Tech/Computer advice from me

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What I do is hover my mouse over each 'new' folder, and if it shows as empty, it gets deleted. In fact, ANY folder that is empty gets deleted. A lot of the programs that you've removed often leave a trace of their existence, but is of no use and only taking up space, so that folder also gets deleted.

There is a program called 'Team Viewer 8' that allow for remote access. If you, and someone you trust, have this program installed, you can give the trusted party FULL access and control over your computer, no matter how far apart you are. I use it to maintain my mothers laptop, and she is some 1800 km's (1100 miles) away.
 
Ray Kurzweil is head of engineering at Google?

23686007.jpg


Well, at least he'll be held accountable for his gaseousness now.









(I hope)
 
Fear The Spear said:
I did not know what EULA means, thanks.
I have done quite a few disk cleanups during that time, and don't seem to have made any difference. So, does that mean none of these are temp files ? And I guess I should not delete any of the files or folders ?
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They're folders made by a program for one reason or another. They're gibberish because the program creates a unique name for the folder to avoid stomping on some other program's folders.

They're created for a variety of reasons: installer files, temp space for when the program runs, viruses even create them sometimes.

Whether you can delete them or not depends largely on what created them and why, which is really impossible to know unless you monitor it. You can click and see what files are inside and take educated guesses.

At the end of the day it's the result of bad programming practices by people that write software - that's not the correct way to make or use temporary space on a machine. Microsoft has a supported way of doing it, and trust me it's not dumping random folders on the root of the C drive and never cleaning them up.

So - delete them at your own risk. There is a 99.9% chance they're not hurting anything, so I would suggest leaving them alone.
 
http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/28/4158818/facebook-android-invitation-april-4

Facebook has something big up its sleeve planned for April 4th. In an invitation it sent to the press, the company invites us to “come see our new home on Android.” While it’s not immediately clear what the “new home” will be, it’s possible that the company could be taking the wraps off a long-rumored HTC handset featuring its own customized version of the open source OS.
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Great, a version of Android that's less secure and harder to configure.
 
SkinnedAussie said:
What I do is hover my mouse over each 'new' folder, and if it shows as empty, it gets deleted. In fact, ANY folder that is empty gets deleted. A lot of the programs that you've removed often leave a trace of their existence, but is of no use and only taking up space, so that folder also gets deleted.

There is a program called 'Team Viewer 8' that allow for remote access. If you, and someone you trust, have this program installed, you can give the trusted party FULL access and control over your computer, no matter how far apart you are. I use it to maintain my mothers laptop, and she is some 1800 km's (1100 miles) away.
Click to expand...

tshile said:
They're folders made by a program for one reason or another. They're gibberish because the program creates a unique name for the folder to avoid stomping on some other program's folders.

They're created for a variety of reasons: installer files, temp space for when the program runs, viruses even create them sometimes.

Whether you can delete them or not depends largely on what created them and why, which is really impossible to know unless you monitor it. You can click and see what files are inside and take educated guesses.

At the end of the day it's the result of bad programming practices by people that write software - that's not the correct way to make or use temporary space on a machine. Microsoft has a supported way of doing it, and trust me it's not dumping random folders on the root of the C drive and never cleaning them up.

So - delete them at your own risk. There is a 99.9% chance they're not hurting anything, so I would suggest leaving them alone.
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Thanks for the insight(s).
I've done some more digging through these numerous folders and their sub-folders and now finding sub-folders called "dotNetFramework".
So I assume at least some of these folders are updates to "Microsoft.NET Framework Service Packs" ?
 
I wouldn't know, but I'm certainly willing to take your word on it being one of the worst.

Have you tried ESPN's apps? They're also awful. I refuse to use them now.
 
yeah. I've started using Comcast sport net's app, they have one for each of their major areas. if you have CSN in your area there is likely an app.

It's not the greatest - when you look at game outcomes it doesn't give you a box score which sucks. but it seems to be pretty good in terms of being a repository for articles on the teams.

It's at least not clunky and doesn't crash like espn
 
SkinnedAussie said:
I'm surprised that as Spear is running XP from 2002, he hasn't been advised that MS support will no longer be available online as of April, so there won't be any service packs, or security updates from then.
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Did that go into effect on April 1st or since the date of 4/1 ?
Because I would like to know if I will still be able to download Service Packs as of today's date. Something went terribly wrong with my PC where a load of Windows components were accidentally removed/uninstalled, including Internet Explorer (not positive how it happened), and I need to reinstall Internet Explorer, but before I can do that, I need to uninstall my old Service Packs, and then re-download them after re-installing IE.
But the MS Windows Update page won't let me view it using another browser, until I have IE re-installed. So I can't tell if it's still offering Service Packs.
 
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XP was end of life'd a while ago. No more service packs post SP3 but security updates continue until April of 2014. After that there is no more support or updates.

It had a good run for about 12 years but after the security updates go it will become a risk to use the OS for anything important if it is connected to the Internet.
 
MikeSr619 said:
I thought maybe it was my phone but the reviews in the google play store are just like mine.
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My tablet is NOT compatible with Google Play Store, so I'm pissed that I can't download Firefox for it, but I am trying out what is available to download (for free) so it's not all bad.
 
tshile said:
XP was end of life'd a while ago. No more service packs post SP3 but security updates continue until April of 2014. After that there is no more support or updates.

It had a good run for about 12 years but after the security updates go it will become a risk to use the OS for anything important if it is connected to the Internet.
Click to expand...

I had to re-install XP3 on my old desktop when I gave it to my SIL to use, and as my version was one of the early editions, I was UNABLE to download any service packs.

I then used a later, but unused, version of XP3, and that was a post-SP3 edition, so at least I was able to get up-to-date as far as that was concerned.

I could have used the XP3 that my SIL has, but that is installed on her old desktop, and had already been activated.

It's all this service pack BS that is one reason why I prefer to use Ubuntu. My SIL did not want to use it, so that is why I installed Windoze.
 
SkinnedAussie said:
My tablet is NOT compatible with Google Play Store, so I'm pissed that I can't download Firefox for it, but I am trying out what is available to download (for free) so it's not all bad.
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It may not be compatible due to licensing agreements but you can side load any app from the play store. I haven't done it in a while but last I checked you just downloaded it on your computer, transfered it via usb cable, and installed it. Look up sideloading.
 
SkinnedAussie said:
I had to re-install XP3 on my old desktop when I gave it to my SIL to use, and as my version was one of the early editions, I was UNABLE to download any service packs.

I then used a later, but unused, version of XP3, and that was a post-SP3 edition, so at least I was able to get up-to-date as far as that was concerned.

I could have used the XP3 that my SIL has, but that is installed on her old desktop, and had already been activated.

It's all this service pack BS that is one reason why I prefer to use Ubuntu. My SIL did not want to use it, so that is why I installed Windoze.
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Service packs are mostly all the updates combined into one since the last service pack. They changed the way windows update works but automatic updates still work for XP for another year. I, unfortunately, manage about 100 of them. If you need help updating one just let me know.
 
Guys, I am in desperate need of help, if you could please.
My previous attempts to solve this myself, have failed.

It all started a couple days ago. Completely out of the blue, I noticed that one by one, certain Windows components were either disappearing completely or not opening properly. I also noticed that the whole appearance of my Windows seemed to regress to an earlier, generic format or appearance. At first I thought a virus was wiping stuff out, then I began to wonder if I accidentally deleted an important Windows file or folder, or even accidentally un-installed a Windows component.

All of the following Windows programs are now completely gone from my PC iinexplicably, or they won't open properly : System Restore, Windows Media Player, Windows "Search", Internet Explorer, and MS Paint. And these are just the ones that I noticed. There could be more, and there seems to be more missing, I just can't figure out the names. Since they were all directly related to Windows, I began to suspect, maybe it wasn't actually a virus, but that something integral to Windows was inadvertently or accidentally removed from my PC.

So, this was the best response I could think of. I would re-install Internet Explorer. Then go to the Tools menu, and then Windows Update, like I normally would do for frequent updates. I figured if I could get that far, the Windows Update would detect all those Windows Components that I was now missing, and then offer to re-install them.

So, I first un-installed my Service Packs, since it seemed apparent I'd need to do that before re-installing IE. After re-installing IE, I go ahead and hit the Tools Menu, and then Windows Update. But I was shocked to see that it took me to a page that was literally completely blank. No error message - nothing indicating that the page no longer existed - just a totally blank white page.
This is the URL it brought me to -
http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/windowsupdate/v6/default.aspx
This webpage had worked only a matter of days ago, when I last checked for updates.
And as I stated in a post above, it should still work, because it's supposed to be good through April 8th, 2014 - over a year from now.

So then I manually went to the Microsoft.com site to try to manually find the updates, and scroll down to Microsoft Updates and click on it - and same result - a totally blank page.

I really cannot afford to upgrade my OS.

And the only other alternative I could think of, is to re-install the OS completely. However, this PC was given to me by a friend, and neither of us has the original Windows CD. I actually have a Windows XP from a previous computer, but if I remember correctly, in order to install or re-install from the CD, you need the original serial number, which I don't have.

Any suggestions ?
 
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Back up all your important files, format C: drive, and re-install from scratch. You can try and do a repair if you have the ORIGINAL disc, but if not, a clean install would be best.

Another alternative is to install WUBI (http://sourceforge.net/projects/wubi/) which will then install the latest Ubuntu. If you like what you try, you'll never have to use Windows again.
 
tshile said:
Service packs are mostly all the updates combined into one since the last service pack. They changed the way windows update works but automatic updates still work for XP for another year. I, unfortunately, manage about 100 of them. If you need help updating one just let me know.
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As my missus runs W7 on her laptop, we are trying to convince the SIL to upgrade so as to be compatible, at a minimum, with W7, or at least VISTA.

I'm waiting for the end of the month so as to upgrade to UBUNTU 13.04! It has already been released, but I prefer to wait about 3 weeks so as all the teething problems can be rectified.
 
SkinnedAussie said:
Back up all your important files, format C: drive, and re-install from scratch. You can try and do a repair if you have the ORIGINAL disc, but if not, a clean install would be best.

Another alternative is to install WUBI (http://sourceforge.net/projects/wubi/) which will then install the latest Ubuntu. If you like what you try, you'll never have to use Windows again.
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Thanks a lot, SA !

A few quick questions :

1) I assume Ubuntu is completely free, right ?
2) If I do the option to re-install Windows, it is going to ask me for the serial number and there's no way around that, correct ?
3) Do you suspect my problem may be the result of a virus ? If so, I probably would need to be careful about backing up my files, since they're most likely infected by the virus and would then just re-infect the PC once I re-load them after re-installing the new OS, wouldn't they ?
 
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