jaclaz

The simplified way, single disk partition: A disk normally partitioned with XP or earlier will have 63 sectors before the first partition or if you prefer the partition will start on LBA 63. A disk normally partitioned with Vista or later will have 2048 sectors before the first partition or if you prefer the partition will start on LBA 2048. The old disk has 512 bytes sector. The new disk (or SSD) needs to have 512 bytes sector. (both have, rest assured, "native" 4kb disks are rare the format is limited to very large size ones). Re-aligning the partition from 63 to 2048 will be unnoticeable to you on the hard disk (and it won't make much difference anyway) but on the SSD it might seriously slow it down, so you should actually move the partition (on the new device) to be 4kb aligned. The only issue with XP having non-aligned-to-cylinder/head (i.e. 63 sectors before) may come with logical volumes inside extended partition, and only if you fiddle with the disk in the XP disk manager. I cannot say what exactly (in detail, and when you talk about data details are vital) how the mentioned app behaves in the two different modes, but what I would do would be to use BOTH devices in this case. 1) BEFORE anything else make a copy of the MBR of the disk and of the PBR of the partition there are several ways/tools, but even the simplified HdHacker would do: http://dimio.altervista.org/eng/ (you want to make a copy of first sector of the \\.\PhysicalDrive and a copy of the first 16 sectors of the \\.\LogicqalDrive) Store these two files (only a few kilobytes) on anothe device, let's say a USB stick, this is a sort of "insurance", should something in the following change a few key values, we will have a way back. 2) clone "as is" (with Disk Clone) the "failing" old disk to the new "conventional" disk (possibly on the "other", Windows 7 machine) 3) make sure that the new disk works as the old one on the original XP machine 4) then back on the Windows 7 machine: 5) copy the tested "new" disk contents with System Clone/Migration to the SSD (which will have been partitioned and formatted with the "proper" 4 Kb alignment) 6) if the "automagical" tool works as expected the newly made SSD will be able to boot "as the old disk" on the XP machine 7) if it doesn't a simple set of commands should be able to have it working "manually" but even if this doesn't work, you still have the "original disk" (failing/defective but still somehow working) and an exact copy of it on the "new disk" (fully functional) so that we can loop to #4 and use another tool/another approach Once the "final" SSD (with the new alignment but with the smaller, old size of the partitoin) will have been tested to be working nicely, only then use the tool you mentioned (or a similar one) to extend the size of the partition. Again, should anything go wrong in this latter process, you can always loop to #4 and start again. jaclaz

Well, to be fair to the good Gartner guys , this particular prediction seems as accurate as most of the others they make. jaclaz

Well, to run RunAsTI you need anyway to be Administrator, I would have thought that this was well established: https://github.com/jschicht/RunAsTI You do understand that one thing is giving back to an Authorized user (Administrator or Owner of an OS) some added powers that the good MS guys senselessly removed in some new OS versions and a completely different thing would be giving "full powers" to a "common user", don't you? The latter would be a rather serious "privilege escalation" vulnerability (and RunAsTI the corresponding exploit) jaclaz

Sure the argument(s) will need to be inserted inside the shortcut in the "Command line arguments" field: http://www.howtogeek.com/140737/create-a-shortcut-to-avoid-user-account-control-popups-the-easy-way/ In other words, first your shortcut must work when you double click on it, and only later you try starting it from a batch file (passing NO parameters to it). jaclaz

My guess is that to eliminate the prompt there are only two ways: 1) a shortcut 2) use the schtasks task manager way In your batch to invoke the shortcut you need to use the START command: http://ss64.com/nt/start.html something *like*: START "" "C:\mypath\myshortcut.lnk"might do. jaclaz

Naaah, this is it, it actually almost undetectable: jaclaz

Hmmm not really good news for the IoT guys: http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/11/why-algebraic-eraser-may-be-the-most-risky-cryptosystem-youve-never-heard-of/ jaclaz

Yep , just in case: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/128807-the-solution-for-seagate-720011-hdds/?p=916757 jaclaz

Well, as always it is not something extremely clear. The point is (or should be) that the actual driver used in the early part of setup only understands a given isolevel (and/or Joliet or not). Files used in the early phases of setup need to be UPPERCASE and 8.3, and there are (were) tools (like toupper.exe or uppercase.exe or filecase.exe or similar) to make sure that this was the condition. Now, for no apparent reason , dashun9.cmd : http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/171435-allow-lowercase-on-multiboot-dvd/ http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=25612 jaclaz

Another couple things that you could/should verify may be (now that you mension the "huge" 3 Gb .iso): FiLeNaMe CaSe Isolevel Actual LBA in the .iso Non-iso-hardlinked sources#1 may depend on #2 (original disks were iso-level 1 and thus FILENAMES WERE 8.3 AND ALL CAPS, while later versions were either iso-level 2 or 3, cannot remember exactly but this was a common enough issue in the good ol' days of BartPE) but it is entirely possible that pre-SP2 (or whatever) the CDROM.SYS (or again whatever) cannot read/access properly an isolevel higher than 1 or - and this comes to #3 - access particularly "high" LBA's in the .iso/CD, and the same could happen with hardlinks (because the actual file is beyond a given LBA). Still in the good ol' times there was a file (a script for mkisofs) pe_sort.txt to put "key files" in a given order (which was to make PE's boot faster) but that you might find of use, see: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=6869 which later proved to be of good use for sticks too: http://reboot.pro/topic/6041-a-question-or-advice-for-pe-builds/ Just ideas... jaclaz

Well, it greatly depends on the use of a computer. My desktop is almost never booted or rebooted, as an example, and when for some reasons I switch it off, what I normally do next time/next day is to switch it on and go get a coffee while it boots (not that it is anyway slow, but in my use booting time is totally irrelevant). Still my laptop is booted only "on demand" and when I use it I want to have it booted up quickly, in this case it becomes a task, and should it be slow booting it would be very annoying. The statement by Terry Myerson, however, makes no sense anyway. The update is for Windows 10 so it might be of relevance the faster booting when compared to the previous Windows 10 version. I mean, it is entirely possible that 10240 was ALREADY(say) 29% faster than 7 on the same device , which would leave less than 1% bettering for 10586 release (nothing to be actually worth a mention, let alone as first one of the three main points listed) and conversely, provided that any machine actually suited for Windows 7 or later normally boots (or should boot) in under a minute, it would mean *like* half a second in practice. jaclaz

I guess we got the idea by now . Maybe you could ask the moderators to have a thread made sticky containing your "alternate tip" , however, and just for the record: Hello, i'm here now to post my suggestions in relationship of this topic and what i have quoted about my message. I suggest simply of DO NOT USE THIS "TIP" for speeding up the boot of windows, cause it is simply useless, and you will go in my same situation, with this folder that's updating with those useless files that windows 7 DO NOT NEEDS, making only extra hard disk works after the user login. You also WILL NOT find any solution in the web for return back: those damned files will be refreshed every reboot, growing in fragmentation. If you need to speed up your boot process, simply open the Command Prompt and paste this: rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks Wait some minutes, and Windows wil do EXACTLY the same thing, without the creation of those stupid files. I have now reformatted my system after 3 days of hard work for transfering all my personal settings and software to a brand new pc, and i will NEVER use another time this called ^TIP^. Bye all. jaclaz

Well Gabe Aul referencing Terry Myerson is not like "news". BUT on the actual Terry Myerson blog there is a statement that sounds a bit (too much) bold: http://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2015/11/12/first-major-update-for-windows-10-available-today/?OCID=WIP_r_Body_Blog_LatestPC Queer that you didn't notice such a dramatic speed improvement. jaclaz

Yes and no, meaning that it is likely that there is still some "lying mechanism" about OS versions JFYI: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/cjacks/archive/2009/05/06/why-custom-actions-get-a-windows-vista-version-lie-on-windows-7.aspx and: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ieinternals/archive/2014/02/19/internet-explorer-and-everybody-else-version-lies-for-compatibility.aspx jaclaz

Well, to be fair OP didn't mention having cleaned the contacts properly. jaclaz

Or you could change the install approach, in the mentioned sub-forum there are quite a bit of alternative ways, namely I would guess that a machine with an USB CD drive is likely to have more than 1 Gb of RAM so this way would do: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/137714-install-xp-from-a-ram-loaded-iso-image/ but also this way (adapted): http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/121446-install-from-usb-after-booting-with-pe/ could work fine. As a side note - and notwithstanding what you might find here and there - the "right" way (IMNSHO) to install an XP (but actually almost *any* OS) is to do so from a "local" (saved on the machine internal storage) copy because before or later it may happen that you need a file from the original install source (because of WFP or for some other reason) and then the OS will ask you to insert the install CD (unless you installed from local source, keeping a copy) and in your case not only you will have lost or misplaced the actual CD disk but you will also have not handy the USB CD drive . JFYI, there is a thread: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/121502-install-xp-from-usb-the-easy-way-with-sandisk-cruzer/ about abusing of some USB stick controllers (the ones with two LUNs, 1 CD+1 HD like, often labeled "U3") to install from the CD like device, but it is entirely possible that the tests and reports were relative to SP3 source . jaclaz

... and: http://www.matem.unam.mx/~micho/warp.html which may also be of interest to our 9x/Me friends: jaclaz

Yes. http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/questions-with-yes-or-no-answers.html Some info for those not wanting to search half the internet to find references to what you probably are referring (vaguely) to: http://www.techrepublic.com/article/os2-blue-lion-to-be-the-next-distro-of-the-28-year-old-os/ http://www.arcanoae.com/ jaclaz

jaclaz

Sounds like in theory - and hypothetically (of course) - the good AV guys are giving you a full load of bullsh*t . JFYI: https://www.globalsign.com/en/blog/microsoft-announces-updates-sha-1-code-signing-policy/ http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/32288.windows-enforcement-of-authenticode-code-signing-and-timestamping.aspx jaclaz

Maybe you are a son of a lesser God Check nasty surprise #3 here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2015/11/14/microsoft-windows-10-threshold-2-problems/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2015/11/14/microsoft-windows-10-threshold-2-problems/2/ jaclaz

@JorgeA ... and more or less it amounts to an "open microphone", everyone's conversations within - say - 10 meter radius from an innocent child playing with the doll might be catched and transmitted to the servers... ... and what about this? http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/11/beware-of-ads-that-use-inaudible-sound-to-link-your-phone-tv-tablet-and-pc/ ... the thingy could well become part of the "cross-device tracking" network. jaclaz

Welcome to the wonderful world of UAC prompts . I mean not really-really "news" Possible way outs: https://www.raymond.cc/blog/task-scheduler-bypass-uac-prompt/ But possibly you might want to try other approaches, using the one or the other version of elevate.exe (or similar) or some other ways, start reading from around here: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/173265-formatting-an-external-drive-using-different-interfaces/?p=1092535 jaclaz

And it is more common than not (JFYI) it is a cross-OS bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/1463112 jaclaz

... meanwhile in Mattel ... http://kernelmag.dailydot.com/issue-sections/features-issue-sections/15018/hello-barbie-security-concerns/ The only senceful use of that thingy might be as a replacement (non-) clay target for skeet practicing.... PULL! jaclaz