Forcing Windows 10 Upgrade

Want to get your free upgrade to Windows 10, but don't want to wait your turn? Run this reg file

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\OSUpgrade]
"AllowOSUpgrade"=dword:0x00000001

Then open the command prompt as an administrator and run

wuauclt.exe /updatenow

Java Installer Error 135

So I was having problems installing jdk-8u11.  I kept getting

Error 1335: The cabinet file ss180110.cab required
for this installation is corrupt and cannot be used.

For some reason, which I still don't understand, downloading the installer with Firefox instead of Chrome resulted in the error going away.  Thanks Dox Starz for suggesting this idea in a comment.

Skype Error 1603

So I had issues trying to upgrade Skype (on Windows 7).  It said there was a new version to download (6.0.something), and so I clicked the upgrade button as usual, but the upgrade install failed with code 1603, and no failure message.  The problem was after that the uninstaller .msi was deleted by the upgrade process so I couldn't actually remove the old install, but the new install wasn't complete either and wouldn't complete with pieces from the old version still left around.  If you're thinking of upgrading to Skype 6 (and I haven't seen any reason not to), it'd probably be a good idea to uninstall 5 first.  (Edit: Actually the default uninstaller doesn't seem to remove enough to make the new installer succeed, so use Revo even for this step.)  But if you're reading this, it's probably too late for that.  Here's how to fix this.

1. Install an old version of Skype, like from here
2. Uninstall the old version of Skype, removing everything (like with the free version of Revo Uninstaller)
3. Download and install the latest version of Skype

It looks like this Microsoft FixIt package will correct the issue: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/886549.

Do note that 1603 seems to be a general error code for any Windows installer failure (for example, I got this error code when another instance of msiexec.exe was running), so this may not actually be your issue.  Check the error message to be sure you're fighting the right battle.

Speaking of Skype fail, when Skype updated for Windows 7 (which was a while ago), they took away the ability to minimize to the clock and instead always pinned to the taskbar.  I despise having something pinned to the taskbar AND being down by the clock (makes no sense to me to have something taking up 2 spots).  You can get around this by right clicking on the Skype icon in your start menu, hit properties, then under the compatibility tab run it in compatibility mode for Windows Vista.

Edit (5/26/2016): as of now, they at some point added the "keep skype in the taskbar while I'm signed in" option that fixes my last complaint.

Windows Profile Woes

After struggling for months with folders magically changing ownership (first noticed when iTunes couldn't save podcasts) and messages saying the roaming profile did not synchronize completely, I believe I've found the problem. Apparently, Windows profiles changed (though I don't understand how this affects me since although I did an upgrade install of Win7 from Vista, my machine never ran XP or earlier). The migration was failing because there wasn't enough hard drive space to copy all my music, documents, everything twice to do the migration. Though even once I resolved the issues preventing the sync (by moving to a temporary folder in C), it still didn't perform the sync. What I ended up having to do is create a new user, then copy everything over, take ownership, then delete the old user. This problem was also the cause of the mysterious S-{A bunch of meaningless numbers} user and the messages saying I wasn't the owner even though the username of the owner was my username. This was my user account's SID, which it apparently uses as part of the migration.

 

I also learned that there is no Windows equivalent of Linux's usermod (let alone a GUI like Gnome and KDE have) when it comes to renaming accounts and their homes. My plan was to create a new account named Keegan2 then delete the original and rename the new to the old name after I was sure everything was moved over. While you can rename accounts in Windows, it doesn't change the profile path as part of the renaming. There is a registry hack that can be done, but this method gave me issues (all kinds of software installed for all users was still looking in the old place). When I tested this with XP, when I removed the renamed user it didn't remove the files. It would seem like it should be possible to run a script similar to the initialization Windows does the first time a user logs in before migrating to the new name.  This explains the laptop that was re-purposed a few times, but still had all the old usernames in 'Documents and Settings'.

It's a Windows world, but I find the longer I live in it, the more I suffer. Vive Linux!

Aero and LogMeIn

I've had the problem on Vista and Win7 of having Aero disabled after a remote LogMeIn session, even after changing themes to an aero theme and rebooting (the only thing that worked was uninstalling and reinstalling LogMeIn). After having no luck searching the LogMeIn community forums, I finally stumbled across a tip from the folks at Windows 7 Forums:

1. Uncheck the 'Disable wallpaper and user interface effects on the host computer' in the LogMeIn preferences.
   
2. Uncheck the 'Use display accelerator' setting in LogMeIn preferences.
3. Disable the mirror display device in device manager.

That should do the trick! (Note that this will probably significantly reduce the responsiveness).

AHCI in Windows

A recent discovery I made because of my mobo's odd controller:
While its true that AHCI works out of the box with Vista/Windows 7 (that is, there is no need for third party drivers) -- If you did not have it enabled when you first install Windows, it will be disabled to save some boot time. Makes sense. What's odd is what you have to do to enable it. You have to change HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\msahci\Start from 0x3 to 0x0. Otherwise, you get a blue screen when you try to boot. The fancy startup repair that comes with Vista/Windows 7 will be launched the next boot (if you let it), but won't be able to figure this out for you.

So yea, I tried moving the cables around on the inside (thinking it might be a bad sata port), and changed to AHCI, and my cd drive was still the one that disappeared, not the drive in that port.  I thought it might be some incompatibility with the firmware, but the updater fails to run. :'( I suppose it's also possible it's a bad cable.

Extending NTFS with Bad Sectors

I wanted to grow an NTFS partition to use unallocated space this weekend on an XP machine. If it were Vista or Win7, I would have used the built in resizing ability in disk management, and I found I could not do so with my usual tool of choice (GParted Live CD). The error message said that it could not complete the operation because of two bad sectors, and to run chkdsk (which I did) and then use ntfsresize with the --bad-sectors option. When I tried this, it said it couldn't grow it unless I make it bigger with fdisk. The only way I know how to do this would be to create an entirely new partition (which would mean all the hassle of reinstalling windows and the needed apps). I was finally able to do it with EASEUS Partition Master Personal. Unfortunately, it is not open source, but it is free and it did what I was trying to do without restarting in minutes.