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Post by Deleted on Feb 25, 2015 11:29:53 GMT
I've had AVG virus protection software on my computers for a long time and have always found it brilliantly effective .
More recently I installed the AVG maintenance suite . This can be used in various ways but essentially it goes through my computers looking for problems to solve .
Again brilliantly effective .
Here's what it finds :
Many , sometimes hundreds , of file fragments , broken links and temporary files .
Many instances of disc fragmentation , unrecognised software , broken software , browser faults , registry errors and clogging by having too many unused programmes installed .
First time of use of AVG brought a very noticable improvement in start up times and page responses .
What worries me though is that after a few more days computing another use of AVG found almost as many problems again .
Just how bad are some of our operating systems ??
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gwrfan
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Post by gwrfan on Feb 25, 2015 12:12:03 GMT
I have iolo System Mechanic Professional (USA company) Costs me about £20 PA. It scans my pc all the time it's switched on, and, like you, it 'finds' 100's of file fragments, misaligned files and much more every day! I sometimed don't believe all it tells me but..... About 3 weeks ago it told me that my Hard Drive was failing. It's done that several times since. So I have bought an external 2 Tb hard drive and backed up everything onto it. Also made a copy of the Windows 7 system that my PC came with (there is no disc to re-install it). And my neighbour (who occasionally has to log into my Router when his BT system fails!!) copied his Windows 7 disc for me to use if necessary. So, belt and braces stuff, but I am still not convinced I do have all the actual system problems. However, I wouldn't be without it as I would be miserable if I couldn't log into my favourite forum!!
Geoff
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Post by Deleted on Feb 25, 2015 12:31:12 GMT
These securities are very important, more so as the world becomes more computer reliant....AVG used to be my choice mainly as there was a free version...I have used others over the years including the one that Geoff mentions above until quite recently infact, they are good but not as good as the industry type systems..I didn't realise this until having big issues with my PC being attacked, Ioli failed to protect...my son then installed his business system which he uses to protect his App programming, something that has to be done as these Apps are worth millions to the clients, interestingly perhaps to some of us here most of what my son codes is for the railways. Anyway he installed ESET smart security 8 and I haven't looked back since, nothing has got through since, that's not to say it won't happen, it will as hackers break through but hopefully the likes of ESET ,AVG and Ioli will keep one step ahead.
Pete
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gwrfan
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Post by gwrfan on Feb 25, 2015 13:12:11 GMT
I forgot this bit! The company that built my PC system ensured that there was a Recovery Icon on my desktop. However I didn't have a large enough disc to record all the data, and when the time came - 2 weeks ago - the Recovery Icon wouldn't open. I took advice from the PC supplier, who sent an email with all the details of how to go through the C Drive, and also download a program to burn off the required disc at the end of it all. Each time I tried to download the program, iolo blocked it as a Trogan. In the end I had to remove iolo completely, and the download worked. Before I could re-install it my PC was flooded with program downloads, including one called 'Bing', which took over my Firefox system. Getting rid of the other programs was OK as I just went into the Programs file and removed all those with that day's date on there. But no BING!! I had to re-download Firefox to overcome this.
I did get the Windows Recovery Program burned to disc thanks to a neighbour who gave me a box of the Dual Layer 8.5 Gb discs.
It's a minefield out there, as they say.
Geoff
ps My system is 'iolo', not 'ioli' sorry.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 25, 2015 13:36:34 GMT
Ahh.. yes Geoff you are correct..sorry I just followed you as it's basically what I had in name, I should have checked the proper spelling but it was close enough, not likely to be another out there.... regards Pete
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Post by Deleted on Feb 25, 2015 16:58:06 GMT
Hello all--------- yes, that BING is a real pain !!.....You might remember I had problems recently when my HDD failed ( Mechanically rather than Electronically it seems !!)...My local shop installed a new one for me but I had to download and install my own choice of browser (Google Chrome).... I mis-read the listing and clicked onto a Google "look-alike" site which not only brought in that BING but a load of flashing adverts as well which my ADBLOCKER PLUS didn't detect..........with the help of a PC savvy friend we managed to dump Bing and the flashing adverts, but we had to go deep into the programmes as the core part had embedded itself..
I have Kaspersky Internet Security and McAfee Web companion but as it was me who allowed it in, none of them registered a thing !!
That took me almost a month of asking around and begging for help...Eventually all was cleared and runniung smoothly ........................ Then JB kicked off !!
Life's a bummer, eh ??
Best regards,
Alan
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jem
Elder Statesman
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Member is Online
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Post by jem on Feb 25, 2015 17:32:41 GMT
I use Panda Cloud which is free, very simple and takes up very little room. seems to work for me at the moment.
Jem
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Post by Roger on Feb 25, 2015 17:45:13 GMT
I've had AVG virus protection software on my computers for a long time and have always found it brilliantly effective . More recently I installed the AVG maintenance suite . This can be used in various ways but essentially it goes through my computers looking for problems to solve . Again brilliantly effective . Here's what it finds : Many , sometimes hundreds , of file fragments , broken links and temporary files . Many instances of disc fragmentation , unrecognised software , broken software , browser faults , registry errors and clogging by having too many unused programmes installed . First time of use of AVG brought a very noticable improvement in start up times and page responses . What worries me though is that after a few more days computing another use of AVG found almost as many problems again . Just how bad are some of our operating systems ?? I'm wondering if this is a hard drive issue with it dropping fragments of information? I've never had any issues with AVG Free edition.
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Midland
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Post by Midland on Feb 25, 2015 18:17:39 GMT
I've had AVG virus protection software on my computers for a long time and have always found it brilliantly effective . More recently I installed the AVG maintenance suite . This can be used in various ways but essentially it goes through my computers looking for problems to solve . Again brilliantly effective . Here's what it finds : Many , sometimes hundreds , of file fragments , broken links and temporary files . Many instances of disc fragmentation , unrecognised software , broken software , browser faults , registry errors and clogging by having too many unused programmes installed . First time of use of AVG brought a very noticable improvement in start up times and page responses . What worries me though is that after a few more days computing another use of AVG found almost as many problems again . Just how bad are some of our operating systems ?? Roger I can only relay what my son tells me from his place of work at Intel in California. I will not pretent to be an expert. XP is the best operating system, Vista is the worst. Vista tried to be smart and overloaded itself with overhead and as a result swamped most processors at the time. W7 was a fix with an Vista look and an XP system basocally as the maindriver. So Microsoft keep forcing the hardware suppliers to move up by forcing new systems on the them all the time. I have been told the the US banking industry has told Microsoft that if they stop supporting XP there will be blood on the floor. I run an XP computer and have no problems with all these issues you talk about. All I do is get rid of programmes that I do not use. Remember everytime you put a new 'cleaner uppper whizbang in ' you are adding unwamted overhead. I have an HP Pavilion dv3 laptop supplied with Vista. Matthew got me a W7 from the US and I use that. I could put XP on the laptop but I would need to find drivers compatible with the HP model I have. (I told my son that since he writes many of the drivers for these things, could he oblige but the answer is that the industry moves together to make us buy the later stuff and the drivers do not exist. So in conclusion KISS. Keep it simple sweatheart!!! I suggst you put your energies into loco construction as they will never be obsolete and stay away from computers with built in obsolescence sent there to frustrate you! Cheers David I'm wondering if this is a hard drive issue with it dropping fragments of information? I've never had any issues with AVG Free edition.
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Post by Roger on Feb 25, 2015 19:55:48 GMT
I love it David, I'd say that's got it in one. The trouble is, that if you stand still, when you finally have to make the move, it's absolute chaos. I'm a late adopter of tech, I can't be doing with the aggravation that goes with largely untested operating systems. I tend to wait until the world judges a Microsoft update to be a Turkey or a solid platform. That usually means I skip a couple until they get one that's tolerably good. I've currently settled on Windows 7 which is the best one I've had so far. The software I rely on wouldn't work on XP, and there's nothing special about that version other than the fact that it was pretty solid. Windows 7 may one day acquire the same following, who knows. I waste very little time on computer issues these days. Networking was always a nightmare with XP, and that seems mostly sorted on Windows 7. Thankfully, my systems just seem to keep on working so all is good. Without them, my locomotive building would take a whole lot longer.
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Midland
Elder Statesman
Posts: 1,870
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Post by Midland on Feb 25, 2015 20:23:27 GMT
Roger Glad you are happy. There is a saying if the techie world when new software comes out, "wait three years so the other buggers can debug it", now back to trains!! DF
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Post by Rob on Feb 25, 2015 20:43:08 GMT
Bing is a search engine, run by Microsoft. It's not malicious, but 'plugins' for Bing are often included with certain browsers. You need to pay attention to the installation as often check boxes for installing things like Bing come pre-checked, so you get it unless you explicitly say not to. Obviously, no one in their right mind would use Bing over Google I work in software development for the banking industry, including US banks, and Microsoft have definitely stopped supporting XP. You can't expect them to support it forever, it costs a hell of a lot of money to do so. It's 13 years old now, times move on There's nothing stopping you continuing to use it for as long as you like, but you can't expect companies to still make software for an operating system that is 4 (almost 5!) versions old. As for disk fragmentation - this is normal, and will always happen over time as you use the drive. Just run defrag every few months and you'll be OK!
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Post by Roger on Feb 25, 2015 20:49:19 GMT
Bing is a search engine, run by Microsoft. It's not malicious, but 'plugins' for Bing are often included with certain browsers. You need to pay attention to the installation as often check boxes for installing things like Bing come pre-checked, so you get it unless you explicitly say not to. Obviously, no one in their right mind would use Bing over Google I work in software development for the banking industry, including US banks, and Microsoft have definitely stopped supporting XP. You can't expect them to support it forever, it costs a hell of a lot of money to do so. It's 13 years old now, times move on There's nothing stopping you continuing to use it for as long as you like, but you can't expect companies to still make software for an operating system that is 4 (almost 5!) versions old. As for disk fragmentation - this is normal, and will always happen over time as you use the drive. Just run defrag every few months and you'll be OK! If you read the original post again, I don't think these are defrag issues he's describing. Surely AVG wouldn't care whether a disk is fragmented or not, they all will be anyway to some extent. It sounds to me like lots of things are truly broken, at least that's how I read it.
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jma1009
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Posts: 5,901
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Post by jma1009 on Feb 25, 2015 20:56:36 GMT
oh gosh, computers! the bane of my life! i spend most of the day in front of one!
give me a hacksaw and a vice and a large piece of steel to vent my spleen!
my workshop is technology free and just pure old fashioned stuff. that's the beauty of this hobby so far as im concerned - its away from the trials and tribulations of 'modern life' where you can bash and hack at metal and hopefully create something that looks nice and fits!
if i had a bigger garden i'd have a workshop like Fred Dibnah had!
cheers, julian
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Post by Rob on Feb 25, 2015 20:59:57 GMT
Many , sometimes hundreds , of file fragments , broken links and temporary files . Many instances of disc fragmentation , unrecognised software , broken software , browser faults , registry errors and clogging by having too many unused programmes installed . Hi Roger, I've highlighted in bold what I was referring to. The temporary files likewise, they'll build up unless explicitly cleaned. I'm not entirely sure how the program is determining unrecognised or broken software and browser faults. You'd need some more information on that to determine what it's talking about. Software doesn't just break one day, something needs to change. Browsers are relatively simple, so I'd like to know what it means by browser faults too. Registry errors can be common with poorly written installers, or when software isn't uninstalled correctly. Unused programmes are also common, just uninstall a few
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Post by Deleted on Feb 25, 2015 21:28:07 GMT
(1) Yes - my initial posting was about the chaos that my AVG maintenance program finds in Windows everytime that it is run .
(2) There are better operating systems for technical applications in home workshops - Linux for example .
(3) Something to ponder :
Many years ago I had an AppleII with Z80 add on board . 56K dynamic memory though about half that got used by the operating system . I did everything on that computer - up to and including writing and running viable FE programmes .
Anyway I wanted an I/o board .
Designed it in the morning , etched a board in the afternoon , bit of assembly and soldering early evening , running first try before I went to bed . Next morning wrote an application program , coupled board up to some hardware that I had built earlier and demonstrated the whole lot to happy customer in the afternoon .
The same task would easily take 10 times longer using a modern Windows PC .
For many purpose the complexity of PC's and their operating systems is anti-productive .
As far as I am concerned PC's and operating systems and languages need a rethink to restore that ease of use facility that once existed .
Michael
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Post by Deleted on Feb 25, 2015 21:54:01 GMT
One of the problems is the sheer amount of learning nescessary before any task on a modern PC can be mastered - and worse the actual few important features that you need at any one time can usually only be found by studying the whole manual .
It's the same in electronics - many components now have multi page data sheets to read through before you can use them - and 95% of the content of data sheet usually proves to be redundant in the end .
Long overdue time for people in the computer and electronics industry to study and master the science of managing and presenting large amounts of application data in a user friendly way again .
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Post by runner42 on Feb 25, 2015 22:09:24 GMT
Hi Michael,
on the subject of your original post, namely the number of errors that it finds in the OS, your AVG maintenance program is as like many it's designed to produce errors so that you see how beneficial it is and therefore an essential part of your software requirements. I have used similar software programs and I like you is amazed at the number of errors that it picks up, run it again after a short time and it finds more. In between times the OS has done nothing from a user perspective so it seems that OS is self destructing by just running. An aside I am also amazed that for every version of Windows OS how many updates are required it seems that Microsoft has learned nothing from earlier versions and cannot produce an OS that needs no maintenance. In light of my experience with software I have come to the conclusion that some part of the software development is to engineer into the user interface a means of getting the user to think that it's doing something more than it really is and so you will continue to buy the later versions as and when they are available.
Brian
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Post by Rob on Feb 26, 2015 1:02:06 GMT
An aside I am also amazed that for every version of Windows OS how many updates are required it seems that Microsoft has learned nothing from earlier versions and cannot produce an OS that needs no maintenance. In light of my experience with software I have come to the conclusion that some part of the software development is to engineer into the user interface a means of getting the user to think that it's doing something more than it really is and so you will continue to buy the later versions as and when they are available. Brian, let me assure you that no developer worth their salt would make any process seem more complicated than it needs to be. UI designers agonize over making hundreds of features intuitive to use, even if it doesn't really seem that way all the time. Software development takes such a long time that you just wouldn't have time to waste making things appear complicated. You encourage people to upgrade by improving existing features or providing new ones. For higher end software, you also stop providing support, which is essential for businesses. Secondly, Microsoft or any other company cannot and will not ever produce a piece of software that doesn't need maintenance. It is simply not possible to envisage every eventually that a piece of software will go through. Whilst you do conduct extensive quality assurance, it's just not possible to test every combination of hardware, software, drivers, user experience or functions etc. etc. Software evolves over time, as someone mentioned previously, you'll get a much more stable piece of software a while after it has first launched as some of the bugs are ironed out. I find people often have unrealistic expectations of software. They expect it to work all the time for every situation. But you wouldn't expect your family car to work in a rain forest, or the desert . They don't understand why it's not fine to just copy it for free many times because it's not a tangible object, so it's not stealing at all, right? But it's probably taken a team of 20 highly paid developers 2 or 3 years to write that piece of software, and the costs are HUGE. Sometimes, you spend two years of your life developing software, only for the project to be cancelled, and all the effort, costs etc. are wasted. Microsoft always gets a pasting, but writing an operating system is one of the hardest things you can do in the software world. Their development teams number in the thousands, so you can imagine the development costs of that. The difficulty in writing software that is compatible with a huge variety of hardware is great, so I have a lot of respect for them, even when they don't get it quite right.
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Post by runner42 on Feb 26, 2015 6:42:34 GMT
Rob thanks for the well measured reply on the problems of producing a stable OS at the outset and that all software requires maintenance to iron out bugs. That part of the post was secondary to the apparent use of user maintenance software such as AVG maintenance suite finding problems at each run and that problems are reported even when the user has done nothing with the OS to cause these problems, viz installing or uninstalling new software, surfing the Internet etc etc.
On the problems of Windows OS each version is an evolution of the previous versions so the latest Windows type OS is the aggregate of all the these previous ones. You can argue that subsequent versions have new features so the clock is reset so to speak each time, but these changes are generally with the UI and things like the kernel are not significantly changed. But we are not talking about bugs here the updates are generally about fixes to overcome threats from hackers and more to do with the environment that the OS is required to function in. But we are encouraged by the OS to install anti-virus software and many allied items of software to protect us from these threats, so are these third party items of software operating in consonance with the OS? Seemingly not.
I worked in a Defence Quality Assurance organisation and was responsible for undertaking software quality assurance on a submarine's integrated management system which was mission and safety critical. The software was more complex than Windows OS. Over the course of the life of the software it had updates but far fewer than an OS has over it's life, but I accept that the environment was more controlled than a Windows PC connected to the Internet.
Brian
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