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Im_Special
Jan 2, 2011

Look At This!!! WOW!
It's F*cking Nothing.

Klyith posted:

Not in the old one, in the new one.

Ugh my eyes! All that white.

For what it's worth this was the solution, it was there (Fax), uninstalled and the DebugLogFile was no longer perma locked/used by explorer, and stopped getting recreated.

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Rexxed
May 1, 2010

Dis is amazing!
I gotta try dis!

Mr Shiny Pants posted:

Anyone ever having to manually add exclusions to defender?

I never did, but yesterday it decided to always scan my Unity compilations, making them go from 2 minutes to over 20.

I tried to in windows 7 years ago. It really hated a linked list based sudoku solving program for one of my old classes. Not sure if it was the actual code or if it's just angry at sudoku.exe but after it kept finding it despite the exemption I just let it eat it. I still have the source code and can always compile it again (but I never will).

HalloKitty
Sep 30, 2005

Adjust the bass and let the Alpine blast

Ambaire posted:

I think that Windows 7 is still the gold standard for OS usability and they never should've changed what Just Worked.

When they finally got they recipe almost right, they decided to throw it all out in Windows 8, and it's never been quite as consistent since..

HalloKitty fucked around with this message at 12:36 on Apr 7, 2021

Blue Footed Booby
Oct 4, 2006

got those happy feet

redeyes posted:

Sorry I thought it would be interesting for people in this thread. Guess not.

I dunno, it's interesting to me. Just not in a way that means I want to install it. When I got to the part about Defender and updates I shifted the nature of my interest.

A couple choice excerpts from the FAQ:

quote:

5. How do I change the username/password?

You can change the username in Windows from CMD (Administrator) using the following command:

C:\> wmic useraccount where name='currentname' rename newname

You can change a user's password in Windows from CMD (Administrator) using the following command:

C:\> net user useraccount *

At no point do they explain why they removed the GUI for changing the password. I have to assume it was built into something they deemed spyware.

quote:

The Deal With Updates

However, AME does not allow for the installation of critical security patches, by means of regular Windows Updates, as this subsystem has been stripped from the OS entirely. Unfortunately, due to Windows 10’s background restoration behaviour, it was deemed necessary to also remove any ability of manually installing update packages, as the system components required for this, are the same ones responsible for the entire Windows Update subsystem to begin with – it was all or nothing.

Additionally, manually patching the OS, if this were possible, considering the goals and values AME deploys, in fact installs and alters many unwanted components, partially restoring Windows 10’s spyware apparatus. Because of this, each patch requires a scrutinous re-evaluation of the OS, followed by additions to the removal and cleansing process.

Imagine the kind of galaxy brain that realizes disabling the capacity to auto update entails removing the ability to update manually, and forges on ahead anyway. That should have been the moment they said "oh, this is why nobody else has done what we're trying to do."

I'm sympathetic to the whole endeavor. Lord knows there are parts of Windows I'd love to tear out. But there's something about the personality the personality willing to do the work that always gets hung up on weird things. I've googled for forums and such where people talk about this and replies are pretty much what you'd expect: vartious people saying "oh, that sounds nice" and then a trickle of people pointing out the flaws before the eventual consensus of "dude, either use tools to remove specific parts you don't want or just install linux." One guy posted a link to this which seems interesting and doesn't do anything too crazy from what I've seen skimming through.

Blue Footed Booby fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Apr 6, 2021

Fame Douglas
Nov 20, 2013

by Fluffdaddy

HalloKitty posted:

When the finally got they recipe almost right, they decided to throw it all out in Windows 8, and it's never been quite as consistent since..

Remember when Windows 8 didn't even have a start button, just the "move the mouse in the bottom left corner to open the fullscreen tile menu" gesture?

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.

I remember that every time I RDP to an 2012 server VM.

c0burn
Sep 2, 2003

The KKKing

Mr Shiny Pants posted:

Anyone ever having to manually add exclusions to defender?

I never did, but yesterday it decided to always scan my Unity compilations, making them go from 2 minutes to over 20.

I always exclude games and my development directories.

Blue Footed Booby
Oct 4, 2006

got those happy feet

Fame Douglas posted:

Remember when Windows 8 didn't even have a start button, just the "move the mouse in the bottom left corner to open the fullscreen tile menu" gesture?

In one of the preview versions I literally couldn't figure out how to shut down.

Blue Footed Booby fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Apr 6, 2021

Mr Shiny Pants
Nov 12, 2012

c0burn posted:

I always exclude games and my development directories.

I never felt the need to do it before.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

Mr Shiny Pants posted:

I never felt the need to do it before.

The downside of heuristic virus scanners is that they get focused on some bit of code that they can't determine whether is safe or not, and the way they analyze it is by running the instructions in a VM. It doesn't happen all the time but when it does all you can do is either tolerate the slowdown, or mark exempt if it's something like your case where you're gonna have the problem over and over.

If you want to see windows defender have a panic attack, download a bunch of 4K and 64K demos from scene.org and then run a scan on them. It's amazing, you can have like 4 megs of files that defender takes literally 30 seconds to scan. (Demoscene stuff does self-modifying code a lot, which gives heuristic scanners fits.)


Mr Shiny Pants posted:

And scanning stuff that a signed executable is running? I thought that was the point of having signed executables. Or is this some Solarwinds stuff? Now it just scans everything because signed executables don't actually do anything anymore.

Heck no, that's not what signing is for.

Javid
Oct 21, 2004

:jpmf:

Blue Footed Booby posted:

Imagine the kind of galaxy brain that realizes disabling the capacity to auto update entails removing the ability to update manually, and forges on ahead anyway. That should have been the moment they said "oh, this is why nobody else has done what we're trying to do."

I'm sympathetic to the whole endeavor. Lord knows there are parts of Windows I'd love to tear out. But there's something about the personality the personality willing to do the work that always gets hung up on weird things. I've googled for forums and such where people talk about this and replies are pretty much what you'd expect: vartious people saying "oh, that sounds nice" and then a trickle of people pointing out the flaws before the eventual consensus of "dude, either use tools to remove specific parts you don't want or just install linux." One guy posted a link to this which seems interesting and doesn't do anything too crazy from what I've seen skimming through.

I regard this as them playing the hand MS dealt them. They make it AGGRESSIVELY difficult to take back any amount of control over updates; if just tearing the whole update system out is the minimum effort required to get it to go away and quit re-enabling itself like spyware, people who feel strongly about it will do that instead of just changing to manually approving them like we could in 7.

There are definitely somewhat less nuclear ways to accomplish that than the script under discussion, but it's not surprising that it would neuter updates while it's doing other crazy surgery on OS components.

Internet Explorer
Jun 1, 2005





I think Windows 10 is pretty great, OP.

Raymond T. Racing
Jun 11, 2019

Javid posted:

I regard this as them playing the hand MS dealt them. They make it AGGRESSIVELY difficult to take back any amount of control over updates; if just tearing the whole update system out is the minimum effort required to get it to go away and quit re-enabling itself like spyware, people who feel strongly about it will do that instead of just changing to manually approving them like we could in 7.

There are definitely somewhat less nuclear ways to accomplish that than the script under discussion, but it's not surprising that it would neuter updates while it's doing other crazy surgery on OS components.

But on the whole, there were more problems as an ecosystem when grognards said "I never install updates" and then told their family members to never install updates. It's a little handholdy but feels like a necessary sacrifice IMO.

Doctor_Fruitbat
Jun 2, 2013


Can't you just install Enterprise (possibly even just Pro) and control updates that way?

For what it's worth, I get the appeal of doing this, it's fascinating to see what happens to a piece of software (or an entire OS) when you gently caress about with it. If it's just a home machine you're experimenting with, go to town!

redeyes
Sep 14, 2002

by Fluffdaddy

Blue Footed Booby posted:

I dunno, it's interesting to me. Just not in a way that means I want to install it. When I got to the part about Defender and updates I shifted the nature of my interest.

A couple choice excerpts from the FAQ:


At no point do they explain why they removed the GUI for changing the password. I have to assume it was built into something they deemed spyware.


Imagine the kind of galaxy brain that realizes disabling the capacity to auto update entails removing the ability to update manually, and forges on ahead anyway. That should have been the moment they said "oh, this is why nobody else has done what we're trying to do."

I'm sympathetic to the whole endeavor. Lord knows there are parts of Windows I'd love to tear out. But there's something about the personality the personality willing to do the work that always gets hung up on weird things. I've googled for forums and such where people talk about this and replies are pretty much what you'd expect: vartious people saying "oh, that sounds nice" and then a trickle of people pointing out the flaws before the eventual consensus of "dude, either use tools to remove specific parts you don't want or just install linux." One guy posted a link to this which seems interesting and doesn't do anything too crazy from what I've seen skimming through.

Ill just throw a couple more points in. I did this to create DAW. A media center can be on anything obviously but when I have a single purpose box I want it to sit there and do nothing but what I want, no updates, no loving around, nothing. I'm sure this is heresy and I dont give one loving poo poo.

The proper way to do this is not use the weird image but roll your own with their scripts. I have no idea why the instructions go into some of that stuff because most of the normal necessary controls are there including all the user account jazz in System Management.

Ghostlight
Sep 25, 2009

maybe for one second you can pause; try to step into another person's perspective, and understand that a watermelon is cursing me



You'd have to use LTSB, the edition of Windows specifically designed not to receive regular updates, or run your own WSUS. Otherwise both Enterprise and Pro will eventually force you to update.

Geemer
Nov 4, 2010



Ghostlight posted:

You'd have to use LTSB, the edition of Windows specifically designed not to receive regular updates, or run your own WSUS. Otherwise both Enterprise and Pro will eventually force you to update.

LTSC receives updates just as regularly as the normal branch. They don't get the feature updates nearly as often.
The LTSC system I got on a test bench at work wants its reboot every patch Tuesday. But it's still on 1809 or so. Though apparently MS is gonna push LTSC to a new version sometime this year.

redeyes
Sep 14, 2002

by Fluffdaddy
Yeah my main workstation runs 10 pro for workstations and I do control updates on it. Meaning once a year if i feel like it.

Internet Explorer
Jun 1, 2005





redeyes posted:

Yeah my main workstation runs 10 pro for workstations and I do control updates on it. Meaning once a year if i feel like it.

Is this just for feature updates, or for security updates as well?

redeyes
Sep 14, 2002

by Fluffdaddy

Internet Explorer posted:

Is this just for feature updates, or for security updates as well?

Both, I dont do anything except once a year if that. I have one computer that is also a workstation that tends to be 1-2 years behind in updates as well. I know y'all think you are just going to get viruses and china will hack your underpants but its really not like that.

Did anyone notice the last feature update broke printing on some enterprise printers... causing a loving blue screen? This kind of thing is a non starter for myself. I'll just wait thanks very much.

Internet Explorer
Jun 1, 2005





I think that's real dumb. But hey, you're a smart guy and you're real sure of yourself.

Raymond T. Racing
Jun 11, 2019

redeyes posted:

Both, I dont do anything except once a year if that. I have one computer that is also a workstation that tends to be 1-2 years behind in updates as well. I know y'all think you are just going to get viruses and china will hack your underpants but its really not like that.

Did anyone notice the last feature update broke printing on some enterprise printers... causing a loving blue screen? This kind of thing is a non starter for myself. I'll just wait thanks very much.
How do you know that china hasn't hacked your underpants?

Like I'm not being snarky here. You've got 2 years of potential CVEs and no real mitigation against it? It's not like the malicious actor is going to flip your monitor upside down.

redeyes
Sep 14, 2002

by Fluffdaddy

Buff Hardback posted:

How do you know that china hasn't hacked your underpants?

Like I'm not being snarky here. You've got 2 years of potential CVEs and no real mitigation against it? It's not like the malicious actor is going to flip your monitor upside down.

What exactly are they going to be doing? I have a real firewall and monitor it.

Internet Explorer
Jun 1, 2005





redeyes posted:

What exactly are they going to be doing? I have a real firewall and monitor it.

Infosec is all about layers. A firewall that you expect to solve all of your problems is the exact opposite of a modern security approach.

redeyes
Sep 14, 2002

by Fluffdaddy

Internet Explorer posted:

Infosec is all about layers. A firewall that you expect to solve all of your problems is the exact opposite of a modern security approach.

Well, im cool with it and Im not a billion dollar enterprise. Lets keep this in perspective.

Ghostlight
Sep 25, 2009

maybe for one second you can pause; try to step into another person's perspective, and understand that a watermelon is cursing me



My perspective is there's a reason Microsoft is okay with letting billion dollar enterprises manage their own updates but makes it incredibly hard for everyday users to do so, and it's not because the latter have less to lose.

Dylan16807
May 12, 2010

Internet Explorer posted:

Infosec is all about layers. A firewall that you expect to solve all of your problems is the exact opposite of a modern security approach.

Running an extra minimal number of background processes is probably better defense in depth than having two firewalls.

Internet Explorer
Jun 1, 2005





redeyes posted:

Well, im cool with it and Im not a billion dollar enterprise. Lets keep this in perspective.

I honestly don't care what you do with your computer, I'm more weighing in for anyone reading this thread who doesn't know any better. What you're doing is dumb, and hey, that's a choice you can make for yourself.

Dylan16807 posted:

Running an extra minimal number of background processes is probably better defense in depth than having two firewalls.

A perimeter firewall isn't the same as a client firewall, they serve different purposes unless redeyes has microsegmentation set up at home or something. And we're not talking about a minimum number of background processes. We're talking about stuff like Windows Update and Windows Firewall. Disabling that stuff on the same machine that you use to surf the internet is not a good example of "running a minimum number of background processes."

If it's honestly something you want to debate, then I challenge you to bring this to the Infosec thread and see what they say.

Internet Explorer fucked around with this message at 02:12 on Apr 7, 2021

kirbysuperstar
Nov 11, 2012

Let the fools who stand before us be destroyed by the power you and I possess.
Good luck hacking me I'm behind seven proxies.

Wark Say
Feb 22, 2013

by Fluffdaddy
Holy jesus in a bowl. :cawg:

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

Javid posted:

I regard this as them playing the hand MS dealt them. They make it AGGRESSIVELY difficult to take back any amount of control over updates; if just tearing the whole update system out is the minimum effort required to get it to go away and quit re-enabling itself like spyware

Group policy editor, Windows Update, Configure Automatic Updates, Enabled.
choose 2 - Notify for download or 3 - Auto download and notify for install

bing bang boom, windows won't update without your permission, you can have control.


I used option 3 for like a year and a half back when they didn't have a good option to prevent unauthorized reboots, and never had it reset or re-enable itself. Sometimes group policies do get reset when MS changes what the options are (or removes them from your edition), but you're manually controlling your updates, you're reading all the changelogs aren't you?

Khablam
Mar 29, 2012
RIGHT OR WRONG, I CAN’T HELP BUT EXPRESS MYSELF LIKE A BRATTY CHILD. DON’T LISTEN TO ME.
Gonna laugh when redeyes is used as an endpoint in the next Facebook hack and he gets to sit in an FBI interrogation room and explain how they're wrong because his firewall would have alerted him.

Delaying patches for a good while is dumb. Delaying patches for years puts you in a unique situation where you're the only workstation anyone can find which will fall to script kiddies using tools built on old RCEs.

You think you're unimportant because you're "not a massive company" but at some point you're just the proverbial baby with the candy.

Blue Footed Booby
Oct 4, 2006

got those happy feet

Khablam posted:

...
You think you're unimportant because you're "not a massive company" but at some point you're just the proverbial baby with the candy.

Computer stuff in general and infosec specifically often doesn't lend itself to clean analogies. The best I can come up with is "getting hollowed up, filled with hoplites, and rolled into Troy without you noticing."

Chumbawumba4ever97
Dec 31, 2000

by Fluffdaddy

Javid posted:

I regard this as them playing the hand MS dealt them. They make it AGGRESSIVELY difficult to take back any amount of control over updates; if just tearing the whole update system out is the minimum effort required to get it to go away and quit re-enabling itself like spyware, people who feel strongly about it will do that instead of just changing to manually approving them like we could in 7.

There are definitely somewhat less nuclear ways to accomplish that than the script under discussion, but it's not surprising that it would neuter updates while it's doing other crazy surgery on OS components.

Klyith posted:

Group policy editor, Windows Update, Configure Automatic Updates, Enabled.
choose 2 - Notify for download or 3 - Auto download and notify for install

bing bang boom, windows won't update without your permission, you can have control.


I used option 3 for like a year and a half back when they didn't have a good option to prevent unauthorized reboots, and never had it reset or re-enable itself. Sometimes group policies do get reset when MS changes what the options are (or removes them from your edition), but you're manually controlling your updates, you're reading all the changelogs aren't you?

I used option 3 for a while but I sort of recently (like maybe a year ago) found a better alternative (in my opinion). Basically it simply renames the auto-reboot executable. You get all the updates, downloaded and installed automatically, with the only difference being it will never force reboot on you. Hell you even get that nice little Windows with the little red dot icon in your taskbar signaling a new update is installed and waiting for a reboot. But instead of hitting "remind me in 7 days" or whatever, you just reboot it whenever you are ready (which might even be less than 7 days). This is the guide if you are interested: https://www.joe0.com/2019/10/17/how-to-prevent-windows-10-auto-restart-new-instructions-oct-2019/

I've been using that method for over a year now and have had zero issues, it's never reverted, and I still get all my updates automatically. It just never reboots on me unless I physically click "start, reboot".

Fame Douglas posted:

Remember when Windows 8 didn't even have a start button, just the "move the mouse in the bottom left corner to open the fullscreen tile menu" gesture?

I actually managed to never have used Windows 8 ever, like not even for a second. Not sure how I managed to avoid it (I am always helping friends and family and co-workers with their broken PCs; it's cool because people repay me in spades with stuff like car repairs and crap like that; hell one time I fixed a co-worker's computer, I refused money when he offered, then like 2 years later he ran new electrical wire around my entire house for free because he refused money back).

Anyway a few months ago a neighbor's computer was crapping itself and I determined it was the hard drive. His computer was on Windows Vista so I figured while I was replacing the dead hard drive, I would install Windows 10 on it. I couldn't, because the built-in graphics card did not have Windows 10 drivers (I tried everything and could not get it out of 640x480 mode). Then I installed Windows 7 and it installed fine but I forgot Windows 7 was EoL so I upgraded it to Windows 8, which was the last version of Windows to have drivers for his graphics card.

I was legitimately aghast at how bad it was. I had never used it before; only heard stories. Again, this was very recently (I wanna say May of 2020?) so it was definitely on the latest Windows 8 release. Even after installing OpenShell for him, I couldn't believe how many things were 100% full screen with no way to minimize them (that I could find). When I went to Windows Update on the computer, it literally took up the entire screen, with no minimize, maximize, or whatever the middle one is called on the top right. It was like one of those viruses that take up your whole screen in hopes of tricking people dumb enough to not know about ALT+F4.

The only way I could figure out how to "minimize" the screen was win+D; I don't even think alt+tab worked. It was so incredibly jarring that I can't believe they never fixed it for whatever recent revision of Win8 I was using.

Sininu
Jan 8, 2014

Chumbawumba4ever97 posted:

Anyway a few months ago a neighbor's computer was crapping itself and I determined it was the hard drive. His computer was on Windows Vista so I figured while I was replacing the dead hard drive, I would install Windows 10 on it. I couldn't, because the built-in graphics card did not have Windows 10 drivers (I tried everything and could not get it out of 640x480 mode). Then I installed Windows 7 and it installed fine but I forgot Windows 7 was EoL so I upgraded it to Windows 8, which was the last version of Windows to have drivers for his graphics card.

I was legitimately aghast at how bad it was. I had never used it before; only heard stories. Again, this was very recently (I wanna say May of 2020?) so it was definitely on the latest Windows 8 release. Even after installing OpenShell for him, I couldn't believe how many things were 100% full screen with no way to minimize them (that I could find). When I went to Windows Update on the computer, it literally took up the entire screen, with no minimize, maximize, or whatever the middle one is called on the top right. It was like one of those viruses that take up your whole screen in hopes of tricking people dumb enough to not know about ALT+F4.

The only way I could figure out how to "minimize" the screen was win+D; I don't even think alt+tab worked. It was so incredibly jarring that I can't believe they never fixed it for whatever recent revision of Win8 I was using.

You should've installed 8.1 instead. It's way better than 8. I don't recall any forced fullscreen crap in that one.

Flipperwaldt
Nov 11, 2011

Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?



Sininu posted:

You should've installed 8.1 instead. It's way better than 8. I don't recall any forced fullscreen crap in that one.
Well, the built in metro apps, like the photo viewer and pdf viewer are still there and do that. But you can at least bump the mouse pointer against the top right of the screen to get a close button. Not entirely sure that was there in vanilla 8.

The thing that gets me is that hitting escape doesn't back you out of the start screen. It feels absolutely natural that it should and I feel trapped every time.

Fame Douglas
Nov 20, 2013

by Fluffdaddy
Wasn't Settings still forced-fullscreen even in 8.1? I remember that being an issue for all of Windows 8. And the Start screen was always fullscreen as well.

At least they added a power button with 8.1, I'm pretty sure that wasn't present in "vanilla" 8 (not just the Beta, but maybe I'm misremembering). And the Start button, of course.

Eikre
May 2, 2009
What the gently caress, exactly, does Windows 10 expect from you when you install drivers during the OS installation?

I've got this HP 17CG sitting here, I'm trying to flatten and reinstall, and I can't get the installation environment to recognize the loving SSD. Take note: Windows 10 is already installed and running on this laptop, so it's not like a part is just completely busted, but once I boot from a USB drive, the SSD is nowhere to be seen. The installation media is fresh, I just downloaded it, so this is baffling me- outside of RAID setups, I thought we'd consigned this "hit f8 to install from floppy" poo poo to the XP days and that pains would have been taken such that a basic-rear end Intel part would Just Work. But whatever. I've got every driver that the manufacturer provides for this device sitting on a thumb drive, and the OS installation environment doesn't recognize any of the EXE files as relevant. On a lark, I unzipped those executables and put the contents on the drive, so that the .ini's and stuff would just be sitting on the metal. Windows sees the file structure and deems nothing else relevant.

Now, look... I suspect that the immediate, problem-solving instinct for a lot of people is "Is there a very good reason for you to flatten and reinstall? Have you tried just using the nuke-everything-and-reset feature from the instance of the OS that's already working and seeing if that suits needs?" But I feel like it is a very reasonable desire to want to know, specifically, how to install this consumer operating system, from scratch, on this consumer hardware. Like, that's a extremely fair thing to be annoyed about if you can't get it done that way, right? So.... Does anyone have a clue as to what stupid thing I'm overlooking?

CFox
Nov 9, 2005
Well looking here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 it says the latest download is the October 2020 version. It looks like your laptop was released somewhere Around September/October so the issue more than likely is that it needs an updated NVME driver that's just not included in the October 2020 version by default. I used to run into similar issues back when I was doing IT gruntwork whenever we'd get brand new machines in.

So the solution would be to either track down the specific driver you need and put it in your install media or just use the built in refresh option at this point. I'd wager when the next big release happens and the download page updates then you could use that version to do a full reinstall just fine.

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Deviant
Sep 26, 2003

i've forgotten all of your names.


been out of the loop, any issues in 20H2 i should know about out the gate?

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