Calibre locks entire machine for 1-2 mins on first startup

[cybmole]

Originally Posted by PeterT

Possibly video driver related as well?

I very much doubt that. I have over the last few weeks, for other reasons ( mostly noise) gone from ati card to nvidia card & back to onboard graphics options on this PC & I reckon I have seen the dreaded freeze with all 3 setups

[ I had added a modern silent PCie x8 Asus Gt630 card but on this particular PC only, it likes to throw out the infamous "Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered " message. a couple of random times a day.
When you google & get into that it's been around for years on all sorts of card and O/S with many proposed solutions but no real fix.
[ think this old motherboard just does not like that new card , it was OK with ati 5670 but I could hear the fan in that, close up ]

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by JeanPaulo

I hate Adobe. It is always requesting to 'update' Flash, and if we do as
COMMANDED, it installs some nutty programs. You have to use the direct
Flash site to load it by hand and refuse the intruder. And it start again 3 days later. (I just disabled the check in Firefox to get rid of this)

Sorry for this bitter comment. But I am happy with Calibre now!

Well, I used to say use the https://ninite.com installer to update flash, but Adobe forced them to pull it.
These days I suggest/push https://chocolatey.org -- it's a command-line software center, similar to linux package managers like apt-get.
You can install and update Flash using the command `choco install flashplayerplugin` -- and then the secret MSI installer they don't advertise is downloaded and installed. No popups, no offers, nothing to click... just pure chocolatey goodness.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by cybmole

I am pretty sure there is no simple way to get years of archived mail ( much of it from old, closed e-mail accounts ) back onto any server.
e.g. all my ebay buy / sell messages , and many many purchase receipts/ confirmations from other stores. i could just keep all that, offliine, in outlook by copying an archive file, I suppose.

It's not that complicated, but it does take a while... basically, you need to sync all your POP3 mail up to the server using IMAP. And delete the unsorted copies currently stranded on Gmail, for example. (This assumes you actually left it there instead of having POP3 delete it. That is the mess I keep seeing.)

I have migrated all but my most used account to IMAP, but I still can't get to like it's arbitrary imposition of folders, and I am still never quite sure what commands like delete, empty trash, archive.. are really doing. i think "delete" works differently inside a client than in the gmail web browser for example ( most accounts are a on a gmail platform as customized by virgin media but they are moving off of that very soon - so they say )

What arbitrary imposition of folders? You can use whatever folders you like. Just store them on the remote server.

"Delete" means send to trash. Just like it does on https://gmail.com
Same with the other commands.

[eschwartz]

Given the Adobe problem, I figured this XKCD comic was rather appropriate :

[cybmole]

i just did the microsoft workaround process

Enter the following commands at an administrative command prompt:

cd "%windir%\system32"
takeown.exe /f atmfd.dll
icacls.exe atmfd.dll /save atmfd.dll.acl
icacls.exe atmfd.dll /grant Administrators:(F) 
rename atmfd.dll x-atmfd.dll
cd "%windir%\syswow64"
takeown.exe /f atmfd.dll
icacls.exe atmfd.dll /save atmfd.dll.acl
icacls.exe atmfd.dll /grant Administrators:(F) 
rename atmfd.dll x-atmfd.dll 

restart

to rename the adobe dll and reboot, and yes all freezing is now gone.

but only until adobe sneak a copy back on again ?

PS I have not seen any list of what programs may re-install it. e.g. does one need to be wary of Adobe Digital Editions or of any other branded e-reader software ( like Kobo, Sony - I have no need/ no plans to go updating - reinstalling those but it would be nice to have a heads up as to waht to be wary of )

PPS I tediously typed all that in line by line; did I miss an easy way to copy / paste / run as batch process ?

[kacir]

Originally Posted by cybmole

I am pretty sure there is no simple way to get years of archived mail ( much of it from old, closed e-mail accounts ) back onto any server.

I used to be administrator for a company mail server running Linux. Some people wanted to migrate from Thunderbird to Outlook.

so I just:

- took their Inbox file from thunderbird folder. This contains all the mails in order they arrived, exactly in the form they arrived in [in a text format], plus some extra lines in header file for email recording the status of email in the Inbox, such as "read", "deleted", ...

- placed the file on the mail server, into their home directory and renamed it to mail (or was it inbox?). I used the built-in stp server in TotalCommander.

- downloaded thousands of emails to their newly installed Outlook.

So ... if you can persuade administrator, just put the file with mail from Firefox to a [postfix] mail server in an un-changed form.

[BetterRed]

Moderator Notice
The 'usual' suspects have taken this thread 'waaay' off topic, Please try to resist riding your pet philosophic hobbyhorses up and down between the lines of irrelevant arguments