jaclaz

Try reading - possibly attentively - the thread I gave you a link to: http://reboot.pro/topic/20497-run-windows-defender-offline-from-winpe/ AFAIK the definition file mpam-fe.exe is common between offline and online defender, and to Security Essentials, etc.: http://www.intowindows.com/how-to-update-microsoft-security-essentials-mse-offline/ Unless of course the good MS guys have changed the format or whatever, but I guess we will never know, unless you try: 1) downloading the latest mpam-fe.exe 2) replace the mpam-fe.exe on your build before creating the bootable media OR: 3) run the mpam-fe.exe to have updated definitions (hence the suggestion to try on a USB stick) Will it work? I don't know. jaclaz

On the given thread there is one other user that laments similar problems, so you are not the only one, there are at least two of you, see "black sheep" here : https://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/susan/joke/3.htm Still there is not any definite solution that I could find a reference to, and even the problem is seemingly not very common (maybe the Defender Offline is not widely used or people are content with older definitions ), the only reknown issues that could be *somehow* connected are as said revolving around the generic issues with Windows Update (for which BTW there is not really a "logical" solution, only some "white magic" involving updating the Windows Update engine blindly), and this is often only a temporary solution. Again, how EXACTLY are you attempting to update? Have you tried MANUALLY? See: http://www.thewindowsclub.com/update-windows-defender-manually-windows-8 Have you tried THIS link: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=87342&clcid=0x409 that currently resolves to: http://definitionupdates.microsoft.com/download/DefinitionUpdates/VersionedSignatures/AM/1.223.1384.0/x86/mpam-fe.exe Or this one: http://download.microsoft.com/download/DefinitionUpdates/mpam-fe.exe Have you tried using PowerShell? http://www.thewindowsclub.com/update-windows-defender-definitions-using-windows-powershell jaclaz P.S.: The above links on MS are the ones for the 32 bit verson, the cooresponding 64 bit ones are: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=87341&clcid=0x409 http://definitionupdates.microsoft.com/download/DefinitionUpdates/VersionedSignatures/AM/1.223.1384.0/amd64/mpam-feX64.exe http://download.microsoft.com/download/DefinitionUpdates/mpam-fex64.exe

... 4 (four) years ago and never actually posted any meaningful info on that one (nor in this one for that matter). Do you really believe that the few people with ESP are coincidentally also experts on Windows Defender Offline AND they are members of MSFN AND they are willing to assist you? Start with the standard litany, describe EXACTLY what you did to have the thingy working on DVD at the time, how EXACTLY you attempt to update, etc., etc. Generally speaking *any* kind of issues with Windows Update are happening lately, someone even believes them being intentional by Microsoft to push people towards the stupid Windows 10, it is entirely possible that your issue is connected to this "generic mess" of WU, with "update engines" new versions released every two months or so, the mpam-fe.exe (or *whatever*) might have been "left behind". As a side note (and JFYI) I would rather test first on a USB stick (as opposed to a DVD), like here: http://reboot.pro/topic/20497-run-windows-defender-offline-from-winpe/ jaclaz

Personally I would use the more recent Kb_extractor by Niemiro or good ol' expand from MS (and I am not at all a "guru of programming"): http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/155584-windows-update-extract-update.html As you have learned by 5eraph in the thread you linked the procedure is not as straight as it could be, as said it "is another thing". Had you missed the previous subtle hints , this is a technical forum, its members (and particularly myself) are not your close friends or relatives, and it is IMNSHO totally inappropriate that you call other members "dude", which is a slang, colloquial term, unsuitable for addressing people you don't know, please STOP using it to address other people (and particularly myself) besides irritating other people (and particularly myself) it serves no meaningful purpose apart showing your lack of respect towards other members (and particularly myself). Should you have missed the meaning of the word in the English language, (actually American slang) here it is: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dude Of course if it is your intention to appear as an unlettered, ill-mannered yute, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104952/quotes?item=qt0404568 feel free to insist with it, sonny : http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/sonny jaclaz

No, the idea is not to make a "clone", it is to make an image. With dsfo, the result of the procedure will be a (huge, 29 Gb, hence the NEED for NTFS) file which contains an exact byte-by-byte copy of the whole source disk. Something *like* dsfo \\.Physicaldriven 0 0 Z:\myniceimage.img would do. With Clonedisk you can do the same image or you can make a clone, in this latter case of course the target contents will be overwritten and you won't be able to access any of the preoviouis data. Maybe you will find this relevant to better understand the terminology used:

It doesn't depend on the motherboard, but on the power supply. In old AT PSU the switch actually switched off the PSU. In new (new since what 15 years?) ATX power supply the "switch" is just a push button that turns the PSU in either "On" or "Off" which is actually more like a "suspend mode" the PSU is always "partially on" (but when it is off it is only powering a small subset of devices, typically USB ports and network card - this allows for switching it on with a combo-key and to have WOL - Wake On Lan, etc.). Most "good" quality ATX PSU's have anyway a physical switch 0/1 on the back, near the power cable socket. For the "memory effect" it doesn't make any difference to turn the PSU in "Off/suspend mode" or switch off completely from the switch on the back (or pulling the mains cable out). The motherboard, disks, etc. (and RAM) are powered only when the PSU is ON. jaclaz

About making the RAW image, since it is only 29 Gb in size, and thus speed of the imaging program is not a problem, good ol' dsfo (from the dsfok package) should work fine (it is a tad bit on the "slow" side but as said it won't matter given the small size of the source emmc). The issue might be whether you have an external hard disk with an NTFS volume capable of holding the whole 29 Gb file of the image (the thingy is as simple and as small as possible but it makes a RAW image, without any form of compression or compacting): http://members.ozemail.com.au/~nulifetv/freezip/freeware/ An alternative could be making a QuickPE (it is a PE made through a set of cmd scripts by the same Author of Clonedisk): http://labalec.fr/erwan/?p=402 jaclaz

It was too d@mn fast with 2k and you need to slow it down to a crawl , right? Seriously, it seems to me like a tad bit too old/underpowered to run Windows 7 . jaclaz

Have you looked in the getting started page? : http://jmeter.apache.org/usermanual/get-started.html point #2.2.4 seems like relevant ... jaclaz

It's not you (alone) that are confused on the topic (a good half or maybe three quarters of the people have not entirely clear the matter, not their fault but that of confusing, partial or incomplete and contrasting information). If your EFI has a CSM (Compatibiity Support Mode, please read as BIOS emulation, most probably mislabeled by HP or by the Insyde guys as "legacy support mode") it would be better to use it (and the MBR scheme suggested). You are correct, if your device is 64 bit it will only work (in EFI) with a 64 bit OS and not with a 32 bit one. In a nutshell, there is NO reason whatsoever to have GPT (if not on larger than 2.2 Tb disks), and there is no reason to use EFI mode (i.e. it provides not any practical or noticeable advantage once the OS is booted). Anyway, you should consider these install attempts as "experiments", whether they work or not they may provide additional info on the behaviour of the device and OS, and hopefully eventually provide a good "final method" (that you may want to re-test restarting form scratch to verify it really works). Before I forget, a possible reason why the setup doesn't like that device could be because it sees it as "external" or "non-paging" :w00t:, so another experiment could be that of using Diskmod, see: http://reboot.pro/topic/9461-page-file-in-usb-hard-disk/ http://reboot.pro/topic/9461-page-file-in-usb-hard-disk/?p=86619 jaclaz

Just a guess, mind you, but right now the setup program doesn't *like* the device "as is". There may be several reasons (call them "precautions" if you like) why the good MS guys might have put some limitations to the setup program, making it detect a number of conditions that make a disk "eligible for install". But diskpart sees the device, so it is worth a try to (see this for some reference): http://www.jwgoerlich.us/blogengine/post/2009/11/05/Use-Diskpart-to-Create-and-Format-Partitions.aspx DISKPART> select volume 0 DISKPART> remove letter=C DISKPART> select disk (0) DISKPART> convert mbr DISKPART> create partition primary DISKPART> select part 1 DISKPART> active DISKPART> format fs=ntfs label=(name) quick DISKPART> assign letter=C DISKPART> list volume (right now the volume on the USB stick aka Disk 1 has got letter C, so you need to remove it in order to assign it to the internal disk) Double check again that the situation is as seen in the scrrenshots you posted, i.e. internal disk is disk 0 and Lexar USB device is disk 1 (and contains a volume with assigned letter C) before running the above commands, better be safe than sorry. The above commands are intended (I am not sure if this is the case) for a BIOS and "MBR style" disk, is that HP thingy BIOS or EFI/UEFI? If the latter you will probably need to make the disk GPT and create the FAT32 "boot" partition besides the "main" NTFS one. If the above set of command works, you can try again with the setup, maybe finding an active, formatted partition will allow the install Otherwise use the fujianaBC's method of applying the .wim (the WINNTSetup program mentioned earlier is based on that approach, but for the moment doing things manually gives more control/the possibility of having more feedback on the causes of the error): http://reboot.pro/topic/10126-nt-6x-fast-installer-install-win7-directly-to-usb-external-drive/ jaclaz

Well, not really (I was joking ). Once a system is switched off, it is off. Though there are differences between a "warm re-boot" (Ctrl+Alt+Del) and a "cold reboot" (switch off, then on again), a "cold reboot" is a "cold reboot". As you correctly stated one may want to wait a little bit to allow for the possibility that *something* is still powered (due to capacitors charge), something *like* like 5 or 10 seconds (not minutes) but anything more than that won't make any difference on relatively modern hardware. For PC's there is the issue of RAM "slow decay", the classic reference (JFYI) is the original research about the so called "cold boot attack" : https://citp.princeton.edu/research/memory/ but what the researcher did was to try and avoid the BIOS (when booting) to wipe/rewrite the memory as much as they can, and - on many systems - they needed to actually remove the sticks and read them "externally". The "wait 10" (or 15 or 30) seconds before powering on is (largely) a tradition, most probably "amplified" in suggested length of wait because of this or that. Anyway I don't doubt in the least that your exact procedure solved your problem , I was only making a note about it being seemingly more complex than what actually *strictly needed*. Practical example: Your car doesn't start in the morning. A common issue is that the battery is too low on voltage (because - say - you forgot your headlights on yesterday night) or has failed and another (less common but still happening) occurrence is that your starter motor is stuck (or as well gone bad). The normal troubleshooting path would begin with a test of the battery voltage and capacity and - in case - replace it with a working one. If the car still doesn't start test the starter motor, clean its solenoid contacts, verify and if needed replace brushes, or replace it with a spare one. Now, on a forum someone posts that since his car didn't start in the morning he replaced : battery starter engine block gearbox seats rear mirrors fuel tank and refilled with premium gasoline. Then, as soon as he tried again, after having waited 42 hours since the refill - the car started fine . No doubts about the procedure being effective, only a bit redundant and not providing any hint about what the actual problem was and which replaced item solved it. jaclaz

So, disk 0 is the emmc and disk 1 is the Lexar USB. Everything seems "cool". The Windows Setup won't list the USB as possible "target" drive for the install (possibly being "external", "removable"), but only the ("internal", "fixed") disk 0. Now it is time to understand why Windows believes that disk cannot be used for the install. I would try to attempt initializing and partitioning and formatting it in diskpart then see if you can apply to it a an install.wim. jaclaz

I tried waiting only 137 seconds (i.e. a little more than 2 minutes) and it worked fine as well . It must be because I have a remarkably fast machine, particularly when it is off . Or maybe it was because I kept my finger crossed all the time. Seriously, maybe you went through more work than really-really needed, it is rare that a single error has so many causes (System.ini AND VMM32.VXD AND SETUPX.DLL AND CONFIGMG.VXD AND WINSPOOL.DRV AND SYSTEM.DAT AND re-install drivers), it is more likely that only one or two of these items needed checking/replacing. About the VMM32.VXD, you may find of interest this article: http://www.helpwithwindows.com/techfiles/vmm32.html jaclaz

I don't think that the display/video part(s) of the Advanced Server are in *any way* dfferent from "Normal" Professional or Server in 2K. Drivers is another thing, from the symptoms it sounds like an issue with RAM. Can you try reproducing with Task Manager loaded checking how much memory the various programs use? Also some hardware specs? jaclaz

Yep, but this ASUS implementation is much worse than DELL's one (not tha the DELL's one is actually "good"), JFYI: https://duo.com/blog/out-of-box-exploitation-a-security-analysis-of-oem-updaters jaclaz

OT , but not much what could actually be worse than windows auto-updating to Windows 10? Rather obviously, unauthenticated automatic updates from the hardware manufacturer, JFYI: http://teletext.zaibatsutel.net/post/145370716258/deadupdate-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and The really worrying part is not the (flawed) design or the (senselessly irresponsible) implementation, it is the fact that the ASUS guys didn't respond to the disclosure notice, ad not even to CERT/CC ... jaclaz

The Nusb is a "more complete" and/or "more complicated" package, offering "more" than a simple USB driver, when it works, it works very nicely of course , simpler packages, like Rloew's one, the one Aiko Chan mentioned and this one, etc.: are simpler, which is what the OP asked, but as said each and everything available needs to be tested and verified working (or not working) on the specific setup/hardware. jaclaz

A little hyped, as often happens, but it raises a couple of points about pushing upgrades automatically at the wrong time/without user intervention, etc.: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/06/03/windows_10_upgrade_satellite_link/ jaclaz

Nlite should be able to Though depending on size/features needed, you might also want to look here (JFYI): Historical: http://reboot.pro/3717/ Current: http://reboot.pro/topic/16765-minixp/ Actual site is down , but files and documentation can be got via Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20151127225813/http://minixp.reboot.pro/ Also, a slightly bigger build (with MUCH more functionality) can be the Wimb's project of small "universal" XP in VHD: http://reboot.pro/topic/9830-universal-hdd-image-files-for-xp-and-windows-7/ jaclaz

Huge amount of RAM/SATA/crazy large hard disk sizes Check Rloew's patches: http://rloew.x10host.com/ He is a member here, you might want to contact him about (possibly already tested) compatibility of the hard disk related patches with your motherboard (the huge RAM one should work OK, independently from the specific motherboard). His (freeware) USB driver pack (based on a Lexar released driver) is simpler than MD NUSB, which attempts to integrate more to the system and has had (on some motherboards/systems at least) some installation issues. Be prepared anyway to several iterations of install/re-install, having a functional Windows 98 on modern hardware usually requires quite a lot of tweaking/adjustments. If you could "choose" one among the systems listed here: it might be easier. jaclaz

You made it sound a lot like: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118571/quotes?item=qt0412274 jaclaz

... maybe you should add "(related to computers)" or something to the same effect jaclaz

Yep, that would be very fine, it would be an "on request" or "on demand", much better than "no, you can't have it anymore" . As a side note, and JFYI, I personally find that your ethical concern is however not something to worry much, it is what happens everyday with *any* product. VERY early adopters/buyers of *any* product are likely to have some promotional discount (but may well receive an unfinished, buggy, or unpolished product) those coming after will receive the (mature) product at full price and those coming even after will get the same product at a discount (end of production, clearing of warehouse, rebates to remain competitive with competitors, reduced commerciability due to new versions/models etc.). The key here is "time" or "when" and/or "amount of need". If someone *really needs* to reduce a Windows 7 and needs it "now", he/she pays 10 bucks for the little nifty program, if he can postpone his/her *need* some weeks/months/years, likely the same program will be available at a discount, or at a fraction of the original selling price (or even eventually for free), it is something that happens and how it works more or less for most products, particularly in matters related to computing, think of RAM or USB sticks. I don't think that your customers could be offended by this, in your case maybe it is just a matter of the very short timeframe. jaclaz

It didn't, but it was an OS for Professional use, not (also) for the entertainment, the numbers were small because very few people actually needed (or used) a PC at work, the numbers came with XP (that was released only one year later), a typical office in those years ran several copies of Windows 95/98 (everyone but the following), very few NT 4.00 (Servers) and some more NT 4.00 (Engineers workstations and similar), when Windows 2000 came out, the Windows 95/98's were not upgraded, only the Servers and Engineer workstations. Until Server 2003 (actually Server 2003 SP1) came out all servers would be still running NT 4.00 and 2000 server, and as well all workstations continued using 2K, the much bigger impact of XP was because it replaced all the win 9x'x (and a very small number of Me's) machines, and of course a couple years had passed and *everyone* would have a PC. Once upon a time (JFYI) computers were made to work (as opposed to watch videos on youtube, twit and chat ) at the time Internet access was *luxury*, not something *standard* on every device. jaclaz