A tale of how a simple print job can take a lot longer than you think!
The boss has been egging me on to check out my RN pension which I'm now entitled to being 60. I asked where she'd been looking online and she pointed out a .gov site. We had a look and chose Form 14 as a good place to start. You can't fill these things in online so I downloaded it. I double clicked on said form and it came up with a lot of rubbish. It was a .doc file and I don't have the required software on this pc to open it. Also, I don't have this pc attached to my print server as Win7 wasn't at all struck with it's drivers (they display in Chinese)
No problem, I thought. The old Vista laptop has the print server software installed plus.. it has Word so we're good to go
I dug the laptop out and turned it on to be greeted with a message that MSE no longer supports Vista. Again, no problem. I went to AVG and downloaded their free version. Some 20 minutes later.. the 'This may take a moment' line disappeared and AVG installed. Having refused all the things it wanted me to have.. it went ahead and installed them anyway 
I then set about uninstalling MSE.OK.. we're in. Laptop restarted.. (it's an old 1.4 Celeron btw so things don't happen quickly).. navigated to the .gov site and found the form. Started the print manager and hit print. Nada. An error has occurred (half a dozen times) plus some USB message. Turned the printer off and on but it would have none of it. So.. restarted the laptop again.. went to the .gov site.. saved the form this time then opened the print manager to print it. Same thing again. One error message followed by a few others. Sense of humour on a rapid downhill slope
For want of something else to try, I unplugged the print manager.. waited a few moments then plugged it back in. Nada. The print manager obviously didn't like being unplugged and it died there and then
OK.. the positives. I had the form downloaded and I still had glass in the front room windows as I'd NOT tried to throw the laptop, print manager or printer through them
Focus..
Ah.. the old WinXP pc has Libre Office installed AND it has the full printer software installed so turn on the XP rig.. wait 10 mins for it to come out of it's unused slumber. Look on the screen.. NO Libre Office
Went to their website and Windows didn't care much for the site certificate and advised I leave there sharpish!!Plan B.. download the latest Word reader from Microsoft. Click on link.. page not found! Try again.. page not found
Search the web for an alternative and didn't care for the sites they were on. Also, not impressed that they were freeware for limited use then payware. Searched again and found a free online .doc reader that did a few other conversions. Dropped the form into it's window and hit print. It printed out 3 pages with a number on the bottom of the page and one page with everything on including all the web ads
Tried another tack with this software. I dropped the form into the window but selected CONVERT. After a min or so, the form was converted to a .pdf and ready for me to download. Opened the form and hit print.. 4 perfect pages.
Time elapsed.. TWO HOURS!!
Before turning the laptop off (which had been discarded).. it seemed like a good idea to uninstall the TP-Link software as I wouldn't be needing it. Would you believe it wouldn't uninstall!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I even tried in safe mode and it still wouldn't go so.. I found the folder and binned it. Binned the desktop icon then went into the registry and deleted the key. It has now gone
After all this, the MoD will probably reply asking how I'd like my £20 per year pension.. monthly or in one lump sum
ATB
DaveB
Bit of head scratching, thought maybe the BIOS needed updating. Went to the website & sure enough my BIOS was about 10 revisions behind. Downloaded the latest, copied it to a USB stick & rebooted into the BIOS settings. Flashed the BIOS, put in new card again. Re-boot. Yay! found the video card, but now wouldn't see my HD as bootable. 
Back into the BIOS and fiddled about but no luck. OK, I thought, I'll try a slightly earlier BIOS. Flashed OK, but still wouldn't see the HD. Back to the website, found the earliest BIOS that would support the new vid card. Tried that, but for some reason the BIOS wouldn't flash. 
Luckily my MB has a dual BIOS so I switched over to the backup. That let me boot normally, but of course it wouldn't see the video card. Do I dare try flashing that one, I wondered. Oh, sod it, might as well. 
