THANK YOU µsoft [HELP]

[JPG]

Well all is much better now. CTRL ALT DEL got me to switch user and to change pass method back to picture which now works. It also got me 'on' as the user that has administrator privileges.

Unfortunately ALL personalization is gone! That includes the desktop and all those icons that I carefully placed convenient to me as well as getting program links etc. icons on the decktop.

Definitely the lessor of the evils.

Much restore work remains.

Thank You ED for getting me this far.

Getting messy is not required.

This update essentially wiped out all that I tweaked over the past 5 years.

Now I need to get the printer to work

[reible]

For some reason the printers default to "off line". This is fixed by changing that parameter. I have to do this all the time, each new release which is every couple of weeks.

Some of your default desk top setting might still be there if you think you really need to try and recover them.....

Ed

[JPG]

For some reason the printers default to "off line". This is fixed by changing that parameter. I have to do this all the time, each new release which is every couple of weeks.

Some of your default desk top setting might still be there if you think you really need to try and recover them.....

Ed

Well after powering down and a reboot (very lengthy after pass) my desktop is back. It went through a bunch of "app caused a problem" and file types reset to windows stuff. We shall see if that is BS.

Again thanks

FWIW more update stuff ran after finally getting past the password screen.

[garys]

Since Ubuntu sees the files, I would boot from Ubuntu and put in an empty USB drive. Then copy all your personal files to the USB drive. After that, you are free to do whatever you need to do to Windows to make it work again. A clean install would do the most good as it would clean up all the mess Windows has created since it was first installed.
After fixing Windows, however you have to do it, simply plug in the USB drive with your files and put them back where you want them.

[JPG]

Since Ubuntu sees the files, I would boot from Ubuntu and put in an empty USB drive. Then copy all your personal files to the USB drive. After that, you are free to do whatever you need to do to Windows to make it work again. A clean install would do the most good as it would clean up all the mess Windows has created since it was first installed.
After fixing Windows, however you have to do it, simply plug in the USB drive with your files and put them back where you want them.

Where do I get a 320 gb usb drive?

The stuff is scattered all over the place.

I do believe the 'update' amounted to a complete overhaul. I got a non-support message regarding lack of updating. Also is took a LOOOOOOOONG time to execute. I think with the multiple restarts over a full day/nite it simply temporarily lost it's way, but finally got home.

Unattended boots default to unbuntu which complicated the process.

Thank You all for giving this your consideration.

This alerted me to stuff I had not backed up or created an alternative process.

[garys]

Where do I get a 320 gb usb drive?

The stuff is scattered all over the place.
.

Do you actually have 320gb of data files? You don't need to backup anything Windows related. I looked at my drive and I have less than 10gb of data files on my computer.

Also, Bestbuy has 512gb and 1024gb thumb drives. All it takes is money and you too can have one.

It is likely that most of what is on your drive is just Microsoft bloat which is what you will be replacing if you do a clean install, so don't back up any of that.

[JPG]

Where do I get a 320 gb usb drive?

The stuff is scattered all over the place.
.

Do you actually have 320gb of data files? You don't need to backup anything Windows related. I looked at my drive and I have less than 10gb of data files on my computer.

Also, Bestbuy has 512gb and 1024gb thumb drives. All it takes is money and you too can have one.

It is likely that most of what is on your drive is just Microsoft bloat which is what you will be replacing if you do a clean install, so don't back up any of that.

It is not like the stuff is all down below the documents directory.

Being a holdover from DOS days I create directories for narrow specific tasks. Also I only use programs from redmond when there is no other alternative.

So my stuff is indeed scattered all over the place. My Shopsmith directory has almost 250 sub directories and 25 gb of files in the parent directory alone.

The only viable backup is to have a duplicate drive(external). Yes I will get bit someday!

[thunderbirdbat]

Get an external 1T hard drive and copy everything to it. Just as easy as a thumb drive but more space.

[jsburger]

Get an external 1T hard drive and copy everything to it. Just as easy as a thumb drive but more space.

I agree and they are very cheap now. I have a Western Digital 4TB network drive. I have had it so long I don't remember the cost but, it was not espensive. I also have a Western Digital 8TB USB drive that is a couple of years old. That one was around $150.

[garys]

I always keep my files on more than one computer. I have one computer sitting in the basement running all the time. It is my in-house FTP server. Personal files from all the other computers in the house are backed up on it. If it would fail, I simply put another computer in its place and copy the files from all the workstations back to it. If one of the workstations fails, we get the files back from the server. This method has served me well for the last 15-20 years so I don't lose any files even when I upgrade one of the workstation computers.

In addition to the FTP server computer, I also have a HTTP server running for my website. That one died last week and was unable to boot up again. The computer was a 15 year old computer I bought used around 10 years ago and put into service as my server.
To get back in business, I simply grabbed another old computer I had sitting unused here, installed a new operating system on it, installed the drivers and working software. Then I installed the Apache web server and configured it to serve the two websites I run. I also added an FTP server to it and configured that too. Then I loaded my webpage files back to it from my backups. The entire process took about 2 hours and my website was back online.

Backups are your friend if you use any of this computerized hardware. It all will fail eventually, and when it does, you can recover fast and easy if you have your personal files backed up.