Tripredacus

Is this about Aeroglass Producer Bigmuscle or MSFN?

How, exactly, does that look anything like Windows 7? Maybe they were referring to something not in the screenshot. For Outlook, I would never use app version or .exe version. It has been many years since I used an actual email client. It is much safer to use web based in comparison. But that Outlook has a lot of extra space in it.

Retail and OEM System Builder can still be sold because they are physical items. A company can sell them with no issue. What they cannot do is offer for sale a new computer and have Windows 7 pre-installed on it. There are ways around it, if you are a VAR/SB you can sell a person a computer with blank hard drive, and then also sell them a System Builder Win7 and ask if they want it to be installed for them. Sure, this is ok, as it is post-sale favors.

We have the ability to reduce fraud in the US now, but it isn't being used. It was introduced, some time last year, with a big push to have chip readers. This is said to combat against people who could clone magnetic strips, but the implementation is not being used properly. This is a proper 2FA type system but the credit card companies are only using it for one factor vs the other. Now it is they either read the strip or read the chip (neither of which are secure) but it should be reading from both. I think I'd rather see the current technology used properly first before seeing if we need to roll out even newer things.

Clairification, I had only checked US distribution, I checked specifically the Windows 7 Pro SP1 en-US, 6x disty with a total around 10,000. That number would not include places like Amazon, as they are not something I can find out about, or any other retailer/VAR type place. And it is true, once disty runs out, you are then only left with what is in the secondary market.

Oh so your intention is to run the Emsisoft and have Defender off, but Defender becomes enabled on its own after a while?

Does Defender work fine if you don't have the Emsisoft load at startup?

Thanks for changing your post and posting the solution. No feathers ruffled. Welcome to the MSFN.

We are not to be used as a source of traffic to your blog. You can post the instructions here, it does not seem to be a lot of steps. Contributing members may post a link to their site in the Websites and Boards forum.

Removed your duplicate posts in two other threads.

Welcome to the MSFN!

Yes the end-of-sale date for Windows 7 is not so cut and dry. It means OEMs cannot pre-install it anymore except for RMA scenario. Also it cannot be advertised on a website or a flyer for sale. Direct OEMs are still allowed to sell remaining stock if they have COAs. That is for direct version, OEM Facilitated Downgrades cannot be done at all. For OEM System Builder Kit, it is different. I believe that it is still true that it cannot be advertised for pre-install on a new computer, but can be made available for sale as the kit. If you were to call up a company and ask for it, and they have it, then you can buy a computer with it pre-installed. The end-of-sale is just for advertising. There is no "legal" part to it, you can still sell Vista or XP if you had the kits. It depends on the type of company that it is. If it is just a small computer/repair shop that is not a MS shop (as in, they do not operate under contracts) they can still sell a computer with XP if they had the media/COA for it. I think even System Builders may be able to do this, but certainly big OEMs can not. I checked distribution. There is a ton of Win7 Pro SP1 x64 System Builder Kit still available.

I don't think I have ever attempted to boot Vista on GPT before, but I am wary of what those links say. Specifically, I would trust less UEFI 2.3.1 for Vista than 2.0, however UEFI 2.0 usually does not work for desktop OSes in my experience anyways. It is tricky because I have only ever seen UEFI 2.0 on server boards and some (Super Micro) workstation boards, and UEFI 2.3.1 is the typical one to find on desktop and and SoC boards. Another issue I see if that modern UEFI 2.3.1 systems, say Intel 8x series chipset and newer, the WinPE is a problem. WinPE2-4 booting in EFI mode can have real problems, which were only fixed in WinPE5 or WinPE10. Random things, like lock-ups, BSOD, black screen/BCD errors, resources not loading properly, software going very slow, all symptoms of booting old PE on modern UEFI. Even happens on stock builds from the OPK/AIK.

With all these different tools to change Windows 10 look, is it still possible to use gradients on title bars?

There are 3 types of OEM media. 1. OEM System Builder Kit: the software you can buy from a distribution house, comes in a white box with hologram DVD and COA label. 2. OEM OS that the OEM uses to pre-install Windows onto a new computer for sale. This comes from Microsoft, previously "white-label" media, MS does not ship this anymore. 3. OEM Recovery media, which is a Setup that the OEM uses #2 to create. This is made by a Replicator (presses DVDs or makes USB keys) In the physical wise, and bit-wise, #1 and #2 are different. An OEM should not use System Builder media to make a pre-install image because they have access to the appropriate media. I think with Windows 8.1 and 10, it is possible to actually do this, but in the past with XP, Vista and 7, it would not work or activate properly. And of course, bit-wise it is also different, for the previous OS examples. #2 is created by the OEM and is not likely to be identical to the source media. Even from MS perspective, they are different, they have different part numbers and often contain different updates and of course end up being different file sizes. And do not confuse what is technically possible with what is allowed by license. Windows 8.0 OEM System Builder Kit under Personal Use License (like Retail) is allowed to be transferred to different computers. Windows 7, 8.1 or newer OEM System Builder Kit, or OEM pre-installed (COA with OEM's name on it) are not allowed to be transferred. MS makes so many different licensed versions of Windows, it becomes complicated. End users don't have to worry so much, even if they are technically violating the license. But if you are in a company, then your company should always follow the licensing rule because Microsoft does do audits for license compliance among other things.

That's quite simple. Many companies do not want to use or cannot use Windows 10, and Windows 7 is end of sale. So this leaves only distribution (which I'm not sure what the stock levels are at, I can check next week) or the secondary market to obtain Windows 7 licenses. Companies are the big factor here because they have more purchasing power in the desktop/notebook market than average consumers. The only way for a company to purchase a new computer with Windows 7 now is to use Embedded. What ends up happening is that the secondary market dries up quickly. The same happened to XP when it went end of sale and people didn't want to buy Vista.

Personal Use License is only available for Windows 8 OEM System Builder Kit editions. The ones in the pop-up when you visit that page. It is for 8.0 ONLY, it is not available for 8.1 or 10.

Another new Windows 10 version is no such fun for me because it means having to recreate all my images. Each and every version are whole new OSes and no update method for existing images exists. I know it, it is because they want you to use one of their deployment systems where you can just replace the OS image, but that process is not applicable to the work I do.

The actual safest is to not have a network connection, but if you want one, a whitelist only firewall approach is the best. That being whitelist in both directions, out and in, including "standard" ports that firewalls like to leave open like those for email and FTP. Most firewalls do a fine job of stopping stuff from coming in, but fail to safeguard against the biggest threat... the user.

Can you post the MGADiag report?

The SLUI command will show the appropriate phone number to call. MGADiag can be downloaded from here: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=52012 Run it as Administrator. Click Continue button. After it finishes working, and you can see information, click the Copy button. That will copy the relevant info to the clipboard. You can then paste this into a post here or into a notepad or whatever.

If you want to use the COA you need to do telephone activation. From the Run you can put slui 4 To show the phone activation screen. If you have a smart phone, use this to call the number and then when it prompts to text you, choose that option. It will sent you a link you can use to get the activation codes on a website. If you have further problems, then you will need to run MGADiag on the OS and copy/paste the output to here. I can look at it and tell you what the problem is.

Whoever owned it should have known this to be a possibility. In the future, keep your fake people in the trunk to avoid unwanted attention!

Linux isn't some miracle cure for being safe from a virus. It has viruses because it is a widely used platform, it is just that simple. The reason why Mac was able to go so long under the notion it was virus free was because MacOS had such a small piece of the market share that virus writers didn't develop for the platform. I don't have antivirus on a phone, so I can't say if they are "break-fix" products or not.

Yes, game servers for Steam games, outside of large publishers, will use VAC or PunkBuster. They make it so if you join the game, you need to have the appropriate version of that on the client side running. For example, it was a PunkBuster issue I ran into recently that wouldn't let me play COD4:MW online. I have the newest PunkBuster for another game, but it did not cross-over to COD4, so it wouldn't let me connect. This was a new install, actually parts of the COD4 installer from Steam did show an HTTP 404 error, so something was missing. So you could still play on unprotected servers, but you are more likely to run into people using bots, unless it is an actively maintained clan server. And then in that case, you may not be allowed to play if you are not known to them, which is another thing I've also seen.