Sebastian42

I COULD try that, but that is inconvenient. I would rather be able to paste RELIABLY directly into telegram, the way I can quite a lot of the time.

When I use Snippingtool to capture an image, and then PASTE it into Telegram, the actual recognisable image may get pasted (desirable) or the technical description of the file may appear (UNdesirable) and THAT may be what gets sent. If the latter is the case, the recipient has to open the received file in an image program to see its content. How can I avoid the latter and ensure the former ?

In Win7, I could select the area to be snipped as soon as I had launched Snipping-tool; but in Win10, I have to first click on 'NEW' - which I find an inconvenience and would like to avoid. I have tried to run the snippingtool.exe from Win7 in Win10 without success; even when used in COMPATIBILITY mode. Is there a way to avoid the 'unnecessary' extra step ?

After using Windows Live mail and uTorrent for 5 years in my Win7 Ultimate x32bit, a new phenomenon has appeared. I keep those two windows in the secondary monitor. Generally there is a couple of inches between the bottom edge of the W.L.M. window and the top edge of the uTorrent window. If I happen to lower the WLM edge so it (accidentally) touches the top of the uTorrent window, the two edges get 'glued' together, so that if I want raise the bottom edge of WLM, or lower the top edge of uTorrent, they move in lock-step. How to 'separate' them, other than by closing one of them ?

The phone is wifi-capable, but the the wifi is not always available. Is there a free program, as ICQ used to be, that allows a plain-text SMS sent from the phone, to be received by a PC (running Win7) at the time when there is no wifi for the phone ?

You understand my system correctly. I call one HDD the UPDATER, and the other EXPERIMENTAL. One thing I have not bothered to mention before, is that I acquired a habit when O/Ss were less stable. It evolved to the point where I would create 6 partitions on a large drive (500Gb) - the first small - big enough for an O/S without any data; and then 5 more, each about 1Gb larger than the previous, to take up all the remaining space. Having put the minimum O/S into that first partition - including the cloner - I would leave that partition be. But sequentially into the other 5 partitions I would clone the system as it 'evolved' on the Updater - including Data. So after 6 clonings I would have 'accessible' 5 different but similar copies of my system on the 500Gb HDD to refer back to for either Data, or previous under-developped versions. The EXPERIMENTAL HDD I could use to try out things on, without fear of corrupting my evolving system, and if my experiment had a satisfactory outcome, THAT HDD would in effect be the latest version of my UPDATER, to be cloned to the other drive (now in effect the EXPERMENTAL) and OVER the partition with the oldest version of my system. I have tested that my largest HDD will boot satisfactorily; but when I am cloning to the oldest partition and choose to boot from the first small partition, THAT is when the BIOS ignores me, and instead, boots from the HDD whose contents I want to clone to the oldest partition. "for normal file additions such as pictures, music, video, you can copy from one drive to the other while connected" I ONLY have a second HDD connected if I want to clone; so I COULD, but DONT, copy to another DRIVE (whether the 500Gb or the Experimental) as data changes. THAT is taken care of by a sufficiently large USB memory stick. I run batchfiles that save 'data' twice - once to the HDD which I am using, and once to the USB stick.

That would be a bit hard to supply. But in general, I started with the bare bones of Win8.1, and bit by bit I've been installing all the other software and 'making' settings, to prepare it to be a useful system. And then I keep cloning the successful 'updates' so that if something goes wrong, I don't have to start over, but only go back to the time prior to the latest 'additions'.

I had reason to download and use Macrium Reflect, in a completely different situation today, when Casper5 could not be found after it was installed. Macrium was indeed free and did indeed create a clone that I could boot. Yes, I do have another SATA lead and have interchanged them. I do routinely re-seat the SATA and power leads. Both HDDs can boot to their O/Ss. Windows was installed on one HDD in one PC; that was cloned; then one HDD was changed and I tried to reproduce those changes on the other HDD by cloning it to the unchanged HDD.

Thank you for that comprehensive help. I'd be remiss if I didn't try it, rather than get the casper Upgrade which may still cause havoc in a failed clone attempt. In the meanwhile, the puzzle of BIOS over-riding my boot selection remains unsolved. BOTH HDDs are bootable - that excludes the notion that BIOS might select the only bootable option.

"'MACRIUM REFLECT' clones" That is good news, and has revived my interest in it.

My search in Google did NOT show it to be a Cloner; and one quote referred to a price relative to Acronis - so NOT gratis ?

I'm glad you've mentioned that fault with Casper7. Maybe v8 is better ? I had not heard of Macrium Reflect - but I infer that it always clones ALL the drive content - which is a drawback compared to Casper-when-it-behaves.

I just let Casper7 do it. I infer by the difference in time required to clone to a 'clean' drive, and a nearly identical drive, that only the changes are cloned.

"you might be better off" - I MIGHT be, but I find cloning through SATA more reliable than through USB. USB is powerful, but temperamental. "therefore removing whatever is on the drive" The difference in time between cloning to a reformatted drive, and to a previously identical HDD, suggests to me that ONLY the changes are cloned. .

Correct to your scenario. Yes, Win8.1 was installed on both HDDs in the same PC. I have PROOF that if Win8.1 is installed on another PC I have, THAT HDD will still boot in THIS PC. I expect it's a co-incidence, and can not be generalised to a Win 95 situation (pre-NT). In case you're intrigued why I would have two HDDs with Win8.1 installed in the same PC connected simultaneously, it's because I have altered one and want to synch (I think it is called) the other, by cloning it from the altered one.