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My Windows 7 64-bit system has been crashing about every couple days, always after restoring from sleep or hibernation. I've looked at the event log and there's not much to go on there, just an error reporting an unexpected shutdown and a critical reporting an unclean reboot. I don't update drivers very often and haven't done so lately. It's been the same hardware for the last year. Is there anywhere in Windows where I can start to troubleshoot, or is it one of those cryptic things that's more trouble than it's worth? I know this sounds like a hardware issue, and maybe it is, but I'm wondering what facility within Windows is where I go to pinpoint it, because it could also be software, like antivirus or some poorly written service. edit: realized about ten minutes after I posted this: always check memory. To Memtest+ I go. doctorfrog fucked around with this message at 03:59 on Jul 11, 2015 |
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Jul 11, 2015 03:43
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If nothing has changed, my first thought would be power supply, it wakes and crashes as it powers up.
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Jul 11, 2015 07:22
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My mom wanted me to clean up her Vista laptop. I've done the standard stuff (remove crapware, install a decent AV). I checked that Windows updates were set to install automatically, and that seems to be working, since there was only one important and three optional updates not installed. But when I try to install any updates, the download process gets stuck around 95-98%. How can I fix this? Edit: It seems it's just really slow: give it 20 minutes and things install. hooah fucked around with this message at 15:59 on Jul 12, 2015 |
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Jul 12, 2015 15:40
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hooah posted:My mom wanted me to clean up her Vista laptop. I've done the standard stuff (remove crapware, install a decent AV). I checked that Windows updates were set to install automatically, and that seems to be working, since there was only one important and three optional updates not installed. But when I try to install any updates, the download process gets stuck around 95-98%. How can I fix this? Really want to clean it up, find a copy of Windows 7.  Vista is doomed no matter how much you "clean it up"
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Jul 12, 2015 16:31
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Yeah, I know, but I think this laptop is on its last leg. She mostly uses an Android tablet anyway. I might recommend a Chromebook as a replacement.
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Jul 12, 2015 17:11
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wormil posted:If nothing has changed, my first thought would be power supply, it wakes and crashes as it powers up. That would really suck, the durned thing's less than two years old. (This current PC's parts were all installed at the same time.) But it seems that, beyond trying to decipher the Event Log, there's nowhere to really turn to understand the reasons behind crashes? I guess I should have said that these will occasionally come with their own BSODs. Memory passed fine as well. Eh, this Windows 7 installation is getting long in the tooth anyhow. May as well reinstall to (maybe) rule out software issues.
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Jul 12, 2015 18:03
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Martytoof posted:Not sure if anyone here can answer but what the heck: Generally Office 365 codes "stack", to extend your subscription duration (ie, adding another Office 365 code adds another year), not to double your entitlement. Martytoof posted:Well you have to associate those keys with a Microsoft account so I didn't know if there was some "one educational key per account" limitation or not. You can only have 1 active subscription per account, and can only add the university subscription to an account twice.
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Jul 12, 2015 19:53
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I don't know poo poo about Virtual Machines so bear with me. But is it possible to create an XP virtual machine to run games that are incompatible with Windows 7/8/10? Is it as simple as running the virtual machine, installing the game on it, and playing it? Or is it a much more involved process than that?
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Jul 12, 2015 21:04
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:I don't know poo poo about Virtual Machines so bear with me. But is it possible to create an XP virtual machine to run games that are incompatible with Windows 7/8/10? Is it as simple as running the virtual machine, installing the game on it, and playing it? Or is it a much more involved process than that? If the games aren't graphic intensive - most VMs don't have access to your graphics card so it's pretty much just basic apps and things. If you have Windows 7 you can use XP Mode which is sort of an "easy mode" VM. What are you looking to play?
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Jul 12, 2015 21:08
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:I don't know poo poo about Virtual Machines so bear with me. But is it possible to create an XP virtual machine to run games that are incompatible with Windows 7/8/10? Is it as simple as running the virtual machine, installing the game on it, and playing it? Or is it a much more involved process than that? That is the general idea, but 3D support will kinda suck. I don't think I have ever successfully used Win 7's XP mode but your mileage may vary.
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Jul 12, 2015 21:13
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doctorfrog posted:That would really suck, the durned thing's less than two years old. (This current PC's parts were all installed at the same time.) But it seems that, beyond trying to decipher the Event Log, there's nowhere to really turn to understand the reasons behind crashes? I guess I should have said that these will occasionally come with their own BSODs. Memory passed fine as well. A good quality PS may last decades, but lower end PS are completely unpredictable. If your PS is not OEM or a high quality aftermarket then I would swap it before a reinstallation. Could also be a hard drive problem, might want to run tests on that. In my experience, the harder it is the find a cause, the more likely it is hardware.
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Jul 12, 2015 21:17
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Medullah posted:If the games aren't graphic intensive - most VMs don't have access to your graphics card so it's pretty much just basic apps and things. Specifically I'd like to play KoTOR and the internet is just filled with people having problems with getting it to run on Windows 7. There are like different 4 solutions and none of them reliably work. I've tried myself and it's no good. I'm just tempted to drop some money on old hardware and build a dedicated XP machine just so I can play older games. Does XP Windows Update still work so I can find drivers for older hardware? I have an old AMD 4000+ and an Nvidia 7800gtx buried somewhere that would be perfect. All I'd want to do on it is install Steam and some games, nothing else.
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Jul 12, 2015 21:26
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Specifically I'd like to play KoTOR and the internet is just filled with people having problems with getting it to run on Windows 7. There are like different 4 solutions and none of them reliably work. I've tried myself and it's no good. I have no issues with it, are you running the Steam version? Or trying to run an old version of it? If so, just buy the Steam one for $5 when it's inevitably on sale. Your saves can transfer.
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Jul 12, 2015 21:33
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Medullah posted:I have no issues with it, are you running the Steam version? Or trying to run an old version of it? If so, just buy the Steam one for $5 when it's inevitably on sale. Your saves can transfer. I have both and neither have worked for me. Crashes on start, during cut scenes, when the wind blows too hard etc. And it's not the only game. So is my idea for an XP machine with circa 2006 hardware viable in the year 2015? Shimrra Jamaane fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Jul 12, 2015 |
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Jul 12, 2015 21:38
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doctorfrog posted:That would really suck, the durned thing's less than two years old. (This current PC's parts were all installed at the same time.) But it seems that, beyond trying to decipher the Event Log, there's nowhere to really turn to understand the reasons behind crashes? I guess I should have said that these will occasionally come with their own BSODs. Memory passed fine as well. What does CrystalDiskInfo have to say about your drives? I'm wondering if maybe you have a bad disk and your system is having trouble writing to the hibernation file and then shunting broken data back to RAM when you power up?
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Jul 13, 2015 00:15
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Gromit posted:What does CrystalDiskInfo have to say about your drives? I'm wondering if maybe you have a bad disk and your system is having trouble writing to the hibernation file and then shunting broken data back to RAM when you power up? Says it's good, first thing I checked. The power supply's no slouch either, though it may not be massively goon approved, it's a Thermaltake something something, less than two years old, plenty of RMS watts for the machine, but otherwise I haven't tested it. So far, RAM and HDD look good, no temp issues, and for the record, I know I'm in the software thread, I was first checking to see if there was a useful way to query Windows on the cause of the crash, given that it generates error codes and memory dumps and whatnot. To reiterate, the Event Log only says that something happened, thanks Event Log.
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Jul 13, 2015 01:04
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Factor Mystic posted:I'm not aware of any shortcut for folder toolbars, but Win+B focuses the taskbar tray & tab cycles focus. So you can tab your way there. This is certainly a step in the right direction, thanks! Win+B seems to always land one to the 'right' of my target, so Win+B, Shift+Tab is working out well.
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Jul 13, 2015 19:34
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Anyone have a decent contact manager for Windows 8/10? Something that works with Google and updates automatically. The People app is nice but doesn't do two-way syncing. Bonus points if it has global hotkeys.
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Jul 13, 2015 20:31
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Newf posted:This is certainly a step in the right direction, thanks! Win+B seems to always land one to the 'right' of my target, so Win+B, Shift+Tab is working out well. If that's too much, this would be like babby's first AutoIT script to make it just one hotkey. Then you could do things like make sure you're opening the right menu and stuff...
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Jul 13, 2015 21:03
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I'm sure this has already been asked before so apologies for a repeat question. I really need to do a reinstall of Windows (Windows 7, which I own legitimately) on my PC. I have already applied for the free Windows 10 upgrade. If I install the Windows 10 preview build can I still use the free upgrade to Windows 10 without having to install Windows 7 again first? Will it simply ask me for my product key when I upgrade from the Windows 10 preview build to the Windows 10 release build at the end of July?
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Jul 13, 2015 22:11
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Martytoof posted:Well you have to associate those keys with a Microsoft account so I didn't know if there was some "one educational key per account" limitation or not. Oh, right, I always forget which keys have to be tied to an account.
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Jul 13, 2015 22:28
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How should I be opening .rar files in Windows 8? Just the usual "download WinRAR and ignore the prompts" deal, or is there something better?
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Jul 14, 2015 03:45
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Hey all , posting again from my older computer. Anyone know why Windows continually shits the bed for me? Like , previously the touchpad stopped working. I just did a complete system restore ( didn't really have anythinginstalled) , and now the live panel won't work and it goes to desk top?? Am I just bad at Windows? edit: This is a continual thing, i'm not going to malware sites, I do email, play a game on steam, then do email and normal websurfing sites. Regardless just continually does this. I have this Toshiba update thingthat is on here that when ever it runs I have problems. Any clues? Hollismason fucked around with this message at 03:47 on Jul 14, 2015 |
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Jul 14, 2015 03:45
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Minidust posted:How should I be opening .rar files in Windows 8? Just the usual "download WinRAR and ignore the prompts" deal, or is there something better? Use 7zip, like you should have been doing for like a decade. WinRAR is terrible software, and nobody actually needs to create new RAR files, so just use 7zip to extract them.
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Jul 14, 2015 03:49
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Nintendo Kid posted:Use 7zip, like you should have been doing for like a decade. WinRAR is terrible software, and nobody actually needs to create new RAR files, so just use 7zip to extract them. It's critically important I split this 20 MB file into 82 different RARs for people to download.
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Jul 14, 2015 04:02
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Read posted:It's critically important I split this 20 MB file into 82 different RARs for people to download. Make sure to upload the last one to some obscure russian filesharing site that will lock it behind a paywall and/or replace it with malware.
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Jul 14, 2015 04:11
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Haha okay cool. 7zip it is. I saw some stray comment about how that wouldn't work in Windows 8, but the dude was mistaken because I'm using it right now! Thanks.
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Jul 14, 2015 04:44
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Read posted:It's critically important I split this 20 MB file into 82 different RARs for people to download.
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Jul 14, 2015 05:03
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I use peazip
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Jul 14, 2015 07:28
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Ghostlight posted:The best part about 7zip is that not only does it support doing this, but it goes whole hog by providing a preset Zip To Floppy Disks setting for it. Not RAR, surely Nintendo Kid posted:Use 7zip, like you should have been doing for like a decade. WinRAR is terrible software, and nobody actually needs to create new RAR files, so just use 7zip to extract them. Any specific reason for the WinRAR hatred? HalloKitty fucked around with this message at 15:11 on Jul 14, 2015 |
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Jul 14, 2015 12:50
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HalloKitty posted:Not RAR, surely It's shareware, whereas 7-zip is free and supports pretty much every archive format in existence, outside of obscure installation programs and game-specific formats with the file index hard-coded in the EXE. Also, 7-zip has the same RAR extraction code as WinRAR. The advantage of using RAR is you can extract files from it if part of it becomes corrupted, which isn't that big of an advantage, since you'll usually just redownload the corrupted part anyway.
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Jul 14, 2015 14:43
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Minidust posted:Haha okay cool. 7zip it is. I saw some stray comment about how that wouldn't work in Windows 8, but the dude was mistaken because I'm using it right now! Thanks. 7zip is great, but for me it sometimes barfs on very large or multipart rars. I don't run into those often, of course, but I've been forced back to winrar at least twice in the past few years.
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Jul 14, 2015 14:45
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HalloKitty posted:An specific reason for the WinRAR hatred? It works like poo poo and is shareware with nagging. It's also years obsolete. Blue Footed Booby posted:7zip is great, but for me it sometimes barfs on very large or multipart rars. I don't run into those often, of course, but I've been forced back to winrar at least twice in the past few years. Have you tried using the 64 bit version? I've been able to handle multipart files with up to 1 terabyte of data in them in the 64 bit version of 7zip.
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Jul 14, 2015 15:06
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dpbjinc posted:It's shareware, whereas 7-zip is free and supports pretty much every archive format in existence, outside of obscure installation programs and game-specific formats with the file index hard-coded in the EXE. Also, 7-zip has the same RAR extraction code as WinRAR. The advantage of using RAR is you can extract files from it if part of it becomes corrupted, which isn't that big of an advantage, since you'll usually just redownload the corrupted part anyway. I stick to WinRAR as a UI and UX preference. I don't like how the alternatives function or look.
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Jul 14, 2015 15:08
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I am formatting my SSD in Windows; do I format the separate 10% partition that Samsung’s SSD tool created, and merge it with my partition, or do I just leave it as is? There’s also a system-reserved partition, but I just figure that should be left as-is. In other words: - [ ] System reserved - [ ] Primary - [ ] Unallocated (10%) I’m thinking of doing this: - [ ] System reserved - [D] Primary - [D] Unallocated (10%) Where D is “Delete” instead of Format. It’s been forever since I installed Windows on a computer, so I might be wrong here. ufarn fucked around with this message at 15:55 on Jul 14, 2015 |
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Jul 14, 2015 15:49
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Is there a way to get a script-based rule to run automatically in Outlook (2013)? I just want any email with a specific "To: " field to be converted to plain text. I created a rule that is: Apply this rule after the message arrives sent to [distribution group] and on this computer only run [my script that is just Item.BodyFormat = olFormatPlain, Item.Save] When I manually go into Rules and run the rule, it does what I want. But I want it to just automatically do this on without my prompting. In Trust Center, I have the "Allow script in..." options checked, but under Macro Settings I have it set to "Notifications for all macros". Do I need to set it to "Enable all macros" just to get this rule to work? edit: welp, in case anyone else is interested in this, this was the answer to my question (I want the script to run on Shared Mailbox items, which I didn't mention above): https://jpaloma.wordpress.com/2011/07/12/workaround-outlook-rules-dont-run-on-additional-mapi-mailboxes/ Papercut fucked around with this message at 20:53 on Jul 14, 2015 |
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Jul 14, 2015 18:05
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Anybody have recommendations on software that can read epubs? Doesn't matter if it's a Metro app or standard desktop program as long as it displays the text nicely.
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Jul 14, 2015 20:07
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TopherCStone posted:Anybody have recommendations on software that can read epubs? Doesn't matter if it's a Metro app or standard desktop program as long as it displays the text nicely. Calibre.
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Jul 14, 2015 20:09
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If you're just looking to display and read, Sumatra pdf is a better choice Calibre is somewhat overkill
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Jul 14, 2015 20:40
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Sumatra can read epubs? Awesome, didn't even think to try that and I already have it installed. I've used Calibre in the past for sending books over to my Kindle, but as a reader it's way too heavy. Thanks!
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Jul 14, 2015 21:03
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