Tripredacus

It seems most of the replies to your first post have hardware specs in them. Specs are important to people. I'm sure both topics can exist in one.

It looks like the file sizes are designed to be put onto CDRs, given the file sizes. Here is another post I found about it: http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/p/19495053/20316997.aspx Did you check your task scheduler (or history) to see if there is a Dell backup task in there?

I never will use a 3rd party site to get a program if I can get the program direct from the creator.

Originally, I did not mind seeing advertisements. What really started to get me was advertisements that delay me trying to see/read/play whatever it is I want to do. Commercials before every video ever, paywalls, all that stuff is horrible. The worst offenders are those ads I see on my phone (especially in the weather app) that look like actual phone notifications. One is where it says the battery is low. I know it is an ad and wouldn't press on it, but I am sure plenty of people are hitting it.

It occurred to me that we have this topic already: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/67112-post-pictures-and-specifications-of-your-computer-here/ I will merge this one into there soon, likely tomorrow. I already moved this topic to the Hardware Hangout. I also had this old thread here you can check out: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/123912-the-life-and-times-of-unclesocks/

Well here's the rub. The product key is what tells Windows 8 whether to look into the BIOS or not. Unfortunately, that product key is not public! The public key will instruct the OS to not look into the BIOS for the activation key, at least that is my understanding of it. The second question is that you can't have the two different keys in the same XML.

I looked up your board and looks like you have a PS2 port for a keyboard. This means that you would be able to initiate a bugcheck at the time of the hang. http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/130004-creating-memory-dumps/ But you might want to go through and take a look at your startup programs, get rid of unnecessary ones and see if that makes a difference.

Some locations are protected or owned by other accounts. TrustedInstaller is one of these accounts that may own a directory, and show an Access Denied message even to an account with Admin rights.

Both of my actual-use PCs run Windows 7 Pro x86. My desktop I use for web use, playing games and listening to music. I also have a netbook with Win7 Pro x86 that I had used for music, but now I use it to access the internet from other parts of the house. Mostly the reason for this is because it is wireless and much better than using a phone to do it. This is also what I take with me when I'm traveling. I also have a couple other systems I hope to make use of later this year. One is a mini (AOpen Digital Engine) with XP Pro SP3 that I will use for playing music and maybe streaming video. I have to test it to see if it will be reliable enough for streaming. My other PC is a Windows98FE that I had primarily used as a backup PC in case my main wasn't working. It hasn't been used in recent years, probably because I have the netbook now. It had been used in the past as a dedicated Quake 3 server and also a Shoutcast server.

This is a tutorial intended to fix a recovery partition on Windows 7 if the computer has suffered an error or fault prior to being able to complete the OOBE phase. By default (or design) Windows 7 does not allow the ability to run recovery if the OS is in Audit Mode or if the PC has not completed the OOBE phase. If there was an error that occurred during first boot, such as a power failure, it would not be possible to either continue setting up the PC or to run the hard-disk based recovery. For the regular user, it would leave them with an unusable PC unless they had also purchased the recovery DVDs. This tutorial makes some presumptions: 1. The recovery partition is a standard Windows 7 setup and does not use third party recovery solutions. 2. The user has access to a WinPE with the same architecture (32/64 bit) as the installed Windows 7. The WinPE may be either a stock, custom or the one from a Windows 7 or higher installation DVD. 3. The ability to get information from a computer of identical model and setup. This may or may not be required but it would certainly be helpful. 4. The ability to get a file from another computer with the same type of recovery partition, or potentially a WinPE or Windows 7 install DVD. Things to get from another PC In points 3 and 4 above, we need files from elsewhere. The first is to get the BCD settings from the similar PC. From an elevated command prompt run: BCDEDIT /ENUM ALLorBCDEDIT /ENUM ALL>BCD.txtThis will show what the proper BCD settings are for that PC. Outputting it to a text file will let you take that information with you if both PCs are not in the same location. Prior to completing the OOBE phase, the recovery related entries in the BCD are missing. So this will help to know what is needed to be created on the broken PC.The second thing we need is boot.sdi. This file will not be on the broken PC but is located on the working one and should also be on a Windows 7 DVD. If you do not have access to a Windows 7 DVD you can get the boot.sdi from another Windows 7 PC's recovery partition. It is best to stick to the same brand of PC as different manufacturers may use different methods. Some, like HP, may even use a third party solution. It is best to get this file by using a WinPE but it can also be done using a normal Windows installation. If using Windows, make sure to use an elevated command prompt. To identify where the file will be located, you need to look at the BCDEDIT output from earlier, specifically this section from the bottom: Device options--------------identifier {b7db3b72-b6ec-11e3-ae5c-0090f5e7d27f}description Ramdisk Optionsramdisksdidevice partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume2ramdisksdipath \Recovery\WindowsRE\boot.sdiHere is the complete working BCD: This shows that boot.sdi is located in \Recovery\WindowsRE. Now to locate where that actually is. In CMD, run DISKPART. At the diskpart prompt run SEL DISK 0 and then LIST PART. This will show something similar: X:\WINDOWS\system32>diskpartMicrosoft DiskPart version 6.2.8250Copyright (C) 1999-2012 Microsoft Corporation.On computer: MININT-GM4300DDISKPART> sel disk 0Disk 0 is now the selected disk.DISKPART> list part Partition ### Type Size Offset ------------- ---------------- ------- ------- Partition 1 Primary 500 MB 1024 KB Partition 2 Recovery 6000 MB 501 MB Partition 3 Primary 49 GB 6501 MBThe partition that has the Recovery Type is the one we would want in this example. Some PCs might have their boot file in another partition! But for this tutorial, we'll say it is Partition 2. It is currently hidden and has no drive letter (WinPE may have on assigned) so we need to reveal it. We will select the partition, verify it is the correct one, change the ID and then give it a drive letter. DISKPART> sel part 2Partition 2 is now the selected partition.DISKPART> detail partPartition 2Type : 27Hidden: YesActive: NoOffset in Bytes: 525336576 Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info ---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------* Volume 3 E Recovery NTFS Partition 6000 MB Healthy HiddenDISKPART> set id=07 overrideDiskPart successfully set the partition ID.DISKPART> assignDiskPart successfully assigned the drive letter or mount point.DISKPART> detail partPartition 2Type : 07Hidden: NoActive: NoOffset in Bytes: 525336576 Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info ---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------* Volume 4 C Recovery NTFS Partition 6000 MB HealthyUsing ASSIGN will change to the first available drive letter. Since I ran this in a custom WinPE, there is no C drive before and it was E. Running ASSIGN in Windows will prompt a new volume screen from Explorer. Exit DISKPART and get the file. It is recommended using normal commands in CMD to get it rather than using Explorer. This is because the elevated CMD can gain access to the WindowsRE folder while Explorer won't because it doesn't run elevated.Change to the newly assign drive letter, and locate the file using commands like so: dir boot.sdi /s /a:hIf it finds it in C:\Recovery\WindowsRE then you need to change the attributes to remove it. attrib boot.sdi -S -HThen you can use COPY to put the file on a USB drive or other way to get it off the system. After the file is safely elsewhere, re-run the attrib command but use +S and +H instead. Next you would go back into Diskpart and do the above process again, except you will use REMOVE (instead of ASSIGN) and set the ID to whatever it was before... in this case 27.Now for what to do on the broken PC. This would be done using WinPE as (obviously) Windows isn't accessable. If you want to make it easier you can put the boot.sdi where it is supposed to go now. Using the above process (minus running BCDEdit) you can locate the Recovery partition, change the ID, assign a letter, copy the file into where it is supposed to go, remove the drive letter and change the ID back. Once the file is where it is supposed to be, we can fix the BCD so you can run recovery. Using the BCD information from the other PC we will need to recreate the entries with the same settings. There is one difference here, the BCD for the recovery partition that would normally be created by going through OOBE is already present but it cannot be seen. So we will make a generic one called {ramdiskoptions} instead of using a GUID. For the purposes of this tutorial, I will use the data from the example BCD posted above in the spoiler. BCDEDIT /CREATE {ramdiskoptions} /d "Ramdisk Options"BCDEDIT /SET {ramdiskoptions} ramdisksdidevice partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume2BCDEDIT /SET {ramdiskoptions} ramdisksdipath \Recovery\WindowsRE\boot.sdiBCDEDIT /CREATE /d "Windows Recovery Environment" /APPLICATION OSLOADERWhen you run the last command, it will show you that a GUID was created. When I ran it, it gave me this one:{85ea1c35-b70f-11e3-b961-0090f5e7d27f} So that is the one used in the rest of the commands. BCDEDIT /SET {85ea1c35-b70f-11e3-b961-0090f5e7d27f} device ramdisk=[\Device\HarddiskVolume2]\Recovery\windowsRE\Winre.wim,{ramdiskoptions}BCDEDIT /SET {85ea1c35-b70f-11e3-b961-0090f5e7d27f} path \Windows\system32\winload.exeBCDEDIT /SET {85ea1c35-b70f-11e3-b961-0090f5e7d27f} osdevice ramdisk=[\Device\HarddiskVolume2]\Recovery\windowsRE\Winre.wim,{ramdiskoptions}BCDEDIT /SET {85ea1c35-b70f-11e3-b961-0090f5e7d27f} systemroot \windowsBCDEDIT /SET {85ea1c35-b70f-11e3-b961-0090f5e7d27f} winpe yesBCDEDIT /SET {85ea1c35-b70f-11e3-b961-0090f5e7d27f} nx OptInIf you look at the previous BCD, the settings match. Now all that is needed is to enable the F8 menu. BCDEDIT /SET {default} recoverysequence {85ea1c35-b70f-11e3-b961-0090f5e7d27f}BCDEDIT /SET {default} recoveryenabled yesThis will let you see the "Repair your computer" option in the F8 menu. Since there are no user accounts, it may present an Administrator account as a choice. There should be no password and hopefully that is the case. Then you will see whatever is supposed to show up if the Recovery was working.I typed this up real quick, hopefully I didn't make an error.

It looks to me that the taskbar has increased the height due to the size of the icon next to the system tray.

Well that fits the current Office business model. If I don't have Office (such as at home) I only get those document viewers. The thing that is strange is that Office still sells for big bucks, even with other free alternatives on the market. My guess is that people are still paying for it.

That GIF is slightly mesmerizing. From what I can tell, it isn't the heavy graphics that is causing websites to be slower than what we'd expect. It is caused by loading contents from many different sources at once, as I show in my screenshot from CNN. See if you can find one of these dolled up websites that do NOT use embedded scripts from 10 or more other websites.

Searching for that EXE on Google only brings up this post. It appears to be part of a commercial package and no demo is available. v3.1 is older but have you considered contacting the company that makes the software? http://powerdraw.net/ If you paid $1300 for the thing, I'd expect they could tell you how to silently install the software.

At least you didn't end up with 2 C:\Users dirs...

My biggest complaint is the laziness of web development. Multiple embedded scripts, multiple hosted CSS (and sometimes in conjuction with in-page styles) and things such as having DOCTYPE and HTML tags in includes. It is like the entire period of web development from the 1.0 days (learning to do it the right way) went right out the window. Now, most websites are gigantic piles of garbage. One big offender are those ready-made blogs like Wordpress, Blogspot and others. As time goes on, more and more of the web becomes unusable to me and I then have to decide whether or not I want to sacrifice my computer's safety over watching a video of some cats. Here is an example:

I'm not so sure. I suspect there may be some health problems in a few years. I recently found out that the "Steel Cities" of the US were in much worse states than the smog we see in China. There was pollution to the point where day time looked like night. Here are some stories about Pittsburgh: http://www.popularpittsburgh.com/pittsburgh-info/pittsburgh-history/darkhistory.aspx And the photos I saw: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/arts-and-lifestyle/2012/06/what-pittsburgh-looked-when-it-decided-it-had-pollution-problem/2185/

The animated one for sure. Transformers (2007) has its moments, but there are moments that I'd rather skip than watch. So it wouldn't make this list. One such moment is when the Autobots are waiting outside Sam's house trying to hide while his parents are home. Another one I could probably replace Slapshot with.

Well there is a bootmgr.exe.mui at least... so is BOOTMGR just an .exe without a file extension or is there a separate bootmgr.exe as well?

I was doing some reading about bootloaders in modern versions of Windows and keep coming upon conflicting information. I suspect it is just a terminology confusion but wanted to know if there was any official answers available about these terms. In NT days, the bootloader was NTLDR. In Vista and newer OSes, we have Bootmgr which reads from the BCD to determine where the OS (winload.exe) is, or to display a menu to allow different boot choices. Of course the following links are from Wikipedia which certainly doesn't help. Here it says that bootmgr.exe is a Second Stage Bootloader: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booting#Second-stage_boot_loader But on Bootmgr's page it says that winload.exe is the bootloader: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BOOTMGR#winload.exe The history of NTLDR says that now bootmgr.exe is a "boot manager" and winload.exe is a system loader. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTLDR#History Of course, none of these peices of information are cited (I thought that was what Wikipedia was for) so I haven't drilled into it. So what is the bootloader now? Is it *both* bootmgr.exe and winload.exe? But since we already know you can use bootmgr.exe to boot anything (if configured properly) you can have it on a system and not have winload.exe present.

Rewatchability is a requirement for any sort of list like this. You can think some movie is the greatest ever but if you can't rewatch it maybe 50 times, then I have to wonder. So of course when i have to make a list like this, I will list the ones I've rewatched the most. 1. Transformers: The Movie 2. Ghostbusters 3. Fight Club 4. Pi 5. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon 6. Forrest Gump 7. Star Wars: Return of the Jedi 8. Slapshot 9. Rumble In the Bronx 10. Star Trek Generations

It is very common to find these, especially if the price is cheap. Even with fake iPods and Device Jaguars, if your savings are just a few bucks then buy the real thing from somewhere else.

I've used FileZilla before. It seems to be too busy for my purposes.

The restart prompt is usually caused by the drivers. If you have been changing cards in the same PC, you may have remnant files from previous video card installations. However, Windows can be configured with these settings:

I split this out of the forum suggestions thread. I can't get wayback to work with that site and Google translate refuses as well. It certainly looks more like houses than OSes. I'll just remove the entire topic.