Uncranking the cranky machine...

Windows desktop has been rather cranky for at least a year. Or so. To the point where, 9 out of 10 times, it would blue-screen within 15 minutes of starting up cold.

Now, it's not the manufacturers fault. It was working fine. Thing about Windows machines, you can touch them. Inside. Not always in a nice way. But, this desktop is old enough to have no native USB 3.0 ports. So I dropped a card in. No problem, right?

And there weren't any, for quite awhile. Started adding things to the USB chain. Still okay. Cool! The speed difference is quite apparent. Then, bit by by, I started seeing lockups. Nothing moves, unresponsive, no errors. Hard restart. Always cringe when I have to do that. And it started to get worse. BSODs were saying that I had that ambiguous driver issue. Also started to see "Display unresponsive" errors. Ding! Replace the display card. Nope. Even tried the Windows 8 upgrade, hoping for some relief. Got to the point where I wouldn't shut the machine down at all. Could restart. Just could not let it shut down and sit.

Finally, it dawned on me that it could be that USB card. Got a replacement, with auxiliary power, and popped it in this weekend. So far, so good. Knock on wood.

If it remains stable, it means I won't have to replace my desktop for at least another year. Maybe 2. By that time, I may be ready to hop the fence to the Apple side. Or even let the desktop go altogether, depending on what I am (not) doing. Situations change...

Another leap

Leap of faith. Gonna try and do a digital download/upgrade of my desktop to Win8Pro from Win7Pro. As a technologist, it's something I need to do, if only to speak from experience, good or bad.

I am backed up. I do have a notebook on Win7, so it's not quite a blind leap. *deep breath* See y'all on the other end.

And "Temple of Syrinx" popped into my head, haha. Praying to the wrong gods...

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Update: Upgrade finished. About 2.5 hours, for my stuff, which included migrating files, settings and applications. Not bad, if anxious.

This will take some getting used to. Just about all the applications I have are considered "legacy" to Windows 8, so it keeps hopping over to the what is now "classic" Windows 7 desktop. Rather annoying. And that whole Tiles thing? That's the Start menu taking up your whole screen. I still need to find out how to reach my Programs listings, since there is no longer a flyout menu system.

For those that are stuck in the Windows XP (or earlier) world, this transition is going to hurt bad. If you were considering a platform move, to OSX or some Linux distro, now would be a good time. It's that different from XP, like "falling off a cliff" different.

Microsoft, Patch Tuesday, Windows Vista, Freaking out

It's "Patch Tuesday" again; ho-hum... Do the "dumb-user" thing and accept the default updates to the Windows Vista installation.

Restart; OH NO! Get this black screen with Registry stuff in it! Drive light is going balls-to-the-walls... what do I do?

Think about it; Microsoft wouldn't put a patch out that would break your machine, now would they (doh!)? Assume that this is a part of the process and let it finish...

Whew! Another restart, see the "Part 3 of 3; do not turn off your computer" notice (why didn't that put that in the other screen?), and we're back!

Again, like the Dell thing, did they assume that people would know not to touch the power button, like if Windows "hung?" C'mon, folks! You're supposed to be smarter than us and anticipate that stuff!