The Windows and Windows Software Megathread

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MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

So it looks like the Windows Time service was messed up?

It was set to manual when I think it should have been set to automatic.

Not sure if that is going to actually fix it in the long term but once I turned it to automatic my time adjusted about 30 seconds after.

Edit: Yeah windows pinged the time server and fixed the time.

# ? Jul 24, 2020 17:37

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# ? Apr 25, 2024 06:24

AlexDeGruven: Jun 29, 2007; Watch me pull my dongle out of this tiny box

Typically NTP will sync slowly so as not to disrupt any processes that depend on time stamps, so that makes sense.

# ? Jul 24, 2020 17:47

space marine todd: Nov 7, 2014

I want to start with a completely clean install of Windows 10, but I don't want to lose my applications and the preferences/data for those applications. Is there an application that lets me save and back just those things up? I think most of these things live in AppData or something?

I already have all my personal files on Google Drive so I don't care about that.

# ? Jul 24, 2020 21:05

Sir Bobert Fishbone: Jan 16, 2006; Beebort

space marine todd posted:

I want to start with a completely clean install of Windows 10, but I don't want to lose my applications and the preferences/data for those applications. Is there an application that lets me save and back just those things up? I think most of these things live in AppData or something?

I already have all my personal files on Google Drive so I don't care about that.

Isn't that a textbook use case for the "Reset this PC" option in Win10 settings?

# ? Jul 24, 2020 21:22

space marine todd: Nov 7, 2014

Sir Bobert Fishbone posted:

Isn't that a textbook use case for the "Reset this PC" option in Win10 settings?

The thing is that I'm using an NVME drive I previously used in a Dell machine into a new self-built machine so I want to get rid of all the Dell garbage and just keep everything else (Chrome, Ditto, Listary, Ableton, Steam, etc). Will Reset This PC do the trick?

# ? Jul 24, 2020 21:23

SEKCobra: Feb 28, 2011; Hi
Don't look at my site

space marine todd posted:

I want to start with a completely clean install of Windows 10, but I don't want to lose my applications and the preferences/data for those applications. Is there an application that lets me save and back just those things up? I think most of these things live in AppData or something?

I already have all my personal files on Google Drive so I don't care about that.

This is not possible for everything and depends entirely on the data structure of every single program. A lot of windows software relies heavily on the registry, so you would have to bring all the right keys with you. Some software that only uses config files might be able to be migrated by simply copying all the files after running the installer on the new machine.

# ? Jul 25, 2020 08:14

nurmie: Dec 8, 2019

Fruits of the sea posted:

I've had some strange behaviour with language packs disappearing and reappearing on windows 10. I use several, because I write in two languages and while my keys fit my native language, it's sometimes useful to have the keyboard set to an english set-up even if it doesn't match the keys. US english (US keyboard) vanished from the settings yesterday and it wasn't available for installation from language settings either. I installed UK english and keyboard instead. Today, US is suddenly back.

This is kinda loving with my workflow since I have to switch languages on the go in class.

I've been having a similar issue, starting from yesterday. I have 2 language packs, one of them is UK English. For some reason US English randomly appeared in the task bar menu yesterday, while not actually being in the installed language packs list, and I can't get rid of it now

# ? Jul 25, 2020 09:19

Fruits of the sea: Dec 1, 2010

nurmie posted:

I've been having a similar issue, starting from yesterday. I have 2 language packs, one of them is UK English. For some reason US English randomly appeared in the task bar menu yesterday, while not actually being in the installed language packs list, and I can't get rid of it now

Huh, that's odd. This occurrence doesn't even line up with MS's tuesday patch routine.

I was able to remove the extraneous US english keyboard (UK is fine) but for some reason, removing it also removed the Canadian English keyboard which I had installed. Luckily not a big deal since I rarely use French characters these days, but wtf?

Fruits of the sea fucked around with this message at 09:36 on Jul 25, 2020

# ? Jul 25, 2020 09:32

Impotence: Nov 8, 2010; Lipstick Apathy

space marine todd posted:

The thing is that I'm using an NVME drive I previously used in a Dell machine into a new self-built machine so I want to get rid of all the Dell garbage and just keep everything else (Chrome, Ditto, Listary, Ableton, Steam, etc). Will Reset This PC do the trick?

IIRC Ableton DRM also fingerprints your computer, I'd imagine a new install will make it fail activation

# ? Jul 25, 2020 09:37

baka kaba: Jul 19, 2003; PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

I think keyboards can be added by applications when they specify a certain locale, so they can appear in your switcher for a while - I think a game did it for me

Also I got a Dell laptop that was installed as US English instead of UK, and that took a whole bunch of messing around to finally remove the US stuff on a core level - you could set all your locale things to UK but you'd still get issues now and again, I forget what exactly but it definitely included keyboards

e- I posted about it here with all the stuff I did, if you want to try any of that for troubleshooting

baka kaba fucked around with this message at 13:15 on Jul 25, 2020

# ? Jul 25, 2020 13:02

Jeffrey Dahmer: May 21, 2017; by Pragmatica; Muldoon

Is there some way to have mic and cam icons on the taskbar or even desktop to be some master ON/OFF.

Dont really want to have to click through to settings every time, would be great to just have master override ON/OFF icons

Jeffrey Dahmer fucked around with this message at 15:40 on Jul 25, 2020

# ? Jul 25, 2020 15:38

space marine todd: Nov 7, 2014

Biowarfare posted:

IIRC Ableton DRM also fingerprints your computer, I'd imagine a new install will make it fail activation

Yeah, I know about that. I'll deactivate on this computer before I reinstall.

# ? Jul 25, 2020 16:04

Fame Douglas: Nov 20, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

baka kaba posted:

I think keyboards can be added by applications when they specify a certain locale, so they can appear in your switcher for a while - I think a game did it for me

Black Mesa Source does it, for example.

# ? Jul 26, 2020 07:15

Avian Pneumonia: May 24, 2006; ASK ME ABOUT MY OPINIONS ON CANCEL CULTURE

I'm interested in getting dubbed spanish content from streaming services but am having a hard time. I downloaded express vpn and have been using the recommended servers but they either can tell i'm using a vpn or do not have spanish audio available. Does anyone have any tips for this? I'm in new york if it matters.

# ? Jul 26, 2020 18:42

baka kaba: Jul 19, 2003; PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

Are you setting your language preferences in whatever streaming thing you're on? Seems like they'd refer to that over just picking a language from your location (especially when there's plenty of Spanish-speakers in the US)

otherwise maybe they're pulling the locale from your browser? From a quick search around it looks like there's a few ways a browser can make that info available to a server, one's a header sent with the page load request, another's a property the site can access through javascript (if you're willing to try poking at that)

easiest thing to try first is setting your preferred language in the browser - Chrome lets you order a list of them (and I think the UI doesn't need to use your top language either). Otherwise maybe you'd need to play with your system locale

baka kaba fucked around with this message at 00:25 on Jul 27, 2020

# ? Jul 26, 2020 19:44

Impotence: Nov 8, 2010; Lipstick Apathy

Avian Pneumonia posted:

I'm interested in getting dubbed spanish content from streaming services but am having a hard time. I downloaded express vpn and have been using the recommended servers but they either can tell i'm using a vpn or do not have spanish audio available. Does anyone have any tips for this? I'm in new york if it matters.

If a streaming service doesn't have dubbed spanish content in the first place then it doesn't help. Netflix for example lets you pick any combination of audio and subtitles you want regardless. Most other streaming services I've seen like Hulu only have an English track

# ? Jul 26, 2020 21:38

Hughmoris: Apr 21, 2007; Let's go to the abyss!

I need a little help.

Moved cross country. Got my desktop set back up and my win10 install got corrupted somehow. I reset my Windows 10 installation, where it deleted everything but kept my personal files.

Now I don't have any Office apps installed. I previously had Office 2016 (standalone) installed which I purchased through a 'employee IT partnership' program. How do I go about reinstalling office and linking it to said product key?

# ? Jul 27, 2020 01:23

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

Hughmoris posted:

I need a little help.

Moved cross country. Got my desktop set back up and my win10 install got corrupted somehow. I reset my Windows 10 installation, where it deleted everything but kept my personal files.

Now I don't have any Office apps installed. I previously had Office 2016 (standalone) installed which I purchased through a 'employee IT partnership' program. How do I go about reinstalling office and linking it to said product key?

The Microsoft home use program? If you bought it through that your key should be attached to that purchase receipt. If you can't find it, talk to your IT about options. If you've left the company, well you're going to be out of luck since unfortunately the EULA of that program requires you to stop using it if you leave the company.

# ? Jul 27, 2020 01:32

Hughmoris: Apr 21, 2007; Let's go to the abyss!

Medullah posted:

The Microsoft home use program? If you bought it through that your key should be attached to that purchase receipt. If you can't find it, talk to your IT about options. If you've left the company, well you're going to be out of luck since unfortunately the EULA of that program requires you to stop using it if you leave the company.

Ok, thanks.

# ? Jul 27, 2020 01:37

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

Hughmoris posted:

Ok, thanks.

Yeah it's dumb but it's Microsoft. Dig for the email from your purchase and you might get lucky.

# ? Jul 27, 2020 01:39

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

Any programs that will do microphone loopback without delays, like a mixer does? I wear headphones that block most sounds and I�d like to also use a mic at the same time but I find it very awkward to not be able to hear myself speaking.

# ? Jul 27, 2020 22:52

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

tuyop posted:

Any programs that will do microphone loopback without delays, like a mixer does? I wear headphones that block most sounds and I�d like to also use a mic at the same time but I find it very awkward to not be able to hear myself speaking.

I think this would require using ASIO / exclusive mode so that sound can be piped around without buffers, which then means that app is the only thing you can hear.

# ? Jul 28, 2020 01:04

space marine todd: Nov 7, 2014

tuyop posted:

Any programs that will do microphone loopback without delays, like a mixer does? I wear headphones that block most sounds and I�d like to also use a mic at the same time but I find it very awkward to not be able to hear myself speaking.

I think this might be possible with VB Audio Cable, but I have no idea how to implement your specific usecase: https://www.vb-audio.com/Cable/

# ? Jul 28, 2020 01:08

LRADIKAL: Jun 10, 2001; Fun Shoe

Voicemeeter Banana, too.

# ? Jul 28, 2020 17:30

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

LRADIKAL posted:

Voicemeeter Banana, too.

This one looks awesome, thanks!

# ? Jul 28, 2020 18:13

Toast Museum: Dec 3, 2005; 30% Iron Chef

How does Windows detect that a call is in progress? e.g. in the sound control panel, there are options for reducing the volume of other apps during a call; what is Windows checking against to determine when to reduce volume? It works when PhoneSvc and TapiSrv are disabled, so it's not those. I'm not sure where else to look.

To be clear, that volume setting is just an example; what I'm interested in is programmatically detecting whether there's an ongoing call.

# ? Jul 28, 2020 19:09

Impotence: Nov 8, 2010; Lipstick Apathy

Toast Museum posted:

How does Windows detect that a call is in progress? e.g. in the sound control panel, there are options for reducing the volume of other apps during a call; what is Windows checking against to determine when to reduce volume? It works when PhoneSvc and TapiSrv are disabled, so it's not those. I'm not sure where else to look.

To be clear, that volume setting is just an example; what I'm interested in is programmatically detecting whether there's an ongoing call.

Does this help?

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/coreaudio/using-the-communication-device

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/coreaudio/getting-ducking-events-from-a-communication-device

# ? Jul 28, 2020 19:14

Last Chance: Dec 31, 2004

Toast Museum posted:

How does Windows detect that a call is in progress? e.g. in the sound control panel, there are options for reducing the volume of other apps during a call; what is Windows checking against to determine when to reduce volume? It works when PhoneSvc and TapiSrv are disabled, so it's not those. I'm not sure where else to look.

To be clear, that volume setting is just an example; what I'm interested in is programmatically detecting whether there's an ongoing call.

Probably some sort of call API that the apps tap into like on mobile operating systems like iOS?

# ? Jul 28, 2020 19:14

Arc Hammer: Mar 4, 2013; Got any deathsticks?

I'm trying to sync my work email to my outlook via IMAP. I put in the work address and the password but it keeps saying my email server certificate is invalid. Is this an issue on my phone outlook or on my work email server?

Everything was working fine until yesterday when I suddenly stopped getting notifications from my work email, so I tried to do a fresh add account and now I cant connect to it on my phone.

# ? Jul 29, 2020 22:03

Last Chance: Dec 31, 2004

IIRC from earlier someone was saying that IMAP and POP access are deprecated for Exchange and maybe someone at your IT dept flipped the switch and it doesnt work anymore

# ? Jul 29, 2020 22:07

Arc Hammer: Mar 4, 2013; Got any deathsticks?

I think its localized to just one email server. I tried to connect to our secondary server and that worked just fine.

# ? Jul 29, 2020 22:19

roomforthetuna: Mar 22, 2005; I don't need to know anything about virii! My CUSTOM PROGRAM keeps me protected! It's not like they'll try to come in through the Internet or something!

Is it possible to reorder audio devices somewhere in the registry or something like that? I've tried literally disabling all audio devices except the one I want to use, and it still ends up often that games will have audio for cutscenes but not for the actual in-game audio, which I assume is different components of the game using different methods to select an audio device. My guess is DirectX audio device index 0 is still pointing at one of the disabled devices instead of the one not-disabled driver, and whoever made those games just selected device 0 as "the default". This impacts about half of the games I've tried since wanting my HDMI audio-out to be the one to use, including quite a lot of AAA games from like 10 years ago. (The game age correlation is why I suspect DirectX.)

Before I disabled the devices I don't want to use, I'd get cutscenes in my headphones then the game proper would start making noises out of the laptop speakers.

# ? Jul 30, 2020 05:24

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

roomforthetuna posted:

Is it possible to reorder audio devices somewhere in the registry or something like that? I've tried literally disabling all audio devices except the one I want to use, and it still ends up often that games will have audio for cutscenes but not for the actual in-game audio, which I assume is different components of the game using different methods to select an audio device. My guess is DirectX audio device index 0 is still pointing at one of the disabled devices instead of the one not-disabled driver, and whoever made those games just selected device 0 as "the default". This impacts about half of the games I've tried since wanting my HDMI audio-out to be the one to use, including quite a lot of AAA games from like 10 years ago. (The game age correlation is why I suspect DirectX.)

Before I disabled the devices I don't want to use, I'd get cutscenes in my headphones then the game proper would start making noises out of the laptop speakers.

I doubt that the device 0 pointing at a disabled device hypothesis is the answer. A disabled device does not have the driver loaded, it is not a possible target for directx audio. Disabled hardware still shows up in the sound control panel, but that's the same as showing up in the device manager. Also, modern games are still using directX audio and afaik the audio part of directX hasn't really changed in a decade.

If you are using HDMI output, what is that then feeding that into? Because there are many devices & receivers that have limited sample rate support, and my guess is that your decade-old games are playing low-sample rate audio (a common trick in old games before they had the CPU power to use better formats like ogg), and for some reason instead of being resampled through HDMI it's going to the more compatible sound card.

This panel shows you what formats the HDMI supports:

In the advanced tab I'd set the default format to 16bit, 480000 hz and uncheck the allow exclusive mode chackbox.

# ? Jul 30, 2020 16:08

Arc Hammer: Mar 4, 2013; Got any deathsticks?

Okay now I think there's just something wrong with my apps. I've tried outlook and Gmail and I can't connect to any accounts via imap.

# ? Jul 30, 2020 18:22

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

Klyith posted:

This panel shows you what formats the HDMI supports:

If a 25" monitor is your fifth display, you need to show off your workstation. :stare:

# ? Jul 30, 2020 18:48

Rolo: Nov 16, 2005; Hmm, what have we here?

Can anyone recommend a windows app that left clicks wherever I leave the cursor every couple minutes?

# ? Jul 30, 2020 20:42

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

Ynglaur posted:

If a 25" monitor is your fifth display, you need to show off your workstation.

Ha ha I wish! No, that's my main display. Also have a 20" secondary, one of the indestructible dell WFPs that's like 12 years old.

Beats me why it says 5 there. I think it might be incrementing the number every time I update GPU drivers? :iiam:

Rolo posted:

Can anyone recommend a windows app that left clicks wherever I leave the cursor every couple minutes?

Autohotkey

and a very basic script:

code:

SetTimer, Click, 180000
Return

Click:
If A_TimeIdle > 180000
Click
Return

(180000 is 3 minutes in milliseconds, can be whatever)

Klyith fucked around with this message at 20:48 on Jul 30, 2020

# ? Jul 30, 2020 20:44

teethgrinder: Oct 9, 2002

Only registered members can see post attachments!

# ? Jul 30, 2020 21:18

Medullah: Aug 14, 2003; FEAR MY SHARK ROCKET IT REALLY SUCKS AND BLOWS

Klyith posted:

Ha ha I wish! No, that's my main display. Also have a 20" secondary, one of the indestructible dell WFPs that's like 12 years old.

Beats me why it says 5 there. I think it might be incrementing the number every time I update GPU drivers?

Autohotkey

and a very basic script:
code:
SetTimer, Click, 180000
Return

Click:
If A_TimeIdle > 180000
Click
Return 
(180000 is 3 minutes in milliseconds, can be whatever)

I had to write up an employee who installed a script like this on his computer. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Our IT doesn't snoop but there are a few things that are flagged.

So, OP, if you're looking to do it to keep yourself from idling out just remember your company can catch you.

# ? Jul 30, 2020 21:22

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# ? Apr 25, 2024 06:24

GreenNight: Feb 19, 2006; Turning the light on the darkest places, you and I know we got to face this now. We got to face this now.

Our company doesn't give a gently caress what you install or anything. We don't track idle either, go hog wild everyone.

# ? Jul 30, 2020 21:52

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

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