jaclaz

I would describe "a couple of OEM's" in a slightly less diminutive way , maybe something like "two among the largest OEM in the world, having combined more than 30% of the laptop market in 2014": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laptop_brands_and_manufacturers would be more appropriate. jaclaz

Shouldn't "RTM" be changed to RTGUBUALR[1]? jaclaz [1]Released To Gullible Users Being Used As Lab Rats

NO, it is NOT. In there it is mentioned how a non-described batch file containing non-mentioned wmic commands is started. I was asking about the contents of that batch (or just the wmic commands used in it). jaclaz P.S.: BTW, and still for the record, even the line described in that thread: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/174723-how-to-do-unattended-installation-without-any-iso-modification/ calling the batch file will NOT work in a number of setups, see: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/144069-batch-find-file-on-the-cd-roms/ http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/137714-install-xp-from-a-ram-loaded-iso-image/page-5#entry895361

For the last question, can you somehow run Accessibility Wizard? http://www.microsoft.com/enable/training/windows2000/ Otherwise try adding osk.exe to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\Cu rrentVersion\Winlogon\System https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc939862.aspx http://support.ablcomputers.com:9996/kb/a70/on-screen-keyboard.aspx Read this, should be the (almost) "complete" solution (using NSSM ): http://e-shop.fccps.cz/download/adv/frr/osk_at_winlogon_and_desktop.htm jaclaz

I wouldn't sleep too well if I had a Vista (or later? ) OS. Just for the record/YI: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/130578-vista-activation/ http://reboot.pro/topic/7288-you-cannot-leave-for-six-months/ BTW it is entirely possible that the good MS guys have changed their approach to it, stopping issuing periodically (for whatever reason) a reactivation trigger, so the aboev may be not only limited to Vista but also to a period in the past. jaclaz

Please define "best", and "your" practice, and more than that, please describe EXACTLY which commands are you using with WMI through the wmic command interface. For the record, dealing with drive letters when non-plain devices are involved (such as card readers, virtual disks, ramdisks, network connected disk devices) is EXTREMELY complex and even dedicated programs can be troublesome. Still for the record: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/123929-updated-batch-file-for-ordering-drive-letter-shifting/ http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/126069-updated-on-feb-27-2011-ordering-messed-drive-letter-batch-file/ http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/125992-switching-and-rearranging-drive-letters-utility-for-windows/ And (actually news): http://reboot.pro/topic/20476-retrieving-devicedrive-information/ jaclaz

Actually here there are 2 (two) concurrent issues: #1 a set of disks originally set in RAID 1 through a dedicated hardware (the Synology NAS) may have unmountable/invalid (under Windows) Partiion ID's (such as the mentioned FD's) #2 the filesystem used may have not an available filesystem driver in Windows (as it is probably but not definitely an Ext2/3/4) Point is that you do not really-really need to mount the volume(s) at all, what you actually need is to access (Read Only) the files/folders you discovered missing from the new disks. To do this you can try using a "recovery" tool like DMDE: http://dmde.com/ which should allow you to retrieve the files you are interested in without actually mounting the filesystem or installing any driver. jaclaz

Only to be more explicit, when you install Windows 7 after XP the XP booting mechanism is modified into windows 7's one. When you install XP the booting mechanism is: MBR->PBR of active partition (with code to load NTLDR)->NTLDR->Choice(s) in BOOT.INI->XP When you install 7 the booting mechanism becomes: MBR->PBR of active partition (with code to load BOOTMGR)->BOOTMGR->Choices in \boot\BCD->Windows 7 (default) or XP In a nutshell, the ARCPATH entry in BOOT.INI is imported inside the \boot\BCD, as a non-default option, because the default is set to Windows 7, so it is needed to edit the \boot\BCD (through BCDEDIT.EXE) to set in it the XP as default. If you want to read a bit about the \boot\BCD and BCDEDIT operation, see here: http://www.mistyrebootfiles.altervista.org/documents/BCDEdit/index.html For the moment, just run (from the booted Windows 7 and from an elevated command prompt): BCDEDIT /enum ALL and copy paste the result or run: BCDEDIT /enum ALL>C:\myBCD.txt and post the contents of C:\myBCD.txt Most probably what you will have to do is to run the BCDEDIT /default {ntldr} command, as in: http://www.mistyrebootfiles.altervista.org/documents/BCDEdit/files/commands.6.3.9600.htm#default but let's first verify that your current situation is what we expect. jaclaz

What about: "there's no such thing as a free lunch!" ? Almost, but not quite. Right now it seems like there's no such thing as a good lunch (free or paid for). jaclaz

Not possible (in the sense that the partnew command is about Primary partitions only). It can be done of course through some scripting, but it is not the easiest of the things to write a grub4dos batch for. About the .vhd booting as partition, this is "normal" as the sheer moment you clone the .vhd to a partition, it is not anymore a .vhd but a partition/volume, and it is as well normal that you cannot boot that way from a .vhd inside a partition (unless you are using an edition of Windows that allows "native" .vhd booting) without an additional third party driver (such as Firadisk or WinVblock). You will need to take some time on reboot.pro to understand the differences between "native" .vhd booting and booting through Firadisk or Winvblock, start here: http://reboot.pro/topic/15516-create-native-boot-vhds/ http://reboot.pro/topic/15407-booting-from-vhd-in-grub4dos/ http://reboot.pro/files/file/321-vhd-w7-compact-make-mini-7/ jaclaz

Good. Another happy bunny in the basket: jaclaz

What puzzles me is that since obviously: adding a given feature may cost a lot of time and effort not adding a given feature (senseless as it might be) may cost in terms of less sales of the productthe decision for the one or the other needs to be pondered, but WHY (the heck) removing an existing feature (BTW for no reason)? It costs anyway some effort and you can be sure that you will pi** off at least a part of your customers. jaclaz

No alcohol involved he meant this (JFYI) : http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/110717-alky-project-is-discountinued-direcx-10-for-xp/ There are in the wild some other (like the one Dibya linked to) patches/hacked files/whatever (I believe of Russian origin), namely the one that Dibya referenced is also reviewed on Softpedia, the issue being that the Alky project seemed at the time to deliver far less than what promised and also these later *whatevers* (once set aside the legality of distributing them or linking to them) appear to be not working or at least the very few reports of it working do not sound "right", there are allegations of something smelling fishy inside the files and there is no home page, named developer and similar, let alone any kind of support. If you search around all you will find are people posting on forums here and there about the thingy either working flawlessly or not working at all, but I could not ever find a single report (not among the successes, nor among the failures) that I would call "reliable" or "credible". jaclaz

Sure, you didn't notice the fingers crossed behind the back when they wrote that . Just in case, a reminder for the good MS guys: To be picky, that would be more like an omission, you know like: After the download the tool runs one time to check your computer for infections by specific .... ... ... and several other times whenever we feel like it should run to do whatever we see it fit doing .... jaclaz

It makes perfectly sense to me. (not that I "like it", only saying that it makes sense) If it was plain http or plain text anyone could probably find a way to (say) spoof the server and fill the database with every kind of crap, imagine that someone manages to insert in the database as "malware" a few tens of MS's own's .exe's . jaclaz

Could be a nice guess, but if you try to re-read BM's original post (possibly taking also in account the attempt I made to make it more clear) you are NOT forced to do experiments, as a matter of fact you are NOT EVEN invited to do so, you are ONLY allowed to use these DEBUG builds to perform your experiments (and ONLY IF you are willing to attempt using these builds for whatever reasons you find worth running such experiment) with a SOLE and ONLY condition/recommendation: Please, DO NOT whine about it. jaclaz

Maybe Dybia had common sense but accidentally lost it and probably it can be found in the garbage can, near your patience and politeness? jaclaz

You have grounds to sue Google for that. 100% command line. And the question is? Wget is not the only command line download manager and there are also GUI download managers that accept command line input, a list of similar or related files is here: http://alternativeto.net/software/wget/ jaclaz

The "core" edition traditionally refers to the "server" series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Core Where have you seen that? AFAIK the list given on Wikipedia is accurate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_10_editions jaclaz

It's hard to say if you did anything wrong without knowing what you did, but generally speaking, no you have nothing to fear for the hard disk, but you did something wrong . You would be the first and only one (or maybe the second, but that report is not fully confirmed) to confirm success with a 5V (TTL/CMOS) level converter (which is of course possible given the "queer" and largely undocumented nature of the matter, but HIGHLY UNLIKELY). Now, I have spent RIVERS of words, countless posts around this simple fact: thousands of people using the suggested 3.3V (TTL) level converter and following exactly the suggested guide managed to communicate properly with the hard disk and in the large majority (but of course NOT with a 100% rate) managed to unbrick the thingynoone (with possibly one exception before you) ever managed to communicate properly with a NON-suggested 5V (TTL/CMOS) level converter, let alone unbrick the driveYou can draw your own conclusions . Mind you this does not in any way represent an endorsement of the theory that ONLY 3.3V TTL converters will work and that NO 5V TTL/CMOS converter will, neither does it represent a suggestion that the kind of converter you are using is not good for the job and that it is the reason of your failure, it simply brings before you (hadn't all the related previous posts on the specific matter or the HOWTO or the FGA been enough) the "statistical evidence" we gathered since 2009 or so. READ ME FIRST: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/143880-seagate-barracuda-720011-read-me-first/ FGA: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/147532-fga-for-the-seagate-720011-drives/ (just in case) Points #6 and #10 of READ ME FIRST and FGA #4 should be of particular interest to you. jaclaz

On other news, something else allegedly phones home: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/3jvuvp/chromium_apparently_phones_home_chromium_devs/ https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=792580 and this, really, sucks : http://www.cnbc.com/2015/10/21/next-volkswagen-scandal-dyson-accuses-german-vacuum-cleaners-of-test-cheating.html maybe only some ramblings, maybe not. jaclaz

Sure you understand correctly what you have written , I was only pointing out how it is not as easy as you think for someone which is not the Author to differentiate between the two. JFYI, the DoD put it on paper: http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA514048 jaclaz

Maybe should, but reportedly is not (on the given thread): http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/155910-taking-back-the-registry-from-trustedinstaller/?p=993006 jaclaz

At least here "test" and "experiment" seem a lot like synonyms. Maybe better call them (and the thread) just "DEBUG builds" . jaclaz

Yep , that one specifies that it has a 3.3V max TTL level: so, it's fine . jaclaz