Windows 10

[Stereodude]

Okay, I have to change my mind. The most annoying thing about Windows 10 is the overnight reboot for updates. It's not smart enough to postpone the reboot if the system is doing something and not idle. I set up a video compression job that needs 8+ hours to run overnight and find out the computer has rebooted in the morning and didn't finish the job. :cursin:

 

[timwhit]

Do you have to run Windows, SD?

 

[Stereodude]

Do you have to run Windows, SD?

Well, there's no realistic alternative for most of my machines. If I have to use Wine for what I want to do I might as well just use Windows.

In any case, I disabled automatic reboots, which should take care of this particular annoyance. The MS verbage makes it sound like it will only reboot if the system is idle. Which is definitely not the case. Running a user task at 100% CPU != idle. I'm pretty sure it reboots based on time regardless of what the system is doing.

 

[timwhit]

Well, there's no realistic alternative for most of my machines. If I have to use Wine for what I want to do I might as well just use Windows.

In any case, I disabled automatic reboots, which should take care of this particular annoyance. The MS verbage makes it sound like it will only reboot if the system is idle. Which is definitely not the case. Running a user task at 100% CPU != idle. I'm pretty sure it reboots based on time regardless of what the system is doing.

Idle probably means no user input.

 

[Howell]

Though this MSDN article is about task schduler and does't cover W10 explicitly, it indicates keyboard and mouse input playing a factor. It also indicates that the app can set a flag that disallows an idle state. Think presentations.

 

[mubs]

I had to install JRE in my W7 installation to use the Digital Signature Certificate for its intended purpose (another story that I still cant get it to work). So the W10 installation is now for mainstream use. The UI sucks; everything is flat, sometimes harder to see. W7 was so good in this respect. I know, I know, Classic Shell is the answer, but I am a minimalist in most things in my life and will see if I can live with W10 as is.

 

[Chewy509]

I'm assuming others have already seen this: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/16/05/15/0324224/microsoft-auto-scheduling-windows-10-updates

 

[mubs]

Yeah, this patch Tuesday my daughter's laptop, for which I had carefully refused to install the "Get Windows 10" and "Upgrade check" updates suddenly showed Get & Install Windows 10 as an optional update. Between her need to use the laptop and my schedule, her update is still pending. I'll be glad when this nonsense is over. I'll have to figure out a way to keep my W7 install the way it is.

 

[mubs]

Guys, I need help!

I did a Windows update and then went to defrag all the partitions in prep for the move to SSD. Was surprised to see Defrag list 4 extra partitions with odd names (more later). So I go into Disk Admin, and see this:

View attachment 1084

Just FYI, I have some additional info on this. Remember, I think all these extra partitions sprouted up when I did a recovery the way Lenovo recommends. Below info is from Minitool Partition Wizard ver. 9.1:

Partition Name   Capacity    Used    FileSys   Description
--------------   --------    ----    -------   ---------------------- 
WINRE_DRV           1 G     466 M   NTFS      GPT Recovery Partition
System_DRV        260 M      33 M   FAT32     GPT EFI System
LRS_ESP             1 G     500 M   FAT32     GPT
no name           128 M     128 M   other     GPT Reserved Partition
Win_8.1           100 G      54 G   NTFS      GPT Data Partition
no name           451 M     331 M   NTFS      GPT Recovery Partition
no name           350 M      26 M   NTFS      GPT Recovery Partition
Lenovo             25 G       3 G   NTFS      GPT Data Partition
PBR_DRV            20 G       9 G   NTFS      GPT Recovery Partition

Pretty Messy. It'll all go away when I switch to W10 on the SSD.

 

[snowhiker]

I'll be glad when this nonsense is over. I'll have to figure out a way to keep my W7 install the way it is.

Same. I've been using "the script" as a guide for which updates are not safe for installing. It's a PITA. 40'ish KB updates now are listed as "contain W10 shit" that I don't want. Hiding updates is useless as they are always un-hidden on next update.

I just want to run Windows Update without having to mess with it.

 

[Stereodude]

Windows 10 is extremely being words stupid. I changed my WPA2 key. It can't seem to figure that out. I can't find a way to change the key and it just keeps trying the old one.

This is incredible! I can't get it to forget the old key. How could they screw up something so simple? I've spent more than 30 minutes trying to enter a WPA2 key.

 

[Chewy509]

Windows 10 is extremely being words stupid. I changed my WPA2 key. It can't seem to figure that out. I can't find a way to change the key and it just keeps trying the old one.

This is incredible! I can't get it to forget the old key. How could they screw up something so simple? I've spent more than 30 minutes trying to enter a WPA2 key.

Kill is manually... http://www.thewindowsclub.com/delete-wifi-network-profile-windows and http://superuser.com/questions/1481...ndows-7-store-wireless-connection-information

 

[mubs]

On the laptop, Win 8.1 transplanted to the SSD, upgraded to W10 and activated. Now have to wipe and do a clean install of W10.

 

[Stereodude]

Kill is manually... http://www.thewindowsclub.com/delete-wifi-network-profile-windows and http://superuser.com/questions/1481...ndows-7-store-wireless-connection-information

I did eventually figure out how to make it forget the network so it would prompt me for a key when connecting where I could enter the new key, but it was a lot harder than I would have ever dreamed was possible. It seems to me that if the key doesn't match / work it should prompt you for the key, not just say it can't connect and leave it at that.

 

[mubs]

Clean install of W10 running on laptop. But W10 pulled some shit on me.

Apparently if it is presented with an NTFS partition, it's a good boy and you get what you think you'll get.

Present it a virgin disk, and it will create a 500MB partition at the beginning of the drive, put the boot files on it, and use the rest of the drive for C: and put the rest of the installation there. The first partition shows up in Dick Management and 3rd party partition managers as "System Reserved Partition". I didn't know it would happen this way.

When I clean-installed W10 on my main desktop, I had created an NTFS partition in the beginning and left about 15% space at the back for use as spare locations, so this install is clean. I did this because the SSD was running W7 and I had installed Samsung Magician in W7 and I knew one could reserve the space etc. In the laptop is a Sandisk SSD, and it's sw does not seem to allow the reservation of space for contingencies. So I gave W10 a virgin disk.

WHY, OH WHY, STUPID MS??

There are ways to move the boot files off the 1st partition and on to the large partition, but I'm not in the mood for effing an install that has taken me all day (with various apps being installed). I found out what the "System Reserved Partition" because my imaging program hiccuped for another silly reason and while troubleshooting that I came across some info about MS' shenanigans.

What an utter piece of shit.

 

[Mercutio]

The reserved partition is most likely the result of an interaction with EFI on the machine. I don't think that's new behavior and I don't think it's exclusive to Windows 10.

 

[sedrosken]

Windows has done this since 7. 7 made a 100MB partition, 8/8.1 make a ~300MB partition, and 10 apparently makes a ~500MB partition. I thought this was completely normal behavior, similar to some Linux people making a small /boot partition during setup of their various distros (first time I saw it was in relation to Arch, but I've since seen it done on just about everything)? I whole-heartedly agree that a single-partition setup is simpler and easier to understand, I honestly have no idea why Windows does that. On Linux I think it has something to do with GPT partition tables? But Windows does this even on clean MBR systems, like my own.

I usually just add a drive or swap for a larger one when I run out of space. I also use a separate drive for backups.

 

[mubs]

I read that MS has been doing this since the Vista days, and also that this happens only on MBR disks. SSDs used for boot are typically under a TB.

I wish I had known this; I'd have simply created a large partition first.

 

[sedrosken]

When I used Vista on a regular basis, I had an MBR scheme, and it still only made the one partition that I remember. But it would make sense for them to start doing it then, since Vista introduced the 6.x kernel and all and introduced a lot of the changes that have stayed the same since 2007.

 

[mubs]

Oddities continue. I'm creating vaporware.

The new SSD has W10. The 1TB HDD that was in the laptop HDD bay is now sitting in a carrier in the optical drive bay. The HDD was zeroed till 5% to ensure partition info etc. was wiped out, initialized in Windows Disk Management, then partitioned into 3. Winblows is able to see and use these partitions fine.

I've been using Image for Dos (IFD) from Terabyte for my imaging needs for many years. I tried imaging the W10 installation (entire SSD, consisting of "System Recovery Partition and the W10 installation partition) on the laptop to the last partition on the HDD in the optical bay.

1. For some odd reason, IFD sees the HDD in the optical bay as HDD1 and the SSD sitting in the HDD bay in the laptop as HDD2. Can't understand why.

2. It takes about an hour to image and verify; at the end says completed successfully (remember it's supposed to verify the image it created). The IFD log file says the file was created and the program exited with error code 0. BUT: there's no image file anywhere - not on the partition I asked it to create the file on, or elsewhere on the system. Totally stumped.

It did this twice; once with the HDD as a GPT disk, second time as an MBR disk.

Since I don't have an image, I used an 8GB flash to create a recovery drive. It's still chugging along, taking ages.

For safety's sake, I decided to make a recovery drive for the desktop. It starts off, then pops up a windows that says "Some required files are missing. When your PC can't start, use your Windows installation media".

My desktop W10 installation runs just fine. WTF??

I don't even know when I slipped into the Twilight Zone or how to get back to the real world.

 

[Mercutio]

How is your system configured to boot? EFI or BIOS?

 

[mubs]

Desktop: UEFI (there doesn't seem to be an option to use old BIOS)

Lenovo Ideapad z580 (purchased Jan 2014): Boot Mode option is set to Legacy, not UEFI (no idea why / how, can't remember).

Another oddity on the laptop; I presume this is because the HDD is sitting in the optical bay. Partitions D, E, & F are on this HDD. These partitions are shown twice in file explorer.

 

[mubs]

Further research showed the caddy has a 3-position switch; position A for HP & Sony, B for Dell IBM (didn't know IBM still made laptops; did the last ones they made use SATA?) and C for others. The seller from Ali Express shipped the caddy poorly packed with no documentation.

I tried all three positions, file explorer still shows partitions on the HDD twice. I hope it'll be reliable to keep data on the drive!

My first choice was a caddy from Lenovo, but they don't seem to sell one, at least Google didn't show anything. Will call a local store and ask.

 

[mubs]

Y'all must be sick of this saga. Bear with me, almost done

I was worried about the flaky behavior of the HDD in the caddy; managed to get hold of Lenovo, and they said caddy in the optical bay isn't supported, and so they don't have one for this model. I know other people are using a caddy, but the question is the quality of mine. I decided not to risk data corruption. So the HDD was zeroed, W10 was transferred from the SSD to it, the optical drive was put back in its bay, and all is as before with the exception that the laptop now runs a clean install of W10 instead of W8.1

Image for Dos continues to be flaky. I have previously imaged the OS and put the image file on another partition of the same HDD without issues. Now even after zeroing the HDD and it being the sole mass storage device in the laptop, IFD behaves the same; takes 1.5 hours, says it's done, but in Windows, that partition shows zero used space and no files. If I go back into IFD and ask it to create a new image file in the same location, it shows the previously "created" file being there. Totally bizarre.

I can only guess that the "System Reserved Partition" (that I obviously have to image along with the W10 partition) is confusing IFD. It shouldn't, because the "System Reserved Partition" has been around the Vista days.

I continue to find irritating small bugs in W10; more on that in a couple of days.

 

[Mercutio]

Maybe it's time to try a different drive clone tool?

 

[mubs]

I'm all ears. I know Acronis has been hit & miss sometimes. Tell me which one please?

 

[Mercutio]

I use Acronis. It works for my needs, which include goofy stuff like cloning multiboot configurations. Every once in a while it barfs on something, usually GPT/UEFI boot setups that its Linux-based imaging tool can't read, but for those machines it doesn't seem like anything works unless it runs from within Windows.

 

[Mercutio]

Funny thing I just discovered: The install.wim files present in the Windows 8 and Windows 10 Media Creation Tool downloads are not actually standard .wim files and can't be used for Windows to Go images. You have to have a retail Windows ISO to make a Windows to Go disk. I have the 8.1 Retail Image but AFAIK only the only Windows 10 retail disc is still the July 2015 build, not the 1511 one the Media Creation Tool offers.

 

[ddrueding]

I have some retail Win10 USB sticks coming soon, but I'd guess those are the same as the MCT.

 

[Mercutio]

Apparently they aren't. Rufus, which now as an automatic Windows to Go mode, says the MCT-created .wim files are specifically made to not conform to Microsoft's own standards. One assumes the USB installer would have the retail .wim, but it's anybody's guess what Windows build you'll be getting.

 

[Stereodude]

I'm all ears. I know Acronis has been hit & miss sometimes. Tell me which one please?

Clonezilla is my go to.

 

[blakerwry]

Clonezilla is my go to.

ditto

 

[Will Rickards]

I use Macrium Reflect

 

[mubs]

I use Acronis. It works for my needs, which include goofy stuff like cloning multiboot configurations. Every once in a while it barfs on something, usually GPT/UEFI boot setups that its Linux-based imaging tool can't read, but for those machines it doesn't seem like anything works unless it runs from within Windows.

Anything that:

a) is reliable for single boot and multi-boot images, and automatically backus up the boot sectors etc. and
b) can restore to the same disk or another disk with different geometry (in case the original one died)

would make me happy.

I'm not doing anything complicated; what kind of GPT/UEFI boot setups confuses Acronis?

Any other choices other than Acronis? Of course the restore has to work reliably; I presume Acronis has worked well for you for this purpose.

 

[mubs]

Clonezilla is my go to.

ditto

I use Macrium Reflect

Thanks guys, I didn't see your posts since they were on the next page (I make that mistake sometimes).

I would pose the same questions to you all that I did to Merc.

 

[mubs]

BTW, I never image from within Windows, always boot from a live USB flash drive and then image. Would prefer USB3 support for the disk the image is being written to.

 

[Stereodude]

Anything that:

a) is reliable for single boot and multi-boot images, and automatically backus up the boot sectors etc. and
b) can restore to the same disk or another disk with different geometry (in case the original one died)

would make me happy.

I'm not doing anything complicated; what kind of GPT/UEFI boot setups confuses Acronis?

Any other choices other than Acronis? Of course the restore has to work reliably; I presume Acronis has worked well for you for this purpose.

Clonezilla clones exactly what's on the drive in the various partitions without care for what it is. It can restore to a drive of the same size (number of sectors used on the source drive) or larger. AFAIK, it can't restore to a smaller drive.

 

[Mercutio]

Acronis's recovery environment is Linux-based. For a system that was built on a Secure Boot/UEFI setup, it doesn't have the security keys to read the content of the protected drive since it doesn't have a trusted bootloader, even for the 2016 version. You pretty much have to have a modern WindowsRE system for recovery, or assume you're going to have to pull the drive and put it in a different Windows 7+ PC if you want to do anything with one. I find this to be a huge hindrance when dealing with notebooks (even consumer models) that have a factory Windows install.

 

[mubs]

Clonezilla clones exactly what's on the drive in the various partitions without care for what it is. It can restore to a drive of the same size (number of sectors used on the source drive) or larger. AFAIK, it can't restore to a smaller drive.

Thanks SD. I checked it briefly, will need to read up some more. But it looks like it cannot write to a USB drive? Image to be on same physical drive?

Acronis's recovery environment is Linux-based. For a system that was built on a Secure Boot/UEFI setup, it doesn't have the security keys to read the content of the protected drive since it doesn't have a trusted bootloader, even for the 2016 version. You pretty much have to have a modern WindowsRE system for recovery, or assume you're going to have to pull the drive and put it in a different Windows 7+ PC if you want to do anything with one. I find this to be a huge hindrance when dealing with notebooks (even consumer models) that have a factory Windows install.

Yikes, more complications that one would like. Why is everything so complicated nowadays? At least Clonezilla is free, Acronis wants $60 (on their site; ~$25 on Amz). For a paid product these limitations are glaring.

Macrium Reflect Free edition looks pretty good and seems to do everything I want, but it runs inside of Windows. Somehow I'm biased against this; have read too many horror stories of how image couldn't be restored / was corrupted etc. It appears VSS technology isn't entirely reliable?

 

[mubs]

In other news: remember I couldn't make a recovery USB drive from my W10 installation? Google said to run sfc. I did, multiple times, but consistent results are that some problems couldn't be fixed. What do I do now? Boot from my install DVD and ask it to repair?