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Sometimes the connectors can become loose or the cable worn with opening and closing the lid.
This was reported as a common fault on one particular make, but can’t remember which now.

It may be the Toshiba Netbook. I have one that suddenly displayed all the problems described above until there was nothing to be seen except a line of pixels running either at the bottom of the screen or across the middle. Figuring I had nothing to lose at this point (the machine was totally useless and too low-cost to send for repairs) I dismantled the screen from the keyboard part. Found at least two wires somewhat loose where they plugged into the bottom unit. Tightened all connectors and reassembled. Worked fine. I also found that for this machine I could not place anything heavy on the top of the closed netbook because the cover is so pliable and thin. In it’s carrying case I used to put the wireless mouse on top of the closed netbook. It was a tight fit in the case. Pressure on the closed lid somehow loosened the connections again. Since I stopped that everything has remained working. Obviously, this low cost netbook is flimsily constructed.

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Field Notes

The trials of updating both Win10 and Win7

Using Win 7 on one of my desktop computers and have no intention of updating it to Win 10 in the near future — and maybe ever. Have a “backup” machine (desktop system) that is still running XP. It is too underpowered, hardware wise, to update even to Win 7, and definitely to Win 10. I’ll keep running it until a major H/W failure. Both systems are running perfectly at the moment, and because I use the Win 7 machine for business also, I can’t afford to face the myriad problems that have appeared with Win 10 updates and the prospect of MS taking over my system. At some time in the future I may get a new Win 10 machine, but that would be way in the future. At the moment, I am seriously considering switching to a Mac. My business apps run very well on the Mac. For my Win 7 machine I’ve taken Canadian Tech’s advice: turned off all of Windows updating, installed the two fixes for slow scans, and let it download the last few updates from Sept that I needed. No more updates will save me hours on the weekend and will add to restful sleep. Ah…freedom from MS.

I was hoping you would have put this reply into the thread I’d linked, but thanks for the clarification.

Sorry, but at this point, because I had to go through several links and numerous postings and then get back to the forum, I really lost track of where I started and which posting I was answering. I hope that everyone who needs this solution can find it.

6rtury

The first sticky post at the Windows 7 forum is titled ” Windows 7 Update solution“, and comes from JoeP517, Administrator. He refers to a another post, “Windows 7 Update solution“. I followed the instructions exactly, and my updating problems disappeared. The solution comes from Microsoft and is a very recent fix. JoeP517’s post got numerous replies, among which was a further solution, “Solve Windows Update problem (High CPU & memory usage)”, with a link.

Hope this helps.

6rtury

There is a download link for xxxxxx605 in the Sticky Post, “How to fix Windows Update Slow….” When I tried to install it the message that popped up was to first install the other program. I installed both and it fixed my problem with downloads that never download (0%) and the length of time to find updates.

6rtury

I would like to know this too. Susan writes to check the lounge, but I can find nothing more than the same list that she publishes in the newsletter, not yet updated.

After a second reboot, everything loaded normally.

Today (after a full backup), I started to install the newest updates per Susan’s instructions in Thursday’s column. I do this one by one, testing certain programs and functions between installations. Ran into an unusual problem with KB3046049, the FREAK fix.

The first unusual occurrence was that on reboot I was asked to select the user I wanted to log on as. I only have 2: myself as administrator and a guest account, and heretofore I was automatically logged on at boot. After that, the boot continued normally. I went to the Task Scheduler to select a task that loaded a particular program and found that Task Scheduler could not find the local computer. All options were greyed out and I could not direct it anywhere. When I checked the Services that were running, I found that the TaskScheduler service was not loaded, even though it was set to “Automatic”. I manually turned on the service and was able to see Task Scheduler load all my tasks as usual. I haven’t rebooted yet to see if everything will go as it did before, but has anyone else found that the TS service was turned off by this update? If this happens again on reboot (in a few minutes after checking out other programs) I’ll post back. Also, where is the setting I changed a few years back that allowed my account to be chosen automatically at boot?

Thanks in advance.

Last month I had to back out KB2553154 and KB2589348 because they caused problems with macros on my Excel workbooks. None of the suggested fixes worked except to uninstall these two. Since then have updated all other Office Security fixes, including those for Excel, and have had no problems. These two, however are hanging around. My question is if they are no longer needed because of the recent newer updates, or will they be re-issued with a newer version. They no longer show on Susan’s patch list.
Win 7 x64, Office 2010.
Thanks in advance.
6rtury

Microsoft Just rolled out some updates which may have a fix. If the updates do not correct it, do a system restore to a restore point to somewhere in mid-December.

There were no Office updates this week that came down for for Win 7 users. If you have a link to the KB pages, can you send them? As for restoring, going back to before Dec 9 is impractical and probably not possible for my system: have too may restore points since Dec 9. Aside from this, I have no problems with my workbooks. The problem is that the author of this particular workbook has all the updates installed on his computer, and is not about to uninstall them. He installs all updates automatically and has experienced no problems with his 32-bit machine and Excel. I cannot use his latest versions, which creates a problem for my work.
6rtury

I do have it blocked, along with KB2910902 and KB2589348, two other security updates for Excel/Office that came down in the same package. I have automatic updates turned off, using “Notify me when updates are available” instead. I then check what’s offered against the Patch column recommendations in Windows Secrets Newsletter. Unfortunately, they missed this group until it had affected a lot of users. Uninstalling the three updates brought me to the point where I can use my Excel VBA macros, but cannot use the same updated workbook sent to me by its author because he saved it on his 32-bit Win machine and has all the Office updates installed on his machine. Have tried all suggestions to get rid of the error message (which appears when any of the macros attempt to go to a worksheet or change anything on a worksheet).

Again, which Temp directory is GuestUser referring to?
6rtury

Not sure which temp folder(s) you are referring to. I’ve tried everything suggested here (except clearing out the “temp” folder) and still get that error whenever VBA code tries to access another worksheet. Am really upset at this. If you’ll explain which temp folders you cleared, will try that too.

Thanks,

6rtury

I should have checked here first, but follow Patch Watch religiously and it said to go ahead with all the Office Patches (Win 7 x64, Office 2010). Did so on Saturday. Everything seemed OK until I discovered on Monday morning that I had lost all button functionality in an important business-related WB. Immediately tried the same wb on a backup XP machine and everything was fine. On my Win 7 system I could not even get rid of the non-working buttons. In a fit of frantic, I uninstalled the culprit Excel Security update — using a wild guess as to the culprit — and found I could remove the non-working buttons and re-embed form buttons that ran the macros fine. Lost a lot of time and sweat over this one.
The culprit update in my case (Win 7 x64, Excel/Office 2010, was Security Update for Microsoft Excel 2010 (KB2910902) 64-Bit Edition, Download size: 24.6 MB

6rtury

Correction: the usual time for my printer drive to appear in Photoshop and Lightroom is less than 3 seconds, not 5 minutes. (Need another cup of coffee this morning.)

Unfortunately, I installed the update KB2973351 (Win 7 Ultimate x64) on 7/12/2014. I saw it wasn’t mentioned in Patch Watch, and slipped up by installing it without checking to see if I had previously installed the predecessor mentioned in the article. Bad move. Everything seemed to work well until I tried to print from Photoshop CC and Lightroom 5. The printer driver took 3.5 minutes to load (usual time is less than 5 minutes), and I was unable to change any of the printing settings without waiting at least 4 minutes per subscreen — effectively destroying my ability to print from Photoshop and LIghtroom. There was no disk activity while waiting, and I had no other programs running at that time. I last printed from Photoshop on 7/8/2014, at which time everything worked normally.
Started to uninstall the patches from 7/12 one by one, and fortunately, uninstalling the last patch I had installed, KB2973351, fixed the problem. I take the blame for this one because I did not check to see if I had installed it’s prerequisite patch.