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The Old Man and the PC
Aug. 12th, 2021 01:51 pmI was roped into doing IT support for my dad.
I don't know how old his PC is, but since the CPU was discontinued in 2010 I suspect it's getting on a bit. The last time it was updated was when it was upgraded to Windows 10. My dad refuses to add updates. Or to do any basic housekeeping. Or replace it. The thing needs to be put down.
Anyway, the reported problems were: Thunderbird doesn't work. Neither does the scanner software.
Additional problems - it takes forever to start. And then loads a load of applications in the background. These include Windows Live Messenger. An application that was discontinued in 2013.
And it seems 3GB of RAM just isn't enough these days to run several applications at once.
So, after about half an hour we got as far as attempting to start the scanner software. If has a big "f" where the interface should be. So I googled it. Apparently this relies on Flash. Another discontinued product. Attempted to download new software, and started uninstalling the flash based scanner software. It got to 40% done in a fairly short time and remained 40% done for the next hour or so.
So gave up. Went to Brighton.
When we got back, scanner software was finally uninstalled. Refused to let me do anything without rebooting! Rebooted. Had a cup of tea. Finally system restarted. Tried installing the new software. Seems it was just drivers. Drivers were fine. Had to reload Firefox to download "HP Scan extended". This took a good few minutes to start. Found the software. Found the download link. It was an FTP link. Firefox no longer does FTP!!!
Also tried getting Thunderbird to behave. Tried updating password. This took an age as well. My dad has the password deviously hidden inside an Excel file, but this involved starting Excel. Another 5 minute wait for that to happen. Then prod it for ages while he found the hidden cells containing his password.
So, got an error message. Google says there's a setting in Thunderbird that we can change. It worked. Got an entirely new error message.
Eventually gave up. I still had to drive home. But dammit, I hate leaving the poor thing in that state!
I don't know how old his PC is, but since the CPU was discontinued in 2010 I suspect it's getting on a bit. The last time it was updated was when it was upgraded to Windows 10. My dad refuses to add updates. Or to do any basic housekeeping. Or replace it. The thing needs to be put down.
Anyway, the reported problems were: Thunderbird doesn't work. Neither does the scanner software.
Additional problems - it takes forever to start. And then loads a load of applications in the background. These include Windows Live Messenger. An application that was discontinued in 2013.
And it seems 3GB of RAM just isn't enough these days to run several applications at once.
So, after about half an hour we got as far as attempting to start the scanner software. If has a big "f" where the interface should be. So I googled it. Apparently this relies on Flash. Another discontinued product. Attempted to download new software, and started uninstalling the flash based scanner software. It got to 40% done in a fairly short time and remained 40% done for the next hour or so.
So gave up. Went to Brighton.
When we got back, scanner software was finally uninstalled. Refused to let me do anything without rebooting! Rebooted. Had a cup of tea. Finally system restarted. Tried installing the new software. Seems it was just drivers. Drivers were fine. Had to reload Firefox to download "HP Scan extended". This took a good few minutes to start. Found the software. Found the download link. It was an FTP link. Firefox no longer does FTP!!!
Also tried getting Thunderbird to behave. Tried updating password. This took an age as well. My dad has the password deviously hidden inside an Excel file, but this involved starting Excel. Another 5 minute wait for that to happen. Then prod it for ages while he found the hidden cells containing his password.
So, got an error message. Google says there's a setting in Thunderbird that we can change. It worked. Got an entirely new error message.
Eventually gave up. I still had to drive home. But dammit, I hate leaving the poor thing in that state!
