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I have a Blue Snowball mic and can attest to the quality of Blues USB mics. A friend of mine uses one for a weekly streaming talk. He tends to speak quietly but the mic handles that just fine with good quality. Recordings of the talks are sold later.

I use CC Cleaner once in awhile but less and less often over the years. It’s never given me problems but does have more aggressive settings you have to use with understanding. The defaults are usually fine.

A friend of mine downloaded a trumpet-tooting “repair” tool – it deleted many of his file associations. (if it ain’t broke…) To open a file, you had to open the program, then browse to the file to open it. It also made the computer quite a bit slower. I tried to reset the main associations but even that didn’t stick. And he had no backup, even after almost loosing months of work in another hiccup.

I separate data as Roland mentioned. An additional benefit is the type of backup. Imaging the OS is superior but if you have a system problem, that can cause data access issues. If you have work to get done, thats a problem. I simply mirror the data to a backup drive (NAS) so its always available. If the system goes down, another computer can access it easily. Then I can tackle the system problem on my own time.

Fred used to recommend separating the data but doesn’t consider it necessary anymore. Having seen the above, I still find it valuable.

I remember when many programs installed entirely to their own folder. You could even copy the whole thing to another computer and it would generally work, perhaps with a little tweaking of the ini file. Most of the changes since then have been positive, like Windows providing the printer and network functionality. But programs came to scatter stuff all over and Microsoft seemed to encourage this.

I would add that some programs intentionally leave stuff behind so your settings are retained and so you can’t just reinstall to restart the 30-day free period or whatever.

I found this article rather unfocused. First a discussion of a specific issue, a link to a discussion elsewhere, then a list of troubleshooting techniques that have no apparent relationship with the problem. Seems there was 2 different articles here.

I find occasional videos don’t run, often because they’re hosted on a third-party provider that my security plugins are blocking. Although occasionally a site will use an obscure codec or require a special player. While I can disable the plugins per page, I find it easier to launch Chrome and paste the URL in. While I have a few plugins there, its a simpler setup than FF, so easier to get results rather than fiddling around.

Sorry, but not impressed with the article. A product with constant aggressive marketing, required registration (for more), and does a semi OK job? That it required rebooting to work also suggests its installed a service or auto-start, which is not mentioned. Do you really want this just to occasionally check your drives? And the second tool sounds decent but is designed for ongoing monitoring which is unnecessary for most home PCs.

As you can never predict the death of a hard drive, the real solution is automated backup. I know 2 people who lost drives by banging their keyboards (on laptops)

I’d like to add my favorite free tool for viewing the SMART data – SpeedFan from Almico
You can mess up a lot of readings and fan speeds with it, but it also reports any hard drives that were present at boot time. External drives (USB v1,2 &3) also show if they were present at boot.
I’ve not got any SSD’s to test it with.
http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php

I use Speedfan also and it works fine with SSD drives. I’ve found it particularly useful for heavily used laptops to monitor temps as they can get mighty hot. That’s certainly one way to reduce drive life. It finds USB drives fine but reports “invalid data” for my networked NAS RAID.

It’s SMART tab allows you to check a drives status and it gives a basic Fitness and Performance review. Plus tests.

I shifted to Open Office some years ago when MS Office started locking up my computer whenever I cut and pasted – even if it wasn’t running. MS told me to buy another version to fix the issue.
I was impressed how much OO had matured. And it has kept the standard menu system which I’ve also found more logical than MS.

OO has shifted ownership a few times in recent years, now with Apache. Previously, development slowed way down, so a group of developers created a “fork” and began LibreOffice. That branch has continued development leaving OO somewhat behind. Still a good product but Libre is more current. I’ve been using that since.

It’s worth noting that you need to use the Open Document standard to get some of the fancier features in either suite. Like automated table of contents, endnotes, etc. But it’s easy to save into a MS format when you need to share with same. I’ve found little problem there. Am about to test sharing change tracking again with someone using MSO. See how that works these days…

I reenabled System Restore/ Protection after the Win10 upgrade.
However, I recently installed the AU update which did mess with a few settings and reinstalled a few apps I’d removed. (like Get Office)
When I checked SR, it was off again and there was no space used (in other words, it had deleted prior restore points).

So thanks for the reminder.

As a note, AU would not install until I disabled all non-MS services.

Other suggestions I ran into not on the above link:
– unplug USB devices other than kb and mouse. (I did have trouble updating with an external hd once but this wasn’t an issue this time)
– a reference that MS had dropped some generic drivers which may render hardware non-functional. But it is recommended to update all drivers prior.
– make sure your AV software version is current and supports Win10.
– Run sfc to ensure there are no corrupt system files.
– Win Secrets had mentioned insuring your BIOS was current also.

I had done these prior without success. I had first used the media creation tool download. Where I got the update didn’t seem to be the issue here. Again, it seems to have been a Service MS didn’t like.

AU showed up on my tablet and went in fine.
I tried to install it on my custom desktop a few times without success. Then it showed up in Updates and got into the cycle of Update and fail, at least once a day, usually late in the % before first reboot.
I then found this article:
https://windows10.help/blogs/entry/3-how-to-ensure-a-smooth-upgrade-to-windows-10-anniversary-update/

What worked here was disabling (not removing) ESET AV and disabling all non-MS services. (clean boot section) I suspect it was a Service issue.
When I then rebooted after AU was ready, it went in fine.

After the process was complete, I just had to reenable the Services and reboot. So far, all’s well. Even Classic Shell came up for a single click to be configured for the update – none of the previous MS “it was uninstalled”.

Whew!

I recently tried a manual 1607 (AU) upgrade of my desktop but it would get part way along and fail with a vague reason. Coincidentally, my tablet decided to automatically update the same day. That was successful.

I recently discovered the Windows10Upgrade folder but it was on my USB backup drive. I don’t use Windows backup system. It’s 2.88 GB
The folder has not emptied after 10 days but perhaps because the update failed. Its shown no sign of being offered yet.

Wow – thats really appalling that an expensive app with a probable single use is pushing utilities and promo links like that. This is more than most free apps push.

Theres also a lesson in there – always archive your installers with any purchased keys. Finding the right version and keys later on is much easier then.
I also make a little spreadsheet with a list of apps to install with links and notes so I have an easy record and why I did or didn’t install this or that.

You didn’t specify your Android calendar and contact apps. Other commenters generally assume you’re using Outlook on Android. I don’t, and I have been very happy with MyPhoneExplorer (free, but I urge you to donate if you like it). The PC program and Android app connect to each other to sync my Outlook 2013 on my computer with my Business Calendar app in both directions on my Galaxy S7 (and previous phones) . It works over Bluetooth so I don’t even need to plug my phone into the computer. It’s not updated often, and the interface isn’t gorgeous, but works reliably and effectively. You can sync any Outlook module (calendar, contacts, email, tasks, etc.). You can also use it to transfer files. HTH.

I also happily use MyPhoneExplorer. It can sync contacts, multiple calendars, and can download texts, call logs, etc. It works with Bluetooth, USB and wireless. I found the last easiest.

In my case, I use it for Android and Thunderbird. I wrote that variation up here, with a few tips.
https://fornow.wordpress.com/2016/09/28/syncing-thunderbird-to-android-with-myphoneexplorer/

The recent mention of it had me run PSI and it had no updates. That was not a good sign. It only found one thing to tweak.

I’ve left it for now but no longer consider it a reliable way to check. It might have some use on a system thats not been updated in awhile but…

JoeP517 also makes valid points. The program is fast but has fewer options than it used to.