windows 8.1 and new updates available icon

I am guessing I already know what the answer to this may be since there seem to be a lot of things that MS has changed with windows 8.1 - and it is really frustrating to get use to!

Anyway, I have figured out how to change the setting to let me know when there are updates and let me decide when to install them. But on my old vista machine as well as the XP machine there would be an icon in the taskbar to let me know that there were new updates available. There is no icon that shows up in the taskbar on windows 8.1.

Is there a way to add that option on windows 8.1 or am I just going to have to remember to check for updates all the time. I did notice one day that if I pay attention when first starting up there will be a small message in the lower right corner before logging in but that is it and that is so easy to miss.

Thanks for all the help

 

Why not just leave it on automatic? WU creates a restore point when installing updates so you can always roll back should there be a problem. Otherwise you are going to have to judge which updates to install and which not to, and how are you going to decide that?

 

Yeah, M$ has removed the notification icon in Win8/8.1 but, you CAN get it back (in a way). Have a look at this. I'm running Win 8.1 and chose the second one.

 

I just got into the habit of letting me know when there were updates and then after a few days I would select a few at a time and do the updates. I started doing that after a few times when there were issues with the updates on my Vista machine.

I had the updates set to automatic on this machine and the other day after the restart the computer got as far as the log in screen, I logged in and then all I got as a black screen with the little white arrow and nothing else ever happened. I could hit ctrl + alt + del and get the task manager and option to shut down or restart but that was all I could get. I eventually had to call tech support to get the computer up and running again and we had to do a Refresh on the computer since there was no restore point for the most recent updates and going back to the last restore point for updates resulted in the same - black screen with just the white arrow.

So I am still reinstalling my software again. At least the Refresh option saved all of my files.

Before calling tech support I tried putting my acronis recovery disc into the drive and starting the pc that way and going back to my last backup. But the darn pc won't boot to the disc and when I asked tech support about changing the boot option so that it would check the cd/dvd drive first I was told to not mess with the boot order in the bios. I did look in the bios - but apparently it looks completely different than in my old computers (something about UEFI bios now). ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!

Guess I will have to just leave it at the automatic and hope it doesn't happen again.

Thanks

 

Yeah, these UEFI BIOSs are a pita! Yours is set to Secure Boot, which means you will never be able to boot to your Acronis CD again, or any other bootable CD unless you change its settings. On this Lenovo laptop I was able to put the BIOS in Legacy mode and disable secure boot and regain control of what I want to boot. Yours should also have a way of getting into BIOS, perhaps by continually tapping F8 or Del immediately at power on, and you might want to try that and take a look at what options are available. I advise against changing anything without further advice though or you might seriously upset it :eek

If you do come back on this give us the make and model so we can establish some facts first.

 

Well, isn't that just great! I swear that MS does this stuff on purpose. I am guessing that the windows 8.1 installation disc that I had to pull teeth to get won't do me any good if there is a complete hard drive failure either.

I did figure out how to get into the bios. If I start tapping the F2 key immediately after hitting the power on button I can access the bios - which is how I found out about that UEFI thing. After seeing that the boot options were completely different than anything I had ever seen I just clicked to exit the bios. Didn't want to mess anything up.

I don't know if there is a Legacy option in there. Once I saw that the boot options were completely different, I just clicked to exit and started the pc.

This is a Dell XPS8700 running windows 8.1 (64 bit) home version. I did quickly jot down some of the info when in the boot order part of the bios and in Boot Mode it listed
1st: UEFI: Windows Boot M
2nd: USB Storage
3rd: Internal ODD Device
4th: USB Floppy
5th: Onboard NIC Device

But I didn't even look for anything about Legacy or Secure Boot when I was in there.

I think that the acronis 2015 version does give the option to create the boot recovery disc as a flash - guess I had better go and make that up instead of another dvd since these machines won't look to boot first from the cd/dvd drive. But if the USB storage is the 2nd option will that even work?

Thanks for that information and in the meantime I guess I had better go and switch the MS updates back to automatic.

 

With all of those devices listed in Boot Options then there is obviously a way to boot to them. F8 is a commonly used key to change the boot order for the current boot only, so give that a whirl. Didn't work on my laptop until I had disabled secure boot but worth a try, and anyway hopefully someone with recent Dell knowhow will pop up and impart some knowledge

EDIT - just be careful not to invalidate any warranty, and it's the Internal ODD you want (Optical Disk Drive)

 

Isn't the third (internal ODD device) your optical drive? On my Dell in BIOS setup -> boot sequence, I select the device and press the "U" key to move it up or the "D" key to move it down then save and exit. I recently worked on a Dell with Win 8 and UEFI Secure boot and had to change the boot type to Legacy, Secure boot off to get it to boot from CD. It worked and when I was done, I changed back to UEFI

 

Thanks for the link for the Windows update notifier! Greatly appreciate it

I was wondering if Internal ODD device was the optical drive and most definitely would have asked prior to doing anything at all.

Once I have the boot sequence set to check the cd/dvd drive I actually wanted to leave it that way since the whole reason for changing the boot order is so that it will look for the acronis recovery media in case of some sort of failure or other issue.

I did look and I can make the acronis recovery media as a flash drive. That option is there for the 2015 version. But I would still need to change the boot order. Oddly enough, the original recovery media that Dell sent me is a flash drive - which now that I am looking into all of this leaves me with questions as to just how the heck that flash drive would work if it isn't set to boot from the flash drive first. I also made the Recovery drive/disk on the flash drive that is recommended as well.

I will go back in and look to see if I can find secure boot and will be back in touch before doing anything in there.

I did ask tech support about changing the boot order and they didn't say that it would void the warranty, just asked why I would want to do that when I can call them for help (that is just fine for the first year while I have the warranty - but then what). They never actually said that it would void any warranty.

 

You're absolutely right to be thinking about how you would initiate a recovery should it become necessary so have you tried tapping F8 at start? If that works you can then choose any boot device for the current boot. I sometimes have to try more than once on my laptop to catch it.

 

No I haven't tried tapping the F* key when the pc starts. When I was trying to figure out how to access the bios I first started out with tapping the F1 key and then tried with the F2 key and when that one worked I didn't go any further. I thought that F8 would get me to the safe mode since that was the key that I used on my old pc (at least I think it was the F8).

So tapping the F8 key might get me to the option to select how I want to boot at that time?

Well, that would resolve the whole messing with the bios!

Will give it a try. Thanks Again.

 

Just tried tapping the F8 key on start and it did not get me to an option for boot order --- but I did notice that in the upper right hand corner there was this
F2 Setup
F12 Boot Options

and after just a couple of seconds the computer started normally.

So F8 doesn't get me into safe mode anymore - but it looks like maybe tapping the F12 key on startup might get me into the boot order.

I just like to be ready for any issues ahead of time. I had tons of problems with the very first computer I ever had and knowing what to do before a problem arises is better than scrambling afterwards or having to find some place to take it it for repairs (which isn't easy since we live in the middle of nowhere).

I never even thought that it would be an issue to use the Acronis Recovery Disc I had made since I never had to change the boot order on my other computers. They were already set to check the optical drive on start up so I didn't think to check it on this machine.

I will try tapping the F12 key a little later and see if that gives me boot order options as well as checking the bios to see if there are options for disabling Secure Boot. Will let you know what I find out. Any idea as to what tab in the bios that Secure Boot might be?

Again, Thanks So Very Much

 

Sounds like progress, let's hope F12 works. Can't advise on BIOS - too many different types.

 

I never realized that there were so many differences in the bios before. It has always been the same since the first time I went into the bios to check anything (quite a few years ago).

Anyway, I am going to shut down and start back up and see what happens if I click the F12 key - will let you know.

 

Well, I tried a few times to keep tapping the F12 key and it was just starting up normally. Then I took a wired keyboard and plugged that into a usb port and tried again and this time it worked.

After tapping the F12 key I got the following
Boot Mode is set to UEFI : Secure Boot On

UEFI Boot
windows Boot Manager
UEFI OS

Other Options
Bios Setup
Dianostics
Change Boot Mode Setting

I just clicked to go to the bios setup and see if I could find that Secure Boot.

It is located in the same Boot Tab

when I was using the up and down arrows it was skipping right past the Load Legacy OPROM but when I clicked to Disable the Secure Boot the Load Legacy option is available when using the up and down arrows.

I exited without saving the changes and logged back into the computer.

I did take a pic of the bios screen and attached it here - in case you wanted to see it.

I will see what happens if I click Change Boot Mode Settings in a bit and let you know what I see for options there.

 

Okay, I went back and restarted the pc and this time after tapping on the F12 key I selected the change boot mode settings and took a pic of that. I then went into the bios and disabled the secure boot and took a pic to show you what it then says.

Will be logging out for the night. I am going to make up that acronis recovery disk on a flash drive and was thinking that I might plug in the flash drive and see if the darn computer will boot to that since it wouldn't boot to the dvd drive. I know I can exit the recovery disc with no issues. Just sort of curious now as to whether or not it will boot to the usb drive.

Will be back in touch tomorrow morning.

 

Why not just change the boot order to put the optical drive first? That should work now secure boot has been disabled. There will also definitely be a key that enables you to change the boot order for the current boot. Try F8 again having made these changes.

 

I haven't tried changing the boot order - guessing I first need to disable the secure boot option to do that and I was a bit concerned that it might void some sort of warranty if I did (but it isn't like tech support is going to last forever anyway).

I did insert the Acronis True Image Backup Recovery Media that I made on the flash drive before starting the pc this morning and it booted right to the log in screen instead of the flash drive - also tried again (just to be sure) with the dvd with the same result.

So I just might go ahead and try to figure out how to change that boot order anyway. I just know that there has to be a way to get this darn thing to boot to the optical drive and or usb port first since the recovery media that the Dell Backup and Recovery program has you create a usb flash drive for the factory backup (or can be created on dvd's) and the other option is to create a Rescue Disk from that program - but that one needs to be done onto and external hard drive. So despite the fact that Dell does not make it easy to find information on how to use those backups there must be a way.

Will go ahead and give it a shot a bit later and see if I can change the boot order (will try disabling the Secure boot and changing the boot order) and see what happens.

Hopefully, that will work. Or maybe just plug the wired keyboard in and start tapping F12 and start from there and see if it will boot to the flash drive.

Will let you know how it works out.

Thanks :banghead

 

When you mentioned that you are using the 2nd one - did you mean the Update Notification Tool? Just want to be sure that I am installing the correct item. I did click on that option and there are 3 options from there.


Download Button for Visual C++ RedistributableVisual C++ Redistributable
Install this if you get an error message about MSVCR110.dll being missing.

Download Button for WUNotify.exeWUNotify.exe (With installer)
825,664 bytes, SHA-1: 07DA80B7B436CB0F69D3E718EFE4BEA6D5629FE0

Download Button for WUNotify.7zWUNotify.7z (Without installer)
185,566 bytes, SHA-1: C5368C86E6EDAD44CE94F4AEC07288CD72EA25C7

Do I go with the one with or without the installer?

Thanks

 

Getting a little confused here. In #16 you said "Okay, I went back and restarted the pc and this time after tapping on the F12 key I selected the change boot mode settings and took a pic of that. I then went into the bios and disabled the secure boot"

:confused

 

Sorry about that. Yes, I did try going back and seeing what might happen if I made those choices and took pics with my camera to show you. But I did not save the changes.

I wasn't sure if it was safe to save those changes.

I have been doing some more searching online (boy there sure are lots of links with all sorts of information and it does get confusing). Anyway, Dell finally did get back to me. (good thing I was in a dire need - lol)

Anyway, their support forums said that to boot to the flash drive (their suggestion was only to do this if using their Dell Recovery and Backup program)
I should turn on the pc and start pressing the F2 key and go to the boot tab and confirm that secure boot is disabled.
Change the boot list options to legacy
Insert the flash disk, select save and exit the bios screen and then start tapping the F12 key when I see the Dell logo
In the boot options menu select the usb media and hit enter
(if using the Dell recovery that I would make the Dell recovery and backup console would open)

I was going to try this and see if it will boot to the acronis recovery media.

I have just been a bit on the busy side today and haven't had a chance to try that out yet.

Will try the steps they gave and see what happens and if that does not get me into the acronis bootable media I thought that I would in fact try tapping on the F12 key, selected the change boot mode settings, then go into the bios and disable the secure boot and change the boot order to the usb flash as the first option, install the flash and restart the pc and see what happens.

Lisa

 

That advice is consistent with what mdonah and I have been giving you so I reckon you are pretty well there Lisa, just need to get Acronis up and you can forget all about Dell's Recovery and Backup. Well done I'm still convinced there's a boot override button there somewhere - never yet seen a box without one - and they are very, very useful and worth trying to find. Maybe the Dell forum?

 

Okay, I first tried plugging in the wired keyboard and tapping F2 right after turning on the pc and went to the boot list options; switch the secure boot to disabled. Then went down to Boot Mode > enter and selected Legacy. Then went down to the USB device and moved it up to the first option then went to exit and selected to save the changes and exit. Put the flash drive into the other usb port and when the pc started it started up with the acronis bootable recovery media


Out of curiosity, I went back and changed everything back to the way it was and then followed the steps that Dell gave me which were the same up to the change boot list options to legacy and inserted the flash drive, saved changes and exited the bios and started tapping the F12 key.
I then got the boot options menu (attached a pic of what it shows) and from there selected the Flash Drive in the first option (legacy boot) and hit enter and the acronis starts then as well.

So either way will work

As you stated there has to be an easier way - a boot override option somewhere and I am thinking that maybe tomorrow I will look into resetting bios to the original settings and then start off pressing F12 which I am pretty sure brought up the boot mode options (pic titled change boot mode settings) and see if selecting the first option (hitting enter) will actually bring up some sort of override option.

At this point I am just curious as to if there is one as well.

Thanks again and I will let you know what happens when I try that out.

Thanks So Very Much

 

I think that I found the shortcut to change the pc to boot from the USB drive. I plugged in the usb drive and when the pc started I kept tapping the F12 key.

From there I selected the 2nd option which showed the Kingston Flash Drive as UEFI Kingston pressed enter. The pc started showing the Kingston Flash Drive and I just selected the first option which was the Acronis recovery media and the pc started right up to the Acronis Recover !

It seems that that is the easiest and quickest way to boot to the flash drive.

I might put the acronis recovery media onto the dvd and try again and see what shows up when tapping the F12 key (just curious)

Thanks Again and Happy Holidays

 

I chose the installer version and didn't need the Visual C redistributable because it was installed with initial updates. It's configurable to run on Win startup, use the Win 7 icon and hide the icon when no updates are available. On patch Tuesday, it notified me that updates were available and when they were installed, the icon disappeared from the notification area (just like the "good old days ). The day before, it notified me of security updates for IE 11 in Win 8.1. The way I'm set up, Win Defender seems to require manual updating but notifies me when changes are made or of known programs making changes.

 

Thanks! I almost forgot about that - got sort of sidetracked on this post.

Will go and take care of that now. I know that it shouldn't be a big deal, but I just prefer to make the choice as to what and when it gets downloaded and installed.

Thanks Again - I greatly appreciate it.

Happy Holidays

 

I feel the same way.

Happy Holidays to you as well.