[Cathail]

sorry for the late reply.. didn’t get email notification of the post. Information overload on the way.. this got unintentionally long.

Windows 8.. ugh. that was the one they built to be compatible with mobile devices and forgot that it still had to be desktop functional too. I remember most of the bitching was about how much time it was taking to “update” the system, when it was really to fix what they forgot.

I must have a few years on you. We had a pc in the house in the late 80s – windows 3.1 I think, with floppy discs out the wazoo. Dad worked for Honeywell in the computer engineering dept.

I assume yours is all updated and they’ve quit supporting it now, which for microsoft is a good thing.

I think for now, you’re going to want to just clean up the system.

I like external programs to clean with rather than the built in windows stuff. I’d start with malwarebytes.. safe download from major geeks with video tutorial.

https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/adwcleaner.html

After using that one, go ahead an uninstall it, it tends to bog things down if used as a preventative.

That one generally makes a big difference in response time.

There are quite a few games that don’t work in Linux… I’m not a gamer so all that is greek to me.

My “games” are like bejeweled. Simple match 3 games with pretty colors.

Nobody wants sulky kids because the computer doesn’t play their games.

I’m trying to remember how, in windows, to find the RAM (memory) information. It has to be in the control panel somewhere.. system info maybe… oooo Device Manager.. (scurries off to get directions)

ok.. right click on “my computer” and at the bottom of the drop down click properties. The page that opens is the basic info page.. under “system” it says installed memory (RAM)

for windows 8, I’d expect to see maybe 2 GB..though it could be as low as 500 MB. Memory doesn’t always age well either.

It is entirely possible that the games the kids are playing need more memory than the machine has and animation software really needs robust memory.

I wish I could take a peak at your motherboard and it’s stats. Some are built with expansion in mind so extra memory can be added.

By memory, I mean a piece of hardware that goes in a slot on the board.. sometimes there are two slots.

To find motherboard information, Start menu> windows tools > system information.

On the page that comes up you’ll find the manufacturer of the board and it’s model number sometimes called baseboard product. If you post that info, I’ll find a pic of the motherboard and see if it’s got expansion slots for more memory.. and if that’s not confusing enough, memory comes in different formats too DDR3..DDR4 etc.

I think I was using DDR3 in my windows 7 machine, pretty sure that variety is still available.. they didn’t dinosaur it yet.

A bootable USB is like a rescue disc.. if the computer just won’t fire up correctly, plug in the USB and boot from there instead of inside the machine. In windows I think you have to have the boot order set up in the bios to go to the USB second if normal start doesn’t work.. I know, more Greek.

External hard drives.. hmm. I have maybe 8 of them from backing up systems since the early 2000s. I don’t think any two are the same brand. Western Digital is the brand I go to for internal hard drives and I’m pretty sure they make external drives too. Prices *eye roll* I don’t even know since the supply chain and inflation went out of control.

I think my 1TB drive was around 80 bucks but it’s been a while and that might be internal drive I got last’s price.

Are your pics and vids in the same folder? If so, right click on the folder, under properties, find the size of the folder(s). You’re going to want a drive that’s at least 20% more storage space than what you want to save. If you fill much more than that the drive can become unstable.

that was a lot, right?

[Cathail]

well crud.. I just had a well thought out, long post here and when I hit the post button at the bottom I got this

function(e,t){return new S.fn.init(e,t)}function(e,t){return new S.fn.init(e,t)}

maybe it was too long. I’ll try again in a bit – morning chores have to be done

[Cathail]

Windows 7 and 8 are such different animals.. 7, I hung on to as long as I could (hard drive crapped out) and 8 I gave a 2 hour try on a new machine before I nuked it and put 7 on the machine. Microsuck does not like it when you do that. They had stopped selling 7 but I had a 5 install OEM disc. Wait.. is that greek to you?

OEM is original equipment manufacturer, those CDs are usually reserved for “certified windows installers” but when windows 7 came out, I managed to get one.

If you want to hang on to windows for a while, a good system cleaning is where you want to start.

The cleaning programs I used for windows are spybot search and destroy, superantispyware, malwarebytes and I used a stand alone defrag program too.. trying to remember the name… drawing a blank. All can be downloaded from the majorgeeks site. Oh.. what they’re calling apps now, I call programs.

Linux comes in many flavors.. they’re called distros (distributions) I use Linux Mint, with cinnamon, but there’s Ubuntu Debian, Xface, red-hat and a slew more. Linux doesn’t care which one you run or how many on the same machine either. It can also be run directly from a USB stick… which is a great way to look at different distros without committing hard drive space to another OS.

I use mint/cinnamon because the desktop environment is similar to windows and can handle graphics rendering (depending on the computer’s guts)

Choosing a distro is generally based on what you do on the computer. Some are better for people that write code (not me) some are light weight bare bones interfaces – just the terminal window, which is what windows machines call the command prompt window and some are very close to what we see in windows systems.

For me, the most challenging thing was making my own bootable USB stick. it’s not a hard process but it is a pain in the tookas. First the easy part.. download the files. Then there’s what they call verifying the download.. confused the crap out of me. There’s generally a link to do that on whichever site the download comes from. I still don’t know what that does exactly.

The first time I installed linux, it was when a windows 10 machine just froze and I didn’t have a usb/stick/flash drive with linux yet and had go buy one. Little independent computer stores will sometimes make one cheap, especially if you bring your own stick. Sadly, I chose the wrong store, but water under the bridge. Since then, I have made 2 more bootable USBs. All 3 are linux mint, just different releases. It’s that prepper backups to backups thing.

One of my favorite things about Linux is that when there are updates available, they show them to you and let you decide if/when to update. Another is not needing an anti-virus program.

I wish I could re-read your post but this reply window is in front of it.. hmmm.

Do you know anything about the hardware in your machine? age, hard drive size..RAM..?

Not all software runs in Linux. What kept me from jumping off the windows ship for years was that two of the programs I use didn’t run in the Linux environment. Now with more software for linux, they do, sort of. There are alternatives to things like the windows office suite.. not too bad a learning curve.

There are intro to linux videos on youtube to get a feel for it without doing anything to your system.

was that too much of a pre-coffee-absorbtion post?

[Cathail]

Well, I am not a professional at it, but I’m pretty good at working out windows computer problems.. real computers, not mobile devices. I am clueless in the android world.

I was really good with windows XP and 7.. and pretty good up to windows 10… I threw in the towel with windows at 10 and jumped to Linux where I am not well versed… yet.

[Cathail]

I find that unless I need it, it does taste vile.. if my body wants it, it’s refreshing.

[Cathail]

Years ago, our family doctor (GP, in the family) told me when I was getting horrible .. throw ya off the bed at 4am cramps, to take quinine sulfate. At the time it was still OTC but behind the counter.. ya had to ask for it. Now that the FDA got involved, tonic water that has quinine in it makes them let go real fast. I keep some in the house as part of the medical stash

[Cathail]

There’s a youtuber that is in the process of moving from Canada to Venezuela.. he bought properties before the corona crap and got stuck in Canada because.. mandates. I think he might be in transit now.. on a ship. His channel is 50 ducks in a hot tub.. he used to raise ducks to feed the homeless until PETA found his channel. He hasn’t had a video in a few weeks – which is why I think he’s probably traveling.

It might be interesting to get the two of them together.