Tune Up Utilities

^ That.

You do not want 3rd part sw clean up utilities and tune up utilities and this-will-make-your-computer-faster utilities. Many of these utilities install sw that constantly works in the background while your computer is running. While generally harmless, they can interfere with certain operations, steal resources, and sometimes even delete reg entries that you actually want and need.

Stay away from these utilities.

Cheers.

Cheers Jeff,

Don’t worry, I will never make this mistake again. My Cubase has not worked properly since February. I just spent 6 x hours finally getting THE GRAND 3 to work (fingers crossed). And also this has cost the team at Steinberg a lot of effort in trying to help me over the phone and via Support Requests.

Paul

If your DAW is strictly or primarily a DAW it might have been quicker to reformat, and reinstall windows and your necessary software and drivers from scratch rather than try to uninstall and reinstall. (pref xmls could be saved on a stick for later retrieval)

Hi BriHar,

I did consider this but decided to try un-installing and re-installing the Steinberg stuff. Touchwood, I think it has worked finally. So the culprit for sure must have been the ‘Tune Up’ software.

Dell are phoning me back tonight to see if everything has been ok for a 24 hour period and have still given me the option to re-format if I so wish.

Paul

Hey Paul - what a drag!!!

For all your time & troubles, it’s not totally in vain. You have convinced me never to do such a thing.

In fact if anything goes even remotely wrong like that, my mind starts drifting to: save & move some stuff, reformat the drive, & start from scratch.

Fresh installs may be a long drawn-out pain, but it’s nice to start all over again with a clean controlled system.

It’s also a good way to filter out many things that you no longer use or want installed.

What I now have is a hand written log with each step [software installation, driver installs, hardware connection points] along the way.

So now I don’t even have to think what comes first & what comes next.

One suggestion for you is once you get your computer straightened out consider making a system image and store it on an external HDD. Whenever I install an OS and all the DAW programs fresh I always make a system image of it right away. This way if you ever have a problem like you are experiencing you can just rei nstall the system image verses having to re format and re install everything. (especially Windows updates what a pita).

Thanks CWS,

I had never heard of this method before. It sounds very interesting !!

Much appreciated.

Paul

Hi Ja,

I am pleased you won’t be making the same mistake yourself.

I have booked my PC in for a ‘Clean Up’ at my local computer store and whom I have a software warranty with. The guy is going to check it out for me now that ‘Tune Up Utilities’ has been removed. Hopefully it wont need to be re-formatted now.

Best,

Paul

Hi again,

If I have to Un-install and re-install again next week I am going to get it re-formatted instead. But hopefully its ok now.

Ta,

Paul

Regarding the system image. You can find it in control panel Backup and Restore. :slight_smile:

Thanks CWS,

I will take a look and certainly give it consideration.

Best,

Paul

I’ve been meaning to do this as well.

So do you just use the stock Windows 7 one?

Some use Acronis, Macrium or Paragon.

Windows 7 one is great

I use Arconis and I make an image at least every month. also, when I do a clean install, I create a few images, one with just windows os (with all drivers), then one with all non music programs, then a final one with everything. This is great for trouble shooting.

Is this it : -

Yes that is it. Be sure to save on an external HDD using USB 2.0. Do not use USB 3.0 for the back up Windows does not recognize 3.0 when doing a restore.

Thanks very much indeed. I had no idea about this stuff.

What SIZE is it likely to be ?? I mean, will I need a double-sided dvd disc ??

Will I be given the choice on USB 2/3 during the ‘prompts’ before executing the operation ??

Does it take a long time (ie. leave the PC on all night) ??

Cheers,

Paul

Mine is around 95 GB and it will ask you where you want the image backed up to. Mine takes around 45 minutes…

95 GB, gee that’s a lot !! So it would need to go straight to an external HD.

Does it burn the data as a Image File (ISO) ??

The size of the image is the size of OS and programs on your hard disc drive. Not sure what format the data is burned in.