The MASM Forum

Just as soon as my tax refund comes in.  :eusa_dance:

Have paid down all of my debts. Have a steady income now, will probably get a laptop for portability. Any suggestions?

If all else fails would even look into buying used. But there is still time to make that decision

Hi,

   Of the computers I have owned, quite a few have been laptops.
Small, but not too small seems to be best.  The largest did not
get much use.  The smallest was nice if you were moving from
place to place (home, work, hotel rooms, Mom's house, etc.) but
did not get much more than e-mail done with it, too small a screen
for anything else.  Two have TV out features that extend the
Windows desktop to the TV.  I have found that rather useful at
times.  The older has S-Video, the newer HDMI.  I am using the
older one as a DVD player now.  My brother-in-law used the same
HDMI computer for internet video at one time.

HTH,

Steve N.

Quote from: FORTRANS on March 30, 2018, 12:21:58 AM
...quite a few have been laptops.
Small, but not too small seems to be best...

That's my thinking as well.  Will probably be looking into 64 bit OS,   as 32 bit seems destined for obsolescence.
I really dread the thought. Seems Windows Automatic Updates are all but impossible to completely disable, as I gather from what I have been reading with Windows latest offerings. I will surely miss humble XP Pro SP3. But if I can get hold of a used computer that has been properly wiped and has XP reinstalled (pre activated), I may yet go that route.  (obsolete as it may be), then later look into a 64 bit machine. All of this depends on the pending income tax refund that is due shortly, and budget constraints

Zedd

I am on Win7-64, which is in many aspects better than XP. You can code in 32- or 64-bit, no difference.
Regarding hardware, take what your budget allows but don't accept less than 4 GB RAM.

Quote from: jj2007 on March 30, 2018, 10:47:40 PM
I am on Win7-64, which is in many aspects better than XP. You can code in 32- or 64-bit, no difference.
Regarding hardware, take what your budget allows but don't accept less than 4 GB RAM.

Old habits die hard,  but I do realize that upgrading from xp would be inevitable, sooner or later.

Totally agree about ram. Was struggling before with the 2 gig's I had.

Will certainly be interesting learning to code for 64 bit. Barely had a handle on 32   :biggrin:

zedd

Z,

Unless you need to carry it around, a desktop usually offers more bang for your buck and you can more easily change bits in it like hard disks, add memory and other accessories. It would be better if you could get a box with a 64 bit OS as it allows you to work in both. XP works fine but you are limited to 32 bit and the world is changing.

 :biggrin:

"xp simulator" for android.

repeatedly displays shown error message, or others - users choice. lol

then nice BSOD if either buttom selected.

:lol:

plus legacy xp sounds - a real hoot.?

I'd go a desktop all the way too.

I have a few laptops and I hate working with them. Small screens, finicky track pads, and cluttered keyboard.

Laptop's are always a few steps behind tech wise as well. They cost more for less.

I agree that laptops are less than optimum. But on the other hand my limited financial resources will be the ultimate deciding factor. Plus, I had used laptops previously for quite some time with external monitor, bluetooth keyboard and mouse and had satisfactory results with that setup. And had the added benefit of also being portable. Of course memory was an issue, only 2 slots - but for what it was performance was acceptable.

So I am considering a used laptop to start off with. Then later - finances permitting - also get a (hopefully) new desktop. I recently got a minor promotion at work with a (also minor - lol) pay increase, so I'll be saving up...

64 bit, here I come....

For the time being, I have been looking into using a virtual machine for my smartphone, and use a windows xp iso with it. There are several vm's available for android. Limbo is one and it looks interesting.

After work today I'm going to get all my computer related stuff out of storage.  I'be got tons of stuff that I made backups to DVD on. I think I still have my xp disk image. If not might go see what win10 goes for retail USD. If all works out, I could probably delay purchasing a computer until I have enough $$$ to get a decent system.

Damn man! XP on your phone! You must really want to get back into coding big time!  :eusa_clap:

Quote from: Lonewolff on April 12, 2018, 08:26:52 PM
Damn man! XP on your phone! You must really want to get back into coding big time!  :eusa_clap:

Damn right!

And I love my slimmed down version of xp.   :biggrin:

No bloat, no auto-updates eating up resources, etc, etc....

quote from previous post of mine

Quote
After work today I'm going to get all my computer related stuff out of storage.  I'be got tons of stuff that I made backups to DVD on.

Well, I didn't go that day. I went the following day - only to discover that several storage lockers there had been vandalised. Stuff was either stolen or broken beyond repair. A total nightmare for me. I had a whole slew of old, hard to replace software, not to mention a boat load of original asm source codes that I had long forgotten.   :icon_redface:

And to think that was part of my backup plan.   ::)

I had made disk images of my hard drive and stored them on an external HD.
I also backed up those images onto dvd. Shoulda stuck 'em on the cloud. :icon_confused:

The source codes are no big deal. Nothing there to write home about. It was just all the stuff I had written while getting my feet wet with assembly.

What really bothers is the software that can no longer be (easily) obtained.   :(
Not to mention my xp images. 

Geez, you are having a bad run  :(

Quote from: Lonewolff on April 13, 2018, 09:23:45 PMGeez, you are having a bad run

Well, on the bright side I will be able to truly start fresh.

Nice shiny new (hopefully) computer. 64 bit Windoze - something else new.

Learning 64 bit assembly - more new...

But yeah been tough for me lately. But I have my health, have an income that allows me to actually save up some money, and I have the "can do" spirit - that keeps me going. Really miss writing and testing my buggy code. At least I have the means to post my random ramblings here...

zedd

And you have a head of hair that would make John Travolta proud   :bgrin:

Quote from: Lonewolff on April 13, 2018, 09:39:29 PM
And you have a head of hair that would make John Travolta proud

yeah my hair has not been effected by age, just everything else. (almost)  ;)

:lol:

I've been toying with the idea of using an emulator to get some form of Windows running here. I remember using a Vista version of WinPE for running utilities (HD cleaning, defragmenting. etc) offline. If I remember correctly, I used to also play solitaire (lol) after installing sol.exe and cards.dll to the iso.

It got me to thinking if it was possible to run masm and qEditor from WindowsPE (within an emulator) ....

Details shortly, I'm downloading an iso right now.   :eusa_dance:

Should work fine :)

First attempt at mounting and running from emulator.
Obviously not a bootable disk image...


Still downloading, and my phone is telling me "Can't load content at the moment" when I try to attach photo (.zip)  :(

Next iso was indeed bootable, but huge 1 gig.  Memory issues.   :greensml:

Back to the drawing board.....

Ha! Doing it tough, man!  :biggrin:

Quote from: Lonewolff on April 16, 2018, 11:54:32 AM
Ha! Doing it tough, man!  :biggrin:

You never know just how much you' ll miss something until you really don't have access to it anymore.So yeah, in my desperation I'll try anything to get my fix.   :icon_mrgreen:

--------------------  later ---------------

After  veeeery long boot process...

No joy:(

After a couple of hours of playing around with a couple of emulators and iso's I'm not getting anywhere.

So I'll have to leave that idea for now. Now I really cannot wait much longer to get a halfway decent computer here. Once that happens, I'll be back in busines.   :biggrin:

Remember assembly is so fast that even a cheap old used notebook (https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B077PQ1VNY/ref=dp_olp_all_mbc?ie=UTF8&condition=all) will do the job for you ;)

  :biggrin:   :biggrin:

I'm working on something, and it won't be long now.....

almost there...

Problem is that everything done through an emulator takes sooooo looooong.

I'm not even sure if I'll be able to access real world files from the virtual environment.   :icon_eek:

But there's always hope...

Unless its a simple configuration problem, I'm not going to be using emulated Windows after all....

I'll just have to wait for the real deal...

Z,

Depending on your area, you should be able to hook an older desktop PC for peanuts. Something like a Core2 that will run a 64 bit version of Windows if you want. As I have been writing software for many years, I own a couple of Core2 boxes, a 3 gig 9650 and an older 2.4 gig version and even the slower one is fun to write code on. Both have XP loaded on them but Core2 will run 64 bit OK. You may miss out on the very later SSE4 and AVX but you can get a lot of code written on an older box and asm run well on them.

 Good advice hutch, I've been shopping around the 'used' market myself. If all works out financially here, I should be up and running within a month. Ya gotta remember I'm running on a shoestring budget, so something used might mot be such a bad  idea , at least for now.
I can always 'upgrade' to something better later on.

Towers seem to be cheap,even new have dropped in price,unless you are looking for a gaming rig.

How can they sell a brand new laptop for only 20 dollars US more than retail os price ?

Win 10 64 bit btw.

im on a mission to find out.   :eusa_dance:  :bgrin:  :biggrin:   :biggrin:

amd processor though...

Now I can check out whats up with caballeros '  drawers.   :P

I had no idea prices have come down so far.

> Now I can check out whats up with caballeros '  drawers.
:biggrin:

I bought a 386 retail some (quite) time ago by a similar prize. With a hard disk which allowed me to compile programs without having to insert and remove dozens of different floppy disks :icon_rolleyes:  Wonderful :lol:

last tower i bought,was about $400 with dual core 1TB drive built in graphic card,wifi and not to bad,but only a 300 watt power supply. With win10 but it is still in the box,until my win 7 box bites the dust. IT is an HP if you wondered,the win7 box is also HP,and running well.

Okay, so the ad was a little misleading. It's a netbook, but thats okay. I was going to plunk down 120 USD for win 10 home, then another xxxx amount of dollars for a new ssd hard drive. Just to get an older laptop of questionable operability to function. Then theres the battery problem with the ols laptop. Doesn't hold a charge. I could spend twice what I did on  the netbook to fix up the laptop (32 bit) which will become obsolete in time.

For those intetested, its a Dell Inspiron 11 3000. I'll post specs as soon as I get home and unpack it. Even if performance is mediocre, at least I can code once again. Instead of being a troll on the forum. Sorry hutch--  :P

Finally got this thing tethered to my phone via bluetooth for stable internet connection. So now ends this saga and this thread.  :greenclp:

Can't get the smileys to work when clicking on 'em...  or the other icons in the posting editor

I'm curious, what kind of computer is it for only $20? I hope to keep my W7 for many more years. :biggrin:

It's a Dell Inspiron 11 3000 Netbook. retail for 139.99 USD.  Windows 10 Home sells for 119.99 USD at same store.  :biggrin:

So far the only problem is I can't use the smileys here by clicking on them. Probably a browser setting. But it will take me some time to figure out how to change all the things I would like to change on this computer.

From System Information:

Dell Inspiron 3180  --> I don't know why the literature included says Inspiron 11 3000
Windows 10 home, 64 bit
AMD A6-9220e R4 , 2cores, 2 logical processors
29.12 GB eMMC Hard Drive
4 GB Memory

Awesome! Now we can see you hit your project hard  :t

It probably won't run Crysis at 4K, but will be awesome for coding on.

Quote from: zedd151 on May 06, 2018, 06:13:51 AMDell Inspiron 3180  --> I don't know why the literature included says Inspiron 11 3000

There is a review here (https://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/dell-chromebook-3180), but that one is a "ChromeBook", i.e. not Windows. If you have Windows installed, congrats, it seems a very good machine. Get a fast assembler like UAsm64 (http://www.terraspace.co.uk/uasm.html#p2), and you'll be fine.

Quote from: jj2007 on May 06, 2018, 12:54:06 PM
but that one is a "ChromeBook", i.e. not Windows.

Yuck. After having an Android Phone for a while, I'd rather not be stuck with Google all over my computer. Even though this machine has plenty of its own bloatware.

Quote from: jj2007 on May 06, 2018, 12:54:06 PM
If you have Windows installed, congrats, it seems a very good machine.

More bang for the buck. It came just in time, as I was looking for a reasonable bargain. I would have spent twice as much to get an older laptop up and running. The netbook is small but compared to typing on a smartphone for a while, it is plenty big.

Now once I get this box setup just the way I like it and have all my programming tools at my disposal, I can resume coding in assembler. 

Quote from: zedd151 on May 06, 2018, 02:10:03 PM
Now once I get this box setup just the way I like it and have all my programming tools at my disposal, I can resume coding in assembler.

congrats on new computer, hope you didnt end up with a cheap 1360x768 screen
:t

Quote from: daydreamer on May 06, 2018, 05:17:50 PM

congrats on new computer, hope you didnt end up with a cheap 1360x768 screen
:t

Considering that I was posting from a smartphone, 1360x768 is HUGE. Plus there is always the possibility of using an external monitor, keyboard and mouse. For $139.99 USD I'm satisfied with the purchase, especially considering the cost of fixing up the harddriveless, dead battery laptop that I came to own. Add up the cost of a hard drive, Operating System, Battery, an more memory, and it comes out to double or more than what this humble computer cost. all I can say is   :biggrin:   :biggrin:  I'm happy with it.

Only three days in and I broke my new computer.    :icon_redface:
Just today, I was about to have supper and was finishing some code at that time. I figured that I should get the code down before I forget my train of thought. So I decided to bring the netbook with me. I tripped and fell and the netbook went flying.

To make a ling story short, I now have another dead computer on my hands.  "Operating System Not Found. I even tried to reset to factory condition, no dice.  Why me all the time??

So, I will be sitting on the sidelines pretty much for a little while longer. Writing a little code, but won't of course be able to test what I write.

I doubt if the warranty will cover my own mishap.    :(

This message is standard, maybe you forgot some cd, pen drive, memory card without the boot sector on the pc and the BIOS software is trying to boot the Operating System where it does not exist. It is a sequence that we can configure, as priority 1 being hard disk, priority 2 cd-rom, ....
Enter the BIOS firmware and configure to boot from the hard drive, you have nothing to lose. I'm not assuming the cable dropped or hard disk faults.
Another option is to redo the boot sector if it is; maybe more than one partition; I do not think it's a disk failure.
You only need find where O.S. it is or reinstall O.S. in last case.
If it does not work, grab the scapulars, talismans and amulets and pray a lot.

Quote from: mineiro on May 11, 2018, 11:11:52 AM

... You only need find where O.S. it is or reinstall O.S. in last case.
If it does not work, grab the scapulars, talismans and amulets and pray a lot.

I've tried everything I could think of,  even downloading the win 10 ISO from dell.  While attempting to install,  it kept asking for drivers without naming them.  I'm at wits end here.  My next step is to call Dell for tech help.

For my last notebook I installed Windows 10 from a bootable USB stick created with the Media Creation Tool. If your hard drive is not broken it will definitely install.

Quote from: aw27 on May 11, 2018, 08:50:02 PM
For my last notebook I installed Windows 10 from a bootable USB stick created with the Media Creation Tool. If your hard drive is not broken it will definitely install.

Why would that be  any different than installing from DVD??

Anyway,  I have @active bootdisk which runs on windows 10 winpe.  I have successfully reformatted the HD using diskpart following instructions for uefi disks from Microsoft.  Still no luck. Temporarily using winpe as general purpose is wouldn't be bad but no wow64 32 bit support.  So any programs I try to run from winpe that are not native 64 bit simply won't run.  So any tools I use to help fix my problem have to really be 64 bit compatible without relying on wow64 32 bit support. 


The last and final option I have is taking the HD from this computer and installing it into the HD-less laptop I got from a buddy a couple weeks back. It could be some other kind of hardware issue with the Dell netbook. In theory if I still cannot install to the other laptop,  then the HD must be the problem.  Of course it could be the install medium.  If I can't install to the other laptop with this HD,  I'll reburn the ISO and try again. But I really think windows setup would complain if the install disk was corrupt.

Quote
Why would that be  any different than installing from DVD??

I though the notebook had no DVD drive. Of course, you can use an external DVD drive.
Still, why do you need an ISO from Dell. To install Dell crapware?

Hi,

Quote from: zedd151 on May 09, 2018, 01:09:22 PM
I doubt if the warranty will cover my own mishap.

   Nothing ventured, nothing gained.  If the place you bought it
is easy to get to, give it a try.

Steve

Quote from: FORTRANS on May 12, 2018, 01:56:35 AM

   Nothing ventured, nothing gained.  If the place you bought it
is easy to get to, give it a try.

Steve

Thanks FORTRANS, but unfortunately I had thrown away the receipt.  Otherwise that would not have been a bad idea.

To add:
I will look into removing the HD from the new computer after I return from some errands .
Installing into the older laptop shouldn't pose any difficulties, the new one however has no access panel. Disassemble required.

The other thing I was pondering was to install Ubuntu or some other flavor of Linux and running my windows software from wine.
I'll be further exploring my options in the coming days.  I could probably pick up another new network relatively cheaply as I had this one. Then I can canibalize this one for parts (HD,  memory, wireless card)  Or even purchasing the exact same model, imaging the disk before I even run it,  then applying that image to this HD.  Should be no trouble getting it reactivated with original keys. At least it sounds good in theory.

Later....
Nevermind what I said about having the install ISO from Dell. It was a micros++t ISO.  So possibly,  there is a driver missing in the ms ISO. So as of now, I am downloading the Dell ISO from their site.   Keeping my fingers crossed this time.    :biggrin:

>>> 23 minutes in and 1.9 GB so far...

Dell have a good feedback, try that my brother.
I have solved a lot of windows errors from Linus, another choice.
The hard point is that images. My drivers (I live on a 3rd world) are cheap from yours, this is relevant. Who seels to me don't sell to you, this is about images, well, sorry, this is about mentality about regions. I'm talking about exokernel and about. Take your windows hard disk and install on another computer and you will know what I'm talking about, failure; but, on linux side ok depending of your distro or ... .
The problem is easy to solve, keep walking my brother, believe in me. I faced this a lot, gain a lot of money, ... . Only clock work for free?
Other words, iso images have a default driver images, don't have specific images. Create your own iso image, don't download that. Of couse, from microsoft ok.
Be in peace.

well if you go the Linux way,linux comes with lots of Tools to play with as programmer,even apache webserver
good luck

After all the trouble these last few days, I finally got the damn thing fixed.  Turns out that somehow the uefi boot partition got corrupted, so I followed a tutorial for copying the 'BCD store' from the windows partition to the boot partition. And YEAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for everyone that stopped in with their suggestions...

Now I will make a backup of the entire disk, including ALL of the partitions

You have all the reason to be happy, at least until you are forced to upgrade to version 1803 ("Redstone 5") which will chop 4 GB out of your small hard drive.  :t

Something I have noticed with Win10 64 Professional, every since the last major upgrade, the available disk space on my boot partition has increased by about 30 gigabytes. I have seen the free space go as low as 85 gigabytes, correctly its showing about 120 gigabytes which is the best for a long time. It seems you get less of the mountain of chyte remaining than it used to be. I use a standard Windows utility called Disk Cleaner which removes some of their junk but of late there is little to remove.

I did not buy this Intel PCIe x 4 SSD to have it loaded full of Microsoft chyte, it used to have some massive mountain of crap for the Microsoft store that you could not routinely delete but that seems to have faded away.

Disk Cleaner is great to remove the Windows.Old folder and get back a few tens of GB.
Still, drive C keeps filling up even after I moved My Documents, Temp and My Downloads to another drive. I believe this is an inevitable Law of Physics.

As it stands at the moment, I have 7.5 GB free space on the hard drive and that is with pagefile and hibernation both turned off. Also I uninstalled most MS office products, as I rarely use those. I am looking into making some of the programs I use "portable" with Portable Apps, or similar. 

I have a 64 GB SD card at the moment to hold the stuff that I'd rather not clutter up the C: drive with.

After the last couple of days, I am just so grateful to have the computer back in running condition - that I will accept what I have now.   :bgrin:

Good to know that it was just a temporary disgrace. Welcome back  :bgrin:

Quote from: felipe on May 13, 2018, 01:18:12 PM
Good to know that it was just a temporary disgrace. Welcome back  :bgrin:

Yup, good to be back.

For four days I think, I thought I really fubarred this computer. Turns out it was a simple (or not?) BCD Store corruption. So now I'm back trolling the forum.   just kidding, hutch--     :P

Well, I finally got the dell system recovery downloaded. Reinstalled to factory condition, changed the settings I wanted to, and removed the programs I would never use, turned off hibernation and disabled the pagefile. Size of C: is now 9.9 GB. Plenty of extra space  :biggrin:

Nice Dude!

Quote from: zedd151 on May 13, 2018, 06:57:23 PM
Size of C: is now 9.9 GB. Plenty of extra space  :biggrin:

Just tested out my backup of C: , it  was 10.5 GB but that's okay. Not bad considering that the harddrive had gotten bloated to 23 GB, and its capacity after the uefi partitions is only 27.2 GB.

I found some other useful settings that will help me keep the hard drive as clean as possible.


As a side note, after I recovered the backup the first time, it DID NOT show up in Explorer. I thought I screwed the pooch again.   :lol:
But it turns out that is because for some reason the backup software  @Active Disk Image did not reassign the drive letter. I saw it in the partitioning tool though and I was relieved but only slightly. Then I rebooted. All is well with the backup strategy.

I just made another backup with some additional settings changes. I am keeping all of the backups "just-in-case" Next step is to install all of the utilities and other programs that I like to use - masm32 sdk is top of that list hutch   ;)

Backup time 9:24 minutes, recover time on the clean backup install was 8:43 minutes. Not bad compared to a fresh install from a windows disk.

Be sure you test your bootable external storage containing your recovery software.

Quote from: jimg on May 14, 2018, 07:06:42 AM
Be sure you test your bootable external storage containing your recovery software.

Now that's very good advice, indeed. No sense in backing up if the backup storage fails.   :icon_redface:

Anyway, I have made yet another incremental backup from the clean install, this time without installing all of the vendors driver packages.
Rather I extracted them, and if needed I can install the drivers using only the .inf, .sys, .cat (and .dll or other) files as needed. Without all of the bloatware that sometimes is packaged with drivers. Also I switched from @Active Disk Image for the backup this time. With Disk Image, you need to run it from WinPE environment (@Active Bootdisk) While that program is very good at what it does, it poses a limitation (external cd/dvd drive)

I used Drive Snapshot this time around. This program lets you restore a backup right from the comfort of Windows. It loads itself in memory and reboots your computer to do its magic. My external cd/dvd drive is probably 10 years old, and I don't want to be stuck needing it when it craps out on me.

edit == I just tested this last backup. It restored drive C: in 6 minutes and 24 seconds.

Discovered how to enable administrator account in Windows 10 Home.  So I will reinstall fresh copy of OS and uninstall all of the default crap Apps (that I will never use) properly from the dedicated elevated account.    :bgrin:

Having a user account just isn't the same yes I know that users have so called administrator privilege but also denied a lot of access,  in home edition anyway...

Next step would be  to create a TrustedInstaller or NTAuthority account..    :P

Now if I can disable all of the other crap,  I'll have it working like user friendly windows xp    :biggrin:

Oops meant to add to my previous post.  8)

Edit ===

I let the recovery process run while I go to work.  When I  get home should have a shiny new OS to play with,  unless the computer blows up and burns down the house while I'm away.   :biggrin:

So far I have the admin account set up,  and enabled Group Policy Editor, gpedit.msc. Have also put in a context menu entry to change ownership of files and folders. And also removed and uninstalled all of the crap Apps and removed them from the program files apps folder. The c drive is now down to just under 10 gigs.

I am also looking into setting group policies,  to disable the apps that persist i.e. Cortana and a couple others. One of the tech guys at work is showing me the way around gpedit, so I can do it properly



Edited to add...

I am making incremental backups along the way, in case I fubar anything.  Which I advise to anyone trying to alter their operating system to behave better. The.next step is to determine how many tasks running are really necessary and which can safely be disabled for better performance and memory savings.

I've got my computer about as user friendly as I can get it. Windows update no longer tries to automatically update, or check for updates. I can now choose what updates to download (AV definitions mostly). Also I have that spying little Cortana totally disabled. As well as a  few other little tweaks.

The C: drive remains about the same 9.8 gigs used. Thats much better than when it was approaching 17 gigs used.

Now I can begin installing the PROGRAMS that I WANT to have on my computer. (notice I didn't say "apps") Anyway, I will use a lot of portable apps versions of the programs I want to use (where available) or make my own, with the help of a program called "What Changed". That program monitors the files and folders that have changed during a normal program setup. This way you know exactly what files your portable program will need in addition the What Changed program also monitors the registry for added/changed registry keys.

I will be using an external drive for most of it. Including masm32/64. So this chapter of my computer woes is coming to a close. I'll be coding soon, since I won't have all of the distractions of this tempermental OS to deal with anymore.   :biggrin:

Had to roll back one of the last tweaks.  oooops!   :redface:

I rebooted, and no text was present anywhere.  :icon_redface:
Microsofts' way of saying "Don't touch that!"  :lol:

So C: is back to around 10.2 gigs. I'll take that and tweak no more. As of now, the system is stable no signs of anything amiss. 

Hello zedd;
Sysinternals have some good tools to what youre doing, like monitors (files, registry, ... ). I'm not updated but on past have some programs to 'freeze' your hard disk. All changes done will be erased at next boot, so your have your machine at same state or your own config. Other way is that you can create an image of your hard disk as a backup. One good backup to have in hands is just registry, when we install and uninstall programs they don't erase some remnants inside registry. You need a program to create a registry backup, don't do by regedit or reg32, ..., they don't work well to this task. It's hard to backup registry because they are in use by windows, an option is insert your hard disk into other computer and copy manually that files (.dat), other is boot on a linux O.S., mount ntfs partition and copy that specific registry files, this way they are not in use.
Good know that things are going fine to you.

Quote from: mineiro on May 24, 2018, 10:27:35 PM
Hello zedd;
..... Other way is that you can create an image of your hard disk as a backup......

That is the method I use.  Drive Snapshot  (http://www.drivesnapshot.de/) Works well, so if I change anything either inadvertently or not, I can always revert to the way it was before.

I don't keep personal files and/or folders on my C: drive anymore, so the way I keep the backup copy now is perfect for me.

Thanks for the other tips. And yes, I have tamed the Windows 10 beast and killed all sorts of reporting back to Micros**t.   :biggrin: And the system is running well.

One thing that I want to try is creating an image using Dism.exe offline, using this method according to the documentation I have read, I should be able to remove "packages" to create a custom OS install. More on that later when I get up the b***s to try it.  :P  If that works out well, it should help in reducing the overall size of the OS. But research must be done first to avoid removing "System Critical" packages. I will post a detailed (somewhat) accounting of those proceedings if/when I decide to try it.

For those who would like more details for what I have done already...

The changes I have made to the clean installation of Windows 10 Home:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To enable the hidden "Administrator" account in Windows 10 Home, from an elevated command prompt (run as administrator):



Net user administrator /active:yes



To set a password for "Administrator", from an elevated Command Prompt:



Net Users Administrator *



and hit Enter. Now you will see new line to type a new password for administrator - and your new Administrator account is all set and ready on the next reboot.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Enabling "Group Policy Editor" in the Home version create a .bat file with the following:



@echo off
pushd "%~dp0"
dir /b C:\Windows\servicing\Packages\Microsoft-Windows-GroupPolicy-ClientExtensions-Package~3*.mum >Files.txt
dir /b C:\Windows\servicing\Packages\Microsoft-Windows-GroupPolicy-ClientTools-Package~3*.mum >>Files.txt
echo Installing Group Policy Editor...
for /f %%i in ('findstr /i . Files.txt 2^>nul') do dism /online /norestart /add-package:"C:\Windows\servicing\Packages\%%i"
echo.
echo Installation complete.
echo.
pause


Run from an elevated command prompt. (run as administrator)

Using the above, you enable the Group Policy Editor in Windows 10 Home Edition (8 & 7 too, I believe), which is not enabled by default in the Home version.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The other good thing to use is  Easy Context Menu  (https://www.sordum.org/files/downloads.php?easy-context-menu) <-- direct download link.
With this program, you can add to the right click context menu "Copy to Folder...", "Move to Folder...",
and my favorite "Take Ownership", which allows you to delete/change files or folders blocked by "SYSTEM" or "TRUSTEDINSTALLER", plus many
other tweaks.


As a cautionary note: DO NOT MAKE THESE CHANGES unless you have a backup of your system,
and secondly don't do it unless you know what you are doing.

The "Administrator" account enabling is well documented in many places on the internet.

The enabling of "Group Policy Editor" is also well documented...


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The other changes I have made to MY SYSTEM will not be posted here. Any changes you make
to  Your System are solely your responsibility.


:biggrin:

I generally try to kill some programs on memory to see what is need or not and feel the consequences. Try to kill scrcs.exe on windows xp and you will see that is not possible (even being admin). Well, it's possible (debug priviledges), but ... (blue screen). Because only I use the computer I don't need a lot of gifts to multiuser, disabled a lot of things.
When I started I was doing a 'dir /s ...'  to list all files on whole hard disk and redirecting output to a text file. After instaled a program and rebooted I was doing the same to another file. The difference between both text files are files inserted by the program. This is not good because instalation programs can delete some files, but I have started this way.
When I tried the same, exporting from registry to text files and comparing to see what was inserted I get in trouble. Regedit was not exporting all keys, have ones that are priviledged, this is how I look to monitors. I carry with me until today old 'windiff' program, so I only need look for colours, red and yellow, this program show difference by lateral bar colors.
This way that I'm talking here is valid to any O.S., but as you can see have faults because are not monitors.
I'm remembering that I was running windows xp sp3 and that consume only 48mb after initialization; well, I stay more than one week erasing, disabling things.

Quote from: mineiro on May 25, 2018, 07:47:56 AM
...
I'm remembering that I was running windows xp sp3 and that consume only 48mb after initialization...

sounds a lot like mini xp, or similar bootable portable xp (bartpe for example)

Good old windows xp. Got a lot of flack in those days, but it was the most customizable and user friendly operating system.
It didn't complain too much if the user removed a lot of the bulk. (Except for operation 'critical' components)

While I never got xp as small as 48 mb, I did get it down to just under 400 MB. It booted fast in comparison to the default installation.
And restoring backups took hardly any time at all.

But now everyone has to deal with Windows 10 bloatware. But little by little, I'm working on that problem on my end with some success.

Getting ready to give Ubuntu a try
If successful,  will use it for internet (denying internet access to all of the invasive crap on Windows 10.)
:bgrin:

It's booting up now....    :biggrin:

Hello Ubuntu!   :biggrin:

Actually I have used ubuntu in the past,  but briefly.

Now i can say dirty things about Micros**t with out fear they will send a digital time bomb into my computer.      :P

it just works, right off the cd rom...

I tried to install Ubuntu,  but no grub was installed so I overwrote the installation and re expanded the Windows partition.  Will run Ubuntu from CD until I have time to try to install it again.

Quote from: zedd151 on May 30, 2018, 07:12:15 PM
... until I have time to try to install it again.

I don't have to work this weekend so I will try to install Ubuntu on Saturday. On the Windows 10 front, I have my OS down to 8 GB.   :icon_mrgreen:  Leaving plenty of room for the repartitioning and installation of Ubuntu.

Well not totally,  just a catchy title.    :P

While attempting to install Ubuntu for the second time,  something went horribly wrong and wiped out my Windows 10 partition.  When I saw that,  I didn't even attempt to log into Ubuntu. I went straight away to reinstall Windows.  The somewhat long process is running now.  I would have reinstalled a backup,  but the partition setup is such that the backup I have won't install due to windows partition now too small.  (Drive Snapshot needs same size or larger partition)

I am assuming that the gpt/uefi partitioning / booting system is fubarring the Ubuntu installation. Or so it seems.  Of course it could also be that I'm a newb when it comes to Linux in general and Linux installation in particular.

So once I get my Windows installation back up and running,  I don't think I will try a third attempt at installing Ubuntu to the same hard drive as Windows.   :(

Why don't you try the new windows linux subsystem?  :idea:

Quote from: felipe on June 03, 2018, 08:05:14 AM
Why don't you try the new windows linux subsystem?  :idea:

Because I have no idea what/where that is.    :icon_confused:

Have a look here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10 (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10). But i have never done nothing with it, so you will have to figure it out alone or with help of another forum member that has.  :idea:

Nope,  I  can't do that.  I literally spent days getting rid of micro$**t  store apps.  I won't use anything related to M$ Store.
It's just another way micro$**t tries to control what the end user does with their own computer.    8)

What about trying a live linux system?  :idea:

Quote from: felipe on June 03, 2018, 12:08:22 PM
What about trying a live linux system?  :idea:

Quote from previous post in this thread....

Quote from: zedd151 on May 30, 2018, 07:12:15 PM
....  Will run Ubuntu from CD until I have time to try to install it again.

;)

That's exactly what I plan on doing,  felipe.   :biggrin:

I have experienced ubuntu live and i found it a little slow. I recommend you a lighter distro, especially if all you want to do is browse the internet with it.  :idea:

I finally got rid of the last of the remaining "Metro" apps from Windows 10 Home.
It fubarred the Start Menu, but that's okay. I have a work-around for that.

No more Cortana, no more Edge, no more of any of the other Sh***y apps
that came with Win 10 Home. Only the legacy "Programs" remain.   :biggrin:

The OS is down to 8.35 GB. Now I can live with that.
So since I shouldn't be having any more trouble with the invasive apps, I will
again resume coding here shortly. The computer is behaving very well, runs a
magnitude faster than the original install, have much fewer running processes.  :t

The last phase will be to try and remove the last remnants of the "Metro" apps
by removing the entries for them in the WinSxs directory. Have already completely
removed them from the other directories.

Z,

A toy worth owning, Spybot Anti-Beacon.

best computer power unit.

hamster wheel power.

(http://www.mmocompendium.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Hamster.jpg)

Quote from: zedd151 on June 04, 2018, 02:15:26 PM
I finally got rid of the last of the remaining "Metro" apps from Windows 10 Home.
It fubarred the Start Menu, but that's okay. I have a work-around for that.

No more Cortana, no more Edge, no more of any of the other Sh***y apps
that came with Win 10 Home. Only the legacy "Programs" remain.   :biggrin:

Paintbrush, Norton commander,file explorer, lynx,calculator,notepad,qbasic?
I recommend try out different modes in calculator in newer windows,old had only two modes,simple and advanced
I tried to convert some hex numbers to get an idea of how many Chinese unicodes it had,so when I saw a,I typed 10 etc and when I changed mode on calculator in win 8 64bit,it had several more modes,including 'programmer', where all kinds of conversions between binary,octal,hexadecimal,decimal,it even had and,or,xor,not,left/right shift/rotate

Quote from: hutch
A toy worth owning, Spybot Anti-Beacon.

I will look into that.

Quote from: anunitu
best computer power unit.
hamster wheel power.

Power supply is fine thanks.   :P   :lol:

Quote from: daydreamer
I recommend try out different modes in calculator in newer windows,

If it's part of the "Metro apps" it is already history and will not be back on MY computer.
Anything that calls itself an "APP" is not worthy imo. Look at the junk they put into cheap smart phones. Hopefully in the
more expensive smartphones they have better "PROGRAMS"

Anything that resided in the "APPS" folder is history. I want PROGRAMS on my computer, not "politically correct, written by some suburbanite, college educated 'know-it-all', who only knows how to program in Visual.WhateverTheFork.Net," APPS!    8)

Otherwise, hey! How ya doing?    :lol:

Hi,

Quote from: zedd151 on June 05, 2018, 06:00:14 AM
Otherwise, hey! How ya doing?

   Well, following this thread caused me to go out and buy an
inexpensive Windows 10 laptop just to see how different that is.
It came in yesterday.

   I just powered it up to take stock, and encountered Cortana
right off the bat.  While it worked better than I would have
expected, it's not what I wanted to see.  It (or whoever set up
the introduction) wanted to set up names, passwords, and
register the thing.  So I played around a bit and finally hooked
it up to the internet to close a registration window.  So it starts
downloading updates.  Yuck.  If there is some pointers to clean
things up, it would be nice to have a walk through to help start
things off.

   Good news, the touch pad works much better than any I
have seen up to now.  Bad news, I probably should not have
bought the thing.  Windows 10, out of the box, doesn't seem
usable.  I was hoping for nice little portable computer.  Not a
steep learning curve.

Muttering,

Steve

Hi FORTRANS!

I have completely removed Cortana and a host of other bad actors from my setup.  I also killed any updates from downloading,  or  I am sure that all the changes I made to MY computer would be undone on the very next update.   If I have to,  I could even remove the update program and so called helper modules too.  But so far no need for the nuclear option.

I really miss the plain and simple xp.   Windows 7 wasn't so  bad either.

Just wait until you start running some home brew software.   Watch in Task Manager how that plays out.   Cortana will make a big appearance, windows defender anti-virus as well,  MrT. might even show up.. (I pity da fool)

My first week with Windows 10 was a nightmare.  I'll post more after work.

I have heard so many bad things about W>7 that if someday I'd lost my W7, I'd seriously consider switching to Linux with WXP/7 in a virtual box.

I haven't found anything wrong with windows 8.1. Is really manageable i think.  :idea:

Quote from: FORTRANSIf there is some pointers to clean
things up, it would be nice to have a walk through to help start
things off.

I would really be the wrong person to ask. I've fubarred this computer a dozen times in just the first two weeks.

Even now with all of the invasive stuff either disabled (permanently) or removed, I am waiting for the other shoe to drop and Windows come crashing down with a great big BSOD from all of my tinkering.

I haven't found Windows 10 to be that bad really. Pretty much just removed all of the adds and crap from the start menu and was good to go.

Quote from: Ascended on June 06, 2018, 01:16:42 PM
I haven't found Windows 10 to be that bad really.

My main problem is having an embedded small hard drive. out of 32 GB I only have 27-28 GB to work with. The first week, after all the updates I was down to a very low free space on the hard drive.

That was the first of many troubles. Then there is the issue of invasive 'apps' monitoring everything that you are doing on YOUR VERY OWN COMPUTER. Nevermind Windows Defender deleting your homebrew masm32 assembled programs. I just got sick and tired of all of the shiiite that is put into Windows 10 (the Home version at least). So I opted for the 'nuclear option' deleting as much as the OS would let me get away with.

Between Cortana, Defender, and a couple other 'apps' my PC was running constantly at 35-45% cpu, and near 40% memory usage at "idle" (apparently some apps don't know the word 'idle'). Some days were worse. Now it purrs along and runs much faster with all of the crap removed.

Yeah, 32 GB isn't much to work with. I struggle to stay afloat with a 128 GB SSD as my primary drive.

I've got the OS down to 8.5 GB, and now have plenty of space to work with. I put most stuff on external flash drive. But when downloading for instance, I'll use space on C: for speed. and I now have a partition (on main HD) with a secondary backup of C: on it, in case the backup on the flash drive fails or gets corrupted in some way.

My latest adventure involves removing extra pre-installed languages.  There are a total of 14 languages including English "en-en"
From winsxs I have already started. I'll post more info as it becomes available.

Later -->>

So far, it has been a success. OS size is now down around 7.2 GB.
Now to remove the unused languages from the other directories.  :bgrin:

Quote from: zedd151 some time ago
Now to remove the unused languages from the other directories.  :bgrin:

I have put that on hold for the moment as I am off on another tangent.

Have used a utility 'AOMEI Partition Assistant' to merge the 'SYSTEM' (boot) partition with the Windows OS partition. This was done after deleting the hidden (unformatted) MS partition.

Had to adjust the BCD Store, using 'EasyBCD' to ensure the bootmgr was pointing towards the new C:\Windows partition.

After all the changes were made, works like a charm. I was a little hesitant at first, but realized I could always revert to the backed up version of my system if anything went wrong - and went ahead anyway.

The next step will be to re-create a recovery partition. Not like the pre-installed recovery partition. It will hold mainly two things, The latest backup of my C: drive and the utility to recover the C: drive from the backup file. I am strongly considering making it a bootable partition and installing WinPE on it to run the backup utility. It's a little work though getting WinPE set up on a fixed disk when it expects to be run from either cd/dvd  or a removable drive. But there is a way, I just have to read up on it. This will be in addition to the backup that I have stored externally from the computer.

With the few essential programs I have installed, my C: drive weighs in at 7.99 GB. and right now has 21.1 GB free space available. -- I had already removed the recovery partition when I wiped the entire drive - when I converted from GPT to MBR. I am preparing for the event that I may yet install Windows xp on this computer. But I have to see if drivers are available for this fairly new machine. It is highly doubtful though.

The best I can hope for in that regard is probably running xp from VMWare or other emulator (VirtualBox?) don't know just yet. I need my xp fix.  :P

Quote from: zedd151 on June 07, 2018, 07:02:03 PM
My latest adventure involves removing extra pre-installed languages.  There are a total of 14 languages including English "en-en"

dont forget to remove unused languages like assembly  :P
I do the other way around and install many languages so I can test unicode
wonder what kinda smartphone you had,even a 16gb connected as external would help a Little
or buy a  cheap usb memory

Quote from: daydreamer before...
dont forget to remove unused languages like assembly  :P

lol. soon enough I will be writing code again. in VisualBasicOrWhateverThe Hell.Net.   :P  :redface:

Quote from: Magnus :P
or buy a  cheap usb memory

It's not really about saving HD space anymore, I have plenty now. It's more to have a small as possible OS drive. For fast backup and restore.  :biggrin:

Some folders I noticed like System32 have as many as 110 folders containing language translation files (.mui) In my whole computer possibly these files range in the 10s of thousands. It all adds up. and some are full .dlls written for the specified languages. (as opposed to using external .mui files)

I'm working on getting the list of all folders containing these files.  (example: "C:\>dir /b /a:d /s *el-GR* >> c:\users\administrator\desktop\languages.txt")
Then I will create the file deletion (del) and remove directory (rd) batch files from those lists.

Got 'er half way done. Obtained through unnamed sources I got a copy of Windows XP Professional. I already have the CD key and attempted to install on another partition. Some sort of BIOS issue preventing the install. So I did the next best thing, installed it in VMWare.

I have spent the better part of the afternoon obtaining through various sources (mostly Archive.org - Wayback Machine) all of the old software that I used to run in XP.   :biggrin:

While the install to virtual machine worked, there is of course no way to activate it anymore. So I am left with a running virtual version of Windows XP Professional installed with legitimate CD Key, but only can use it for 30 days before it expires.    :(

But I am having some fun in the mean time. I even managed to image xp from inside of VMWare and restore the image to D: partition. After fumbling around to get XP (on HD partition) to boot, I finally managed with the help of GRUB bootloader but alas BSOD stopped me in my tracks. Still the same BIOS issue that prevented a normal installation to the hard drive.

I know there must be a way to correct this problem. But until I find the solution, I'll be running XP through VMWare.   :greenclp:

I keep all my collection of old OSs in vmWare. I hope I will not need to activate them again.  ;)

BTW, Internet Explorer 6.0 works fine with this site.

Quote from: AW
I keep all my collection of old OSs in vmWare. I hope I will not need to activate them again.  ;)

Good idea!

Quote from: aw
BTW, Internet Explorer 6.0 works fine with this site.

I haven't figured out yet how to connect to the internet yet via VMWare.   :(   I know it's something simple I am overlooking.


Yes I know, I'm living in the past. But what I see of the present and future of MS OS's, I'd rather BE in the past.  :biggrin:

Quote from: zedd151 on June 10, 2018, 04:50:14 PM
I haven't figured out yet how to connect to the internet yet via VMWare.   :(   I know it's something simple I am overlooking.

It should be simple and transparent, but is not always. Start by installing the VMWare Tools.

I finally made a clean install of Windows 10. This time I am removing/disabling Features with a more methodical, step-by-step
approach. I am doing this because right clicking on the 'Task Bar' no longer worked nor did the 'Start Menu'.
I screwed the pooch somewhere.

I know this seems odd, but disabling 'Windows Event Log' via (MSConfig--> Services) results in WiFi icon not being displayed
in the notification area of the taskbar. And cannot be re-instated by other means. It was driving me nuts. I even reinstalled the WiFi driver,
all to no avail.

I figured it would turn out to be 'Windows Error Reporting' or some other module playing this dirty trick, but why 'Windows
Event Log' ??? What is the Event Log doing that requires WiFi access. btw - I connect to the internet through usb patch
to my smartphone but it bothered me that the WiFi icon was not showing when it should have been.

So now everything appears to be working so far, and most of the unpleasantries have been disabled or removed. I am being careful this
time whereas before I disabled/removed several items in one batch before restarting to see the results.

Also I am thinking that because the Wifi connection/settings were screwed, I was unsuccessful in enabled internet connectivity in VMWare
for my WIndows xp installation.

All is well after a couple of hours work on getting Windows 10 Home down to a reasonable level of @#$%%^*.    :icon_mrgreen:

zedd i can see you have your personal taste with your OS version. I want to tell you this again (i think?) just if you have a big failure in the system again in the future: You can use windows for development (not connected to the internet) and a live linux to browse the internet.
Anyway you will choose what you want. I personally hate to waste my time configuring and installing Oses too many times...:idea:

Quote from: felipeYou can use windows for development (not connected to the internet) and a live linux to browse the internet.

That was originally my idea as well. But I hate having to switch between OS interfaces to get stuff done.   :exclaim:

Quote from: FelipeI personally hate to waste my time configuring and installing Oses too many times...

It's not a waste of time, as I am learning to tame the beast known as Windows 10 Home Edition properly

Example 1: Previously I was using a brute force approach to removing unnecessary languages on my system; I would haphazardly delete the offending files/folders and it worked somewhat.

Example 2: I found the correct way to delete said unnecessary languages...

Get a listing of installed 'packages'

DISM.exe /online /Get-Packages > currentpackages.txt
DISM.exe /online /Get-Apps >> currentpackages.txt
dism.exe /online /Get-ProvisionedAppxPackages >> currentpackages.txt
dism.exe /online /Get-ProvisioningPackageInfo >> currentpackages.txt

currentpackages.txt:


Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 10.0.16299.15

Image Version: 10.0.16299.15

Packages listing:

Package Identity : Microsoft-Windows-Client-LanguagePack-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~en-US~10.0.16299.15 <-- obviously will not include this one.   :icon_rolleyes:
State : Installed
Release Type : Language Pack
Install Time : 9/29/2017 2:41 PM

Package Identity : Microsoft-Windows-Client-LanguagePack-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~pt-PT~10.0.16299.15
State : Installed
Release Type : Language Pack
Install Time : 2/23/2018 1:30 PM

Package Identity : Microsoft-Windows-Client-LanguagePack-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~ro-RO~10.0.16299.15
State : Installed
Release Type : Language Pack
Install Time : 2/23/2018 3:00 PM

Package Identity : Microsoft-Windows-Client-LanguagePack-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~ru-RU~10.0.16299.15
State : Installed
Release Type : Language Pack
Install Time : 2/23/2018 1:36 PM

~~~ etc., etc., ....


From the resulting 'currentpackages.txt' file, I can then build a cmd script to remove chosen packages:

dism  /online /Remove-Package /PackageName:Microsoft-Windows-Client-LanguagePack-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~pt-PT~10.0.16299.15
dism  /online /Remove-Package /PackageName:Microsoft-Windows-Client-LanguagePack-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~ro-RO~10.0.16299.15
dism  /online /Remove-Package /PackageName:Microsoft-Windows-Client-LanguagePack-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~ru-RU~10.0.16299.15


It takes much longer this way, but the OS won't complain about anything missing - not that it has; surprisingly no ill effects from simple deletion.
But this is the approved way of doing it.
:biggrin:

But in all seriousness, I do appreciate your input.  8)
This latest installation and configuring was necessary. You do remember that I said certain wanted features weren't working anymore?

My taskbar and StartMenu now work properly.

Cortana is no longer trying to access the internet to upload my business to M$.
Updates no longer try to download - fubarring my settings.
I no longer have to keep switching off realtime AV scans.

And all is well with Windows 10 Home Edition. It is now almost down to the size of a Windows Vista setup. Around 7GB.   :greenclp:

By the way, for those following my progress (I know you're watching this thread - you know who you are)   8)
After each major step I am making a backup of the previous version first, just in case.

Once I am satisfied with everything (possibly a very long time from now) :P I will post everything I have done to tweak Windows 10 Home into good behavior. (Sort of a tutorial) - FORTRANS are you watching this thread?

Before removing the language packages, 101,000+ folders and 289,000+ files, 10 GB used space.

After removing the Language Packages, and running Dism > ComponentCleanup:
24,211 folders and 59,696 files!!! the used space presented below....

It can't get any better than that.  :biggrin:
Until my next tweak...

After reinstalling VM Ware, and Windows xp on it, disk usage back to 10 GB.   :lol:  But still is a big improvement over the other option - letting the OS grow to monstrous proportions.   :shock:

@felipe
Some like to tinker with os,they become experts who can help others who has a crashed os
Like people that want to concentrate on learning become better and better with different programs,tutorials and friends sharing knowledge,wether it is photoshop,musicmaker,blender,but i also mean not so obvious programs like javac.exe,vc,ml.exe etc
And playing with os might lead to try linux,which comes with many cool programming tools, it starts linux kernel and after that you have a huge file similar to autoexec.bat where you can customize your linux as you want

Quote from: daydreamer on June 12, 2018, 01:34:28 AM
Some like to tinker with os #

It has not been a joy to work on Windows 10, but I am getting better at it.

Quote
And playing with os might lead to try linux....

I've  got my hands full dealing with Windows. Don't  want to try learning linux.    :icon_cool:

I know  the post was directed to felipe but I felt the need to respond.

My latest adventure is exploring Windows 7 64 bit. I am attempting to get drivers for this computer.
I shouldhave better luck getting drivers for Windows 7, since it is a better comparison to Windows 10 than Windows xp was.

Right now, I really need the wireless driver first so that I can download the drivers from the computer. Several other key drivers
from Windows 10 also were not compatible with windows 7. But I am working on a possible solution....

I am done tweaking/modifying this OS.

Cortana is permanently disabled
Auto Updates are permanently disabled
Real Time AV is disabled.

Windows 7 and Windows xp appear to be uninstallable on this system due to lack of driver availability.

This is all I have to say about this matter.   :icon_mrgreen:

So for better or for worse, I am stuck with this computer for time being.

As soon as I can scrape together needed cash, will rebuild my other netbook and laptop; new Hard Drives, OS installation, drivers, etc.
Windows 10 will certainly NOT be part of those setups.  Those are both 32 bit machines, and both xp and Win 7 run fine with them.   :biggrin:

Quote from: zedd151

So for better or for worse, I am stuck with this computer for time being.

I always have ubuntu Live CD to fall back on for posting  :biggrin:

Well, I'll be darned!

Windows to go. It is an installation on a bootable flash drive (or other portable) I was experimenting with win 10 32 bit pro version iso, and with rufus I found the option 'Windows To Go'. It created a Windows 10 Professional installation on my flash drive. I never knew.

It still needs activation in the normal manner, else functionality will cease at some point. But as of now, I am posting from the portable Windows Professional installation.   :biggrin:

Much much better than WinPE. Of course, I still have Cortana, Real Time AV scan BS to deal with; Not to mention auto updates.

I now have a better way possibly, to test questionable tweaks and 'adjustments' to my activated Windows 10 Home edition setup.
I know I said I wouldn't mention that any further. But what I found today was a major breakthrough for me.   :biggrin:


Now I can possibly test this portable windows installation on my two derelict machines. Neither has a hard drive. I will see if it's possible.
I now have a new toy to play with, at least until my interest in coding re-emerges.

Of my two derelicts, the older laptop the win to go portable win 10 pro works, but does not have drivers for WiFi card.

The other one has drivers for Wifi, but has problems with video card. When trying to change resolution it doesn't quite crash the OS, just hangs with an almost black screen.

If I could only connect to the internet first then I could instll the appropriate video drivers.   :biggrin:

But I'll have to take the netbook on the road for a better WiFi connection. The Internet connection I have at home is dreadfully slow - in the kb/s range.  :(

But at least I sort of have 3 work(able)/ing computers.   :P

The older laptop is definitely more suited for Windows xp, or possibly Vista.

The newer netbook though smaller - seems to handle Win 10 alright. (other than the video issue)

edit to addd--->

I have noticed that for being ran from flash drive this OS runs fairly fast. Not quite as fast as running from HD, but pretty close seems to me.

i have seen this system on a stick around.

https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/best-stick-pcs/

So whole hardware on a stick kinda,add an OS I guess.

Quote from: anunitu
So whole hardware on a stick kinda,add an OS I guess.

That is actually a different animal of a similar genus. That is actually hardware in a small form factor.

Windows To Go is an installation done to an external USB thumb/flash/etc... drive that you can do yourself. It can be run on any PC whether it has a hard drive or not.

Starting with Windows 8 certain editions had this ability natively to create a Windows To Go install directly
from the OS on a Windows To Go compatible edition of windows.

There are now 3rd party tools that add this functionality to other editions of Windows 8 through the current
versions of Windows 10. I use 'rufus' I have also seen this capability in 'AOMEI partition assist' partitioning tool.

from  Microsoft  (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/planning/windows-to-go-overview)
for more information on "Windows To Go"

the debug strings?

I have been trying to get back into coding since I got this computer. Now I have everything under control with it, I started re-using some of my old code from my "Installer Creator".

I only want to create a directory tree and file listing. Those work ok, but I get this debug string spit out by ollydbg:


Message=Debug string: onecoreuap\shell\lib\idllib.cpp(161)\SHELL32.dll!741608CB: (caller: 74160E1E) ReturnHr(1) tid(1414) 80004001 Not implemented


I have no clue what that means.   :redface:

I am busy cleaning up the code and removing unused portions left over from its use as "Installer Creator" -- will post the code as soon as it is ready.
...... or not

I basically gave up on Windows 10 Home ed. I ran Windows 7 Pro for about a week and a half, I am now sampling Windows 7 Ultimate.

I didn't realize that the install.wim file contained 4 editions of the OS. It's not always the case. But the iso I have of it does, so that's a bonus.   :biggrin:   I hadn't bothered with Basic or Home version.

Windows 7 is working very well for me. Not all of the drivers are available, as this PC was built specifically for Windows 10 by Dell  - but the preinstalled Windows drivers work acceptably.  Thank you Micros--t for that anyway.

---- A strange thing happened -----

I had a strange thing happenning with my mouse today; I don't use the netbooks built in touchpad as I don't like them.

When I would view a web page or even a long .asm source, .txt file or 'you-name-it'  the vertical scroll bar would suddenly shift up or down, without me moving the mouse wheel.  At first, I though it might be a virus, or something. So I reinstalled a clean backup of the OS, after wiping the drive.

Still same effect. Even in Windows to Go I have on a USB drive exhibited the same problem - so I narrowed it down to the mouse. I changed batteries - you never know (the mouse sometimes performs strangely on a very low battery) - Still same issue.  It is now over two hours I have been trying to figure the problem out and narrow it down to what needs to be fixed.

I even tried getting drivers for the mouse as I no longer have the unneeded (at the time) drivers originally supplied by Logitech.

I recalled that some time in the past month I spilled my coffee ( a sin, in and of itself ) on my desk.  Only a few drops landed on my hardware. (the netbook, mouse and a couple of USB flash drives)  So, with this new recollection at hand, I dis assembled my mouse to discover a mound of dust, hair, and probably some cookie crumbs.  Probably that junk got dislodged, and relodged itself in my mouse wheel - with the help of my spilled coffee.

Inside the mouse wheel there are teeny tiny vanes, I guess some form of optical sensor sees the vanes moving to detect mouse wheel movement. Anyway, I cleaned everything inside the mouse case with a paintbrush to remove all of the debris.

Now my mouse is happy and can run around on my desk, trying to avoid the mouse trap.    :P

I become crazy when mouses start performing bad. Many don't even have  screws for dismounting and resist to disassemble in all imaginable ways. I usually end throwing them directly to where they deserve to be.  :(
I settled for simple wireless mouses and come to prefer those from Microsoft because always install straight away without CDs or DVDs full of crapware.

Ending the saga of my Windows 10 experience. 

I was going to write a tutorial of all of the changes I have made to Windows 10 to make it behave 'properly'. But I decided against the idea, since some of the changes would have most likely been in violation of the Licensing Agreement. It's the only Licensed copy of WIndows that I own currently.

I have also abandoned many of the changes I have made to my Windows 10 installation. Right now I am running Windows 7 in trial mode until the 30 days run out. I have a nearly complete Windows 10 installation on a flash drive (Windows To Go) that I use from time to time.

Not if, but when the trial runs out on my Windows 7 installation, I will be seeking to obtain Windows 7 retail. I know it is still out there - I just have to find it locally when I have the $$ to do so. I used to love Windows XP, But I am getting adjusted to Windows 7 very well.

There are some driver issues with Windows 7 (non availability) but the system is stable with the drivers that come preinstalled with Windows 7. So, that is not a major issue for me. I don't plan on any hard core gaming or video processing so the video/graphcs drivers are not an issue as well.

So this thread will probably be " I'll be hunting down locally, a legal copy of Windows 7 real soon "   :biggrin:
Til then I may have to freshly install 7 again to get another 30 days of bliss.  8)  or else deal with the complexities of 10.  :icon_rolleyes:

Quote from: zedd151 on June 29, 2018, 01:27:25 PM

Now my mouse is happy and can run around on my desk, trying to avoid the mouse trap.

My mouse started acting up again today. I took it apart again to investigate. The wheel actions are controlled by an emitter/detector pair and the emitter was loose. Not having a soldering iron available, I wiggled it back and forth until I was able to remove it.

I don't have the wheel functionality anymore but at least the cursor isn't jumping all over the place, nor is the page. I can still scroll the page by clicking the wheel then moving the mouse. It's not precision movement, but a fast way to jump to either the top or bottom of a page. Even if I had a soldering iron handy, I doubt if I could do the job as my eyesight ain't what it used to be.   :P

I have been intermittently having trouble with my mouse, or so I thought. When browsing long pages in IE, or even perusing long text files or others - the page scrolls up or down without rhyme or reason.  I was blaming the issue on my mouse and in fact found a defect with it.

The defect was the emitter that is part of an emitter/detector pair that determines whether or not the scroll wheel has changed position. I 'resolved' that problem by going nuclear and removing the faulty part. (Didn't have a soldering iron available to repair somewhat properly).

All was well since my last post in this thread. I have installed a s**tload of software to try out on this Windows 7 system. There was so much junk, that I had to do some extreme housekeeping. So, I reinstalled Windows 7 from a backup. Now the so-called mouse issue is back.

I am starting to really believe that it was not the mouse at all that was causing the problem with the obnoxious scrolling of long pages. I think it could be one of the drivers that I installed through Windows Update. (Didn't have any other resources available for certain drivers)

Another thing I have noticed is the text cursor here right now is blinking ultra fast. I disabled the cordless mouse by simply unplugging the USB radio. Something I had NOT done during my first trouble shooting sessions.

The page just jumped, so I KNOW NOW that it is not my poor little mouse that was causing the issue.  I think though that if is not the mouse, perhaps the touchpad. I could not find any setting to disable the touchpad, other than what would disable the mouse as well.

The touchpad of course is embedded and part of the computer. I don't want to crack open this thing and permanently kill the touchpad, although that IS another option. And I may have to - to help determine if the touchpad is the reason for the problems.

Maybe the touchpad is just too sensitive? I know that when I am typing I have to stay well clear of the touchpad to avoid unwanted cursor movement.  Well the other option is always available - - to just keep running Windows 10 and stop trying to run 'obsolete' operating systems.  Thank you very much Microshaft!   :icon_redface:     ::)

-------------------------------------

edit to add...

I think I will use Windows 10 for a full day tomorrow, with everything set the same way as when I was having the page scrolling issues in Windows 7.

signed,
stumped in Chicago.   :biggrin: 

Often you can disable the touchpad in the bios.

Quote from: jimg on July 04, 2018, 02:57:47 PM
Often you can disable the touchpad in the bios.

I hadn't checked that. Thanks for the tip. I'll check now.............

moments later:

Nothing useful in the BIOS for this purpose. Thanks anyway.

The next thing I tried is to disable all visual effects in control panel> advanced system settings> performance> settings (button) > visual effects..At first I disabled everything. So far it worked. I don't know why but it appears it did.

I wasn't satisfied how the fonts were displayed though, so I enabled 'smooth edges of screen fonts' and left everything else disabled.

The interface resembles win 2000 (no glitz), but if it gets the job done, I don't care.

Hi,

Quote from: zedd151 on July 04, 2018, 01:35:41 PM
Maybe the touchpad is just too sensitive? I know that when I am typing I have to stay well clear of the touchpad to avoid unwanted cursor movement.

   Here is a dumb idea for you; cut out a piece of corrugated
cardboard to cover the touchpad.  Then glue it over the touchpad
and pretend it's a wrist rest pad.  May not work, but it is cheap
to implement.

Cheers,

Steve N.

Quote from: FORTRANSHere is a dumb idea for you; cut out a piece of corrugated
cardboard to cover the touchpad.

So far, removing all of the visual effects seems to improve my mouse's performance. I haven't noticed any unwarranted page jumps since I disabled most of the visual effects. I only kept 'font smoothing'.

p.s. No idea is too dumb for me at this point. I was running out of my own ideas; so every little bit helps. At least by the end of all of this, I should have a long list of things that didn't work..   :P

btw - Looking at the title of this post makes me think of the wild west, with horses and buggies. Buggy Driver.   :lol:

I assume you did a google search for "dell inspiron 11 3000 disable touchpad" and nothing there helped?

Quote from: jimg on July 05, 2018, 01:15:00 AM
I assume you did a google search for "dell inspiron 11 3000 disable touchpad".....

:icon_rolleyes:   Ummmm no. It's usually in a case like this that the most obvious solution for a problem is the most often overlooked.   :icon_mrgreen:

Thanks Jim, you're almost a genius.

There are two mice or pointing devices listed in device manager. One is the mouse that I use and the other is the touchpad, even though it is not listed as 'touchpad'. So changing the driver for the touchpad to anything else enabled me to disable it. and that's what worked to disable the touchpad.  Now I can remove FORTRANS' piece of cardboard.  :P   just kidding, Steve.

Concept from  answers.microsoft.com  (https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-hardware/how-to-disable-touchpad-on-dell-inspiron-10-uisng/3c5d5ece-92b2-4ae1-b9ae-b271efd38266)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now that the touchpad is totally disabled, I will put all the changes I made back to 'factory' condition - except for the disabled touchpad.
Then I will see if there is still a problem with the vertical scroll randomly activating.

:biggrin:

After disbling the touchpad (finally) the mouse problem appeared to have been fixed.                           momentarily.   :(

That was a good suggestion however, to eliminate the possibility of compatibility problems between the mouse and touchpad.

So I thought "Now what can I do?".

I have changed the batteries
I disabled the scroll wheel by physically removing the emitter (it had a loose emitter)  -- read more below...
I have disabled the touchpad
I even tried changing drivers for the mouse.

All to no avail. Each time I try something it appears to work, but for just a little while.  Sooner or later, the trouble begins once again.
It seemed for a while to only happen ewhen I was typing. That made me paranoid that someone slipped me a Digital Bomb

I do go to places on the web, that are shall we say 'not suitable for all audiences'  :biggrin:   And I download a lot of junk from the web as well.

I have run AV scans on everything on my computer, the two SD cards I use for storage, it was driving me crazy!
I even thought that MS could be behind it, for all of my activity in closing down all of the MS Spyware on WIndows 10.  :P

but lo-and-behold....
remember when I said I 'fixed' the scroll wheel? It turns out I only did half of the job. I left the detector in place.

The last thing I did was to remove the detector for the scroll wheel. That was hours ago, and I have been writing some code since
that time with no apparent trouble from the mouse.

Z,

I am much of the same view as AW, I use a Microsoft optical cable mouse that is completely hassle free as you just plug it in and it works. For my older i7 box with Win7 64 Ultimate I use a low cost wireless Logitech mouse which works fine but I have to keep in mind that it may stop if the battery wears out. The trick is to throw out any of the crap that comes with a cheap mouse if it will just plug in and run.

Quote from: hutch-- on July 12, 2018, 03:10:09 PM
Z,

I am much of the same view as AW, I use a Microsoft optical cable mouse that is completely hassle free..

At this point (a full week after my last post) I can safely say that the trouble wasn't with my mouse after all.
It works fine now, with the touchpad disabled.

Apparently there is a problem with this computers touchpad and Windows 7 64 and my mouse -  all trying to
work together.

There are no issues with the touchpad and Windows 10 64, and the mouse all running at the same time.

-- -but I prefer to  keep running WIndows 7. So the touchpad will remain disabled until such time that I have
to run Windows 10 - as the trial period on my Windows 7 install on this computer nears its end.

Damn Microsoft!!

I had to pop in a backup of Windows 10 to make a posting to one of the Matrix Transposition threads. I was sure that I had disabled Windows Update permanently. But low-and-behold, M$ found a way in, and I just got a popup from Windows 10 ""We are adding some new features to Windows, this could take a few moments" I rebooted back into WIndows 7 immediately to curtail the installation that probably still lies-in-wait. Luckily though, It's not my licensed version of Windows 10 which I had spent days securing from such tragedies.

On second thought, maybe I overlooked disabling Updates on the copy of Win 10 Ultimate that I was 'trying out'.    :icon_rolleyes: 

correction= It was my primary Windows 10 licensed installation.
Ooops! something is definitely amiss. It was not Windows 10 Ultimate, as I had trouble with that backup. It was indeed my customized
Windows 10 installation that M$ found a way in- to Windows Update.  I'll just have to reinstall the backup to further circumvent their
tampering with my setup.  :shock:   I must have missed a setting somewhere. I know that it will not try to update the OS, it was trying to
install some 'typing' program, probably for autocorrect. I didn't get the full description of the update it was so generously supplying me with.

 :biggrin:   at least on my computer.


For over a week I have been using Windows XP in VirtualBox (On Windows 7 Ultimate - 32bit)


It is basically set up as my Development Environment. Nice, quiet, no peeping programs or processes to interfere
with what I want to do on MY computer.


If Windows 10 had not been natively installed at the factory I would totally remove it from my repertoire. (sp?)


Now I can comfortably write code, surf the internet and do everything else without wondering what Windows 10 is
tracking about me today. Fork Cortana! That whore.  :biggrin:


Windows 10 is the ultimate spyware. Yet M$ claims that everything that Windows 10 does is there to help you.


LOL!!  That kind of help I do not need. I want to be left the f**k alone and not be spied on by my Operating System.  8)

That's ok, but now you will be spied in the world wide web... :idea: So the question is: can you with that too?...:idea:

8)                               :icon_cool:                     :shock:                    :lol:           :idea:           :redface:

:icon_mrgreen:

Quote from: felipe on July 23, 2018, 12:56:02 PM
That's ok, but now you will be spied in the world wide web...

Nah. theres a level of anonymity and firewalls are in place.
Plus I can always turn off the internet and still use the computer, but I can't use the internet without a computer.


8)

START OF GRIPING SESSION
Issues, issues, and more issues. I have two partitions both with Windows 7 Pro 64 bit set up on them,
the one I use regularly I cannot complete the installation of VC++ 2015 redistributable 14.0.23026.
It gives an error "0x8000ffff" catastrophic failure", tried repairing and /or uninstalling and reinstalling it to no avail.
This is the os I tinkered with, to reduce the overall size, btw. So I am not completely surprised.

Okay, so on a second partition, I set up a clean unmodified version of Windows 7 Pro 64 bit. the VC2015
redistributable installed, and ML64 and the rest work fine.  But on that Win 7 installation I cannot get ollydbg
to run properly. Single Step exceptions, etc. and the debugged program exits. I tred the exact same settings
in fact copied the entire odbg110 folder from the Main install to the New install, no good results.

I am thinking that there is something in new install I need to turn off in Windows 7 to allow olly to run properly.
I would be grateful for any suggestions. I would like to move everything over to the 'clean install' version of WIndows
7 but that is exactly the one giving problems in regard to ollydbg.

So, on one ML64 is fudged, on the other I can't run ollydbg..   :(
I stopped running xp in virtual box for the same reason, its a real pain-in-the-arse to switch from one to the other.

END OF GRIPING SESSION -- LOGGED 6:05:26 AMSunday, August 05, 2018

 ::) :icon_rolleyes: ::) :icon_rolleyes: ::)

It's always the same thing. The seemingly hardest problems usually have the simplest solutions. I am
posting from the 'clean install' Windows 7 and

Found I only needed  to adjust ollies 'compatibility settings' to Win XP.    :biggrin:
Checking 'Run as Admin' didn't hurt either.

Later--> Yup, I ran some tests everything is okay with the clean install of Windows 7. I have copied my files over already
and am about to trash the non compliant WIn 7 setup  8)   

Sweet. I now have a clean install of Windows 7 Pro, all of my files and other junk have been copied to the new install.
I installed masm32, buildx64, ML64 and company without a hitch. I have reinstalled all of my favorite programs,
(most of them are copy/paste workable) and have no more troubles with ollydbg. Now I will install x64dbg, to have
a debugger handy for 64 bit code.
I had trouble with the 32 bit version, but perhaps I will have better performance with their 64 bit program.

And to top it all off, I made a backup copy (This time with all the programs and settings in place :P )

Test post from a computer without a hard drive. Running Windows 10 to Go, 32 bit from a usb flash drive.   :biggrin:
Actually, it's a micro SD card, you can see it there in the Vivitar adapter.  OS in a drive no bigger than a finger nail,
Who would have thunk?
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/r3ebwerahtp22bg/IMG_2.jpg?dl=1)
actual image of this post ^^^^^   8)
And I thought running Windows xp in virtual Box was slow.   :P  At least now I know I have a working computer for if/when my main system craps out. This box is an ancient (not really THAT old) Acer AspireOne
netbook. Screen resolution, 1024 x 600.   But not to worry, it has a monitor jack if I can find the monitor cable.  :icon_confused:

Once a program is loaded into memory, it runs ok. But loading the program from the usb drive takes some time. Its only usb 2.0 after all.

Later --> I found out I only have 512 MB memory in  there, I'll have to swipe some from the junk laptop.

Quote from: zedd151 on August 08, 2018, 12:43:08 PMTest post from a computer without a hard drive. Running Windows 10 to Go, 32 bit from a usb flash drive.   :biggrin:
Actually, it's a micro SD card

Looks fascinating, but now you confuse me: What is it exactly, a USB flash drive or a micro SD card?? And how did you convince the OS to boot from there?

Quote from: jj2007 on August 08, 2018, 04:41:22 PM

Quote from: zedd151 on August 08, 2018, 12:43:08 PMTest post from a computer without a hard drive. Running Windows 10 to Go, 32 bit from a usb flash drive.   :biggrin:
Actually, it's a micro SD card

And how did you convince the OS to boot from there?

I generically call any drive that plugs into the usb port a flash drive . 
Maybe I should say solid-state, usb port enabled, read-write device?   :P

As for 'Windows To Go' it is a feature rolled out with Windows 8, I believe,
that enables a Windows installation to be installed onto a removable device.
Do a Google Search for Windows To Go. No hassles with the install, no
fudging around to get the OS to work "right', like I have seen others trying
to do on the net on various sites. (With Windows xp and WIndows 7, et. al.)

And Windows has come a long way as far as supplying adequate in-box, stock
hardware drivers.

Heres a link  With more information  (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/planning/windows-to-go-overview)  :t Of course you still need a valid
license (key) for continued use after 30 days.

Posting from my ancient Gateway Laptop, on Windows To Go Windows 10 32 bit Home edition. I installed the wifi drivers for Windows 7 but they did not work. (Drivers not available apparently for use with Windows 10)
My Smart (dumb) phone has the option to 'tether via usb' so I tried that option, so here I am posting via my phone   :icon_mrgreen:

This screen is HUGE in comparison to my old netbook. Only slightly bigger than my new netbook that I purchased a few months back.
I'll post a screenshot in a little bit...

Edit I fubarred and had to edit the mfr name. lol
On this computer, Windows To Go runs a little faster. Of course it has 2 GB ram as opposed to he 512 MB in the little netbook. I was surprised it even ran with so little memory.

(https://www.dropbox.com/s/cxfsc3kt39fg7t2/gateway.jpg?dl=1)
I had to install Drop Box on this machine. :)

This setup isn't so bad. The OS is responsive enough, and it is almost as fast as it would be if I were running from a bona fide hard disk. (Not as fast as a solid state disk, however)
There are a few lags, but nothing to write home about.
It of course, is sill crippled by the fact that not all of the drivers are available, so that means I have to manually transfer anything from my Windows 7 setup to this computer manually via usb drive. :(

But otherwise, it IS a working system.  :)
I don't like Cortana peering over my shoulder all the time, but thats life in the Windows 10 world.   8)


Just when I thought I was finished playing around with OS'es and configurations.  ::)    :biggrin:

Struggling with OS's is a never ending story. Dam MicroSh*t.

Quote from: Caché GB on August 09, 2018, 09:32:17 AM
Struggling with OS's is a never ending story. Dam MicroSh*t.

No struggle now, I'm just playing around.  :greensml:
I have Windows 7 64 bit set up on my main computer and it is solid, and doesn't spy on me.   :icon_cool:

Quote from: zedd151 on May 06, 2018, 06:13:51 AM
It's a Dell Inspiron 11 3000 Netbook. retail for 139.99 USD.  Windows 10 Home sells for 119.99 USD at same store.  :biggrin:
From System Information:

Dell Inspiron 3180  --> I don't know why the literature included says Inspiron 11 3000
Windows 10 home, 64 bit
AMD A6-9220e R4 , 2cores, 2 logical processors
29.12 GB eMMC Hard Drive
4 GB Memory

That little netbook finally had its last day about a week ago. I dropped it, and broke not only the screen, but one of the hinges as well. It was open at the time and landed on concrete in exactly the wrong position.
But luckily I think a year ago (more or less) I bought two refurbished boxes (exact same model) from a third party seller on Amazon for $140 USD a piece plus taxes and shipping (included monitor, wired keyboard & wired mouse btw). The specs are in my signature and they both run fine with the SSD's I put into them a month after I got them. So ends the saga...

well its no secret what you run,because that is revealed in first line with cpuid when help testing something in this forum
one older laptop +padded bags is safer to walk on ice in winter or getting robbed of highend laptop,learned the lesson of dropping my old gaming laptop twice,new extra USB ports and duct tape on backside of screen
who was it who wrote laptop got destroyed by spilling soda on it?uses waterproof tablet when eating/drinking to avoid that

Damn! Just noticed this thread has over 33,000 views? Sorry to disappoint, there's no there's no multicore overclocked high speed, 32 GB fast memory, super duper nitrogen cooled gaming computer being bought or discussed here at any time soon.


I know what 'they' were looking to find here.  :toothy:

Quote from: zedd151 on August 26, 2022, 07:12:08 PM
Damn! Just noticed this thread has over 33,000 views?

Almost 35000 now.  :tongue:  34981 as of this post.
Just so the newest viewers know...
The last two computers I bought are about 12 years old, and nothing fancy schmancy either.  :badgrin:  See post #154 above.
A few issues with the monitors that came with them, the whole kit is refurbished. I can't complain though. They served me well for the money spent and are still kicking. I'll post the specs for anyone interested in a few minutes when I get back in front of the computer. I'm sitting on my back porch right now looking at some of my old threads.

edited later to add...

QuoteHP8000 series Ultra-Slim Desktop
Intel Core2 Duo 64 bit CPU @3.00 GHz
8 GB RAM

It doesn't seem to actually be running @ 3.00 GHz though. Seeme a little 'tired'.
I ordered two of the same computers. They both had all the neccesities included, wired mouse & keyboard, and 1280x1024 monitors.
For $130ish USD a piece plus tax and shipping.
The other computers I mentioned in this thread have all kicked the bucket in one way or another.

Chris Titus has a utility HERE (https://christitus.com/windows-tool/) to debloat win 10. It can clear some processes that are not required etc.

Quote from: Shintaro on October 06, 2022, 09:39:17 PM
Chris Titus has a utility HERE (https://christitus.com/windows-tool/) to debloat win 10. It can clear some processes that are not required etc.

'The Windows Club' also has a very similar tool which I had used. But no tool can remove the fact that Windows 10 is a POS OS. I have long since reverted back to Windows 7, and removed all of the problems that Windows 10 is.  :biggrin: 
Some people use and even like Windows 10/11. Well, good for them. I won't stop them or criticize then for using it. I wish them the best. They can have the 'Metro' interface and all of the Metro Apps. My computer runs programs. Apps are for dumb phones.  :tongue:  Oh, and tablets. Almost forgot.


zedd.

I'll be looking for a new (refurbished = cheaper) computer.
In the coming months, I'll be looking for a good refurbished laptop. (For portability) I will hopefully be able to get one that is faster than the POS desktop that I now own, specs in #157. At least an i7. Any suggestions of what I should look for? I specifically don't want a new one, btw. (Unless the price and specs are just right)  :smiley:  And from my past experiences, I don't want the limited thing that they call a 'netbook'. Too damn small! :biggrin:
I don't need a super-duper gaming type laptop, just one that is a bit better performance-wise than my current box.

you will need a somehow old pc or laptop before they firmware and preinstall that chatgpt garbage in your brand new computers...

i had three cpus which saw cyber shitteries since 2004. last one retired coz it literally got salted but i managed to salvage the 2 sata disk from that. bro, like visualize - you get hardware rooted all over the place and even that game that i played connived with that and all that shit. nvidia gpu gets firmware modded from disable to enable at the will of remoters...

bro, like 2004-2023-4ish.. 20 years of cyber &@$&@$)666..

anyway, you just need a fast old computer and virtual machine the latest os if you wanna dev @ current..

and to add : the cat and mouse paradigm of "the anonymous masses versus the targeted" won't work if the targeted uses the cat and mouse against the anonymous masses...

aka "how did it last for 20 years and still counting and even the stage is firmly poised to 4/13/2029 @ goa, india."?

Okay? I don't know what you are going on about. Anyway, I intend to use Windows 7 until... well, forever... or until I perish, whichever comes first.  :tongue:  And VM? Surely you jest (that defeats the purpose of having a faster box), not necessary. Thanks for your um... input though.  :undecided:

you can vm windows 10 under windows 7 and you don't need to benchmark the speed coz vm right? (ssd disk should at least make windows 10
faster).

just saying that you can play with the current EWDK attached to a windows 10 OS on a VM and that VM is running on top of windows 7.

thus dev (developing) @ current (latest official freeware m$ tools)

Quote from: alCoPaUL on May 26, 2024, 07:52:16 AMjust saying that you can play with the current EWDK attached to a windows 10 OS on a VM and that VM is running on top of windows 7.

Why would he want the "current EWDK"? BTW, had no idea what "EDWK" was until I looked it up.
It's a "a standalone, self-contained command-line environment for building drivers." Why in the world would he need that (unless he's developing drivers)?

EWDK has the latest build tools for amd64, x86, arm32, arm64 assembly language..

of course, updated .lib files..

no visual studio 20xx prerequisites..

and shizz..

also nothing to do...

or i think imma install tinyos arm64 aka thinned windows 11 arm64 and maybe i build a quine for that system..

"imma install tinyos arm64 aka thinned windows 11 arm64 and maybe i build a quine for that system.."
:joking: Go right ahead.  :biggrin:

bro,

http://board.flatassembler.net/topic.php?t=22824

rite?

i just need the proper qemu config...

or consider it auto-done coz you can copy pasta that and just mod 4 letters for the win..

Quote from: alCoPaUL on May 26, 2024, 10:49:54 AMbro,

:eusa_naughty:  Sorry, but as I exclusively use the Masm32/64 SDK's, I don't really care anything about fasm, tasm, what-ever-else-asm. Nor 'quines' of any type, for that matter.
Judging by the lack of replies in the thread you linked to in the flat assembler forum, not many folks there are interested in 'quines' either. (since at least 02 Jul 2023)

Make your own topic to discuss those, please. This topic is currently about my quest to purchase a refurbished laptop. Do you have any suggestions about that? As to manufacturer, CPU, specs to look for?

Manufacturer
  I have owned Toshiba, HP and had no problems.
  I have worked on Acer, Lenovo, Dell which seem crap. HP as well but because of the sheer number of models there will be duds.

CPU - Intel seem to be (a lot) faster

RAM - as much as you can get since most laptops only have two slots, some only one

Hard drive - SSD at least, forget about a normal HDD

Screen - 15.6 minimum but don't go for touch (fiddly and expensive) or 2K/4K (even a 17" display is tiny)

Keyboard - separate keypad is good, backlit can be tricky in low light

Overall - get a desktop, laptops are crap :biggrin:

Lol. Thanks sinsi for helping me get this thread back on track.
No, I am keeping my current 2x desktops and understand your comment about desktops vs. laptops. I just need a portable computing option. To wit, the recent power outage here. The power was out for 18 hours, iirc.
The laptop doesn't have to be top of the line, just a bit faster than my sluggish desktop, and reliable. I've got ample time to search for something suitable, it's no rush. Anyway, when I do find something suitable I will post the specs and price for further recommendations on whether it is a good deal or not, for the asking price.

Quote from: sinsi on May 26, 2024, 12:55:02 PMI have worked on Acer, Lenovo, Dell which seem crap.

I beg your pardon.
Typing this on a Dell that has given nothing but good service.
Which model is it? Lessee ...
Hmm, have to wait until I reboot. I can tell you it's a x64 system, though.

---

OptiPlex 960, Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU  E8400 @ 3.00GHz, 2992 MHz, 2 Cores, 2 Logical Processors
5.00 GB physical memory

OK, probably too outdated for you (sinsi) but maybe just what sudoko wants.
I got it used for less than $100.
It has given me zero problems.

I should have qualified it with "in my experience ".
I also should have sprinkled it with YMMVs but that is the second-most annoying acronym on the internet

Quote from: sudoku on May 26, 2024, 12:58:48 PMLol. Thanks sinsi for helping me get this thread back on track.
No, I am keeping my current 2x desktops and understand your comment about desktops vs. laptops. I just need a portable computing option. To wit, the recent power outage here. The power was out for 18 hours, iirc.
The laptop doesn't have to be top of the line, just a bit faster than my sluggish desktop, and reliable. I've got ample time to search for something suitable, it's no rush. Anyway, when I do find something suitable I will post the specs and price for further recommendations on whether it is a good deal or not, for the asking price.

Faster than a dual core? Almost anything (except Celeron) will achieve this.  :greensml:

Quote from: sudoku on May 26, 2024, 11:33:14 AM

Quote from: alCoPaUL on May 26, 2024, 10:49:54 AMbro,

:eusa_naughty:  Sorry, but as I exclusively use the Masm32/64 SDK's, I don't really care anything about fasm, tasm, what-ever-else-asm. Nor 'quines' of any type, for that matter.
Judging by the lack of replies in the thread you linked to in the flat assembler forum, not many folks there are interested in 'quines' either. (since at least 02 Jul 2023)

Make your own topic to discuss those, please. This topic is currently about my quest to purchase a refurbished laptop. Do you have any suggestions about that? As to manufacturer, CPU, specs to look for?

how can this thread be derailed when you just bumped this and i saw this and gave you my thoughts coz youre sticking with windows 7 till you die as you've been telling..

told you that you can run windows 10 on a VM while that VM runs on windows 7.. why? coz you'll always be on the loop on things and not get out of touch..

and you reacted like youre gloating when i said imma develop an arm64 quine on tinyos aka windows 11 stripped down and i linked you a link, with sources and you suddenly became defensive, saying you don't care about anything but masm..

bro, you ok? coz i see in the forums that there are sections that aren't masm32 nor masm64.

and i am not forcing you to look at my shizzz coz you know, the phrase, "other persons"??

Quote from: NoCforMe on May 26, 2024, 02:08:06 PMIntel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU  E8400 @ 3.00GHz, 2992 MHz, 2 Cores, 2 Logical Processors
... but maybe just what sudoko wants.

:dazzled: NOooooo!!! Thats exactly the CPU that I am running away from.  :joking:

QuoteIntel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU    E8400  @ 3.00GHz

:biggrin:
In each and every test I participate in in the Laboratory, my tired old desktop CPU (same as yours, but an HP box, 8GB mem) always comes in LAST PLACE! Would be nice to not be in last place all the time.  :tongue:  I don't have to be first, but I don't wanna be last either.  :greensml:

Intel i5 laptops are in recycling phase and that CPU isn't bad.
Jochen have similar laptop, that i got, when i retired.
As usual, as it had bad battery, most of companies recycle them easily.

@TimoVJL: A battery that holds a charge is a definite must have, I need the portability. I live in Louisiana, U.S. and we have high winds often, and even hurricanes here resulting in power outages more often than in most areas.
I would think a refurbished laptop would come with a non-dead battery, at least I hope so. Would really suck otherwise.

I just bought a cheap better battery module from germany, so why you can't do that.
(https://i.postimg.cc/PNwZqSg6/Laptop.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/PNwZqSg6)

Quote from: TimoVJL on May 26, 2024, 10:52:38 PMI just bought a cheap better battery module from germany, so why you can't do that.

Do you mean for rebuilding the laptop battery with battery cells?
Or is it a replacement laptop battery? Or some sort of emergency power pack that plugs into the laptop? (I have something similar for my cellphone)

What shows in your picture is the laptop and power adapter (which also charges the laptop battery). And those are readily available just about everywhere here. (slight exaggeration)

So I am not sure what you mean by "battery module".

Quote from: sudoku on May 26, 2024, 07:39:44 PM

Quote from: NoCforMe on May 26, 2024, 02:08:06 PMIntel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU  E8400 @ 3.00GHz, 2992 MHz, 2 Cores, 2 Logical Processors
... but maybe just what sudoko wants.

:dazzled: NOooooo!!! Thats exactly the CPU that I am running away from.  :joking:

So what exactly is so wrong with this CPU? How is it too slow for you?
I haven't run any benchmarks here (I'm not one of the speed-obsessed around here), but I've never noticed any slowness in the operation of my computah.

Hi NoCforMe:
My computer actually runs fine for casual usage, but during those benchmark testing threads it is quite apparent that this CPU is very much low-end performance wise. Reseating the CPU heatsink with fresh paste and an internal cleaning (from dust) might help, as I do think this box runs hot under heavy load which might be a contributing factor. Better cooling may also help it some.

Update, I have started the cleaning of the second of those two computers. Once that is finished, I will use that one while cleaning up the other.

Well, you can actually monitor the temperature on these modren CPUs so you'd know for sure.
Not sure how that works, but it's possible.

Quote from: NoCforMe on May 27, 2024, 04:44:28 AMWell, you can actually monitor the temperature ...

Okay, good tip. I downloaded and am running SpeedFan (https://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php) I have used it in the past.
This is the result: Running some heavy number crunchers in this screenshot.
(https://i.postimg.cc/prF7FFyp/untitled.png)
I assume the 'flames' means it is indeed running hot.

Here, just browsing the forum:
(https://i.postimg.cc/MHm7N6F9/untitled2.png)

So for "normal" usage it runs cool enough. but if I push it too hard, it gets really hot really fast.

I like HWINFO (https://www.hwinfo.com/) and Core Temp (https://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/) to check temps.

Hmm; if you had upwards of a billion transistors on your die, you might get a mite hot too ...

BTW, I always smile when I realize that all that circuitry down there is analog, not "digital". You know, "on" and "off" voltage thresholds and all. Digital electronics is kind of an illusion ...

(In theory, anyway, purely digital switches would generate very little heat, as they'd be switching at either zero current or zero voltage. But this doesn't exist in the real world. There's this nasty thing called "resistance".)

Could be much worse. Imagine now, those billion transistors on however many TTL chips necessary, or better still discrete transistors. Oh wait, vacuum tubes...
There's heat, then there's HEAT.  :biggrin:
You could fry up some eggs with those temperatures, hopefully not on my CPU.

Well, there's this, a discrete 6502 (https://monster6502.com/) ...

---

Which reminds me, I actually once made a discrete replica of a 555 that worked. No pics of the thing, but here's the wiring layout.
(https://i.postimg.cc/RqPD5fBf/Discrete-555-comp-side.gif) (https://postimg.cc/RqPD5fBf)

 :biggrin:
Did your home brew 555 work just like the IC?

Yep, could flash blinky LEDs just like the chip. Actually could handle more current than those itty-bitty transistors.

Quote from: NoCforMe on May 29, 2024, 04:34:12 PMWell, there's this, a discrete 6502 (https://monster6502.com/) ...

---

Which reminds me, I actually once made a discrete replica of a 555 that worked. No pics of the thing, but here's the wiring layout.
(https://i.postimg.cc/RqPD5fBf/Discrete-555-comp-side.gif) (https://postimg.cc/RqPD5fBf)

Cool CPU,wonder if they started with a 6501 and corrected that problem so it became 6502
65816 16 bit cpu in super Nintendo has bank switching ,similar to x86 16 bit dos segmented memory,but not exactly the same
Only running at 3.5ghz,Sega genesis 8mhz 68 k Motorola CPU had modern 32 bit addressing ,so it could run faster games

Quote from: daydreamer on May 31, 2024, 04:06:58 AMCool CPU,wonder if they started with a 6501 and corrected that problem so it became 6502

Now why in the world would they do that? Sheesh ...

Quote from: NoCforMe on May 31, 2024, 08:49:22 AM

Quote from: daydreamer on May 31, 2024, 04:06:58 AMCool CPU,wonder if they started with a 6501 and corrected that problem so it became 6502

Now why in the world would they do that? Sheesh ...

I mean unintentionally have same problem they had when they gave away 6501 = problems with one rotate right opcode doesn't work,before they fixed it,after they fixed it CPU got number 6502

Yes, but their (6502) project was started in the mid-2010s, not the 1980s.

Quote from: sudoku on May 27, 2024, 04:02:04 AMUpdate, I have started the cleaning of the second of those two computers. Once that is finished, I will use that one while cleaning up the other.

I finished cleaning up the one of the boxes.
Disassembled the heatsink from the cpu, cleaned off the original paste and put new thermal paste on.
Got a fair amount of dust and other debris out of the power supply and cabinet and cleaned all the fans in the box.
Put everything back together, but it still runs pretty much as it had originally.. (Sluggish performance, very hot under considerable CPU load).
I will still clean up the second box another time. Considering its age, it still performs well enough to use on a daily basis. But still not considered high performance.

:azn:  :biggrin:  :azn: 
 :thumbsup:  to StrykerX

I may not be buying a laptop after all. My sister gave me her old (not real old) laptop. I will be reformatting the HD after converting it to MBR (GPT, yuck), install  windows 7 on it(originally came with win 10 from factory) and will be testing it and checking the specs etc. later today. :azn: I don't expect spectacular performance out of it, my sister is very frugal - but it will give me portable computing options, at least.  :biggrin:

I looked up the specs...
my new (used) laptop specs (https://www.ntelectronic.com/products/laptop-toshiba-satellite-c75d-b7240-17-3-amd-a8-6410-2-0ghz-8gb-750gb-win10)
AMD A8-6410 Quad-Core 2.000 GHZ, 8 GB ram, 750 GB Mechanical HD...
Good sized screen too, 17.3"

The HD is 750 GB but Windows explorer only shows 698 GB... but bigger than the drives i currently have.
I plan on putting a 240 or 320 GB drive in the laptop, and keeping the larger drive for backups and other external storage.

We've got storms going through our area again, power going in and out. Will have to wait to play with the laptop. I'd hate to be in the middle of setting it up and have the power go out. The battery apparently doesn't hold a charge.
It's a recent enough laptop that replacement batteries may still be available.

Edit: Made a mistake, definitely not an SSD...whoops another negative.

I seen solution with car charger ,charging from a spare car battery below in a computer board on wheels ,so it can be moved around

Quote from: daydreamer on June 06, 2024, 06:00:53 AMfrom a spare car battery below in a computer board on wheels ,so it can be moved around

Not exactly portable then.  :greensml: If I can't physically carry it about (for any great distance), it won't work.  :greensml:

Windows 7 drivers are now being installed on the laptop. The Windows 7 install went okay, without any trouble. I had to download wireless driver before anything else. Windows 7 didn't recognise the wireless card.  :greensml:

Using a third party tool (DriverMax Pro) to install the drivers btw, a lot easier than installing them manually one by one, especially when you need more than a couple drivers. But it still takes a while...

Not going very well regarding the win 7 drivers.  :undecided:
I might just have to put windows 10 back on this thing.  :sad:
Anyway, I am going to do a clean reinstall of win 7 first, and only install what is needed (drivers that is) for the laptop to run acceptably.

The problem with reinstalling windows 10 back on it, is that I DID NOT BACK UP THE DRIVERS that were otherwise working for win 10!( :eusa_naughty:  :eusa_naughty:  :eusa_naughty:  ) before I wiped the hard drive. I really thought that they wouldn't be needed anymore.

Well, realistically this laptop was on its way out anyway. My sister had replaced the monitor herself (if that's what it's called on a laptop) and broke some things in the process, including the mountings for both hinges, and overtorquing some screws to the point there is nothing for them to grab onto.  The DVD burner no longer works, as well as one of the only 2 USB jacks - so therefor after using my USB mouse, no way to connect anything else.  :undecided:

I'll still try to get it up and running so I have a computer I can use on the back porch. If I have to reinstall Windows 10, so be it. I just hope it won't be a major hassle to get the correct drivers for it. I already had some issues with the Windows 7 drivers... supposedly were for this model, but now I am seriously doubting that, as a few of them installed but Device manager shows that they are not being used. So much for that driver software mentioned above. (It has done well for me in the past though)

A brand new laptop may yet still be on the horizon for me. If anything else, I got a 750 GB HDD, 2 4 GB sticks of ram, out of this one. Possibly even the wireless card. Well, my sister can't complain - she DID say she doesn't need it anymore. But I know that she will still complain that "I broke it!". Which of course is mostly true, neverminding what she herself had broken.

Quote from: sudoku on June 06, 2024, 05:19:38 AMI looked up the specs...
my new (used) laptop specs (https://www.ntelectronic.com/products/laptop-toshiba-satellite-c75d-b7240-17-3-amd-a8-6410-2-0ghz-8gb-750gb-win10)
AMD A8-6410 Quad-Core 2.000 GHZ, 8 GB ram, 750 GB Mechanical HD...
Good sized screen too, 17.3"

The HD is 750 GB but Windows explorer only shows 698 GB... but bigger than the drives i currently have.
I plan on putting a 240 or 320 GB drive in the laptop, and keeping the larger drive for backups and other external storage.

We've got storms going through our area again, power going in and out. Will have to wait to play with the laptop. I'd hate to be in the middle of setting it up and have the power go out. The battery apparently doesn't hold a charge.
It's a recent enough laptop that replacement batteries may still be available.

Edit: Made a mistake, definitely not an SSD...whoops another negative.

The loss is normal in terms of HDD/SSD. My 2TB drive reports 1.81TB space.

Quote from: StrykerX on June 06, 2024, 01:45:47 PMThe loss is normal in terms of HDD/SSD. My 2TB drive reports 1.81TB space.

I think its more a marketing gimmick than anything else...

But anyways, I reinstalled 7 and am just using the 'stock' windows 7 drivers, for all but the wireless card. That one they did'nt have a compatible driver for. Everything else works okay.

The display is brighter, and less contrast than I would like though.
Also, no apparent way to disable the touchpad. Not in the bios, or disabling it by driver settings. I found a few tips while googling... I'll check those out shortly.

Quote from: sudoku on June 06, 2024, 04:18:47 AMI will be reformatting the HD after converting it to MBR (GPT, yuck)

Really, "yuck"?
Maybe you should reconsider this. (https://www.howtogeek.com/193669/whats-the-difference-between-gpt-and-mbr-when-partitioning-a-drive/)

I found out how to disable the touchpad!  :biggrin: Seems there are many different ways to do that, depending on the specific make and model. (one size does not fit all)
Posting from my back porch on the laptop. Now I don't have to run inside when I need to switch from my ipad to my computer, for downloads, to post code, etc.

Reintalling "missing" drivers one-by-one. S far everything is going well this time. There were a couple of drivers that were unsigned, I believe was causing the issues the first time around. I have disabled that (checking if drivers are signed). You would think that 'DriverMax' would have taken care of that issue.

Sill missing 4 drivers. I believe those are Toshiba specific for the extra button functionality, etc. Also, NVidia drivers were not installed - it just updated the standard VGA drivers. Will investigate further at another time.

So far the laptop is working okay, even with the 'missing' drivers. It boots faster than my desktop, in spite of otherwise mediocre performance.

So how much speed do you need, really? I mean if all you're doing is editing and compiling programs, not calculating pi to 180 billion places, what does it matter?

I have to laugh at some of the speed-obsessiveness on display around here ...

I can write code and test run on 15 MHz cpu on my TI calculator
It's more kinda computers equivalent of dragster competition fun,but with only few MHz cpu,without hardware accelerated graphics it was necessary speed up
But if you work with 8bit cpu embedded it's good to know how to optimize it
But low size asm code keeps this site bandwidth tiny

The real problem is when you install new PC game with lots of GB or latest tb Microsoft flight Simulator on old PC

I have decided to keep the laptop in storage for now. It would take x amount of time to both move it onto the porch and set it up, mouse, power cord (battery won't hold a charge), etc.  Too much of a hassle for the short duration that I would use it out there. It's way too hot on the porch, to stay there with a hot laptop chugging away for any length of time. (Louisiana weather) And with the dust in the wind here, I cannot leave it out there for very long either.

So I'll just have to tap away on my iPad while I am out there for now.  :smiley:

If it gets really hot,you might use it for barbecue steaks,instead your thighs:),I had gaming laptop that got very hot
I agree its a good choice use iPad instead as long its battery works , I have 3 android tablets
Good to also use one as alarm clock beside bed,saving phones battery some,because most electricity when display is turned on

Quote from: daydreamer on June 11, 2024, 02:32:33 AMIf it gets really hot,you might use it for barbecue steaks,instead your thighs:

:joking: no, I kept it on a table. It didn't get severely hot, but would have been uncomfortable nonetheless otherwise.

After my Smaller Toshiba laptop failed last year I began using an older HP that I 'rescued' from work, which whilst suitably well specc'd, got truly uncomfortably Hot !! It could turn your legs INTO cooked steaks ...  :joking:

Virtually impossible to use during a hot summer but quite manageable now after purchasing a super cheap laptop stand/fan device from K-Mart. Far Cheaper than all the Serious brands and works an absolute 'treat', ... best $14.00 I ever spent !!  :smiley:  :cool:

Quote from: stoo23 on June 11, 2024, 10:09:12 AMIt could turn your legs INTO cooked steaks ...  :joking:

:rofl:

Stewart  :rofl:
I has first generation gaming laptop so mobile gpu got hot

QuoteI has first generation gaming laptop so mobile gpu got hot

I can Imagine  :dazzled:

Quote from: daydreamer on June 13, 2024, 12:19:55 AMI has first generation gaming laptop so mobile gpu got hot

Probably could double as a convenient (but messy) way to fry eggs or another food of choice.  :biggrin:

I wonder if my heater breaks down,was 7 pcs( I had before) mostly stationary with ca ghz cpu and highend gpu, router and switch enough to keep a living room heated if everyone is gaming on each computer using 3d game which need full effect on gpu and cpu?

Or tuck my gaming laptop inside my jacket keeps myself warm?

Quote from: zedd151 on June 06, 2024, 04:18:47 AMI may not be buying a laptop after all. My sister gave me her old (not real old) laptop. I will be reformatting the HD after converting it to MBR (GPT, yuck), install  windows 7 on it(originally came with win 10 from factory) and will be testing it and checking the specs etc. later today. :azn: I don't expect spectacular performance out of it, my sister is very frugal - but it will give me portable computing options, at least.  :biggrin:

Scratch all of that nonsense!
My sisters well-used and abused laptop ultimately was a POS. Not only because of the broken hinge, but it runs physically hot, sluggish overall performance, etc.
I have not even used it since the time I had posted the above. Destined for the scrap heap. Minus it's HD and memory, and maybe the WIFI card.

I have ordered a brand new laptop from amazon a few minutes ago. It's not a well known brand (100% Chinesium), but at least it has 16 GB memory, decent sized screen, and most importantly a working (brand new) battery. I need that for portability.  :smiley:

I will post full details once it arrives.  :biggrin: Supposedly it should arrive tomorrow, by 7:00PM my time - but I really don't expect it to be here that fast. But we'll see.
The price was right, for a new laptop. Just under 300 USD.
Details will follow.

Well, if it's 100% Chinesium, I wonder how good the battery is. I have an old Macbook hand-me-down that only gets used to watch movies on. I bought a replacement battery on Amazon. It works, but just barely. I keep it plugged in to the power supply when I watch my movies on my pirate sites.

Quote from: NoCforMe on November 11, 2024, 10:33:03 AMWell, if it's 100% Chinesium, I wonder how good the battery is.

I'll have to wait to see how it actually performs during actual usage. Just a toy to use out on the back porch, not really for any thing highly taxing. It should be fine mehopes.

* It looks like it already shipped, it might just arrive here tomorrow after all.  :biggrin:

Just curious: did you happen to buy it from Ali Express? I made my first purchase with them a couple weeks ago; got an $8 pair of wire strippers for $0.99. It was supposed to arrive on the 12th of this month: I got it last week.

No, amazon.

I have used Ali express though in the past. Trouble is, things usually literally take the slow boat from China to get here.  :biggrin:

How is the quality of those strippers? Okay at least?

Quote from: zedd151 on November 11, 2024, 12:52:56 PMNo, amazon.

I have used Ali express though in the past. Trouble is, things usually literally take the slow boat from China to get here.  :biggrin:

How is the quality of those strippers? Okay at least?

Definitely worth a buck! If they didn't work I was just going to shitcan them. But they actually strip 30 AWG wire (really thin) quite nicely, which is what I bought them for.

No slow boat here; did you notice how fast I said they were delivered? Surprising, seeing as they came all the way from China.

Quote from: NoCforMe on November 11, 2024, 01:22:48 PMNo slow boat here; did you notice how fast I said they were delivered? Surprising, seeing as they came all the way from China.

They might have a distribution center here in the US, or other closer country. Maybe? Or shipped by China Air (along with thousands of other orders of course, not specially for one order)? You might be able to gleen more info via the shipping label, if you still have it.

Well, part of my order already arrived. But not the laptop yet. Just a new mouse. Been using a corded mouse after the old mouse bit the dust.

I had told my sister that I bought a new laptop; she started complaining about me wasting my money, after she had given me her old laptop. She just doesn't understand just how terrible that broken thing was.  :tongue:  The joys of living with family.  :biggrin:

I had been eyeing a couple of refurbished i5's and i7's that I did not even mention after her reaction to my laptop purchase. I am leaning towards the i7, btw. I had known for some time, that I wanted a different computer than I already have. It works, but otherwise rather sluggish in performance.
I had seen a couple of refurbished i9's but those are out of my price range, even the refurbished ones. You'd think they were made of gold.

Nice zedd,if the new computer shows its non sluggish and very fast,hope that doesnt mean you lose interest in asm?:(
Magnus

Quote from: daydreamer on November 12, 2024, 04:12:50 AMNice zedd,if the new computer shows its non sluggish and very fast,hope that doesnt mean you lose interest in asm?:(
Magnus

What? I'm always working on something in assembly, although I don't always post everything I am working on.  :cool:

Laptop finally arrived. A few things I am not happy about it.
While I knew it came with Windows 11  :dazzled: on it...

I hate right clicking a file just to open another menu to rename or delete a file.

What the hell is up with a start menu button in the friggin' middle of the task bar??? Years of muscle memory have been trained to go to the left side of the task bar.
Oh yeah, upon setup, it would not let me continue the setup without entering Microsoft account info, no "skip for now", or "I'll do it Later" or similar option.  :sad:

It is highly doubtful that I can find drivers for Window 7 for this "thing" unfortunately. I could probably learn to either work with this, or better, Windows 10. At least I am quite familiar with all of the unpleasantries of Windows 10. The other unpleasantness that Windows 11 introduces is hardly welcome.

The laptop itself seems to work okay, apart from the awful experience known as Windows 11.  :tongue:

My next box will most definitely be somewhat older hardware (well not too old), that I can run Windows 7 on and that drivers are obtainable for.

This laptop is mostly for my use on the back porch, since my ancient iPad is less and less useful for anything other than trolling browsing the forum here with. I would like to also write some code while out here, too. And be able to test it.  :biggrin:

Anyway, like it or not (meaning myself), I finally have a new laptop.  :rolleyes:
Later this evening I am going to put Windows 7 on it (on another partition, keeping 11) to see if 7 runs on it without any troubles, If so, I will ditch Windows 11 altogether.  :biggrin:

Right now, the laptop is um still downloading and installing a gaziggabytes of updates....

Old menues

Quotereg add "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\CLASSES\CLSID\{86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}\InprocServer32" /ve /f

Taskbar: Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > Taskbar behaviours . Taskbar alignment

I'm rooting for Windows 7 working on that thing.
Let us know.

I bought a piece of shit!!! It supposedly finished all the updates and rebooted. I came back into the house and the windows 11 login screen was up. Under My name it says "Sign In". I click that, then a dark grey Dialog Box opens with nothing in it, The Title says "Microsoft (plus something or another , Id forgotten it already) Then the dialog disappears (without logging me in) and it leaves me at log in screen. I cannot get into windows on this thing. There is no CD/DVD drive, it does not apparently accept a USB bootable device either.
I searched online and found info for this model to do a "Reset" which is supposed to either do a fresh install from the cloud, or a soft reset by only removing the user account and files.
...
The way to do that is to press the shift key and then click "restart" you are supposed to be presented with the options and then, The reset process should then commence as soon as you set which option you want.

So, I tries that, but guess what? Windows throws me a BSOD. It reboots back to the login screen just fine though... but absolutely nothing else - kind of like in a loop. Login screen --> dialog box --> login screen, etc., etc.

So now I am out that *almost* $300, unless I can get a refund through amazon. The trouble with that is that there is a hefty fee to send it back to China from what my sister had told me. She had wanted to return something else a while back, when she learned of the hefty shipping fee (to china). Would almost make it not worth it to even bother, if it's more than 30% what I paid for it.

Anyway, I am no idiot when it comes to computers+Installing operating systems. But every single thing I have tried, to boot into a recovery environment with, has failed.  :sad: 

I have just spent the better part of 4 hours screwing with this damn thing. I'm done with it.
I'll just take and use my sisters broken hand-me-down, and cherish it. The onl;y good thing out of all of this is that I had just learnt a lesson that I really should have known - if it seems to good to be true... it usually is.  :undecided:

I will try to get a hold of amazon tomorrow - before I take a hammer to this darned thing.

I have a couple other things I want to try first... but the hammer does sound like a good idea at the moment, so I'll play with it a little bit more in the morning after I get some sleep. Maybe I'll have a profound thought by then, and maybe a solution.
It would be real easy if it had a real internal hard drive, but I really think it is one of those soldered in types (I might take the screwdriver to it to find out). It does have the capacity for a sata SSD, but it won't boot from that either - I have tried that. I am thinking that anything it boots from must use UEFI. I didn't see any "legacy" settings while I was poking around in the BIOS, only UEFI related junk. That's all for now.

My condolences, brother.
Maybe, just maybe some clever maneuver will let you get in there, who knows?

Quote from: zedd151 on November 12, 2024, 03:47:45 PMI didn't see any "legacy" settings while I was poking around in the BIOS, only UEFI related junk.

Look for something called CSM, that's the new acronym for legacy.
Secure Boot is another one to disable.

Quote from: sinsi on November 12, 2024, 05:55:10 PMLook for something called CSM, that's the new acronym for legacy.

If thats there, I didn't see it anywhere.  :sad:

Quote from: sinsi on November 12, 2024, 05:55:10 PMSecure Boot is another one to disable.

That one, I did try. From advice on another site.

Btw, The BSOD Error code: DRIVER VERIFIER DMA VIOLATION.

That BSOD btw, only occurs when trying to reset the laptop.

A quick search for that error gives some solutions. But all require to be done from within windows.  :undecided:

Damn, that's Sad and obviously bloody annoying to hear  :sad:

You perhaps don't want to hear about things like this (after the fact) but a friend recently purchased a Re-Furbished ex corporate HP Laptop (admittedly only an i5), but it came with a 1 Terabyte SSD and 8 gig ram (since updated to 16 gig, for somewhere between $300 to $400, and honestly looks like it has never been used !!

Came with Win 10 Pro installed I believe,.. although I might be wrong.

Is there anything On Line about any similar issues with other perhaps non Chinese laptops and Win 11 ???
Thinking of all the time I'd venture we have ALL spent 'messing' with various MS OS versions, that almost sounds like an OS issue,.... might be wrong ofcourse  :rolleyes:

Quote from: stoo23 on November 12, 2024, 08:04:56 PMthat almost sounds like an OS issue,.... might be wrong ofcourse  :rolleyes:

Well, the login fails yes. Well, maybe. This is not a well known name brand. Very questionable, really.  "OTVOC" is the brand name. lol, hence the very reasonable price.

But the reset issue is all hardware issues, and no fault of Microsoft. And I have tried everyway til tuesday to try to get this thing to boot anything. CD/DVD bootable media, USB SSD, USB Flash drive. Nothing, nada, zilch.

Its not the end of the world for me, thogh. I still have two identical desktop boxes, and my sisters hand-me-down brokish laptop. It works but has physical damage to one of the hinges. (Have to handle it very gently to avoid severing/damaging the screen wiring, and WIFI antenna)  Makes it less portable that way, besides having a battery that dont hold a charge.

I just wanted to buy myself something new, with my own money. So much for a 'bargain'.

Quote from: stoo23 on November 12, 2024, 08:04:56 PMDamn, that's Sad and obviously bloody annoying to hear  :sad:

You perhaps don't want to hear about things like this (after the fact) but a friend recently purchased a Re-Furbished ex corporate HP Laptop (admittedly only an i5), but it came with a 1 Terabyte SSD and 8 gig ram (since updated to 16 gig, for somewhere between $300 to $400, and honestly looks like it has never been used !!

sweet. Funny thing you mentioned it was an i5. I was also looking at some refurbished boxes, i5's and i7's specifically. There are some nice deals to be had. I wish I had gotten one of those instead, but I did also want a relatively inexpensive laptop for portability, to use on the back porch. I hadn't treated myself to anything new in a few years.

QuoteIs there anything On Line about any similar issues with other perhaps non Chinese laptops and Win 11 ???

Its all Chinese, or at least made or assembled in china anymore. That was actually part of my rationale for buying this cheapo laptop. I figured it is probably built/assembled in a factory that also does the high dollar name brands.

Quote from: zedd151 on November 12, 2024, 07:55:46 PMBut all require to be done from within windows

Safe mode?

Is that the laptop with the N5100 CPU? That's an Intel Celeron running at 1.1GHz  :dazzled:

Quote from: sinsi on November 12, 2024, 10:23:13 PMIs that the laptop with the N5100 CPU? That's an Intel Celeron running at 1.1GHz  :dazzled:

N5105.

Quote from: sinsi on November 12, 2024, 09:28:40 PM

Quote from: zedd151 on November 12, 2024, 07:55:46 PMBut all require to be done from within windows

Safe mode?

That was one of the first things I had tried, I cannot even get the boot options to come up to do that.

My sister wanted to help me 'fix' it.  :biggrin:
She gets into the BIOS... she runs through the house, "Larry, Larry, come and see what I found!"  :joking:

I just let her tinker around in there. No harm in that, she can't break what's already broken.  :biggrin:

With some blind luck, she might get it to do something that would help to either boot something, or somehow get into safe mode, preferably the command prompt.  :tongue:  I have tried all logical (illogical, too) ways to try to do both. Me, I am 100% finished with it. I'll take my losses.

Signed, Captain of a Boat Anchor.  :biggrin:

The "I'll be buying a new computer" saga continues...

Well, golly! Color me stupid. My sister suggested gaetting a hold of a copy of Windows 11 directly from Microsoft... She downloaded the ISO file.. and copied the ISO file to an external hard drive. Not the proper way to install from it, mind you. I let her proceed. Of course it kept booting into the already installed version of Windows 11. She kept trying. No luck.

So I told her that the ISO file needs to be extracted, and the drive marked as a boot drive. She let me handle it from there.  :biggrin:

So, I formatted the drive after copying the ISO to another drive. I extracted the ISO file, and made the external drive bootable and checked that the BCD store was configured properly. After checking that all was in order, I set the drive as bootable and active.

After plugging in the external drive, somehow she had gotten to the BIOS boot menu.  :tongue:  I told her which entry to click on... voila! Windows 11 fresh install in progress.... ... ... ...  :skrewy:

Will finish the installation, and see what happens.... .... .... I might have to undo anything that was changed in the BIOS. But so far, no issues.

Tadaa! Success at last.
Finally able to log on my brand new laptop.  :smiley:  through trial and error and a smidgeon of dumb luck..

So, I have to assume that something was a bit 'off' with the installation of Windows 11 that came with the laptop, or somehow corrupted update files?  :rolleyes:  At any rate, all is well in zedd-land.   :biggrin:

Any idea what settings or execution paths resulted in your success? That might be good stuff for people to know.

Unfortunately all is not well, just yet.
I had no audio drivers. So, looking in Windows update, there was a driver listed that looked like it could be the audio driver. I let it update and install. Now a different BSOD, but not immediately. Only appears after several minutes. But always appears. Tried rolling back with system restore. No joy.
Now I am once again attempting a fresh install...

This time though, I repartitioned the hard drive by splitting the Windows 11 partition in half. I am using half for a new Windows 11 install, which I will not update anything manually this time. Even if it means no audio for now.

On the second partition, I plan on trying Windows 7 first. If no joy, then Windows 10. I really have no hopes that Windows 11 will work as it should.  :sad:

But... at least I can get partially there.

okay, this is round 3!  :dazzled:

disabled Secure Boot, or safeboot, whatever its called, in the BIOS.
when the install is asking for 'country' press shift+F10 to get command prompt.
type in 'oobe\bypassnro' in the command prompt, and pess enter. the computer will reboot and continue installation from where it left off at.
these are suggestions from various sites, btw.

this above, disables needing microsoft account during installation, and enables continuing setup without internet connection. i did not have those options previously.

So far so good.
i aint touching anything else, if it aint necessary.  :tongue:

later today, or maybe tomorrow, i will try windows 7 on the spare partition. if that is a no go, will try windows 10 there. those for just in case the next update fubars windows 11. if neither windows 10 or 7 dont work, probably linux.   :tongue:

Keep plugging away. Don't give up until you've seen the whites of their ... logon dialog.

After an hour on this thing, no apparent issues, aside from some missing drivers that is.
No more login dialogs, when I start the laptop, it automatically logs me in now, no Microsoft login, no password or PIN number needed, unlike the way it was before. Yippee.

Later I will use a 3rd party tool to locate the drivers that are missing... hopefully that won't fubar the laptop again. I'll back it up first, to be safe.

Quote from: zedd151 on November 13, 2024, 07:15:05 AMokay, this is round 3!  :dazzled:

disabled Secure Boot, or safeboot, whatever its called, in the BIOS.
when the install is asking for 'country' press shift+F10 to get command prompt.
type in 'oobe\bypassnro' in the command prompt, and pess enter. the computer will reboot and continue installation from where it left off at.
these are suggestions from various sites, btw.

this above, disables needing microsoft account during installation, and enables continuing setup without internet connection. i did not have those options previously.

So far so good.
i aint touching anything else, if it aint necessary.  :tongue:

later today, or maybe tomorrow, i will try windows 7 on the spare partition. if that is a no go, will try windows 10 there. those for just in case the next update fubars windows 11. if neither windows 10 or 7 dont work, probably linux.  :tongue:

Linux is nice, macOS is nice, even BSD *nix'es are nice. But theres nothing like a MASM with bare metal Windows on a PC.

Quote from: C3 on November 13, 2024, 08:36:45 AMLinux is nice, macOS is nice, even BSD *nix'es are nice. But theres nothing like a MASM with bare metal Windows on a PC.

I love the smell of an overheated CPU in the morning ...

Quote from: NoCforMe on November 13, 2024, 09:03:26 AMI love the smell of an overheated CPU in the morning ...

... it smells like success.

Or something like that.  :tongue: you gotta say the whole line.
I don't rate the current status of this laptop as a success, though.

I am attempting a backup of the laptop, in its current state. Seems like "Antimalware Service Executable" is working overtime inspecting what that program is doing. After a couple hours, at this pace, the backup should be done.

I am not going to install anything else on here, until I know for sure it will run and stability will persist through the next round of updates. I have only installed opera browser for now. Any programming related stuff will have to wait. I would hate to be in the middle of a coding session, and get the dreaded BSOD before I can save the file being worked on.
One of the last BSOD's had occurred when I was making a posting here about the progress during the troubleshooting stage, just before that last installation attempt. Was a rather lengthy post, and I don't remember half of it.

Quote from: zedd151 on November 13, 2024, 09:08:59 AMOne of the last BSOD's had occurred when I was making a posting here about the progress during the troubleshooting stage, just before that last installation attempt. Was a rather lengthy post, and I don't remember half of it.

I hate when that happens. Like trying to remember a dream after waking up ...

Hi. After letting Windows 11 run all of its updates, everything is still fine. There are however still 9 outstanding drivers, including audio. I have decided to disable all of those in Device Manager, since not even a couple 3rd party tools could also not find the missing drivers. The fact that this computer is brand new, means that the driver tools do not yet have these missing drivers in their database, it would seem.

The computer is running fine, no apparent issues because of the missing drivers. I did install a few pieces of software, like 7zip, opera browser, the two driver tools (driver genius and driver max), will be putting the masm32 and 64 SDKs in later, plus some other necessities. All in all, seems to be going smoothly after all that had occurred.  :smiley:

For audio, I have a Bluetooth speaker, that has its own internals for the digital to audio conversion (it doesn't need Windows drivers), and so far it works well.  :biggrin:  As a plus, it's cordless. (Unless being charged via USB)
So, you won't be hearing any more whining from me in the near future about this laptop.  :skrewy:

Quote from: NoCforMe on November 13, 2024, 05:28:15 PM

Quote from: zedd151 on November 13, 2024, 09:08:59 AMOne of the last BSOD's had occurred when I was making a posting here about the progress during the troubleshooting stage, just before that last installation attempt. Was a rather lengthy post, and I don't remember half of it.

I hate when that happens. Like trying to remember a dream after waking up ...

if it was my kinda worst nightmare falling from high heights,id be happy forget such dreams :)
Awake hours with fear of heights are enough for me :(

Laptop + Windows 7 experiment: installing on the 2nd partition...

Nocforme: Windows 7 had installed okay, and started up ok-ish.
The trouble is not about any crash or BSOD, but it looks like Windows 7 is trying to load albeit at a snails pace. It is right now on the "Starting Windows" screen, with the Windows 7 pulsating flag. I am going to leave it like that, to see if it actually continues loading. So far 10 minutes in, and still at that screen....  :biggrin:  I'll give it another 5 minutes.

I don't want to tinker with the BIOS, even though I might get Windows 7 to run by making some adjustments. I don't want to beak anything that would prevent Windows 11 from running.  :smiley:

Windows XP probably wouldn't even stand a chance on this hardware.  :tongue:

Next up: I will go for Windows 10. According to the Mfr., this laptop can also run Windows 10. I see no major issues (other than possibly drivers).

A little while later...
Windows 7: Definitely a no-go. I gave it another 20ish minutes while I was out walking the dogs... still in the same state.  :biggrin:  Plopping in Windows 10 as I write this.  :cool:

Update!

I now have Windows 10 installed, including ALL drivers!  :cool:

I think that the laptop was initially designed specifically for Windows 10. The driver package download from the Mfr., was nearly 1 GB, compared to the driver package for Windows 11, only a couple hundred MB.

I will run some tests later to see if the drivers for Windows 10 will work on Windows 11. I think either they will, or may need tweaking to work. (Which is what the Mfr. might have done, and why drivers cannot be found(???)).

Either way though, I will most likely banish Windows 11 forever.  :biggrin:
At least I know some of Windows 10's quirks and anomalies.  Windows 11 seems to have its security on overdrive. Even a simple program was blocked from running on 11.  :eusa_naughty:  I flatly refuse to have to battle with 11, to get it to behave.

Everything on Windows 10 is working without any issues.   :smiley:

So what have we learned here?

1. That the ordinary person who buys this same computah from Amazon is going to end up having smoke coming out of their ears and returning the goddamn thing posthaste. Who (besides us nerds) has the time to deal with this kind of bullshit? It's a wonder that company stays in business.

I wonder how many other systems are like this one. Brrrrrr; so glad I'm not in the market for a new computer.

2. That zedd has an enormous amount of perseverance and get-'er-done-ness to see this project through.

You may have better luck getting drivers from the OEM.
If you go to Device Manager you can get the PCI vendor and device then look them up at The PCI ID Repository (https://pci-ids.ucw.cz/)

Quote from: sinsi on November 14, 2024, 01:33:28 PMYou may have better luck getting drivers from the OEM.

Thats what I eventually did, once I found out exactly where to go. The set of drivers for Windows 11 was very much incomplete!, even from the OEM. The set of drivers for Windows 10 was Complete.  :thumbsup:

Quote from: NoCforMe on November 14, 2024, 12:59:05 PMThat zedd has an enormous amount of perseverance and get-'er-done-ness to see this project through.

50% knowledge and experience, 50% dumb luck (at least for the 'win 11 fiasco' part of this ordeal.  :tongue:

Slowly but Shirley, I am getting Winows 10 under control. I have a 'base' installation backed up without anything other than an installation of opera and 7zip, and of course all drivers.

Little by little, I will be adding all of my necessities to the installation. Windows defender was false-flagging a lot of my own code as well as qeditor, and the Masm64 SDK and a few other items that I knew contained no malware. Adding folders to the exceptions list helps a great deal. But when downloading new files, or opening them for the first time, I antipate some scrutiny from windows defender. Windows Defender assumes the unchangeable highest priority (CPU and memory usage) which really sucks, as it drains resources from all other running programs. But I think I have these issues under control as well.

Now for updates, thats another issue to contend with. Some updates add programs to the Windows installation. Like 'copilot', MS's AI.  :sad:  I dont want or need it.  :tongue:  It is no better than ChatGPT, imo. I have run some tests, in copilot, in which I know ChatGPT fails. Copilot fails in exactly the same way. (using reg*9 in addressing mode).  :joking:

Anyway, I'm on the porch right now on the laptop. It is a chilly morning here especially since the back porch is in the shade, the heat from the laptop helps keep me warm.  :biggrin:

Oh btw, this laptop is definitely a lot faster than my aged desktop computers. Disk read-write, faster memory, etc. Not the fastest in the world, but a step in the right direction.  :thumbsup:

... to be continued (of course)

Quote from: NoCforMe on November 14, 2024, 12:59:05 PMSo what have we learned here?

1. That the ordinary person who buys this same computah from Amazon is going to end up having smoke coming out of their ears and returning the goddamn thing posthaste. Who (besides us nerds) has the time to deal with this kind of bullshit? It's a wonder that company stays in business.

I wonder how many other systems are like this one. Brrrrrr; so glad I'm not in the market for a new computer.

2. That zedd has an enormous amount of perseverance and get-'er-done-ness to see this project through.

I agree,but want add
3. Many people has jobs + commuting  and other kind of hobbies and /or kids, they refuse to waste too much time on fix a computer
They cry or whole family cries because planned weekend activities was cancelled due to try get computer working properly took one or more weekends

Quote from: daydreamer on November 16, 2024, 05:57:42 AMI agree,but want add
3. Many people has jobs + commuting  and other kind of hobbies and /or kids, they refuse to waste too much time on fix a computer
They cry or whole family cries because planned weekend activities was cancelled due to try get computer working properly took one or more weekends

:tongue:
my full time job is fubarring a perfectly good computer, then setting about to 'fix' it.
My part time job is, of course, walking the dogs.  :biggrin:
Programming is just a side gig.  :cool:
 :rofl:

So far all is going well in regards to getting all the customization settings, necessary programs, and miscellaneous other (programming related or not) accessories, on the laptop running Windows 10. :smiley:

The programming environment itself will be a self contained partition containing the masm32 SDK, masm64 SDK, and a folder for projects. This partition will be excluded from snooping scanning with Windows defender.  :smiley:  The "projects" folder will be backed up as needed.

It looks like I will be finished with these chores within a day or two. Definitely by the end of the weekend. Then I can get back to writing jibberish code again.  :tongue:

I am really getting to like this laptop, even with Windows 10 on it.   :eusa_dance:

All the work on Windows 10, in removing/disabling all of its annoyances is done. Now it behaves pretty much as Windows 7 had for me.  :thumbsup:

No more snooping, downloading a bunch of crap that I will never use, no more huge spikes in CPU and/or memory usage (while scanning each and every single byte of every file I touch).  :cool:

I did not make any list as such, there were too many things that needed to be done, to render the OS usable for me. (Make it behave to my liking and satisfaction)

I have been using Windows 10 for several days now, including writing some assembly code and running performance tests on the code. This laptop works great, and is at least half an order of magnitude faster than my aging desktops. Too bad that it refuses to run Windows 7, though. I have tried numerous things to make it submit to my will.  :tongue:

On Windows 10:
I have been running Windows Update often, even running full scans with Windows Defender & company. Zero issues. And the OS has not said bad things about me, or my changes to my own goddamn computer.  :rofl:

Basically I am now a satisfied 'happy camper'. The laptop was well worth the price paid for it. It just took a bit of effort to get Windows 10 installed on it, and the changes done to Windows 10.  :smiley:

As a super 'plus', it comes prelicensed for Windows 10 as well as Windows 11. Props to the MFR for this. The Windows 11 fiasco is all over and done with. Was probably of my own doing. I think I restarted the computer while the initial set of updates were still in progress - leaving the laptop in an 'unstable' state. I have reinstalled Windows 11 briefly, to test this theory. It ran well, with the exception of all of the crap that comes with it. I did not (but maybe should have) try all the changes on Windows 11 that I had done on Windows 10. A project for some time in the distant future, perhaps. When I have two free weeks, where I won't be very busy.

This officially ends this chapter of the "I'll be buying a new computer" saga...   :tongue:

One odd quirk that I found with Windows 10 64 bit, ollydbg while it can run on win 10 - 64, it exhibits some odd behavior upon loading a file. It takes ages it seems, but finally does load and work as usual. Then when quitting olly, again takes ages to shut down. xdbg32 (x32dbg?, or whatever it's called) works okay, but I prefer ollydbg.   :undecided:

my newest has 2.5ghz turbo makes it go 3.1ghz 4 core cpu,only 256gb SSD drive
my other still working laptop has 2ghz celeron similar to your new
,but its fast enough for many games I use has around 1.4ghz requirements and not extreme polycount for faster computer
it has a bigger old 500gb HD instead
 

Quote from: daydreamer on November 28, 2024, 03:14:13 AMmy other still working laptop has 2ghz celeron similar to your new
,but its fast enough for many games I use

"Fast enough" is usually 'good enough', imo. As long as it is faster than my sluggish desktop pc, which my new laptop is considerably faster.

As far as hard drive size, it doesn't really matter to me. My laptops OS hard drive currently is only 120 GB correction 512 GB SSD ( I was thinking about my desktop PC's hard drive size when I said '120 GB'), I really only need/use a very small fraction of that. Only the OS and mostly used programs are on the laptops internal hard drive, everything else on external drive.  :smiley:  Same for my desktop pc's

Speaking of my desktop pc, I wanted to do a memory upgrade on it, but even finding memory for it is problematic. I can't find the correct memory in 8 GB or more sticks for its specifications - so I am stuck with only 8 GB memory.    :sad:  I will be looking to replace my Desktop PC at some point in the future - at which time the "I'll be buying a new computer" saga will continue.    :tongue:

As for the laptop, I am totally satisfied with its performance in its current configuration.  :azn:  Even with Windows 10.

I have reinstalled Windows 7 on my desktop pc, as Windows 10 gobbles up almost half of the memory (3.3-3.5 GB out of 8 GB) without running any other programs, except for what the OS is using. Windows 7 OS consumes slightly less than 2 GB for contrast.

Intel® Celeron® Processor N5105 4M Cache, up to 2.90 GHz (https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/212328/intel-celeron-processor-n5105-4m-cache-up-to-2-90-ghz/specifications.html)
Good enough for laptop

Quote from: zedd151 on November 28, 2024, 03:31:38 AMAs far as hard drive size, it doesn't really matter to me. My laptops OS hard drive currently is only 120 GB correction 512 GB SSD ( I was thinking about my desktop PC's hard drive size when I said '120 GB'), I really only need/use a very small fraction of that. Only the OS and mostly used programs are on the laptops internal hard drive, everything else on external drive.  :smiley:  Same for my desktop pc's

I have 256 GB and connect external drives 128 GB USB stick and 2 tb non ssd drive to backup
I backup my main tablet as 2 external drives internal and external SD card
External drive problems when you don't remove it properly happened with my tablet,suddenly music app was broken :(
I still have "old" habits of using computers / tablets / smartphones as in before new habits like stream everything ,but I sometimes stream YouTube music videos with lyrics to learn and enjoy newly discovered songs or old songs which I have only remember incomplete lyrics
Or YouTube tutorials

I had old tower,worn out noisy fans when computer gets old,laptops more silent
Carry around and travel with older laptop is advantage : nobody wants to steal that old computer

Magnus, yes "hot-swapping" USB drives may cause data corruption. I learnt that years ago. USB drives are a little more robust these days, but if it is still being written to when unplugged, whatever it was writing at the time will be corrupt.
In around 2006 or so I unplugged a USB flash drive at an improper time. It rendered that flash drive unusable. It could not be reformatted either. "Unknown device" or some such error was given in that instance. It was relatively inexpensive thankfully, and most of the data was also stored elsewhere, so not a huge loss either way.

Hot swapping with smartphone /tablet can cause more damage,because its similar to destroy c: drive on PC when internal SD card is wrecked
Of course cloud based or internet used to transfer might be safer
Physical remove tiny micro SD card and place in USB stick converter might be safer for internal drive,but I hate to use my strong hands to fiddle with tiny micro SD removing/ reinstalling with risk of break things

External drives cheap these days and I already own many external drives ,so keep one USB stick connected at all times adding aviable HD space,there are now tiny USB sticks that only extends few millimetres from USB port

Don't even get me started on those tiny micro SD cards. While they might be perfect solutions for digital cameras due to their size, they have a huge drawback - their tiny physical size.

I once had a 64 GB micro SD card that I used for additional storage for a netbook (mini laptop) that I had purchased at a very good price. The netbook only had a 32 GB hard drive which was only big enough to contain the Windows 10 operating system. I had the micro SD card already, and the netbook conveniently had a port for it.

I had 50 GB worth of code, installers, programming related tools, some other miscellany... I had discovered it was missing one day, and lost forever.

I think the vacuum cleaner had eaten it, but still never found any trace of it.

Many of the installers are no longer available, and some I do not even remember the names of. A big tragedy back then.

Xmas time is coming soon...   :biggrin:  :biggrin:

I have on order a refurbished computer...

QuoteDell Optiplex 7050 SFF Desktop PC
Intel i7-7700 4-Cores 3.60GHz
32GB DDR4 Ram
1TB SSD drive
Windows 10 Professional

at a very reasonable price... as a replacement for my aging desktop(s).

While it is not brand new, its gotta be better than what I have now. It has a 4 core i7-7700, Plenty of RAM, and a huge hard drive.
I have already checked to see if drivers are available for Windows 7 on it. YES (for both 32  bit, and 64 bit Windows 7)!!! A huge plus in its favor.   :azn:

Looks like a amazing computer zedd  :thumbsup:
But it's overkill for asm  :greenclp:
But not overkill for a Windows gui program without hardware accelerated graphics
Better possibilities multitasking one program doing a task while you do other things with 4 cores

Quote from: daydreamer on December 07, 2024, 06:14:01 PMLooks like a amazing computer zedd  :thumbsup:
But it's overkill for asm  :greenclp:
But not overkill for a Windows gui program without hardware accelerated graphics
Better possibilities multitasking one program doing a task while you do other things with 4 cores

I'll just have to wait until it gets here, to find out how it performs "in the real world". Should be arriving here by 11th of December.   :azn:

The new desktop computer arrived today.  :smiley:
I ran a few tests on it, it is noticeably faster than all of my previous desktop computers. I used a few programs in which I already know the fastest timings on my old desktop PC. Under 700 ms., where the old computer ran in 1200 ms. for one particular program (generating a series of 1000 sudoku puzzles). I also ran one test in the Lab. here. :biggrin:

It came with Windows 10 Pro on it, and I am letting it install the first batch of updates.  :rolleyes:  I had made a backup of the hard drive before even firing it up for the first time.

I plan on installing Windows 7 on it later tonite. At first, it will be on another partition, dual booting with Windows 10 on another partition. If it all goes well, I will ditch Windows 10 altogether.

Only one thing I don't like about the new computer. It said it had Wifi, but then it came with a USB Wifi thingy. Not exactly what I would want, but it does work.   :undecided:  I'll get a real Wifi card one day.

Quote from: zedd151 on December 12, 2024, 10:37:20 AMOnly one thing I don't like about the new computer. It said it had Wifi, but then it came with a USB Wifi thingy. Not exactly what I would want, but it does work.  :undecided:  I'll get a real Wifi card one day.

I have a li'l USB wifi adapter that I never really used (I don't have any use for WiFi around here, as the one computer that I could use it with, an old Macbook that I use to watch movies on pirate sites on, has a busted wifi adapter). But when I did use it it worked every bit as well as a "real" wifi adapter. Nothing magic about WiFi that can't be achieved by a really tiny USB dongle.

I did successfully install Windows 7 on it. But lo and behold, the stupid USB wifi adapter does not work with Windows 7, else I am missing a USB related driver. At any rate, since Windows 7 cannot connect to the internet, I cannot get the missing drivers for it.  :tongue:

So, ok. I thought I'd boot back into Windows 10, and remove the useless Windows 7 partition. Butt... Now I cannot boot into Windows 10. Dammit. Now I'll have to pull the hard drive and reinstall the backup I made earlier (of Windows 10), and hopefully it will work. The boot partition though, I did not backup.  :rolleyes:

I have been down this road before.... I'll see you guys in a few days.  :tongue:  just kidding, it should be back up and running some time this evening. I just have to check whether I changed any other bios settings other than safeboot. I don't remember offhand... I didn't make a list of changes.  :badgrin:

Edit:  I have a quick thought, I'll create a USB installer and try to repair the Windows 10 installation that way. Else, do a long install, the hard way.   :tongue:

It only took a couple of minutes, and I have windows 10 up and running again.  :greensml:  'fubar' is my middle name.
It will take me a couple days though, until I have it all set up the way I like it. My favorite programs, personalized settings, etc.

Later:
Guess what, I installed the backup that I made for my laptop -  on the partition (on the desktop pc) that I had the unusable Windows 7 on. Windows 10 Home Edition, I installed the drivers from the original Windows 10 professional and it works fine.  :biggrin:

As an added bonus, it is already activated by a digital license. I was worried that I would have to pay for a key, but apparently, the desktop is already licensed for both pro edition and home edition.  :biggrin:

Intel suxx
buy AMD EPYC 192 core beast!

https://youtu.be/S-NbCPEgP1A (https://youtu.be/S-NbCPEgP1A)

I loved Windows 7, but after a year with Win10 I'm quite satisfied :thumbsup:

Quote from: greenozon on December 12, 2024, 08:54:54 PMIntel suxx
buy AMD EPYC 192 core beast!

https://youtu.be/S-NbCPEgP1A

192 cores, are you nuts? Have you ever even had the opportunity to use all of them?  :rofl:

Quote from: jj2007 on December 12, 2024, 10:18:15 PMI loved Windows 7, but after a year with Win10 I'm quite satisfied :thumbsup:

On my laptop, I think I have Windows 10 tamed. No more collecting 'telemetry' and phoning home with it, Have almost everything excluded from Defenders scanning and snooping, and have not seen much unwanted behavior, as opposed to the way it was 'out of the box'. I have also removed all of the 'Metro Apps' crapware - for all intents and purposes. Still traces of it, but none of it runs.
I would rather use Windows 7, but if I can't get drivers for more recent hardware, I'll have to learn to live with Windows 10.

Windows 11 is a non-starter for me though. I tried it and didn't like it - so I installed Windows 10 on it and tweaked it into submission.  :tongue:
My new laptop and this newer refurbished desktop wil probably be the last two computers I will ever own (barring any catastrophic failures), so I will try to make the most out of them. I do get updates every now and again, but both the laptop and desktop no longer nag to upgrade to 11.

Any recommendations on a program to test the i7's capabilities?

I will still try to get Windows 7 up and running on the desktop though. But I will use a second hard drive next time I attempt it. I will have to go to the mfrs site to try to locate drivers for it first though (I had read somewhere that this computer is compatible with Windows 7 - but some missing drivers are needed for it to work properly). The saga continues...  :biggrin:

@stewart
192 cores cpu sound its for a big online store to easily handle 192 customers simultanously
curious how many cores this server is on?
now Zedd also has 4 core cpu,like my latest but I wanted to try SIMT coding on my cpu,but no ideas howto use 4 cores for,anyone suggest some SIMT coding for 4 cores?

So it's good to know that Windoze 10 is a decent fallback in case Win7 isn't possible.
Hopefully I'll never have to find out.
Windows 7 foreva!

Heh; @zedd, maybe you should package up your de-Micro$ofted version of 10 and make it available to others who don't want to go through all the gyrations you did to cleanse it of all that filth. Like post a .iso image of it somewhere. (Of course you'd have to remove any PII--personally identifiable info--from it.)

David, there are many sites that offer info about how to:

remove preinstalled 'Metro Apps', which are useless.

Add exclusions (files, directories or folders) to Windows Defender scan list

What settings/registry entries need to be changed to permanently disable 'telemetry' collection and transmission to MS.

Plus a myriad of other 'fixes' for Windows 10. As well as there are programs dedicated to do at least parts of these tasks, as well as an update blocker program (which I don't use). One just needs to google for the information.

I don't think it is kosher to redistribute the OS. I'd rather not face the wrath of MS legal department, just in case they might frown on such activities.  :smiley:

In my spare time, I will still be trying to get Windows 7 onto the desktop and working at least reasonably.  :cool:
The main issues with that were:
USB wifi was not detected - no ability to get drivers off the internet while the computer is connected.
USB mouse - the mouse moved veerrryyy slowly. One foot of mouse movement = 2 to 3 inches of cursor movement, for example. Even after adjusting mouse properties to the fastest setting.

I dread having to tweak anything in the BIOS, as that can result in disaster.  :tongue: But might it be needed...

@daydreamer

Quotecurious how many cores this server is on?

The VPS, Is configured with;
2 x Virtual Dual core CPU's @2700 MHz with 4gig ram and a 60gig NVME hdd
Running on:
AS -1125HS-TNR | 1U | A+ Server | Products | Supermicro
1U Hyper with 12 hot-swap 2.5" NVMe/SAS/SATA bays and 3 PCIe 5.0 x16 slots
https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/system/hyper/1u/as-1125hs-tnr (https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/system/hyper/1u/as-1125hs-tnr)

The actual units Our VPS is running on use AMD EPYC 9354 CPU's, which have 32 Cores.
:smiley:  :cool:

The 'Host' server tech suggested;

Quote"We don't use a high core count, because we can't get enough hosts on one machine to use it. Higher core count means higher ram and higher nvme count and becomes inefficient"

OMG!!! You mean more isn't always better? Who woulda thunk it?

Quote from: NoCforMe on December 13, 2024, 11:27:45 AMOMG!!! You mean more isn't always better? Who woulda thunk it?

Imagine 32 bit max 3.8 GB ram and starting with single thread program require x 100 megabytes and try improve it to use 192 cores: 3.8 GB / 192 = tiny 20 MB ram for each thread
20 MB program is from dos days or when win 95 was new

That AMD CPU is for servers, not for normal OSs.
Check what WMWare is for.

Quote from: daydreamer on December 14, 2024, 12:16:23 AMImagine 32 bit max 3.8 GB ram and starting with single thread program require x 100 megabytes and try improve it to use 192 cores: 3.8 GB / 192 = tiny 20 MB ram for each thread
20 MB program is from dos days or when win 95 was new

Okay, lets have a coding competition using that scenario.
You go first, Magnus.  :badgrin:

:joking:  just kidding, of course.

To be back on topic, I have located and downloaded a driver package from Dell for the i7 desktop PC for Windows 7!!!!. I will be playing around with it later today. Just yesterday, I received 3 brand new 500 GB mechanical hard drives (13 bucks each!!)  one of which I will be using for my Windows 7 experiments/tests, so as not to disturb the Windows 10 hard drive in any way. Seems the combination of UEFI/GPT hard disk+Windows 10  'security features' doesn't like when the user monkeys around with partitioning that hard drive and installing another OS on it. Or I am missing something to make everything harmonious. (Another story for another day)

I will backup the BIOS settings before I play around with trying to get Windows 7 up and running... I may need to make some changes to the BIOS to use an MBR disk, rather than an UEFI/GPT disk.

I am debating on keeping one of the older computers, for use in Windows 7/Windows xp compatibility testing. Yes, I will be reinstalling Windows xp on it.  :biggrin:  I had briefly used Windows xp on it a year or so ago, so I know it works there. (In a limited capacity, that is) Otherwise those two old computers are relegated to the scrap heap.

Stay tuned....  :cool:

Quote from: TimoVJL on December 14, 2024, 12:24:28 AMThat AMD CPU is for servers, not for normal OSs.
Check what WMWare is for.

who knows... maybe in 2-3 years it'll be bare minimum for home PC?

check out the video
they used Windows for iT!

Well... continuing with my endeavor to install Windows 7 on the new i7 computer.  I mounted the Windows 7 image. Used a tool to insert all of the drivers from Dells Windows 7 driver pack for this model PC into the mounted image. Then I saved that image as 'install.wim' same as what is in the widows 7 installation ISO file.

So far, so good. I resized the C partition to leave 30 GB partition in which to install Windows 7 onto. All good still.

Then I made a USB drive with the Windows 7 installation files. All good.
I ran Windows 7 'setup.exe' to commence installing Windows 7 on the newly created partition. Everything seemed to go well. It rebooted a couple of times to finalize the installation.

A boot menu popped up after POST, showing both Windows 7 and Windows 10. Great!  :biggrin:

Okay, so I boot into Windows 7. I noticed a couple of things right away. The background image not appearing. Only a black background. Then I noticed I have no right click context menu on the desktop to change the display resolution or desktop background. I changed the resolution by going to control panel. Ok fine.
I go to "System" and see that I have 3 days left to activate. Ok. No license, only trial version.
I go to task manager and see that 8 cores are shown, which I know is wrong.

The USB wifi adapter is not compatible with Windows 7 apparently. No wifi. I tried installing the driver for Windows 10, but if course didn't work. Kind of expected but was worth a shot.

So, I figured I would boot into Windows 10, and do some research online..... drumroll here .....

Windows 10 boots up, but only partially. No desktop icons, right click unresponsive (can't get into task manager to see what the issue might be), and explorer seems 'frozen' or "stuck on stupid". Grrrrr!

I rebooted Windows 10 into Safe Mode, and came out onto the porch to have a smoke. Hopefully it will be all booted up (fully) by the time I go back inside.  :tongue:

None of the OS tools that I have, deal with UEFI, which is part of the problem. None of the old tricks/hacks to get an OS up and running quickly work.

Anyway, I am now going to ditch any further efforts getting Windows 7 to work on this machine. I should have simply continued to make Windows 10 more to my liking. (I still have several things to do, before I am 100% satisfied with it).  More details to follow....


A few moments later...
Nope. Explorer is still unresponsive in safe mode.
The only thing I can think of is maybe Windows defender is scanning each and every tidbit on all on the partitions... don't quite know for certain. I am doing a couple things in Windows 7 first. But when I am done, I will let Windows 10 continue whatever it's doing, maybe some time tonight it will finish and start acting 'normal'. I don't think that Windows 7 install messed with anything on the Windows 10 partition, but something surely is 'off' since the Windows 7 installation.

Anyway I have a few ideas to get Windows 10 at least, to work properly.  :undecided:  ... those didn't work....

Later:
Windows 10 is currently trying (I think) to fully boot up.... I'll let it simmer for a while... next step is to plonk in the backup... while removing the Windows 7 partition and BCD entry for it.

Quote from: zedd151 on December 15, 2024, 06:57:26 AMThen I noticed I have no right click context menu on the desktop to change the display resolution or desktop background. I changed the resolution by going to control panel. Ok fine.

[...]

Windows 10 boots up, but only partially. No desktop icons, right click unresponsive (can't get into task manager to see what the issue might be)

I know this is but a small part of your overall problem, but that (the lack of right-click responsiveness) drove me up the wall too when I installed Windows 7 initially.

Fortunately there's a solution to this: High Resolution Enterprises' X-Mouse Button Control (https://www.highrez.co.uk/downloads/xmousebuttoncontrol.htm). It's the first thing I install so I can get the goddamn right-click context menus to work, for things like changing the monitor resolution through Control Panel.

Lol about the mouse... but I don't think that would help my case here. There's nothing wrong with the mouse - under normal circumstances.

---

Anyway, I have decided to make a Windows 10 installer USB the same as I did for the Windows 7 install. That should take care of any issues that the Windows 7 install apparently caused for Windows 10.

I will use a brand spanking new 500 GB hdd for Windows 10, initially.
There is a partition on the ssd with GB's of stuff that I need to keep intact.
Installing Windows 10 to the ssd might cause unwanted issues. To be safe, I will do a proper clean install of Windows 10 including drivers. Once that is done, I can then install my custom Windows 10 on top of it, with all my programs, settings, modifications, etc.  intact. It will take a little time, but is the only sure-fire way of getting the computer running normally.

---

Previously...
When I rebooted back into Windows 10, explorer remained unresponsive, even after a full hour. I could not open task manager, command prompt, never mind opening explorer to the drive list.  :sad:

No more screwing around with these UEFI/EFI based drives. MBR seems no longer usable on 'modern' hardware. Dammmit!

After dragging my feet for several hours, I started Windows 7 back up again.
Lo and behold, the mouse works correctly, the background image is correct now.

When I ran WinRE (Windows Recovery Environment) trying to fix Windows 10, apparently it fixed Windows 7 instead. ?!? I dunno for sure, but Windows 7 is working now. Still though, the USB wifi is not working for Windows 7... I have a new plan... why not use the wifi card from one of the old computers...??....!!! They work, even with the in-house drivers. I'll take a look to see how involved is the disassembly... and installation into the new box. Everything else seems to work for Windows 7 on this box, so why not? With exception to the slight oddity of showing 8 CPU cores in task manager, that is. I can live with that.

I am preparing Windows 10 for a proper clean installation as I write this.

All I want for Christmas is both Windows 10 and Windows 7 working exactly how I want them to work. At least I am back on the 'right track', as it were.   :biggrin:   :biggrin: 

Now if I can convince the new box to also install Windows xp, I'll be a very happy camper.   :biggrin:  Well, realistically I know that xp will not run on it. Nice dream, though.

Okay, so I got the Windows 10 install finished...  Um, since I ran it from inside of Windows 7 - which itself was running fine - the Windows 10 installation had overwritten Windows 7, rather than giving me the option of exactly where to install it. Arrgg! There was a huge empty partition just for Windows 10! I had formatted the old Widows 10 out of existence.
 Well, if that werent bad enough, since the drive letter of the Windows 7 installation was 'E', Windows 10 kept 'E' as the drive letter.  :undecided:  Not quite what I wanted.

---

At least Windows 10 is running fine now. But I am once again, "Windows 7-less".

I am tired of playing with this. I will continue this madness tomorrow, to get everything as it should have been  before I started my tinkering.  :rolleyes:

Install Windows 7 UEFI
Install Windows 10 UEFI onto a different "partition"
Fart around with the Boot Configuration
Dual boot!

Quote from: sinsi on December 15, 2024, 05:24:07 PMFart around with the Boot Configuration

Yes, I know the whole routine and the way things are 'supposed to work', but somewhere along the lines I always seen to fubar something in the process.  :biggrin:  More 'me only' issues. :eusa_boohoo:

---

I have now Windows 10 on Drive C. It is from the backup I made on the laptop. Everything I need is in this version already. I removed the laptop drivers, and installed the driver pack for this machine. Easy peasy. Well, not very easy but doable.  :tongue: Drive C - Windows 10 Home is perfect!

---

Now to plop down Windows 7 back into the partition where I had it originally.  This will be from a working backup of my old box. It has verything I need on it already. I just have to clean out the old drivers, and put in the Windows 7 driver pack for this machine.

---

I am becoming an old pro of sorts at these sort of OS wranglings. Was easier when using MBR, rather than UEFI. Most of the OS/hard disk tools I have, don't know how to work well with UEFI. And can really screw things up, as I have learnt.  :toothy: 

I have both Windows 7 and Windows 10 working fine now. It just took a little patience, persistence, and some double checking before proceeding with each step. Both are showing "C:" as their respective drive letters, the way it ought to be.
The first time around, I rushed everything, which led to the "unbootable" scenario. I think, or missed some intermediate steps, etc.

I solved a mystery.
On Windows 7, I noticed task manager showing 8 cores, even though I have only 4.
I thought this apparent misnomer was due to my shoddy first installation of Windows 7.

Now that both OS's are running fine, I find that even Windows 10 shows 8 cores.
I did a google search, for anyone interested:
https://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en/support/faq_content.php?S_ID=427 (https://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en/support/faq_content.php?S_ID=427)

Apparently my CPU has "Hyper Threading" enabled, the linked article gives 'some' further details .... but doesn't really explain why....

Okay. So I took out the wifi card from one of the old computers. Doesn't seem to be anywhere on the optiplex 7050 sff motherboard to plug it in to.  :sad:
But that's okay. I might just use Windows 7 primarily for working offline - meaning more coding and no distractions from the internet, no worries about Windows defender (on Windows 10) deciding that my programs are malware, and all that follows - I.e., quarantine, deletion of executable, etc.

Of course will be a pita when I have to/want to post the code here.

I'll be looking for a suitable/compatible wifi card some time soon, even if it is a different USB wifi 'ding-dongle'.  :tongue:

Have made a couple more tweaks to Windows 7, and Windows 10 on the i7 box.  :smiley:  And updated both backups accordingly. All is well in zeddville. With the obvious exception to the no wifi scenario on win 7, and inability to activate it.  :eusa_boohoo:

Why Windows 7 at all?

Run Windows 7 in a VM. That will use the host machine's network.

Quote from: sinsi on December 16, 2024, 05:22:36 PMWhy Windows 7 at all?

Because I likeee.   :smiley:  (Almost as much as xp)   :azn:

QuoteRun Windows 7 in a VM. That will use the host machine's network.

Why another layer between me and bare metal?  :tongue:   (If that was the ONLY option, MAYBE)   :undecided:

:biggrin:
I need another gift to myself for Christmas.  :tongue:

I am considering a new tablet to replace my old, ancient, (prehistoric even) iPad.
There is a sweet deal on an android 14 tablet at amazon. And I have an itchy finger. Lol. I had thought (very briefly) of getting a Windows tablet, but at 4 or 5 times the price, maybe not. (I have the laptop for Windows portability, when I have a hankering to code outside and away from my computer) A newer iPad also is out of the question, as they are also pricey.

I only need it to surf the internet really (maybe playing some games, too) so the less expensive option is very appealing....  :biggrin:

^ add to that, watching YouTube videos.   :tongue:

Good with new tablet, you can install many apps, but don't forget security on newer android prevent you from install apps on external sd card,so cheapest = least internal memory,so might need buy tablet more internal memory
Wondering how much GB ram on PC and want to see your 64 bit sieve code again, because it should be possible improve it to use 16+ GB on mine

Quote from: daydreamer on December 21, 2024, 01:06:56 AMGood with new tablet, you can install many apps, but don't forget security on newer android prevent you from install apps on external sd card,so cheapest = least internal memory,so might need buy tablet more internal memory
Wondering how much GB ram on PC and want to see your 64 bit sieve code again, because it should be possible improve it to use 16+ GB on mine

The new tablet arrived and is much faster than my oldest iPad. My other iPad runs fine, is the one I use for watching documentaries while I fall asleep.  :tongue:
My new tablet, I mainly use on the back porch. I don't use many apps on it, just what I need for browsing the internet, watch YouTube videos and for a couple of sudoku games that I like to play sometimes. Looking for a good chess app.

Everything loads much faster than either of my two older iPads.
As far as ram, my new desktop pc as well as the laptop both have 32 GB in them, not sure really about the tablet - how much ram it has - the documentation is poorly written and probably a little misleading. It says I have 4 GB + 6 GB ram. Why not just say 10 GB ram???

In testing, the new pc is just under twice as fast as the old pc(s) for everything I have run tests for. The laptop is also much faster, maybe 1.5 times or so than the old pc's.

I am a very happy camper all around with my new electronic toys.

well with development in WIFI made it faster than when your old Ipads was ,can it have something todo with loading faster? recent router had both old WIFI and the new 5G WIFI which is faster,but shorter range
if your newest tablet has SIM card, it probably support the latest 5G network
also lot faster RAM and cpu in your new tablet

Quote from: daydreamer on December 21, 2024, 03:44:22 AMwell with development in WIFI made it faster than when your old Ipads was ,can it have something todo with loading faster?

Quite possible.

Quote from: daydreamer on December 21, 2024, 01:06:56 AMwant to see your 64 bit sieve code again, because it should be possible improve it to use 16+ GB on mine

btw I attached 'primes64' in the above post... happy coding.  :smiley:

On the subject of primes, I found some C code to test whether a given number is prime or not (actually several variants that do the same thing). I have had that code for a while, I want to convert it to assembly.... Coming to a new post near you, soon.  :biggrin:  I'll be using 32 bit for the conversion, though.
Prime number fun fact:
Remember 867-5309? (Jennies phone number)
8675309 is prime.   :tongue:

Thanks for the code
Different or same primes Algos running on several threads,different using strength and weaknesses
Also div on several cores or
sieve
mul eax
Mov [eax],false
Algos Better suited for SIMT than SIMD
That's part of what my SIMT thread is about

Android tablet WiFi can have speed like 300 Mbps used with 5G mobile connection.
Wifi specs 2,5 / 5 GHz gives 400 / 867 Mbps

Android 5G phone in test gave near 600 Mbps, as testing was near SIM card limit.

wifi 6 or 7?
it has diff bandwidth

Honor Pad X8 have only WiFi 5 and LTE

I couldnt resist,made SIMD packed compare primes,is it fast?well it was fun  :biggrin:

Quote from: daydreamer on December 30, 2024, 02:36:00 AMI couldnt resist,made SIMD packed compare primes,is it fast?well it was fun  :biggrin:

Can you share it?   :biggrin:

Quote from: zedd151 on December 30, 2024, 03:07:01 AM

Quote from: daydreamer on December 30, 2024, 02:36:00 AMI couldnt resist,made SIMD packed compare primes,is it fast?well it was fun  :biggrin:

Can you share it?   :biggrin:

I replaced my code ideas in last SIMT thread post with code instead
I choosed to use vs debugger to get it working right
Most probably used the simple cmp integers
No idea how many have skill in fpu compare ? or sse ucomiss/ucomisd ?
Probably least common ,few used sse/sse2 ,real4s,real8s,bytes,words,dwords,qword packed compares

WiFi woes with the desktop PC.

The USB wifi dongle that came with it seems 'weak', loses signal all too often. Plus, I cannot use it on Windows 7, no drivers for it at all. Therefore I have ordered a wifi card for it that is "supposed to" be compatible with it.
If it does not work as advertised or does not fit into the sff case, it only cost $20-ish dollars USD. No great loss.

Will update once it arrives and is installed. (Fingers crossed  :tongue: ) Hopefully, it will work with Windows 7... but I'm not holding my breath on that, I can live with Windows 10 - no issues with 10 thus far. But would be nice though, to be able to fully use Windows 7 (including wifi) sometimes.

I originally posted this in the WRONG THREAD. Whoops!

Quote from: zedd151 on December 31, 2024, 04:52:30 AMWiFi woes with the desktop PC.

The USB wifi dongle that came with it seems 'weak', loses signal all too often. Plus, I cannot use it on Windows 7, no drivers for it at all. Therefore I have ordered a wifi card for it that is "supposed to" be compatible with it.
If it does not work as advertised or does not fit into the sff case, it only cost $20-ish dollars USD. No great loss.

Will update once it arrives and is installed. (Fingers crossed  :tongue: ) Hopefully, it will work with Windows 7... but I'm not holding my breath on that, I can live with Windows 10 - no issues with 10 thus far. But would be nice though, to be able to fully use Windows 7 (including wifi) sometimes.

I originally posted this in the WRONG THREAD. Whoops!

Related ,USB broadband dongle can become hot and stop working,fortunately I had a spare dongle and I got internet working again

Well, well, well...
Guess what?.... The USB wifi dongle was not the issue this whole time.

When I first got this PC and for about a week or so thereafter, I was using a corded keyboard and cordless USB mouse. The mouse, keyboard, and wifi were working pretty much as expected. Some time after that, I got a new cordless USB keyboard.

That is when the wifi issues started, but I did not make that connection.

Today, I had moved my pc to another desk, which happened to have a corded keyboard there. I had not yet retrieved the USB keyboard from the other room, so I simply plugged in the corded USB keyboard.

Lo and behold wifi was once again running in all its glory. It was never the USB wifi dongles fault. Seems the USB keyboard dongle is using apparently, way too much power or so it seems.

But still I will use the wifi adapter that has already shipped and is on the way here and NOT use the USB wifi dongle, nor the USB wireless keyboard. As for the wireless USB keyboard, it may wind up in the scrap heap.  :eusa_boohoo:  :eusa_boohoo:  :eusa_boohoo:

I could probably use a power supply upgrade, as the OEM power supply that came with the PC is on the 'low end (wattage) for a 'mid-high performance' PC. 175w, iirc. Should be at least 240w, imo.

Soooooo.... the saga yet continues.
When I am inside the box, I plan on adding an internal SSD hard drive (in addition to the NVME OS drive), while I already have it open to install the new wifi card. Hopefully the PS unit will handle the modest additional load.

It seems that everything I touch is a perpetual 'work in progress'.   :joking:
 Be it code, computers, etc... I'll get there one day. Big fun.

The wifi adapter came very early this morning. I got it installed and is working perfectly, but alas, it does not work on windows 7.  :tongue:  I am going to use the wifi dongle to connect on Windows 7 and search online for a compatible driver... whoops. The dongle also doesn't work on 7. I will go to Atheros website while on Windows 10 and look for a win 7 driver the hard way.  :rolleyes:

I also installed a second SSD while I was inside, which is also working well, but I had to use the DVD drive data connection. I couldn't find a spare SATA connection.  :tongue:  I will investigate further, may need a little more disassembly. (Might be hidden under the DVD drive, which is obscuring what is underneath it) it is supposed to have another connection, unless I misread something.

Today, I finally got around to installing the wireless/Bluetooth drivers for Windows 7. I had downloaded them a couple days ago, but had forgotten about it.

I have a 3rd party driver tool running right now to get all the drivers updated.  :azn:

I had noticed you mentioned you might need to upgrade you PSU and I found a short review of this rather 'Trick' unit, that was rather positive  :smiley:

Lian Li - EDGE Gold PSU (https://lian-li.com/product/edge-gold/)

Quote from: stoo23 on January 05, 2025, 05:34:32 PMI had noticed you mentioned you might need to upgrade you PSU and I found a short review of this rather 'Trick' unit, that was rather positive  :smiley:

Lian Li - EDGE Gold PSU (https://lian-li.com/product/edge-gold/)

750-1200 Watts? Waaayy too much for me. And probably way expensive. 240 Watt psu should be enough. This box has a 180 W unit (from factory). They (240 W PSU) are pretty cheap.

Stu ,that's one  reason I stopped use my non laptop computer  ,combined with high electricity prices 750w = keep running microwave oven for many hours instead of few minutes
Later mobile GPUs in laptops came out less power hungry than card installed in tower,when using computer for editing and assemble ,no point in use overkill : most powerful gaming computer

Quote from: zedd151 on December 17, 2024, 12:08:30 AM

Quote from: sinsi on December 16, 2024, 05:22:36 PMRun Windows 7 in a VM. That will use the host machine's network.

Why another layer between me and bare metal?  :tongue:

You're a lot farther away from the "bare metal" even when using the real OS than you think.

Quote from: NoCforMe on January 06, 2025, 04:25:00 PM

Quote from: zedd151 on December 17, 2024, 12:08:30 AM

Quote from: sinsi on December 16, 2024, 05:22:36 PMRun Windows 7 in a VM. That will use the host machine's network.

Why another layer between me and bare metal?  :tongue:

You're a lot farther away from the "bare metal" even when using the real OS than you think.

Of course, you are correct. That is why I said another layer.   :biggrin:

The introduction of the 80 PLUS Titanium standard brought a fourth measurement into the certification mixture: efficiency at 10% rated load. Also, with Titanium, PF needs to be at least 0.95 at a lower load level (20% of the PSU's max-rated capacity).
Note that the lower the load in a PSU, the tougher it is for its APFC converter to keep the power factor high.

Quote from: greenozon on January 10, 2025, 06:17:27 PMThe introduction of the 80 PLUS Titanium standard brought a fourth measurement into the certification mixture: efficiency at 10% rated load. Also, with Titanium, PF needs to be at least 0.95 at a lower load level (20% of the PSU's max-rated capacity).
Note that the lower the load in a PSU, the tougher it is for its APFC converter to keep the power factor high.

???
Most of that is Greek to me.  :tongue:
At any rate, my desktop is running fine even with the OEM 180W power supply. And no plans to try to change it any time soon, since that specific power supply was specially made for the Optiplex 7050 sff PC. Getting a higher rated (like 240-250W) power supply is not easy, since there is only so much space in the box, and the connectors are another issue as well. Cheers!  :badgrin:  Many days of trial and error.

My laptop also, is running very well btw. Between the two, I don't think I will ever have to buy anything else (computer wise) for the rest of my days.
And for those interested I have Windows 10 on both machines and zero issues anymore.  :biggrin:  You just have to know what to tweak or disable,  and what not to touch.  :tongue:  Many days of trial and error went into that.

Quote from: zedd151 on December 31, 2024, 04:22:50 PMShould be at least 240w

Good in winter, but prepare for a hefty bill :cool:

James F. (https://www.quora.com/How-many-watts-does-a-typical-15-inch-laptop-consume):

QuoteThe most common laptop wattage is 65W*

However, the amount of watts they actually use will be less than their wattage.

Based on actual power consumption tests, my 45W laptop consumes:

0.33W - Off.
3.89W - Sleep.
19.6W - using Google Docs.
21.5W - streaming YouTube.
I couldn't get it to reach its listed wattage.

*Based on my analysis of 100s of laptops

Since Google Docs and YouTube are both very demanding uses of your notebook, hanging around at the Masm32 Forum will be more in the order of 10 Watts or less.

Quote from: daydreamer on January 05, 2025, 10:27:56 PMStu ,that's one  reason I stopped use my non laptop computer  ,combined with high electricity prices 750w = keep running microwave oven for many hours instead of few minutes

Yeah  :smiley: understood, I just happened to notice it on a Newsletter I get sent occasionally and thought it looked like a pretty 'Trick' PSU  :smiley:  I liked the Moveable Plug thingemy and Lian Li make good stuff  :thumbsup:

I HAD to purchase a Laptop Stand / Multi-Fan Cooler some time ago, for my old work Win10 laptop as you could almost Cook on it  :rofl: 
I have my old Control room 'All in One' HP Win7 machine, for general desktop use,.. So COOL and Quiet !!
I have only heard the fan actually turn on a couple of times on the very hottest of days and it really doesn't produce very much heat !!
Quite an impressive device really  :smiley:  :thumbsup:

I have Yet to get Hutch's Mega XEON powered, Water Cooled Server Box up and running but it Should be Fun / Interesting when I do,...it has something stupid like 8 or 9 TB of SSD's and NVME drives along with something like 68 gig ram, a great graphics card and a Huge screen  :smiley:  :dazzled:  :cool:



Also, very interesting Info' JJ  :thumbsup:

stoo at least you can use it as reserve stove if your ordinary stove stops working  :badgrin:
that server probably could keep all made source code since coding began on its drives and run 32 asm snippet simultanously  :greenclp:

at least laptops/tablets/phones you can charge in train stations and trains and some newer buses
tablets and phone most power consumption is when use its screen much and age of battery if its too old and lose charge too,while newest (unused) battery seem to hold charge better

My Dell Optiplex (core 2 duo, 3 GHz, 5GB RAM, 2 internal HDs, 2 USB HDs) does me just fine. (With Windoze 7.)

Dunno how old this system is; close to 10 years now? Oh, and I paid less than $100 USD for it.

Hopefully it'll last me til the end of my days too.

I made a test program to copy 1MB of data from one address to another then back again, for 1000 repetitions.
I ran 8 instances of the program at the same time to test the fans and temperature while running. Normally when not doing any intensive tasks, my PC is very very quiet, and runs fairly cool, 50-60C.

During the testing, temps went up to no more than 85C, and fans went full throttle, of course.
All the while, I was still able to do other things like browsing the web, refreshing web pages, opening files and folders then closing them. No hiccups, it was as if nothing else was running. My old PC's always had the fans blowing so loud, it seemed as if a jet airplane was ready to take off (even after a recent dust removal/cleaning and new paste on the CPU, for better conductivity for CPU cooling) and forget about any multitasking under a heavy load with the old and slowish clunkers.

I rate the tests a success on the new PC. I hesitate to run such tests on the laptop, though. There is much less airflow, and it is mostly - if not entirely - passively cooled. But the laptop is somewhat faster under the same testing conditions for the speed tests I have run on it so far, compared to the new PC.  :azn:

Quote from: zedd151 on January 16, 2025, 06:06:59 AMDuring the testing, temps went up to no more than 85C, and fans went full throttle, of course.
All the while, I was still able to do other things like browsing the web, refreshing web pages, opening files and folders then closing them. No hiccups, it was as if nothing else was running. My old PC's always had the fans blowing so loud, it seemed as if a jet airplane was ready to take off (even after a recent dust removal/cleaning and new paste on the CPU, for better conductivity for CPU cooling) and forget about any multitasking under a heavy load with the old and slowish clunkers.

You forgot to mention fry eggs on top of computer :)

Quote from: daydreamer on January 16, 2025, 06:24:04 AMYou forgot to mention fry eggs on top of computer :)

Or... keep my bedroom warm on a cold winter night.  :tongue:

Quote from: zedd151 on January 16, 2025, 07:10:25 AM

Quote from: daydreamer on January 16, 2025, 06:24:04 AMYou forgot to mention fry eggs on top of computer :)

Or... keep my bedroom warm on a cold winter night.  :tongue:

Wonder if you can use hot water from a watercooled computer to brew your coffee on ? :)

Quote from: daydreamer on January 16, 2025, 04:51:52 PM

Quote from: zedd151 on January 16, 2025, 07:10:25 AM

Quote from: daydreamer on January 16, 2025, 06:24:04 AMYou forgot to mention fry eggs on top of computer :)

Or... keep my bedroom warm on a cold winter night.  :tongue:

Wonder if you can use hot water from a watercooled computer to brew your coffee on ? :)

You certainly could if you were running a server farm for AI or for bitcoin mining. Those suckers gobble up enormous amounts of energy. To the point where certain places are banning them because of their incredible water usage.

Members who got newer computers, I have a question for you: do your computer have avx2 or AVX caps,so i am not restricted run timings in laboratory only on my own avx2 caps computer?
Otherwise it feels pointless try develop skills in using these avx2,AVX opcodes  :sad:

Quote from: daydreamer on January 22, 2025, 04:34:50 AMMembers who got newer computers, I have a question for you: do your computer have avx2 or AVX

Give me a sample exectutable using those, and I will test it and see...
The PC isn't very new, but the laptop is.

Okay from a third party tool - results were not a complete listing of instructions sets available. text removed.
New listing in #342

Work PC
13th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-13900KF (Raptor Lake)
MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, EM64T, AES, AVX, AVX2, AVX-VNNI, FMA3, SHA
Hums along nicely :biggrin:

Quote from: sinsi on January 22, 2025, 07:35:29 AMWork PC

Code Select Expand

13th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-13900KF (Raptor Lake)
MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, EM64T, AES, AVX, AVX2, AVX-VNNI, FMA3, SHA
Hums along nicely :biggrin:

What did you use to get that info, sinsi?

CPU-Z (https://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html)

Quote from: sinsi on January 22, 2025, 09:01:23 AMCPU-Z (https://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html)

Thanks sinsi. I had my doubts whether the other tool checked thoroughly enough.

Dell Optiplex 7050 sff PC:
Name Intel Core i7 7700
Codename Kaby Lake
Specification Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700 CPU @ 3.60GHz
Instructions sets MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, EM64T, VT-x, AES, AVX, AVX2, FMA3, TSX

OTVOC 15 Laptop:
Name Intel Celeron N5095
Codename Jasper Lake
Specification Intel(R) Celeron(R) N5105 @ 2.00GHz
Instructions sets MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, EM64T, VT-x, AES, SHA

:biggrin:

Home computer
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10700 CPU @ 2.90GHz (Comet Lake)
MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, EM64T, AES, AVX, AVX2, FMA3


Quote from: daydreamer on January 22, 2025, 04:34:50 AMMembers who got newer computers, I have a question for you: do your computer have avx2 or AVX caps,so i am not restricted run timings in laboratory only on my own avx2 caps computer?
Otherwise it feels pointless try develop skills in using these avx2,AVX opcodes  :sad:

I would be interested, for sure.

anyone understands why does Intel deliberately disabled AVX512 *** support in recent gen CPUs?

Quote from: sinsi on January 22, 2025, 03:55:29 PMHome computer

Code Select Expand

Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10700 CPU @ 2.90GHz (Comet Lake)
MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, EM64T, AES, AVX, AVX2, FMA3


Quote from: daydreamer on January 22, 2025, 04:34:50 AMMembers who got newer computers, I have a question for you: do your computer have avx2 or AVX caps,so i am not restricted run timings in laboratory only on my own avx2 caps computer?
Otherwise it feels pointless try develop skills in using these avx2,AVX opcodes  :sad:

I would be interested, for sure.

I got idea of check 54 primes between 0-256 , 2 ymm register is enough to store those 54 primes ,check my simt thread

SSE /SSE2 packed code unrolled twice ,check avx or avx2 caps if call 256 bit wider version of 128 bit code and run timings in laboratory to compare old 128 bit code vs new 256 bit version

Around 3 months or so in, and both the Dell Optiplex (my daily usage computer) and the OTVOC laptop are humming along very quietly and very nicely.  :azn:
The best two technology purchases I have made thus far. And reasonably priced for the amount of memory in them and the great speed improvement over my past computers.