PP,

http://blog.laptopmag.com/make-windows-8-like-windows-7

I (Upgraded???) to Window 8.1 after my motherboard died last January? I hated it and Windows 8 pissed me off. So I tried the ( Start8 ) program for a month and I love it. It makes the newer and better windows look and feel like Windows 7 which is easy for me to work with. I bought a combo pack of Start8 and some other program for a whole big price of under $8 US. Start8 is $4.99 US Free to use for a month. It's small and easy to use. Nothing to learn because you know it already!

http://www.stardock.com/products/start8/features.asp

P.S. I don't receive any royalties nor do I work for them!

johnaberry: Good stuff!!!

Bob:What's Windows 7?



Windows 8.1 fixed that stupid start menu thing. What a PITA that was. They have replaced it though with not being able to get rid of signing in. Well, I haven't been able to get rid of it. I hate that!

Just read over this thread. I mean, what else is there to do whilst downloading a trillion GB's? It makes an interesting read (for me anyway). I'd actually forgotten how much trouble I went through back then! Anyway, shafted myself badly by downloading Windows Media Centre before Windows 8.1 which I see now comes with WMC . Only 10% of 8.1 has downloaded so I haven't achieved much since my last post have I? Wonder how long Office will take to download? Faaarrrrkkkkkk!

Serious Question

If I take an image of this 360 GB Seagate drive once I get all this crap downloaded and installed, does that mean I can restore that image to an entirely different disk, in other words, my other hard disk which is a Western Digital 1TB? Basically I want Windows to be on the large new disk, not the old one.

Does anyone have some good info or article on how to do this?

While I'm waiting for the download and drinking up all the beers left from a swap six months ago, to amuse myself I am also looking at the app side of WIndows 8. I'm pretty sure it is just a Microsoft employee joke that we haven't been let in on yet.

Just been trying to use Internet Explorer as an app.

I go to the top left of my screen, right click to close the app and what happens? Nothing! As for going forward and back like you do in any other browser, well I can't get that working. It's totally weird. I've done the snap left and right thing several times as well and I can't work it out. Can anyone use this thing?

I think we should have put the BIABacus out five years ago. We could have had a link to a blank internet page (or maybe even something with a pic) and told everyone it was amazing. Any time they posted it wasn't working for them, we could have just said, "Well you are obviously not using it correctly. Go to our help site." Then we'd just have to have that link lead to Microsoft's Knowledge Base.



Whoops! I'm distracting people from my last post which did have a serious question!

Nearly two hours later and am only up to 34% downloaded of 8.1.

Thought I'd explore how to get Office working in the hope that it could download while I got some sleep. Another massive fail. It keeps asking for money even though I already own/subscribe to it.

Apologies that this is turning into my own personal blog on how crazy this stuff is.

[10 minutes later and I think I have a lead on the Office stuff ]

PistolPatch wrote:If I take an image of this 360 GB Seagate drive once I get all this crap downloaded and installed, does that mean I can restore that image to an entirely different disk, in other words, my other hard disk which is a Western Digital 1TB? Basically I want Windows to be on the large new disk, not the old one.

It does if you have the correct software to do disk cloning. Plus it may depend on your windows version, OEM, full priced version etc.
If the only item that has changed in your PC is your hard disk then it is unlikely it will throw a wobbler!

Goodle is your friend for walkthroughs on the process etc. and I think there are even free versions of disk cloning software.

mally wrote:Goodle is your friend for walkthroughs on the process etc. and I think there are even free versions of disk cloning software.

If Google had been my friend in the last two days I wouldn't be asking - lol!

All I have done in the last two days is Google. I've looked at all the disk cloning software etc. Ask me any question on all this apart from the only one I want the answer to and I reckon I can give you the answer.

I have not seen a walk-through process anywhere of how to change your windows c: drive to say your d: drive. That is what I need the walk-through on .

So, be my friend and Google that for me please -


PP

I don't have to log in on windows "Ate". With the start8 software put in it looks like the old windows only quicker and faster. Search the internet to find the answer to "how do I turn off log in in windows 8" Oh I just did it for you.

http://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-bypas ... in-screen/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7VG7Prb51M

Have you got 8.1 Bob? Those worked for me in Windows 8 but I never could get it to work in 8.1. Will have another crack later or check out that 'Ate', mate.

Microsoft is becoming more invasive by the minute. In Internet Explorer, you can't even make Google your search engine now .

Anyway, have downloaded a backup/cloning program called Aomei and once I have got everything re-installed (about another hundred hours ), I'll clone this drive to my other drive, turn the computer off, unplug this drive, clear the BIOS and hopefully get the thing booting up from the new drive. Fingers crossed .

I don't have Windows 8, but I did reluctantly update internet explorer recently. The search bar is gone now and searches are done with the address bar. Type your search in the address and don't hit enter. You should notice "Add" at the bottom right of the now expanded address bar and possibly a google symbol at the bottom left. These should open the door to changing your default search provider. I hope.

Sometimes I wonder if I am just getting old and more resistant to change, but I really feel most of the changes being made to software these days are a step backwards. Don't get me started on the "improvements" to security and privacy!

PistolPatch wrote:I have not seen a walk-through process anywhere of how to change your windows c: drive to say your d: drive. That is what I need the walk-through on .

I think this "May" be a case of me not understanding what you want to achieve Pat.
If you want to clone a hard disk i.e. make an exact copy (sector by sector) etc. Then cloning is what you need, and it doesn't matter about disk sizes as long as the recipient drive is large enough to take the "data" from the donor.

When I said Google is your friend. I should have elaborated; Once you know what software you are using to do the cloning with, then you will need to search for help/walkthroughs/tutorial for that software on what you want to do.

If on the other hand you are just adding a new drive and want to swap the drive letters so that windows boots the new drive NOT the old one, then you can use (###this is for Windows 7 so I don't know if it has changed name in 8 by the way###).
Click Start>type in the box "compmgmt.msc" right click the program that comes up & run it as administrator. Click "Storage>Disk Management". This shows all your drives on your PC. This can be dangerous if you don't know what you are doing, but you can basically reset the drive letter assignment to whatever you want (c:, d: e: etc.), as well as their descriptive name (useful when you have lots of drives that do different things). You can also flag the drive as active/bootable etc.
I am guessing here you want to tell the OS to boot to your new drive not the old one.

Is that any nearer to what you are looking for?
I would also guess that as you are on 8, this may be of no use . However, if it is what you want, then you could at least Google for compmgmt.msc in windows8

JackRussel wrote:Type your search in the address and don't hit enter. You should notice "Add" at the bottom right of the now expanded address bar and possibly a google symbol at the bottom left.

Nup. They have removed Google as an option. What a crack up!

And I'm with you Jack!!! I think Bill Gates is as well. Didn't he complain ages ago at how ridiculously complicated things were?

mally wrote:Is that any nearer to what you are looking for?

That's exactly what I was looking for! You are a hundred times better than all of Google .

I'm really excited about being able to clone from one disk to another and it actually being able to boot. I'm still a bit unsure if the clone will work though if you changed your motherboard or other major architecture which is often the time I usually do a major re-install. Wonder if you or anyone else knows the answer to that. I just had it in my mind that it wouldn't do that .

Thanks heaps for that mally .

...

Just in the process of sorting out email accounts. It looks like every account has been saved multiple times - long story.

If you are swapping more hardware (than just a hard disk) all at the same time....
Windows will likely throw a wobbler!

I think you can change the odd part through the lifetime of the OS (if OEM) if full package then I think it is more flexible.
The only true way to find out is to try though.

What I would do is boot up the new PC in safe mode (you do know how to do that)?
delete all the hardware entries that are obsolete in "device manager", then boot normally and see what happens

I read up a bit on this just before you posed the above mally and apparently there is a way of getting it to work - if you're game . Have to be quicker than downloading the whole internet again .

Tried your solution above but it would only let me change drivel letter not the properties so I tried booting up but couldn't get to BIOS so ended upo unplugging the old C drive. THat worked and the computer is a lot quieter now so I reckon that disk can stay unplugged .

Now I just need to work out how my 2 GB's of emails has turned into 20. Oh dear!!!

That AOMEI Backupper is nice and easy to use and the cloning only took about ten minutes to do about 20 GB (left the emails and docs on other discs.)

Bob!

Had a crack at the logon screen thing and it has worked this time. Think I know what I did wrong last time now.

48 hours later and I can tell you a few new things...

Bob, the lock screen fix no longer works. (I even reverted back to a clone drive and it worked twice and then stopped working after that. Work that one out.)

From a click of one wrong button on a new program, it looks like I have destroyed two of my backups and lost 18 months of data. File recovery program employed with no luck. That's the first time in many years that a file recovery program has not worked for me. A file syncing program must trump a recovery one. I still can't believe that one program, from a single click had no failsafe.

Worked out how Windows Live Mail turned into ten Gigabytes and explaining it is just too ridiculous for words. It's pathetic. (Basically, a simple import and export is impossible.)

Note to Self: No Pat, you are not crazy. If wanting to swap boot drives, just do what you did about ten times and it will suddenly and mysteriously work. i.e. disconnect everything except for the drive you want, disconnect the computer power, short out CMOS via the jumper underneath that lead you now know so well. Boot the bastard while pressing delete. After about five boots of doing this (no need to repeat the jumper) it will eventually get to BIOS. Everything should look good so do F10 and exit. It won't work. Repeat everything above ignoring the jumper, yet again, and it will work.

...

Anyway, no one seems interested in chiming in on how stupidlazy the above stuff is so I have to believe that I am the only idiot out there who is missing something totally obvious about the IT world. To me, all the above is totally unacceptable.

If BIABrewer ever becomes as lazy, useless, time-consuming and as illogical as any of the above, then send me a bullet in the mail please.

Pat ,sorry about the PC problems.. If its any consolation, they are doing the same STUPID things will automobile computers too. Makes me wish I would have stayed in school , gotten the engineering degree and designed bridges and buildings.
J

Maybe try your local CSI! They recover files from hard drives that went through atomic blasts!! But you probably don't want the law looking real close either eh?
Sorry, for your problems Pat I know you probably aren't feeling real humorous right now.

Oh dear!
Sorry for all your problems too.

Did you use Piriform "Recuva" for the file recovery?
If not, give it a go.

When files get deleted it is only the file header that is erased (hence can be easily unerased).
Just make sure you do not use the disk for anything other than recovery, as once the blocks where the files were get overwritten it is almost impossible to recover them then.

Thanks fellas . Annoying but what can you do about it?

I did use Recuva mally. Nice program except at the end when it asked me to save file results (there weren't many) and then, when I had plugged in the external drive it asked for, it closed down. Eight hours of searching would need to be repeated. (I probably also said above somewhere that if Free File Sync had taken a little more care then I wouldn't have lost all the files in the first place.)

What I find amazing is that algorithms have been written that can actually write articles (listen from 3 minutes and 40 seconds on this video) on some subjects better than a human. But, they still haven't written a program that can make sense of Windows and advise you what to backup, where, when and how often.

Figure that discrepancy out.

And the final laugh is that Windows Media Centre Electronic Program Guide is about 14 hours out from BIOS and Windows clock. No Google help at all on that one!

...

First world problem for sure but lazy IT wastes a lot of time that could be better spent on other things far more worthwhile.

I could have written to this thread every day since my last post here - no exaggeration at all. I don't think I am a stupid person and I think I am a lot more tech savvy than probably 80% of the people you'd meet on the street so I'm trying to work out why such a low level of IT standards seems to be becoming more and more acceptable?

Would you find the following acceptable?

A program offers to sync say your music between two devices. To me, 'sync' means, at a minimum, that it will bring both devices up to date. But then you find that, no, the program will only sync one way. You've always found that particular program to be particularly unintuitive (despite the hype), incredibly slow, and labour intensive constantly requiring massive update downloads just like Windows 8. The help is non-existent in the program and what works in the program today will not necessarily work on the next update. You even accepted all that thinking there must be some mysterious quality in the program that all others could see but you couldn't... (I'll stop writing there I think)... but you had never been in a situation where you re-installed your computer.

I'm talking iTunes here. Apparently, Apple believe that you will never have a hard drive failure or never sell your computer and buy a new one or never actually use your phone for serious education such as podcasts. Or do they simply expect you to buy iCloud?

I've always known that iTunes was truly crap but here's the process I have gone through today and wasted several hours on...

1. Basically, I firstly just couldn't believe that I couldn't sync all the podcasts etc I have on my iPhone back to my newly installed hard drive. I mean why the f*#$ck not? I still find that totally incredible.

2. Then I start the process of Googling how to solve this problem which about a billion people must have. This hour and half of one and two above starts at 5am before I leave for work.

3. I then download the first program that will fix the problem but find it is not free. (I'm very generous with paying for shareware, donating to forums etc) but the fee for this is $35.)

4. Repeat step 3 above four times and spend ages downloading the mbs of installation files (and avoiding the spam) and then still finding the program is not free and actually gets more costly.

5. Still no solution. Now I'm just jacked off at the time this has all cost me - and you. (Despite the computer probs, I have still been trying to spend at least two hours a day on finalising the BIABacus help. Finalising is probably 80 hours work alone so wasting time on spending a few hours a day on stupid stuff really throws me.

What I find incredible and have to get off my chest is when you look for the answers to the incredibly stupid IT problems above, there is a level of acceptance of this absolutely shit quality that wastes so many people's time. People write, "Thanks so much for this answer! I have been looking for weeks!"

Why are people spending hours looking for answers that are answers to what are completely unacceptable bugs or massive design flaws?

Can anyone, anyone at all, explain that to me why this has become acceptable?

(I better get back to writing the BIABacus help. I still haven't ranted about a lot more IT stupidity and rip-offs. I'll save the one that cost me $500 this week for another time as I really don't want to waste any more time on this topic today.)

Sorry Pat, I can't help with your questions, but I did find the best solution to this approx 10 years ago.....

.....erm

...well it was just that I decided I would never buy an Apple product again.

It really works!

Honestly, I think Apple make some fantastic looking products with great functionality, but as soon as I have to use iTunes with anything it is a no go.

Don't get me started on iTunes.... Oh no I can feel my blood boiling... time for some more therapy.

Ha! I felt a lot better after that rant mally. Just can't believe this sloppiness doesn't drive everyone crazy.

Stay away from Apple products. Don't expect anything to work correctly because confusion and despair is how they sell more "repair" software under a fake company names. It's the same with the Windows operating system. The company's that sell antivirus programs have people "working for them" that write the viruses! It's a great conspiracy! The only cure is playing Cheesestradamus!

(Bob actually knows heaps about software.)

Spent a fair bit of today (and the last month) investigating the whole are of backing up, cloning, versioning etc etc. I've found some things have improved and some good programs/services as well in this area but to me there is still one major problem...

In the olden days...

Your data was stored in c:/data

That was really nice because you just had to back up the one directory. Nothing else mattered. Simple and logical.

In between olden days and now...

Data gradually started creeping into other directories. The closest thing you would get to the olden days c:/data now is c:/letsnotgothere .

Now...

I was pleased today to find software that didn't expect you to spend five hours a day keeping up with the latest windows data directories etc. - they automatically knew which things to copy and what not to and I could quickly see if anything unnecessary was being backed up (and, from my constant wading through directories, I knew nothing had been missed.)

Returning to the olden days... (Data in one place and rotating and then retiring hard disks)

I have three hard disks available to me and two external hard drives and God knows what cloud storage if I wanted it. The thing is....

For someone like me (and I think many others) organising data folders into a logical order is critical. Today's software requires you to manipulate the registry to do much of this. Considering that these days we have the ability to run so may hard drives or external drives on a single computer, this blending of program and data files is absolutely crazy. Why not have data in a single directory that could even be on a second hard drive which could then be mirrored and backed up?

Maybe it's just time for a new operating system?

Even with the above, with Windows, anyone in the know, knows that it corrupts itself over time so it doesn't mater how many backups you do, one day, more often than not, you will have to re-load Windows. This last re-load I did has been atrocious. I've done heaps of them over the years and this one has been ten times more time-consuming than any others I have done.

...

All data needs to be in one parent directory if anyone is interested in the end user. Surely?