Only Microsoft can do stupid things like this.
First I was silly enough to buy Office 2013 through my work. It hadn't dawned on me that Office 2013 came out after Windows 8 with it's weird Metro interface that nobody wants to use on a desktop. Since Metro was intended for touch phones and tablets and not full-up computers with graphics cards, it has limited graphics and colors. So Office 2013 follows those limited capabilities for some unknown reason.
I installed 2013 some time last year. The first thing I noticed was that Office 2007 was still installed. Later I found out they shared the configuration and mail files. Of course I also noticed how limited the color choices were in Office 2013. At work we use Office 2010 and I'm comfortable with it. Office 2010 is what I wanted to buy rather than 2013. But, it was no longer available.
I leave my computer turned off for most of the week. I turn it off on Sunday evening and usually don't turn it on until Thursday or Friday evening. This past Thursday I turned the computer on and tried to download and read my email. Microsoft Outlook said there was a problem and I should go into Programs and Features in the Windows 7 Control Panel and repair it. I did this, after which every time I TRIED to start Outlook I got a message saying that Outlook 2013 was busy. Eventually I tried other applications in Office 2013, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, et al., and none of them worked. I Googled the problem and ended up following a link that led to a 'Fix It' link. The 'Fix It' was to uninstall Office 2013.
I clicked the link and hoped it would only remove Office 2013 and leave Office 2007 alone. The fix took many minutes to complete. It sort of did leave 2007 alone. However all the menu selections in Outlook 2007 said they were "not supported". I decided to try and repair Office 2007 in the Control Panel and rebooted for the third or fourth time.
Sure enough Office 2007 is back and working like a champ. Apparently this was all due to one of two Windows updates that were installed when I shut my computer down last Sunday night. I now have a more appropriate Office suite for a desktop computer. I did waste money on the 2013, but at least I managed to recover from Microsoft's fiasco.
Showing posts with label Microsoft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Microsoft. Show all posts
Sunday, March 23, 2014
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Samsung Galaxy S2 and Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) 4.0.4 Flawed
Last Thursday night when I turned my phone on for the first time that week, I was pleasantly surprised to find there was finally a operating system (OS) update for my phone's OS running Gingerbread. Since I had been anxious to try Chrome on my phone and it was only available on Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS), the OS update, I immediately chose to go ahead and update to ICS 4.0.4. Since the Jellybean update has already come out I thought I would be happy to be only one generation behind the latest OS after a year of waiting for ICS due to Sprint and Samsung being so slow to release the update.
The Samsung Galaxy S2 phone had always worked flawlessly, until...
The update went very smooth and the phone rebooted with the new OS. I used the phone for Twitter, Facebook and SMS messages that night and went to bed happy that my phone had finally been updated to the long promised ICS.
Then I woke up and found the Wi-Fi wasn't connected, even though it showed a strong signal and said it was connected to my home Wi-Fi. I restarted the phone using the new Restart choice on power off. The Wi-Fi connected after the restart. Later I noticed the Wi-Fi had quit working again. This time I chose to cycle the Wi-Fi alone rather than restarting the phone. Again the phone connected to the Wi-Fi. Being in the same room as the Wi-Fi router doesn't seem to help the problem. This pattern has continued ever since.
All other Wi-Fi devices continue to work normally.
This morning, Sunday, I was trying to add a comment to someone's Facebook entry. I tried using the "Speak Now' function and found it didn't work. I canceled the attempt and decided to try Speak Now in another application. I tried SMS texting and then tried a note taking application I had installed. Neither of these applications worked with Speak Now. I can only guess what other "features" no longer work. This update, which is most definitely not an upgrade, has turned into a disaster.
I have tried googling for suggestions to fix the Wi-Fi issue and have tried some of the suggestions. There appear to be a lot of people having related issues. I tried setting the Wi-Fi to only connect at 2.4GHz rather than the default of auto, which had the most hope, but it didn't work. None of the suggestions appear to fix the problem. Now I can look forward to dealing with Sprint and Samsung support for fixing these problems if even they know how. Given Sprint and Samsung's track record on releasing updates a year or more after they are available doesn't make the future of this phone look promising.
Makes me consider all the promises made with the Samsung Galaxy S3 that just came out. They all promise the world when they come out and never live up to expectations. All I want is a smartphone that works and uses the current operating system. Since an iPhone isn't an option since I can't stand their control-freak attitude, and Microsoft seems too incompetent to release a phone of any sort I may just go back to a dumb phone.
The Samsung Galaxy S2 phone had always worked flawlessly, until...
The update went very smooth and the phone rebooted with the new OS. I used the phone for Twitter, Facebook and SMS messages that night and went to bed happy that my phone had finally been updated to the long promised ICS.
Then I woke up and found the Wi-Fi wasn't connected, even though it showed a strong signal and said it was connected to my home Wi-Fi. I restarted the phone using the new Restart choice on power off. The Wi-Fi connected after the restart. Later I noticed the Wi-Fi had quit working again. This time I chose to cycle the Wi-Fi alone rather than restarting the phone. Again the phone connected to the Wi-Fi. Being in the same room as the Wi-Fi router doesn't seem to help the problem. This pattern has continued ever since.
All other Wi-Fi devices continue to work normally.
This morning, Sunday, I was trying to add a comment to someone's Facebook entry. I tried using the "Speak Now' function and found it didn't work. I canceled the attempt and decided to try Speak Now in another application. I tried SMS texting and then tried a note taking application I had installed. Neither of these applications worked with Speak Now. I can only guess what other "features" no longer work. This update, which is most definitely not an upgrade, has turned into a disaster.
I have tried googling for suggestions to fix the Wi-Fi issue and have tried some of the suggestions. There appear to be a lot of people having related issues. I tried setting the Wi-Fi to only connect at 2.4GHz rather than the default of auto, which had the most hope, but it didn't work. None of the suggestions appear to fix the problem. Now I can look forward to dealing with Sprint and Samsung support for fixing these problems if even they know how. Given Sprint and Samsung's track record on releasing updates a year or more after they are available doesn't make the future of this phone look promising.
Makes me consider all the promises made with the Samsung Galaxy S3 that just came out. They all promise the world when they come out and never live up to expectations. All I want is a smartphone that works and uses the current operating system. Since an iPhone isn't an option since I can't stand their control-freak attitude, and Microsoft seems too incompetent to release a phone of any sort I may just go back to a dumb phone.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Microsoft Not To Be Outdone - Win7 SP1
My October 2010 comments on "Firefox & Software Update Madness" didn't address Microsoft and the need to continuously update their software.
Microsoft created Service Pack 1 (SP1) for Windows 7 (Win7), the latest version of their operating system back in April or so. I happen to own three computers running Win7. My wife has a new laptop running Win7 64-bit Home Premium. I have an old home built computer running 32-bit Win7 Home Premium. I also have a computer running Win7 64-bit Ultimate, which I consider my primary computer.
When SP1 came out I was hesitant to install it based on past experience. I had learned the hard way that you should always let others do the initial late-beta testing that seems to be necessary after Microsoft initially releases a service pack. I chose to try installing SP1 on my 32-bit Win7 computer along with the other monthly updates. I started getting Blue Screens of Death (BSOD) randomly Eventually, I managed to track down the problems with help from Microsoft's update support and the computer started running normally after resorting to a cloned disk backup. To play on Dirty Harry, I felt lucky and installed it without problems on my wife's new laptop. Then I decided it should be safe and tried installing on my 64-bit Ultimate computer. I regretted the decision for the next four weeks.
The install went poorly and hung at 16% after rebooting. Tom's Hardware web site gave a suggestion to go ahead and turn the computer off and then turn it back on to go ahead and finish the install. The suggestion worked and the install completed. I began to suffer BSOD's both while running and even more scary during the boot sequence. I would be presented with a recovery screen after the boot failure which invariably said it failed. That's when I first contacted Microsoft for the new problems. The problems continued and I contacted MS support again the next weekend. The problems continued after this second contact with MS support so I called them yet again. After this I noticed things were still not right. The AMD Vision Control Center crashed immediately. Media Center crashed immediately, yet Media Player worked fine. I got a notice about IE8 shutting down unexpectedly, even though I'm running IE9. It mentioned an event number and I thought I would look at the event.
When I tried bringing up the Event Viewer it said that the Event Viewer snap-in could not be displayed and that it may not have been installed correctly. OMG, this is part of the operating system and I decided to call MS support once again. After explaining the new problems, the MS support idiot asked me whether I could boot without crashing. I said yes, and this idiot sent me back to another MS drone to get a new ticket number for this latest problem caused by MS SP1. That's when they told me they were going to charge me to fix this "new problem". I went ballistic and the MS drone eventually hung up on me. My only indication they were not there was a dial tone.
I decided to hell with Microsoft and their incompetence. I called a local computer repair guy to come to the house and figure out what's wrong. The repair guy came by the house and looked at the 64-bit system and decided to uninstall Win7 SP1 manually since according to Windows Update it had not installed completely. Once he did that he installed it again. All the symptoms are now gone. Best $100 I've spent in a while.
LESSON LEARNED: Most MS Support people are nice (not that last set of idiots) but they blindly follow a script which might only hide the true problem. The first three calls were to foreign support people. The first was in the Philippines and the second as well as the third were from India. The foreign support people were respectful, patient and easy to work with, even if they couldn't solve the problem. Only the American MS support people, if I remember right in Oregon, appeared more interested in ending the call than helping a customer with a problem caused by a update to their software. Nasty, nasty people.
Microsoft created Service Pack 1 (SP1) for Windows 7 (Win7), the latest version of their operating system back in April or so. I happen to own three computers running Win7. My wife has a new laptop running Win7 64-bit Home Premium. I have an old home built computer running 32-bit Win7 Home Premium. I also have a computer running Win7 64-bit Ultimate, which I consider my primary computer.
When SP1 came out I was hesitant to install it based on past experience. I had learned the hard way that you should always let others do the initial late-beta testing that seems to be necessary after Microsoft initially releases a service pack. I chose to try installing SP1 on my 32-bit Win7 computer along with the other monthly updates. I started getting Blue Screens of Death (BSOD) randomly Eventually, I managed to track down the problems with help from Microsoft's update support and the computer started running normally after resorting to a cloned disk backup. To play on Dirty Harry, I felt lucky and installed it without problems on my wife's new laptop. Then I decided it should be safe and tried installing on my 64-bit Ultimate computer. I regretted the decision for the next four weeks.
The install went poorly and hung at 16% after rebooting. Tom's Hardware web site gave a suggestion to go ahead and turn the computer off and then turn it back on to go ahead and finish the install. The suggestion worked and the install completed. I began to suffer BSOD's both while running and even more scary during the boot sequence. I would be presented with a recovery screen after the boot failure which invariably said it failed. That's when I first contacted Microsoft for the new problems. The problems continued and I contacted MS support again the next weekend. The problems continued after this second contact with MS support so I called them yet again. After this I noticed things were still not right. The AMD Vision Control Center crashed immediately. Media Center crashed immediately, yet Media Player worked fine. I got a notice about IE8 shutting down unexpectedly, even though I'm running IE9. It mentioned an event number and I thought I would look at the event.
When I tried bringing up the Event Viewer it said that the Event Viewer snap-in could not be displayed and that it may not have been installed correctly. OMG, this is part of the operating system and I decided to call MS support once again. After explaining the new problems, the MS support idiot asked me whether I could boot without crashing. I said yes, and this idiot sent me back to another MS drone to get a new ticket number for this latest problem caused by MS SP1. That's when they told me they were going to charge me to fix this "new problem". I went ballistic and the MS drone eventually hung up on me. My only indication they were not there was a dial tone.
I decided to hell with Microsoft and their incompetence. I called a local computer repair guy to come to the house and figure out what's wrong. The repair guy came by the house and looked at the 64-bit system and decided to uninstall Win7 SP1 manually since according to Windows Update it had not installed completely. Once he did that he installed it again. All the symptoms are now gone. Best $100 I've spent in a while.
LESSON LEARNED: Most MS Support people are nice (not that last set of idiots) but they blindly follow a script which might only hide the true problem. The first three calls were to foreign support people. The first was in the Philippines and the second as well as the third were from India. The foreign support people were respectful, patient and easy to work with, even if they couldn't solve the problem. Only the American MS support people, if I remember right in Oregon, appeared more interested in ending the call than helping a customer with a problem caused by a update to their software. Nasty, nasty people.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Firefox & Software Update Madness
I spent nearly an hour downloading Microsoft Office Plus 2010 after purchasing and Firefox stopped responding. The download had reached 621MB of the 650MB. Eventually I found a hidden dialog box asking me to update Firefox to 3.6.11. I clicked the button to "Ask Me Later", but Firefox still was not responding. My only choice was to kill Firefox which I did.
Firefox restarted and I chose to restore the previous session which it did. Finally checking the download manager I found it was back to downloading the Office download at about 285MB. It quickly completed the download successfully in 5-10 minutes.
I've grown used to clicking on a link in an email message and receiving a "fatal error" message from Firefox only to find Firefox wants to update some totally unrelated add-on. Performing the update gets Firefox to finally start. However, interrupting a 650MB download for an update is totally unacceptable. Mozilla, the Firefox developer, along with all the software development community have got to get this update madness under control. Each piece of software seems to think their software is the only software installed on a computer and must be updated immediately regardless what the user is doing.
Last week proved to be incredibly annoying. It was Micro$oft Tuesday and they wanted to install a massive number of updates. In the midst of the M$ mess, Adobe Reader decided it needed to be updated immediately. Then Norton Internet Security wanted to update from the 2010 version to 2011. When this happens on a weeknight while trying to update five (5) home computers and all your trying to do is read your day's email, it becomes overwhelming.
So what do you think? Has this update madness gotten out of control and do software developers need to change their paradigm on when to tickle a user to update?
Firefox restarted and I chose to restore the previous session which it did. Finally checking the download manager I found it was back to downloading the Office download at about 285MB. It quickly completed the download successfully in 5-10 minutes.
I've grown used to clicking on a link in an email message and receiving a "fatal error" message from Firefox only to find Firefox wants to update some totally unrelated add-on. Performing the update gets Firefox to finally start. However, interrupting a 650MB download for an update is totally unacceptable. Mozilla, the Firefox developer, along with all the software development community have got to get this update madness under control. Each piece of software seems to think their software is the only software installed on a computer and must be updated immediately regardless what the user is doing.
Last week proved to be incredibly annoying. It was Micro$oft Tuesday and they wanted to install a massive number of updates. In the midst of the M$ mess, Adobe Reader decided it needed to be updated immediately. Then Norton Internet Security wanted to update from the 2010 version to 2011. When this happens on a weeknight while trying to update five (5) home computers and all your trying to do is read your day's email, it becomes overwhelming.
So what do you think? Has this update madness gotten out of control and do software developers need to change their paradigm on when to tickle a user to update?
Sunday, January 03, 2010
Micro$oft Outlook Replaces Thunderbird
December 29, 2009 I posted on my Facebook wall:
Well yesterday I finally got around to changing from Mozilla Thunderbird to Micro$oft Outlook. As a final attempt to live within the environment provided by Mozilla's Thunderbird, I tried using Kalendra. Kalendra seemed like a really good calendar-centered application, but that's not what I wanted. I wanted an integrated email and calendar application.
The initial transition of setting up Outlook with a new profile and my two personal email accounts went smooth. Haven't tried to move either my old mail or address book from Thunderbird to Outlook, so I haven't faced those problems yet.
This morning I noticed an email from slashdot.org containing the stories was not complete, but I've seen that before. Since I'm already dealing with another issue with slashdot.org emails not being delivered I guess I'll just ignore this problem.
So for now at least, I'm willing to live with the situation.
This web page is what I need to finally get rid of Mozilla Thunderbird for a personal email client and go to Micro$oft Outlook. Not what I wanted to do, but the latest Thunderbird continues the trend of decreased stability and lack of any decent Calendar. Actually, the Calendar, which I have begged Mozilla to update is my primary reason for dumping Thunderbird. Stubbornness was the only reason I kept using TB. I am not a big fan of M$, which goes all the way back to 1976 and Bill Gates "Open Letter to Hobbyists", however M$ Outlook is a mature product which has a very good Calendar. Since I have had Outlook on my computer for years to support work why not use it as my personal client too, if I can separate work and personal email using multiple profiles.
See More
Outlook e-mail profiles explained - Outlook - Microsoft Office Online office.microsoft.com
> Products > Outlook > Outlook 2003 Help and How-to > E-mail > Configuring E-mail Accounts > Profiles
December 29, 2009 at 5:39am
Well yesterday I finally got around to changing from Mozilla Thunderbird to Micro$oft Outlook. As a final attempt to live within the environment provided by Mozilla's Thunderbird, I tried using Kalendra. Kalendra seemed like a really good calendar-centered application, but that's not what I wanted. I wanted an integrated email and calendar application.
The initial transition of setting up Outlook with a new profile and my two personal email accounts went smooth. Haven't tried to move either my old mail or address book from Thunderbird to Outlook, so I haven't faced those problems yet.
This morning I noticed an email from slashdot.org containing the stories was not complete, but I've seen that before. Since I'm already dealing with another issue with slashdot.org emails not being delivered I guess I'll just ignore this problem.
So for now at least, I'm willing to live with the situation.
Sunday, June 07, 2009
Restoring the Dead - Windows XP Pro
Well yesterday I decided to go for it and wipe out and restore from scratch the computer that had been my primary computer since mid-2003 until October 2008. It was running Windows XP Pro with 2 GiB of memory and a 320 GB SATA drive. Actually it has 160 GB and 80 GB IDE drives installed too that are disconnected.
The Windows XP Pro was eating itself. File ownership seemed to have been corrupted which caused programs to not install properly. Devices such as the LeadTek PVR had long ago stopped working and the Dazzle Digital Video Creator 80 (DVG 80) recently quit working. The DVG 80 was really the last straw since without it I couldn't capture the videos of my granddaughters. Heaven forbid!
In addition I had tried to just re-install Windows XP Pro on the disk using the slipstream disk described below. This resulted in a half pregnant install where each boot asked to run setup or boot to windows. The default was to run setup which resulted in a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death). The problem was created by a virus called Norton GoBack sold by Symantec as part of my Norton System Works 2006 which I could not uninstall by itself or with the entire Norton System Works deinstall and Windows said I could not complete the install unless it was removed. Complicating the issue was that I have my WinXP Pro machine sharing a monitor, keyboard and mouse through a KVM with my new Vista 64-Bit computer. With the KVM there was the risk that while I was booting I might not be there to select boot to windows rather than run setup and then BSOD.
Before starting, I decided to "slipstream" my original Windows XP Pro 2002 all the way up to Service Pack 3. To get instructions for this I Googled "slipstream xp sp3" and found the article "How to slipstream windows XP Service Pack 3 to Create an Integrated XP Setup Disk with SP3" at HowToHaven. I followed the steps in the article blindly, but carefully to create two XP Pro SP3 install disks, the extra one just in case the other one didn't work.
To start the re-install process, and remove any doubt whether I wanted to do this I removed the primary partition, created a new one for the entire disk and formatted it as NTFS. To do this step I used the Live version of Gnu Disk Partitioner (GParted 0.4.5-2). Live GParted is Linux based and boots up from a CD quickly. What a nice simple program to use and very similar to the last version of Partition Magic I used years ago. First step, success.
Then I tried installing XP Pro. It booted to the CD and looked like it was going to go smoothly, only to fail when it said it couldn't find any hard disk installed on the system. Another quick trip to Google revealed that Windows didn't recognize that I had SATA support and I needed the to download the drivers to a 3-1/2 inch floppy and use them early in the install process. I went to the Asus web site and downloaded all drivers for my A8V motherboard. One of them had a make disk utility for doing what I needed. That's when I found that coming by a 3-1/2 inch drive and finding a disk for it was no simple feat. Found some old Linux boot disks and other stuff and tried formatting and making the disk in my wife's HP desktop running Win XP Home but it wouldn't do it. In a panic I decided to break out my old Windows 98SE laptop and see if it could deal with the 3-1/2 inch floppy. First thing it told me was the disk was locked which was probably why my wife's computer couldn't do anything with it, but it was too stupid to tell me.
The second attempt installing XP Pro with SP3 went pretty smooth. Pressed the F6 key when prompted and inserted the 3-1/2 inch floppy to load the SATA / RAID drivers. Holding my breath until the prompt came up asking for my product key into which I entered my original product key and in about a half hour I had a "working" Windows XP Pro computer again!
Fixing the network setup (it wanted a dial-up connection?), was a first step and then quickly re-installing Norton Internet Security 2009. These steps went very smooth.
I created some accounts and decided to end the day on a success and would install all the other stuff later.
The first thing I noticed this morning was that the video was honked up. Dragging a window would cause it to be redrawn slowly. I looked at the Device Manager and the video device had a Yellow Question Mark indicating it didn't know what it was, and had decided to use a generic VGA driver. There was another Yellow Question Mark indicating there was another unknown device. Opening the case and pulling the card revealed I had a eVGA e-GeForce 6200 AGP card with 256 MB DDR memory. I went to the evga web site, downloaded and installed the latest driver. Sure enough that fixed the problem with the video.
After that, I thought I would install the LeadTek WinFast Multimedia Software Pack which hadn't worked for a couple years now. This fixed the second Yellow Question Mark and now all the installed devices seem to be recognized.
Next I installed Nero 6 which came with my Pioneer DVR-710 DVD recorder. The drive itself seems to have been recognized during the Windows install.
Well, the Dazzle Digital Video Creator 80 along with it's MGI Video Wave 4 software seems to have installed okay. When I plugged the DVC 80 into a USB port Windows recognized it, loaded the drivers and said it's working properly. That's great news if it's true.
I am amazed at how much software I had installed on this computer:
Well I'll be off the rest of the day, installing and rebooting.
The Windows XP Pro was eating itself. File ownership seemed to have been corrupted which caused programs to not install properly. Devices such as the LeadTek PVR had long ago stopped working and the Dazzle Digital Video Creator 80 (DVG 80) recently quit working. The DVG 80 was really the last straw since without it I couldn't capture the videos of my granddaughters. Heaven forbid!
In addition I had tried to just re-install Windows XP Pro on the disk using the slipstream disk described below. This resulted in a half pregnant install where each boot asked to run setup or boot to windows. The default was to run setup which resulted in a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death). The problem was created by a virus called Norton GoBack sold by Symantec as part of my Norton System Works 2006 which I could not uninstall by itself or with the entire Norton System Works deinstall and Windows said I could not complete the install unless it was removed. Complicating the issue was that I have my WinXP Pro machine sharing a monitor, keyboard and mouse through a KVM with my new Vista 64-Bit computer. With the KVM there was the risk that while I was booting I might not be there to select boot to windows rather than run setup and then BSOD.
Before starting, I decided to "slipstream" my original Windows XP Pro 2002 all the way up to Service Pack 3. To get instructions for this I Googled "slipstream xp sp3" and found the article "How to slipstream windows XP Service Pack 3 to Create an Integrated XP Setup Disk with SP3" at HowToHaven. I followed the steps in the article blindly, but carefully to create two XP Pro SP3 install disks, the extra one just in case the other one didn't work.
To start the re-install process, and remove any doubt whether I wanted to do this I removed the primary partition, created a new one for the entire disk and formatted it as NTFS. To do this step I used the Live version of Gnu Disk Partitioner (GParted 0.4.5-2). Live GParted is Linux based and boots up from a CD quickly. What a nice simple program to use and very similar to the last version of Partition Magic I used years ago. First step, success.
Then I tried installing XP Pro. It booted to the CD and looked like it was going to go smoothly, only to fail when it said it couldn't find any hard disk installed on the system. Another quick trip to Google revealed that Windows didn't recognize that I had SATA support and I needed the to download the drivers to a 3-1/2 inch floppy and use them early in the install process. I went to the Asus web site and downloaded all drivers for my A8V motherboard. One of them had a make disk utility for doing what I needed. That's when I found that coming by a 3-1/2 inch drive and finding a disk for it was no simple feat. Found some old Linux boot disks and other stuff and tried formatting and making the disk in my wife's HP desktop running Win XP Home but it wouldn't do it. In a panic I decided to break out my old Windows 98SE laptop and see if it could deal with the 3-1/2 inch floppy. First thing it told me was the disk was locked which was probably why my wife's computer couldn't do anything with it, but it was too stupid to tell me.
The second attempt installing XP Pro with SP3 went pretty smooth. Pressed the F6 key when prompted and inserted the 3-1/2 inch floppy to load the SATA / RAID drivers. Holding my breath until the prompt came up asking for my product key into which I entered my original product key and in about a half hour I had a "working" Windows XP Pro computer again!
Fixing the network setup (it wanted a dial-up connection?), was a first step and then quickly re-installing Norton Internet Security 2009. These steps went very smooth.
I created some accounts and decided to end the day on a success and would install all the other stuff later.
The first thing I noticed this morning was that the video was honked up. Dragging a window would cause it to be redrawn slowly. I looked at the Device Manager and the video device had a Yellow Question Mark indicating it didn't know what it was, and had decided to use a generic VGA driver. There was another Yellow Question Mark indicating there was another unknown device. Opening the case and pulling the card revealed I had a eVGA e-GeForce 6200 AGP card with 256 MB DDR memory. I went to the evga web site, downloaded and installed the latest driver. Sure enough that fixed the problem with the video.
After that, I thought I would install the LeadTek WinFast Multimedia Software Pack which hadn't worked for a couple years now. This fixed the second Yellow Question Mark and now all the installed devices seem to be recognized.
Next I installed Nero 6 which came with my Pioneer DVR-710 DVD recorder. The drive itself seems to have been recognized during the Windows install.
Well, the Dazzle Digital Video Creator 80 along with it's MGI Video Wave 4 software seems to have installed okay. When I plugged the DVC 80 into a USB port Windows recognized it, loaded the drivers and said it's working properly. That's great news if it's true.
I am amazed at how much software I had installed on this computer:
- ULead Video Studio 7 SE
- ULead DVD MovieFactory and Cool 3D
- Pinnacle Studio 9 (previously had both 7 and 8 on it)
- Adobe Premiere Elements 3.0 (7.0 on Vista Machine)
- Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0 (7.0 on Vista Machine)
- Microsoft Office XP Professional 2002
- Microsoft FrontPage 2002 (Yuk!)
- Microsoft Visio Professional 2002
- Microsoft Project Standard 2002
- TextPad
- MyInfo
- WinZip 12
- ... and all those downloaded programs, oh my!
Well I'll be off the rest of the day, installing and rebooting.
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