Ejbdesk1-maintenance-log

From Ed's Mediawiki


This page links to a record of stuff I have done to maintain ejbdesk1, my core i5-based windows 7 machine

Software added and removed

This is a record of programs added or removed over time. I am adding this after having done a lot without recording it, so it will be a little patchy until I catch up.

For some programs, removal is not straightforward, so they have their own topics. See below for information on these.

Thunderbird Issues

Great tool, but sometimes it loses its way.

Email Accounts

Setting up my email servers right.

Added Backup Drive

MOZY Issues

Note: I no longer use MOZY.

MOZY online backup works great, but issues come up sometimes.

The latest issue is that they blew out their prices for large backups to the point that it is not cost effective for me to use them anymore. Now I use Crashplan (details below).

Crashplan notes

I do backups pretty much continuously both to a local drive and to the cloud. The service I use for both of these is CrashPlan. For $120 a year, I back up three computers with unlimited storage. I currently have about 1,100 gigabytes backed up, most of this being my photo collection and family video clips.

Switch User Shortcut

Adding a button to go directly to switch user

Print shares for MAC OS X

Using LPD to serve my WIN7 printer shares.

Failed V drive

A poster child for having a backup strategy!

Deleting Too Long Folder and its Containing Tree

Removing Print Drivers

Things were getting messy, and I needed to re-do print drivers from scratch. Surprisingly hard to remove multiple drivers for the same hardware.

Context Menus and File Associations

Replacing V drive

V drive showing SMART errors. No real failure, but SMART errors indicate failure soon, and are enough to justify warranty replacement.

System Rebuild - Lost MBR on C drive

C: drive seems to have failed, and the untested drive image I had created did not succeed in a bootable replacement. The saga of the re-build.

Random Blue Screen Crashes

I have not seen these, but I keep finding that the machine has rebooted.

Uninstalling KB971033

Microsoft added this update to help fight pirated versions of Windows, but it is very annoying. Since I have a legal license that this update was questioning, and it required action on my part, I removed it.

SMART warning on C drive

Windows update failing

Making a system image

I have done this twice before, but did not write about it.

Jalbum Topics

I use Jalbum for my photo and video web pages. Very good tool. Misc topics covered here, including some technical stuff I have learned along the way. jAlbum uses plugins called skins to make nicer pages. I mostly use a skin called "matrix," which has its own complexities. Some of these are covered here.

Removing Kodak Easyshare

When I was looking for ways to easily share photos at full resolution, I downloaded and installed Kodak EasyShare. I ended up deciding not to use it, but the uninstall did not work. Later, Kodak got out of the business, and later still, I decided to clean this up. Some web research led me to this Kodak software: Clear Utility for KODAK EASYSHARE. I downloaded and ran it, and it seemed to be working, but stopped for multiple hours at some point. I killed the process and started it again, and that seemed to work. The web site says that this removes "leftover" files after an uninstall, but that seems to include the program itself if it has not been uninstalled successfully.

Norton Internet Security System Tray problem

With an upgrade to a new version of NIS, the tray icon kept going away shortly after closing the application interface.

Backup Disk Upgrade

The external drive I was using for local backups was getting full. How I moved my Crashplan backups to a bigger drive.

Restoring Ultra VNC

Norton Internet Security stopped working

System Disk Failure

Laser Printer Replacement

Our trusty old LaserJet 2200 finally wore out.

Memory upgrade

Firefox video issues (html5)

A subtle problem that kept Firefox from playing certain MP4 videos coming in through html5

Clearing out unused disk space

Some of my drives have a lot of deleted files, some containing confidential stuff. Just for security, I want to periodically wipe this old stuff.

Problem installing VMware, so adding Virtual Box

Update May 25, 2020

This machine is now EJBSHOP. It is running Windows 10, and has a solid state drive. I use it for internet browsing and email, plus running SolidWorks and other CAD programs, along with Zoom and Microsoft Teams for video conferencing.