krit86lr

I have found EASEUS ToDo Backup to work great and for $29 it was totally worth it. Clones, backups, etc...

Some services do not allow configuration changes, but some do and somehow are resetting themselves. Other possibilities: - Perhaps some programs have added info to the registry that makes Windows automatically re-install those programs & Services. (Possibly, I hadn't considered that but I will investigate)

Yep. But what if I need to do a clean install? What if my HDD fails?

Yeah, I was afraid of that. They are old discs, one is XP SP2 and the other XP SP3 but I am fairly certain that I threw out the PC's to the discs ages ago. Just wanted to be sure before using. Thanks for the info!

What version & architecture of Windows are you running?

I found all of those file extensions in my registry and this is how they were associated. 3fr - Picasa arw - MS Photo Manager & Picasa cr2 - MS Photo Manager dng - Software Classes (have not identified associated software yet) kdc- Software Classes (have not identified associated software yet) mrw- MS Photo Manager nef- MS Photo Manager nrw- MS Photo Manager orf- MS Photo Manager pef- MS Photo Manager raf- MS Photo Manager raw- MS Photo Manager & Picasa rw2- MS Photo Manager sr2- MS Photo Manager tga- Picasa webp- Picasa x3f- Picasa

MS Security Essentials (Now Windows Defender in Win8) - AntiVirus Malwarebytes Antimalware (+ rKill on some machines) - Malware SpywareBlaster - Spyware Before Security Essentials I used AntiVir for years and I never encountered an infection.

Well, I think that the subject line says it all!

I'm not disputing the need to report an error, but even Crucial.com gets it wrong sometimes since it's dependent on versions of model numbers of product numbers.

First of all I wanted to say thank you and that I love this Program, maybe even as much as CCleaner. I definitely am due for another donation! My only suggestion/request is to list all software product keys and licenses. That would eliminate the need of running Speccy and Belarc Advisor. In my opionion Belarc Advisor is your direct competitor, but your UI is already loads better and the temp is a big plus too. However, it would be nice to be able to drop Belarc since there is a lot of overlap between the 2 programs. Thanks!

All of that being said, if Piriform developers nicely contacted google they might be willing to play ball and release early code info for compatibility development purposes. Incompatible sofware is useless to marketers and consumers.

I agree with you Alan. And beta software is for beta testers. I don't run any beta software on my main machine, not adobe... no beta software because it is unstable and anything can happen. If you aren't a developer or beta tester you should not be using beta software unless there isn't anything on your PC you wouldn't mind losing. I am a Google and Android girl all the way, but have never installed a dev version of Chrome on my PC. If you can't live without Chrome then you need to make regular complete PC backups using good software. I for one don't understand why Google released unmarked beta software to the general public and for such a long stretch. Seems irresponsible on their part. Most end-users wouldn't even know that dev = beta. Chrome provides BETA's so that their users can run the risks,and in my view any problems ought to be reported as bugs in the Bug Report forums/posting mechanisms of Chrome. CC allows you to Analyze and obtain a list of all the files that will be deleted as a result of Chrome being ticked.

I just have to say with this Win8 crazy no backup disc crap, all I've done is serious heavy testing of backup and cloning software before feeling comfortable enough to move forward and use the PC and this is what I have settled on. It is sooo easy, and provides Preboot OS support. However, I am using a paid version of ToDo Backup. If you google 'discount todo backup' you'll find a Digital Rivers site selling it for 20-50% off. Link to all of the free software: http://www.easeus.com/download/free-software.html 1. EaseUS Partition Master Free Edition (Love it and no need to purchase the paid version, it's for enterprise distributions) 2. EaseUS Todo Backup Free (I use the paid version, $29 and Love it) 3. EaseUS Partition Recovery (Works perfectly, but limits you to 2GB of recovery)

Oh, man I forgot about the .Net Framework issues. For some reason MS just wasn't releasing all of release in the auto updates. I still have my .Net zip folder with 'all' of the releases to fix the .net framework glitches. I couldn't even get them all off of Microsoft's website I had to get some from old OEM discs and pc's but they installed perfectly every time. Andavari you said that you could install 3.5 SP1 without prior install which is good info to have, thanks. I guess that explains why I keep noticing CCleaner wipe out all of the older .net versions after that update but couldn't be bothered to test it in the event all went south, lol. That will save people a lot of hassle in the future.

Are you on a PC or laptop? Also, plug-in play speakers should bypass the sound card problem I would think. Also, the most recent 'stable' version 12.xxx of Ubuntu claims to support just about all hardware. I haven't tested it yet, for some reason the iso was too large to burn to a CD which suprised me and I ran out of DVD's a few weeks ago but it might be worth a try.

Does anyone know 'off hand' whether or not there is a Product Key tool for checking keys prior to installation? I have two OEM disks that I am 99.9% certain are not being used but I want to be sure before handing them out. Please don't research it for me (Hazel the research Queen), I can research it myself when I have time. But if you happen to know 'off-hand'... Seriously, I have so much computer stuff, and computers to get rid of and it all works! I really don't want to throw any of it away but I am done storing it all too.

That's the perfected suggestion Dennis, I used it to recover raw files off of 3 hard drives over the last 6 smonths. I did purchases it at 1/2 off but it was definitely worth the $40. I tested tons of freeware but the freeware couldn't recover the raw data unfortunately.

Correction, Nergal.

Yep, I bookmarked HostsXpert earlier in another thread. It was recommened by Nigel or some guys name that started with an N. He might be a moderator too. And hi to you too Dennis! I'm so happy that the same people are still here.

Andavari you made me laugh. That is usually the case with me as well, but these unfortunately have backed me into a corner. I'm not sure how much you know about Windows 8, but the recovery options are worse than Vista. No discs (unless you order and pay) just the recovery console. So I have imaging software and hard drive software keeping an eye on things. Normally I would want this software running all of the time but I am trying to set up all of my email accounts in Outlook and I'm on day 3 and not 1/2 way done. Heavy downloading, so of course my first recourse was to terminate absolutely all unnecessary processes. Much to my suprise somehow in Windows 8 disabling isn't always effective. It's got to be something in the registry I think, but my run key isn't the culprit.

Usually when you install image software, there is a section during the installation that asks you to checkmark which file extensions you want to associate the program with. You may try excluding them during the installation and see if that helps prevent the recreation.

My issues are with non-system services (I should have made that clear). Programs think that once they are installed they should be able to do whatever they want and it really ticks me off.

Thanks! HOST files are my current goal to learn and use to my advantage and examples are the easiest way for me to learn. I absolutely agree with leaving system services to manual with the exception of 1 or 2 remote access services. Do you remember the thread where we all agreed to the manual setting? It got pretty heated then, Mike (Dial-a-fix creator) stepped in and set everyone straight. Good times, LOL.

I have been cleaning up computer supplies and now have a shoebox full of PC & Laptop Memory sticks. If people are interested I will write up a list of what I have. I also restored 5 laptops back to almost perfect health. People dumped them here for parts and I didn't check them until a year later. Silly people, but yay for me! LOL

I knew that I should have stayed out of this thread. FireFox is going to be at a crawl here in a few minutes.