The Windows and Windows Software Megathread

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

«‹›899 »

Jinnigan: Feb 12, 2007; We shall pay him a visit. There will be a picnic. Tea shall be served.

How do I get rid of the windows shortcut symbol on desktop shortcuts?

# ? Oct 8, 2020 19:46

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Apr 23, 2024 12:35

Paul MaudDib: May 3, 2006; TEAM NVIDIA:
FORUM POLICE

Guitarchitect posted:

TL;WR: can I migrate an installation of windows from one NvME drive to another? Didn't work the first time...

I recently got a 1tb nvme drive, to replace an at-capacity 256gb nvme drive that is my main boot/windows drive in my PC. but i'm having problems!

I got Macrium Reflect, I imaged my existing drive to an external USB, I created a bootable thumb drive from Macrium, pulled my case open, swapped the drives, and booted up... I put the image onto the new drive, but I can't boot off it. It appears in my BIOS, but I can't do anything. I noticed when I was imaging the original drive that it has three partitions - I've read that for an NvME drive specifically, you have to let windows create those partitions otherwise it won't recognize the drive. Is that true? Assuming that it is - what can I do to migrate my existing windows install over to the new drive, short of creating bootable media and starting over from zero? I'm not against it per se, but I use the PC for my job and I've already wasted a full day (including disabling CSM and then realizing that that would prevent my computer from even POSTing, ugh) getting back to "it's working" territory with the old drive. I've never tackled this before so I'm fully green when it comes to imaging windows and stuff like that.

just let macrium move all the partitions over and resize them to fill the new drive

the partitions don't technically have to be there I don't think but they should already exist on the original drive, so just let macrium move them.

the other thing you can do is buy a $10 PCIe-to-NVMe adapter card off amazon, put the new drive on that, and then just let Macrium clone the drive directly over, then swap the NVMe off the card and onto your mobo.

# ? Oct 8, 2020 20:24

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

One of those partitions is the EFI bootloader, and not including it would definitely be a problem.

# ? Oct 8, 2020 20:29

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

Thanks for all the feedback, upon evaluation of my capacity I�ll try AHK and then a BT number pad and AHK if needed!

# ? Oct 8, 2020 20:37

doctorfrog: Mar 14, 2007; Great.

Jinnigan posted:

How do I get rid of the windows shortcut symbol on desktop shortcuts?

Search for "Windows shortcut arrow" or use Winaero Tweaker or similar.

# ? Oct 8, 2020 21:14

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

Klyith posted:

If you're using autohotkey you don't even need a separate pad, you can assign key combos that are totally unique and don't step on any other program.

For example, I use appskey + the insert block to control music & volume, after seeing WASDkeyboards using that layout on their boards. (FYI this is soooo much nicer and easier than the Fn+F-keys standard, it's less movement and easy to one-hand.)

In autohotkey you can create arbitrary combos with &, ie AppsKey & Insert::SendEvent {Media_Play_Pause} is a simple rebind to make that combo into the play/pause key.

So I recorded the function keys I'm looking to configure with AHK. Currently I have a script for ctrl+alt+space and the arrow keys and it works great.

This is the output of those function keys when I just record presses with the keyboard hook and key history:

code:

VK  SC	Type	Up/Dn	Elapsed	Key
76  041	 	d	1.59	F7             	
76  041	 	u	0.08	F7             	
77  042	 	d	0.13	F8             	
77  042	 	u	0.11	F8             	
78  043	 	d	0.09	F9             	
78  043	 	u	0.08	F9

And the media button script I'm using:

code:

; AutoHotkey Media Keys
#NoTrayIcon
^!Space::Send       {Media_Play_Pause}
^!Left::Send        {Media_Prev}
^!Right::Send       {Media_Next}
^!NumpadMult::Send  {Volume_Mute}
^!NumpadAdd::Send   {Volume_Up}
^!NumpadSub::Send   {Volume_Down}

I assume I can just substitute something from the key recording into the script, I just don't know which column or combination of columns to use.

# ? Oct 8, 2020 21:54

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

tuyop posted:

So I recorded the function keys I'm looking to configure with AHK. Currently I have a script for ctrl+alt+space and the arrow keys and it works great.

This is the output of those function keys when I just record presses with the keyboard hook and key history:
code:
VK  SC	Type	Up/Dn	Elapsed	Key
76  041	 	d	1.59	F7             	
76  041	 	u	0.08	F7             	
77  042	 	d	0.13	F8             	
77  042	 	u	0.11	F8             	
78  043	 	d	0.09	F9             	
78  043	 	u	0.08	F9  
I assume I can just substitute something from the key recording into the script, I just don't know which column or combination of columns to use.

The function keys you pressed were F7, F8, and F9? You do F7:: like your other hotkeys, with any of the modifiers you want.

The VK and SC columns are for Virtual Key and Scan Code, alternate ways that windows recognizes & uses input. They're useful because some keys don't map cleanly to the AHK standard list, those you can define hotkeys with the VK or SC value. One I encountered was a US keyboard that never the less had an AltGr. Turned out to be useful because I could make different hotkeys using that alt with the SC## it used.

VKeys & ScanCodes are also something you can play around with in the windows keyboard map. Rebinding capslock to control is a common thing you can find instructions for online, but I rebound mine to F14. It's my dedicated PTT key in games and a utility macro elsewhere.

# ? Oct 9, 2020 01:39

Shadow0: Jun 16, 2008; If to live in this style is to be eccentric, it must be confessed that there is something good in eccentricity.; Grimey Drawer

Windows locked up on me, and I lost all my unsaved images again.

No, I will never learn / change my habits.

Is there a better art program than Paint.NET with autosaving?
The text tool is pretty annoying in Paint.NET too so I was trying to switch anyway.
I looked at GIMP, but even drawing a rectangle is like 3 hoops you have to jump through.
And Photoshop costs $12 a second to use.
I miss Fireworks...

# ? Oct 9, 2020 13:07

GigaFuzz: Aug 10, 2009

Shadow0 posted:

Windows locked up on me, and I lost all my unsaved images again.

No, I will never learn / change my habits.

Is there a better art program than Paint.NET with autosaving?
The text tool is pretty annoying in Paint.NET too so I was trying to switch anyway.
I looked at GIMP, but even drawing a rectangle is like 3 hoops you have to jump through.
And Photoshop costs $12 a second to use.
I miss Fireworks...

For free/open source, I've not really used it but heard good things about Krita, and for vector stuff Inkscape is pretty good.

If you're willing to pay a bit, I can recommend the Affinity suite (Photo, Designer, Publisher) as replacements for Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. They might not have all the features of the Adobe products, but depending on your uses they can be pretty close. In the UK they're �50 a pop.

Not sure about autosaving, however.

# ? Oct 9, 2020 13:37

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

Shadow0 posted:

Windows locked up on me, and I lost all my unsaved images again.

No, I will never learn / change my habits.

Is there a better art program than Paint.NET with autosaving?
The text tool is pretty annoying in Paint.NET too so I was trying to switch anyway.
I looked at GIMP, but even drawing a rectangle is like 3 hoops you have to jump through.
And Photoshop costs $12 a second to use.
I miss Fireworks...

Humble Bundle has a Paintshop Pro 2020 bundle right now, $30 gets you a ton of digital art programs.

# ? Oct 9, 2020 13:49

Weedle: May 31, 2006

big fan of affinity photo here. like all photoshop replacements it has the odd thing here and there that's weird and unintuitive (because adobe patented the sensible way i assume) but it's well worth the money. if i did vector stuff i would also buy affinity designer without thinking twice

# ? Oct 9, 2020 13:54

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

Klyith posted:

The function keys you pressed were F7, F8, and F9? You do F7:: like your other hotkeys, with any of the modifiers you want.

The VK and SC columns are for Virtual Key and Scan Code, alternate ways that windows recognizes & uses input. They're useful because some keys don't map cleanly to the AHK standard list, those you can define hotkeys with the VK or SC value. One I encountered was a US keyboard that never the less had an AltGr. Turned out to be useful because I could make different hotkeys using that alt with the SC## it used.

VKeys & ScanCodes are also something you can play around with in the windows keyboard map. Rebinding capslock to control is a common thing you can find instructions for online, but I rebound mine to F14. It's my dedicated PTT key in games and a utility macro elsewhere.

So it's weird, if I remap those keys to just F7-F9, it doesn't work because logitech's useless media keys are the default action for those keys. I have to hold fn to get them to work. I do use some of the other keys so I don't want to just turn off the function stuff.

# ? Oct 9, 2020 15:35

VelociBacon: Dec 8, 2009

Noticed that my 9900k doesn't seem to idle and stay idle anymore even when I gave it 20min of chilling. Task manager shows less than 5% usage from various stuff. It's definitely not under a lot of load but I'm surprised I don't see cores idling like I could swear I used to. I tend to have a lot of things running in the taskbar but didn't think that would be a huge problem in a pc like mine:

PC is properly set in balanced mode and individual cores will bounce down to 800MHz frequently before coming back to 5.0GHz so it's not like c-states aren't enabled or something. I wanted to make sure I didn't have a miner somehow installed so I used malwarebytes which didn't detect anything. Is this still the preferred software for this? Any other ideas?

9900k
32gb RAM
Win10 pro

# ? Oct 9, 2020 19:51

Skarsnik: Oct 21, 2008; I...AM...RUUUDE!

VelociBacon posted:

# ? Oct 9, 2020 20:31

astral: Apr 26, 2004

# ? Oct 9, 2020 20:37

VelociBacon: Dec 8, 2009

Even when I close those I still have the same issue. How could that be the problem anyways with a 4% load?

# ? Oct 9, 2020 20:37

Moo the cow: Apr 30, 2020

VelociBacon posted:

Let's play a game:
(I've added in a couple of easy ones to get started)

1 Malware Bytes
2
3 NVIDIA Settings
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11 Steam
12
13
14 Dropbox
15
16
17
18
19 Windows Security
20

# ? Oct 9, 2020 20:38

VelociBacon: Dec 8, 2009

Whoever can guess 20 is a hero!

# ? Oct 9, 2020 20:39

astral: Apr 26, 2004

4 Discord
10 MSI Afterburner
13 Battle.net
14 Dropbox?
15 Spotify
18 looks like the Razer logo

edit: fixed numbers (again)

# ? Oct 9, 2020 20:40

corgski: Feb 6, 2007; Silly goose, you're here forever.

Moo the cow posted:

Let's play a game:
(I've added in a couple of easy ones to get started)

1 Malware Bytes
2
3 NVIDIA Settings
4 Discord
5
6
7
8
9
10 MSI Afterburner
11 Steam
12
13 Battle.net
14 Dropbox
15 Spotify
16 Windows Microphone Settings
17
18 Razer Synapse?
19 Windows Security
20

My additions in bold. Not sure if #18 is synapse or one of the other razer utilities.

# ? Oct 9, 2020 21:27

doctorfrog: Mar 14, 2007; Great.

12 HWinfo

8 some kinda display settings app?

HWInfo was responsible for some kinda issues with my video card a couple months back that let to a bunch of system freezes and crashes. But I have a 7 year old budget video card, with a number thousands less than the number the OP put up there.

# ? Oct 9, 2020 21:28

VelociBacon: Dec 8, 2009

doctorfrog posted:

12 HWinfo

8 some kinda display settings app?

HWInfo was responsible for some kinda issues with my video card a couple months back that let to a bunch of system freezes and crashes. But I have a 7 year old budget video card, with a number thousands less than the number the OP put up there.

I didn't include the video card, it's a 2080ti but I don't think it has anything to do with the CPU clocks.

# ? Oct 9, 2020 21:32

Skarsnik: Oct 21, 2008; I...AM...RUUUDE!

5 is slack

# ? Oct 9, 2020 21:40

doctorfrog: Mar 14, 2007; Great.

VelociBacon posted:

I didn't include the video card, it's a 2080ti but I don't think it has anything to do with the CPU clocks.

Yep, I know jack-all about computer hardware

# ? Oct 10, 2020 00:00

Guitarchitect: Nov 8, 2003

Paul MaudDib posted:

just let macrium move all the partitions over and resize them to fill the new drive

the partitions don't technically have to be there I don't think but they should already exist on the original drive, so just let macrium move them.

the other thing you can do is buy a $10 PCIe-to-NVMe adapter card off amazon, put the new drive on that, and then just let Macrium clone the drive directly over, then swap the NVMe off the card and onto your mobo.

Toast Museum posted:

One of those partitions is the EFI bootloader, and not including it would definitely be a problem.

Yep I included all of them... what I read was that Windows needs to specifically create one of those partitions for m.2 / NvME drives and that's why my image wasn't working, but perhaps I'll just file a support ticket with Macrium and see if they can help. Since it's not appearing as a boot device when I install it and go into my BIOS, maybe it's related to that!

# ? Oct 10, 2020 05:42

Shadow0: Jun 16, 2008; If to live in this style is to be eccentric, it must be confessed that there is something good in eccentricity.; Grimey Drawer

GigaFuzz posted:

For free/open source, I've not really used it but heard good things about Krita, and for vector stuff Inkscape is pretty good.

If you're willing to pay a bit, I can recommend the Affinity suite (Photo, Designer, Publisher) as replacements for Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. They might not have all the features of the Adobe products, but depending on your uses they can be pretty close. In the UK they're �50 a pop.

Not sure about autosaving, however.

Krita seems really nice. I'm liking it so far (the past 5 minutes). Except the text tool doesn't support aliasing, which I need for this particular long-running project (translating a MS Paint webcomic).
Inkscape does though, so I might just use Krita for clearing the pages, and then Inkscape for slapping down / editing the text.
Both support autosaving, so I'm very happy.
Krita is open-source, so maybe I'll use my immense freetime to try to help them out.

Medullah posted:

Humble Bundle has a Paintshop Pro 2020 bundle right now, $30 gets you a ton of digital art programs.

These look cool too, but I think most of that software would be wasted on me, haha.

Thanks!

# ? Oct 10, 2020 06:38

Fame Douglas: Nov 20, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

Shadow0 posted:

Krita is open-source, so maybe I'll use my immense freetime to try to help them out.

Inkscape as well, by the way. Both are excellent, but with a different focus.

# ? Oct 10, 2020 13:22

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

Shadow0 posted:

These look cool too, but I think most of that software would be wasted on me, haha.

Thanks!

I bought the similar 2019 bundle and it's been fun learning Paintshop. I've never tried any type of Photoshop or image editing so I decided during my 2020 quarantine I'd learn it a bit. For my first picture attempt I put my dog with a bunch of alligators and sent it to my parents, my mom called me immediately freaking out.

# ? Oct 10, 2020 20:01

Shadow0: Jun 16, 2008; If to live in this style is to be eccentric, it must be confessed that there is something good in eccentricity.; Grimey Drawer

Medullah posted:

I bought the similar 2019 bundle and it's been fun learning Paintshop. I've never tried any type of Photoshop or image editing so I decided during my 2020 quarantine I'd learn it a bit. For my first picture attempt I put my dog with a bunch of alligators and sent it to my parents, my mom called me immediately freaking out.

Well, now you've convinced me I need this. :hmmyes:

Maybe dumb question but, is it mostly for photo-editing or for painting? I mean it is called PaintShop.
That was my problem with GIMP though. (Also the name.)
I don't really edit photos much, but I do occasionally do some bad art. I want to get better at art one day. I'm not sure I have a spare $30 though.

# ? Oct 11, 2020 04:57

mystes: May 31, 2006

Shadow0 posted:

Well, now you've convinced me I need this.

Maybe dumb question but, is it mostly for photo-editing or for painting? I mean it is called PaintShop.
That was my problem with GIMP though. (Also the name.)
I don't really edit photos much, but I do occasionally do some bad art. I want to get better at art one day. I'm not sure I have a spare $30 though.

If that's what you want it for rather than photo editing then just use krita.

mystes fucked around with this message at 12:30 on Oct 11, 2020

# ? Oct 11, 2020 12:28

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

I've got an issue where my PC is registering a right click on the mouse frequently when I left click. My assumption was that the mouse was dirty/defective, so I went out and bought a new one. Well...the issue is still happening. Is there some way to log and see where inputs are coming from? It's driving me nuts.

# ? Oct 11, 2020 13:50

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 is an event log under Windows Administrative Tools in your start menu, but I don't think it would help with that unless the system is registering a driver or hardware error occuring. If you just want to know what inputs are being sent and when, you could install the Autohotkey software and run it in the tray. It has an input log that you can set up with a simple script, just a file called log.ahk that contains the following lines:

quote:

#persistent
#InstallKeybdHook
#InstallMouseHook
#KeyHistory 20

Run that through the Autohotkey executable and it will start logging things for you. Hope it helps.

# ? Oct 11, 2020 13:56

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

Cardiovorax posted:

There is an event log under Windows Administrative Tools in your start menu, but I don't think it would help with that unless the system is registering a driver or hardware error occuring. If you just want to know what inputs are being sent and when, you could install the Autohotkey software and run it in the tray. It has an input log that you can set up with a simple script, just a file called log.ahk that contains the following lines:

Run that through the Autohotkey executable and it will start logging things for you. Hope it helps.

Thanks, I use AHK so I'll give that a shot (Was actually looking to see if I had any scripts running as you posted this)

# ? Oct 11, 2020 13:59

Gromit: Aug 15, 2000; I am an oppressed White Male, Asian women wont serve me! Save me Campbell Newman!!!!!!!

I've had a weird issue where my video player takes 15 seconds to start up. I reached out to the devs and they provided me with a debug version of their app and it tracked the issue down to a problem with audio devices. A Windows API was taking 15 seconds to enumerate audio devices, and I experienced the same issue even when opening the Sounds settings - the exact same delay. I have 2.0 speakers and a USB connection for a headset, but that's all.

So I downloaded the audio drivers for my motherboard and reinstalled them - no change.

I have a bad feeling I'll have to reinstall Windows if I want this to go away (no restore points go back far enough), so I'm all ears if there are any suggestions!

edit to add: if this were the only issue I'd probably just put up with it, but my Shadowplay recordings now have broken audio, and my Nvidia Shield has stopped allowing me to stream games from my PC. I have a feeling this is all stemming from the same issue.

Gromit fucked around with this message at 07:02 on Oct 13, 2020

# ? Oct 13, 2020 06:59

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

Issues trying to set up an IMAP email on my phone's outlook app. One of our work emails refuses to connect properly to my address. I keep getting an "email server certificate is invalid" error anytime i try to connect and tapping Login Anyway does nothing.

I've tried connecting to other email servers at the office and I've had no trouble, and I've managed to connect to this server via POP3 with no issues, but the slow sync rate for the POP3 connection means its kind of useless for keeping on top of new emails.

I'm guessing the problem lies with this particular email server but I dont know where to look on the office computer Outlook to find the server certificate. Its been causing me a great headache all day. Its not the first time this has happened. I managed a bootleg solution last time by making a dummy outlook account that managed to connect with the IMAP account but that trick didn't work a second time. It just seems to hate connecting my phone email with the work email.

# ? Oct 13, 2020 23:13

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

Is there any way to switch user accounts on Windows without interactively entering a password? Basically my partner and I have a media PC that boots up and logs into the main account, but for Steam occasionally I want to log into my own account and back into the main account when done. Right now I pull out a wireless keyboard to do this which is fine but is there some way to allow passwordless user switching?

# ? Oct 13, 2020 23:30

mystes: May 31, 2006

Less Fat Luke posted:

Is there any way to switch user accounts on Windows without interactively entering a password? Basically my partner and I have a media PC that boots up and logs into the main account, but for Steam occasionally I want to log into my own account and back into the main account when done. Right now I pull out a wireless keyboard to do this which is fine but is there some way to allow passwordless user switching?

If you aren't using RDP or file sharing and you're using local accounts you could probably just not use passwords?

# ? Oct 13, 2020 23:33

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

mystes posted:

If you aren't using RDP or file sharing and you're using local accounts you could probably just not use passwords?

I had thought of that but it seems like the latest (or recent) versions of Windows 10 have removed the checkbox labelled "Users must enter a username and password to use this computer"

# ? Oct 13, 2020 23:40

VelociBacon: Dec 8, 2009

If both accounts are local accounts you should be able to log into either without a pw but you'll still have to type in the username I'm pretty sure.

# ? Oct 13, 2020 23:42

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Apr 23, 2024 12:35

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

Less Fat Luke posted:

I had thought of that but it seems like the latest (or recent) versions of Windows 10 have removed the checkbox labelled "Users must enter a username and password to use this computer"

If it's not available in the Settings UI, you can still set blank passwords in PowerShell. Posting from my phone, but look up Set-LocalUser

# ? Oct 14, 2020 00:24

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

«‹›899 »