Replies

bbearren wrote:

Keep it clean and tidy and there will be no degradation in performance.

In the case of the clean install I did for SIL, since the time back when the computer was initially set up in 2016, both he and my daughter have changed jobs and are also living in a new state.  As well, their children have all graduated and moved away.

The “old” install showed 147 items in Control Panel’s “Programs and Features”, while the clean install (which includes only the programs they now want/need) lists 33 items.

I could have tried just uninstalling the unwanted programs, but I wonder if that would have resulted in as “clean and tidy” a machine as does the clean install I just did.

If I’d used a program like Revo to do all of the uninstalls, it’s likely a goodly amount of ‘clutter’ would have been removed vs. conventional uninstalls; however, doing so would have been very time consuming for one, but also it’s likely that at least some ‘remains’ of programs would still have been there afterwards to clutter things up.

FWIW, the entire clean install took me about 5 hours, and about a third of this did not require any of my time since Windows was kept busy updating itself.  (I did have to chase down two ‘Unknown Devices’ after the updates were done, but that went well.)

Thanks for adding to the discussion.

Paul T wrote:

Do you have multiple apps running in the background? Fire up Task Manager and check RAM use – less than 80% will be fine. Is the disk nearly full? SSDs can slow down if they are less than 5% free – they need space to allow time for TRIM to behave. Is TRIM actually working? See this post.

For the “old” installation I looked at task Manager’s ‘Startup’ tab and there were 40 programs listed, all of them “Enabled”.  But after the clean install and the addition of the few programs SIL as requested, there are now 14 items in the Startup list and nine of them are disabled (by me).

RAM shows 20% usage (the machine has 16GB).

Trim is working on the SSD and it is only full to 40% capacity.

Thank you for your reply.

Ascaris wrote:

You can test the hypothesis. Simply move the large folders from the desktop to another location on the same volume (drive letter). Moving to the same volume is nearly instantaneous, as only the directories need to be updated to point to the same files. Then you can boot Windows and see if it has improved.

Actually, since I did a clean install, I did the reverse.

After the install I worked with the machine for a time, then after reading your reply, put all my son-in-law’s files onto the desktop (I’d backed them up to a portable drive).

Now as I’ve been continuing the setup process, my perception is that the computer is performing the same with the data on the desktop as it did without it.  Contrastingly though,  it is now MUCH faster than it was before the clean install.

AlphaCharlie wrote:

I think I will let the machine hibernate overnight and return to this problem in the morning.

Assuming you are using Windows, instead I’d recommend that you do a “full” shutdown (i.e. one WITHOUT “Fast Startup” enabled).  If you can’t’ accomplish that, do a “Restart”, which always accomplishes a “full” startup.

You may know this already, but Windows will, on its own, repair a host of farkled things when it is fully shutdown and then restarted (which contrasts with using “Sleep”, Hibernate” or a startup when “Fast Startup” is enabled; these can exacerbate issues instead of solving them.)

OscarCP wrote:

Is anyone using TB 91.5.0 and, if so, what has been their experience so far with it? Thanks.

In case this will help, I am a first-time Thunderbird user as of about a month ago and I freshly started out with TB ver. 90.. (of an early vintage). I have upgraded “on schedule” (i.e. whenever offered), so am now using 92.5.0.  It works perfectly for me with no troubles.

I am using it on a PC and as well have installed “zero” add-ins.

Since I was new to it, configuring font sizes, multiple accounts, inboxes, etc. took some research, but it now works without difficulty.

I do monitor the Thunderbird forum (http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewforum.php?f=50) and it appears that those who are having the most difficulties with the new builds are using setups, and add-ins, that go far beyond the “vanilla” setup I have.

(I am a  former user of TAPCIS, Outlook Express, Windows Live Mail, MS Office Outlook  and OE Classic.  At the present tome, Thunderbird duplicates for me the functionality of those programs.)

1 user thanked author for this post.

OscarCP

WSstarvinmarvin wrote:

Good morning. I’m refurbishing a vintage HP Pavilion dv7-3065dx laptop for our neighbor. There is no hard drive in it, but the sticker next to the touchpad says it’s Windows 7, and it has a single 2GB stick of DDR2-800 RAM.

I have a spare Windows 7 disc plus a 120GB SSD which could be installed, but HP support no longer has drivers for this model laptop. Apparently, they abandon all support after 10 years.

Plan B: Tested the laptop with a USB flash drive containing Chromium OS and it worked OK, i.e. email, Youtube, documents, etc. It seems fairly responsive, so the neighbor’s granddaughter could definitely use it for schoolwork and light games, video, music, etc.

Anyway, Windows 7 would still be first choice here (we’re fully aware of the lack of Win 7 updates). To install Win 7 it needs the HP driver package for that specific model. Maybe a general dv7 driver package would work.

Does anyone know of an archive of HP Pavilion drivers, please?

Wouldn’t the drivers at the following site work?

http://hpnotebookdrivers.com/hp-pavilion-dv7-3065dx-entertainment-notebook-pc-windows-7-64-bit-drivers/

Drcard:)) wrote:

these are pulled from my 4 part article on automatic backups of Windows by Windows for Windows 10, but the same tools are in Windows 7.

Is that article still accessible somewhere?  It looks to be a valuable resource.

Rick Corbett wrote:

For anyone who needs Al Taylor’s link above, it can be shortened to: https://tinyurl.com/y58x28vg This will take you directly to Microsoft’s self-service Product Activation page

Great modification!  (I’ve never actually typed out the “full URL’, but rather just keep a shortcut file to it.)

By way of info, the original URL came to me from Microsoft to my mobile phone.

Hikermann wrote:

So (maybe it’s the cold weather we’re presently having . . . ) when I click on a link in an email message, it isn’t opening that link in Firefox, either for left click or right click (“Open Link in Browser”).

I’ve been periodically having this happen since upgrading to Thunderbird ver. 91 (currently 91.3.2) and whenever I already have a page open in Google Chrome (my default browser).  The work-arounds have been to either close the open page(s) or reboot.  I believe it to be a bug.

Charlie wrote:

I’ve seen the fans at Newegg and that looks like it would be my choice of where to buy, but am open to other suggestions.

FWIW, I’d caution you that, at least from one experience I had, some older computer parts from Newegg are provided by the same Chinese manufacturers as those on eBay.

In June I needed a bottom-case (lower base) for my older HP G6 laptop.  I began by purchasing one on eBay which was labeled “new”.  It came from China after a delay of at least a month and when it arrived the mold that had been used to cast/form it was flawed to the point where the MOBO, the ports and the battery could not be fit into it.

I decided to go to Newegg and purchase a bottom base from them.  The site labeled it as both new and in stock; it arrived quickly and as scheduled.

However, that part had exactly the same flaws as did the eBay version; the MOBO, the ports and the battery also could not be fit into it.

By comparing casting marks, it is certain to me that it had been manufactured from the same flawed pattern/mold as the one from eBay.  So my opinion the Newegg part came from the same plant in China as the eBay one.

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Charlie

bharney wrote:

Not free, but maybe Beyond Compare, by Scooter Software, could be used to do the file copies.

For my 2015 Honda Odyssey I use a USB drive for my Mp3 music files.  It contains 4,623 files organized into 141 folders.

I recently reorganized and re-copied all of the files onto the drive, and after doing so, all folders names and song titles appear in my car’s audio screen in exactly the order I see them in my Windows File Explorer.

I Have a previous post in this thread and this time I used different steps than those previously posted. Since they were very successful I have listed them below.  Note that I used two Windows programs to accomplish the steps: 1) MiniTool “Partition Wizard”, and 2) Scooter Software’s “Beyond Compare”.

1. I used MiniTool and deleted the “old” partition from the USB drive.
2. I then “wiped” the drive using “zeros”.  (For my 64GB drive this took about an hour and a half.)
3. I made a new partition that’s formatted as “Fat32” and accepted the default of the maximum size Partition Wizard would make it.  (For my 64GB drive this turned out to be about 56GB, which is possibly larger than the theoretical max for FAT32, however, MiniTool was still able to make it that size.)
4. I used Beyond Compare and copied each folder onto the USB drive and did so <u>one folder at a time</u>. (This required some patience.)

The order in which the folders and files now appear on the Odyssey screen’s audio “directory” is exactly the order in which they were copied onto the wiped and newly formatted USB partition.

As a side note, I did one additional thing which I don’t believe has any impact on the displayed file/folder order; I deleted all Mp3 tag information from all songs and reset each to the be the actual filename for the song.  (I used a freeware program called “Mp3Tag” to accomplish this.)

I hope this can help.

Al T.

anonymous wrote:

I have a desktop computer (Bert) and a laptop (Ernie).  They both use Windows 10 Pro with all the updates.  I want the ability to freely transfer files between them like I used to be able to do.  They are connected through a switch which also connects to a half-dozen network hard drives.  Each computer can see all the hard drives–they just can’t see each other. I have literally spent hours on the internet, jumping through all kinds of hoops and changing all kinds of settings, even re-installing Windows 10 on the laptop.  Whatever I do they steadfastly refuse to acknowledge the other’s existence with the exception that Ernie can see Bert as a media device but cannot read any of the media on it. I have been fighting with this on and off for weeks and I’m getting so frustrated.  It used to work!

Are you by any chance running one or both machines without a logon password (i.e. “blank” password)?  If so, I will post a procedure that has solved this issue for me.

cellsee6 wrote:

How would you destroy a disk drive?

A hammer will disable a HD, effectively destroying it’s usability (preferably a “big one”).

4 users thanked author for this post.

cellsee6, GoneToPlaid, doriel, Alex5723

tonyl wrote:

I have two bookmarks, different URLs, both of which still work at the moment, but I don’t know how long for.

The link in my post has been working for me for at least the last five years now, so hopefully its functionality will continue (since it’s very handy).

tonyl wrote:

They’ll send you a text containing a link; follow the link and you just do it in your phone’s browser.

The link that’s sent will be the one below and it can also be used on a computer.  One would have to choose the option to “Activate by Telephone” and get the “Installation ID” to enter into the boxes at the website.  My experience is, when asked “How many computers is this install on”, that it works best to enter “0” (zero).

Microsoft Product Activation site (it’s a long URL but works):

https://microsoft.gointeract.io/interact/index?interaction=1461173234028-3884f8602eccbe259104553afa8415434b4581-05d1&accountId=microsoft&loadFrom=CDN&appkey=196de13c-e946-4531-98f6-2719ec8405ce&Language=English&name=pana&CountryCode=en-US&Click%20To%20Call%20Caller%20Id=+15128180951&startedFromSmsToken=rnW6ijL&dnis=19&token=KlXjll