I upgraded my AV software yesterday and now have an almost unusable machine. It started with some minor issues with browsing (strange rendering of pages), but after a system restore has now become a major breakdown with the PC refusing to load various programs, all brands of browsers crashing, and half my applications refusing to open. At least the netbook is working.
I'm currently catching up with my backup routine, and am bracing myself to do a clean install of Windows 7 at the weekend. I've been stuck with Vista for ages, and had resisted upgrading mainly due to the amount of time it will take to get everything backed-up and reinstalled to my liking. Fixing the current problem is likely to take at least as much time (one evening already wasted), so I may as well get a better system for the effort.
None of the above stops me taking photos though, so here are a couple from today.
Camera note: All shots taken with the Canon 7D EF and 400mm f/5.6L USM lens.
cakkleberrylane
2 Nov 2011Great shots. Quite an atmosphere in the first one!
chthoniid
2 Nov 2011Oh dear!
Dare I ask what AV programme you use?
RobinL
2 Nov 2011Words, I commiserate with you and the computer! Presently in the midst of an upgrade myself. Bought my first IMac last week! It's so smooth and painless, blows Windows out of the water! And that's from a diehard PC user! Windows finally broke my back
claudeb
2 Nov 2011But is it an AV program? Sounds like a computer loaded with way too much malware. As for inconvenient upgrading, that's another reason I love Linux: I can upgrade, even change distributions, without disturbing my files. At worst, applications need to be reinstalled.
gdare
2 Nov 2011When I upgraded to W7 all I did was to make my machine usable. Tweaking came later and I was doing it along with some other things I was doing, that made it less stressful than it usually is. And I use Kaspersky AV, it proved to be excellent even though I know it might make problems on older machines.
At least, cormorants don`t have to mess with computers 😛
Words
2 Nov 2011Just a quick comment. I upgraded F-Secure to version 2012 just before the problems started. Before that I did regular scans. Once I'd determined that the only piece of software playing up was Opera, I tried to download/reinstall Opera. That got an error message. I rolled back the install via 'system restore'. Reinstalled the F-Secure 2011 suite. That created a new series of problems that wouldn't allow any browser to launch. Nor various other software. Somewhere in the process something has been corrupted. Disabling F-Secure resolved that. I eventually found a tool to uninstall F-S. Opera was still playing up though (weird page rendering).
Next step is to install new AV for now and try Opera again. I need to back up mail/profiles etc before I uninstall Opera and try a clean install. That might work (things are slightly improved). But upgrading completely to Windows 7 makes sense as Vista is close to diabolical anyway.
I can live with using a netbook for a few day!
Words
2 Nov 2011Claude, any malware is too much. The machine is scanned weekly on a schedule, and is/was clean unless something got in while the F-Secure was updating (just possible I suppose). I suspect the Opera installation got corrupted somehow, but disabling F-Secure (and then removing it) cleared most of the problems. The machine is off-line for now until I reinstall some AV and do a scan.
serola
2 Nov 2011:faint: One of the reasons why I use Linux. Then I'm of course limited to GIMP but once I learned to use it, its almost perfect for my needs. I hope you get that solved soon, Words
anonymous
2 Nov 2011Colin writes:
vista is a pile of doo-doo win7 much better. I haven't had any bother with it yet but I'm not a heavy user. I don't run any AV stuff on it, just use it sensibly.
I have been struggling with keeping up with storage of my files across several machines and various ages of hard drives, so I'm looking at getting some networked storage that will do proper raid and allow drives to be swapped in and out at will, then find enough fee online storages to keep irreplacable stuff off-site… or better get a group of trusted people to share their storage space. When all that is done it will be a lot less bother doing complete wipe of hard drive and reinstalls/upgrades.
Words
2 Nov 2011It's really just laziness that has stopped me upgrading before, but this is probably the nudge I needed. Meanwhile, the desktop PC is still running. Just scanning it for viruses (75% done and all reporting clean). Then to do some other malware scans and sort out Opera (which I suspect is corrupted).
Not too bad so far.
All my photos are on external drives anyway, so backing up the rest won't take too long. The real pain will be reinstalling all my software on Windows 7. There's always something I forget I'll need!
I'll probably do the update at the weekend.
Words
2 Nov 2011Well AVG found two corrupt files in my Opera cache and all now seems fine and the main machine is back in business. 😀 Odd that F-Secure completely let me down there :confused:
Words
2 Nov 2011Brendan. yes most 'enterprises' skipped Vista, and I can see why. I've actually got this machine working again, so I can take my time with the upgrade; but it is something I really ought to do soon. My laptop is still on XP (a great workhorse of an operating system).
chthoniid
2 Nov 2011I had to do the software reinstall when my last machine (XP…wow) gave up the ghost. Fortunately I could see the signs coming and organised the transfer of software licenses ahead of time. That made it pretty stress free.
Fwiw, I now have a Windows 7 PC…and it really is very quick and smooth. I have a laptop still on Vista and never warmed to that. The differences are appreciable (I guess for much the same reasons the University I work at went from XP to 7, bypassing the whole Vista thing).