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Macrium Reflect Free Edition Ending

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Went to update Macrium Reflect Free this morning and saw this:

Macrium Reflect Free – Service Announcement
This is to notify that Macrium Reflect Free Edition is being retired. Security patches will be provided until 1st January 2024, but there are no planned feature changes or non security related updates following this update.
Note: This notice only applies to Macrium Reflect Free.
Please see the section ‘Macrium Reflect Free Product – End Of Life (EOL)‘ in our support policy for more information.

This just plain sucks.

Also, Macrium Reflect Free was updated:
Bug fixes and Improvements v8.0.7279 – 10th January 2023
viBoot – VirtualBox VMs sometime would not show in viBoot GUI. This has been resolved.
Imaging – When reading some Bitlocker volumes, Reflect could attempt to allocate an erroneously large block of memory. This has been resolved.
System Restore – Staging a system restore from Windows would sometimes fail to automatically reboot after the restore completed within the rescue environment. This has been resolved.
General – Lower than actual write speed values were shown in Disk Write Performance tool. This has been resolved.
Download

*EDIT – 1600hrs
Just to clear things up. While unfortunate, this isn’t an immediate emergency/issue. Macrium Reflect Free will continue to work for years and should at least work through the demise of Windows 11, at least and especially for how I use it. I make a bootable USB drive that uses WinRE, This insures that the appropriate drivers for my computer are included. I also occasionally create another USB drive that uses Windows PE, with this I include a host of drivers good across many computers. This USB drive is the only way I create and restore images.
See:
The Macrium Rescue Environment
What are the differences between WinRE and WinPE? And which one should I use?

Software I Use – 2021 Edition

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A while back someone asked me to do a freeware guide for Windows 10 like I have for other Windows operating systems. My heart wasn’t in it. While there is excellent free software out there, in many cases you get what you pay for. I’m tired of talking about second best software I don’t use. So below is a list of the software I have installed on at least one of the 8 PC’s I have scattered across my house.
[Read more…] about Software I Use – 2021 Edition

Google Chrome Updated

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77.0.3865.73 has been released for Windows, Linux, Mac, and Android:
On the desktop this update “contains a number of fixes and improvements” and “includes 52 security fixes”.
“for Android: it’ll become available on Google Play over the next few weeks. This release includes stability and performance improvements.”
Download: 32-bit | 64-bit
Update Release Announcement – Desktop | Update Release Announcement – Android

Patch Tuesday

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Windows 7-10 updated.
This may or may not be the last update before the May 2018 feature update.

Windows 7
May 14, 2019—KB4499175 (Security-only update)
May 14, 2019—KB4499164 (Monthly Rollup)

Windows 8.1
May 14, 2019—KB4499165 (Security-only update)
May 14, 2019—KB4499151 (Monthly Rollup)

Windows 10
1809 – May 14, 2019—KB4494441 (OS Build 17763.503)
1803 – May 14, 2019—KB4499167 (OS Build 17134.765)
1709 – May 14, 2019—KB4499179 (OS Build 16299.1146)

Other Software:

Audacity 2.3.2
Download | Release Notes | Home Page

CCleaner 5.57
A whole lotta ‘meh’. I’d skip it.
Download (I use portable) | Release Announcement
See also: Blocking A Programs Internet Access Via The Windows Firewall

Adobe Reader Updated
Download en-US | All Downloads | Security Bulletin | Release Notes

Winamp 5.8 Beta Official

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This is VERY MUCH BETA. I would NOT install it (see notes).
Download: https://download.nullsoft.com/winamp/client/winamp58_3660_beta_full_en-us.exe

Winamp 5.8 Beta, Build 3660 (official)
Notes:
Some features are works-in-progress, e.g. new in_mod & out_wasapi plugins
Sorry, no CD burning, autotag or cddb features yet.
No multinational version with lang packs yet either.
Changes since unofficial build 3563
Removed ml_nowplaying; updated libogg, libvorbis, libflac & libopenmpt; copyright updates; added more genres to file info dialog; new digital cert; various other general tweaks, fixes and prep work….
Whats New:
* New: Windows Audio (WASAPI) Output plug-in (w.i.p.)
* Improved: Added an option to completely disable Winamp’s video support
* Improved: Added an auto-fullscreen option to video prefs
* Improved: Added /ENUMPLAYLISTS to the command-line support
* Improved: Windows 8.1 and 10 compatibility
* Improved: [in_mod] OpenMPT-based Module Player (replaces old MikMod player)
* Improved: [ml_playlists] Added browse path & edit title functions in Ctrl+E editor
* Improved: [Bento] Updated scrollbars and buttons and other tweaks (thanks Martin)
* Improved: [Bento & Modern skins] Added a Playlist Search feature (thanks Victor)
* Fixed: New URLs not being remembered after using Reset history in Open URL dialog
* Fixed: Various memory leaks
* Fixed: [gen_tray] Not showing correct current icon pack in preferences
* Fixed: [in_avi] Divide-by-zero crash with badly formed files (thanks ITDefensor)
* Fixed: [in_mp3] Crashing with some ID3v2 tags
* Fixed: [ml_wire] Slow loading issue
* Fixed: [ssdp] Crash on load if jnetlib was not correctly initialized
* Misc: Minimum required OS is now Win XP sp3 (Windows 7 or higher recommended)
* Misc: More general tweaks, improvements, fixes and optimizations
* Misc: Moved shared DLLs to Winamp\Shared folder
* Removed: All former “Pro” licensed functions (Winamp is now 100% freeware again)
* Removed: gen_jumpex & UnicodeTaskbarFix (making way for native implementations)
* Removed: [in_wm] DRM support
* Replaced: CD playback and ripping now using native Windows API (instead of Sonic)
* Replaced: MP3 Decoder now mpg123 based (instead of Fraunhofer)
* Replaced: AAC Decoder now using Media Foundation (Vista and higher)
* Replaced: H.264 Decoder now using Media Foundation (Vista and higher)
* Replaced: MPEG-4 Pt.2 Decoder now using Media Foundation (Vista and higher)
* Updated: [in_vorbis] libogg 1.3.3 & libvorbis 1.3.6
* Updated: [libFLAC] FLAC 1.3.2
* Updated: [libyajl] libyajl v2.1.0
* Updated: [OpenSSL] OpenSSL v1.0.1i
* Updated: [png] libpng v1.5.24