Approach to buying new Windows desktop?

NAwlins Contrarian · Mar 18, 2023

My ancient Dell desktop worries me that it's on its last legs. I'd appreciate your advice on buying its replacement. I run DxO PhotoLab and its more computationally-intensive noise reduction, and occasionally edit some video, but I don't play video games or think I need a ton of computing power. Nevertheless, I want to buy something that will be functional for a decent number of years. In the past I've bought Dell towers because (1) I figure that is a reasonable guaranty of pretty good basic hardware, (2) if something goes wrong, that's my best chance of help, and (3) they've been reasonably expandable / upgradeable. In most of them, I've installed upgrades at various times over their lives: more memory, a Blu Ray drive, etc. Currently Dell does not appear to offer precisely what I want, maybe at least without spending a ton of money. So I'm thinking maybe I buy a basic Dell and then plan to install some things myself right away. However, I'm not confident that's the best approach. Yes, I realize Dell won't support problems with things I install, or plausibly caused by things I install, at least unless I buy the parts from them.

I'm resigned to Windows 11, very likely Home (don't think I have a real need here for Professional), even though I might prefer W10 at the moment. I figure I need an i5, maybe an i7, probably 16 GB of RAM.

I figure an SSD for a boot drive, and maybe for program installation, makes sense, but I probably want about a 2 TB hard drive for data. Is 256 MB enough for the SSD, or do I really want 512 MB? Currently my Program Files is 18 GB and Program Files (x86) is 14 GB. Any further specification issues there? I figure I could buy an enterprise-grade 2 TB hard drive and add it myself without too much trouble. Do you agree?

I'd like to have video capability to do things my old Dell won't do, like run the Topaz AI software or support a UHD monitor, hopefully plus some sort of 10 bit and/or HDR--not sure precisely what I need. The Dell options for most of these are Intel UHD Graphics 730 and Intel UHD Graphics 770; is that enough? Or do I need to spend for something more?

I really want an optical drive. Any reason not to remove the Blu Ray drive that I installed in the current computer and install it in the new one?

Any other must-do advice? Thanks!

The Point and Shoot Pro · Apr 13, 2023

NAwlins Contrarian said:
NAwlins Contrarian said:

NAwlins Contrarian said:

Having not received the promised 're-made' replacement offer by noon today (Wednesday, after the Saturday afternoon call during which it was promised), I called Dell again, and spoke with another sales rep. This one said he'd do what the one on Saturday said he'd do. Except this time, he called back a couple of hours later, had emailed me the re-made offer, and we followed that through where the Dell website took my acceptance of the re-made offer and seems to have confirmed my order. So at this point, unless Dell cancels again, I'll get basically the originally-ordered computer (details at https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/66956810), except with a silver case instead of dark gray, at the original price.

The process had been a PITA, but I'm cautiously optimistic. I expect (well, 70% expect) to get a computer that I think and hope should provide good service for a decade. I don't want to switch computers often, so I hope and think I'm buying something reasonably (by computer standards) future-proof.

Click to expand...

Good to hear that you are back on track with this. It is best if a company never fouls up, and then if they manage to put things right first time - however, all credit to Delll for not just submerging and acting like it never happened.

Click to expand...

Yes, although this has been a very frustrating experience, I do not think Dell is a dishonest, disreputable, or otherwise bad company. Dell has not totally burned their bridges with me. Assuming the computer I've reordered arrives and works properly, then my annoyance with Dell will subside. And assuming the computer I've reordered gives me seven to ten years of good service, then I'd probably look first to Dell for its replacement. By and large, I still think Dell is often a good choice for people who want a Windows computer but don't need either bleeding-edge performance or rock-bottom prices.

NAwlins Contrarian said:

Good luck with the new machine - hopefully it will give you the years of use the last one did.

Click to expand...

Thanks!

I love my dell systems. Great performance for good prices. My XPS desktop is a beast, and my inspiron 2 in 1 works awesome for my creative work. I am buying a new macbook air base model to try MacOS but I would think I will be returned. I will have to see after a few weeks using it.

NAwlins Contrarian · Apr 20, 2023

The new Dell computer arrived today. Mostly it's / I'm doing okay. After changing the monitor (a Dell U2415) from the HDMI input (which the old computer used) to the DisplayPort input and connecting the cable to the DisplayPort indicated in the Dell instructions, the monitor reported, 'This output is inactive, connect to an active one.' Okay. The computer has RTX 3060 Ti graphics, but even trying all those connectors got nothing--the first time. For whatever reason, the second attempt worked. I may have shut down and restarted in there. For unknown reasons, some auto-detect worked the second time but not the first. Also, for machines that come with a graphics card, the Dell instructions ought not indicate connection to the 'regular' DisplayPort, and tell you to use one on the graphics card--maybe obvious to y'all, less so to me. But anyway.

I had to 'trick' the computer into setting up a local / non-Microsoft main user account (I think by feeding it a 'banned' email address, maybe [email protected]). From there, and after a bunch of BIOS, driver, and Windows updates, I was in business. Dell SupportAssist seemed to crash a bit doing some driver updates, but restarting got things okay (and it flashed in the updated BIOS in the process). One Windows update failed to install several times, but somewhere in the course of a couple of restarts it worked.

In installed Firefox, then Adobe Reader, then my various DxO software, GIMP, then the download link / product key for the Microsoft Office Home & Student 2021 I bought through B&H showed up, so I installed that. I had a login issue at Serif, but eventually got Affinity Photo installed. Also Chrome (some of my kids prefer it), then various Calibrite software.

I'm about to call it a night. I'm stuck on permissions issues setting up data folders on the 2 TB HDD for the regular user accounts--separate thread at https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/67008403. Basically, I want each regular user account to have folders in D:\Users\[each user] that are only accessible to that user, and which will be the new locations of that user's 'My Documents' etc. But Windows is giving me some weird errors. Oh well, that's for tomorrow.

Thanks all!

David Lal · Apr 21, 2023

That all sounds horrendous to me - but then setting up a new machine takes me weeks, not hours. Good luck to you.

The Point and Shoot Pro · Apr 21, 2023

NAwlins Contrarian said:
The new Dell computer arrived today. Mostly it's / I'm doing okay. After changing the monitor (a Dell U2415) from the HDMI input (which the old computer used) to the DisplayPort input and connecting the cable to the DisplayPort indicated in the Dell instructions, the monitor reported, 'This output is inactive, connect to an active one.' Okay. The computer has RTX 3060 Ti graphics, but even trying all those connectors got nothing--the first time. For whatever reason, the second attempt worked. I may have shut down and restarted in there. For unknown reasons, some auto-detect worked the second time but not the first. Also, for machines that come with a graphics card, the Dell instructions ought not indicate connection to the 'regular' DisplayPort, and tell you to use one on the graphics card--maybe obvious to y'all, less so to me. But anyway.

I had to 'trick' the computer into setting up a local / non-Microsoft main user account (I think by feeding it a 'banned' email address, maybe [email protected]). From there, and after a bunch of BIOS, driver, and Windows updates, I was in business. Dell SupportAssist seemed to crash a bit doing some driver updates, but restarting got things okay (and it flashed in the updated BIOS in the process). One Windows update failed to install several times, but somewhere in the course of a couple of restarts it worked.

In installed Firefox, then Adobe Reader, then my various DxO software, GIMP, then the download link / product key for the Microsoft Office Home & Student 2021 I bought through B&H showed up, so I installed that. I had a login issue at Serif, but eventually got Affinity Photo installed. Also Chrome (some of my kids prefer it), then various Calibrite software.

I'm about to call it a night. I'm stuck on permissions issues setting up data folders on the 2 TB HDD for the regular user accounts--separate thread at https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/67008403. Basically, I want each regular user account to have folders in D:\Users\[each user] that are only accessible to that user, and which will be the new locations of that user's 'My Documents' etc. But Windows is giving me some weird errors. Oh well, that's for tomorrow.

Thanks all!

I never had any of those problems firing up either of my many dell systems. It all just rolled on no issue. At least it's all setup now and you can enjoy it.

Austinian · Apr 21, 2023

NAwlins Contrarian said:
The new Dell computer arrived today. Mostly it's / I'm doing okay. After changing the monitor (a Dell U2415) from the HDMI input (which the old computer used) to the DisplayPort input and connecting the cable to the DisplayPort indicated in the Dell instructions, the monitor reported, 'This output is inactive, connect to an active one.' Okay. The computer has RTX 3060 Ti graphics, but even trying all those connectors got nothing--the first time. For whatever reason, the second attempt worked. I may have shut down and restarted in there. For unknown reasons, some auto-detect worked the second time but not the first.

Many and strange have been the PC problems I've seen fixed by a mere restart.

NAwlins Contrarian said:
Also, for machines that come with a graphics card, the Dell instructions ought not indicate connection to the 'regular' DisplayPort, and tell you to use one on the graphics card--maybe obvious to y'all, less so to me. But anyway.

I had to 'trick' the computer into setting up a local / non-Microsoft main user account (I think by feeding it a 'banned' email address, maybe [email protected]). From there, and after a bunch of BIOS, driver, and Windows updates, I was in business. Dell SupportAssist seemed to crash a bit doing some driver updates, but restarting got things okay (and it flashed in the updated BIOS in the process). One Windows update failed to install several times, but somewhere in the course of a couple of restarts it worked.

In installed Firefox, then Adobe Reader, then my various DxO software, GIMP, then the download link / product key for the Microsoft Office Home & Student 2021 I bought through B&H showed up, so I installed that. I had a login issue at Serif

Good to know it wasn't just me; I also had a weird login issue when I recently installed Affinity on the new build; after a couple of days Serif apparently fixed it and I activated correctly.

NAwlins Contrarian said:
, but eventually got Affinity Photo installed. Also Chrome (some of my kids prefer it), then various Calibrite software.

I'm about to call it a night. I'm stuck on permissions issues setting up data folders on the 2 TB HDD for the regular user accounts--separate thread at https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/67008403. Basically, I want each regular user account to have folders in D:\Users\[each user] that are only accessible to that user, and which will be the new locations of that user's 'My Documents' etc. But Windows is giving me some weird errors. Oh well, that's for tomorrow.

Thanks all!

Sounds like things went pretty smoothly and all is well. Good luck with the multiuser config; I've never tried to do that, but it sounds interesting.

Austinian · Apr 21, 2023

David Lal said:
That all sounds horrendous to me - but then setting up a new machine takes me weeks, not hours. Good luck to you.

Horrendous? Hardly. Sounds mostly routine except for the multiuser config.

Complete setup takes me weeks too, but I do a lot of experimental things in the course of setting up a new build, and pay close attention to every detail. The stressful part is just the first day when the parts are assembled and the PC switched on--the drama of "does it work?"

(I could have less stress if I bought a whole PC with a warranty and just modified it, but I'd feel guilty about not using the large stash of PC parts I have from previous builds.)

Marceppy · Apr 21, 2023

NAwlins Contrarian said:
My ancient Dell desktop worries me that it's on its last legs. I'd appreciate your advice on buying its replacement. I run DxO PhotoLab and its more computationally-intensive noise reduction, and occasionally edit some video, but I don't play video games or think I need a ton of computing power. Nevertheless, I want to buy something that will be functional for a decent number of years. In the past I've bought Dell towers because (1) I figure that is a reasonable guaranty of pretty good basic hardware, (2) if something goes wrong, that's my best chance of help, and (3) they've been reasonably expandable / upgradeable. In most of them, I've installed upgrades at various times over their lives: more memory, a Blu Ray drive, etc. Currently Dell does not appear to offer precisely what I want, maybe at least without spending a ton of money. So I'm thinking maybe I buy a basic Dell and then plan to install some things myself right away. However, I'm not confident that's the best approach. Yes, I realize Dell won't support problems with things I install, or plausibly caused by things I install, at least unless I buy the parts from them.

I'm resigned to Windows 11, very likely Home (don't think I have a real need here for Professional), even though I might prefer W10 at the moment. I figure I need an i5, maybe an i7, probably 16 GB of RAM.

I figure an SSD for a boot drive, and maybe for program installation, makes sense, but I probably want about a 2 TB hard drive for data. Is 256 MB enough for the SSD, or do I really want 512 MB? Currently my Program Files is 18 GB and Program Files (x86) is 14 GB. Any further specification issues there? I figure I could buy an enterprise-grade 2 TB hard drive and add it myself without too much trouble. Do you agree?

I'd like to have video capability to do things my old Dell won't do, like run the Topaz AI software or support a UHD monitor, hopefully plus some sort of 10 bit and/or HDR--not sure precisely what I need. The Dell options for most of these are Intel UHD Graphics 730 and Intel UHD Graphics 770; is that enough? Or do I need to spend for something more?

I really want an optical drive. Any reason not to remove the Blu Ray drive that I installed in the current computer and install it in the new one?

Any other must-do advice? Thanks!

I just upgraded from win 7 to 11 dell. What you leave behind is software and some hardware that’s not compatible. So upgrading some software is necessary. I replaced hard drives in the old dells and migrated the programs to the new hard drives. Not hard to do. I use the new desktop win 11 for my primary photo editing. It’s awesome fast. I still use the old dells for kids and general use. The new dell does have a optional drive and many of my old images are saved on CDs. I used Dells refurbished site to get the new system and haven’t looked back. You can save some $$ and get a better system cheaper. The only disadvantage was the loss of a few programs via compatibility with win 11. Otherwise

bridge77 · Apr 21, 2023

Marceppy said:
NAwlins Contrarian said:

My ancient Dell desktop worries me that it's on its last legs. I'd appreciate your advice on buying its replacement. I run DxO PhotoLab and its more computationally-intensive noise reduction, and occasionally edit some video, but I don't play video games or think I need a ton of computing power. Nevertheless, I want to buy something that will be functional for a decent number of years. In the past I've bought Dell towers because (1) I figure that is a reasonable guaranty of pretty good basic hardware, (2) if something goes wrong, that's my best chance of help, and (3) they've been reasonably expandable / upgradeable. In most of them, I've installed upgrades at various times over their lives: more memory, a Blu Ray drive, etc. Currently Dell does not appear to offer precisely what I want, maybe at least without spending a ton of money. So I'm thinking maybe I buy a basic Dell and then plan to install some things myself right away. However, I'm not confident that's the best approach. Yes, I realize Dell won't support problems with things I install, or plausibly caused by things I install, at least unless I buy the parts from them.

I'm resigned to Windows 11, very likely Home (don't think I have a real need here for Professional), even though I might prefer W10 at the moment. I figure I need an i5, maybe an i7, probably 16 GB of RAM.

I figure an SSD for a boot drive, and maybe for program installation, makes sense, but I probably want about a 2 TB hard drive for data. Is 256 MB enough for the SSD, or do I really want 512 MB? Currently my Program Files is 18 GB and Program Files (x86) is 14 GB. Any further specification issues there? I figure I could buy an enterprise-grade 2 TB hard drive and add it myself without too much trouble. Do you agree?

I'd like to have video capability to do things my old Dell won't do, like run the Topaz AI software or support a UHD monitor, hopefully plus some sort of 10 bit and/or HDR--not sure precisely what I need. The Dell options for most of these are Intel UHD Graphics 730 and Intel UHD Graphics 770; is that enough? Or do I need to spend for something more?

I really want an optical drive. Any reason not to remove the Blu Ray drive that I installed in the current computer and install it in the new one?

Any other must-do advice? Thanks!

Click to expand...

I just upgraded from win 7 to 11 dell. What you leave behind is software and some hardware that’s not compatible. So upgrading some software is necessary. I replaced hard drives in the old dells and migrated the programs to the new hard drives. Not hard to do. I use the new desktop win 11 for my primary photo editing. It’s awesome fast. I still use the old dells for kids and general use. The new dell does have a optional drive and many of my old images are saved on CDs. I used Dells refurbished site to get the new system and haven’t looked back.

good job. i use Dell Refurbished on and off, so far excellent machines, as i only buy the Business class stuff which some are Mil Spec. recently they sent me a laptop battery because what was inside a machine was below 80% battery life; and keep the old battery.

another forum is suggesting using Ebay Refurbished for even better deals and eventually i may do that.

most of us don't need High End power at all. i have read some threads about people upgrading, yet it all basically being a side ways move. no speed improvement or not much, some Eye Candy and a Shiny Box.

i have a friend that insisted on always buying New, so i gave him a Dell Refurbished that i upgraded. hmmm, he found the Refurb better that his laptop; he ended up giving me his old laptop as a thank you.

his old laptop was very up-gradable with ram and SSD over his old spinner HDD. some people are just afraid to work on these things and that is what he told me. eventually the old laptop is moving to Win 11.

cameras are prolly the same deal, plenty of used everything with warrentee at the Used Big Box or Canon refurb store. Help your self.

Marceppy said:
You can save some $$ and get a better system cheaper. The only disadvantage was the loss of a few programs via compatibility with win 11. Otherwise

NAwlins Contrarian · Apr 21, 2023

Austinian said:
Austinian said:

The computer has RTX 3060 Ti graphics, but even trying all those connectors got nothing--the first time. For whatever reason, the second attempt worked. I may have shut down and restarted in there. For unknown reasons, some auto-detect worked the second time but not the first.

Click to expand...

Many and strange have been the PC problems I've seen fixed by a mere restart.

Yep! My wife complained that, 'Have you tried restarting?' is always the first thing the IT people at her work say. I am the unofficial first-line IT support in my smaller office, and I told her that it's often what I tell people. My son, a recent computer science graduate, said the same. It really does solve odd problems at least as often as not, probably most of the time.

And the corollary is: even restarting is not quite the same as / not as effective as shutting down, waiting 30 seconds, and powering up again.

Austinian said:
Austinian said:

In installed Firefox, then Adobe Reader, then my various DxO software, GIMP, then the download link / product key for the Microsoft Office Home & Student 2021 I bought through B&H showed up, so I installed that. I had a login issue at Serif

Click to expand...

Good to know it wasn't just me; I also had a weird login issue when I recently installed Affinity on the new build; after a couple of days Serif apparently fixed it and I activated correctly.

Serif didn't like my login attempts, and forced me through a password reset involving two different emails. After that Affinity Photo downloaded, installed, and authenticated fine. But then I see that Affinity Photo does not appear to be on the menu for the non-administrator accounts; I think it's the only thing I installed giving that problem. Some installers give an explicit option, 'Just for you or for all users?' and I always chose all users. So that's a work in progress.

Austinian said:
Sounds like things went pretty smoothly and all is well. Good luck with the multiuser config; I've never tried to do that, but it sounds interesting.

The goal is to have all users' 'My Documents' etc. on the second drive, an internal HDD, and to have those documents only visible to the administrator account and that user. It seems possible, but following basic online tutorials from reputable sources gets me error messages even for very basic stuff (folder ownership / permissions--there are a couple of basic folders I can't even delete from the administrator account).

As to how much of an issue that is, mostly it's because my eleven-year-old will use this computer a fair amount, does unorthodox and/or ill-advised things, and I can't have access to / the ability to mess with other users' data.

NAwlins Contrarian · Apr 21, 2023

Austinian said:
Austinian said:

That all sounds horrendous to me - but then setting up a new machine takes me weeks, not hours. Good luck to you.

Click to expand...

Horrendous? Hardly. Sounds mostly routine except for the multiuser config.

Agree. I mentally figured somewhere in the area of ten hours of basic update / configure / install tasks, semi-active stuff taking a lot of user intervention (plus more passive time copying old user data over). But it will be a month or two before most things are really 'dialed in'.

Most but not all of my family has other computers that they normally use, but I really need to isolate a couple of them from potentially messing with other users' data. I suspect this is going to be the more vexing immediate issue.

Austinian said:
Complete setup takes me weeks too, but I do a lot of experimental things in the course of setting up a new build, and pay close attention to every detail. The stressful part is just the first day when the parts are assembled and the PC switched on--the drama of "does it work?"

(I could have less stress if I bought a whole PC with a warranty and just modified it, but I'd feel guilty about not using the large stash of PC parts I have from previous builds.)

I really expected plug-and-play with a new computer totally Dell-built, just hooking it up to my existing Dell monitor. I had to buy a new DisplayPort-to-DisplayPort cable, but that was it. That Dell sent instructions for a computer they built with an RTX graphics card showing connecting the monitor not to that but to the built-in graphics port was a bit surprising, but easy enough for me to figure out (can't speak for others). That it took a few retry-and-maybe-reboot cycles to get the computer and monitor talking to each others was frustrating in the moment but a minor point.

One pleasant surprise was getting my antique (almost twelve years old) Samsung CLP-325W wifi laser printer working so easily. HP still provides some support for these printers, I found it easily enough on the HP website, told it Windows 11, and got a couple of downloads. Maybe tonight I'll try my even older Epson R280 photo inkjet, but Epson support seemed to serve up a driver installer after I told it Windows 11.

NAwlins Contrarian · Apr 21, 2023

Marceppy said:
Marceppy said:

My ancient Dell desktop worries me that it's on its last legs. I'd appreciate your advice on buying its replacement.

Click to expand...

I just upgraded from win 7 to 11 dell. What you leave behind is software and some hardware that’s not compatible. So upgrading some software is necessary. I replaced hard drives in the old dells and migrated the programs to the new hard drives. Not hard to do.

I decided that I wanted clean installations of all software. On the new machine, I logged into my DxO and Serif accounts and downloaded the latest installers. On the old machine I had Microsoft Office 2010; I bought a new Microsoft Office Home & Student 2021 license for the new computer, and downloaded that from Microsoft.

Marceppy said:
I use the new desktop win 11 for my primary photo editing. It’s awesome fast.

My new machine is considerably faster for most things, much faster for some things, and no faster for others. Installing a new version of DxO PhotoLab on the old computer took maybe ten minutes; on the new one it must have taken about half a minute. But installing Qimage took almost exactly the same on each.

Marceppy said:
The only disadvantage was the loss of a few programs via compatibility with win 11. Otherwise

Software-wise, the Konica Minolta DiMage Master Lite software for raw conversion of files from my old Konica Minolta Maxxum 5D DSLR did not run happily under even Windows 7; I could make it work, but barely. I have a couple of old pieces of hardware that are likely to present issue. I suspect my very old Epson Stylus Photo R280 printer will be okay. My Konica Minolta DiMage Scan Dual IV 35mm film scanner and Epson 3200 flatbed / medium- / large-format film scanner are likely to present issue. My analog video digitizer seemed to stop working when I went from Windows 7 to Windows 10.

David Lal · Apr 21, 2023

NAwlins Contrarian said:
As to how much of an issue that is, mostly it's because my eleven-year-old will use this computer a fair amount, does unorthodox and/or ill-advised things, and I can't have access to / the ability to mess with other users' data.

No way would I let anybody else use my computer, especially not a child. I've set up my partner's PC on our network so that I can help her and if necessary monitor what she is doing (she is highly computer illiterate). She can use our networked resources, printer, scanner, networked hard disk etc. but not my PC.

Why not get your daughter a laptop or something of her own?

Michael Arbor · Apr 21, 2023

David Lal said:
NAwlins Contrarian said:

As to how much of an issue that is, mostly it's because my eleven-year-old will use this computer a fair amount, does unorthodox and/or ill-advised things, and I can't have access to / the ability to mess with other users' data.

Click to expand...

No way would I let anybody else use my computer, especially not a child. I've set up my partner's PC on our network so that I can help her and if necessary monitor what she is doing (she is highly computer illiterate). She can use our networked resources, printer, scanner, networked hard disk etc. but not my PC.

Why not get your daughter a laptop or something of her own?

Or better yet... encourage her to earn what she needs to buy her own computer.

At eleven, my daughter took a 12 week class at the local YMCA that certified her a knowledgeable baby sitter. This launched her on the road to financial independence. Today, she is the Executive VP of Marketing at a Fortune 500 company.

Be a Dad... NOT an agreeable push-over. ;-)

Cheers... M :-D

Austinian · Apr 21, 2023

bridge77 said:
good job. i use Dell Refurbished on and off, so far excellent machines, as i only buy the Business class stuff which some are Mil Spec. recently they sent me a laptop battery because what was inside a machine was below 80% battery life; and keep the old battery.

another forum is suggesting using Ebay Refurbished for even better deals and eventually i may do that.

I personally would only buy a refurb from the original manufacturer; I have doubts about the technical competence of unknown third-party sellers.

bridge77 said:
most of us don't need High End power at all. i have read some threads about people upgrading, yet it all basically being a side ways move. no speed improvement or not much, some Eye Candy and a Shiny Box.

But I like eye candy and a shiny new box. :-D

bridge77 said:
i have a friend that insisted on always buying New, so i gave him a Dell Refurbished that i upgraded. hmmm, he found the Refurb better that his laptop; he ended up giving me his old laptop as a thank you.

his old laptop was very up-gradable with ram and SSD over his old spinner HDD. some people are just afraid to work on these things

True, and too bad IMO.

Austinian · Apr 21, 2023

NAwlins Contrarian said:
NAwlins Contrarian said:

NAwlins Contrarian said:

The computer has RTX 3060 Ti graphics, but even trying all those connectors got nothing--the first time. For whatever reason, the second attempt worked. I may have shut down and restarted in there. For unknown reasons, some auto-detect worked the second time but not the first.

Click to expand...

Many and strange have been the PC problems I've seen fixed by a mere restart.

Click to expand...

Yep! My wife complained that, 'Have you tried restarting?' is always the first thing the IT people at her work say. I am the unofficial first-line IT support in my smaller office, and I told her that it's often what I tell people. My son, a recent computer science graduate, said the same. It really does solve odd problems at least as often as not, probably most of the time.

And the corollary is: even restarting is not quite the same as / not as effective as shutting down, waiting 30 seconds, and powering up again.

Right. And on rare occasions I've found that even a shutdown and power up is not as effective as pulling the plug/switching off the PSU for a while before restarting.

NAwlins Contrarian said:
NAwlins Contrarian said:

NAwlins Contrarian said:

In installed Firefox, then Adobe Reader, then my various DxO software, GIMP, then the download link / product key for the Microsoft Office Home & Student 2021 I bought through B&H showed up, so I installed that. I had a login issue at Serif

Click to expand...

Good to know it wasn't just me; I also had a weird login issue when I recently installed Affinity on the new build; after a couple of days Serif apparently fixed it and I activated correctly.

Click to expand...

Serif didn't like my login attempts, and forced me through a password reset involving two different emails. After that Affinity Photo downloaded, installed, and authenticated fine. But then I see that Affinity Photo does not appear to be on the menu for the non-administrator accounts; I think it's the only thing I installed giving that problem. Some installers give an explicit option, 'Just for you or for all users?' and I always chose all users. So that's a work in progress.

NAwlins Contrarian said:

Sounds like things went pretty smoothly and all is well. Good luck with the multiuser config; I've never tried to do that, but it sounds interesting.

Click to expand...

The goal is to have all users' 'My Documents' etc. on the second drive, an internal HDD, and to have those documents only visible to the administrator account and that user. It seems possible, but following basic online tutorials from reputable sources gets me error messages even for very basic stuff (folder ownership / permissions--there are a couple of basic folders I can't even delete from the administrator account).

As to how much of an issue that is, mostly it's because my eleven-year-old will use this computer a fair amount, does unorthodox and/or ill-advised things, and I can't have access to / the ability to mess with other users' data.

I'd still be nervous (to say the least) about having anyone else accessing my PC. One thing that occurs to me is that I've been able to circumvent Windows' permissions to delete system drivers by using the command-line tool in a Macrium Reflect Free rescue flash drive. I'm not sure any permissions can really protect you.

David Lal · Apr 21, 2023

Austinian said:
Austinian said:

NAwlins Con

Click to expand...

Right. And on rare occasions I've found that even a shutdown and power up is not as effective as pulling the plug/switching off the PSU for a while before restarting.
I'd still be nervous (to say the least) about having anyone else accessing my PC. One thing that occurs to me is that I've been able to circumvent Windows' permissions to delete system drivers by using the command-line tool in a Macrium Reflect Free rescue flash drive. I'm not sure any permissions can really protect you.

Yes, I have an icore7 HP PC which is relatively new and satisfactory in most respects but occasionally sends no video signal to the monitor. Pulling the mains plug out then switching on/off (so far) has reset the box.

I too use Macrium in the way you describe.

Marceppy · Apr 21, 2023

NAwlins Contrarian said:
NAwlins Contrarian said:

NAwlins Contrarian said:

My ancient Dell desktop worries me that it's on its last legs. I'd appreciate your advice on buying its replacement.

Click to expand...

I just upgraded from win 7 to 11 dell. What you leave behind is software and some hardware that’s not compatible. So upgrading some software is necessary. I replaced hard drives in the old dells and migrated the programs to the new hard drives. Not hard to do.

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I decided that I wanted clean installations of all software. On the new machine, I logged into my DxO and Serif accounts and downloaded the latest installers. On the old machine I had Microsoft Office 2010; I bought a new Microsoft Office Home & Student 2021 license for the new computer, and downloaded that from Microsoft.

NAwlins Contrarian said:

I use the new desktop win 11 for my primary photo editing. It’s awesome fast.

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My new machine is considerably faster for most things, much faster for some things, and no faster for others. Installing a new version of DxO PhotoLab on the old computer took maybe ten minutes; on the new one it must have taken about half a minute. But installing Qimage took almost exactly the same on each.

NAwlins Contrarian said:

The only disadvantage was the loss of a few programs via compatibility with win 11. Otherwise

Click to expand...

Software-wise, the Konica Minolta DiMage Master Lite software for raw conversion of files from my old Konica Minolta Maxxum 5D DSLR did not run happily under even Windows 7; I could make it work, but barely. I have a couple of old pieces of hardware that are likely to present issue. I suspect my very old Epson Stylus Photo R280 printer will be okay. My Konica Minolta DiMage Scan Dual IV 35mm film scanner and Epson 3200 flatbed / medium- / large-format film scanner are likely to present issue. My analog video digitizer seemed to stop working when I went from Windows 7 to Windows 10.

Very good. The only thing I havent hooked up is a Nikon Coolscan film scanner and I'll probably just use on the Windows 7 computers because I very rarely use it ... very lazy.

NAwlins Contrarian · Apr 21, 2023

David Lal said:
David Lal said:

As to how much of an issue that is, mostly it's because my eleven-year-old will use this computer a fair amount, does unorthodox and/or ill-advised things, and I can't have access to / the ability to mess with other users' data.

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No way would I let anybody else use my computer, especially not a child. I've set up my partner's PC on our network so that I can help her and if necessary monitor what she is doing (she is highly computer illiterate). She can use our networked resources, printer, scanner, networked hard disk etc. but not my PC.

Why not get your daughter a laptop or something of her own?

She has a Chromebook, mostly for school--but sometimes she uses / needs to use a full computer. Among one nuclear family, including work-issued and school-issued devices, we have this desktop, four laptops, the Chromebook, two iPads, multiple Kindles, and numerous smartphones and other Internet-connected devices.

So I'm resisting device proliferation. You can argue how well I've done at that so far. Also, I don't really want an eleven-year-old with a computer. Then there's simply the matter of space.

NAwlins Contrarian · Apr 23, 2023

NAwlins Contrarian said:
My ancient Dell desktop worries me that it's on its last legs. I'd appreciate your advice on buying its replacement.

Maybe this will be the final update. The replacement computer arrived and first came online a little over three days ago. It's a Dell XPS-8950 with an Intel i7-12700 CPU, Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti graphics card, 16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD + 2 TB HDD, and Windows 11 Home. At this point, everything seems to be working fine, although there are a few older pieces of software that I have not yet, but probably will, install / try to install.

Despite there being an administrator account and six (!) individual user accounts, I think I have it pretty seamlessly using the SSD for Windows and software and the HDD for the large majority of user data (separate thread: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/67008403). I copied over the main user data from my old computer using an enterprise-grade HDD in an external USB case, with the free version of TeraCopy (https://codesector.com/teracopy) performing copy-with-verity on each side.

I experienced ... quirks installing Serif Affinity Photo (must 'install' it separately for each user account that is to use it), Qimage Ultimate (thread at https://ddisoftware.com/tech/qimage-ultimate/qimage-ultimate-won't-start-under-windows-11/), and the driver for my ancient Epson Stylus Photo R280 printer. At this point, I think all are okay.

Despite my frustrations with Dell (ordered March 21, 2023; Dell cancelled March 28, with replacement offer that email said "is valid for 6 days from the date of this email" but in fact Dell's quote expired March 29; got replacement quote and reordered April 5; delivered April 20), I think I got a good computer at a good price.

Thanks all for the help!

Chris Noble · Apr 23, 2023

NAwlins Contrarian said:
Despite there being an administrator account and six (!) individual user accounts,

You can create as many or as few as you want. And you can always add one later.

I would not create a second user account unless you need it.

Approach to buying new Windows desktop?

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