jaclaz

What is bizarre? The idea of Mr. Jordan and his fellows posing as bulbs? http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Yellow-Light-Bulb-Lamp-Bulb-Electric-Light-Mascot-Costume-Cartoon-Character-Outfit-No-3586-Free-Ship/1483118319.html Those are however old news: http://www.forbes.com/sites/leoking/2014/07/09/smart-home-these-connected-led-light-bulbs-could-leak-your-wi-fi-password/ http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28208905 jaclaz

And now it's Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/sites/theopriestley/2015/09/21/consumers-prepare-for-an-internet-of-very-pointless-things/ jaclaz

Well on a <20 Gb partition (which is what the OP asked about) there won't anyway fit that many of them 4 Gb files, once subtracted the space needed for NTFS structures, and possibly the XP OS system files+a few programs, at the most 3 or 4 HD movies. jaclaz

Well "breaking" is maybe a bit excessive. FDV's approach (Fred De Vorck) has historically allowed to remove completely IE with only a bunch of (what I believe minor) inconveniences, just for the OP interest: http://www.vorck.com/windows/xpsp4.html http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/140941-fdv-fileset-for-xp/ but I believe nlite has similar possibilities, and Fred actually recommends it for "finer tuning". There is a learning curve with nlite, that goes through doing tests and, upon failure, re-do without removing a component you need . Of course if you remove something, that something won't be there, but the issues raise when (sometimes) there are connections between a removed component/part and a completely different feature that is needed that are not straightforward. jaclaz

Well, since there was no defragger of any kind in NT 4.00, something must have changed. The first NT OS coming with a MS built-in defragger was Windows 2000 (and the defragger was a stripped down version of Diskeeper), see: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/131017-msoft-uses-diskeeper-as-their-defrag-tool-trying-to-resize-partition/ http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/131017-msoft-uses-diskeeper-as-their-defrag-tool-trying-to-resize-partition/?p=841932 Still for the record, references (by Ninho) to Intel or Symantec seem like not accurate. jaclaz

It is I believe a "kknown issue": http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-files/windows-7-deleting-large-files-is-extremely-slow/f2b32bf0-bab6-4935-9002-8127d9ca066a The suggested workaround (set aside the one about rebooting in safe mode and running an antivirus provided by am MS "expert" ) is to: jaclaz

OT, but not much, reportedly the average Windows 10 users are using the store 6 (SIX! ) times more than an average Windows 8 user: http://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2015/09/17/more-ways-to-bring-your-code-to-fast-growing-windows-10-store/ Given the minimal amount of non-games and non-gadgets on the store, I would presume that on average Windows 10 users are on average represented by non-interested-to-serious-programs people. jaclaz

Security does not really mean "a third party" antivirus. Dedoimedo thinks that the first line of defense is not doing anything silly on the PC, and the second should be (still according to him) EMET: http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/windows-8-1-defender.html http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/windows-emet-v4.html And, should any casual reader doubt it, remember how Dedoimedo is always right, by definition: http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/windows-8-1-beta.html jaclaz

Yes and no , (with reference to "speed", not to other aspects such as "slack" or "wasted space"). In theory having a largish cluster size tends to be more efficient with large files and less efficient with small ones, while at the same time a smallish cluster size tends to be more efficient with small files and less efficient with large ones, but there are so many other factors, including the way the filesystem is designed and the actual way data is transferred on the bus and how exactly it is cached (if it is cached) on the hard disk ram or through a strategy in the OS on the motherboard ram that it is extremely difficult to say how much it affects general speed. Still as anecdotal evidence (i.e. without extensive comparison on vast amounts of hardware) we know that correctly aligning the filesystem (see the given post and provided links): http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/156829-hdd-performance-allocation-unit-size/?p=999050 provides a distinct advantage (on a slow bus such as USB 2.0) and that there are noticeable differences (still on a USB bus): http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/125116-fat16-vs-fat32-vs-ntfs-speed-on-usb-stick/ on different (but very similar, 2K vs. XP) OS's. These same differences are hardly noticeable (if noticeable at all) on faster internal devices/buses which should mean that *something else* in practice compensates them, but (see here and links within it): http://reboot.pro/topic/9897-vistawin7-versus-xp-partitioning-issue/?p=85960 if you are going to "fine tune" alignment, then you will find that there are differences also (besides the ones between non-aligned and aligned) between different alignment values. To this you add that very, very small files (up to around 750 bytes or so) are normally stored inside the $MFT record (please read are as fast as possible) in a "normal" NTFS filesystem on a 512 byes/sector device (where each $MFT record is 1024 bytes) and probably if you use a 4 kb sectored device (where $MFT recorded will be also 4 Kb) files up to 3500 or so bytes will also be resident. And then the actual on-board cache of the device might make any of the above argument m00t. In a nutshell, at least on smallish volumes, IMHO the choice between FAT32 and NTFS may be either purely "philosophical" OR provide a noticeable difference, but you will never know until you try both on a same device in the specific use it is intended for and attempt to "fine tune" the one or the other as finely as possible. jaclaz

No real problems that I remember. Which OS? The CFADISK.SYS or the DUMMYDISK.SYS may (or may not) work on 2K (they do on at least XP to 7, I seem to remember that they are OK also on 2K, but I am not too sure ), see starting from here: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/69211-a-multiple-partition-usb-stick-with-multi-boot-os/?p=922773 There is also diskmod nowadays that (if it works on 2k) might be "better": http://reboot.pro/topic/9461-page-file-in-usb-hard-disk/ http://agnipulse.com/2012/03/filter-drivers-removable-media-fixed-disk-windows/ jaclaz

Yes and no (mostly yes , as it was the "default"), but it had of course no "screen", everyone used a (cheap/old) portable TV or some green or amber phosphor display of some kind and every kind of hardware hack. And on the ZX80 there was the possibility of making a "bridge" and have either Black on white (default) or White on black, you chose which one to use: https://web.archive.org/web/20080509230050/http://www.howell1964.freeserve.co.uk/ZX81/ZX_Tech.htm Remember that the ZX80 (unlike the later ZX81) was sold (I believe mainly) as "kit to be soldered" (though a pre-assembled version was available): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX80 And the £20 pounds difference was some money at the time. jaclaz

OT, but not much: http://oss4gov.org/unapology jaclaz

@JodyT No, IE9 won't run or install, the "spoofing" is exactly what you said, simply a change of the user agent, what will be running will still be IE8, faking that it is IE9. @Jakob99 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061722/quotes?item=qt0282091 Direct2D BTW last time this word was provided as an answer connected to IE9, here, by our friend MagicAndre: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/forum/ie9-windows_other/ie9-for-xp-why-doesnt-internet-explorer-9-work-on/e8113f20-b149-4763-b4d4-562d1da524b6?page=1 it started a nice flamewar, that we may hopefully avoid repeating here. jaclaz

And some considerations on the "by design" feature that - in my simplicity - I find not exactly "desirable": http://reventlov.com/advisories/using-the-docker-command-to-root-the-host https://jmainguy.com/index.php/root-your-host-in-2-easy-steps-with-docker/ http://glaudiston.blogspot.it/2015/07/docker-security-not-so-perfect-as-it.html jaclaz

You can have a try with SRware Iron: https://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron.php The old versions are here: http://www.srware.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=8004 http://download1.srware.net/old/ jaclaz

There is a difference between the way you insert printer commands between Windows XP and previous ones (if this is what you are asking ). In Windows XP you enter hex codes inside "<>". Example (XP): http://support.myaxispoint.com/knowledgebase/articles/216549-tricking-a-generic-text-only-printer-to-be-esc-pos AFAICR in Win9x and previous you used the actual Esc key, like (scroll down till around page 34): http://www.ncsoftware.com/DocFiles/PrinterSetup.pdf The given PDF covers quite well the matter around "Generic/Text" printer drivers, more generally still today "receipt" printers (dot-matrix or thermal) often use plain Epson ESC commands, so often you find documentation in the actual hardware manufacturer pages. As a side note (and not really what you asked for, but possibly interesting): http://mike.bitrevision.com/blog/2015-04-getting-a-usb-receipt-printer-working-on-windows jaclaz

Possibly you need to start the VBS by using cscript.exe or wscript.exe in the command line : http://ss64.com/vb/cscript.html https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb490816.aspx jaclaz

Related: http://www.viola-notes.com/why-resistance-to-ad-blocking-is-futile-and-whats-next-for-digital-advertising/ jaclaz

Good , though I have a friend of a second cousin that told to me how in his experience NTFS was faster. The point I was trying to make was that there are a large number of settings and conditions that may make the one (or the other) filesystem a little faster than the other, there are no real "absolute" winners on small sized volumes, there is a 32 GB FAT32 size limit imposed by MS on XP that may (or may not) have its reasons but talking about 20 Gb or less that one does not apply. Only as an example, disabling Last Access writes on NTFS: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc959914.aspx will speed up a number of operations sensibly. As well, properly aligning the data may give benefits to both NTFS (as under XP the data is by default unaligned to cluster size) and FAT32 (which normally has data never aligned to cluster size, though it may happen by pure chance that the default partitioning/formatting create the filesystem "aligned") but this speed increase (or lack thereof) depends also on the actual hard disk and controller and driver used. jaclaz

One does it "properly". http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/moving_xp.html More or less the general idea is to "force" the "existing" install (on a working machine) to be as "generic" as possible (and this in some cases is not even possible because of this or that BIOS or hardware limitation). If you think a bit about it when deploying the "key" step is the syprep or "generalizing" step (which apply both to good ol' XP and to the new .wim based OS's), the good news (actually not really news) being that a tool to do "ofline sysprepping" exists: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showforum=43 Mind you far form being "perfect" or "really universal" but working flawlessly in most cases. jaclaz

There is no real overhead (actually there is, but it is nullified by the slowness of the FAT32 filesystem driver - or if you prefer by the efficiency of the NTFS drivers) and a whole lot of other factors (actual disk make/model, i.e. onboard cache size, actual bus type, actual disk driver used, filesystem offset, and a number of other settings in the OS) may affect the performance of either the FAT32 or NTFS filesystem, as hopefully explained here: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/156829-hdd-performance-allocation-unit-size/?p=999050 (and given links) Usually NONE of these can be appreciated in real world usage (whilst they may be measurable through benchmarks or other specific testing tools). jaclaz

Well, this may depend on WHAT (exactly) you tried and HOW (exactly) you tried them. If you used any of the seemingly easy "automagic" apps that promise to recover everything, it is very possible that they simply did not work because the "whatever" happened to your disk(s) is "outside" the scope/ability of the tool. On the other hand, if you made attempts with actuall "good" tools like TESTDISK or DMDE what exactly you did with them (or how exactly you used them) makes a difference between total failure and complete success. Start again with the Standard Litany: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/problem-report-standard-litany.html Describe in detail your environment (running OS) how the disk(s) were partitioned (as far as you can remember) the exact make/model of the disks, etc. It is extremely rare that a NTFS filesystem (particularly one that was used as a backup media, which usually tend to provoke little or no fragmentation) cannot be recovered, if needed at least with a file based recovery. A good idea (if you can do this) is to rule out the USB controller/converter/case and directly connect the hard disk to the (I have to guess SATA) bus of a machine. jaclaz

Well still a line should be drawn. One thing is the (evident) fact that the "monster" released on july 29th is far from being a "finished" product. In due time surely the good MS guys will fix the issues, most probably not at first try, but eventually everything will work as designed/intended. The other thing (the real issue) is the design/project. This latter won't change and is (and will remain) terrible . jaclaz

Oh, noes , NOT AGAIN. Maybe, just maybe, you are starting to make this a tad bit (please read as largely) repetitive: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/174440-primary-os-as-a-portable-windows-windowstogo-on-vhd-–-doing-it-the-right-way/ (besides all the posts on the Wintsetup thread and other threads here and on other boards) Try doing a few builds at random and compare them, then choose one that provides you the "best" result (according to you), and then IF you find in one of them a flaw (or something that similarly you do not like) then you may well ask for support for that specific build. There is NOT a "best" way or a "best" tool, and anyway suggestions will largely be by people that have NOT tested all the ways/tools you listed, most people wanting to build a "portable Windows" of some kind try just one method and if it works won't test other ones, and the final result will be the same or mostly the same whatever tool/builder you use: it is the final result that either satisfies your requirements or that does not. Just do it. jaclaz

In the meantime XKCD found a nice solution for drone regulation issues : http://xkcd.com/1523/ jaclaz