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Prevent Windows PC Overheating

11/11/2024

Work-around to stop Windows PC Overheating

In Windows Run box (Windows Key + R) enter following command to lower the Control Panel ‘Maximum processor state’.

control powercfg.cpl,,1

Scroll down to ‘Processor power management’. Next, click to expand ‘Maximum processor state’, then set the ‘On battery’ and/or ‘Plugged in’ percentages to less than 100%, e.g. 80%.

This should prevent the CPU overheating, i.e. reaching the maximum die (Tjunction) temperature and shutting down the PC.

ref: Computer Active 696/p64

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Bypass Windows 11 Microsoft Account

24/08/2024

To bypass the Microsoft Account requirement, proceed with the first few steps of the installation process normally until you reach the Sign in screen.

Then press Shift + F10 to open up a Command Prompt Window and enter the following command:

oobe\bypassnro

The system will restart and begin the installation steps all over. At this point disconnect your PC from the Internet. Eventually you’ll see an “I Don’t Have Internet” option, or you’ll be prompted to create a local account immediately.

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Increase Size of Recovery Partition

20/07/2024

The procedure below assumes a standard Windows 10 | 11 installation where the Recovery Partition immediately follows the Windows OS partition

1. Run Command Prompt as administrator

2. Check the Recovery partition is enabled

reagentc /info

If the Recovery partition is enabled disable it

reagentc /disable

3. Shrink the Windows OS partition by 250MB so as to increase the Recovery partition by the same amount

diskpart
list disk
sel disk [OS disk index]
list part
sel part [OS partition]
shrink desired=250 minimum=250
sel part [Recovery partition]
delete partition override

4.

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Mount vhdx Image in Ubuntu

19/07/2024

Install libguestfs library to allow accessing and modifying guest disk images

sudo apt-get install libguestfs-tools

Create mount point

sudo mkdir /mnt/vhd

Find target device filesystem using Guestfish – note this example is for ntfs system partition on device /dev/sd2

sudo guestfish --ro -a /path_to_vhd/vhd.vhdx

Welcome to guestfish, the guest filesystem shell for
editing virtual machine filesystems and disk images.

Type: ‘help’ for help on commands
      ‘man’ to read the manual
      ‘quit’ to quit the shell

>

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Firefox Home Page Search Randomly Goes To Change Search Settings

17/06/2024

Inadvertently hitting Up-Arrow just before striking the Enter key causes the search to select last drop down menu search option, i.e. “Change Search Settings” instead of searching the web. This could be intentional but more often than not it’s an annoyance. It also wipes the original search query forcing it to be retyped. In addition the “Change Search Settings” option doesn’t get highlighted to give you a clue that it is going to Change Search Settings.

Pictures not showing in Windows 10 | 11File Explorer

25/03/2024

Ensure Thumbnails Are Enabled

  1. Open File Explorer.
  2. Click on three horizontal dots at the right end of the ribbon tabs and then choose Options from the menu.
  3. In the Folder Options window, uncheck the box beside Always show icons, never thumbnails (if it’s checked).
  4. Click Apply and hit OK

Mount Microsoft Windows 7 System Image VHD in Linux

26/12/2023

Install libguestfs tools for accessing and modifying virtual machine (VM) disk images

sudo yum install libguestfs-tools      # Fedora/RHEL/CentOS
sudo apt-get install libguestfs-tools  # Debian/Ubuntu

Mount Microsoft Windows 7 System Image Backup Virtual Hard Disk – VHD files using guestmount

Example to open a Windows System Image Backup VHD file stored on a backup drive (D:)

sudo mkdir /mnt/vhdmp
sudo guestmount --add /media/mike/New\ Volume/WindowsImageBackup/DESKTOP-86333F0/Backup\ 2023-11-28\ 145005/3300c520-45e9-48f0-aaca-5b5a0b380b77.vhdx --inspector --ro /mnt/vhdmp

Once mounted use Krusader (Admin mode) or Nautilus to open the mount point directory (\mnt\vhdmp) to browse the contents

Above example mounts in Read-Only mode.

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Mount Microsoft System Image Backup in Linux

26/12/2023

Mount Microsoft Windows 7 System Image Backup Virtual Hard Disk – VHD file(s) in Linux using Guestmount

Example to open a System Image Backup VHD file stored on a USB backup drive (D:)

sudo mkdir /mnt/vhdmp
sudo guestmount --add /media/mike/New\ Volume/WindowsImageBackup/DESKTOP-86333F0/Backup\ 2023-11-28\ 145005/3300c520-45e9-48f0-aaca-5b5a0b380b77.vhdx --inspector --ro /mnt/vhdmp

Once mounted use Krusader (Admin mode) or Nautilus to open the mount point directory (\mnt\vhdmp) to browse contents

Mounted in Read-Only mode

To mount in Read-Write mode replace -ro with –rw.

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Exclude Loop devices from fdisk -l

20/07/2023 
sudo fdisk -l

Use SED script in command line to strip lines containing “Disk /dev/loop” pattern and delete following 5 lines including stripped line

sudo fdisk -l | sed -e '/Disk \/dev\/loop/,+5d'

~/.bashrc: alias shorthand to make it easier to remember

alias fdsk="sudo fdisk -l | sed -e '/Disk \/dev\/loop/,+5d'"

Then simply type fdsk in the command line and enter your password when prompted.

Credit remove dev loops

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