A quick update on the laptop. I eventually pressed the button on the nuclear option and downloaded a new operating system -- or, rather, a new version of the old operating system (Windows 11). In so doing, every file, programme and preference stored on the laptop was utterly wiped.
There was, before the button was pressed, a recovery option for me to clone the contents of the hard drive before eradicating it. Which I took. But which doesn't appear to have worked... but I didn't know that.
OK, so the download took ages, and was chuntering along during our weekly Zoom games, which meant I signed in on a back-up laptop while Mel used her office PC. When it completed, I was able to sign in, which got me as far as the very basic Dell desktop image. At which point I gave up and went to play games for an hour. We won one game of the three we played, so not too shabby.
Later, I was able to switch from the admin screen to a user screen (in this case Steve) and set up facial recognition; I also now need a pin number rather than the old password, apparently.
Now, the retrieval from the external hard drive didn't seem to go too well -- it was rather quick and when I checked, there was a limited number of folders retrieved. Not sure why, but it certainly wasn't the full "clone" that I was expecting. The second drive where I had also "cloned" the laptop hard drive just won't open. I have no idea why.
However, in my panic during last week, I had copied all my files onto a third hard drive, and these I have managed to restore to the laptop. Of course, I don't have Word for Windows 11 on the laptop at the moment, so the files are unreadable, but I can see them! I just opened up a file that was saved as a rich text file, and it is definitely the latest version of that essay.
I will have to reinstall all the various programmes I use, such as a programme for recording and editing me, a video editor which I used for the 'Ask Steve' videos I did for f Trials of Hank Janson and about a dozen more that I normally have pinned to the task bar. At the moment I'm installing Windows updates, so I thought I'd update everyone on how things were going. It will take me a while still to sort everything out -- I had hoped that everything would magically appear as it was, but that hasn't been the case; it took me a year to get everything just so!
All I can say is, make sure you do regular back ups.
Oh, and if you're trying to prove who you are to Microsoft, make sure you're sitting next to where they're sending the security code. I had the laptop (and was under strict instructions NOT to turn it off) in the living room; so I pressed the link so they would email me a security code; ran around to the office where my PC is, waited for the email, opened it, wrote down the security code and then ran back into the living room; looked at the blank screen; waggled the mouse and was returned to the screen asking if I wanted them to email me a security code.
I did this three times before interrupting Mel's gameplaying to have her waggle the mouse to stop the screen where I needed to type in the security code from disappearing. We managed it on that -- my fourth -- attempt. I'm guessing they're expecting you to read your emails on your phone, sat in front of the laptop and it just didn't occur to them that some people might still have landlines that can't receive emails.
OK, that's all the news that's fit to print. The Windows update seems to be stalled at 25% but I'll wait and see what happens. Hopefully I'll be back to somewhere near normal by the next Comic Cuts.
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