Lost file associations, esp RTF

clemenzina · 11 Jun 2018

dalchina said:

...if you have the images, you can buy a new laptop and have it up and running as was fairly quickly.

That's flummoxed me right away - I can't imagine that it would be compatible with different hardware, configuration, manufacturer's pre-installed this-n-thats, etc etc.

As I said, I've got a block on disk imaging :'(

dalchina said:

Note: installing any new program that can handle an extension you have already associated will result in Windows asking you questions about that, unfortunately.

I don't begin to understand what that means

Be that as it may, would it be OK to use a cheapish HDD rather than SSD? My current C-drive (and I think I've finished installing anything significant following the reset) is using 70GB with more than double that capacity left over.

Could I select what data to image on D rather than copy all of it?

I realise I could Google a lot for myself, but you are here

and are trying to set me on the right path! I am always occupied recording online webcams and extracting clips, sometimes don't know which way to turn.

dalchina · 11 Jun 2018

That's flummoxed me right away - I can't imagine that it would be compatible with different hardware, configuration, manufacturer's pre-installed this-n-thats, etc etc.

Think of it like this. Imagine you have two different PCs. You take the system disk out of one, put in in the other, and try booting.

Surprisingly - and there are posts about people doing this- Windows usually adapts its drivers and the PC boots.

Thus, you could restore your image of (all your Windows partitions) from your old PC to a new disk, put that in the new PC, and reboot.

There is a specialist Macrium tool that does this more cleanly:
ReDeploy a system to new hardware

Note: installing any new program that can handle an extension you have already associated will result in Windows asking you questions about that, unfortunately.

Imagine you have Paint associated with jpg files. You install Irfanview, which is also capable of opening jpg files. Windows now knows you have installed a new program which can open jpg files. So the next time yuo do so, you will get a special prompt, and you have to confirm your new preference as to which program you want to open jpg file with in future.

Some people find this irritating. I can understand that.

Be that as it may, would it be OK to use a cheapish HDD rather than SSD? My current C-drive (and I think I've finished installing anything significant following the reset) is using 70GB with more than double that capacity left over.

Not sure what you're asking. Do you mean your system disk is a SSD and you're considering replacing it?

If you have 140Gb spare and only 70Gb used you have plenty of space.

Could I select what data to image on D rather than copy all of it?

A disk image is an image of used space. Images are compressed where possible (consider a disk full of jpgs- they won't compress more as they are a compressed format).

Time? It takes me under 12 minutes to create a differential image ('update' = changes with respect to the first base image) of my C+D partitions on my SSD over USB3.

clemenzina · 12 Jun 2018

dalchina said:

Not sure what you're asking. Do you mean your system disk is a SSD and you're considering replacing it?

If you have 140Gb spare and only 70Gb used you have plenty of space.

I was thinking of keeping the image on a spare HDD and transferring it to a new SSD in the event of a catastrophe.. rather than invest in a new SSD now.

The XPS 9560 can take 2 disks, IIRC, but not mine because the space is taken up by a more powerful battery - which is a shame because I hardly ever run on battery. But when I was buying this, Dell had no other model with 32GB RAM, hence I've ended up with a touch screen, which I don't want and I've disabled the driver, and a QHD display, which not only do I not need but which is vastly inferior for seeing what you are doing - eg, extra-large icons are simply large icons with more space in between them !!!

Also, I have to downsize all my screenshots because they break the max size limits that websites set.

To add insult to injury, I'm noticing no performance improvement when video editing than when I only had 16GB and a slower CPU!

Sorry for rant and thank you for all your advice :)

dalchina · 12 Jun 2018

It's fine to keep the image set on a HDD (external)- that's what I do.

Perceived speed is a funny thing.. my first laptop ran at about 360MHz if I recall... then pretty much 'top of the range' (10Gb drive). But for normal office type applications and DVD films it was fine. The really noticeable change was to this one- my 4th- with a SSD, was the change in boot time. You can see I've got a lower spec i3 processor- but I don't play games, so my GPU is hardly ever used, except for the occasional CUDA conversion or something like that -which is pretty fast.

The display at 1920x1080 is quite good enough.. and thankfully I don't run into the display problems you describe.

The other good thing -and a reason I chose this- is almost the whole back comes off easily.. and good vents. Max 3 disks if I hadn't had a DVD drive.

dalchina · 13 Jun 2018

Also, I have to downsize all my screenshots because they break the max size limits that websites set.

- just thinking about that- Presumably you are using jpg's for your screenshots? PrtSc creates a bmp (large) by default if you just paste it.

You can use free screenshot programs with presettable jpg quality which might help, and use that for full screen capture too.

My favourite is Duckcapture- it's the only free one that consistently works when doing scrolling captures.

Lost file associations, esp RTF-image-1.jpg

Greenshot offers more flexibility including an optional dialogue when saving:

clemenzina · 14 Jun 2018

I've been using Greenshot for a good few years now :) Very nice chap (Robin, IIRC) so I would hate to desert them.

Trouble is, if I use the dialog box to choose the Save setting, the scene a few seconds later will have been missed - so I'm set on autosave.

If I've taken a lot of snaps intended for the same destination website, I use IrfanView's batch conversion, which is very good. Then choose the better ones of the bunch. Lots of wildlife cams that I record are not terribly high quality, IrfanView can improve at the same time as resizing (once I get the mysterious settings right, by trial and error, and of course I lost all those when I reinstalled Win10).

Duckcapture looks very interesting, if only for the polygon

I'd love to have a round option too. I might install it, but am a bit concerned about having enough hotkeys to go around

clemenzina · 14 Jun 2018

dalchina said:

The other good thing - and a reason I chose this - is almost the whole back comes off easily.. and good vents. Max 3 disks if I hadn't had a DVD drive.

Haha, and I bought this XPS to replace 13" Clevo clones from PCSpecialist, because it was not much bigger overall considering it's a 15" screen and it's lighter!... and the W230SS was overheating (I had it 'serviced' and it's now dedicated to screen-capturing and downloading webcam streams). The W230ST is awaiting attention.

dalchina · 14 Jun 2018