Well, the attempt to wipe the new laptop and dualboot Windows 7 didn't work in the end. I could install it, but none of the drivers Lenovo had available worked, so it was left without any USB or network connectivity. So I'm sending it back (thank you Amazon return policy).
I think I'm going to try to see if I can give dad my old laptop. It came with Windows 7 x64, it should have a better chance of working driverwise with dualbooting an x86 W7. Thing is, it came with the disk partitioned to dynamic, so I'd have to wipe it entirely to do a dualboot. So, question: if I make an image of the disk now with some application (I've heard of CloneZilla) can I later restore things exactly to where they were, mysterious HP system and OEM partitions and everything, if something fucks up, or will doing a full clean and reformat with diskpart be completely unrecoverable?
If you clone the drive it should restore it as whatever the source drive was partitions included (unless you change them or if the software has some other default behavior).
If you're overly nervous about it, you can buy a new hard drive and set that up as a dual boot.
It's a laptop without any other hard drive slots, but the idea occured to me today that I could get a caddy and a small SSD for it, yes. Put a second disk in place of the CD drive, use it to dualboot. Would just need to USBize my old Windows 7 CD, which would take ten minutes.
I was thinking more on the level of doing a full swap, with the "new" drive already partitioned. Then you install W10 on one and clone W7 onto the other.
I was thinking more on the level of doing a full swap, with the "new" drive already partitioned. Then you install W10 on one and clone W7 onto the other.
Fucked if I know what kind of HD this thing actually uses, to be honest. Laptops are kind of really not my usual element. Much less where to get one for it, since this laptop is pretty old.
Check Device Manager, or download HWInfo and check that way. I'm making some assumptions, but I'd guess it's a standard 2.5" HDD SATA. I guess there's an outside chance it could have IDE, but it would have to be about 12-15 years old.
Cloning process went from 6gb/min to like 200mb/min... I know it is still working (can hear the HD if I put my ear to the laptop and can see the unreadable sector warning scroll up for new sectors found)... seems like it slowed down about 45-50% into the cloning and is now 75% done.. so either it will progress through the dark void of evil and then ramp up speed or its going to take all week. Or it will fail-fail.
Should Clonezilla fail, I can just re-partition the new drive through a windows install CD, right? Was reading something about copied signatures or something between the two drives but I think it would only freak out if both HDs are hooked up and I reboot?
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
Clone was successful, now I have two harddrives with broken data! Woo woo. Unfortunately, the recovery partition doesn't give me the option to repair windows, but rather just goes straight to the factory nuke, so I still need a disc. but progress.
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
I have no idea if this is a Windows issue, but has anyone been countering that in the last week or two, if you turn on your PC from a few hours downtime, your audio services are disable (complete with an error message)--until you run the troubleshooting, or fiddle around with your volume settings, upon which it comes back? Audio even works during that, though you can't operate fully.
I'm thinking this is more update weirdness. I ran into the same issue after witching my basic 2.1 speaker system to my monitor rather than my motherboard sound input, which was surprising. It could be my Creative speakers, though that seems unlikely. It'd be nice to use this an excuse to buy a reasonable $38 PCIe sound card from Amazon.com for a very modest improvement in sound quality, though it'd be maddening if the issue persisted.
Are you sure the drivers/software are properly installed?
That seemed like the most obvious part of it, but I've tried ASUS own drivers (It's an Z97-A motherboard), Realtek's own, and then Windows' own drivers 3 or 4 times each by this point. I think I was using Realtek's drivers for months before with zero problems like this.
Most recently, I've tried uninstalling and then using a proper driver cleaner--seeing if that'll help. It only seems to happen if the PC is shut down for more than a few hours, or at least that seems to be the case--doing a restart or shutting down and starting up quickly doesn't replicate the issue. So I run into it in the morning, a pleasant thing to wake up to when I start the PC. It might be my Creative 2.1 speakers, even though they're pretty simple.
I have basically the same motherboard (the Z-97A with USB 3.1) and while I had a sound issue on one insider build, it was different than what you're describing. However, it does indicate that there could be issues with that configuration of motherboard and Win10 after an upgrade.
My specific issue was that my default sound device got changed to one of the HDMI out ports on my video card and wouldn't change back without re-isntalling the sound drivers from ASUS.
I have basically the same motherboard (the Z-97A with USB 3.1) and while I had a sound issue on one insider build, it was different than what you're describing. However, it does indicate that there could be issues with that configuration of motherboard and Win10 after an upgrade.
My specific issue was that my default sound device got changed to one of the HDMI out ports on my video card and wouldn't change back without re-isntalling the sound drivers from ASUS.
For your issue... I don't know. That's weird.
I've got an ASUS Z87 board and I also have not had these problems. Just because it's an easy troubleshooting path, try using just headphones instead of the speakers, like you're intimating.
Yeah, in retrospect I should've just plugged in some other audio device earlier. The fact that it also happened when routing my audio through my monitor (which has a 3.5mm audio out jack) is somewhat telling.
Weirdly enough, I'm almost certain the issue began (and only noticed it) after my PC got into the habit of deciding my television was the default sound system all the time (and not just when I switched over my TV input). After I corrected the issue by toggling back and forth a few times, the issue appeared (and my reinstalling the drivers a dozen times followed only after that). The fact that it takes a few hours to kick in makes it slightly harder to test.
I did some basic tests this morning before leaving for work (what a great way to start a day)--with disappointing results. I was able to reproduce the problem with a set of earbuds--and it didn't take hours either, shutting down the PC, waiting a few minutes, and turning it back on was enough. Notably, toying around with my volume settings via keyboard shortcut (which is a commonly recommended "fix") didn't help--I need to either disconnect or reconnect my speakers (shutting them off via the switch isn't enough), or actually use the troubleshooting service. Either will fix the issue immediately.
Goddamn it, this is why I play fewer and fewer PC games nowadays. It's not that things don't go wrong on consoles, they're just so much easier to fix when they do. :x
When I get home from work, I'm going to do a few things: first, open the case up and unplug and plug in my devices (this is onboard motherboard sound, so it's not as though something is loose, but every few months my motherboard would stop detecting one or more of my four drives anyway--though this hasn't happened in a while), play around with the DVI output in my television, and try and disable BIOS fast boot (having it on or off didn't seem to have an effect on it either way, I ended up just turning it on because waking my PC up from a few hours rest seemed rather slow...of course, now that it's enabled, I'm having trouble getting back into the BIOS as it's so fast).
Amazon was also discounting a 2.1 Bluetooth speaker system 50%. I ordered it because 1) reducing cables can be useful, assuming it does in fact avoid the audio lag that seems endemic to 99% of BT speakers and 2) maybe avoiding any sort of audio out from the motherboard can help fix the solution until Windows patches it or god knows what else in a few months. I can always return it if it doesn't work, as with the PCIe sound device option I was considering, and nothing's better than throwing money at a problem in a vain effort to make it go away. :x
Also, I doubt it's unrelated, but I'm also getting a "Windows did not shut down correctly" flag whenever I shut down my PC under reliability history--but that might be due to "fast restart" being enabled under power options (that's been known to cause issues forever). Considering I'm not actually running into any issues when I shut down, it's pretty much a non-issue (unlike this audio device failure, which is goddamn annoying and inconvenient), but it might potentially be related.
So I've had issues with Windows starting random maintenance tasks in the late evening when I'm trying to play games. Death in Hollow Knight because it started dropping frames for five seconds is infuriating.
Supposedly using the Game Bar and enabling Game Mode will prevent this sort of thing, but it looks like I have to turn it on per-game, and the UI doesn't show up in fullscreen mode in all games. I had to run Overwatch windowed, turn on Game Mode, then change back to fullscreen.
Is there a way to just enable Game Mode for everything launched by Steam?
So I've had issues with Windows starting random maintenance tasks in the late evening when I'm trying to play games. Death in Hollow Knight because it started dropping frames for five seconds is infuriating.
Supposedly using the Game Bar and enabling Game Mode will prevent this sort of thing, but it looks like I have to turn it on per-game, and the UI doesn't show up in fullscreen mode in all games. I had to run Overwatch windowed, turn on Game Mode, then change back to fullscreen.
Is there a way to just enable Game Mode for everything launched by Steam?
Alternately, if you haven't already done so try going Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Security and Maintenance\Automatic Maintenance and changing the time to something that works better for you.
That's the real answer. The defaults are made to be acceptable for corporate users, so it triggers late in the evening. It should really be part of the Setup Experience on first boot, but alas.
So I've had issues with Windows starting random maintenance tasks in the late evening when I'm trying to play games. Death in Hollow Knight because it started dropping frames for five seconds is infuriating.
Supposedly using the Game Bar and enabling Game Mode will prevent this sort of thing, but it looks like I have to turn it on per-game, and the UI doesn't show up in fullscreen mode in all games. I had to run Overwatch windowed, turn on Game Mode, then change back to fullscreen.
Is there a way to just enable Game Mode for everything launched by Steam?
Alternately, if you haven't already done so try going Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Security and Maintenance\Automatic Maintenance and changing the time to something that works better for you.
The automatic maintenance time is 3 AM! I've also set "Active hours" in Windows Update to prevent that from kicking in during the evening. The machine has plenty of idle time, but Windows Defender still insists on starting virus scans at 10 PM while full-screen applications are running.
The Fall creator’s update has thoroughly broken my sound drivers to the point where it’s intermittent functionality doesn’t suggest any sensible pattern of working or not working. I cannot figure out what is wrong.
The Fall creator’s update has thoroughly broken my sound drivers to the point where it’s intermittent functionality doesn’t suggest any sensible pattern of working or not working. I cannot figure out what is wrong.
Are you getting the same "Windows Audio Service" error I was? Or is it more severe.
At this point, if something seems broken after a Windows Update, I do a in-system repair installation (since it won't actually wipe anything). Seems to help....mostly.
The Fall creator’s update has thoroughly broken my sound drivers to the point where it’s intermittent functionality doesn’t suggest any sensible pattern of working or not working. I cannot figure out what is wrong.
Are you getting the same "Windows Audio Service" error I was? Or is it more severe.
At this point, if something seems broken after a Windows Update, I do a in-system repair installation (since it won't actually wipe anything). Seems to help....mostly.
No error message at all.
It works fine for awhile and then degrades into scratchy garbled nonsense and then no sound at all and then I leave it for a bit and it starts working again.
Sometimes using the sound troubleshooter gets it temporarily working again, sometimes not.
Sometimes rebooting gets it temporarily working again sometimes not.
The only diagnosis I am 100% positive about is that it is a driver issue. Beyond that this is one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever encountered and the actual problem much less the solution eludes me.
What device are you using? My Xonar has worked fine through all the updates, though I don't think they've put out a Win10 driver since launch.
Gigabyte Gaming GAZXQLFTVBBQWTBAV Z1 or whatever motherboard. Sound is via HDMI. Into my TV and into my receiver produces the same issue. Sound is via NVIDIA HD Audio driver (I have an EVGA 980 TI).
Damn, that's more severe than my own (which was basically "Every time you restart or shut down your PC, Windows Audio service will show up an error.") and presumably you've done the obvious of uninstalling the drivers and letting Windows 10 install them, downloading specific drivers and installing them, testing another audio device, etc.
Hopefully you're right and it's not a hardware issue. You could try it (it's actually almost completely painless, assuming you actually get it started), but it sounds like that might be beyond Windows Repair Installation and something actually outside of Windows that the update did break.
While it will be dropped as a separate operating system, Microsoft will embed the "safe" version of Windows into its existing systems, essentially tying more users into Microsoft products.
...
Microsoft is now preparing to ditch the operating system, industry blog Thurrott.com reports, instead launching an "S Mode" version of its existing systems for Windows 10 Pro, Home and Enterprise. Microsoft was contacted for comment.
Windows 10 S received a limited release on budget laptops and the Microsoft's own Microsoft Surface Laptop last year. Now, more new PCs are expected to come in S Mode, and users will have to upgrade to experience their full version of Windows. This upgrade will be free on most models, but cost $49 on Windows 10 Pro.
Excellent. App sandboxing is a fine security model; it’s good to allow every version of the OS to use sandbox-only mode.
Windows S allows sideloading, and most Windows applications are arguably “sideloaded” now, so the Windows Store is whatever. But they really need to address the dumb rule that prevents Mozilla and Google from listing their browsers there.
Windows S allows sideloading, and most Windows applications are arguably “sideloaded” now, so the Windows Store is whatever. But they really need to address the dumb rule that prevents Mozilla and Google from listing their browsers there.
I don't know about Mozilla, but I'm pretty sure Google's own policies want to keep Chrome out of the Windows Store (on top of disagreeing with Microsoft's demands on its side).
The crux of other browsers on the Windows Store is that Microsoft's rules state that any web browsing element on a Store app has to use the Edge rendering engine. That's pretty much a non starter for Google and Mozilla because they've invested a lot in their rendering engines, and they're not going to put out a version of their browser using another rendering engine when you can just install the "real" version.
Now, people then argue that Apple has the same rules on their app stores, and Google and Mozilla play ball there. that's true on iOS where the *only* way to get onto the device is through the app store. Google and Mozilla choose to play ball because it is literally the only option. On MacOS, you don't find Chrome or Firefox on that app store, for the same reason as on Windows.
I have a lot of thoughts on the S Mode, but that's for when I have more time.
You shouldn't install any software on desktop windows 10 via the store, IMO. UWP on desktop win10 is a hot pile of garbage and you'll find issues you can't fix later on down the road if you make a habit of using it.
I took the risk and installed Dead Rising 4 from the store. Because I think there was no other option at the time. I think that may be the limit of sane ideas regarding actions with the store, though.
I regularly use UWP apps, either on PC or Xbox. There are absolutely a few with issues (which I spoken at length about here, and included solutions in case anyone runs into the issue), but it's not as though normal applications don't also fuck with my day worse ways that take stupidly extreme lengths to try and fix. And it's not like there aren't terrible programs outside the Windows store either.
To each their own.
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Dark Raven XLaugh hard, run fast,be kindRegistered Userregular
Hey, any chance someone knows how to permo-disable Win10's update function? The newest update last month managed to completely fuck our laptop, it lost some driver and started causing bluescreens, couldn't seem to resolve it so I just reformatted, we're on a pretty old version now, and it works great. I enabled the 'metered connection' thing to stop the auto updates, but I still get the reminders.
We've tried disabling the Windows Update service under services.msc and under group policy editor, but every day the dang update window pops up asking for permission. I guess it's better than bricking itself overnight, but it's still pretty annoying that it keeps asking! Anyone know if there's a way to kill this thing for good?
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I think I'm going to try to see if I can give dad my old laptop. It came with Windows 7 x64, it should have a better chance of working driverwise with dualbooting an x86 W7. Thing is, it came with the disk partitioned to dynamic, so I'd have to wipe it entirely to do a dualboot. So, question: if I make an image of the disk now with some application (I've heard of CloneZilla) can I later restore things exactly to where they were, mysterious HP system and OEM partitions and everything, if something fucks up, or will doing a full clean and reformat with diskpart be completely unrecoverable?
It's a laptop without any other hard drive slots, but the idea occured to me today that I could get a caddy and a small SSD for it, yes. Put a second disk in place of the CD drive, use it to dualboot. Would just need to USBize my old Windows 7 CD, which would take ten minutes.
Seems worth a shot.
that was surprisingly painless. only real issue i've run into so far was that Windows reverted to an older NVidia driver, which was easily fixed.
i'm used to Windows OS upgrades being an exercise from hell. this is...a weird feeling.
steam | Dokkan: 868846562
Fucked if I know what kind of HD this thing actually uses, to be honest. Laptops are kind of really not my usual element. Much less where to get one for it, since this laptop is pretty old.
Should Clonezilla fail, I can just re-partition the new drive through a windows install CD, right? Was reading something about copied signatures or something between the two drives but I think it would only freak out if both HDs are hooked up and I reboot?
I'm thinking this is more update weirdness. I ran into the same issue after witching my basic 2.1 speaker system to my monitor rather than my motherboard sound input, which was surprising. It could be my Creative speakers, though that seems unlikely. It'd be nice to use this an excuse to buy a reasonable $38 PCIe sound card from Amazon.com for a very modest improvement in sound quality, though it'd be maddening if the issue persisted.
That seemed like the most obvious part of it, but I've tried ASUS own drivers (It's an Z97-A motherboard), Realtek's own, and then Windows' own drivers 3 or 4 times each by this point. I think I was using Realtek's drivers for months before with zero problems like this.
Most recently, I've tried uninstalling and then using a proper driver cleaner--seeing if that'll help. It only seems to happen if the PC is shut down for more than a few hours, or at least that seems to be the case--doing a restart or shutting down and starting up quickly doesn't replicate the issue. So I run into it in the morning, a pleasant thing to wake up to when I start the PC. It might be my Creative 2.1 speakers, even though they're pretty simple.
My specific issue was that my default sound device got changed to one of the HDMI out ports on my video card and wouldn't change back without re-isntalling the sound drivers from ASUS.
For your issue... I don't know. That's weird.
I've got an ASUS Z87 board and I also have not had these problems. Just because it's an easy troubleshooting path, try using just headphones instead of the speakers, like you're intimating.
Weirdly enough, I'm almost certain the issue began (and only noticed it) after my PC got into the habit of deciding my television was the default sound system all the time (and not just when I switched over my TV input). After I corrected the issue by toggling back and forth a few times, the issue appeared (and my reinstalling the drivers a dozen times followed only after that). The fact that it takes a few hours to kick in makes it slightly harder to test.
Thank you for all the responses so far.
Goddamn it, this is why I play fewer and fewer PC games nowadays. It's not that things don't go wrong on consoles, they're just so much easier to fix when they do. :x
When I get home from work, I'm going to do a few things: first, open the case up and unplug and plug in my devices (this is onboard motherboard sound, so it's not as though something is loose, but every few months my motherboard would stop detecting one or more of my four drives anyway--though this hasn't happened in a while), play around with the DVI output in my television, and try and disable BIOS fast boot (having it on or off didn't seem to have an effect on it either way, I ended up just turning it on because waking my PC up from a few hours rest seemed rather slow...of course, now that it's enabled, I'm having trouble getting back into the BIOS as it's so fast).
Amazon was also discounting a 2.1 Bluetooth speaker system 50%. I ordered it because 1) reducing cables can be useful, assuming it does in fact avoid the audio lag that seems endemic to 99% of BT speakers and 2) maybe avoiding any sort of audio out from the motherboard can help fix the solution until Windows patches it or god knows what else in a few months. I can always return it if it doesn't work, as with the PCIe sound device option I was considering, and nothing's better than throwing money at a problem in a vain effort to make it go away. :x
Also, I doubt it's unrelated, but I'm also getting a "Windows did not shut down correctly" flag whenever I shut down my PC under reliability history--but that might be due to "fast restart" being enabled under power options (that's been known to cause issues forever). Considering I'm not actually running into any issues when I shut down, it's pretty much a non-issue (unlike this audio device failure, which is goddamn annoying and inconvenient), but it might potentially be related.
Supposedly using the Game Bar and enabling Game Mode will prevent this sort of thing, but it looks like I have to turn it on per-game, and the UI doesn't show up in fullscreen mode in all games. I had to run Overwatch windowed, turn on Game Mode, then change back to fullscreen.
Is there a way to just enable Game Mode for everything launched by Steam?
The automatic maintenance time is 3 AM! I've also set "Active hours" in Windows Update to prevent that from kicking in during the evening. The machine has plenty of idle time, but Windows Defender still insists on starting virus scans at 10 PM while full-screen applications are running.
Are you getting the same "Windows Audio Service" error I was? Or is it more severe.
At this point, if something seems broken after a Windows Update, I do a in-system repair installation (since it won't actually wipe anything). Seems to help....mostly.
No error message at all.
It works fine for awhile and then degrades into scratchy garbled nonsense and then no sound at all and then I leave it for a bit and it starts working again.
Sometimes using the sound troubleshooter gets it temporarily working again, sometimes not.
Sometimes rebooting gets it temporarily working again sometimes not.
The only diagnosis I am 100% positive about is that it is a driver issue. Beyond that this is one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever encountered and the actual problem much less the solution eludes me.
Gigabyte Gaming GAZXQLFTVBBQWTBAV Z1 or whatever motherboard. Sound is via HDMI. Into my TV and into my receiver produces the same issue. Sound is via NVIDIA HD Audio driver (I have an EVGA 980 TI).
Hopefully you're right and it's not a hardware issue. You could try it (it's actually almost completely painless, assuming you actually get it started), but it sounds like that might be beyond Windows Repair Installation and something actually outside of Windows that the update did break.
Microsoft ditches Windows 10 S operating system months after launch
The bit that jumped out at me was this:
Steam | XBL
Windows S allows sideloading, and most Windows applications are arguably “sideloaded” now, so the Windows Store is whatever. But they really need to address the dumb rule that prevents Mozilla and Google from listing their browsers there.
I don't know about Mozilla, but I'm pretty sure Google's own policies want to keep Chrome out of the Windows Store (on top of disagreeing with Microsoft's demands on its side).
Now, people then argue that Apple has the same rules on their app stores, and Google and Mozilla play ball there. that's true on iOS where the *only* way to get onto the device is through the app store. Google and Mozilla choose to play ball because it is literally the only option. On MacOS, you don't find Chrome or Firefox on that app store, for the same reason as on Windows.
I have a lot of thoughts on the S Mode, but that's for when I have more time.
To each their own.
We've tried disabling the Windows Update service under services.msc and under group policy editor, but every day the dang update window pops up asking for permission. I guess it's better than bricking itself overnight, but it's still pretty annoying that it keeps asking! Anyone know if there's a way to kill this thing for good?
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/3073930/how-to-temporarily-prevent-a-driver-update-from-reinstalling-in-window?utm_source=twitter?utm_source=twitter