14 Aug 2015

And Then Another 10….

This is a post combining a bit o' Caratacus, he be in green, from his comment relating to my response to a comment he left in the comments when he commented on a post relating to Windows 10, and a bit o' me.

Thank you for that, Mac. I am somewhat reassured by your encouraging words ref. W10 and may yet give it a go. As I typed before, a Windows 7 machine updated a while ago; Windows 8.1 is still bereft of an update. If anyone out there is curious as to where your download is, you could open Windows Update and click on 'View update history' and you may well see a bunch of 'Upgrade to Windows 10 Home' followed by 'Failed'. Double clicking should give you the error code to have fun with. I did all kinds of searches round the code I got and favoured the comment; leave stuff alone and it'll come good in its own sweet time. Right now, I'm still waiting for sweet time. What do you do while you wait? Fiddle with stuff of course; and the stuff you fiddle with is always the stuff that should never, ever be fiddled with, right?

I'm sure some of you won't like hanging about waiting for sweet time and may be tempted, as indeed was I, to try this fix{?}
How do I reset Windows Update components? 
I used that 'fix' which doesn't actually download anything; it just runs. It found errors and reported them fixed. My loud whoopings of excitement diminished over time as repeated running's of the 'fix' found and 'fixed' the same errors countless times. How cool is that Microsoft-in-the-head?

There's also one of they patch lookin' things available here. I downloaded Option Two and, no, I haven't tried it at time of typing. Please note, this is stuff I'm fiddling with – not recommending - and, as such, if anyone out there chooses to try them, rather than waiting, and spookily finds themselves back 1993…

I'll have to wait until I've got absolutely every single thing backed up, work spreadsheets all up to date and saved elsewhere, important e-mails likewise preserved (and so forth)… My 7 machine – and I stress, Windows 7 - just showed 10 ready to install in Windows Update and my itchy fingers just went ahead and did that ol' mousy clicky thingy without pause for thought. A tad stupid I know. However, all documents, spreadsheets, mail and such are located either on a thumb-drive or a portable hard disc connected to the router. This makes it easy to work on the same stuff be I sitting at the desktop or in my corner of the sofa with a laptop. …and then set aside a day where I can set to with a minimum of interruption ... and also leave aside a couple of hours at the end of the day to put it all back as it was in the possible/probable event of it all going mammaries upwards. O ye of little faith, Caratacus :-)
I believe I typed previously that the 7 machine, I stress again, Windows 7, did it all, including a couple of auto stops and starts, in about an hour. It was probably closer to two hours from what I remember, and at the end everything was exactly where I'd left it. Yes, I am starting to use the Start area of 10 which seems to work well and, to me, is far more useable than proceeding Windows versions that featured the famous click this, right click that then double-click this jobby.

I'll let Caratacus conclude as there's honestly nothing to add to his views.

On a serious note, I am intrigued by just how unreliable modern technology is these days. It's OK if you are "in tune" as it were (step forward anyone under the age of 20), but most of it doesn't work to normal and quite reasonable standards of expectation. I bought a video camera for the truck a while back and the instructions had been translated from the original Chinese into Klingon, then to Esperento via Xhosa and finally to English. I didn't have a bloody chance ... I suspect it may be a wonderful bit of kit, but it holds secrets from me, it doesn't do the same thing twice in a row, it affects innocent surprise that I should expect anything else. It is, in short, female and will henceforth be referred to as *La* Camera.

STOP PRESS:- This kind o' confirms what Caratacus says above. I just got a red, yup, red icon complete with exclamation mark, pulsing in the task bar. All it lacked was a loud claxon. 'Important message from HP' it said. This is new so let's have a look then. It read something like; critical information to prepare for installing Windows 10. Ah ha! Is this wot I done been waiting for? Open up the 'Assistant'{?}and click to read message. That didn't work. Neither did a double, a right nor a left click. What to do? Search for a fix. Fix found. Uninstall HP Assistant software, download and  install this version, stop and start computer along the way and it'll work{?}. All that I did do and guess wot? No messages, all deleted as, 'All Messages Have Been Read.' It seems to get sadder by the click. Am I at the end of my tether? I left the end of my tether way back there in the mist a while ago.

I sure wouldn't be fiddling about like this if the weather was good but as it's a cool, wet and grey day in November August, what the hay?

Quote;  Funnycoolstuff.

Error

2 comments:

Caratacus said...

Once again honoured to have been mentioned in despatches! Reading of your travails and vicissitudes ref. Windon'ts and Microdaft I feel just a smidgin of grim satisfaction with respect to my earlier caution. Sigh ... if it runs on diesel, petrol or black powder I can usually make it work, surely I am equal to this challenge? But then I prefer SU carburetters to fuel injection - somewhere there's a message.

Mac said...

Caratacus,
My pleasure. A response, sort of, to your comment above will be the bones of this evenings post. Hope you enjoy it.