The Windows and Windows Software Megathread

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Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

Barnsey posted:

Anything good out there that would help me catalog my DVD collection? Maybe use IMDB some how to get genres or something?

I use DVD Profiler, and it works amazingly well. Just type in the UPC and it adds it, along with images and a ton of info.

# ¿ May 1, 2012 21:34

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 11:01

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

Just built a new computer and bought a blu-ray drive for it. What's the best, and/or least expensive, software to play them?

# ¿ May 7, 2012 18:11

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

Ingram posted:

Why is it so loving hard too fully clone a w7 partition to another hdd and have it bootable in another pc? I've been trying for hours. In that same amount of time I could have just reinstalled everything from scratch!

I've never had an issue with it, though I sometimes have to create a repair disc to boot to to fix the bootloader.

# ¿ May 17, 2012 19:30

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

Ingram posted:

What is your method?

Usually use Acronis to clone the drive using a USB enclosure. Are you looking to clone the entire drive or just one partition? Sometimes if I clone just one partition it requires a little bit of work to flag it as the active partition, I use Acronis Disk Director for that.

# ¿ May 17, 2012 19:40

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

modig posted:

So my Windows 7 desktop is behaving oddly, and I'm wondering what the problem is. Not sure if this is the right thread, so please point me to the right place if necessary. Also this seemed to have started after I installed Diablo 3, but I suspect that is a fluke.

History of symptoms:
-3 Days: Working fine
-2 Days: Takes a long time on the "Starting Windows" screen, and Diablo 3 starts to run slow, especially when changing screens or leaping
-1 Days: "Starting Windows" takes a long time, and Desktop isn't responsive for a few minutes. I run a full Malware Bytes scan and find nothing.
Today: It booted to the desktop, and is now completely unresponsive, the mouse is just that swirly circle even after 10 minutes. Doesn't respond to Ctrl-Alt-Delete. Rebooted, and now it seems to be working as well as yesterday.

You might want to head over to the tech support forum, but I would highly suggest running a hard drive test on it - go to the manufacturer's website and there will be a tool to test the drive.

# ¿ May 20, 2012 16:33

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

Any software out there that can make a button have "autofire" by holding it down? Playing Star Wars there's times where I have to repeatedly hit 1 and it gets painful. I know about autohotkey but that seems to only have the option to toggle looping of 1 repeating on and off, which is okay I guess, but I'd really like to just be able to hold it down.

# ¿ May 24, 2012 16:54

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

Asked this before - Does anyone who uses Autohotkey have a nice easy script that will auto-loop the #1 button, preferably when it's held down, and stop when it's released?

# ¿ May 27, 2012 19:34

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

Last time I asked this someone suggested the "request a custom script" thread, but I think that may be overkill since Autohotkey already exists.

I'm having trouble figuring out how to do something that seems incredibly uncomplicated. I want to use Autohotkey (or something similiar) to repeat clicking "1" when a particular button is held down. Nothing complex, just auto fire of 1 when I hold down 1 (or another button if need be).

Any Autohotkey users have a script that will do that?

# ¿ Jun 7, 2012 15:25

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

Robawesome posted:

Having a boot issue

I bought a new internal HD a few days ago, installed it and formatted the drive. Everything was working just great. Today, I started copying some files over from my external HD to my new internal so I can use the external as a windows backup. I was able to copy a few hundred GB worth of media, and then during one of the transfers with just a few seconds left I got a BSOD and windows shut down. I restarted without issue, and resumed transferring files. I got about another hundred GB in and it shut down again, this time with a new issue.

I am unable to run windows for more than a few minutes. Even on the login screen, it will shut down after approximately 3-5 mins. If I log in I can click on the taskbar, even play video files from some of the internal drives. However, it seems trying to interact with anything windows-related (start button, c:/, etc) Windows will immediately freeze and the computer will reboot. I checked the Core Temp application I installed when I first built this PC and the temperatures were running high. I noticed one of my case fans wasn't running so I fiddled around with that a bit and now all the fans are going and the temp is reading much lower, however the computer is still restarting randomly. Is this a virus, or do I need to leave my PC alone for a few hours to cool?

Thanks in advance, hope I can get some quick help.

e: Windows 7 if it makes a difference, 64-bit. Running antiviruses and anti-malware programs in safe mode right now, with no issue. Doesn't seem to need to restart constantly in safe mode.

Sounds like you should really be posting in Haus of Tech Support

# ¿ Jul 12, 2012 13:27

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

Vegetable posted:

I recently lost all the notes I scribble in Notepad because Windows 7 auto-installed updates and rebooted without permission. The rebooting without permission part really pisses me off. Anyway, I'm wondering if there's a Notepad that simply autosaves? I played with Notepad+++ a few years ago but am wondering if there's anything better now.

Not related to notes, but you can disable automatic restarts:

http://www.howtogeek.com/?post_type=post&p=858

I do that on my machine so I can fully control the reboot.

# ¿ Jul 12, 2012 16:21

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

Ddraig posted:

Is there any way for me to copy a group of files from one folder to another, and to only have them overwrite old, existing files and not adding anything new to folder? Basically an "overwrite only" function?

Synctoy from Microsoft has options to copy contents from folder A to folder B, overwriting B, or syncing A and B (deletes on both sides mirrored). I use it to back up my music collection.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2012 14:14

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

Sweevo posted:

Is there a way to stop Windows 7 from helpfully marking all downloaded files as being from another computer and making me manually unblock them? I mean this poo poo:

It's especially annoying because you can't select multiple files and unblock them all at once, you have to do each one individually.

Can't help you with having it not show them as blocked, but to unblock multiples at the same time use Streams from Technet..

*edit* oops think I linked the wrong thing.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2012 20:16

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

Lamquin posted:

My friend is about to reinstall his Windows 7 onto a SSD, but he's a bit daunted by the whole Backup/Reinstall process. So before he begins, is there any kind of software that might make his life easier?
Preferably something that automates the re-installation of for example Acrobat Reader, Flash, Java and so on? He's not very computer-savy, but I can't quite hold his hand the whole way either.

Well, as far as reinstall goes, you just asked pretty much for Ninite.

# ¿ Oct 8, 2012 21:12

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

madmaan posted:

Ever try putting a hard drive in the freezer? Make sure its airtight and dry container.

Doesn't always work, but the few times it has makes up for it.

This is a last ditch effort...make sure you've exhausted every other method first. Because you only get one shot with the freezer trick...after it warms back up, it's gone.

# ¿ Oct 15, 2012 17:50

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

sheepdemon posted:

Does anyone happen to have a link to a spiffy official full Windows 7 ISO download from Microsoft? Searching the torrent sites only brings up cracked versions and to gently caress with that. I've tried downloading a few times from various sites and always get a "This is not a valid iso" when attempting to burn a boot USB key.

Digital River is the official Microsoft site that has them.

Here is an article with links

# ¿ Oct 18, 2012 15:37

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

Ur Getting Fatter posted:

Is there any software that will allow me to do incremental backups (as in, it will only backup new files, or files that have been modified since the last backup) to a different drive?

I don't need to backup the whole OS, just the documents folder (1-2gb worth of Word, Excel, PDF, and image files).

I use Synctoy for that very purpose. Easy to set up, by itself it doesn't run automatically but you can use Task Manager to schedule tasks. I back up my User directory to an external drive as well as backing up my "important" docs directory to my Dropbox folder as well.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2012 16:28

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

Yuncemil posted:

Additionally, if I cannot do this, would I be able to pay from an upgrade from German XP to English Windows 7? Sorry if this is covered elsewhere but I have not been able to see it.

You can install an upgrade of Windows 7 as a full version with just a few registry tweaks. Just google it for a tutorial. Microsoft pretty much doesn't care despite it being a bit shady. I've done it a number of times on computers I've worked on.

# ¿ Oct 30, 2012 21:59

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

Combat Pretzel posted:

Maybe I'm getting too dumb to use Google, but isn't there a simple loving "push-butan" sort of tool to remove that drat UKash malware? I'm getting tired having to head out to people and want them to give a CD with it or a link. But all I'm running into are guides and Youtube videos. It's easy to remove by hand, but I've yet to run into a canned tool from a reputable source.

I always used to love Norton Power Eraser for these types of viruses. Haven't had to clean up this particular one, but it's worth a try.

# ¿ Nov 23, 2012 16:29

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

Jetfire posted:

tl:dr ish question: reinstalled Windows 7. Can I just delete the entire Windows.old folders without messing anything up, once I've moved all the My Documents/etc data that I need into my current folders? I searched and found some pages that said you can clean them via Disk Cleanup but the option didn't appear for me.

Yep, it's a backup folder. If you don't need the stuff, get rid of it.

# ¿ Nov 28, 2012 23:21

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

Combat Pretzel posted:

The idea would be to sync a hundred or so of gigabytes from a disk in a computer to an external one once in a while. Cloud solutions a la Dropbox are out of the question. The ideal solution would be a client with the ease of the cloud ones, but working offline or independent of such services.

Synctoy is the easiest. Out of the box it doesn't run automatically, but you can set up a task to run it for you. I use it to sync several hard drives.

# ¿ Dec 9, 2012 17:58

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

jyrka posted:

Does anyone know a program or, even better, a website that I can set up to beep every 20 minutes? Just a tiny alarm thing.

Could probably just set a windows task to play beep.wav (or whatever you can find) every 20 minutes.

Though I do wonder why you would do such a thing to torture yourself.

# ¿ Dec 12, 2012 17:55

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

Red_Fred posted:

I'm trying to delete parts of an old Windows 7 install from my secondary HHD as I got an SSD recently. I managed to get rid of the Windows folder using a slight work around but I can't seem to get rid of a bunch of program files folders and contents. I keep getting permission denied errors even though I have given full control to admin accounts and my account for the folder and contents. What am I doing wrong?

Also this seems like it would take forever if I have say 10 folders I want to delete. Is there a better way?

Do you need everything that's on the drive? It might be better to just re-format it if you're looking to repurpose it.

# ¿ Dec 22, 2012 23:33

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

WastedJoker posted:

I'm looking for a Windows 8-friendly free disc imaging recommendation - I'm not too fussed about incremental backups. I just want to take an image of my fresh install of Windows 8 to place on a separate non-OS drive where I can use boot media to recover it in case of os/hardware failure.

EaseUs ToDo Backup seems to rate fairly well in reviews - anyone had any experience of it?

I really don't want to use a program then find out later it sucks, ofc.

Does Windows 8 not have that built in? I know 7 does...

# ¿ Dec 23, 2012 20:46

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

WastedJoker posted:

It does but it only has the option to create boot media on disc. I'd rather have it on a usb.

Looks like it's still there, just stupidly well hidden.

# ¿ Dec 23, 2012 22:27

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

lowcrabdiet posted:

I looked in the last few pages and the OP and didn't see anything:

I'm looking for a CD/DVD burning program that works on Windows XP that has an interface that's old-people friendly. My relatives just want to burn their picture albums (currently stored on their hard drive) onto CDs. There's a million and one programs on google and I'm wondering if there's an SH/SC recommendation. Thanks!

Honestly, I would think the built in CD burning interface is probably the easiest. Just drag and drop their pictures, then click burn. Not a lot of fancy features, but pretty basic.

# ¿ Dec 27, 2012 17:34

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

aw yiss posted:

Any recommendations for the best movie cataloging software? Something that could possibly search IMDB or some other database and download covers/summaries/cast list would be great. I don't mind spending a bit of cash to get something really nice.

DVD Profiler is awesome. I've used it for years.

# ¿ Dec 30, 2012 02:05

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

Mak0rz posted:

This seems neat! Is there an equivalent for video games and books? I tried a number of free ones such as Data Crow and GCstar. Both of them were absolute poo poo.

I've actually been wondering that myself for Video Games.

Collectorz.com has been recommended a few times, but haven't had time to check it out yet.

# ¿ Dec 30, 2012 20:48

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

aw yiss posted:

This is pretty much what I'm looking for except for the fact that I can't figure out how to link the ripped video files I have to the movies in my catalog. Am I being dumb or its just not possible with this program?

I guess you could manually add them - this is meant to just be a database programs for your physical DVD/Blu-Rays.

# ¿ Dec 31, 2012 01:25

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

Physical posted:

I can't believe I just realized that Teamviewer will let you use IP addresses so you can connect over local networks! This means when I remote in to change the song that's playing and then I exit, it won't have that stupid "Like teamviewer" popup that ruins the visualization I left running.

Yeah, I still prefer Remote Desktop for LAN though. Just easier than using Teamviewer. Teamviewer for life for helping out my mom, though.

# ¿ Dec 31, 2012 19:09

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

Physical posted:

The old me would have gone RDP or ultraVNC. But now I am lazy and teamviewer works in like three clicks. I like reading about alternatives everyone posted though.

e: Is there any remote desktop that will render DirectX windows/games?

Hey now, RDP is ONE click if you have it set up right.

Pin the VM to your RDP program in the start menu/task bar, have the same user account on both machines. Easy peasy.

# ¿ Dec 31, 2012 23:46

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

slidebite posted:

Hi, I have which is hopefully a quick and easy question about installing Win7 OEM on a laptop. I did a read of the OP and didn't really see anything for my situation.

A relative of mine passed away a couple weeks ago. I recovered her laptop. It's a pretty basic Levano. It is a reasonably new bare bones laptop, but absolutely loaded with crap software. I think she was one of those people that clicked on pretty much any link that was flashing in the browser to download for PC scans, or whatever. Anyhow, I'd like to wipe windows and do a fresh install (Not a re-install from the hidden drive partition, I want to get rid of the OEM junk too).

ANYHOW, the laptop is Win 7 Home Premium x64. I believe I have the proper OEM Home Premium DVD I burned from an ISO from Digital River. Is it as simple as doing a boot from the DVD and using the Windows key on the bottom of the laptop? Or is there more to it than that?

Thanks!

You should be fine with that, as long as it's the same version. You MIGHT have to call Microsoft to activate it but that's a 5 minute call so no worries.

# ¿ Jan 6, 2013 19:38

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

GreenNight posted:

I don't see why it wouldn't.

I think it's less to do with whether or not Microsoft will offer it, and more to do with whether or not your company takes part in the offer.

# ¿ Jan 8, 2013 16:26

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

Elliptical Dick posted:

I'm wondering if anyone else has run into a message saying "Build 7601 This copy of Windows is not genuine" in the past two days. I've rolled back to an earlier version of my system (9th of January) and that seems to have fixed it, so I'm pretty confident it was one of the latest updates that did this. Just wondering if anyone knows which update so I can prevent this error while updating.

This may be an obvious question...but is the version genuine? Is it a possiblity that you are, for example, using an OEM copy that's tied to another motherboard?

# ¿ Jan 10, 2013 15:13

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

P0PCULTUREREFERENCE posted:

Because I'm trying to avoid cloud storage - I have a huge photo library and documents folder, and don't really need/want them to be accessible online. My understanding was that SkyDrive was a cloud solution - unless I'm mistaken?

Same goes for Dropbox / Google Drive.

Don't think it will work for Mac, but SyncToy lets you synchronize files across a LAN. I use it for keeping my Documents/Pictures/Music directories the same across both my PCs and my laptop. Doesn't work over WAN though.

# ¿ Jan 17, 2013 19:33

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

Shaocaholica posted:

Just because OEMs won't put Win7 on new workstations won't scare away corporate IT from using Win7 on them anyway right? I mean they'll obviously blow away any OEM Win8 image that comes from the factory but the fact that OEMs aren't allowed to put Win7 on new hardware in 2014 isn't really a big deal right?

Doesn't stop people from using XP to this day. The company I work for has frequent discussions of "Okay, THIS is the year we're going to stop supporting XP! We MEAN IT THIS TIME!"...cut to next year...

# ¿ Jan 21, 2013 23:05

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

b0nes posted:

How can I eraseaHD so that it can use a Windows 7 or 8 install disc? I was given a computer, the version of XP itruns isn't legit, it is a stripped down version, no service packs at all. It won't let me install anything. I want to just format the HD so I can use a fresh Windows 7 disc or install Ubuntu.

Boot to the Windows disc, do an Advanced install instead of the upgrade. It will let you wipe the drive first.

# ¿ Jan 23, 2013 00:17

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

b0nes posted:

I don't have the original WIndows install disc. In XP I can't do anything unless I have the XP install discs.

You said you were installing Windows 7 or 8, right? I know at least 7 you can download the ISOs from Microsoft, you just need to have a key. Though you can install as a trial without the key.

Alternatively, Google DBAN, download and burn it. It will completely wipe the drive.

# ¿ Jan 23, 2013 00:23

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

b0nes posted:

Any other alternates to DBAN? It goes to a certain point then just hangs. I tried disabling the card reader but to no avail it still hangs. It would be nice if there was a big rear end list of freeware. Maybe I could start one?

With DBAN, if it goes even a second...you're done. If it's not working, you might have a hard drive problem...

# ¿ Jan 23, 2013 02:09

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

peak debt posted:

That's absolutely not true. If you cancel DBAN after a third of the wipe, two thirds of the data will be recoverable. What parts of the data that will be is completely random, but if you have a requirement to wipe the drive you can't just accept an aborted wipe.

Instead of DBAN, you could try connecting the drive to a USB adapter and then use DD for Windows http://www.chrysocome.net/dd

Yes, but for 95% of the typical people that aren't worried about someone getting ahold of their data....they're done.

# ¿ Jan 23, 2013 03:48

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 11:01

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

The Drifter posted:

I'm pretty anal about how my music and videos folder structure, but never really 'cared' about my pictures until recently.

Currently, I have them in folders named like 'Christmas 2012', but I'm seeing that this really isn't working out now that I have 2000+ pictures.

What's a good photo organizer, and what folder structure is best? I'm currently using Picasa, but I don't see how to easily rename my photos to a more efficient structure with that program.

I actually really like Windows Photo Gallery. Doesn't do much for your folder structure problem, but it has a lot of nice organization tools.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2013 23:52

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Windows and Windows Software Megathread

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