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Tech update
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Published Friday, January 08, 2016 @ 11:37 PM EST
Jan 08 2016

To be honest, since leaving my job in November, I've spent most of the time since relaxing... reading fiction, watching films I've missed, and upgrading one of the three computers in my office to Windows 10, a process that negated any beneficial effects of my otherwise stress-free routine.

The latest major Windows update this week took over an hour to install, and when it rebooted, of course, the start button didn't work and none of my taskbar apps appeared. While Windows said it was done updating, the hard drive activity light was on solid. So, I did what anyone with over three decades of computer experience would do... I went to dinner.

When I returned, the machine's disk was no longer thrashing, but then the taskbar apps still weren't there. Again, calling on my extensive background, I restarted the machine and went upstairs to watch NCIS.

Upon my return, the taskbar apps were back and the system appeared to be responsive. Suspicious, I opened the event viewer and checked the error logs, which I had cleaned out before starting the update. There were several thousand errors.

So, I deleted the logs, restarted the machine, and went to bed.

The next morning I was about a half hour into my normal routine when I remembered the previous evening's hilarity. Obviously the machine was working now. At least there weren't any problems other than the OS changing the default application for opening pdf files from Adobe Acrobat to Microsoft Edge. An easy fix.

I glanced again at the error log files which were substantially smaller but contained scores of obscure messages. Suddenly a box appeaeed asking me if I'd like to know what's new with Windows 10. I clicked on it, and:

Faulting application name: WhatsNew.Store.exe

My recommendation remains to stay on Windows 7 unless you have some compelling need to go to Windows 10. If you do, and you've had your machine for more than three years, consider buying a new one with Windows 10 installed.

On a positive note, I finally got my Android phone to cast videos to the tv via Roku, and because of the nifty server-side include codes in my template pages, the copyright notices always display the current year.

It's the little things that count...


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« Remembering Nikola Tesla (July 10, 1856 - January 7, 1943)
Home Page
A blast from the past »