The Windows and Windows Software Megathread

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SlayVus: Jul 10, 2009; Grimey Drawer

Is there any security risk to running Windows with Disabled Signed Driver Enforcement? I have a Ideazon Merc keyboard, what it looks like, and a security update before the Fall Creators Update came out just won't accept my keyboard driver as acceptable. I found a method online that works around the security update by disabling SDE and installing the driver under a different driver name.

# ? Oct 19, 2017 05:21

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# ? Jun 4, 2024 07:13

Double Punctuation: Dec 30, 2009; Ships were made for sinking;
Whiskey made for drinking;
If we were made of cellophane
We'd all get stinking drunk much faster!

There is a theoretical security risk, in that malicious software could provision a test signing certificate and install a driver that bypasses all security. However, if nobody is targeting you, most attacks will either install ransomware or miners.

The problem is more that you will get an annoying message saying that test signing is enabled, and apps like Netflix can check for test signing and disable themselves.

Alternatively, holy hell, get a keyboard that doesn�t look like it was made in 2000 for WebTV and has a dedicated button to hide your porn. We have a thread all about keyboards that can even show you how to make a custom one.

# ? Oct 19, 2017 06:41

fyallm: Feb 27, 2007; College Slice

My wife's laptop was acting up so I did a refresh of windows which removes all of the programs, and not thinking about it removed office... We bought the computer a long time ago and so it's out of warranty and it had came with office preloaded. Is there anyway to get office back? Or are we poo poo out of luck and have to buy office again? Also, if that is the case, cheapest place to buy office?

# ? Oct 19, 2017 14:09

The Lord Bude: May 23, 2007; ASK ME ABOUT MY SHITTY, BOUGIE INTERIOR DECORATING ADVICE

fyallm posted:

My wife's laptop was acting up so I did a refresh of windows which removes all of the programs, and not thinking about it removed office... We bought the computer a long time ago and so it's out of warranty and it had came with office preloaded. Is there anyway to get office back? Or are we poo poo out of luck and have to buy office again? Also, if that is the case, cheapest place to buy office?

You can buy office directly from the Microsoft website. Be aware that Microsoft is strongly pushing the annual subscription model for office these days. You can still buy traditional licences, but Microsoft has gone out of its way to make them bad value. You can always use libreoffice as a free alternative that is very good. I feel like most home users would be perfectly happy with libreoffice (unless they do super hardcore spreadsheets and whatnot and absolutely need perfect compatibility when opening them on a different pc that runs MSOffice) and only buy Microsoft office because they don't realise that there are perfectly good alternatives.

# ? Oct 19, 2017 14:18

Thermopyle: Jul 1, 2003; ...the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt. �Bertrand Russell

I feel like most home users will be fine with Google Docs and the like.

# ? Oct 19, 2017 15:22

fishmech: Jul 16, 2006; by VideoGames; Salad Prong

fyallm posted:

My wife's laptop was acting up so I did a refresh of windows which removes all of the programs, and not thinking about it removed office... We bought the computer a long time ago and so it's out of warranty and it had came with office preloaded. Is there anyway to get office back? Or are we poo poo out of luck and have to buy office again? Also, if that is the case, cheapest place to buy office?

You should probably be able to use the serial number or other identification on the laptop to contact support and figure out what license you had for office. And if you'd saved all the paperwork and stuff that came in the box, an Office key or directions on how to retrieve it may be located there.

Otherwise Office 365 subscription costs per year basically add up to the cost it would be to buy the standard retail version of office every 3-4 years when a new version comes out, and you should basically just see if any local office/computer store happens to have a sale going, for a cheapest version.

Also in some cases, employers participate in a program where their employees can get a real cheap Office license (usually like, $20). See if your job or your wife's has that.

# ? Oct 19, 2017 17:49

The Lord Bude: May 23, 2007; ASK ME ABOUT MY SHITTY, BOUGIE INTERIOR DECORATING ADVICE

fishmech posted:

You should probably be able to use the serial number or other identification on the laptop to contact support and figure out what license you had for office. And if you'd saved all the paperwork and stuff that came in the box, an Office key or directions on how to retrieve it may be located there.

Otherwise Office 365 subscription costs per year basically add up to the cost it would be to buy the standard retail version of office every 3-4 years when a new version comes out, and you should basically just see if any local office/computer store happens to have a sale going, for a cheapest version.

Also in some cases, employers participate in a program where their employees can get a real cheap Office license (usually like, $20). See if your job or your wife's has that.

Also if either of you happens to be a student.

# ? Oct 20, 2017 05:27

Rexxed: May 1, 2010; Dis is amazing!
I gotta try dis!

fyallm posted:

My wife's laptop was acting up so I did a refresh of windows which removes all of the programs, and not thinking about it removed office... We bought the computer a long time ago and so it's out of warranty and it had came with office preloaded. Is there anyway to get office back? Or are we poo poo out of luck and have to buy office again? Also, if that is the case, cheapest place to buy office?

If it was Office 2013 and you logged into a Microsoft account it should be associated with that account and you can download it and retrieve the key. I haven't done it in a year or so and MS likes to change their web pages around, but if you have an MS account try signing into it at:
http://office.microsoft.com
There should be a way from that page or maybe in your account info to find the information and re-dl Office.

If it was Office 2010 you'll need the product key, and I'm not sure about 2016 (but it's likely the same as 2013).

# ? Oct 20, 2017 09:29

The Lord Bude: May 23, 2007; ASK ME ABOUT MY SHITTY, BOUGIE INTERIOR DECORATING ADVICE

My dad wants to be able to save documents he creates in PDF form, sort the documents into a given order; then collate those PDFs into a single document in that order. Is this something that windows 10 can do out of the box, and if not, can anyone recommend reputable software that can do this. Bonus points if it's free software, but he doesn't mind paying if he needs to.

# ? Oct 20, 2017 14:16

fyallm: Feb 27, 2007; College Slice

fishmech posted:

You should probably be able to use the serial number or other identification on the laptop to contact support and figure out what license you had for office. And if you'd saved all the paperwork and stuff that came in the box, an Office key or directions on how to retrieve it may be located there.

Otherwise Office 365 subscription costs per year basically add up to the cost it would be to buy the standard retail version of office every 3-4 years when a new version comes out, and you should basically just see if any local office/computer store happens to have a sale going, for a cheapest version.

Also in some cases, employers participate in a program where their employees can get a real cheap Office license (usually like, $20). See if your job or your wife's has that.

Yeah we tried to use the serial code but no go.

Tried Libreoffice or whatever but it jacked up the formatting of all of her documents.

Neither of us are students and I will check but I dont think either of our jobs offer any discounts, I will check out our microcenter and see if maybe we got lucky, thanks everyone!

# ? Oct 20, 2017 14:40

Illuminado: Mar 26, 2008; The Path Ahead is Dark

The Lord Bude posted:

My dad wants to be able to save documents he creates in PDF form, sort the documents into a given order; then collate those PDFs into a single document in that order. Is this something that windows 10 can do out of the box, and if not, can anyone recommend reputable software that can do this. Bonus points if it's free software, but he doesn't mind paying if he needs to.

Word or GoogleDocs can export to full OCR PDF, and for the last part, I'd recommend PDF SAM (Split and Merge). I've had to use it a lot doing typical administrative office duties, and it's great for that.

# ? Oct 20, 2017 18:07

Factor Mystic: Mar 20, 2006; Baby's First Post-Apocalyptic Fiction

kiwid posted:

Is there a better terminal out there somewhere that supports SSH agent forwarding?

I used to use PuTTY all the time but since getting a laptop with a 4k screen I've noticed that fonts are always blurry in PuTTY.

The default Windows CMD prompt or PowerShell fonts look great and I can use Linux Subsystem to make them not suck, but they don't support SSH agent forwarding.

I've tried Hyper but it also does not support SSH agent forwarding.

Anything else out there that:
a) isn't lovely
b) supports high dpi and fonts don't look blurry
c) supports ssh agent forwarding

This question doesn't make sense to me. Why can't you just change putty's dpi scaling method, if it works? CMD & Powershell are shells, not terminals? Hyper is a terminal, not a shell? SSH works fine?

Here is me just now, on Windows, using the Hyper & Powershell, using ssh to connect to a server and then on to github via agent forwarding.

One of us is confused might be me idk

e: ohhhhhh did you perhaps forget to start your ssh agent? You'd have to start it manually in other shells, putty takes care of it for you I bet.

Factor Mystic fucked around with this message at 02:16 on Oct 21, 2017

# ? Oct 21, 2017 02:14

Combat Pretzel: Jun 23, 2004; No, seriously... what kurds?!

Could someone please tell me what the point was of Microsoft introducing the DOCX fileformat in Word, if it's not even forward compatible? I'm currently trying to open some old DOCX files I've probably written in Word 2007, and Word 2016 claims they're corrupted. I've renamed one of these, opened it in 7zip and ran archive verification, none of the content is corrupt. What gives?

--edit: Some old regular DOC without X files from the same or earlier period open just fine.

Combat Pretzel fucked around with this message at 12:48 on Oct 22, 2017

# ? Oct 22, 2017 12:45

fishmech: Jul 16, 2006; by VideoGames; Salad Prong

Combat Pretzel posted:

Could someone please tell me what the point was of Microsoft introducing the DOCX fileformat in Word, if it's not even forward compatible? I'm currently trying to open some old DOCX files I've probably written in Word 2007, and Word 2016 claims they're corrupted. I've renamed one of these, opened it in 7zip and ran archive verification, none of the content is corrupt. What gives?

--edit: Some old regular DOC without X files from the same or earlier period open just fine.

7 zip isn't going to be able to tell you if the data is corrupt, just whether the archive itself has been corrupted further on top. Your files likely did have some problems when saved however many years ago, just let Word try to repair them.

# ? Oct 22, 2017 13:21

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

The compression may be fine, but there could still be issues with the XML schema or content.

# ? Oct 22, 2017 13:22

Combat Pretzel: Jun 23, 2004; No, seriously... what kurds?!

Well, the files worked a long while back, and then they resided on my NAS for years. If the ZIP archive still tests/unpacks correctly this day, then the data inside should also be intact. I mean, really, what are the chances that bits flip the right way, so that it still unpacks cleanly and matches the CRC32 of all files in the archive, but breaks the XML inside otherwise? On all of the old DOCX files?

# ? Oct 22, 2017 14:57

fishmech: Jul 16, 2006; by VideoGames; Salad Prong

Combat Pretzel posted:

Well, the files worked a long while back, and then they resided on my NAS for years. If the ZIP archive still tests/unpacks correctly this day, then the data inside should also be intact. I mean, really, what are the chances that bits flip the right way, so that it still unpacks cleanly and matches the CRC32 of all files in the archive, but breaks the XML inside otherwise? On all of the old DOCX files?

So did you tell Word to try repairing them or not? Did it work? Just because they opened with no warnings many years back doesn't mean they don't actually have problems that were there then.

# ? Oct 22, 2017 15:16

Combat Pretzel: Jun 23, 2004; No, seriously... what kurds?!

Repair doesn't work, otherwise I wouldn't even have posted. Every single DOCX file from that period is claimed corrupt. I find that highly unlikely. Seems more that Microsoft seemed to have changed things enough to break my poo poo. Not that much of a biggie, but it'd have saved me quite some work having access to these files.

--edit: Actually come to think of it, I wonder if they were created with an Office beta. Given the age it might be possible. That certainly might explain things.

Combat Pretzel fucked around with this message at 15:46 on Oct 22, 2017

# ? Oct 22, 2017 15:44

Saukkis: May 16, 2003; Unless I'm on the inside curve pointing straight at oncoming traffic the high beams stay on and I laugh at your puny protest flashes.
I am Most Important Man. Most Important Man in the World.

You could try opening them with LibreOffice, it may be less fussy about possible corruption.

# ? Oct 22, 2017 16:12

fishmech: Jul 16, 2006; by VideoGames; Salad Prong

Combat Pretzel posted:

Repair doesn't work, otherwise I wouldn't even have posted. Every single DOCX file from that period is claimed corrupt. I find that highly unlikely. Seems more that Microsoft seemed to have changed things enough to break my poo poo. Not that much of a biggie, but it'd have saved me quite some work having access to these files.

--edit: Actually come to think of it, I wonder if they were created with an Office beta. Given the age it might be possible. That certainly might explain things.

Saving with a beta could explain things, the format wasn't finalized yet. Maybe an old retail Office 2007 install would be able to read them?

# ? Oct 22, 2017 16:14

stevewm: May 10, 2005

Saukkis posted:

You could try opening them with LibreOffice, it may be less fussy about possible corruption.

Seconding this.. LibreOffice is a useful tool for this alone.

It will attempt to open any office file, corrupted or not. I have used it in the past to open and re-save damaged MS Office files.

# ? Oct 23, 2017 15:37

Knifegrab: Jul 30, 2014; Gadzooks! I'm terrified of this little child who is going to stab me with a knife. I must wrest the knife away from his control and therefore gain the upperhand.

Does anyone know of any software that is capable of taking a constant loop recording of audio? I want to run this software 24/7 and if something happens around the microphone that is of interest I would like to capture it, ideally the microphone would capture say, the last 30 minutes of conversation, and with the push of a button would transfer the last 30 minutes to a file and continue monitoring.

I hope that was worded clearly. Thanks in advance!

# ? Oct 23, 2017 23:59

Read: Dec 21, 2010

Knifegrab posted:

Does anyone know of any software that is capable of taking a constant loop recording of audio? I want to run this software 24/7 and if something happens around the microphone that is of interest I would like to capture it, ideally the microphone would capture say, the last 30 minutes of conversation, and with the push of a button would transfer the last 30 minutes to a file and continue monitoring.

I hope that was worded clearly. Thanks in advance!

A simpler version of this should be easily doable with a bash/batch script and copy of ffmpeg, I think the prebuilt ffmpeg binaries for Windows have libopus support.

The idea is to just make a series of 1 hour recordings starting every hour and label them for the hour they were recorded in, eg: 6:00 PM -> 7:00 PM is file 18 (18.opus, properly). Then after 24 hours each new file will overwrite the one from the previous day, limiting storage requirements.

So as long as you grab what you need before 24h are up you should be fine.

You can modify this StackOverflow answer for this purpose: https://superuser.com/questions/548071/how-to-record-sound-24-7
Also relevant if you want to use libopus: https://superuser.com/questions/516806/how-to-encode-audio-with-opus-codec

But just using MP3 is fine, it's less efficient for space:quality but not really a big deal.

Limitations: Audio is only available in 1 hour chunks, have to wait for the current hour to finish before grabbing the recording, stitching files together is required if the audio spans two or more recordings.

# ? Oct 24, 2017 02:30

PierreTheMime: Dec 9, 2004; Hero of hormagaunts everywhere!; Buglord

Bit of a strange question, but would anyone have a good way of testing what appears to be intermittent cross-domain authentication failures? We're running an automation platform that uses AD user accounts for logon/execution permission and randomly has batch logon attempts from another domain fail with an Event ID 4625 domain-trust error. The network admins are claiming its our automation software because no other system appears to be having this issue, but no other system attempts 10-20 cross-domain logons every few seconds. To me it seems pretty apparent that the local server on a separate domain fails to contact and authenticate the user with the other domain controller, but I could be wrong. :shrug:

Here's an example log:

code:

An account failed to log on.

Subject:
	Security ID:		NULL SID
	Account Name:		-
	Account Domain:		-
	Logon ID:		0x0

Logon Type:			3

Account For Which Logon Failed:
	Security ID:		NULL SID
	Account Name:		exampleuser
	Account Domain:		EXAMPLE_DOMAIN2

Failure Information:
	Failure Reason:		An Error occured during Logon.
	Status:			0xC000018C
	Sub Status:		0x0

Process Information:
	Caller Process ID:	0x0
	Caller Process Name:	-

Network Information:
	Workstation Name:	EXAMPLEWKSTN
	Source Network Address:	xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
	Source Port:		63091

Detailed Authentication Information:
	Logon Process:		NtLmSsp 
	Authentication Package:	NTLM
	Transited Services:	-
	Package Name (NTLM only):	-
	Key Length:		0

I've googled around quite a bit but I can't seem to find an answer that seems to fit. I would like to narrow down whether it is our software (which I doubt)--does anyone know of a decent way to do bulk logon attempts via Powershell or something similar? I am not regularly an administrator (especially not for Windows), but I have been tasked to prove a negative and I'd appreciate any assistance if anyone's dealt with this type of thing before.

# ? Oct 25, 2017 21:14

hooah: Feb 6, 2006; WTF?

I recently got Office through my work's HUP, and I got Outlook set up and bound to my keyboard's email key. I also told it to minimize to the tray rather than just the taskbar. However, it now doesn't maximize itself when I hit the email button, even though when I minimized it it was full-screened. Is there a way to force it to restore to the size it was when I minimized it?

# ? Oct 28, 2017 00:58

lllllllllllllllllll: Feb 28, 2010; Now the scene's lighting is perfect!

The Lord Bude posted:

My dad wants to be able to save documents he creates in PDF form, sort the documents into a given order; then collate those PDFs into a single document in that order. Is this something that windows 10 can do out of the box, and if not, can anyone recommend reputable software that can do this. Bonus points if it's free software, but he doesn't mind paying if he needs to.

PDFill PDF Tool (Free) would be an alternative if you don't want to install Java .

# ? Oct 29, 2017 10:26

The Lord Bude: May 23, 2007; ASK ME ABOUT MY SHITTY, BOUGIE INTERIOR DECORATING ADVICE

Thanks

# ? Oct 29, 2017 11:21

Ihmemies: Oct 6, 2012

Adobe Acrobat works really well too. But I have no idea if they sell it standalone anymore...

# ? Oct 29, 2017 11:22

The Lord Bude: May 23, 2007; ASK ME ABOUT MY SHITTY, BOUGIE INTERIOR DECORATING ADVICE

Ihmemies posted:

Adobe Acrobat works really well too. But I have no idea if they sell it standalone anymore...

We're an adobe free household. Ditto for Java.

Turns out all he really wanted was to collate different sheets and sections and whatnot from his fuckoff giant bored retired accountant spreadsheets into single pdfs; and he eventually realised he could do that with office.

# ? Oct 29, 2017 13:28

c0burn: Sep 2, 2003; The KKKing

hooah posted:

I recently got Office through my work's HUP, and I got Outlook set up and bound to my keyboard's email key. I also told it to minimize to the tray rather than just the taskbar. However, it now doesn't maximize itself when I hit the email button, even though when I minimized it it was full-screened. Is there a way to force it to restore to the size it was when I minimized it?

This is a job for an Autohotkey script.

# ? Oct 29, 2017 18:56

Cojawfee: May 31, 2006; I think the US is dumb for not using Celsius

Is anyone else trying out this controlled folder access thing that was added in the fall update? It's nice I guess but it's loving useless for anything windows doesn't assume is good. It pops up saying it blocked something and there's no way to add that program to a whitelist easily. You click the notification and it just takes you to the whitelist screen and you have to find the program yourself. Then I add the program to the whitelist and it still blocks it.

# ? Oct 29, 2017 20:56

beuges: Jul 4, 2005; fluffy bunny butterfly broomstick

Cojawfee posted:

Is anyone else trying out this controlled folder access thing that was added in the fall update? It's nice I guess but it's loving useless for anything windows doesn't assume is good. It pops up saying it blocked something and there's no way to add that program to a whitelist easily. You click the notification and it just takes you to the whitelist screen and you have to find the program yourself. Then I add the program to the whitelist and it still blocks it.

I felt the same way, until I found
this
There's a link to a zip file which contains a file you can import into Event Viewer, which creates a custom view of all Controlled Folder Access events. This contains the full path of the application that was blocked, which you can copy out and whitelist from the Defender screen.

# ? Oct 30, 2017 17:05

Cojawfee: May 31, 2006; I think the US is dumb for not using Celsius

Awesome, thanks! I thought I was whitelisting something but that program was using a separate executable to save files.

# ? Oct 30, 2017 21:44

Severing: Aug 26, 2017

https://arstechnica.co.uk/gadgets/2017/11/the-last-official-way-to-get-a-free-windows-10-upgrade-is-ending-soon/

The last way to get free Windows 10 is ending soon (assistive technology), so upgrade those PCs if you still want it.

# ? Nov 4, 2017 06:41

Ihmemies: Oct 6, 2012

So far the windows 10 experience has been smooth. Part of it comes from the ability to disable annoying features with Enterprise. If things look still good next month, I'll upgrade my htpc with win 10 too.

That controlled folder access looks handy! If I want to protect my google drive, documents, minecraft saves, photos etc. I need to make a list of apps which can also write to those folders? Like word, acrobat, the google backup client etc.?

Doesn't sound too hard since there's only a few apps which should have write access, depending on the contents of the folder. I also have offline backups on external usb hdd's and crashplan but you can never bee too safe.

# ? Nov 4, 2017 08:17

Boywhiz88: Sep 11, 2005; floating 26" off da ground. BURR!

Edit: wrong thread my bad

Boywhiz88 fucked around with this message at 15:20 on Nov 4, 2017

# ? Nov 4, 2017 14:17

Saukkis: May 16, 2003; Unless I'm on the inside curve pointing straight at oncoming traffic the high beams stay on and I laugh at your puny protest flashes.
I am Most Important Man. Most Important Man in the World.

Severing posted:

https://arstechnica.co.uk/gadgets/2017/11/the-last-official-way-to-get-a-free-windows-10-upgrade-is-ending-soon/

The last way to get free Windows 10 is ending soon (assistive technology), so upgrade those PCs if you still want it.

It is ending officially, but will Microsoft actually disable it since even normal upgrades to Win10 have still been working just fine.

# ? Nov 4, 2017 15:04

bobfather: Sep 20, 2001; I will analyze your nervous system for beer money

Saukkis posted:

It is ending officially, but will Microsoft actually disable it since even normal upgrades to Win10 have still been working just fine.

Also that article counfounds 2 different upgrade paths:

1) Assistive upgrade works on Win 7 or 8 and will basically upgrade you to that same version of Win 10 after you download the Assistive upgrade tool

2) The official Win 10 upgrade and media install tool still accepts Win 7 and Win 8 keys and converts them to digital entitlements as soon as Win 10 is finished installing. This is a still-open hole that Microsoft said they were closing more than a year ago.

What I bet is that Microsoft will stop offering the Assistive upgrade .exe on their site, but if you have it already it will continue to work to upgrade systems. It's way, way easier on their support team to just disappear it but still let it work than to cut it off and then have anybody who has ever read about the Assistive upgrade email them and ask for support about why it doesn't work anymore.

# ? Nov 4, 2017 15:43

xzzy: Mar 5, 2009

Plus they're far better off if everyone is running windows 10.

Announcing the end of free upgrade but not actually killing it creates a sense of urgency, increasing W10 uptake, and in the long run means they get more money out of it if people don't have the magic exe.

# ? Nov 4, 2017 15:51

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# ? Jun 4, 2024 07:13

Severing: Aug 26, 2017

More than likely they'll keep these methods around informally, however that still means they can pull them at any time.

# ? Nov 4, 2017 16:06

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Windows and Windows Software Megathread

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