jaclaz

And now it's the turn of BMW's, Mercedes' and Chrysler (again): http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/08/simple-wi-fi-attack-grabs-bmw-mercedes-and-chrysler-cars-virtual-keys/ jaclaz

Meanwhile in (or around) Cupertino ....no, I mean Redmond: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10061552 Still talking of Office related communication.... jaclaz

Well, it still needs to be tested specifically. jaclaz

Not "can", should. I was saying that we should trust journalists that follow the ethics code and are "honest, fair and courageous in gathering, reporting and interpreting information" Possibly if an article is the blind acceptance of a (clearly marketing/PR originated) interview with one of MS vice presidents actually responsible for the product or rather an uncommented direct transcript of his statements, we may still be skeptic. jaclaz

Naah, everything is fine, the good MS guys are doing it for your own good: http://venturebeat.com/2015/08/13/how-microsoft-built-and-is-still-building-windows-10/ As stated: And if this is not enough, think of the great flywheel: The interviewer, Emil Protalinski follows the ethics of Venturebeat: http://venturebeat.com/ethics-statement/ and before the four principles of the Society of Professional Journalists’ ethics: their "primary obligation is to the truth" so everything is fine. jaclaz

It would be nice if you could name the specific tool you used instead of the WAREZ that include it. jaclaz

Check my signature. (you are not the first one perplexed by the actual board Search being represented by a gear icon - something that normally would mean "settings" or "configuration", additionally outside the "search box" on each page). jaclaz

Until 2K, surely, up to XP probably, up to 7 maybe, definitely NOT up to 8/8.1 (links in the above article): http://www.computerworld.com/article/2500036/desktop-apps/microsoft--we-can-remotely-delete-windows-8-apps.html http://drleonardcoldwell.com/2013/08/23/leaked-german-government-warns-key-entities-not-to-use-windows-8-linked-to-nsa/ jaclaz

Or maybe try creating the folder and then removing all permissions from it (leaving full control only to a given user). It would be interesting to see if the stupid windows update can override this setting. jaclaz

Ntbackup in itself is OK (and DriveImageXML - to some extents - is very similar/uses the same VSS technology underneath). The problem is usually not in making the backup (exclusion made for some issues that may happen to the Volume Shadow Service), it is in restoring it in case of need. The concept of "bare metal recovery" is one of the aspects that need to be understood. Your hard disk fails and you have to replace it with a new (or however working) unit. How (from what environment/live CD/USB stick, etc.) can you run NTBACKUP to restore the new unit in such a way that it it is EXACTLY (or at least "largely") the same as it was before the failure? Basically you have only one option, that is a BartPE with a suitable Ntbackup plugin (which is of course possible but not the easiest thing to create). Most probably for the restore only also a PE 2.0/3/0 (Vista/7 based) might do, as the original NTbackup from XP is said to run on Vista/7 if a few needed .dll's are "transplanted" to the nTbackup folder. An "external" dedicated program that uses a "common", "plain" format has three advantages (IMHO). it has been tested extensively in these cases when running in a temporary environment more often than not in case of issues other tools can be used to proceed with the restore as the data is accessible having been saved in a "plain" format Partial data (for a non-bare-metal-recovery) is usually easier to retrieveBut essentially it boils down to personal preferences, as explained here: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/157634-hard-disk-cloningimaging-from-inside-windows/ there are all shades of gray. In a perfect world (which obviously is not Windows and the way it is organized by default) there would be three volumes in every install: a (smallish) one containing ONLY the OS install and the "base" configuration files a (medium sized) one containing ONLY the programs/tools a (largish) one containing ONLY the dataSo you would make a RAW image of the first one and you could use *anything* to backup or copy the other two, as once quickly restored with *anything* (even a grub4dos dd would do, given enough time) the first one, you could use the restored OS to restore programs and data. Since configurations of anything but the "core OS" are not in the first volume, that RAW image would remain substantially unchanged. In the case of XP, which needs for a bare install around 1.5 Gb, that would be at the most a 5 Gb image (including all the spare space you can imagine, resulting in something that could be transferred (backed up and restored) in a few minutes, the computer would be back to running conditions "natively" and from it you could easily restore "the rest". jaclaz

Well, for those actually knowing how Windows works the concept that the Hosts file is bypassed for a number of microsoft related websites is not entirely "news", at least in the past this was used and knowing how the good MS guys like to re-use code it is not really a "surprise" JFYI: http://reboot.pro/topic/20622-windows-10-enterprise-ltsb-mother-of-all-tweak-scripts/?p=194235 jaclaz

@dencorso Very good and interesting, but the questions (at least mine) were not about the best possible configuration, but rather what are the minimum requisites for the install XP from DOS having SMARTDRV correctly loaded, the actual practical scope of that is just to copy (as fast as possible) the XP install files from (USB) source to internal hard disk and later to run WINNT.EXE. Rloew replied to those nicely: So, all is needed now is that someone with more than 2.5 Gb verifies by trying to install that way: a. With just the Windows Me/DOS 8.0 bootdisk (the one that can be extracted from XP) files IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS and Command.com b. With the Windows 98 bootdisk files, adding to the three files IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS and Command.com also the HIMEM.SYS (of course besides the FreeDOS Fdisk and the XCOPY files). jaclaz

Sure, and more loosely it is the difference between a (well) designed and engineered *something* as opposed to *something else* just put together from parts at random, still half the speed is a lot, and this halving happens on a relatively slow overall internet speed. At least from what I see here: http://www.amazon.com/Alfa-Awus036H-Upgraded-Long-Rang-Panel/product-reviews/B003YHYIT0 the Alfa with the "panel" antenna (unsurprisingly) works "better", but the fact that the OP reported varying speeds with freshly installed drivers might mean that *something* else is involved. However Tripredacus is right, the first test would be to try the USB thingy on the same laptop. jaclaz

Well, you asked for that (complex use of a primitive scripting provision) by declaring you wanted to edit tens or hundreds of resources without manually typing the numbers. I cannot understand what you mean by "scar divi". Post the EXACT script file you are using (for a SINGLE resource editing) and that gives you a syntax error, and maybe someone might understand what the issue is. jaclaz

The NTBACKUP is different on XP when compared to Vista and later, if you are looking for a "recovery" or "bare metal" solution it is IMHO not the "right" approach. About DriveImageXML, it is OK , but you will need to separately backup the MBR (even better the whole first track) see: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=22984 (and of course have a way, PE or otherwise) to restore both the MBR and the drive image. If you are after a bare metal, probably the partimage is the most "flexible" solution among the Freewares: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/157634-hard-disk-cloningimaging-from-inside-windows/ Check also the "historical" thread: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/100299-disk-imaging-software/ jaclaz

@dencorso No problem whatever, the original thread on 911CD has been there for 9 years without anyone finding or reporting the issue, there is no hurry. I am however failing to see the issue with MSDOS.SYS, in the sense that a "normal" bootdisk (floppy or floppy image) does have a MSDOS.SYS and it should be "normally" valid. The different cases should be "real world cases", I mean, all we know for sure till now is that (unless a given memory size larger than 2.5 GiB is present on the machine) the three "normal" files from a Windows 98 boot floppy IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS, COMMAND.COM and the SMARTDRV.EXE files are needed but need not *anything* else. The questions are now: Would the same do with Windows ME (or embedded in XP) boot floppy files? (I presume yes, but maybe the SMARTDRV has issues with them ) What has to be changed when using as base the same Windows 98 boot floppy files when there are more than 2.5 Gib of RAM? (I would give that the MSDOS.SYS file is untouched, is just adding the HIMEM.SYS be OK?) What has to be changed when using as base the Windows ME (or embedded in XP) boot floppy files when there are more than 2.5 Gib of RAM? (given that one way or the other a form of HIMEM.SYS is "embedded" in IO.SYS?) jaclaz

The point is whether the cops will come to your house and handcuff the painter or if they will handcuff you because somewhere in the papers (the ones you did not read at the time you bought your home) there is written how there is mandatory repainting of your house in a colour chosen by the municipality (this year the chosen one is shocking pink ). jaclaz

Hard to say, however it is a non-issue . Though the actual CVE has not even be filled yet , it is simply "reserved" right now: http://www.cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2015-1769 it is seemingly one of the zilllion "escalation of privileges" from a LOCAL (physical) access. More or less the only ones that should be worried by this are Internet Cafes, Libraries or other organization where physical access to a given machine is provided to "perfect strangers", BTW, if such local, physical access to strangers is provided, particularly if not under surveillance, there are tens, hundreds or maybe thousands of possible ways to obtain the same and pwn the machine. jaclaz

Yep , it might be unpopular, but truth often is unpopular. jaclaz

Now I am lost (again ) and seemingly this also nullifies also the initial answer by dencorso (as at the time Nomen did not mention using either HIMEM or EMM386), as well the math seemingly is not right, as 48*64=3072? but it's ok. Let's try to sum up (please correct/amend where incorrect): on machines with less than x Mb of RAM SMARTDRV needs "nothing". on machines with more than y Mb of RAM SMARTDRV needs ONLY HIMEM.SYS in config.sys on machines with more than 2.5 Mb of RAM if EMM386 is used then HIMEM.SYS is needed AND it must be loaded with the /NUMHANDLES=64And now (I know that dencorso was waiting for this question ), how would a DOS 8.x (from ME or from the actual "create DOS floppy inside the XP") behave, at the light of the above and of this past reference?: http://reboot.pro/topic/5497-ms-dos-71/?p=99242 After all, if one wants to install XP from DOS, it is likely that he can extract the (ME) files from the source he/she has handy: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=16745 jaclaz

Meanwhile in (or around ) Cupertino .... BETRAYED : http://blog.seanbonner.com/2015/08/10/betrayed/ jaclaz

Well, "not as good" should be slightly different from "providing half the download speed". jaclaz

I'll try to type this slowly. Reshacker has built-in a very primitive scripting language that has NO provision for anything but - after having set 3 (three) specific variables, the Exe to be edited, the new name to which it will be saved and an optional log file - executing in sequence, one by one, any number of explicit command lines, where each line corresponds to a single command with the appropriate parameters. You want to use a Reshacker script in order to change tens or hundreds of resources. You can well write manually tens or hundreds of command lines, adding them to the script or automate (in batch or any other scripting language) the generation of these tens of command lines. Batch (or *any* other scripting language) is the tool that may allow you to create these tens of lines of the ResHacker script. You are not wanting to squeeze an orange with your hands (that would be done with a Hex Editor in the case of resources), you want to squeeze tens or hundreds of oranges with your nice orange juicer (the ResHacker), BUT: you don't want to walk and take a new orange from the box after having squeezed the previous one. What I proposed you was not to build an orange juicer , you already have the orange juicer, it was to build something like this: an automatic feeder for your juicer. jaclaz

@dencorso Good . @all So, to recap. When more than 3 Gb (2 Gb is still OK) it is needed a CONFIG.SYS with: DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS //NUMHANDLES=64 And then one can simply run SMARTDRV on command line. Or is also emm386 needed? Like: DEVICE=C:\EMM386.EXE And/or any other parameter to the one or the other in CONFIG.SYS? (here I am looking for the "bare minimum" needed, but if some added parameter makes or could make a noticeable performance difference then it would be good to know) This (just for the record) is the basic MS article: https://support.microsoft.com/it-it/kb/307848 jaclaz

... and hence the reference to thiotimoline, though of course a time pussy or Pallan cat would have worked more or less the same: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Pussy jaclaz