I’m killing time. Right now I’m waiting for updates and downloads to complete on my office work computer, a machine that I went to great trouble to make bulletproof. For example, I run a top-end Intel SSD and have a disk image backup.
Today, my machine gave me a BSOD after uninstalling a troublesome program. Acronis Enterprise Server. So, just to help people who might have issues or are considering using this program, I though I’d write about it while I wait for the updates to complete, since Acronis forced me to install a fresh copy of Windows 7 Professional.
This is one of this cases where a program started out great, then as corporate weaslism takes hold due to the success, the program becomes more bloated, fragmented, dependent on more libraries, license tiered, and overall more difficult to manage and less rewarding in actual use.
At my office we used to love this program, because it had a great feature that allowed you to image your disk to a state where windows didn’t have anything except the generic/basic boot drivers installed, allowing you to image to another mobo/processor combination. This days are long gone and we’ve relegated Acronis to the scrap heap because it has become an enterprise level mess in more ways than one.
I still had Acronis on my main work machine, but this morning the background program for it started doing weird stuff, utilizing a lot of CPU space. My usual checks for malware/virus came up zero, and I had no explanation for why the Acronis background server program was using a lot of CPU cycles. So, I decided to uninstall it.
Big mistake, HUGE mistake.
After uninstalling Acronis, I found I was in a boot loop, and right after the Win7 animated logo, I’d get a BSOD. Safe mode – same thing, and attempts at OS repair (using Windows tools and third-party tools) came up with no success at all. I also thought it might be related to a recent bungled Microsoft patch which causes a BSOD boot loop after Windows update installs it and the user reboots for the first time, and downloaded the removal tool as a bootable ISO to burn to CD. No joy there either.
I’ve never had the de-installation of a program hose the operating system. Never.
It makes me wonder what sort of “tentacles” Acronis attached to the OS without telling me. So, needless to say, Acronis is now permanently off my list, especially since I had used it as a backup program to keep a disk image. My backup image included the Acronis program, so since trying to remove it caused the problem in the first place I was in a no choice situation – a fresh install of Windows 7 Pro was the only way forward.
I spent the entire morning on the mess Acronis created, and I’ve not got a single thing done today other than deal with that mess.
After a fresh install of Windows 7, which gets me back to the desktop, but of course I have a lot of work ahead putting programs and files back into place, along with 147 Windows updates, and likely more after that.
I know many of you will throw out the standard gloating snippets like:
- Get a Mac
- Run (pick your distro) Linux
- Run FreeBSD or CentOS or some other OS
etc…
…with tales of fantastic other-worldly levels of reliability, so let me just say in advance that until this incident, I have had wonderful reliability with Windows 7 and I have far too much invested in programs and systems to move. So, those aren’t options for me.
Thanks for killing time with me while I wait for the updates to download and install.
I have to reboot now to finish. See you in a few hours.
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From Poptech on May 12, 2013 at 2:13 am:
Gee, great job moving the goalposts when it looks like you’ll lose.
And there it is. If you’re a major PC manufacturer, you’re working closely with M$ under the cloak of NDA’s, and you have all the information you need to make certain the preloaded M$ you’re shipping installed on your PC will work on that PC. That includes having tailored proprietary drivers, even tailored M$ if needed.
But when it comes time to “upgrade” the M$, no guarantees. Hell, machines got broken with Service Packs.
So fresh out of the box, didn’t need “third party utilities or tweaks”. Although you could see that stuff with the bundled software.
But change just about anything, make it not exactly the box that was sold with that specific M$ version that worked with the included restore disks, and stability could go south real quick.
Sorry I can’t participate in your blaming fantasy, but I did a lot of online researching over the years, found solutions ad tools I could trust, that worked. I did make some mistakes, and fixed them, part of the learning process. Learned a lot.
Of course now with Debian Linux I haven’t had those issues for years, skills get rusty… When was the last time you booted off a DOS disk so you could change attributes of files ME refused to acknowledge so you could see and delete them? Nothing else got rid of those unneeded Sys Restore files.
Too bad your selective amnesia forgets that period.
My system was particularly fun. If a program terminated funny or if ME found another reason to call up Help and Support, it used the built-in IE, phoned home to M$ to retrieve info… Well, that was the theory, in practice it practically guaranteed a system crash by taking what would have been a chancy bit while the system settled down after an event, and draining resources in an uninterruptible fashion that resulted in a system freeze or crash. I had no need for IE, had to get rid of it.
Wikipedia has a good entry, Removal of Internet Explorer:
Good writeup. As it says could happen, Help and Support was hosed, but before it was self-hosing so no loss. There went Outlook Express, which I didn’t use and didn’t want the vulnerability to viruses.
All in all, my computer was better for it.
The sad part is, you refuse to acknowledge your problem. I was there, I know what I did and why I did it, and it worked. I was no great innovator. I researched, I did what worked for others, that worked for me too.
You are saying the problems didn’t exist, or were caused by trying to fix things that weren’t broken (despite obvious appearances). You are arguing the existence of mass delusion accounted for the perceived M$ flaws, including the many perceptions of those flaws being fixed. Which is sad.
From Poptech on May 12, 2013 at 1:52 am:
I’ve used comment systems with built-in Preview before. It sends what you’ve typed over to the server side, renders it (hopefully) as it’ll appear. Repeat process for every little change. Gets annoying on dial-up, the back-and-forth takes so long.
And every time, server-side resources get used. WordPress-dot-com is a free service for bloggers, although they offer premium hosting. So Preview would eat up resources for a non-essential feature.
Or you could have client-side Preview. Which will require additional scripts be downloaded with the page. And since there will be no modules or such downloaded and installed on the client device, the engine will be redundantly downloaded for each page, every time, every refresh.
You’re complaining about “worthless extensions”. Thus I doubt you’d be interested in installing a “wordpress commenting” plug-in to give you Preview and other features, as you don’t want the offered solution.
Which leaves us with you complaining that a free service is unwilling to pay for a luxury item that you consider a requirement for a modern respectable establishment.
And I must agree, how WordPress has treated you is appalling, especially considering how much you have paid them to use their site.
kadaka, you have already proven you should not be given anyone advice. Your delayed post clearly shows you asked someone in a desperate attempt to know what you are talking about. Maybe you missed the order I already stated to check things in,
1. Malware infection
2. Defective, Overclocked or Misconfigured Hardware
3. Faulty Drivers
Technically what to blame in what order completely depends on what error is being received.
When updating drivers, it is always recommend to use WHQL (Windows Hardware Quality Labs testing) drivers if possible. These will be the most reliable and least likely to cause problems. However they are not always available.
This can be done but is not necessary. Anti-Rootkit scanners like TDSSKiller will find any hidden files as that is what they are designed to do. Windows does not hide any files that a regular anti-malware program cannot scan.
You rarely have a problem? So? You have worked on next to no systems and have no such experience to be given such advice. Memory next to mechanical HDs and fans is the most failure prone component in a PC. Memory should always be tested on new systems and when troubleshooting system crashes or instability. Google found DIMM error rates are hundreds to thousands of times higher than thought;
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/storage/dram-error-rates-nightmare-on-dimm-street/638
You don’t need to run stress testing on RAM, just memtest86+ – http://www.memtest.org/
This may fix a POST issue but is unlikely to fix a memory failure issue. And the only “blowing” that should be done is with compressed air. Reseating what connectors? What are you talking about? On older systems (10+ years) certain PCI slots would be designated to share IRQs that may cause a problem with badly written drivers. These issues are uncommon today and at the time easily to diagnose if you knew what you were doing.
Unless he had a POST issue this would be unnecessary. When testing memory you would test one module at a time with a diagnostic program not by guessing. Of course this is easier if you have a $4000 dollar standalone memory tester, most home users do not have access to such devices. http://www.memorytester.com/
I never signed an NDA. There was no insider information needed, you just needed to make sure the hardware met the OS system requirements, was not defective and OS compatible drivers were available. Microsoft does not provide “tailored drivers”, they simply repackage drivers submitted to them from the hardware manufacturers and provide WHQL certification to drivers that pass. You just keep digging your BS hole deeper and deeper.
More BS, if an update was legitimately causing something to break it is pulled by Microsoft and fixed. So long as the system is malware free and the hardware is working properly updates will install fine.
So fresh out of the box, didn’t need “third party utilities or tweaks”. Although you could see that stuff with the bundled software.
No system fresh or ten years old needs third party utilities or tweaks to be “stable”. The bundled software was based on deals made by the OEMs. They are a way to make extra money on the razor thin margins OEMs operate on.
Again name the major system OEM that required such utilities or tweaks to keep Windows “stable”.
I am sure someone like you could find ways to do this by irresponsibly applying nonsense they read online by people who do not know what they are talking about. The rest of us have systems that work perfectly fine.
Clearly you do not know how to properly do this type of research as you have fallen for various Internet myths and urban legends.
What are you talking about? A DOS boot disk would not be able to read the FAT32 file system. Windows ME also got rid of Real Mode DOS which made it more stable. All proper troubleshooting procedures for system restore in ME were available from Microsoft,
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306768
No I remember fixing many people’s systems that did stupid things like rip IE out of it. They got charged for it too. All my customers who listened did not have such problems.
LMAO, Wikipedia is the last place you should using to research something. There is not a single documented legitimate issue that using any of these programs fixed. To the contrary they actually caused system instability issues, broke Windows components and third party programs and caused necessary components like Windows Update to no longer work.
My company made sure to note that the use of any such programs voided your warranty. If you wanted you system fixed after irresponsibly ripping the OS apart you were going to pay.
You were there along with the legions of online clueless individuals who thought that anything that was returned by am Internet search was true. Windows Internet myths and urban legends were much more rampant in those days. I was there too, fixing all the problems clueless individuals like yourself caused.
kadaka, I don’t pay Blogger a dime and they provide the comment preview feature. Forum software has had this feature since the Internet stone age. It is not a luxury feature but a necessary one anytime you are dealing with HTML code.
From Poptech on May 14, 2013 at 12:17 pm:
It’s official. You are stupid. Hate to be so blunt, but you keep making it obvious.
Because I didn’t think much of some rambling in the middle of a long comment chain, you found this to be proof I didn’t know about Slashdot which somehow indicated technical incompetence.
Now because I had other things to do than quickly reply to your posts, over Mother’s Day, this is proof to you I had to ask someone for info.
Which also carries the additional insult of stating I had to ask someone rather than just search for myself.
You are a moron.
Kadaka, Sorry, I’ve never met a person who works in a computer related field who does not know of Slashdot. It is proof positive to anyone reading this who knows what they are talking about that you have limited knowledge of technical issues. Everyone reading this can see that you failed to answer all of my questions and failed to support your nonsense “advice” with legitimate sources. Please spare anyone you come in contact with by NOT giving them technical advice.
Poptech spewed on May 14, 2013 at 12:55 pm:
*ahem*
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/154997
Thus my Win 95 OSR2 DOS boot disk, with “emergency” command line utilities, was able to recognize my ME drive, allowing me to recursively change attributes for all of _RESTORE to unhidden and writeable, so I could see and delete all those unwanted restore points that were filling up my HDD. That WERE NOT magically deleted by merely turning off System Restore as M$ was advising.
It was also fun to have _RESTORE show up in Windows Explorer, where I could make sure it stayed empty. It actually took awhile for ME to accept saying NO to System Restore really meant NO, it kept spontaneously turning on.
A Windows 95 OSR2 Boot disk is not a “DOS” boot disk. To delete system restore points in Windows ME you simply needed to 1. turn off System Restore, 2. restart your computer, and 3. turn on System Restore – that’s it. If this was not deleting the restore points then it is likely you broke it by irresponsibly using a utility like ieradicator, a registry cleaner or optimizer. In which case your Windows installation likely either needed to be re-installed. Except you look for hacks to fix your hacked up system, hilarious. You cannot even recognize you are likely the problem.
Poptech spewed on May 14, 2013 at 8:15 pm:
*ahem*
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/284943
How to Create a Windows 95 Startup Disk in MS-DOS
You make the floppy with Win95. You boot with it, you get a command prompt. It boots you into DOS, it does not also start up the Win95 GUI. It’s a DOS boot disk.
A Windows 95 Startup Disk is NOT a “DOS” Boot disk – it is a Windows 95 Startup Disk that loads to the Windows 95 MS-DOS Mode. The last “[MS-]DOS” boot disk that could be made was for MS-DOS 6.22. A regular Windows 95 Startup Disk will not be able to read FAT32. You should always use a startup disk for the operating system you are using. If you are using Windows ME, you should create a Windows ME startup disk – http://support.microsoft.com/kb/267287.
Good news Poptech, found the names! It has been awhile, and even though I used the tools, I was forgetting what they were called.
I was using Norton SystemWorks, which included Utilities.
The major thing was CleanSweep. It made System Restore redundant, as I could (normally) easily restore to before an installation. The Smart Sweep and Internet Sweep parts were nice, and automatically detected when something was tampering with the system. It also had Registry tools that took care of bad entries, and also allowed cleaner editing than regedit.
Crash Guard with Anti Freeze was needed. Not only with crashing, but when resources were hogged. Remember the bad old days of the internet, when attempting to leave a site could trigger the the apparently-infinite spawning of more windows? Ctrl-alt-del, call up the list of running programs, kill the browser. Likewise there were “closed” programs that never fully shut down, that I killed with Norton.
Plus there was System Doctor, with which you could assemble a nice little panel of things you want to keep track of, like CPU usage, memory free, open files, partition free space, etc.
And of course there was WinDoctor, the fixing of (common?) Windows problems, system optimization…
Poptech spewed on May 14, 2013 at 8:15 pm:
Yes I dared to use Norton to keep my system running, virus-free, and optimized. I should have realized Symantec was a bunch of fly-by-night hacks that I should never have trusted, since they were obviously completely inept and knew virtually nothing about how Windows worked.
In any case, turning off System Restore didn’t remove the old restore points, it only made System Restore forget them when it was turned back on. Norton could still see them. I checked online, it was a bug others also had, the old files were not deleted. Some were formatting their HDDs for clean installs, even aggressively wiping them back to bare metal, to recover the disk space.
Norton balked at deleting the restore points as their attributes flagged them as important read-only system files. WinME wouldn’t even show me the directory. Thus the old school approach, boot DOS, change attributes, problem got solved.
This is a prime example why people like Kadaka have no idea what they are talking about. Windows 95 came with a custom version of MS-DOS that did exactly two things,
1. Served as a boot loader
2. Acted as the 16-bit legacy device driver layer
There was a lot of confusion about this when Windows 95 was released and tons of misinformation on the Internet and apparently to this day.
Norton Utilities ceased being useful once Peter Norton sold the company, which was way before Windows 95. Don’t believe me? Ask anyone who has been in IT since the 80s – nobody uses them except end users who know nothing and saw the box in a store. The “utilities” for Windows 9x were a waste of system resources.
Needed by who? People who irresponsibly hack their systems apart? I never needed it and neither did any of my hundreds of customers. Nothing was more hilarious when I saw Norton Crash Guard crash. People were wasting money on the “First Aid” program at the time too. All the REAL problems here again were virus infections, defective hardware (back then – mainly HDs) and driver issues. At that time since RAM was expensive, systems were not coming with much and Windows 9x being a 32-bit OS means it was paging a lot so the HD was being taxed.
These programs did nothing special and never fixed any problems. Well, they did claim “xxx errors fixed!” and they did not optimize jack as these systems ran slow as hell with that stuff installed. Though I guess it made you feel better.
No, the Norton AV detection rates were good but the versions for Win9x systems were bloated and slow. The Utilities were a waste of money.
It was a real bug? Prove it, show me the documented issue by Microsoft or any major System OEM to confirm it was a real bug. I am not interested in what a bunch of clueless users who irresponsibly hacked their systems apart whined about and did not understand.
“Wiping them back to bare metal” – WTF are you talking about? That is the most ridiculous and technically inept statement I have ever heard. You keep demonstrating you have NO IDEA WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT. Why do you keep digging this hole so big? You apparently really do not believe that I have built and serviced over 10,000 systems.
Poptech said on May 14, 2013 at 10:17 pm:
I give you Microsoft’s own directions for creating a DOS boot disk with utilities with Win95.
Now you’re basically claiming that is impossible, the MS-DOS with 95 couldn’t do that. Therefore you know better than Microsoft what they were releasing.
Except the stripped-down DOS wasn’t Win95, it was WinME:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/269524
Overview of Real Mode Removal from Windows Millennium Edition
Win95 ran over MS-DOS, it was just a GUI.
Poptech exclaimed on May 14, 2013 at 10:39 pm:
Oh come on, that’s one of the most basic things about hard drives.
Reformatting does not necessarily erase the old files. Indeed “quick formatting” just basically forgets where they were, over time the old files might get overwritten. But until then, while the directory doesn’t show them, there are still old files lurking on the HDD. That could be recovered relatively easily.
If you want an absolutely clean drive, all the old files and that data erased for certain, you “wipe them back to bare metal” by running secure wiping software. There have been many versions of it over the years. All traces of any old files are gone.
Which would guarantee that even hidden “un-erasable” files are gone, and all possible disk space has been freed.
Here, I found an informative piece that you could educate yourself with:
http://gizmodo.com/5489933/leave-no-trace-how-to-completely-erase-your-hard-drives-ssds-and-thumb-drives
Nope, I was wrong, just a bit. It was a tricky piece about Win95 and DOS, and it’s been well over a decade since it meant anything, think I only heard it once or twice.
I found it in a blog post by Raymond Chen, Windows developer, a little tidbit of lost lore:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2007/12/24/6849530.aspx
What was the role of MS-DOS in Windows 95?
Etc. That was the quirk, Win95 was 32-bit, but conversed as 16-bit.
It also worked hard to appear to be a GUI over DOS.
But Win95 had “fully functional” MS-DOS, from which could be made “fully functional” MS-DOS boot disks with utilities, as I said. Booting Win95 started with booting MS-DOS, then it switched to “protected mode” Win95.
Later on came Win95B, aka OSR2, making it all 32-bit.
BTW, Chen’s post has some interesting clues about the relationship between Slashdot and “technical competence”. From the very top:
And down in the comments:
Further down “Slashdot trolls” are mentioned…
No it did not and you are 100% wrong. I read Raymond’s piece when it came out, please stop trying to show me thing I already know. Try reading what you cite;
“Once in protected mode, the virtual device drivers did their magic. Among other things those drivers did was “suck the brains out of MS-DOS,” transfer all that state to the 32-bit file system manager, and then shut off MS-DOS.”
So no, Windows 95 was NOT a GUI over DOS. A custom version of MS-DOS was used as a boot loader and acted as the 16-bit legacy device driver layer.
Which I already stated the first time.
You phrase “wiping them back to bare metal” makes no sense as the drive head never touches the surface of the drive. Being able to be recovered and taking up disk space are two different things. “Wiping” a HD does not recover more disk space as you falsely implied. The only reason you Wipe a HD is for security it has nothing to do with disk space. So anyone who thinks they need to “wipe” their HD to fix a problem is computer illiterate. Again you demonstrate to everyone reading this you have no idea what you are talking about. I suggest you stop digging the hole deeper.
No, it made Windows 95 MS-DOS mode boot disks (Windows 95 startup disks) as the version of MS-DOS that came with Windows 95 was a custom version and not the same as MS-DOS 6.22.
I said stop digging the hole deeper. OSR2 was just a service release (service pack).
Strawman, I never claimed that those who post at Slashdot are all necessarily technically competent. I stated that anyone who is technically proficient would have heard of Slashdot.
Damn, Poptech, you’re a really petty SOB. I do my own research, man up and admit the bit I got wrong, so you mash together that and the earlier comment so you can crow about it in all bold.
But you’re still wrong. Win95 still made boot disks with working DOS, that was able to access my WinME HDD. It happened, and your twisting isn’t changing that.
Now you’re just being obtuse. You’re embarrassed you didn’t pick up on “wiping a HDD” while in full-blown rant mode, so you’re trying to pull the face-saving CYA move. Don’t worry, Poptech, I won’t think any less of you for blowing such an easy reference.
Which is beyond asinine. College computer classes and training, “build and maintain your PC” books with included software sold at Waldenbooks (I bought one), printed magazines full of new and current tech info sold at newsstands and book stores… And your “sure sign” of being technically proficient is having heard of a particular website?
So if I was hiring a PC tech for my company, to check for technical proficiency would I:
A. Have set of PC parts spread out on a table, with blank HDD and OS install disks, and have them assemble a working PC (including setting jumpers)
or
B. Ask if they knew about some geek site where nerds discussed tech articles posted elsewhere.
Tough choice.
Hate to expand your tiny little worldview, but I think it’s possible to be technologically proficient without ever hearing about Slashdot, even more so now than it was way back when Slashdot was relevant.
From almost six years ago:
–the presentation of this post was verified with the easy-to-use Preview function of CA Assistant for WordPress–
Really? What version of DOS?
No, what you said made no sense. Anyone that understands how “Wiping” and HDs actually work would never use such a phrase. It is worse than that, you attempted to imply computer illiterates used it to recover disk space.
You shouldn’t hire anyone for a technical job.
You just proved my point, you claimed to be in the “know” during this time. It doesn’t matter, I have already proven my point to anyone technically proficient reading this.
Funny that you have no problem spouting out all sorts of incorrect information pretending to know stuff that you don’t but then cry when you are shown to be wrong for getting caught BSing – not my problem. Wiser people would have gave up a LONG time ago or never started.
From Poptech on May 15, 2013 at 9:53 pm:
The DOS that came with Win95, of course, which was fully functional.
Told you, I wouldn’t think anything less of you for blowing that. You can stop trying to cover it up now, it’s not working.
The point that’s proved is you’re a stuck-up condescending elitist, who comes off as if you were certain someone knows nothing about S&M because they don’t know about The Red Scarlet down on Castro Street, since everyone you know who knows S&M knows The Red Scarlet.
Gee, I’m sorry I never thought much about your favorite hangout, and got my info elsewhere. Deal with it.
–the presentation of this post was verified with the easy-to-use Preview function of CA Assistant for WordPress–
When you booted to the disk and used the command, “ver” what was displayed?
Are you delirious? I blew nothing as your original statement made no sense.
Does “wiping” a HD recover more disk space than formatting?
You have proven nothing but your technical incompetence as this thread is littered with unanswered questions and your BS.
No I did not hang out there. The point again was that you never heard of “THE geek website” <- your quote.
A wiser person would have given up a long time ago.
From Poptech on May 15, 2013 at 10:47 pm:
Potentially, yes. Hard drives may have hidden utility partions that a normal format will miss. Viruses and other programs can alter allocation tables, place hidden files and sections on a hard drive that, again, a normal format will miss.
So wipe the drive back to bare metal, and reclaim all of it for a fresh partitioning, formatting, and OS install.
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Now you are changing the subject and talking about partitions not the drive. “Formatting” an entire drive would include deleting all partitions and formatting it. You do not need to use an HD Wipe utility to do this you just use the OS disk partitioning utility – FDISK or DiskPart. If you format a partition it deletes everything in that partition, the file allocation tables and any “hidden files”.
There is no such thing as, “wiping a drive back to bare metal”.
kadaka, do you really think that anyone in the IT field uses a Wipe Utility to erase everything on a drive when there is no concern over security? Why would they waste time having a utility overwrite every sector on the drive for no reason? Do you have any idea what a waste of time that is? This is what I am talking about – you just don’t know.
From Poptech on May 15, 2013 at 11:29 pm:
This is a common misunderstanding, not surprising you fell for it. Formatting is installing a new file allocation table on a partition. This process may also include deleting the former contents of the partition. Partitioning is the dividing of an entire media unit, like a hard drive, into one or more partitions.
Partitioning is done with a partition editor like fdisk, formatting is done with a formatting tool, as invoked from MS-DOS with the format command.
Note that when partitioning on a MS system, each allocated space (partition) is assigned a drive letter. Thus on a physical hard drive with C and D partitions, for example, you can “format an entire drive” like D without disturbing the C partition.
Here is an informative article that hopefully will clarify the differences:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/255867
How to Use the Fdisk Tool and the Format Tool to Partition or Repartition a Hard Disk
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