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CyberPingu
Sep 15, 2013


If you're not striving to improve, you'll end up going backwards.
I wish see Spotify had an upload feature for my own music like Google music has

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Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

Cardiovorax posted:

From what I know, Bitlocker is hardware-bound encryption, so even if you paid someone to mirror the data on the broken disk to a different one bit-by-bit, you still couldn't decrypt it anymore. It's one of many reasons why it's really not worth it to ever use Bitlocker or other full-disk encryption methods like it unless you actually have a pressing need for that kind of security.

No, in most home-user cases bitlocker is software based and a complete low-level image of the drive will produce a copy that will work when put onto a different drive. For bitlocker to use the onboard encryption of a drive, you had to set it up in a particular way (starting from an uninitialized drive). And now even that doesn't use the native encryption -- MS turned that off by default in 2019 because drive makers were doing a poo poo job at security.


And bitlocker is fine to use, the issue here is backups. If you aren't backing up data then you don't care about it. If you're using bitlocker you probably care about your data, therefore are backing it up and a drive failure is at most inconvenient.

System-drive encryption with bitlocker is another story, that is IMO not worth using for the average person -- but only because it's annoying and fiddly without TPM hardware and your home PC probably doesn't have one. It's much easier to create a new volume and encrypt that.

Cardiovorax
Jun 5, 2011

I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.
Alright, guess I'm mixing it up with a different type of encryption. When I read up on drive encryption a while ago, I was told that there are some full-drive encryption methods that use hardware IDs for the generation of the cipher, so even if you have the data, you can't really use it for anything if the drive itself physically breaks. Bitlocker was mentioned in that context, but maybe whatever site read that on was mistaken if I'm not just misremembering.

Medullah
Aug 14, 2003

FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS
Yeah the drive I have that's bad didn't have a backup, but it was mostly just a bunch of old files from an old computer so it's no great loss. Nowadays I have OneDrive for data, Carbonite for continuous backup and an external that takes a backup every week.

organburner
Apr 10, 2011

This avatar helped buy Lowtax a new skeleton.

CyberPingu posted:

I wish see Spotify had an upload feature for my own music like Google music has

yeah that would have saved it for me. Google music just sucks when it comes to selection here.

So gently caress it, I can rip from cd's instead and listen to what I loving want to.

CyberPingu
Sep 15, 2013


If you're not striving to improve, you'll end up going backwards.

organburner posted:

yeah that would have saved it for me. Google music just sucks when it comes to selection here.

So gently caress it, I can rip from cd's instead and listen to what I loving want to.

I mean. Spotify premium is still one of the only sub services that is 100% worth its value though.

Fame Douglas
Nov 20, 2013

by Fluffdaddy

Klyith posted:

System-drive encryption with bitlocker is another story, that is IMO not worth using for the average person -- but only because it's annoying and fiddly without TPM hardware and your home PC probably doesn't have one. It's much easier to create a new volume and encrypt that.

On modern AMD Ryzen systems, you can enable the firmware TPM in the Bios settings. If you have a decently modern PC, chances are you have a TPM.

EoRaptor
Sep 13, 2003



Fame Douglas posted:

On modern AMD Ryzen systems, you can enable the firmware TPM in the Bios settings. If you have a decently modern PC, chances are you have a TPM.


FYI if you do this with the AMD TPM: It will reset itself every time you do a BIOS update, so make and keep a hard copy of your bitlocker key so you can boot Windows and reinitialize the TPM module.

organburner
Apr 10, 2011

This avatar helped buy Lowtax a new skeleton.

CyberPingu posted:

I mean. Spotify premium is still one of the only sub services that is 100% worth its value though.

yeah probably, I just listen to some weird stuff and the way spotify handles syncing local files I might as well save the money and gently caress around with mp3's instead.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

Cardiovorax posted:

Alright, guess I'm mixing it up with a different type of encryption. When I read up on drive encryption a while ago, I was told that there are some full-drive encryption methods that use hardware IDs for the generation of the cipher, so even if you have the data, you can't really use it for anything if the drive itself physically breaks. Bitlocker was mentioned in that context, but maybe whatever site read that on was mistaken if I'm not just misremembering.

tl;dr you're not totally mixed up, most recent SSDs are self-encrypting and in theory that's what Opal was supposed to do. But probably articles you were reading were "this is how it will work", not what was currently happening in practice.


And it's not that the encryption uses a hardware ID, it's that the drive has an integrated always-on encryption chip. The theory behind Opal was that there's a data key and the drive is storing everything encrypted from day 1, but that key is unprotected by default. Turning on encryption is supposed to be easy, all you do is password-protect the key.

But the overlap between consumer drives shipping with that enabled out of the box, and MS pulling the plug on default use, was pretty short.

Fame Douglas posted:

On modern AMD Ryzen systems, you can enable the firmware TPM in the Bios settings. If you have a decently modern PC, chances are you have a TPM.

I would not do this without a real TPM module. They're cheap, under $20, if you really need it.

Klyith fucked around with this message at 19:40 on Jun 21, 2020

Ynglaur
Oct 9, 2013

The Malta Conference, anyone?
Please don't tell people that full disk encryption is bad "in case you need to recover your data.". Having data both secure and backed up is a solved problem, with many options that are easy to use for non technical people.

It's like saying, "Don't buckle up. You might have to get out of your car if you get in an accident."

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

Ynglaur posted:

Having data [...] secure [...] is a solved problem

:eyepop:

mystes
May 31, 2006

Recovering data from failing drives is basically impossible now with SSDs anyway.

On the other hand, I'm not sure you really need to encrypt a desktop that never leaves your home.

Dirt Road Junglist
Oct 8, 2010

We will be cruel
And through our cruelty
They will know who we are

Ynglaur posted:

Please don't tell people that full disk encryption is bad "in case you need to recover your data.". Having data both secure and backed up is a solved problem, with many options that are easy to use for non technical people.

It's like saying, "Don't buckle up. You might have to get out of your car if you get in an accident."

This. So much this.

Ynglaur
Oct 9, 2013

The Malta Conference, anyone?

Har Har. You know what I mean Klyith.

Fame Douglas
Nov 20, 2013

by Fluffdaddy

Klyith posted:

I would not do this without a real TPM module. They're cheap, under $20, if you really need it.

There's no reason not do it, works just like a real TPM. Buying an extra module isn't necessary or useful for full disk encryption.

EoRaptor posted:

FYI if you do this with the AMD TPM: It will reset itself every time you do a BIOS update, so make and keep a hard copy of your bitlocker key so you can boot Windows and reinitialize the TPM module.

You should always do that anyways.

Fame Douglas fucked around with this message at 23:21 on Jun 21, 2020

dpkg chopra
Jun 9, 2007

Fast Food Fight

Grimey Drawer
Is there any Windows software that will compare hashes for files across different folders and weed out duplicates?

I have a bunch of folders that have 90% identical files, but in some cases files with the same name might be a newer version and I don't want to check all of them individually

CyberPingu
Sep 15, 2013


If you're not striving to improve, you'll end up going backwards.
Ok seriously wtf windows


System recovery image taken on a 250GB SSD


Reimaged to a 1TB SSD, but I can't extend the OS image back up to 1TB. Even with 3rd party software its loving borked



Edit. Nvm fixed. Had to create a new partition on the unallocated space then merge the two because "reasons"

CyberPingu fucked around with this message at 13:49 on Jun 22, 2020

Cardiovorax
Jun 5, 2011

I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

Ur Getting Fatter posted:

Is there any Windows software that will compare hashes for files across different folders and weed out duplicates?

I have a bunch of folders that have 90% identical files, but in some cases files with the same name might be a newer version and I don't want to check all of them individually
Here is a list of a number of them: https://alternativeto.net/software/fdupes/?platform=windows

I don't have any personal experience with any of these and I could give you better recommendations if you were asking for something on Linux, which is what I usually use for that kind of system management task, but if you just Google for "Windows utilities like fdupes" you will find a lot of results that should work fine.

dpkg chopra
Jun 9, 2007

Fast Food Fight

Grimey Drawer

Cardiovorax posted:

Here is a list of a number of them: https://alternativeto.net/software/fdupes/?platform=windows

I don't have any personal experience with any of these and I could give you better recommendations if you were asking for something on Linux, which is what I usually use for that kind of system management task, but if you just Google for "Windows utilities like fdupes" you will find a lot of results that should work fine.

Thanks! Give me your Linux options as well, I have Ubuntu running in Windows so I can probably try it.

dpkg chopra fucked around with this message at 14:12 on Jun 22, 2020

Cardiovorax
Jun 5, 2011

I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.
I tend to use jdupes myself. It's purely command-line, but it's very fast and powerful and can easily go through and hash multiple gigabytes worth of files in just minutes. It's basically identical to fdupes, except it's multiple times faster. You have a lot of flexibility in how you want files presented and in what you want done with them when duplicates are found. One of the most common things to do is to set it up to pick the first out of the list of duplicates and delete everything else, but if you're good at bash scripting, it's also possible to set it up to instead move all duplicate files into a different directory while leaving one behind so that you can decide for yourself if you really want the duplicates gone.

rdfind is also pretty good, but I don't use it much. Then there is findimagedupes, which is specifically for finding visually similar images that aren't actually identical files. It's more of a specialty tool, but if you need it, you really need it.

dpkg chopra
Jun 9, 2007

Fast Food Fight

Grimey Drawer

Cardiovorax posted:

I tend to use jdupes myself. It's purely command-line, but it's very fast and powerful and can easily go through and hash multiple gigabytes worth of files in just minutes. It's basically identical to fdupes, except it's multiple times faster. You have a lot of flexibility in how you want files presented and in what you want done with them when duplicates are found. One of the most common things to do is to set it up to pick the first out of the list of duplicates and delete everything else, but if you're good at bash scripting, it's also possible to set it up to instead move all duplicate files into a different directory while leaving one behind so that you can decide for yourself if you really want the duplicates gone.

rdfind is also pretty good, but I don't use it much. Then there is findimagedupes, which is specifically for finding visually similar images that aren't actually identical files. It's more of a specialty tool, but if you need it, you really need it.

Hey, is there any way to to have jdupes check for duplicates between two drives but not within the drives themselves?

Some files are duplicated within the drive for organizational purposes.

Cardiovorax
Jun 5, 2011

I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

Ur Getting Fatter posted:

Hey, is there any way to to have jdupes check for duplicates between two drives but not within the drives themselves?

Some files are duplicated within the drive for organizational purposes.
I think that's more a more specific and selective use case than the tool really supports, or at least I can't think of how you would do so without having to do a lot of scripting yourself. There are utilities meant for creating rolling backups of one drive to another and whose job is to make sure that there are no redundancies in the archived content, though. Those would probably be capable of checking for something like that. I've never used something like that myself, however, so I wouldn't be able to suggest anything there.

A Wheezy Steampunk
Jul 16, 2006

High School Grads Eligible!
I don't know the name of this feature or how to search for it: is there a way in Windows 10 to have a background program ignore the first click so I can bring it to the front without having to hunt for a "safe" area to click?

dpkg chopra
Jun 9, 2007

Fast Food Fight

Grimey Drawer
Is that not what Alt + Tab or Win Key + Tab is for?

A Wheezy Steampunk
Jul 16, 2006

High School Grads Eligible!

Ur Getting Fatter posted:

Is that not what Alt + Tab or Win Key + Tab is for?

If there's a way to make alt-tab or win-tab not show me the dozen minimized windows I don't currently care about, that would be good too.

xzzy
Mar 5, 2009

Click behavior on a background window is annoyingly application specific.. windows allows developers to ignore that first click or not depending how they program it. Obviously most of them use that click.

I think the old tweakui program allowed changing it globally but I could be remembering incorrectly.. it might have only enabled focus follows mouse.

It's been a long time since I looked in to it, at some point in the win7 era I adapted to memorizing where the safe spots are. I hate it but I couldn't find a fix. :shrug:

Cardiovorax
Jun 5, 2011

I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.
There's an accessibility setting that does the opposite of this, which is to say making the focus follow the mouse even just on pointing, but I don't think you can do "focus on click" globally without using third-party tools.

Worf
Sep 12, 2017

If only Seth would love me like I love him!

does display fusion allow you to hotkey an app to foreground

doctorfrog
Mar 14, 2007

Great.

A Wheezy Steampunk posted:

If there's a way to make alt-tab or win-tab not show me the dozen minimized windows I don't currently care about, that would be good too.

Win 10? Shove all your uninteresting windows into another virtual desktop and restrict ALT-TAB to show only current windows.

Fame Douglas
Nov 20, 2013

by Fluffdaddy
Click the title bar?

A Wheezy Steampunk
Jul 16, 2006

High School Grads Eligible!

xzzy posted:

Click behavior on a background window is annoyingly application specific.. windows allows developers to ignore that first click or not depending how they program it. Obviously most of them use that click.

I thought this might be the case, bummer.

doctorfrog posted:

Win 10? Shove all your uninteresting windows into another virtual desktop and restrict ALT-TAB to show only current windows.

I thought about that too and I might try it, but I think I mix and match my windows too much and I'd spend more time organizing them across virtual desktops compared to the time saved by not having to hunt for a safe area to click. I might just have to make clicking safe spots a habit like xzzy said.

Fame Douglas posted:

Click the title bar?

Well yeah, but if an entire third of the window is visible, that's a much bigger target.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week
If you are changing the focus with the mouse just use the taskbar rather than click on the windows. That's why the taskbar exists.

xzzy posted:

Click behavior on a background window is annoyingly application specific.. windows allows developers to ignore that first click or not depending how they program it. Obviously most of them use that click.

If you are really multitasking and have 2 or more windows set up so that you can *use* both at once rather than just pull them forward with focus, ignoring the first click is really annoying.

They can get even more specific than just using or ignoring the first click though -- in many text apps when you click in the text area to focus the app they do not re-position the cursor, but do use the click in other areas.



Statutory Ape posted:

does display fusion allow you to hotkey an app to foreground

basic windows has win+number = hotkey to activate / launch the app in that number position on the taskbar

A Wheezy Steampunk
Jul 16, 2006

High School Grads Eligible!

Klyith posted:

If you are changing the focus with the mouse just use the taskbar rather than click on the windows. That's why the taskbar exists.

Some of the programs have more than one window so instead of one click, it's click, mouse to desired window, click again.

Klyith posted:

basic windows has win+number = hotkey to activate / launch the app in that number position on the taskbar

This, however, works like a treat because it just grabs the first window if there is more than one (which is usually what I want) and I'll go this route if I can get used to it. :tipshat:

Fame Douglas
Nov 20, 2013

by Fluffdaddy

A Wheezy Steampunk posted:

Some of the programs have more than one window so instead of one click, it's click, mouse to desired window, click again.


This, however, works like a treat because it just grabs the first window if there is more than one (which is usually what I want) and I'll go this route if I can get used to it. :tipshat:

You can also set the taskbar do display windows instead of applications (like it used to in older versions of Windows).

xzzy
Mar 5, 2009

Klyith posted:

If you are really multitasking and have 2 or more windows set up so that you can *use* both at once rather than just pull them forward with focus, ignoring the first click is really annoying.


Not to get all platform wars but X11 fixed this decades ago by making 'focus follows mouse' an available feature. :v: I think there are tricks to enable it in windows but I never bothered because these days I use alt+tab if I'm switching windows quickly, regardless of OS. It's faster than reaching for the mouse.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

xzzy posted:

Not to get all platform wars but X11 fixed this decades ago by making 'focus follows mouse' an available feature. :v: I think there are tricks to enable it in windows but I never bothered because these days I use alt+tab if I'm switching windows quickly, regardless of OS. It's faster than reaching for the mouse.

That has been available on windows for a long time as well, first as hidden option you could turn on with regedit or tweak UI as you mentioned, and as a normal control panel option since 7.

re: the platform wars part, is this a thing that X11 makes consistent across apps, like an unfocused window doesn't receive the first click and just gets activated? Normally I wouldn't think of linux as having any more consistent behaviors than windows, but if so good for linux.


(Personally I can't stand the xmouse type activation because it quickly goes into seizure-warning territory when you have a bunch of unorganized windows, and I think a lot of other people would generally agree.)

HalloKitty
Sep 30, 2005

Adjust the bass and let the Alpine blast

A Wheezy Steampunk posted:

I don't know the name of this feature or how to search for it: is there a way in Windows 10 to have a background program ignore the first click so I can bring it to the front without having to hunt for a "safe" area to click?

Middle click, job done. I've done it for god-knows how many years. I know it's not 100% safe in some programmes, but for the absolute vast majority, middle click does sod-all

Edit: Now I think about it, I think I adopted it some time back in the Windows 98 era, because it's around then I started using single click to open folders in explorer

HalloKitty fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Jun 26, 2020

Medullah
Aug 14, 2003

FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS
I found an old .DBX file for Outlook Express, around the 90s. I'd kind of like to see what old emails are in there, but it seems to be a nightmare to find anything that will load them. A few google searches say Windows Mail can import them, but it doesn't look like that's true anymore. Anyone have any recommendations?

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HalloKitty
Sep 30, 2005

Adjust the bass and let the Alpine blast

Medullah posted:

I found an old .DBX file for Outlook Express, around the 90s. I'd kind of like to see what old emails are in there, but it seems to be a nightmare to find anything that will load them. A few google searches say Windows Mail can import them, but it doesn't look like that's true anymore. Anyone have any recommendations?

An old Windows vm would be perfect for this kind of thing, fire it up and run outlook express the way it was intended.

I know old versions of windows can be very handy, I annoyed someone royally on this very forum by firing up an NT 3.51 VM and copying out the 32-bit cardfile.exe so he could recover his bosses' old cardfile database... that's some poo poo he inevitably had to support for a longer time than anyone should have to

HalloKitty fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Jun 26, 2020

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