[oldyellr]

My laptop got dropped over the holidays, injuring the hard drive; lots of "not responding", very slow, Windows Explorer not working. Since I had lots of valuable data not backed up, I took it to the pros while limping along on my old XP desktop. They managed to recover everything from my flaky 1TB HD, which was about 2/3 full, and put it on a new SSD. The difference is amazing. It now boots in a couple of minutes instead of half an hour before everything works.

Just so you know, I'm running Windows 7.

So I've been researching advice on SSDs. I already knew you shouldn't defrag them, but I haven't done that in decades. Also, that they actually delete files, not just hide them on the disk until the space is needed. But when I got my computer back, the Recycle Bin was empty, but it still works, so it's Windows hiding files I delete, not the SSD, until I delete them permanently from the Recycle Bin. One tip I saw was to go to C:/ Drive Properties and uncheck Indexing. When I do that, it asks if want to do it for C:/ only, or also subfolders and files. Should I? What about the Disk Cleanup button to remove temporary files. Can/should I use it? I see they say "Don’t Disable TRIM". I don't even know what that is or where to find it. Any hints would be appreciated.

 

[pinto]

What is Trim?

The Trim command is used with Active Garbage Collection to clean up SSDs to ensure they continue to work quickly. Find out more with Crucial.

www.crucial.com

 

[oldyellr]

What is Trim?

The Trim command is used with Active Garbage Collection to clean up SSDs to ensure they continue to work quickly. Find out more with Crucial.

www.crucial.com

I don't see Properties>Tools>Optimize. Where is it?

 

[Mike Lang]

I don't see Properties>Tools>Optimize. Where is it?

I don't think WIN7 had it there.

Optimize Solid State Drives in Windows 7

Windows 7 is designed to automatically turn off certain features such as Disk Defrag and Superfetch on drives it detects as solid state disks...

tweaks.com

 

[Bplayer]

That is one of the reasons to be using a current OS. The adage of "it if it ain't broke don't fix it" does not apply when you replace old hardware with new. However, that new SSD will likely keep working for many years before it dies. This should give you lots of time to back it up to a spinning HDD and an OS that performs TRIM functions.

 

[ExDilbert]

Nobody should be using Win 7 anymore. It's insecure and obsolete. The free Win10 upgrade is often still available (with a workaround) and OEM licenses can be purchased cheaply. Win10 itself is quite mature and works well on most hardware that runs Win7.

SSDs definitely need to be backed up. They can fail suddenly and dramatically at end of life. I've had several that just stopped working with no way to recover the data. Newer, larger SSDs have improved a lot but I wouldn't trust them as they approach end of warranty.

 

[oldyellr]

That is one of the reasons to be using a current OS. The adage of "it if it ain't broke don't fix it" does not apply when you replace old hardware with new. However, that new SSD will likely keep working for many years before it dies. This should give you lots of time to back it up to a spinning HDD and an OS that performs TRIM functions.

Well, I did mess around a little, unchecking indexing and using the disk cleanup button. It processed for quite a while. When I turned it off last night, it said do not turn off, installing updates. When I turned it on this morning, it said installing updates, then configuring updates, now 100% complete, but the twirly thing is still spinning, do not turn off computer. It's been doing that for a long time. I did turn it off and when I turned it back on, still the same screen, configuring 100%, spinning. It booted fine in a couple of minutes the last couple of minutes yesterday, now this.
Edit: I called the shop and described what happened and the guy said just let it continue configuring for another hour and if no change, try turning it off and on again because sometimes Windows will do that for a long time. Any other ideas?

 

[ExDilbert]

Disk cleanup can take some time and turning off indexing will make it take longer.

When I turned it off last night, it said do not turn off, installing updates.

It really means do not turn off. Not sure what kind of updates it would be doing for Win7. If Win10 was installed or an update to Win10 was in progress, it could take quite some time.

 

[oldyellr]

Disk cleanup can take some time and turning off indexing will make it take longer.


It really means do not turn off. Not sure what kind of updates it would be doing for Win7. If Win10 was installed or an update to Win10 was in progress, it could take quite some time.

I know Win 7 support ended a year ago, but in the past I've seen the Windows update thing a few times when shutting down. Curious.

When I bought this used laptop some years ago the store had Win 10 on all the used ones, even when they originally came with Win 7. I had them put 7 back on because I hated 10, still do.

 

[oldyellr]

Well, after a couple of hours of the "configuring updates, now 100% complete" screen, it finally booted. Unless it's lowed down from yesterday I'll stop fixing it until it's really broke.

 

[ExDilbert]

It could be updating other Microsoft programs such as browsers or MS Office. Updating other Microsoft programs is an option under Settings - Windows Update.

I found Win7 to Win10 to be a fairly easy transition. I also found that a lot of programs ran better under Win10. I've had more issues recently with some of the major updates.

Anyone who hates Win10 will really hate Win11. It changes much more and some idiot at MS has decided to force his idea of "work flow" on Windows users. It's more like work obstacles. The task bar is completely broken, so badly that a lot of things just don't work and other changes place obstacles (like unnecessary pop-ups) in the way. Most of the configuration options have disappeared as well and are not even available with registry hack. My workflow has taken three steps back to about Windows XP. It's buggy as well with apps such as Explorer frequently freezing. About the only good thing about it is that it's faster but half the time it feels like a fast lane to nowhere.

 

[oldyellr]

I started with MS-DOS 3.1 I believe. I always found the odd-numbered versions of DOS and Windows stable and the even-numbered ones a pain.

 

[ExDilbert]

When MS skipped Windows 9 that seems to have reversed that belief. Windows 10 seems to be fine (for the most part) and Windows 11 is a pain. MS seems to have had some issues with getting Windows 10 updates stable though. That's also the opposite of most previous versions of Windows. Most took a service pack or two to become stable. MS changed their update development model for Windows 10 and later updates made it less reliable.

 

[jimv]

My laptop got dropped over the holidays, injuring the hard drive; lots of "not responding", very slow, Windows Explorer not working. Since I had lots of valuable data not backed up, I took it to the pros while limping along on my old XP desktop. They managed to recover everything from my flaky 1TB HD, which was about 2/3 full, and put it on a new SSD. The difference is amazing. It now boots in a couple of minutes instead of half an hour before everything works.

Just so you know, I'm running Windows 7.

So I've been researching advice on SSDs. I already knew you shouldn't defrag them, but I haven't done that in decades. Also, that they actually delete files, not just hide them on the disk until the space is needed. But when I got my computer back, the Recycle Bin was empty, but it still works, so it's Windows hiding files I delete, not the SSD, until I delete them permanently from the Recycle Bin. One tip I saw was to go to C:/ Drive Properties and uncheck Indexing. When I do that, it asks if want to do it for C:/ only, or also subfolders and files. Should I? What about the Disk Cleanup button to remove temporary files. Can/should I use it? I see they say "Don’t Disable TRIM". I don't even know what that is or where to find it. Any hints would be appreciated.

Upgrade to AT LEAST Win 10. It'll make a huge difference with the SSD.
And backup your machine .. lots of options for that. I use iDrive for 5 laptops for the family.

 

[oldyellr]

I'm sorry, but I'm not going to "upgrade" to Win 10 in the foreseeable future. I used my son's Win 10 laptop while mine was down and hated it. Win 7 is so much more intuitive and easy to navigate. Windows took the wrong turn trying to be more like Mac for morons. But I appreciate your backup options, if they're free or inexpensive.

 

[NeilN]

^^^ Maybe lay off the gratuitous insults to other operating systems you obviously know very little about?

 

[oldyellr]

^^^ Maybe lay off the gratuitous insults to other operating systems you obviously know very little about?

This is totally off-topic here in view of the problems I experienced. I guess I know little about Windows 10, just that it's difficult to figure out and navigate compared to Windows 7. But I'll cross that bridge if I have to whenever 7 becomes totally inoperative. Who knows, maybe Linux is the way for me in the future.

 

[mrq2u]

This is totally off-topic here in view of the problems I experienced. I guess I know little about Windows 10, just that it's difficult to figure out and navigate compared to Windows 7. But I'll cross that bridge if I have to whenever 7 becomes totally inoperative. Who knows, maybe Linux is the way for me in the future.

I ditched Win10 after upgrading from Win7 for Linux Mint after a couple of months of misery trying to cope with M$ constantly replacing my chosen default programs (Firefox, VLC etc.) with their inferior software applications and being forced to sit around twiddling my thumbs while updates were in progress.

Best move I ever made, well worth the initial learning curve which wasn't that bad, especially if you started with M$ DOS.

My advice would be to create a live version of Linux Mint Cinnamon (USB or DVD) that you can use to start learning about Linux without having to permanently install it until you're comfortable with it. Plenty of online support and free open source application software.

Linux Mint 20.2 Cinnamon- Tutorial for new users

 

[jayoldschool]

If you think SSD was good for that laptop, install Win10 and 8GB of ram. For a small investment, it will be like a new machine.

 

[ExDilbert]

8GB is the minimum amount of RAM I would use for Win10. I'd recommend 16Gb for systems with shared video memory or used with large apps or with several apps running at once. I agree that anything under 8GB could cause performance issues, especially with a mechanical hard drive used for paging. Excessive paging can shorten SSD life so that's another good reason to use lots of RAM, especially now that prices are going down again.

When it comes to SSD drives, it's best to max out on those as well since larger SSDs tend to be faster and longer lived than smaller models. 1TB SSDs are getting to be affordable, not as cheap as mechanical drives, but worth it for the extra speed and increased resilience.