Computer Problems Resolved. Fingers Crossed!

Unexpectedly, my old desktop is working again,  thanks to my wonderful DH!

We thought there was a hardware fault,  or maybe more than one. I had been running into problems for ages with a very slow running internet and was completely losing connection on occasion. I thought that was Internet Explorer and changed to Chrome but then uninstalled as I had too much associated junk installed with it.

I have regular backups set to backup to an external drive so any computer crash is not usually associated with too devastating a loss of data. That wasn’t always the case - a few years ago I lost all my stored photographs in an error (combination of a cat, a daughter and a malicious website) that resulted in a presumed virus and having to wipe my computer laptop with no data being salvaged. I also have cloud storage but tend not to use it other than being able to access Google Drive from all my devices. 

We decided to really clean up the computer, possibly return it to factory settings. We couldn't set a recovery point, as there was a Windows error (message on screen), so we did everything else we felt was possible. We couldn't set the recovery point because we couldn't link to a Windows service - that turned out not to be my computer, though, but due to a windows update which hadn’t installed properly. We discovered that when my brand new laptop showed the same error message!  A search online showed that many other people had the same problem and provided the solution, which was easy to apply. 

We didn’t set back to factory settings as I was  also concerned about the possible loss of some of my programmes. I appear to have mislaid some programme disks.  I was certainly prepared to if the other measures hadn’t worked but fortunately they did.

Then we found I could connect to the Internet via an Ethernet connection. My computer thought it was a toaster, though, and had to be taught everything again. I had to put in the password for our broadband again (no fun when there are 50 characters!).  It didn't pick up my installed wireless printer. It wouldn't work on wireless so we thought it might be a problem with the wireless hardware.

More cleaning,  checking etc.

Then, my computer worked on wireless when we retried. It then picked up the printer. It was a computer again!

We did a proper deep back up and could now set a recovery point.

I'm still busy sorting it.

Proper housekeeping.

Getting rid of programmes I no longer use.

Getting rid of cache and clearing browsing history

Disk checking - it was fine

Checking the registry (there were lots of problems there, but all quickly resolved)

Virus checking - one malsign exterminated

Defragmenting - had been performed regularly

Tune up programme

I have plenty of disk space so that wasn’t an issue.

I'm hopeful it might be fine for a while. We still don’t know what the problem was, though. Still, I thought my computer was dying of old age and so I’m glad still to have it.

I also mentioned previously, I think, that I bought a new laptop to replace my previous one given to one of my daughters when hers broke. I bought two copies of Microsoft Office (one for my laptop and one for DH) and it installed but wouldn't register or activate - the code I supplied was not considered valid. I thought I had been a victim of software piracy (that was the message DH got) and had been fleeced out of the purchase price (not inconsiderable). However, the company I bought it from responded appropriately, checked to see that I had properly followed instructions and decided my code had been faulty. Today they supplied a new code which worked fine and I now have a properly activated copy of Office. DH's also activated okay. 

Getting my desktop running properly and setting up my laptop has taken quite a while and is ongoing. I’m hopeful, though, that I’ll end up with a well running system and that my blog posts will improve.