driver backups

[BillW50]

In Char Jackson typed:

No, let's not, because that isn't the typical scenario. The typical
scenario is that you make a backup of your installed drivers so that
you can reinstall one or more of them later, if you need to.

The scenario is unusual and rare, and the point has been made many
times that it's better to install a driver the 'proper' way rather
than to use a program to do it.

Get it now?

I see! You don't want to understand how the same driver can installed in
many different ways. And how a driver backup avoids the pitfalls of
drivers being installed in the wrong order, which driver backups don't
fail. Yes, I get you are a space cadet and too many things just fly over
your head. So what else is new?

 

[BillW50]

In glee typed:

Now that's funny. No, they may discover bugs and run into problems
while working on *other people's computers*, but their experience
should lead to LESS problems on their own computers. If your own
computers are always having issues, you are either lacking in
experience and/or are misconfiguring your system, unless you are beta
testing on a production machine.

Naw. your partly right but you still don't get it. For starters,
everybody is a beta tester. Whether you admit it or not. The only
non-beta testers are the ones that are running run solid software that
has proven themselves reliable over the many years.

Can you ever find in all of the achieves over the many years when I
complained about the following:

1) Windows 3.x
2) Windows 9x
3) Windows ME
4) Windows 2000
5) Windows XP

I don't think so. As mine was running just fine. Others I too fixed
their machines to run just like mine and left. But most screwed it up
once again. Even after telling them how to keep it running fine, they
forgotten what I told them.

Now let's take something like OS/2. Everything was fine with me and I
was an OS/2 2.1 user and an OS/2 3.0 beta tester. Everything was working
just great. Then OS/2 3.0 was released and IBM changed most of the
drivers without any beta testing and rumor is half of the beta testers
couldn't even install OS/2 3.0. I couldn't either from CD, but I could
if I created like 20 floppies (what a PIA) and installed that way.

Then when others were saying how stable OS/2 3.0 was, mine was crashing
about twice per week. My Windows 3.1 machine was running far better than
that even if I used flaky drivers. Under OS/2, I had to save constantly
as the whole system could suddenly lockup at any time.

Yeah IBM and others blamed it on just my hardware and/or I didn't know
what I was doing. Although I was positive it wasn't my hardware or me.
Of course nobody believed me. And wouldn't you know, two years later IBM
found the bug. Not only did it affect my hardware, but all hardware. And
the bug was simply copying and pasting to and from DOS and OS/2. This
caused the whole OS/2 system to become unstable and could crash at any
moment.

That was the end of the line for OS/2 and me. If I had to keep proving
myself not to be at fault for two years straight and nobody had taken me
serious, who needs this crap! I'll just let the clueless take care of
OS/2 by themselves. And we saw how that worked out.

As far as Windows 7/8 is concern, my biggest beef is that it takes about
5 times more processor power than Windows XP does to do the very same
thing. I could see maybe up to twice as much or something as acceptable.
But 5 times more is just overly bloated. I don't see this as a good
thing.

 

[BillW50]

In Bill in Co typed:

Nah, I'm using my 1982 VIC-20 tape backup here.

Ah what fond memories that brings back. The era where waiting 15 minutes
for a program to load was nothing. Although there was nothing to do. So
we made coffee, make something to eat, or something else to do while it
was doing its thing.

Nowadays they say you should get up out of the computer chair every so
often. Heck years ago nobody had to be told that. ;-)

 

[BillW50]

In glee typed:

My news server has not loaded BillW50's last reply to me, so I have to
tag my reply to him here:

What is absurd is your claim that "most people who work with this
stuff on a daily basis will stay far away from such helpful
applications. That is because they usually charge by the hour and
don't want to get the job done too quickly."

Obviously you don't work on computers for a living. Very few shops or
techs will charge by the hour for such work anymore.... there are set
charges for different procedures. The faster we can get the work
done, the better, in that respect. That goes for big depots like
Geek Squad, small computer repair chains in a geographical area, and
most of the many techs I know in my area and around the country,
including my own shop..... we do not charge by the hour for the
majority of our work unless we are on-site, and on-site work requires
that we get done even faster. We don't use so-called driver backup
programs because they are far less reliable than using driver
installers.

Don't even get me started on the likes of Geek Squad. Somebody brought
in a laptop the other day and said Geek Squad wanted $500 to fix it. All
that was wrong was there was no backlight display (and they had stolen
her AC adapter to boot, luckily I had a spare to give her). Which almost
means the inverter or the florescent lamp was the problem. And I am
thinking those clowns at Geek Squad are nothing but lazy bastards. It
turned out that the inverter was bad and I replaced it and added $25
labor charge and she had a perfectly working laptop for under 50 bucks.
Yes one tenth the cost of what Geek Squad wanted.

Additionally, one of the reasons a driver can need to be reinstalled
on an otherwise working system is due to what Chris Quirke calls
"bit-rot"... where the driver files themselves can become corrupted on
disk over time. Backing up such files and then restoring them leaves
you with the same damaged files. Doing a fresh install of a driver
from the installer program gives you uncorrupted driver files. Techs
with any sense will always use the installers, not a driver backup
program, because it saves time in the long and guarantees the driver
will be installed correctly on that system.

Whoa wait! Who in their right mind backups corrupts files? Only a space
cadet does that.

Your claim in other replies that the installer might install the wrong
file for your processor, shows your apparent lack of understanding of
how driver installers work.

Naw. not at all. You just don't get it. Backing up is pretty much the
same across the board. You can backup the system drive, data, drivers,
or whatever and the idea is basically the same. You restore from a
non-corrupted backup and everything generally turns out just fine.

 

[BillW50]

In Chris S. typed:

I have to say "Super +" again.

Ah... but you are clueless about...

"Condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance."
- Albert Einstein

 

[Char Jackson]

In glee typed:

Naw. your partly right but you still don't get it. For starters,
everybody is a beta tester. Whether you admit it or not. The only
non-beta testers are the ones that are running run solid software that
has proven themselves reliable over the many years.

Can you ever find in all of the achieves over the many years when I
complained about the following:

1) Windows 3.x
2) Windows 9x
3) Windows ME
4) Windows 2000
5) Windows XP

I don't think so. As mine was running just fine.

About every 2-3 days you complain about Microsoft updates hosing your
XP system(s). I suppose that doesn't count, right?

As far as Windows 7/8 is concern, my biggest beef is that it takes about
5 times more processor power than Windows XP does to do the very same
thing.

Only at your house. Fortunately, it doesn't happen that way for the
rest of the world. Speak up if you need help configuring your
system(s). It sounds like you could use the assistance.

 

[BillW50]

In Char Jackson typed:

About every 2-3 days you complain about Microsoft updates hosing your
XP system(s). I suppose that doesn't count, right?

No it counts for sure. Back in the 80's and 90's when Microsoft changed
something, it was rock solid and I never had a problem. Sometime after
2000, things started to change. As I remember Explorer would crash after
an update, but generally the next one would fix it. And the cycle
repeated for many years.

So I quickly used two identical systems. One that got all updates and
the other one only if the first machine worked after the update. This
method worked fine for a number of years. Although Microsoft has over
the last say 5 years has got really sloppy. Far more problems than the
years before.

Only at your house. Fortunately, it doesn't happen that way for the
rest of the world. Speak up if you need help configuring your
system(s). It sounds like you could use the assistance.

Really?

"Condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance."
~ Albert Einstein

I have shown this to be true. And I also listed ULRs of others who have
shown this to be true. But of course space cadet, I was the messenger so
I get shot instead. ;-)

 

[Char Jackson]

In Char Jackson typed:

No it counts for sure.

Well, now, that was quick and easy. Another lie shot down. Next?

 

[glee]

In glee typed:

Don't even get me started on the likes of Geek Squad. Somebody brought
in a laptop the other day and said Geek Squad wanted $500 to fix it.
All
that was wrong was there was no backlight display (and they had stolen
her AC adapter to boot, luckily I had a spare to give her). Which
almost
means the inverter or the florescent lamp was the problem. And I am
thinking those clowns at Geek Squad are nothing but lazy bastards. It
turned out that the inverter was bad and I replaced it and added $25
labor charge and she had a perfectly working laptop for under 50
bucks.
Yes one tenth the cost of what Geek Squad wanted.


Whoa wait! Who in their right mind backups corrupts files? Only a
space
cadet does that.


Naw. not at all. You just don't get it. Backing up is pretty much the
same across the board. You can backup the system drive, data, drivers,
or whatever and the idea is basically the same. You restore from a
non-corrupted backup and everything generally turns out just fine.

I should have known you'd use the mention of Geek Squad to go off on a
tangent about how you used your superior knowledge to save the day once
again. Geek Squad was mentioned solely as an example at one end of the
spectrum, along with local shops and regional chains at the other end,
which price much of their work by the service, not by the hour.

"Only a space cadet" would not understand how a driver file could be
corrupt and still operate seemingly normally, but backing it up for
restoration will only reintroduce the corruption when the backup is
restored. Let me give you one example of how backing up a corrupted
driver without your knowledge can easily happen.

Windows XP driver files are .SYS files, along with DLLs and other
support files. Root kits embed themselves in SYS files, and make
themselves nearly undetectable from within Windows. When you back up
your drivers with one of your driver backup and restore utilities, you
risk backing up a driver with a root kit and then restoring the root kit
at a later date, all without the user's knowledge. A year ago in
research by Kaspersky Labs, just one root kit, TDSS/Alureon, was
discovered to infect 4.5 million PCs.... 1.5 million of those in the US.
That's just one of the many root kits in the wild, and they all infect
key system files, be it a Windows SYS file or a key SYS driver such as a
display or chipset driver.

So, the backup and restore app backs up a corrupt file without anyone
being aware, to restore the infection later. That's just one example of
why drivers should be reinstalled when required, NOT replaced from a
driver backup app. If you still cannot understand this, there is no
help for you.

 

[BillW50]

In Char Jackson typed:

Well, now, that was quick and easy. Another lie shot down. Next?

It is only a lie to a space cadet. If you want to hear a lie, talk to a
space cadet who falsely accuses somebody of using pirated copies of
Windows 7. Oh wait, who was that space cadet? Oh yeah, that was you,
wasn't it?

 

[glee]

There are some who knows based on the knowledge that they hear without
any actual experience. Not everybody can do this, but some can. For
example, take a great salesman who can sell crap to almost anybody and
make it sound like you can't go on living without this. Many of those
seen on TV things that are sold are a good example (although not
saying
all of them are crap). Smart and gifted people usually have all of the
pros and cons already figured out even though the salesman never
mentioned any of the cons. And they know this even without trying it.
And just because people like you can't do this, doesn't mean that
others
also cannot.

LMAO! You certainly have a high opinion of yourself! Yes, you're
good.... you sell your line of crap to a lot of people... smh. Sorry
dude, experience trumps "reading something somewhere" and believing it.