Windows 10 News and User discussion (1 Viewer)

[Harry-N]

I don't know about the reverb situation, but actually Windows 10 FIXED my audio issue with my HP laptop. That computer came with the dreaded "Beats" software for its audio and I had always been unable to turn off THAT awful processing. Having worked in radio all my life, I know a thing or two about audio and prefer things mostly flat, but under Windows 7, I was unable to defeat Beats.

Along came Windows 10, and though the Beats software remained, I was able to neutralize it and use the Windows 10 standard audio drivers which resulted in nice flat audio.

I hope you find the solution Alan.

 

[Tony Bensley]

I have a question that doesn't appear to have a direct answer when I google it.

While our Samsung Blu-ray player reads my older 320 GB External WD hard drive, it won't read my newer 2 TB WD drive (Which works fine on my PC!), which is also Windows 10 compatible. Besides being significantly newer, the main difference is the newer drive is setup for 3.0 USB, whereas the older drive is a 2.0. Could this be my problem, or is there something else that I'm missing? Mainly, I'm trying to figure out whether getting a newer Blu-ray player might help. The USB on our TV only plays audio and image files, so that isn't a current option for playing video, either.

CHEERS!

 

[Clinton McClure]

It could be that your blu-ray player either doesn't accept USB3 (I run into this occasionally with Windows 7 computers when I make backup images of them at work) or it doesn't recognize hard drives over a certain size. Does your owners manual give any indication?

 

[Tony Bensley]

It could be that your blu-ray player either doesn't accept USB3 (I run into this occasionally with Windows 7 computers when I make backup images of them at work) or it doesn't recognize hard drives over a certain size. Does your owners manual give any indication?

I don't have quick access to my manual at the moment. The hard drive size wasn't an issue I had really considered, as I assumed that sort of thing went out in the last decade (The Samsung Blu-ray player is about 4 years old.), but I suppose it's a possibility. It shouldn't a file type issue, as both external drives are NTFS. As I type this, USB 3.0 incompatibility does strike me as being the most likely scenario. Should all of today's Blu-ray devices be USB 3.0 compliant, or is this still something that I would have to be on the lookout for? Of course, some Blu-ray USB hubs aren't geared for file play, unless that has changed with newer models.

CHEERS!

 

[BobO'Link]

A USB3 device should be backwards compatible with USB2 and USB1 ports with the requisite speed reductions. While I'd not fully rule out USB3 as a possible issue, I suspect it's the player not being able to access/recognize a drive of that capacity. I'd look for a firmware update for the player. If that doesn't fix the issue then get a smaller drive or look into building a Plex server (the software is all open source) for your media and connect that to the TV via a streaming device (Roku, Apple TV, and others support Plex).

 

[Tony Bensley]

A USB3 device should be backwards compatible with USB2 and USB1 ports with the requisite speed reductions. While I'd not fully rule out USB3 as a possible issue, I suspect it's the player not being able to access/recognize a drive of that capacity. I'd look for a firmware update for the player. If that doesn't fix the issue then get a smaller drive or look into building a Plex server (the software is all open source) for your media and connect that to the TV via a streaming device (Roku, Apple TV, and others support Plex).

Thank you very kindly for the tips. However, as I only connect externals to our Blu-ray Player occasionally, I'll just stick with smaller drives for now if the firmware update method fails to resolve this.

CHEERS!

P.S. Having checked online, it appears that I'm S.O.L. insofar as getting any kind of firmware update, as I just end up in an annoying loop when attempting searches on the Samsung website. My best guess is they likely no longer have any available firmware updates for our particular 2013 model. Even more annoying is that the manual doesn't provide any information regarding drive capacity readability limits. Obviously our Samsung Blu-ray Player (Model # BD-D5100/ZC, for what it's worth!) will read 320 GB drives, but as for any capacity above that but below 2 TB, who knows?

 

[Tony Bensley]

Thank you very kindly for the tips. However, as I only connect externals to our Blu-ray Player occasionally, I'll just stick with smaller drives for now if the firmware update method fails to resolve this.

CHEERS!

P.S. Having checked online, it appears that I'm S.O.L. insofar as getting any kind of firmware update, as I just end up in an annoying loop when attempting searches on the Samsung website. My best guess is they likely no longer have any available firmware updates for our particular 2013 model. Even more annoying is that the manual doesn't provide any information regarding drive capacity readability limits. Obviously our Samsung Blu-ray Player (Model # BD-D5100/ZC, for what it's worth!) will read 320 GB drives, but as for any capacity above that but below 2 TB, who knows?

I was finally able to download a firmware update to my PC, which I then transferred to a USB drive. I even unzipped the downloaded file, just in case the Samsung Blu-ray Player would only read that!

Unfortunately, the bloody Samsung reads neither one! How effing stupid is that?!!? AARRGGHH!!!!

 

[BobO'Link]

I was finally able to download a firmware update to my PC, which I then transferred to a USB drive. I even unzipped the downloaded file, just in case the Samsung Blu-ray Player would only read that!

Unfortunately, the bloody Samsung reads neither one! How effing stupid is that?!!? AARRGGHH!!!!

Maybe burn it to a disc? My old Sony had to be done that way. I don't think it was anything special, just put the file on a DVD, boot the system with that disc installed, the update went in - but it's been some time since that player has had a update available so I could easily be incorrect and it had to be done in some special way. They should have detailed instructions on the support site.

 

[Clinton McClure]

A USB3 device should be backwards compatible with USB2 and USB1 ports with the requisite speed reductions. While I'd not fully rule out USB3 as a possible issue, I suspect it's the player not being able to access/recognize a drive of that capacity. I'd look for a firmware update for the player. If that doesn't fix the issue then get a smaller drive or look into building a Plex server (the software is all open source) for your media and connect that to the TV via a streaming device (Roku, Apple TV, and others support Plex).

The key here is the USB3 device should be backwards-compatible with USB2 ports but I have ran into situations where I have to use a USB3 port because the USB2 port does not recognize the external HDD. I have also had USB3 ports not recognize a USB2 HDD so I had to use an actual USB2 port on the computer to create bare metal images. Strange behavior, but it does happen.

 

[Tony Bensley]

Maybe burn it to a disc? My old Sony had to be done that way. I don't think it was anything special, just put the file on a DVD, boot the system with that disc installed, the update went in - but it's been some time since that player has had a update available so I could easily be incorrect and it had to be done in some special way. They should have detailed instructions on the support site.

The key here is the USB3 device should be backwards-compatible with USB2 ports but I have ran into situations where I have to use a USB3 port because the USB2 port does not recognize the external HDD. I have also had USB3 ports not recognize a USB2 HDD so I had to use an actual USB2 port on the computer to create bare metal images. Strange behavior, but it does happen.

I've pretty much reconciled myself to the unfortunate fact that the use of my 2 TB WD External Drive is likely limited to my PC Laptop at this time. A lack of helpful documentation for the Samsung Blu-ray Player also doesn't help matters.

CHEERS!

 

[BobO'Link]

The key here is the USB3 device should be backwards-compatible with USB2 ports but I have ran into situations where I have to use a USB3 port because the USB2 port does not recognize the external HDD. I have also had USB3 ports not recognize a USB2 HDD so I had to use an actual USB2 port on the computer to create bare metal images. Strange behavior, but it does happen.

Yes, that's true. For its supposedly "it's universal - it just works" hoorah I've found it's anything but, frequently having driver issues and/or rather arcane steps to "properly" install a USB device. There've been times I'd much rather have dealt with serial and IO settings than get some of these USB devices working.

Creating and/or restoring "bare metal" images via USB could be a matter of the BIOS or imaging software/system not having the necessary driver(s) for the USB2/3 devices and/or ports. Most of the ones we get will only work with USB1 out of the box, even the newer models - at least for imaging (can't put the mouse or keyboard on the USB3 ports and expect them to work). I can create a USB flash boot device that'll work with USB2/3 but those drivers usually have to be manually injected into the process unless they were added during USB creation. It's somewhat a crap shoot.

 

[Stan]

Running Windows 10, not one of my favorites, but it works.

Anyhow, quick email question with Outlook. Is there a way to get my mail on my laptop, going back years ago when you could set up "pst" files. Or does everything have to be in "The Cloud", no way to access anything offline?

 

[DaveF]

Depends.

If you mean all your mail ever you'll have to copy over backups or archives.

If you mean sync to your current email provider, just give your new email client the email account info. The email service must support IMAP, and your clients set for IMAP and not POP3. And your email host will store all emails and ever client will be in sync.

 

[ohiograd06]

If you just want something similar to outlook express, check out mozilla thunderbird. That said, I recommend folks get used to doing all their email online if you are just a home user. That way, the computer crashes or whatever, get another machine, log in, and it's there.

The post above where the guy had audio issues with 7, hopefully you don't have these issues, but you may find that windows 10 forces updates, including, by default I think, driver updates. So it's possible they may release an audio driver that breaks your audio functionality again. They are kind of notorious for that with their drivers in my opinion. Case in point where I work at, I've got one user who we upgraded to windows 10, and his video driver kept updating to a newer version which gave pixelation etc on his screen. If you'd go back and reload the old driver, it was happy until the update got pushed to it again. If memory serves, you need a special piece of software for windows 10 to allow you to block certain updates. But for the most part, the updates will be forced to your machine.

 

[Alf S]

Running Windows 10, not one of my favorites, but it works.

Anyhow, quick email question with Outlook. Is there a way to get my mail on my laptop, going back years ago when you could set up "pst" files. Or does everything have to be in "The Cloud", no way to access anything offline?

If I'm not mistaken, you can still utilize .pst files with newer Outlook programs. I have done so just last year.

 

[ohiograd06]

The newer outlook programs will, but it will require the user to buy office home and business or a professional version that includes it.

If you don't want to pay for a version of office, you might try one of these methods.

http://www.itninja.com/blog/view/top-5-techniques-to-view-pst-file-without-outlook-application

Can't say I've used them, but I know without outlook, working with pst files can get interesting.

 

[Stan]

The newer outlook programs will, but it will require the user to buy office home and business or a professional version that includes it.

If you don't want to pay for a version of office, you might try one of these methods.

http://www.itninja.com/blog/view/top-5-techniques-to-view-pst-file-without-outlook-application

Can't say I've used them, but I know without outlook, working with pst files can get interesting.

Have a ten year old version of Office with one more download available. I'll give that a try. Don't want to risk going to ITNINJA, just the name scares me away

 

[ohiograd06]

Lol. I'm a tech myself. Site comes up fine for me and my AV isn't flagging it.

 

[KeithAP]

I've pretty much reconciled myself to the unfortunate fact that the use of my 2 TB WD External Drive is likely limited to my PC Laptop at this time. A lack of helpful documentation for the Samsung Blu-ray Player also doesn't help matters.

CHEERS!

I would check to see if the older drive is formatted as MBR and the newer drive as GPT. If so, reformatting the newer drive as MBR might solve the problem

-Keith

 

[Tony Bensley]

I would check to see if the older drive is formatted as MBR and the newer drive as GPT. If so, reformatting the newer drive as MBR might solve the problem

-Keith

Hi Keith!

That is, in fact, the case. Unfortunately for me, the cost ($60) of the paid for version (As opposed to the useless Trial version!) of the program that would allow for conversion of the drive without data loss just isn't worth it to me. I also now have too much on my newer GPT drive to try and and move it all to my other drives prior to reformatting that drive, especially considering there likely isn't any guarantee that the GPT - MBR conversion would solve my problem, anyway.

Nevertheless, thank you very kindly for your input. I'll try to keep it in mind for future reference!

CHEERS!