Issue with new laptop/IT company

Mr. G

If they just cloned it from the old laptop that would be seriously bad practice and would send it back.

JGEP

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Kinda sounds like they took the hard-drive out of the old system and dropped it into the new one. From what you have said, they seem to take the laziest and cheapest option and that would definitely be it. The OEM license in Win7 would deactivate when it picks up the wrong Manufacturer bios.

Go to C:\Users and right click on your username, then hit properties. It will show you when the folder was created. If that was when you first joined, they swapped the drives.

BTW, if you are coming from a home machine with a SSD, everything will seem unreasonably slow.

Just checked that there and it says Public was created in 2009 but User was created in November just gone, can't remember exactly when I switched it on for the first time but can probably work it out when I get back into work tomorrow. Would the fact the two dates differ mean anything?

Also, another thing I found a little weird is that on any laptop I've seen before there's always been 4 or 5 stickers on the bottom with serial number, microsoft proof of licence and a few others but the only sticker on the bottom of this is the tiny Windows 8 one.

JGEP

Mr. G wrote: »

If they just cloned it from the old laptop that would be seriously bad practice and would send it back.

Have had a word to the boss about them and he's going to have a talk to them about a few other issues that have been going on.

shanec1928

JGEP wrote: »

Also, another thing I found a little weird is that on any laptop I've seen before there's always been 4 or 5 stickers on the bottom with serial number, microsoft proof of licence and a few others but the only sticker on the bottom of this is the tiny Windows 8 one.

Good lot don't have the stickers on display any more. Try where the battery goes.

ressem

shanec1928 wrote: »

Good lot don't have the stickers on display any more. Try where the battery goes.

No, the windows 8 ones from HP, Dell, Lenovo have no Microsoft license code sticker as we're used to seeing from the past.

It's stored in the firmware of the laptop. But that wouldn't be of use to an individual install / repair windows 7 OEM, unless the individual was prepared to wipe their machine.
(In which case you would have to retrieve the windows 8 key using something like https://github.com/christian-korneck/get_win8key#files, download the windows 8 media from the internet or possibly there is a recovery mode boot option on the laptop, and make sure that you have keys and install media for other software like Office)

[sulk]
Yet another step to make windows less reliable and maintainable courtesy of Microsoft.
[/sulk]

Cuddlesworth

JGEP wrote: »

Just checked that there and it says Public was created in 2009 but User was created in November just gone, can't remember exactly when I switched it on for the first time but can probably work it out when I get back into work tomorrow. Would the fact the two dates differ mean anything?

It would be the first time anybody had logged in with the account. So if you joined and received your old laptop before November then its a fresh install.

On the other hand, if you joined in November and contacted them about a new machine in December, then they swapped the hard-drive or cloned it. Either way would be bad practise.

beauf

JGEP wrote: »

....They transferred using Macrium Reflect.

If it were me I'd want all the licence key information collated on an invoice/receipt for windows and office for both machines.

All your files and applications should be backed up somewhere else. So if the machine was stolen, you could use a different machine and copy your stuff back from the backup.

I'd install the OS fresh on both machines and start over. I dunno what they did but it all sounds like they are either inept, lazy or pulling a fast one somehow. Probably a combination of all three.

JGEP

Figured I'd post back in this thread as it's all related.

Laptop still has it's cranky moments but doesn't grind to a halt after I reinstalled Chrome a few months back. Still one or two annoyances though.

Anyone ever come across a problem where you double click on an Excel file and just a transparent window appears on the task bar, you then have to right click on that and hit restore for the file to actually open? This is a regular occurrence.

Also, would it be strange that no Windows Updates have been installed since November 2014? It says Windows is up to date but always thought hey were released more regularly than that. Running Windows 7.

Thanks

edanto

That update status is a sign of poor patch management. Most likely, there is a server on the work network that is set up to distribute Microsoft updates in a controller way (it's known as WSUS), and no updates have been approved for installation since Nov14. Very poor form, some very important patches have been released since then!

Can't say that I've come across the Excel issue previously.

ZENER

edanto wrote: »

That update status is a sign of poor patch management. Most likely, there is a server on the work network that is set up to distribute Microsoft updates in a controller way (it's known as WSUS), and no updates have been approved for installation since Nov14. Very poor form, some very important patches have been released since then!

Can't say that I've come across the Excel issue previously.

OP if you open the Windows Update Control Panel, check if the words "Managed By Your Administrator" near the bottom right of the pane. If it is there, there should also be a link directly under it which lets you check online for updates.

It's also possible to disable updates in Group Policy, the machine will never look for updates and as said above if the WSUS server has not been tended to then no new updates will have been approved for installation for when you do check manually.

Another possibility is that your machine is not assigned to a group which has updates approved. Of course this only applies if there is a WSUS server on your Domain.

Ken

JGEP

Thanks for the replies.

I was on to the company to install antivirus on some of the work desktops and while I was on to them I asked about the updates. They logged onto my laptop remotely using AMMYY and went in and clicked the link on the left in the Updates control panel to manually check and what do you know, 6 months worth of updates installed.

I asked about the Excel issue and he said he'd never heard of it, I tried to replicate it while he was logged on but of course no joy, happened again 5 mins later! He said he'd look into it but of course haven't heard anything back. It happens on every laptop and desktop provided by this company.

That was a this day last week, so I just checked for updates again, no mention of "managed by administrator" and it shows checked for updates this morning but when I click the link to manually check, more updates download. Will just have to continue checking manually for the time being!

yoyo

JGEP wrote: »

Thanks for the replies.

I was on to the company to install antivirus on some of the work desktops and while I was on to them I asked about the updates. They logged onto my laptop remotely using AMMYY and went in and clicked the link on the left in the Updates control panel to manually check and what do you know, 6 months worth of updates installed.

I asked about the Excel issue and he said he'd never heard of it, I tried to replicate it while he was logged on but of course no joy, happened again 5 mins later! He said he'd look into it but of course haven't heard anything back. It happens on every laptop and desktop provided by this company.

That was a this day last week, so I just checked for updates again, no mention of "managed by administrator" and it shows checked for updates this morning but when I click the link to manually check, more updates download. Will just have to continue checking manually for the time being!

When the technician logged in via AMMYY do you know if they logged in using a different account name such as administrator?
It's possible that they set you up with a local user account with restricted permissions on the machines. This would confirm why you couldn't install they updates and he could over the net.
It could be the Excel issue is an issue with the restrictions placed on your own personal account are not reproduceable as an admin user.

Nick

For excel, you can try this ms fixit.

You could also try opening the problematic file in excel in safe mode, just type excel.exe /safe in the start menu....

Also, you can disable any add-ins....

Or perform a repair of excel....

shanec1928

Run repair on Microsoft office in add remove programs. A client at work had a similar issue where certain cells would crash excel and come up with a restore version. That sorted it doing the repair.