CafeTran

At first I thought that the new laptop was defect. Directly after switching it in for the first time, it reported that it had found 318 updates. I clicked Install and then nothing. For hours. I rebooted although it did say I shouldn't. It didn't boot but started installing one update of one. This again took several hours. Then I had to go to school to enjoy a musical: very well acted indeed. We returned and it looked like the laptop had fall asleep: the power button was flashing. I pressed it and the one of one installation went on. At around 22:00 (I started at 16:00) the laptop booted. After that only five optional fixes. Might as well install them. Waiting, booting. Another 30 minutes or so. Finally the laptop was up to date. Does anyone recognise this?

Yes, but only with a very old, very slow laptop, many years ago, with a terrible internet connection. What laptop is this, what OS, and what was your internet connection like?

Brand-new HP Pavillion i5, with SSHD. Good internet connection So I'm totally puzzled

Wow, that's pretty terrible. Which OS?

Windows 8.1. Holiday season here, perhaps that's extra stress for the MS update server?

System was up to date yesterday at 23:00. Now uploading 32 new updates.

Yeah, but with a decent internet connection and computer, 32 updates should only take a few minutes. I often have lots of small updates here on Win7, but it never takes more than a few minutes. Maybe something is not right with the laptop.

Speak of the devil, there are a few now:

Will time it (although I am currently in the countryside, and on a TERRIBLE internet connection).

OK, I'm back. In my shoffice way out in the countryside (on a terrible internet connection), installing the 28 updates (totalling 240MB) took exactly 9:25 minutes, from starting the updates, through a restart, and back to my desktop. This is on Win7 64-bit on a very fast laptop. The thing is though, most of the time was actually spent waiting for the updates to download. At home on my fibre connection, that part would have taken no more than 1/2 a minute or so.

By the way, most of the updates were Office 2010 security patches. I recently downgraded from the latest versions of Office back down to Office 2010 because (1) 2010 works better with Dragon, and (2) for some reason it starts much faster than the new versions (while offering me all the functionality that I need).

Yes, it's the downloading time that I'm worried about: Airport Express with 5 GHz here:

Laptop only reaches 17 Mbps (doesn't have 5 GHz).

I think that it's the MS Update Server that is slow, or that many users in Tilburg are trying to connect this server. Normally not a problem, except when you start updating a laptop that has been lying on the shelf for a couple of months.

An update: The Pavilion is now running fast. Little boy is enjoying building new Minecraft worlds ;).

This is real countryside (only 60 km or about 40 mi. from Munich).

Just made someone very happy by restoring a Minecraft world from the original hard disk from the deceased Asus (2 years, 6 months!) via a Sitecom case for a 2,5" drive, connected via USB to the new laptop.

I'll have to look for a way to have these worlds saved in the Dropbox, instead of some hidden .minecraft folder.

Hi Hans,

There are basically three easy ways to do this (all three rely on symbolic links):

(1) Junction Link Magic : http://www.rekenwonder.com/linkmagic.htm

(2) Dropboxifier: https://dropboxifier.codeplex.com

(3) Dropbox Folder Sync addon: http://satyadeepk.in/dropbox-folder-sync/

If you need help just ask. I don’t really use Dropbox as much as I used to, since moving to CrashPlan Pro, but I have used all three of these in the past to sync all kinds of files and folders that are located outside the Dropbox folder.

PS: the Windows Update test above was done here in the New Forest country side, in my "shoffice", connecting to the house internet via a Devolo powerline adapter:

Which is actually pretty amazing, considering the fact that the office that I am in is in a garage/shed, way at the bottom of the garden, quite a distance from the house. I plug one Devolo in in the house, next to the BT router, and the other one is plugged in here in the office, and somehow these things manage to connect to each other through the ancient electrical wiring of the property!

Activated MS Parental Control today, since the self regulation on the first official holiday wasn't to call home about.