Solved Two Questions

[TechnoMage]

1. In Windows 8.1, my Firefox keeps a record of sites that I log into, and the passwords that I use. I'm certain that info is in a file someplace , that I could possibly copy to another PC. Firefox doesn't provide me a way to do that. ??? Firefox 'Sync' does not do that job.

2. Every time I plug a flash drive into my PC, I get a message that the drive needs to be scanned for errors. Then when I say OK, I get the report that no errors were found. How can I make Windows stop doing that? A registry entry, maybe? That's become a real PITA, with as many times a day that I plug in a flash drive to one of my PC's.

With all the expertise on this forum, I feel sure that someone can answer at least one of these questions.

Thanks guys!
TM

 

[billmcct]

The file with your website history and Bookmarks is called "places.sqlite". Copy that file to the new PC.
To transfer your Passwords copy these two files, the "key4.db and logins.json".
Personally I would just Copy the entire Profile to the new computer, then both computers will be identical.
Profile located at "C:\Users\YOUR NAME\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox".
Copy the entire "FIREFOX" folder.

As to the problem with your USB drives, I also have that same problem. I just click "NO" and keep going.

 

[TechnoMage]

Thank you sir!!! Mission Accomplished. I had some false starts, fumbles, and minor crashes, but after all that I have all my saved passwords on my new Windows 8.1 install. Whew! Now I need a beer!

Thanks again,
TM
PS: as for that annoying habit of Windows always wanting to scan every Flash Drive I plug into my PC, I still think there is a way to make it stop doing that. I'll keep looking.

 

[billmcct]

UR most welcome. I spent two months trying to figure out the USB aggravation to no avail, hence always pressing "NO".

 

[TechnoMage]

Two Months? Ahoy, Mate, I've spent YEARS cursing at that POS! But hopefully I found the solution, or should I say A Solution.
I did a web search on the problem and I found a fix for how to, "Disable Scan & Fix for Removable Drives in Windows". It was on the "How-To Geeks" website.
On experimentation, I still get the message to scan the drive, but that message quickly disappears, and I'm not forced to respond to the message.
It's at least a 98% fix. Close enough, for a country boy in a small town.

Thanks again!
TM

 

[TechnoMage]

Addendum:
We should all have that little icon in our system tray (to the left of the Clock) to: "Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media".
We should all use that to dismount a Flash Drive, before we remove it. It's hard to teach old dogs, new tricks, but, I'll try real hard to remember that, from now on, before I pull out a Flash Drive.

Cheers Mates.
I'll consider both of my two questions answered.
Thanks guys!

 

[strollin]

Is there some reason why you don't use a FireFox account that would keep all the passwords and links synced across all of your computers running FF that are logged into the account?

 

[billmcct]

I have a real problem with using the "Safely remove hardware" icon. It never works. I think because my antivirus is scanning the drives.
Since Windows Doesn't use delayed write on removable drives by default unless you intentionally set the system to do so, you wont lose data by waiting a minute and pulling the drive.

Also @strolling, He wanted his Firefox history on the new PC and I don't think FF sync copies history.

 

[TechnoMage]

I tried to use Firefox Sync, but it wanted to link to a cell phone, and I didn't want that.
Everything is working now, thanks to information I received from 'billmcct'.
I have that printed out and stashed away for future use.

My second question was answered by an old post on the "How-To Geeks" website.
Case Closed!
I don't know how to mark this thread "Solved". Maybe a Moderator could do that for me.

 

[TechnoMage]

I've never used that "Safely Remove Hardware" thingy, till now.
Maybe if I did I would not have had the problem I had yesterday, when I copied the entire "Firefox" folder to a 1TB Flash Drive, and when I tried to retrieve it on another PC, there was nothing there. Blank! Arggg!

I tried again, using a 120GB SSD on a little SSD to USB adapter that I got with my last SSD from 'Crucial'. That worked!
" If you love a mystery, get a computer " (author unknown)

I don't know if computer viruses are a thing of the past, but I've not seen one or even heard of one for several years.
(I've been in the business for over 40 years)
Most AV software that I've seen is little more than Eye Candy. A scam! Reminds me of artificial flowers...all show.

What I have found helpful is "Super Anti-Spyware", which keeps my PC's free of Tracking Cookies, and an occasional Trojan.
The FREE version works fine, I just have to run the updates and scans manually. Only the Pro (paid) version will do all that stuff automatically. I installed it on a friends computer one day, during a Clean Up, and it removed over 140,000 tracking cookies.

Laters, Mates!
TM

 

[strollin]

I tried to use Firefox Sync, but it wanted to link to a cell phone, and I didn't want that.
Everything is working now, thanks to information I received from 'billmcct'.
I have that printed out and stashed away for future use.

My second question was answered by an old post on the "How-To Geeks" website.
Case Closed!
I don't know how to mark this thread "Solved". Maybe a Moderator could do that for me.

I've never had FireFox Sync link to my cell phone. Might be some kind of 2 factor authentication?

 

[TechnoMage]

It ticks me off, how many things I want/try to do on the internet, and I get asked for my mobile number.
If I had such a thing, I would not want to splash it all over the internet.

I tried the suggestion, to just copy the whole Firefox folder from my main PC to a secondary PC. But when I copied the Firefox folder to my 1TB Flash Drive, the resulting folder came up empty! Arggg!
Then I scanned the FD with EaseUs Partion Master and the scan found Unrecoverable Errors on the 1TB FD.

After a second try turned out the same, I changed to a 32 GB San Disk FD. That worked perfectly!!
I now have all my saved passwords from Firefox on my Win-8.1 PC, transferred to Firefox on my Windows 11 Laptop.
Which I'm on right now.

Break!

Sitting here thinking about my problems with my 1TB Flash Drive, a little voice said, "check out the format!".
So I did, and it was FAT-32. I don't know how that ever happened, , , , Poltergeists I guess.
So, using EaseUS Partition Master, I changed that 1TB Flash Drive from FAT-32 to NTFS. I hope it will behave better now.

Happy Halloween, Y'all!
TM

 

[billmcct]

It probably came formatted exFAT. All I have ever had 128GB and over did.
Granted I too formatted the 512GB and 1TB drives to NTFS.

 

[SCANNERMAN]

If you find that annoying consider how ticked off I get when web sites keep asking me for a cell phone # (for security purposes). I never owned a cell and I'm certainly not planning to. So many programs these days have auto-permissions built into them and surely we know that is not a good thing. Yeah, like a fool I upgraded my laptop from 10 to 11. I'll leave it since I'm not in the mood to do a factory reset and I'll likely benefit with a little Win 11 experience. Still debating on putting Win 11 on my gaming rig. Perhaps I'll run a triple boot after I get NVMe in RAID 0 on the thing. :::shrugs::: I'm lazy.

 

[TechnoMage]

So what do y'all think of "Microsoft Edge"? I hate it, but I've been forced to download it and install it here on my Windows 8.1 PC.
I.E. 11 still works, except that some web sites I try to visit, will give me a big ERROR screen, telling me that they no longer support I.E.
Grrr!

 

[strollin]

I don't have a fondness for it, I'm sticking with FireFox.

 

[SCANNERMAN]

I don't have a fondness for it, I'm sticking with FireFox.

I did the update for the sake of keeping the stub running but FireFox is what I use. My anti-spyware settings deal with the rest of the nonsense. I also avoid the GOOGLE browser and Start Page is my choice of search engine.

 

[TechnoMage]

Well, Firefox is my every day, all day browser, but when I've already got firefox open and want to do a web search for something, I like to open up a totally different program, so as not to mess with what I have already open in Firefox. I've always used I.E. for that, but now, I've ;been forced to use Edge. It works, but that's the best I can say about it. I'll never mention it again. Promise.

 

[strollin]

Why not just open a new tab in FireFox or open a 2nd instance of FireFox?

 

[TechnoMage]

You make that sound simple, but I've had trouble with that, so I'd rather just jump to a totally different browser. That just works best for me. "and never the trains shall meet". (old railroaders' saying)