OT: Windows PC Problem, any groups for that?

[trader_4]

A friend of mine is having Windows 7 PC problems and I've had him try everything we could think of to fix it and unfortunately it only made it worse. Any recommendations on where there are groups focused on that?

The trouble started with his Fuji camera suddenly no longer being recognized by his Dell Windows 7 laptop. When he connects the USB cable, it comes up with a "device not recognized" error. It worked fine until just a few days before. I went through everything I could think of, then I suggested that if system restore was turned on, he could try reverting back to when it was working. I've done that probably dozens of times over the years and while it didn't always fix the problem, nothing really bad happened. Well, this time, after restoring it to a month earlier point, it booted, looked OK. Then when he went to use Chrome, it didn't work, nothing happened. I thought OK, let's uninstall it, then re-install it. I had him go to the add/remove programs in control panel, Chrome was on the list. I had him click on it, which should open the box of options, where you can uninstall it. He clicked on it, Chrome disappeared from the list of programs.

If that's not weird enough, he lost his wifi connection to his home internet. Other wifis are showing up, but not his. Tried rebooting the PC, still won't connect. He went to the library, it connects there fine. At one point it did connect, but only after the PC sat there for over an hour. Googling I see that other people have had this strange problem too, lots of try this and that, most of which we've done. No one seems to know the root cause. It sure is strange though. The home wifi shows up on his phone, it connects there.

After digging all the way into this hole, I downloaded the manuals for the camera and PC and realized the camera has a slot for an SD card, but one is not supplied. But he bought the camera off of Ebay, so I told him to go check, maybe one was in it. Sure enough there was, so I told him how to remove the card, put it into the PC and that worked. So he has a workaround for that and it's not a big deal. But the wifi no connect sure is.....

[Dean Hoffman]

Maybe sci.electronics.design

[hubops]

alt comp hardware has a few people lurking who seem quite helpful for non-hardware-related questions ... and they might know an even-better froup for your Win PC questions ..

I've been caught a couple times - by accidentally having the wifi on/off switch turned off ... ... this switch is sometimes well-hidden - ie : in plain sight .. and never used .. John T.

[Retirednoguilt]

First thing I would have done would be to go to the windows device manager (part of control panel), view hidden devices, click on camera, and uninstall and/or delete the USB listing for his camera. Then, plug the camera in again (with the SD card in it), and see if the PC recognizes the camera, and installs the necessary connections as if it were the first time ever the camera was connected to that PC. If not, I'm stumped too. Although reading the SD card directly, as you mentioned, certainly is a viable work-around.

[invalid unparseable]

I could plug my Android phone into my Windows 10 PC and find device but not directory for pictures. There is an app from Windows that allows sincing of the phone to the PC to allow this.

[Retirednoguilt]

At least on my Samsung tablet running Android 10, the following enabled me to see my photos directory via usb cable to my windows 10 PC:

Settings - Developer options - usb debugging (turn on)

I don't if this is unique to Samsung devices or if the same options are available in the settings of Android 11.

[Clare Snyder]

If using a USB cable wifi is extremely unlikely to be the issue with the camera -- but a bad USB cable is not uncommon. I would also try another device on the port - could be a bad port - or the camaera on a different PC - could be a camera issue. Other than that delete the camera from the system and re-install the drivers. (should be addressed by the system restore) No teck support available from either manufacturere since Win7 is no longer supported - I would also not rule out a bad USB port on "the Del from HELL" - - - As for WIFI - older computers often cannot see a 5.2 wifi connection, on;y a 2.4 and if something was changed on the router that it only connects to 5.2, the older computer won't see it at all, while the phone will.

[MikeJ]

trader_4 [e-mail] wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Why not post to alt.windows7.general?

[trader_4]

I was headed in that kind of direction, but there is no entry in the device manager for specific USB devices, only generic entries, eg Univ Host Controller, Composite Devices , Mass Storage Devices, etc. Nothing for a camera shows up. I also took a look at my properly functioning Win10 PC and it's the same. I just connected my camera via USB, nothing new shows up under device manager. Apparently it's all handled by those standard drivers, which his PC showed as all working correctly.

I did see some similarl online advice to go uninstall all of the USB entries, must be like 15 of them and then reboot and it will re-install. But given that he's 10 hours away, already in trouble, he uses his mouse via USB, etc, that seemed too risky.

If not,

Yes, that's the good news. And it appears that once it's connected to wifi, it stays connected. I told him next time he reboots, whenever that is, to check after about 5 mins, 30 mins, etc to get an idea if it seems to always connect, just that it takes a long time. He has a computer repair guy he goes to up here, he can go there next time he's up here in a month or so. But how he's going to solve the mystery that the PC apparently shows and connects to other wifi, but not the one at his house, without being able to test in the house, IDK. That guy was helping him on the phone with the camera issue, spent a couple hours. He told him he had to go to BestBuy and buy a USB SD card reader to be able to read the camera SD card. I had already told him the PC and camera had card slots. So before he went to BB, I convinced him to go look for the SD slot on the PC he kept saying didn't exist. It was right where the manual shows it. I keep telling him what he should get at BB is a 25ft ethernet cable for $9, that way he'd have an alternate path to the router instead of wifi that's likely to work. He's been very resistant..... It took two days to get him to reboot the router.

Thanks for the advice.

[trader_4]

I just went through that BS with my LG that I bought end of last year. I must have wasted more than an hour screwing around until I figured out you had to enable it in the phone developer options. That area that you have to tap like 8 times in a row to gain access. Why phone manufacturers and/or Google don't have the phones set up so that you can connect to the PC is beyond me. I guess they figure if you want to save get some pics over to the PC, you should do it via the cloud. Another annoying thing is that you should be able to make a complete backup image of the phone to your PC so you can restore it if needed. I think you can do that if you root your phone, but that comes with it's own risks and problems.

[Marilyn Manson]

My Android/Win 10 connection does that, but not every time. Most times the folder is readily accessible, but every now and then I have to tap the phone notification about "Connected for charging only" and choose the File Transfer option.

[trader_4]

He's going to get another cable to try that. I think it should be the same cable as on his old phone, but he can't find that. His computer guy suggeted it, seems very unlikely because it comes up with the "device not recognized" message, which indicates some communication must be going on.

I would also try

He tried a thumb drive, he can read that. Also he uses a USB mouse, on another port and that works.

- or the camaera on a

Except that the wifi was working perfectly right up until the restore. And he did finally reboot the router, which didn't fix it.

[Jock]

MikeJ [e-mail] wrote

Because what matters is which groups have knowledgeable people in them, not the title of the group.

[MikeJ]

Jock [e-mail] wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Guess you've never been to alt.windows7.general. Would you go to a proctologist for back pain?

[trader_4]

No, the Androids I've had all connected to the PC without doing anything except unlocking the phone. You could go in to developer options and see if usb to pc is enabled for data transfer there, might be the USB debugging option. Developer options is under settings, system. If dev option is not turned on, you have to tap it like 8 times and it will count down, then enable.

[Marilyn Manson]

Speaking of developer options, there was a lot of complaints when the Samsung S21 series came out about how small the text in the notification bar is (Time, texts icon, wifi symbol, etc.

Buried in the developer options there is a ridiculous multistep process to make the text slightly larger. Luckily, once it's done, it survives restarts, system updates, etc. (so far, anyway)

Check this out:

1) Go to "Developer Options" 2) Go to "Simulate display with cutout" 3) Choose "waterfall cutout" 4) You will see the screen looks narrow with "waterfall cutout" but the icon on status bar become bigger. Under "Minimum Width", you should see it auto adjusted to 279 dp. 5) Reboot your phone. 6) Then go back to "Simulate display with cutout". 7) Change to "Default"

All this just to slightly increase the font size in the status bar.

[trader_4]

Interesting. That was my complaint with my new LG phone last year, it has a 6.5" screen, but they make the status bar icons really small. I can read well without glasses and I can see them, but they would be easier to see if they were 50% bigger and they have that whole big screen, it's not like there isn't room. Yet there is no setting adjustment to make them bigger. Quite amazing given that there are a lot of people, especially older people, who have vision problems. You'd think this would be a standard part of the Android OS, the ability to change it. I spent a few hours exploring apps that might fix it, found at least one that would work if you had to use it, but it changed the color of the background of the status bar so that it didn't match the rest of the screen and it looked ugly. So, I just learned to live with it.

Just tried your above method, that didn't work either. First the status bar is already the waterfall type and changing the DPI from 411 to anything lower changes it for the whole screen, apps, etc, not just the status bar. The developer menu immediately became much larger, with less of it visible, for example. So while the status bar gets bigger, so does everything else.