First of all, I am a Microsoft
Windows user for like forever. I used Windows 97, 98, 2000 and XP in our
computer classes then XP, Windows 7, Windows 8 and finally Windows 8.1 for the
family desktop computer and three personal laptops. I am no techie but I can
easily follow instructions and tutorials online. For smartphones, I haven’t
used Windows; only used Blackberry OS and Android. For tablets, I have only
used iOS (I strongly believed back then that tablets are of little use and are
redundant that’s why I haven’t even thought of replacing my very old iPad mini
1st gen).
So here’s the thing: I am
exhausted and exasperated of Microsoft Windows. Here’s a rundown of what
happened a few years back and recently that almost made me cry and/or throw my
laptop (fix/solution highlighted):
1. Updating Windows 7
I believe that
updating any system is a must. Well, just because. And since the action center
(from the taskbar) always prompts any user of Windows to “Install Updates
Automatically (recommended),” I would then turn on the automatic updating. It
was in 2014, using my previous laptop which was a Lenovo having an OS of
Windows 7 Basic, that a troublesome update occurred. After updating an hour or
so, the laptop finally shut down. Then, when I powered it on the following day for
a very urgent document I was working on, the screen flashed something along the
lines of ‘an error occurred during update, undoing changes.’ It took forever
for system to undo the changes and I badly needed to use it. I searched online
for a fix and found a solution which was a System Restore. It solved the issue
in a jiffy. Consequently, I turned off the automatic updates.
2. Windows 8.1
In 2015, I got a
new laptop which is an Acer Aspire E 11. This Acer laptop employs Windows 8.1. I found the new Windows fascinating, what with the new touchpad
gestures just like on a Mac and cool new features; however, the laptop seemed
to be too slow in booting up, there are functions that I found too slow in
processing or responding and it always ended up hanging up. Take note, I had
that impression with a newly purchased product. As a result, I always felt
frustration creeping up and so I avoided using the laptop. Actually, I can’t
determine for sure if the fault lie on Windows or Acer. But, as a fix, I
tweaked the system a bit and improved my patience. Though these, of course, did
not fully eradicate the problems.
3. Updating Windows 8.1
Again, I believe that updating
any system is a must. This time I have a reason and that is for a permanent fix
to no. 2 above. And so whenever the action center would prompt me that I have
to update, I would update. I even turned on the automatic updating (which I
turned off at first because of no. 1) because I didn’t encounter slow updates
anymore. That is only until I encountered a relatively few updates that took a
particularly long time to update; to make matters worse, when the laptop
restarted, I encountered the similar problem with no. 1 with the message exactly
being: “We couldn’t complete the updates, Undoing Changes, Please don’t turn
off the computer.” At that time, I also badly needed to use the laptop but,
since I also have other more important things to finish up than stress myself
again with the same problem, I opted to let it be. I didn’t do anything to fix
it and just waited for like hours and hours on end until it finished up. After
that, I learned my lesson and turned off the automatic downloading of updates.
4. Upgrading to Windows 10
I checked my
e-mail the past month and noticed a couple of messages from Windows notifying
me of a free upgrade to Windows 10. Since I am in dire need to permanently fix
no. 2 and 3 above, I did the upgrade. However, there’s a lot of things amiss
with Windows 10 after the install. Before anything else, I love how Windows 10
looked.
 |
| The feels upon seeing the login screen. |
But there are more reasons to hate it than to love it primarily because
I didn’t get to actually and fully experience it.
At first, the
Start button can be clicked but then the next time I tried it, it didn’t
function anymore. Even pressing the Windows logo on the keyboard does not do
the trick. Frustrating as it may seem, there’s more. Booting up, restarting and
waking up the laptop took forever. When booting up, I need a goodly amount of
time before I can finally see the desktop. When I say goodly amount, it does
not only take 10 long minutes but half an hour! The Wi-Fi connection does not
work. Ironically, before the OS can finish setting up, it asked for a wireless
Internet connection. So how come it cannot detect any network?
I tried my best
to give Windows 10 a chance to redeem itself since I really want to try it out
(especially because it is a free upgrade). I let the laptop sit by a whole day
as if resting it could actually solve the problem. I tried to restart the
device a lot of times as if this could also help the device get used to booting
up and solve the problem with the wireless connection. I looked for solutions
online but to no avail.
Much to my
dismay, I decided to revert to Windows 8.1 so that I could finally use the
laptop. I looked online for ways to go back to the old one and found out that I
had to open up the Start menu > Settings > Update & Security > Recovery > Go back to Windows 8.1. Remember, I cannot
even click on the Start menu! It does not work! How can I get rid of the very
problematic Windows 10 if the very problem I was encountering (i.e. Start menu)
is the way to get rid of the problem! It took thousands of restarting and
rebooting until the Start menu finally worked. I even thought that had I not
prayed, it wouldn’t even work even after millions of rebooting. When I finally returned to Windows 8.1, there was a pop-up window asking why I reverted to Windows 8.1 and there I made a long feedback (I'm a bit hoping that Microsoft Windows would respond to it).
5. Unwittingly Updating Windows 8.1
Just this last
Good Friday, Avast notified me that I had to renew my purchase or something.
Then I noticed that my laptop is actually not protected since Avast had stopped
working. I uninstalled Avast, turned on
the Windows Defender for the time being and updated its virus and spyware
definitions, and decided to look for a new security software. Eventually, I decided
on a trial version of Bitdefender. After installing, obviously I had to
restart. I had already clicked on “Update and Restart” when I noticed that
there’s that ominous word: Update. Instead of restarting, the screen flashed:
Installing updates 0 of 385. I really
didn’t have any important thing to do but I was horror-struck. It’s mainly
because of the trauma (yeah, exaggerated but still…) I experienced before when
my laptop would decide to update during a time that I badly needed it. And, I
don’t want to experience for a third time that updating the OS would make me
insanely frustrated (does that description make sense?). Also, it said 385—not
just a hundred but 385! Since I can’t do anything, I just slept through it.
Surprisingly and
fortunately, it didn’t take an hour to finish the 385 updates and when it
finally restarted it didn’t take long to get past the finishing-updates-something
message. Then, I turned off Windows Defender and performed a full scan using
Bitdefender. All seemed well until I had to restart for reasons I can’t
remember. Again, I only noticed the scary word “Update” when I had already
clicked on “Update and Restart.” At this point, I realized that I had forgotten
to check why the laptop performed an automatic download of updates (thinking
back, I think updating the Windows Defender triggered this automatic update). Then
the screen flashed: Installing updates 0 of 81. I thought, “Whew! Okay so
that’s just 81. This would just take 5 minutes at most.” Unfortunately, it
took, if I remember correctly, 4 hours or so. At 1 a.m., it got to 81 of 81
then the message on the screen changed into something like “Installing Updates
0%.” FTW. I tried waiting for it for an hour but it didn’t even change to 1%.
So, I went to bed hoping that when I wake up it would already be finished.
Unfortunately, it didn’t. The laptop decided that it wanted to join me in sleep
and went into hibernation mode even if it was still updating. When I powered it
up, the screen flashed:
I waited for it
for 6 hours while the laptop flashed that message, restarted, flashed the
message again, restarted again and flashed the message again. Basically, it's in a reboot loop. I also tried
manually restarting it even if it said that I should not turn it off, hoping
that this may change the cycle. After a while, I had had it so I looked for how
to solve it.
Solving my Most Recent Microsoft Windows Frustration
Unfortunately,
the solutions (using cmd prompt and uninstalling updates) I found online
entails going to the Advanced Startup Options which the article says can be
accessed by a variety of ways if you can log in to Windows but if you couldn’t
(just like in my case) it is by pressing F8 or Shift + F8 before the logo of
the laptop appears. Tried this one several times but nothing. After a day
(already Easter Sunday), I found out through Microsoft Window’s website that F8
only functions on Windows 7 and that Windows 8, 8.1 and 10 “boots up too fast”
(yeah riiiiiight) that it cannot detect anymore the interruption the user is
trying to do (i.e. F8). I’ve read that pressing F12 would do it but still it
did not. Then, I found out how to access the Advanced Startup Options (I was
supposed to link it here but I can’t find where it was anymore). Instead of F8,
it’s supposed to be Alt + F10 (you can also access this by pressing the Windows
logo key + F10; I’m not entirely sure what this does but once you use this
there would be a message under the brand logo saying something like
troubleshooting and doing repairs but eventually this would take you to the blue
screen where you can access the Startup Setting). I also read somewhere that
Microsoft gave the laptop brands the liberty to assign which function key to
use. So I’m not entirely sure if F10 would actually work on other brands (I’m
using an Acer).
Moving on, you
should press Alt + F10 right after you pressed the power button even before the
laptop logo appears. You would know it worked if the message “Please wait”
appeared under the logo. Remember, this is not instant so wait until you are taken
to the blue screen with several options. Click Troubleshoot
Then click on Advanced
Options
Then click on Startup Settings (according to Windows Help and Support, this is
already the new name for the Advanced Startup Options for Windows 8 onwards).
Once you’re in Startup Settings, click Restart.
The laptop logo would appear
again then you would be taken to the Startup Settings again. This time there
would be a numbered list of choices to do. Press 4 on your keyboard (or whatever
number indicates the Enable Safe Mode).
Then the logo reappears. You’ll be take
then to the login screen. If you’re using a PIN (like me; that’s why I’m used
to only inputting PIN in order to log in) but you also have a password saved on
your account, you’ll be asked for a password. Once in Safe Mode, open the
Control Panel. In my case, I can’t search for it from the Charms Bar since
there are no words appearing when I type. In this case, Control Panel can be
accessed by right-clicking the Windows logo/Start menu on the taskbar. Click
Programs and Features. On the left pane, click on the View Installed Updates.
There would be a list of updates you made. Uninstall all updates that were
recently made. Uninstalling it would take time (according to the pop-up
window). After uninstalling, restart your PC. If you still got the "Undoing Changes" screen, just wait it out. According to the articles I read online, this should do the trick. In my case, after clicking uninstall update, a message appeared saying that
it failed to uninstall the update. I tried uninstalling the others but I still
got the same result.
I looked for
another fix and found one that entails using a cmd prompt. I don’t want to
detail on this anymore since I’m not even sure myself what I actually did then.
I think I tried two sets of commands but, still, it didn’t work. In short, the
only solutions I found online in order to get rid of the stupid updates didn’t
work! I decided to do a System Restore hoping this would solve the problem I
had with updates in Windows 7. In order to do a System Restore, go to Control
Panel > Recovery > Open System Restore. Using a System Restore would not
delete any personal files (e.g. documents, pictures) but if there were recently
installed programs or drivers, those would be uninstalled (you just have to
reinstall). You can also access this by pressing Alt + F10 before laptop logo
appears > Troubleshoot > Advanced Options > System Restore.
Doing a System
Restore would only take half an hour or less. Unfortunately, this still didn’t
work for me. I was notified that it didn’t work because a security software is
preventing the process. So what I did next was to go back to Safe Mode. I tried
opening up the recently installed Bitdefender so I can disable it and go
through the System Restore; however, it cannot open up. Maybe because I was in
Safe Mode and so there were a lot of things that cannot function. Bottom line:
I can’t even do System Restore! I was too exhausted to look for or even think of
other solutions, making me decide to just reset. Resetting could be accessed by
pressing Alt + F10 before laptop logo appears > Troubleshoot > Reset your
PC.
Resetting would mean erasing all data and reverting the laptop to its
original state. I have a copy of my documents in a flash drive yet I cannot
bring myself to resolve on actually resetting my laptop. I looked for the
contact information of Microsoft Windows as well as Acer, hoping that their
technical support can lead me through. Unfortunately, their offices were
already closed by that time.
I decided to
call them up the following day (i.e. yesterday, Easter Monday). Before calling them
up, I powered up the laptop then prayed to God to please help me get over this
problem (yep, another hyperbole but I actually called on God! LOL). After 15
minutes, I surprisingly, amazingly, wonderfully saw the login screen! I spent
the past three days, searching the Internet for a fix, leaving no stone
unturned yet I never
thought that the only solution I ever needed is muttering “God.”
Verdict
Maybe it’s just me being
restless, impatient and ignorant of how things work (again, I’m no
techie). Nonetheless, I am way too exhausted with the incompetency and
inefficiency of Microsoft Windows. I will save money to buy a MacBook. Hopefully,
I’ll be saved from all the drama, failure and shiz of Microsoft Windows. I’ll
deal with the cons of a MacBook (mostly on cost. LOL.) later on when I even have the
money to buy it.
Photos not mine:
http://www.techkhoji.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/windows-10-login-screen.png
http://www.thewindowsclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/We-couldnt-complete-the-updates.jpg
https://wpcf.neosmart.net/sites/5/2014/02/windows-8-recovery-options-screen-troubleshoot.png
http://cdn.makeuseof.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/windows-8-advanced-startup-options.png?b68665
http://www.bleepstatic.com/tutorials/windows-8/advancd-startup-options-menu/advanced-options.jpg
http://www.download3k.com/article_images/0/948/full_13_0ec1bd41c892e8d5ed02eb16bcedb5b3.png
http://www.winability.com/info/safe-mode-restart-startup-settings-restart-choose-number.png
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