Tag: Windows Vista

There’s an important UPDATE that there’s no UPDATE

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Microsoft blocking new security patches and updates for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 users running the latest processors from Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, and others.

Don’t panic, this new policy doesn’t mean that all Windows 7 and 8.1 users will not be able to receive latest updates in general because Microsoft has promised to support Windows 7 until 2020, and Windows 8.1 until 2023.

But those who have upgraded their machines running older versions of Windows to the latest processors, or manually downgraded their new laptops to run Windows 7/8.1 would be out of luck.

Last week, Microsoft published Knowledge Base article, with the title “‘Your PC uses a processor that isn’t supported on this version of Windows’ error when you scan or download Windows updates”, suggesting that the restriction was now being enforced.

In the article, Microsoft describes the “symptoms” of the error as:

When you try to scan or download updates through Windows Update, you receive the following error message:

Unsupported Hardware
Your PC uses a processor that isn’t supported on this version of Windows and you won’t receive updates.

Additionally, you may see an error message on the Windows Update window that resembles the following:

Windows could not search for new updates
An error occurred while checking for new updates for your computer.
Error(s) found:
Code 80240037 Windows Update encountered an unknown error.

The “cause” of the error being:

This error occurs because new processor generations require the latest Windows version for support. For example, Windows 10 is the only Windows version that is supported on the following processor generations:

  • Intel seventh (7th)-generation processors (“Kaby Lake”) or a later generation
  • AMD “Bristol Ridge”
  • Qualcomm “8996”

Because of how this support policy is implemented, Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 devices that have a seventh generation or a later generation processor may no longer be able to scan or download updates through Windows Update or Microsoft Update.

Users would require upgrading their systems to the newest version of Windows, i.e. Windows 10, despite Windows 7 being supported to 2020 and Windows 8.1 to 2023.
Microsoft announced this limitation in January 2016, when the company said making Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 OSes run on the latest processors was “challenging.”

“For Windows 7 to run on any modern silicon, device drivers and firmware need to emulate Windows 7’s expectations for interrupt processing, bus support, and power states- which is challenging for Wi-Fi, graphics, security, and more,” Terry Myerson, VP of Microsoft’s Windows and Devices Group, said last year.

The initial announcement also included PCs that use 6th-generation Intel processors (“Skylake”), but Microsoft backed off on its plan and released a list of Skylake-based systems that will be fully supported to receive security updates through the official end of support phase for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1, i.e. January 14, 2020, and January 10, 2023, respectively.

This end of updates for new devices doesn’t come as a surprise to some PC owners, as Microsoft is making every effort to run its latest Windows on all Windows computers since the launch of Windows 10.

An alarm for those still running Windows Vista on their machines: The operating system will no longer receive security updates, non-security hotfixes, paid assisted supports, or online technical updates from Microsoft beginning April 11, 2017.

So, it’s high time for Windows Vista users to upgrade their PCs to the latest version of Windows operating system in order to protect your devices from malware or other security threats.

Source: Microsoft, The hacker news, Beta News

UEFI:

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UEFI: The acronym stands for Unified Extensible Firmware Interface and is designed to be more flexible than its venerable predecessor.

Wave goodbye to BIOS, say hello to UEFI, a new technology that will drastically reduce start-up times.

The next generation of home computers will be able to boot up in just a few seconds, as 25-year-old BIOS technology makes way for new start-up software known as UEFI.

BIOS technology, which has been used to boot up computers since 1979, was never designed to last as long as it has, and is one of the reasons modern computers take so long to get up and running.

By contrast, UEFI – which stands for Unified Extensible Firmware Interface – has been built to meet modern computing needs, and will soon be the pre-eminent technology in many new computers, enabling them to go from ‘off’ to ‘on’ in seconds.

Pronounced “bye-ose,” BIOS is an acronym for basic input/output system. The BIOS is built-in software that determines what a computer can do without accessing programs from a disk. On PCs, the BIOS contains all the code required to control the keyboard, display screen, disk drives, serial communications, and a number of miscellaneous functions.

The BIOS is typically placed on a ROM chip that comes with the computer (it is often called a ROM BIOS). This ensures that the BIOS will always be available and will not be damaged by disk failures. It also makes it possible for a computer to boot itself.

 Below are the major BIOS manufacturers:

When you turn on your computer, several events occur automatically:

  1. The CPU “wakes up” (has power) and reads the x86 code in the BIOS chip.
  2. The code in the BIOS chip runs a series of tests, called the POST for Power On Self-Test, to make sure the system devices are working correctly. In general, the BIOS:
    • Initializes system hardware and chipset registers
    • Initializes power management
    • Tests RAM (Random Access Memory)
    • Enables the keyboard
    • Tests serial and parallel ports
    • Initializes floppy disk drives and hard disk drive controllers
    • Displays system summary information
  3. During POST, the BIOS compares the system configuration data obtained from POST with the system information stored on a CMOS – Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor – memory chip located on the motherboard. (This CMOS chip, which is updated whenever new system components are added, contains the latest information about system components.)
        4. After the POST tasks are completed, the BIOS looks for the boot program responsible for loading the operating                         system.  Usually, the BIOS looks on the floppy disk drive A: followed by drive C:
        5. After being loaded into memory, the boot program then loads the system configuration information (contained in                the registry in a Windows environment) and device drivers.
       6. Finally, the operating system is loaded, and, if this is a Windows environment, the programs in the Start Up folder                  are executed.

            The BIOS has two fundamental weaknesses. Firstly, it is based on 16-bit assembly code and cannot directly address          the latest 64-bit hardware, and secondly, there are no set standards for specifications, so manufacturers come up with            their own versions.

The participants of the UEFI Forum wanted to set this straight. From the outset, each process has been precisely defined. Thus, the boot process or platform initialization (PI) is clearly described in phases. Immediately after powering up the PC, the Pre-EFI Initialization (PEI) is executed, which initializes the CPU, memory and chipset. This is then followed by the Driver Execution Environment (DXE). At this point, the rest of the hardware is initialized. This process saves the time required for booting because UEFI can integrate various drivers that need not be reloaded during booting. Thanks to these drivers, the user already has access to network card, including features such as network booting and remote assistance at the early stage of the boot process. With the graphics processor enabled, a fancy user interface is also presented.

However, biggest time-saving feature of UEFI is the fact that not all the installed hard drives will be scanned for the boot loader, since the boot drive is set during the installation of the operating system in the UEFI. The default boot loader is run without consuming much time searching the drives.

The faster boot time is not the only advantage of UEFI; applications can be stored on virtually any non-volatile storage device installed on the PC. For example, programs and diagnostic tools such as antivirus or system management tools can be run from an EFI partition on the hard drive. This feature will be very useful to original equipment manufacturers (OEM), who can distribute systems with extra functions in addition to the standard EFI firmware stored on the motherboard’s ROM.

UEFI fully supports 3 TB hard drives

The classic BIOS can access only up to 232 sectors of 512 bytes in size, which  translates to a total of 2 TB. So the upcoming 3 TB variants of Western Digital Caviar Green and Seagate Barracuda XT won’t be fully compatible with the current BIOS. Seagate uses larger sectors to make the full capacity usable on Windows, but the BIOS cannot boot from this drive.

UEFI, on the other hand, works with GUID partition table (GPT) with 64-bit long addresses and can handle up to 264 sectors that address up to 9 Zettabyte (1 zettabyte equals 1 billion terabytes).

The GUID Partition Table (GPT) was introduced as part of the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) initiative. GPT provides a more flexible mechanism for partitioning disks than the older Master Boot Record (MBR) partitioning scheme that was common to PCs.

A partition is a contiguous space of storage on a physical or logical disk that functions as if it were a physically separate disk. Partitions are visible to the system firmware and the installed operating systems. Access to a partition is controlled by the system firmware before the system boots the operating system, and then by the operating system after it is started.

MBR disks support only four partition table entries. If more partitions are wanted, a secondary structure known as an extended partition is necessary. Extended partitions can then be subdivided into one or more logical disks.

GPT disks can grow to a very large size. The number of partitions on a GPT disk is not constrained by temporary schemes such as container partitions as defined by the MBR Extended Boot Record (EBR).

The GPT disk partition format is well defined and fully self-identifying. Data critical to platform operation is located in partitions and not in unpartitioned or “hidden” sectors. GPT disks use primary and backup partition tables for redundancy and CRC32 fields for improved partition data structure integrity. The GPT partition format uses version number and size fields for future expansion. Each GPT partition has a unique identification GUID and a partition content type, so no coordination is necessary to prevent partition identifier collision. Each GPT partition has a 36-character Unicode name. This means that any software can present a human-readable name for the partition without any additional understanding of the partition.

Below given Windows OS supports GPT:

  • Windows 7
  • Windows Server 2008
  • Windows Server 2008 R2
  • Windows Vista
  • Windows Server 2003 SP1
  • Windows Server 2003 (64-bit)
  • Windows XP x64 edition
Source: wikipedia, chip, MSDN

How to Remotely Enable Remote Desktop (Terminal Services or RDP) via Registry in Windows 2000/XP/2000/Vista/2008

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Remote Desktop or RDP service is a free yet useful tool to remotely log on to remote computer and gain full access and privileges as if user is in front of local console. Remote Desktop is also known as Terminal Services. It’s useful if the server, or PC, is located miles away in remote location and frequent trips to the site to troubleshoot, configure or manage the system is not a viable option.

Although most versions of Windows operating system such as Windows 2000, 2003, 2008, XP and Vista do come packaged with Remote Desktop, it’s disabled by default. Turning on and enabling the Remote Desktop via local console is easy, where Microsoft provides similar GUI (graphical user interface) in all editions of Windows.

However, if an off-site server needs to be accessed via Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) client immediately, when the Remote Desktop is not enabled on the server, then it will be a headache. Luckily it’s possible to remotely enable and turn on the Remote Desktop service on a remote PC or server by remotely editing its registry.

To remotely enable Remote Desktop on another computer, follow these steps:

  1. Login to theworkstationwith administrator credentials.
  2. Run Registry Editor (regedit).
  3. Click on File menu.
  4. Select the Connect Network Registry in the pull down menu (see Figure 1).
Figure 1

5.    A “Select Computer” dialog search box is opened. Type the host name of the remote computer in the text box, or browse Active Directory to locate the remote server, or click on “Advanced” button to search for the remote computer (see Figure 2).

Figure 2

6.   Click OK after the remote computer is selected. A node for the remote computer network registry will be displayed in the Registry Editor with HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE (HKLM) and HKEY_USERS (HKU) hives (see Figure 3).

Figure 3

7.   Navigate to the following registry key for the remote computer:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server


8.   In the right pane, locate a REG_DWORD value named fDenyTSConnection. Double-click on fDenyTSConnection and change the value data from 1 (Remote Desktop disabled) to 0 (Remote Desktop enabled) (see Figure 4 & Figure 5)

Figure 4
Figure 5

9.   Reboot the remote machine by issuing the following command in Command Prompt:

shutdown -m \\hostname -r

10 .  Replace host name with the actual computer name of the remote host.

Once host pc/server is restarted, you can connect through RDC.

Source: My digital life

How to Block Websites without Hardware or Software

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It’s a simple technique.

The user just needs to modify one “Host” file.

The user who is going to modify “HOST” file should have administrative privileges

1.] Browse C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc

2.] Find the file named “HOSTS”

3.] Open it in notepad

4.] Under “127.0.0.1 localhost” add 127.0.0.2 www.sitenameyouwanttoblock.com , and that site will

no longer be accessible.

5.] Done!

-So-

127.0.0.1   localhost

127.0.0.2 www.blockedsite.com

–> www.blockedsite.com is now inaccessible

The host file will have the following line 127.0.0.1 local host (it will be there by default) in all three operating systems windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

In the next line, we have to add 127.0.0.2 www.blockedsite.com,  127.0.0.3 www.abc.com

127.0.0.1   localhost

127.0.0.2 www.blockedsite.com

127.0.0.3 www.abc.com

127.0.0.4 www.xyz.com

Above example is for Windows XP.

In the Windows Vista and in the Windows 7 we have to add websites without #.

Example shown in Windows 7 image given below.

I have pasted host file to show how it looks in Windows XP, Windows Vista and in Windows 7 operating systems:

Windows XP Host File is shown below:

Windows XP

Windows Vista Host file is shown below:

Windows Vista

Windows 7 Host File is shown below:

The users will be able to browse other sites; they would not be able to browse the sites which are all added in the host file.


PC in PC

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Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 allows users to run multiple operating systems conveniently on a single computer. Users can switch operating systems as easily as they switch applications on a mouse click. Each virtual machine acts like a standalone computer.

Since each VM runs its own operating system, users can install and run x86 operating systems.

Microsoft fully supports the following operating systems running in a virtual machine on Virtual PC:

But users can also install Windows 2000/2003 Server systems, Linux builds and other operating systems.

The operating system that runs on the physical computer is called the Host operating system and the operating systems that run on virtual machines are called Guest operating systems.

The main purpose of Virtual PC is to allow the user to run multiple guest machines on one real host machine.

The main advantages of VMs are:

  • Multiple OS environments can co-exist on the same computer, in strong isolation from each other.
  • The virtual machine can provide aninstruction setarchitecture (ISA) that is somewhat different from that of the real machine.
  • With “save state” option, you can hibernate the VM instead of completely shutting it down. That way, you can reactivate a VM without going through the lengthy boot up process.
  • With “undo disks” option, you can discard all changes to the VM when you close a session. That way, you can have the VM start-up exactly the same as it did the previous time.
  • To directly compare competing software products, you can use duplicate VMs to provide identical platforms.
  • The network adapter in a VM gets a different IP address than the host, so you can connect both guest and host to a home network. You can also setup and test a firewall or webserver without using another computer.
  • NIC traffic bypasses host’s firewall.

The main disadvantages of VMs are:

  • A virtual machine is less efficient than a real machine when it accesses the hardware indirectly.
  • The most glaring deficiency, though, is the lack of USB support in the virtual machines. Other than a mouse or keyboard, if you want to use a USB device with Virtual PC, you’re out of luck.
  • Does not support DVD iso images (Note: Does support real DVD disks in host’s DVD drive).

You can download Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 for free from the following link: Virtual PC 2007.

Installing Virtual PC:

1.       Click Setup. Welcome to the installation wizard for Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 screen appears (see Figure-1).

Figure-1

2.       Click Next. License Agreement screen appears (see Figure- 2).

Figure-2

3.       Click Next. Customer Information screen appears (see Figure -3).

Figure-3

4.    Click Next. Ready to Install the Program screen appears (see Figure-4).

Figure-4

5. Click Install. Installing Microsoft virtual PC 2007 screen (see Figure-5) followed by Installation Complete screen appears (see Figure-6).

Figure-5
Figure-6

6.       Click Finish to complete the installation.

7.       Go to Start >> All Programs>>Microsoft Virtual PC (see Figure-7).

Figure-7

New Virtual Machine screen appears (see Figure-8).



Figure-8

8.       Click Next. Options screen appears (see Figure-9)

Figure-9

9.       Select an option to create a new virtual machine.

10.       Click Next. Virtual Machine Name and Location screen appears (see Figure-10).

Figure-10

11.       Enter name of the virtual machine in Name and Location field.

12.       Click Next. Operating System screen appears (see Figure-11).

Figure-11

13.       Select an operating system that you are going to install from Operating System list that displays all the operating systems the Microsoft Virtual PC supports.

14.       Click Next. Memory (RAM Configuration) screen appears (see Figure-12).

Figure-12

15.       Set the RAM for the virtual machine.

16.       Click Next. Virtual Hard Disk Options screen appears (see Figure-13).

Figure-13

17.       Select ‘A new virtual hard disk’ option.

18.       Click Next. Virtual Hard Disk Location screen appears (see Figure-14).

Figure-14

19.       Click Next It prompts you to specify the path where new .vhd should be created and completing the New Virtual Machine Wizard screen appears (see Figure-15 ).

Note: This will be the same folder as where your .vmc file resides by default but all.vhd files are stored on a separate drive for best performance a folder named Virtual PC on drive D or E on the Host system.

Figure-15

20.  Click Finish. It creates new VM but no operating system is installed on it.