Windows 10 Clean Installation

A few months ago I upgraded to Windows 10, as many other people did http://scottgamet.blogspot.com/2015/08/windows-10-upgrade.html . There were no issues during the upgrade and the system ran a little more sluggish then it did with Windows 7, this system had been through a lot and was in need of a refresh before the update. So I decided to do a fresh install of Windows 10, as is allowed in the licensing. As a matter of preference I always suggest to do a fresh installation over an upgrade, this is because you have a fresh installation and you are not bringing any problems or issues from the previous installation.

The biggest thing to remember is to make a backup of all of your personal information before doing the fresh installation. Doing a fresh installation will erase all of the data on the drive! Make sure to have a copy of all of your software that you are going to be reinstalling as well. 

Creating a bootable USB drive is the fastest and simplest way to install Windows; Microsoft has created their own program for this now, https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 . Just follow the instructions and you will need a USB drive that is empty and over 4GB.

Now we need to restart the computer and select boot from USB, some computers will need to have the order changed in BIOS.

When asked for the product key, enter it if it is a retail purchase, if you have already upgraded from a previous version of Windows just select skip.

Next we will select Custom: Install Windows Only (Advanced). Select the entire drive for installation; this will delete everything on the drive.

After your system is done installing and brings you to the log on screen, log on and press the Start window and select settings then update and security then activation. You should see that your system is already activated. This does require you to be connected to the internet.

Since the fresh installation of Windows 10 I am happy to say that it is running better than when it had Windows 7 and this has breathed life into an older laptop that was having some issues.

Scott Gamet MCTS

http://www.howtogeek.com/224342/how-to-clean-install-windows-10/

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

http://scottgamet.blogspot.com/2015/08/windows-10-upgrade.html

Port scanned by Apple

Something interesting just happened, I was port scanned by Apple. This was not just a single time either, there were over 40 and from several different IP Addresses. In the past I have received many port scans, mostly from China and Turkey. These are always a few scans and then they are done but never one on this level before. I thought this a bit odd.

Scott Gamet

Windows 10 upgrade

Windows 10 is now available and for most of us it is a free upgrade. As long as you are running a legal copy of Windows 7 or higher you and your hardware support it, you can upgrade for free. Here is an info gram about the upgrade paths fro Windows 10.

Most of us by now have the upgrade icon in the bottom right hand corner of our screens. If not there are two different approaches that I suggest for getting the icon to show up. The first is to ensure that you have run all of the available updates through Microsoft update.  If the icon is still not showing up then download and run this program win10fix_full.zip  

If the computer is part of a domain and the icon is still not showing up, take the computer off the domain and see if it shows up. 

Even if the icon does not show up you can still upgrade with the ISO disk, this is available for free download and has a very nice built in download and install program. Here is the link for the ISO Windows10 ISO  

Either way that you begin the install it will take a while to finish, there are reports that it will take longer on laptops regardless of the specs. Expect for the entire process to take an hour or two.

If your installation failed, like mine did, and you received a message that tells you that “We couldn’t update the system reserved partition.”  Or Error code: 0xc1900104 

Then you had the same issue that I did and in reality it is a very minor issue. Essentially the issue is that your system reserve partition is too small and or to full. Mine was 100MB and 99% full, thus not allowing any information to be written or modified to the partition. The solution is very simple, increase the size of the partition.

Here is a step by step of how to correct the issue and get the install to complete. 

          Right click on my computer and select Manage

          Select Disk Management under storage

          You should see a partition that says “Reserve” or “System” or something similar

          Right click and select “Change Drive Letter and Paths”

          Click add and in the next window you should see “Assign the following drive letter” scroll                   down and change it to Y. click OK and OK and close out of these screens.

Download the Mini Tool Partition Manager Partition Manager Free  install it and open the program

Select the Y drive and re-size it to about 300MB taking the space from C. 

You May have to restart the computer for the changes to take place.

After this try to install Windows 10 again, for me it worked without issue. 

Microsoft will not email you a link for updating to Windows 10. If you get an email like this it is a virus. 

Best of luck

Scott Gamet

CCENT

MCTS Windows 7

Cisco Aironet 1242AG lightweight to autonomous

There are two different models of this access point available, a full version and a lightweight version. The lightweight version is much cheaper than the full or autonomous version. But it is fairly easy to convert the light version to an autonomous version; this is exactly what I did.

To convert it you are going to need to download the image for the autonomous version, this is available for free from Cisco although not the newest version. You go to https://software.cisco.com/download select wireless and then access points. From here you will get a list of all of the different access points. Down load the newest version you can, at this point if you do not have an account you will be prompted to create one or sign in.

You are also going to need TFTP server software so you can transfer the image. There is a built in one for Windows, I do not recommend using it though, and I recommend Tftpd32 available here: http://download.cnet.com/Tftpd32/3000-2085_4-10114225.html . It is a very straight forward installation, after installation make sure to select the directory that you downloaded the image to.

Next we need to log in through the console, you can use your favorite software I like Tera Term http://en.osdn.jp/projects/ttssh2/releases/ the default username and password is Cisco, type enable and you will be prompted for a password here we type Cisco. Once this is done we need to load the new image from the TFTP server. Here is the command: 

archive download-sw /force-reload /overwrite tftp:// <ip address of TFTP server>/<name of                 the file>   then press enter.

The system will restart and obtain an IP address from the DHCP server. With this address you can now log in through the web interface and configure your access point. Here is a link to a video that gives step by step how to change from Autonomous to lightweight and back. It is a very good and thorough video https://supportforums.cisco.com/video/11928901/lwapp-lightweight-mode-autonomous-conversion-and-vice-versa

Here is another walk though. http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/8-0/configuration-guide/b_cg80/b_cg80_chapter_01101010.html

Scott Gamet

A+, NET+

CCENT

MCST Windows 7

Veeam Endpoint Backup Free

Veeam has released their newest free backup software called Endpoint Backup. This is another free backup solution from Veeam; although it is free it is feature backed and very solid, just like the rest of their software. This is their first software to work for physical machine; they have many different products for Hyper-V and VMWare.

Endpoint Backup Free is a very full featured program simulate to the look of Veeam One. You have the ability to do full backups as well as volume and file level backups. Scheduling is built in as well and throttling, this way you can have it run in the background with little performance loss. You can back up to a local or file location, and if you have Veeam in your corporate environment you can integrate it directly into your repository. This also allows for integration into your current Veeam software solution as another, or several backup devices.

For the consumer who is looking for a simple and feature rich solution for backing up their personal computers this is a great solution. You can use a NAS or direct connected storage or a SMB share.

With the file selection you have the control to select exactly what you want to backup, you can even exclude specific files or file types.

                You can set Endpoint Backup to save a specific number of sequential backups as well as for long. The number of sequences option supersedes the number of days, this meaning if you have it set to save only for 2 days but you don’t have any backups for 2 days it is not going to erase any backups until you make a new one. This feature is great for vacations and other events where you may not use the device for a set time.

                

                The recovery tools that are built in allow for nearly every possible solution. This includes ISO and virtual disk formats. Built in is also a recovery console that allows for standard Windows recovery features as well as a few new ones. Veeam is known for its ability for fast recovery, this now expands to physical devices.

To download t for free now click this link https://login.veeam.com/oauth?client_id=1Pv143f7s7&response_type=code&redirect_uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.veeam.com%2Foauth&scope=profile&state=e397e243f619502df14fe81e71d2fdc6

http://www.veeam.com/blog/veeam-endpoint-backup-free-is-here.html

Scott Gamet
MCTS
CCENT
A+  Net+

New toys have malware

With the Christmas season upon us, we will be getting gifts that plug in. Many rechargeable gifts now come with USB charges, although many of us will think it is completely safe to plug these new devices into your computers. There are many reports of these devices containing malware; most of these devices use USB connection because it is convenient. They were never meant to connect to your computer, but people know that you will and because of that they have malware ready to inject into your system.

If it is not designed to connect to your computer, but it has a USB do not connect it to your computer. The best practice is to always use a wall plugin, they have more power available than your computer. Most of the malware that has been found in these devices is known as injector viruses, these kinds of malware install without knowing it. Often times this opens the gateway for other software to be downloaded. Of course all without the user knowing.

Scott Gamet

A+ Net+ 

CCENT

Fake Android Update - Malware

          There is a never ending amount of fake Windows updates. One of the most recent ones that I can remember was for Windows 8.1, you clicked a link and it came up with an official looking update screen. Well it was not a Microsoft update and it generally left the computer useless. This is not to mention the Java and Flash updates that are fake. So the point is that there is a great deal of fake updates, today I saw one for Android.

          This is the first one that I have personally seen, or heard of. Now people will root there phones and sometimes turn them into a brick, or put a custom mod on that may turn it into a nice paperweight. This is not what I came across today. Here is a screen shot of what I saw:

          The funny thing is that I arrived here after clicking a link to a local news website from Facebook. The new Facebook internal browser was used, not Chrome. There was a dialog box that informed me I was low on memory and asked do you want to clear up memory Yes or No, I clicked NO. This was in the background and the dialog box was in the foreground.

          Needless to say this is not an official update and I am not entirely sure what would happen if I click Update, although I am very sure it will install several different pieces of malicious software. Be on the lookout for these kind of traps, they are out there and they will do real harm to your phone.

          I have made several attempts today for this to happen again but with no luck. I have been able to find two other articles about this, but neither one have said how they got to the link. Mine was through Facebook and I hope that it was just a coincidence.

Scott Gamet

A+ NET+ CCENT


#Facebook
#Android
#Windows 8
#Microsoft
#Malware
#fakeupdate