Saturday, May 19, 2012

Win 7 clean install from upgrade disc

Install will say product key is not valid, but can <Esc> and install will complete.

Activation will fail ("the software licensing service determined that this specified Product Key can only be used for upgrading, not for clean installations") until do the following:

regedit HKLM>software>microsoft>windows>current version>setup>OOBE MediaBootInstall change from 1 to 0

from elevated prompt >slmgr.vbs -rearm

Activation will then complete normally.  (The above also resets to "30 days to activate")

In case anyone sees this and wonders, I have several full versions of XP which are no longer in use on any system.  It simply would have been a waste of time to install one of these in order to then "upgrade" to Win 7

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Computer Build Notes

Hyper 212 Plus installation

Everyone has their own way of applying thermal paste.  For this cooler I used a razor blade to spread a very thin layer and fill in the grooves to give a uniform base.  I then used the razor to add very thin lines of paste on the heat pipes, and twisted the cooler to seat it.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Google Chrome

revised 3/6/13

I have come to rely on bookmarks and open tabs.  I have been baking up my bookmarks for some time, both as part of routine disk images and as a separate procedure when it seems appropriate. I have felt this requirement partially because I am still unclear on sync issues which could mess up my bookmarks.

Tabs
Although previously never a problem, for an unknown reason Chrome recently “lost” about 20 open tabs, which I could not get back using Ctrl+Shift+T.  It appears I am not alone in this experience.

What I should have done (determined by looking at how the files behave):  closed Chrome, copied Last Session and renamed to Current Session.  Then when I reopened Chrome I would at least have had the tabs as they existed at the beginning of the problem session.

The way it seems to work:
-         when open a session, what was Current Session becomes Last Session
-         then when make the first change to tabs, what was Curent Tabs becomes Last Tabs

Bookmarks
I had not used by netbook in several weeks and was afraid that its "old" bookmarks would replace the current ones from my G1 pc.  I was out of town and therefore unable to recover from a problem, so before opening Chrome on the netbook, I renamed Bookmarks and Bookmarks.bak.  This worked as expected, new files were created and synced.  Everything may have been fine if I had not done this, but I'm not sure.

The way it seems to work:
-       when change a bookmark, Bookmarks file is changed
-    Bookmarks.bak file is updated when ?????????????????

(3/5/13) Bookmarks sync is a little flakey.  Last night I had added bookmarks and renamed a folder.  I then booted from a different drive.  The added bookmarks were there, but the folder was not renamed.  After booting this morning, the new folder name was there.  Question: would the folder name have changed if I had left the system on overnight?  I also should have looked at the folder name last night using another PC.

Flash (2/22/13)
Was getting Adobe Flash Player update notification upon boot, but Google and Adobe both say "updates for Adobe Flash Player are automatically included in Chrome system updates".  After an update, about:plugins (link doesn't work) and adobe.com both show my installed version number (11.6.602.171) to be higher than the latest Player version listed in the table on the above Adobe web page (11.6.602.167).  It is also interesting that add/remove programs shows version 11.1.102.55, which is not listed in about:plugins.

Extensions (2/23/13)
Chrome version 25 automatically disabled AVG Safe Search and provided this explanation

Java (3/6/13)
I disabled Java a couple of months ago due to the various security warnings.  This has caused no problems, so I should probably go ahead and uninstall it from all boot partitions (old Version 6 Update 37 is currently installed).  Note Java is not installed on B2 (Ethel's), B3 (HTPC), or NB205 (Win 8 install)

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Wi-Fi router/access point settings

Confusion arises when looking at older router (Linksys WRT54G) which has WPA only.

The wireless security setup page states:
“WPA Pre-Shared Key: There are two encryption options for WPA Pre-Shared Key, TKIP and AES. TKIP stands for Temporal Key Integrity Protocol. TKIP utilizes a stronger encrytption method and incorporates Message Integrity Code (MIC) to provide protection against hackers. AES stands for Advanced Encryption System, which utilizes a symmetric 128-Bit block data encryption.” (No further information is given.)
They certainly appear to be recommending TKIP over AES. This leads me to believe that the “AES” used by this router is different than the 256 bit AES-CCMP used by WPA2 capable routers.
CCMP: Counter Mode with Cipher Block Chaining Message Authentication Code Protocol
PSK: Pre Shared Key   home/small office.  No authentication server for "handshake".  Note the strength of the passphrase is extremely important, but it is NOT used to encrypt the traffic.