My Windows 8.1 Is Now Windows 8

Less than a week after the upgrade from Windows 8 to windows 8.1 I encountered a problem. A big problem. .

A few days earlier I tried to connect to my Windows 7 but received a message it wasn't available, even though it was turned on. (This was working in Windows 8.)  I thought it was probably a setting somewhere and would investigate when I had more time.

Yesterday, I attempted to update my ESET Smart Security to version 7. It acted like it was installing, but before the install completed an error message popped up and the install closed. The error indicated I did not have sufficient Administrator privileges, which i knew was wrong, but I right clicked on the install and selected run as Administrator, but no go.  The same error occurred.





I contacted ESET and they told me to download  ESET Smart Security 7, uninstall the old version and then install the new version. It did not uninstall.  I finally used Revo Uninstaller and cleaned up all the files, but the new version still would not install with that message ‘The Installer does not have sufficient Administrator privileges…..

Now the hunt was on, how do I set the privileges?

I learned some stuff about using the Microsoft Management Console and about How to Enable Local Administrator Account.but all this did not help me install ESET.

I booted into the Admin Account, nope, didn't work. I tried installing from an elevated command prompt, no way.

So then I tried to install the previous version, still the same problem.

Now I am starting to get really frustrated.  The problem is Windows, not ESET. I had read that there were problems with Windows 8.1 in my favorite newsletter, Windows Secrets, in an article by Susan Bradley. But none of the problems mentioned by Susan were anything like mine.

So, I backed up my data, and reinstalled Windows 8. It isn’t as nice as Windows 8.1 in lots of ways, but it let me install stuff, including ESET.

Windows 8.1

I upgraded my Windows 8 to Windows 8.1 without any problems. It took almost as long to download and upgrade as a new install, but when it was completed, everything worked OK. A few settings I had tweaked had to be re-tweaked, but all in all it was an easy upgrade.

As soon as I completed the upgrade, Windows Update popped up and I had 4 updates!



The new Start button isn’t like the one in earlier versions of Windows. To access anything, you must right click on it and then you get this:



That’s ok, but I wonder why they put Programs and Features here, it’s not like I want to uninstall programs that often.

I have set my windows 8.1 to boot directly to the Desk top as I really hate those great big flashing tiles on the Modern UI.

Some folks are having problems getting to the Windows 8.1 update.

Maybe these sites can help you.

How to download the official Microsoft Windows 8.1 ISO

Why can't I find the update in the Store?

Windows 8.1 Upgrade Woes

Windows 8.1 is what Windows 8 should have been in the first place. However, the average user is still probably not going to be too happy with Windows 8.1, as they won’t know how to tweak it to their liking.

How to eradicate Metro from your Windows 8.1 PC

So far I can live with it.

Missing?

Yep, I’ve been missing in action.

Every now and then I get an overwhelming urge to ‘re do Windows’.  Most of the time I shrug it off and keep on going, but early last week, I just re-did Windows.

For some time I have been keeping a special file directory containing all of the programs, utilities and settings I need. I keep the activation codes for the programs that I have bought online in this file. I keep this special file directory on an external drive (actually more than one), so after I did all the updates I copied this directory to my freshly installed Windows and put everything on it that I need/want.

Sounds like a good plan, but as everyone knows, sometimes things just don’t go as planned.

Nearly everything did go just fine. Nearly.  Unfortunately the thing I usually rely on the most had some ‘glitches’.  OK, a LOT of glitches.

I have just way too many email accounts. I want to keep them separate, so I use several email programs. Outlook 2010, Windows Live Mail 2012, Thunderbird and eM Client are my email programs.  (I am eventually going to replace Outlook with eM Client. I am still checking it out, but it is looking good.)

For several of my accounts, Thunderbird would not accept the passwords. Try as I could, just couldn’t get those accounts to work. Eventually I just had to go online and change the passwords and finally they all worked. As for Outlook, well I almost just forgot about it, as I managed to make a huge mess of that. Put that on hold and started over and it went without a hitch. I know better, but I kept trying when I was really tired.  After a good nights sleep, things worked better.

I thought I had a more recent backup of some of my files, but of course that was one of the things that went awry. However, the important stuff is always backed up daily, so I am now good to go.

So now that is all done, I'm back!

The Sound on YouTube

Lately some videos on YouTube don’t seem to be playing any sound. Really, sound is so necessary to hear those kitties and puppies!

While the fix is easy, it doesn’t seem apparent at first.

Just look at this tiny screenshot, notice the white bar. (Just click the screenshot to enlarge)




Grab that white bar and start sliding it until it all the way over to the right side.



The sound should now be playing.

My guess is YouTube is trying to satisfy those folks who hate sound blasting at them when they go to a site. If that isn’t the reason, I have no idea why the change. But the fix is easy.

The only problem, you have to move that slider for every video.

Laptop Typing

Sometimes when I type the cursor jumps to a previous spot on my page. Since I am not a touch typist, I may not notice this for a bit.  Now I have to go back and retype a lot of words.

How aggravating!

It is aggravating, but the fix is easy.  Just turn off the touchpad while typing.

My laptop will allow me to disable the touchpad by ‘tapping’ in the upper left corner, but it sometimes takes a lot of tapping.

There are several utilities that can help with this if your computer doesn’t have the settings to allow you to turn it off. On my laptop there is a small program named Synaptics that resides in the Control panel and can be accessed by clicking ‘Mouse’.



I can either turn the touchpad off temporarily  or disabling it altogether. Since I always use a mouse I choose to disable it.

You can also access the Touchpad settings by going to show the hidden icons on the Desktop: Click that tiny up arrow to see what’s there.

Click the red Snaptics icon to open the dialog in the Control Panel and choose your settings.  You can also make changes to your cursor, how fast and which to use here.





For more options on disabling the touchpad, look at Gismo’s site.

Internet Explorer

According to StatCounter via CNET, Internet Explorer’s use is on the rise World wide.

I don’t use Internet Explorer. Every time I try there seems to be issues that cause it to freeze or crash. I suppose it could be a conflict on my computer somewhere, but if that is the problem, why is there no conflict with Firefox or Chrome?

Recently I have been using IE a bit more often, since I need to test an application in IE. Up until about three days ago it was working just fine, but then all at once  it would load blank pages whenever I clicked a link.

The usual suspect when there are browser problems is an add-in. In order to start fresh, I set IE back to the default state.



I rebooted but still nothing worked. Apparently the default state doesn’t disable add-ins.

So I opened the tools menu and selected Manage Add-ons.



There I found the culprit.



Once I disabled it, everything worked as it should. No more blank pages.