Archives Won't Take

Sorry, I didn't read all the way through to see that your subscription had expired.

Impulse is prob looking for them in the wrong place. In Impulse there's a "detect application" option when you click on the blue button.

Go through it as many times as necessary to change where it should look for each app. 

As for your Archives, look at the screenies below.

1.

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3. 

I'm thinking the 'Detect Application' might work as I still have the installations on the other drive until the files and folders I need to keep are copied over.  Failing that, I will have to submit a ticket with Support.

It's just my luck, though.  I have a few days until I renew my sub and my all archives are non-functioning.  What a bummer.... Windows without the eye candy.  I just thank my lucky stars that I'm on Win 7 and not XP, 'cause, for me, naked XP is intolerable to look at.

Anyhow, I'll report back when I now whether or not the 'detect app/import function works.

Good luck, me bud!

Ditto

starkers, if it doesn't work, fire off an email to [email protected] .

Nope, didn't work.  Even though the apps are in their respective folders on my other drive, Impulse says that no ne were detected when I tried to import.  Thanks for the suggestion, however.  I mean, it could very well have worked, right!

Yup, that's my next plan of attack... though if I wait until Wednesday I can renew my sub and just re-download them then.  Heck, it's only a few days, and I'm sure I can survive with basic the Win 7 UI 'til then.

Sorry it didn't work, and I don't understand why it didn't. That issue should definitely be addressed with SD Support. 

Maybe moving your OS (you're using the same OS as the one that made the archive, right?!) to the other drive did something screwy with the registry? I don't understand it any other way, since you assigned drive letters and told Impulse where to find it. Can you actually find the software in the designated locations? Did the files actually get imported?

Wait... I don't know enough computer stuff (yrag would, for sure) but could you have an incorrect drive volume or partition size? That's just an idle speculation, and probably not the problem.

I would suggest running (from elevated command prompt)  CHKDSK "X" /f /r on your disks, though. Might turn up bad sectors, etc. and be able to repair them... it certainly couldn't hurt.

You can get more info on CHKDSK and the switches here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb490876.aspx

I know I've seen that with an expired subscription you're entitled to keep the latest non-beta versions.  Are the archives you're trying to restore beta or non-beta releases? - maybe you need to uninstall and then go back to a non-beta?

i know your pain darlin, im having similar issues  xxxx

Doc, no, the apps were not able to be imported, nor were the archives working as advertised.  Impulse just returned the "app not found" answer even though I could see the location of each and every one in a open window sitting on my desktop. 

I should be able to archive and use the most up-to-date version that was available to e prior to the sub's expiry.  That is not the case, however.  I archived all my downloaded apps on installation, yet none of those archives function when called upon. 

Being that it is the Easter long weekend, I'm going to have to wait until  Tuesday next week to resolve the archive issue, but I may be able to resolve my 'naked GUI' issue sooner than that.  I transferred funds to my debit card earlier today, and there's probably enough left over, so I might just renew my sub shortly and re-download everything anew.

Yeah, bugger it!!! Why not.

Hey Kitty, 'tis good to see you, tho I wish it were under better circumstances.... you know, no 'naked Windows' pain... and shandy cascading down all around me... US.

So, how's you and the wulfie going?   Good I hope!  Hey, next time you're down at Riverlink, how about popping in for a coffee on your way home... or a Coke or 3 if you prefer?   Since we last saw you, we got one of those fangled coffee maker thingies that does all the frothy stuff on top, so the coffee's not a bad drop around here these days.

starkers, did you archive in XP or another OS? You have to use the same OS to recover the archive, if so. If not, did you run the chkdsk /f /r? to see if there were file/disk errors preventing the recovery?

I'm assuming from the OP that the OS is the same ("moved my OS").  I know I couldn't get any of my WB archives to restore, even with an active subscription, when I wanted/needed to 'downgrade' (without moving or otherwise touching my OS) & had to be provided a functioning archive by SD support before I could do so.  I think there is a glitch of some sort in the auto-archive function in Impulse (the restore works fine with the 'right' archive).  I suspect it isn't encountered often because restoring from an archive is relatively infrequent.

I've not attempted to restore any apps other than WB, but sounds like Starkers is having problems across the board.  I anticipate SD support will do right by him; they're good that way.

I agree with you, Daiwa. Also, that SD support will do right by the Pirate King... running chkdsk /f /r never hurts. I also think that what we've suggested he do to recover the archive should have helped... iff he is using the same OS. That does make a difference. Maybe computer identity makes a difference. That's another thing that wouldn't surprise me (as a security feature in the program).

I'm thinking it's a glitch in Impulse because it is the same OS [Win 7] on the same PC.  Oh, and the HDD I'm using is new... as in used once previously for an Acronis backup.

I did run chkdsk on the drive and all came back healthy there.  That was not the case on the previous [old] HDD, however... had bad sectors that seem to have corrupted some things, and why I had to migrate to this newer drive.  Yeah there were quite a few things that started to go wrong and I didn't want to replicate them... otherwise I would have simply cloned the partition to the new HDD or run a backup with Acronis and saved myself a heap of time having to reinstall everything from scratch,

Oh well, it'll all come out in the wash.

Okay, so I'm back to square one!!!!   Once my subscription was renewed I reinstalled all my apps via Impulse, but unfortunately I had to migrate my OS yet again due to another HDD failure, and again the archives do not work.  I thought: "Oh goody, I made a backup of my archives, so I won't have to re-download them all again.  Wrong!!!!  When I attempt to restore any archived app, it goes through all the motions and says it is installed for a brief moment, and then it goes back to being 'available'. 

All Object Desktops apps do it as well as my non subscription apps, CursorFX, ObjectDock and Natural Desktop, etc. Now I have tried resetting the data and running as administrator, yet the problem still exists and I'm fresh out of ideas, so if anyone from support is reading this, please advise as to how I can successfully archive and restore apps for future reference. 

For now, however, I am going to re-download the apps I most use as I have lost patience messing around with things... and understandably so.   After 2 HDD's dying and having to reinstall everything from scratch yet again, I'm simply not in the mood to be looking at naked Windows.  Sure Win 7 is prettier than XP ever was, but it is still a far cry from a screen dressed with Windowblinds, Iconpackager and CursorFX... three essentials to my desktop happiness.

Well I've ascertained that I can download and archive apps, then install them successfully from the created archive. So it's not that Impulse cannot restore archivest... it just won't restore those archives created by the right click on an app and archive method.

Now it wouldn't be that the archives were created on another HDD, would it?  I mean, hardware can and does die, so what would be the point of archives if you can't relocate to another physical drive?  It would be defeating the purpose, right?

I also figure that it shouldn't be because I'm trying to restore archives created on a mechanical drive to a SSD... both are capable of receiving data of all types so it shouldn't matter, right?

Another thing that 'd be good.... add 'Restore From Archive' to the right click menu in Impulse.  If the archive exists it would make things a bit easier... and if no archive exists it remains inactive.

Make sense?

The catch is that to 'download and archive' you need an active subscription.

If the only way an archive is restorable is by way of the 'download and archive' function, then that's the only way Impulse should allow/do it and Impulse should prompt you in some way.

Simply archiving an app should not be an option (unless it gets fixed), since doing so gives the entirely false impression that you have created a restorable archive.  It makes zero sense to me to have an archive function from which archives cannot be restored.  Whether this is a 'bug' or a 'feature' is becoming less & less clear over time.

Unfortunately, this will have to wait to get sorted out with whatever application SD develops to replace Impulse, since I doubt the Gamestop crew will take much interest in issues with the desktop enhancement apps (I could be wrong).

When you created the first batch of archives - the ones that won't restore - did you use the straight "Archive" function or the "Download and Archive" function?  I'm thinking the "Download and Archive" function would probably be what a person would have to use to switch (certain) hardware, otherwise a bunch of machine-specific settings are probably going to be included in the archives.  For example, I'm betting the machine doesn't see your new C: drive or whatever as the same drive, even though you've assigned it the same letter, or maybe it doesn't see your new login as the files owner even if you're using the same user name you were before.  (The user name isn't just the name you've picked, the machine also assigns an machine jibberish version to it.)  I've run into both of those issues before when trying to restore general backups using other software.

I don't really know the answer, but I would like to.  I'd hate to think I'm accumulating all these archives for nothing.

I'd imagine there's more than one way it could get screwed up.  His problem might not be your problem.

Dave, the archive function, so we were told some time back, is only OS specific, not hardware specific.... as in you cannot restore a XP archive in Win 7, but you can restore an archive on a HDD replacement.  Well that's what I understood from a previous thread on the matter.  And no, I'm not too impressed that I created and carried a couple of sets of archives for nothing

Yeah, that's a worry! With the direction Impulse has taken - 99% game oriented - I wonder if there'll be any Stardock desktop enhancements in the near future at all.  Yes, it certainly is all about gaming, and with Object Desktop playing second fiddle to games over the last couple of years or so, one might wonder if is has a use-by date... a planned obsolescence, so to speak.  I'd like to think I'm stressing over nothing, and I have raised this question before, but a definitive answer was never forthcoming.

Impulse is in the hands of GameStop now, it has no bearing on the future development of Stardock apps.  A new, simpler solution is in the works for updates and downloads, but I can't be any more specific as there is much work to be done.