Replies

This is a very good concept and it is well executed.  However, it fails me for a couple of reasons.  Interesting that you mention “Tax software” in your article and that is what I was hoping to use it with.  However, the software I use is written in PowerBasic and while I can load the note software, I cannot edit the note when using this product.  They are rewriting the tax software and it appears to work in the more modern environment, but that will mean it is useless for any years that are not written in the new development tools.

Second issue is window size.  This tax software gives me the ability to build and design my own keystroke macros, but it is often hard to keep track of them.  I have more than 30 each year and many of them are year-dependent.  Normally I build a “key” for which keystrokes perform what function and document them in Sticky Notes but I need to remember which note goes with which year.  This software was intriguing because I can link it to the specific year.  Unfortunately, my list of keystrokes and functions goes far beyond the limitations of Stick A Note’s design and they do not give us scrollbars, so much of my content is there but unavailable.

Still it would be a nice product for those with more limited needs.

Will do.  I thought Start11 might include this, but it isn’t there.

StartAllBack seems to offer it, but they don’t show it in their videos.

Since the product (Windows 11) is relatively new, I will give them feedback and hope they support it natively.

Loungers Hear me out
(With a nod to The Kingston Trio’s MTA)

Today GoodSync has released a new version of their products, and it has gutted the existing version 9 of a whole raft of features that purchasers paid for when they bought the software.

Users of the world unite! We want our features back!

Sign me,
Rabble-rouser

Can you list the missing features? Their online documentation is a bit poor and actually seems to describe the prior version more than the new version.

I have been likewise burned by Microsoft quite a few times as they removed features that I relied upon.

LANGALIST PLUS

Bluetooth/Wi-Fi-driver issues in Windows 10

By Fred Langa Many Win10 upgraders are getting vague error messages regarding their PC communications drivers, especially Broadcom Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Here’s the fix. Plus: Microsoft quietly pulls the ISO for Windows 10 Version 1511, complicating clean installs of the latest OS.

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The full text of this column is posted at windowssecrets.com/langalist-plus/bluetoothwi-fi-driver-issues-in-windows-10/ (paid content, opens in a new window/tab).

Columnists typically cannot reply to comments here, but do incorporate the best tips into future columns.

I do not have much to add in terms of information, but I was getting this message about Bluetooth drivers on my Toshiba laptop since July. I verified and uninstallled and reinstalled the latest Toshiba drivers (and ensured that the compatibility checker ran again before re-checking) but the message persisted. Calling Toshiba did not help since they could do nothing more than point me to the latest drivers (from earlier this year).

After totally giving up on the upgrade, the Windows 10 upgrade app started telling me that my machine was compatible (despite the continued Bluetooth incompatibility) about a month ago. Then, earlier this month, again with no changes on my part, it stopped telling me any problems related to Bluetooth (or any devices). I am going to wait a while before upgrading since this is a bit suspicious.

My experience with DropBox is a bit old, but I recall that the amount of hard drive space used was more dependent on the data than the method of synching.

One thing I will say is that directing the OneDrive storage to a removable drive is more restrictive in Windows 10 than I recall it being in Windows 7 and Windows 8. What I needed to do was create a Virtual Drive on the removable drive and then direct the synching there. Other options are described on the internet such as mounting the removable drive as a subdirectory on the system drive, but I found that this was a bit more complex and ran significantly slower.

YMMV

Thank you again, Paul.

One of the reasons I am testing this is that I do not think this file is actually ever deleted, but is just written to; hence the “no delete” option. If the file is deleted, I actually have another problem since the file becomes available in the Recycle Bin. Hopefully the application never needs to delete these files.

Thanks, Paul,

The way I was interpreting that “permission” is that the “list folder” option is what that setting would apply to at the folder level, but “read data” would apply at the file level. What I did not state clearly is that I intend to apply this change solely at the file level.

In my tests, I can see the entire directory in File Manager or when using the DIR command.

Well, that went about as smoothly as possible.

The restore worked properly and I had a machine without IE10 and without the dreaded KB 2670838.

I had a lot of catching up to do. I had to reinstall a major application which balked because when it connected to the license server, the server did not like the fact that I was back on standard time (it took a day to figure that out). Then, I could not use their gotomypc remote help because I was not up-to-date with patches.

Now I have a working version of Internet Explorer 9 but I am still missing the Windows Updates section in the “View installed updates” list of Programs and Features.

At least I do not have any updates to uninstall now.

Anyone know how to bring back this section of the installed update list?

Thanks again to Jerry and all who chimed in (or considered chiming in).

Thanks, Jerry. I may have to resort to that, but I had a horrendous problem installing something in March which will have to be reinstalled somehow.

Before resorting to backing up and doing a system restore, do you or does anyone have any ideas why I do not see any of the Windows Updates in the “View installed updates” list of Programs and Features? As I indicated, I find them all under history.

Any ideas what might be blocking them from showing or how to restore them?

In fact, reviewing my update history shows that updates have been made as recently as last week.

The update you mention (which was mentioned repeatedly in the Windows Secrets newsletter as troublesome) caused significant problems on my laptop and I did remove it there.

The machine I am having problems with had K 2670838 installed on 2/27 accoring to the update history and Internet Explorer was installed on 3/13.

I do have restore points going back to February. Any reason why I would not want to be restoring back that far?

Thank you.

I am not sure if you understood my post which was probably overly complex.

To uninstall IE10, you need to do as you say.

However, the place where Internet Explorer would be listed would be under Microsoft Windows.

For example, on one of my other machines, this section falls alphabetically after Microsoft Visual C++ and includes listing of the security and other updates. In fact, you can search for these updates using the “Search Installed Update” box at the top of the window. For example, you can search for KB2670838 by entering that or even by just entering KB267 and seeing if it is in the reduced list.

My problem is that this section does not exist on the machine with IE10.

Putting “Internet” in the search box finds nothing. Putting “KB2670838” finds nothing. Putting in “KB” finde tons of office updates and .NET framework updates, but nothing for “Microsoft Windows.”

The section appears to be missing and I am looking for a way to restore it (or to remove IE10 without it, but I still would think I need to get that section restored).

Any other ideas?

Andrew,

I don’t know if this helped anyone else, but it sure helped me.

I thought I had been saving versions of this document but I had nothing but something from yesterday after an odd crash.

I did not think I could recover a file this way.

That was a great link.

Doug

No, That one did not help, but I did come across this:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/itprovistasp/thread/4491fe25-be44-430e-a384-fb58c5da5ad0/

Somewhere down the line a fellow named Arun suggests this:

Try to perform a Manual System Restore to fix the issue.

· Boot from Vista DVD also try get in to inbuilt WIN RE for OEM computrers

· Get in to WINRE

· Open command prompt

· Enter the following commands to create a Manual System Restore to fix the issue.

C:

cd windowssystem32config

C:windowssystem32config>ren default default.old

C:windowssystem32config>ren sam sam.old

C:windowssystem32config>ren security security.old

C:windowssystem32config>ren software software.old

C:windowssystem32config>ren system system.old

C:windowssystem32config>cd regback

C:windowssystem32configregback>copy default c:windowssystem32config

C:windowssystem32configregback>copy sam c:windowssystem32config

C:windowssystem32configregback>copy security c:windowssystem32config

C:windowssystem32configregback>copy software c:windowssystem32config

C:windowssystem32configregback>copy system c:windowssystem32config

Can anyone confirm that these are the steps to restoring to a prior restore point in Vista?

Thanks for the responsese.

I was fairly certain that there were no disk issues or malware problems with the machine prior to allowing SP1 to attempt its install. I had scanned using the existing malware and also a deep scan using Malwarebytes. Other websites indicate that this error is a logfile space problem (it cannot be a disk space problem on this machine). However, I am not sure I care as much about moving forward as moving back.

SP1 is supposed to automatically revert back on a failed install. I do not know how to make it realize that it failed so that the auto-revert takes place.

Does anyone know how to manually revert back to the pre-update version? I also have a restore point in place that should be usable.

Any other ideas?

Thanks again.

I have not tried this, but maybe it works:
In Robocopy, if you use /XN and /XO to exclude both newer and older files, then it should not copy any existing files.
At least that would be logical …

Jock

Gee, thank you.

Until you put those both in the same sentence I had trouble reading the descriptions. For some stupid reason, XN and XO looked like they did the same thing, excluding files unless the source was newer.

I appreciate the reading lesson.