Can anyone recommend a safe registry cleaner and source of same for Win7
please?

(Background: I've installed Plustek 'OpticBook 3800' scanner software
including Book Pavilion and ABBYY Finereader Sprint 9. Works absolutely
splendidly scanning pages and converting them to searchable pdf files - or
at least did work splendidly until I had a glitch. Now BookPavilion does the
scan, kicks off Finereader to convert to pdf's, but instead of being in the
back ground Finereader comes up as it's own application, cannot find the
scanned data then locks up. Tedious having scanned 80 pages several times !!


I've uninstalled, then re-installed the software but it still does the same.
Then I've installed it on another pc and it works as it should so I am
assuming some flag or other is wrongly set in the registry and not being
removed on uninstallation.

Andrew

On 22/12/2014 17:35, Andrew Mawson wrote:
Can anyone recommend a safe registry cleaner and source of same for Win7
please?

(Background: I've installed Plustek 'OpticBook 3800' scanner software
including Book Pavilion and ABBYY Finereader Sprint 9. Works absolutely
splendidly scanning pages and converting them to searchable pdf files -
or at least did work splendidly until I had a glitch. Now BookPavilion
does the scan, kicks off Finereader to convert to pdf's, but instead of
being in the back ground Finereader comes up as it's own application,
cannot find the scanned data then locks up. Tedious having scanned 80
pages several times !!

I've uninstalled, then re-installed the software but it still does the
same. Then I've installed it on another pc and it works as it should so
I am assuming some flag or other is wrongly set in the registry and not
being removed on uninstallation.

Andrew

I've only ever used cCleaner from piriform, a registry cleaner is one of
the tools.

On Mon, 22 Dec 2014 17:35:52 -0000, "Andrew Mawson"
wrote:

Can anyone recommend a safe registry cleaner and source of same for Win7
please?

(Background: I've installed Plustek 'OpticBook 3800' scanner software
including Book Pavilion and ABBYY Finereader Sprint 9. Works absolutely
splendidly scanning pages and converting them to searchable pdf files - or
at least did work splendidly until I had a glitch. Now BookPavilion does the
scan, kicks off Finereader to convert to pdf's, but instead of being in the
back ground Finereader comes up as it's own application, cannot find the
scanned data then locks up. Tedious having scanned 80 pages several times !!


I've uninstalled, then re-installed the software but it still does the same.
Then I've installed it on another pc and it works as it should so I am
assuming some flag or other is wrongly set in the registry and not being
removed on uninstallation.

Andrew

You can do a system restore to a restore point before the problem
occurred, or before you installed the offending application.



--

Graham.

%Profound_observation%

Seriously, there is no such thing as safe registry software, however, in
your position I'd try some stuff.
How long ago did you install it, If its not too long, uninstall it with
REVO uninstaller, assuming these are 32 bit apps. Use the most aggressive
mode. The good thing about the registry scanner in revo is that it knows
exactly what its looking for from the uninstaller.
If you then re install and still get issues, then I guess its t time for a
system restre to before the first install, which should fix it, but of
course anything else installed since will also go away.
Lastly, you can try Eusing free registry cleaner, but be warned it is very
powerful indeed so do not mess with it. I also do use regedit of course if I
know what I'm after, and ccleaner too, but that is very basic registry
tweaking.

I usually find that Revo sorts things out though.

Brian

--
From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active
"Andrew Mawson" wrote in message
...
Can anyone recommend a safe registry cleaner and source of same for Win7
please?

(Background: I've installed Plustek 'OpticBook 3800' scanner software
including Book Pavilion and ABBYY Finereader Sprint 9. Works absolutely
splendidly scanning pages and converting them to searchable pdf files - or
at least did work splendidly until I had a glitch. Now BookPavilion does
the scan, kicks off Finereader to convert to pdf's, but instead of being
in the back ground Finereader comes up as it's own application, cannot
find the scanned data then locks up. Tedious having scanned 80 pages
several times !!

I've uninstalled, then re-installed the software but it still does the
same. Then I've installed it on another pc and it works as it should so I
am assuming some flag or other is wrongly set in the registry and not
being removed on uninstallation.

Andrew

He can, but then he has to install every other thing he installed since.
Revo should be your friend, but please if these pieces of software need to
work together, uninstall all of them FIRST, before reinstalling any, as the
error might well be in one of the others.
Brian

--
From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active
"Graham." wrote in message
news
On Mon, 22 Dec 2014 17:35:52 -0000, "Andrew Mawson"
wrote:

Can anyone recommend a safe registry cleaner and source of same for Win7
please?

(Background: I've installed Plustek 'OpticBook 3800' scanner software
including Book Pavilion and ABBYY Finereader Sprint 9. Works absolutely
splendidly scanning pages and converting them to searchable pdf files - or
at least did work splendidly until I had a glitch. Now BookPavilion does
the
scan, kicks off Finereader to convert to pdf's, but instead of being in
the
back ground Finereader comes up as it's own application, cannot find the
scanned data then locks up. Tedious having scanned 80 pages several times
!!


I've uninstalled, then re-installed the software but it still does the
same.
Then I've installed it on another pc and it works as it should so I am
assuming some flag or other is wrongly set in the registry and not being
removed on uninstallation.

Andrew

You can do a system restore to a restore point before the problem
occurred, or before you installed the offending application.



--

Graham.

%Profound_observation%

En el artículo , Andrew Mawson andrew@pleas
e_remove_me.mawson.org.uk escribió:

I've uninstalled, then re-installed the software but it still does the same.
Then I've installed it on another pc and it works as it should so I am
assuming some flag or other is wrongly set in the registry and not being
removed on uninstallation.

Uninstall the scanner softweare.

Download and install the free version of Revo Uninstaller.

Re-install the scanner software.

Uninstall the scanner software from within Revo Uninstaller, accepting
the options to delete registry keys and orphaned program files. Note
you explicitly have to check the tick box for the files/keys offered
then click "Delete All".

That should do the trick.

--
(\_/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")

On 22/12/2014 17:35, Andrew Mawson wrote:
so I am assuming some flag or other is wrongly set in the registry and
not being removed on uninstallation.

That's just an assumption. There might be something else.

You could watch it with Process Explorer (from MS' web site) and see
what it's doing.

Andy

"Graham." wrote in message
news

On Mon, 22 Dec 2014 17:35:52 -0000, "Andrew Mawson"
wrote:

Can anyone recommend a safe registry cleaner and source of same for Win7
please?

(Background: I've installed Plustek 'OpticBook 3800' scanner software
including Book Pavilion and ABBYY Finereader Sprint 9. Works absolutely
splendidly scanning pages and converting them to searchable pdf files - or
at least did work splendidly until I had a glitch. Now BookPavilion does
the
scan, kicks off Finereader to convert to pdf's, but instead of being in
the
back ground Finereader comes up as it's own application, cannot find the
scanned data then locks up. Tedious having scanned 80 pages several times
!!


I've uninstalled, then re-installed the software but it still does the
same.
Then I've installed it on another pc and it works as it should so I am
assuming some flag or other is wrongly set in the registry and not being
removed on uninstallation.

Andrew

You can do a system restore to a restore point before the problem
occurred, or before you installed the offending application.



Excellent suggestion that has effected a cure - thank you

Andrew

On Mon, 22 Dec 2014 17:35:52 -0000, Andrew Mawson wrote:

Can anyone recommend a safe registry cleaner and source of same for Win7
please?

I use Registry Help Free
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/R...try-Help.shtml
or Free Window Registry Repair
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/R...y-Repair.shtml
and have done for several years now with no problems.
There's also Argente Registry Cleaner that seems OK the couple of times I've
used it
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/R...-Cleaner.shtml

--
Peter.
The gods will stay away
whilst religions hold sway

On Mon, 22 Dec 2014 18:45:34 +0000, newshound wrote:

On 22/12/2014 17:35, Andrew Mawson wrote:
Can anyone recommend a safe registry cleaner and source of same for Win7
please?

(Background: I've installed Plustek 'OpticBook 3800' scanner software
including Book Pavilion and ABBYY Finereader Sprint 9. Works absolutely
splendidly scanning pages and converting them to searchable pdf files -
or at least did work splendidly until I had a glitch. Now BookPavilion
does the scan, kicks off Finereader to convert to pdf's, but instead of
being in the back ground Finereader comes up as it's own application,
cannot find the scanned data then locks up. Tedious having scanned 80
pages several times !!

I've uninstalled, then re-installed the software but it still does the
same. Then I've installed it on another pc and it works as it should so
I am assuming some flag or other is wrongly set in the registry and not
being removed on uninstallation.

Andrew

I've only ever used cCleaner from piriform, a registry cleaner is one of
the tools.

It's OK but very limited in what it does - perhaps a good thing.
--
Peter.
The gods will stay away
whilst religions hold sway

On 22/12/2014 18:45, newshound wrote:
On 22/12/2014 17:35, Andrew Mawson wrote:
Can anyone recommend a safe registry cleaner and source of same for Win7
please?

(Background: I've installed Plustek 'OpticBook 3800' scanner software
including Book Pavilion and ABBYY Finereader Sprint 9. Works absolutely
splendidly scanning pages and converting them to searchable pdf files -
or at least did work splendidly until I had a glitch. Now BookPavilion
does the scan, kicks off Finereader to convert to pdf's, but instead of
being in the back ground Finereader comes up as it's own application,
cannot find the scanned data then locks up. Tedious having scanned 80
pages several times !!

I've uninstalled, then re-installed the software but it still does the
same. Then I've installed it on another pc and it works as it should so
I am assuming some flag or other is wrongly set in the registry and not
being removed on uninstallation.

Andrew

I've only ever used cCleaner from piriform, a registry cleaner is one of
the tools.

Although I would say on balance it was safe you should always back
things up before open heart surgery on a PC. The registry is a fragile
entity and when you have to go in there with a flint axe or chainsaw
things can get ugly very quickly with just a minor mistake.

Also make a note of any magic identities or passwords you have stored
for websites - it is far too easy for overly zealous cleaners to remove
perfectly good cookies that were there to make your life easier...


--
Regards,
Martin Brown

Martin Brown wrote:

Although I would say on balance it was safe you should always back
things up before open heart surgery on a PC. The registry is a fragile
entity and when you have to go in there with a flint axe or chainsaw
things can get ugly very quickly with just a minor mistake.

I hear this endlessly and it's ********, frankly. People talk of the
registry as if it's made of myrrh and impossibilium, but it's really
fairly straight forward and, in the latest incarnations, almost
impossible to delete anything OS related anyway when one's trying.

Assuming the vaguest familiarity with reading and being able to control
one's delete finger, it's certainly a damn sight safer to go in and edit
it than trust some sort of registry cleaner (which all appear to be
Conware anyway.) And zapping a few keys in
HKLM/Software/YourCompanyHere ain't going to break anything.

Anyway, I reckon the problem is with file type associations.

--
Scott

Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?

On Wed, 24 Dec 2014 09:24:37 +0000, Scott M wrote:

Martin Brown wrote:

Although I would say on balance it was safe you should always back
things up before open heart surgery on a PC. The registry is a fragile
entity and when you have to go in there with a flint axe or chainsaw
things can get ugly very quickly with just a minor mistake.

I hear this endlessly and it's ********, frankly. People talk of the
registry as if it's made of myrrh and impossibilium, but it's really
fairly straight forward and, in the latest incarnations, almost
impossible to delete anything OS related anyway when one's trying.


and ccleaner will back up the registry before making its changes.

"newshound" wrote in message
...
On 22/12/2014 17:35, Andrew Mawson wrote:
Can anyone recommend a safe registry cleaner and source of same for Win7
please?

(Background: I've installed Plustek 'OpticBook 3800' scanner software
including Book Pavilion and ABBYY Finereader Sprint 9. Works absolutely
splendidly scanning pages and converting them to searchable pdf files -
or at least did work splendidly until I had a glitch. Now BookPavilion
does the scan, kicks off Finereader to convert to pdf's, but instead of
being in the back ground Finereader comes up as it's own application,
cannot find the scanned data then locks up. Tedious having scanned 80
pages several times !!

I've uninstalled, then re-installed the software but it still does the
same. Then I've installed it on another pc and it works as it should so
I am assuming some flag or other is wrongly set in the registry and not
being removed on uninstallation.

Andrew

I've only ever used cCleaner from piriform, a registry cleaner is one of
the tools.

+1

"Judith" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 24 Dec 2014 09:24:37 +0000, Scott M wrote:

Martin Brown wrote:

Although I would say on balance it was safe you should always back
things up before open heart surgery on a PC. The registry is a fragile
entity and when you have to go in there with a flint axe or chainsaw
things can get ugly very quickly with just a minor mistake.

I hear this endlessly and it's ********, frankly. People talk of the
registry as if it's made of myrrh and impossibilium, but it's really
fairly straight forward and, in the latest incarnations, almost
impossible to delete anything OS related anyway when one's trying.


and ccleaner will back up the registry before making its changes.

+1
But, I have never bothered.

"Brian Gaff" wrote in message
...
He can, but then he has to install every other thing he installed since.
Revo should be your friend, but please if these pieces of software need to
work together, uninstall all of them FIRST, before reinstalling any, as
the error might well be in one of the others.
Brian

--
From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active
"Graham." wrote in message
news
On Mon, 22 Dec 2014 17:35:52 -0000, "Andrew Mawson"
wrote:

Can anyone recommend a safe registry cleaner and source of same for Win7
please?

(Background: I've installed Plustek 'OpticBook 3800' scanner software
including Book Pavilion and ABBYY Finereader Sprint 9. Works absolutely
splendidly scanning pages and converting them to searchable pdf files -
or
at least did work splendidly until I had a glitch. Now BookPavilion does
the
scan, kicks off Finereader to convert to pdf's, but instead of being in
the
back ground Finereader comes up as it's own application, cannot find the
scanned data then locks up. Tedious having scanned 80 pages several times
!!


I've uninstalled, then re-installed the software but it still does the
same.
Then I've installed it on another pc and it works as it should so I am
assuming some flag or other is wrongly set in the registry and not being
removed on uninstallation.

Andrew

You can do a system restore to a restore point before the problem
occurred, or before you installed the offending application.

My last system restore that actually worked was on Windows 98. The rest have
never worked and yes, it was set up to work.

"Mr Pounder" wrote in message
...

"Brian Gaff" wrote in message
...
He can, but then he has to install every other thing he installed since.
Revo should be your friend, but please if these pieces of software need
to work together, uninstall all of them FIRST, before reinstalling any,
as the error might well be in one of the others.
Brian

--
From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active
"Graham." wrote in message
news
On Mon, 22 Dec 2014 17:35:52 -0000, "Andrew Mawson"
wrote:

Can anyone recommend a safe registry cleaner and source of same for Win7
please?

(Background: I've installed Plustek 'OpticBook 3800' scanner software
including Book Pavilion and ABBYY Finereader Sprint 9. Works absolutely
splendidly scanning pages and converting them to searchable pdf files -
or
at least did work splendidly until I had a glitch. Now BookPavilion does
the
scan, kicks off Finereader to convert to pdf's, but instead of being in
the
back ground Finereader comes up as it's own application, cannot find the
scanned data then locks up. Tedious having scanned 80 pages several
times !!


I've uninstalled, then re-installed the software but it still does the
same.
Then I've installed it on another pc and it works as it should so I am
assuming some flag or other is wrongly set in the registry and not being
removed on uninstallation.

Andrew

You can do a system restore to a restore point before the problem
occurred, or before you installed the offending application.

My last system restore that actually worked was on Windows 98. The rest
have never worked and yes, it was set up to work.

Then you must have stuffed it up. Mine work fine.

"newshound" wrote in message
...
On 22/12/2014 17:35, Andrew Mawson wrote:
Can anyone recommend a safe registry cleaner and source of same for Win7
please?

(Background: I've installed Plustek 'OpticBook 3800' scanner software
including Book Pavilion and ABBYY Finereader Sprint 9. Works absolutely
splendidly scanning pages and converting them to searchable pdf files -
or at least did work splendidly until I had a glitch. Now BookPavilion
does the scan, kicks off Finereader to convert to pdf's, but instead of
being in the back ground Finereader comes up as it's own application,
cannot find the scanned data then locks up. Tedious having scanned 80
pages several times !!

I've uninstalled, then re-installed the software but it still does the
same. Then I've installed it on another pc and it works as it should so
I am assuming some flag or other is wrongly set in the registry and not
being removed on uninstallation.

Andrew

I've only ever used cCleaner from piriform, a registry cleaner is one of
the tools.


+1

Arfa

On Wed, 24 Dec 2014 12:11:01 +0000, Judith
wrote:

On Wed, 24 Dec 2014 09:24:37 +0000, Scott M wrote:

Martin Brown wrote:

Although I would say on balance it was safe you should always back
things up before open heart surgery on a PC. The registry is a fragile
entity and when you have to go in there with a flint axe or chainsaw
things can get ugly very quickly with just a minor mistake.

I hear this endlessly and it's ********, frankly. People talk of the
registry as if it's made of myrrh and impossibilium, but it's really
fairly straight forward and, in the latest incarnations, almost
impossible to delete anything OS related anyway when one's trying.


and ccleaner will back up the registry before making its changes.

+1 for Ccleaner. It's free and is a tried and trusted registry
cleanup tool.

There's no point in using other "registry cleaners". At best, they'll
do no more than Ccleaner and, at worst, they can screw things up and,
even worse, will claim to have found hundreds of problems requring you
to register the program to effect a cure (they're 'payware' or
'ransomware' mis-selling themselves as 'Freeware').
--
J B Good

On Wed, 24 Dec 2014 20:26:27 -0000, "Mr Pounder"
wrote:


"Brian Gaff" wrote in message
...
He can, but then he has to install every other thing he installed since.
Revo should be your friend, but please if these pieces of software need to
work together, uninstall all of them FIRST, before reinstalling any, as
the error might well be in one of the others.
Brian

--
From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active
"Graham." wrote in message
news
On Mon, 22 Dec 2014 17:35:52 -0000, "Andrew Mawson"
wrote:

Can anyone recommend a safe registry cleaner and source of same for Win7
please?

(Background: I've installed Plustek 'OpticBook 3800' scanner software
including Book Pavilion and ABBYY Finereader Sprint 9. Works absolutely
splendidly scanning pages and converting them to searchable pdf files -
or
at least did work splendidly until I had a glitch. Now BookPavilion does
the
scan, kicks off Finereader to convert to pdf's, but instead of being in
the
back ground Finereader comes up as it's own application, cannot find the
scanned data then locks up. Tedious having scanned 80 pages several times
!!


I've uninstalled, then re-installed the software but it still does the
same.
Then I've installed it on another pc and it works as it should so I am
assuming some flag or other is wrongly set in the registry and not being
removed on uninstallation.

Andrew

You can do a system restore to a restore point before the problem
occurred, or before you installed the offending application.

My last system restore that actually worked was on Windows 98. The rest have
never worked and yes, it was set up to work.


System Restore does suffer the inherent weakness of 'fragility'. The
problem is the sheer complexity of the problem faced by System
Restore. The 'Last Known Good system restore point' can be a real life
saver and it can usually do a fair job with recent restore points but
the further back in time you have to go, the less likely it will
succeed. That's one good reason right there why you should limit the
amount of disk space reserved to restore points to a more sane level
of a GB or so rather than the default 12% of a 1TB HDD.

The only guaranteed method of restoration is to make boot/system disk
image backups[1]. Once you've established your base load of installed
apps you can slacken the rate of backups to one a month, perhaps to as
few as two or three a year (even a 6 month backup is a better bet than
a full install and a ****load of windows service pack updates and
hotfixes).

[1] This is one damn good reason to partitition even an SSD into a
seperate OS and software disk volume and a seperate user data volume.
It lets you concentrate on the OS and apps as a compact disk image
backup for speedy restoration (and backup).
--
J B Good

"Johny B Good" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 24 Dec 2014 20:26:27 -0000, "Mr Pounder"
wrote:


"Brian Gaff" wrote in message
...
He can, but then he has to install every other thing he installed since.
Revo should be your friend, but please if these pieces of software need
to
work together, uninstall all of them FIRST, before reinstalling any, as
the error might well be in one of the others.
Brian

--
From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active
"Graham." wrote in message
news On Mon, 22 Dec 2014 17:35:52 -0000, "Andrew Mawson"
wrote:

Can anyone recommend a safe registry cleaner and source of same for
Win7
please?

(Background: I've installed Plustek 'OpticBook 3800' scanner software
including Book Pavilion and ABBYY Finereader Sprint 9. Works absolutely
splendidly scanning pages and converting them to searchable pdf files -
or
at least did work splendidly until I had a glitch. Now BookPavilion
does
the
scan, kicks off Finereader to convert to pdf's, but instead of being in
the
back ground Finereader comes up as it's own application, cannot find
the
scanned data then locks up. Tedious having scanned 80 pages several
times
!!


I've uninstalled, then re-installed the software but it still does the
same.
Then I've installed it on another pc and it works as it should so I am
assuming some flag or other is wrongly set in the registry and not
being
removed on uninstallation.

Andrew

You can do a system restore to a restore point before the problem
occurred, or before you installed the offending application.

My last system restore that actually worked was on Windows 98. The rest
have
never worked and yes, it was set up to work.


System Restore does suffer the inherent weakness of 'fragility'. The
problem is the sheer complexity of the problem faced by System
Restore. The 'Last Known Good system restore point' can be a real life
saver and it can usually do a fair job with recent restore points but
the further back in time you have to go, the less likely it will
succeed. That's one good reason right there why you should limit the
amount of disk space reserved to restore points to a more sane level
of a GB or so rather than the default 12% of a 1TB HDD.

The only guaranteed method of restoration is to make boot/system disk
image backups[1]. Once you've established your base load of installed
apps you can slacken the rate of backups to one a month, perhaps to as
few as two or three a year (even a 6 month backup is a better bet than
a full install and a ****load of windows service pack updates and
hotfixes).

[1] This is one damn good reason to partitition even an SSD into
a seperate OS and software disk volume and a seperate user data
volume. It lets you concentrate on the OS and apps as a compact
disk image backup for speedy restoration (and backup).

Still got the major downside that its hard to get the size of that
partition right and difficult and dangerous to adjust it later unless
you can do an image of the entire physical drive before doing that.

On Mon, 29 Dec 2014 14:15:23 +1100, "Rod Speed"
wrote:



"Johny B Good" wrote in message
.. .

====snip====

System Restore does suffer the inherent weakness of 'fragility'. The
problem is the sheer complexity of the problem faced by System
Restore. The 'Last Known Good system restore point' can be a real life
saver and it can usually do a fair job with recent restore points but
the further back in time you have to go, the less likely it will
succeed. That's one good reason right there why you should limit the
amount of disk space reserved to restore points to a more sane level
of a GB or so rather than the default 12% of a 1TB HDD.

The only guaranteed method of restoration is to make boot/system disk
image backups[1]. Once you've established your base load of installed
apps you can slacken the rate of backups to one a month, perhaps to as
few as two or three a year (even a 6 month backup is a better bet than
a full install and a ****load of windows service pack updates and
hotfixes).

[1] This is one damn good reason to partitition even an SSD into
a seperate OS and software disk volume and a seperate user data
volume. It lets you concentrate on the OS and apps as a compact
disk image backup for speedy restoration (and backup).

Still got the major downside that its hard to get the size of that
partition right and difficult and dangerous to adjust it later unless
you can do an image of the entire physical drive before doing that.

I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill. It's true enough
that you could run into space allocation problems if you underestimate
the OS and software space requirements at first iteration but you
should have a reasonably accurate enough idea of these requirements
before you even consider creating such a partitioning arrangement.

A reasonable rule of thumb for Vista/win7/win8 is to allow 50GiB and
another 50GiB for your mainstream software installs (either two
seperate 50GiB partitions or, a safer bet, a single 100GiB partition.

Another way to approach this is to estimate a minimum safe size for
the OS, either from experience or by googling and add another 50 to
100 percent (it's better to over allocate than under).

Earlier, this afternoon, I was tasked by an old customer of mine to
partition up a replacement 500GB HDD for a laptop which had a 640GB
hdd that had totally disappeared from the BIOS, along with its win7
installation and user data files.

After confirming the fault was in the failed HDD's controller, I
fitted the new 500GB (465GiB) drive and booted from a win7 install DVD
to run the partitioning utility. In this case, I took the safer option
of specifying a 100GB primary partition for the installation (ample
space for the OS _and_ the user installed software).

Knowing that the win7 installer partitioning routine pinches the
first 100MB for the sys boot partition, I specified 102500MB to get a
neat 100GB "drive C" primary partition. When I tried to create an
extended partition using the remaining 365GiB of the disk, I
discovered that it would only create a third primary partition.

I did consider leaving that space unallocated so my customer could
deal with its allocation after finishing the windows install so he'd
have access to the more fully featured disk management tool to create
an extended partition with a 365GiB logical drive but thought better
of it. Instead, I rebooted from the very useful Parted Magic USB drive
and finished the job with the partition editor.

The extra trouble I went to in making sure the second user accessable
disk volume was a logical one was to make damn sure the OS could only
be installed onto the one and only available primary dos partition
(the 100GB one) and to avoid the muddle of optical drive being
assigned the drive letter D by default and the logical disk volume
becoming drive E by default).

I did suggest to my customer that he aught to re-allocate the drive
letter W to the optical drive (inevitably, these past 8 or more years,
a DVD re-_W_riter) so that any additional guest drives plugged into
USB ports will be given drive letters in a more logical and less
confusing fashion.

I also reminded him to change the user folders paths from their
default drive C locations to drive D based paths. Whether this last
advice is heeded is questionable but if it isn't, it's a trivially
easy fix for when he comes back crying about "low disk space on drive
C" warning messages.

When it comes to using disk cloning/imaging tools such as Paragon
Hard Disk Manager which can intelligently skip unused clusters and
create compressed images, the excess unused disk space becomes
immaterial so you can afford to be a little on the generous side,
especially when using very large disk drives where an extra 50GB on a
1TB HDD represents a mere 5% of 'wasted disk space' (less than half
that wasted by the default allocation made by "System Restore").

Aside from the "User Files" issue, I'm pretty confident that the
partitioning is more or less spot on the money for this laptop's use.
--
J B Good

Johny B Good wrote
Rod Speed wrote
Johny B Good wrote

System Restore does suffer the inherent weakness of 'fragility'.
The problem is the sheer complexity of the problem faced by
System Restore. The 'Last Known Good system restore point'
can be a real life saver and it can usually do a fair job with
recent restore points but the further back in time you have
to go, the less likely it will succeed. That's one good reason
right there why you should limit the amount of disk space
reserved to restore points to a more sane level of a GB or
so rather than the default 12% of a 1TB HDD.

The only guaranteed method of restoration is to make boot/system disk
image backups[1]. Once you've established your base load of installed
apps you can slacken the rate of backups to one a month, perhaps to as
few as two or three a year (even a 6 month backup is a better bet than a
full install and a ****load of windows service pack updates and
hotfixes).

[1] This is one damn good reason to partitition even an SSD into
a seperate OS and software disk volume and a seperate user data
volume. It lets you concentrate on the OS and apps as a compact
disk image backup for speedy restoration (and backup).

Still got the major downside that its hard to get the size of that
partition right and difficult and dangerous to adjust it later unless
you can do an image of the entire physical drive before doing that.

I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill.

Not making a mountain out of anything, just
pointing out a downside of that approach.

It's true enough that you could run into space allocation
problems if you underestimate the OS and software
space requirements at first iteration but you should have a
reasonably accurate enough idea of these requirements before
you even consider creating such a partitioning arrangement.

When even someone like me finds it hard to get that size right,
what hope has some simple user got of getting that right ?

A reasonable rule of thumb for Vista/win7/win8 is to allow 50GiB
and another 50GiB for your mainstream software installs (either two
seperate 50GiB partitions or, a safer bet, a single 100GiB partition.

And that is a very crude estimate for many.

Another way to approach this is to estimate a minimum
safe size for the OS, either from experience or by googling

That just isnt feasible for most simple users.

and add another 50 to 100 percent
(it's better to over allocate than under).

Particularly as it's a lot easier to shrink it later than to expand it.

And you don't have to do anything at all if you don't
have a separate partition for the OS and software.

Earlier, this afternoon, I was tasked by an old customer of
mine to partition up a replacement 500GB HDD for a laptop
which had a 640GB hdd that had totally disappeared from
the BIOS, along with its win7 installation and user data files.

And the reason people like them ask people like us to do that
is because its isnt that easy for them to do that sort of thing.

After confirming the fault was in the failed HDD's controller,
I fitted the new 500GB (465GiB) drive and booted from a win7
install DVD to run the partitioning utility. In this case, I took the
safer option of specifying a 100GB primary partition for the
installation (ample space for the OS _and_ the user installed software).

While you and I know that, simple users don't.

Knowing that the win7 installer partitioning routine pinches the
first 100MB for the sys boot partition, I specified 102500MB to
get a neat 100GB "drive C" primary partition. When I tried to create
an extended partition using the remaining 365GiB of the disk,
I discovered that it would only create a third primary partition.

Yet another thing that bites simple users on the arse in that
situation with having a separate partition for OS and software.

I did consider leaving that space unallocated so my customer could
deal with its allocation after finishing the windows install so he'd
have access to the more fully featured disk management tool to
create an extended partition with a 365GiB logical drive but thought
better of it. Instead, I rebooted from the very useful Parted Magic
USB drive and finished the job with the partition editor.

And simple users wouldn't know about doing that.

The extra trouble I went to in making sure the second user
accessable disk volume was a logical one was to make damn
sure the OS could only be installed onto the one and only
available primary dos partition (the 100GB one) and to avoid
the muddle of optical drive being assigned the drive letter D by
default and the logical disk volume becoming drive E by default).

Yet another downside with a separate partition
for OS and software for simple users.

I did suggest to my customer that he aught to re-allocate
the drive letter W to the optical drive (inevitably, these
past 8 or more years, a DVD re-_W_riter) so that any
additional guest drives plugged into USB ports will be given
drive letters in a more logical and less confusing fashion.

I also reminded him to change the user folders paths from
their default drive C locations to drive D based paths.

Yet another downside with a separate partition
for OS and software for simple users.

Whether this last advice is heeded is questionable
but if it isn't, it's a trivially easy fix for when he
comes back crying about "low disk space on drive
C" warning messages.

And that wont happen if there is no
separate partition for the OS and software.

When it comes to using disk cloning/imaging tools such as Paragon
Hard Disk Manager which can intelligently skip unused clusters and
create compressed images, the excess unused disk space becomes
immaterial so you can afford to be a little on the generous side,

But not with SSDs that are so common now.

especially when using very large disk drives where an extra 50GB
on a 1TB HDD represents a mere 5% of 'wasted disk space' (less than
half that wasted by the default allocation made by "System Restore").

But not with SSDs that are so common now.

Aside from the "User Files" issue, I'm pretty confident that the
partitioning is more or less spot on the money for this laptop's use.

And that user files issue is a major one for simple users.

On 30/12/14 01:17, Johny B Good wrote:
A reasonable rule of thumb for Vista/win7/win8 is to allow 50GiB and
another 50GiB for your mainstream software installs (either two
seperate 50GiB partitions or, a safer bet, a single 100GiB partition.


Blimey. Linux installs in a little over 6 GB, and with applications here
I am only using 36GB and that includes a full windows XP virtual machine
and disk (18GB) AS WELL.

Excluding data 20GB is more than enough for linux.

Data - videos and so on - is another matter...

--
Everything you read in newspapers is absolutely true, except for the
rare story of which you happen to have first-hand knowledge. €“ Erwin Knoll

On 29/12/2014 2:59 AM, Johny B Good wrote:
On Wed, 24 Dec 2014 20:26:27 -0000, "Mr Pounder"
wrote:


"Brian Gaff" wrote in message
...
He can, but then he has to install every other thing he installed since.
Revo should be your friend, but please if these pieces of software need to
work together, uninstall all of them FIRST, before reinstalling any, as
the error might well be in one of the others.
Brian

--
From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active
"Graham." wrote in message
news On Mon, 22 Dec 2014 17:35:52 -0000, "Andrew Mawson"
wrote:

Can anyone recommend a safe registry cleaner and source of same for Win7
please?

(Background: I've installed Plustek 'OpticBook 3800' scanner software
including Book Pavilion and ABBYY Finereader Sprint 9. Works absolutely
splendidly scanning pages and converting them to searchable pdf files -
or
at least did work splendidly until I had a glitch. Now BookPavilion does
the
scan, kicks off Finereader to convert to pdf's, but instead of being in
the
back ground Finereader comes up as it's own application, cannot find the
scanned data then locks up. Tedious having scanned 80 pages several times
!!


I've uninstalled, then re-installed the software but it still does the
same.
Then I've installed it on another pc and it works as it should so I am
assuming some flag or other is wrongly set in the registry and not being
removed on uninstallation.

Andrew

You can do a system restore to a restore point before the problem
occurred, or before you installed the offending application.

My last system restore that actually worked was on Windows 98. The rest have
never worked and yes, it was set up to work.


System Restore does suffer the inherent weakness of 'fragility'. The
problem is the sheer complexity of the problem faced by System
Restore. The 'Last Known Good system restore point' can be a real life
saver and it can usually do a fair job with recent restore points but
the further back in time you have to go, the less likely it will
succeed. That's one good reason right there why you should limit the
amount of disk space reserved to restore points to a more sane level
of a GB or so rather than the default 12% of a 1TB HDD.

The only guaranteed method of restoration is to make boot/system disk
image backups[1]. Once you've established your base load of installed
apps you can slacken the rate of backups to one a month, perhaps to as
few as two or three a year (even a 6 month backup is a better bet than
a full install and a ****load of windows service pack updates and
hotfixes).

[1] This is one damn good reason to partitition even an SSD into a
seperate OS and software disk volume and a seperate user data volume.
It lets you concentrate on the OS and apps as a compact disk image
backup for speedy restoration (and backup).


I couldn't agree more. As I use a home tower, I keep all data on a
separate devices, each backed up twice, one which is external. With the
system partition limited in size, I frequently use Reflect to mirror the
system partition when I am about to make any type of change to it.

The days of spending weeks re-installing the OS and all App's are
gone. 10 minutes to 'dump' the mirror back to the drive and it kicks up
again as nothing ever went wrong.

So, these days, I care less what I rip out of the system. System restore
is something that no longer exists in my OS.


....Ray

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