Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2019 February 1

= February 1 =

Restoring Viewed Pages with Opera?
If I am using the Opera web browser under Windows 10, and Windows crashes or my computer crashes or I flip the main switch on my power strip, is there a feature to reload the page or pages that I was viewing? I am trying to compare the advantages and disadvantages of different web browsers. Google Chrome usually restores the pages that it was viewing, but not always, and in particular not if Windows restarts. Firefox is extremely reliable at restoring the pages that it was viewing. Microsoft Edge normally restores the pages that it was viewing, but behaves oddly in sometimes reloading pages that I had tried to close, and has a few other quirks. Is there a way to have Opera restore the page or pages that it was viewing? Robert McClenon (talk) 05:38, 1 February 2019 (UTC)
 * On my Opera installation, Settings > General Tab. Set Startup to Continue from last time. YMMV --TrogWoolley (talk) 12:07, 1 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Hmmm. How do I bring up Settings to get to the General Tab?  Robert McClenon (talk) 15:51, 1 February 2019 (UTC)
 * As an aside, you shouldn't hard-shutdown your PC. There's a (small) chance of corrupting the data on your harddrive. LongHairedFop (talk) 12:09, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

Semi-Hard Shutdown
I have been advised not to hard-power-cycle my PC. Is there a procedure that I can then perform that works as effectively as a power-cycle if the PC is non-responsive and acting stupid? Don't tell me to use Ctrl-Alt-Del and select Restart. That often works very well and occasionally takes minutes. Also, that typically asks me if I really want to shut down the applications, and tries to protect the applications from being hard-stopped. Is there, first, a quick reliable way either to get the attention of the CPU, or a quick way to cause it to cease to have any attention, and, second, a quick reliable way to kill all the applications without it trying to protect me?
 * Tapping the power button can be set to do a shutdown, but its likely to do the same as using the Windows menu. Otherwise, for Windows 7, Start the taskmanager (ctrl-shift-esc), select all the programs, and press the Del key. LongHairedFop (talk) 10:10, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
 * The power button will shut it down peacefully. It works just as if you started Start Menu and selected Power off with all the programs open. You can go to Control Panel > Power Options > Choose what power buttons do, and change what it does. Unfortunately, it seems you can't make it soft reset in Windows 7. Hard resetting the PC is not dangerous for hardware unless you're running 386 or something, but it will probably wreck files that are being written to on NTFS. 93.136.72.52 (talk) 17:57, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Back button goes too far back
It might be happening on other sites, but it is happening on Wikipedia. I click on a link that takes me to another site, but when I click on the back button to go back to Wikipedia, I often go back to a page that I was on earlier, but not the one I was on immediately before clicking on the external link. I have Windows 10 and Microsoft Edge.— Vchimpanzee  •  talk  •  contributions  •  21:31, 1 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Are you sure that you did not click twice? Ruslik_ Zero 08:12, 2 February 2019 (UTC)
 * It's possible, but it's not a case of going back to the previous page. It keeps going back to the same page, actually, usually three or more pages before the one I'm trying to go to.— Vchimpanzee  •  talk  •  contributions  •  17:00, 2 February 2019 (UTC)