The Crap Shooter

[oldwrench]

Enough to keep you happy for the rest of your natural life......... I would guess.

[oldwrench]

Windows 10 update (as usual with MS) sucks. Very simple to do...... right? It automatically downloads the files then tells you when it's ready to upgrade. Just click on the update reminder and it will install itself........ Ok, first off, the upgrade fails and it gives an error code. I checked widows site and followed instructions for correction the fault. Ok, now that fault code is gone, but now it says it failed because it can't modify the system reserved partition. No info on the windows site for that one, so I started searching the windows forum. Seems that problem has happened to a number of people, the 100mb partition reserved for the system isn't large enough for the install. There were some suggestions, rather complicated methods to get into the hidden partition and delete all the files of extra languages and some other files......... I figured you just needed to increase the size of the partition. I used Partition Magic to increase the size to 500mb. After checking that W7 loaded and worked fine, I tried the upgrade.......... BINGO! It works, I get through the EULA and it begins the upgrade, informing me it will restart several times. Everything is great....... right? Well till the second restart, it goes into a loop, beginning the boot, shutting off, beginning the boot, shutting off.......... to infinity and beyond. Nothing I could find would solve the problem short of reinstalling W7.

So, off I go with a complete reinstall of 7, I'll just have to start over finding the apps I want, sigh. After a install of 7, I started checking things, it seemed to boot slower.......... Windows decided to install itself on Drive 1, the first partition of my storage drive, instead of on the 0 drive, the new ssd. So it erased everything on that partition.

Windows upgrade sucks.

[Sakura]

Been there, seen that. This is the steps we do (c)O-kun

• Install the free Macrium Reflect
• Backup the hidden partition plus c:
• Check if the backup is working by trying a restore
• Install WX

So when anything fails (more likely: some hardware stops working) you can turn back to the original W7 setup.

[oldwrench]

Actually, the new Samsung drive came with an easy and very effective cloning software so I did clone the old system onto the new drive. I still have the old drive with W7 and all my old apps. I didn't feel like wasting the time to re clone the system back onto the new drive and go through all that mess again just to have the same thing happen. All worked out well in the end, check out the good things thread.

I don't think I will upgrade my laptop though. It works just fine with W7 and I don't feel like raising my blood pressure like that again.

W10 is pretty, and seems to work very well on the desktop I built last year. New enough components I guess. Now maybe I should try a touch screen monitor......... but why??

[Sakura]

Now that you have converted your W7 license to a Windows 10 license you can download the install DVD and do a clean reinstall. Did you consider that?

[oldwrench]

Actually, I did download W10 from the MS site. You don't get W10 install for free, only the upgrade. I might be able to get the complete 10 free now that I have it working, I should look into that. I don't know if there would be any advantage to a clean install now that I have the upgrade working.

[Sakura]

Updating converts your W7 to a W10 key. You're free to reinstall from an iso image you download from Microsoft here once your W7 is updated to W10 and activated:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/softwar ... ndows10ISO

[oldwrench]

Actually, I have had no issues since I got 10 running. I have downloaded the complete W10 and could reinstall it, but it isn't necessary. They say the W7 files that are replaced are discarded after a period of time. It all is working quite well anyway.

[Sakura]

Fine then, I have upgraded to OSX 10.11 "El Capitain" with no purrroblems

[oldwrench]

My Panasonic camera has dust inside the lens. And a small scratch on the outer lens. Bummer, it's only about 6 years old and has been in my pocket on many trips........ no reason it should get any dust in my pocket. Ah well, I guess I need a new camera....... so I got a Samsung Galaxy camera 2. It's like a nice point and shoot camera, with a full function tablet grafted on the back. It's a bit larger and heavier than the Panasonic, but has such a large display and so many more functions.

Grumble .02........ I bought one of those fitness wristbands for my wife for a gift. Nice things, record your steps and calories burned and lots of other things......... problem, they don't work with the tablets, only with smart phones. We only have dumb phones and I'm not about to spend the money for a phone that's smarter than I am. I gave the thing to my daughter.