Some easy to use and useful sotware to maintain your PC FREE

[nanotm]

Jan 11, 2016 16:00:37 GMT calnorth said:

nanotm:

In practice, most UEFI systems have legacy support for BIOS functions. I have only just upgraded to Win10 so not tested it out above Win7 with my new Asus MB and older Lenovo machine. However, when Microsoft shifts on anything... Linux won't be far behind. Unix authors are global Microsoft haters.

Whats scrambled? I've used Ubuntu for about 8 years so don't understand that.


Darth Vaper:
Apple...never a chance of anything as this.

it was a decryption program that came as part of the package, as for the uefi, its the boot lock function that causes the problems, effectively they installed the TPM as a software resource in the bios so as long as the drive is present the system wont boot to anything else, without the faulty device it just wont boot

[calnorth]

Jan 11, 2016 18:04:01 GMT nanotm said:

Jan 11, 2016 16:00:37 GMT calnorth said:

nanotm:

In practice, most UEFI systems have legacy support for BIOS functions. I have only just upgraded to Win10 so not tested it out above Win7 with my new Asus MB and older Lenovo machine. However, when Microsoft shifts on anything... Linux won't be far behind. Unix authors are global Microsoft haters.

Whats scrambled? I've used Ubuntu for about 8 years so don't understand that.


Darth Vaper:
Apple...never a chance of anything as this.

it was a decryption program that came as part of the package, as for the uefi, its the boot lock function that causes the problems, effectively they installed the TPM as a software resource in the bios so as long as the drive is present the system wont boot to anything else, without the faulty device it just wont boot

Are you saying that a UEFI specified computer employing Win8 and I assume Win10 cannot dual boot with Linux? That'll be either dual boot via Win8/10 OS drive partition or 2nd non Win OS drive. Also, the resident CDROM.


 

[nanotm]

the 4 different machines I have currently all required uefi to be disabled before dual or multi boot options were available, that might be down to how newer version of windows exit and then reload on boot but I found I required multiple hdd's, in the end I just sacked the project and set up vm's within windows to host the file systems for the other os's I wanted to use /

[calnorth]

Jan 12, 2016 9:55:14 GMT nanotm said:

the 4 different machines I have currently all required uefi to be disabled before dual or multi boot options were available, that might be down to how newer version of windows exit and then reload on boot but I found I required multiple hdd's, in the end I just sacked the project and set up vm's within windows to host the file systems for the other os's I wanted to use /

Case in point - this morning at 08:00:

New PC (6 month old AMD 64/ASUS MB self build) with Samsung SSD 250GB and Win10 PRO. At PC power switch on, POST appears to complete but Win10 OS fails to start. Thats a black screen with the ASUS boot logo and a spinning microsoft white circle. I thought (hoped) the SSD had a problem in one of its two partitions (UEFI/OS) stopping Win10 executing.

Got to Boot menu via F2, selected CDROM boot and inserted Ubuntu 14LTS image for AMD

Is it hardware, firmware or OS software?

Ubuntu loads faultlessly to GUI desktop, so its a mess with the SSD configuration. At least I can Google stuff.

Defaulted ASUS UEFI Bios page, which the software did not do as it stated it was already default. Then invoked EFI which threw the machine into self diagnosis for about 10 mins. PC self restarted and Win10 commenced properly.

This indicates to me that the PC will boot to Linux with a faulty UEFI dependant device resident. No hang ups for the user/owner thankfully. Will try same Linux distro on an HD if it happens again.

This is the second time I have seen Win10 fail on cold start in about 3 months. The 1st time was on my Thinkpad 2 months ago and I attributed that to bad power control in old drivers (powerdown) having taken Microsoft online upgrade path to Win10. Lenovo did not update all drivers from Win7 to Win10 I note. And some of the RealTek LAN drivers were totally wrong.

The problem with the AMD here occurred after a correct and normal power shutdown the night before. 








 

[nanotm]

self builds are different to bought pre built systems, a useful overview blog www.howtogeek.com/175649/what-you-need-to-know-about-using-uefi-instead-of-the-bios/ that explains a bit about UEFI and its problems, having systems that came prebuilt and trying to upgrade or change their hardware is a complete nightmare when the manufactures preinstalled and setup uefi with secure boot on custom mobo's

[calnorth]

Jan 13, 2016 10:10:01 GMT nanotm said:

self builds are different to bought pre built systems, a useful overview blog www.howtogeek.com/175649/what-you-need-to-know-about-using-uefi-instead-of-the-bios/ that explains a bit about UEFI and its problems, having systems that came prebuilt and trying to upgrade or change their hardware is a complete nightmare when the manufactures preinstalled and setup uefi with secure boot on custom mobo's

I suspected the cheaper stuff might be an obstacle. I can understand the protected/secure need...but only just.




 

[esuxa]

Although I do use CCleaner I also use torrent sites to get my (free) anti virus/security from. What's you guys view on this practice?

[calnorth]

Jan 16, 2016 13:45:09 GMT esuxa said:

Although I do use CCleaner I also use torrent sites to get my (free) anti virus/security from. What's you guys view on this practice?

I don't use torrent sites, although my son does for anything?

The Anti Virus developers usually let a basic version out for free. I just looked...they stopped and that was:

Comodo
Avast

There might be others?

At present I rely on Windows 10 firewall and security. So far I have not had a problem. Used to do it with Win7 also.

Its more a case of spotting an email title that is BS and not opening its attachment or links. I get:

Paypal threats
Apple threats
Begging from Nigeria (George in Phone jacker)
I seem to have multiple bank accounts around the world. I've got millions of bucks somewhere?

What most of that comes down to is the selling of email addresses acquired from unprotected PCs (like mine?). I sold a lot on eBay, so I deserve what I get I suppose? Now stopped using the business email so much, but the spammers like to use that as I wait for them.

However, if you follow whats in the email header you can spot where an email has come from and whose server has been hacked. Mainly retail outlets and the odd idiot solicitors. The language used is poor anyway.

I enjoy emailing the header data to paypal and the banks, occasionally the FBI. Dunno what happens?

Inadvertently downloading stuff thinking is ok can be a nightmare. I'm an occasional risk taker on that one.

[sydsut]

Jan 16, 2016 13:45:09 GMT esuxa said:

Although I do use CCleaner I also use torrent sites to get my (free) anti virus/security from. What's you guys view on this practice?

When you say free in parenthesis do you mean you steal registered and cracked AV/Security software or the free versions of AVG/ Avast /Avira etc. ? Cause if the latter, then they're readily available at the companies sites so you don't have to take the risk of going to torrent sites.

[esuxa]

I've been using private trackers for over a decade now. I know the ropes and what to and what not to download. Besides I use a seedbox which gives me anonymity to a point and a sandbox for stuff I'm dubious about.
To answer your first question, yes, I suppose you could call it stealing. Usually cracked software, but if the companies really wanted to they could easily stop that practice.

[calnorth]

Had another look at two prime security websites again. Each at the bottom of linked pages:

Avast Free Essential:
www.avast.com/en-gb/index


Comodo Free Licence:

antivirus.comodo.com/download/thank-you.php?track=3272&prod=cav-free&af=3272&crc=7b&key5sk1=5e569cc44a23fbbb2ad998d9ee6dcfee99f14c44


They also update periodically as far as I remeber

[joeten]

Downloading from Bleeping Computers is a safe option www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/windows/ they are being sued at present for giving a negative review of spyware hunter, so are soliciting donations to fight it. You do not have to donate.
I don't use reg cleaners, and do not recommend them as in the hands of a novice they can cause major issues, unfortunately it is usually due to no reg back up being made and in some cases it would not matter if you did as worst case scenario you need a full reinstall.

This might be helpful for those wishing to dual boot www.everydaylinuxuser.com/2015/11/how-to-install-ubuntu-linux-alongside.html
This is another linuxbsdos.com/2015/08/18/how-to-dual-boot-linux-mint-17-2-windows-10-windows-8-1-on-a-pc-uefi-firmware/ linux system which is quite nice and easier for those used to windows to use

[joeten]

Jan 11, 2016 15:44:07 GMT Darth Vaper said:

Any suggestions for Macbook software?

Downloading from Bleeping Computers is a safe option www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/windows/ they are being sued at present for giving a negative review of spyware hunter, so are soliciting donations to fight it. You do not have to donate.
I don't use reg cleaners, and do not recommend them as in the hands of a novice they can cause major issues, unfortunately it is usually due to no reg back up being made and in some cases it would not matter if you did as worst case scenario you need a full reinstall.

This might be helpful for those wishing to dual boot www.everydaylinuxuser.com/2015/11/how-to-install-ubuntu-linux-alongside.html
This is another linux system which is quite nice and easier for those used to windows to use www.everydaylinuxuser.com/2015/11/how-to-install-ubuntu-linux-alongside.html

[joeten]

A lot of stuff here for MAC www.hongkiat.com/blog/100-free-useful-applications-for-mac-part-i/