Posts by Aniya

Re: W10 virus

I have just gone through WSUS approvals and you may want to watch out for KB3150513 which is new and adds more telemetry to "help Microsoft and their partners better understand how to best shaft Windows 10 down the throats of the collective human race." And whatever else.

I haven't taken a look at non-WSUS installations yet but as always do look out for KB2952664 and KB3035583 as these two updates are perpetually being updated and republished.

I am of course assuming that Microsoft hasn't added malware to any of their security updates as they have an update or two ago.

<3

They've been doing that forever now. My most memorable instance was when Microsoft removed Windows' built-in support for managing Uninterruptible Power Supplies (when going from Server 2003 to Server 2008). This really made me cringe because if Windows can detect a UPS via USB and shut down my PC with only X amount of runtime left then why would I want to install some bloated pile of crap with Java from APC?

Same story with Windows Backup losing Tape Drive support (also when going from Server 2003 to Server 2008). Sure, NTBACKUP was far from the most efficient backup solution. But for certain scenarios it worked and saved us from having to buy yet another ArcServe or Acronis license.

So this really isn't something new.

Oh, so you mean that with 10 I no longer need to wait for the next version of Windows to lose all of my features? Well that's just fan-fucking-tastic then.

Re: Patch Tuesday? Now if only I could prevent Nvidia from updating.

Thank you for perfectly illustrating precisely why I possess an extremely strong stance against forced driver updates. It works very well in theory right up until the point where you are running a combination of parameters or requirements which Microsoft hadn't thought of and you're fucked.

This is why I say that it is absolutely arrogant and outright delusional for Microsoft to think that they know better than the billions of possible hardware, operating system and application configurations possible with modern computers.

Furthermore, and this especially applies with drivers; new doesn't always mean better. And this can become an even bigger issue on previous-generation hardware where unified driver packages tend to focus their optimizations on current-generation hardware.

If I have found a driver which performs well I do not wish to upgrade and risk either a system crash (instant loss of productivity) or performance degradation (gradual loss of productivity over time). What's more Windows Update can even go as far as overriding new drivers with older revisions.

Ugh.

Re: cygwin and others

Seconded on Cygwin. I've been using Cygwin for well over a decade and it works well enough. It has even become my go-to SSH client over the years. Cygwin's repository has also grown into rather ludicrous proportions with the entire offline download weighing well over 13GB... compressed.

So you'd be quite hard pressed to not be able to find a package and even if you don't compiling something on Cygwin is always an option.

My only annoyance is that manually selecting packages can take a while.

Re: "...bathrooms across North Carolina were 'safe' again."

@Big John: Male perverts will always do what male perverts do whether or not they are "allowed" into women's restrooms. The Catholic Church can tell you all about it. This law serves zero purpose other than bigotry. Let's be honest here. If a male pervert does indeed make his way into women's restrooms and engages in perverted behaviour there are more than enough laws already in place (one would hope) to tackle voyeurism, indecent exposure, molestation and so on.

And if you've ever known anyone who is transgender you would also know that transgender individuals are amongst the least concern to society as many really do prefer to stay low, not cause trouble and above all do whatever they can do to avoid attracting unnecessary attention.

So fuck this law. And as much as I loathe PayPal for being overly pro-buyer I applaud them for making this decision because it is simply the right thing to do.

Re: Give'em credit

Oh, and with regards to my comment on Microsoft ramming Windows 10 down everyone's throat with no end in sight... this just in today:

The following 4 new updates have been synchronized to <WSUS Server> since Thursday, March 31, 2016 5:11 PM (GMT).

Update for Windows 7 (KB2952664)

Update for Windows 7 for x64-based Systems (KB2977759)

Update for Windows 7 (KB2977759)

Update for Windows 7 for x64-based Systems (KB2952664)

Really. How many more times are they going to re-publish this crap?

Re: As a Perth based operative

Haha. Last time I was there I was having issues with my cell phone reception never mind any form of internet connectivity.

Re: lol

VMware is definitely feeling some heat. They did after all lay off their entire US dev team for Fusion and Workstation earlier in the year (to outsource?). Kinda sad considering how good of a product VMware Workstation is. It's one of the few applications that I've been consistently installing every single time I upgrade my PC both at home and at work.

Re: Old saying may be appropriate...

Indeed. It takes a very special kind of scum to target a healthcare provider. We may not always agree with certain aspects of healthcare (cost being a common complaint) but what those scum are doing could very well result in them committing murder (I was going to say involuntary manslaughter, but what do you fucking expect when you attack a hospital).

As it stands many hospitals and their staff are severely overworked and the additional time required to retrieve the files of a patient could very well lead to permanent disability or death.

Re: Impressive-

They have bugs which can generate entire operating systems which then bug up Windows Update to install and overwrite whatever perfectly functional Windows operating system the user may already have installed.

A simple web page even with a different header, fonts and text is nothing.

Re: That might be worth

You may joke but Yahoo does enjoy a curious level of popularity in some countries. I usually do not stumble across too many users on "yahoo.com" addresses but I see plenty with country-specific TLD's (such as yahoo.co.uk and yahoo.co.jp). And actually, while we're on the topic of Japan, Yahoo Auctions is ridiculously popular over there. Even more-so than eBay.

Re: Stating the Obvious

Yep. LDS gets it. You only have to go to "Internet Options" in Internet Explorer to realise just how deeply interlinked Internet Explorer and Windows are. Some settings even go as far as telling you that you need to RESTART YOUR ENTIRE PC in order for said settings to take effect.

The fuck?

And don't even get me started on those bloody security zones.

And proxy settings.

And maker knows what the hell else.

Re: Those who can't, analyse....

And that is where the resale market comes into play. I think the iPhone 5SE really isn't for "developing" markets, but more for users like myself who just prefer a smaller phone. The iPhone 5S was perfect for me in terms of size. I still feel that the 6S is a little bit on the large (and heavy) end.

Where I live there are actually many shops that will buy in used iPhones for the purpose of exporting them to developing markets. And these are shops where a mint condition iPhone 5S, still a very good phone, can go as low as USD 200. And this is what Apple can never compete against.

Re: This isn't just about one iPhone...

This shouldn't even be "just about phones." This should be about all computing devices in general. Not only do many mobile phone users synchronise their devices to their personal computers or even to the cloud (thus increasing the number of attack vectors), there are users like myself who consider the desktop at home the final destination for secure computing.

Now of course this is all pointless if the authorities decide that they need to start injecting zero-day exploits en masse to users either by forcing webmasters of popular websites to serve said zero-day exploit to clients or by compromising the websites themselves. These are resources that are definitely within their reach if it is within their desires to take advantage of said resources.

It would not surprise me one bit if this has already been attempted. The need to compromise the computer of a suspect arises and the authorities subsequently request from the service provider a list of all websites the suspect is known to visit. Thereafter it's a matter of either finding a cooperative webmaster or vulnerable website and then it's time to serve up malware en masse.

As for the innocent bystanders? Fuck'em, right? Unavoidable collateral damage, right? That's always the fucking excuse to justify laziness and incompetence, right? And this is all inevitable, right?

Fucking bullshit. Sorry for the rant, needed to get this one out of me.

Re: I'm confident this will be pushed on users

Thank you David 132 for clarifying. It is a little bit of both it seems.

If you search "Skylake Windows 7 Support" there is a Microsoft link which elaborates on the situation. There it says that "support will be provided until July 17, 2017" for "Intel's 6th generation of processors, also known as Skylake." After this specific date, only "the most critical Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 security updates will be addressed."

I guess we better hope that none of the security fixes will result in big problems because Microsoft also goes on to say that updates will "be released if the update does not risk the reliability or compatibility of the Windows 7."

Re: KB3126041 (Documentation for KB3132080)

The KB article for KB3132080 was just published.

It describes a fix for "logon freezes after you reset your password in Windows 8.1, or Stop error 0x1000007e in Windows Server 2012 R2."

Re: Cashcow

Maybe Google should not be $_$ at everyone's data then.

@Geoffrey W something has definitely changed.

In this article: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3080351

I am 100% sure, and I am sure many users here can confirm it too, that originally under "Windows 10 upgrade is automatically blocked" it also said that computers joined to an Active Directory Domain would not automatically receive the upgrade notification. If you read the article now (it has since been changed) it only says that the upgrade notification is automatically blocked when the "computer or device is serviced through WSUS."

Re: This is getting tedious

Can confirm it. Even on WSUS Microsoft had revived KB2952664. So bad.

Re: Fixed it?

I can forgive a quick and temporary fix, but I cannot forgive a poor response and lack of reassurance that the bigger problem as a whole will be looked into and fixed. As has been said, this should not even have been a problem to begin with. This is not just a programming error. This is poor design right from the beginning. Poor design which should have been corrected a very long time before RTM.

My friend recently talked about evaluating Trend Micro for their business.

Not anymore!

Re: A reminder re: "Nagging Pop-ups"

Yes, "for now." But in all likelihood most third party applications do the same. I've been trying to eliminate the Windows 10 Upgrade nagware for some time on a few non-domain computers I manage (mostly friends and some contract work for small companies).

While uninstalling KB3035583 is an obvious solution Microsoft have republished it once already (and in doing so it becomes unhidden from Windows Update) so it isn't really a permanent one. Furthermore I have noticed that on most systems the Windows Update tray icon goes missing if KB3035583 is not installed. This becomes problematic because we do not want to configure Windows Update to be 100% autopilot (for obvious reasons) but not receiving any notifications at all means everyone will forget to install updates when Windows Update is configured to "check with me before downloading."

These registry keys have worked for me as a convenient and lightweight solution I can mail over to anyone and it does the job. While Microsoft could make them redundant in the future it's still a lot less bothersome to be nagged once every couple of months compared to being nagged daily.