Replies

runGood thinking. Unfortunately, I can’t figure out how to get the Automatic Repair to run (which I guess is where you can access the repair utilities.)

I’ll try to create a Recovery Disc on another PC and see if I can boot from that.

JC,

This sounds like a time for a judicious use of FIXMBR – but I’m a little hazy on the details. I’ll let wiser heads go over said details.

Zig

According to that article optimum battery life requires a charge of 58% and discharge to 10%. How you would ever manage that is beyond me!

cheers, Paul

See it’s tough for me to know what to make of all these stats and differing points of view. But I’ve had cell phones and other devices where the Li battery has lasted for literally 6-7 years and is -still- going strong. Maybe it’s apples and oranges, but it just doesn’t seem reasonable that these things would be so finicky.

The previously quoted ‘2 year expected life’ seems almost criminal given their toxicity. I mean they -should- last longer if the device (my computer) is working properly, right? Right?

I guess that’s why I am leaning towards the el-cheap-o brand… since they all seem to suck… and HP doesn’t provide the tools to get to the bottom of it.

” For example, Battery University states that a battery charged to 100 percent will have only 300-500 discharge cycles, while a battery charged to 70 percent will get 1,200-2,000 discharge cycles.”

Did not know that. Might have a lot to do with it. I -used- to often keep the thing plugged in a lot.

I’m wondering why the battery keeps getting killed.

This article may shed some light on that…

http://www.wired.com/2013/09/laptop-battery/

Yeah, as expected… no consensus. I would get another vendor battery in a heartbeat if I believed at -all- in the computer’s self-diagnostics. I’ve gone through the calibration and remote testing with HP and they always say the system and batter are fine. But the thing has -never- held a charge to spec since it was brand new.

Thanks. At the risk of sounding ungrateful, two concerns:
1. One of our licenses is from Technet. Will or will that not be portable? My guess would be -no-.

2. Although your reply makes sense, it seems so ‘lawyerly’ that I’m not sure I trust it. IOW: I can see replacing a mobo, then finding that Windows needs re-authorisation, then phoning MS and then trying to -convince- a rep in Bangalore (or wherever they are these days) of this logic. That would -not- be a good time to find out for sure.

In short, I’m looking for a LOT more certainty before the 1 year window closes.

Best,

—JC

The underlined part of the Windows 10 license terms in the previous post (#30) says that your retail licenses will still be portable to new hardware after upgrade to Windows 10.

Also confirmed by Ed Bott at ZDNet:

Update: In the comments, several people have asked what happens if you make changes to hardware. As I noted earlier, Microsoft doesn’t provide details of how it calculates that hardware hash, but upgrades of system components such as a video card or a hard drive won’t normally trigger a reactivation. If that happens, a quick call to the activation line will resolve the issue, often without any human contact required, in minutes.

The one exception is a motherboard replacement, which will inevitably cause the Software Licensing Management utility to recognize the device as a new PC and require reactivation, typically over the phone. A motherboard upgrade, even if you reuse storage, video, memory, and a case, is considered a new PC. In that case, if the underlying Windows license is from a retail copy, that license can be transferred. If you are upgrading (and not replacing) a motherboard on an OEM PC that was sold with Windows preinstalled, the license agreement prevents the license from being transferred.

Microsoft quietly rewrites its activation rules for Windows 10

I run a recording studio. I have 4 PCs running Windows 7 and 8 with, using your nomenclature, ‘portable’ licenses. We upgrade the machines at least once every two years… mobos, SSDs, etc.

From what I read, if I accept the ‘free’ upgrade, the next time I change the hardware I’m going to need to purchase a whole new Win 10 license at full retail price.

Is that correct?

If so, that’s no deal for me. In that case, I would simply do what I did with XP…. run it into the ground for the next 5 or more years until it is no longer supported by my app vendor.

It would seem better if they gave people a low-cost (not free) but -portable- upgrade path.

As the o/p…. I migrated to Thunderbird. It’s tolerable. There is simply no solution to #1 or #2 for Eudora. I believe that this is simply a case of a creaky database… after it reaches a certain size, you’re screwed.

I -occasionally- have glitches with T-Bird… most notable:
a) It won’t ‘send’ the first time

b) every so often the search stops working… there is a procedure one follows to force the db to re-index but the first few times it happened I was panicked.

At some point of course, one will have to suck it up, get assimilated and move to GMail. But until that day we muddle through.

Thanks for that. Boy is that disquieting. Every so often, I pull one out and it works, but I’ve also had a few that are filled with errors after only a few months. And there doesn’t seem a way to know in advance.

What about Hard Drives? Do they retain data when powered off? For how long? Is that a much better long term solution?

Hey thanks. The power setting was set to ‘Always On’ but when I looked under ‘Advanced’… the setting for HD was sleep after 20 minutes. Weird. I thought ‘Always On’ meant, ‘Always On’. Didn’t realise there were so many levels.

Not sure if this is the cure, but seems promising.

Cheers,

—JC

I do a LOT of video, WAVs and hi-res photos. It’s literally terabytes over the years. I’ve put everything on DVDs because they’re cheap and standard. I’m constantly stunned at how little thought is given to archiving. A photo can easily be kept in good shape for 50 years. I’ve lost digital media in less than 5. So… my concerns are:

a) The longevity of DVDs? I’ve tried to keep them dry, dark, etc. But I have seen any reliable info on how long before they deteriorate.

b) If I -were- to move them over to hard drives, how long can an un-powered SATA drive retain data reliably? Years? Or do they need to be kept powered?

c) My other concern about moving to hard drive storage is how long the -standard- will be around. IOW: how long before ‘SATA’ or ‘NTFS’ is an issue?

Your thoughts? Suggestions?

Thanks. But… you lost me at ‘cloud’. That’s exactly what I do NOT want to do. There are -way- too many places I go where the internet connection is crap. I may be the last old fart out there who wants this but I just want to -transfer- text.

RANT:What kills me is that, if this were a picture, I’d know -exactly- what to do. They’ve made transferring audio and video super easy, but something as simple as a text file is like Apollo 13.

Anyone else?

—JC

I was wondering if that might be part of the problem. But still, shouldn’t I be able to -still- ‘remember’ credentials… whether the user name/pw are the same or not? Seems like a security risk to have to have them match.

I got 8.1 to work! Woo Hoo!

See my post #31 here: http://windowssecrets.com/forums/showthread//157430-Failing-Windows-8-1-install/page3

Installed Ubuntu 13 alongside (WOW, Linux distros have gotten SUPER user-friendly!)

Aside from the fact that the whole lack of Start button is a drag, very cool!

Interesting. I guess I -could- do that. I figured that would make the ‘controllee’ PC run slow as molasses. I guess I could give it a shot. Thanks.

Any other suggestions? I know there used to be applications that could ‘broadcast’ what processes were going via IP.

—JC

Actually, I have one last comment/reason for being leery of Win8… Whether I start using it or not.

Windows is heading towards the Apple/Comcast/AT&T ‘walled garden’ where content and programs are all ‘curated’. I find the whole ‘apps’ thing—where one ‘licenses’ a program or content as opposed to ‘owning’ it, -dreadful- for many reasons. Very soon you won’t be able to install any program that isn’t ‘approved’ or ‘registered’ through MS.

Metro is not the main reason to fear/loathe Win8… my guess is that MS fully ‘gets’ how resistant people are to the new UI. But their long-term plan is to get people used to the standardised/controlled environment and they’ll take the short term hit to gain an ‘app store’.

The really odd thing? I never thought we’d reach a day where MS represented ‘freedom of choice’ but compared with Apple/Facebook/Comcast/AT&T/Verizon Windows7 was great.

Sorry… what got me ranting was the previous msg with all those new features—most of which are of little use to me… and I dare say many people. Most of that stuff is ‘7.2’… What makes it ‘8.0’ are all things that benefit MS—not -me-.