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General Computer Thread

I still have a full version install disk of 7 but if I installed that I'm not sure where I stand as far as system protection goes? I do have malwarebytes, is that enough?
 
F Microsoft. They just sent the Fall Creators update to me (1803). Found a way to hide it for now via a batch file someone on Reddit's Window 10 board came up with... as I'm just not ready to put up with its crap.
 
Seems 1803 is causing a lot of problems. MS when they fix something they break everything else.

How do things go with an Apple Mac when it's time to update the OS?
 
Tetragrammaton Invictus said:
Seems 1803 is causing a lot of problems. MS when they fix something they break everything else.

How do things go with an Apple Mac when it's time to update the OS?
Click to expand...
Exactly. And they know how to end a day, don't they? :biggrin: It's not even update Tuesday and they send me this crap. :ouch:

Here's what I used: https://en.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/8hybwk/dont_want_to_be_automatically_upgraded_to_rs4/

So far it seems to work well.

This is so weird... I just checked my settings and Windows Insider Service shows up on it, and I'm not even a part of it.

LjDac74.png


And this is my build as of right now:

46q2lEQ.png
 
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You are part of whatever M$ wants you to be part of, they need more beta testers... I mean, they even managed to f#ck up their own Surface machines.. quality assurance is no longer a part of M$'s business model.. :vulcan: They serve and you swallow and that's about it.
 
Santaman said:
You are part of whatever M$ wants you to be part of, they need more beta testers... I mean, they even managed to f#ck up their own Surface machines.. quality assurance is no longer a part of M$'s business model.. :vulcan: They serve and you swallow and that's about it.
Click to expand...

That's as apt a description of current day MS as I have heard.
 
Santaman said:
You are part of whatever M$ wants you to be part of, they need more beta testers... I mean, they even managed to f#ck up their own Surface machines.. quality assurance is no longer a part of M$'s business model.. :vulcan: They serve and you swallow and that's about it.
Click to expand...
Yep and I have no f'ing interest in beta testing as I wouldn't be able to fix it. Meaning if something very bad happens I'd be up you know what creek. Can't keep on taking my system in to repair their mess.

So I'm glad that I installed the batch file. It's keeping the newest update in line.

Came across an interesting comment in this article about the most recent update: https://www.techrepublic.com/articl...l-2018-update-could-wipe-your-entire-desktop/

PhilippeV • 3 hours ago

Avast is not really to blame. It's a fact that Microsoft changed radically the way it manage the security in the kernel and silently removed an API without saying, and their update does not even try to look is the deleted API is used by a security tool before installing it.

It's a fact that this update corrupts critical files, notably in the BCD store when runing from a PC using UEFI, and even worse when using TPM modules and secure mode: Microsoft deleted support for CSM modules in BIOS, even if they were necessary to access some disk volumes.

Many affected users are using notebooks or desktop motherboard from Asus and Gigabyte, where the UEFI secure boot is present and secure mode is enabled but only with CSM (without it, disk drives will suddenly become unaivalable at boot time, and when the Windwos installer will reboot the first time it will insert invalid data in the BCD store to an inaccessible new volume assuming full TPM 2.0 support by the BIOS and specific TPM module hardware (this assumption is only valid on servers built specifically for it, but invalid on notebooks and most desktops where TPM is only an optional addon, which also requires a specific driver on the UEFI boot partition to allow mounting some volumes).

There's a way to recover but it requires a bootable USB flash drive with the Windows installer and make sure your boot in UEFI mode from this flash drive. Then you'll need to restore the broken BCD store manually, by complex operations using "BCDEDIT /DELETE" for dummy/broken/duplicate new entries, or entries that are displaying "[Device not found]" instead of a volume GUID identifier or drive letter.

You'll need diskpart to rediscover the real partitions on disk, and assign a letter to all of them, before using BCDEDIT /ENUM ALL. Then any BCD entry that displays a missing volume have to be deleted (otherwiser the "secure boot" will either crash (in fast boot mode, possibly with an instant reboot) or will display a fatal green page showing an "device driver unsecure warning").

But if after rebooting in failsafe mode from the external USB flahs drive, with the comand prompt window of (in the "advanced" repartion) you'll immediately see that no files were deleted, all your data is still there and readable. SFC /SCNANOW will detect asbolutely no curruption, as well as an inspection by an **offline** DISM /SCANHEALTH.

The truth is that Microsoft removed support for a security API, and it required all antivirus to be updated with a new secure registration for UEFI (these will now require their own UEFI driver on the boot disk, which also has to be securely signed with a certificate signed by only a few Root CAs that Windows supports at boot time. What is worse is that some of these CA certificates are now invalid and have been migrated by their vendors since the begining of year (notably certificates from Digicert that bought Symantec about 3 years ago): the new required certificates that replaced the old one are now the only one being verifiable since beginning of April, but Microsoft's boot code do not accept these certificates as it uses an outdated store of Root CAs.

There are also various iseues caused by new mitigation code in the kernel against Spectre/Meltdown, and this code is still beta and not really tested (in fact this mitigation is illusory, it does not solve the issue but severaly breaks critical requirements, notably the fact that secure performance timers must be monotonic, and must never go backward in time. I've noted with the new kernel many apps reporting NEGATIVE delay measurements. The expected order of events does not occur, some expected time events will appear to come too late, drivers ill be unresponsive, or repeated operations will occur in critical sections of the kernel.

I can conclude that this update is even worse than any virus: Windows update becomes a severe worm, it spreads and installs without asking the user, without performing any safe image backup before installing, and it is very hard to uninstall or rever after that.

Many users that did not have a second PC had to reformat their drive or buy a new DVD of Windows 10 just to be able to boot in failsafe mode (almost all options to repair the systeml do not work, you really need to boot from another drive, but many PCs now cannot even boot from a DVD if they are installed with UEFI and secure boot, because the DVD reader uses a legacy firmware incompatible with UEFI)

And yes repairing the PC requires lot of technical expertise. It is costly to get it for most users. Assistance support are overwhelmed by assistance demand, and take a very long time for each cutomer to explain how to perform some critical command with complex syntax to use on a command line.

Overall repairing the PC after this, just to be able to reboot it and being able to revert it will take easily several days. If users go to a shop to assist them (because they absolutely don't understand what the online support is trying to ask them to read or perform), they'll just get their PC pack with the whole system reinstalled, all disks reformated, and all their personal data lost !

Once again: why Windows insists in putting all users documents on the C: drive ? Windows should install on its own partition; all the non-Microsoft apps or apps not necessaryu for booting to normal mode, and all user documents, user profiles should NEVER be on the system C: drive (which can be used only to store the profile of the builtin administrator account used by the trusted windows installer itself and the "SYSTEM" user account used by the kernel but nothing else, not even the local Administrator account).

Windows should provide a tool to inspect broken UEFI, broken BCD, broken MOK store for TPM. For now it only provides the online image checker (DISM or SFC). The Windows 10 installer has ALWAYS removed esssential drivers that were present and that needed to be reinstalled: Realtak audio, and nVidia graphics and HDAUDIO, Intel Internet e100 adapters are generally reverted back to old broken versions, or just completely removed.

The Windows 10 updater shouls also first run an inventory tool to check the list of used drivers anc check if they pass the new certificat requirements for safe boot or UEFI boot, and if so, it should keep these drivers and not remove or replace them.

Windows update is also now very stupid: it refuses to install any other update: it can just be paused competely (but temporarily for a couple of months, then it will forcible install everything that was pening without asking you). There's now no way to select or remove updates you don't want to install now (it even attempts to upgrade windows, before installing Windows defender updates, this is completely stupid.
Click to expand...
 
But some of us have had a smooth run with it. I just looked at the picture I posted last page and I have 1803. My only glitch was my icons had gotten messed up and I had to resize them via a custom font program I use.
 
Tetragrammaton Invictus said:
But some of us have had a smooth run with it. I just looked at the picture I posted last page and I have 1803. My only glitch was my icons had gotten messed up and I had to resize them via a custom font program I use.
Click to expand...
Yea and that's a good thing. Not so good for anyone who hasn't had a smooth run. Can't afford to take my laptop in to get anything that Microsoft breaks fixed (apart from the usual yearly check up). Anything that's gone wrong with this is above my pay grade.
 
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Random_Spock said:
Yea and that's a good thing. Not so good for anyone who hasn't had a smooth run. Can't afford to take my laptop in to get anything that Microsoft breaks fixed (apart from the usual yearly check up). Anything that's gone wrong with this is above my pay grade.
Click to expand...

Oh no I sympathize with you. I have had a lot more people say that they have had issues, and some huge issues with this update and I feel strange not having a problem or two more to worry over.
 
Every computer is different, some can stomach Spyware 10's antics better, some will throw a tantrum and bluescreen on you.
 
Santaman said:
Every computer is different, some can stomach Spyware 10's antics better, some will throw a tantrum and bluescreen on you.
Click to expand...
Yep. Mine's been pretty good for the most part, but I'm not chancing things at this point. People keep on mentioning to clean install it, but that's something I've never done and I'd hate to screw it up.

Tetragrammaton Invictus How did you upgrade yours to 1803? Was it by Update or did you clean install it?

Tetragrammaton Invictus said:
Oh no I sympathize with you. I have had a lot more people say that they have had issues, and some huge issues with this update and I feel strange not having a problem or two more to worry over.
Click to expand...
Yep and I just saw someone who ran into issues with Windows Defender due to it over on Reddit's Windows 10 board.
 
Random_Spock said:
Tetragrammaton Invictus How did you upgrade yours to 1803? Was it by Update or did you clean install it?
Click to expand...

Mine went through the regular update service. It of course took a while to download the big update and Windows isn't itself very forthcoming with what it is installing so I only knew my windows version had changed when the icons on my desktop had gone back to super small in line with my screen resolution. I was looking around to see what had caused that as the updates don't really say "hey this is a new version of windows" Only that it is a cumulative update.
 
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