A Gardener's Guide Regarding Allowable Variations Appertaining To Installation Of Novelties

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ChrisGreaves
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A Gardener's Guide Regarding Allowable Variations Appertaining To Installation Of Novelties

Post by ChrisGreaves »

(16)
Windows Remove Windows.old
2MB only, but I can see no use for it. If all else fails early on I need to reinstall, but after I have begun a series of Win7-system images etc then why would I go back to Windows.old? The folder contains a copy of my previous installation user "Chris074" files, but each night those files are copied to my data drive and my data drive backed up. Since I am now "Chris075", those backed up files will not be overwritten and are always available on the two data backup drives.

(17)
Windows Remove drive letters for the data partition and the 100MB safety net; Make sure CD drive points to D:. Note that the CD drive may not appear until we have placed a data disc in there and right-clicked to format it!
20210617_03.png
A no-brainer this time around; only the boot partition sports a drive letter - C:. I think this tweak to Windows is a hold-over from earlier days.

That is about it for "Windows" at the level of folders. Next up: Control Panel tweaks.

Cheers
Chris
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HansV
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Re: A Gardener's Guide Regarding Allowable Variations Appertaining To Installation Of Novelties

Post by HansV »

If you don't do i yourself, Windows.old will be removed automatically after 10 days or so.
Best wishes,
Hans

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ChrisGreaves
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Re: A Gardener's Guide Regarding Allowable Variations Appertaining To Installation Of Novelties

Post by ChrisGreaves »

HansV wrote:
27 Jun 2021, 20:59
If you don't do i yourself, Windows.old will be removed automatically after 10 days or so.
Good to know, thanks Hans.
Truth be told I was surprised that it was but 600MB.I had thought to see something in the GB range.

I should fill up this space by stating that for the record:-

(1) I am the sole occupant of this abode, and am not running client business affairs, so I am not as paranoid as once I was. To that end I neither need nor want a Microsoft Account, the Ap Store, Cloud-based drop boxes, Cortana, One Drive, and several other cute things. I just want to sit in splendid isolation and program in VBA, for my own ends. I note that today's AskWoody newsletter suggests that Win11 will require a Microsoft Account. If that happens I may well devote the rest of my life to growing trees 24/7.

(2) I have been developing applications for 55 years now; it's what I enjoy. And for that reason I have settled on Office2003 (was office97) and VBA as my platform-of-choice. I detest any changes in my platform. Office2003 is stable, and to date has satisfied all my requirements for programming the manipulation of strings of characters. Windows bugs the heck out of me with its perennial, quarterly, monthly, daily changes. I will die convinced that I have spent far too many days tracking down a 'program bug' that was probably caused by an updated Microsoft DLL, or a conflict that renders part of Office obsolete or non-cooperative.

(3) I will address Win10 Updates soon; right now I am content to let MS update if it wants, or to force an Update to an Eileen's Lounge recommended level. Right now I don't know if auto-update is on, off, or undecided. I am still close enough to re-installation to repeat the process tomorrow, if I can locate the Factory Reset option in the UEFI screens,

(4) UEFI likewise. Did my installation from an ISO yesterday do anything to UEFI? If I screwed up UEFI last July is it still screwed up> We will see, Real Soon Now.

(5) Yesterday's re-installation has fixed two of four outstanding problems
    (a) I could not search and find "Create Restore Point". Fixed.
    (b) "Running Virus Scan" followed by either a fifteen second delay, or refusal to load an Office document. I have not noticed this in the first few hours.
    (c) File Explorer layout: I want to see 'name', 'type', 'size' and 'date last modified' in every display of files - File Explorer, search results, FileOpen dialogues. Everywhere. I could live with that. I am tired of seeing 'title', 'album', 'contributing artists'.
    (d) Opening an Excel2003 workbook, inspecting, and then closing it with no changes, no longer prompts me to say "save changes" or not. That struck me as weird over the past few years, but that annoyance seems to have been lifted.

In the next post I will document my next few changes to Win10 for public comment.

Cheers
Chris
Last edited by ChrisGreaves on 28 Jun 2021, 15:17, edited 1 time in total.
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Argus
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Re: A Gardener's Guide Regarding Allowable Variations Appertaining To Installation Of Novelties

Post by Argus »

Why would an installation from an ISO, or anything, touch UEFI settings?
(The world of laptops, that are so popular today, is a tiny bit different with the presence of "factory restore buttons" and whatnot; guess anything is possible, but I haven't heard that they also reset BIOS/UEFI.)
ChrisGreaves wrote:
28 Jun 2021, 09:50
Windows bugs the heck out of me with its perennial, quarterly, monthly, daily changes.
I agree. But continuing with 2003 in new environments is, I think, an uphill struggle with increasing difficulty. Good luck growing trees. :laugh: Seriously; it's possible that you (also) have other machines/VMs with an older OS that you run it on.

Good that some problems are solved.
(Try to keep it that way, and no more re-installations this year. :evilgrin: :laugh:)
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ChrisGreaves
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Re: A Gardener's Guide Regarding Allowable Variations Appertaining To Installation Of Novelties

Post by ChrisGreaves »

Argus wrote:
28 Jun 2021, 10:45
Why would an installation from an ISO, or anything, touch UEFI settings?
I don't know, but I reach a point where I am flummoxed at what i think should be a simple installation when so much changes.
The six hours to "install from ISO" was eerily reminiscent of the six hours it took to install Updates back in 2012 or thereabouts. That is, I suspect that MS was doing much much more than copying 640MB from a CD and installing it. I now baulk at the slightest shadow.
My reinstalled Firefox browser seems to be populated with garbage, but that may be only because I have not (yet) reinstalled UBlock.

I agree. But continuing with 2003 in new environments is, I think, an uphill struggle with increasing difficulty. ...it's possible that you (also) have other machines/VMs with an older OS that you run it on.
You are correct, and I know that the ice grows thinner with each year.
I have two other laptops of varying flakiness. One has a crippled touch pad, the other has non-functioning Ctrl keys. Both are useful only for painfully clumsy parallel testing.

Office 2003 satisfies my needs for string processing, even to the extent of building new platforms on VBA2003. I no longer am tied to the whims of paying clients who insist on the very latest in tail-fins.
Office2003 will die (for me) when some new variant of a MS DLL comes out and Word2003 fails to function.
Good that some problems are solved. (Try to keep it that way, and no more re-installations this year. :evilgrin: :laugh:)
I am deliberately slowing down and trying to identify and fix each hiccough as it occurs, leaning heavily on my few remaining friends here in Eileen's Lounge. In the past I tried to get everything (and all 3rd party applications) in place within 24 hours.
One of the reasons for a proliferation of (I hope) educational threads is to document what I see as weird novelties.

To my list of "(5) Yesterday's re-installation has fixed one of three outstanding problems" I can now add a fourth:
Opening an Excel2003 workbook, inspecting, and then closing it with no changes, no longer prompts me to say "save changes" or not. That struck me as weird over the past few years, but that annoyance seems to have been lifted.

Cheers and :thankyou:
Chris
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ChrisGreaves
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Re: A Gardener's Guide Regarding Allowable Variations Appertaining To Installation Of Novelties

Post by ChrisGreaves »

Windows-related changes:-
(23)
Control Panel Administrative Tools
System Information: Write report to “SystemInformation.txt” (Shows that I am “Version 10.0.19041 Build 19041
I will cover "Windows Updates" in a later post.


(25)
Control Panel AutoPlay
Turn OFF autoplay for all devices; “use autoplay for all media and devices” checked OFF. I have rarely found a need for this feature.


(26)
Control Panel File Explorer Options
Show hidden files and folders; DON’T hide empty drives; DON’T hide extensions;

This may have been a trigger for some of my faults in the past. A late-night pastime when I am tired is to muse about "saving space", which sees me making ill-formed decisions about the odd megabyte or two. On the other hand, the default for Windows to hide extensions seems like an invitation to execute a thinly-disguised text file.

(27)
Control Panel Mouse
Maximize pointer speed; automatically move pointer; DON’T hide pointer when typing

Most people claim that "It is only a single action (click)", but when I watch them it looks more like "stroke, stroke, stroke, align, and then click". I aim to reduce the number of strokes.
"automatically move pointer" saves me strokes and alignments.
" DON’T hide pointer when typing" keeps me informed of where the darn thing is; I detest hidden data.

(28)
Control Panel System
Turn ON system restore; allocate 1/3 space on C to restore points

I have used 3 GB of 18 GB allocated so far. I am making much use of Restore Points over this week, and will then Backup with a fresh System Image to an external drive.

(29)
Control Panel Region
Short Date format “MM/dd/yyyy” for Billing.bat.

An application uses a notepad file with the ".LOG" option, and the application relies on this date format to summarize time spent on any project.

(30)
Control Panel Sounds
Scheme: NO sounds

I don't need a bing-bong to tell me that I have just pressed the power button, (but I DO miss the Caps Lock light on my keyboard!)

(31)
Control Panel
Turn OFF remote assistance;

My remote Assistance is via Eileen's Lounge; MS's idea of remote assistance worries me in terms of someone gaining access to my system without my approval.


(32)
Control Panel
System, Environment variables, System variables, path: prefix with T:\Batlap; is now t:\BatLap;%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps

I maintain a few DOS BATch files to automate some of my work.

(45)
Windows How to take ownership
I open a document or spreadsheet, make changes, then Close saving changes and ultimately receive the message:-
Cannot save : The folder is marked as ‘Read Only’

(49)
Windows Updates
Update Windows 2021/06/28 13:20
I will cover "Windows Updates" in a later post.
Right now (Monday June 28 1315 my time) I am up-to-date.
20210627_11.png
    
I continue to install third-party applications such as Everything.exe, RevoUninstaller.exe and the like, mostly recommended through Eileen's Lounge.

Cheers
Chris
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BobH
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Re: A Gardener's Guide Regarding Allowable Variations Appertaining To Installation Of Novelties

Post by BobH »

. . .
(c) File Explorer layout: I want to see 'name', 'type', 'size' and 'date last modified' in every display of files - File Explorer, search results, FileOpen dialogues. Everywhere. I could live with that. I am tired of seeing 'title', 'album', 'contributing artists'. . . .
Not to belabor the point, but you do know about right clicking in the title row in File Explorer to get a drop down menu from which to choose what displays, don't you?
FE cols.PNG
And, by clicking "More" you get the whole gamut of file metadata from which to choose.
FE cols ext.PNG
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ChrisGreaves
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Re: A Gardener's Guide Regarding Allowable Variations Appertaining To Installation Of Novelties

Post by ChrisGreaves »

BobH wrote:
28 Jun 2021, 18:32
Not to belabor the point, but you do know about right clicking in the title row in File Explorer to get a drop down menu from which to choose what displays, don't you?
Hi Bob, yes I know of that, and am tired of jumping through those hoops week after [expletive of your choice deleted here] week.
There is a bit of discussion from April 6th this year, over at AskWoody. In April I tried (yet again) the r/c and settings, and it worked for the best part of a month then collapsed again.
There is a RegEdit fix "Create a new 32-Bit DWORD value named BagMRU Size" which didn't work. Given that "The fix is to increase the number of folder views File Explorer can remember”, and 11,000+ folders on my data drive with 42,000 folders on my system drive (but it's been only two days so far!) I do not hold out much hope for this method.

Another comment "It literally takes two clicks to reach your goal." leaves me stunned. Computers, as you and I have known since about the late sixties, are good at doing boring and repetitive tasks, and making two clicks every time I use a folder view is, to my mind, a boring and repetitive task.

Fixing this heading issue was another of my things to retry after a re-install, so that is at the top of my list right now; I will try the AskWoody suggestions again later today, if I am lucky and the rains return(grin!)

Cheers
Chris
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