Topics

1

Tweaking.com Programs & Site Help & Support / Bug in Registry Backup (v3.53) part 2

« on: June 29, 2020, 11:21:55 AM »

- There is another bug in Registry Backup v3.53.
- When I have the program set to make only one backup per day, then I still can manually make  more than one copie / backup of the registry.

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Program & Site Requests / CLEANMEM program update

« on: June 06, 2020, 05:14:17 AM »

- The forum at the PCWINTECH website has been "taken down". That's a pity because a program called CLEANMEM still can be improved (a bit). I hope this post won't be "locked"and/or thrown out.

- I want to bring to Shane's attention that when the user has a (very) high DPI monitor, the GUI of both the "Setting" menu and the "Mini Monitor" of CLEANMEM have problems properly displaying all the characters used in the GUI. The user who posted this problem had a Windows 10 system but I am sure it will happen on other Operating Systems as well.

- This problem was posted on the PCWINTECH forum before that forum was removed.

(I still have a few more suggestions to improve this program).

3

Program & Site Requests / Bug in Registry Backup (v3.53)

« on: April 27, 2020, 08:12:52 PM »

- I opened RB v5.53 and ran the program manually on my Windows 7 machine (but I am convinced that this is NOT a Windows issue but a RB program issue). And there a bug showed up that confuses the user of the program. Time for a new version of RB (v3.54) !!!

- For some unknown reason VSS didn't work. Was some other program using the Service ? I don't know.
- So, the program made a back-up using the "Fall Back" method. Now I unticked the "Fall Back" options. (see inside the blue rectangle) Up to this point there was no problem.
- Using the button "Backup Now" I made another backup. And then something odd happened. The program reported the following things:

         VSS running: Yes
         VSS ready: Yes

and

       "Succesful ! 11/11 registry files backed up"

And the program displayed another text:

         "Currently using fallback method instead of Volume Shadow Copy".

- This is odd VERY odd. What has happened here ? Was the VSS used or the "Fall back" method used ?


- I think the program needs a slight improvement / small bug fix for RB v3.54:  Make sure that the text "Currently using fallback method instead of volume Shadow Copy" is removed as soon as the user hits the "Backup Now" button.

4

Program & Site Requests / Register more system files

« on: September 11, 2019, 07:16:13 AM »

- This year MS issued a new "Servicing Stack Update" (SSU) for Windows 7 (KB 4516655). As a result Windows Repair needs to increase the amount of files it registers (think: REGSVR32 .............. ). The 2 files that need to be added to that list ("Register System Files") are:

     Apss.dll
     Apircl.dll

Both files are in the "system32" and "syswow64" folder(s).

- I have another question. Windows 7 has a folder called "....\system32\advancedinstallers". Do the *.dll files in that folder also need to registered ?

Source for the information/question provided above:

https://support.microsoft.com/nl-nl/help/4516655/compatibility-update-for-installing-windows-7-sp1-and-server-2008-r2

The webpage above contains a list with all the file that are updated/installed in this "SSU update" (KB 4516655).

- There are other files is this repair ("Register System files") that are registered but the registration fails because WR targets the wrong folder. But I will reporrt that later, in a second post.

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Program & Site Requests / Update program. Simple System Tweaker.

« on: June 02, 2019, 04:23:00 PM »

- I would like to see that Tweaking updates the Simple System Tweaker (SST) program. Currently more and more people install one or more SSDs in their system. I think SST can be upgraded with options to optimize the use of an SSD. E.g. some websites say that some Services should be disabled to optimize usage of an SSD.

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Program & Site Requests / Improvements for the next WR

« on: January 19, 2019, 10:22:39 AM »

- In november 2018 Microsoft issued a new update for the "Servicing Stack" (??) for Windows 7 (KB 3177467). This update replaced/upgraded a number of existing files but also added a few new files. These new files can be registered with the "Regsvr32" command and therefore need to added to the list of files that are registered in the "Register systemfiles" repair. These files are all located in the System32 and Syswow64 folder

- These files are:

      apircl.dll
      apss.dll

- More info on what files are/were replaced/added can be found at the related webpage on the Microsoft website:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/3177467/servicing-stack-update-for-windows-7-sp1-and-windows-server-2008-r2-sp

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Tweaking.com Programs & Site Help & Support / Bowser/Browser

« on: October 08, 2018, 01:31:20 AM »

- I noticed that when I installed WR v4.3.0 there was one file called "Bowser.reg". This file was in the subfolder "C:\program files(x86)\.............\files\regfiles\vista". Shouldn't this name be "Browser.reg" ?? (with an "r" between the "b" and "o"). Like it is in other "regfile" subfolders for Windows XP, Win 7 or Win 8 ??
- Or is this a typo made by MICROSOFT that only happens in Vista ?

8

Tweaking.com Programs & Site Help & Support / Tweaking website hacked ??

« on: July 19, 2018, 11:18:41 PM »

- As I visited the home page of the Tweaking.com website today the sequence of the releases is all messed/mixed up. Was the website hacked, infected ? Was the author a "bit drunk" when he put out a new version and modified the website ? The latest version that's available is version v4.0.22. I thought there was already a version v4.0.23 ? Did that version contain still too many bugs and had to be pulled from the website ?

9

Program & Site Requests / Suggestion for the next version

« on: June 07, 2018, 05:14:51 AM »

- Windows Repair has a file that contains the default status for the Services ("auto", "manual" or "disabled"). This file is read when the program starts. I think this file should be (re-)read every time the user opens the main screen with all the repairs.
If then a user wants to change the start-up state then it will take less time and effort to change that start-up state. Currently the user has to close the program and restart the program to let the program take these changes into account.

10

Program & Site Requests / Improvements for Windows Repair

« on: August 31, 2017, 06:20:56 AM »

- The GUI of WR (v4.04) can be improved in a number of ways. See also the picture in the attachment.

- Change the "Go to step 1" button. See the 2 red Arrows on the right hand side of the screen for an idea how to do it.
- Make sure that ALL "Next" & "Previous" buttons (with the arrows) in EVERY tab, are ALL placed at precisely the same spot in the GUI. That's currently not the case. In the "Backup tools" and "Repairs main" tabs the buttons with the arrows are placed slighty more to the bottom right hand side of the screen.
- Same story for the "Help" button. See the 3rd red Arrow.

- Make sure, that in the default set up configuration, the color of the tabs that are not active have a (slightly) different (= lighter) color than the active tab/tabs. Currently the color difference is too small. I find that a little bit too confusing. See the green arrows.

11

Program & Site Requests / Simple system Tweaker

« on: August 19, 2017, 11:22:05 AM »

Requested/suggested improvements for Simple System Tweaker v2.20:

- The SST program should be upgraded with the latest Registry Backup (RB) version (v3.53).

When the user clicks on the 2 buttons on the "Welcome" page then SST only opens the "Backup" tab in RB, it never opens the "Restore" tab.
Suggestion:  Remove one button and rename the button to "Open Registry Backup" (or something along these lines).

Or make sure that these 2 buttons open RB and the appropriate RB tab ("Backup" or "Restore") at the same time. I.e. assuming that that is possible at all.

- If it's possible to open the appropriate tab in RB then this possibility should also be incorporated in (a/the next version of) Windows Repair (WR). Because WR has 3 buttons ("Backup", "Restore", "RB settings") and clicking on those buttons only open the RB tab called "Backup". Don't know whether or not this is a bug in WR and SST or that the bug is "hiding" in RB. And this assumes that this is a bug. Perhaps the appropriate program code still needs to be added/incorporated.


The program code (in SST) needs to be cleaned up in 2 ways.
- The user can go through the 4 tabs using the "Next" button in the bottom right hand corner of the GUI. But when the user clicks on "Next" in the "Services" tab then the "Visual Tweaks" tab/screen opens but the header of the tab(s) suggests that the user has (re-)opened the "Welcome" tab.

Similar story when the user uses the "Back" button. Do the following:
- Open the "Networking Tweaks" tab by clicking on that tab (on the top of the GUI) and click on "Back".
- Now that "Networking" pane/tab opens but the tab header suggests that the "Visual Tweaks" tab has been (re-)opened. (This is NOT OK).
- Click on "Back" once more and the "Welcome" tab opens and the "Welcome" tab is highlighted (which is OK).

- I think that Tweaking should make up its mind. Choose one of 2 options:
1) fix this "Next"/"Back" behaviour (see above) or
2) Simply remove the "Next"/"Back" buttons, following the KISS (Keep It Simple Stup*d) principle. The user always can use the tab(s) (headers) on the top of the GUI.

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Tweaking.com Programs & Site Help & Support / Bug in Registry Backup

« on: August 15, 2017, 07:18:34 AM »

- The program code for the latest version of Registry Backup needs to be improved. I have told Registry Backup to keep copies of the registry for 32 days. Every backup folder older than 32 days will then will be deleted. The program does its work well. That is, PROVIDED that the old folder isn't empty. Then RB won't delete that old folder at all.

See also the picture in the attachment.

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Tweaking.com Programs & Site Help & Support / Bug in WR v4.01

« on: July 30, 2017, 07:32:14 AM »

- In repair #18 the program stalls. This repair opens on my Win 7 system a MSDOS windows and then tries to stop the WMI Service. But then a question pops up. The question is something along the lines of "When this Service is stopped then 2 other Services (Security Center, IP Helper) are stopped as well. Do you want to continue ? (J/N)". Then the MSDOS waits until I have pressed either the "J" or "N" key on my keyboard.

- Solution for this problem ??? Add the "/y" switch to the (multiple) commands "net stop winmgmt" that are in that repair.

14

General & Misc. / New version of Outlook Express

« on: November 30, 2016, 12:25:09 AM »

- There's a new version available of Outlook Express. No, it's NOT developed by MS. It certainly looks promising because it has a similar GUI as the old OE. Haven't tried it yet but I certainly will.

https://www.oeclassic.com/

15

Tweaking.com Programs & Site Help & Support / (solved) Win 7 Permission Problem

« on: November 08, 2016, 12:09:31 AM »

- After running WR v3.9.16 I noticed that one error log file is massive (~ 14 Mb) in size. When looking through the error log it turns out that WR wasn't able to write the new permissions to the "C:\Windows" folder. This is not limited to this version of WR. It also happened with WR v3.9.15 & WR v3.9.14.

Here's the file itself:
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AluvxwylJSzycrK69c3l34OzLS8

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User Submitted Repair Guides / Suggestions for repairing VSS

« on: November 07, 2016, 09:34:39 AM »

- TWEAKING has added a page with suggestions when the WINDOWS REPAIR program fails to mend VSS. Especially on Vista systems VSS can be a very "tough cookie" to fix.

http://www.tweaking.com/articles/pages/microsoft_volume_shadow_copy_(vss)_troubleshooting,1.html

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User Submitted Tweaks & Guides / Windows Update Error help

« on: September 18, 2016, 11:39:26 PM »

- MS provides some help to solve Windows Update errors. It has a webpage that actually gives (again) some help to determine what the cause could be for a number of errors. And what to do when such an error pops up. This assumes that one's system hasn't any corruption in the system files and/or in the infamous "winsxs" folder.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/10164/i-got-an-error-code-from-windows-update

For me, there was no need to (extensively) test/use this webpage because all my Updates happened without a hiccup. Do readers of this post have any experience with this guide ?

18

Program & Site Requests / Registry hive issues

« on: September 15, 2016, 10:55:39 AM »

- I compared "Tweaking's Registry compressor" program with the one that was written by Eusing. And I noticed that Eusing's program seems to compact four hives more. I made a screenshot of the differences. Those four extra hives are inside black rectangles in the picture attached. Perhaps it's possible to compact these hives as well in the next version of the "Registry Compressor" program ?
- Does "Tweaking's Registry backup" make a copy of those extra four hives as well ? I did a little digging on my HD and it looks like the program doesn't. To be added in the next version of RB ?

19

Tweaking.com Programs & Site Help & Support / Svchost tool

« on: September 13, 2016, 02:05:01 PM »

- Thumbs up for the latest/new version of the "Svchost Look Up" tool !!!!!!!!

20

User Submitted Tweaks & Guides / Find installed Updates/Hotfixes

« on: September 13, 2016, 01:01:11 PM »

- The program "Tweaking's Windows Repair" is able to fix A LOT OF problems. But running this program has one small drawback. When the user has run the "Repair Windows Update" repair then the list with installed updates has been erased.  It's caused by deleting everthing in the folder called "C:\Windows\Softwaredistribution". Don't worry, Windows Update still is able to find what Updates/hotfixes have been installed by scanning the registry.

However the user then is still able to find out what updates have been installed. Open CMD.exe with administrator's rights and type the following 2 commands:

   md c:\test
   systeminfo > "C:\test\systeminfo.txt"

The 1st command creates a folder called "C:\test".
The 2nd command ("systeminfo") pulls up information about one's computer system and that info is then directed/written to a file called "c:\test\systeminfo.txt".

This text file contains - among other info - a list with all the installed updates/hotfixes, sorted by KB number.

- The user is also able to search for one particular update. If the user wants to find out whether of not the update with KB number KB 3102810 has been installed then type in CMD.exe the following command:

   systeminfo | findstr KB3102810

If the reply is

   [xxx] KB3102810

then this Update indeed has been installed.

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Computer Help / Question about WU downloads

« on: September 11, 2016, 03:35:39 PM »

- When I want to download the english version of Windows Update KB 3102810 then I go this webpage

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=49540

- But I have reports that some people aren't able to download that package (it happens with other Updates as well !!). They click on the "Download" button, the website says "Thank you for downloading" but nothing gets downloaded. One report suggests - I repeat - suggests that running "Windows Repair" could be the cause of not being able to download that file anymore. Since it happens with IE and Chrome I would assume that something in Windows itself is "broken".
I recommended running only a few repairs (e.g. "Register System files") but it was to no avail.
- No, the page (=MS Download Center) mentioned above is does NOT use ActiveX whereas MS Catalog does use ActiveX (for the time being).

Does anyone have an answer ?  Perhaps Shane has an idea of what's going on ?

22

User Submitted Tweaks & Guides / How to remove Internet Explorer (9, 10 & 11)

« on: September 07, 2016, 04:36:22 PM »

- I consider this to be something for the geeks. The title is a bit misleading. It's more that we can fool Windows into thinking that that version of IE was never installed. And I also don't know whether this will work when one has reduce the size of the infamous "Winsxs" folder. It could be helpful.

The magic trick is to delete one file in one special folder with this command:

FORFILES /P %WINDIR%\servicing\Packages /M Microsoft-Windows-InternetExplorer-*11.*.mum /c “cmd /c echo Uninstalling package @fname && start /w pkgmgr /up:@fname /norestart”

(this is for IE 11)

More details:
- https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/askie/2015/07/27/unable-to-upgrade-to-ie-11-because-of-error-9c59/
- https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/askie/2014/03/28/command-line-options-available-to-uninstall-internet-explorer/

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User Submitted Tweaks & Guides / Microsoft changes the way it updates Win 7 & Win 8

« on: August 29, 2016, 09:22:47 AM »

- MS changes the way updates are issued. Following the "Convenience Roll Up" package (KB 3125574) and the monthly "Roll Ups"

Source:
https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/windowsitpro/2016/05/17/simplifying-updates-for-windows-7-and-8-1/

MS now goes even a few steps further with these "monthly roll up" updates. And that now also includes the .NET (security) updates.

Source:
https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/windowsitpro/2016/08/15/further-simplifying-servicing-model-for-windows-7-and-windows-8-1/

- My personal opinion is that MS SHOULD issue/release a new Service Pack for both Win 7 & Win 8. That would provide a clean & stable foundation for those "Monthly roll Ups".

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Program & Site Requests / WR v3.xx issues

« on: August 28, 2016, 07:31:18 PM »

- The "Windows Update" repair needs an update. According to this article

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/971058

this Repair needs to stop/reset an additional Service ("Appidsvc") as well, before it can proceed with repairing Windows Update. The current repair doesn't tackle/include this Service called "Appsidsvc".

25

Program & Site Requests / Request: upgrade SVCHOST look up tool

« on: August 26, 2016, 10:55:49 AM »

- Currently the "SVCHOST look up tool" only shows the total amount of memory usage of all "Svchost.exe" processes combined and not the memory usage of each individual "Svchost.exe" process.
- So, the request becomes: Add an additional column that shows memory usage for each "Svchost" process. Since the program is able to show the total memory usage, I would assume it's possible to pull up memory usage for each running "Svchost.exe" process (think: PID) as well. I think that extra column then should be placed on the right hand side of the PID.

- Currently Vista, Win 7 and even Win 8 are experiencing problems with "Windows Update"
http://www.tweaking.com/forums/index.php/topic,4799.0.html

An improved tool (as requested above) would make detecting high memory usage of the "Svchost.exe" process as a result of a "Windows Update" problem much more easy.