April 10, 2016
Don't Rest In Peace
Slysoft was forced out of business in February. They're the folks that sold "AnyDVD" and "AnyDVD HD" all these years that allowed us to defeat region codes and encryption.
They were based in Antigua, and someone managed to get them fined $11,000 by the government.
BUT...
They aren't dead. They've reformed, in Belize, under the name Redfox. And they're still selling the products from before.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Computers at
05:30 PM
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There are very few product 'features' that have pissed me off as much as region codes. I buy a product, I expect it to work for me, not somebody else.
Maybe the fact that my unlocked phone still doesn't permit me root access to the OS. Yeah, that pisses me off about as much as region codes.
Posted by: Brett Bellmore at April 10, 2016 05:45 PM (l55xw)
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The fact is, the Japanese companies weren't (and largely still aren't) prepared to offer region-free, cheap versions of their product for foreign consumption, unless something else is done to cripple them and make them undesirable for their domestic audience.
Of course, the easiest way to do that is "don't include the Japanese audio track at all". And that was done a few times. Naturally not my favored solution!
The other alternative, and one that was also tried a few times, was to put hard subtitles in the video. Of course this didn't work for anything that you dubbed, and it was muy unpopular here on top of that...
That said, I authored a whole lot of unencrypted discs back in the day. The Japanese would go nuts if you didn't make the disc R1, but they didn't care if you used DSS on it...
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at April 10, 2016 09:55 PM (v29Tn)
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A big problem with the same practices today is, they became harder to deal with. Getting an app at Google Play (former Store) is linked to an account. You can create a "Japanese" account, but as soon as you connect a payment instrument to it, the account reverts to the country of the card or PayPal account. VPN is no help dealing with that.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at April 11, 2016 03:44 PM (XOPVE)
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March 31, 2016
Ransomware
TokyoTosho looks like it's been hacked.
(UPDATE: NO IT HASN'T. I need to pay closer attention to the calendar.)
All accesses (by me) are directed to a page which claims I've been infected by ransomware, that all my files have been encrypted, and giving instructions for paying ransom.
But my files are fine. I'm running a scan right now, but I don't expect it to turn up anything. I think it's just text, just a bluff. However, I'm not going to experiment with it to make sure, for obvious reasons.
And it would probably be a good idea for everyone to avoid TokyoTosho for a few days until the mods there notice (which shouldn't take long) and do something about it.
UPDATE: It claimed to be "Petya Ransomware" and there is indeed such a beast. But it doesn't act like what just happened to me. Meanwhile, Microsoft Security Essentials says I'm clean. Malwarebytes Antimalware is running now.
UPDATE: If this is a TokyoTosho April 1st joke, it's in terrible taste. On the other hand, if Malwarebytes turns up something else I didn't know about, it'll be rather ironic.
Meanwhile, BakaBT is running a joke, as well. Theirs is obnoxious but not frightening.
UPDATE: Malwarebytes also says I'm clean. I bet that the source for that page says "April Fool", or that entering a number at the prompt leads to a page that says that, but I don't intend to find out.
UPDATE: The page URL is http://www.tokyotosho.info/20160401/ which pretty much ices it. Bad TokyoTosho! Bad Dog! No doggie treat for you tonight!
Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Computers at
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Time to log off the internet for 24 hours.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at March 31, 2016 06:31 PM (PiXy!)
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Heh. I like
World of Warships April Fools joke better. Wonderduck probably will too. Which reminds me, I'm having trouble getting to his site...
Posted by: ubu at March 31, 2016 06:33 PM (GfCSm)
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Ubu, yeah, a toy ship bathtub mode is a great April Fool's joke. Even better if it's real. But that's a lot of work.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at March 31, 2016 06:35 PM (PiXy!)
Posted by: Wonderduck at March 31, 2016 06:55 PM (KiM/Y)
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Meanwhile, Microsoft has announced that Windows 10 now runs Linux.
Except that it's
real.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at March 31, 2016 10:55 PM (PiXy!)
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That permits you to run all the great Linux applications that haven't been ported to Windows yet, such as... I'll get back to you.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at April 01, 2016 12:05 PM (XOPVE)
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GREP and SED, for instance... (And how could you forget AWK?)
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at April 01, 2016 12:11 PM (+rSRq)
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I have binaries for all of those on this Win7 machine. (Well, I have gawk, not vanilla awk.)
Dunno how people live without them.
Posted by: Mikeski at April 01, 2016 05:48 PM (BKBr8)
Posted by: muon at April 01, 2016 06:37 PM (8ak9G)
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March 16, 2016
Another good reason for using ad-blocking
It's not just that the ads often slow down site loading and performance intolerably, it's that the ads can be positively harmful in themselves.
The latest example of malicious ads distributing malware happened last weekend. Someone managed to compromise a big league ad server used by the NYT and the BBC, among other high profile sites. One of the things it was distributing was the "TeslaCrypt" ransomware.
I never saw a thing.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Computers at
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I don't have a problem with ads that consist of loading an image or an image and a link, unless they present a loading problem that interferes with my use of the site.
But too many ads these days don't just want to load an image, they want to run code, and "hey, trust me to run code on your computer" is something I'm a lot more leery about; "trust these other guys who are paying me some money to run code on your computer" is even worse. Nobody's willing to accept the responsibility for damage done through that attack vector, so why should I incur the risk?
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at March 16, 2016 07:21 PM (/lg1c)
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Back before the web, when internet connections were typically three orders of magnitude slower than they are today, there was a programming language called TeleScript.
The idea of TeleScript was that you could write a program, set it running on your computer, and the program would transmit itself to the remote server where the data lived, run itself there to collect the information it needed, and then send itself back down the wire to your computer, where it could print out the whatever you'd requested.
We were young once, and in retrospect, too clever for our own good.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at March 16, 2016 10:30 PM (PiXy!)
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Not long ago, I decided to turn off adblock for a day to see what it was like. I can't imagine how people who don't block ads tolerate it. Even sites that should know better are not just serving ads, but enormous numbers of them. Wired for example, the "please turn off your adblock" banner shows up on page as many as ten times. That's ridiculous. And of course, the risk, as mentioned, is getting intolerable. I wonder if you went to a site that had one of the new "turn off adblock to see this content" barriers, and then you got an infection, if you could sue?
Posted by: David at March 16, 2016 11:34 PM (+TPAa)
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You can, but at the end of the day, what's the actual cost of having to format your computer and reinstall stuff? Less than the filing fee, to be sure. And a class action wouldn't be likely to work either - how would you be able to demonstrate that you got the virus or whatever from that site and not some other site? And precisely what's their legal responsibility in the first place? They're only obliged to take "reasonable caution", and nobody's defined what that is, when it comes to computer security...
I use NoScript - which could care less if you serve up a picture ad, but is great for preventing cross-site scripting, which is the real issue here. Nobody's serving up infected ads from their own servers, after all. (At least nowhere I'm browsing...)
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at March 17, 2016 01:43 AM (v29Tn)
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March 14, 2016
Windows 10, again
Word is that Microsoft has reclassified the Win 10 upgrade to "Recommended" and if you're not paying attention you'll get it even if you don't want it. I assume that means that anyone using AutoUpdate will get it automatically. For the rest of us, who have turned auto-update off, be really careful to peruse the "recommended" upgrade list and turn that one off.
There was a thing I ran last summer which got rid of the Win 10 nag in the tray, and also got rid of the update choice in the Update applet. I wonder if this new upgrade choice will show up for me?
Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Computers at
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I assume that means that anyone using AutoUpdate will get it automatically.
That's not necessarily correct. If you have the "give me recommended updates the same way I receive important updates" box unchecked, Windows won't automatically d/l them (assuming you have Important updates installed automatically).
I actually have about 30 recommended updates in queue, waiting for me to approve them... including the W10 install thingy.
Posted by: Wonderduck at March 14, 2016 03:04 PM (KiM/Y)
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I've done four Windows 10 installs now - two old notebooks I was handing down to my nephews, one new notebook, and a virtual machine on my Mac.
Windows 10 itself is good enough, as long as you turn off every single option it offers during the install process. (There's three full screens of helpful things Microsoft offer you, and you want none of them.) Installing a clean copy is easy and
very quick. I know my iMac is supposed to be fast, but watching Windows install itself in under a minute was a new experience.
The process for upgrading an existing machine is... Fraught. Don't let the automated download do its thing; it will very likely break. (It hasn't worked even once for me.) It won't break your machine, but it won't upgrade you to Windows 10.
Instead, download the ISO from Microsoft and use their install tool to load it from a thumb drive. That approach is mostly painless.
Or, of course, just stick with Windows 7.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at March 14, 2016 11:49 PM (PiXy!)
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Sticking with earlier versions of Windows might not be a choice much longer. Botnets can become a matter of national security, and Microsoft is "too big to fail," let alone be taken down for refusing to keep earlier OSes patched and secure.
I'm going to move all the "stuff that could get me in trouble" to cold storage, do the upgrade, and see if I can set up a dual-boot with Windows 10 (for video games) and Linux (for everything else). Just gotta remember to never install a real web browser or video viewer in Windows again, I've already trained myself to always cancel whenever anything opens an IE or Windows Media Player window.
Posted by: Tatterdemalian at March 16, 2016 08:01 AM (4njWT)
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March 06, 2016
Mac warning
For my readers who use the Mac, it's being reported that the bittorrent program "Transmission" version 2.90 was infected with a really vicious ransomware program.
The Transmission people are saying that if you're using 2.90 you should immediately upgrade it to 2.91.
UPDATE: Actually, you should upgrade to 2.92. 2.91 wasn't infected. 2.92 deletes any infected files left over from 2.90.
UPDATE: Here's the latest:
Transmission 2.90 was released on February 28. Per Palo Alto Networks, the malware-infected version was released with a different signature on March 4. If you had upgraded to Transmission 2.90 before March 4, you might have an uninfected copy. Upgrade to 2.92 anyway, of course...
Apple has now disqualified the signature used on the bad version, so if you have a copy of the bad installer you won't be able to install it.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Computers at
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March 02, 2016
Cheap memory
I would have posted about the latest episode of Musaigen no Phantom World but it was totally forgettable. There wasn't even any good fan service. (Except for Lulu waving a katana around.)
The HD in my main computer is getting full, so it's time to unload some stuff onto some other medium. I could buy an external USB HD (and in fact I have a couple I use for this) but it occurred to me a couple of days ago that USB flash thumbdrives might be a good way to go, so I visited NewEgg.
It's amazing just how cheap and plentiful flash memory has become. I remember back when I was still at Qualcomm that there was an industry-wide concern that demand for flash memory was exceeding supply, so prices were going up. But that appears to be long gone. Supply has exploded -- but demand is growing, too.
Anyway, I ended up ordering six 128GB flash drives, which are supposed to be delivered this afternoon.
Three quarters of a terabyte, and it cost me about $150. It could have been even cheaper but those were a supplier I had never heard of, and I didn't want to trust them.
It's typical for a product to initially be very expensive, and then as technology improves and volume increases, for it to get cheaper and eventually reach a price floor. Then, over time, it slowly becomes more and more expensive.
But when it comes to electronics, seems like we never seem to find the floor. The price just keeps falling. These days you can buy a computer for $500 which has more compute power than existed on the entire planet in 1960. And I'm buying more memory than existed back then, for $150.
We live in an age of miracles.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Computers at
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Damn kids and their new-fangled technologies. I was perfectly happy with my slide rule! Happy, I tell you!
(Ok, not really... by the time I reached high school, Texas Instruments had taken over the world with cheap LED calculators running on 9-volt batteries. The sample slide rule hanging in front of our science classroom was never touched by the teacher.)
Posted by: ubu at March 02, 2016 12:10 PM (SlLGE)
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I was shocked to see 8GB of RAM going for $20 - $30. That amount of memory was almost inconceivable 20 years ago when I was paying a couple hundred bucks for a couple of megs.
Posted by: wahsatchmo at March 02, 2016 01:08 PM (VFkGH)
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Actually,
my phone has more compute power and memory than existed in 1960, and the display is better than anything that existed even in 1980.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at March 02, 2016 01:46 PM (+rSRq)
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I just bought two 128GB USB sticks - tiny things that fit mostly inside the USB port - and an 8TB disk drive. Even with the weak Australian dollar they were amazingly cheap; combined they were half the price of my first 40MB hard disk back around 1988.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at March 02, 2016 03:49 PM (PiXy!)
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Oh, and while I was placing the order I threw in a 1200dpi 18ppm networked Postscript colour laser printer as an afterthought. (
This one. The Australian price is even better, worked out to about US $99.)
Posted by: Pixy Misa at March 02, 2016 04:08 PM (PiXy!)
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I've told this story before, but this is as good a time as any to trot it out again. I worked for Cowputers, in one of their stand-alone stores, for a year (until they closed all their stores, in fact). This would have been 2003 when I started.
At that time, they gave every employee a flash drive for demonstration purposes. We were expected to put pictures, music, whatever, on them to wow the customer, y'know? At the time, the drives were $39.99... for 16mb. Yes,
megabytes.
We sold 128mb flash drives for $99.99... and that was
competitive.
Posted by: Wonderduck at March 02, 2016 05:32 PM (KiM/Y)
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I still remember the time when I got my IOmega Zip Drive (Remember those?), which cost $100+...And the Zip disk sold for the bargain basement price of $30 for a two disk pack. Note that each disk held 100MB. I was giddy about getting it and ran through a lot of disks storing all the files I no longer had to delete.
What amuses me is while computers have gotten so much more powerful, compact, and cheap than their predecessors, the current graphing calculators used by students do not appear to have made anywhere near the advancements over a top of the line graphing calculator from 20 years ago. You have the USB ports, some of color LED screens, many now can do functions from multiple subjects - but the price is within the ballpark of what they cost 20 years ago and a cheap Android smart phone could easily do more with proper apps and a memory card.
Posted by: cxt217 at March 02, 2016 06:20 PM (RfVOD)
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Reaching back a decade, I remember my first digital camera coming with an 8MB SD card. I remember being able to upgrade my 386 to 2MB of RAM, and getting a 1MB graphics card.
But best of all, I remember getting my Tandy 1000SX upgraded from 256K to 640K of RAM. I think the upgrade cost $400. But a 640K machine could run ANYTHING.
Posted by: Ben at March 02, 2016 06:30 PM (DRaH+)
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I had forgotten about the old 8MB at 16MB flash drives! Yeah, it's weird to think about paying that much for that little.
We had the Zip drives in the computer labs at college, and you bought one to keep a large archive of your files.
cxt, I don't know what this "student" thing for graphing calculators is--I use mine a lot, to include earlier today and most of yesterday morning. I'd stab someone before I gave it up for a smartphone app, because of the soft keyboard on current phones. It's so much faster and more accurate with an actual keyboard.
Posted by: CatCube at March 02, 2016 06:40 PM (fa4fh)
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I don't know what this "student" thing for graphing calculators is--I use mine a lot, to include earlier today and most of yesterday morning
That is obvious a 'your mileage my vary' issue. I still have my trusty graphing calculator, but I never use it (As oppose to the cheap and simple calculator.) because I never need to. Though I have written out long division on paper because I found it easier then fiddling around with my phone sometimes...
The keyboard interface is a major advantage that graphing calculators - and any device that uses one, like a laptop - have over a tablet or smart phone. I especially loathe the keyboard used by IPods/IPhones, which obviously were programmed to be used by a child Edward Scissorhands.
Posted by: cxt217 at March 02, 2016 07:16 PM (RfVOD)
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USB sticks seem like a pretty good way to go. Right now I'm storing everything on a USB RAID box, but that's getting close to full.
Posted by: BeckoningChasm at March 04, 2016 06:40 AM (AroJD)
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I've got a RAID NAS, and it says one of its drives has already failed. I had a Windows Home Server NAS, and Windows Update killed it one time.
So for the time being I'm rolling things off my desktop onto the RAID NAS and also copying to USB flash drives, for redundancy.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at March 04, 2016 01:29 PM (+rSRq)
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February 10, 2016
Yay, Microsoft
I wonder whether Microsoft has done something to the Update Server that makes it respond more slowly now to Win 7 users? I'm updating one of my computers now. It took 15 minutes to figure out what patches it needed. Total 251 MB. Ten minutes of downloading and it's only half done.
I bet Win 10 users don't see delays like that.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Computers at
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I was upgrading an old notebook to Windows 10 a couple of weekends back.
After three hours waiting for the install process to find the latest updates, I wiped it and started the install again with updates disabled.
(Windows 10 isn't bad once you have it installed - certainly better than 8 - but the upgrade process is awful.)
Posted by: Pixy Misa at February 10, 2016 03:55 PM (PiXy!)
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Ugh. I much prefer 8.1 to 10. Every time I've tried the upgrade to 10 it's broken things. That'll be fixed eventually, but for the moment I've got the download and update blocked.
Posted by: Ben at February 10, 2016 04:12 PM (AoLFQ)
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There is only one thing I hate about Windows 10, and it's enough that I haven't upgraded all my boxes to it yet: the forced updates.
"Restart Required-Click here to schedule restart for updates" Fuck you, this is my computer and I'll install updates and restart when I'm good and damn ready.
It's like having a government computer at home. It's the IT department's world, and we're all just squirrels looking for a nut.
Posted by: CatCube at February 10, 2016 07:18 PM (fa4fh)
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It's only happened a couple of times, but sometimes Microsoft rolls out a patch that bricks a bunch of computers. With automatic update being mandatory, if they ever do that to Win 10, they are going to piss off a looot of people.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at February 10, 2016 07:58 PM (+rSRq)
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Another obnoxious aspect of this particular update is that once it's installed something called ".Net Optimizer" goes CPU bound, or nearly so, for about 15 minutes.
I'm running the update now for my main machine. It has four cores and they're all hyperthreaded. I wonder how bad it'll be?
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at February 10, 2016 08:55 PM (+rSRq)
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They probably don't, but that's because Microsoft hasn't spent years releasing millions of patches for various architectures, bugs, and exploits for Windows 10 yet, and - the real catch - being forced to determine which patches you have installed, still need to install, and need to be suspended momentarily so other patches can be installed, all without sending any information about your computer to Microsoft (for which there are still a lot of watchdogs champing at the bit to sue the money out of Bill Gates the moment Microsoft gets caught doing anything that is clearly stated in the EULA).
Windows 10 gives itself a lot more latitude, especially since Microsoft is now buddies with the Obama Administration, and has been richly but quietly rewarded for it with legal favors for nearly a decade. This makes the process a LOT faster than having to first download the entire gigabyte-long list of all code variants for the patches you requested for every system architecture that has ever existed, have your computer check every one of them to decide for itself which one it needs and how it has to be applied, because some hardware is more difficult to patch than others, and some even requires a special process usually involving a reboot and changes to BIOS settings.
Posted by: Tatterdemalian at February 11, 2016 06:30 AM (4njWT)
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December 19, 2015
Panic city
My internet connection went out about 11:30, and for a while I was afraid that my Qube had finally kicked the bucket. It's lasted for fifteen years, so it's hard to complain, but it would be hard to reconfigure all my gear to allow internet access without it.
So I had a pretty significant fear experience. Eventually I started seeing if I could find a neighbor's unprotected wifi to see if I could access the Qube from the other side. And while I was doing that, my connection came back up.
It was Comcast, after all. Total downtime about an hour and a half.
I can't really complain; it's been months since the last time they did that to me. But it still wasn't good for my heart.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Computers at
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My connection has been flaky for the past couple of days. I had it fall over on me on Thursday for about 20 minutes.
The cable modem/router went lights-out for most of that time. I wonder if they were pushing out a software update or something.
Posted by: CatCube at December 19, 2015 03:19 PM (fa4fh)
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November 10, 2015
Windows Update hates me
I run Windows Update on my HP tablet first before I let it get anywhere near any of my computers that I care about. That's because I want to make sure that each new batch of patches doesn't brick my real computers.
It may have happened today. I just finished running the update, and the tablet was doing the restart, and now the screen is flashing, alternating between black and the Windows login backdrop.
I'm going to let it run like that for a couple of hours before I try shutting it down and starting it again, but I have a feeling it's toast.
And I won't be updating any of my other computers for a few days.
UPDATE: Well, I gave it one hour, and then tried to reboot it, and when it came back up it did the same thing. It appears to have been something trying to run during the reboot.
I plugged in my USB keyboard and managed to get it into safe mode, and now I'm doing a system restore to a save point from a week ago. Here's hoping...
UPDATE: And it's back! (Whew!)
Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Computers at
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I used to have auto update turned off and manually review updates for installation myself at some later date. Only once in many, many, years did I decide that no, I wouldn't install an update, so I went ahead and turned it on. That would have been back in the days of Windows XP. I've been letting windows update at will since, and I've only once had a significant error, where a patch was failing to install, and kept popping up notices about needing to reboot and refusing to shut down, but that machine was still entirely functional until I had the time to google the patch number and how to clean it up. Once, a security patch did valid things that a bunch of games took offense to, but that was the fault of those games that were relying on a security hole, not Microsoft or Windows Update. A couple of times reviewing the literature revealed that a security patch, wasn't, and I recall once that the advice was to remove that patch as you were better off with the original unpatched flaw, but my normal manually supervised process would have produced the exact same result.
Posted by: David at November 10, 2015 07:37 PM (+TPAa)
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My Acer NAS runs Windows Home Server 2003. Or I should say "ran". Now it doesn't run at all.
Last spring it got bricked by Windows Update. After installing patches, it hung during reboot. And it has never booted since. I eventually gave up and unplugged it.
That was where I kept my anime, and it all vanished into the bit bucket. I've redownloaded all the important stuff onto my other NAS, and I'm hoping that it doesn't die on me too.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at November 10, 2015 07:43 PM (+rSRq)
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That sounds like the NAS was just a ticking time bomb waiting to die on the next reboot. I've lost a few "leave it in the closet and don't touch it for a year" machines that way, including an Acer WHS NAS like yours. That one died to the point where I couldn't even get it to rebuild itself from the installation media. My torrent ratio took a major hit rebuilding my collection after that, since of course the NAS was my main storage repository and I didn't happen to have backups for all 5tb of the data that was on it. That said, servers and automatic updates don't mix, you're right.
Posted by: David at November 10, 2015 10:53 PM (+TPAa)
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I wasn't using automatic update on that server. It died after I did a manual update.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at November 11, 2015 12:06 AM (+rSRq)
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October 13, 2015
A public service announcement
Microsoft has taken the push for Win10 to the next level. As of today, if you run Windows Update, it will show you a frame which seems to be the beginning of the Win10 upgrade. There isn't any "No, don't do it" button, either.
To escape, look for "Show other updates" and click it. That shows you all the optional updates, with Win10 being selected. Deselect it, highlight it, and click "Don't show me this update" and it will gray-out and you'll never have to deal with it again, at least until they pull their next trick.
Are people with automatic update enabled getting the Win10 update without being asked?
Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Computers at
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I have Win 7 Home Premium and I always turn off automated updates. I see no mention of the existence of Win10 on my system.
Posted by: ForgottenBoy at October 13, 2015 08:25 PM (pnWxS)
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Your computer may not be compatible. The rest of us have been getting nagged about it since last July.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at October 13, 2015 09:47 PM (+rSRq)
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Also, this particular thing is something they did just today.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at October 13, 2015 10:23 PM (+rSRq)
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I've got automatic updates, (Which I'm about to go shut off, btw.) and they didn't install it during last night's update. But when I went to the update window I saw what you described.
Posted by: Brett Bellmore at October 14, 2015 01:58 AM (L5yWw)
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If they're really, really going to push it, though, the thing to watch for are updates to the earlier versions that break them. I had autodesk do that to me once, with some cad software they wanted to discontinue. They first issued an update that broke the software, to remove the option of keeping it in use.
So, I guess time to set a backup point, too.
Posted by: Brett Bellmore at October 14, 2015 02:01 AM (L5yWw)
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Last nights auto-update did not shove Win10 down my throat. Both wife & daughter laptops are on 10, neither has reported any significant problems so far. (and some longstanding wifi weirdness went away) Decent chance I'll back up like a madman and take the plunge soon. (after finding the total checklist of things to turn off for privacy)
Posted by: Douglas Oosting at October 14, 2015 07:03 AM (EskWq)
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It likely depends on hardware/software configuration. I have a Surface Pro 2, and Microsoft may have decided that
of course people who owned a Microsoft-branded tablet were willing to upgrade.
-j
Posted by: J Greely at October 14, 2015 08:07 AM (ZlYZd)
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Thanks Steven. I ran that GWX Control Panel thing you mentioned a while back, and it seems to have prevented the update from even showing up on my Windows 7 computers. I also put it on my Surface Pro 3 with Windows 8.1, so I'll check that later to see if it blocked the update too.
Thanks again.
Posted by: wahsatchmo at October 14, 2015 08:17 AM (VFkGH)
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I don't remember any GWX control panel app, but I could be having a senior moment...
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at October 14, 2015 11:43 AM (+rSRq)
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I always do manual updates, and yesterday my laptop (which I do not intend to upgrade) had the Windows 10 update automatically selected when I checked for updates. I had to deselect it, then select my Windows 7 updates.
Posted by: Siergen at October 14, 2015 01:29 PM (De/yN)
Posted by: wahsatchmo at October 14, 2015 02:07 PM (VFkGH)
12
I looked in my Update History, and sure enough, there was an "Upgrade to Windows 10 Pro" update listed as attempted last night. Thankfully, it also says it failed, with a complaint that I should turn off my antivirus software.
Thanks for the warning! I should never have left Windows Update set to auto install for this long.
Posted by: Tatterdemalian at October 15, 2015 06:06 PM (4njWT)
13
I just used the anti-GWX gizmo that Wahsatchmo linked to. Very convenient, and it appears it was just updated to deal with this very thing. One of the buttons says, "Disable Operating System Upgrades in Windows Update".
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at October 15, 2015 06:16 PM (+rSRq)
14
Just installed it. Got tired of the way, even with the automatic updates disabled, they'd insert the OS update into every minor patch, and require you to uncheck it.
I swear I had to uncheck it twice, this morning alone. It's like they're flooding out tiny updates in the hope people will, just once, forget to uncheck that box.
Posted by: Brett Bellmore at October 16, 2015 02:45 AM (L5yWw)
15
According to
Ars Technica (
via J) Microsoft has apologized for that and says they'll change it.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at October 16, 2015 06:53 AM (+rSRq)
16
Thanks for the gizmo from here too. Somehow I'd managed to avoid all of it up until now, but this was just too much...
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at October 16, 2015 10:00 AM (v29Tn)
17
Somehow I'm not buying their claim it was an accident.
Posted by: Brett Bellmore at October 16, 2015 12:54 PM (L5yWw)
18
The quote at Ars says "mistake", not "accident"...
-j
Posted by: J Greely at October 16, 2015 03:23 PM (dGpmn)
19
It's obvious it was deliberate. Stupid, misguided, but deliberate.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at October 16, 2015 03:43 PM (+rSRq)
20
It's the difference between doing something "by mistake", and deciding after you did it deliberately that doing it was a bad idea, and thus a "mistake".
I think we're looking at the latter scenario here; More than one somebody thought trying to trick people into adopting 10 was a great idea, and they were surprised by the number of people they pissed off by doing it.
Posted by: Brett Bellmore at October 17, 2015 05:52 AM (L5yWw)
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