Tag: Windows 10

Top 3 Useful Windows Commands for Desktop Support technicians

Paul

Windows 10 21H1

The Command Line

Most user don’t understand just how powerful the command line can be.  In tech, and also in my job I have to diagnose and troubleshoot several different types of issues.   I’m going to show you my top 3 commands that I use in Windows and why.  Not everything is straight forward but It will help  you understand why.   We’ll talk about these and why they are so useful and powerful.  Use these as you see feet but you will need to run the command line as Admin.   How to do that is simple, for most.

WINDOWS Key + S and type cmd but don’t hit enter.

Click on Run As administrator

Once you do that you will see the usual Command line windows appear.   We won’t go into detail about that but if you want to learn more about it.  There are several YouTube videos about it.  I’m not going to talk about those because other’s have but I will talk about the commands I use most often in my work.

Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM)

For any businesses that use their own images for windows or has a need to deploy Windows a certain this can be a handy little tool for when the image might need to be repair, or something might need to be added.    You can add and remove drivers to an offline image or you can do many different things to it.   However I will be talking about the repairing of the image because most of the time we have Hard drives that are mechanical and that can cause problems for the OS when the system get’s corrupt files or hard drive has bad sectors.   Each one of these scenarios can make it even harder for applications to work properly and that is why I use this with systems that have those types of hard drives.   My go to is always going to be this when I suspect the hard drive might be the cause of the issue.

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

You can run this command and see the progress but this isn’t the only command that helps with troublesome Hard drives.

System File Checker (SFC)

This is another good tool for those who might have issues with the system hard drive or even when you suspect something is corrupt.   I use this from time to time just like DISM for when there is something that isn’t right about the hard drive.   If you use this also with DISM you will see a noticeable improvement of your system response.   You will see that it will be quite handy for those times when you have to get data off the drive before it dies completely.

SFC /scannow

If you run this in command line and wait you will see if it finds bad files or it will tell you what it found.  It won’t be a very informative but it will help.

Check Disk Utility

The Windows Check Utility is the last one of the three that I most often. It helps to check sectors and to check the health of the system and also fixes most of the problematic issues of mechanical hard drives.  So when I says this it can be used on SSD and even NVME but it does his best job on hard drives that have spinning parts.   Most users don’t understand about the volatility of the mechanical hard drive.   So it is very useful to check the disk and make sure there are not bad sectors or fix bad area’s of the hard drive.  This one will need to be rebooted to allow it to be used to its fullest but it is a handy little command when you want to make double sure that you will be able to keep Windows running.

chkdsk [DRIVE] /f

You can tell it multiple drives or just the main drive which would be C: but be warned the bigger the HDD the longer it will take to scan it.  You will also need to reboot to have it do it’s job because it needs to un-mount the drive, if you choice to do the C: drive.   It has in the past helped me out in many different situations and that is why I use these three commands a lot for my job.

What are your favorite commands to use in command line or in Windows General.  I’d like to hear them and find out more useful commands that might help me in my job.   Why not leave a comment and let everyone know.

 

The Failures of Board manufacturers and Windows 11

Paul

Motherboards Diversity / SML.20120917.164110.IP3

Motherboard BIOS

Don’t try to understand the system but rather see it as a broke system and try to fix it. When Windows 11 came out, you can bet everyone who was wanted the next version of Windows wanted it so they can test it out.  The real problem is Windows 11 made every one get into their BIOS and figure out what needed to be turned on.  Motherboard manufacturers each have their own way of creating the BIOS settings.   They like to call it something you might not know about or even want to try to understand.   Just like enabling TMP can be hard to find since Intel and AMD uses different wording such as PTT (Intel Platform Trusted Technology) for Intel and fTPM (Firmware Trusted Platform Module)  for AMD.  Even this can be frustrating for even the most seasoned IT guy.   There is so many Mother Manufacturers out there, from MSI to ASRock. according to Wikipedia there is at least 7 to 15 different manufacturers of Motherboards.   So each one will make the Bios Menu’s just a little bit different.  It can be quite hard to figure out where you might need to go to enable something or disable something in bios.

The Failure of all parts

It isn’t every time I see Microsoft releases a new OS that I wonder just how much the consumer will suffer from the new systems requirements.    Most of the time the requirements were not that big of a deal but with Windows 11, we now need to enable TPM and Secure boot for systems that may or may not have the requirements to run Windows 11.   This to me just seem an arbitrary requirement because we’ve seen people run Windows 11 on a system that doesn’t  have  a TPM.   Microsoft says this is for security but I can’t see this being for consumers.  I’ve talked about how Windows 11 will fail, and I still think this will happen eventually once people see If Windows is worth upgrading.

The PrintNightmare

With the recent Windows updates the last few weeks has caused more pain for Microsoft.   Since most people who are having problem probably have to buy new printers and those old printers are probably going to the waste side.   Even manufacturers aren’t going to update their drivers for old printers.  Microsoft likes the idea that people will need to buy new printers and maybe even new systems for that Windows 11 OS.   They make their money by people upgrading their systems and getting a new Windows 11 key or even a new system by Dell, or some other OEM.   Every computer technician is having to work harder for people who might want to install Windows 11.  Even then the process of install Windows 11 is not something that can be done very quickly depending on how big the HDD you are going to be converting.

What is to come?

Some people are not going to install Windows and maybe will wait to see what Microsoft does.  We’ve already seen a comparison from Windows 8 to Windows 10 and you know how well Windows 8 didn’t work out well.   Some are probably going to install another OS that won’t require people to have some stringent requirements like Microsoft.   Are you going to Install Windows 11 or are you waiting like I am because you don’t want to worry about all the security requirements to install Windows 11?   I’d like to hear your ideas about Windows 11 and or what your will do in 2025 if they still require all these things.

How to use Oracles VirtualBox on Windows 10 (Step by Step Guide)

Paul

What is VirtualBox?

That is the first question you should be asking your if you are wanting to use it.   VirtualBox is a way for anyone to play around with other operating systems like Windows 11,  and yet I didn’t like it enough to even think about playing around with it on a Virtual machine.  You can also install different Linux operating systems to get yourself used to the Linux OS.  Either way, the long term’s of using VirtualBox is vastly better than you can imagine.  You can try new Operating system and see how they will do with what you might be interested in.   This will be a how to on Windows 10 because that’s what I am using but I have already talked about doing it on Linux  and installing Windows 10 on it.  If you’re curious about doing it the other way around that would be a good start.

After Installing VirtualBox in Windows 10

What’s the first Step in installing an operating system.  You either need the USB version or If you have a DVD of the operating system you want to install that will also be good.   Each way is not to hard to do while using VirtualBox.   First part of this is to initialize the Virtual System.

You’ll want to click the NEW button and you’ll be lead to this screen.  Give it any name you would but most will say something like MacOS, Linux, Or Windows (xp, 7, 10, 11) because you would basically like to keep track of that when you start using the Virtual machine.

VirtualBox is pretty intuitive when it comes to which operating you will be installing so when you name it the right Operating system.  You should see the version and type change down below to reflect the type of operating system parameters you’ll need to use the Virtual machine.

Dedicating the memory

You’ll want to dedicate a certain amount of memory to be use with VirtualBox so you can have enough to run the virtual operating system and not be sluggish.   If you have 16 gb or more of memory than you can easily divide it by 2 if you are just going to do one virtual machine at a time.  The Minimum I would recommend to use with a Virtual Machine is 4 gb but that is just a personal opinion.

Create a Virtual Hard drive

This is simply the easiest part of the creating the virtual machine.  You can have use as much as you like or as little as you like depending on your situation.  I usually give mine at least 10 gb or more depending on which operating I will be installing.  The more space you give the less you will have to use on your local hard drive so if you have another drive you want to use so as to not fill up your C: drive that would be preferable.

You’ll want to create a VHD or a VMDK but I rather like just useing the Virtual Hard Drive selection because it makes it so much easier for me.

This is where you should say Fixed size, so it doesn’t use up so much space that it will create a problem for you later on.

If you’re unsure of how much to use just keep it where it is.  Most of time when you are just checking out a operating system you will not need to much space to test it out.  All you have to do now is Create the Virtual Hard drive and you’ll all setup for the next part.

Installing the Operating system

The next step is to tell tell VirtualBox which ISO you will be using to install into the virtual machine.  You’ll want make sure the new machine you just created is turned blue by click on it and then hitting the settings key on VirtualBox dashboard.

Finally you’ll want to hit the little disk drive at the top right and add a new ISO you are wanting to use for the virtual environment.

Simply hit the ADD button and navigate to where you downloaded that ISO and use that then click choose.  Once done then you are all set on this part of the setup.

Don’t forget about how the cores

This is not a big issue but sometimes might help with running the Virtual Machine by checking to see how many cores you might want to use with the new operating system.  This is however just something I’ve found to speed up the virtual machine.   If you have 2 cores you can obviously only use 1 but if you have more than 2 cores it can be nice to use a few more cores to make the system a little bit more responsive.

You are all set

This part is obviously the hard part is to just hit the start or double clicking on the virtual machine you want to make it execute.   Either way sit back and play around with what you can do with the new operating system and install it on to the virtual hard drive and you’ll be good to go.  Once you install, you can go back to the storage selecting in the settings and remove the ISO to prevent it from loading again.   In some cases it will so just go back and remove the ISO from the drive and you can just enjoy playing around with whatever system you want to explore.

Why I uninstalled Microsoft Windows 11 Preview build?

Paul
Windows 11 — Isn’t the great!

I reinstalled Windows 10 and Deleted Windows 11!

I don’t know about everyone else but after my week long expedition into Windows 11, I just couldn’t handle the speed issues of the Windows 11 and the encryption.   I know it isn’t worth my time after all that to down grade to Windows 10 but I I felt it wasn’t going to get any smoother than that.  I also would of had to have deleted the partition anyways since it was locked to secure boot and UEFI.  I really didn’t want to try to convert it back to MBR.   I got my trust Windows 10 DVD and started it up and found the partitions I wanted to delete and then I reinstall Windows 10.   I will say that after wiping the hard drive and reinstalling Windows 10, and turning off all the Encryption crap and just booting into Windows has seen my load times go back to normal.

Windows 11 Problems

First off the main problem I had with Windows was the need to encrypt the Hard drive and I was using a NVME which should of been way faster than a standard SSD or Hard drive to boot up.   That wasn’t the case, I’d see the swirling load screen on my system for several seconds and then it would finally boot.  Due to the encryption that Microsoft says is required to run Windows 11, it just doesn’t cut it for me.   Even playing games like Minecraft was screwy and that isn’t even taking up that much memory at the most 2 GB or if you know how to do it 4 GB.   I’d play with Minecraft and the system would take forever to load up the next part of the map or even play Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 and It wouldn’t be sluggish there also.

The Start Menu

This was something that was just annoying, I think Microsoft wanted to look like an Apple device and bring the apple guys over because of the look.  I can’t understand why you would prevent people from reverting back to the old Windows 10 setup.  I can only wonder what people will do to find out what they are running and if it will actually be a good idea to keep the start menu in the middle of the screen.  Some people have these really long screens and it might help them.  I personally would like to move the taskbar anywhere on the outside of the screen, top or maybe right or left of the screen.  You wouldn’t be able to do that either.   Which will make people really mad.

I can’t see this being all about security

It just can’t be about viruses and malware or even the recent months of ransomware attacks that have been happening in the past year, due to the Covid19 situation around the world.  I have talked about how Windows will ultimately fail and we will see virus writers come up with some good viruses and malwares to compromise the Secure boot and even the TPM that is trying to be forced to be used by Windows.   I am sure it isn’t over, and if Microsoft isn’t going to change, we’ll see people leaving left and right to go to operating system that are much less restrictive and more open such as Linux.  In the end, I went back to Windows 10 because of the speed and performance, and I am not even thinking about Windows 11 until I find out what they will require when the system is finally released.   This will be a big deal to some but me, I am not interested in the so called security features of Windows 11.

 

My Initial thoughts on Windows 11!

Paul
Windows 11 — Just is!

It’s like pulling teeth!

I finally installed Windows 11 Windows Preview build into my system. Later last week I was wondering what they had done with Windows 11 and requirements. So I thought it would be a great idea to try to install Windows 11 with my current system that I built last year. Thanks to building this system just last year and thinking ahead, I got everything I could to prepare for the future needs. I even made sure it had TPM 2.0 just in case, I thought I’d not need this. I guess I was completely and most definitely wrong. I will say after talking about how to update Windows 10 to GPT and Secure Boot, that part went rather smoothly. I did find that if you have a Linux partition and a Windows partition then the converter will not be able to work. I had to erase the Linux Mint Distro partition to be able to convert it to GPT. I however divided the size to possibly install Linux mint along side Windows 11. I am curious to see just how well that will happen. That’s my next step in the next few days.

I didn’t like the setup

After converting the partitions and joining the Windows insiders program, I was able after a few attempts and fixing the CMOS.  It seems strange that I had to keep going into CMOS to enable even more things than I initially thought.   I had to enable secure boot, UEFI, and PTT (For those on Gigabyte Motherboards).   It wasn’t easy to say the least, I’d update one and the other and find out I had to enable more in the bios so Microsoft would see I met the requirements to download and install Windows 11.

Privacy is a Real concern!

I know on my Windows 10 system, I didn’t have my account linked to Microsoft but when I installed Windows 11.  It automatically linked my account to Microsoft.  I’d think if I am upgrading to Windows 11and it sees that it was a local account it would not link it to the Microsoft account.  The Bad news was I had to delete that account and remove all the data so Microsoft wouldn’t be watching me.  I had to re-install all my apps and loose some of my personally files but it was worth it to keep the information safe.  I wish I could of had an easy way to go back to my local account without having to jump through so many hoops.

It’s Just isn’t that good!

So far, after only using this for so many hours.  I can’t see any major differences that I will like.  The Start button will be an issue because I just don’t like it in the middle.   Also finding what I might need in the Settings is a little bit more interesting and difficult for me because they looked like they buried some of that.  I have also noticed the Windows 11 hack to revert my Windows start menu doesn’t work.  I’m going to try the Windows 11 preview builds some more but I am not that impressed with them and I might just go Windows 10 when Windows 11 finally get’s released unless they allow the users to use windows there own way, like No TPM, Or Secure boot.  I hope Linux will hurry up and make it easier for people to install Linux along side Windows 11.  I am almost sure there is a way just haven’t had time to explore the possibility.

Boot Times

After install Windows 11 and using my NVME drive, I have found the boot times to be a bit longer.  That was to expected because of the encryptions that is being used to quote “Secure” windows from any virus tampering.   I can’t see this being an extreme issue but I don’t  like the fact that it takes several more seconds on my NVME to boot up Windows when it would just boot almost instantly with my NVME.   They better fix that problem also because I don’t care about their so call security if I am sitting there waiting for the system boot.   All in All the Windows 11 experience isn’t as much a good thing as a bad thing.   I already know Virus writers are creating viruses to get around the so called security and I have done some research on the topic.  I can’t wait to say to Microsoft “I told you so“.

What’s your thoughts on Windows 11?  Have you tried it?  Will you install it even with the TPM and Secure boot requirements?  I’d like to hear your thoughts on the issue.  Why not leave a comment and tell me what you think about Windows 11.