Thursday, January 14, 2010

Messin with Windows 7

I broke down today and took the new computer out of its case and plugged it in.  It came to life and immediately headed off into na na land downloading and updating.

I had expected this, since it had not been turned on since before we left KC, but it was never ending.  Now remember we are on that 5 GB thing with the Air Card, and I do not like the idea of paying for overages, so I had to try and figure out what it was doing.

I had set the update on manual, meaning check and inform me of the need for an update but do not actually do it.  But there are updates from HP as well as Microsoft.  It was doing the HP stuff.  After a while I got it canceled.   I may allow some of it later.

But then as I was actually using the machine to read some blogs, it started again on the never ending update.  This time I had to start control panel and try to see what was running.  Now remember I do not know all the ins and outs of windows 7, so trial and error was in full force.

After doing the control alt delete bit, I was able to see the list of processes that were running, and which ones were using the network.  Looking up the program names on the internet, informed me that it was Norton Utilities that was endlessly downloading.

Now I don't like Norton too well anyway, and I never intend to pay for the software once the 60 free stuff expires.  So since I usually use AVG free, I uninstalled Norton.  It actually asked me why I was uninstalling it.  I declined to answer.

The download continued!  I never did decide what was downloading.  It wanted to be rebooted after a while, and rebooted itself.  Didn't even ask me, just did it while I was getting a shower.  AVG had errored out of its download, but I think the reboot killed the download.

I started the download again and babysat as it pulled about 50 meg.  But AVG loaded and replaced Norton.  Yea!  I know that microsoft has a new free program that does this process, but I am familiar with AVG so I opted for the familiar.

By the time all this was complete, it was late in the afternoon.  Computer wasted my entire day!  But we were overcast most of the day, and it threatened rain.  Loyce had gone out on a fabric run, so I was by myself.

The sun finally came out, and I headed out riding the scooter, over to a local scooter shop.  Again I was looking at larger bikes.  Shouldn't do that!  Everyone seems to favor the Suzuki Burgman.   Boy is that expensive for a scooter.

Tonight, it did get all thunder stormy and actually rained for about a half an hour.  Of course that is enough to mess up all the wash jobs of the vehicles, but I put the scooter inside the trailer to keep it dry.  Ther desert really needs the rain.

Reitred Rod

4 comments:

  1. Good plan on getting rid of Norton - it sure is a resource hog. I also noticed one time that the HP download on one of our computers took forever and ever - couldn't figure out what the heck it was doing and why it took so long. All I had from HP was a printer.

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  2. Don't ya hate it when the computer does stuff you don't understand, can't figure out, and can't stop?

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  3. Rod, You will need to go to the Norton web site and use a program they have to completely get rid of Norton. It is not easy to get rid of it but can be done from their site. Jerry

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  4. Jerry, you bring up a good point about not really getting rid of Norton. When I asked for an uninstall, it gave me the option to remove it or totally remove it. ??? What does that mean? So I asked to totally remove it. Again it went out on the internet and contacted home base. That is when it asked me why I wanted to remove it completely. And I didn't answer. It went about its task, and is no longer listed in the program list when you go to control panel. Also the random internet actions stopped! They must control your computer from their office. Of course google does that too when you use blogger, so what's my problem? But it seems to be totally gone from this machine, at least for now.

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