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I’ve never used OneDrive (it’s been disabled since day 1 on my Windows 10) and I only mentioned it because I thought OneDrive “might” have also modified the CommonMusic setting to %PUBLIC%\OneDrive\Music which could also cause problems.

It’s good that it didn’t do that!

Just FYI for everyone, I disabled\deleted all the %PUBLIC% folders on my PC (I have a standalone PC that doesn’t share anything with another PC) so I have my Common Folders pointed at fixed folder locations on my PC as follows.

Yes, if you modify RG’s .reg file and simply replace Shell Folder with User Shell Folder it’ll remove the OneDrive reference which “should” fix your problem… as long as the CommonMusic setting for User Shell Folder in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE doesn’t also contain the same OneDrive reference.

Ah yes, I remember the early days of the internet when it was still called ARPANET.

My first browser was Mosiac running on Windows 3.11, which became Netscape Navigator, which evolved into Netscape Communicator and eventually morphed into Seamonkey.

I avoided using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer as if it was The Plague and never bought into the whole Firefox browser thing since it was just a “stripped down” version of Netscape Communicator.

During the Windows XP era I started providing IT support for various companies and had to finally break down and start using MSIE to ensure I could keep things running smoothly for them (still support a few that use it internally for special jobs.)

I also occasionally have to use Chrome, Edge or Opera, but my default browser is still Seamonkey and I’ll continue to use it until such time as it no longer works for most of the sites I regularly visit (already encountered a few, like cnn.com, that just don’t display properly in my non-chromium based browser.)

As for dial-up, I had an Apple II+ with a 300 baud Haynes modem that I regularly used to connect to various BBS during the 80’s, most often the ExecPC BBS service. Talk about s-s-l-l-o-o-w-w connectivity!

I thought it was amazing when they finally upped modem speeds to 900 then 1200 and finally 56K baud!

What you’re proposing won’t work because computer monitors use a soft ON/OFF power switch. If electrical power is removed, the monitor will be OFF when it’s reconnected and need to be “manually” switched back on using its power switch.

So, even if you could rig up such a switch to the piano’s foot petals to control the power to the monitor, you’d still have to press the power button on the monitor itself to turn it ON each time you use it.

RetiredGeek, just FYI…

Your powershell command generates a a bunch of unexpected token errors in Powershell.

*** Never mind, your new version works! ***

BTW, it only displays the Shell Folder values not the User Shell Folder values and only for the HKEY_CURRENT USER branch not the related HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE branch.

The reg query commands I posted will display the values from all four locations since one of those “alternate locations” could be what’s causing WCHS’s problem.

You can use the “req query” command to display the value of any registry entry.

reg query keyname /v valuename

Note: you “must” place quotes around the keyname or valuename if it contains blank spaces (like User Shell Folders or My Music).

HKCU = HKEY_CURRENT_USER and HKLM = HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.

Here are the commands needed to query the current values for the “Music folder” pointer in each of those four locations.

reg query "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders" /v "My Music"
reg query "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders" /v "My Music"
reg query "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders" /v "CommonMusic"
reg query "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders" /v "CommonMusic"

The results will be displayed as Name, Type and Data like this:

My Music    REG_SZ    C:\Documents\Music

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WCHS

Dropped cable TV and switched to OTA using a Winegard Flatwave FL5500A indoor antenna back in May 2015.

My cable bill dropped from $128/mth for TV + broadband to $42/mth for broadband only.

While I still get 51 local channels OTA, the only thing I regularly watch now is the local/national News and some game shows (IMHO, most of the “prime time” shows now available just aren’t worth watching.)

There’s actually four different locations in the registry that contain the pointers for the Music, Pictures & Video folders. The .reg file RetireGeek provided only changes the HKEY_CURRENT_USER Shell Folders entry, so it’s possible one of the others is causing your problem.

The four locations  are:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders

• The “keys” for these two are My Music, My Pictures & My Video

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders

• The “keys” for these two are CommonMusic, CommonPictures & CommonVideo

I’d suggest you take a look at the other three and see if maybe one of them is pointed at that OneDrive folder and, if so, modify it to point at your preferred folder instead.

Note: the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE entries apply to “all users” on a PC so those entries must point to %USERPROFILE%\Music, %USERPROFILE%\Pictures & %USERPROFILE%\Video… unless you want all users on your PC to share a common location for each of those file types.

On my PC I have them pointing to C:\Documents\Music, C:\Documents\Pictures & C:\Documents\Video because I’m the only user of my PC.

Unfortunately, as of Sep 20 2023, Microsoft disabled the servers used to activate Windows 7 so that update code is now useless.

Microsoft Ending Windows Activations Using Windows 7 and 8 Keys

Ok, here’s my settings to disable Edge auto-update while still allowing me to “manually” update it when I want to.

Open Task Scheduler and Disable both of the Microsoft Edge Update tasks.

• Note: if you delete them, they’ll get recreated the next time Edge gets updated but, if they’re disabled, they’ll stay disabled.

Open Services and set the following options:

• Microsoft Edge Elevation Service (MicrosoftEdgeElevationService) – Manual
• Microsoft Edge Update Service (edgeupdate) – Disabled
• Microsoft Edge Update Service (edgeupdatem) – Manual (Trigger Start)

Note: if you disable all 3 services, you won’t be able to “manually” update Edge.

I also have the following settings in Group Policy but am not sure if they really matter or not as setting the equivalent Google services to the same settings as above also prevents Google from auto-updating while still allowing it to be manually updated.

Under Administrative Templates > Microsoft Edge Update > Applications > Edge set the following options:

• Prevent Desktop Shortcut creation upon install – Disabled
• Update policy override – Enabled and set to Manual updates only

Under Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Microsoft Edge set the following options:

• Allow Microsoft Edge to per-launch at Windows startup, when the system is idle, and each time Microsoft Edge is closed – Enabled and set to Prevent per-launching
• Allow Microsoft Edge to start and load the Start and New Tab page at Windows startup and each time Microsoft Edge is closed – Enabled and set to Prevent tab pre-loading

These settings prevent Edge from auto-starting and auto-updating on my Windows 10 PC.

To “manually” update Edge, I open Edge > Settings > About Microsoft Edge and it initiates a update check and installs the “latest update” if one’s available.

Note: on my PC Edge sometimes throws an error when it reaches the 66% complete mark during the update process.

It seems to be a 50/50 chance of it occurring during update attempts and I’m not sure exactly what causes it (like a lot of MS error messages, the description of the problem doesn’t really help), but simply closing Edge and then restarting the manual update always works.

Yes, and it works just fine! (https://winauth.github.io/winauth/download.html)

I installed it on my PC and have it set to generate the access codes for 5 different sites I use.

To add a site you have to use the “secret code” the site presents when you indicate you can’t scan the QR code to set it up as follows.

Click the Add button at the bottom and select Authenticator.

In the pop-up window:

• enter a custom name for the site (can be anything but I use the actual site name)
• enter the “secret code” in box 1
• click the Decode button
• set the type (note, I’ve never encounter a Counter-based site)
• click the Verify Authenticator button and ensure the code matches what the site expects
• if it does, click OK

Whenever you visit a site that requires authentication, open WinAuth but don’t click the circling arrows to generate the code until the site actually asks for it (i.e. if you click it too early, the code “may” time out before you get to enter it.

It seems the change that prevents MSIE from starting wasn’t actually part of the Oct CU update but the Edge update from version 117 to 118.

I have Edge set to only allow manual updates and, after I recently update from Edge v117.0.2045.60 to v118.0.2088.69, MSIE also stopped opening for me.

I created my own special vbscript to open it using the CreateObject option listed in the Try these tricks link posted by Alex5723, with the addition of some AutoIt commands to customize how it opens, and it’s working again.

Like what Les posted below, if I “manually” enter a site into the address bar, it’ll open in MSIE but, unlike him, my favorites do still work… although they open in Edge instead of MSIE!

Related releases

This section contains information about related products that have releases that coincide with the .NET 7 release.

Those are simply other Microsoft products that were released at the same time as .NET 7 and doesn’t really help ID which programs are using .NET 7 on anyone’s PC; unless you just happen to have one of them installed which I don’t!

I took a look thru my backups and determined .NET 7 was installed the same day I installed my IPVanish VPN software and, since the operating description of IPVanish indicates it requires .NET, that’s obviously how it got installed on my PC.

BTW, it’s actually called Microsoft Windows Desktop Runtime – 7.0.## (x64) in the list of installed apps on my PC and it started out as v7.0.4 when it was installed back in July and has been updated 3 times, most recently to v7.0.13 after the recent Oct KB5032875 update.

Just like jrp2706, I found nothing in the article Mark posted that would help ID which of my program(s) are using .NET 7.

Paul T wrote:

There is no easy way to see what apps require what .NET, you need to check each app.

I figured that might be the case but had to ask as maybe one of the experts here on AskWoody might know how to do it.

So what specific app modules (.dll, .xml, etc.) would indicate it’s using .NET and help ID which version?

Still not sure exactly what program on my PC requires .NET 7, but the October .NET 7.0 Update (KB5032875) got installed Tues.

Anyone know of a way to determine exactly what program(s) need .NET 7?