Mount it says ‘Cannot open program because another program is running’ No idea
what.

@rui. Thanks. Running Acronis TI 2013

@Ted. But there is a major difference between you and I, quite apart from experience. You are using a method that has worked many times in the past for you, whereas this is my first image with ATI – or will be when I have another attempt – apart from failure last year with Macrium and the XP machine.

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When I click on Mount it says ‘Cannot open program because another program is running’ No idea
what.

@rui. Thanks. Running Acronis TI 2013

@Ted. But there is a major difference between you and I, quite apart from experience. You are using a method that has worked many times in the past for you, whereas this is my first image with ATI – or will be when I have another attempt – apart from failure last year with Macrium and the XP machine.

Are you trying to mount the image with TI running? If you are, I suggest you close TI and then try to mount the image.

I never mount my images, I just verify them. I think Ted’s strategy is a risky one, especially with your first image – if things go wrong, you may have to clean install to get your computer back, which kinda makes the imaging strategy moot.

With TI, you have another option, which could at least be used with the first image you create. TI allows you to convert an image file to a .vhd file, that you can use then with Virtual PC (in Windows 7) or Hyper-V (in Windows 8). You can thus have a VM from your image backup, and you could see if you could boot the VM.

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Glad the computer is working.

What app are you now using for the image?

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The method I use to verify an Image is not for everyone, or the faint of heart. Once I create an Image, I then turn around and restore that Image. This proves 100% that the Image and app works to create a good image.

I would still be very suspect of that Philippines installation.

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Some others install a spare HD and Restore to that as evidence that everything is working.

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You can also close True Image, browse to the backup image file (filename.tib) with windows explorer, and then just double click on it.

Jerry

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It looks as though the long saga of my attempts to install a safe copy of Win8 has come to an abrupt end. No sooner has one crisis turned out to be a false alarm, than another crops up.

Back in January Win8 was installed by the chap in the Philippines. Firefox was the first to be restored, but whilst adding the second add-on the mouse stopped working. I used the pad substitute for a while, but this is so slow that before long I tried the mouse on the Vista desktop, and, after installing the driver, it worked. Returning to the laptop, and plugging it in, I noticed that the hub was quite warm. Examination showed that a bubble had formed on the underside of the hub, so there must have been a fair amount of heat. The next day, I tried the hub again before buying a new one, and it worked OK, and still does.

Yesterday evening I created another image of the laptop, and still unable to find an option to choose ‘image’ rather than ‘backup’ selected ‘sector by sector’. The result left me with two very similar files in the My Backups folder created by Acronis, differing only in the name and the fact that one was 39 GB and the other 75 GB. Both were described in Properties as File Folder and Read only, which didn’t sound to me much like an image. No .tib suffix. Looking at them again today, I discovered by chance that if one of them is opened and Properties selected the result is quite different. No longer is it ‘read only’ and the File Type is now .tib. Just about to open the first one to see if that was similar, the laptop played a jingle and the mouse stopped working.

Worse was to follow. Testing the mouse and hub in a desktop showed both to be working. There are 3 USB sockets on the laptop, but none functioned. Trying a flash drive in each socket confirmed they are dead. I assume that replacing three sockets in a laptop, along with the wiring or application that caused them all to fail at the same time, would be extremely expensive, as with the flash socket on a good SLR camera, due to the difficult access. So Ted was correct about it being a probable H/W issue, and we are left with a severely crippled machine, OK for browsing the web. But little else, and still of suspect security.

It’s really disappointing that the sole purpose of upgrading to Win 8 was to help me decide whether to replace the aging XP machine with Win 7 while still available, or Win 8, and it’s been frustrated by the guy in the Philippines. If, whilst keeping the security aspect in mind, I had pressed on with fully acquainting myself with Win 8 instead of trying to clean up the laptop, I would presumably have reached a decision by now. Hopefully we learn by our mistakes.

I will look into the cost of a repair, but expect it to be uneconomic. But not today, as we are going out shortly to see the ‘Parsifal’ relay from the Met, with my favourite tenor in the title role and René Pape as Gurnemanz – that should make my weekend.

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I would probably go for a clean install before trying anything else, while making sure you have your data safe, from some of the multiple backups you have. The issues can result from the current “corrupt” Windows 8 version you have, unless you had similar issues before, with XP (freezing, mouse not working, etc).

Enjoy your Parsifal :).

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I would probably go for a clean install before trying anything else, while making sure you have your data safe, from some of the multiple backups you have. The issues can result from the current “corrupt” Windows 8 version you have, unless you had similar issues before, with XP (freezing, mouse not working, etc).

In case ruirib’s suggestion was confusing, I believe he means that you might want to verify that the laptop’s USB ports are in fact dead using some mechanism other than the suspect Philippine system – e.g., by booting your ‘rescue disc’ on the laptop and seeing whether that CD-based system can recognize devices connected to the USB ports and, if it can, proceed to use said rescue disc to perform a ‘clean install’ to see whether a virgin Win 8 Pro system might be able to as well.

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cI’ve been considering how best to proceed with the laptop, bearing in mind that the main reason for installing Win8 was to determine whether to replace my aging XP desktop with the universally admired Win7 or the controversial Win8. My conclusion was that the primary aim could still be achieved with the existing set-up, even if pretty laborious without the use of a mouse, whereas if I try to restore Vista and then apply the W8 upgrade, it could fail as before, leaving an even bigger mess.

Deciding to stick with the current installation, I plugged in the laptop, checked that the mouse was still not working and opened Sharescope. This automatically updates all UK and US equities, but there are six shares which I have to update manually – my European, Canadian and Australian holdings. This I do each day on my PC, back up to a flash drive at the weekend, then use it to restore the copy on the laptop, plus any changes to my portfolio, which only takes a minute or so. Inserting 5 days prices for 6 equities without a mouse almost drove me to distraction, it was so slow, but I continued with the plan.

It seemed advisable to update Windows Defender before starting to download the apps I use on XP, which proved to be a lucky decision. With a mouse W. Defender is quickly found, but now it was a slow business and I happened to see a ‘MS Mouse and ??? Centre’, so I took a look. A ‘device not found’ notice was followed by the recommendation to try another USB socket if using a MS mouse. Once that was done the mouse started working. In fact both the sockets on the left hand side work today, whereas that was not the case yesterday. However, the socket on the other side is still dead. So the up and down behaviour continues, at present it is possible to have both mouse and flash drive installed.

This erratic behaviour from the laptop leaves me undecided what to do. Should I assume that it’s going to die any time soon, making it advisable to download an app or two every day and give them a run in Win8, or take a more measured approach?

On the other hand, if ruirib is correct, and it could be that the doubtful copy of W8 in use is causing the issues with the mouse and USB sockets, it might be better to install the spare HDD in my XP desktop, and try installing the recent image. If that works I could restore Vista from the laptop’s recovery drive, then have another go at upgrading to W8, secure in the knowledge that, if it goes wrong again, the status quo could be restored from the image. Alternatively, it would save a lot of time and hassle if the testing were skipped, hoping the image would not be needed. But is it advisable? All opinions welcomed!

PS. Only just seen your posting Bill. A timely reminder that I have not tested the Acronis rescue disk yet. Thanks

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Alternatively, it would save a lot of time and hassle if the testing were skipped, hoping the image would not be needed. But is it advisable?

Unless there are other possibilities to consider, either your laptop has sufficient hardware problems that it may not be sensible to try to preserve it (or the system on it), or the existing Win8 Pro has sufficient problems that you might as well scrap it (since if it’s the problem you really want to start fresh anyway). Either way, verifying that the backup image of your dubious system can be reinstalled may be a waste of time (unless it was taken before the USB ports went West, perhaps) – though only you can say whether it might be easy enough to be worth trying anyway.

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Computers are impossible!

I have been using the laptop on and off during the past week or so, until satisfied that Win 8 is a reasonable OS, and without any further problems. Today I intended to restore Vista and have another go at updating from there, but it refuses to recognise my password. Repeated attempts to log on always say password incorrect. There is no possibility of my having forgotten the password, as it’s the same as for the XP desktop, which I’ve been using every day for some years.

I don’t suppose there is any way round that – if there is there wouldn’t be any point in using a password. A most unusual ending to this saga.

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George, see ifthis helps.

If you didn’t have bad luck you would have no luck at all my friend!

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Thanks Ted, I’ll try it in the morning.

What would us novices do without you?

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Probably punt! Oh sorry, that’s an American expression. Based on American football. It means fall back and kick the ball away.

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Last night I burned the Windows Password Recovery disk, which wasn’t needed, but I’ll keep it as you never know when it might be required.

This morning I started the laptop, which began with ‘Preparing Automatic Recovery’, which sounded promising. Some time later it stated that it was unable to repair the PC, but I could try reverting to an earlier restore point. Clicking OK was eventually followed by the W8 start screen.

Signing in with old password went without a hitch, then a screen appeared listing two
technical faults, the first being a video hardware error dating from 24/02/13. The details screen wasn’t very informative – at least not with my limited knowledge – and I am not sure whether it repaired it or not. By this point the second error had disappeared, but I wasn’t concerned as Win 8 was about to be erased.

Thinking this was my lucky day, and following the instructions in the manual for restoration to the ex factory set-up, I closed down, restarted and clicked F8 repeatedly once the Dell logo appeared, and even before. But my luck had run out, as each time it booted to Win 8, rather than the options it was supposed to.

I could try F1 upwards, but it may involve a combination with another key, involving a long period of trial and error, so I settled for a message in the Dell Forum, although that has not produced anything useful in the past.

It’s possible that the Win 8 upgrade left the recovery drive in place, but deleted whatever was required to access it. Hopefully that’s not the case.

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If you have fast boot enabled the computer does not completely shut down when you hit shut down. Try doing a restart and use F8 when the logo appears.

Rich

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F8 on boot (or shift F8) doesn’t work with Windows 8. It doesn’t matter if the boot is from a restart or from a power down state or with Fast Boot disabled. One of my major gripes with Windows 8 since you can’t get into Safe Mode on Boot. Since the Dell Factory Restore procedure for your laptop requires using F8, you may be out of luck.

You might want to call Dell support and see if they have an alternative answer.

Jerry

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F8 on boot (or shift F8) doesn’t work with Windows 8. It doesn’t matter if the boot is from a restart or from a power down state or with Fast Boot disabled. One of my major gripes with Windows 8 since you can’t get into Safe Mode on Boot. Since the Dell Factory Restore procedure for your laptop requires using F8, you may be out of luck.

You might want to call Dell support and see if they have an alternative answer.

Jerry

As F8 doesn’t work with Win 8, I’ll have to use the installation disk, despite misgivings about the key only having 20 characters – including the initial CN for China – whereas MS disks normally have 25 characters.

However, several years have elapsed since I reinstalled an OS and I could use some guidance. Should I reformat the disk first, or create a new partition, install Vista on that, then delete the existing C drive along with Win 8. I seem to remember deleting the Master Boot Drive, but is this before or after reformatting? The reply from Dell Forum only refers to using F8, although I specified the need to remove Win 8 and restore Vista.

Apologies for yet more questions.

TIA

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georgelee, hello.
No need to call Dell, just use the option in W-8 and you will find happiness. The Help app in W-8 is the most “disregarded” one. Just in case you would be hesitant as to where to find Help, get to the Desktop, hit File Explorer and at the top right hand corner, you will see a small blue ?, click on it and type Safe Mode and if you learned to read a few years ago, it is all there for you, in spite of what Jerry said. Wouhaha ! :rolleyes: Jean.

PS: I got to the Help app and dumped to my printer the instructions to get to Safe Mode. I think (?) that in the write-up, there is a step missing, I got to SM but I had to hunt around a little, fear not, it is there. JP.

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georgelee, hello.
No need to call Dell, just use the option in W-8 and you will find happiness. The Help app in W-8 is the most “disregarded” one. Just in case you would be hesitant as to where to find Help, get to the Desktop, hit File Explorer and at the top right hand corner, you will see a small blue ?, click on it and type Safe Mode and if you learned to read a few years ago, it is all there for you, in spite of what Jerry said.

Thanks for showing me how to reach Safe Mode, and also to John for his links which helped me proceed from there, but whilst it may prove useful in the future – see below – at the moment it leads to a dead end.

Despite all my efforts, I couldn’t find any method to get from there to the Vista recovery drive – it persists in asking for the backup on a DVD or external drive. Perhaps it is possible to create an image of just the recovery drive on my external drive and access it from there. Do you think that would work?

In the meantime I must start researching how to reinstall Vista from the installation disk, as it is several years since I did so and it’s no longer in my memory. Also, that was a case of reinstalling XP on an XP machine.

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Jerry, hello.
Safe Mode does exist in W-8, one has to look for it. The best information is available in Help, just go to it and type in Safe Mode, voilà. I just had a look at it for you as you helped me before. I hope that georgelee reads this too. SM is available from boot and also from a running machine, as I said, look for it and thou shall find. Jean.

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SM is available from boot and also from a running machine, as I said, look for it and thou shall find. Jean.

Running; yes. Boot; no.

Bruce

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Bruce, good morning to you. “Running; yes. Boot; no.”

Let us agree to disagree. SM is not available as we knew it from boot via the F8 key. It is in another way, available before a full boot and this is where it differs. Read the Help suggestion after typing Safe Mode in the dialogue and you will see that it suggest to click on the “ON” icon at the lower right hand corner and then do a Shift + Restart with a click or tap to go through the process. A bit more convoluted by at least if necessary, it is there in spite of Jerry. :rolleyes: Jean.

PS: I just went through the F8 like steps and it does run SM as we knew it. I also learned a lot, no Ethernet, no sound. Funny, I never had to go to SM, ever ! JP.

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Bruce, good morning to you. “Running; yes. Boot; no.”

Let us agree to disagree. SM is not available as we knew it from boot via the F8 key. It is in another way, available before a full boot and this is where it differs. Read the Help suggestion after typing Safe Mode in the dialogue and you will see that it suggest to click on the “ON” icon at the lower right hand corner and then do a Shift + Restart a click or tap to go through the process. a bit more convoluted by at least if necessary, it is there in spite of Jerry. :rolleyes: Jean.

That’s all from a running system. It’s no longer available (manually) when booting a non-running system *, and that is Jerry’s point.

EDIT: * without the workaround Medico just reminded us of, but which I had missed when posting this.

Bruce

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Bruce, Let us agree to disagree.
This is not from a running system, YET ! But agreed that the F8 keystroke was so easy and primordial. The system is only to be considered “running” after you enter your PW, up to that point, you can do a switch power OFF and nothing is the worst. Are we still friends ?

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The system is only to be considered “running” after you enter your PW,

Who says?

click on the “ON” icon at the lower right hand corner and then do a Shift + Restart

Fine if you can get that far, but otherwise?

Bruce

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Bruce said : “Who says?”.
I wrote now, “I”.

I had no trouble getting there Bruce and I fancy that you can too, you know a lot more than I in this realm. JP.

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Bruce said : “Who says?”.
I wrote now, “I”.

I had no trouble getting there Bruce and I fancy that you can too, you know a lot more than I in this realm. JP.

See this thread for an example of someone who can’t access safe mode: Windows 8 Blue Screens

Any suggestions?

Bruce

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George,

Have you tried Googling for:
f8 windows 8
Some of those links suggest various possible solutions to the F8 problem but I don’t know if any would be effective in your situation. Might be worth a go.

PS After reading your long-running saga of woe and misery I need something upbeat to cheer me up. Now, where are my Leonard Cohen CD’s?

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There is a method to add a Safe Modeoption to Win 8 boot manager. This was written during the beta test period, but the author stated it would be updated if something changes in the RTM.

This method seems somewhat involved, and seems not for the faint of heart.

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up to that point, you can do a switch power OFF and nothing is the worst

But also nothing is the better, in other words one is not getting into safe mode, see the logic?

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And the workaround that Medico referred to is not likely to be installed on the PC’s I get to repair, but it is what it is. It just makes life more difficult and may result in a reinstall in a few cases where it shouldn’t be necessary. I’ve already seen cases where the video driver is hosed, Windows 8 thinks its booted OK, but you can’t see anything. In previous versions, you could boot into Safe Mode which uses a default video driver and either roll back the current driver or install a new one. There are also cases where a Virus prevents the system working by normally by killing explorer.exe which kills the task bar and prevents you from starting any programs. I’ve personally dealt with this nasty. With Windows 8, you’re SOL in these cases.

The method Handcuff suggested is new to me (thanks) but many of the systems I get autologin so they don’t stop at the login screen.

Jerry

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Jerry, hello. “The method Handcuff suggested is new to me (thanks) “.
Honestly, I can not take any credit for this except that I perused the Help file. This procedure is obviously, I mean the whole Safe Mode, not for the faint of heart to start with, the population in this forum would be well educated to use it, the others ask questions and it is a pleasure to help them. Let us keep having fun. Jean.

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I’m finding it extremely difficult to keep up with the latest plot developments in this thread but am I right in thinking that at the moment George’s computer boots up into normal Win8 and he wants it to boot in Win8 Safe Mode? Apologies if that’s wrong.

If I’m right, then perhaps this might help:
If you’re able to boot Windows normally, but still need to enter Safe mode, go to the Metro Start screen and type msconfig. Launch System Configuration from the list of search results, then select its Boot tab. On this screen you can check a box to enable Safe boot, with various different types of Safe mode available below. Click Ok, then click Restart to boot your computer into Safe mode.
– From http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/windows/3421988/how-boot-windows-8-in-safe-mode (slightly edited by me for clarity)

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Hey, a poster from Jolly. You are right, John, this is what was intended. You showed us another way to get to SM. Might I mention a caveat here. Once you do, once I did your way, I was stuck in SM after clicking on Restart. I did Restart but I then had to get back to msconfig and uncheck the first selection as it is then the default. No biggie and I bet that even Bruce could get out of this mess.
Have a nice day from another John, ( Jean )

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I’m finding it extremely difficult to keep up with the latest plot developments in this thread but am I right in thinking that at the moment George’s computer boots up into normal Win8 and he wants it to boot in Win8 Safe Mode? Apologies if that’s wrong.

Hi John,
Not quite right. I have no desire to boot to Win8 Safe Mode unless it enables me to reach the recovery drive, restore Vista, and reinstall Win8 update from there. In fact, I was just following the instructions in the Dell manual which said click F8 once the Dell logo appears, and choose from the options which then appear, but of course they don’t in Win 8. At that time I didn’t even know that F8 was the traditional way to access Safe Mode.

Also, I have dumped the Metro screen, and I don’t believe restoring it would be any more successful than the way I reached Safe Mode today. But thanks anyway.

I shall be out all day tomorrow, so can forget computers for a day, and glory in my new found mastery for timing the equity market – or was it just luck?

George

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It is not mentioned there whether that OP tried msconfig to boot into safe mode.

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It has now become so bad that, after rebooting, there is not enough time to launch any program before the system freezes or blue screens again.

No way to get to msconfig.

Jerry

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FINAL UPDATE??
As reported previously I followed the convoluted method for getting to Safe Mode in Win 8, but was unable to navigate from there to the Vista recovery drive, as it demanded a location for the OS to be restored on a DVD or an external drive.

So today I copied the recovery drive to an external drive, with some difficulty. Initially told that I was not authorised to copy it, it relented after several attempts until it was copied over. However, I was concerned that the 5.96 GB on the laptop had become 5.05 GB on the external drive.

After logging in to Safe Mode and going to the copy of the Vista recovery on the external drive, still in Safe Mode, I had to go through the whole process again, including the restarts, but the options listed did not include the steps detailed in the Vista manual. After a couple of further attempts I found a ‘restore to factory condition’, but it restored Windows 8 rather than Vista.

Asked whether I wished to reformat the disk I declined, mindful of the fact it might yet go wrong, and intending to follow Ted’s clean install of Win 8. I selected remove only the drive containing Windows and not to retain personal settings. Image my surprise when it reinstalled Win 8!

This does remove the necessity to restore Win 8 using the old programme key which failed before, but, for what will hopefully be my last question in this abnormally long thread, begun two months ago, is whether the laptop can now be considered free from anything added in the Philippines? Or should I install all over again, this time choosing to reformat the disk?

George

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for what will hopefully be my last question in this abnormally long thread, begun two months ago, is whether the laptop can now be considered free from anything added in the Philippines?[/quote]

Since several parts of your description of what happened (especially the part where you were supposedly using the Vista recovery partiton to restore the laptop to its original state and instead got Win 8) are perplexing (to say the least), it’s impossible to know whether the result contains any residue from your Philippine adventure. I certainly wouldn’t find this uncertainty acceptable, but you’ll have to decide whether you do.

Or should I install all over again, this time choosing to reformat the disk?

That’s the only approach that would satisfy me if it were my laptop. I also don’t understand what happened to your former plan: check to see that the image you took of your dubious Win 8 Pro system could be rewritten to another disk and if so start experimenting with your laptop to see first whether Win 8 Pro would reinstall over itself (formating the existing Win 8 Pro partition in the process: while the upgrade won’t upgrade a Win 8 NON-Pro system to Win 8 Pro, it might well be willing to reinstall over itself), and then if that didn’t work restore the Vista system from its installation DVDs (or for that matter install a copy of your XP system or of your wife’s Win 7 system on the laptop from its installation DVDs without an internet connection: there’s a good chance that the Win 8 Pro upgrade won’t check to see whether the system it’s upgrading is even activated) and then try the Win 8 Pro upgrade on the result. Using installation DVDs would get around whatever problem you had where the Vista recovery partition seemed to reinstall Win 8.

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Bill,
Thanks for the reply, and your comprehensive help throughout this thread, but I’ve decided to follow Ted’s recommendation and see how it goes for a few weeks, if only because I need a break after such a long slog. If the programme key had worked when I first tried to upgrade to Win 8 there would have been no contact with the Philippines, and everyone would have been saved a great deal of time, exacerbated by my mistakes due to lack of technical expertise.

Since several parts of your description of what happened (especially the part where you were supposedly using the Vista recovery partiton to restore the laptop to its original state and instead got Win 8) are perplexing (to say the least)

I can visualise the reason for Win 8 installing rather than Vista being due to poor interaction between the two Oss rather than malware. When I selected the copy of the Vista recovery drive on the external drive and went through the procedure for accessing Safe Mode in Win8, including a restart, I ended with a screen telling me to do it all again, after which the options for restoring Vista, as specified in the Vista manual, were absent. So I started all over again, I believe still in SM, and eventually found an option to restore to original state. Perhaps with all these restarts the system had forgotten it was supposed to be restoring Vista, or maybe there is no provision for downgrading from W8 to Vista, in which case was it just laziness that chap in the Philippines left the recovery drive in place?

I also don’t understand what happened to your former plan: check to see that the image you took of your dubious Win 8 Pro system could be rewritten to another disk and if so start experimenting with your laptop to see first whether Win 8 Pro would reinstall over itself (formating the existing Win 8 Pro partition in the process: while the upgrade won’t upgrade a Win 8 NON-Pro system to Win 8 Pro, it might well be willing to reinstall over itself), and then if that didn’t work restore the Vista system from its installation DVDs (or for that matter install a copy of your XP system or of your wife’s Win 7 system on the laptop from its installation DVDs without an internet connection: there’s a good chance that the Win 8 Pro upgrade won’t check to see whether the system it’s upgrading is even activated) and then try the Win 8 Pro upgrade on the result. Using installation DVDs would get around whatever problem you had where the Vista recovery partition seemed to reinstall Win 8.

The answer is simple: I tried early on to reinstall the Win 8 upgrade on itself, it didn’t work, and someone told me it could not be done, the only option being to return to Vista and try again from there. This is the first time I have heard that it MIGHT have been possible. Thus there was a choice between using the installation disk that came with the laptop, or use the recovery drive. The latter seemed the obvious choice, as I had cause to use the recovery drive not long after purchasing the laptop, and it was quite simple and straightforward, without all the hassle of changing OS.

So I am going to take a break from all this for now and see how things go. At least no money has been taken from my bank account – probably because I never use the laptop to access the bank – and nothing really bad has happened in the two months since installing the dubious system, other than all the work involved. Also, it could be that any malware present was erased by the reinstall – you are better able to judge that than me.

There is still a residue of doubt in my mind, although I am inclined to the view that it was PROBABLY just a load of crapware installed along Win 8. After all, it is almost impossible to download a free app these days without encountering an attempt to install the Ask toolbar or something similar.
George

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I would try it for a while. Give yourself a short rest from the trials and tribulations you have recently been subjected to. See how it is responding. It has been a difficult road. My belief (just my opinion) is that the problems seem to have come from the Upgrade install originally attempted, but perhaps I am remembering incorrectly as it has been a while. Good luck George, you deserve it.

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George,

If you haven’t already done so, as a precaution IMHO it would be well worth running a full scan with MalwareBytes AntiMalware, which is free of charge http://www.malwarebytes.org

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John,
Thanks for the reminder, but I defragment all three machines, then run Malwarebytes, Superantispyware and Secunia PSI every weekend. To be more precise, I do this on the two desktops every week, but the laptop only when there are patches to install.

I have done nothing on the laptop since the reinstallation of Win 8, except install FF and its add-ons, update Windows and download Start 8. Later today I shall replace Start 8 with Classic Sell and then follow your suggestion before I start anything else, as a form of insurance.

Thanks for all your help throughout this thread.

George

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Over the last few days I’ve been following Fred Langa’s recent article on virus removal.

The laptop has now been scanned with:

Malwarebytes
Superantispyware
Sophos Virus Removal Tool
Trend Micro House Call
ESET Online Scanner
Microsoft Safety Scanner (which took 7 hours to complete)

Only Trend Micro Rootkit Buster had to be omitted as not compatible with Win 8.

The question is, can the laptop now be regarded as (probably) free from infection?

PS. I forgot to mention that none of the scans found anything remiss.

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The question is, can the laptop now be regarded as (probably) free from infection?

Probably (if that’s good enough for you). Another important question is whether it can be regarded as undamaged by its Philippine experience (are its USB problems now sorted out, for example?) – something upon which your scanning won’t shed any light whatsoever (though SFC, without necessarily being an exhaustive verification, would at least help to unless the dllcache was subtly compromised as well).

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Bill,
There have been no more problems with USB sockets, and Win 8 has been running fine for a few weeks now, apart from Office 2010 and its b***** ribbons.

Following your suggestion I did a SFC scan, but never having done one before, am uncertain as to whether it completed correctly. It began with a ‘commencing verification’ message, which usually means MS checking that the OS is genuine, then, after 10 -15 minutes maximum, the following:

Verification 100% complete.
Windows resource protection did not find any integrity violation.
C:Windowssystem 32

Having read that it takes a long time, this left me with the impression that verification had completed and the scan should begin, although the second line suggests otherwise. Unsure whether the whole process was complete and what to do next, I clicked enter, which just brought a repeat of the last line.

Any advice gratefully received.

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Verification 100% complete.
Windows resource protection did not find any integrity violation.
C:Windowssystem 32

The first line says the scan finished.

The second line says the scan didn’t find anything wrong.

The third line is the standard MS-DOS prompt which tells you which directory (folder) you are currently in.

So the test passed with everything 100% ok.

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