A thread for boring computer questions.

BitTorrent has checking mechanisms in place so it might be downloading multiple times to make sure you got things right

I tried running AVG but nothing came up. Should I boot in Ubuntu and download Microsoft Security Essentials and/or Ad-Aware New Spiffy Mega Antivirus+ 2015? And if so should I uninstall AVG bcz iirc multiple virus scanners fight like the dickens.

here's the script for removing malware, if you suspect that

http://www.metafilter.com/user/77879

Have you tried a different browser also?

windows man... it's wipe time

Yeah, data's fucked up in all browsers

Might be that something in your Win registry is corrupt?

Downgrade drivers to an old version?

Try defragging?

If you still have the problem, create a recovery/repair disk, preferably from another Windows machine (make sure you have the right version and stuff). Run the repair kit?

If that doesn't work, do you do backups? Revert to a last working system. Should override stuff.

Also, this might sound nuts, but ensure everything inside your tower is securely plugged. Push everything in and stuff. Give it a clean if it's dusty. Now plug it in to a DIFFERENT outlet. In fact, if you can, don't plug it to a power strip, but directly to the wall. And try plugging it to different ones, if possible.

I'm not much of a hardware guy, but this is what comes to mind.

I'm kind of out of ideas.

(network drivers, that is)

What do you need to preserve on your windows setup?
Most Linux distros are set up to access existing windows partitions and can sometimes run a lot of the software too

guh I think it might have been a conflict with AVG to be honest, will investigate further and report back

got so bad that I'm now referring to using a proxy site to view any youtube vids. It's not bad, apart from losing a lot of YT functionality like playlists and signing in, but meh as long as I can watch a damn video without it stopping.

― Ste, Sunday, May 26, 2013 7:16 AM (2 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Argh, this is happening to me now too. I can't get through a fucking 3-minute youtube without it stopping. What's the best proxy site to avoid this?

It's probably your ISP. There's a bit of a peering war going on. There's a good story about it doing the rounds, which I can't seem to find argh

http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2013/07/the-secret-deals-that-mean-you-have-to-wait-for-youtube-to-buffer/

My Youtube is totally fine now, has been for a while. I used ProxFree.com which worked fine as a replacement though.

thinking of swapping out 250gb hdd for a smaller ssd- not tied down to a particular size, could go for straight swap and use it normally or install a much smaller drive just for running and OS purposes and have all my main data/files external

you will have had thoughts and experience and i will have them from you, now

nb there was no thread for awesome & interesting computer questions and i didnt feel like starting one

Not a desperate world-ender of a computer problem, more of a head-scratcher. I keep several text clippings on my desktop, boilerplate stuff that goes with ad proofs in some cases, general work emails in other cases. I used to be able to drag and drop the text-clipping icons into Thunderbird new-message windows, but suddenly they don't do anything. Blinking cursor before, blinking cursor after. I can still open them and C&P, but dragging and dropping is the first thing I was promised after jetpacks and self-driving cars. Doesn't seem to have started after a Tbird update, and restarting the machine doesn't help. Any ideas?

Just tried it myself and it works.

You are dragging the file in the To area, right?

One thing that comes to mind is permissions/rights and users. So check that.

No, into the body of the email. It worked for months until suddenly it didn't.

Okay. I guess the question is: does it work now that you drag it into the To area?

Hmm, yes it will! It'll show up there and in the subject line area, but not the message body.

Oh this is terrible.

In an attempt to remove some adware from Firefox, I went to Help --> Troubleshooting Information --> Reset Firefox

(I was following steps on a web page purporting to help you remove the adware.)

Now Firefox is wiped clean, all my bookmarks gone, all my add-ons gone.

Can I get my settings/bookmarks/add-ons back with Sync? Is there something else I can do?

To lose all this stuff would be pretty disastrous. Looking around in Sync, it seems to only want to let me sync 2 devices, when all I need to do is retrieve my settings from the cloud/mozilla server (right?).

Help is very much appreciated!

I tried a system restore, but Firefox was still in freshly-installed state.

Do you have backups of your HD? The Firefox profile folder will restore pretty cleanly from one if you have it

Firefox has what I'll call a working folder, which will be something like C:\Users\myusername\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\wo3v7c94.default. The bookmarks are stored in that folder in a file called bookmarks.html. One level down from that should be a folder called "\bookmarkbackups" where you should find several bookmark backup files with a ".json" extension. Copy the latest one to the working folder, renaming it "bookmarks.html", then restart Firefox. The bookmarks should come back.

If that doesn't work, do a search for the file "bookmarks.html", or if it doesn't exist, "bookmarks.bak". If you find it, copy the latest version of it (renaming it to bookmarks.html if necessary) to the Firefox working folder. If you find more than one of the aforementioned files, use the latest one.

I'm not sure how Firefox handles add-ons and plug-ins or where they're stored.

Another key file in Firefox is "sessionstore.js". I always keep a few backups of that one around and update it frequently; it stores all your tabs and such.

I recently did this too. it was very vague in telling you what was about to happen, like it would just clean up things, not delete ALL your add-ones. I was v annoyed.

with me it did keep my bookmarks. I also found a directory on my desktop with all the old data backed up in it (but only the day after) so look for that. it's called something like Firefox Saved Data.

add-ons. stupid phone.

did anything work?

Lee, thank you. For some reason FF couldn't find my bookmark backup files but they were there, just had to transfer the stuff manually per your instructions. Very grateful for your help!

Does anyone know exactly what's saved in Firefox's "prefs.js" file? That's the other one I know of that stores personal settings of some sort, along with sessionstore.js and bookmarks.html. Is there a specific plug-ins or add-ons file that stores all of your customizations?

And, what are the equivalent files in Chrome? (which I'd love to move to once I learn the deep technical aspects)

also good to read you're back up and running, you're more than welcome for any help i could be.....

So ive been getting warnings about my primary battery being low, reading up the web seemed p fuckin unclear as to whether this was cmos or the actual unplug-and-use battery, but now the damned thing cant find an OS or hard drive upon startup

Please, someone, tell me its the (quick, cheap, easy fix) cmos battery thats likely here

Isn't the main warning about the CMOS that the date/time is wrong? :/

Check your BIOS date/time if you can?

I got as far as a chkdsk that returned no errors but still wont startup.

I'll change the cmos tomorrow (yeah it controls the time but also has something to do with routing through BIOS iirc?) so hopefully it'll right it.....

Yeah the CMOS isn't only responsible for the date/time but the first warning of a dying CMOS is the time being off. Good luck!

I just got Windows 7 at work and it's got a really annoying, disruptive quirk where it often won't let me change a file name, save/replace, or delete b/c "the file is in use by Windows Explorer" or "another program is using the file," which is NOT CORRECT. Or I try to delete or cut/paste a file and it says the file no longer exists, but the icon won't leave the folder and I can't replace it.

Our IT guy doesn't know what to do about it. Googling says it's a problem w/ thumbnails and you have to edit the registry to fix it, which I don't feel comfortable with.

Is everyone having this problem? Is there not something I can do short of registry edit? Am I alone in this?

Sometimes going into Program Manager (through ctrl-alt-del), then searching through Processes and Services for some remnant of the "in-use" programs, then zapping it with the "end process" button works. Alphabetizing by clicking on "description" helps narrow down which process is a part of the 'in-use' software, by name of the app or name of the software developer/company.

xp in Explorer, go to Organize | Layout and uncheck Details Pane and Preview Pane

I just got Windows 7 at work and it's got a really annoying, disruptive quirk where it often won't let me change a file name, save/replace, or delete b/c "the file is in use by Windows Explorer" or "another program is using the file."

I get this quite often - usually with files downloaded from dodgy places - and I've found no better solution than to close windows explorer via task manager, delete the file manually in a command prompt and then restart explorer. This is not ideal! I haven't seen it with files I've created myself though.

the Detalis/Preview pane thing works often but not always but often

Thanks everyone. I was wondering if the preview pane might be a culprit - goddamnit I was really enjoying the preview pane.

This problem is such bullshit! It seems like it should never have made it to market, much less persisted for years.

Another BCQ if you can stand it: what's the deal w/ Google Drive & Windows 7? After getting 7 I realized that some of my work wasn't syncing which led me to find Drive in two locations with vastly different contents: Documents/Google Drive and Computer/Users/jesse/Google Drive.

I assume this has to do w/ Documents being a library, and the solution is just use the "Users" one, but I want to understand where it all went wrong.

bought a hp laptop the other week with windows 8 on it. for a bunch of crappy reasons i need to put xp on it - is this just a case of downloading a torrent, sticking it on a disco and installing it? (i have a cpl of legit copies somewhere but god knows where they are so i have to resort to tpb)

are there likely to be any problems with it being a fairly modern laptop (2012) running xp? and if it all screws up can i easily reinstall windows 8? i'm only using it for one program only and won't be going online with it or anything so the no-more-security updates thing won't be an issue.

No, it won't be that easy. I'm on an HP desktop running Windows 8, and I was not able to get Windows 7 running on it. The drivers are not available, and the motherboard is locked down making changing OS more interesting than it should be. HP's support site is a nightmare of angry customers trying to help other angry customers with no help from the company.

Classic Shell solved my objections to Win8, and I moved on. Maybe you could run XP in some sort of virtual environment if you have to, and maybe I am dead wrong about everything else.

Wait the motherboard is locked down? How??

tbh Windows 8 is pretty wonderful if you like spend a couple hours figuring it out

Wait the motherboard is locked down? How??

Secure Boot. Maybe locked down is too strong of a term, but getting this HP to boot from a disk required way more research and bios work than any pc I've ever worked on. Ultimately, it was the complete unavailability of non Win8 HP drivers for this HP specific motherboard that led me to reinstall Windows 8 (now 8.1). Make and save a recovery disk set.

Some of it is great (file transfer speed and interface).

I hid the Metro stuff, added a menu, and updated to 8.1, and I'm completely happy.

Also, isn't there some kind of XP compatability mode on Win8?

NI what's the app that requires XP? I am intrigued

Wouldn't it be simpler to just run a virtual machine which runs Windows XP?