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When I tried to roll it back, it told me that those files had been ‘removed.’ NOT by me!

Thank you, Paul. I will try that later. I assume it will let me get an iso for Win 7,m should I need it?

I agree that the coders at CCLEANER may not know what they are dealing with. Sometimes, I even wonder if the coders at MS know! They always release new versions of their software and let the buyers (US) do their debugging for them! When I do the Registry cleaner I get things like: Unused File Extensions and Missing MUI Reference, among others. When I start the actual cleanup, it ALWAYS asks me if I want to back up the registry before doing the cleaning. I ALWAYS do. I have never had to restore it, though. I feel fully confident about CCLEANER. I also use Glary Utilities and HerdProtect, both excellent free programs.

Unfortunately, there are lots of repair guys who have no empathy at all, and are happy to install all their crappy programs and walk away with their fee.

I wasn’t trying to down you in any way, Beachboy.

I agree that many old timers, (like ME?) have trouble with technology. I don’t expect them to be as savvy as I am, or that I was. I retired from computer servicing back in 1995, when I was laid off by McDonnell Douglas. I have kept my hand in the game because I love tech. I have tried helping others a few times and ran into the same thing when they called a ‘friend’ to ‘help’ them! It usually makes a huge mess. Too many cooks spoil the soup, I’ve always heard.

At the age of 76 I realize that I am a rare thing; someone who actually understands computers, and how they work. My all-knowing grandson (age 14) thinks HE is an expert, yet he has no idea how to save a file! I’ve asked him if he knows how a computer works, and all I get is a blank stare. I was actually paying attention when I had all those boring classes, so I know what a CPU is and what it does!

Lately, though, I have been content to stick to my own PC and let the others worry about theirs. Most of my family thinks I don’t know anything, anyway, despite 20+ years DOING it!

Bob

(By the same token, never use a program like CCleaner. I built a new PC, never connected to the Internet, Windows 7 Ultimate. CCleaner found 325 “serious errors”. BS.)

Backing up daily is brilliant, and everyone should do it.

BACKUP, BACKUP,BACKUP, religiously! You will never be sorry you did a backup, but you sure may be sorry you DIDN’T make one! The problem is, you can nevre be certain the backup is good, until you have to use it!

I have been using CCLEANER for years, LONG before they stopped calling it CRAPCLEANER! I have never, ever, had any sort of problem with it. Also, I have never seen it report that it had found ‘serious errors.’ Other, scam-type programs, yes, but never CCLEANER. I use it mainly to clear out the TEMP files and other garbage files on my systems. It’s quick. ( I use others to do that, too) I also occasionally use it to clear out my Registry of old broken shortcuts, bad extensions, etc. I have NEVER had a problem with that, either. I have learned the hard way which ‘free’ programs are worth having and which ones to steer clear of. Almost ALL of my utilities are of the ‘free’ variety, and none of them have ever caused any problems. That said, I will never, ever, use ANY program that suddenly appears on my desktop, on the internet or through my emails! For the SAME reason I will NOT buy anything someone calls me on the phone to sell me! Honest vendors do not use these methods to sell their products. Remember that and save yourself a LOT of money!

PS Even a NEW system will have broken pieces of programs left over in the Registry, so maybe THAT’S where those ‘errors’ came from. Windows does not do a thorough job of housecleaning, during upgrades, updates, installs, de-installs, etc. You don’t ‘need’ these bits and pieces, so why not get rid of them?

Bob

I recently bought a used HP laptop that had Win7 freshly installed. I took the time to install ALL of the Microsoft updates for it! Then I made an image of this (or so I thought) using the Win 7 tools. Then I updated it to Win 10, since it told me that I could ALWAYS roll it back to Win 7 (for up to 30 days, anyway) Then, I started doing all the updates for Win 10, which promptly hung up! At this point I decided to roll it back to Win 7, but I was told that these files no longer existed! Now, it seems to me that a FRESH install of Win7 would be saved somewhere in there! I didn’t get an install DVD. The DVD’s I made say, ‘Repair Disc’ and Recovery disk’. I don’t know what is on them, they are unreadable to Win 10. I no longer need these, as Update FINALLY finished! BUT, I have no confidence, now, in the Win 10 Boot Disk DVD that I made! So, yeah, maybe I jumped on the upgrade bandwagon a bit too soon? Lucky for me, I have a beautifully running Vista desktop system that does everything I ask it to do. It takes up a lot of my desk space, so I was hoping to turn it off and save both space AND electricity, using a really good laptop. Having been with MS since DOS 3 days, you’d think I’d have learned SOMETHING by now, huh?

I have had a HP Envy Desktop Computer for about 2 years and it’s been working well.

I am enjoying (?) a similar problem on my Asus laptop. It flat will NOT power up; no lights, no beeps, nothing. I have ordered an external case for the 2.5″ SATA drive. The plan is to mount the drive in this case and see if I can access it from my wife’s laptop. If so, then I can delete all my personal data from the drive and then put it back in the Asus, then I’ll sell it AS-IS for parts or Repair. A new HD MIGHT fix it, but the K55n seems to have this problem fairly frequently, so I am looking at an HP laptop. I found a good exgternal USB 3.0 case from China for about $6 with free shipping. Check eBay. Accessing it as an auxilliary drive doesn’t depend so much on the MBR, I hope. By the way, there ARE ways to restore the MBR; check Google. You might then have to run ChkDsk to be sure. When it’s already down, you can’t get much worse. As noted, tho, when the heads are banging the stops, time is of the essence. I used to run a REALLY good utility, SpinRite, from Gibson Research, ($89) that WILL FIX this (I have done it before) and any other disc-related problem. It runs in MS-DOS, but it comes with a free DOS-lookalike so you can run it. I HIGHLY recommend it, especially for all technicians.

Bob

It’s interesting, the “OS Wars”.

I tried Linux on a few occasions in the 90s and had nothing at all against it. My primary problems were that if I used some device, like a printer, that wasn’t already included in the program, then I had to somehow program it in, and I could never work out how. Also, software which one might download often did not work right away, sometimes never.

So, quite honestly I wasn’t prepared to put in the work to familiarize myself sufficiently. Also, to be honest I like the Windows-type desktops, I know Windows, like most of us that worked with DOS: We are still aware that DOS lurks in the background; which to this day, enables some of us to fix problems in a way which is utterly impossible with Apple/Mac: I simply don’t know if any of it’s possible with Linux.

When Linux first came out, maybe late 80’s, I was in a book store and the clerk was raving about this new OS. He had a THICK book about it. I was intrigued but couldn’t afford the book! Over the next decade I read a lot and even dabbled with it some. I was never quite able to get it ‘up’. I even tried Red Hat. No luck. Over the past 10 years I have probably attempted to install Ubuntu about 10 times, sometimes successfully. Recently I tried 14.10 and it seemed to be working beautifully, as a dual-boot system. But then I started having some weird problems with Win 8.1 and had to finally do the SFC /scannow bit. After that, I never could get it to work again and was happy that, at least, Windows was still working. While Ubuntu was working I was able to get several Windows programs to work. This was encouraging, but the main program I need to use is the old MS Money application, which does not play well with Linux. I have Grisbi, both for Windows and Linux, and hopefully I can get it do what I need. That’s the biggest problem with ANY Linux distro; getting good and usable software. Even Grisby has little or no documentation. The author tries, but English is not his native language. I’m currently waiting for Ubuntu 15.04 to be released and then I will try once more to install it as dual-boot, or just run it off the DVD for awhile. Windows 10 does look good, so far, but THIS time I will wait a bit longer before jumping in. Unless they offer a free upgrade route. As you noted, 8.1 is a very stable platform, MAYBE even better than XP was. For speed and raw performance, of course, nothings compares to a pure DOS system, but we have moved to far, now, to go back. As for Apple, I always thought it was highly overrated, when I had the opportunity to play with it. I was in sales, back in the day, and I sold MANY Windows machines, NO Apples. The tales I’ve heard about trying to get upgrades or service turned me off! I like the fact that I could easily and CHEAPLY repair or BUILD my own PC. Not so with Apple. Now, I believe that Linux will be the next generation of OS. Once they finally get it right. I’m hoping.

I had some problems the other day which made me think I should uninstall my Chrome browser and then reinstall it. After that I realized that I didn’t have a saved copy of Chrome! I tried using IE to download it, but it only loaded, then hung. I was FINALLY able to get a good copy using my DW’s laptop. It turned out to be just a loose cable on the modem! I spent TWO DAYS chasing that! I won’t make that mistake again. Yeah, right. Chrome is my browser of choice, and I haven’t once needed IE since then, until now! It also automatically updates and imports your favorites, too. As you say, even MS is getting rid of IE!

I don’t know. It seems to me they should just call them ALL Windows, with the understanding that not ALL apps are going to work on each platform. Make this crystal clear from the beginning, so you know that, for example, the touch part (probably) isn’t going to work on your desktop. And that Office isn’t going to work on your tablet, which only has 1 or 2 GB of memory. That sort of thing. As for the iPhones, call it Windows Mobile, letting the free apps (or otherwise) fill in the blanks. I just don’t see a real problem here. Buy the version you need and just ignore the others; There will be a NEW version out soon, anyway. That’s just how MS rolls.

Suffice to say, there are literally hundreds of things that cause IE to misbehave! Over the years I’ve had to force myself to become a computer nerd, (not that I wasn’t already) and learn how to think inside MS’s offerings. In other words, fix it myself! Many aren’t able to do that, so they pay out BIG BUCKS for someone else to do it for them. This shouldn’t be necessary! Let me repeat myself: Check out Google Chrome. NONE of that is needed!

Our biggest complaint, here, is the constant fluctuation and name changes, when nothing really changed. Also, the constant ‘improvements’ which only brought us other bugs and flaws, to be patched, later. WHY can’t MS perfect their products FIRST, before foisting them off on us, to debug for them? Win 3.1 was NOT the perfect OS, either. Constantly reinstalling it, so that, MAYBE, we could get some use out of it, all the while knowing that the DOS version was MUCH faster and FAR more reliable! Later, things did NOT improve: Win XP was almost there, and I used it for many years. mostly reliable right up to the support cutoff. I waited for Win 8.0, thinking it would be FASTER to load, FASTER to use and overall better. It wasn’t! In fact, after using it awhile, I had to boot up my old system, to retrieve some files, and I noticed how much FASTER it loaded! I was tempted to stay on XP, except that the support was gone. A supposedly MUCH faster processor, with FOUR cores was slower than my old AMD 2000 system! I am still looking for the expected ‘improvements’ that 13 years SHOULD have produced! Is this Planned Obsolescence? Or just poor planning? I know, let’s change the name, and tell everyone it is NEW and IMPROVED! Most users won’t even know the difference (or care!) Pretty pictures and bright colors and they’ll think it’s wonderful. Some of us go back far enough that we just aren’t impressed, I guess.

When I was still using IE8/XP Pro it would often go berserk for me. I tried about everything you have done, with no improvement. I also hate to do Repair installs as I usually end up with some kind of a mess. One thing I found that DID work, was to make sure I had a good download of IE and then do a full uninstall of IE. Then, Restart Windows and reinstall Internet Explorer, putting asl;l the updates in it. This would get it going again for awhile. I finally just got tired of DOING that, and decided to try Google Chrome. I’ve never gone back to IE since then! Why keep whipping a dead horse? Even MS realizes what a total mess it is and it will not be here for Win 10! They are working up a NEW browser, one that actually works! I say, “TRY Chrome!” It simply works.

Joedob is correct: Linux is looking SO much better! Windows is like the ‘all NEW and improved’ car models: cosmetic changes are now called “NEW”! In reality, nothing is really that new. And when you add in the ‘NEW’ prices, you feel cheated! While with Linux, things DO change for the better, and there is NO cost! Really good applications are somewhat hard to find, true, but THEY are also free! I am about 99.25% ready to go strictly Linux! A few more of these phony ‘upgrades’ from MS and I’ll be there. PS I also go back to DOS 1.0, and with each ‘improvement’ I have said the same thing; “Isn’t there a better way?” Surely, there is!

|Like others here, I bought a ‘refurbished’ OEM laptop, with Win 8.0 installed. I went ahead and upgraded to 8.1. This unit came with a disclaimer that the Restore partition had been deleted, to ‘protect the privacy’ of the previous owner. Obviously, this left me with no way to restore OR recover. When I bought the Asus laptop, there was no indication that I was buying a used OR refurbed PC, nor that I would NOT get the needed restore files. Seeing your article I said, ‘AHA! Here is my solution!’ Unfortunately it was not to be! Now, I am back at page one. HOW can I Restore my system, if AND when I need to? I have managed to get Ubuntu up and running in a dual boot setup, And except for a couple of Windows apps, I could easily drop MS altogether. If I can find a decent replacement for those programs it will be a done deal. In the meantime, however, I am flying in the dark, feeling VERY vulnerable. Also, am I the only one who HATES UEFI? I fully understand that MS doesn’t want anyone to run Linux (and find out just how good it is) so they want to lock it out, but is there SOME way around that, to allow us to fully use OUR computers? Oh, well, that’s a question for another day.

Nice try, but no cigar, Fred.

Bob