Starting From Scratch With A New PC

lauriek · Post by **lauriek** » Wed Jul 27, 2011 2:42 pm

Woot! I'm back, now on Windows 7 64 bit!

lauriek · Post by **lauriek** » Thu Jul 28, 2011 3:04 pm

Okay unwoot that...

All sorts of problems with dual boot - I've ended up taking out my XP disk and installing Win7 on a spare 1tb disk and just booting that - seems to be going reasonably well, just in the process of updating various drivers, installing software and licenses etc. So should be fully back up and running at some point this weekend at the latest...

Craig Gerard · Post by **Craig Gerard** » Thu Jul 28, 2011 5:57 pm

lauriek · Post by **lauriek** » Fri Jul 29, 2011 12:07 pm

Okay Windows 7 finally seems to be chilling out a bit, after quite a lot of bsod's I've managed to update most of my system's various drivers to current versions and got quite a lot of Windows updates applied, still another 50 updates to go though!

DQE · Post by **DQE** » Fri Jul 29, 2011 2:35 pm

lauriek wrote:Okay Windows 7 finally seems to be chilling out a bit, after quite a lot of bsod's I've managed to update most of my system's various drivers to current versions and got quite a lot of Windows updates applied, still another 50 updates to go though!

Sounds like quite an adventure!

I predict that you'll really enjoy Windows 7. Once you get it settled down and your preferences set, it's much more stable and very much easier to use day-to-day than previous versions of Windows. I've not had a single crash or freeze since I finished setting mine up, much to my delight.

Your saga does make me glad I was able to simply purchase a new PC, ready to use. Even then, it must have taken me a full-time-equivalent month to get all my software installed, all my hard drives moved, preferences set, etc. The difficulty of switching to a new PC alone was enough to make me not consider switching to Macintosh even though they provide much better locally available support where I live near Portland, Maine.

lauriek · Post by **lauriek** » Sun Jul 31, 2011 10:16 am

Well I'm now pretty much up and running - a couple of niggly issues, for some odd reason I can only run Photoshop CS5.1 in 32 bit mode, it complains about some 'side by side' issue when I run the 64 bit version, weird! Apart from that iTunes runs like a bit of dog, but hey, what's new?

Otherwise all seems spiffy and I am liking Windows 7 a lot...

DQE · Post by **DQE** » Sun Jul 31, 2011 3:23 pm

lauriek wrote:Well I'm now pretty much up and running - a couple of niggly issues, for some odd reason I can only run Photoshop CS5.1 in 32 bit mode, it complains about some 'side by side' issue when I run the 64 bit version, weird! Apart from that iTunes runs like a bit of dog, but hey, what's new? Otherwise all seems spiffy and I am liking Windows 7 a lot...

FWIW, I haven't had any issues with either 32-bit CS4 or 5 or 64-bit CS4 or 5. Some plugins only run in 32-bit CSx, though, which is annoying. Mostly the major commercial plugins now run in 64-bit CS5, at least the ones I use commonly.

Assuming you did clean installs of CSx, I don't know why they wouldn't run happily in 64-bit Win7...YMMV is the only answer, I guess.

lauriek · Post by **lauriek** » Sun Jul 31, 2011 6:43 pm

Hmm I've just noticed something slightly odd - I can't pin Zerene to the task bar in the same way as other stuff - Well I can, but where other programs 'activate' when run, Zerene creates another active icon on the taskbar and the one I've pinned does not 'activate'.

Do others get similar behaviour or is it just me? I did have a couple of other programs do this but by running them up, unpinning the original icon, then pinning the running icon I was able to fix those, that doesn't seem to work with Zerene.

I wondered if it was because Zerene is a Java program but then I realised I have Eclipse IDE pinned and that works fine and is a Java program also.

Any tips appreciated!

Craig Gerard · Post by **Craig Gerard** » Sun Jul 31, 2011 8:25 pm

Laurie,

I just unpinned Zerene from the taskbar, created a new shortcut on the desktop and then 'pinned' that shortcut to the taskbar via drag'n'drop. In most cases, you can also right-click a program's icon and select "Pin to Taskbar".

Regarding Photoshop CS5. When I installed CS5 I was presented with the option to install both 32bit and 64bit versions, I unchecked the 32bit option and only installed the 64bit CS5. Have not experienced any issues.

Craig

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Sun Jul 31, 2011 8:55 pm

lauriek wrote:Hmm I've just noticed something slightly odd - I can't pin Zerene to the task bar in the same way as other stuff - Well I can, but where other programs 'activate' when run, Zerene creates another active icon on the taskbar and the one I've pinned does not 'activate'.

That sounds right. On Windows the Zerene Stacker icon maps to a program named zerenstk.exe, which is just a launcher. The real Zerene Stacker application is a separate process, running javaw.exe, that happens to display the same icon image as zerenstk.exe. So as I'm hearing your sequence, the thing you've pinned is just the launcher, which does activate but quickly terminates, while the newly created active icon is the real application.

With some fiddling, it's possible to create an icon that maps directly to the appropriate invocation of javaw.exe. See the Batch API documentation for details about how to determine arguments for that invocation. The difficulty with this approach is that with a typical installation the command line becomes too long to be stored in a shortcut, and the only way I've found around that problem is to change the installation path so as to create a shorter command line. That's probably more trouble than it's worth just to get rid of an extra icon on the taskbar.

--Rik

Harold Gough · Post by **Harold Gough** » Wed Nov 30, 2011 5:11 am

My PC having recently deceased, my son has suggested this bundle.

http://www.ebuyer.com/282607-zoostorm-p ... -7873-0289

In the context of my original question, is this likely to suit my use for image handling? (I also have at least 1TB external storage for backups).

My son thinks the integrated graphics card might be an issue.

I would want to use my, currently inaccessible, HDDs as slaves (one was a slave before the failure), most importantly to use my Outlook Express Mail, its address book and many stored messages. They may or may not hold viruses, the failure being at the end of a repair.

Harold

ChrisRaper · Post by **ChrisRaper** » Wed Nov 30, 2011 7:15 am

I'm by no means an expert on PC hardware but my understanding of modern high-spec graphics cards is that the majority of their functionality is focused on high-end gaming. On-board graphics does have a pretty poor reputation but I can't comment on the particular variant you have on that PC but you might find that PhotoShop etc could be aided by just adding a fairly low-spec but dedicated graphics card. I'm not sure how large you want your Desktop resolution to run at or whether you plan to run 2 large flat-screens but more RAM on the graphics card might be useful for that.

Probably the best option for the HDDs on your old PC is to run them as USB external drives via an enclosure ... just make sure that you choose the correct interface format (IDE for old ones, SATA for new ones). Isolating them in this way will help when you scan them for viruses using the new PC's operating system and anti-virus software. Then when you are happy that they are fine then locate the folder structure for the Outlook Express Mail ... fiddly but just Google for advice ... and the same for the Contacts folder. If I were you I would avoid Microsoft's email software completely - I use Mozilla Thunderbird here and it will read in the data from most of the popular email systems, such as OE. Thunderbird has very useful secondary junk mail filtering and add-ons.

Harold Gough · Post by **Harold Gough** » Wed Nov 30, 2011 8:27 am

Thanks, Chris.

Change of plan. (Not least having seen the recent hike in PC prices).

Two or three years ago (Edit: the clock was on March 2005!) I had a PC specially set up for standalone photographic work. I had the dial-up modem removed. I had never tried it on broadband but thought it should be possible. I am now writing from that PC.

It has most of my link Favorites, many old Outlook Express messages and many other documents and some images, all put aside for a disaster such as happened last week. Sadly, I had not updated that store recently but I have copied much to an external 1TB drive. So I am most of the way there.

There was no Outlook Express provision dipslayed but I have just found the exe and installed it. That just leaves recent messages (last few months) and Address Book and documents, plus images to retreive.

I am looking at getting the two 40 pin IDE HDDs linked in as slaves. One possibility is to use the IDE cables for the CDROM/ DVD drives temporarily. Thus only those drives would be running (intermittently) on that IDE strap cable. (The C: Drive is on narrow SATA cable with no spare connections but an empty slot on the motherboard next to where it is plugged in.

The PC provision is XP Pro (same as dead PC) AMD 1.6GHz 1GB RAM 500GB HDD.

PhotoShop 7 and Elements 7 were loaded some time ago.

So, I seem to be back in business, much as was planned for when I got my scanner running, apart from the standalone idea.

It can't be that simple but it is a good start.

Harold

ChrisRaper · Post by **ChrisRaper** » Wed Nov 30, 2011 9:50 am

Glad to see that you are working again ... the old HDDs should be fairly OK and your data on them should be fine unless you had a massive power spike that blew them. SATA drives are all plugged directly into the motherboard and most mobos have at least 1 spare - hunt around because you might have more

When you link in the IDE drives just remember to jumper one as a master and the other as a slave on each IDE cable.

PC prices have gone up - not least because a lot of the HDDs and other components come from Thailand & Japan, which have both suffered major natural disasters in the last 12 months

BTW, I notice you are fairly local so just get in touch if you'd like to meet up and chat

Harold Gough · Post by **Harold Gough** » Wed Nov 30, 2011 10:17 am

ChrisRaper wrote: just remember to jumper one as a master and the other as a slave on each IDE cable.

Yes, I've been through all that not too long ago!

ChrisRaper wrote: BTW, I notice you are fairly local so just get in touch if you'd like to meet up and chat

Very unobservant of me! What a coincidence: I recently got some boxes of beer in and today a dozen bottles of wine were delivered!

PM on the way.

Harold