Okay, Final Checks(Again.) (Off-Topic)

by DiscipleN2k , Edmond, OK, Friday, October 23, 2015, 15:26 (3322 days ago) @ Morpheus

1. What about my OS? I just realized last night that I don't have any possible way to back up my copy of Windows. My computer came with Windows 8 and I upgraded to 10 through Windows' eligibility program, so I don't have it. What am I going to do about that?

2. There are also a handful of programs that came installed with the computer--the ones I'm specifically thinking about are Microsoft Office and Windows Media Player. You know how tight-lipped and stingy these people are with their products. What do I do about those?

You can use something like Jellybean Keyfinder to view the license keys for any installed MS products. If you're sticking with Windows 10, there's a way to clean install it without having to install Windows 8 and then upgrade again. The current method is fairly convoluted, but they're supposed to be in the process of making it so you can activate Windows 10 with the same key that you used to activate your original OS. This might already be the case. If so, you can just download Microsoft's Media Creation Tool, set up a flash drive for a super-speedy install, and you'll be good to go.

3. Is there any way I can POSSIBLY prevent this from happening again?! I'm sick and tired of not being able to use my computer properly.

This trumps everything I mentioned above. Before you think about reinstalling Windows, check your hard drive. Use something like the hard disk diagnostic tools on the Ultimate Boot CD and see if the drive itself is failing. A few random read/write errors can make even a clean OS install go wonky pretty quickly. It sucks to put in all of the work to get it up and running and then watch the whole thing crash the next day :(

-Disciple