facebook - CURL File with post parameter

How to make a request for uploading a file to facebook using graph api in curl

I am making this request but getting Error:

curl https://graph.facebook.com//photos  -F "source=@me.jpg"  -d "message=Me"  -v

ERR:

Only One Http Request can be Selected

Answer

You can't use -F and -d together, since they use different content types, and you need multipart/form-data. So try with:

https://graph.facebook.com//photos -F "source=@me.jpg" -F "message=Me" -v

From man curl:

-F/--form

(HTTP) This lets curl emulate a filled-in form in which a user has pressed the submit button. This causes curl to POST data using the Content-Type multipart/form-data according to RFC2388. This enables uploading of binary files etc. To force the 'content' part to be a file, prefix the file name with an @ sign. To just get the content part from a file, prefix the file name with the symbol <. The difference between @ and < is then that @ makes a file get attached in the post as a file upload, while the < makes a text field and just get the contents for that text field from a file.

hard drive - HDD S.M.A.R.T. information

Hello. Yesterday I was trying to install a program, when it got stuck. Afterwards, I saw a notice from Windows saying I should back up my data. I know if S.M.A.R.T. tells you something is wrong, then it's very bad news... I did some scans and found a very large number of bad sectors somewhere after the first half of the HDD. Can I do something to make it last for at least until summer, after I'm done with college? I really can't afford a new HDD.

Answer

Once it starts to fail, it will never get any better - a hard drive will not "heal".

You backup & replace now, or one day your machine simply will not start & then you are in real trouble.

Attempting to 'patch' round a dying drive is the equivalent of taking your car to the mechanic to get the horn fixed...because your brakes failed.

windows 7 - What is the difference between my admin account and the "Administrator"?

I created an admin profile (Admin1) when I installed Windows 7 Pro (not talking about the Administrator profile though). Admin1 is in group of Administrators but there are still things I can't do like modify certain files or install rights unless I log in as Administrator.

What's the difference between my Admin1 (which is in Administrators group) and Administrator?

Answer

If you didn't turn of User Account Control, by default in Windows 7 the Built-in Administrator account doesn't require privilege elevation, while users you create and put in Administrators group do.

That is if you want to do anything that requires Administrators rights with the account you created and placed in Administrators group you will have to either confirm the privilege elevation when requested by Consent UI or do run as Administrator by right clicking the application and selecting the option.

In case of MSI packets if you don't get the Consent UI, you have to start command prompt as Administrator (run as) and start the MSI from that command prompt session.

In case of system files that means the following:

If you lets say want to modify hosts file (or some other file that requires Administrator rights) with the account you created and placed in Administrators you will have to right click some text editor (like Notepad) and select run as Administrator and then open the hosts file from the File menu by selecting Open.

windows 10 - Why does compact.exe suddenly start to compress my disk?

I've used Windows 10 since the launch, but the File Compress Utility process(compact.exe) suddenly started to compress my hard disk a few days ago. I didn't touch any settings on the system. Why is this happening at all? It's not just the operating system files, but several folders in my home are compressed, including Desktop, AppData, and .android. Is there a way to know which files are affected so that I can uncompress them?

I enabled Do not allow compression on all NTFS volumes, and also ran compact.exe /CompactOS:never, and the compressing somehow stopped, but it's running again now. Running compact.exe /CompactOS:Query reports it's in the compact state.

microsoft word - How can I print a document out so that each page is printed twice as small on each page?

How can I (in Word or Open Office) print out a document so that each page is printed twice, two times as small, and rotated on each page, like this:

Answer

You can do this using PDF creator

1. Download and install PDF creator


2. In Word or OpenOffice, go to Print options, choose 2 copies, untick 'Collate', set the printer to 'PDF creator'. Click Print.
   


3. On the PDF creator screen choose Options.
   



4. On the Options screen, choose Print and tick the 'Print after saving' checkbox. Save the options, and Save the PDF.
   


5. You will be prompted to print the document, choose the 'PDF printer' again.
   


6. Save this second PDF. You will be prompted again to print the document, choose Cancel this time.


7. Open the second PDF file in a PDF viewer. It should contain 2 copies of each page.


8. In the PDF viewer, go to Print options and change Page Scaling to 'Multiple pages per sheet'. Change pages per sheet to 2. Print the final document to a real printer.
   

Remember to go back into the PDFcreator options and untick the 'Print after saving' checkbox when you are finished.

windows - What is using 20GB of memory & why doesn't it show up in task manager?

Overnight, some unknown memory leak clogged up 20GB/24GB on my system. I've closed everything yet the leak persists. Running latest Windows 10.

How can I track down what is causing it?

• All software up-to-date


• No other users ever use this system


• Nothing stands out in task manager


• Nothing using too much CPU

windows - Ctrl+Tab not working in any programs

Visual Studio, Sublime Text, Chrome, Firefox, you name it. All the apps with tab-cycling on Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab are no longer working on my Windows PC - that is, Ctrl+Shift+Tab still works, but Ctrl+Tab does not.

I tried using TeamViewer to a friend's PC to see if it was a keyboard issue (I know, I'm smart like that), and it worked fine. I have not installed any programs lately, and it just started happening. Restarting does not work.

When attempting to assign a key to a shortcut in Visual Studio, the Ctrl+Tab combination does not validate, but Ctrl+Shift+Tab does. However, in my Logitech G-Series profile manager, I can assign that command to one of the extra keys, and it validates, but it still does not work!

What could be the reason behind this?

I am using Windows 8.1.

Running Windows in Safe Mode makes the problem go away, but not when running with a clean boot (as suggested by @Ramhound). Malwarebytes and Windows Defender report 0 threats.

Answer

If you have NVidia Geforce Experience installed, a recent update is breaking the use of the ctrl+tab key. I had the same issue and fixed it by reinstalling Geforce Experience.

Here's a thread on NVidia's forums with others reporting the same issue: https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/776837/?comment=4316352

How can I prevent the privacy warning in Excel?

I have Excel 2007. When I want to save a spreadsheet, I often see this message:

I've seen this with macro spreadsheets (using the .xlsm extension) and with non-macro sheets (using the .xlsx extension).

How can I prevent this warning every time I save my spreadsheet?

Answer

Disable document inspector in the Trust Center.

Note: picture may not be exact as I use Office 2010.

Step by step instructions (for 2007):

1. Office orb


2. Excel options


3. Trust Center


4. Trust Center Settings...


5. Uncheck Remove personal information from file properties on save


6. OK


7. OK

ubuntu - How to make a bootable windows 7 USB (UEFI)

I have been banging my head against the wall for weeks with this problem.

The Problem: I have ubuntu installed on my laptop and I want to dual boot with windows.

Background:

I'm trying to install 64 bit windows.

I have tried tools such as winusb, and the newer fork of it, these did not work.

Using rufus or a similar tool, I was able to make a usb that would boot but only in MBR / legacy boot mode. I need to boot in UEFI mode.

for rufus I followed the instructions found here:

http://www.techfleece.com/2015/07/08/how-to-create-a-bootable-windows-usb-drive-using-rufus/

Afterwards, I followed the instructions found here:

https://onetransistor.blogspot.cz/2014/09/make-bootable-windows-usb-from-ubuntu.html

This was the closest I have gotten, I was able to boot from the USB in UEFI mode, but it gives me an error:

Windows failed to start...


Status 0xc0000225

I have tried using different USB sticks, and even different windows iso's. No success.

Any suggestions?

All the iso's I have been using have been windows 7 iso's, am I better off using a windows 8 or 10 iso? I would really prefer not to.

Does anyone have experience making a bootable windows 7 usb? If so what method did you use? Any help much appreciated.

Another note:
The laptop came with windows pre-installed, I read on the ubuntu website that could be the problem. see the following link (toward the bottom of the page):

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot

Does this mean it is not possible to dual boot with a laptop that came with windows pre-installed???

linux - Fix MBR and partition table of windows 7 hdd/installation

Apparently the partition table still seems to be somewhere in tact, as well as all the files. Debian is able to mount the ntfs partitions, I can read/write and I am using dd to image the data onto an external HDD at the moment.

fdisk:

# fdisk -l /dev/sdb
Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x17557a4b
   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *        2048      206847      102400    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb2          206848   251903999   125848576    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb3       251906048   503603199   125848576    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb4       503605620   976784129   236589255    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
Partition 4 does not start on physical sector boundary.
/dev/sdb5       503607296   557346815    26869760    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb6       557348864   976769023   209710080    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

ms-sys:

ms-sys /dev/sdb
/dev/sdb has an x86 boot sector,
it is an unknown boot record

parted:

# parted /dev/sdb
GNU Parted 2.3
Using /dev/sdb
Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
(parted) print list
Error: Can't have a partition outside the disk!

gparted shows unallocated partition of unallocated file system. Going on partition information shows same error as parted.

# gpart /dev/sdb
*** Fatal error: dev(/dev/sdb): seek failure.

MBR dump:

# dd if=/dev/sdb of=/media/seagate-a/mbr.bin bs=512 count=1
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
512 bytes (512 B) copied, 9.4563e-05 s, 5.4 MB/s
root@carbon:/home/martin# hexdump -C -s 512 /media/seagate-a/mbr.bin
00000200  fc 31 c0 8e d0 31 e4 8e  d8 8e c0 be 00 7c bf 00  |.1...1.......|..|
00000210  06 b9 00 01 f3 a5 be ee  07 b0 08 ea 20 06 00 00  |............ ...|
00000220  80 3e b3 07 ff 75 04 88  16 b3 07 80 3c 00 74 04  |.>...u......<.t.|
00000230  08 06 af 07 83 ee 10 d0  e8 73 f0 90 90 90 90 90  |.........s......|
00000240  90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90  90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90  |................|
*
00000270  90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90  90 90 90 90 90 90 be be  |................|
00000280  07 b0 00 b9 04 00 80 3c  00 75 6e fe c0 83 c6 10  |.......<.un.....|
00000290  e2 f4 31 db b4 0e be 9d  07 8a 0e af 07 ac d0 e9  |..1.............|
000002a0  73 02 cd 10 08 c9 75 f5  b0 3a cd 10 31 c0 cd 16  |s.....u..:..1...|
000002b0  3c 00 74 f8 be 8b 07 b9  02 00 e8 ba 00 3c 0d 74  |<.t..........<.t|
000002c0  b4 3c 61 72 06 3c 7a 77  02 2c 20 88 c3 be 9d 07  |.000002d0  8a 0e af 07 ac d0 e9 73  04 38 c3 74 06 08 c9 75  |.......s.8.t...u|
000002e0  f3 eb af b8 0d 0e 31 db  cd 10 8d 84 62 00 3c 07  |......1.....b.<.|
000002f0  75 07 b0 1f a2 af 07 eb  99 31 d2 b9 01 00 3c 04  |u........1....<.|
00000300  74 11 73 f3 30 e4 b1 04  d2 e0 be be 07 01 c6 8a  |t.s.0...........|
00000310  16 b3 07 bf 05 00 56 f6  c2 80 74 31 b4 41 bb aa  |......V...t1.A..|
00000320  55 52 cd 13 5a 5e 56 72  1e 81 fb 55 aa 75 18 f6  |UR..Z^Vr...U.u..|
00000330  c1 01 74 13 8b 44 08 8b  5c 0a be 8d 07 89 44 08  |..t..D..\.....D.|
00000340  89 5c 0a b4 42 eb 0c 8a  74 01 8b 4c 02 b8 01 02  |.\..B...t..L....|
00000350  bb 00 7c 50 c6 06 8f 07  01 cd 13 58 5e 73 05 4f  |..|P.......X^s.O|
00000360  75 b4 eb 93 81 3e fe 7d  55 aa 75 f6 ea 00 7c 00  |u....>.}U.u...|.|
00000370  00 be 83 07 b9 0a 00 50  b4 0e 31 db ac cd 10 e2  |.......P..1.....|
00000380  fb 58 c3 54 65 73 74 44  69 73 6b 0d 0a 10 00 01  |.X.TestDisk.....|
00000390  00 00 7c 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 31 32 33  |..|..........123|
000003a0  34 46 00 00 41 4e 44 54  6d 62 72 00 02 02 02 1f  |4F..ANDTmbr.....|
000003b0  c7 00 00 80 00 00 00 00  4b 7a 55 17 cf c9 80 20  |........KzU.... |
000003c0  21 00 07 df 13 0c 00 08  00 00 00 20 03 00 00 df  |!.......... ....|
000003d0  14 0c 07 fe ff ff 00 28  03 00 00 98 00 0f 00 fe  |.......(........|
000003e0  ff ff 07 fe ff ff 00 c8  03 0f 00 98 00 0f 00 fe  |................|
000003f0  ff ff 0f fe ff ff 74 69  04 1e 8e 21 34 1c 55 aa  |......ti...!4.U.|
00000400
# file /media/seagate-a/mbr.bin
/media/seagate-a/mbr.bin: x86 boot sector; partition 1: ID=0x7, active, starthead 32, startsector 2048, 204800 sectors; partition 2: ID=0x7, starthead 223, startsector 206848, 251697152 sectors; partition 3: ID=0x7, starthead 254, startsector 251906048, 251697152 sectors; partition 4: ID=0xf, starthead 254, startsector 503605620, 473178510 sectors, code offset 0x31

The windows 7 installation resides on /dev/sdb2. /dev/sdb1 used to be System Reserved.

I've tried to 'regenerate' the MBR using ms-sys --mbr7 /dev/sdb and testdisk so I believe I have completely mangled the MBR and anything that is dependent on it to the point where the whole thing has to be 'regenerated' - MBR and partition table. Miraculously Debian is still able to operate the partitions so not all hope is lost - right?

I would like to 'regenerate' the MBR as such that I can boot from this drive into my windows 7 installation. Are there tools that can help me in this situation?

Windows 10 Compressing Memory When Not Needed

I see a lot of posts regarding people asking how to turn off memory compression, whether paging is a good idea etc, with the consensus reply always being that "Windows 10 knows best" and won't compress memory unless it needs to.

I bought a new laptop with 32gigs of ram, and I'd be willing to sign an affidavit in a court of law that the usage has never, ever gone above 19GB of ram, and only then whilst playing a game with a machine learning process training in the background.

Nevertheless, my "in use" and compressed memory right now is 15.GB (2.5GB compressed). Why is Windows compressing memory when it doesn't need to?
Multitasking is still fast, however when I resume some old open applications, it sometimes still takes a few seconds for them to become responsive.

I realize, based on prior discussions, that disabling memory compression, paging etc will most likely not fix this problem and will instead make the system unstable. I realize also that a lot of professionals actually believe that Windows 10 will only compress or page memory when it needs to.

I speak from experience that this is not true. Windows is compressing/paging memory when it does not need to, and when it has never, since its installation, reached close to its maximum capacity.

With this in mind, given infinite ram, is there any way to disable the delay when alt-tabbing to old processes that were never shut? To me this is a fundamental design flaw if there is no way to disable this delay, whatever the cause, if the user were in theory to have an infinite amount of ram, and Windows 10 would nevertheless compress ram anyway.

How to tell Windows 10 when it is convenient to INSTALL updates?

Even though I leave my computer on virtually 24/7, it's like Windows 10 picks the worst possible times to put my system on heavy load to install updates, making it a pain while I'm trying to work and straight up ruining my gaming sessions.

I've been going through the Windows Update settings, and options related to when it can restart after an update are all over the place, but I can't find one to tell it when it is allowed to install them in the first place.

This option even exists? I've been Googling the stuff but the results are polluted with unrelated Windows Update troubleshooting and I couldn't get anywhere.

hard drive - HDD constantly making a power-up noise

I have two hard drives installed on my system - WD Caviar Black 500GB (primary one) and a Samsung Spinpoint F4 320GB (used for storage). The first one has been in use for a year and the second one for four years.
The problem I am experiencing is a peculiar one, often when I (or a piece of software, doesn't matter) have to read data from the disk, it makes a power-up or a spin-up noise (a long buzz followed by a click), but not always.
This sound is perfectly normal when turning the PC on or off but not in between. I also don't know which one of the two drives is actually making the noise but I'd guess it is the primary one.
Hard Disk Sentinel says that both of them are in perfect shape (no weak sectors or anything like that) and that they pass the S.M.A.R.T test - status "OK" on all of the values and "Always passing" on most of them.

This has been going for about six months, I believe, but there have been no serious problems with either of the drives even though I suspect that one of them is dying.

Cannot upload pictures so I am posting links instead.

HD Sentinel - http://i.imgur.com/3VGDRcV.png (Samsung's Raw Read Error Rate is weird)

Speccy snapshot (hope it's not too much bother): http://www.speedyshare.com/mwMWn/system-specs.speccy

Additionally, the PSU I have is a Corsair TX750.

I will, of course, provide more information if needed. Thank you all in advance.

Answer

If you have the drives set to power down when not used, it's "normal" to hear regular "spin up" sounds when you access a drive after some inactivity (and this may also occur occasionally when background tasks access the drive).

Depending on your OS version and the vendor-supplied power management software there may be a way to turn on and off and adjust the timeout for the power down of inactive drives.

However, if you hear a drive repeatedly "spinning up" again and again over periods of a minute or three it usually means that something is wrong with the drive (it's failing to start up), and quite probably you will notice that your computer is "hung" while this occurs.

usb - "Windows was unable to complete the format" - Can't format flashdrive!

I have a 8GB Sandisk Cruzer USB flash drive that I had ruined a while back trying to make it bootable. Anyway now when I click on it I get a message that it needs to be reformatted to be used. So when I try to do that, the formatting starts and suddenly ends with the message "Windows was unable to complete the format".

This happens no matter which file system I choose (NTFS, FAT32, exFat) and also which computer I try this on. I am now on a Windows 7 32-bit OS and before tries it on a Vista Home Basic machine.

Anyone know any way around this issue?

How to create extra Excel sheets showing data sorted differently

I have an Excel spreadsheet with around 10 columns and 100 rows...

Depending on context, I want to see the data in different orders, e.g.

• Scenario A
  
  
  
  • Sort spreadsheet by Column 1
  
  


• Scenario B
  
  
  
  • Sort spreadsheet by Column 3, 6, 2 (descending)
  
  


• Scenario C
  
  
  
  • Sort spreadsheet by Column 1, 2, 4, 3
  
  

etc...

It's driving me nuts keeping changing the sort order...

Is there a way to create additional Sheets that each show the data from the first sheet, just sorted in different orders

Then I could have sheets called e.g.

• Master Data


• Scenario A


• Scenario B


• Scenario C

hard drive - The mystery of the Undead HDD. How can this happen?

The short version

I had a disk die on me a year ago. It had been a full-on click of death; the system couldn't see anything let alone mount it. A year later, I stumbled across the same disk, mountable and readable. How can this happen?

The Background

About a year ago, I had a horrible "Click of Death" from the boot disk in my Linux box (the disk also had nearly everything else on it apart from my VMs). I asked Hard Disk makes "Click, click, click ..." noise on system start. Won't boot at the time, seeking help to diagnose the issue, and checking if there was any way to get my data back. In fact, the answers were what taught me the term "Click of Death."

The outcome was I swapped in another disk from an unused workstation and rebuilt the system then restored what files I could from a recent backup. I also greatly strengthened my backup regieme and proceeded to go about my life / work.

As an afterthought I left the dead disk in the unused system I had grabbed its' replacement from. Not sure why, I just did.

Then history repeats itself

Nearly a year later, the same thing happened. This time, my better backup regieme means no important stuff has been lost.

Anyway I commence rebuilding the system, firstly grabbing a snapshot of my VMs from the other disk that's in there. During this time I had cause to fire up the other workstation I'd grabbed the now-dead disk from in the first place and booted from a live cd.

Here begins the mystery

Whilst checking the health of the unused system's second disk, I noticed that not only was the original dead disk powered up, but that Ubuntu had managed to mount it, and I could see all the files. This had not happened last year when I tried the exact same thing just after the disk failed. Naturally, I copied everything remotely important off it, and dropped it to a USB disk. The backups I restored from at the last rebuild meant my total lossage last year was minimal, but still I now have the luxury of looking for a few things I couldn't restore.

The upshot

In short I have a disk that died a year ago. It was dead, gone, kaput. No box I plugged it into could see that the disk was even there, let alone mount anything. Now, a year later it's back to life.

How is this even possible? And is this disk in any way trustworthy?

Answer

In short no the "dead disk" is not trustworthy. You may find that after some period of time and usage that the disk will die again, once the drive heats up.

It has been known for drives with the "click of death" to become recoverable after a period of time, or by using tricks like the freezer method. But in any case I would not use this drive as a system drive or save any important information on to it.

laptop - Dell Latitude E6410 RAM upgrade

I am upgrading my laptop's RAM. Currently it has Samsung RAM PC3. I inserted two different RAMs and they both hung the system. The new RAMs are PC3L.

I just read that this might be the problem. Can anyone tell me more about this? I have read that PC3 RAMs and PC3L RAMs are interchangeable, then why this problem?

MemTest x86 gave "Unexpected Interrupt" error in both the newer RAMs. The RAMs are not faulty, they were working in other systems.

SPECS:

• Dell Latitude E6410


• Intel Core i7 920M


• 4 GB RAM
  
  
  
  
  • 2 x 2GiB Samsung M471B5673FH0-CF8)
  
  
  
  • SODIMM (Small outline DIMM, aka laptop memory)
  
  
  • Memory type: DDR3
  
  
  • Sold as 1067 MHz (0.9 ns). (Runs at 533MHz)
  
  
  • Also branded as type PC3-8500
  
  
  • Runs at 1.5v and 1.35v
  
  


• New RAMs:
  
  
  
  
  • Samsung 4GB PC3L (4GiB M471B5173BH0-YK0)
  
  
  
  • SODIMM.
  
  
  • DDR3
  
  
  • Sold at 1600MHz (runs at 800MHz)
  
  
  • PC3-12800 (more bandwidth than PC3-8500)
  
  
  • Low Voltgage (1.35v)
  
  

Answer

For the E6410, Dell states that this laptop only supports 1333mhz max. Your new memory is 1600mhz, even if you say it "runs at 800mhz". There is no indication that this motherboard will work with low-voltage memory, either. Why not buy memory that is intended to be compatible with your motherboard?

unix - GParted failing to shrink hfs+ partition; Mac OSX disk utility reporting no space left

I'm trying to make a spot for Ubuntu on my external drive from which I boot my mac. Right now, the drive has only one partition, an hfs+ partition that stores Mac OS X.

I'm using gparted to modify the drive from another computer running linux. However, GParted stalls forever on the "shrinking" step at the substep "shrinking partition (using libparted)"

I've tried doing the same think - modifying the drive using Disk Utility from a computer running Mac OS X - and disk utility fails reporting "no space left on device."

What could be the problem here? I don't yet have 10 reputation on here like I do on Stack Overflow, so I can't post a screenshot of the problem.

Thanks in advance for any replies!

-Chase

boot - Is there some universal way of booting up an ISO image without burning it to a DVD/CD?

Most of the tools out there that "burn bootable ISO to USB" rely on specific OS information. Is there some universal way to boot up El Torito bootable ISO without burning it to DVD or CD (and instead using for example USB)?

Maybe some special boot-manager will do?

I'm using Windows 10 and Opensuse Tumbleweed. I've my own EFI Partition with rEFInd and my EFI firmware have an boot-entry for it.

Especially I remember back in the time that there was something like this which copied the ISO image file (.iso) and some GRUB DOS bootloader into my USB flash which then essentially boot up the ISO image.

windows vista - How can I login to my dads PC without knowing his password?

Possible Duplicates:
Windows: How to reset the administrator password?
Windows 7 administrator Password lost! How can I login windows 7 without password?

My dad passed away 2 weeks and I cant find his password anywhere. The password hint is "car reg" but I have tried all the cars that he has had.

I dont want wipe the PC but he is the admin user and I wont be able to install anything for my mum.

Any ideas? Its Windows Vista!

macos - Macbook's internal hard drive shutting down every 10-15 seconds

I upgraded my Macbook's internal hard drive from a 400GB Western Digital Scorpio Blue to a 750GB Scorpio Blue and restored from Time Machine. Despite my energy saver settings, the new drive shuts down after only 15 seconds of inactivity! Then, when I try to do anything, I get greeted with the beach ball while the drive spins up. If I play a song (with the sound off), the HD never spins down; I have been doing this to prevent beach balls. The drive spins down within 10 seconds of stopping the song.

Here are the results of pmset:

~$ pmset -g
Active Profiles:
Battery Power       -1
AC Power        -1*
Currently in use:
 womp       0
 lidwake    1
 halfdim    1
 sms        1
 hibernatefile  /var/vm/sleepimage
 disksleep  0
 sleep      45
 hibernatemode  3
 ttyskeepawake  1
 displaysleep   10
 acwake     0
 autorestart    0

And, SpindownHD shows that the drive is always active, even though I can hear it shut down. Is this a bad disk? Is there something else I can try? Sorta related, is there a way to monitor hard drive RPM?

Thanks,
Lou

Answer

You might try using hdapm to make the drive less aggressive about spinning down.

windows - Batch file, copy files beginning with (A,B,C,D,E)

Instead of running xcopy 6 times, is there a way to define an array of files to copy?

xcopy \\\from_location\\(A,B,C,D,E)*.txt \\\to_location\

windows 8.1 - Internal hard disk not found

I have a Dell Inspiron 14R 5421, which I got in April 2013. Recently while turning on the laptop, a message would appear: "Internal hard disk not found, to resolve this issue try to reseat the drive." I don't really do that because I'm afraid i might ruin something inside, considering this is a 4 year old laptop. I've read somewhere that disabling secure boot mode solves this issue. How do I solve this issue? thanks

Answer

If it worked before, its probably not secureboot. If the system tells you to reseat the drive, its a good idea to try. I've done hard drive replacements a few times without a service manual and its not rocket surgery. Besides the computer is telling you do do this. It isn't that dangerous.

Just grab a copy of the owner's manual from dell. Its a pretty trivial process, and the manual covers removing the cover, and the hard drive tray,as well as replacing them. Reseat the drive as instructed. If its still not detected, try the hard drive elsewhere to see if its really dead, and replace it if needed.

While not as easy as a desktop, most modern laptops are not all that hard to work on or fragile. If you're still worried, its a 10 minute job for any decent tech.

Word to PDF loses quality of chart

If I save (or File-> Export) a .docx document to .pdf, I lose quality of image.
I want to save the file as pdf (instead of printing it to pdf) to retain the bookmarks of the text (from the titles). If I print to pdf, the generated pdf does not have the bookmarks and I don't know where to set it on Word.
(the print to pdf is interesting because I can choose non-contiguous pages to generate the pdf, but I lose the ability to generate the pdf with bookmars - but that is another problem)

The original image is a chart from Excel, that I copied on the body of text in Word.

The pdf file generates this horrible figure.

I don't understand why this happens. Why does it happen? Any warkaround?

Answer

You have probably embedded the picture from Excel as a bitmap image
(or a similar format) of a certain
resolution, and are trying to print or display it at a higher resolution.

What you are seeing is the general case of enlarging a bitmap image,
where the pixels themselves become visible as small squares or rectangles.

You should export the image from Excel as .emf or .wmf, which are formats
of vector images that can be scaled up infinitely.
I don't know what you are doing exactly and so don't know if you will have
that option.

If you are pasting the picture into Word, use the option of
"Paste Special...", found under the icon "Paste" on the ribbon's Home pane,
and choose the option of "Picture (Enhanced Metafile)" (or similar wording).
If you don't see that option, review the way that you are copying the image
from Excel.

Windows Updates stopped working with error 0x80244010 and 0x80070003

After releasing the November 2016 updates in WSUS we encounter the following situation:

• All physical clients (4 x W7) stopped to download updates from the local WSUS


• All virtual clients (2 x W7) are working correctly

Errors

• Error 0x80244010 is reported in the local windows update logs

From my experience this means to wait a little bit longer for the updates. In this case nothing changed the next two days.

After that we tried the following for the next days:

• Stopping local update client; deleting C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution


• Forcing windows updates (wuauclt /resetauthorization /detectnow; wuauclt /reportnow)


• Reinstalling the local Windows Update Client


• Trying to directly synchronize against Microsoft Updates instead of the local WSUS


• Running the "Windows Update Diagnostic" from http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9830262

0x80070003 as Result of Windows Update Diagnostic

Result of the "System Update Readiness tool"

No errors are shown:

=================================
Checking System Update Readiness.
Binary Version 6.1.7601.22471
Package Version 26.0
2016-11-19 12:59


Checking Windows Servicing Packages

Checking Package Manifests and Catalogs

Checking Package Watchlist

Checking Component Watchlist

Checking Packages


Checking Component Store

Summary:
Seconds executed: 3098
 No errors detected

Addtional Informations

• I'm checking this with two W7 clients, the newest and the oldest one


• The server is a Windows 2008 R2


• Two virtual W7 clients are working correctly

Answer

The error 0x80244010 means:

//
// MessageId: WU_E_PT_EXCEEDED_MAX_SERVER_TRIPS

//
// MessageText:
//
// The number of round trips to the server exceeded the maximum limit.
//
#define WU_E_PT_EXCEEDED_MAX_SERVER_TRIPS _HRESULT_TYPEDEF_(0x80244010L)

So this is Windows Update related and so sfc and System Update Readiness tool can't fix this issue.

You should always have he latest Windows Update Client installed. The last one is part of the July 2016 Rollup, which also fixes slow Windows Update search and maybe your error messages.

arch linux - Making bootable USB flash drive with dd

I'm trying to make my 32GB flash drive bootable with archlinux. Beginning from release 2010.05, all ISO files can be directly written to USB media.
So, what I've did:

dd if=archlinux.iso of=/dev/sdc

Copying has succesfully finished, but I still can't boot from my flash drive.

Are there any additional things, that I should to do? Or, maybe, some flash drive is not able to be bootable? Or what I've missed?

Answer

Oh, problem was on computer side. And it start to works, when I manually chose my flash drive to boot.

But I don't know why the boot device priority with flash drive on the top hadn't made the same effect.

Non-RAID Multi-Drive NAS setup?

I'm looking to setup some kind of network storage device, which can take multiple drives (preferable 3 or more) and still see them as separate drives which I can slot in or take out at any time without affecting the others. I gather that NAS devices that provides RAID or JBOD would not work in this situation.

The drives needs to be accessible from the 8 computers around the house simultaneously as well. The reason I'm looking for this is so that I can purchase additional HDDs for shared storage by the family as and when it is required, as opposed to purchasing multiple add-on drives for each PC, or moving around an external HDD.(Just caused physical damage to a Seagate FreeAgent Pro when it got tipped over accidentally while in operation over the weekend and lost all data - it WAS the backup drive.) I'd probably use the first 2 disks as a shared network-accessible storage area for the family, while using the 3rd or 4th as space for manual backup.

Any recommendations? Thanks.

EDIT TO ADD DETAILS: I would prefer a dedicated solution that would allow for lower power consumption, heat generation, small physical footprint, and ease of upgradability/maintenance.

I need the device to allow multiple physical disks to be seen as multiple logical drives so that users can choose exactly which drive they want their data to go into, and so that in the event of the device's failure, I can easily take any of the other disks, connect it to a computer and read data off it. I understand that with RAID you can't do that until you rebuilt the RAID array. Also, some data may be more valuable than others, so I have opted for a more manual way of backup (as opposed to automatic mirroring) where users have the choice of copying important files to all the disks, and only one or two disks for the less important files. It's certainly seems a bit more of a hassle, but it can gain us some flexibility in space usage and the usual problems that comes with recovering from RAID arrays.

Answer

Microsoft has a paper on Windows Home Server Drive Extender
(warning: this is a Microsoft Word document). 
Regarding recovery:

If the home server fails completely,
all the surviving drives can be
attached to a computer that is not
even running Windows Home Server Drive
Extender, and you can copy the files
from the drives to that computer.
Because the files retain their
original names and paths (under the
\DE directory), the files can be used
with no specific recovery steps.

Apparently Drive Extender is flexible as it supports external (USB/Firewire) hard drives as well. You first have to notify it that you will be removing a drive and it will begin copying off any files that are not duplicated onto the remaining drives.

Another advantage is that it supports RDC so you can manage it from any computer as if you were sitting at the console, and RDC really is fast enough to make you believe your monitor is connected to the machine.

If you have your own hardware, WHS is about USD 92 at newegg. Otherwise you can buy appliance-type machines with it pre-installed.

2018 update: This item [Windows Home Server] is currently out of stock (at Newegg)
and it may or may not be restocked

More here:

---

I'm a little puzzled at your multi-drive req. Why not have a Shared Folder for each person instead of a separate drive? They can map that folder as a drive on their own computers, and data in a Shared Folder is automatically duplicated onto another physical hard drive (if one is available).

Is there any way to control “Device Installation Restrictions” via the Registry (instead of Group Policy) for users on Windows Home Editions?

We have group policy restrictions in place to prevent device installation for certain hardware IDs (see below), but group policy is only available for Windows Pro/Ultimate editions and not Windows Home. I’ve looked into adding Group Policy to Windows Home via 3rd party solutions (such as the one found here), however it is not a complete up-to-date version of Group Policy and is missing the options for “Device Installation Restrictions”. I’m also slightly hesitant to deploy 3rd party group policy solutions on my client’s machines.

Group Policy Location: (Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> System -> Device Installation -> Device Installation Restrictions -> Prevent installation of devices that match any of these Device IDs)

I looked into achieving the same functionality via the registry, and seem to have found at least some of the registry keys used to control this via Group Policy, but when I manually edit them, it does not work properly. Part of this may have to do with the GUIDs created in the registry under “Group Policy Objects” (see below picture). Is anyone familiar with creating group policy objects via the registry and getting them to remain persistent?

            Registry Location shown below: HKCU -> Software -> Microsoft -> Windows -> CurrentVersion -> Group Policy Objects

The keys which are affected by the standard “Group Policy Device Installation Restrictions” are:

Device Installation Restrictions: HKCU -> Software -> Microsoft -> Windows -> CurrentVersion -> Group Policy Objects -> GUID (unsure how this is generated) -> Software -> Policies -> Microsoft -> Windows -> DeviceInstall -> Restrictions -> DenyDeviceIDs

EDIT

The reg keys you pointed to below do indeed control this set of group policy objects. Big help, thanks!

Interestingly enough, when I configure the proper reg keys on 2 identical Surface Pro 4 tablets, I can control “Device Installation Restrictions” on one machine which I previously configured “Device Installation Restrictions” on through the official Group Policy UI (gpedit). Setting these keys you referenced through the registry and rebooting (or running gpupdate.exe /force through Command Prompt) does work and cause the specific device to become enabled/disabled.

When I configure the same set of keys on another Surface Pro 4, which has never had group policy set through the Group Policy UI (gpedit), this tablet will not reflect the reg changes live, even after rebooting or running gpupdate.exe /force. It seems as though something else may be controlling this? Both are Windows Pro, so all the proper group policy components should exist on this machine.

Any ideas here? It seems like there is another registry setting perhaps which may control something here?

Answer

As far as I can tell, the Group Policy Objects branch is only a cache of the active GPOs. Windows actually checks this Registry location for computer policy settings:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies

For the Prevent installation of devices that match any of these Device IDs setting, Group Policy uses this key:

HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\DeviceInstall\Restrictions

The DenyDeviceIDs DWORD is set to 1 when the policy is Enabled. The DenyDeviceIDsRetroactive DWORD corresponds to the Also apply to matching devices that are already installed checkbox: 1 for checked, 0 for not.

The restricted entries are kept in a subkey of Restrictions that also is named DenyDeviceIDs. One value on that key is one restriction. Each value's name should be the same as its data.

Tip: I found this information using the Element Inspector tool in my own open-source application, Policy Plus.

You'll need to reboot for the changes to take effect.

Note that even if you set all the Registry settings exactly right, it's possible that Home editions might not respect them. Most Group Policy settings work just fine on all editions, but there are a few that don't; the components that make use of them might not be there on Home. If you find that these settings don't work, you'll need to upgrade to Pro.

windows 10 - File permissions "Administrators: Full Control". Why isn't it always sufficient?

Consider the following situation.

Let's say I have two interactive local user accounts registered on my machine: Admin (member of Administrators group) and Alice (member of Users group). Let's say on my hard drive I have a folder Test with the following security settings:

Owner : Alice
Permissions:
  System : Full Control
  Administrators: Full Control
  Alice : Full Control

Now, if I log in under Admin account and attempt to open the folder Test, Windows will initially refuse to do so. It will display a message box saying

"You don't currently have permissions to access this folder"

My first question is: why? I'm logged in as Admin - a member of Administrators group - and therefore I'm supposed to have full control of the folder. Why does Windows say that I don't currently have permissions?

Now, the aforementioned message box will also offer me the opportunity to "Click Continue to permanently get access to this folder". If I click "Continue", I'll be allowed to open folder Test. And, as a consequence of that, the security settings of Test will change to

Owner : Alice
Permissions:
  System : Full Control
  Administrators: Full Control
  Alice : Full Control
  Admin : Full Control

As you can see, Windows automatically added an extra entry Admin: Full Control to the list. After that I will be able to access Test without any restrictions. However, the above set of security permissions seems to be redundant to me. It already included Administrators: Full Control entry from the very beginning. Why wasn't that sufficient?

So, my second question is: why would Windows need an extra Admin: Full Control entry to finally give Admin that "full control".

What is the formal logic behind this behavior?

---

Some clarifications

Note, this question is not about my Admin account not being "all-powerful Administrator that can do whatever he wants". I don't expect my Admin account to be all-powerful at all. In fact, at the most basic level I don't care about any special rights of my Admin account. It is just some account that belongs to some group.

My question is about file system access rights granted through group membership.

Consider another example. Let's say I created some random user group called Ugly Ducklings. And I added regular users Alice and Bob to the Ugly Ducklings group.

Then I create folder DucklingTest with the following permissions

Owner : Alice
Permissions:
  Ugly Ducklings : Full Control

Now, if I log in as Bob I will indeed have full control over DucklingTest folder (!).

Why?

Is my Bob an all-powerful administrator? No. Is my Bob privileged in any way? No. Do I have to "elevate" Bob somehow, to perform access to DucklingTest? No.

So, why does Bob have full control over DucklingTest folder?

Easy. Bob has full control over DucklingTest folder because Bob is a member of Ugly Ducklings group and Ugly Ducklings group has been granted full control permissions over DucklingTest. End of story.

How come the same logic does not apply to Admin and Administrators? Admin is a member of Administrators group and Administrators group has been granted full control permissions over Test folder. What's missing here? What kind of extra "control" Windows is trying to enforce in this case by imposing what looks like extra restrictions on members of Administrators group?

Laptop hard drive is silent, but it was noisy before. Should I be worried?

So my laptop's hard drive always had this soft, buzzing, clicking sound when the hard drive was working. The sound was there when the laptop was brand new and it was always present during the years, so I considered it normal. I had no problem with the hard disk.

Recently I noticed the sound was gone. My laptop is 4 or 5 years old now and I have no problem with it, but apparently the hard disk does not produce the above mentioned sounds anymore. And it still has no problems I know of.

My question is: is the lack of sound indicates some change in the HD? Should I be on the lookout for possible problems.

I know it is a sign of a bad problem if the hard disk suddenly becomes noisy, producing loud clicking sounds and stuff, but in this case it's the other way around. It was noisy before and now it's completely silent.

cpu - What does it mean (to decode) in the execution cycle

In a typical instruction cycle, fetching, decoding, executing together form one cycle. My question is about the decoding step: What is the part that gets decoded, is it the instruction's opcode? If so, why it is encoded then?

In fact, I understand decoding here in similar way as what you decode a message given a key in the field of security, which is what confuses me a bit.

Answer

Decode means to parse the instruction to determine its meaning.

A typical instruction consists of an opcode and (usually) one or more arguments. These arguments may refer to specific registers or memory addresses or can be immediate values to be used directly during execution. In addition, some instructions may have prefixes (such as LOCK in x86) or function codes (such as the funct field for some MIPS instructions) that alter their functionality.

During decoding, the processor needs to:

• determine what instruction is represented by the opcode so that the instruction can be issued to the correct execution unit and that the correct operation is performed


• correctly interpret the arguments, prefixes, and other values attached to the instruction and pass the relevant information to the relevant circuitry


• (in most modern processor designs) break the instruction down into its corresponding micro-operations

With modern processors, this can be a complex operation that requires multiple stages in the pipeline. To speed this process up, a dedicated cache may be used to store micro-operations for frequently-executed instructions.

For more on the techniques used to deliver high performance in modern processors, you might want to read this answer.

windows 7 - using a non-network internet connection while being connected to a home network

So I've setup a home network using Netgear N300 router with the intention of connection my home computers together so that they can access files from each other...

The thing is, I don't want to connect to the internet using this router since I'm connecting to the internet via my cell phone's tethering/mobile hotspot wireless network capability

But then everytime I'm connected to the network, it wouldn't connect to my cellphone's internet connection and since the router is not connected to any modem (since I don't have any) I won't be able to get internet connection while being connected to the network even though my cellphone connection is connected...

Is there a way to resolve this such that I can both connect to my home network AND be able to connect to use the internet connection via my cellphone's mobile hotspot wireless network?

btw I'm using Windows 7

windows - Samsung 960 Pro NVMe SSD 512GB Slow Sequential Write Speeds

I recently bought a Samsung 960 Pro NVMe SSD (512GB) primary cause of its extremely high sequential read/write speeds. I usually convert videos to lossless format (GPU accelerated) so IOPS is the only bottleneck and 960 Pro's 2100MB/s Sequential write looked tempting. However, I cannot get anywhere closer to that speed for large file transfers. CrystalDiskMark shows good numbers however the real-world transfers are maxing out at 390MB/s.

For my test, I am using a 20GB file on a RAMDisk which has read speeds of ~9000MB/s so there is definitely no bottleneck there. My Interface is PCIe Gen. 3 x4 as confirmed in Magician, Trim enabled and so is Write Caching in Windows. Write cache buffer flushing is also enabled [unchecked] (as it reduces performance for NVMe SSD's instead of increasing it like SATA SSDs) [I tried disabling it as well but to no avail]. Lastly, I have Samsung NVMe 2.1 Driver installed.
My Windows is a fairly clean installation and I performed NVMe Secure Erase on my SSD prior to installation.

Here is a screenshot of CrystalDiskMark (3 passes, 4GB each):

As can be seen, sequential performance is awfully close to advertised performance however I cannot replicate that for real-world transfers.
Last, but certainly not the least, I have BitLocker enabled (software encryption as Samsung still hasn't enabled IEEE1667 on this drive) and I understand there is a bit of overhead because of that but 390MB/s instead of 2100MB/s cannot be caused by BitLocker alone!

Any suggestions?

windows - How to measure how long it take's for a laptop's battery to charge

I have the following scenario:

I am testing several laptops with Windows 8.1 installed. One of the tests is to measure how much the battery lasts. For this task I use benchmarks like PeaceKeeper or PowerMark.

I also want to measure how long it takes for the battery to charge itself to 100% after it gets depleted. Any ideas on how to do that?

hard drive - Performance gains from secure-erasing an SSD?

Are there performance gains to be had by secure-erasing an SSD? (the secure-erase function, not securely zero'ing out data)

I'm using an Intel 320 SSD 160GB as my main OS drive. It's been a couple years since I've reformatted and started fresh. I'm wondering if there'd be any performance gains from imaging the drive, secure-erasing it, and then laying the image back down (rather than reformatting from scratch)?

I seem to recall seeing a suggestion somewhere that it was good measure to secure-erase an SSD every now and then, even if it's TRIM-capable, because there's some manner of continual performance degradation until a secure-erase is done and the drive is factory-fresh. It might've just been SSD snake-oil, however.

How can I - as administrator - change a standard user's password in Windows 10?

Surprised I didn't find this question already ...

My kid tried to set a password for their standard account on a Windows 10 system. Unfortunately the log in fails. I can get in as admin, but going through the settings interface only seems to allow me to set the admin password. My web search feels like it is leading me down the proverbial rabbit hole, telling me to go to the command prompt and type

net user "USERNAME" "NEW_PASSWORD"

However, I get a System Error 5 (which is "Access denied" from what I found on the web).

So, how can I overwrite another user's password from a Windows 10 admin account?

microsoft office - Powerpoint 2010 - PDF Export stops some hyperlinks from working

When we create a Power Point Presentation and link shapes to slides (as a way of navigating), I've noticed that if we then export the file to PDF some of the shapes no longer hold their hyperlinks to the slides we set.

I've tried this across 3 different PC's Win7, & Win 8.1 all using Office 2010 Pro (Latest updates for office and windows all up to date on updates as well), with the same results each time.

From my testing so far it appears as though basic shapes that do not have any sort of effects applied to them (3D etc) hold onto their links, whereas shapes that have 3D effects or other styles seem to be affected and no longer link.

It seems to me as though this behaviour is down to the PDF Conversion process, I've tried changing a range of different settings within the Advanced button of the Save As PDF Dialog in Power Point with no change in the output.

Answer

Further results:

The links work in PPT itself.

With PPT's Save As | Type of File: PDF conversion, the links are simply not there.

With Adobe's Save As PDF feature, the links are there but point to the first slide in the presentation (or perhaps to the slide that the linked shapes are on ... not sure which). NOT to the right location though.

Definitely buggy in both PPT and in Adobe's add-in.

FWIW: I have a commercial add-in (PPTools Prep4PDF) that I wrote back before PPT made its own PDFs and when Adobe's own add-in sorta sucked. I keep thinking I'll retire it one of these days, but I keep finding new uses for the thing. This is another. Seems the links work correctly when I use Prep4PDF to convert the test presentation.

[and a bit later]

The same links DO work correctly using PPT's Save As | File Type: PDF feature from PowerPoint 2013.

mode - Vim does not work on existing text, custom compilation of vim7.3

I am on a ubuntu 10.04 machine. The installed vim7.2 works as expected in insert mode for but my custom compiled vim7.3.744 shows a strange behaviour:

Starting vim with an empty buffer (cursor indicated by |):

~|

When I switch to insert mode, and type a few letters the commands work just fine:

~adsf|

=>

~|

However, when I leave insert mode after typing and enter insert mode again and press nothing happens:

~adsf|

Pressing A to enter insert mode again

~adsf|

=>

~asdf|

If I should show :ver I can do this.

Update

Note: the vim setting backspace is set in $VIMRUNTIME/debian.vim which /usr/bin/vim7.2 uses for startup.

Answer

Try ":set backspace+=start". You may want to go the whole way and do ":set backspace=indent,eol,start".

See ":help 'backspace'" (the single-quotes are meant to be typed).

boot camp - Issue with Intel 3000 Driver and Windows 10 on Macbook Air

I have installed Windows 10 Technical Preview (10162). The installation went fine but after the installation, windows installs the Intel HD 3000 driver trough windows update and after that, the screens stays black. When I reboot the computer, I see the windows loading screen, but afterwards the screens turns black and stays like this (I imagine that this is when the driver gets loaded).
I tried to disable the automatic driver updates, but windows still downloads this drivers and I end up in the same situation.

I have also tried to install the drivers from the bootcamp support software (5.1.4650) with the exact same result. I imagine that this is an incompatibility between Windows 10 and this driver.

I haven't found a way to disable that update or a way to boot directly into recovery mode and uninstall the driver.
Any ideas on how I could prevent windows from installing that driver?

Answer

I found the solution to my issue in the following blogpost: http://hmemcpy.com/2015/04/preventing-a-certain-windows-update-from-installing-on-windows-10/

It describes how to disable a certain update in Windows 10 Technical Preview, here is short wrap up of the required steps, for the full guide, refer to the blog.

Install Windows Powershell Update Module

The module contains a set of functions to interact with the Windows Update from powershell.

• First you need to download the Windows Update Powershell Module and extract it to %WINDIR%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Modules (or %USERPROFILE%\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules)


• To install it, set the execution policy to unrestricted (run Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted -Force from powershell as admin) and import the module (Import-Module PSWindowsUpdate). After that, you should reset the execution policy to something more restrictive, such as RemoteSigned

Disable the Intel driver update

• Get the list of updates to be installed: Get-WUList. This will print a list of all updates which will be installed.


• To disable the Intel driver, use the Hide-WUUpdate function, e.g Hide-WUUpdate -Title "Intel*" (it might match multiple updates, but it will prompt you for every match, if you want to disable it or not).


• If you re-run Get-WUList, the Intel driver has an H under Status, this means that it is hidden and won't be installed.

Duplicate user account being created in Windows-8

Before I synced my Windows 8 Pro with Windows Live, the login screen displayed one user account that I created with my username. After sync, two accounts are being displayed, both with the same username.

I assumed one of them uses Windows Live credentials to login, and the other uses local credentials, but there's no way to tell as they are both identical and I am able to login to both, using the same (local) password.

When I went into the Users and Groups section in the control panel, only one user account (local) is present. Where does the other one come from, and how do I remove it?

Answer

I'm having a similar problem but different. I've created two local user accounts on my machine (Win 8 Pro 64 bit), one admin and one normal user, different passwords. These both appear once in the Manage Users screen along with the disabled Guest account. But when I go to the pre-login user switching screen I get smaller duplicate icons/buttons of both accounts. It's pretty annoying, but both buttons for each of the two accounts do log in correctly. Can't do a screen clip there to show you.

Edit:
I just found the answer on another site. It was my Toshiba Fingerprint software that was doing it. A quick uninstall fixed that problem (but I lose fingerprint capability, as there's no update from Toshiba yet!). I'm told that OEM facial recognition software can also cause it.

Windows 7 install BSODs on two different hard drives on new computer

• Computer: Asus CM1740 (newegg stats), no stock HDD (stock is a 1TB SATA 6.0 GB/s -- according to a topic I found on HelpOwl, it may be Seagate or Western Digital). It was hardware and stress-tested prior to my purchase.


• Primary hard drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200 RPM 3.0 GB/s SATA 160 GB (from old computer -- original Windows 7 boot failure, Windows 7 disc boot failure)


• Secondary hard drive: Western Digital Caviar SE 7200 RPM 3.0 GB/s SATA 160 GB (also from old computer -- older Windows 7 install failure, new 2kpro install OK, new Windows 7 install failure) -- this is the primary HDD I've been working with, though I did try with the Seagate .


• OS: Win7 Home Premium x64 (same as stock)

I got a new (to me) computer, no HDD. I am getting two errors consistently and cannot install Windows 7 or boot from its disc. The page fault error is more prevalent. The errors are occuring when I get to the Windows 7 graphical boot screen -- the one with the Windows logo and colors, etc.

• Seagate: I tried just putting it in, no changes.


• Seagate: I tried to boot in Safe Mode, it stopped going during the loading of drivers.


• Seagate: I tried using the Windows 7 disc to get into startup recovery.


• Western Digital (exclusive HDD from here on in): I tried putting in the HDD and using the Windows 7 disc to do a fresh install.


• Reformatted with Windows 2000 Pro and installed. It worked! I cannot use an old and unsupported OS, though.

Technical codes (not sure exactly which step of troubleshooting these came from, sorry):

PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA: STOP: 0x00000050 (0xFFFFFA8000F400000, 0x0000000000000001, 0xFFFFF80000CE82139, 0x00000000000000002)

IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL: STOP:0x0000000A(0x000000000000000B0, 0x00000000000000002, 0x0000000000000000, 0xFFFFF8000CE80ABF)

Notes:

• It works in Win2kpro, and also works sitting on the BIOS screen. It also let me run memtest. In general, it seems fine as long as I am not trying to get into Windows 7.



• I was thinking it was the memory, but memtest + Windows memory test both say my RAM is fine.


• I was thinking it was the BIOS, but I have the latest version appropriate to Windows 7. Shall I try to flash it anyway? The motherboard says BIOS rev 1.04 and the screen says V0901 x64 5/18/2012.

Update: I switched SATA cables. Got to Windows 7 graphical installation screen. Clicked "Install". It went for a second and gave a new BSOD:

SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION:
STOP: 0x0000003B (0x00000000C0000005, 0xFFFFF9600001BD408, 0xFFFFF88004D8B680, 0x0000000000000000)

win32k.sys Address FFFFF9600001BD408 base at FFFFF960000010000 DateStamp 4a5bc5eo

Update 2: Other small things I have also tried:

• Switching the mouse (USB and PS/2 tried); removing the mouse; switching the keyboard (USB and PS/2 tried); switching monitors


• Double checking and securing all internal connections

When I switched the keyboard to PS/2 and used a newish wireless mouse, I actually got further on the Windows 7 installation than I had before. I went into system recovery tools. CHKDSK returned no errors (as expected). It was able to sit on this screen for quite a long time. I clicked install -- but about 30 seconds in, another error. Technical codes:

ACPI.sys PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA
0x00000050 (0xFFFFFA8000F400000, 0x00000000000000001, 0xFFFFF88001146BDF, 0x00000000000000002)
ACPI.sys - FFFFF88001146BDF base at FFFFF8800111C000 DateStamp 4a5bc106

Update 3: I downloaded Windows 7 Service Pack 1 as suggested by JourneymanGeek. I created a bootable USB flash drive with Rufus; I encountered another BSOD during the initial "loading files" portion of the install.

IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL


STOP: 0x0000000A (0x000000000000000B0, 0x00000000000000002, 0x00000000000000000, 0xFFFFF8000CE28ABF)

How to restore a previous version of file in Notepad++

I would like to restore a previous version of file that has been saved. My computer has crashed during work on one of the Files in Notepad++. When I started it again it went blank and a few days of my work are basically gone.

Is there any way to restore it?

linux - How do you protect your computer from Live CD's?

Linux has grown in popularity in the past few years. Many more people are using Live CD's now than they were say 3 years ago. And with this comes a new problem for network admins. How do you stop a person from accessing certain file on the HDD that they, under Windows, would not be allowed to access, or even see. If you have a personal computer you can't really protect it either. A password on the BIOS won't work because if you remove the battery on the motherboard, wait 10 seconds, insert the battery back in, your password is gone.

How do I stop this threat?

Answer

Keep all personal data (possibly your entire profile) in an encrypted partition that is decrypted with your account password (or even a separate password).

TrueCrypt can do such things (and it's free software).

bootable media - Is it possible to send a Windows 8 System Repair Disc over the Internet?

My friend's Laptop crashed and now I need to send a Windows 8 System repair to him over the internet since there is no other Windows 8 machine there.

Is this possible? Specially since Windows 8 requires to write it on a DVD or USB flash drive... how do you guys suggest I get it to him?

I'm thinking:
1) Create the recovery/repair usb drive here locally..
2) use a tool to create an ISO image of that usb drive
3) send that ISO over to him
4) use the same tool to restore or create a bootable USB drive from that ISO image i sent.

Do I need to go through all these? or shall I just send him the contents of the USB flash drive? (I'm not familiar with Windows 8 boot directives, but I know on Windows 7 the flash drive needs to be made "bootable" for sure.)

Answer

Create a restore USB - create an img image -I use the win32 disk imager - run as admin, and use read to create the image and write apply an image to the disk. This is a full bit by bit copy of the drive so to reduce bandwidth usage, compress the image with 7zip or something.

Unable to boot from windows 7 dvd

I'm trying to install windows 7 on my computer.

I've downloaded the boot image from microsoft and burned it to a dvd

The dvd is not a valid boot device in my computer. I've tried the dvd on several computers, it works everywhere for boot.

I've also tried to use a usb stick version of the boot image, it also fails. I can boot from images since I can run windows xp at boot.

I don't really know where to look now

edit *
I've also updated BIOS

Answer

I finally installed XP on the computer to burn the dvd from that dvd burner

then it booted (mostly) like a charm

no clue why the usb device never booted

How I tell Windows 7/8/10 to be less aggressive in making copies of RAM to pagefile?

Many people ask how to disable pagefile, because they feel the effects of the issue I will ask about. Instead I want to fix the issue, without disabling pagefile.

Windows has the capability of storing on the pagefile RAM that it thinks it might need to page out, although theoretically this help avoid trashing in an emergency, it is deeply annoying to people with systems that have slow HDDs, for example cheap laptops.

For example my current computer: Right now it has 4.8gb of RAM in use, but has about 8gb of current "commit charge"

Using sysinternal tools, I find out that most of the content of page files, are preemptive copies of things in the RAM, that DO look it is low (I have 8gb of ram, thus it is 61% in use), but using RamMap I notice that most of the ram usage is "standby" memory, and most of that "standby" memory is windows cache (the one to make files load faster). with a huge chunk being a binary file that is the sound files of a game.

So, what currently happens: I play some game... windows load it on the RAM, and copy other things to pagefile (making game performance poor), then I stop playing, windows leave the game files cached on the RAM, since the RAM usage is high, it keeps putting more stuff on the pagefile, expecting me to run out of RAM, this make it slow, as it is constantly doing I/O in my extremely bad quality HDD.

But if I look only in the real RAM usage by apps, the commit charge of currently running apps, processes, kernel and shared things used, the real RAM usage should be 2.5gb, RAM and pagefile included.

So, I wanted to try instead of telling windows to not cache (the caching is kinda cool), or to disable pagefile, I wanted to tell it to NOT use the pagefile unless it really needs to (for example if physical ram usage - standby physical ram usage > 80% of physical ram).

Anyone know how I do that?

Answer

After lots of research, I learned that what I asked is literally impossible, you can't tweak Windows to behave better, the best that can be done, is literally disabling page file entirely.

Disabling page file mostly did the trick for me, fixing most of my performance problems (and causing a few other problems), but it was fully worth it.

usb - What are the main differences between the Western Digital "My Passport," "My Passport Essential," and "My Passport Studio" external hard drives?

My goal is to buy a 2TB external portable drive for use with my current MacBook Pro (Mid-2007) and for use with my next Mac (hopefully the rumored 15" MacBook Air).

I'm planning to buy a Western Digital drive from the passport series, but all the different models are confusing. Here's what I've found so far:

My Passport:

• USB 3.0


• Maximum 2TB

My Passport Essential:

• USB 3.0


• Maximum 500GB according to Western Digital, but I found this 2TB version

My Passport Studio:

• USB 2.0 + Firewire 800


• Maximum 2TB

My question is what are the main differences in these drives aside from form factor, formatting, and available ports? Are there any differences that really matter? The My Passport and My Passport Essential look to be almost exactly the same aside from the enclosure. The My Passport and My Passport Studio look to be the same aside from the available interfaces.

Answer

The only other difference I found is that the Passport Studio is pre-formatted as HFS+ while the other two are formatted as NTFS. This, and the Firewire 800 port is why WD labels the Studio as "for Mac". But you can, of course, use any of the drives with either OS X or Windows, you just might have to reformat it.

Edit: The Studio is also listed as Time Machine-compatible, unlike the Passport and Passport Essential, though I'm not sure if that involves anything else besides being formatted as HFS+ by default.

Edit2: as @Lèse majesté points out, the actual hard drives inside the enclosures could also be different. Note, however, that according to this KB article WD doesn't guarantee any specific hard drive model or any other parameter besides capacity. That said, from what I've read, most people who have opened their Passports up have found a Scorpio Blue inside (or a modified version with an on-board USB bridge). As the same KB article mentions, with USB 2.0 and Firewire the hard drive is not the bottleneck; however, with USB 3.0 that's no longer the case, so WD might decide to differentiate some external drive models from others by using faster Scorpio Black drives, for instance (if they haven't started doing that already).

windows 8 - Can I use one internal hard drive in different PCs?

I have an HDD internal hard drive in my desktop with windows 10 OS system now. However, I am thinking to sell my desktop, but I want to keep that HDD drive because the HDD contain a lot of personal files and the Windows 10 OS system authorization. So, I am wondering that if I am going to buy a new desktop later (without the hard drive), can I still use the old HDD drive without reinstall the OS system? In other words, can I just plug out my HDD drive from the old PC and plug into my new PC directly? I know I have to reinstall all drivers for all the new hardware, but is any way to avoid that? Because if I reinstall the OS system my files and Windows 10 authorization will gone. (I bought the Windows 8 authorization when I was a student with a student disscount and recentlly upgrande to Windows 10.)

Answer

If you got the free Windows 10 upgrade, the license for that is not transferable to another machine.

Theoretically, you could do as you suggest and just plug the drive into a new computer, boot from it, and wait for drivers to update automatically. The Windows 10 instance would then report as non-genuine (and enforce restrictions) until you purchased a new license.

If your main goal is to be able to use your accumulated files, it may be best to get a USB-to-SATA adapter and just treat the drive as external storage.

Paste different values using Autohotkey

I am new to AutoHotKey, but I think this scenario is best suited to use AutoHotKey.
I have to repeatedly paste 2 values in 2 different columns in a application,
e.g. I have to paste value1 in cloumn1 and value2 in column2.....
so I need a script to paste value1 when I press Q and paste value2 when I press W (as they are close to tab key).

Thanks
Kiran.

Answer

Simple hotkeys can accomplish this.

q::Send, value1
w::Send, value2

However, you may also want to use #IfWinActive for your application or possibly use some modifiers on your keys just in case you actually need to type q or w in the spreadsheet or in another application.

SetTitleMatchMode, 2
#IfWinActive ahk_class XLMAIN ;Microsoft Excel
    !q::Send, value1 ;Alt + q
    !w::Send, value2 ;Alt + w
#IfWinActive

Windows won't boot

I accidentally deleted my boot record with this program called EASYBCD. I now cannot boot into windows. I used my windows 10 recovery drive to refresh my PC and delete all files. After a while, I get a message saying it failed to recover this PC. I tried the bootrec/fixmbr but it said I only had windows on the E: drive. I chose that and it said could not find the media specified. If I take my flash drive out and boot, it says no operating systems installed. I am stuck and don't know what to do.

EDIT: For people with this problem, I made a windows installation usb, then during setup converted disk to GPT (video on how to do this Here). I then installed as normal.

ntfs - MicroSD card is not detected by Windows

I formatted my MicroSD card to HFS+ and then back to NTFS from within my Phone device (using an app namely Paragon exFAT, NTFS, and HFS+). Now that I insert the card into my PC (Windows 7), the MicroSD card doesn't show up in My Computer folder anymore. I want to initial and format this MicroSD card to NTFS from within my Windows PC.

Windows Disk Management (compmgmt.msc) can detect the pertaining disk with its drive letter nicely, but shows "no media" inserted. So, it is not possible for me to do format operations on it. How can I get my MicroSD card back to the operation again?

Update:

Picture below shows all storage devices currently connected to my PC.

Disk 0 : WDC WD3200BPVT-00HXZT3 ATA Device

Disk 1 : SD/MMC Disk Device

Disk 2 : Ricoh Memory Stick Disk Device

At the following, DETAIL DISK shows the detailed information for Disk 1; that is my Laptop's SD-Card reader slot. Notice that DISKPART shows No Media although the MicroSD card is actually inserted into the slot.

Also, I get error that the disk is not a GUID Partition Table (GPT) when I try to change GUID for Disk 1; as follows.

Although using CLEAN for a disk with no media seems meaningless but I've given it a try as with error:
Virtual Disk Service error: There is no media in the device.

Answer

When formatting the card on Windows, the poster has reported encountering cyclic redundancy check errors on the card.

That, together with the fact that he has tried every other advice given in this
thread, seems to point to the fact that the card contains bad sectors,
in a place which only Windows accesses.

You could continue to use this card on the phone, but not on Windows.
I would still hesitate to recommend this, as there might exist other weak sectors.
In any case, even if you decide to use the card, do not trust it.

linux - sudo to any user without a password

If sudo can be configured to no password such as:

bob ALL=NOPASSWD: ALL

Then how can you configure sudo to be able to sudo to any user without password ?

So that

sudo -u domainnameuser.com mkdir www

Works for the sudo user without prompting for a [sudo] password ?

Is it possible to allow this without explicitly enabling it for each user in /etc/sudoers.d and just allow switching to all users and using all commands ?

Windows 10 will not install update

I recently restarted my computer and got a notification that Windows was installing an update, which stalled on 100%, meaning I had to manually force the restart to continue. After the computer booted back up, I got a message saying that Windows could not install updates.

I've tried restarting since then, but Windows no-longer even attempts to install the update. I am still getting notifications from Windows periodically, telling me an update failed. When I click on the failed update notification it merely shows me a list of previously installed updates, but not the failed installation.

The last entry shown is:

Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool for Windows 8, 8.1, 10 and Windows Server 2012, 2012 R2, 2016 x64 Edition - March 2017 (KB890830)

How do I clear the failed update and force Windows to update again? It would also be useful to find out what update Windows attempted to install. Is there a log with this info, perhaps?

Answer

If the automatic setup via Windows Update fails, get the MSU for KB4013429 (March 2017 Cumulative Update for Windows 10 V1607) on your own from the Update catalog.

Double click on the MSU to install the update.

Laptop battery does not show 100% when it is fully charged

Recently I purchased a replacement battery. The new battery has more capacity compared to the previous one.

The problem is Windows (Vista) does not report 100% charge for the laptop even when it is fully charged. Currently it only seems to charge up to 55%. But if I discharge it to 0%, the laptop can run 2 more hours at 0%.

I thought fully discharging the battery would help, but when I plug it in and charge it back, first it stays at 0% for a long time again, and then it starts to go up until it reaches 55% and stays there.

Is there any way I can calibrate this battery?

windows 7 - "The User Profile Service failed the logon” error. No solution working

The User Profile Service failed the logon

error is popping up each time I start my computer (on Windows 7, workgroup environment). Even Safe mode starts with Default Profile

I have tried following (through safe mode)

1. Editing registry as suggested on in Method 1


2. Tried creating a new account, through control panel or command prompt, but not working.


3. Deleted profile as suggested in the 3rd method.


4. Tried recovery options.

Ultimately, also deleted the user profile folder from C:\users, as suggested by some site. Even this didn't work.

What should I do?

Images: [c:\users while showing hidden and system files]

Edit: I tried enabling administrator account (with command prompt) and thankfully it is starting but with a lot of errors.
Still, unable to create new user with control panel.

While adding user with command prompt, user directories and registry entry are not building up.

Answer

Visit these pages, step-wise (i.e., if first don't work then try second)

1) https://support.microsoft.com/en-in/help/947215

2) https://superuser.com/a/1298468/822976

3) https://www.kapilarya.com/the-user-profile-service-failed-the-sign-in-windows-10

4) https://www.tenforums.com/general-support/67875-corrupt-ntuser-dat-file-default-folder.html (Try all solutions available here)

5) a) Try downloading Windows .iso file, newer than installed (not necessary for this step, but if it didn't work, same .iso file can be used in next step) and of same version as installed (important).

b) Mount to USB drive using Rufus (from https://rufus.akeo.ie/)

c) Boot through USB

d) Try the recovery options.

6) Use the same .iso file (from step 5) And upgrade your windows (don't select 'clean install').

partitioning - Dead flash drive, can't format or partition

Today I when I was working with my flash drive (thumb drive) it gave some errors in different OS. Now I can't format it. I tried in MacBook and got this error.

Posix report: the operation couldn't be complete cannot allocate memory

In Windows desktop it asked me to format the flash drive. After that it says it's not possible to format (default setting). I tried formatting it in a virtual machine using Debian via GParted; it says input/output error.

Impossible write partition table (Dos/mbr).

So my question is: Is it possible somehow to get my USB thumb drive working again? or is it dead?

Windows Device Manager says that device is working correctly.

All advise is welcomed.

My device is not so old; it is a Kingston DTSE9H/16GB.

Answer

In windows: Uncheck quick format and try again.
Try different format like fat and exfat.
Try different allocation size. (I suggest default or 16kb)
Check if rust or dirt is collected in the port,clean with spirit(flammable) allow time to dry .
(Be careful. last resort.)open it and clean
Throughly but carefully, with spirit.(when its not connected to anything)

Its better you get another one. If by any means you get to store/transfer data in it, you risk it's corruption.

How can I add a column for file/path length to Windows Explorer

How can I add a column for file/path length in Windows Explorer. For all users in a Windows domain. This is important for me because our projects are copied to CD/DVD and there are built in restrictions in the software we use. Most of my users have Windows 7 64-bit, but I have 4 Windows XP and 2 Vista users also.

Additionally, is there a way to change the color of the resulting text when it reaches a value of 106 characters length (and again at a value of 212 characters length)?.

Windows 10 Pro anniversary update forces automatic reboot on new updates

Is there any way to stop Windows 10 Pro from rebooting after installing updates? After the anniversary update, it seems I no longer have the ability to control this.

There is a group policy I have set, but my understanding is that this is now ignored.

I have processes that I run overnight, and I simply cannot have Microsoft dictate when to turn off my computer. There must be a way to stop the reboot.

Windows 10 corrupt files issue error 0x800f081f

After running sfc /scannow in cmd, I get the error message : "

Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files but was unable to fix
some of them."

Looking at the details in the log, this set of four lines kept appearing.

2015-12-12 11:58:26, Info CSI 00003d48 [SR] Cannot
repair member file [l:10]"opencl.dll" of
microsoft-windows-RemoteFX-clientVM-RemoteFXWDDMDriver-WOW64-C,
version 10.0.10586.0, arch Host= amd64 Guest= x86, nonSxS, pkt {l:8
b:31bf3856ad364e35} in the store, hash mismatch

2015-12-12 11:58:27, Info CSI 00003d52 [SR] Cannot
repair member file [l:10]"opencl.dll" of
microsoft-windows-RemoteFX-clientVM-RemoteFXWDDMDriver-WOW64-C,
version 10.0.10586.0, arch Host= amd64 Guest= x86, nonSxS, pkt {l:8
b:31bf3856ad364e35} in the store, hash mismatch

2015-12-12 11:58:27, Info CSI 00003d53 [SR] This
component was referenced by
[l:125]"Microsoft-Windows-RemoteFX-VM-Setup-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~10.0.10586.0.RemoteFX
clientVM and UMTS files and regkeys"

2015-12-12 11:58:27, Info CSI 00003d56 [SR] Could
not reproject corrupted file [l:23
ml:24]"\??\C:\WINDOWS\SysWOW64"[l:10]"opencl.dll"; source file in
store is also corrupted

After running Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth it returned:

"The component store is repairable. The operation completed
successfully."

The same thing happened with Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth.
I then tried Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth but the error message was:

"Error: 0x800f081f The source files could not be found. Use the
"Source" option to specify the location of the files that are required
to restore the feature. For more information on specifying a source
location, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=243077.

The DISM log file can be found at C:\WINDOWS\Logs\DISM\dism.log"

I though I would have fixed the problem when I reset my computer just a few days ago because I was getting the same message.
I have a Surface Pro 3 by the way, if that helps.