HarryTri

No error messages in the event viewer?

Maybe you should try reinstalling it? Does the icon of this program appear in Windows Explorer first of all?

Try not changing the name (which must be the correct thing to do).

Today I discovered the solution by chance: While into the program click on the "Settings" symbol, then click on "Accounts", click on the account you want to configure and you'll be presented with a set of configuration options including the one to receive email notifications for this account or not.

The option to choose is really important. In Windows XP you can choose between the new and the classic shell e.g. in the case of the Start Menu. In this way each individual chooses what he likes best and everyone is happy. Windows 8 still have many customization options (if you look for them you can find them e.g. taskbar icons with text like on Windows XP) but could and should have more. Why not somebody to be able to choose between the Start Screen and the Start Menu or have them both? I can't understand why it is the one or the other.

A bit of humor is always good! (and more positive than just "crapping" everything).

Windows XP was and is great in terms of computing experience, it is totally worthy of it's name (xp derives from experience). Microsoft made the absolute OS and then... tried to make something better. They ignored two simple rules: 1) You don't have to change a good GUI in order to improve an OS (you can change everything else instead). 2) You don't have to remove something every time you add something else!!!

You are apparently using a third party Start Menu for Windows 8, which one is it and what version?

Macrium Reflect Free is very good too. It allows you to create an image of the Windows (and any other) partition online using VSS technology, it makes compressed and verifiable (with embedded hashes, no comparison to the imaged partitions) images and you can easily make with it a Linux/Windows PE rescue CD/USB stick to use in order to restore the Windows partition, if you have to, from the created images. The only problem is that in order to use the Linux rescue CD the image must be on another hard disk drive (whereas with the Windows PE rescue media it can be on another partition of the same HDD). You can also mount the created images and restore individual files/folders from them. I use it for some time and I am very satisfied.

After the relative failure of Windows Vista (when they believed that they had reinvented the wheel) Microsoft is apparently in a permanent state of confusion. Windows are always Windows, though, let's hope that they'll make their mind about what they want to do and Windows 9 will head to the right direction.

Windows 8 has MSE/Windows Defender implemented too. If you don't have other AV installed the Action Center warns you that Windows Defender is deactivated and urges you to activate it.

I still use XP SP3 on my old Pentium 3 desktop, it has the advanced features of SP2 and all the SPs bug fixes. I haven't updated it further since it is not connected to internet (the safest AV/firewall by the way ) but I will update it to the unofficial SP4 when it is ready (I mean not in beta stage).

A lot of people use Windows 8 (me too of course). If you don't like it, just don't use it. Anyway you should respect those who do and their opinion and not insult them.

The Windows Update files are stored in the "dllcache" folder and sfc can find them there, if you have the "dllcache" untouched there won't be any problems. The same goes for the Service Pack files and the same named folder.

It seems that the files are copied first and compressed afterwards, NTFS file compression does cause a lot of fragmentation (I know it by experience).

Also an sfc/scannow in case some system file(s) is/are corrupt could be recommended.

Perhaps you should try with the Windows XP built-in defragmentation utility? From my long experience using it I can say that you can rely on it.

I don't agree that Windows 8 is crap, they have their problems but we shouldn't be so negative, if it is really crap then why do we use it? Anyway the lack of Start Menu is indeed the most serious of its problems - of course there are some solutions for it available (I personally use Start Menu X by OrdinarySoft) - and it is good that Microsoft eventually heard the opinion of their customers on this issue.

I also had problems with IE10, it was crashing all the time and usually when I was closing it so I did a reinstall of Windows 8 from the recovery partition and now things are better (IE10 still crashes but not all the time). Anyway I think you can download and install IE11 on Windows 8, isn't it correct?

Why do you want to do it from the command line instead of the symbols sidebar?

J7n, antivirus is a must for even the newest Windows OS, especially if you do such dangerous things like on-line banking.

System Restore restores the registry to a backup created at the same time with the restore point, so there mustn't be anything related to DirectX 10 left in your system's registry. The real issue is, perhaps, that DirectX 10 must be supported by your graphics card, if it is older than Windows Vista then this surely isn't the case.

What do you mean by the "default icon"?

I did a restore from my laptop's hidden partition and, after updating Windows 8 and cleaning Windows Update with the Disc Cleanup tool the result for the WinSxS folder is 11.6 GB actual size and 10.9 GB disk space, so it does become compressed after all.