Office 2007 strange prob.

"Char Jackson" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 09 Dec 2010 20:24:22 -0700, XS11E

It will, however, write CDs and nonBlueRay DVDs.

Didn't he say earlier that he has something like 240 GB to back up?
That would be over 50 DVD's, or nearly 650 CD's, or a single external
hard drive. Yikes.


--

Char Jackson

Yes that is what the program said when I was playing with it. I am guessing
a lot of that would be the DVD's that are on here that have not been watched
yet. I guess I could dump them since they are backed up then do the image,
but since it will do it with a USB drive I figure that sounds easier. I took
a quick look at Amazon and 500 Gig are around $60.00. Amazing how these have
dropped in price. will have to get one of the books Gene mentioned at the
same time. Will tell the O/H she can give them too me for Christmas. G
--
There are three kinds of men: The ones that learn by reading. The few who
learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence and
find out for themselves.
Will Rogers

"R. C. White" wrote in message
ecom...
??Hi, Alex.

Let me echo and amplify Gene's advice. My standard sermon goes something
like this:

Buy a good book and don't just spend some time reading it. INVEST more
time
in studying it! What you learn will pay big dividends now - and for as
long
as you continue to use computers, which just might be for the rest of your
life.


Spend the time (and money) now, and enjoy the dividends for the rest of
your life.

snip
End of sermon. ;^}

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP (2002-9/30/10)
Windows Live Mail Version 2011 (Build 15.4.3504.1109) in Win7 Ultimate x64
SP1 RC



I know you are right, and I will certainly be using computers for the rest
of my life.
I know myself well enough to know I will also never be a pro at this. I
should invest more time in it, but it just does not hold my interest, too
many other things on the plate all the time.
I decided to take some time off work a while ago to catch up and often
wonder how I had time to go to work. G Doctors told me about 15 years ago
not to make any long term plans and they are still not quite sure why I am
still on this side of the soil. Because of that I take a "different"
approach to life and what I spend my time doing. Decided to go back to
school for a while and am having a lot of fun with it. One of the classes I
took was with computers and I did get a hell of a lot out of it but I can
see I could easily make that a full time thing if I really wanted to. I love
the PC and of course get ****ed off fast when something will suddenly not
work, but it is of course my own fault that I have not spent the time to
learn more. I just don't see it happening anytime soon though, too many
higher priorities.
After all that's what I love about Usenet. When I get frustrated I can just
ask for help here and even though it may take a while someone always seems
to have the right answer. VBG
--
"Everything in excess! To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites.
Moderation is for monks."

[Lazarus Long]

"Stan Brown" wrote in message
t...
On Thu, 09 Dec 2010 05:10:11 -0700, XS11E wrote:

"Alex Clayton" wrote:

That was the last thing I tried after removing the software and
reinstalling it failed. When I went to system restore though the
only date available was that day. Apparently they have changed
something in W-7.

There's nothing changed, there are things that will delete restore
points but the most common is that you never set any. Check that
System Restore is turned on for the correct drive, the Help files will
get you started.

IIRC, the change went in the other direction. Doesn't Windows 7 now
create a restore point automatically before most software installs?

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
Shikata ga nai...

Now that you mentioned that it did ring a bell. I seem to remember oft
seeing the message "creating a restore point" pop up during the install of
new software. I just opened the system restore on this again to check and
after clicking the show more restore points the oldest one it shows is
11/14/10 again. I don't know if I have something set wrong or am doing
something to remove them, but I know it's been almost a year since I last
formatted this machine????
--
Inside every older person is a younger person wondering, 'What the hell
happened?'

On Fri, 10 Dec 2010 07:37:44 -0800, "Alex Clayton"
wrote:

"Char Jackson" wrote in message
.. .
On Thu, 09 Dec 2010 20:24:22 -0700, XS11E

It will, however, write CDs and nonBlueRay DVDs.

Didn't he say earlier that he has something like 240 GB to back up?
That would be over 50 DVD's, or nearly 650 CD's, or a single external
hard drive. Yikes.


--

Char Jackson

Yes that is what the program said when I was playing with it. I am guessing
a lot of that would be the DVD's that are on here that have not been watched
yet. I guess I could dump them since they are backed up then do the image,
but since it will do it with a USB drive I figure that sounds easier. I took
a quick look at Amazon and 500 Gig are around $60.00. Amazing how these have
dropped in price. will have to get one of the books Gene mentioned at the
same time. Will tell the O/H she can give them too me for Christmas. G

Assuming you decide to back up the full 240GB, you should note that a
500GB drive will only hold a single backup of your data. (A 500 GB
drive holds about 465 GB of data.) Therefore, I would encourage you to
get the biggest drive you can afford so you can store multiple
backups. A 2 TB drive (over 1800 GB of storage) costs less than twice
the price you found for a 500 GB.

--

Char Jackson

On Fri, 10 Dec 2010 06:25:03 -0500, Stan Brown
wrote:

On Thu, 09 Dec 2010 11:57:24 -0600, Char Jackson wrote:

Save yourself a whole lot of grief and tedium by backing up to a
second hard drive rather than trying to put everything on optical
media.

I do that, and then once a month I burn the backups to DVD and stash
them in a drawer at work. Offsite storage of backups is not just for
businesses.

How many DVD's does it take to store a single backup? We each have our
own threshold of pain, but in my case if it takes more than one I'm
simply not willing to go through the hassle. It takes significantly
longer to burn a DVD than to write data to a hard drive, and the time
quickly gets out of control as the size of the backup job increases.

--

Char Jackson

"Char Jackson" wrote in message
...

Assuming you decide to back up the full 240GB, you should note that a
500GB drive will only hold a single backup of your data. (A 500 GB
drive holds about 465 GB of data.) Therefore, I would encourage you to
get the biggest drive you can afford so you can store multiple
backups. A 2 TB drive (over 1800 GB of storage) costs less than twice
the price you found for a 500 GB.

--

Char Jackson

OK, but maybe I am missing something here. I can get any size I want but I
was thinking the whole point of this kind of back up is in case I have to
format this I can just put it back to how it is the day I back it up instead
of taking it back to factory original?
If I can back it up to where it is now, so that if I re do it I don't have
to go back to Vista, then go to W-7 again that's great. If it lasts another
year or so I guess I could delete the old back up and do it again assuming
by then I have made some more changes I do not want to have to re do?
If you mean things like files pictures and what not that is all backed up
daily so I an not worried about losing any of that, just want to make it
less time consuming if I FUBAR this and want to just start over.
I just looked again at Amazon and they have a 2 TB for $109.00. Right now
I have an 80 GIG in the safe with "important" stuff on it and a WD 100 Gig
and WD 500 Gig. I paid as much for each of them over time as the 2TB one is
now so getting the 2TB is no big deal if I have use for it. Hell for the
price of both of our Carbonite subs for one year I could buy the 2 TB one.
This would work for me but Wife would be sure to lose something next time I
had to format her machine as I have never been able to get her to back up
stuff and gave up on the battle.
--
Inside every older person is a younger person wondering, 'What the hell
happened?'

On Fri, 10 Dec 2010 10:42:31 -0800, Alex Clayton wrote:

"Char Jackson" wrote in message
...

Assuming you decide to back up the full 240GB, you should note that a
500GB drive will only hold a single backup of your data. (A 500 GB
drive holds about 465 GB of data.) Therefore, I would encourage you to
get the biggest drive you can afford so you can store multiple
backups. A 2 TB drive (over 1800 GB of storage) costs less than twice
the price you found for a 500 GB.

--

Char Jackson

OK, but maybe I am missing something here. I can get any size I want but I
was thinking the whole point of this kind of back up is in case I have to
format this I can just put it back to how it is the day I back it up instead
of taking it back to factory original?
If I can back it up to where it is now, so that if I re do it I don't have
to go back to Vista, then go to W-7 again that's great. If it lasts another
year or so I guess I could delete the old back up and do it again assuming
by then I have made some more changes I do not want to have to re do?
If you mean things like files pictures and what not that is all backed up
daily so I an not worried about losing any of that, just want to make it
less time consuming if I FUBAR this and want to just start over.
I just looked again at Amazon and they have a 2 TB for $109.00. Right now
I have an 80 GIG in the safe with "important" stuff on it and a WD 100 Gig
and WD 500 Gig. I paid as much for each of them over time as the 2TB one is
now so getting the 2TB is no big deal if I have use for it. Hell for the
price of both of our Carbonite subs for one year I could buy the 2 TB one.
This would work for me but Wife would be sure to lose something next time I
had to format her machine as I have never been able to get her to back up
stuff and gave up on the battle.

I can't quite figure out your question, so I will wing it and just give
you a couple of ideas, including a partial refutation of what Char
Jackson said.

1. With a program like Acronis or Macrium Reflect, the backup is:
a. Compressed a bit, so it's smaller than the original file system.
b. Later backups (if you chose "incremental") add only changed data to
the current backup, so they are quick and small.
c. You can even, if you choose, restore a file or the system from an
earlier backup rather than being able to use only the image from the
latest backup.
d. Tools in those backup programs let you look at the backed-up file
system in Windows Explorer. They also let you look at any of the earlier
backups.

2. I make my second backup on a second drive, so that if one drive
fails, the other is still good (at least, if Murphy is on vacation!) -
so the capacity of the backup drives is not an issue. They needn't be
twice the size of the original.

3. Both of the above programs let you make a boot CD. This lets you
restore to the original hard drive (or a replacement hard drive) in the
computer from the external drive even when the drive in the computer
won't boot (e.g., a corrupted or virus-ridden drive or a new drive)

4. When you restore from a backup, you choose which backup set (which
date) to restore, and your computer becomes what it was on that date. No
data or software is lost, you return to exactly where you were when you
backed up. Much better than a system recovery to the new-from-factory
condition!

HTH,
Gino

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

"Gene E. Bloch" wrote in message
...

I can't quite figure out your question, so I will wing it and just give
you a couple of ideas, including a partial refutation of what Char
Jackson said.

I think it's a case of Alex is mixing up the 2 kinds of backups being
discussed... An image backup of the system in a preferred state (like after
you've opened the box, installed the couple of "must have" applications,
customized the desktop, etc...) and before filling it with data for putting
it back to your desired out of the box state vs. data backups.

The initial image backup, what I would use Acronis for (actually I use
ImageX, but same idea) could be stored on a local server, burned to disk,
put on spouse's computer (and their stored on yours), etc... Don't care
about saving it in case of theft or fire as it wouldn't be applicable to
your new machine once back on your feet.

Data backup, **** that can't be replaced. Photos, scans of important
documents, prior years Turbo Tax file, etc... That is stuff that is computer
independent and in fact you want to move form computer to computer over the
years. That stuff requires some sort of offsite backup so you still have it
after a fire or theft.

If that data backup doesn't occupy your entire backup medium (me, I use 2
rotating 1TB bare drives), by all means, store that initial image backup
there too, but really you're only putting it there for convenience so you
don't have to buy a separate storage device or bother with the time to burn
disks.

Me, I don't bother with an "initial image" as it's pretty quick, for me, to
start from scratch anyway so it's not worth the hassle.

"Gene E. Bloch" wrote:

I can't quite figure out your question, so I will wing it and just
give you a couple of ideas, including a partial refutation of what
Char Jackson said.

1. With a program like Acronis or Macrium Reflect, the backup is:
a. Compressed a bit, so it's smaller than the original file
system. b. Later backups (if you chose "incremental") add only
changed data to the current backup, so they are quick and small.

Minor point, the free versions from Western Digital or Seagate/Maxtor
will not do incremental backups. I don't find this to be a problem, I
create an image of the bare install and then a new image as I get the
PC setup. Regularly I delete the later image and create a new one so I
alway have the 'bare' image (win7 installed and configured to my wants,
no software added) and a current image.

--
XS11E, Killing all posts from Google Groups
The Usenet Improvement Project:
http://twovoyagers.com/improve-usenet.org/

Stan Brown wrote:

On Thu, 09 Dec 2010 05:10:11 -0700, XS11E wrote:

"Alex Clayton" wrote:

That was the last thing I tried after removing the software and
reinstalling it failed. When I went to system restore though
the only date available was that day. Apparently they have
changed something in W-7.

There's nothing changed, there are things that will delete
restore points but the most common is that you never set any.
Check that System Restore is turned on for the correct drive, the
Help files will get you started.

IIRC, the change went in the other direction. Doesn't Windows 7
now create a restore point automatically before most software
installs?

Yes but there are things that will delete restore points, Acronis is
one of them.




--
XS11E, Killing all posts from Google Groups
The Usenet Improvement Project:
http://twovoyagers.com/improve-usenet.org/

"Gene E. Bloch" wrote in message
...

I can't quite figure out your question, so I will wing it and just give
you a couple of ideas, including a partial refutation of what Char
Jackson said.

1. With a program like Acronis or Macrium Reflect, the backup is:
a. Compressed a bit, so it's smaller than the original file system.
b. Later backups (if you chose "incremental") add only changed data to
the current backup, so they are quick and small.
c. You can even, if you choose, restore a file or the system from an
earlier backup rather than being able to use only the image from the
latest backup.
d. Tools in those backup programs let you look at the backed-up file
system in Windows Explorer. They also let you look at any of the earlier
backups.

2. I make my second backup on a second drive, so that if one drive
fails, the other is still good (at least, if Murphy is on vacation!) -
so the capacity of the backup drives is not an issue. They needn't be
twice the size of the original.

3. Both of the above programs let you make a boot CD. This lets you
restore to the original hard drive (or a replacement hard drive) in the
computer from the external drive even when the drive in the computer
won't boot (e.g., a corrupted or virus-ridden drive or a new drive)

4. When you restore from a backup, you choose which backup set (which
date) to restore, and your computer becomes what it was on that date. No
data or software is lost, you return to exactly where you were when you
backed up. Much better than a system recovery to the new-from-factory
condition!

HTH,
Gino

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

This sounds like what I want. I was wondering why I would need a 1 or 2 TB
drive to back up 250 Gigs of stuff.
Basically what I want is what you last described. This laptop was Vista
when I bought it with a free upgrade to W-7 later. When they sent to disc I
had tried W-7 and liked it so I upgraded this one to W-7. The slot drive DVD
drive has, or had, an eject button on the keyboard that no longer worked. I
made the mistake of calling Dell to ask if they could fix this. They took
over the machine with remote assistance and in an hour had it so ****ed up
the mouse and keyboard would both no longer respond. I finally gave up
dealing with them, long pauses on hold while the guy was asking someone else
for help, and having to repeat everything 5 times since neither of us could
understand each other. I rebooted into recovery and started again and do
without the eject button.
So anyway I assume that if I use the recovery disc or partition on this I
would be back to Vista then would have to go back to W-7. If I could just
set a back up to what it is today, then 6 months or a year from now if it is
FUBAR, I would be more than happy with going back to where it is today
instead of where it was a year ago when I bought it.
I will order the drive and give the built in program a try see what it
does. if it looks OK I should be good to go. If not I guess I will try one
of the pay programs.

--
Things get better with age. I'm approaching magnificent!!

On Fri, 10 Dec 2010 14:53:44 -0500, Seth wrote:

I can't quite figure out your question, so I will wing it and just give
you a couple of ideas, including a partial refutation of what Char
Jackson said.

I think it's a case of Alex is mixing up the 2 kinds of backups being
discussed... An image backup of the system in a preferred state (like after
you've opened the box, installed the couple of "must have" applications,
customized the desktop, etc...) and before filling it with data for putting
it back to your desired out of the box state vs. data backups.

The initial image backup, what I would use Acronis for (actually I use
ImageX, but same idea) could be stored on a local server, burned to disk,
put on spouse's computer (and their stored on yours), etc... Don't care
about saving it in case of theft or fire as it wouldn't be applicable to
your new machine once back on your feet.

I make two kinds of backups, an image backup (Macrium Reflect) and a
clone backup (Casper).

I don't see the point of your "2 kinds of backups". I backup the whole
drive every time with the above programs. I let both programs' ability
to make an incremental backup take care of the data management.

If I need to restore a particular file, it's available on both disks. If
I want to restore an earlier version of the file, I can use the Macrium
image.

If I need to recreate my boot disk, either backup will work fine.
Moreover, it recreates a *recent* version of my system. The problem with
what you suggest is that you would get a version close to the out-of-box
version, requiring you to reinstall all the programs you installed
later.

And if I get a new machine, what I need for it - the data, the virtual
machine's hard drive file, whatever, is there too. There's even an image
of the desktop and a list of all the installed programs (in the Program
Files directories) to help me figure out what I want to reinstall. And
what I want to *not* reinstall, come to think of it.

And I'm not sure my confusion is a case of Alex mixing something up. I
think he just phrased his concerns in a way that didn't match my
individual[1] brainwave patterns :-)

[1] The word "idiot" relates to a Greek word meaning "individual" (I'm
taking some license here), so you can draw your own conclusions about
me :-)

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On Fri, 10 Dec 2010 13:02:01 -0700, XS11E wrote:

"Gene E. Bloch" wrote:

I can't quite figure out your question, so I will wing it and just
give you a couple of ideas, including a partial refutation of what
Char Jackson said.

1. With a program like Acronis or Macrium Reflect, the backup is:
a. Compressed a bit, so it's smaller than the original file
system. b. Later backups (if you chose "incremental") add only
changed data to the current backup, so they are quick and small.

Minor point, the free versions from Western Digital or Seagate/Maxtor
will not do incremental backups. I don't find this to be a problem, I
create an image of the bare install and then a new image as I get the
PC setup. Regularly I delete the later image and create a new one so I
alway have the 'bare' image (win7 installed and configured to my wants,
no software added) and a current image.

Thanks, I had forgotten that.

I use a paid version of Macrium, so my advice was rather parochial.

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On Fri, 10 Dec 2010 12:34:40 -0800, Alex Clayton wrote:

"Gene E. Bloch" wrote in message
...

I can't quite figure out your question, so I will wing it and just give
you a couple of ideas, including a partial refutation of what Char
Jackson said.

1. With a program like Acronis or Macrium Reflect, the backup is:
a. Compressed a bit, so it's smaller than the original file system.
b. Later backups (if you chose "incremental") add only changed data to
the current backup, so they are quick and small.
c. You can even, if you choose, restore a file or the system from an
earlier backup rather than being able to use only the image from the
latest backup.
d. Tools in those backup programs let you look at the backed-up file
system in Windows Explorer. They also let you look at any of the earlier
backups.

2. I make my second backup on a second drive, so that if one drive
fails, the other is still good (at least, if Murphy is on vacation!) -
so the capacity of the backup drives is not an issue. They needn't be
twice the size of the original.

3. Both of the above programs let you make a boot CD. This lets you
restore to the original hard drive (or a replacement hard drive) in the
computer from the external drive even when the drive in the computer
won't boot (e.g., a corrupted or virus-ridden drive or a new drive)

4. When you restore from a backup, you choose which backup set (which
date) to restore, and your computer becomes what it was on that date. No
data or software is lost, you return to exactly where you were when you
backed up. Much better than a system recovery to the new-from-factory
condition!

HTH,
Gino

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

This sounds like what I want. I was wondering why I would need a 1 or 2 TB
drive to back up 250 Gigs of stuff.

Yes. With Macrium, I back up several computers on one drive that isn't
as big as the total of the other drives :-)

Basically what I want is what you last described. This laptop was Vista
when I bought it with a free upgrade to W-7 later. When they sent to disc I
had tried W-7 and liked it so I upgraded this one to W-7. The slot drive DVD
drive has, or had, an eject button on the keyboard that no longer worked. I
made the mistake of calling Dell to ask if they could fix this. They took
over the machine with remote assistance and in an hour had it so ****ed up
the mouse and keyboard would both no longer respond. I finally gave up
dealing with them, long pauses on hold while the guy was asking someone else
for help, and having to repeat everything 5 times since neither of us could
understand each other. I rebooted into recovery and started again and do
without the eject button.
So anyway I assume that if I use the recovery disc or partition on this I
would be back to Vista then would have to go back to W-7. If I could just
set a back up to what it is today, then 6 months or a year from now if it is
FUBAR, I would be more than happy with going back to where it is today
instead of where it was a year ago when I bought it.

It's really better than that. If you backed up a week ago, then you can
restore to what you had a week ago.

In fact with Macrium (the paid version, as XS11E reminded me), if you
had backed up last week and the week before, and you learned that what
you backed up last weeks was already screwed up, you could back up to
the two-week old version. If you always use an incremental backup, that
is.

One comment on the last: I do a full backup, then I do a series of
incremental backups. Eventually, I do a new full backup in a separate
place adn do the incremental there too. I set the original set aside.
When it's time to do yet another full backup, I get rid of the first set
adn backup there. I continue alternating in that fashion.

Confession time: the last paragraph is, in fact, my good intentions. I
don't do it as neatly as I said. Not even close :-)

I will order the drive and give the built in program a try see what it
does. if it looks OK I should be good to go. If not I guess I will try one
of the pay programs.


--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On Fri, 10 Dec 2010 13:03:18 -0700, XS11E wrote:

Stan Brown wrote:

On Thu, 09 Dec 2010 05:10:11 -0700, XS11E wrote:

"Alex Clayton" wrote:

That was the last thing I tried after removing the software and
reinstalling it failed. When I went to system restore though
the only date available was that day. Apparently they have
changed something in W-7.

There's nothing changed, there are things that will delete
restore points but the most common is that you never set any.
Check that System Restore is turned on for the correct drive, the
Help files will get you started.

IIRC, the change went in the other direction. Doesn't Windows 7
now create a restore point automatically before most software
installs?

Yes but there are things that will delete restore points, Acronis is
one of them.

That reminds me of why I switched to Macrium...

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)