Friends,

Is your day gig involving IT? I've been fighting a stubborn computer problem that you would solve in minutes, not weeks. My entire system has slowed to a crawl making it almost unusable. Upon good advise I downloaded an ISO Image file of Windows 7/64 Home Premium which came pre-installed on my HP Elite computer, however, when attempting to install it, it reported that my PRODUCT KEY was invalid so I couldn't continue the installation.

Going backward, my first indication of trouble was a predictable black screen after about 40 minutes of viewing a movie on either YT or NetFlix. Nothing else was affected.

I was informed by friends on www.majorgeeks.com to run a system file scan from the DOS prompt which discovered a corrupted system file but didn't name the file. That led to my attempt to reinstall Windows 7. I started this project over a week ago and I'm in tears of utter frustration. I think I've fixed the black screen problems but now it's terribly slow loading and delays after each keystroke or button press. Boot time ranges between 2 and 6 minutes when it had been well under 1 minute prior to these problems.

I'd be thrilled to pay a reasonable fee to anyone willing to "remote" my computer to explore and repair my system. Meanwhile, my music has been placed on perpetual hold.

Thanks.

Donny

Hmmmm....

I'm not an IT guy by any stretch.

Is it possible when entering your product key during reinstall that you may have typed an O that should have been a 0?
Or a 2 that is really a Z?
(I've made those errors a time or two over the decades until I really looked closely at the tiny fonts that are sometimes used).

Could it be your video driver is not up to date?

That's totally shooting from the hip....but, at least a bump.

Carry on....

I cut/pasted directly from the computer's registry anticipating exactly what you suggested.

I've now got a correct and clean PRODUCT KEY and will jump back in after Josie's show at 1pm Central.

Thanks for tossing out a lifeline. Much appreciated.

I verified that my video drivers are up to date. Great call though.

Donny
SSG and certified Gasthaus Liberator

Don, I'm no longer an active comp sci prof but I'm going to keep reading this thread in case something rings a bell. I understand that just fooling around testing stuff is more difficult for you than us.

What utility told you that it was a corrupt system file? Did the major geek advice include trying to let Windows repair itself?

How full is the hard drive for disk "C"?

When you get to the point of less than 10% things do start to slow way down. I had that issue some time back and it seems that windows likes to save practically everything in it's TEMP and TEMP INTERNET file folders. You can generally delete the contents of those folders safely, which are often many gigabytes in size. Also reset the RESTORE size and frequency as well. It comes with a default setting on what it wants to save and how many copies of the restore it is set to keep. It's relatively safe to let it keep only two or three of the most recent ones. My restore had many dozens of backups in it's registry. I deleted them all but the most recent two or three. It freed up a huge chunk of digital real estate.

Doing that one thing took my laptop from 94% filled back to less than 60% filled in about 30 seconds and the machine ran so much better after that.

You might also want to run ANTI-MALWARE BYTES on the disks and let it check for and fix the issues it finds. Also, a good registry fixer can make a huge difference. When it's all done, run your defrag utility as well to organize and rearrange the files.

Any time you see an issue, a cold reboot is in order.....and if the issue is still there.... do a restore. Don't wait. Restore has solved a bunch of glitches for me.

Herb,

I have a 1 TB C: drive showing only 25% used but I like your suggestion. It is stuffed with junk files that I can transfer to my 2 TB external drive and probably delete most of it.

I've been instructed how to find a clean PRODUCT KEY so, armed with that, I'm plunging back in.

Major Geeks informed me that the PRODUCT KEY on OEM computers cover a broad range of machines and often fail at reinstalling time.

I hope I can reinstall Windows 7 today. I had it tweaked to perfection!

It will be interesting to see if the product key works Donny. I doubt it will. In my case I was in the middle of transferring all my stuff from my old Win 7 machine to the system in my sig that originally was also Win 7. My original plan was to do the free upgrade to Win 10 on the old box last July, test it, make sure everything worked then do the same with the new box. That's when I discovered I also had an invalid key and it wouldn't do the upgrade. I was all over the internet and talked to several people and there's no way to get a valid key any more. At least that's what I've read and was told.

I suspect your only option is to buy and install Win 10 but don't worry, it works fine and there's no problem at all working with it. If you really do find a valid key and can reinstall Win 7 please let us know because I still have that old box and would like to do that with it. Like your's it too was finally running so slow and messed up there's nothing to do but a reinstall. If I want to use it I may have to buy and put Win 10 on that one too.

Bob

Bob,

Not realizing, I downloaded the ISO Image to my C: Drive thinking I could then copy it over to any boot-able media. I may have to download it again. Another 6 hour d/l.Chortle.

So far, it hasn't asked for a product key. IIRC, that's part of the actual installation, not yet.

Thanks for jumping in.

Donny

"I downloaded an ISO Image file of Windows 7/64 Home Premium which came pre-installed on my HP Elite computer,..."

Did you download a retail ISO or or the HP recovery iso as they would be different keys.

You should have a hidden recovery partition that has the win install files and programs on that you access by keep pressing F11 at boot.

http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c01867418

There are a lot of test tools available, but Microsoft has an inbuilt utility that just might give you a "clue".

Start PowerShell and run as Administrator as shown:

At the command prompt, type:

Get-WmiObject -class Win32_winsat

press Enter

The values labeled 'Score' are a score out of 10 for the performance of each object.

if you see a really low value for any of these, it's an indicator of a problem.

Don, if you need a new Win 7 you can get one here

https://parkwaysoftware.com/product?n=Windows+7+Home+Premium&pid=14

for $49.99. It comes with a license.

I hope you don't need to shell out any of your millions but if you do this looks like a good buy.

This is the first company I've seen selling Win 7 that looks legit. They're also selling Win 10 Pro for $105 as well. Now, if Donny is forced to pay for a copy I would just get Win 10 and forget 7 but that's up to him of course.

Bob

Mario,

Nice link. Thanks for sharing.

Don,

Following this thread. I'd offer but I think I'd be more hinderance than help. I'm still adjusting to Win7 after a recent change from XP.

My experience has been that the longer you have windows installed and have tried lots of software after 2-3 years the computer will slow down, in my case at boot and would take about 3 mins to boot up. It was so slow I seriously considered doing a fresh install of 7.

In my case I bought an SSD 500gb and what a change it has been, can't sing its praises enough. so something to think about. Just clone the old hard drive system over to it and do the relevant SSD tweaks. Chances are the PC will speed up a lot.

By the way even though the windows 10 free upgrade has finished for windows 7 or 8, you can still get it if you use assistive technologies such as the magnifier, so still free.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/accessibility/windows10upgrade

Once everything is running well use free Macrium Reflect to back up your system.

Hope you get it working Don.

Musiclover

I'll usually back up any important files on my Windows drive, wipe it and reinstall Windows every couple of years or so. Seems to help with the bloat that accumulates over time.

Great tip, Musiclover.

I'm downloading the free Windows 10 offer for Assistive Technology people right now. Wow! It's 3.3 Gb!

I had hesitated go to Win 10 because of the typical delay in driver manufactures catching up. Looks like that is no longer a problem.

Thanks so much.

Don

That's great but is MS going to let you install it without a valid license key for Win 7?

Bob

Yep, you definitely need a valid 7 key to get the free upgrade to 10.

Hope it goes ok for you.

One thing to do when you are up and running is download CCleaner, go into the tools on it, select startup and disable any non essential startup programs that will slow your computer down at boot up time.

And when everything is up and running again, do the Macrium Reflect image and burn the boot dvd for it, in case of any further emergency. You do need to image that to a different drive not your system drive and if possible to an external drive as a safe guard as well.

Musiclover

This was a Free upgrade to 10 with this Tool and you don't need a key:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10/

Try here:
http://www.cnet.com/au/news/microsoft-windows-10-free-upgrade-offer-assistive-features/

http://www.howtogeek.com/253901/get-windows-10-for-free-after-july-29th-with-a-little-prep-now/

http://www.theverge.com/2016/8/1/12340318/microsoft-windows-10-free-upgrade-still-available

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/accessibility/windows10upgrade?tduid=(2351da1f8398017c4ee416b5bd794b65)(256380)(2459594)(TnL5HPStwNw-fFE6UHfNG0.FJiNNrXa1og)()

It's my curfew (bedtime) and the d/l is only at 75%! I guess tomorrow has to be soon enough for the final "eureka moment"!

I sincerely thank everyone who jumped in with lifelines.

This forum is truly a wonderful "family"!

Don

Not being a computer wiz.... I do know that Vista (remember that OS?) has a "reset to factory" setting in it's restore app.

If you select it, it asks you several times "Are you sure?" because it does a complete wipe of the C: drive and then reinstalls the Vista OS to factory new condition. Any data you have is wiped clean so you should save it before you do the restore to factory.

I'm not sure if newer OS's still have that in them, but I found it to be really handy to restore a few computers my kids were using when they managed to get them cram packed full of junk.

My Dell music laptop has it.

I'm squatting in your basic tall cotton!

Btw, I did NOT require a Product Key for Windows 7, it's a full install.

It is much faster and the earlier problems appear to have been solved!

Color me elated (but try to stay within the lines).

Donny

Awesome!!

Bob

Great news Don!

Glad you got your computer going Don.

Jim,

I spoke too soon.

I tried to launch BIAB yesterday for the first time since upgrading to Windows 10 and it locks up at the splash screen and the little spinner is perpetually spinning.

I tried reinstalling but that didn't help.

Next, I uninstalled and reinstalled from scratch. Still nothing.

Anyone have any ideas?

TIA

Don

Are you logged in as administrator?

Bob

Yes.

My next idea is to uninstall (again) then remove all references to BIAB from the registry before reinstalling the program.

Don

You probably need only to reinstall biab only,untick everything else in list.

Another tip is to go into exclussions in anti virus and disable virus scanning for the bb folder, really speeds up biab startup time,at least does in my avast.

Musiclover

Right. We did some testing in another thread about startup times, and this makes a considerable difference.

Matt,

I'm using Avast (free version) and I don't see an option called "exclusions" or similar. Your suggestion sounds like my problem exactly. BB hangs after splash screen.

Compound that with my being unfamiliar with Windows 10. I used to know how to configure Avast but the directory tree is missing in W10.

My boot time today was 47 seconds but I hit a brick wall trying to launch BB. So far, it's the only program affected. Interestingly, it is a new phenomenon since upgrading to W10.

Someone using Avast (free): how do you exclude a folder?

Man oh man. Two steps forward and one step back for you. Really sorry you're having this problem.

When I installed 10 the first thing I did was open Biab and it opened right up, I had to do absolutely nothing but double click the icon. I also have Avast but I did write about how I had to completely uninstall it before Win 10 would install. But after that I put Avast back on and no issues whatsoever. Maybe completely uninstall it and give that a shot. Sometimes A/V software can really mess things up. Look at Furry with Panda.

As far as the directory tree, it's there just like 7. Click on the Explorer icon in your taskbar and you'll see the tree on the left. Click on This PC and all your drives appear in the window to the right then double click on your C drive and the familiar directory tree appears. Or, just hover your mouse over the words This PC and the > symbol appears to the left. Click that and the tree appears vertically there without appearing in the window to the right.

Bob

Bob,

Thanks for tossing out a lifeline. I'll try that and post back after lunch.

Fingers crossed.

Don

Click the little wheel gear top right of avast main GUi, you will find Exclusions on tha general tab that opens, just set your path for the bb folder ...probably wise to do it fro Realband as well.

Sometimes I scratch my hair out, what little of it is left to find one of these options in Avast, as they keep hiding it deeper in each new version.

Don if problems persists have you tried running the main install for biab only (even try the latest biab update first) ...leaving the multitude of other options to install stuff unticked, in the install dialog. I have had this problem in past and this seemed to cure it, with the avast exclusion speeding the launch of biab.

musiclover

No joy! I was so hopeful!

I completely uninstalled Avast AND BB then reinstalled BB only. It still won't launch! Color me blue and utterly frustrated.