Anyone still running Windows 7?

Fair enough, I was just looking up there and thinking maybe I misspoke by calling them drivers when I actually meant an update to the new AV definitions.

Right-click the taskbar and toggle "use small icons" to off.

The second I reboot—boom, right back to square one. It's still stuck on those tiny icons.

Is this a Microsoft or what?

Seriously? It’s driving me nuts. Every single day, I have to go back in and disable "use small icons" right after I boot up my PC.

Check this out, might be useful:

https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorial...rge-icons.html

thanks, regedit is a lifesaver 😁

Hey everyone, I’ll admit right off the bat that I’m pretty much a total novice when it comes to computers. So, please bear with me if I’ve posted this in the wrong section. A few days ago, my laptop hit me with a blue screen of death, and after a bit of Googling and listening to some advice online, I thought I might be able to tackle it myself. It didn't really go well, though... so I eventually decided the best move was to just perform a clean install of Windows since I had already backed up all my important files...
I put Windows 7 onto a USB drive and started the installation process, but then I ran into this snag where it says there's a driver loading error—basically claiming a specific driver can't be found or doesn't exist.
Since I'm definitely not an expert here, I'm honestly not quite sure what that's supposed to imply. If it means a certain driver is missing from the installation media I'm using, I guess I have no idea how to figure out which one it is. Or, maybe it's actually a hardware failure? If it's the latter, I suppose I'll just have to hand it over to the professionals who actually make a living fixing these kinds of things! 😁😅

I have this nagging suspicion that Windows 7 is finally being relegated to the history books this year, effectively marking the end of an era where we can actually count on receiving security patches or reliable driver updates.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/windows-7-end-of-support-details-for-home-and-professional-editions-c2d9596b-8f7a-4375-9798-ef80398f0738

ajmoplavi So, I saw some folks mentioning that Windows 7 is officially losing its updates and support... Honestly, it doesn't matter much if you've already moved on, but if you're still trying to run it on a newer laptop, you'll probably run into a wall. Since those newer machines don't really play nice with USB 3.0 drivers during an old setup, you'll likely just hit that error message again. My two cents? Just stick with Windows 10.

Has anyone actually managed to pull off a free upgrade to Windows 10 lately?
Bug wrote about this back on January 14, 2020.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-upgrade-windows...what-now-13275

"...So, how do you actually do the upgrade? It’s pretty straightforward if you just use the famous Windows Media Creation Tool. You have to make sure you select the option to keep all your files and data. If you opt for a clean install, there's a real chance you'll lose the ability to upgrade for free. If Windows 10 ends up asking for an activation key, just plug in your old Windows 7 or 8 key; you should see the machine get activated with a digital license shortly after...."

I know of one instance where someone followed those instructions to the letter, but the whole thing was an absolute slog... they left it running overnight, only to wake up in the morning to find the exact same old Windows 7 staring back at them.

My C drive is running dangerously low on space, so I’m trying to clear some room. Standard disk cleanup isn't doing much of anything, so I went looking for solutions online and stumbled upon this method on YouTube:
Navigate to Computer/C drive/Windows/SoftwareDistribution/Download
The guide says you can safely wipe everything inside that 'Download' folder.
Based on the file sizes I'm seeing, deleting this would free up a significant amount of space, but I'm hesitant. I have no idea if it's actually safe to touch these files. Does anyone have any insight or advice?

Lawrence Kim said:Since I'm running dangerously low on space on my C drive, I've been trying to find a way to clear some room. Standard disk cleanup isn't really cutting it, so I went looking for advice online and stumbled upon a specific method on YouTube:
Go to This PC/Local Disk (C)/Microsoft/SoftwareDistribution/Download
-and they say you can go ahead and delete everything inside that 'Download' folder.
Based on the file size listed there, deleting this would free up a massive amount of space, but I'm hesitant. Is it actually safe to wipe all of that? Does anyone have any insight or advice?

It's perfectly fine.
Those are just the Windows 10 update files that have already been processed.

Matthew Young35 said:Laughable.
Those are just Microsoft update files you've already processed.

Alright, if it’s safe, I’ll give it a shot. Thanks.
Just one thing—is there any specific reason why deleting them might be risky?

I can't think of a single reason why that would be considered risky.

Matthew Young35 said:I can't see any reason why that would be risky.

-Wiped it last night. It was a waste of time since I botched the math on kilobytes versus gigabytes; thought it would help, but I only cleared 0.20 GB.
-To make matters worse, I booted up my PC today only to find I have 2 GB less free space than I did yesterday.

Lawrence Kim said:-I deleted that stuff last night, but it wasn't worth the effort. I messed up my math by confusing KB with GB, thinking it would make a difference, but it only freed up about 0.20 GB.

-What's even worse? I turned the computer on today, checked my storage, and realized I actually have 2 GB less free space than I did yesterday.

You could try limiting the page file.
Clear out your system restore points.
Uninstall anything you don't actually use.
Empty the Recycle Bin.
Delete the directory C:/windows/system/32/hr23ggedhidge8ege363738/video/opaticeIKonji

I'm out of ideas beyond that.

Matthew Young35 said:You could try limiting the page file size.
Clear out those restore points.
Uninstall whatever junk you don't need.
Empty the Recycle Bin.
Delete the directory C:/windows/system/32/random_folder_name/junk_files

That's all I've got.

I checked under system32 and that folder doesn't exist. Also, what kind of nonsense path is that? Sounds like some weird virus or malware attempt.

Lawrence Kim said:I looked through System32 and I can't find anything you mentioned. And honestly? I have no idea what you mean by "boots and horses." Is that some kind of weird joke or something?

Fair point. That stuff can definitely eat up a massive amount of disk space.
🤣

Matthew Young35 said:True, those files can eat up a massive amount of disk space.
🤣

I never download stuff like that. I don't even have many programs installed, and I can't recall the last time I manually downloaded anything. Most of what's clogging my drive is just junk that accumulated over the years through automatic updates or whatever else decided to settle in there.

First things first, go ahead and find, then install WINDIRSTAT.
It’s this tiny little utility that does a really nice job of visualizing how your disk space is being eaten up by different folders. You can see at a glance where all that storage went—which specific directory tree is the culprit—so finding the offender is pretty easy. Just let it run for a few minutes so it can actually map out the drive first.

Windows 7 has this weird bug when it comes to archiving certain logs. It tries to compress them, but the archive fails, so it just keeps trying over and over again in an infinite loop until your disk is completely full. Honestly, those logs are usually useless anyway, so you might as well just delete them and call it a day; that should solve the whole mess.

Anyway, that WINDIRSTAT tool will show you exactly where the bloat is hiding immediately.