command line - How to "Open CMD Here as Administrator" in right-click menu, with no elevation prompt. Without changing UAC rules

I'm going to preface this with that I am relatively new to registry tweaking, but please bear with me.

---

Today I was messing with my Windows 10 (home, version 1803) and after some googling I did 2 things:

I did some registry tweaks/additions to add the "Open CMD here as administrator" option to right click context menu.
This worked perfectly and here are the registry changes/additions I made:

---

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\OpenElevatedCmd:

(Default) = Open command prompt here as administrator
Icon = cmd.exe

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\OpenElevatedCmd\command:

(Default) = PowerShell -windowstyle hidden -Command "Start-Process cmd.exe -ArgumentList '/s,/k,pushd,%V' -Verb RunAs"

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell\OpenElevatedCmd:

(Default) = Open command prompt here as administrator

Icon = cmd.exe

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell\OpenElevatedCmd\command:

(Default) = PowerShell -windowstyle hidden -Command "Start-Process cmd.exe -ArgumentList '/s,/k,pushd,%V' -Verb RunAs"

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell\OpenElevatedCmd:

(Default) = Open command prompt here as administrator

Icon = cmd.exe

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell\OpenElevatedCmd\command:

(Default) = PowerShell -windowstyle hidden -Command "Start-Process cmd.exe -ArgumentList '/s,/k,pushd,%V' -Verb RunAs"

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\LibraryFolder\background\shell\OpenElevatedCmd:

(Default) = Open command prompt here as administrator

Icon = cmd.exe

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\LibraryFolder\background\shell\OpenElevatedCmd\command:

(Default) = (value not Set)

---

The second thing I did was use task scheduler to make a task that runs admin command prompt without the stupid UAC popup and
made a shortcut to it to pin to my taskbar. This worked perfectly as expected. Here is the task I made:

Elevated CMD Scheduled Task General

Elevated CMD Scheduled Task Action

The shortcut target to run this task is: C:\Windows\System32\schtasks.exe /run /tn "Elevated CMD"

---

It all went downhill when I attempted to freeball it and do something I couldn't find on google.

I thought it would be a good idea to make it so that when I launched the admin command prompt from the context menu in any
folder the UAC prompt would not appear. My first thought was to use some sort of method to make the admin command prompt not
require the UAC popup, so I did some googling and the only non-third-party method I could find was the one using the
"Application Compatibility Toolkit". I tried that method and it didn't work so my next thought was to combine the scheduled task
trick with the registry edits that add the "run cmd here as admin" context option. To do this I needed to figure out
what to put for the new values in the "command" defaults. So I took the arguments from the working values that added the
admin cmd to the context menu(/s /k pushd %V), and I tested them using a command I based off of the working registry values
in PowerShell to see if they did what I thought they did:

"Start-Process cmd.exe '/s /k pushd %V'"

This resulted in a new administrator command prompt being opened with a message "the system cannot find
the path specified." I assumed this was what should have happened based on how I think those arguments work.

Then I created a new scheduled task called "ecmd" that was identical to my "Elevated CMD" task that launches admin cmd without
the annoying UAC prompt, but this time I added the arguments "/s /k pushd %V" to the "Add arguments (optional):" field.
I then tested the following in PowerShell:

"Start-Process schtasks.exe '/run /tn ecmd'"

The new arguments "/run /tn ecmd" are the same arguments I used to launch this task with a shortcut.
This command worked exactly how I expected, It opened a new admin command prompt without the UAC popup with the same "cannot
find specified path" message as my earlier test.

At this point I thought I was good to go, so I changed:

"PowerShell -windowstyle hidden -Command "Start-Process cmd.exe -ArgumentList '/s,/k,pushd,%V' -Verb RunAs""

to:

"PowerShell -windowstyle hidden -Command "Start-Process schtasks.exe -ArgumentList '/run,/tn,ecmd' -Verb RunAs""

In all relevant locations, substituting cmd for schtasks and substituting the original arguments with the arguments that would make
task scheduler run the "ecmd" task...

This is where I became completely lost. All that happens when I open the right-click context menu and select "Open command prompt
here as administrator" is I get a brief flash of a command window and nothing else.

I have tried these commands as well:

"PowerShell -windowstyle hidden -Command "Start-Process schtasks.exe -ArgumentList '/run,/tn,ecmd' -Verb RunAs""

"PowerShell -windowstyle hidden -Command "Start-Process schtasks.exe -ArgumentList '/run,/tn,ecmd' -Verb Open""

"PowerShell -windowstyle hidden -Command \"Start-Process schtasks.exe -ArgumentList '/run,/tn,ecmd' -Verb RunAs\""

"PowerShell -windowstyle hidden -Command "Start-Process schtasks.exe -ArgumentList '/run,/tn,ecmd'""

"PowerShell -windowstyle hidden -Command "Start-Process schtasks.exe -ArgumentList '/run,/tn,"ecmd"' -Verb RunAs""

"PowerShell -windowstyle hidden -Command "Start-Process schtasks.exe -ArgumentList '/run,/tn,'ecmd'' -Verb RunAs""

"PowerShell -windowstyle hidden -Command "Start-Process schtasks.exe -ArgumentList '/run,/tn"ecmd"' -Verb RunAs""

"PowerShell -windowstyle hidden -Command "Start-Process schtasks.exe -ArgumentList '/run,/tn'ecmd'' -Verb RunAs""

"PowerShell -windowstyle hidden -Command "Start-Process schtasks.exe -ArgumentList '/run,/tn "ecmd"' -Verb RunAs""

"PowerShell -windowstyle hidden -Command "Start-Process schtasks.exe -ArgumentList '/run,/tn 'ecmd'' -Verb RunAs""

All of which produce the same results or some of theme will open a UAC prompt about running task scheduler, and the prompt will list schtasks.exe
with the arguments I used "/run" "/tn" and "ecmd" as the location.

I am completely out of ideas and would love to know how to format these commands to make this work. I'm not knowledgeable enough to confidently assert this but I also feel like being able to execute a task with 2 clicks from anywhere in explorer/desktop/library will have a lot of utility in the future when new needs arise.

How to get data from “dead” hard disk drive?

I went through few questions (see the list below) but haven’t found the answer to my question...

The question is what software can I use to analyze to find out if I can get any data from my Seagate ST300003U2 External USB hard disk drive.

It was lying in a drawer for few months unused and few weeks later I wanted to access my backed up pictures there and Windows now will not recognize it properly after plugging it in and Ubuntu will not detect it at all.

I went to the professionals and they quickly tried by connecting to a Win machine and told me that if I left the drive with them there they “might” recover something. I asked how they would do it and the I was told that they got some tool to run it against. I want to try them by myself if there is any free version. Of course they did not tell me name of the tools.

Any idea what free/opensource software on Windows or Linux or self bootable solution I can use to analyze such a hard disk drive?

UPDATE

I get this message on Win7. So there is no issue with cables or so in my eyes. I wonder why Ubuntu gives me no message.

I got this from Device Manager: Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems. (Code 43)

file management - adding a custom user folder on Ubuntu

Question: How do you add a custom folder to the collection of user folders that come with Ubuntu?

---

Info:

I just loaded my netbook with Ubuntu Desktop 10.04LTS (Desktop because it is an aspire one and the Apocalypse seems to follow when ever i try to install netbook remix onto it). It comes with standard folders like Documents, Music, Pictures, Downloads(though this one doesn't appear until you actually download something), Videos, etc etc. These are handly little folders because they have little symbols on them and are nicely located in my file browser. it is basically like the folder lay out the windows had in vista.

I do a lot of little programing on this computer so i have a folder in which i keep all these single kb code files. Obviously named "Code" that I keep in my home folder. But I would really like to it over listed next to my other user folders.

In summary, how do you add a folder to the listing on the file browser. And, if possible, how do you give it an icon? (I understand fully that I will probably have to make said Icon) those two things are what I'm seeking to do.

~n

P.s. please correct me if I'm using the wrong name. I just guessed and called them "User Folders" because they were folders the user uses. made sense. but if they have another name like "libraries" please say so. Thanks

Answer

You can add a Bookmark either in a nautilus window via Places|Add Bookmark or in any new-style GTK+ file dialog via the buttons below the path list on the left. The set of existing bookmarks is stored in ~/.gtk-bookmarks. I don't know that there's a way to assign a custom icon to them though.

windows - Overwrote my presentation with a new blank file, now can't recover it

I had a PowerPoint file with 140 slides that accidentally overwrote with a new blank file of the same name.

1. I always save my files on SharePoint but this time I forgot it.




2. I tested applications like Active Recovery and others in quick scan, but they can only restore deleted files, not the last version.




3. I searched the Internet and found a solution, but it didn't help.

   
   
   

   
   

   Several days ago I inadvertently deleted a Powerpoint Presentation I
   was working on. I checked my reclycle bin and it wasn’t there. How can
   I get it back?
   
   If your important Powerpoint presentation has been accidentally deleted from your computer’s hard driver, you don’t have to start over
   from scratch with a new file. You can restore the deleted Powerpoint
   file with a file-recovery tools. The program will scan your computer’s
   hard driver thoroughly and retrieve the lost PPT files even if you
   have emptied the PPT files from Windows recycle bin or Mac trash bin.

   
   




4. I checked the folder for recovered unsaved presentations here:

   
   
   

   C:\Users\staba\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office\UnsavedFiles
   

   
   
   
   

   But there aren't any deleted files.




5. I checked the NTFS properties of my drive and files, but versioning is not activated.

Answer

Running applications like Active Recovery in full scan mode (super scan, like this picture) instead of Quick Scan mode (as I have done previously) solved my problem.

When you save a new file over an existing one, the files are not actually overwritten and deleted – they're created again with the same name.

Every time you save a file, the Operating System creates a new file on the disk and the last versions are still there -- But you must be careful, don't write anything to your disk or defrag it!

With a full scan you can recover them.

windows 7 - how to run bat file as administrator automatically from a non-admin account

My work account is a non-admin but I have the admin password. I need to run a .bat file as admin automatically when windows starts from my non-admin account. I couldn't figure out how to feed in the admin password to make the .bat file run as admin. Any idea? Thanks. This is for Windows 7.
Just to clarify, I can do these steps manually after login:
1. Run DOS command as admin
2. Enter admin credential
3. Run the script file.
How can I run these 3 steps automatically and silently in the background?

Global vs User Windows Environment Variables

I need to understand how Global vs User variables works in windows.

Case 1:

If the same variable is defined at user and global section what is the behaviour? E.g. I have defined a %PATH% variable either in user and global sections and I see only global value; is there a way to 'append" user PATH to global PATH?

Case 2:
The variables defined in user section are not 'resolved' in global section. If I use SET command I see a list of all defined variables (user and global) but 'cross references' are not resolved.

E.g.

in user section I define:

VAR1=test-user 

in global section I define:

VAR2=%VAR1%-more;%VAR3%-more
VAR3=test-global 

with SET I see:

...
VAR1=test-user
VAR2=%VAR1%-more;test-global-more
VAR3=test-global
...

I'm on a Windows 7 x64 box.

So, based on the tests above, my conclusions are:

• global variables override user variables (if the name is the same only global is valid)


• no cross reference is admitted between user and global variables

Am I right?

Answer

Your conclusions aren't quite right, at least according to my testing.

• User variables can reference system (global) ones.

  
  
  

  System variables cannot reference user variables.




• User variables will override system (global) ones.

  
  
  

  Just in the default set, TEMP (and TMP) are defined as the user variable as %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Temp and at the same time as the system variable as C:\Windows\TEMP.

  
  
  

  PATH appears to be a special case, where the user variable PATH (if defined) is always appended to the system variable rather than overriding it.

windows - Program not launching from registry run key

I have a program which I install using an NSIS script. The final step in the installer is to write to the registry Run key and have the program run on startup. I've confirmed that under

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

exists the key

MyCompany Program - C:\MyCompany\Program\launch.vbs

I've tried the key with and without quotes but there was no impact. I have confirmed the registry is reading from CurrentVersion\Run by adding

Notepad - C:\windows\notepad.exe

and Notepad now launches at startup. The launch.vbs script is a one liner to launch a script without the cmd.exe window:

'HideBat.vbs from https://superuser.com/questions/140047/how-to-run-a-batch-file-without-launching-a-command-window
CreateObject("Wscript.Shell").Run "cmd /c " & chr(34) & "C:\MyCompany\Program\run.cmd " & chr(34), 0, True

I've confirmed calling launch.vbs from an explorer window or from cmd.exe works as I expect (launching my program). msconfig confirms that C:\MyCompany\Program\launch.vbs is listed in the startup tab. The security tab of File Properties indicates all users should have read & execute privileges. Ditto the run.cmd actually getting called.

At this point I'm at a loss as to why my program isn't being launched, and I can't figure an efficient way to debug it.

System is Windows 7 Professional 64-bit.

worksheet function - Autofill date pattern with Excel

I want to use Excel to fill a range of dates, the first and 15th of each month to be precise.

My spreadsheet currently looks like so:

When I drag down, it looks like so:

Instead of continuing the pattern, it just repeats what's there. I have tried each of the following AutoFill options to no avail:

• Copy Cells


• Fill Series


• Fill Formatting Only


• Fill Without Formatting


• Fill Days


• Fill Weekdays


• Fill Months


• Fill Years

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks

Answer

I was able to write a Excel Macro to accomplish this:

Sub AddEntry()
    yr = "2012"
    x = ActiveCell.Row
    y = ActiveCell.Column
    For mon = 6 To 12
            Cells(x, y) = "01/" + CStr(mon) + "/" + yr
            Cells(x + 1, y) = "15/" + CStr(mon) + "/" + yr
            x = x + 2
            Cells(x, y).Select
    Next mon
End Sub

I actually used this to see to correct formatting, note the single quote. But this changes the entry from a date to a string.

Cells(x, y) = "'01/" + CStr(mon) + "/" + yr
Cells(x + 1, y) = "'15/" + CStr(mon) + "/" + yr

conversion - ffmpeg | batch convert | make same filename

How would I use ffmpeg to create a batch convert file for sample rate conversion, such as:

$ ffmpeg -i *.wav -ar 22050 *.wav


Take note, that i'm only doing a sample rate conversion, but in the end I want to batch convert all *.wav to 22050 *.wav files all while keeping the same file name for all the files converted.

windows - Task Manager and memory usage

I'm a little bit confused about Task Manager and usage memory.

Is the sum of all memory processes equal to the physical memory used?

This is a picture of my Task Manager ordered by memory usage high to low:

This is a screenshot of the physical memory used at the same time:

However, the sum of all the memory processes is less than the ~11 GB shown in the second picture.

Which is the true usage?

The OS is Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition 64-bit (running on a virtual machine with four CPUs and 24GB RAM)

Create multiple folders with text file inside in Windows XP

I'm trying to create 1000 folders each with a single text file inside
eg
C:...\Customer1\Customer1.txt
C:...\Customer2\Customer2.txt
C:...\Customer3\Customer3.txt
.
.
.
etc to 1000

I can create a single folder and file with command prompt:

cd C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Desktop\1000 folders
md Customer1
echo.>Customer1\Customer1.txt

I'm just not sure how to duplicate this without manually typing out 1000 folder names... how would I do this? with a batch file?

Virus - The version of this file is not compatible with the version of windows you're running

I'm cleaning up a Windows 7 computer that was infected with malware. I pulled the HD out, hooked it up to my machine with a USB adapter and then scanned it with MalwareBytes which found (2) Trojan.FakeAlert files from C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\ and (1) Trojan.FakeAlert file from Temporary Internet Files. I went ahead and told Malwarebytes to remove the files which it did successfully.

The computer appears to run OK now except I can't get into anything without getting the following error message:
The version of this file is not compatible with the version of windows you're running. Check your computer's system information to see whether you need an x86 (32-bit) or x64 (64-bit) version of the program, and then contact the software publisher.

I get this error message when trying to use Regedit, Task Manager, Windows Update, System Restore, msconfig, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, etc. It appears this problem affects all .exe files.

I should add that the error prevents the program from running.

How can I get rid of this error message and allow Windows programs to run normally? (Sorry I failed to put my question in right from the beginning.)

Edit1:
The names of the malware files removed are:
dpc.exe
vew.exe
download[1].exe

Edit2:
I've discovered that I can avoid the error message and make any program run normally by right clicking and choosing Run as Administrator. I'm currently downloading and installing MalwareBytes on this machine. I'm suspicious there might still be some malware running on this machine.

Edit3:
The symptoms have now changed slightly. If I double-click on Internet explorer I get the "Open With" window. If I choose Task Manager from the TaskBar right-click menu, I get an error message: Application Not Found I'm pretty sure this is a problem that can be corrected in the Windows Registry. I remember fixing this issue, or a similar one, on Windows XP but I don't remember anymore how I did it.

Answer

After you mentioned fixing this in XP before, you made me remember a reg file one of the other admins at my job keeps on his FTP. I have used it once on a users PC who was having the exact same issue as you (only he had xp) after I removed some malware. I figure I will post it here since it may help you out, even if it just points you in the right direction:

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.exe]
@="exefile"
"Content Type"="application/x-msdownload"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.exe\PersistentHandler]
@="{098f2470-bae0-11cd-b579-08002b30bfeb}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile]
@="Application"
"EditFlags"=hex:38,07,00,00
"TileInfo"="prop:FileDescription;Company;FileVersion"
"InfoTip"="prop:FileDescription;Company;FileVersion;Create;Size"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\DefaultIcon]
@="%1"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shell]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shell\open]
"EditFlags"=hex:00,00,00,00
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shell\open\command]
@="\"%1\" %*"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shell\runas]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shell\runas\command]
@="\"%1\" %*"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shellex]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shellex\DropHandler]
@="{86C86720-42A0-1069-A2E8-08002B30309D}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shellex\PropertySheetHandlers]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shellex\PropertySheetHandlers\PEAnalyser]
@="{09A63660-16F9-11d0-B1DF-004F56001CA7}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shellex\PropertySheetHandlers\PifProps]
@="{86F19A00-42A0-1069-A2E9-08002B30309D}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shellex\PropertySheetHandlers\ShimLayer Property Page]
@="{513D916F-2A8E-4F51-AEAB-0CBC76FB1AF8}"

If you want to try testing this back up HKEY_Classes_Root first, then paste the above text into notepad and save it as .reg then double click the file to import it. You made need to do it in safe mode. If it works for 7 please let me know!

UPDATE

I tried to import this key in an (ill advised) attempt at testing to make sure this wouldn't hose your PC. Windows 7 didn't take the file not really sure why... I don't have the time to look at it right now but I hope it at least points you towards the keys you should be looking at.

USB devices not waking PC from sleep on windows 8.1

I have a new build based on MSI H97M-g43 motherboard.
None of USB devices are able to wake the PC back from S3 sleep.

Two methods that do wake up the PC are the power button and wake timers.
The usb connected keyboard, mouse and IR receiver doesn't.
I've made sure the USB hubs are not powered down by the system. USB devices clearly have power in standby as indicated by LEDs. I've set "allow this device to wake the computer from sleep" in device manager.

What am I missing?

Answer

I think it is likely that you need to change a setting in the BIOS to allow USB and/or PCI devices to wake from sleep, as well as in Windows Device Manager.

automation - AutoHotKey: How to make my script run only within a specific program?

I have made an AHK script that adds metadata to video clips within Avid Media Composer (video editing software). It does this by entering all the necessary sub-menu's and sends mouse clicks to locations on the screen that make a laborious task easy when needing to do it over and over all day.

However, i want the script to only run within Avid Media Composer and nothing else. There are other storage systems connected to the machine and i wouldn't want the script going into other files/folders accidentally doing who knows what to important data.

I tried using #IfWinActive but i'm not very experienced and not sure why i cant get it to work.

Here's what i need to do:

If 'Avid Media Composer' is the active window, run 'My Code'.
If anything other than Avid Media Composer is the active window, Msgbox 'Avid Media Composer must be the active window to run this task'.

-

Window Title, Class and Process

Avid Media Composer Mojo DX
ahk_class Qt5QWindowIcon
ahk_exe AvidMediaComposer.exe

-

My Code:

F3::
 {
    BlockInput, MouseMove
    Hotkey, LButton, DummyLabel, On
    Hotkey, RButton, DummyLabel, On
    Hotkey, MButton, DummyLabel, On
    Sleep, 20
    Send, {LAlt}
    Sleep, 20
    Send, {Right}
    Sleep, 200
    Send, {Right}
    Sleep, 20
    Send, {Right}
    Sleep, 20
    Send, {Down}
    Sleep, 20
    Send, {Down}
    Sleep, 20
    Send, {Down}
    Sleep, 20
    Send, {Down}
    Sleep, 20
    Send, {Down}
    Sleep, 20
    Send, {Down}
    Sleep, 20
    Send, {Down}
    Sleep, 20
    Send, {Down}
    Sleep, 20
    Send, {Down}
    Sleep, 20
    Send, {Down}
    Sleep, 20
    Send, {Down}
    Sleep, 20
    Send, {Down}
    Sleep, 20
    Send, {Down}
    Sleep, 20
    Send, {Down}
    Sleep, 20
    Send, {Down}
    Sleep, 20
    Send, {Down}
    Sleep, 20
    Send, {Down}
    Sleep, 20
    Send, {Down}
    Sleep, 20
    Send, {Down}
    Sleep, 20
    Send, {Right}
    Sleep, 20
    Send, {Enter}
    Sleep, 100
    MouseClick, Left, 107, 30
    Sleep, 20
    Send, {Down}
    Sleep, 20
    Send, {Down}
    Sleep, 20
    Send, {Down}
    Sleep, 20
    Send, {Down}
    Sleep, 20
    Send, {Down}
    Sleep, 20
    Send, {Down}
    Sleep, 20
    Send, {Down}
    Sleep, 20
    Send, {Down}
    Sleep, 20
    Send, {Enter}
    Sleep, 100
    MouseClick, Left, 346, 38
    Sleep, 200
    Send, ^v
    Sleep, 200
    Send, {Enter}
    Sleep, 200
    Send, {Enter}
    Sleep, 200
    MouseClick, Left, 91, 102
    Sleep, 100
    MouseClick, Left, 92, 100
    Sleep, 100
    MouseClick, Left, 143, 154
    Sleep, 100
    Send, {Down}
    BlockInput, MouseMoveoff
    Hotkey, LButton, DummyLabel, Off
    Hotkey, RButton, DummyLabel, Off
    Hotkey, MButton, DummyLabel, Off
 }
return
DummyLabel:
return

What is the correct code for this series of commands to run only within Avid Media Composer itself and nothing else?

Many thanks for any help in advance.

Answer

You should have a look at the following references :

According to your info the following three are all possible :

SetTitleMatchMode, 2
#IfWinActive Avid Media Composer
#IfWinActive ahk_class Qt5QWindowIcon
#IfWinActive ahk_exe AvidMediaComposer

Example :

SetTitleMatchMode, 2
#IfWinActive Notepad
F3:: MsgBox, IN
return
#IfWinNotActive Notepad
F3:: MsgBox, OUT
return

SD cards often mount read-only on Windows despite being unlocked and always working in cameras

I have a HP netbook that's at least three years old and running Windows 7 Starter. It has a built-in SDHC card slot.

I have a couple of 8 gig SDHC cards that I switch between my digital camera and the netbook. They're full-sized cards like the computer slot is. Not MiniSD or MicroSD. They are from different manufacturers and were bought at different times, but each is now a few years old.

I've gone through half a dozen point-and-click cameras and none of them have ever complained that the SD card is write protected. I never set the write-protect tabs to "locked".

Yet increasingly when I insert the SD card into the computer it will mount as read-only. It used to happen once in a while but now it happens about two times out of three.

The only workaround I have found so far is to eject the SD card and reinsert it. This works about half the time.

Is this a known bug in Windows or in certain HP netbooks? Is there a known fix? If not is there a more reliable workaround?

windows - Find originator of a hotkey

How do I find the source of a Windows hotkey / shortcut? I know the keys that start it are Ctrl-Alt-M and I know the program it runs is Windows explorer pointed to the My Documents folder. But how do I find the location of the originator?

I want to find the "source" and remove the hotkey from it so that I can create another one.

We're on fairly secured machines and I won't be able to download any software so I need something native to windows to solve the problem.

I'm on Windows 7 64-bit if that matters.

How to use 3 notebooks as multiple screens for my desktop on linux over network?

I like to use my 3 laptops as secondaries screens only, as multiple monitors, to use laptops as screens, and drag windows running on my desktop to the laptops. What the easiest way to do that?

command line - Windows CMD - can't call .cmd file from .bat file

I created A.bat file inside that file i am trying to call B.cmd file

call B.cmd

When trying to invoke the below command in CMD Terminal

call A.bat

Output is

'B.cmd' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

How to call B.cmd inside A.bat ?

linux - Printing pdf custom page order

I would like to print a pdf file in the following way:
Suppose document.pdf has 30 pages. The page order should be:
1,16;2,17;3,18; ... 15,30 (i.e. two pages per side, one-sided).

Is there any easy solution for that in linux?

Note:

After printing, I want to cut the pages into half, so I get A/5 pages, and I don't want to reorder the sheets manually.

Answer

For a command line solution use pdftk's shuffle to get a new pdf with pages arranged in the desired order. Then use pdfjam to put 2 pages on one side by side.

pdftk input.pdf shuffle 1-15 16-End output temp.pdf
pdfjam temp.pdf --nup 2x1 --letterpaper --landscape --outfile output.pdf

EDIT just tested my suggestion from comment to turn second half 180° to have
similar borders and it did work a treat with a 4 page sample pdf:

pdftk input.pdf cat 1-2 output temp1.pdf
pdftk input.pdf cat 3-4south output temp2.pdf
pdftk A=temp1.pdf B=temp2.pdf shuffle A B output temp.pdf
pdfjam temp.pdf --nup 2x1 --a4paper --landscape --outfile output.pdf

Albeit testing under windows and using Acrobat Reader for printing 2in1

boot - How can I create a bootable iso image from a bootable flash drive?

I have a bootable installer image of Win7x64 on a flash drive. How can I create a bootable iso of it to use with VMware Workstation et al?

I have used Plop Boot Manager, but I'd really like to make an ISO of this installer drive.

This question is NOT 'How do I create a bootable flash drive from an ISO?'. Rather, it's the reverse. =)

Answer

If you are working from within a Linux system (or have access to one), then you can use the 'dd' command to make an ISO from your USB device.

Example: $ dd if=/dev/sdb of=~/usb_image.iso

the 'if' argument designates the input source/file, and the 'of' argument designates the output location name.

Along the same lines, if you have a directory inside your file system that you want to create an ISO out of its contents, then you can use the 'mksiofs' command.

Example: $ mkisofs -o ~/image.iso /source/directory

The the path after the -o parameter is the path where the ISO will be created and the last argument is the path of the source directory.

Windows boot manager with UEFI not loading

I had windows 10 preinstalled on my system with boot type UEFI mentioned in my lenovo ideal pad boot options. I dual booted with linux mint tara which worked fine with grub loader showing both the OS entries. Later on i decided to delete linux partition which happened to be the system FAT32 partion on which efi bootloader was installed i suppose . to get rid of grub i deleted the EFI dir from windows . Now i am not able to boot into windows as it is on a boot loop keeps saying System BootOrder not found. reSet to default. Help !

backup - How long data will stay on cold turned on hard drive?

I am using hard drives in separate cases to backup data. How long this data will stay? How often should I (if should) re-copy stored data?

Has Microsoft changed how the Clipboard works in Windows 10?

Now that I almost disconnected our file server, I need to ask the question:

Has Microsoft changed how the Clipboard works?

I am currently working on our IT documentation. I needed to verify that a certain setting has a certain value. So I fired up my PowerShell as an Administrator on my local computer and entered a PSSession to our file server.

I ran some PowerShell commands (only Get-s), marked some of the output and right-clicked to copy the marked text. You must understand, copy & paste is one of the things I am most experienced in and I even put it into my CVs with great success! I am doing it for years now …

So, I right-clicked again to paste the text right after | fl. But it suddenly pasted the following line I copy-and-pasted earlier from/to our IT documentation: New-NetIPAddress -InterfaceAlias "Ethernet" -IPAddress "10.0.0.6" -PrefixLength 16 -DefaultGateway "10.0.0.1". Gladly I was working on the same server the command belongs to.

This is not the first time that this happened on Windows 10! It seems they changed something in the clipboard functionality. At first I thought that processes that I run as Administrators use a separate clipboard for security reasons, but I still am not able to reproduce this weird behaviour. It just happens from time to time while working with Windows 10.

Answer

They haven't changed the way the clipboard works per se... but rather they changed the way the "Console Host" which hosts Powershell and cmd.exe works. They basically just added support for the copy and paste hotkeys (Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, etc.) natively, so that you don't have to fiddle with the mouse quite as much as you used to if you wanted to copy and paste at the command prompt. If a program is currently running, Ctrl+C can still interrupt it, but if no program is currently running, Ctrl+C copies highlighted text into your clipboard. Right-clicking can still paste it the way that it used to, but now so can Ctrl+V. This behavior might seem unexpected until you get used to it, but it's quite purposeful. Now go update your CV!

Windows XP Installation problems

I'm having trouble installing Windows XP on a computer...

My friend gave me her old computer, it was riddled with viruses and ran extremely slow. I did my best to clean it out, and after a bit I discovered it had a boot sector virus. So I downloaded the Ultimate Boot CD (installed it on a flash drive), and ran Darik's nuke and boot to completely wipe the hard drive.

I then tried to reinstall Windows XP from a USB drive... It doesn't work. The computer just stalls and never boots. The computers dvd drive doesn't work, so I borrowed a spare drive that another friend had, and tried to run a Windows XP cd. For a bit I got the stop 7B error, but now it just stalls like the USB drive does.

Since then I've booted back into the Ultimate Boot CD, and ran partition magic. Repartitioned the Hard Drive, and copied the files on the Windows cd to the hard drive. I was wondering if there is any way I can make it run the setup.exe off the hard drive. I have the UBCD at my disposal, but have yet to come up with a way to do it.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Answer

Your best chance of running the installer off the drive is to boot into an older version of Windows (e.g. 95, 98 or 2000), and running the installer.

Bear in mind that you don't need a full version of Windows - just a system diskette to get the machine running.

---

As an aside, don't forget that you'll need an OS that sees NTFS if that's how you formatted your drive, in which case you could possibly go back to FAT32 to use my suggested method.

How to Remove Known Password from Secondary Hard Drive Not Appearing in BIOS

I have a Dell Inspiron 7567 laptop with two hard drives. I added password protection using the Dell BIOS to both hard drives. Once I added password protection, both hard drives worked well, and I could see and interact with all the files on both.

Unfortunately, I discovered that upon a restart, the second hard drive did not appear in Windows Explorer, or even as a partition in Disk Management. Windows cannot see it at all.

However, if during the boot-up I enter the BIOS, after leaving the BIOS, I am presented with a BIOS pop-up window that says "Hard-Drive #XXXXX, the system internal HDD-1, is protected by a password authentication system. You cannot access data on this hard drive without the correct password. Please type in the hard drive password." When I enter the correct password, I can see the second hard drive without issue. However, as soon as I put the computer to Sleep, Hibernate, or Restart (without entering the BIOS), the second hard drive disappears, and Windows cannot see it. The only way to see the 2nd hard drive in Windows 10 is to ensure that you enter the BIOS before booting Windows.

I have since done some research, and realised that the Dell hard drive passwords are not very secure, and that disk encryption is better (using Bitlocker or Veracrypt). I entered the BIOS, and found the setting for the primary hard drive password, and removed it. However, while the secondary hard drive appears in the basic BIOS, it is missing from the Dell Advanced BIOS where password protection is added or removed. I have spent hours searching for how to turn off the password for the second hard drive (in the BIOS settings, and online solutions), but I cannot figure out how to remove the password from the second hard drive. I cannot get the second hard drive to appear in the Dell Advance BIOS ("advanced", because you can navigate with a mouse).

Unable to shrink memory allocated to Oracle 11g

Recently I have installed Oracle 11g (11.2.0.1.0) on my Windows 7 desktop having 1GB RAM, and while installation I have allocated 512 MB RAM to Oracle which causes high memory utilization and reduction is PC performance while running Oracle.

As I am using Oracle 11g for learning purpose, I want to shrink memory from 512 to 256 MB I tried to do it from enterprise manager > Memory advisors, changing following parameter

OLD:

Total Memory Size = 500 MB
Maximum Memory Size = 500 MB

New:

Total Memory Size = 256 MB
Maximum Memory Size = 256 MB

Showing the following error:

"memoryMaxTarget - Maximum Memory Size cannot be less than Maximum SGA Size."

Can anybody tell me how to shrink the memory using enterprise Manager and using SQL*Pluse?

Recovery Hard Disk with Bad Sectors

I have a WD Element 1TB external hard Disk and suddenly I got some errors in data reading and writing. I decided to recover it, and I tried to do so many ways and nothing worked. I tried to run chkdsk, but it keeps getting stuck at about the same spot. I tried to do some surface tests too, but everything failed. I then decided to clone the disk. I used Acronis WD version of cloning and clonezilla, but they both failed.

Failed to prepare operations. Error code: 10 'File system error is
found' with extended code: 458,776 'MFT bitmap corrupted'

This is what I got in the event log. Is there anyway I can recover my HDD?

Answer

Thanks for every ones suggestions. Finally I did it I used Active File Recovery Professional. It can recover data much as possible. I tried dozen of software some of them are top recovery tools and everything fail. Using Active recovery I manage to create image of failed disk and mount it and recover the data but the problem with that is naming. All file name change to something their naming convention and files are separate by file type like video, jpg and it took 2 days. Later I found option recovery in the menu and simply I could recover everything as it is with the folder structure. I had very few data lost

windows 7 - Active Directory login

I have a machine with a strange error when logging into ADS. (Local logins work fine.)

Profile invalid

But when I look through the hard drive I don't even see the account. I know the user has been logging onto ADS from this computer for years. Some months ago this trouble started, and they've been logging onto a local account since.

It's possible, though I wouldn't know how, that somehow the ADS account (let's call it abc) became confused with the local account (let's call it Adam Carter). But that doesn't account for the local account still working. More surprising to me, if there was no ADS folder the computer should have no trouble creating a new Users\abc folder, but instead it just gives the error as above.

Another wrinkle I don't understand: rather than present either a generic ADS login or list of local accounts, the computer displays only one choice on logon, "Other User". Clicking on this immediately (not after a minute as though loggin in) yields a second sign-on screen defaulting to our AD server. (I was able to log in and create a new account under my AD login, and it was actually validating my credentials because it denied a login when I mistyped my password.) I've never seen this interface before.

The system is Windows 7 Professional SP1, x64.

Answer

You may need to remove the profile.

Open System from the Control Panel and select 'Advanced system settings'

Click 'Settings...' under the User Profiles section

Select the Domain profile (domain\user, not hostname\user), and click Delete

usb - How can I detect what is blocking some certain keyboard keys?

After a while (about half an hour) booting up my system, some of my keyboard keys become unresponsive. Their respective Shift+, Ctrl+ and Alt+ combinations are also unresponsive. Pressing these keys do just nothing. When I restart (or power off and reboot) my system they become active again for a while.

I haven't installed any particular software that remaps the keyboard keys or does anything similar. My operating system is up to date. I'm very careful with viruses, I have Comodo antivirus installed.

I tested this keyboard in another USB port (without restarting the system), and the problem was same.
I plugged (without restarting the system) another keyboard to that USB port (to the one which the problematic keyboard was originally plugged in), and the new keyboard was functioning alright.
EDIT: I tried these tests with restarting system too. The results were the same.

How can I detect what software is causing this in my PC? Or is this just because of my keyboard being broken (a hardware failure)? Do I need to buy a new keyboard?

---

The problematic keys are:

• The Left CTRL key


• Some certain function keys: F1, F2, F8, F9


• Two number keys: 5, 6 (not the ones on the number pad)


• Some special keys: Ins, Del, Home, PgUp


• Some punctuation characters: " (quote), * (asterisk), - (hyphen)

My OS: Windows 7 Ultimate x64 SP1

windows 7 - Hard drive not found after blue-screen

I met a blue-screen and then a problem saying "Hard drive not found" when I was re-booting my system. But when I plug the power cable of the hard drive and re-insert it, the system can be successfully booted and can be normally run.

Such problems were met several times, all occurring some time (several days) after normal running of the system. In fact, I have changed the hard drive for that problem. But the new drive still has the old problem. I wonder what is wrong. My system is 64-bit Win7 Enterprise Edition. The hard drive is WDC WD10EALX-759BA1 ATA.

printing - How to print multiple copies of one page, multiple pages per sheet in Windows 10?

I have a document which will print on a single sheet of A4 paper. I want to produce multiple copies of this at the A5 size. I wish to do this by printing two copies of each page per A4 sheet. Then later I shall manually trim the A4 sheets in half, creating the A5 handouts that I desire.

How can I make this happen with the Print dialog?

I am using an HP Envy 5540 printer.

At present the best I can do is to print on the 2-pages-per-sheet setting (which does the shrinking to A5) but I only get one copy (thus wasting half a sheet of paper each time).

Here is an example:

When I tried some sensible advice given by an answer below, I unfortunately got the same result. Here is what I selected:

linux - Concatenate multiple tar files in one command

I receive anywhere from 4 to 100 very large tar (~20GB) archive files everyday. I have been concatenating them in the past by looping through each of the archives I see on the file system and doing something like this

/bin/tar -concatenate --file=allTars.tar receivedTar.tar

The problem with this however is that as I concatenate more and more tar files, it must read to the end of allTars.tar to begin concatenating again. Sometimes it takes over 20 minutes to start adding another tar file. It is just too slow and I am missing an agreed upon delivery time of the complete allTars.tar.

I also tried handing my tar command a list of files like so:

/bin/tar --concatenate --file=alltars.tar receiverTar1.tar receivedTar2.tar receivedTar3.tar...etc

This gave very odd results. allTars.tar would be the expected size (ie close to all the receivedTar.tar files' sizes added together) but seemed to overwrite files when allTars.tar was unpacked.

Is there any way to concatenate all these tar files in one command or so it doesn't have to read to the end of archive being concatenated to every time and have them unpack correctly and with all files/data?

Answer

This may not help you, but if you are willing to use the -i option when extracting from the final archive, then you can simply cat the tars together.
A tar file ends with a header full of nulls and more null padding till the end of the record. With --concatenate tar must go through all the headers to find the exact position of the final header, in order to start overwriting there.

If you just cat the tars, you just have extra nulls between headers. The -i option asks tar to ignore these nulls between headers. So you can

cat  receiverTar1.tar receivedTar2.tar ... >>alltars.tar
tar -itvf alltars.tar

Also, your tar --concatenate example ought to be working. However, if you have the same named file in several tar archives you will rewrite that file several times when you extract all from the resulting tar.

a external monitor doesn't display all the colors in windows 7

i have a laptop and external monitor setup. the problem is that in windows 7, the external monitor is displaying images really weird(256 colors i think). After the reboot, i see the display clear, but after one second everything on the external monitor turns to 256 colors (or less)

In the ubuntu the external monitor is acting just fine, even it is not recognized and is use a lower rezolution than the recommended one.

any advice?

ps: i've unistalled the monitors drivers in windows 7, but no improve.

many thanks!

Is Windows 10 OEM Home upgrade to Pro possible?

I am considering purchasing the desktop computer that fits my requirements, except it comes with Windows 10 Home while I need the Pro edition. Is an upgrade of the OEM version after purchase offered by Microsoft, and, if indeed possible, how much does it currently cost, roughly, in the US--is it significantly less expensive than the new OS license, which is $200?

---

I read the Microsoft's Windows 10 Upgrade page, but I cannot make sense of it. The closest statement that seems to apply is

If you don't have a digital license for Windows 10 Pro, Windows 10 Pro is available for purchase from the Microsoft Store.

which possibly implies that there is no upgrade option whatsoever (and the FAQ makes no distinction between retail and OEM). But this is possibly contradicted by my finding posts from people succeeding through quite complex upgrade paths. All in all, I am lost and confused.

Answer

Is Windows 10 OEM Home upgrade to Pro possible?

Yes, absolutely! The fact that it is Windows 10 Home from an OEM source is inconsequential when you want to upgrade to Windows 10 Pro.

...if indeed possible, how much does it currently cost, roughly, in the US--is it significantly less expensive than the new OS license, which is $200?

The current price is about half that much ($99.99), and the entire procedure is relatively easy:

1. In your Windows 10 Home PC, open Settings, and click/tap on the Update & security icon.



2. Click/tap on Activation on the left side, and click/tap on Go to Store on the right side:

   
   

   




3. To purchase Windows 10 Pro, click/tap on the $99.99 button

   
   

   



4. Follow the rest of the onscreen instructions to buy Windows 10 Pro.



5. Click/tap on Start to begin the upgrade process:

   
   

   




6. After preparing, Windows will automatically restart and start upgrading to Windows 10 Pro.

   
   

   




7. When the entire procedure is done and you log back into Windows, you will be greeted with a screen that says Edition upgrade completed:

   
   

   

(Source: Upgrade Windows 10 Home to Windows 10 Pro)

hardlink - How can I find hard links on Windows?

I've created some hard links on my Windows 7 file system using mklink. It was some time ago and I can't remember for sure where, or which files. When I use Explorer, all files look the same. When I use the command line and type "dir", they all look the same.

How do I find hard links? Or how do I determine whether a specific file IS a hard link?

Answer

All files are hard links, with link counts of at least 1.

This is why the files look the same. They are the same. What you seem to be looking for are files where there are more than one link to the file. There's very little that distinguishes a file with a link count greater than one from a file with a link count of one … except the link count (and some odd behaviour with respect to attributes and date stamps).

And that is dead easy to check with the find command that is in Microsoft's SFUA utility toolkit, that runs in the Subsystem for Unix-based Applications:

find . -links +1

Create A Bootable Disc Or USB From Preinstalled Windows 7 In Laptop

I have an HP laptop with preinstalled Windows 7. I have another PC where I want to install Windows 7.

I want to know how to create a bootable disc or flash drive from the laptop to install the Windows 7 to the PC.

I have the product key from the laptop.

Is this possible?

windows - CPU behaves differenly using two identical power plans

I am using XPS 15 9550 with an i7 6700HQ processor. All below description is based on only using battery as power supply.

I created two power plans, one based on "High Performance" plan and another based on "Balanced" plan. Then I changed all power options of the new balanced plan to make it the SAME as the new high-perf one.

However, I can tell significant performance difference when using these two new plans (using battery only, without power plug). I checked the CPU frequency, and found that when using the one based on Balanced plan, the CPU uses very low frequency.

As far as I know, the only difference of these two new plans is their names (as I have changed them to make them identical in power option settings).

But why do they give difference CPU performance?

Below are the settings I used for both new plans.

Answer

First of all you assume that everything what changes with a different profile also has an option. That is not guranteed. We don't know.

Besides that, minimum processor state is 5% on battery. That leaves space for other programs to control the CPU frequency and behaviour. Windows doesn't control the CPU frequency all alone. Some programs can control their CPU demand, process priority and assignment to different cores by themselves. Usually there are even more options and tweaks in the BIOS/UEFI.
Also be aware of preinstalled vendor software (e.g. Acer ePower Management) which can also control CPU usage.

connection - Download torrent in secure mode

I use utorrent for downloading using remote desktop.

Can i set it to download in secure mode or is it not supported? (I mean hide my data on network)
Is there any torrent downloader that does?

Answer

As others have already noted, HTTPS has nothing to do with torrents.

But in uTorrent you can enable encryption for outgoing connections, and optionally accept only encrypted incoming connections from others. Just download latest uTorrent version, go to Preferences > BitTorrent and in Protocol Enctiption select appropriate settings:

• Disabled: Does not encrypt outgoing connections, but will accept encrypted incoming connections.


• Enabled: Attempts to encrypt outgoing connections, but will fall back to an unencrypted mode if the connection fails.


• Force: Attempts to encrypt outgoing connections, and will NOT fall back to an unencrypted mode if the connection fails.


• Allow legacy incoming connections enables or disables incoming legacy (non-encrypted) connections.

ED: @Am1rr3zA: ...what's best setting...

Well, it depends :) If it is just 'enabled', then some of the connections may still be unencrypted. If it is 'forced', then some of the outgoing connections may be dropped, and upload speed will be somewhat lower. If 'allow legacy incoming connections' is enabled, then again some of the connections won't be encrypted 'cause the other side does not support it. If it is disabled, then some of the incoming connections will be dropped, and download speed will be lower.

You have to decide for yourself what is more important. It's a trade off between speed and security. Personally for me 'enabled' with 'legacy connections' allowed is quite enough to satisfy my level of paranoia :]

Windows 7 - run as administrator doesnt ask for password

Local computer with Windows 7 Professional was connected to domain XXX.local. I switched it to local group YYY.

After reboot I have one account ZZZ with no admin rights. When I try to open UAC or other settings that require Administrator account it fails. Windows prompt window opens but I assume that it cannot find administrator account and it doesnt show password prompt and button Yes is disabled.

When I check users that are in this computer there is Administrator (disabled) and ZZZ. I cannot turn on Administrator account or change ZZZ group because I cannot run it because it requires Administrator rights :)

What can I do to grant user ZZZ administrator rights?

Answer

There are a few ways you can go here.

If you can rejoin the pc back to the domain, you can then use an account with domain credentials to give ZZZ administrative rights.

An obvious answer is to wipe everything and start over.

It is possible to hack your windows system and grant your user administrative rights. In order to do this, you will need to boot using a windows installation medium. This can be windows 7 or windows 10.

From the setup, open a command window (SHIFT-F10) and execute the following command:

copy c:\windows\system32\sethc.exe c:\windows\system32\sethc.exe~
copy c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe c:\windows\system32\sethc.exe

Reboot your computer and make sure you end up at the logon screen. If it automatically logs you in, log out first.

Now press shift 5 times to open a command prompt.

From here, you can use the following command to gain administrative privileges:

net localgroup administrators ZZZ /add

From here you can also reset your password or create a new user.

Don't forget to boot back into the windows setup and execute the following commands from a command window:

copy c:\windows\system32\sethc.exe~ c:\windows\system32\sethc.exe

This will restore the sticky keys functionality and patch the security vulnerability we created.

EDIT: Just to clarify, this only works for windows 7. Windows 8 and 10 have different methods that works nearly the same but this specific instructionset on option 3 will not work.

windows 8.1 - Something's turning off my hard drive

I have an Acer Aspire V3-771G laptop With Intel chipset and NVidia 650M Graphics, running Windows 8.1 pro. The laptop has 2 hard drive slots.

A few weeks ago I installed an SSD in my laptop. I freshly installed Windows 8.1 and put some of my frequently used programs on it. My old HDD is in the second internal slot, and contains some of my less used programs, large programs and lots of other data that I don't need frequently.

Here's the thing: although Windows power settings are set to NEVER turn off my hard drives, my HDD turns off frequently. Like, really frequently, if I don't touch it for just a minute or two, it turns off. This makes the simplest things like playing music or running programs off of it really slow, since the hard drive has to 'restart' all the time.

The SSD doesn't seem to have any issues. HD Tune Pro doesn't notice anything wrong with both drives (health status: OK).

So, if Windows Power Management isn't turning off my hard drives, what could be doing it?

EDIT: I don't think there's physical damage to the HDD, because when I leave CPUID HWmonitor running in the background, my HDD doesn't get shut down since it's being accessed constantly.

Answer

I contacted Acer Customer Support the other day.

Apparently power settings only apply to the primary hard drive (where windows is installed). The standby policy of the other hard drives relies on instructions from BIOS or firmware.

KeepAliveHD is a lightweight tool that fixes that, and (as the name implies) prevents the hard drive from going to sleep mode.

http://keepalivehd.codeplex.com/

uninstall - Force-remove a Windows 10 Appx package, skipping any errors that might occur

I bought the pre-order version of Forza Motorsport 7 in September. During installation of the pre-order, an error occurred which left the installation mostly installed. Forza Motorsport is delivered via the Windows Store, and is distributed via the Appx App Packager.

Now that Forza Motorsport 7 has "gone gold", I'd like to install the full version of the game. Typically this automatically occurs when you run the pre-order "stub" application, however because of the problem during the initial installation, the full game is not downloading.

My first thought was do a simple "uninstall and re-install", however attempting to uninstall the app using the "Apps and Features" page in Settings results in this error:

We couldn't uninstall Forza Motorsport 7.
The operation did not complete successfully. Try again in a bit.
The error code is 0x8000000e, in case you need it.

Not helpful. Next I used Get-AppxPackage *Apollo* (Apollo is the code name for this game) via PowerShell to obtain the Appx Package Name for the game, then used Remove-AppxPackage "Microsoft.ApolloBaseGame_1.0.2.2_64__xwekyb3d8bbwe" to uninstall the app. That doesn't work with the following error:

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Remove-AppxPackage Microsoft.ApolloBaseGame_1.0.2.2_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
Remove-AppxPackage : Deployment failed with HRESULT: 0x80073CFA, Removal failed. Please contact your software vendor.
Deployment Remove operation with target volume E: on Package Microsoft.ApolloBaseGame_1.0.2.2_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe from: failed with error 0x80070002. See http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=235160 for help diagnosing app deployment issues.
NOTE: For additional information, look for [ActivityId] 59ff267b-3c76-0002-2d54-ff59763cd301 in the Event Log or use the command line Get-AppxLog -ActivityID 59ff267b-3c76-0002-2d54-ff59763cd301
At line:1 char:1
+ Remove-AppxPackage Microsoft.ApolloBaseGame_1.0.2.2_x64__8wekyb3d8bbw ...
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : WriteError: (Microsoft.Apoll...__8wekyb3d8bbwe:String) [Remove-AppxPackage], IOException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : DeploymentError,Microsoft.Windows.Appx.PackageManager.Commands.RemoveAppxPackageCommand

As recommended in the output above, I ran Get-Appxlog to see the actual error:

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Get-AppxLog -ActivityID 59ff267b-3c76-0002-2d54-ff59763cd301
Time                      ID           Message
----                      --           -------
2017-10-03 2:43:13 PM     603          Started deployment Remove operation on a package with main parameter: Microsoft.ApolloBaseGame_1.0.2.2_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe and Options: 0. See http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=235160 for help diagnosing app
                                       deployment issues.
2017-10-03 2:43:13 PM     10002        Creating Resiliency File C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\AppRepository\b5d59b38-d0ce-4730-a93c-da39a1a1d34e_S-1-5-21-2808904017-3304153599-3912926511-1001_2.rslc for Remove Operation on Package
                                       Microsoft.ApolloBaseGame_1.0.2.2_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe.
2017-10-03 2:43:13 PM     607          Deployment Remove operation on package Microsoft.ApolloBaseGame_1.0.2.2_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe has been de-queued and is running for user SID S-1-5-21-2808904017-3304153599-3912926511-1001.
2017-10-03 2:43:13 PM     605          The last successful state reached was BundleProcessed. Failure occurred before reaching the next state Indexed. hr: 0x80070002
2017-10-03 2:43:13 PM     401          Deployment Remove operation with target volume E: on Package Microsoft.ApolloBaseGame_1.0.2.2_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe from:   failed with error 0x80070002. See http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=235160 for help
                                       diagnosing app deployment issues.
2017-10-03 2:43:13 PM     404          AppX Deployment operation failed for package Microsoft.ApolloBaseGame_1.0.2.2_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe with error 0x80073CFA. The specific error text for this failure is: Deployment Remove operation with target volume E: on
                                       Package Microsoft.ApolloBaseGame_1.0.2.2_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe from:   failed with error 0x80070002. See http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=235160 for help diagnosing app deployment issues.

Error: 0x80070002 seems to indicate a "file not found" error. Although the messaging doesn't show which file was not found. So helpful.

Next, I tried using DISM.exe to remove the package:

C:\WINDOWS\system32>C:\Windows\system32\Dism.exe /online /remove-provisionedappxpackage /packagename:Microsoft.ApolloBaseGame_1.0.2.2_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 10.0.15063.0
Image Version: 10.0.15063.0
Error: 2
The system cannot find the file specified.
The DISM log file can be found at C:\WINDOWS\Logs\DISM\dism.log

Relevant content from the DISM log file:

2017-10-03 14:57:36, Info                  DISM   DISM Appx Provider: PID=8912 TID=10092 Processing 'packagename' option at index 2 - CAppxManager::ProcessCommandRemoveAllUserAppx
2017-10-03 14:57:36, Info                  DISM   DISM Appx Provider: PID=8912 TID=10092 packagename='Microsoft.ApolloBaseGame_1.0.2.2_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe' - CAppxManager::ProcessCommandRemoveAllUserAppx
2017-10-03 14:57:36, Error                 DISM   DISM Appx Provider: PID=8912 TID=10092 Failed to open 'C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\Microsoft.ApolloBaseGame_1.0.2.2_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe\AppxMetadata\AppxBundleManifest.xml'. - CPackageAdapter::GetOptionalPackagesForMainPackage(hr:0x80070002)
2017-10-03 14:57:36, Warning               DISM   DISM Appx Provider: PID=8912 TID=10092 Getting optional package list for 'Microsoft.ApolloBaseGame_1.0.2.2_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe' hit error 0x80070002 - CAppxManager::RemoveAllUserAppx
2017-10-03 14:57:36, Error                 DISM   DISM Appx Provider: PID=8912 TID=10092 Failed to get the list of packages to remove - CPackageAdapter::DeregisterMainPackageAndGetDependencyPackages(hr:0x80070002)
2017-10-03 14:57:36, Error                 DISM   DISM Appx Provider: PID=8912 TID=10092 Failed to deregister main package and get its dependent packages - CPackageAdapter::DeregisterPackageOnline(hr:0x80070002)
2017-10-03 14:57:36, Error                 DISM   DISM Appx Provider: PID=8912 TID=10092 Failed to deregister packages. - CPackageAdapter::RemovePackageOnline(hr:0x80070002)
2017-10-03 14:57:36, Error                 DISM   DISM Appx Provider: PID=8912 TID=10092 Encountered failure while removing package Microsoft.ApolloBaseGame_1.0.2.2_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe - CAppxManager::RemoveAllUserAppx(hr:0x80070002)
2017-10-03 14:57:36, Error                 DISM   DISM Appx Provider: PID=8912 TID=10092 Failed to remove package 'Microsoft.ApolloBaseGame_1.0.2.2_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe' - CAppxManager::ProcessCommandRemoveAllUserAppx(hr:0x80070002)
2017-10-03 14:57:36, Error                 DISM   DISM Appx Provider: PID=8912 TID=10092 Failed processing command to remove Appx package - CAppxManager::ExecuteCmdLine(hr:0x80070002)

Using the command-line, I can verify that C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\Microsoft.ApolloBaseGame_1.0.2.2_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe\AppxMetadata\AppxBundleManifest.xml does not exist. However, I cannot create the file, nor can I copy a file into that location. Even if I run cmd.exe as system, via PsExec:

psexec -e -i -h -s cmd.exe

Is there some way to manually get rid of an Appx package that cannot be uninstalled? Alternately, is there some way to manually trigger a re-install of an appx?

I could boot from a Windows PE environment and create a fake AppxBundleManifest.xml file, but I feel like a fake xml manifest will likely just make things worse. Presumably that manifest file typically contains dependency information that is needed by the uninstall process.

Do I have to format C: and re-install? Really?

Answer

The only way I was able to resolve this was by reinstalling Windows cleanly. In my opinion, Microsoft should create a way to force re-install an app.

How to resolve Windows Update Error 8024402F on Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit?

I have been having the same problem with Windows Updates on 2 of my machines at home, both running Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. One of the 2 machines is a brand new install, the other has run Windows Update in the past, but is also not working now.

When I manually check for updates using the Control Panel, I get error code 8024402F:

I followed the link to "Get help with this error", which brings up several articles in Windows Help and Support, none of which are for this specific error code. From the help and general googling I've tried:

• Checking internet connectivity. Most of the help suggests that this error is caused by a general internet connectivity problem. But if you're reading this, my connection is definitely working fine.


• Disabling antivirus temporarily and trying to run Windows Update. This didn't help (I run AVG free)


• Running Control Panel -> Troubleshooting -> Security Systems -> Fix Problems with Windows Update. This said it detected and resolved problems, but didn't help.

I've had the same problem for 24 hours now, so surely the Windows Update servers haven't been down this whole time? A quick check on twitter shows no worldwide outcry about Windows Update being unavailable, so is it just me? I'm based in the UK, but I notice that the http://test.update.microsoft.com/windowsupdate/v6/vistadefault.aspx URL is also unavailable using ''wget'' from my webserver in Chicago.

day@ord1:~$ wget http://test.update.microsoft.com/windowsupdate/v6/vistadefault.aspx
--2011-03-17 00:01:27--  http://test.update.microsoft.com/windowsupdate/v6/vistadefault.aspx
Resolving test.update.microsoft.com... failed: Name or service not known.
wget: unable to resolve host address `test.update.microsoft.com'
day@ord1:~$ host test.update.microsoft.com
Host test.update.microsoft.com not found: 3(NXDOMAIN)

Edit: Output of ''ipconfig /all'':

Windows IP Configuration
   Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : Office
   Primary Dns Suffix  . . . . . . . :
   Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid
   IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
   WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
   DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : home
Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:
   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . : home
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) 82566DC Gigabit Network Connection
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-1C-C0-71-89-46
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
   Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::a17f:ec64:9b37:92b9%11(Preferred)
   IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.100.102(Preferred)
   Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
   Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : 17 March 2011 00:25:47
   Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : 18 March 2011 00:25:48
   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.100.1
   DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.100.1
   DHCPv6 IAID . . . . . . . . . . . : 234888384
   DHCPv6 Client DUID. . . . . . . . : 00-01-00-01-15-10-68-D4-00-1C-C0-71-89-46
   DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.100.1
   NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled
Tunnel adapter isatap.home:
   Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . : home
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Microsoft ISATAP Adapter
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
Tunnel adapter Local Area Connection* 9:
   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
   IPv6 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 2001:0:5ef5:79fd:2098:13b8:a9ec:3703(Preferred)
   Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::2098:13b8:a9ec:3703%13(Preferred)
   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : ::
   NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Disabled

Edit 2: Suggestions from Microsoft Support:

Configure the connection to obtain an IP address automatically

1. Click "Start", input "NCPA.CPL" (without quotation marks) to Start Search bar and press "Enter".


2. Right-click the network connection and click "Properties".
   If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.


3. Click to highlight "Internet Protocol Version 6 (TCP/IPv6)" and click "Properties".


4. Check "Obtain an IP address automatically" and "Obtain DNS server address automatically".


5. Click "OK".


6. Click to highlight "Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4)" and click "Properties".


7. Check "Obtain an IP address automatically" and "Obtain DNS server address automatically".


8. Click "OK".


9. Reboot the computer.

I tried that and IPv4 and v6 were both already set to these settings, rebooted anyway, error still there. I then sent my System Information and WindowsUpdate.log file to Microsoft, sorry but I'm not posting their contents here.

Will keep you posted on progress.

Answer

Solved.

I haven't heard back from Microsoft Support since sending them my log files, but I got some time to take a look myself. Here's a relevant snippet:

+++++++++++  PT: Synchronizing server updates  +++++++++++
  + ServiceId = {9482F4B4-E343-43B6-B170-9A65BC822C77}, Server URL = https://www.update.microsoft.com/v6/ClientWebService/client.asmx
Timeout for accelerated install is already set
WARNING: Cached cookie has expired or new PID is available
WARNING: PTWarn: Anonymous plug-in skipped for WU
Triggering accelerated install by calling UpdateNow
No installable updates are available
WARNING: Send failed with hr = 80072efe.
WARNING: SendRequest failed with hr = 80072efe. Proxy List used: <(null)> Bypass List used : <(null)> Auth Schemes used : <>
WARNING: WinHttp: SendRequestUsingProxy failed for . error 0x80072efe
WARNING: WinHttp: SendRequestToServerForFileInformation MakeRequest failed. error 0x80072efe
WARNING: WinHttp: SendRequestToServerForFileInformation failed with 0x80072efe
WARNING: WinHttp: ShouldFileBeDownloaded failed with 0x80072efe

Note the failure to download http://download.windowsupdate.com/msdownload/update/common/2009/06/2803268_2cf7737e73bd31ae709b14a95c8d2ecb7eccfbf3.cab.

I tried to download this CAB file from a browser, which didn't work. I then tried wget (in cygwin) which didn't work and reported "Connection reset by peer". I also had the same problem downloading the CAB file from Linux machines on my home network, so it was not an issue with the Windows machines themselves.

To cut a long story short, I finally tracked down the problem to my router, which is running DD-WRT.

Apparently I must have enabled the "Filter ActiveX" option about a month ago and forgotten that I'd done so.

Given the security problems with ActiveX, this sounds like a sensible option to activate, but upon reading the help... not so much!

Filter ActiveX
Blocks HTTP requests containing a URL ending in ".ocx" or ".cab".

Yes... that would certainly cause problems! Unticking this and applying the settings to the router has cured the problem on both of my Windows machines, as you'd expect.

Thanks everyone for your help & suggestions, hope this is of use to someone else.

Windows on a hybrid MBR/GPT

I thought I'd finally relegated Windows to life inside a virtual machine, but alas, I came across some games I'd like to play that just won't do in that setup. In the days since Windows last occupied its own specified chunk of my disk I've done a lot of flipping around with different OSes and Linux distributions, and it turned out that while I had free space, I was at the maximum number of partitions supported by MBR partition tables. So, believing that it should Just Work® here in the 21st century and having performed a cursory examination of Google that indicated it should work, I converted over to a GUID partition table (GPT) and attempted to install Windows 7. Lo and behold, Windows 7 only works with GPTs on EFI systems, and mine uses BIOS. I should have noticed this in my earlier research, but that would have just been too easy.

So, I'm left with the choice of converting back to MBR and trying to jigger my partition layout around such that I can make one for Windows, or going with a hybrid MBR. The latter sounds more appealing. Unfortunately, there are lots of scary warnings about hybrid MBRs on the Internet, so I have a few questions.

Will Windows do something ugly to my bootloader since it's really on GPT but it will see MBR? Will that require more repair than booting from a LiveCD and running grub-install? Is there anything I need to avoid other than making sure I never touch partitioning tools on Windows? Will my computer explode? Would lots of headaches be saved if I just switched back to MBR? (I understand that Macs use hybrid MBRs with Boot Camp, so hopefully this won't be as difficult as I'm making it out to be.)

Cannot Create Any Account on Windows 7 - User Profile Service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded

I have run this weird problem of not being able to create any users. It began with the idea of creating new user for gaming. Before that I had 2 Admin accounts, 1 normal password protected account, 1 guest accout (not protected for frieds) - and some several hidden services for Xampp Services. And never had such a problem anymore.

I have created a new user and put a password from my normal user (with UAC asking for an admin-password). Tried to switch to newly created user and had this error (in german on my pc):
User Profile Service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded.

I have done some research and found out there is a solution for this but mostly people experienced it with an existing already-in-use account, where they could delete the entry in the registry/transfer files etc.

This does not work in my case as there NO registry entries in profilelist and there is NO folder for the user. The only trace of this newly created account is that it appears in the login screen of windows.

So I had the idea to see what particular error message there is, which is timely overlapping with logging into that account and I have found these 2 errors (translation found on the net):

"Windows cannot find the local profile and is logging you on with a temporary profile. Changes you make to this profile will be lost when you log off."

"Windows cannot log you on because your profile cannot be loaded. Check that you are connected to the network, and that your network is functioning correctly." (I think this is because it tries to login with TEMP account but does not succeed that too!)

I also get several warnings:
"The Winlogon notification subscriber Profiles failed a critical notification event."

"Die Datei \?\C:\Users\Default\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\desktop.ini konnte nicht nach \?\C:\Users\Gamer\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\desktop.ini kopiert werden. Mögliche Fehlerursachen sind Netzwerkprobleme oder nicht ausreichende Sicherheitsrechte.

Details - Zugriff verweigert" (did not find any exact translation but it says that the file cannot be copied and access denies)

So therefore I was wondering what the problem was and looking for answers. Finally I have found this about security rights of the folders. (sorry it is in german)

So I have started to investigate the security rights of all those files, which could not be copied. All of them were inaccessible by the Administrators!

So I have changed the ownership of those files to administrators and gave the permission to them and everyone. After this step I could log in and both the folders and registry keys were created.

When I have started with this text I didn't know the solution so I have decided to keep writing and share. I did not know why suddenly the problem occured so I cannot trace it back to prevent it happening again.

PS: Windows 7 Home Premium, all updates installed.

Answer

I have started to investigate the security rights of all those files, which could not be copied. All of them were inaccessible by the Administrators!

So I have changed the ownership of those files to administrators and gave the permission to them and everyone. After this step I could log in and both the folders and registry keys were created.

When I have started with this text I didn't know the solution so I have decided to keep writing and share. I did not know why suddenly the problem occured so I cannot trace it back to prevent it happening again.

Split PDF document from command line in Linux?

I would like to extract page ranges from a PDF document into a new PDF document using the command line in Linux. Note that:

$ pdftk input.pdf cat 1 verbose output output.pdf
Error: Failed to open PDF file: 
   input.pdf
Errors encountered.  No output created.
Done.  Input errors, so no output created.

Turns out that "You (should) know that Pdftk is nothing more than a very old version of
iText.... The keywords in the above statement are "VERY OLD"." (from pdftk can't open pdf file)

$ java -classpath /path/to/Multivalent20091027.jar tool.pdf.Split -page 1 input.pdf
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: tool/pdf/Split
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: tool.pdf.Split
    at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:202)
    at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
    at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:190)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:306)
    at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Launcher.java:301)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:247)
Could not find the main class: tool.pdf.Split.  Program will exit.

Turns out, this is a bit of a tricky software: even if its on SourceForge, and says that "Practical Thought generously provides these tools for free use on the command line" here - however, here then it says: "The browser is open source. The document tools are a free bonus and not open source." ... which finally clarifies the comment from conversion - Gluing (Imposition) PDF documents - Stack Overflow:

All releases of Multivalent linked from the official sourceforge site are missing the tools package.

(edit: there seems to be an old Multivalent version with the tools included, see the SO link; but as it looks somewhat like abandonware, I'd rather not use it)

• Finally, I'd like to avoid tools that are essentially front-ends for Latex like PDFjam

 

So, are there any options for such a pdf-splitting command line tool under Linux?

Windows 7 x64 "upgrade" repair fails (also Windows Update error 800B0001)

Update: The original issue that spawned this question has been fixed, so this is now moot. I was unable to use Windows Update, as it'd throw error 800B0001 when I tried to use it, and would also ask to update Windows Update (which would also fail). After performing some manual patches and installing Microsoft FixIt 50528, it now works again! :)

---

I've been running into issues with Windows Update, which I can't seem to fix. The hotfixes don't work, nor does the Windows update readyness tool, or the manual SP1 upgrade. I get various esoteric errors which nobody seems to have a fix for. Looks like some of the update cache is corrupt and digital signatures seem to be broken on some packages / Windows Update components.

Long story short, I have discovered the only option is to do a repair operation on the OS, to repair everything. It's so corrupt that only a complete replacement will fix it.

According to various sources (including MSKB) one can perform a repair by running an in-place upgrade.

I've got the Windows 7 Ultimate retail disc, which I've inserted into my machine. I ran setup.exe and went through in the following order:

• Install now


• Go online to get latest updates (I've also tried not getting updates)


• Wait for updates to be downloaded


• Select Windows 7 Ultimate (x64 architecture) and click next


• Accept the T&Cs, click next


• Click Upgrade

At this point it spends a minute on the "checking compatibility" screen, after which I get the following error:

The following issues are preventing Windows from upgrading. Cancel the upgrade, complete each task, and then restart the upgrade to continue.

• You can’t upgrade 64-bit Windows to a 32-bit version of Windows. To upgrade, obtain a 64-bit version of the installation disc, or go online to see how to install Windows 7 and keep your files and settings.




• 32-bit Windows cannot be upgraded to a 64-bit version of Windows. To upgrade, obtain a 32-bit version of the Windows installation disc.

It also mentions a warning about potential conflicts with a storage driver and VS2010, but that doesn't seem to be the blocking issue.

My currently installed version of Windows is Ultimate 64-bit (absolutely sure of this) and the disc is definitely a x86 / x64 combined Ultimate retail disc. There seem to be a few people who have run into this (e.g. this question), but I've not seen any answers. I've checked the event viewer, but can't spot anything in there that's related.

Any idea how I can get this working?

P.S: Just to pre-empt the inevitable "are you suuuuuuuuuuuuure it's x64 Ultimate?" questions:

Answer

This issue has now become moot for me - I managed to get Windows Update working again!

So, for anyone with error 800B0001, do the following:

• Download an run the Windows Update Readiness Tool


• Run the KB971058 FixIt to ensure that supporting components have been appropriately patched.


• Run Microsoft FixIt 50528 (KB822798) - this is the one that does a FULL repatch of Windows Update. It takes about an hour or two to run, and mostly sits at the "Configuring updates" screen.


• Let the machine fully boot back up after, then immediately shut down and reboot again. It'll go through the update cache and properly install the last set of updates.


• Log back in, go to Windows Update, click "Check for Updates" and wait for it to complete. It may ask you to install an update to Windows Update - if it does ask, do so, and reboot again.

This has resulted in me being able to get Windows Update working again!