jaclaz

This (copying install files to HDD) is extremely good advice as it is faster and removes a lot of possible issues connected with the CD (both reader and media). Personally I see very little issues in using a folder OUTSIDE the \Windows\ directory to store the files, which would remove a complication just for the sake of having a "clean" root directtory, C:\Install\ or C:\Setup9x\ has always worked for me nicely. jaclaz

I would try checking the integrity of the database (or restoring a previous version) before anything else. *like*: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/insider/forum/insider_wintp-insider_security/critical-error-start-menu-and-cortana-arent/746d57f4-95b0-4c64-be92-2614e8c9584a?page=30&auth=1 https://community.spiceworks.com/how_to/124543-windows-10-corrupt-tile-repository jaclaz

Naaah. Windows NT setup still uses good ol' CHS AND respects cylinder boundaries (as well as FDISK and most DOS based partitioning programs). You normally (disk geometry of 255x63) can only have "steps" in size of 7.84 Mb (actually 8,225,280 bytes, given by 1x255x63=16,065 sectors x 512 bytes/sector) Only a very small (and EXTREMELY rare if it actually ever existed) disk (with a geometry of 64x32) would have a minimum step of 64x32=2047 sectors x 512 bytes sector = 1,048,576 bytes, i.e. one Mb, but such a disk would not possibly exceed a size of 1024x64x32x512=1,073,741,824 i.e. 1 Gb. The (equally extremely rare) devices with a 128x63 geometry would have anyway a 128x63=8,064 sectors x 512 bytes/sector = 4,128,768 bytes i.e. roughly 4 Mb. jaclaz

Well , FIRST thing you are HAMMERING google with ping requests (since the DNS is not working it's OK, but is seriously frowned upon as a practice, insert a delay or just - better - ping for a given number of times instead of inside a continuous loop). Then start from the beginning, check the basic settings. WHAT is "216.144.187.199"? (I don't think it is your local DNS server) Can it be pinged/reached? (like in "ping 216.144.187.199") Same goes for the gateway 20.0.0.1, can it be pinged? What is the output of IPCONFIG /ALL (before and after you have run the netssh commands)? Any reason why you would have static IP addresses instead od running a DHCP server in your setup? (mind you personally I like to have my network(s) statically configured, but I am aware that it is nowadays considered extremely "old school" or "obsolete") jaclaz

Steve, if you want something that while still minimal/simple has something more than CLI only, have a look at Quick PE: http://reboot.pro/files/file/340-quickpe/ and (JFYI), loading a Registry hive is a bit "old fashioned", there are ways to edit the Offline Registry: http://reboot.pro/topic/11312-offline-registry/ which may be integrated/scripted in a batch based builder as the above. jaclaz

Not confined to windows, "not smart" does not mean stupid!, JFYI: http://www.tedunangst.com/flak/post/not-smart-is-not-stupid jaclaz

This seems to me like one of those cases where having a "core" image and a second one acccessible and auto-mounted (like with a junction/mount point or similar) through a drive like IMDISK or the like would be fine. jaclaz

Just in case: The ServerFault page is cached on Wayback Machine alright: https://web.archive.org/web/20160415001447/http://serverfault.com/questions/769357/recovering-from-a-rm-rf Anyway it was a kind of joke/hoax - one in a very bad taste - and seemingly he is going around insisting on how clever he was. http://www.storypick.com/wrong-code-company-delete/ http://www.pcworld.com/article/3057235/data-center-cloud/that-man-who-deleted-his-entire-company-with-a-line-of-code-it-was-a-hoax.html It is a a rare case of extreme stupidity, not curable unfortunately. He managed to have his name ( Marco Marsala ) and his photos published on a number of online newspaers, so that you can easily recognize him and never trust him with *anything*: http://www.repubblica.it/tecnologia/2016/04/15/news/cancella_l_azienda_per_sbaglio_la_disavventura_tecnologica_di_marco_marsala-137693154/ and optionally tell him how stupid he is when you happen to meet him. An interesting kind of publicity, becoming known all over the country and also internationally as a mindless jerk. jaclaz

Yep :), hard to understand, on the other hand, get *any* home design and style magazine, check and you will see how all the sitting rooms depicted will have a table where books and magazines are "artistically" scattered around. If you look hard enough, you will see in the same set of photos one or more almost empty bookcases. In computing you have the desktop where one would normally place the icons for a handful of REALLY frequently used programs and maybe TEMPORARILY a few (like max three or four) documents you are actually working with a the time. This is what a (to me already cluttered enough) desktop might look: but all of us have seen people seemingly happy with setups more like this: Some people actually like it this way, as always de gustibus non disputandum est, but while I can well understand how someone might have a form of "visual memory" allowing him/her to use a desktop such as above (and actually like it) I have some difficulties in understanding (on a small form device such as a phone or tablet) how much fun there could be into flipping n pages to find an app, and - given how often the actual icon is a nice exercise in design but rarely it is so distictive to be identified as a glance - I have often seen people flipping a few pages, opening by mistake another app, closing it, flipping some more pages, opening by mistake yet another "wrong" app with a deceivingly similar icon, flipping some more pages and finally open the "right" (usually pointless, crappy or both) desired app. Though all statistical data we have revolves around the fact that on mobile/tablets, as soon as the "novelty effect" has passed the number of actually used apps are no more than 5 and on average no more than 20-30 are actually installed on the device we have all seen I believe the above scenes. You have the browser that usually has a "start page" with a handful of frequently used links (in the start page or whatever you call it) and then a vast database of bookmarks, which is actually easily navigated, where you can use a search function, etc., and the browser can provide you exactly the same contents than the specific app (as long as the "original" site is only decently laid out) so that all the page flipping and looking for hardly recognizable icons can be bypassed, and as said elsewhere having tens (or even hundreds) of very vertical programs was something that made some sense in DOS or Windows 3.x times, but now that we have browsers (and HTML5) that allows to do *anything* (or *almost anything*) inside the browser, having the Apple Store (and the Google one, and the MS one) where MILLIONS of apps are accumulated WITHOUT any meaningful order, extremely difficult to find, with hundreds (or thousands) of duplicates (i.e. apps doing the exact same thing) and with a large part of them so stupidly "vertical" that they make no sense whatever is something that is really puzzling. jaclaz

More or less (for next time) you have a good alternative in good ol' Ranish Partition Manager: http://www.ranish.com/part/ which you simply add to *any* DOS diskette (or CD/.iso) and another good option ((though possibly not compatible with *all* hardware) with Partition Logic: http://partitionlogic.org.uk/ jaclaz

Yep. though the "generic" issue is not about being "targeted" (if "they" are after you they WILL get you anyway ) it is about being (of course accidentally/by chance) being caught in some wide net fishing. I mean, something like a remote access, secured as it might be through whatever means is anyway as safe as the security mindset/behaviour of the user, which in your specific case is likely to be fine but - with all due respect - might not be so in the case of E-66's mom. All in all when a remote access is actually needed it is only a minor issue to have her provide the login/password for the specific session, as it is unlikely (I believe) that that PC is on 24/7 and someone needs anyway to be there to switch it on, while having it "open to connections" all the time is a potential risk that provides not any real advantage in the intended use of (hopefully infrequent) remote assistance. jaclaz

Good , but please (not to scare you in any way, mind you) consider however also how this (having an access to it from elsewhere, without local supervision) might be not the best security practice in the world.

Also (only as moral support) it is common enough to get dizzy when dealing with this late Update madness, as said there is seemingly not a "right" always working solution, noone has a real grasp on the root cause of it, maybe it is the combination (as someone has suggested) of "overlapping" updates that make the update program either fail or take a lot of time to compute or maybe (as someone else suggested) it is the good MS guys intentionally making the experience so terrible for Windows 7 users that - out of despair - they choose to be updated to Windows 10, surely it is a major and very common issue, and all this only because they decided that the periodical, cumulative, pre-assembled updates release (a Service Pack) was either too much work for them or too d@mn simple and working that they HAD to change it. Someone should calculate the total amount of hours computers are "frozen" all around the world during these stupid updates (let alone the global bandwidth wasted) and make the comparison with that actually needed to download a "latest" service pack (BTW re-usable on n machines) and use windows update for just the small amount of later updates. The hugeness of such numbers should give people an idea of the amount of damage this stupid approach causes. jaclaz

Sure, that is a basic feature of a PE (by design), it is a volatile environment, every time it reboots it is a brand new day for it . You are now using a "plain" WinPE, right? Check here: http://diddy.boot-land.net/firadisk/files/winpe.htm jaclaz

Do you keep your disassembler near the cannon you use to shoot flies? Get a hex editor and check the PE header structure or get (easier) a PE Editor such as CFF explorer: http://www.ntcore.com/exsuite.php jaclaz

Have you ALREADY checked which Major and Minor OS version is in the executable? jaclaz

AFAICT the "Destination Host Unreachable" seemingly confirms that the addition to ARP table does *something*, if I get this right, if you ping from the PC to the phone WITHOUT the phone MAC added to the ARP table you should get as well "Destination Host Unreachable" (which in a nutshell means "cannot find destination"), whilst when you have the MAC added you should get "timed out" (which in a nutshell means I can find device but it doesn't reply). If the above is correct it does mean that there is some kind of "isolation" in the network. It is entirely possible that you have to review and change some settings in the WiFi router, as Trip said, it depends on the specific make/model of router, there are some that have an (almost) understandable web interface (with meaningful tags for settings and the possibility to change them) and some that are pretty much "locked", either because they are actually "locked" or because the web interface and available options seem to have been written by a drunk Klingon . jaclaz

Readers Digest's (or TL;DR) version: jaclaz

As a side note, and just in case (a standard 7 install .iso) there is no need (as many suggest) to edit the .iso removing the file or recreating it, there is a rather "narrow" tool here: http://code.kliu.org/misc/winisoutils/ jaclaz

You simply apply the boot.wim image to the stick, *like*: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh825045.aspx jaclaz

A self-proclaimed Microsoft Expert, of course: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/127283-experts-say/ The actual STOP ERROR is enough in 90% of cases and in the rest one needs the actual following hex numbers, no need for a freaking screenshot. jaclaz

Making a separate post, but connected to the news on new features of Windows 10 (the cool, 1337 ones): http://arstechnica.co.uk/information-technology/2016/04/microsoft-adds-qr-codes-to-bsods-in-new-windows-10-preview-build/ Bolding is mine jaclaz

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/apr/10/twitter-ev-williams-medium-content-fast-food 'nuff said. jaclaz

WHICH link? This one is working. http://www.msfn.org/board/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=39211 And anyway you shouldn't beg, in case report the issue (yesterday all attachment had issues): http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/175339-discussion-about-ips-4-forum-software/?do=findComment&comment=1122071 jaclaz

Sure SNMP/Ping is not *needed* for FTP, but AFAIK (unless something was changed lately or by the user) by default an Android should reply to ping requests, so it would be a sign that another protocol is working (or if you prefer that there is a connection). There are reports that the phone MAC needs to be added to the ARP table in order for it to work, however: http://forum.airdroid.com/discussion/379/i-can-t-even-ping-my-phone possibly because the Wi-Fi router/access point/whatever *needs* ARP resolution: https://supportforums.cisco.com/document/137186/how-arp-functions-ftp-process jaclaz