Wapsi Square Forum

Alkarii wrote:I have a Windows related question, but for 8.1 instead of 10.

I'm wanting to uninstall it so I can install the 64 bit version. I tried looking online, and those keep saying to do a clean install, but not how to do a clean install. I searched for how to uninstall what I have, but couldn't find an answer.

For a truly clean install, you should:

- Back up all of your applications and data files to one or more separate devices, or sets of removable media (e.g. DVDs).
- Verify the backups. Lock at least one set in a drawer.
- Make sure you have copies of all application and O/S licenses, and readable copies of all application-install media, so that you can reinstall them.
- Wipe your hard drive... delete all existing partitions. Ideally, zero out the first few megabytes, so that the entire partition table is cleared. You'll need to boot from some location other than the hard drive to do this.
- Boot the 64-bit Windows installer. It should detect the lack of partitions on the hard drive, and offer to partition it and initialize the file systems. Choose a suitable partitioning scheme and let the installer Do Its Thing.
- After Windows is installed, hook it to a network (behind a good firewall!) and let it download whatever service packs and security updates it needs.
- Reinstall your applications.
- Restore your personal files from the backups you made.

If you can afford the expense, you might find it beneficial to buy a second hard drive (or an SSD) before doing this. Make your backups as above, then remove the old hard drive from your PC, install the new hard drive or SSD, boot the Windows installer, install, restore. Keep the old hard drive around indefinitely as a fallback (in case the new version fails) and as a repository for any important files that you find you forgot to back up properly.

If you've been considering installing Linux in a dual-boot configuration, this would be a good time to do it.

I've never heard of 64 bit OS being unable to run 32 bit software.

StatCrew Automated Scorebook for Football (TASFB) is such a beast, Glytch. Although it is a Windows program, its GUI is straight DOS. This'll be my 12th year using this software for a a major indoor football league. Oh, and StatCrew is a subsidiary of CBS Interactive.

...A team born in 2004 is using software from the 1980's????

Well, all I really have on it is some games I can easily reinstall. The really important stuff that can't be reinstalled is copied to my flash drive.

I might get an external backup drive to save all my music to that. I have... A lot of music. 125 hours of music. I really don't want to copy each one individually.

The main reason I want to do so is because I have an 8gb RAM module in my computer. Problem is, 32 bit maxes at 3.2gb. My motherboard can handle up to 64 gigs of RAM. It seems kind of... I dunno. Wasteful? All that potential, and I just had to put in the 32bit disc when I first booted this thing.

Alkarii wrote:Well, all I really have on it is some games I can easily reinstall. The really important stuff that can't be reinstalled is copied to my flash drive.

I might get an external backup drive to save all my music to that. I have... A lot of music. 125 hours of music. I really don't want to copy each one individually.

The main reason I want to do so is because I have an 8gb RAM module in my computer. Problem is, 32 bit maxes at 3.2gb. My motherboard can handle up to 64 gigs of RAM. It seems kind of... I dunno. Wasteful? All that potential, and I just had to put in the 32bit disc when I first booted this thing.

Is the Processor geared to handle 64 bit?

If it isn't, it won't work. My laptop was a 64 bit running version of 8.1, but everything on it is 64 bit.

Successfully migrated the 64-bit machine to 32-bit.

Process may require your existing OS product key.
Search and find Windows Media Creation Tool.Install and run. Select the same OS and flavor thereof as you are currently running. A dropdown selector will let you choose 64-bit/32-bit/both if those options are available.

As for the Toshiba that has gone dark, no BIOS monitor settings. The onboard/external monitor toggle does zilch. Win10 tells me it cannot even find the onboard LCD.

I find it odd that the monitor failed as MS pushed a Win10 update.

AmriloJim wrote:StatCrew Automated Scorebook for Football (TASFB) is such a beast, Glytch. Although it is a Windows program, its GUI is straight DOS. This'll be my 12th year using this software for a a major indoor football league. Oh, and StatCrew is a subsidiary of CBS Interactive.

Sounds like DOSBox might be a better solution for you

StatCrew Support wrote: We do not have football software that will run natively on 64-bit Windows.

There are 32-bit editions of Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, so that you can run the existing software on a newer computer, as long as it is 32-bit.

There are virtualization software programs, such as VirtualBox, DOSBox, VMWare, Windows Parallels, which install on 64-bit host operating systems, and allow 32-bit guest operating system to run, preferably Windows 7 Professional 32-bit, on the virtual side. (no charge usually for the virtualization programs, but you will need to purchase the full Windows 32-bit OS--Amazon.com for example for around $150)

I tried DOSBox, could not get it to work with Win7 Home 64-bit. Their run-on sentence about virtualization programs makes it sound like even those options require 32-bit architecture.

However, this HP 2000 is pawn shop purchase, a clean install will probably avoid any issues the previous owner may have inflicted. So, I upgraded to Win10 (which remained 64-bit), ran the MCT to create a bootable USB, and overwrote the 64-bit with a clean install of 32-bit. I did have to provide a product key, but thankfully, the sticker on the bottom on this machine is still readable. Both OS installs were free.

Ok, I have a new puzzle, courtesy of my laptop:

See if this discussion can help:
http://www.techsupportforum.com/forums/ ... 34052.html
Post includes links to microsoft.com for replacement of oleaut32.dll.

It's an AMD A10 5700 quad core. It's base speed is 3.4 Ghz, but I cam boost that to 4.

Considering it's the strongest processor my motherboard can handle, and that same motherboard is able to handle 64 GB of RAM... I'm gonna guess that it can handle that much RAM.

I might be able to use a few discrete GPUs to help it along.

If I get a new hard drive, put that in and disconnect my current one, would I be able to install the 64 bit on the blank one, then reconnect the other and still have all my stuff, or is that gonna cause problems? (I already think it might, but if it saves me the trouble of building another computer or wiping everything, I may try it... If it will work)

Alkarii wrote:If I get a new hard drive, put that in and disconnect my current one, would I be able to install the 64 bit on the blank one, then reconnect the other and still have all my stuff, or is that gonna cause problems? (I already think it might, but if it saves me the trouble of building another computer or wiping everything, I may try it... If it will work)

You should be able to put the old drive back in, on a secondary interface. Make sure that the BIOS configuration doesn't consider it the first-priority boot drive, and Windows should allow you to access its partitions as secondary filesystems.

The answer is YES, but Dave didn't address your question (as _I_ would have him do so) in his reply; <--- (I've edited that line a few times now and I'm still not happy w/ the perceived tone- Dave? no harm no foul me hopes...)

You can install a new Hard Drive
Put the original HD in a an External Case (likely USB based...)
Install Win-X on the new, blank HD &

Plug the old drive, now an External, back in.

You'll likely not be setting your Default 'My Documents' to point at the external directory, but just Copy/Paste the most needed/relevant stuff back over to the new HD.

Park the old HD on the shelf as an Archive and continue on w/ the rest of your day.

Wow, I didn't think it would work. I'll probably go with a 3 TB drive, just because. I haven't even used a quarter of the one I have.

À propos of nothing... back in the Win3.1/Win95 era, I was working at the Canon Printers Helpline. I once ran across the following error:

"The following error occured:
The printer driver installed successfully."

That made me laugh, as it seemed to imply that Windows did NOT want it to install correctly, so the fact that it did was an error...

AmriloJim wrote:See if this discussion can help:
http://www.techsupportforum.com/forums/ ... 34052.html
Post includes links to microsoft.com for replacement of oleaut32.dll.

...ok, so I'm getting this and I have no idea what I'm supposed to put, because I don't know what broke oleaut32 in the first place.

...ugh... apparently, the NVIDIA driver I currently have installed on Windows 10 is not compatible with Windows 10.

I have no idea what borked the driver. And I cant even find the broken file "oleaut32.dll"

UGH

oleaut32.dll is probably hidden by Windows by default. There's a list of system files that File Manager doesn't show to keep the uniformed from deleting critical files (like this one). It should be in your C:\windows\system32 folder.

AmriloJim wrote:oleaut32.dll is probably hidden by Windows by default. There's a list of system files that File Manager doesn't show to keep the uniformed from deleting critical files (like this one). It should be in your C:\windows\system32 folder.

Ok... so I tried to send the file in the post you linked to that location and got this:

So then I tried again using compatibility settings, and got this: