windows 7 - Command prompt cannot find PATH variable

Sometimes, my command prompt cannot find the PATH variable. I have this occasional problem at work where when I open command-prompt and run commands like ipconfig or subst, I get an error saying something like 'ipconfig' is not recognized as an internal or external command. When I try this echo %path%, it prints out %path% instead of the PATH value. If I look at my Environment Variables window, the PATH is defined right there but I don't know why CMD can't find it. At this point, I understand why the other commands were not being recognized since their paths are in PATH variable.

However, I cannot understand why the PATH variable is not being found. If I restart the computer, everything is back to normal. In a few days, I might have the same experience again.

I tried using this answer. It suggested changing a registry value but mine already had the value that was suggested yet it wasn't working. (The restart step at the end would have solved it as usual but that's not the point.)

Any suggestions regarding why the PATH variable may become invisible every now and then and how I can prevent it from happening again?

macos - OSX Server - LDAP / pwpolicy - How to disable a account?

For some reason, Apple is great at just changing the syntax or path of (insert random feature here).
And thus, I'm having trouble disabling (not locking a account, that seems to work fine by setting pwdLastSet to 0) which should disable the user from logging in.

The reason being is that i'm creating a scenario where:

• User tries to login 3 times -> Gets locked out



• A script running in the background unlocks the account after 30min or so

In between or even after the system adminitrator has a neat button to disable accounts and it shouldn't just lock out the accounts because that would sort of defeat the purpose of the script and the whole locked-out mechanism but rather disable the account all togeather rendering the users account invalid for logins even if the correct password is supplied and the account is unlocked/never locked in the first place.

Is this possible? and where do i get & set this value because it sure isn't stored in the LDAP directory any longer (or wasn't even in the first place?).

Script language: PHP
OSX Server: 10.8

(Note: I come from a Unix and some what Windows background and finding things in OSX is more confusing than not since 80% of the guides and documentation is obsolete if you even manage to find any on the interwebs, hence why i need help with even the basic stuff as figuring out how and where the mechanics are for different password/account parts)

64 bit - Is there any disk check software for GNU/Linux that can work with NTFS partitions made by Windows 7?

I'm having problems with scandisk on windows 7. After I schedule it, I get the countdown and it either hangs on 1 second or does nothing. I believe that I should run it on my primary windows partition, so I'm asking for some alternatives.

It's a plus if it's available for 64bit Ubuntu 10.04, but live cds or programs which may need to be compiled form command line are also acceptable.

Answer

Yes. Use ntfsfix in the ntfs-3g suite. It is a package.

power supply - Can't seem to get chassis fans running

I've got a ASUS ROG Maximus V Extreme and I'm trying to connect my fans to the chassis fan pins to get them running according to the motherboard. I know for sure that my fans work, as when I test them with my Molex connector, they all happily power on.

Here's two of my chassis fans connectors (there are 3-4):

Here's the connector that came with either my motherboard or the PSU, can't remember :)

I've never seen one of these strange cables before. All I know is that if I plug in the 4-pin mobo connector to either of these fan plugs, fans don't come on and don't show up in the BIOS. (Motherboard has a crazy awesome UEFI BIOS and shows you if it sees the fans.) If I try plugging the 4-pin connection into the mobo and the other side into the PSU, I can't POST. If I plug the PSU connector in without the mobo connector, fans come on.

What could I be doing wrong here? Is it a problem with the cable I'm using? Is there something I may have missed in the build?

Answer

You are referring to a floppy power connector. It does not connect to the motherboard. The connection on the motherboard is where you connect the cable from the fan.

If you don't have a floppy drive, leave this disconnected.

Floppy connector is the lower left connector in this image.

ubuntu - How can virtual machines consume so little RAM on the physical host machine?

I'm running VirtualBox on a Windows XP machine with 2GB RAM. I've created a virtual Ubuntu machine and allocated it a base memory of 750MB.

Just to put it to a test, I ran 20 things at once on the virtual machine. According to "top" in ubuntu, 750 megs of memory were being used, as well as considerable swap space.

However, back in Windows Task Manager, VitrualBox was using only 45,000K of memory. As I asked the virtual machine to do more and more, the CPU usage of the VirtualBox process went up (in Windows) but memory usage stayed the same.

How can a virtual machine that is using 750 MB of memory only consume 45 MB of memory on a physical machine?

I assume the answer is that the virtual machine is not using real memory, but simulated memory (i.e. swap space), but it sure feels snappy like it is running in RAM.

UPDATE: I've played around with perfmon as suggested. Even summing up everything I can think of, it still seems to take up less than 300 megs ... so it is still a mystery.

Process               VirtualBox     VirtualBox#1     Total
PoolNonpagedBytes     5,840          42,552           48,392
PoolPagedBytes        119,796        166,892          286,688
PrivateBytes          8,884,224      52,719,616       61,603,840
VirtualBytes          75,939,840     161,202,176      237,142,016
Sum                   84,949,700     214,131,236      299,080,936

Answer

The columns in Task Manager can give misleading figures -- for accurate memory usage per process, you could use perfmon (Performance Monitor in Control Panel) and look at the "private bytes" figures.

To show this, go into perfmon, click to add the counter (I'm a Ctrl+I kind of person). The "Performance object" would be "Process", with "Private bytes" being in the counters list -- obviously you'd need to select the relevant process from the right hand list.

boot - Memory or Memory Controller issue

I'm bad at writing titles

Update: Attempted changing graphics card with no change.

I have a machine running 32 gigs of ram and two processors, this machine has been ok for several years until it was restarted to apply windows updates yesterday (windows updates haven't been run on this machine in a long time and no one knows when the last time it was restarted was.)

After it restarted it crashed, the second time it booted it attempted to go into the windows startup repair and promptly errored with "Ramdisk device creation failed Insufficient ram" or something similar (Later tried this with a windows 7 x64 bootdisk and had the same result). A regular boot consistently crashes, safe mode crashes and Disable automatic restart on system failure sits at a black screen and nothing happens (waited 10+ minutes before manually rebooting), We attempted to swap the ram around and got the same result, we attempted to run memtest on this machine and it crashes as soon as the test begins (blue screen for about a half second before it begins the test) The crash is something I have never seen before and I could not find this online anywhere, heres a picture:

Note that the three times I attempted the memtest was with the minimum ram (8 GB) as each stick is 4 gigs and it will not boot without at least one stick for each processor.

After Memtest I attempted to boot a Windows XP live disk (Hirens) just to see if it would work, it fails with the error: "Couldn't Initialize Memory"

So my question is, has anyone run into this problem before and did they ever figure out what issue was causing it? I'm leaning toward this being a motherboard problem but we have no direct way to test it.

Answer

After some other testing we decided to remove the raid card from this machine and test, the machine booted from the same CD tested earlier and ran mem test OK. After re installing this board it failed again, upon attempting to access the raid bios to check for errors the screen goes black and stays there.

Solution to this error was the hard drive controller and not Memory Related at all, just goes to show you how misleading errors can be.

Make Windows XP taskbar icons draggable

In Windows 7, taskbar icons are draggable so we can reorder icons. I was wondering if that's possible in Windows XP?

Answer

You mean moving the program buttons, like you can on Windows 7?

Use Taskbar Shuffle.

Excel: Format rows in sheet B based on value in sheet A

How do I shade an entire row on one Excel sheet when an "X" is placed in column "A" of the same row in a different sheet in the same workbook?

Raid Mirror potential issue

I found a SSD drive at work so i took it home to test it. The only machine i had that i could easily use was my NAS server. I have a 4TB mirror'd Raid 1 in it. I unplugged one of the drives and plugged in the SSD i found. Turns out the drive didn't work. So i plugged back in the 4TB drive and windows recognized it as a independant HD. I was afraid to delete the drive in disk manager and am now wondering if the raid array has been lost. I have over 2.5TB of data on the raid so i really would hate to lose it. Thoughts? The raid 1 was created using windows.

The data has not been lost on the first drive. All my data is in tact. However, the redundant drive now has partial folders from the primary drive. And windows now see's it as a independent drive. The purpose of a raid 1 is so that if 1 drive fails, you can plug in a new hard drive and the raid 1 will automatically transfer the data to the new drive. But in my case i did not have a drive failure. I just unplugged one of the drives and plugged in a test SSD. upon plugging back in the first drive, windows decided to see it as an independent drive and assigned it its own drive letter. Before i did this my raid 1 set showed as drive D: not drive D: and E:

windows - Remap Lock key on Thinkpad Edge E531

My Lenovo Thinkpad Edge E531 (running Windows 7) has a few unneeded media keys above the numpad (Calculator, Lock computer, Web browser and Explorer) that I would like to remap to something more useful to me, namely Home, End, PgUp and PgDown. I've managed to remap three of the keys with common keymapping tools like KeyTweak and SharpKeys, but the Lock key eludes me.

The problem, as far as I can see, is that the Lock key isn't sending a single key code. It's instead pressing both the L and Windows keys at the same time, which is the key combo for locking Windows. Neither of the keycode mapping programs I've tried can handle this, and I can't seem to find a way to disable the key combo. Not that disabling it really matters, I can't remap the Windows key or the L key, since they are both rather useful for using a computer.

Is there any way for me to get the Lock key on my keyboard mapped to End?

Edit: I found a program called KeyCodes that registers all keyboard input. When I press the Lock key, I get a LWin KeyDown, and if I then release it I get an L KeyUp and an LWin KeyUp and the computer then locks itself. The key does not seem to generate any extraneous keycodes.

How to block outgoing packets to Google DNS Servers on dlink router?

I have a dlink DIR 600L, and now I want to configure my router firewall to block outgoing packets to Google DNS Servers (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4) for TCP/UDP and port 53 (DNS), this is so that I can use Chromecast to watch Netflix outside US.

You only need to put two rules on your router firewall to block outgoing packets to Google DNS Servers (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4) for TCP/UDP and port 53 (DNS). This way, Chromecast will get a timeout trying to reach Google DNS Servers and will fallback to your router defined DNS servers and your Netflix or Hulu will work again!

In other words, this is what I aim to do:

What I need is a router capable of filtering outgoing connections, and
every router I have seen can do this as part of the built-in firewall
without need of flashing an alternate firmware that supports iptables
(such as openwrt).

Please note that I am not looking for solution such as routing the DNS request to a bogus gateway, that solution requires the knowledge of the IP address ( 192.168.x.x), which for the sake of this question, is unknowable.

Any idea how I can do this? If dlink router can't handle this, please suggest a consumer grade router( such as tp link, ASUS, Netgear etc, but no dd-wrt or tomato firmware router) that can do this. Please note that I am not looking at the iptables solution.

Resources:

1. You can find a dlink emulator here. Username: Admin, password: blank

data recovery - Recover SDHC card used in an SD card reader

A while ago when SDHC cards were fairly new and all the office computers had only SD card readers, I made a 4 GB Class 6 ADATA SDHC unreadable and unformattable by trying to get it to work in SD card readers.

Have methods emerged since that time to make such SDHC cards usable again? Perhaps using low-level interactions with the logic on the cards?

Answer

You may be able to use the SD Formatter 3.0 from the SD Association to resurrect your card using a compatible card reader.

If that still doesn't work, it appears from the page linked above that you may have corrupted the "protected area" secure part of the card's filesystem. It is possible that running the card through a "format" or "initialize" function present on another SDHC compatible device (like a camera or media device of some sort) might do the trick.

macos - Huge disk space usage but I can't find what

My Mac's disk is almost full. I've tried to delete files and checked out my /var/log but can't find any 'big' files.

What can I do to clean up my Macbook's disk space or to find out what is so huge?

Answer

There are two GUI applications for Mac that help visually identify what's taking up disk space: Disk Inventory X and GrandPerspective. If you've ever used KDirStat or WinDirStat then you should be comfortable with it, but even if not it's fairly self-explanatory when you run it.

You can also search by file size in Finder.

Light and efficient file encryption for Ubuntu.

I'm using ubuntu 9.10. The system is installed on one partition, and my /home folder is on another partiton. I'm looking for a way to encrypt both partitions in Ubuntu 9.10, I'm NOT looking for encryption of specific files.

I know that truecrypt does that, and that Ubuntu offers some sort of home folder encryption. I'm here because I have no idea of what works best. What are my options? Which one is light on system resources (I'm running a netbook)?

I'm dualbooting with vista, and I'd rather not have to encrypt the vista partition (yes, I know I'd still have to type the password for grub to load).

Thanks in advance.

EDIT: I misstyped the question initially. I want to encrypt the entire /home partition, NOT just specific files.

FINAL: I decided to go with this method. It's working well so far, and providing whole partiton encryption with no hassle.

Answer

I would suggest you make life slightly easier by encrypting your home directories rather than home partition, and ecryptfs would be the best tool to do this.

If you do wish to encrypt your entire home partition, this article shows how to dot using LUKS, DM-Crypt and cryptsetup. I can't vouch for the performance, but from what I've seen of most Linux solutions, they are quite usable even on older machines.

Environment Variables for Windows' Built-in Libraries?

Does Windows 7 define environment variables for pre-existing Libraries? I am curious because I often use these when typing a path in Open/Save dialogs or from the Run prompt. For example, to get to the current user's Firefox settings directory, run:

%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox

It's a handy shortcut, and I was hoping to find something similar for library paths. For example:

%LIBRARIES%\Music\
%MUSIC%\

I understand that libraries aggregate one-or-more top-level folders, so there could be ambiguity. Microsoft has a list of environment variables, but most are not accessible via the Windows UI. This question also links to a nice list, but does not include a user's Documents folder, Music folder, etc.

Answer

Windows Libraries are in fact just xml files which define how to display a collection of folders. They are displayed using a special shell extension which is built in to Windows. Since they are not real folders, files and sub-folders cannot be accessed directly via a path.

With an open explorer window, you can type in the address bar:

libraries\music

This does not seem to work from the File Name box of open/save dialogs. Nor does it work with the run command.

What you can do about it:

Windows Vista introduced the "Known Folders" concept. It replaces the older "constant special item ID list" (CSIDL) methodology used in XP. There is an excellent post on the Windows Blog; it discusses this change and provides an overview of the *.library-ms file structure.

Known Folders have GUIDs. To access them via command line, prefix your URI with knownfolder:. There are dozens defined. To access the current user's Music folder for example, run the following command:

knownfolder:{4BD8D571-6D19-48D3-BE97-422220080E43}

This will get you to the pre-defined default music folder. So, if you have changed the library's folder, this will unfortunately not work.

A library's default folder can be accessed programmatically by using IShellLibrary interface, but that is out of the scope of my original question. It seems that the best approach is to either:

1. Manually map enviroment variables to their known path


2. Or manually map environment variables using their GUID. The advantage here is that you make it a system variable and have it work for all users).

windows xp - How to set custom JPG wallpaper using script for new user accounts (WinXP)

I'm trying to discover a way to use a script (batch file commands) to set a .jpg image as the wallpaper for a new user account. If this can't work, then I could use a logon script for that user, once the account is created and the user logs on.

Please don't give me advice on how to set a bitmap wallpaper. There is a registry key that can be set in Default User or Current User (HKCU) to assign a .bmp as the wallpaper and this setting takes effect immediately and reliably.

What I can't figure out how to do is set a .jpg and force Windows XP to refresh the desktop and display the new wallpaper. I can set the registry keys just fine for Default User and Current User and if I open the Display control panel to the Desktop tab, I can click OK and the wallpaper will change.

What is the trick to command Windows to do this from the command line? I'll accept a rundll32.exe (but the ones I've tried don't work) or a utility or applet that can run in a script, but I can't just pop open the Display control panel to the Desktop tab and make the user do it themselves. I could even accept an applet that converts .jpg to .bmp and sets the bitmap wallpaper registry key. How do you do it?

Answer

I've used WallpaperChanger in some of my scripts before. It is a command line utility for changing the wallpaper and it requires the .NET Framework v2.0 or later. It can accept most standard picture types as input files and it will automatically convert them to bitmap format for you before setting it.

The program takes two arguments: the
file (including path) to use as
wallpaper, and the style (Tiled,
Centered, Stretched)

Syntax is: [file] [style]
[file] is the complete path to the file
[style] is an integer (if no style is specified it defaults to Stretched):
0 for Tiled
1 for Centered
2 for Stretched

The file type can be any of the
standard picture types (bmp, jpg, gif,
etc.). The program will automatically
convert the file to a bmp file
(required by windows) and place it
within the users temp directory.

If the .NET framework isn't an option for you, Command Line Wallpaper Changer Portable works similar to WallpaperChanger, but as a native Win32 application:

Command Line Wallpaper Changer
Portable is a small and fast tool to
set your windows desktop wallpaper.
Simply drag 'n' drop a JPG or BMP
image file on CLWCP and it will be set
as your new wallpaper.

You can also use the command line to
set a new wallpaper. This way, you can
even define, whether you want it to be
tiled, stretched or centered: Start
clwcp.exe with the filename of your
desired wallpaper as first parameter,
e.g. "1.bmp" or "1.jpg", followed by
the optional parameter defining the
alignment: "stretch", "tile" or
"center". A JPG will be converted to
BMP and saved as clwcp.bmp in your
Windows folder, then this file is set
as new wallpaper.

Both utilities are freeware.

macos - How can I remove Postgres completely from my Mac?

I have been experiencing spooky behavior with Postgres after using the Mac installer for Postgres. There seems to be an existing half-baked Postgres installation that was already there and remains there after I deleted the Mac GUI installer version from /Applications and /Library. Part of the spooky behavior included being unable after repeated poking and prodding to get a particular user to authenticate with its behavior--but this makes sense if I had two parallel Postgres databases, one for which I was (successfully) setting the user with a particular password, and one which did not have this database set. Now that that version is uninstalled, I have a number of Postgres binaries that crash or give errors if I try to use them:

$ psql
dyld: Library not loaded: /usr/lib/libpq.5.dylib
  Referenced from: /usr/bin/psql
  Reason: image not found
Trace/BPT trap: 5
$

I have not used MacPorts, Fink, or other Unix installers other than Homebrew in the life of this Mac. Homebrew disclaims ownership of a Postgres installation:

# ls /usr/local/Cellar | grep -i postgres
#

So however installed, I have a broken Postgres installation that I would like to wipe completely.

How can I completely wipe Postgres from my system so I can install it with the installer and have one Postgres installation, instead of a spooky one and a half installations?

windows 7 - Multicolored Batch File

I have this batch file i wrote, and i wrote it to make specific words to be different colors, as a test.

But so far, i can't get any farther than this, I'm stuck, and I was wanting to use it to make other words in different colors, to make a color coding scheme. But can't figure out how. I've honestly spent weeks trying to figure this one out but am having no luck.

Here is my code:

MD Color
CD Color
cls
echo Cool> "Text to Color"
echo Hello> "Test"
echo Test> "Helloo"
cls
FINDSTR /A:0c /C:"Cool" /S "Text to Color"
FINDSTR /A:0b /C:"Hello" /S "Test"
FINDSTR /A:0a /C:"Test" /S "Helloo"
CD..
RD /S /Q Color
@pause

The name of the file is "Text to Color.bat" in a folder named "Color"

Result

C:\Users\CST27\Dropbox\Color\Color>FINDSTR /A:0c /C:"Cool" /S "Text to Color"
Text to Color:Cool
C:\Users\CST27\Dropbox\Color\Color>FINDSTR /A:0b /C:"Hello" /S "Test"
Test:Hello
C:\Users\CST27\Dropbox\Color\Color>FINDSTR /A:0a /C:"Test" /S "Helloo"
Helloo:Test
C:\Users\CST27\Dropbox\Color\Color>CD..
C:\Users\CST27\Dropbox\Color>RD /S /Q Color
Press any key to continue . . .

With "text to color" in red, "test" in blue, and "Helloo" in green.

And I was wanting to maybe try and make the words after those in a different color as well.

Answer

Use Windows PowerShell instead of cmd.exe

Write-Host -ForegroundColor Red -Object "Hello";
Write-Host -BackgroundColor Blue -Object "World!";

Windows 10 lost administrator rights and cant insert administrator password to change settings

I have changed my username from netplwiz.

I have restarted the pc and now I am a guest account.

I go to change settings but I can't insert the admin password!

I have only option to insert a smart card and I cannot enter a password!

How can I resolve this issue?

Answer

I solved by inserting a disk installation of Windows 10 I could run the System Restore and go back to the time before you change the username thank you all for the interesting replies that might be useful in the future.

Many thanks
Massimo :)

Can I activate Window 8 en with my en_gb key?

I am a student and I got a key through DreamSpark/MSDNAA for "Microsoft Windows 8 Professional 32/64-bit (English-Great Britain)".
I tried to download the iso with Secure Download Manager, but after 4 hours of struggling a I couldn't get even 7% of the file. So I am downloading it from a different source, but It isn't an en_gb version, "Microsoft Windows 8 Professional x64 MSDN ENG" (en_windows_8_x64_dvd_915440.iso).
My question is, Can I activate the English version of Windows 8 with a en_gb key?
(I think English means en_us)

In Windows 7 Home Premium, is it possible to grant a user account the "log on as a service" right and if so, how?

The title says it all. I need to have the ability for a local user account to log on as a service on a computer running Windows 7 Home Premium. In Windows 7 Ultimate, this is accomplished by going to Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Local Security Policy and adding the user to the "Log on as a service" policy. In Home Premium, there is no Local Security Policy in the Control Panel.

Is there another way to add the use to that policy (i.e. registry setting) or is my only recourse to upgrade the computer to Windows 7 Professional?

Thanks in Advance,
Ryan

Answer

Not exactly a duplicate but Replacement for gpedit.msc in Windows 7 Home edition shows a generic way to set/change policies in Windows 7 Home.
Does not apply here, there is no equivalent registry path.

According to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/245207 you will need to add the SeServiceLogonRight to your account. Ways to accomplish this are shown on Windows 7 equivalent for ntrights.exe. So one option should be to run ntrights +r SeServiceLogonRight –u your_account_name

macos - How to create a bootable USB Windows OS using Mac OS X

I'm having trouble here because of my PC got infected today and I've tried everything to get it back to normal, but the only option left for me now is to do a clean install.

Now, what happens is that I have MacBook Pro with 8GB USB.

I've downloaded Windows 7 from my college website [With license not pirated] and wanted to make a bootable USB, so I can format my PC to get it working again.

My question is how to create a bootable USB to install Windows on my Mac OS X without using DiskUtilities.

Answer

OK. Here are some instructions from Gizmodo that will put the ISO onto the flash drive with a Mac... they won't make it bootable though... read on...

1. Open a Terminal (under Utilities)




2. Run diskutil list and determine the device node assigned to your flash media (e.g., /dev/disk2)




3. Run diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskN (replace N with the disk number from the last command; in the previous example, N would be 2)




4. Execute sudo dd if=/path/to/downloaded.iso of=/dev/diskN bs=1m (replace /path/to/downloaded.iso with the path where the image file is located; for example, ./windows7.iso)




5. Run diskutil eject /dev/diskN, and remove your flash media when the command completes (this can take a few hours on slower drives)

Now... after you read all that, on the Gizmodo page it says that if you want to make it bootable you should use a utility called Live USB helper they link to (which isn't there any more) and use a Mac mounting tool (which isn't there either!) to force the ISO to mount on the Mac so you can copy the files over. So... that article may prove useful, but probably not. I can find other copies of Live USB helper out there, but they are all Windows executables.

One method that will work is to swap the hard drive out of the PC and into the Mac. Put your Windows 7 installation disc into the Mac optical drive, and install Windows 7 on that drive. Once it is up and running (don't worry about drivers yet), follow these steps.

1. Run Command Prompt as administrator


2. Type to Command Prompt: %windir%\System32\Sysprep\Sysprep.exe, and hit Enter


3. In sysprep dialog that opens, choose “System Cleanup Action” as “Enter System Out-of-Box-Experience (OOBE)”, select “Generalize”, and select “Shutdown Options” as “Shutdown”. Click “OK”


4. Sysprep generalizes now your Windows 7 setup and shuts down your computer.
   Do not run any other programs during this phase!


5. Remove the drive from your Mac. Put it back into the PC.


6. Boot the PC from sysprep generalized hard disk. You will notice Windows booting as if it was the first boot after installation, installing default and updating registry. One or two reboots are needed, depending on your system specifications


7. When Windows finally boots up, you will need to enter all information as if this really was a new, fresh installation

All that is from here, but it applies in this situation a well, since you would be moving a Windows 7 installation from one computer to another. Considering that trying to make a Windows bootable USB stick with a Mac requires tools that either don't exist any more or are not being developed any more... this second method will most likely prove more dependable.

SFC does not work neither windows update and system reset return an error

TL;DR:
sfc does not run even in offline mode, Windows update can't install updates, dism reports no error, Windows is unable to do a reset. What can I do fix this problem?

---

I first noticed the problem when windows warned me that it could not install an update. I tried to run SFC but it returned the following:

Windows Resource Protection could not start the repair service.

I tried to start / restart trustedinstaller service with net start trustedinstaller but it was already running. Tried everything I could find to fix this problem but I could not find one solution that worked. Finally I tried to do a fresh install of windows by going to the advanced settings and reset, but neither the "keep my files" nor the "remove everything " worked as they failed to start saying that there was an error and no changes made.

I have even tried to use sfc offline from a bootable windows installer, but the error remain the same. DISM returns no error.

Is there anything I can do to fix this?

Answer

The solution was to use a bootable windows installer (USB in my case) to do a format and install a clean version

How to power on ThinkPad T440P from usb keyboard?

How can a ThinkPad T440P be powered on from a USB keyboard? I haven't found any settings in the BIOS for it.

I have the keyboard, mouse and 27" monitor with displayport. I use it as a desktop and I don't want to open the cover of the laptop, so if the USB keyboard could start up the computer, it would be more convenient.

Answer

In general, under Windows 8 & 10, a computer in Sleep mode can be wakened using USB keyboard and/or mouse. Microsoft has published some troubleshooting information if that does not work. The most likely issues are that the Keyboard item in Control Panel is not configured correctly or that the Sleep key is configured incorrectly.

There is a thread on the Lenovo ThinkPad T440 series having issues waking from sleep. The last response I saw is "This is basic laptop functionality that appears to be broken on the new generation of Lenovo Think Pads."

That said, be sure your Lenovo is not entering Hibernate mode (or Hybrid Shutdown mode) after an extended Sleep! Most Power Plan settings go to such a complete shutdown to prevent draining the battery. You can extend this time, particularly when on mains power:

macos - How do I restore Windows 7 from a System Image to a Boot Camp partition without formatting?

I had a 70GB Boot Camp partition on my iMac that I wanted to increase the size of, so after creating a system image (.vhd) on an external FW drive of the Boot Camp partition using Windows Backup and Restore, I removed the Boot Camp partition from within OS X and re-created one that is now 140GB.

When I go to restore the system image using the Windows 7 installation disc or the repair disc, it says that when restoring the image, the entire [physical?] disk is going to be erased and formatted so that the image can be restored to it. (I don't see any options to choose just a partition!)

I've considered that there may be a command line utility on the Windows 7 install disc to restore the VHD to the partition, but can't find any documentation for such. Is there a cost-free way to just restore the system image backup to the new partition while preserving the OSX partition?

---

EDIT:

Basically what I am saying is that when installing Windows 7, there is an option to install to a specific partition on the physical disk, but when restoring, I do not see that option...

---

UPDATE: (bounty)

I am still looking for a way to restore a VHD image to an NTFS formatted partition on a hard drive. Specifically a boot camp partition on a Mac.

I really don't understand why Windows won't allow this, although it allows installing to a partition...

Would this partitioning scheme work for penta-boot system?

I'd like to have many operating systems on one HD in my laptop. Booting from USB is not an option; I have to boot from the HD.

Is the following partition scheme sensible?

What should I do for swap partitions?

4 primary partitions containing

• Recovery stuff


• Windows 7


• Linux (eg Fedora)


• EXTENDED partition containing
  
  
  
  • logical drive with Linux (eg Sabyon)
  
  
  • logical drive with Linux (eg Mageia)
  
  
  • logical drive with /home
  
  

This would all be on one hard drive. I understand that there's a 2 TiB limit; the drive is 500 GB so that's okay. I understand that I'd need a boot loader to boot the OSs in the extended partition's logical drives. I plan to use maybe GAG or Smart Boot Manager. (I know software suggestions are strongly discouraged, but I'd welcome suggestions for FOSS boot loaders in the comments)

EDIT: This question is about the particular situation of wanting to have more that 4 bootable OSs on one drive. The user can only have 4 primary partitions with a bootable OS in each. What does a user do if more partitions are needed? Can an OS be booted from a logical drive in an extended partition?

How to fix Windows 10 windows store app icons?

How do I fix my Windows Store app icons on Windows 10 when doing a search? Example:

However, in the app list it displays fine:

As you can see, it displays the image icon instead. I have followed instructions on resetting the icon cache but that hasn't helped.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

community faq - How to choose a UPS / calculate power for a new PC

Seven years ago a friend gave me a Liebert PowerSure 250 UPS and it has done well for whatever (home) PC and monitor I've plugged into it over the years. I've just ordered a new PC with the Intel core i7-920 and other nice specs for 3 HDDs, a nice graphics card etc, and opted for a 700W power supply.

I'm guessing the new workstation will use a lot more power than my current Shuttle box (this will be a development machine running SQL Server). I found a UPS selector wizard which suggested I should choose a UPS capable of providing 524VA - my current UPS is only capable of 250VA.

I've read good reviews for an APC Back-UPS ES 700VA - which is 700VA, but it's output capacity is only 405 Watts. Does that mean the 700W power supply in my new PC is over-spec'ed? Or have I missed something? I only want the UPS to run for 5 minutes in the event of a power-cut. How do you choose a UPS to cover your power requirements?

Answer

Obviously, these tools are made by people who stand to make extra profits by skewing the numbers, but I have found they are pretty decent to work with.

laptop - Maximum RAM I can put into Asus X550JX

The laptop currently has 8GB of ram. I thought I would add 4GB more into it (which is supposed to be 1600MHz DDR3) but when I opened it I found one already inside it. Is there any way to increase the ram? What can be done about this? Can I put in 8GB for example? Will the device accept 8GB extra ram. I can not find any information about particular models of laptops.

This is what I am seeing.

Answer

For future reference: I used my friends 800Mhz 8GB ram and it did actually work. Task manager showed 12GB total ram. I tried to fill it up to 11GB, and I was successful. He has a spare one that I will be using soon. If any problem comes up, i'll tell here. Update about a week later: no problem as of yet

windows 7 - Send MiniDump to Microsoft after Recovering from OS Blue Screen

Occasionally I encountered Blue Screen of Death on my Windows 7 32 bit ( Yes, windows 7!). I believe that this is software error, and from Event Viewer I can see when and what the error is. This is a sample of such a report:

The computer has rebooted from a
bugcheck. The bugcheck was:
0x0000004e (0x00000099, 0x0008737d,
0x00000002, 0x00089e37). A dump was
saved in: C:\Windows\MEMORY.DMP.
Report Id: 111310-25209-01.

I think it's worthwhile to send this kind of bug report and dumps to Microsoft. But I don't see any "Send me" button at event viewer. How to send minidump generated from crash to Microsoft, after I have recovered from OS Blue Screen of Death?

anti virus - Can not run even Microsoft security essentials- Windows 7

I have windows 7 64 bit running in my computer and i have been using Microsoft security essentials as my antivirus.It was running fine and yesterday when i was trying to do a system scan, It found that its not working.ie: when i start the service, the IDE comes and stay for 1 -2 seconds and then disappears. I went to System tray and found the icon for MSE. But when i move my cursor to the area where the icons are present, the MSE icon disappears !

I did system restore. I un-installed MSE and reinstalled it again. I ran windows update to make sure that i have the latest patches. But still no luck with that. I m infected badly it looks like. Cant run the antivirus even.

What to do now ? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

usb - Windows 7 boot from downloaded .iso

Downloaded Windows 7 .iso off the net and want to install from USB key on old laptop (previously/still running XP) that has no CD/DVD drive. Here's what I've got so far:

• Read the instructions in this post: http://kmwoley.com/blog/?p=345 , which were quite straight forward and clear.


• Properly formatted USB key with another laptop (this one running vista), also with no DVD drive


• wasn't sure how to make the USB bootable, since my .iso was downloaded and I have no DVD drive.

Any help would be much appreciated!!

linux - Why would a 3TB disk show as being 746GiB

I have a 3TB HDD and Ubuntu 14.04 live DVD is showing it as being 746.5GiB. I've seen this sort of problem with other disks in other situations before and never found a solution. I've even had Seagate replace a HDD telling me they were unable to fix the HDD after a disk imaging tool somehow permanently told the HDD it was a smaller disk.

Two questions:

• How did this happen?


• How do I fix it?

HDD Background for this case

• The disk used to be part of a ZFS RAIDZ using the bare disk instead of a partition.


• it sat on a shelf for a quite a few months.


• I used GParted to try and delete everything on the disk

I'm currently running the command

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdd bs=16M

Before that I ran:

root@ubuntu:/home/ubuntu# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdd bs=10M count=128
128+0 records in
128+0 records out
1342177280 bytes (1.3 GB) copied, 42.8214 s, 31.3 MB/s

root@ubuntu:/home/ubuntu# smartctl -i /dev/sdd
smartctl 6.2 2013-07-26 r3841 [x86_64-linux-3.13.0-32-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-13, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     Western Digital Caviar Green (AF, SATA 6Gb/s)
Device Model:     WDC WD30EZRX-00DC0B0
Serial Number:    {blanked}
LU WWN Device Id: 5 0014ee 0036bc22d
Firmware Version: 80.00A80
User Capacity:    3,000,592,982,016 bytes [3.00 TB]
Sector Sizes:     512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:   ACS-2 (minor revision not indicated)
SATA Version is:  SATA 3.0, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 1.5 Gb/s)
Local Time is:    Sun Jul 17 07:44:41 2016 UTC
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

root@ubuntu:/home/ubuntu# gdisk -l /dev/sdd
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 0.8.8
Partition table scan:
  MBR: not present
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: not present
Creating new GPT entries.
Disk /dev/sdd: 1565565872 sectors, 746.5 GiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 1F876634-0284-4A1C-8FDF-34A255B9DCCC
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 1565565838
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 1565565805 sectors (746.5 GiB)
Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
root@ubuntu:/home/ubuntu#

It is connected via a USB HDD dock. Perhaps this is the source of the problem. I'll rewire so it is plugged in directly to a SATA port on the motherboard. In the meantime here is the extra info requested.

root@ubuntu:/home/ubuntu# sg_readcap --16 /dev/sdd
READ CAPACITY (16) not supported
root@ubuntu:/home/ubuntu# sg_readcap  /dev/sdd
Read Capacity results:
   Last logical block address=1565565871 (0x5d50a3af), Number of blocks=1565565872
   Logical block length=512 bytes
Hence:
   Device size: 801569726464 bytes, 764436.5 MiB, 801.57 GB
root@ubuntu:/home/ubuntu# hdparm -N /dev/sdd
/dev/sdd:
 max sectors   = 5860533168/1(5860533168?), HPA setting seems invalid (buggy kernel device driver?)

Answer

root@ubuntu:/home/ubuntu# sg_readcap --16 /dev/sdd
READ CAPACITY (16) not supported

This means when your USB docking translate the capacity from the drive's ATA IDENTIFY DEVICE data (seen in hdparm -I / smartctl -i), it can at most report a size up to 32-bit (i.e. 0xffffffff, 4294967295) in terms of number of logical sectors. This is an inherit limitation of SCSI READ CAPACITY (10):

Logical Sector Size | Maximum capacity supported (TiB / TB)
         512        |              ~2.0 /  ~2.2
        4096        |             ~16.0 / ~17.6

Since your drive is an AF 512e drive that has totally 5860533168 / 0x15d50a3b0 512-byte logical sectors, which requires 33 bits to represent, only a SATA/USB bridge that supports SCSI READ CAPACITY (16) can handle it properly. When the size is truncated to 32-bit, it turns from:

101011101010100001010001110110000 (5860533168)

to

 01011101010100001010001110110000 (1565565872)

---

The Linux kernel, or probably all OSes, will basically never issue ATA IDENTIFY DEVICE command "directly" (i.e. encapsulated in a SCSI ATA PASS-THROUGH command) to USB drives, but SCSI READ CAPACITY commands (which you issued manually with sg_readcap), to get the capacity of them.

Only when the drives are actually SATA drive connected with a SATA/USB bridge, the command will be handled by the SCSI-ATA Translation Layer implemented in the bridge, which will then issue ATA IDENTIFY DEVICE command to the SATA drive to get the information it needs to form the response data for the READ CAPACITY command.

But utilities like hdparm and smartctl are (almost) exclusively for ATA drives, so they pretty much do everything with ATA PASS-THROUGH. (Also because they are userspace utilities, it is expected you, the user, will only use them on the appropriate type of devices.) That's why you end up getting different capacity in different places.

hard drive - Shrinking partitions with Windows Disk Management

I'm wondering how does Disk Management in Windows shrink the C:\ drive partition when you are booted into Windows (and thus the partition is mounted). If I'm not mistaken, mounted filesystems in Linux cannot be modified in Gparted.

I just shrunk my C:\ drive to 512 GiB to make room for Linux and the operation was done extremely quickly. If it matters, the Windows partition is NTFS and there's a few partitions both before and after it (recovery and Dell utilities partition).

From this question, I realize that there's unmovable system files in the middle of the partition, but how does the OS know that there's no files past that point? Or am I thinking about this process completely wrong?

Can I use my Windows 7 Basic product key to update and activate Windows 10?

I have a genuine Windows 7 Home Basic product key. I also have a slow internet connection, so I purchased a disc and downloaded Windows 10 64-bit to the disc on my friend's computer.

After installing Windows 10, I was asked for the product key. Can I use the Windows 7 Home Basic product key on my Windows 10 install? If so, does that Windows 10 become genuine like my Windows 7 Home Basic?

How to fix corrupted Administrator account or create new admin account in Vista

I have a Windows Vista system whose profile seems to have been corrupted.
Many solutions indicate that you create another admin account, log in as that account, and delete the offending profile information for the account that is corrupted.

Here's the twist:

There are two accounts on this System - 1. Administrator Account 2. Standard Account.

It's the Administrator Account which has become corrupted. Attempts to do any user management / create a new account under the 'Standard Account' leads to UAC prompt for a user/pass. The admin account comes up by default asking for a password (of which, there is none).

When you click 'OK' - nothing happens (no doubt due to the fact that the account is corrupted, so it can't verify who or what is trying to allow the administrative privilege).

Is there a way to fix this account, or create another administrator account to resolve this issue?

windows 10 - Keyboard shortcuts keep getting reset on startup (Win 10)

I've been trying to google a solution for while now to no avail.

I am using multiple keyboard layouts for multiple languages. I have set up shortcuts (Alt + Shift + #) for 8 such layouts. However, just like in Windows 7, they sometimes get reset upon system startup or waking from hibernate.

Previous resets were linked to a big system update and change in keyboard layouts (interestingly, Windows 10 synchronizes them between computers of the same user), but now it's just random. I keep setting them up, but they keep getting reset every now and then on both of my computers.

Does anybody know how to avoid that, or at least how to speed up re-inputting the shortcuts? Maybe a registry file that would fix it with one click?

Most of the keyboard layouts are custom-made by me, one is a downloaded one, and the rest are original MS layouts.

Answer

It seems that I have been able to resolve this problem—and since nobody addressed this specific issue, let me tell you how I did it.

It turns out that Windows 10 (and some previous versions as well) has separate language settings for the lock screen. When you install your own custom layouts, Windows sets up its own counterpart for the lock screen—probably to avoid problems with non-standard input.

So whenever you bring a computer from sleep, hibernation, screensaver or the lock screen, it switches between those two sets of layouts: your custom ones and it's default counterparts. But if they don't match—i.e. you have your own French keyboard layout, and the lock screen has the MS French keyboard layout—Windows simply resets the layout shortcuts until restarted.

The solution, hence, is to copy your custom keyboard layout settings to the lock screen. You can do this in the Control Panel:
Control Panel → Time and Regional Settings → Language → Advanced Settings → Apply language settings to lock screen….
Be sure to select both options in the prompt window that follows!

This has worked on all of my Windows 10 computers.

64 bit - What are the requirements for running a 64 bit operating system?

I'm a bit confused about this. I always thought you'd have to have at least a CPU that was a "64 bit" cpu, and probably a motherboard that could handle 64 bit memory addressing.

But recently I was checking out some info about my home PC processor (Q6600) and was surprised to find out that it can handle 64bit operating systems, even though it wasn't advertised as such. I've also seen sites claiming that any core 2 CPU from intel can do 64bit, which I find it hard to believe.

So, can I slap a 64bit OS on any Core 2 machine? Does the motherboard also come into play?

Answer

The only technical requirement to be able to install a 64bit version of an OS is that the CPU supports 64bit extentions. Most CPU's by AMD and Intel in the last couple years have included the 64bit extentions (AMD64/EM64T)

Your motherboard would most likely not prevent you from installing a 64bit OS, but you may not be able to go beyond 4gb of RAM depending on what the motherboard supports.

Some helpful questions:

Playing Blu-Ray discs on an Acer Aspire laptop

I bought this (otherwise very nice) laptop around 3 years ago, but Blu-Ray never worked on it. (Even though it was promoted as Blu-Ray compatible with stickers on it and what not.)
‎
Acer/Windows detects the Blu-Ray drive, but neither Windows Media Player nor VLC can play any Blu-Ray discs (tried the trailer reel and other discs).

I can see on the net it may require Acer Arcade Deluxe? Is that necessary for Blu-Ray to work? (I don't believe I have that any more. I probably figured it was related to gaming or something like that and removed it long ago...) Is Acer Arcade Deluxe the only software that works with Acer Blu-Ray?

Answer

A default WMP or VLC install will not play commercial AACS-encrypted Bluray discs. Without getting into a discussion about potentially illegal (depending on your jurisdiction) usage of hacked AACS key databases with these players, let me just say that you should stick to a licensed software Bluray player that will be able to play newer releases as well.

Acer Arcade Deluxe seems to be a cut-down/customised version of CyberLink's PowerDVD, so you should install it and play your discs. Remember that both hardware and software players need to be updated periodically to keep up with newer AACS keys used on the latest discs, so if Acer Arcade Deluxe is unable to play a disc, update it from the CyberLink site as detailed here (you'll need to use Internet Explorer as the site uses an ActiveX control).

I couldn't find an official download link for Acer Arcade Deluxe (seems it only comes bundled with Acer PCs), so if you don't have it on a DVD somewhere you'll need to contact Acer or buy something else such as PowerDVD.

Why won't Windows 10 let me boot with new RAM?

Updated

I have an ASRock H55M-GE motherboard. Currently it has 2X2GB RAM, for a total of 4 GB RAM.

I thought I'd like to update the RAM, so, first I bought two new Kingston KVR16N11S8/4 4GB RAM sticks, to put into the two empty slots to get a total of 12GB RAM. But after many problems, similar to what's described below, they wouldn't work, so I returned them. I then recently bought two Team DDR3 1600MHz PC3-12800 4GB RAM sticks. But, I encountered the same problems.

When I install them in my computer, being careful to follow the motherboard's manual and place them in the correct slots, The BIOS recognizes them and seems to have no problem:

But, Windows 10 refuses to boot, and instead gives me an error screen saying, "Your PC ran into a problem and needs to restart. We'll restart it for you." Usually, the error screen says IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL, but it sometimes says other things, like in this screen grab. I believe it's having some kind of freak out over hardware, and the specific error messages are probably not too revealing.

I have checked to make sure that all cards and RAM are seated correctly. I replaced the battery on the motherboard. I have tested the new RAM in a different computer where it seems to work.

I have booted using an Ubuntu live CD, and it boots fine, and in the Ubuntu interface, I can see that it recognizes the 12 GB RAM no problem:

I'm willing to re-install Windows if that's what it takes, so I took one of the original Windows 7 install disks that came with my computer and tried to see if I can install a fresh version of Windows 7, but I get a similar hardware error as version 10:

I have also removed all RAM and tried one stick of the new RAM, which is 4 GB, to test if there is some kind of memory cap at 4GB, but that also fails.

I have used Windows internal recovery program to return the system to a fresh install state, which I believe removes all drivers and apps. However, Windows will still not boot with the new RAM installed.

So, to recap, the BIOS recognizes the new RAM, Ubuntu recognizes the new RAM, another computer recognizes the new RAM, this is a second set of new RAM... this all strongly indicates to me that the problem is squarely on Windows, not the hardware. Why would Windows have such a problem handling a simple RAM upgrade?

More importantly, how do I get Windows to boot after installing my new RAM?

Here is some information about my current RAM (before installing new RAM):

Answer

First, some remarks :

1. According to your motherboard manual, to install four DIMMs,
   all four need to be identical. So the most that is recommended with yours
   is to use the two 4GB sticks,
   
   while the 2GB ones are unusable together with the others.


2. For using two DIMMs, they need to be installed in the white slots.


3. Linux may be cleverer than Windows in forcing the usage of DIMM
   sticks that do not exactly conform to the specification.


4. You have bought high-quality modern DIMMs for a motherboard dating
   apparently from 2010. They may just be too good for the motherboard.

Based on the above, I have the following suggestions :

1. Restore the configuration of RAM to the one that worked,
   boot Windows 10, start Windows Update and fully patch the computer.
   Especially pay attention to device-driver updates that are usually found
   as Optional. There is no point in using the ASRock drivers,
   since they date from 2010.




2. Download and install the Crucial System Scanner.
   Let it scan your computer and see which DIMMs it recommends and
   pay attention to their specs.
   Crucial is a RAM vendor, and their utility does an excellent job
   
   of analyzing the motherboard.

I believe that the results of the scan by Crucial will solve the problem.
Their prices are also very reasonable and one can order from the scanner,
whose results Crucial guarantees.
You could post the scan results, if you wish us to have a look.

virus - Windows 7 shuts down automatically on delete key press

1. Whenever i press delete button for deleting files or folder, windows
   7 forcly shuts down the system , i m not sure is this virus or any
   keyboard shortcut malware.


2. on pess key of special char ,its add some extra char also like on
   '' it writes ')'


3. This is making me irritate since i cannot create doc properly nor
   delete any files.


4. I have Quick heal pro and hv malware byte software, after all scanning too
   this virus doesnt stop

Any suggestions are welcome

keyboard - How to nullify key temporarily when another key is pressed in AutoHotKey?

I am playing a rhythm game where you can bind two keys to hit one note (in my case LShift and LControl), however it will only register the note if it is being hit singularly. By that, I mean if I have LShift pressed down, it will hold that note, but if I press LControl while LShift is being pressed down, it will not register a second note press, instead it will continue to hold the first note press.
What I am asking for is an AutoHotKey script that will nullify the key press when the other key is being pressed i.e. If LShift is held down, pressing LControl will nullify LShift and press LControl.

macos - Command line Jabber client

Does anyone know of a command line jabber client that would run in OS X in the terminal?

Answer

mcabber (man) is available via Homebrew.

memory - Why isn't pagefile being used?

I have an trouble with Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise. The paged pool load memory but does not load the actual pagefile (I have space on the drive for it).

Actually the problem is in memory excesive load and I assumed that this is the problem.

Virtual memery setting :

Pagefile usability:
and the memory usage still slowly slowly grow

Task Manager performance:

Task Manager processes:

RAM map:

System information:

Laptop battery does not charge

I bought a faulty LG R500 laptop and I repaired it.

However, the laptop battery does not charge. Therefore, I am unable to use the laptop when it is not plugged in.

In Linux Mint, a software shows me informations about the battery and it told me the capacity of the battery is 100%, but there is no power in it. I think the battery could be good since when I get an old battery, the capacity is likely to be less than 50%.

Here is a screenshot of the informations given by the software:

What is odd is that this software indicate the battery is in discharge.

Is this battery faulty?

Is there a way to repair it?

Remove lines containing only a word and a number ? (notepad++, regex)

I have several hundreds of .txt files from which I would like to remove the lines where only the word "Volume" followed by a number appears.
The word "Volume" may appear several times in each text file but I only want to delete the lines where the only text on that line is Volume and some number.

Example of line I want to be deleted:

                 Volume 158

Example of line I don't want to be deleted:

  text text text Volume 158 text text text

Please help me accomplish this using notepad++ ?

If I plug a hibernated hard-drive to another laptop, what will happen to the hibernated hard-drive?

This is nothing too tech-savvy like mounting...

If I do these things:

1. Put my laptop into "hibernate" state instead of shutting it down


2. Open the back of the laptop (I mean something like this)


3. Pull out the hard-drive from the back


4. Put the hard-drive into an external hard-drive casing, something like this:
   


5. Plug the hard-drive into another laptop via USB, just like plugging in USB hard-drive. Like this:
   

What would happen to the hibernated hard-drive?

• Would this procedure damage the hard-drive in any way (since it is still "hibernate" state)?


• Would the laptop (another laptop) read the data inside the hard-drive?


• Would it be safe to use the hard-drive as an external hard-drive in the long run (in case the original laptop is broken)?

I hope I lay out my question/explanation clear, since English is not my mother tounge. Thank you in advance!

Answer

No damage would occur; the hibernated drive would be perfectly readable, and safe to use for however long you like.

Deleting the hibernation state file (\hiberfil.sys on a Windows drive) would make it impossible to restore from hibernation if you ever put the drive back in its original laptop; you'd have to boot up like any other time you start up the machine from power off. That's the worst you can do to it, though.

memory - Why RAM and processor's capacity always display less than its actual capacity..Ex 512MB RAM shows 506MB

Why RAM and processor's capacity always display less than its actual capacity..Ex 512MB RAM shows 506MB..

windows 8.1 - Intel RST Drive missing error -- with a twist

I'm beginning to think that Intel RST software on Windows 8.1 is having issues.

The Components Involved

I am using the following:

• Windows 8.1


• Asus Maximus V Extreme motherboard with latest firmware & drivers from the manufacturer


• Intel RST 12.8.0.1016 (latest version available on manufacturer web site)


• 2x2TB Seagate hard drives (previously, 1x1TB Western Digital hard drives)

What happens

• I see a warning in my system tray that my RAID is degraded


• I see the following screen in Intel RST:

Why This is Bizarre

• I saw this problem on Windows 8.1 last time, so I found the drive in question and replaced it.


• The issue happened again, so I thought it might be the cable and replaced it.


• The issue continued happening, so I thought it must be an issue with the disk controller on the motherboard, so I replaced the entire motherboard

Now, with brand new disks and brand new cables on a brand new motherboard and a new OS set up from scratch and the manufacturer-recommended versions of software, this problem still plagues me.

Question

Does anybody know how to stop Intel RST from thinking that one of my (perfectly good new) drives on my (perfectly good new) motherboard with (perfectly good new) cables has just up and disappeared?

Answer

In this case, the issue was one of assumptions (d'oh!) and similar symptoms.

While previously I believe the motherboard was bad, in this case some unexpected pressure on a cable seems to have repeatedly made it slightly loose. It lost contact at one point which is what caused the reset and degradation.

So it was the same symptom but a different cause entirely.

Up and running with legitimate RAID and very happy about it.

windows 7 - Weird behaviour while editing "Environment Variables"

If you take a look at the following screenshot, you see 2 very similar "Environment Variables" menus.

The one the left was accessed by:

 Computer->Properties->Advanced System Settings->Environment Variables...

The other by simply accessing "edit the system environment variables" by typing in the Windows menu. Do you see any difference? :)

...

In the right menu, the editing for the variables is locked!

We tried to modify the variables in the menu on the left but somehow things wouldn't work (we needed to put something in the path, and this would not would effectively happen not even after restarting explorer), and the changes wouldn't be effective. The only thing that solved the situation was restarting the system.

Do you know what might have happened?

Answer

Left window opened as administrator, because opening Advanced System Settings requires elevation. With default UAC settings you does not see elevation prompt for this, because UAC elevates Windows executable without prompt, but at least you should see UAC shield near to Advanced System Settings link, that indicate required elevation. Right window opened as user, so in it you can not edit system wide environment variables.

How can I block updates in Windows 10?

I'm trying to figure out how best to stop Windows 10 from helping itself to updates. Firstly, I have a metered connection to the internet, and one that is of inconsistent speed. Secondly, I have an ideological objection to Microsoft installing its software without my permission (I have been burned by this before).

I'm aware that there is a setting for metered connections that delays downloads of some updates, but that doesn't prevent the others from being downloaded.

I've also found this, but it doesn't seem to block updates in general, rather just blacklists certain updates that have already come out, and that your computer may or may not have already automatically downloaded and installed already.

I understand that Microsoft has no intention of returning to the days when you could see a list of updates, screen them, then downloading them when you have data to spare. But, is there any way that I can stop Windows from updating at all, for extended periods of time, then re-enable updating once I have the data?

Is there, maybe, a nice lightweight firewall that could block Windows Update?

EDIT: I have enabled the "defer upgrades" option, as suggested by the first answerer of the question I'm supposedly duplicating, but as Windows informs me, it will still help itself to security updates. I'm looking for a way to perform a blanket block on all updates until I want to install them, even if it means whitelisting every program that I want to use the internet. Does anyone here know how I could go about this?

Touchpad click dosnt work in Ubuntu Netbook Remix

I have a MSI Wind U100+ Netbook that is duel booted with Windows XP and Ubuntu Netbook Remix.

For version:

cat /etc/issue gives: Ubuntu karmic (development branch) \n \l

uname -r gives: 2.6.30-9-generic

Everything works great except the touchpad in Ubuntu does not want to perform the 'tap-click' action. The option is enabled in: Preferences -> Mouse -> Touchpad. The touchpad works in Windows XP and when I booted into an Ubuntu Live environment via USB. So I know the hardware actually works and that it is just a config issue.

Changing the window mode from netbook remix to ubuntu desktop changes nothing.

If possible aim answer towards a new Linux user please.

Thanks in advance.

Answer

Ok I solved my own problem =)

It can be fixed by enabling SHMConfig and then configuring the touchpad with the gsynaptics tool.

Enable SHMConfig:

$ gksudo gedit /etc/hal/fdi/policy/shmconfig.fdi

and put this in...

  
    
      True
    
  

Reboot your machine.

$ sudo apt-get install gsynaptics

$ sudo gsynaptics

and after changing the options located in gsynaptics it now works!

browser - How can I stop JavaScript from modifying the clipboard?

More and more I find that when I copy text from a news site, the site adds in its own advertising/footnote link to my clipboard, so that when I paste, the copied text is appended with something like:

[Text I copied] FOR MORE, GO READ AT http://www.example.com/link/to/story

I admire the technical abilities that made this possible, but I would like to stop it on my browser. I looked through about:config for "clipboard" and "copy," but the only setting I found was autocopy on highlight.

Is there a good way to stop this so that when I copy I get only the text I highlighted, relying only on Firefox's built-in copy feature and not triggering anybody's JavaScript or other site customizations? I don't like sites telling my browser how to work.

As an example, copy one of the fun "facts" here - when you paste, you'll have the following text appended:

Read more: http://www.linuxscrew.com/2007/10/28/fun-chuck-norris-vs-linus-torvalds/#ixzz1mUKtACkt

They aren't just hijacking the control-C keystroke, I get it when I select "copy" from the right click menu, as well.

I would like my browser to completely ignore this trick.

I replicated this on Firefox, IE, and Google Chrome.

Answer

It turns out this JavaScript code is being served by a "service" called tynt.com. Redirecting tcr.tynt.com to 127.0.0.1 in my hosts file solved the problem for me. From what I read elsewhere, there may be multiple servers that need to be blocked. Adblock list subscriptions may also take care of the problem, and you may be able to set up a filter in your ad blocking software to correct it.

What I would really like would be a flag in about:config to remove permission for JavaScript to modify the clipboard.

USB hard drive with 2 connectors; can I plug one into the wall for power?

I've got a USB 2.0 hard drive enclosure which came with a cable with 2 plugs on it. I know that this is done so that it can draw more power if necessary.

If the hard drive can't draw enough power with just one of the plugs, does the second plug have to attach to the same computer? Or can I get my power by attaching the second plug directly to a wall-wart?

(Specifically, I am planning to attach this drive to a Raspberry Pi, where power and USB space is limited)

Answer

This should work fine. However, to be safe you should probably use a powered USB hub rather than a power adapter as typically used for charging a mobile device as some of them are designed to use non-standard voltage/amperage.

rename - Need assistance making a batch file for renaming files in separate folders

Ok, here's one for you. I'm trying to use a batch file to rename a bunch of files, but none of them are in the same folder as the batch file itself. The command prompt keeps telling me that the directory can't be found. I suppose I could just rename all the files in all the folders that match the filename, but I don't want to do that either; I only want to change certain ones.

My batch file as it stands is:

@echo off
ren "engine/info.txt" "disabled.txt"
ren "gravplating/info.txt" "disabled.txt"
ren "HAWX content/info.txt" "disabled.txt"
ren "laserz/info.txt" "disabled.txt"
ren "NeuroNaval/info.txt" "disabled.txt"
ren "NeuroPlanes/info.txt" "disabled.txt"
ren "NeuroTanks/info.txt" "disabled.txt"
ren "NeuroWeapons/info.txt" "disabled.txt"
ren "WAC Base/info.txt" "disabled.txt"
ren "WAC DamageSystem/info.txt" "disabled.txt"
ren "WAC GravityController/info.txt" "disabled.txt"
ren "WAC Helicopters/info.txt" "disabled.txt"
ren "WAC Sweps/info.txt" "disabled.txt"
ren "weapons/info.txt" "disabled.txt"
ren "AFF_ships/info.txt" "disabled.txt"
ren "AntiTakeRifle/info.txt" "disabled.txt"
ren "Catmull-Rom Cameras/info.txt" "disabled.txt"
ren "Displacer Cannon/info.txt" "disabled.txt"
ren "Drumdevil's Trains/info.txt" "disabled.txt"
ren "EVEOnline/info.txt" "disabled.txt"
ren "gm_botmap_v3/info.txt" "disabled.txt"
ren "gm_construct_flatgrass_v5-2/info.txt" "disabled.txt"
ren "gm_mobenix_v3_final/info.txt" "disabled.txt"
ren "gm_mobenix_v3_highquality_Water/info.txt" "disabled.txt"
ren "gm_snabbansairfield_b1/info.txt" "disabled.txt"
ren "gm_XhS_construct/info.txt" "disabled.txt"
ren "linedraw/info.txt" "disabled.txt"
ren "ModelManipulator/info.txt" "disabled.txt"
ren "NeuroCars/info.txt" "disabled.txt"
ren "Propeller Engine/info.txt" "disabled.txt"
ren "VanDookie and Predaaator's pack/info.txt" "disabled.txt"
ren "WAC ECM/info.txt" "disabled.txt"
ren "WAC Extra Helicopters/info.txt" "disabled.txt"
echo Done!
pause

Does Windows 7 Bitlocker support VHD drives

I'm trying to decide whether to upgrade my Windows 7 installation to either a better version of Windows 7, or to Windows 8. The decision rests on support for a specific feature.

I'm aware that Bitlocker is not available in Windows 7 Professional, but the Ultimate and Enterprise editions have it installed.

In Windows 8/Server 2012 it is possible to create a VHD file using the Disk Management tool and to mount the VHD as a drive and have the drive encrypted using Bitlocker.

Is this supported in Windows 7 Ultimate/Enterprise editions? Will Bitlocker encrypted VHD containers created in Win8 be mountable in Windows 7 Ultimate/Enterprise editions?

Multiple line Windows Batch File issue

I have a batch file with following contents

Line 1
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Dell\SysMgt\bmc\ipmish.exe" -interactive -ip 192.168.1.5 -u root -p Password

after this it goes to prompt
IPMISH>

Line 2
Power On

I am not sure how to pass this command line 2 to the prompt IPMISH>

What i have tried
1. adding to second line simply does nothing

Regards

Answer

A batch file does not work in this way - each line is interpreted as a command to execute in turn. When you're calling ipmish.exe, it will block the rest of the batch until the process has ended.

In order to achieve what you want to do, you could to look at the documentation for ipmish.exe and see if there is a method of scripting for it (As you're able to specify -interactive I get the impression there may be a scripted interface). Alternately, you could look into using a different software solution to execute this as a 'batch', but with the ability to send keys to it, such as AutoIt or similar.

Setting the group policy without the console in Windows 7 Home Premium

I am trying to suppress the prompt that Windows Update provides after an update. All of the permanent solutions that I have found use the group policy management console to adjust the settings. I'm not asking about the procedure for that, as there are plenty of questions that address that issue.

The issue is, it seems as though the GPMC is only available for Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate, and Enterprise editions. Is there any equivalent program/administrator tool/plugin for Home Premium that has the same functionality? I've just read about the cmdlets for PowerShell, but these, too, seem to require the GPMC.

Answer

You can search the Policy Tree at http://gps.cloudapp.net/ under Windows Components > Windows Update for something relevant.
I'm not sure which prompt you mean. I gather that most of these policies are controlled by Registry entries.

drivers - Acer Aspire one is falling apart on Ubuntu

Question: How do I have my netbook detect and install hardware?

---

Info:
I have an Acer Aspire One, it came with windows XP and I loaded it with Win7. I decided I wanted to change to Ubuntu so I tried Ubuntu netbook remix, which failed horribly, and so after attempting 3 or so other OS's I ended with Ubuntu Desktop 9.10. Which worked fine for a while, but there were some minor issues so I asked a question about it here and decided to change my OS again.

This last weekend I tried mandriva like that guy in my other question suggested, no success. when I had though my netbook lost the ability to use it's touch pad, I didn't think much of it, just thought it must be a driver or something. But When Mandriva failed, and I also while I was at it tried Damn small linux and Debian, which both failed to, I decided to switch back to Ubuntu Desktop(some where in here my keyboard stopped working for one attempt to). But first I gave the netbook remix one more try. it worked this time, with the exception of it didn't have any networking. I thought it was a driver issue again and finished the weekend with ubuntu desktop 9.10 again.

But now things get really crazy. it doesn't know it has a wireless card or an ethernet card. It doesn't know my phone is connected trying to provide wireless broadband either. I'm clueless on what could be the problem. And with only a minimal amount of experience with Ubuntu can't navigate the entire interface with only my keyboard(it doesn't detect a USB mouse when I plug it in, it had when I installed it. in fact the network interfaces were working just fine when I live boot ubuntu to installed it). Even so, I don't know where to go or what to do to make it recognize it's hardware. I'm in a dire situation, any help is welcome.

---

Update: I ran lshw and it listed Atheros AR8132 gigabit ethernet and Ar5001 Wireless network adapter. I ran lsusb and it listed Samsung (I have an omnia). So it knows they are all there, but it doesn't accept info from any of them...

Answer

Have you installed these many, many different OS OVER the existing OS? Or did you first format the whole disk, so nothing can stand in the way of the new installation. Maybe every installed system found some driverfiles and tried them... result: fail to iniciate some hardware.

performance - When to use CouchDB over MongoDB and vice versa

I am stuck between these two NoSQL databases.

In my project I will be creating a database within a database. For example, I need a solution to create dynamic tables.

So users can create tables with columns and rows. I think either MongoDB or CouchDB will be good for this, but I am not sure which one. I will also need efficient paging as well.

Answer

Of C, A & P (Consistency, Availability & Partition tolerance) which 2 are more important to you? Quick reference, the Visual Guide To NoSQL Systems

• MongodB : Consistency and Partition Tolerance


• CouchDB : Availability and Partition Tolerance

A blog post, Cassandra vs MongoDB vs CouchDB vs Redis vs Riak vs HBase vs Membase vs Neo4j comparison has 'Best used' scenarios for each NoSQL database compared. Quoting the link,

• MongoDB: If you need dynamic queries. If you prefer to define indexes, not map/reduce functions. If you need good performance on a big DB. If you wanted CouchDB, but your data changes too much, filling up disks.



• CouchDB : For accumulating, occasionally changing data, on which pre-defined queries are to be run. Places where versioning is important.

A recent (Feb 2012) and more comprehensive comparison by Riyad Kalla,

• MongoDB : Master-Slave Replication ONLY


• CouchDB : Master-Master Replication

A blog post (Oct 2011) by someone who tried both, A MongoDB Guy Learns CouchDB commented on the CouchDB's paging being not as useful.

A dated (Jun 2009) benchmark by Kristina Chodorow (part of team behind MongoDB),

I'd go for MongoDB.

Hope it helps.

Can I use this charger for my laptop?

Information on the Laptop:

• Output +19V 3.42A 65W


• Min Capacity 10.8V 5.0Ah


• Rating +10.8V 5200mAh 56wh


• Model K43E Asus

Information on the Charger:

• Output +19V 4.74A


• Input AC100-240V 50-60Hz 1.5A


• Model: EXA0904YH

As I understood, if the output voltage on the charger matches with the laptop output voltage(in this case both are 19V), it is okay to use it. However, I am not completely sure about this because I do not understand what the Rating part and what is stated in the minimum capacity mean.

What's the strangest corner case you've seen in C# or .NET?

I collect a few corner cases and brain teasers and would always like to hear more. The page only really covers C# language bits and bobs, but I also find core .NET things interesting too. For example, here's one which isn't on the page, but which I find incredible:

string x = new string(new char[0]);
string y = new string(new char[0]);
Console.WriteLine(object.ReferenceEquals(x, y));

I'd expect that to print False - after all, "new" (with a reference type) always creates a new object, doesn't it? The specs for both C# and the CLI indicate that it should. Well, not in this particular case. It prints True, and has done on every version of the framework I've tested it with. (I haven't tried it on Mono, admittedly...)

Just to be clear, this is only an example of the kind of thing I'm looking for - I wasn't particularly looking for discussion/explanation of this oddity. (It's not the same as normal string interning; in particular, string interning doesn't normally happen when a constructor is called.) I was really asking for similar odd behaviour.

Any other gems lurking out there?

Answer

I think I showed you this one before, but I like the fun here - this took some debugging to track down! (the original code was obviously more complex and subtle...)

    static void Foo() where T : new()
    {
        T t = new T();
        Console.WriteLine(t.ToString()); // works fine
        Console.WriteLine(t.GetHashCode()); // works fine
        Console.WriteLine(t.Equals(t)); // works fine


        // so it looks like an object and smells like an object...

        // but this throws a NullReferenceException...
        Console.WriteLine(t.GetType());
    }

So what was T...

Answer: any Nullable - such as int?. All the methods are overridden, except GetType() which can't be; so it is cast (boxed) to object (and hence to null) to call object.GetType()... which calls on null ;-p

---

Update: the plot thickens... Ayende Rahien threw down a similar challenge on his blog, but with a where T : class, new():

private static void Main() {
    CanThisHappen();
}

public static void CanThisHappen() where T : class, new() {

    var instance = new T(); // new() on a ref-type; should be non-null, then
    Debug.Assert(instance != null, "How did we break the CLR?");
}

But it can be defeated! Using the same indirection used by things like remoting; warning - the following is pure evil:

class MyFunnyProxyAttribute : ProxyAttribute {
    public override MarshalByRefObject CreateInstance(Type serverType) {
        return null;

    }
}
[MyFunnyProxy]
class MyFunnyType : ContextBoundObject { }

With this in place, the new() call is redirected to the proxy (MyFunnyProxyAttribute), which returns null. Now go and wash your eyes!