Does nobody test anything these days?

Does nobody test anything these days? 

Although I mostly use Linux, there are several Windows 7 boxes here at Vanya Towers. Supposedly protected by Avast antivirus.
They all run Internet Explorer 10 as well as Firefox.

This week there was an Avast program update to version 2014.9.0.2006.
It doesn't do anything different, but the familiar orange ball that spins when stuff is happening is now orange and blue. Whoopee!

Except, that while Firefox and Chrome run as normal, Internet Explorer has stopped dead.  What?

It turns out that it isn't quite dead. If you leave it for several minutes, it eventually renders the page you clicked on. 

After much head scratching and internet searching, the fix appears to be to disable any Avast add-ons in Internet Explorer. i.e.:-

Start Internet Explorer, and allow it to reach it's home page.  This may take several minutes. Don't click anything until it's loaded properly.

Then:-
Click the gearwheel at the top right.
Select 'Manage Add-ons'.
Select 'Show all Add-ons'.

The list should include either 2 or 4 entries for Avast Online Security.
Why 2 or 4?  Who knows.
Right-click the first one and select 'Disable'.
A box will come up to say the others will also be disabled.
Click Close, and shut down Internet Explorer.
Restart Internet Explorer, and it should work ok.

Of course, this means that IE no longer uses the Avast online protection, but if you don't go anywhere nasty you should be ok.
If, for some reason, you need to go to some random, unknown site, they first go there with any other browser.

Postscript.
In amongst all this messing about, Windows wanted me to install something called Microsoft Security Essentials, but this wanted me to remove Avast altogether.   I can only suppose it's MS trying to muscle in on the AV market.  Maybe I shall investigate this later.

Upgrading to Windows 8.1 (Part 3).

Upgrading Windows 8.1 pro Preview to the final released Windows 8.1 pro. (Part 3).

Right, off to installing some actually useful software...

Belarc Advisor, Firefox, the Gimp, LibreOffice, TightVNC.

Some of these installs don't put an icon on the desktop. You can find and run them with search, if you can remember what they're called, or how it's spelled.

In their arrogance, MS have made it more difficult to make a shortcut.

To start with:-

Click file explorer icon on the task bar.

Click view.

Tick “file name extension”.

Close.

For the Gimp:-

Right click where you want the shortcut to go on the desktop.

Select new, shortcut, and click browse.

Drill down through: This PC, Local Disk(C:), Program files, Gimp2, bin

and highlight gimp-2.8.exe

click ok, next, finish, and there it is.

Other programs will be similar, but if they turn out to be 32 bit versions, they'll be in “Program Files (x86)”

Some may not use the bin folder, and some are in a folder with the name of the software house instead of the actual program.

As I have the media pack, I thought I'd like to watch a DVD. It wants to set up media player. Eventually, after much disk rattling, Express or Custom.

I've met this sort of question before! Custom!

Did I want to join some sort of customer experience program? No thanks.

Do I want it to download cover art? I suppose, yes.

Then some display and sound setup questions, and it say's we're done.

Now there's a weird screen with TV, Sports and whatnot. What?

The scroll wheel on the mouse scrolls up and down even more strange options.

This looks like some sort of online streaming program. All I want to do is play my DVD!

The Sports section appears to be very American.

Eventually, hidden in the Movies section, I see a very faint button marked Play DVD.

That must be it! Yes. Success at last, but what a tedious performance to get here.

Now to get a driver for my printer. I put the printer model into the Epson support site, but for some reason, it mis-identifies the OS as Linux. Doh! Scroll down and select Windows 8.x 64 bit.

Goody, there's a driver. There's various licence and security boxes to click through, and a restart.

When I select “Update and restart” there are 6 Windows updates already! Windows 8.1 has been out less than a week! Still, it sees the printer over the wifi.

Finally, I can run Belarc Advisor and print the results.

Upgrading to Windows 8.1 (Part 2).

Upgrading Windows 8.1 pro Preview to the final released Windows 8.1 pro. (Part 2).

Today's chores done, I can get back to my windows upgrade.

So, boot up and this time log in with my local PC login and not the stupid MS account.

And, everything is back to the useless defaults. So again:

Turn off all the live tiles. Why can't you do this with one setting?

Drag the desktop tile to the top left for easier access.

Change the desktop background to a plain colour because it makes for a clearer screen.

Change IE home page and disable autocomplete.

Remarkably, it's using the same power and TZ settings, so I can leave them alone.

It's a pain to shut this OS down, so I make a shortcut on the desktop to do this.

All the shortcut is is “shutdown -s -t 0” (without the quotes).

I can then change the icon to something more meaningful, and drag it onto the task bar at the bottom of the screen. Shutdown with one click!

The disk is rattling like there's no tomorrow. I find this is the indexer, indexing all my files that it didn't delete. It should stop eventually.

You're supposed to be able to boot directly to the desktop instead of the tiles. Just like a proper OS!

Of course, MS don't provide any instructions, so here goes.

Right-click on the taskbar

Select Properties

Click the Navigation tab

Under Start Screen, check the box labelled “When I sign in or close all apps on a screen, go to the desktop instead of Start”.

Click Apply and OK.

Intuitive eh? Not!

And I still have to install all my programs.

Oh, and make sure when you do, that you make a shortcut on the desktop, as there's STILL no start menu.
 Good grief, Penfold.

And here's a correction.   I should have realised when the Timezone was wrong, but the whole environment is set to US instead of UK.  How come the upgrade  didn't preserve this?
 Anyway,  Hover near the bottom right and click Settings.
Click control panel.
Click Language.
Click English (UK).
Click Download and Install Language Pack.
Click yes to the user a/c control security box that pops up.

When done, (it takes ages), highlight English (UK) and click Move Up.
This sets the default, and you can see the date change instantly to be the correct way round.
Time for bed, said Zebedee.

Upgrading to Windows 8.1

Upgrading Windows 8.1 pro Preview to the final released Windows 8.1 pro.

Should be easy, just go to the store, download it and follow the instructions.

So, I do a search in the store, but can't find it. I resort to a well known internet search site, and find some instructions. It's already not that simple, the Microsoft site wants to know how I installed it. I don't remember, but eventually I find a DVD labelled “Windows Blue 64 bit”, so I choose the instructions for “installed from iso”.

It wants me to buy it again. No, I already paid for Windows 8. The 8.1 upgrade should be free.

I need to start IE, and go to ms-windows-store:WindowsUpgrade and click download.

First it wants my password, but then it wants me to sign up to a Microsoft account. I already have one, but there's no option for that. I try all sorts, but eventually decide that you simply can't do this while logged into Windows with a local login. I need to log into my own pc with a Microsoft account.

Start again.

Boot up PC, log in using my Microsoft account and make sure all the updates for the current version are done.

Open the store and leave it running. This takes several goes, as it claims to not see the store.

Open IE and go to ms-windows-store:WindowsUpgrade

Then I can click download and the download starts, followed immediately by the upgrade installing without any pause to ask if I really want to do this.

It claims to preserve your files, but throw away all your installed programs, which it annoyingly calls “apps”. Then will need re-installing.

It takes an age, and does several restarts. During this, it wants some options choosing.

I choose custom, not express, because I want to see what it does.

I was right to be suspicious. I accept most of the defaults, but come to a page where it wants to share all my info with Microsoft. No thanks! I click all the switches to OFF.

I log in again using my Microsoft account, but for no apparent reason, it sends a security code to the secondary email address of my Microsoft account. Just as well I have another PC running, so I can retrieve this and enter it in the box.

And that's it. All I have to do now, is put my settings back to what they were, and re-install all my programs. (The default settings are seriously bad).

Before I shut down for the day (yes, it took all day), I notice the time is wrong. The TZ is set to Pacific time. (Seattle, presumably). I set it back to London, which is conveniently labelled UTC.

That's definitely it for today. No wonder business users are avoiding Windows 8!

For various reasons, been a bit busy, but here's some pics of a new distant arm going up on the post that we recently painted.  This wooden post has the date 1922 stamped into it, so it's been up a long time.

Another new signal

Here's another signal going in at Parkend.

 

Contrasts on the railway

Here's a contrast between 2 recently refurbished engines, and some equipment that's become almost lost in the undergrowth, and is only just now being uncovered.

Diverting a stream

To try and mitigate the water collecting round the starter signal at Parkend, we've dug out a new channel for the water to hopefully run away down the cess. It's only small, but so far running away from the post.  The date on the post is 1927, so it's been there a while.

Before ...

After ...

More trees on the line

Still loads of snow on the ground, but here you can see the effect the heavy falls have had on some trees at Parkend.

Here I am standing in the  four-foot, where no train will be running today.
The line on the right is a disused siding.
There are 2 trees that have been uprooted by the weather.

 This branch fell from an overhanging tree directly above the platform.

New rolling stock

Today, the postman fought his way through the deep snow to bring me an  LMS coach from late forties/early fifties (someone has painted the roof black and fitted plastic axles to the wheelsets), and a Saxa salt wagon (again with a repainted roof).

More snow

As title - more snow.

First snow of 2013.

Well, the snow's come.  Here's a few pictures of it.

New aerial pole

OK, here's my 2m/70cm aerial on it's new pole screwed to the shiny new bargeboard.

Had a weekend in Kent and London.  Here's some pics of assorted people.

Just for a change away from the railway this weekend, it's was SWMBO's birthday, so here's a picture of the cake, and us enjoying a rare dinner out.

Yet another railway day.

Went in early today to open the gates for the arrival of a container.  
It still hadn't arrived when I came home this afternoon.

Anyway, here's my effort at removing some decades-old paint.

While I was doing this, someone was investigating a blocked land drain that turned out to be a collapsed culvert. Unfortunately digging it out has undermined the track. Oops!

More railway work.

Here's a couple of new signs.

And a couple of pics of maintenance of the ground frame.














 And just for fun, a picture of the current end of the line.

A bit of work installing a new signal at Parkend.

Then we see someone making a good job of painting a vintage wooden signal post, but some problems with the drainage are threatening it.

And finally, some new Hornby trucks arrived.
(Well, the dog looks interested!)

Ok, yesterday morning I was walking the dog and caught the tail end of the rain while the sun was coming up. It took 3 goes to photograph this rainbow, and I've made a sort of effort to stitch them together with Gimp. It really did look like this.