The Windows/PC support thread

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shopper150

1,576 posts

194 months

Tuesday 24th August 2021
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Funk said:
Not tried it myself but it seems you can get around it by using PowerShell rather than Windows' inbuilt copy. A quick Google should yield some results...
Thanks. Power Rename helped. It's strange why it can't keep the full file name/path length

Jim1064

345 posts

205 months

Sunday 5th September 2021
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That happens when you have many levels of nested folders causing the full name to exceed 256 characters. Easiest way to solve that is this (Windows 10 only):

Using the registry editor (regedit.exe), go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem
Double click LongPathsEnabled
Set to 1 and click OK
Reboot

You can also do it like this: run gpedit.exe (group policy editor) and go to computer configuration > administrative templates > system > filesystem > enable NTFS long paths.

Now you can have file names up to 2^15 -1 characters long silly

Daston

6,075 posts

203 months

Wednesday 8th September 2021
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Hey guys,

Got a weird network problem on my PC. All other devices in the house are getting download speeds of around 70mbps. Our desktop however is getting only 1 - 2mbps. As far as I can tell from the task manager there is no network activity (0%) so nothing is obviously drawing bandwidth and I have run Malwarebytes and Spybot and neither has found any nasties.

We have tried both wired and wireless with the same results, sometimes the first test is fast but after 10 minuets or so it will drop right down to 1 or 2mbps.

Any ideas what else to check?

Funk

26,274 posts

209 months

Wednesday 8th September 2021
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Has this happened recently? Does it actually report an internet connection and can you browse normally etc?

If you haven't already, reboot your router and check with only the PC connected to it. I'd also check network drivers for the PC, make sure you have the latest ones from the manufacturer rather than generic Windows ones.

Daston

6,075 posts

203 months

Wednesday 8th September 2021
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Funk said:
Has this happened recently? Does it actually report an internet connection and can you browse normally etc?

If you haven't already, reboot your router and check with only the PC connected to it. I'd also check network drivers for the PC, make sure you have the latest ones from the manufacturer rather than generic Windows ones.
Yeah it started on Monday suddenly went really slow. I can use the internet normally on the desktop (on it now) but downloads and webpages are really slow. Only noticed it when I tried to stream media and noticed it was buffing loads.

I have rebooted the router that does increase the speed but only for a short time. It's like a program or something is pulling the bandwidth

Funk

26,274 posts

209 months

Wednesday 8th September 2021
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Daston said:
Yeah it started on Monday suddenly went really slow. I can use the internet normally on the desktop (on it now) but downloads and webpages are really slow. Only noticed it when I tried to stream media and noticed it was buffing loads.

I have rebooted the router that does increase the speed but only for a short time. It's like a program or something is pulling the bandwidth
If the network utilisation is showing zero then it's not an issue with an application hogging bandwidth.

Check for updated drivers next then - or possibly this: it may sound unusual but go to Start > Control Panel > Internet Options > Connections tab > LAN Settings > UNcheck 'Automatically detect settings' and see if that fixes it. Make sure NOTHING is ticked on that LAN Settings window.

Out of interest, what firewall/AV are you using?

Edited by Funk on Wednesday 8th September 23:50

anonymous-user

54 months

Wednesday 15th September 2021
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Dunno if anyone else has had this problem, but my laptop downloaded an update earlier and it won't start, and if I try to use any of the repair options I have to input an administrator password. Obviously I have no idea what it is, and have no way of finding out as the bloody thing won't start up. Any pointers welcome before I tread on it?

Funk

26,274 posts

209 months

Wednesday 15th September 2021
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When is it asking for the Admin password? You should be able to boot to Windows Recovery before it tries to boot into Windows itself.

This may help: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/recove...

anonymous-user

54 months

Thursday 16th September 2021
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Thanks for that, but I've discovered there isn't a password, as I've never actually set one, so just leave it blank and press enter. That's the easy bit, after trying to do a reset, which failed, I'm now doing a restore, another 3 hours I'll never get back...

Sticks.

8,748 posts

251 months

Wednesday 22nd September 2021
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I'm not sure if this is a Windows or PC issue but I'd be glad of any advice you can give.

I have a 9 month old HP PC S01-aF0010na with an AMD Ryzen 3 8gb RAM, Win 10.

It's always been pretty slow but lately after it's been in sleep mode it's been slow to resume. That turned into not responding at all, and although the cursor worked, pressing restart didn't work, so the only option was to press and hold the PC start button. I changed the sleep setting to 'never' but it was the same after inactivity. Now it's not starting at all, black screen and spiral, eventually blue 'please wait' 20 mins so far.

As I say it's always been a bit slow, sometimes emails taking minutes to sync, and noisy, as if it was downloading or moving a lot of files, that noise. I've not used it for gaming or streaming, save files externally, just browsing, shopping, PH, FB etc. I'm typing this on my old HP on Vista which will be 14 at Christmas and it's a lot quicker. The only difference is the old PC is hard wired to the hub, the new, Wifi.

PC or Win 10 and what should I try? Thanks.


Jinx

11,389 posts

260 months

Thursday 23rd September 2021
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Sticks. said:
I'm not sure if this is a Windows or PC issue but I'd be glad of any advice you can give.

I have a 9 month old HP PC S01-aF0010na with an AMD Ryzen 3 8gb RAM, Win 10.

It's always been pretty slow but lately after it's been in sleep mode it's been slow to resume. That turned into not responding at all, and although the cursor worked, pressing restart didn't work, so the only option was to press and hold the PC start button. I changed the sleep setting to 'never' but it was the same after inactivity. Now it's not starting at all, black screen and spiral, eventually blue 'please wait' 20 mins so far.

As I say it's always been a bit slow, sometimes emails taking minutes to sync, and noisy, as if it was downloading or moving a lot of files, that noise. I've not used it for gaming or streaming, save files externally, just browsing, shopping, PH, FB etc. I'm typing this on my old HP on Vista which will be 14 at Christmas and it's a lot quicker. The only difference is the old PC is hard wired to the hub, the new, Wifi.

PC or Win 10 and what should I try? Thanks.
I suspect some dodgy HP bloatware is the problem - can you do a clean Win10 install (not a restore to factory as that restores the bloatware - but a new clean win10 installation)?

jingars

1,094 posts

240 months

Monday 18th October 2021
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Jinx said:
jingars said:
Mate has asked if it is possible to re-prep his F-I-L's "all in one" PC... awaiting details of make, model, etc. Apparently running Windows 7.

Question: Assuming the Windows 7 licence currently installed is legit, does anyone know if the free upgrade to Windows 10 is still in place, or is he looking at a cost?
Win 10 upgrade still free
TLDR - yes it is still free to upgrade.
Well, it took longer than anticipated to get hold of this device, but this weekend cloned the existing drive (running Windows 7 Home Media) to a SSD, then ran the upgrade to Windows 10. Windows 10 activated from the existing Windows 7 licence, patched up to date and all done. The hardest part of the whole exercise was getting in to the case of the Packard Bell all in one thing - couldn't find any references on the web and had to wing it.

Sticks.

8,748 posts

251 months

Monday 18th October 2021
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Jinx said:
I suspect some dodgy HP bloatware is the problem - can you do a clean Win10 install (not a restore to factory as that restores the bloatware - but a new clean win10 installation)?
Sorry I missed this. Thanks I'll look that up and give it a try.

john_1983

1,416 posts

148 months

Tuesday 16th November 2021
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I've got a Dell Inspiron 3668 PC I use at work, bought in 2017 and running Windows 10. From the spec, AFAIK I only have the one HDD, of 1TB.

Windows has this split between OS(Csmile of 100GB, and DATA(Dsmile of 900GB. C: is getting very full, just of Windows & apps etc. I'm an accountant so I don't have that much stuff saved, just client files etc.

How can I manage this space - can I allocate or move space from D: to C: dynamically? I remember doing this years ago on Windows 98 or ME possibly, can't remember. Or do I need to manually move files/folders etc? According to the settings apps & features takes up 57GB, system & reserved 27GB.

I'm a bit of a tech luddite these days but I am getting concerned that Windows isn't smart enough to use the space on D: as it's pretty much empty

Jinx

11,389 posts

260 months

Tuesday 16th November 2021
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john_1983 said:
I've got a Dell Inspiron 3668 PC I use at work, bought in 2017 and running Windows 10. From the spec, AFAIK I only have the one HDD, of 1TB.

Windows has this split between OS(Csmile of 100GB, and DATA(Dsmile of 900GB. C: is getting very full, just of Windows & apps etc. I'm an accountant so I don't have that much stuff saved, just client files etc.

How can I manage this space - can I allocate or move space from D: to C: dynamically? I remember doing this years ago on Windows 98 or ME possibly, can't remember. Or do I need to manually move files/folders etc? According to the settings apps & features takes up 57GB, system & reserved 27GB.

I'm a bit of a tech luddite these days but I am getting concerned that Windows isn't smart enough to use the space on D: as it's pretty much empty
First thing to do- open "Settings", "System" and select "Storage". Next at the bottom select "Change where new content is saved" - make sure all of these are listed as DATA(Dsmile
Then go back to "Storage" and make sure "Storage sense" is on. Underneath this there is a "Configure Storage Sense" link - click on it and at the bottom hit the Clean Now button.
Next left click the windows button and type "Disk Cleanup" - and go through this process.
This should claim back some space.
Re-allocating partitions on a drive in use (and with data) can be done but I have had some bad experiences with this in the past so would only recommend after you have done a full back-up.

john_1983

1,416 posts

148 months

Tuesday 16th November 2021
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Thanks. Is there an easy way to move the apps across to D:?

Funk

26,274 posts

209 months

Tuesday 16th November 2021
quotequote all
Jinx said:
john_1983 said:
I've got a Dell Inspiron 3668 PC I use at work, bought in 2017 and running Windows 10. From the spec, AFAIK I only have the one HDD, of 1TB.

Windows has this split between OS(Csmile of 100GB, and DATA(Dsmile of 900GB. C: is getting very full, just of Windows & apps etc. I'm an accountant so I don't have that much stuff saved, just client files etc.

How can I manage this space - can I allocate or move space from D: to C: dynamically? I remember doing this years ago on Windows 98 or ME possibly, can't remember. Or do I need to manually move files/folders etc? According to the settings apps & features takes up 57GB, system & reserved 27GB.

I'm a bit of a tech luddite these days but I am getting concerned that Windows isn't smart enough to use the space on D: as it's pretty much empty
First thing to do- open "Settings", "System" and select "Storage". Next at the bottom select "Change where new content is saved" - make sure all of these are listed as DATA(Dsmile
Then go back to "Storage" and make sure "Storage sense" is on. Underneath this there is a "Configure Storage Sense" link - click on it and at the bottom hit the Clean Now button.
Next left click the windows button and type "Disk Cleanup" - and go through this process.
This should claim back some space.
Re-allocating partitions on a drive in use (and with data) can be done but I have had some bad experiences with this in the past so would only recommend after you have done a full back-up.
Just to add re. the 'Disk Cleanup' - also run the one bottom left: 'Clean up system files'. In there, deselect everything except 'Windows Update Cleanup' - you may find that that frees up several Gb of data which on a 100Gb drive partition will be worth having back...

If the Dell was upgraded from Win 7/8 > 10 then you may also have 'Previous versions of Windows' in that list - you can also probably safely remove that unless you need to revert to a previous version for some reason.

Jinx

11,389 posts

260 months

Wednesday 17th November 2021
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john_1983 said:
Thanks. Is there an easy way to move the apps across to D:?
Instructions here

Note - this will only work for MS store apps.

For normal apps/programs you are looking at uninstalling and reinstalling.

Snubs

1,172 posts

139 months

Friday 19th November 2021
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Anyone know where i can get an on-screen GPU / FPS tracker? In particular, i like the discreet one Scump is running on the top left of his screen in this vid (just skip to anywhere around half way through):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGAt-7lUSY0

I'm using an ASUS ROG Swift PG329Q that has the built-in ability to show FPS, but it does so in giant font that takes up loads of screen. The one in the vid includes both FPS and GPS temperature which it would be good always have on screen, but my Googling skills aren't good enough to find out what it is.

The rest of the PC is as follows for anyone interested:

GPU: Nvidia Founders edition RTX 3070 8gb
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 8 core 16 thread
Cooler: V240 240mm AIO cooler White
RAM: Adata Spectrix RBG 16gb DDR4 4133mhz
Motherboard: Asus B550 Strix A
OS Drive: Adata SX6000 500gb NVME M.2 SSD
Storage: 1TB Sata SSD
Storage: 2TB Sata HDD
PSU: Gigabyte 850W 80+ Gold
Case: Antec NX410 RGB White

Ham_and_Jam

2,204 posts

97 months

Friday 10th December 2021
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Help required from someone with a knowledge of Windows Updates please.

Currently running-

HP Laptop Spectre - 13-af002na
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8550U CPU @ 1.80GHz 1.99 GHz
Windows 10 Home version 21H1.

The last couple of quality updates have failed -

Error message: Failed to install on ‎04/‎11/‎2021 - 0x8007000d

Now the Feature update has failed -

Error message: Failed to install on ‎10/‎12/‎2021 - 0xc1900201

On running it says my PC cannot run Windows 10, however it is running Windows 10.

What's the best way forward here, really not wanting to do a fresh install.

FWIW, the laptop is capable of running Windows 11 (I have done the Windows health check). Would it be simpler to skip the hassle of fixing the issues and going straight to WIndows 11, or does this need fixing before it will allow the update?

Thanks in advance.