The Windows/PC support thread

[HM-2]

Fastpedeller said:

Just received a notification from my bank that if using Windows Vista or XP, we won't be able to use internet banking after next month!

Eminently sensible. XP has been out of support for over 5 years and is absolutely riddled with unpatched vulnerabilities. If I was a bank, who now seem to hold default liability for anyone subject to cybercrime regardless of how negligent they've been, I'd want to limit the risks as much as I could too.

The upgrade from W7 to W10 is, or was, free for the vast majority of users. I don't think you can reasonably complain about the cost of upgrades if you've voluntarily turned down the opportunity to have an upgrade for free.

[Fastpedeller]

HM-2 said:

Fastpedeller said:

Just received a notification from my bank that if using Windows Vista or XP, we won't be able to use internet banking after next month!

Eminently sensible. XP has been out of support for over 5 years and is absolutely riddled with unpatched vulnerabilities. If I was a bank, who now seem to hold default liability for anyone subject to cybercrime regardless of how negligent they've been, I'd want to limit the risks as much as I could too.

The upgrade from W7 to W10 is, or was, free for the vast majority of users. I don't think you can reasonably complain about the cost of upgrades if you've voluntarily turned down the opportunity to have an upgrade for free.

Not free if we have Vista though? What is the best way to do this?

[HM-2]

OEM DVD for W10 Professional is £59.90 on Amazon.
Sites like SoftwareGeeks have Professional serial keys (so no DVD), which tend to be single-use OEM licenses, for under £20.

[Harpoon]

There's no in-place upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 10, so you need to be happy backing up your data (etc) and doing a fresh install, re-installing any applications. A 12 year old PC is also going to be a bit slow with Windows 10 as I doubt it has an SSD (which make all the difference to PC performance).

You don't need to spend £600 for a PC. Get a refurb that comes with Windows 10 eg

https://www.gigarefurb.co.uk/hp-280-g2-business-pc...

£180 inc VAT. You can then move your data across via a USB stick or external HD which is much safer.

[Fastpedeller]

Wow, thanks for the help guys. Those refurb ones look a good deal. It's clear that I have little knowledge of computers
Me and computers....... the analogy is someone who drives a car, but doesn't know how the clutch, gearbox etc works, or why why these parts are even there!

[Fastpedeller]

Thanks for the help. I looked at several suppliers and the one that answered my email queries (particularly regarding licence for Win 10) got the sale.
For my next question....... I'm thinking of using the old computer as a useful storage, but my Wife also pointed out that the Sage v17 we have is ours (outright purchase fully licenced) and Sage now only supply by monthly payment. The Sage v17 won't work with Win 10, but we think will work on old computer as it already does. I did some googling and it seems I can network old and new computers using either an ethernet connection or usb between the two. Do I need to delete the Windows Vista system from the old computer, and will Sage still work if I do?

[Miserablegit]

I’m not an expert by any stretch of the imagination but I’d recommend keeping your old system off the network and transferring information to/from it via a usb stick. Ensure your new machine has up to date internet/ virus protection software.

[Fastpedeller]

Good advice above. Crikey I've spent hours trying to get the mail working, and almost ended up with a nervous breakdown Got it working yesterday and then (I don't know why) it wouldn't work today, but I (with Wife's help) got it working again. Importing the contacts was a trial. Eventually a helpful soul had the solution on the 'net...…. Import via a gmail account and then (because accounts are linked on Mail for Windows 10) the contacts will appear on both, For some reason it's not possible to import contact list direct to W10 mail. It saved putting over 900 contacts in individually!

The sage loaded up (copied via usb), so that avoided a monthly fee which seems to be today's only means of obtaining Sage.

Very impressed with the reconditioned computer so far. Not so impressed with Windows 10, but that seems to be the general consensus, and it sems we're stuck with going Win 10 or Mac.

[Wonderman]

Epson scanner no longer talks with PC post Windows updates. Would connect scan once then stop talking, now after last update just says can't connect. Tried the "troublestter" which I'm sure you are shocked did sod all. Deleted and reinstalled and no change, any ideas?
Thanks

[Funk]

Wonderman said:

Epson scanner no longer talks with PC post Windows updates. Would connect scan once then stop talking, now after last update just says can't connect. Tried the "troublestter" which I'm sure you are shocked did sod all. Deleted and reinstalled and no change, any ideas?
Thanks

One of my neighbours had this with an Epson multifunction printer. The solution was to go back to an earlier driver version as the update overwrote the working driver with one that didn't work (even though the PC could still 'see' the printer).

[Fastpedeller]

I found our HP printer/scanner wouldn't work with Win 10, and trying the Microsoft 'we may be able to fix it' didn't help (as expected!)
A google search using 'run HP F2280 printer with Windows 10' directed me towards the HP site which provided a driver that worked it - The Epson printer may have a similar solution?

[FiF]

Fastpedeller said:

Are we all being taken on a ride by Windows? It seems after a while 'this won't be supported' 'that won't be supported' 'you'll need a new 'phone or else' etc etc.
Just received a notification from my bank that if using Windows Vista or XP, we won't be able to use internet banking after next month! WHAT, we all have to blindly accept this robbery because Windows 'wants an upgrade' ?
I have a 12 year old desktop that serves us well, so where do we go from here? The bank also said Windows 7 will be too old on 4th Jan 2020, so we 'might want to think about upgrading'.
So what happens if we upgrade, 5 years time that'll be too old as well? I've also heard Windows 10 has a lot of problems.
Makes my blood boil.
Any suggestions (sensible ones please, rather than the 'your computer is old, you are a dinosaur' comments) as to how to 'upgrade'
Is it just a case of buying the latest windows discs and loading them? I'd like to keep what we've got because I can't afford c£600 for a new computer, and it works ok ..... I don't want to add to the landfill.

Must admit I was slightly surprised to get a warning notice from MS about need to upgrade W10 or else, ok slight hyperbole, but considering it was on a laptop purchased new Nov 2018! So now on the dreaded 1903 version, waiting to see after effects.

Now my question, before I get onto Asus and go through the pain of warranty questions. The laptop doesn't get much use, say once a month. When it's shut down, and I do mean shutdown as opposed to on standby, the battery will be at 80% charge for best battery life, per ASUS standard setting. Yet come back a couple of weeks later and the battery will be very low on charge, after 3 weeks will only fire up after charging for a while.

First laptop have had with an SSD, does this make a difference, don't know why wondered that. Pissing me right off now.

To be fair all other laptops have had been used more or less every day so never left long unused.

[StevenB]

My Lenovo laptop had the "upgrade" earlier this week and since then it has not worked correctly

Box with C:\windows\system32\dwrite.dll is either not designed to run on windows or it contains an error.

Try to get in to internet explorer and explorer.exe comes up with a red X and class not registered

The windows key in the corner is also not working, I can only shut it down by doing, ctrl alt delete, to get the shut down icon.

No problems before the update

[Wonderman]

Funk said:

Wonderman said:

Epson scanner no longer talks with PC post Windows updates. Would connect scan once then stop talking, now after last update just says can't connect. Tried the "troublestter" which I'm sure you are shocked did sod all. Deleted and reinstalled and no change, any ideas?
Thanks

One of my neighbours had this with an Epson multifunction printer. The solution was to go back to an earlier driver version as the update overwrote the working driver with one that didn't work (even though the PC could still 'see' the printer).

Fastpedeller said:

I found our HP printer/scanner wouldn't work with Win 10, and trying the Microsoft 'we may be able to fix it' didn't help (as expected!)
A google search using 'run HP F2280 printer with Windows 10' directed me towards the HP site which provided a driver that worked it - The Epson printer may have a similar solution?

Thanks only just got around to having time for this:- ended up disconnecting scanner from PC & power, stripping all the numerous Epson/Seiko bits off, then loaded the earliers version on epson website (2018 drivers), event manager and software, all seems tickety-boo, will see if stays that way.
Thanks for your help

ETA Fastpeller quote...if only they could drag this forum into the multiquote era....

[Funk]

I actually have an issue with a PC I can't suss out.

I've got a spare HP EliteDesk 800 G2 which wouldn't power on; it's a decent spec (i7, 16Gb, 256Gb SSD etc) so bought a replacement mobo, swapped all the components over and it booted. Got into Windows, start getting updates and it also wanted a firmware update for the BIOS. I let it do it, it restarted and installed the BIOS update and rebooted saying it might take a while and not to remove power. 20 minutes later I know something's not right, it shouldn't take anywhere near that for a BIOS update.

Now it won't boot at all. Nice. It powers on (white LED on the power as it should be) with no beeps at all. Fans inside spin up. Runs for about 10 seconds turns off for a couple of seconds and then restarts. Rinse and repeat. It won't even reach a POST screen, it's just a blank monitor. The monitor knows it's connected to something though as the 'no device connected' message doesn't appear, nor does it go into sleep mode.

Here's what I've tried:

• strip and re-seat everything
• whipped out RAM - got 'no RAM' error beeps and red LED power button (this is good, means SOMETHING is going on in there)
• whipped out the CPU and got the error beeps for no CPU (also good, see above)
• tried one stick of RAM, then the other.
• tried the RAM in each config in each slot to rule out bad RAM/slot
• hoped the darn thing has HP Sure Start (it doesn't seem to) to recover the BIOS
• tried to create a recovery USB with the right BIOS (the HP driver software for this doesn't detect the extraced .bin file properly so won't create the recovery USB in its options - helpful
• changed CMOS battery
• removed CMOS battery and reset CMOS entirely
• removed all attached devices including monitor
• mashing the following keys doesn't have any effect at startup: shift, esc, F2, del, F10

Curiously pressing the power button illuminates the hard drive LED which I don't recall it doing before.

If the BIOS update has bricked the replacement board I'm going to be most unhappy. The thing is something is happening due to the fact I get POST beeps for hardware errors so it's not entirely borked. It's just irritating that I can't get anything on-screen to try and diagnose it. It's not coincidence that this happened after the BIOS update either. I'm actually wondering if an auto-update of the BIOS might've been what killed it in the first place...

Anyone got any ideas before I give up and bin it?

[Jinx]

Funk said:

• changed CMOS battery
• removed CMOS battery and reset CMOS entirely

Given as you have done the above I'm leaning towards the bugger it's bricked conclusion. You don't mention a GPU - are you using the onchip gpu on the i7? It is possible the bricked bios update has deactivated the onboard GPU ports so have you a spare graphics card you can try?

[Funk]

Jinx said:

Funk said:

• changed CMOS battery
• removed CMOS battery and reset CMOS entirely

Given as you have done the above I'm leaning towards the bugger it's bricked conclusion. You don't mention a GPU - are you using the onchip gpu on the i7? It is possible the bricked bios update has deactivated the onboard GPU ports so have you a spare graphics card you can try?

I should've mentioned it's a mini-desktop so nowhere to connect a GPU - it's onboard or nowt:



I suppose I could get a USB GPU and see if it picks that up but to be honest another mobo is only £70 and a 7-10 day wait whilst it ships from China. Depends whether I want to risk another board I suppose...

[Jinx]

Funk said:

I should've mentioned it's a mini-desktop so nowhere to connect a GPU - it's onboard or nowt:



I suppose I could get a USB GPU and see if it picks that up but to be honest another mobo is only £70 and a 7-10 day wait whilst it ships from China. Depends whether I want to risk another board I suppose...

Bit of googling gives:

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Boot-and-Lo...

and

https://support.hp.com/gb-en/document/c04126730

Anything new there to try?

[Funk]

Jinx said:

Bit of googling gives:

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Boot-and-Lo...

and

https://support.hp.com/gb-en/document/c04126730

Anything new there to try?

Cheers, the second link was where I got my hopes up about Sure Start but WinKey+B does nothing when booting. I think the 800 G2 may pre-date this feature. Nothing happens when I try it; I've even tried the keyboard in different USB sockets just in case but still nothing.

I have a feeling I've exhausted most of the options available, haven't I...?

[LordGrover]

Funk said:

I actually have an issue with a PC I can't suss out.

I've got a spare HP EliteDesk 800 G2 which wouldn't power on; it's a decent spec (i7, 16Gb, 256Gb SSD etc) so bought a replacement mobo, swapped all the components over and it booted. Got into Windows, start getting updates and it also wanted a firmware update for the BIOS. I let it do it, it restarted and installed the BIOS update and rebooted saying it might take a while and not to remove power. 20 minutes later I know something's not right, it shouldn't take anywhere near that for a BIOS update.

Now it won't boot at all.

Not familiar with this computer, but they can sometimes take hours. They shouldn't, but they do.
If you forced a restart before it completed the BIOS is likely borked.