Elliot77

Interesting. Does anyone have more info they'd like to share about what typical consumer-level hardware starts to require firmware, and if it tends to be the writable vs non-writable type?

I know usb & display cables have no firmware. What about external USB hubs? Obviously core system components (SSD, HDD, USB controller, RAM, MB, GPU, etc) all require firmware. I'm assuming PSUs also have firmware?

My research indicates telemetry was added in the 2015 version, and then removed in an update soon after. I have not found anything about telemetry being present in the 2015 (updated version) and beyond but I just wanted to check here - is this correct?

I'm seeking free or paid (not too pricey) Windows software that has these features: 1 - Has a library of different text fonts 2 - Can create embossed text borders - meaning only the borders of the characters have a raised effect that appears to raise up moving inward on the characters, and then lower again continuing to move inwards on the characters. A bit tough to describe, but a raised effect only on the borders similar to how picture frames are raised whereas the area inside of the frames is not. 3 - Can do image overlays on the text characters so the image is only seen within the borders of the individual characters Any good recommendations would be very much appreciated.

Xpadder has been a great application, allowing me to use a game controller as a customizable input device within Windows 10. However, I am encountering the same error in Windows 10, 8, and 7, where as soon as certain windows are open (e.g. task manager, or changing the system time), Xpadder stops working. This issue seems to be limited to more central system tasks (again, such as task manager) though other examples are escaping me at the moment. Xpadder is a portable application set to start with Windows, and it was installed in an admin. account. I do not have this issue with other more standard input devices such as a USB mouse. This seems to be an issue of privileges, but I am not sure if it can be fixed somehow. The Xpadder help forum, by the way, has been closed to new registration for years, or I would have sought help there. If anyone has some insight as to if, or how this issue might be fixed I would really appreciate it.

Disabling indexing by the method of right-clicking on the system drive, I am receiving multiple error messages with the error windows entitled "Error Applying Attributes". There are multiple files that are causing this same error to be displayed, some of them which are "swapfile.sys. Alphabet.xml, & dao360.dll". Disabling indexing is being tried from an administrator account upon a fresh reboot on an almost new Win10 PC with very few changes to it. Can all of these errors simply be skipped/ignored? Or should these files be able to be included in the de-indexing process somehow?

Actually, I have found your tone, right from the start, rather belittling. Perhaps it feels quite good for you to flex your technical expertise while belittling others when you get the chance. I don't know, but it sure seems like that. Best of luck to you.

I added that because prior research yielded articles stating Surfaces have a unique bios access option. I am helping someone on this, I know it is not a common brand name, so I am asking in general.

I'd like to do this before the initial setup, to make a disk image, etc. Is there a way to get into the bios without booting into windows first? I do have a usb keyboard (did not come with tablet) to use. This is not a surface tablet btw.

XPS 13 9360 here. I'm trying to run Derrick's Boot And Nuke off of USB and getting a black screen when starting the program into interactive mode or executing a nuke command. However, I do get DBAN's initial start screen (won't go past that). I've created and used USB installs of DBAN and clonezilla countless times on other machines without issue prior to this. No dice trying legacy options, disabling safeboot, and other boot options in bios. Same with clonezilla, the program would initiate, but launching in after the beginning screen it would go blank. Not sure what's up with this machine or how to fix it.

When looking at current port behavior, I see several system applications for example that seem to be communicating but I'm not sure for what. How does one go about monitoring the safety of their system's port behavior?

My current VPN uses a specific LAN connection (in addition to my wireless adapter which communicates with the router). Is it possible to set up XP to not allow any internet activity should the LAN connection drop or not be established. I realize programs exist designed for this, but wondering if a system-level similar implementation may be possible. ty

Hello, I'm putting 7 Home 64 on a new machine, and I've seen there are issues with telemetry-related updates included in the Convenience Rollup. My question is, what would be the best approach to have a secure and efficient Windows 7 system, while avoiding any Windows 10, telemetry-related, or otherwise potentially problematic updates? Thank you

Hello, when one clones a full hard drive on an OEM system like the Dell I'm using, are items like the MBR retained properly? I ask because I would like to wipe the HDD and do a fresh install of a different OS. At some point in the future, if I wanted to restore the dell disk image I've created, would it have full functionality (boot properly and have a functional Dell system restore partition as included on the OEM system)? Thank you

That appears to be the case. I've been so time limited, my apologies to the thread. I'm really not sure where to start here in addressing the issue.

Results so far (download speed in Mbps over several runs) trying both adapters on the netbook: native netbook: 17, 18, 11 1w external: 4, 8, 17

However Tripredacus is right, the first test would be to try the USB thingy on the same laptop. jaclaz Results so far (download in Mbps over several runs) trying both adapters on the netbook: native: 17, 18, 11 1w ext: 4, 8, 17 Need my desktop back up for now, albeit at 5mbps dwnld. I've tried both antennas I have with similar results.

Windows 7 64-bit desktop: 840 pro ssd 8 gb ram i5-2500k Alfa 1W 802.11b/g wifi adapter XP 32-bit netbook: atom processor 2gb ram intel ssd Atheros AR2427 802.11 b/g wifi I ran several consecutive speedtest.net tests (same server), alternating between computers. Here are the averages (in Mbps): Netbook (XP): down - 8.4 up - 3.8 Desktop (7): down - 4.2 up - 4.3 For troubleshooting I attempted to turn off all non microsoft services and do a restart sans start-up items. That yielded the test results shown above. I also uninstalled and reinstalled the wireless driver. This seemed to work soon after the install as I was getting faster speeds than the netbook (which otherwise doesn't seem to happen). I'm not sure what happened though. I also have a VPN installed on both PCs, which was not in use during these trials. Physically, the PCs are spaced several feet apart but are in the same general area, and there are no crazy antenna mountings or anything, it just sits on the desk. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

So how would somebody do this the WRONG way (so one would know exactly what they oughtn't do)?

Nice post jaclaz

I'm manually installing clonezilla using the method below. Step 4 I do not understand. Can someone kindly explain how one runs makeboot.bat from the USB, as opposed to the local hard drive? http://pendrivelinux.com) WARNING! DO NOT RUN makeboot.bat from your local hard drive! Doing so could cause your MS windows not to boot!!!

Found this thread after doing a search for the classic theme linked in post 43: http://bertrand.deo.free.fr/TEMP/w8classic.zip This file has a significant amount of detections on virustotal, and I was just wondering if anyone knows how safe it is to use.

DSYNCHRONIZE and ROBOCOPY seem like two excellent options - thank you both. Noel, It's cool to see your backup plan. My home PC has an SSD (with small user folder) and HDD (with extensive media files). I've been relying on FreeFileSync to manually back up the User folder to the HDD, and back up the entire HDD to an external drive, and certain files (music and system images) to yet a 3rd location. I've also been using Clonezilla a few times per year and keeping a catalog of system images along with a log of the changes in each one. I'll most likely begin using DSYNCHRONIZE or ROBOCOPY to keep real-time backups of work-in-progress files in case something should get corrupted.

anyone?

Basically, I'd like to have all activity in my User folder mirrored on a folder on a separate drive. Any suggestions on the simplest & least resource intensive way to accomplish this?