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Chumbawumba4ever97
Dec 31, 2000

by Fluffdaddy

Klyith posted:

Uhhh, yeah technically there's a way.

The registry object for "This PC" / "My Computer" is at HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}, so you could add a new entry to the shell menu there that runs explorer.exe shell:::{bb06 etc. However that reg key is one of the ones that's got system protection, so forcing the rights to edit it is possibly not a great idea. (And I bet it's the type of thing that would get reverted by major updates.)


Honestly, what item do you use from that old system info panel that you need all the time? Device manager is the only thing I can imagine pulling up more than once in a blue moon, but that's instantly accessible on the start menu right-click.

Just force of habit from the past 20+ years any time I want to go to device manager.

It's not the end of the world but since I am never on a tablet and I never use my touch screen I really prefer the "see everything at once without scrolling" luxury of the non-metro windows is all.

edit: I never knew you could access device manager by right clicking the start menu! I'll just do that from now on. Thanks! :)

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Fame Douglas
Nov 20, 2013

by Fluffdaddy

Chumbawumba4ever97 posted:

Yeah for some reason, Task Manager was saying that Windows Explorer was using 70% of my i7 9700k's CPU :psyduck:

Third-party shell extensions (tons of programs install them) are usually to blame for something like this: Get Autoruns https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/autoruns and check the "Explorer" tab.

Doctor_Fruitbat
Jun 2, 2013


For Dark Souls, just run it in borderless windowed (if it doesn't have it natively use Borderless Gaming, I forget if it does), I've never had any issues tabbing out of it that way.

redeyes
Sep 14, 2002

by Fluffdaddy
You can kill explorer.exe and then run it from Task Manager from the Run box, just run explorer..

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

Its Chocolate posted:

it happened again and I figured out more about it. somehow Windows thinks an input is stuck on. like this time, it thought my controller's left stick was tilted up. it affected the start menu, windows explorer, xbox game bar, and other Windows apps, which can all apparently be navigated with controllers for some reason. it didn't affect the old controller calibration program thing, or Big Picture Steam where I could use the controller normally. also, unplugging the controller or disabling it in device manager still had no effect, it's a totally phantom input

is there really no way to fix this besides restarting the computer? I can't believe it's 2021 and the OS can be completely crippled by some kind of video game/controller corner case bug

Hmmm, I think I see your problem -- controller input doing things with the start menu or regular apps is not normal, that's from the steam controller features. If you're using steam big picture you probably have that stuff on. So something is getting hosed up with steam's controller stuff probably, and I bet quitting steam would fix the issue without having to reboot the whole PC.

(IMO steam controller stuff is best left turned off unless you have a game that really won't work without it.)

Chumbawumba4ever97
Dec 31, 2000

by Fluffdaddy

Fame Douglas posted:

Third-party shell extensions (tons of programs install them) are usually to blame for something like this: Get Autoruns https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/autoruns and check the "Explorer" tab.

I really appreciate it! I've actually never heard of Autoruns despite being a Windows user since the 3.1 days.

This is what I see in the Explorer tab:




How can I tell which ones are causing the issue? And how do I remove it from the context menu....just uncheck it?

Sorry for these stupid questions.

bobua
Mar 23, 2003
I'd trade it all for just a little more.

I see you run mega sync, I assume that's from that shady guy that literally changed his name to mega dot com or something, and whose company has to like move offshore for all of the shady poo poo they do

Anyway, your problem is Adobe shell extensions. It's always adobe.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

Chumbawumba4ever97 posted:

How can I tell which ones are causing the issue? And how do I remove it from the context menu....just uncheck it?

You uncheck to disable. And the way to tell which thing causes problems is uncheck things until the problem does away.

Generally you start with whichever software is crappiest, so mega and adobe.

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.

Uninstall mega and adobe, reboot and see.

Chumbawumba4ever97
Dec 31, 2000

by Fluffdaddy
Thanks a billion. I removed literally everything except winrar, 7zip, and Nvidia.

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.

Don’t need winrar if you have 7zip.

Chumbawumba4ever97
Dec 31, 2000

by Fluffdaddy
OK I will remove it.

Something weird I noticed; I have UltraSearch (and some other stuff) in my context menus but the program does not show up in Explorer in Autostarts?

Fame Douglas
Nov 20, 2013

by Fluffdaddy
Nvidia you don't need either, that just adds the shortcut to the Nvidia control panel to the Desktop context menu.

Chumbawumba4ever97 posted:

Something weird I noticed; I have UltraSearch (and some other stuff) in my context menus but the program does not show up in Explorer in Autostarts?

Could be they start through either Scheduled Tasks or as Services

Fruits of the sea
Dec 1, 2010

I have a secondary windows account that I use for banking and the like. I don't want to give it admin access, but I'm noticing that its also locked out of some basic settings such as changing the display resolution. Is there a handy way to fine-tune what it has access to?

CatHorse
Jan 5, 2008

GreenNight posted:

Don’t need winrar if you have 7zip.

7zip doesn't have recovery records,

CaptainSarcastic
Jul 6, 2013



Chumbawumba4ever97 posted:

I also have another small question that google isn't really helping with (maybe I am the only one that cares about this). It used to be, as of like 3 months ago, that if you right clicked "This PC" and chose properties, it would bring you to a standard WindowsNT-style properties window where you could do things like enter Device Manager, advanced system settings, etc. Like this:

Pretty sure that rolled out with Windows 10 October 2020 "feature update" version 20H2.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

Fruits of the sea posted:

I have a secondary windows account that I use for banking and the like. I don't want to give it admin access, but I'm noticing that its also locked out of some basic settings such as changing the display resolution. Is there a handy way to fine-tune what it has access to?

You can use the Local Users and Groups section in Computer Management to change that user to a "Power User". If 10 still follows the same rules as 7 that will be able to change screen res and other basic stuff. (Also install programs, so it's not for accounts that you really want locked down.)

Step by step instructions, just change the group you pick in step 6 to Power Users.

AreWeDrunkYet
Jul 8, 2006

Klyith posted:

You can use the Local Users and Groups section in Computer Management to change that user to a "Power User". If 10 still follows the same rules as 7 that will be able to change screen res and other basic stuff. (Also install programs, so it's not for accounts that you really want locked down.)

Step by step instructions, just change the group you pick in step 6 to Power Users.

Power Users don't have any extra privileges in Windows 10.

repiv
Aug 13, 2009

MikusR posted:

7zip doesn't have recovery records,

7zip also makes me nervous because the author is a weirdo who refuses to enable basic exploit mitigations like DEP and ASLR because they make the binary slightly larger

mystes
May 31, 2006

repiv posted:

7zip also makes me nervous because the author is a weirdo who refuses to enable basic exploit mitigations like DEP and ASLR because they make the binary slightly larger
Yikes.

repiv
Aug 13, 2009

Windows 10 forced the issue on DEP at least (it's enabled for everything now) but last I heard he was still dragging his feet on enabling the other mitigations MSVC offers

What could possibly go wrong, it's not like 7zips main purpose is parsing files from random untrusted sources

Ape Agitator
Feb 19, 2004

Soylent Green is Monkeys
College Slice
I'm working on mirroring two drives, one portable and one a regular external. The idea is to have backup for drive failure but also to have one that I can take off, work on and make changes to files, and then plug back in to have them in sync again. I'd been looking at backup software but being a little surprised that many didn't seem to mirror in realtime. Then I got wind of the built in Win 10 "Storage Spaces" which seemed pretty close to what I wanted. One virtual drive stored on two drives at once so that they would be in sync.

My question would be, if I had a virtual Storage Space that used external hard drive A and portable hard drive B as the physical drive spaces and I disconnected drive B, made some changes to files on drive B on another device (like an android tablet, assuming I could make the virtual space as exFAT or something) and then plugged it back in, would it recognize the changes and sync up the whole Storage Space on both drives?

Or am I misunderstanding and you can't make modifications to drive B on another device. Would drive B's files be readable on another device? Would it freak out if the two drives had differences while separated?

CatHorse
Jan 5, 2008

Ape Agitator posted:

Or am I misunderstanding and you can't make modifications to drive B on another device. Would drive B's files be readable on another device? Would it freak out if the two drives had differences while separated?

You are misunderstanding. Storage Spaces is a more flexible version of software RAID. And the drives are working as a set. It's not what you want.

redeyes
Sep 14, 2002

by Fluffdaddy

quote:

Storage Spaces is a more flexible version of software RAID

Thats one way to put it. I would say its rather inflexible version of software raid with poor recovery options and poor features.

Combat Pretzel
Jun 23, 2004

No, seriously... what kurds?!

repiv posted:

7zip also makes me nervous because the author is a weirdo who refuses to enable basic exploit mitigations like DEP and ASLR because they make the binary slightly larger
I think he's more about performance optimization at all cost. It's also one of the few applications, other than SQL Server, that uses large pages, when enabled, to speed up things.

redeyes posted:

Thats one way to put it. I would say its rather inflexible version of software raid with poor recovery options and poor features.
They should just ditch that poo poo, sponsor the OpenZFS project, to get some inertia into the Windows port, and just use that.

Storage Spaces is a loving stupid project that seems to follow the lines of BTRFS, both have super terrible RAID5/6 performance and data loss issues. Nothing came of ReFS either. It almost feels like it's defacto dead. You'd figure with SSDs showing up everywhere, and being (in my opinion, at least for cheap-rear end common consumer devices) fault prone due to QLC and poo poo, that they'd finally do some effort in regards to file system resilience. And larger block sizes (4K pages on 1.5MB-2MB program/erase block sizes, lol). But nope.

Ape Agitator
Feb 19, 2004

Soylent Green is Monkeys
College Slice

MikusR posted:

You are misunderstanding. Storage Spaces is a more flexible version of software RAID. And the drives are working as a set. It's not what you want.

Thanks! That really helps put in context a lot of my questions and it's definitely not appropriate for my task.

CatHorse
Jan 5, 2008

Combat Pretzel posted:

They should just ditch that poo poo, sponsor the OpenZFS project, to get some inertia into the Windows port, and just use that.

ZFS can use mismatched size disks? And you can grow pool by adding one disk at a time?

redeyes posted:

Thats one way to put it. I would say its rather inflexible version of software raid with poor recovery options and poor features.

R-Studio has had Storage Spaces and REFS support since Windows 8.

CatHorse fucked around with this message at 17:52 on Feb 12, 2021

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

Ape Agitator posted:

I'm working on mirroring two drives, one portable and one a regular external. The idea is to have backup for drive failure but also to have one that I can take off, work on and make changes to files, and then plug back in to have them in sync again. I'd been looking at backup software but being a little surprised that many didn't seem to mirror in realtime.

There is backup software that operates in close to realtime (ex, windows file history, urbackup).

But anything that's meant for backup is not going to take changes you've made to your backup drive and reverse them back onto the primary drive, because that's against what backups are supposed to do. This is not to say that your idea is stupid, but it's not something most people want to do. So there's not gonna be out-of-the-box software to make it happen.


Here's my recommendation: use backup software to maintain your backup on the external drive. Urbackup makes standard file copies on it's backup rather than a compressed format like windows file history or many other backup software, so that's what I'd point to. That means your files will be easily readable on any other PC*. If you take the external away and want to work on the files on a different PC, copy those files to a new folder at the root of the drive. Then, when you get back home, manually move them over from your work-in-progress folder to the correct location on your main PC.

*if you want the external to have any security, you can use bitlocker


But also, the work-on-poo poo-elsewhere job is what cloud storage like dropbox was invented for. So maybe use that and keep your backups and your portable file access as separate things.

Combat Pretzel
Jun 23, 2004

No, seriously... what kurds?!

MikusR posted:

ZFS can use mismatched size disks?
Sort of, lowest common denominator counts, until you replaced the uneven disks.

MikusR posted:

And you can grow pool by adding one disk at a time?
I ought to check where bp_write is at.

Storage Spaces is still a lovely solution, based alone at how inept the parity spaces are, both in recovery and performance.

Ape Agitator
Feb 19, 2004

Soylent Green is Monkeys
College Slice

Klyith posted:

There is backup software that operates in close to realtime (ex, windows file history, urbackup).

...
Here's my recommendation: use backup software to maintain your backup on the external drive. Urbackup makes standard file copies on it's backup rather than a compressed format like windows file history or many other backup software, so that's what I'd point to. That means your files will be easily readable on any other PC*.

...

But also, the work-on-poo poo-elsewhere job is what cloud storage like dropbox was invented for. So maybe use that and keep your backups and your portable file access as separate things.

That's pretty interesting. Unfortunately I've got a huge span of file sizes and it has, on occasion, included uncompressed video but not often enough to justify an investment in an unlimited cloud option. Plus the infrequent but necessary need to plug it into an Android tablet to have access when wifi is inaccessible. Looking for a "checks all the checkboxes" has been hard but you've got be thinking. Thanks!

HalloKitty
Sep 30, 2005

Adjust the bass and let the Alpine blast

Combat Pretzel posted:

Nothing came of ReFS either. It almost feels like it's defacto dead.

There's literally only one thing ReFS is good for, and Microsoft even managed to make that perform worse in Server 2019 LTS than 2016, and that's block cloning to increase merge performance and save space when writing backups in applications that support it.. Basically Veeam. Other than that, it's utterly pointless and borderline irresponsible to use ReFS in most situations, the silent automatic file system version updating when attached to a newer machine with total lack of backwards compatibility is just awesome; and I know if I had data loss issues, I'd rather be running NTFS and have the wealth of NTFS tools available to me

HalloKitty fucked around with this message at 23:30 on Feb 12, 2021

redeyes
Sep 14, 2002

by Fluffdaddy
What the gently caress is wrong with MS?! No innovation in forever.. since win 8 which was a disaster of epic proportions. Sadness. We have few options left in the PC desktop market. Linux needs a reach around to get working well and I ain't that guy.

Dylan16807
May 12, 2010
There's plenty of perfectly good syncing software out there. I don't know why you'd use backup software and manual syncing.

Try https://freefilesync.org/ in two way mode.

Dylan16807 fucked around with this message at 02:49 on Feb 13, 2021

CaptainSarcastic
Jul 6, 2013



redeyes posted:

What the gently caress is wrong with MS?! No innovation in forever.. since win 8 which was a disaster of epic proportions. Sadness. We have few options left in the PC desktop market. Linux needs a reach around to get working well and I ain't that guy.

Linux works fine. :confused: My personal computer runs Linux 90% of the time and I mostly boot to Windows just for games. My work computer runs Windows because it's from work and the whole office is Windows-centric.

Also, isn't "Storage Spaces" just the same basic drive-spanning partition that has been around since at least Windows XP Pro?

redeyes
Sep 14, 2002

by Fluffdaddy
No man, Linux does not work fine. I do not have endless time to trouble shoot things to make them work. I don't just look at websites, I do a lot of workstation stuff on my system.

Combat Pretzel
Jun 23, 2004

No, seriously... what kurds?!

CaptainSarcastic posted:

Linux works fine. :confused: My personal computer runs Linux 90% of the time and I mostly boot to Windows just for games. My work computer runs Windows because it's from work and the whole office is Windows-centric.
Yeah, and also Linux lacks a lot of decent productivity software, that's Windows and/or Mac only. And no, GIMP isn't a suitable replacement for Photoshop, among other examples. With a few examples that actually deliver native Linux versions, say Davinci Resolve for instance, none of the opensource alternatives are worth switching to, if you're serious about your work.

Skarsnik
Oct 21, 2008

I...AM...RUUUDE!




Works fine for me also. You spend all your time complaining how badly windows works, do you not troubleshoot it all the time too?

Fame Douglas
Nov 20, 2013

by Fluffdaddy
I'm very happy "productivity" doesn't mean "Photoshop" (or any Adobe software) to me. They should have never been allowed to take over Macromedia on anti-competitive grounds.

AreWeDrunkYet
Jul 8, 2006

CaptainSarcastic posted:

Linux works fine. :confused: My personal computer runs Linux 90% of the time and I mostly boot to Windows just for games. My work computer runs Windows because it's from work and the whole office is Windows-centric.

So instead of being able to alt-tab between a game and something else, you have to reboot the whole thing?

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Khanstant
Apr 5, 2007

Fame Douglas posted:

I'm very happy "productivity" doesn't mean "Photoshop" (or any Adobe software) to me. They should have never been allowed to take over Macromedia on anti-competitive grounds.

What's it like opening the task manager and not seeing a stormy sky full of rainbow clouds?

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