A long time in recovery

This has been 5 month in recovery! Since having to do a reset after the last Windows 10 upgrade, I had been limping along not able to reinstall office of this computer and just using office on my little HP spectre, which recently suffered its second cracked screen (after no obvious cause) and is now unusable. I was thus forced to look at reinstalling office on my main computer (a HP desktop).

I spent a couple of frustrating hours trying to navigate the Microsoft on-line Support, which kept sending me to irrelevant FAQ posts. So eventually I tried the on-line chat, which took a while but quickly isolated that the Key I was trying to use was invalid. The same message I kept getting trying to do the install from disk. The culprit was an unfortunate crease in the product label that made a 6 look like a G (a times 10 magnifying glass was helpful here). So my faith in Microsoft has been somewhat installed. Probably only as far as the next unstoppable windows 10 upgrade.

FYI After the install I was asked to finish the install on-line but that just took me to a webpage advertising Office 365 and its yearly subscription. As I am retired I am avoiding anything that requires and annual subscription!

Putting Linux to work on my Air Gapped Archive

Yesterday’s realization about Linux, reminded me that I have an older computer dedicated to Linux, the Ubuntu flavour. I only use it occasionally (only 3 times in the last year) and its not connected to the Internet. Its my Air-Gapped Archive. However it is a very important to me. I use this older netbook to handle my photo Archive of original Photographs, including RAW images & photos of my art works.

I choose Linux for a couple of reasons. First the attempts to upgrade my little toshiba netbook to windows 10, initially half worked and progressively slow until an attempted system reset ensured it never worked in Windows again, but I found it worked well with Ubantu . Second Ubantu (and Linux) are Open Source, not propriety operating system so there is less chance of being depricated or abandoned.

I must admit I have only updated twice so far since setting it up and today will be the third update (effectively I’m averaging every 4 months (not 3 months) and that means each year I will be running through the full cycle of Son – Father – Grandfather. This year I’m using a series of Old Hard Disk, which I have reformatted and now I am copying on the complete back up set a fresh (from the external Hard drives (in this case in the red covers). Its not fast, I expect it will take about 3 hours to copy and verify approx. 2.7TB of data.

I have also downloaded a couple of programs to help me out if I end up with only the LINUX access at any time. These are Linux version of XNView MP, a cross platform version of the popular photo/movie viewer and converter, and DarkTable, an excellent open source photo editor, that is also available on several platforms including Linux. Both can handle jpeg and the three RAW format I have .cr2, .pef .orf, I feel happier being able to see my photos. Even though this archive is essentially a digital dataset, seeing it is the best assurance that it is a true archive.

PS I left the complete rebuild run over night and it seems it took closer to 6 hours o copy and verify 2.8GB of photos & videos

Missing Files after a Windows 10 Update, with the Benefit of Deja-vu

Microsoft could have avoided the brew-ha-ha over missing files, after the latest Window 10 update, if they had bothered to reply to any of my several reports on the problem (to their support sites), all ingored , back in the last update in June. There were probably several hundred others in a similar difficulties reporting to various forums, and microsoft was silent.

The reported discovery that the missing files was cause by the "Known Folder Redirection (KFR) which is supposed to help remove duplicate files, makes sense to me as it was files or folders I had recently been using that “disappeared” during the june Windows 10 update. So this is not really a new issue.

I had a good backup of my working files (on a mirrored NAS drive and a separate external USB drive). I discovered my own work around, just take the affect USB external drive to a different computer, and the missing files were visiable! However I had to go through about 6 weeks of angst and update distress.  Not to mention a total reset and reinstall all my software (and explain to various venders that I need to reinstall software on the same computer (ie without exceeding my install/sites limit). My trust in Microsoft was severely dented and I for one would be happy if I could say NO to any future windows updates. This latest admission is not helping me change my mind.

The big question is how are these problems getting through Microsoft’s testing and their much hyped Insider feedback system? I know, they probably ignored them as well….

Touchwood :: The Desktop is Back

It has only taken me 51 days, since the windows update rendered my desktop very unreliable, and 24 days since I started seriously resetting, checking and reinstalling things, to get a stable version of my computer back. What an epic fail Microsoft (much of the delays and dead ends are due to your support forums. Also I have not received a single reply to any of my direct queries.

Microsoft please stop forcing me to update

So what fixed things? I had to do a total RESET, three times. Twice keeping my user files and the last resort was a complete deleting then reinstalling everything and finally slowly loading a few programs and testing them, then a couple more, and so on. Slow and steady (to win the race). Still got Microsoft office stuff to load but that can wait.

What was the cause? I still don’t know but I suspect it was related to the unannounced deprecating of homegroups. Either that or finally exorcising the ghost in my LAN.

The Dreaded Day has arrived

Despite request to microsoft support and many posts on their supposed user forums, and tireless searching the net I can not find an acceptable method of restoringing my main desktop computer after its last “upgrade”. I still can not reload some software (eg Photo mechanic, I get a catastrophic error and nothing more to go on), other programs will not write to my C: drive, yet other software just won’t start. I have managed to fix the disappearing folders. they where owned by a very old hotmail address (which I can not every remember using on this new desktop) and it was just a case of creating new top level directories and copying any sudatories in the original folders back into the new folders. Tedious but problem solved so I assume this was an issue caused with Homegroups being dropped from Windows 10.

There are also many warnings (triggered by most software especially On1 photo RAW, Corel Draw and Microsoft Explorer and office programs) that indicated that Windows Defender Security Centre is blocking accesses to certain directories on Drive C:. All the message have the logical name %userprofile% in the reported directory name. So I assume that somehow this had the ownership change or be pointing to the wrong location. I have simply run out of patience to investigate further. This message coming from Defender also suggests it could be related to a virus trying some sort of unauthorized access. However all attempt to scan for viruses and malware come up clean!

My last resort is to do a full RESET to clean up everything and totally rebuild from scratch.

Which of course means, deactivating software (where required) and uninstalling it (if necessary) and a complete backup of all user data. Not to forget disconnected the attached USB extension drive, during the process. By the time I restort my software test it and recreated new recovery media I’m very certain the process (and stress) is going to take way more than one day.

But here goes, wish me luck.

Saved by my Air Gapped Archive

I had a perfect storm of issues over the past week. I had the April Update of windows 10 forced on my computer and in the process the Homegroup networking just disappeared along with some of the network drive letter I used to share folders across my local area network. Also the NBN line to the internet (and my phones) dropped out and took many mobile phone calls to report and get re-established. NBN is not a popular word around here. When the internet was back the modem and router began playing up, WiFi dropping out and weird things happened across my network, including my Netgear Stora NAS (Network Attached Storage) which I use for backup/disk mirroring went silent and these was the pain of another few days of reporting problems. Long hours of automated phne system and support calls and just general frustration.  Then horror I noticed all my photos from 2017 & 2014 and most of my 2018 photos had disappeared off my network. Worse my two external portable hard drives, also seem to have lost the same folders. It all happened so fast I knew it could not possible be an accidental deletion and the two external hard drives where not connected to anything at the time. So how could they possibly have lost the data. Time to panic?
It could have been BUT last year I had set up an “Air Gapped” Archive, on a Linux computer that was not attached to the internet (or my Local area network). My original plan was to rotate these on a three generation Son-Father- Grandfather cycle and store the grandfather off-site. However as I have only been updating the cycle every-six months (my original plan was every three months)using old computer hard drives. I only have two generations and they are both here. So I broke out the father copy and fired up my little Linux machine. It took a while but what a relief all the missing directories and photos where there. Next the son copy, all there as well, actually only up to mid December last year when I did the last archive backup. So I could be missing a few months, bummer! I unplug my archive drive and went and got one of my external backup drive, the one I knew I had used most recently, to my surprise all the missing folders where there and full of my recent photos.
In disbelief I unplugged it (after a safe to remove step) and took it back to my desktop, no folders again. What is going on? I took the external drive to my laptop also connected to my LAN, the missing folders and photos could not be found. Back to my linux machine and they are there! What a mystery?
Actually I wasn’t so surprised I felt strongly that it was impossible that so many files on different media and places would instantly disappear. However at the moment I don’t understand why this happened. I’m just very glad I put some time into planning an archive system (with backups of the archive).

If you haven’t already got a backup system in place for your growing photo collection go and do it now. Then before to long plan how best to archive the collection!

More Upgrade angst

There haven’t been many blog post of late, any free computer time I have available has been spent just patching up, re-installing or watching with fingers crossed yet another update. Somewhat fortunately I think I am finally moving forward.

That was until I wanted to do a bit of work on my studio computer (more that just listen to music, or control a chromecast). I wanted to change the display (to suit an old TV, a Sony Bravia, it has nice natural colour, good resolution and a big screen). Well it might be easy if I can change the settings (and the setting tab no longer works, thanks microsoft!)

After a while I manage to get to the settings (by doing a right click on the start menu) and the settings seemed to be working. Then I got a notification about an update status, so I went and had a look. Damn its still trying to update, at least now it realize it can't, before I have to go through that frustrating upgrade loop. I wonder if it will ever realize I really don’t want to upgrade , I’d rather  just fix what I have now.

When will this madness end? 

Damn I can’t find a display setting that takes advantage of the Bravia big screen

Windows 10 Update woes continue :: Catch 22

After struggling through a couple of weeks with three of my computers effectively unusable because of the windows 10 update loops and related update problem, I bought out and old HP desktop (old being about 5 years , its 64 bit has 8GB of RAM) and was using it to give me capability top work email and do some photographic work. It did update itself twice without any problem to 1703, then the dreaded update loop started and it lost access to the setting app. Which was a pain as I wanted to print something and could set up a printer. I got over that issue by writing my word document to my google drive converting it to a google doc and printing it to the printer from my android phone via WiFi.

Please note Microsoft : the lack of microsoft tools used in this totally unnecessary work-around.

In the last days of last week I was able to nursed my newer computer back into usefulness, I had my computer access back so I should have quit while I was ahead. Instead before I put my old reliable computer back in the studio driving my copy stand and sometimes a music playlist I figured I should to should try an “in place” reset, which turned into a Windows fall update (version 1709) and took over 9 hours (at one stage it may have been waiting up to 30 minutes for me to hit return n “the update now” prompt). It finished late last night and I had a quick look and it seemed ok. So I shut it down and went to bed.

It wasn’t Ok of course, now I have a different problem a lot of the standard apps are greyed out on the start up menu.  They can’t be run from the all apps list either. That sounds easy enough to fix just download them again from the App Store. Wait the app store doesn’t work either. Oh Dear, Yet another Catch 22!

Where is your Shame Microsoft?

Did Windows 10 have an accomplice?

I have slowly got my two very sick Windows 10 computers back to health (one by a full reset and the hassle of reloading all my software and data and the other by a in place reset). Its taken the best part of four days and a decent amount of angst. I’m none the wiser of the cause, but I’m slightly worried one of the software packages I’ve recently installed (or more particularly related drivers) might have cause some incompatibility. I had really only installed a number of photo software Luminar (as a windows beta version) On1 RAW Photo 2018 (as a trial version) and Aurora HDR 2018.

The Windows beta of Luminar didn’t seem a real candidate because I had been using it for a while and it was installed on the another windows 10 computer that didn’t exhibit the update problem. Aurora hadn’t been installed on this computer and when I tried to install On1 Photo RAW 2018 it reported that the computer was not compatible with Open GL 3.3 (yet I use mining software on that machine that relies on Open GL and currently uses version 3.3). On1 Photo Raw also proved essentially unusable on the HP spectre small screen and frequently froze in tablet mode. Frustration overload

I have purchase Aurora HDR and love it, so I’ll be making sure it works fine before I try reloading either of the other programs. I do like Luminar but it doesn’t yet do any file management or cataloguing so I’m still stuck with lightroom for the time being. I also like On1’s stuff, especially its layering, masking including great luminosity masking tools and blending, but if it only works on one of the three machines that I will be using, it is definitely off the potential purchase list for now (so I’ll stick with On1 Photo 10.5 for now)

Time to get your act together Microsoft

Yes I do know this computer (which is less that 6 months old and came with windows 10 is not able to update itself. I am painfully aware that in fact it has trained and fail  over 36 times. Further my poor little HP spectre had tried 49 times before it died, that is stop being able to be used in Windows 10.

After 6 weeks of  fruitless trying Microsoft’s Windows update trouble shooter and then searching of apparently sanctioned microsoft user forums (and convincing myself most of the advice was bogus, microsoft really need to moderate this drivel better, and carefully trying the advice that seemed safe and logical but just didn’t work either. I started asking around the technical folk I trust and the only suggestion was to find “Windows update assistant” on the official microsoft site. Yes I an cautious enough to check which links I follow and what I download.

So In anticipation of finding the right solution I downloaded and ran the assistant. It told me about my installation and that I should update, So I started the update and several hours and many restarts later My system started and reported that the fall update was loaded and try to get me to use edge (which I really think is still very ordinary compared with chrome still. I also got a message to register the computer with HP (obviously windows 10 thought this was a brand new computer but I did re-register it anyway). Then I noticed I was left with a plenty blank screen, just the first time install blue window background.

There is no start menu, I can get the tool bar to appear but the start menu and cortana search panel don’t work only the file manger icon seems to still be work, and the only Icon on the screen Windows Update Assistant tells me my system is up to date! it doesn’t mention the computer is effectively unusable

Welcome to the NEW Windows 10 Blue Screen of Death by frustrations.

Have you No Shame Microsoft?

BIG #FAIL Microsoft & HP over update KB4041676

Unfortunately I have been complaining about the endless update and undoing changes loop that two of my computers go though everytime they are restarted sometimes they initial it themselves it all to do with the fact that windows cummulative update KB4041676) can not be installed on either of my new HP computers. Also my HP photosmart printer has decide to stop working in sympathy!

Sure a month of problems and hundreds reporting similar problems across every forum of the numerous I checked would force either HP or Microsoft to do something about it. Also Looking through all the (user supported) help forums has not bought to light any sensible explanation of satisfactory solution. Infact it has convinced me that most posts are really uniformed and these are dangerous places to seek advice. So where is the place I can actually Email my problems and expect to get a reply from a real person who might know where to find the answer or better still help me with a simple solution. Note I am not trying any more of those Chat supports places, with workers following a script which does include the problem I wish to discuss, so they quickly get stuck in a loop, that’s if I even understand their accent over all the background noise and chatter in there remote offshore bunker (aka call center). Asking to speak with their supervisor just means getting put on infinite hold if not disconnected, This is a mess that needs attention

I think you should be ashamed Microsoft, and HP how about helping out your (once) loyal customers, if you don’t have a fix put pressure on microsoft. Just do it!

The Never Ending story

The frustration continues as the update KB4041676 insist on being installed, then fails, then undoes the changes (35 times and still hasn’t realised!)

More Windows 10 Update Angst

I was starting to relax about Windows 10 and got a late night HP Service center request that I needed to reboot my little HP spectre. The on/off setting had an update and restart message (I’ve seem plenty before it was a microsoft windows 10 update I thought. Ok restart and the expected cycles of updating percentage displayed on the screen in fits and starts and the don’t turn your computer off warning. Then a restart and similar update message BUT then a final message that the update could not be installed and it was undoing changes. Not the time of day to investigate so I did a shut down, more updating messages.

In the light of day I restarted and went through the same cycle. I had to restarts twice and go through the updating and undoing changes charade two more time before I could finally log in. nothing seems wrong (ie I am back where I was. However trying to shut down I still see the Update and restart warning! Am I destined for an endless loop of annoyance?
But why?

Back from the dead …

My lovely little HP spectre is back from another trip to Singapore, this time with a new mother board. It started without complaint so I certainly hope it is back to full strength and can ward off the deadly effects of the next Windows 10 update!

Seriously welcome home little fella, my photography missed you. So did my blogging and instagraming

The awkward return of my prodigal PC

After two full weeks away, including a trip to HP Singapore and back, my sick HP Spectre is back home. “Does it work?” was the first question and superficially it does. The Tech speak was “Reimage ok Passed all UEFI tests” which meant the disk was cleaned off (the upgrade USB I was three weeks ago had already done that!) and a new system image installed (the USB key failed to do that!) and the hardware tested ok. Great, but don’t get excited too soon.

The first task was to connect to the internet, sync up the blue tooth mouse and reset my user account and one drive, All good so far. Then I tried to connect to my Home group, very tediously nothing, ask to join and waiting while the operating system was considering the password for ages then just ignoring anything new on the network.Well at one stage I got to see the network printers. Then bugger! The computer just restarted itself (maybe an upgrade?) What about the Windows 10 Store to download a few things. Damn that wants authorization again (that’s the third message and code to my phone). Now its trying to download all my windows 10 apps. Time for a coffee. Arrrrh! another unscheduled restart. At least its not the blue screen of death (better only whisper that)

Now I had the task of reloading the software I normally use (my many photographic mistressess). That’s where the disappointment really set in. whilst I could install picasa all my other decent photo applications refused to install, with similarly unhelpful error messages during the assembly component.Why all suffered similar problems was a mystery but I decided to down load a fresh install from lightroom (not a good choice because it is huge). About 10 minutes into the 25 minute download you guessed it my system decided to do a restart. so with only about 30% download complete. I was able to restart  and continue but now it said it would take 2 hours, I’ve seen Microsoft exaggerate download time before so I pressed on. Three hours later and 6 restarts later no photo software had been installed and the lasts restart suggested 3 hours to go although the download was 700MB into the 800MB+ of the lightroom setup file. Time for bed and let it go and get the computer ready to go back to the store in the morning!!!!

In the morning all I could find was a totally blank screen with a mouse cursor I could move around. Pressing the on/off switch bought up the slide down to shutdown screen. But sliding down just got me back to the blank screen, Several on/off and holding down the key for longer and longer. I finally got the system to restart BUT it was doing an update at 100%. A 15 minute wait and the update started again at 10% and crawled its way back to 100%. Finally it restarted AND has been working fine since. I now have my cluster of photo software installed and tested and ready to use.

Welcome back my most prodigal little friend, but don’t try that again.

Recovery has made it worse

I still running into a lot of roadblocks trying to fix my new computer after the last windows upgrade. My first though was a roll back to the previous version. Damn that is not allowed!!! 10 days is a might short time!

Next I tried going back to my recovery media (which I created on an SD card), so that was a challenge and it seemed to hang a couple of times during the update but I patiently let it work through its issues. It seemed to work ok for a day or so. However now I have to go through two or three cycles of that sad face and blue screen of near death before I can log in.

Now my PIN doesn’t work at all, my password fails often and I frequently end up at the screen that telling windows didn’t load correctly. As if I didn’t know that!

Now the computer has decided to go back to ignoring me and just showing the spinners. Seems to be always when I’m doing something important (or even blogging). OK another recover it has to be!

Have you tried the Microsoft Support link?

 

Needless to say I’m not happy

ArtInspired :: More Update Stress

My computers are finally all getting the anniversary update to windows 10 and it is not going well. All have had to special shut downs and updates. Even this brand new HP Spectre PC has progressively become very flaky when I put it to sleep. It then had to go through the blue screen of “almost” death and then load up the Automatic Repair dialogue, also a blue screen. So far I have just done the restart but I’m very close to doing a totally clean reset. So instead of panicking I created a deep dream style image using lucid on my android phone to express my frustration of waiting for the next crash.

And guess what, I haven’t seen the crash since.

Stop it Windows 10 …before you go blind

I’m not sure why but I am getting an even uneasier feeling about an operating system that can update itself with asking me first. Today when I woke my my new spectre 2x from sleep mode I got the warning about the program wuapihost.exe (apparently a windows 10 program being blocked by the fire wall).

This is all a bit suspect, Microsoft security blocking a Microsoft program?

Looking at the microsoft community forums, shows there are a lot of “me too”s, but just jibberish and the typical “reboot” answer. Should I live dangerously? No the firewall block stays put.

This is not what I wanted to see

Just two days into ownership of my new HP spectre and I woke up to this. A Windows Update. This sent chills down my spine. Windows 10 updates have killed two of my computers and severely hobbled another. The damn thing took its time as well.

So far I can’t see any changes but I also can;t see any damage done either. However around 10% of my available disk space just vanished. It seems I have a directory now called windows.old duplicating my current windows directory. As I have very low confidence in Microsoft updates I’m going to have to keep it around in case I need to undo the update.

Is it really necessary to update software within two days? If so what is wrong with the operating system? I’m sure those with 125 GB disks will not be happy losing 20% of their disk space so soon after purchase

Another older computer (win 7) and a similar story

After abandoning upgrading my small netbook, I foolishly began trying to upgrade an older desktop. Same story just different error messages. Two fails to upgrade out of two attempts,

I think I need to quit while I’m still sane and just be happy with Windows 7 and get back out on the camera