jaclaz

... while it should be set as Manual ... (but this is likely unrelated) jaclaz

How (exactly) are you running chkdisk? https://www.overclock.net/forum/132-windows/1603282-what-does-chkdsk-b-argument-do.html In any case on modern disks it makes very little sense, bad sectors should be remapped internally to the disk long before they are found/mapped by windows, the fact you see them might mean that there are some problems at hard disk level, like the amount of spare sectors already used. You need to run the manufaturer tools or some third party disk level tools to check the condition and health of the disk, whether this info is available may depend on the specific hard disk make/model. jaclaz

How big is the volume? How big is the $MFT? Have you tried defrafmenting the $mft with Sysinternal's contig? Is that the System (or Boot) volume or just a data volume? jaclaz

No, never thought that, all I say is that there are a few versions of devcon.exe from MS, not particularly easy to find, all AFAICR with builds earlier than when the source code was released, AND that the link in the readme : http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/1/f/11f7dd10-272d-4cd2-896f-9ce67f3e0240/devcon.exe is 404, of course if you already have that particular version and/or you retrieve it via Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/1/f/11f7dd10-272d-4cd2-896f-9ce67f3e0240/devcon.exe it will work nicely . As well, I never said that there will be issues in using MagicIso to modify the DPMS.iso (which is not bootable), only that when people talk of editing .iso's there may be issues with this (or that) program. jaclaz

There is some language misunderstanding. No idea what you mean by UAC Virtualisation. The process manager has nothing to do with this, you mean the service manager? The service is either running or is it not. You can use (easier) the little Nirsoft tool Serviwin: https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/serviwin.html to check the installer service status. Then open regedit, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\msiserver and export it to a .reg file. The result should be the same as the .reg file posted on the given MS KB, if not, attach the .reg file you exported to your next post. Next step, try the troubleshooter here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/17588/windows-fix-problems-that-block-programs-being-installed-or-removed jaclaz

What filesystem? Which media? Which OS? There is a (rare) issue on NTFS that may create undeletable files, maybe this is the case? jaclaz

Good. For a short period of time, devcon was released as open source, and a member here compiled it (just in case): https://msfn.org/board/topic/173201-gavottes-ramdisk-automation-package/ https://msfn.org/board/topic/173201-gavottes-ramdisk-automation-package/?do=findComment&comment=1091396 As a general rule, using "MagicISO" or similar auto-magic software is not a good idea (when talking of bootable/OS installs .iso's), the point is that a .iso is NOT (by definition) editable, so what all these programs do is to re-create (transparently from the user point of view) a NEW .iso and some settings related to the original .iso may (or may not) be changed, if you prefer this kind of programs tend to work perfectly (and conveniently) until they don't. You are welcome , jaclaz

Yep, sorry , it is normal, round brackets, correcting the typo, As expected (even if it was really blurry) only one disk is seen in grub4dos (actually in BIOS), and from the size and partitioning it should be the USB stick, 7833720*512 should be a 4GB stick. Anyway the partition is NTFS and ID 0x07, how (the heck) can the XP setup see it as FAT32? (not that it should matter) Try after a cold boot, what this test confirmed is that the internal disk has not been detected at all. jaclaz

The out of focus image seems to mean that only one disk was found (the USB one) and thus it is first disk and its MBR is chainloaded. No idea why this may happen, when you are on the grub4dos menu, press "c" to get to command line, then issues commands: geometry (hd0) [ENTER] and geometry (hd1) [ENTER] and map --status [ENTER] and post results. BTW the way the USB stick is shown in the Windows Setup is "strange". As a side note, try changing in BIOS settings the boot order, settng USB as first disk (as opposed to choosing to boot from USB after having pressed F12 (or *whatever*) which seems like what you tried doing. jaclaz

Sure, if we go back to the real cause of the 2.2 TB "limit", it isn't. The limit is the 32 bit size of the two LBA fields in the partition table of the MBR, which limits the size to 2^32-1= 4294967295 sectors. So 4294967295*512=2199023255040 or roughly 2.2 TB [1]. When the sector size is 4096 bytes, the limit becomes obviously 8 times that, i.e. 4294967295*4096=17592186040320 or roughly 17.5 TB. NTFS has no issues whatsoever with larger than 2.2 TB partitions. jaclaz [1] actually on post-XP (due to other limits on XP it seems not possible) making a special arrangement of 2 partitions one can reach almost 4.4 TB

Some news from Redmond: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4576988/can-t-uninstall-microsoft-edge jaclaz

Maybe then the issue revolves around permissions and/or your login credentials? Those keys in the Registry should normally be accessible as Administrator. Or maybe you have some policies applied preventing it? You can still try running the Regedit as "Trusted Installer" and import the .reg but it should not be needed. http://reboot.pro/topic/22326-powerrun-v14-run-with-highest-privileges/ https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/advanced_run.html jaclaz

Follow the first two methods detailed here (method 1 and method 2) BUT try first #2 and only if the service does not start manually or you have the "could not be accessed" error, try method #1, followed by #2 again to make sure the service is running : https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2642495/the-windows-installer-service-could-not-be-accessed-error-when-you-try jaclaz

Semi-random idea, but have you considered posting them as a collection on archive.org? jaclaz

How Nice of You, I was fearing to be Overwhelmed by the Sheer Amount of Information being Published. on the Log. jaclaz

Sure, why not? https://msfn.org/board/topic/163541-post-sp2-updates-for-office-2010-updated-14-nov-2015/ The problem might be actually getting all the needed updates. jaclaz

I found the new un-feature interesting as it is among the things that Windows 10 fans like to use as argument to say how Windows 10 is "better". Even if I normally use one of my custom made sticks to NOT touch Windows 10, sometimes I have to, and when I happened to actually need an updated driver, historically that provision always failed in providing a proper driver, jaclaz

Meanwhile in Redmond ... https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/microsoft-kills-windows-10-driver-search/ they seemingly removed the “search automatically for updated driver software.” jaclaz

It would be a really strange PC, with no bootable USB but with a BIOS/NIC capable of PXE boot. AFAICR while USB and PXE booting were introduced at the same time, USB was adopted faster, at least in comsumer hardware, and while circa 2001/2002 *any* PC would have USB booting, not that many motherboards had a built-in NIC with PXE ROM (and even common PCI NIC's had rarely the PE "ROM" socket actually populated with a chip. jaclaz

Maybe you can try an alternative to Daemon Tools. The requirement to use .isz files limit the choice, but ther are still at least a couple ones that can read them, I think gburner and yubsoft imgdrive support that. AFAIK .isz is not really-really a compressed .iso (I mean it is a compressed .iso but it i not - unlike .iso a "standard" file format) so your mileage may vary. jaclaz

Well, than that seems another reason: You will probably need to disable Code integrity/ enable Testsigning. Before that, try with other (older) drivers: https://www.drvhub.net/devices/network/marvell/avastar-wireless-ac-network-controller jaclaz

You are right, the files I linked are 32 bit (my bad, didn't see the x64 ), on the other thread Burd linked to them and latet for XP64 are 368.81: https://msfn.org/board/topic/177373-winxp-drivers-for-gtx-10xx-video-cards/?do=findComment&comment=1150073 Still I don't think they will work. jaclaz

No other reference? I mean the file name, an error number, etc.? I have no idea if there is something in server 2012 needing particular attention if installing 8.1 drivers, but that driver seems like needing another subsystem, in the .inf: I have seen other similar reports about this, *like*: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/driver-not-installing-for-wi-fi-adapter/4c143a9b-ce66-4902-a1e5-e3ec4620e31f of course with everyone spewing nonsense about the issue or providing non-help. It is clear that for *some reasons* the netwifibus. inf (and the VWiFiBus.sys, etc.) are not installed or are not available on your PC, but these should be standard (at least in 7/8/8.1/10) Microsoft files. jaclaz

I think latest for XP are 368.91: https://drivers.softpedia.com/get/GRAPHICS-BOARD/NVIDIA/NVIDIA-GeForce-iCafe-Graphics-Driver-36891-for-XP.shtml But it seems like it is a hit and miss game, see: https://msfn.org/board/topic/177373-winxp-drivers-for-gtx-10xx-video-cards/ https://msfn.org/board/topic/177373-winxp-drivers-for-gtx-10xx-video-cards/?do=findComment&comment=1177300 jaclaz

But 8.1 drivers normally work on 2012 R2? Try this one: https://drp.su/en/hwids/PCI\VEN_11AB%26DEV_2B38?os=windows-8.1-x64 jaclaz