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Category: Windows

Microsoft Windows Operating Systems

Clone drive using DD

Clone a drive using dd in Linux

In Terminal identify source and target drives:

sudo fdisk -l

Note the devices (e.g., /dev/sda, /dev/sdb).

Run DD to clone the drive:

sudo dd if=/dev/source of=/dev/target bs=1M status=progress conv=noerror,sync

Replace /dev/source and /dev/target with the correct device names, e.g./dev/sda, /dev/sdb

Wait for completion and sync data to force all pending writes in memory to be flushed to disk

sudo sync

Note optional arguments to clone a defective drive for recovery:

  • conv=noerror: continues copying after read errors instead of stopping
  • sync: Pads missing data with null bytes to maintain alignment
  • dd stands for “data definition”,

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Access Windows drive C: from another Windows PC

Connect to the shared root C:\ drive using the credentials of the source owner user who is a member of the Administrators group.

Circumvent Remote User Account Control (UAC) filtering, default in Windows for workgroups. This feature strips administrator privileges when you connect to a share from a different computer using a local account.

Two-Part Solution

Part 1: Disable Remote UAC Filtering (On Windows 10 Source PC)

This Registry change is required to allow a local administrator account (like yours) connecting from the network to retain its full administrative permissions,

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USB WiFi adapter losing its settings after a cold boot

The issue of a USB WiFi adapter losing its settings after a cold boot in Windows 10 is commonly linked to power management settings that cause the device to power down to save energy. To resolve this, you should disable power-saving features for the USB adapter and related USB hubs. Specifically, navigate to the device properties in Device Manager, go to the Power Management tab, and uncheck the option “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power” for the USB WiFi adapter.

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How to Hide the “Try the new Outlook” toggle

If you wish to hide the New Outlook toggle or prevent the automatic migration, you can set a registry key. The specific key is:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Options\General

Create a new DWORD type entry with the name “HideNewOutlookToggle” and a value of “1“.

This will hide the “Try the new Outlook” toggle. Conversely setting it to 0 or deleting the value will re-enable it.

Missing Windows Boot Manager or bootrec fixboot error

The “bootrec /fixboot access denied” error in Windows occurs when the bootrec /fixboot command cannot access or modify the boot sector and similarly Windows Boot Manager missing in the BIOS Boot Order are often due to issues with the Boot Configuration Data (BCD) or partition structure.

To resolve this, try using bcdboot to rebuild the BCD store, or attempt to fix the issue using the Windows Recovery Environment

Here’s a breakdown of how to troubleshoot and resolve the issue:

1.

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Remove Change Search Settings from Firefox Homepage Content Search Suggestion List

This fix works around the issue of Firefox randomly selecting “Change Search Settings” to search for the entered string in Firefox Settings when you want to search the web with the default search engine. When this happens you also lose the search string and have to retype it.

Place the following code in userContent.css or userChrome.css and place it in the chrome (lower case) folder within the Firefox default profile directory. If the chrome folder does not exist then create it.

* Update: best to have both userContent.css and userChrome.css in chrome folder as it is noticed that some pages,

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Reset and Wipe your PC using Windows Reset

The simplest way to wipe your PC to donate, recycle, or sell your PC, is to use the Windows 10 | 11 Reset option

Windows 10
Settings > Update & Security > Recovery
Click ‘Get started’ under ‘Reset this PC’

Windows 11
Settings > Windows Update > Advanced options > Recovery
Click ‘Reset PC’

When ‘Reset this PC’ dialog opens, click ‘Remove everything’
Click reinstall Windows from ‘Cloud download’ or ‘Local reinstall’ (faster)
In ‘Additional settings”

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Manually remove a printer on a Mac

Step-by-Step Instructions

  1. Open System Settings:
    • Click the Apple menu and choose System Settings.
  2. Access Printers & Scanners:
    • In the System Settings window, click on Printers & Scanners from the sidebar. You might need to scroll down to find it.
  3. Select the Printer:
    • Find the printer you want to delete in the list on the right side of the window.

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Windows Clean Install

Steps to install a clean copy of Windows 10|11

  1. Audit system set-up by taking screen-shots (Windows Key + Print Screen), e.g. desktop, installed programs, …
  2. If not replacing drive create a System Image Backup to a USB drive and go to step 4
  3. Replace drive
  4. Boot latest Windows 10|11 iso version from USB
  5. Clear drive partitions
  6. Add Microsoft login account
  7. Restore Windows settings, data and apps from Onedrive
  8. Install Windows updates,

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Bypass the windows 11 installation requirements

  • During the installation process, after confirming the keyboard type or before reaching the screen where it says your PC can’t run Windows 11.
  • Press Shift + F10 to open a Command Prompt window.
  • In the Command Prompt, type regedit and press Enter to open the Registry Editor. Now, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup
  • Right-click on the Setup key, select New > Key, and name it LabConfig. Inside the LabConfig key, create new DWORD (32-bit) Value entries with the following names and values:

BypassTPMCheck and set its value to 1

BypassSecureBootCheck and set its value to 1

Create BypassCPUCheck and set its value to 1

Close Registry Editor and the Command Prompt,

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