WalksInSilence

I suppose it is better than having the nag surreptitiously installed as a scheduled task which is what happened with XP (Pro 32bit). I have other Win7 Pro installations and not, at least not yet, been prompted to install the "Important" nag update on them. This made made me suspicious so I've checked all scheduled tasks and Customer/Windows Experience opt out settings and am pleased to report found nothing. But just the fact the update nag has been presented as "Important" is going to make me even more careful with my update checks from now on.

Today I was notified of an "Important" update: KB4524752. Checked what this small update was all about and not surprised to find it will allow to MS nag you regularly about the end of Win7 updates support in 2020. I've marked it to Hide this update but you can bet we'll get more of this sort of thing in the coming months.

Windows XP supported MSE definitions updates at least until 2016 and could still be updated manually until April (?) this year. Unless MS are real gits MSE itself might not get updated after 2020 but there's no reason to suppose the definitions won't be updated. But who knows? When MSE on XP couldn't be updated via the program itself and had to be manually downloaded/installed we were given no specific warning that was going to happen. One day the definitions could be updated as usual the next day the progress bar stalled. It retried and then stalled again with no explanation. You had to Google to discover the reason. Similarly when all support for MSE on XP stopped it happened suddenly without warning too.

I was going to bring up the Windows Updates issue. That 32GB recommended free space for 64bit OS mentioned by alacran is a MS joke. My Win7 64bit Windows folder is now 3+ years old and it has grown about 4GB/year, every year. The monthly Windows Updates marked as 'Important' are typically 250+MB minimum. They do not just replace they usually add so with only essential updates there is a 3GB/year reduction of free space. That is without the optional updates like MS .NET Framework which is actually required for a number of popular 3rd party programs. My Windows folder is now 36+GB, so long ago that recommended 32GB free space was shown to be a ridiculous under-estimate of what is really required. Add Pagefile.sys (default = total RAM ie. in this case 8GB) and Hiberfil.sys and that's another huge chunk of free space lost too. On my current system (16GB RAM) those two take up 26GB. The 120GB SSD which I'm also using on this this PC is shown as half full just with the OS and other system files.

Question - I use Firefox primarily and have uBlockOrigin turned off for MSFN pages. I see the adverts but still regularly receive messages asking me to turn off advert blocking, why? Is it the Firefox no tracking options that are being detected? If so I only have that on for any 'private' windows I open but I do have the 'Do Not Track' signal option ticked too. Not wanting my browsing habits tracked, by advertisers in particular, is a right. It is not advert blocking.

Agree ^ should be good enough for 1080p video playback but it is easy to find reviews that show you'd be lucky to get any game made in the last three years playing at acceptable fps even at minimum quality settings. That is a good indicator of Radeon Vega 3 graphics capabilities or better described as lack of capability. However that article/review above reminded me that one of the reasons I went for the i3 with Intel HD4600 graphics 4th generation CPU I use in my daily use PC was that it could get Tomb Raider 2013 playing at 25+fps. Those review figures suggest the Vega 3 graphics are considerably better so, for general use online, you can be confident it will be absolutely fine. 8GB RAM is more than you need for the purposes described but I would not skimp on that. Only change I'd make is with the SSD - more is better. I too use a 120GB for the OS and programs and if there is one thing I'd do with a new build now and the same budget is double that or more. 120GB soon gets filled and in absence of any other built in storage it could be limiting. My Crucial 120GB cost me a little more than £50/$65 which was good value 4 years ago but for that price you can buy a decent 500GB SSD now. You can get 240GB ones for under £30/$40. Far cheaper and faster than any external storage solution.

That should not be happening - I've not been using a desktop that long, only about 4 years, but I bought the MB almost 3 years before I actually fitted it and finished the build. I've not had to replace the now what must be a 7+ years old CMOS battery yet, My PC is powered down every day and as I use another one too with an equally old battery. One or the other is often not receiving any mains juice for 48hrs or more. As a result of the problem with that (2) PC described when I took out the CMOS battery I used a multi-meter to check the output and it was 2.9v. Pretty much perfect despite its age. The CMOS battery in the laptop I mentioned lasted 13 years before it died reverting the BIOS back to factory default. So if your PC is eating batteries there is something not right. The usual suggestions offered are the use of cheap batteries that have been on the shelf for years or a voltage leakage path draining the battery even when the PC is shut down. The latter is very difficult to diagnose and trace apparently.

Good advice but another often offered suggestion for boot problems. But how often does it turn out to be the cause? Only if the BIOS was seriously messed up on both banks enough to cause a boot problem like that described would clearing the settings by removing the CMOS battery fix the issue. The OP's description of his problem I'd be thinking overheating and the causes thereof like others here suggested back then. Clearing the BIOS settings is worth trying for sure. It was the first thing I tried in the (1) case I described, but since I had not updated the BIOS and the settings were still all factory at that time ie. 'optimised default' I did it with no real expectation of it working; and it didn't.

I really just wanted to record these cases somewhere as the second, in particular, appears to be a rarity so it might prove useful to someone in the future. With threads named like this it is certain to turn up in any search results about boot problems in general. I wasn't questioning any of the previous advice at all, far from it. But it doesn't hurt to mention that the cause of a suddenly malfunctioning PC is not always going to be something serious and expensive. People need to be given a bit of hope the cause might indeed be just a loose connection or something that is not going to cost them a big wad of money for a new PSU, RAM or on whatever is needed to fix it. The PS/2 keyboard thing still has me flummoxed - the connector or cable could not have been jolted or moved, Voodoo or gremlins is as likely an explanation as anything I can come up with.

I know this is an old topic but I want to add two possible other causes which resulted in a similar problem. 1). New build PC which worked fine for two weeks then suddenly gave a blank screen even before POST. No error messages or beep codes, no way to get into BIOS/UEFI or Safe Mode it just powered up. Fans, including GPU fans, HDDs and disc drive close/eject, on/off and reset all working. Cause: I eventually determined it was the cheap PCI Sound Card I had fitted, as an afterthought, that had apparently just died. With that removed the PC went back to normal as if nothing had happened. Why a sound card dying should have had such system wide effects I have no idea. 2). Same PC six weeks later, working perfectly until out of the blue it refused to boot. This time I had a beep error code but it did not correspond to any of the listed beep codes for my MB: 33 beeps/2 shorter beeps/3 or 4 beeps then nothing. Again no way to enter BIOS/UEFI or Safe Mode but PC power supply as before OK with everything spinning up as it should but nothing else happening. Cause: a PS/2 Keyboard. I have this as a rather good way of starting the PC. Many MB BIOS include this option "Start from Keyboard" or similar. What they don't mention is that it only applies to legacy PS/2 Keyboards not USB ones. You can use an USB keyboard alongside it like and other USB device but it won't work until the basic USB drivers are loaded. I'd been using this PS/2 start by keyboard option to save wear and tear on the notoriously fragile start button spring on the otherwise decent CoolerMaster case I used. Of course nobody had told me this before I bought it. The PS/2 keyboard worked to turn on the PC even with this problem so it didn't seem a likely culprit but whatever the precise cause when I unplugged it the PC started booting normally again. I reattached the keyboard and since then I've had no repeat so whatever the problem was - go figure as they say. Thing is I've done some searches and can find no reports of anything similar anywhere ever. A legacy PS/2 keyboard or perhaps the MB BIOS having some sort of temporary spat with it preventing a PC from booting. The point is that when something with such sudden dramatic effects occurs the first thing you'll usually be told on forums is that it is CPU, RAM, MB or PSU failure or something else equally serious. That is not necessarily true.

I'm using Waterfox portable more and more on my newer PC and enjoying it even though my favourite DownLoadThemAll doesn't display as well as it is meant to it is at least usable. I also found a source for legacy Firefox/Waterfox plugins:- https://legacycollector.org/ and am pleased to say I now have most of my other favourites, like New Tab Homepage, installed and working again. Why that is not a standard Firefox/Waterfox new tab option I do not understand either. One thing I'm doing though is keeping copies of them and a previous portable version installer for Waterfox so that if any future version update refuses to work with those plugins I can always revert back to that older version.

I have since found other sound cards which look suspiciously identical but sold under different brand names. There is one with a red rather than black PCB listed on Amazon (UK) and far more expensive (£40/$50) than what I paid (£7.99/$10 I believe) or that eBay listing. It does come with a claimed 3 year warranty though but I wouldn't take the risk I had just bought a duff example and certainly not at the price being asked.

Thanks, I isolated the problem card just before you posted ...................................its not the MSI GPU. Yay! It was actually the sound card. I tried it in both the spare PCI slots with the same result. How annoying, I only fitted it at the last moment because I wanted digital optical audio output (TosLink specifically). The problem is that to get a sound card with TOSLink digital output like that you have to spend quite a bit more than I wanted too. But I guess it is an important prerequisite that it doesn't end up crashing the whole system a few days after installation and looks like you don't get a guarantee of that with a cheap card. I can not remember where I bought it from possibly the local high street tech store Maplins (UK) which went belly up a few years ago and is now only a recently returned online presence. They don't sell it now. The card is marked as "Xenta" High Speed Sound Card and came with an installer driver mini-disc for Windows up to Win 7. If it is the same Xenta company they, mysteriously, now don't appear to supply sound cards or the other card types they used to. Hmmmm - no information about the sound card anywhere so it won't be difficult for others to avoid now. Found this listing on UK eBay:- https://www.ebay.co.uk/p/Xenta-High-Speed-Sound-Card-6-Channel/1723192452 After the hassle that piece of rubbish has caused me over the last 48 hrs I wouldn't even buy it at that price.

I tried clearing the CMOS value first and even taking out and testing the CR2032 battery. Battery fine, just less than 3v, but it did not make any difference. Next I removed all the RAM modules, tested them. All good. So I then thought why not see what happens when none are fitted. When I heard those warning beeps on reboot it suggested, maybe the MB is OK. However it took disconnecting everything - not just the power and SATA connectors from the SSD, HDDs, DD and GPU which is what I tried to begin with. No, I had to take the GPU, sound card and a legacy landline/answerphone card out of their PCI slots too. Only when I did that and rebooted did it POST and give me VGA graphics output prompting me to load optimised defaults. After doing that I still had a few other hassles but eventually it booted to my desktop using the CPU/MB's 64MB graphics of course. I still do not know which PCI device it is yet with problem. I'm going to have test each one but my money is on the GPU. Hope I'm wrong because the other two I can well do without. I'll post again to confirm which device it was with the problem. But why should a dead or faulty card have such a suddenly dramatic affect on the whole system? What could have caused that anyway? Whatever the case thanks again all for the previous suggestions and help.

Thanks. Very interesting possible explanation - the PSU is actually one of those generic ones that came pre-fitted in the CoolerMaster 330E case used. I was on a limited budget and at £50 for case and PSU it seemed like a good idea. It is more than powerful enough at 550W for the system requirements but although I was warned it could be a weak point in the build as regards power output if I wanted to upgrade the GPU I never thought about it actually partially failing. But if just the 12V rail has gone bad then it might indeed explain the symptoms. As suggested I'll try detaching the SSD, HHDs and the GPU while I'm at it - and revert to the default MB graphics output of course. My big fear is that the MB has failed but at least your idea about it being the PSU has given me some hope.

I have been putting the finishing touches to a long gestated Win7 build this week:- Win7 Pro SP1 64bit i5-3550 16GB (Corsair XMS3 ddr3 1600 4x4) matched GA-Z77-DS3H MB Crucial 120GB SSD Seagate ITB HDD WD 160 GB additional HDD MSI HD 7850 1GB GPU All hardware working fine so I installed the OS from flash drive, no problems. Driver install + updates no problems so I went ahead and started installing the programs I wanted, security software and personilized some setings and that too went perfectly. PC booting without issue and everything working as you'd hope. So last thing to do: Windows updates. I'd slipstreamed the Convenience Update Rollup into the installer and that and the required earlier one was listed in the updates. All as expected. Checked for new updates: 20 'important' and 18 optional. I just went for all the 'important' ones and started the downloading. Just under 500MB in total and then the installing went ahead. All was fine until 14 out 20 when the Monthly Malicious Software Removal tool August (2019) took a hell of long time to install. I left it for an hour - still no progress so I stopped the install using the button provided. But still the Windows Update process continued..........I left it for 5 minutes before shutting it down with Task Manager. The PC went back to desktop; I did a few other things like look up what to do if Windows Updates fail, decided I'd try updating Windows again tomorrow and then closed down the PC in the normal way. Only thing out of the ordinary is that I noticed there were some Windows updates queued for install on shutdown. So as it shut down I had the usual Windows is configuring message, normal in such circumstances but otherwise it was a unremarkable shutdown. The problem is that when I went to restart the PC about 30 minutes later it did not give the usual POST bleep, the MB logo didn't appear and the screen was blank. I then noticed the internet connection was not showing on the router and to cut a long story short: the fans are running fine, the HDDs are clearly spinning up but there is no output at all. Keyboard and mouse have no power, screen is recceiving no output from the GPU and the two flash drives I have attached - no power. You can't launch the MB BIOS/UEFI and obviously there's no way to boot in Safe Mode. I even tried one of the Windows install discs I have - nothing. So what the hell has gone wrong? Surely It can't be just a coincidence a previously 100% working new PC shuts down after a failed Windows update and then this happens. But what could it be? I'd appreciate some help with this because I have not the faintest idea even where to start to try and sort this out.

I was using MSE on a XP VM until support for that use was torpedoed by MS. A temporary solution for that was actually why I signed up here. However: back on topic I'd always assumed "Defender" was the same sort of thing as MSE but bundled with the newer than XP OS ie. Win7>. But I've checked and you're right, the Windows Defender I've been talking about is just an anti-spyware program unlike Windows Defender packaged with Win 8/8.1 which is the full monty. Nice of MS to make that so clear. Thanks for the information; very helpful.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/4472027/2019-sha-2-code-signing-support-requirement-for-windows-and-wsus It reads like it is pretty much non-optional. If you want to keep on having Windows updates for Win7 the KB4474419 SHA-2 must be installed. This is actually more relevant to me than I thought as I'm currently setting up a new Win7 installation - it actually reads like I might actually have to install it first if the SHA-2 requirement is backdated to all previous Win7 updates too. Anyone know if that is correct?

This bothers me: I'm setting up a virgin PC with Win7 and had to activate the OS using the licence key. I decided to do this online and so thought it prudent to at least have Windows Defender activated. Ironically you can not actually do that unless you're online but that is not the issue I have. The question is why is finding Defender on a Win7 PC such an effort? It is not listed as an installed program or under accessories and if it is accessible via the Control Panel its damned well hidden. If you use the system search and put in "Defender" up it comes at the top of the result. Bizarrely if you change the Control Panel > View display setting from Category to either Large or Small icons it magically appears in the menu list. So its somewhere in the Control Panel but not visible in Category view...........ummmm: why? When the OS is installed Windows Defender IS shown as an installed program in Programs but except by putting in a shortcut to the .exe there's no way to launch it. So even if it kicks in automatically if you go online without other anti-virus (there's no evidence it does) there's no other ways of accessing the GUI which includes manual scan options etc. This all seems a set of very weird methods of accessing a potentially important security tool. Any ideas why they did it like this and why it was not improved as part of SP1 or any of the other Win7 updates over the years?

There is some explanation about the updates on the MS web site the updates link too as normal but apart from the usual catch all 'security' flaw excuse they rarely expand on that. It is usually the third party sites that tell you more about what the monthly rollup contains, warn about telemetry gathering tasks the update might add to Scheduled Tasks and report other problems with updates. For those you'll have to Google. There is certainly a long held belief amongst some Win7 users that MS updates are now more about gathering data than actually protection the OS from outside attack let alone adding to or improving the functionality. Chances are if you do not update you'll have no problems but that comes with a certain amount of risk. But if you do install them it is doubtful you'll notice any difference but again, it comes with a risk that it will contain a snooping element or, as for this month's updates, conflict with some other program. It is my feeling that the risks of not updating now are less than if you do update ie. you're more likely to get problems caused by an update than anything the update will protect you from. But it is a gamble and you're going to feel a bit stupid if your computers are compromised because you did not update. Personally I'm now more interested in the MS .NET Framework updates than anything else MS provide. I have several programs that require that to be used and keeping it up to date is important.

I installed all this month's updates earlier today without any issue so far. Only slightly unusual thing was that it actually restarted the PC twice before the installed updates were finalised. I was also going to post a warning about the reports of problems connected with those systems using Symantec/Norton AV products too, I've learned the hard way to check for problems, like that, before installing any MS Windows update. So I always do some research and usually wait before installing them if any trouble is reported, even if apparently not related to anything else on my PC. But that seemed very specific and as I've never used any of their products I took the plunge.

Very much ^ what I was going to say too. Most third party programs can be installed to whatever drive you want during initial installation, there's no problem with that except being a HDD access will be slower than if it is on the primary volume SSD. For most stuff that is not an issue but you may notice it with things like resource demanding games, graphics, video editing programs etc. However it is installed there are still things which are going to be written to files it creates on the primary, usually C:\ drive wherever the program folder is actually located. That can even happen with portable versions too. The best way of saving SSD capacity is not to use the (my) documents folders at all. Have all your data folders on the 1TB HDD. You don't even need to move those user profile docs, although that is easy enough to do. Just create new folders on the HDD and use them instead of C:\Users\Name\My Documents, My Picture etc. It makes them less secure there but you can always encrypt the volume or part of it as required. Again some program still love to write stuff to specific folders in your original documents folders. Some games will save to My Documents by default or the VirtualStore and one of the mistakes I made was installing a VM (XPMode which might be relevant to the OP) and not checking where it would be installed. The default is C:\My Documents so I have a 27+GB VM taking up 20% of my 120GB SSD's free space. I'm too scared to move it now.

I've not actually installed anything yet; the PC is still virgin whilst I've been waiting for replies here and elsewhere. With my other Win7 PC I've been using for 3+ years I used the Convenience Update Rollup from disc just after the main OS had been installed. I've updated it with most, not all, updates offered since then although I've become VERY wary as MS just love slipping in telemetry gathering ones. I've opted out of their customer 'experience' program from day one but they have still done that twice now and I've dodged another one or two others. They do affect performance even if only for a short time. Creating a slipstreamed disc is really just a side project I thought I'd like to try. I'm even more convinced now that the Win7 download I found whilst genuine is not correctly set up for the slipstreaming tools as it will not allow me to add the updates to the Win7 extracted ISO unless I identify the version as required. It simply does not recognise "Windows 7" as the version ID, reporting the path as invalid. The downloaded ISO may well install Win7 correctly on its own but I'd have to add the updates separately as for my other Win7 PC. I do not mind doing that but as a backup a single disc with the Convenience Update Rollup included is a good idea which is why I wanted to do it. So I've imported the relevant numbered install.wim file for the Win7 version I have a licence key for from my MS Win7 disc. I used that to replace the contents of the downloaded version's install.wim and checked that up to the point of adding the required Stack Update and Convenience Update Rollup. It identifies the Win7 version correctly in the way the slipstreaming tutorials describes/show so that's what I'm going to try. I'd still like advice though on any aspect of this process so comments/suggestions are still very welcome.

I'm following this guide:- https://www.howtogeek.com/255540/th...eed-how-to-slipstream-the-convenience-rollup/ to create a slipstreamed ISO with the Convenience Updates Rollout. Everything is all set up, AIK installed, Win7 ISO unpacked etc but I ran into a problem mounting the DISM. It requires the specific Windows 7 ISO's name as a path. Problem is the Windows 7 64bit ISO I downloaded* appears to include full versions of HB, HP, Pro & Ultimate. When I used cmd to find the name it reported just as "Windows 7" so I assumed in this case the "install.wim" would be updated and when I came to install Window 7 I'd have the option to install whichever version I wanted and they'd all use the same slipstreamed "install.wim". Apparently not because when I put in "Windows 7" as the name cmd reported the path could not be found. The precise words used are "Error: 0xc1510113" "The specified image does not exist in the WIM". I'm thinking that I just need to put the name of the actual version of the four I want to use ie. "Windows 7 PRO" or "Windows 7 PROFESSIONAL" but I can find no confirmation about this anywhere. Does anyone here know and also know why it reports just as "Windows 7" as it was supplied. *BTW it was a legitimate download from MS and, of course, I do have a genuine factory sealed Win7 64bit OEM disc + unused key. I just wanted to try creating a slipstreamed backup and it seemed a good idea to do it all from scratch rather than use that original disc. EDIT I'm pretty sure now that the download, although a seemingly a trustworthy source, was not direct from MS, as it had been until quite recently, and that the "install.wim" folder content structure has been modified for some reason. This might be completely off the mark but it actually looks to me like somebody has taken authentic Win7 installer content and added files from an existing working PC, presumably running the specific Win 7 version required. The problem is that from reference to my own genuine Win7 installer discs it appears that the "install.wim" archive, where the main OS content is located, needs those files to be packaged in a particular way: inside a numbered folder. In this download's case they're all loose. Perhaps it would still install OK as it is but as far as the slipstreaming process goes it may not be usable. Install.wim Content: download Install.wim Content: org MS disc

Like others here, on my Win7 64bit machine I use FF v56 and even that is not perfect with certain legacy addons - at some point even before v56 the download manager: DownLoadThemAll which I've used for years the GUI stopped displaying as well as did with earlier versions but was still. OK. Classic Theme Restorer (obviously still very popular) is now shown as disabled and can't be launched from the Tools menu. I miss it a lot. Strangely Adblock Plus though shown as disabled is still working and although you can not use Favicon Customiser any more the new icons I had applied before it was disabled still work. DownloadThemAll displays OK and is usable in later FF versions than v56 but far from ideal and was the main reason I went back to v56 on that machine. What I use now, and kept up to date as an alternative is the portable addition of Waterfox, an excellent FF spin off. Although it still has the later FF like GUI display issues with DownLoadThemAll all the other extensions work pretty much as intended. At times I forget I'm not using FF.