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Windows 7

Patch Tuesday

April 10, 2018, 13:30(EDT) By Eric (a.k.a. TweakHound) Leave a Comment

Patch Tuesday

*This post will be updated as info comes in.
Microsoft Security Update Summary at bottom of post.

Windows 7 SP1 – April 10, 2018—KB4093118 (Monthly Rollup)

Win10 1709 – April 10, 2018—KB4093112 (OS Build 16299.371)
“This update includes quality improvements. No new operating system features are being introduced in this update.”
Win10 1703 – April 10, 2018—KB4093107 (OS Build 15063.1029)
“This update includes quality improvements. No new operating system features are being introduced in this update.”
Win10 1607 – April 10, 2018—KB4093119 (OS Build 14393.2189)
“Windows 10 version 1607 will reach end of service on April 10, 2018. Devices running Windows 10 Home or Pro editions will no longer receive monthly security and quality updates that contain protection from the latest security threats. To continue receiving security and quality updates, Microsoft recommends updating to the latest version of Windows 10.”

Insider builds also get the above updates (KB4100375).
[Read more…] about Patch Tuesday

Tagged With: Security, Windows 10, Windows 7

Updating Windows

March 26, 2018, 08:09(EDT) By Eric (a.k.a. TweakHound) Leave a Comment

Updating Windows

If and when should you update Windows? I have been wrestling with this question as I know many of you have. What follows is my personal opinion.
[Read more…] about Updating Windows

Tagged With: Windows 10, Windows 7

Patch Tuesday

March 13, 2018, 14:12(EDT) By Eric (a.k.a. TweakHound) Leave a Comment

Patch Tuesday

Updates available for all things Windows. I am still not updating my Windows 7 machines. The only Win10 machine I am updating is my main rig. I have switched that over to Windows Insider Fast Lane so I can get a head start on the Spring Creators Update that comes out next month. The things I do for you guys.

Full Windows Update info at the bottom of this post.
Win10 version 1709: March 13, 2018—KB4088776 (OS Build 16299.309)
“This update includes quality improvements. No new operating system features are being introduced in this update.”
Win10 version 1703: March 13, 2018—KB4088782 (OS Build 15063.966)
“This update includes quality improvements. No new operating system features are being introduced in this update.”

Firefox 59
Firefox 32-bit
Firefox 64-bit
All downloads
Release Notes. Be sure to check these out as there are a couple of new features you’ll want to know about.
Related: Tor Browser 7.5.1 released and Tails 3.6 too.

CCleaner 5.41
Release Announcement
Download (I use the portable version)
Thanks Arthur!

Adobe Flash Player 29.0.0.113
for Firefox, Opera
for Internet Explorer

[Read more…] about Patch Tuesday

Tagged With: Security, Software, Windows 10, Windows 7

Windows Performance Impact Of Meltdown And Spectre

January 9, 2018, 15:19(EDT) By Eric (a.k.a. TweakHound) 15 Comments

Windows Performance Impact Of Meltdown And Spectre

Microsoft exec Terry Myerson lays out what he expects the performance impact of the Meltdown/Spectre patches.
– With Windows 10 on newer silicon (2016-era PCs with Skylake, Kabylake or newer CPU), benchmarks show single-digit slowdowns, but we don’t expect most users to notice a change because these percentages are reflected in milliseconds.
TH – Skylake released 2015. Kaby Lake 2016.
– With Windows 10 on older silicon (2015-era PCs with Haswell or older CPU), some benchmarks show more significant slowdowns, and we expect that some users will notice a decrease in system performance.
TH – Haswell released 2013.
– With Windows 8 and Windows 7 on older silicon (2015-era PCs with Haswell or older CPU), we expect most users to notice a decrease in system performance.
TH – Haswell released 2013
– Windows Server on any silicon, especially in any IO-intensive application, shows a more significant performance impact when you enable the mitigations to isolate untrusted code within a Windows Server instance. This is why you want to be careful to evaluate the risk of untrusted code for each Windows Server instance, and balance the security versus performance tradeoff for your environment.
TH – You’re attached to another object by an incline plane wrapped helically around an axis.

Conveniently left out is any reference to Microsoft bricking AMD machines.
I will repeat my advice to not update Windows machines right now. Certainly you need to have a full image backup before you do.
I recommend Macrium Reflect 7 Free Edition.

To find your CPU family.
Those odd names are CPU Family or CPU Code Names (Haswell, Skylake, Kabylake…).
Download Speccy PORTABLE and run it.
Click the CPU tab. Find the line Code Name, that is your CPU family.
Google it or, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_microprocessors

Tagged With: Computer Hardware, Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8

My Home Server – Windows 7

January 1, 2018, 09:32(EDT) By Eric (a.k.a. TweakHound) 11 Comments

My Home Server – Windows 7

Here is my current setup. I will be attempting to switch over to a Linux server setup in the near future (just because).
This machine was my secondary workstation and has been repurposed for my home server.
This is a quickie article. No hand holding. If you do not know your way around Windows this article is not for you.
[Read more…] about My Home Server – Windows 7

Tagged With: Backup, Computer Hardware, How-To's, This Site, Windows 7

Profound Post

September 7, 2017, 10:46(EDT) By Eric (a.k.a. TweakHound)

Profound Post

I don’t post in forums much. I don’t comment in posts much either. I may scan through comments on non-political type posts. There are a few places where most comments are level headed. Askwoody.com Forums is one such place. Once in a while a comment truly impresses me.
A comment by user Canadian Tech is an example. I’ve no idea who he is. I don’t necessarily agree with everything he said but his argument is solid, well reasoned, and well written. If he isn’t a tech writer he should be.

Tagged With: Windows 7

Get Rid Of SMB1 In Windows 7

May 22, 2017, 07:33(EDT) By Eric (a.k.a. TweakHound)

Get Rid Of SMB1 In Windows 7

A reader was confused by all the steps in Microsoft’s How to enable and disable SMBv1, SMBv2, and SMBv3 in Windows and Windows Server.
Should he use PowerShell, Registry Editor, Group Policy? Should he disable it on Client or Server or both?
Because it is a security risk, it is important to ditch SMB1 on all platforms.
You should get rid of both the client and server.
In Windows 7 I do this via PowerShell. It is fast and easy.
You must run PowerShell as Admin.

Press the Windows + R keys > type powershell (press the Enter key)
> copy and paste the following command:
Set-ItemProperty -Path “HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters” SMB1 -Type DWORD -Value 0 -Force
> now press the Enter key
> copy and paste the following command: sc.exe config lanmanworkstation depend= bowser/mrxsmb20/nsi
> now press the Enter key
> copy and paste the following command: sc.exe config mrxsmb10 start= disabled
> now press the Enter key > Reboot

———-
Windows PowerShell
Copyright (C) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

PS C:\Users\Eric> Set-ItemProperty -Path “HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Service
s\LanmanServer\Parameters” SMB1 -Type DWORD -Value 0 -Force
PS C:\Users\Eric> sc.exe config lanmanworkstation depend= bowser/mrxsmb20/nsi
[SC] ChangeServiceConfig SUCCESS
PS C:\Users\Eric> sc.exe config mrxsmb10 start= disabled
[SC] ChangeServiceConfig SUCCESS
PS C:\Users\Eric>
———-

Tagged With: How-To's, Security, Windows 7

Tuesday Random Stuff…

March 7, 2017, 13:36(EDT) By Eric (a.k.a. TweakHound)

Tuesday Random Stuff…

Installing Windows 7 From Scratch
Woody Leonhard has a chuckle at Microsoft’s “convoluted technique for installing Windows 7 from scratch“.
Best to follow his advice.

Firefox 52 Released
Download 32-bit(en-US)
Download 64-bit (en-US)
All Downloads
Release Notes

O&O ShutUp10 Updated
Version 1.4.1387 – released on 07.03.2017
Following settings were changed:
– Setting “Do not display last users on lock screen” was removed as some users had problems accessing their system
Following errors were fixed:
– Dialogue boxes were defective in high contrast mode
– Crash when clicking links where Google Chrome is set as the standard browser
– Problems detecting some Windows 10 OEM versions
– Notifications that some settings are managed by the organisation did not disappear after applying factory settings
– Factory settings revised
Available in English, German, French, Italian and Russian

Linux Swap Partition
Red Hat Blog – Do we really need swap on modern systems?
“How much swap is recommended nowadays?
This depends on the desired behaviour of the system, but configuring an amount of 20% of the RAM as swap is usually a good idea. More details are in this solution document.
Can I run without swap? Is further tuning possible?
Systems without swap can make sense and are supported by Red Hat – just be sure the behaviour of such a system under memory pressure is what you want. In most environments, a bit of swap makes sense.
”

Tagged With: Computer News, Windows 7

Cleaning Up The Script

February 13, 2017, 10:19(EDT) By Eric (a.k.a. TweakHound)

Cleaning Up The Script

In my post Blocking Windows 7 Telemetry I provided a script to remove Windows 7 telemetry updates. This was done in haste from an older script and I have now cleaned it up.
One poster in the AskWoody lounge stated certain updates were no longer there. I asked him to provide some documentation so I could verify his statement and he did not.
So, I had to dig in and find the answer myself. I checked a few of the KB articles for the updates and there weren’t any notices about updates being removed or superseded. That is par for the course for Microsoft.
[Read more…] about Cleaning Up The Script

Tagged With: Windows 7

Blocking Windows 7 Telemetry

February 11, 2017, 14:19(EDT) By Eric (a.k.a. TweakHound)

Blocking Windows 7 Telemetry

In the last few days I’ve seen posts at AskWoody and Ghacks discussing blocking Windows 7 telemetry.
Since this seems to still be an issue I’ve decided to revive my Remove And Block GWX In Windows 7 script.
[Read more…] about Blocking Windows 7 Telemetry

Tagged With: Windows 7

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