remove user's ability to browse network on Server 2012 (Possibly windows 7 or 8 as well)

I used to work for a cloud hosting company where we setup all customer's servers and joined them to our active directory domain controller so we could manage their users, and use group permissions to manage who had permissions to be able to log into their server.

Even though users couldn't log into other servers because we had them locked down, they can still see them if they browse the network.

After doing some research I found a group policy Administrative template (ADM) file that I was able to use to remove the network from the left side of the file explorer but this didn't stop users from being able to type in network up in the address bar, which would then allow them to browse the network to see other local computer systems.

I did some further digging and found this site Which had information about how to edit the registry to remove the ability to see the network tab, but as an added bonus it also removes the ability to view any computers on the network if you change the registry key.

After testing it on a test system I knew it would work, but I didn't want to have to manually edit the registry or use a reg file on every single server that we host.

Since I had previously used the other ADM file I knew it was possible to make a custom file that could be imported into active directory to make the registry change, so I started researching on how to do this.

After reading up on how to create my own ADM file I created a file that gives the ability to edit the file explorer's ability to browse the local network and have verified that it does work.

If the user types in network on the address bar the only option that shows up is network (Domain Name). If they select this it shows entire network, and if they click this it shows a blank page with nothing, so they can't see other computers on the local network. Please note that this does not remove the ability to directly access a computer on the network by using a UNC path like

\\computer\sharename\

Again this wasn't an issue for us, due to how the servers are locked down.

For their environment the servers are server 2012, or server 2012 R2 depending on when they were setup, and this ADM file worked for both after I imported the template and enabled it. The ADM file may also work for windows 7 but I haven't tested it. My recommendation would be to review the site I provided the link for and check the registry keys for windows 7 or 8 and see if they are present and if the default entry for the registry key is the same. If so then this should work for you.

If you want to try my ADM file here is the link Update: this site deleted my file, so here is it shared from my dropbox public folder. So long as the bandwidth download stays low this should keep working.

 

How to Fix a Motorola Moto-G XT-1034 that is having no sim, or radio turned off issues after receiving the 4.4.2 OTA update

I had purchased a Consumer Cellular Motorola Moto-G for my wife to use as a replacement for her Samsung Galaxy Nexus which had started developing issues with the radio stopping working until the phone was rebooted. These issues were getting more and more frequent so it was time for a replacement.

I got the phone then got CC to unlock it for me as my wife didn't want to switch her cell service to them. I then unlocked the boot loader thru motorola and proceeded to flash the phone with the retail 4.4.2 rom available from the http://sbf.droid-developers.org website for the Moto G.

After doing this the phone was no longer able to recognize that a sim card was inserted, and attempts to reflash the rom did nothing.

Well I was desperate and with the bootloader unlocked I couldn't get any kind of warranty from Motorola, so I decided to experiment with flashing different modems from other versions in the hope that I could fix the issue.

after flashing the 4.4.2 radio from the Retail GB (Great Britain) rom and then restarting the phone, it was able to again recognize that there was a sim installed, and it's working.

I have packaged up a zip file with the needed files to flash a XT-1034 Moto-G with this radio and I'm sharing them here for anyone who is having this issue from the OTA update and is willing to try this before giving up on their phone.

to use this you must have a unlocked bootloader, if your bootloader is not unlocked I strong urge you to try to get the phone replaced thru Motorola, as you should have a full year of warranty and they should be willing to advance rma you a replacement phone before you send them back the defective phone.

Anyways here is the file if you want to try it.

Please be advised, I can't guarantee this will work for any other model of Moto-G, and I do not guarantee this will fix the issue for you on your XT-1034 Moto G, I'm only offering this to anyone who wants to try this as a last ditch effort before they give up on their messed up Moto-G

 UPDATE: the US Retail Blur_Version.210.12.32.falcon_umts.AWSRetail.en.US 4.4.3 Factory firmware from here fixed the issue, it also adds a handy sim tool utility.

how-to fix a Samsung 11.6 inch ARM Chromebook if it has a blank screen during startup

OK first, you need to make sure you are having the same problem I was experiencing. On my Samsung 11.6" ARM Chromebook I was having a problem that whenever I turned my Chromebook on it wasn't turning on the backlight on my screen. You can tell if this is happening by shining a light onto the screen. If this is what is happening to your chromebook the light will allow you to see that there is a very very faint image of the normal login screen. You can also do a reset on it to get it to come on (To do a reset press and hold the power button for 30 or so seconds, then let go and then press the power button again), but it will keep doing it until you follow these steps each time the Chromebook is turned off.

1. first make sure anything you have saved on your chromebook that you want to keep is saved to a thumbdrive or external hard drive, or to your google drive. We will be turning developer mode on, and doing this will wipe the 16 GB SSD drive on your chromebook and reset it to factory settings (no user profiles,etc.)

2. next power off your chromebook using the reset method described above (otherwise recovery will show up with the same issue where the backlight is turned off).

3. press and hold the esc and the refresh key (the one that looks like a arrow going in a circle), and then tap the power button. this boots the Chromebook into recovery mode.

4. you are now in recovery mode, the next step is to press control-d and you will then it will ask you to confirm that you are about to go into developer mode once you have confirmed the system will reboot into dev mode and show a progress bar across the top. once this finishes it will reboot again and take you back to a screen where you are prompted to press space to exit developer mode.

5. Press space and the system will erase the storage on your chromebook again and then reboot to normal mode.

If you wish to keep the Chromebook in developer mode you can press control-d and then skip step 5, however you will have to do this each time the Chromebook is turned on or alternately wait 30 seconds afterwards the Chromebook will then boot normally.

Another thing to try is doing a reset as described above, then pressing the refresh button and then tapping the power  button, this is supposed to do a hard reset without entering recovery. I haven't tried this method yet, if my Chromebook acts up again I will give it a try and if it works I will update this post.

how to configure your APN for better download speeds with Net10 if you are using an AT&T BYOD sim.

Back around the end of July, I made the mistake of changing my cellular service over to sprint.

Sure I loved the new samsung galaxy nexus phone, and 4G cellular was great in the 4 or 5 places I could get a 4G signal at in the Roswell / Alpharetta Georgia area (none of which were at my home where I could barely get 2 bars of 3G service). Combine this with having a lot of trouble with their 3G network where I would have full signal strength but wouldn't be able to access anything on the data network, which was absolutely fricking ridiculous.

Well at the end of December I was completely fed up, and I started researching on finding a cheaper way to have decent cell service. See, I used to have AT&T which gave me great coverage, but their policies on data usage sucked. I rarely go over 1 1/2 to 2GB of data usage per month, but when I had to spend 4 days in the hospital and only had my cell phone for internet usage I racked up a whopping 2.1GB of data and got charged an extra 20 dollars on my bill, which prompted me to look for something with unlimited data. Having unlimited data plus the supposedly great 4G coverage Sprint advertises suckered me into signing up with them.

Anyways, after some research I decided to go with the Net10 BYOD (Bring Your own Device) unlimited plan using one of their AT&T compatible sim cards and my old Samsung Captivate phone that I still have. You might say why in the hell are you going from such a nice phone like the galaxy nexus back to the captivate which has issues with the GPS lock not working very well, random shutdown issues, and in general just being an older model phone.

The answer is, I already own it, and that I'm also in the process of getting the needed parts in to repair a unlocked International model GT-I9250 GSM model Samsung Galaxy Nexus that I purchased off ebay that has a damaged micro USB charging port. I ordered the flex cable part with the usb connector on it that I will swap out after I take the phone apart.

Anyways back to the info about how to configure your APN for better download speeds with Net10 if you are using an AT&T sim.

I followed the instructions on setting up the APN on my captivate using the APN settings that Net10 gave me, but ran into issues with download speeds being very sub par, especially with me having a HSPDA signal with 4 bars on my phone.

thru a little trial and error I determined that the issue was with the proxy settings that net10 wanted me to use so I wanted to share the APN settings that gave me the best speeds both for uploads and downloads.

Name: NET10

APN: wap.tracfone

Proxy: not set

Port: not set

username: not set

server: not set

MMSC: http://mmsc.cingular.com

MMS proxy: not set

MMS port: not set

MCC: 310

MNC: 410

Authentication type: not set

apn type: not set

apn protocol : IPv4

Bearer: Unspecified.


the main differences between this and the settings that Net10 wanted me to use were the proxy, proxy port, mms proxy and mms port. Once I removed these I went from very slow download speeds of less than 100K per second, to nearly 3 MB per second download, and 1 MB per second upload speeds.

for cheap unlimited service this isn't bad, and by me setting it to auto renew every month on their website I was able to get my monthly service for $45 per month instead of $50.

You might be asking youself, now if he signed up with sprint back at the end of July, isn't he going to have to pay an ETF fee? Well the answer for that is yes, but I'm getting a nice refund back from the IRS and plan on using it to pay the ETF, and I plan on selling my phone after everything is settled and square for whatever I can get out of it, to help recover some of the ETF.

How-to: Windows 8 Professional Upgrade install and activation on system without OS installed

Using this info you should be able to do a clean install of the Windows 8 Upgrade on a system without an Operating system.

• Open regedit by pressing Windows-q, entering regedit and selecting the result from the list of hits.
• Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Setup/OOBE/
• Change MediaBootInstall from 1 to 0
• Go back to the start screen and enter cmd there.
• Right-click Command Prompt and select to run it as administrator.
• Type slmgr /rearm on the command line and hit enter.
• Reboot Windows now.
• Run the activation utility afterwards, enter your product key to activate Windows.

This is the same method that worked for Windows 7.

How to resize a HFS+ partition on a Hackintosh if it's created in the middle of the drive.

OK first off a little back info on this situation. My hackintosh system was originally setup with the hard drive partitioned fully for my original Lion OSX install. When Mountain Lion came out I purchased it, used the unibeast tool from TonyMacx86's site to create a new Mountain Lion USB installer and then I used the Disk Utility on that installer after I rebooted my hackintosh and then booted off the USB Mountain Lion installer disk to resize my original Lion HFS+ partition so I could create a second blank partition for Mountain Lion. I then installed Mountain Lion on this second partition and after downloading the new Mountain Lion Multibeast software from the TonymacX86 site and installing it I was able to successfully boot my hackintosh from the new Mountain Lion Partition without having to use the USB Mountain Lion install disk.

So after I copied over all of my files,etc. that I wanted to keep from the old Lion partition I decided to use disk utility to delete this partition with the goal of moving the mountain lion partition to the beginning of the drive and then resizing it to fill the full drive.

That's when I ran into problems, apparently Disk utility can shrink a drive, and it can be used to expand a partition to fill the entire drive, but it can't move an existing partition to the beginning of the drive.

I know I could have just backed up the partition to a dmg and wiped the drive, created a new single partition and then restored the DMG file to it, but I wanted to see if this was possible to move the partition. Since I was able to do it I wanted to document the steps and share so anyone else who runs into this situation can also benefit from this info to move their partition and then resize it to fill the full size of the drive. 

here are the steps I took.

1. downloaded current version of partedmagic bootable linux cd iso from here. http://partedmagic.com/doku.php?id=downloads
2. burned the partition magic iso to cd, inserted cd into optical drive on my system.
3. booted system to linux desktop using the partedmagic bootable cd I burned.
4. ran the partition editor shortcut on desktop.
5. chose the resize/move option in the gparted program that the partition editor shortcut opened.
6. moved the partition to the beginning of the drive, this takes quite a long time so be prepared to wait, or go do something else and check back in about an hour or so.
7. after the move is finished reboot the system and boot it from your Lion or Mountain Lion usb installer key, and use the disk utility from it to do a repair on your drive as the header will show as being slightly screwed up and will prevent you from being able to resize the drive until this is fixed. I tried to resize the partition using gparted and it didn't give me that option, which is why you need to use disk utility.

8. after running the repair you can now open the mountain Lion disk utility program and go to the edge of the partition and drag it down so it will fill the entire drive, and then click apply. this process takes a little while to finish but is much faster than the move to the beginning of the drive using gparted from the partedmagic boot cd.



Anyways I hope this information is useful for you.


I remain your obedient servant,

Doctor Evil

PowerMac G4 hackintosh case conversion

This is going to be mostly a pictures only post. I wanted to show off my new Powermac G4 Graphite PC case modification that I am about 95% done with. Currently all that is left to work on is to install a Hard Drive Activity indicator light. I have to figure out if I want to install it in the spot where the old programmer switch button resided, or if I want to install it behind the transparent apple logo above the Optical drive bay.

I purchased a laser cut I/O plate from The Laser Hive  and used it to replace the original Metal I/O backplate on the case. below is a picture of the backplate. If you're interested in purchasing a similar plate contact David Chugg, He will be happy to give you a custom quote. He is also able to help you by providing a paper template and proper height Motherboard mounts so you can be guaranteed that your mATX motherboard will properly fit into the new I/O plate and that your case will look awesome.

Here is are some pictures of the insides of my case. Please note I am still fine tuning the build so I haven't spent a lot of time on cable management and I haven't reinstalled the fan bracket and fan in the case yet.

If you want to see more pictures you will need to join the tonymacX86 forum but you can view the topic and keep up with any future changes to the build by using this link

I remain your obedient servant,

Doctor Evil 30564

How To: Build your own "Real" Airport Card for your Hackintosh

I found a great how-to article over on X86 wifi that will show you how to build your own 100% natively supported Apple Airport PCI-E card for your desktop hackintosh system

LINK

I was able to use this info to build one for my Hackintosh, it works great

GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 xbench and novabench benchmarks

I wanted to share my benchmarks for my GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 CustoMac Hackintosh system

First here is the Xbench benchmark information.

Results    175.81   
    System Info       
        Xbench Version        1.3
        System Version        10.7.3 (11D50d)
        Physical RAM        16384 MB
        Model        MacPro3,1
        Drive Type        ST3120026AS
    CPU Test    189.92   
        GCD Loop    271.06    14.29 Mops/sec
        Floating Point Basic    182.29    4.33 Gflop/sec
        vecLib FFT    106.21    3.50 Gflop/sec
        Floating Point Library    404.53    70.44 Mops/sec
    Thread Test    292.53   
        Computation    262.80    5.32 Mops/sec, 4 threads
        Lock Contention    329.84    14.19 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads
    Memory Test    497.58   
        System    526.58   
            Allocate    1906.81    7.00 Malloc/sec
            Fill    349.16    16976.76 MB/sec
            Copy    433.15    8946.60 MB/sec
        Stream    471.61   
            Copy    461.23    9526.42 MB/sec
            Scale    451.06    9318.73 MB/sec
            Add    496.87    10584.44 MB/sec
            Triad    479.86    10265.48 MB/sec
    Quartz Graphics Test    387.24   
        Line    305.42    20.33 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
        Rectangle    445.79    133.09 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
        Circle    330.49    26.94 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
        Bezier    282.98    7.14 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
        Text    1197.70    74.92 Kchars/sec
    OpenGL Graphics Test    195.85   
        Spinning Squares    195.85    248.45 frames/sec
    User Interface Test    372.07   
        Elements    372.07    1.71 Krefresh/sec
    Disk Test    53.34   
        Sequential    87.22   
            Uncached Write    103.54    63.57 MB/sec [4K blocks]
            Uncached Write    89.35    50.55 MB/sec [256K blocks]
            Uncached Read    63.91    18.70 MB/sec [4K blocks]
            Uncached Read    106.78    53.66 MB/sec [256K blocks]
        Random    38.42   
            Uncached Write    13.81    1.46 MB/sec [4K blocks]
            Uncached Write    71.62    22.93 MB/sec [256K blocks]
            Uncached Read    94.98    0.67 MB/sec [4K blocks]
            Uncached Read    138.40    25.68 MB/sec [256K blocks]

And here is the Novabench benchmark information.

Not bad for a "Budget" Dual core Intel Pentium G620 CPU, much better scores than my old 2006 model Intel Mac Mini core 2 duo system. ;)

I remain your obedient servant,

Doctor Evil 30564

Gigabyte GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 OSX Lion CustoMac Hackintosh Guide

 

As promised in a previous Blog post, here is my guide for installing OSX Lion on a Gigabyte GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 based system.

First off, before you can even think about following this guide there are a few pre-requisites.

1. You’re going to need to have another working intel Mac or Hackintosh system that is capable of running OSX Snow Leopard so you can purchase Lion from the Mac App Store

2. or, you will need a working intel mac and a retail OSX Lion USB thumb drive from apple LINK 

You may wonder, why do I need another working system, well this is because you’re going to need to be able to create a working bootable usb installer for your hackintosh system.

read up on what you will need to do after you’ve obtained your legal copy of OSX Lion over on the TonyMacx86 website at this LINK

OK, now that you’ve used unibeast to make your bootable usb OSX Lion we can work on getting your GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 Hackintosh up and running.

Things that you will need to know and files you will need.

1. you need to figure out which version Bios your GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 motherboard has. with this info in hand go to this LINK and download the matching version DSDT file and keep it handy you will need it later on. (Note: if your motherboard’s bios version is newer than the newest version DSDT file you may need to downgrade your bios to a earlier firmware version so you can get a match)

The reason you want to do this is this will help you to get a better functioning hackintosh that is able to sleep, and shutdown and reboot without causing bios resets or other issues.

Hardware Bios settings that will help your hackintosh work correctly.

- Load Optimized Defaults
- Advanced Bios Features :
- First Boot Device : USB HDD
- Second Boot Device : Hard Disk
- Init Display First : PCIE x16
- Integrated Periphericals : AHCI
- Power Management Mode : HPET 64 Bits+Power On by Mouse+Power On by Keyboard

Recommended Hardware for your GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3

My recommendation is to visit TonyMacx86’s site and use their guide to help you figure out what hardware you want to use to build your hackintosh system.

Here is the LINK

I wanted to stay under 250 US Dollars for my build so here is what I went with.

• GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 Motherboard
• Intel® Pentium® Processor G620
  (3M Cache, 2.60 GHz)
• 16 GB of Patriot DDR3 PC10666 Ram

The rest of my components were recycled from my old D945GCLF Atom Hackintosh Build.

• Cooler Master CM360 Micro-ATX Case
• Apevia Java 500-Watt Power Supply
• 120GB Seagate SATA HD
• HP LightScribe DVD +/- DVD Burner

I also used a PNY XLR8 GTS 250 1GB PCI Express video card that I had left over from a upgrade to my Gaming PC instead of using the onboard video, as I’ve had good success in the past with Nvidia Video cards in other hackintosh systems.

Last but not least, while it is possible to use a PS/2 keyboard or a PS/2 Mouse (as this motherboard only has one PS/2 connector), You should stick with a USB keyboard and mouse at least up until after you’ve gotten Lion installed and have booted to the OSX Lion Desktop for the first time, as Lion will not complete the first time setup without a USB keyboard attached (possibly won’t complete it without a USB Mouse attached either, but I didn’t test this)

 

OK on to the installation guide.

 

connect the bootable USB Thumb Drive that you prepared using the unibeast installer following the directions on the TonyMacX86 website from the link I provided earlier.

go through the installation process, when the installer is finished restart your hackintosh and leave the usb key connected, on the selection screen choose your hard drive instead of the USB Lion installer and boot the system,

go to TonyMac’s site and download multibeast from here

Before you run Multibeast copy the DSDT file that I had you go download to the OSX desktop

Then Run Multibeast and select the following settings

After finishing up the multibeast installation, you should now be able to eject the USB flash drive you used to install Lion, and then reboot your Hackintosh and get it to boot into OSX.

Please note:

You will need to re-run the multibeast installer and re-install the AppleHDA Rollback kext file every time you install a OSX system update, as the OSX update will replace the AppleHDA file with the correct unmodified version of the Kext and will cause your sound to stop working until you reinstall the AppleHDA Rollback Kext.

If this is a major pain you should be able to find a cmedia chipset USB Sound card on Ebay that is natively supported in OSX Lion that you can use instead of the onboard sound.

 

Also I currently do not own any USB 3.0 Devices but I did install the USB 3.0 NEC / Renesas selection and didn’t have any problems with it. When I look under System Information it does show the USB 3.0 Hub on my motherboard as a ultra speed hub, so it may work. Again, I don’t own any USB 3.0 devices yet so I can’t guarantee this will work, or that it won’t cause problems if you try it and then plug in a USB 3.0 device. If you want to test it and report back I will allow the comment to show up with your results if you want to reply to this post.

 

I remain your obedient servant,

Doctor Evil 30564

New Hackintosh Project: GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3

It's been a while since I've had the time or interest in working on another Hackintosh how-to guide, but after helping a neighbor with getting a old systemax Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 system up and running with OSX Lion I've decided it's time for a new project.

I have Purchased the following parts for my super budget build Customac Hackintosh system.

1. GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 Socket 1155 Motherboard Version 1.3 with F9 Bios
2. Intel Pentium G620 2.6 GHz dual-core Socket 1155 CPU
3. 16 GB of DDR3 Ram

I am recycling the Case, Sata DVD burner, and sata hard drive from my old D945GCLF Snow Leopard Hackintosh system.


I've been successful with getting it up and running OSX Lion (10.7), and I am in the process of writing up a How-to guide which I hope you will find useful.

In the interim check out TonyMacX86's website LINK as I used info and software from his site to get my GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 Hackintosh up and running.

How to remove the special offers screensaver, ETC. off of a Kindle 3 (keyboard)

I found this info on a web forum and wanted to share it. I can advise that it does work, I just tested it on my Special Offers Wi-Fi Kindle 3.

Instructions:

If you have a special offer Kindle 3 you need to do the following
to get rid of the Ads.

Note: please be careful doing this I take no responsibility for any loss or damage.

Step 1 Charge up your Kindle make sure you have a full battery.
If you are using Windows make sure the Show hidden files
option in Explorer is ticked.

Step 2 Plug the kindle into your computer via usb
(your kindle should show as a device on your computer)
and copy the kindle documents folder to your computer.
(this contains your kindle books)

Step 3 (CAUTION THIS WILL WIPE ALL INFO ON KINDLE)
(MAKE SURE YOU DO STEP 2)
Eject Kindle and Unplug kindle from usb
Reset your kindle to factory defaults - you do this by pressing
[HOME] then pressing [MENU] click settings in menu list
then pressing [MENU] then click Reset to Factory Defaults.

Step 4 Wait ... then Message about setting up Kindle appears.When you
see this message Plug kindle into your computer via usb
(your kindle should show as a device on your computer)
and find the folder on the kindle called System.
Open this folder and create a text file in this
folder called .assets (this turns off the Ads)

Step 5 Eject Kindle and Unplug kindle from usb and slide and hold the
power switch on the kindle for about 15 secs this should restart
the kindle.

Step 6 The Ads should be gone and now you can set up the kindle and
copy the documents folder that you copied in Step 2 back to the
kindle.

Enjoy the Kindle with no Ads

How-to upgrade from Windows Vista Home Basic to Windows 7 Professional

My girlfriend is currently a student at the University of Phoenix and she found out that she could purchase a academic version of Windows 7 Professional Upgrade for $30 dollars at the Microsoft Ultimate Steal website, so she bought it. Her Toshiba laptop came with Windows Vista Home Basic, and in Microsoft’s infinite wisdom they don’t allow you to upgrade from this version of Vista to Windows 7 Professional. When she attempted to run the setup for windows 7 it told her that she couldn’t upgrade and that she had to do a clean install. When she told me this I did some research on the internet through Google’s search engine and found that everyone was recommending that to do this upgrade we format the hard drive and then do a clean install of windows 7 professional and then do the registry hack that I have referenced in a previous article to allow you to use a upgrade license key without having to run another upgrade over the current version.

To me this simply was unacceptable, as My Girlfriend didn’t want to lose her settings and documents and didn’t have the time to fool with doing this procedure as she’s still currently in the middle of a class and couldn’t afford the downtime…

In my continued research I found a method for Windows 7 that allows you to do a upgrade “downgrade” from any version of Windows 7 to a lesser version by editing two registry keys. I tried this method on Windows Vista Home Basic and was able to fool the upgrade installer into doing the upgrade as I changed the info from Windows Vista Home Basic to Windows Vista Business and it worked.

This is how you do it.

1. Run regedit and go to this location

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion

look for these two keys

EditionID - Change the value from basic to Business

ProductName – Change the last part of this value from basic to Business

Do not restart, run the setup for windows 7 Professional and the upgrade checker will pass the check after looking at these two registry keys and will do the upgrade for you.

 

This should work for upgrading to any other version of Windows 7 besides Professional that normally requires you to do a clean install for, just make sure to match the values for the two registry keys for the version.

Disclaimer: Use this information at your own risk, it worked for me but I make no guarantees and can not and will not be responsible if you mess up your computer. Regedit is a powerful tool but can mess up your system if you are not careful.

 

I remain your obedient servant.

Doctor Evil

Dropbox Online file storage - 2GB of storage for free

I signed up for this service after a friend recommended it to me, and I must say it's pretty sweet. I really like the fact that they have Windows, Mac, and Linux client software that lets you integrate the service so it appears as a local storage location on your computer. I've got it installed on my Netbook and my Notebook, they both have Ubuntu Netbook Remix installed. I currently don't have access to my Hackintosh system or my Windows 7 gaming PC but I'll be installing it as soon as I can go pick them up and bring them to where I'm currently staying.

Here is a referral link to sign up for the free service if you are interested. If you use my link I get a free additional 250 megabytes of storage space, and you also get an additional 250 megabytes of storage space added to your dropbox account.

how to fix your Acer Aspire One netbook if it has the Blank screen and doesn't boot problem

I picked up an Acer Aspire One A150 ZG5 netbook off ebay as a parts or repair system. the hard drive was removed but it came with everything else. It wouldn't display anything on the screen and wouldn't POST so I got on google and did some research and found this info on several different websites. I don't know who the original poster was for this info but thank you, as it worked perfectly for me. I now have a working netbook for less than $100 dollars total (I already had a sata notebook drive I could use)

anyways here is the info.

1) Format a USB memory key with the FAT mode.
2) Download the latest version of the BIOS from Acer support website:

* HERE if you have a Aspire One A150
http://support.acer-euro.com/drivers/notebook/as_one_150.html

* HERE for the Aspire One A110
http://support.acer-euro.com/drivers/notebook/as_one_110.html

3) Extract the files from the zip and put both the FLASHIT.EXE and the BIOS file in the root directory of the memory key.

4) Rename the BIOS file to ZG5IA32.FD and then remove the disk.

5) Turn the AA1 off, insert the battery and connect the AC adapter.

6) Insert the USB Memory Key into one of the USB port of the Aspire One.

 note: I've read different reports stating that it usually works better if you use the usb ports on the left side of the netbook, I used one on the left when I did my flash and it worked for me


7) Press Fn+Esc, keep it pressed and press the power button to turn the AA1 on.

8) Release Fn+Esc after a few seconds, the power button will be blinking.

9) Press the power button once. The AA1 will start the BIOS flash, do not interrupt for any reason. After some minutes the power button will stop blinking, and then the AA1 will reboot. Wait till the AA1 has completed all this operations.

If you're having issues with a D250 aka KAV60 Acer Aspire one Netbook try these instructions

http://gadgetmix.com/netbook/acer-aspire-d250-bios-recovery/

Something went wrong with your Aspire D250 BIOS? Download the latest BIOS from support.acer.com and follow these instructions:

1. First format an USB stick with FAT, if this option is not available use a smaller USB stick (eg 1Gig)
2. Download the latest BIOS, and put both FLASHIT.EXE and the BIOS file in the root directory of the stick. Do NOT rename the BIOS file, it should be KAV60.fd
3. Now connect the USB stick to the AA1
   Turn the AA1 off, DISCONNECT the battery but leaving the AC adapter connected. Press Fn+Esc, keep it pressed and press the power button to turn the AA1 on. Release Fn+Esc after a few seconds. Press power button if it begins to blink, otherwise do nothing. The AA1 will now initiate the BIOS flash, do not interrupt it under any circumstances. The AA1 will reboot shortly after. Wait patiently.
4. 
   

   The BIOS has been flashed and all settings reset to default.

how to use a upgrade windows 7 serial number on fresh installed full install

I didn't come up with this info, I found it on a forum that was talking about academic upgrade versions of windows 7

this info is supposed to let you use a upgrade disk to install windows 7 on a clean system without a previous OS installed without having to do the upgrade trick where you install the same version using the disk without putting in the serial number then run a upgrade to the same version and put in the serial number trick that Vista introduced.

here is the info, credit goes to whoever originally figured this out. I haven't had a chance to try this yet.

First, perform a normal clean install of the OS by booting the PC with the Upgrade Setup disc and stepping through Setup.


After performing the clean install, ensure that there are no Windows Updates pending that would require a system reboot. (You'll see an orange shield icon next to Shutdown in the Start Menu if this is the case).


Then, open regedit.exe with Start Menu Search and navigate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Setup/OOBE/

Change MediaBootInstall from "1" to "0" if it isn’t already set to “0”

Change RetailInstall from “1” to “0”

 

UPDATE: added Change RetailInstall from “1” to “0”

(found this when I actually got around to trying it, used to only have to do the MediaBootInstall entry for vista, this has changed for windows 7)


Open the Start Menu again and type cmd to display a shortcut to the Command Line utility. Right-click this shortcut and choose "Run as administrator." Handle the UAC prompt.

In the command line window, type: slmgr /rearm


Then tap ENTER, close the command line window and reboot. When Windows 7 reboots, run the Activate Windows utility, type in your product key and activate windows. It should just work.

Instructions for using Empire EFI 1.085 R2 AMD compatible Boot CD to Install Snow Leopard 10.6 (original retail) on an M68M-S2 motherboard with an AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000 with PATA (IDE) drives AKA Doctor Evil Builds his first AMD Hackintosh

System Specs for system that this guide was written for:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000 2.6 GHz
2 GB DDR2 Memory
IDE (PATA) DVD/CD-RW combo drive
IDE (PATA) 80 GB Maxtor Hard Drive

Software needed: Empire EFI 1.085 R2 AMD compatible Boot CD found here
Mac OSX Snow Leopard Retail 10.6 DVD disk
Nforce ATA Kext, Nforce Lan Kext and Kext Utility file found here
 
VoodooHDA Kext (found on the Empire EFI 1.085 Boot CD)
NVenabler kext found here or on the Empire EFI 1.085 R2 AMD boot CD link previously given above.
Instructions:
download the Empire EFI 1.085 R2 AMD  compatible Boot CD Iso images using the link I provided at the start of this guide. You may want to try both versions of the iso on a rewritable disk to determine which works better for you. On my particular M68M-S2 Motherboard I have to use the Legacy version as the regular version reboots my system and doesn't load properly.
Boot your system using the Empire EFI Boot CD, after it has booted eject it and insert your Snow Leopard install DVD and then wait until the drive stops flashing and then press F5, this should refresh the menu options so that you now see Mac OSX Install DVD instead of Empire EFI.
Press Enter to Boot your Mac OSX Install DVD and start the OSX Snow Leopard Operating System Installation.
make sure you partition your hard drive as a MacOS Journaled drive with GUID format, select the desired fonts,etc. and then install Snow Leopard.
If you get an error about the system not being able to bless the drive don't panic, this is common, you'll be using the empire efi boot cd to boot your system until you get the myhack bootloader software installed.
When the install finishes reboot your system, remove the Snow Leopard install DVD and reinsert your empire efi boot cd and allow the system to boot from it.
At the chooser screen select the hard drive (named to whatever you named it to during the install) and then hit enter to boot. If you want to watch a verbose boot to watch for errors press the down key after selecting this disk and choose the verbose option and then press enter to boot.
after the system has booted you'll want to go into the post-installation folder on the empire efi disk, and run the myhack installer.
Do a customized install and then select the chocolate kernel as you'll need this before you attempt to download and install any updates from apple for Snow Leopard.
If you are using a USB keyboard and Mouse, then all you'll need to do is select the chocolate kernel option and go with the other previously selected options, but if you are using a PS2 Keyboard or Mouse you need to also select PS2Controller in addition to the other selected options. This will add the needed Kext file to make your PS/2 Devices work.

Note: I don't advise using the sleep enabler kext, as you'll run into problems with updating your kernel if you use this kext, it's not really needed unless you absolutely want or need the ability to put your hackintosh to sleep.

After Myhack is done installing we need to get the nforce ata kext and the nforce lan , voodoohda sound and nvenabler nvidia video kexts installed.
1. copy AppleNforceATA.kext to /Extra/Extensions and copy nForceLAN.kext to /System/Extensions
2. copy the voodoohda.kext file from the Empire EFI boot CD that is found in the /post-installation/universal drivers(kexts) folder to /System/Extensions
3. extract the nvenabler_64-1.kext.zip file found in this same location or use the one I provided the link to and then copy the nvenabler 64.kext to /Extra/Extensions
Use the Kext Utility program I provided with the kexts to repair the file permissions for these files and then generate new cache files with these files added to the cache.
Remove the Empire EFI Boot CD and then restart your Hackintosh. If everything went ok you should now be able to boot into OSX from the myhack (chameleon) bootloader that you installed.
If everything went well you should now have the ability to change your video resolution and you should have a fully working network card and sound card.
Congratulations on your new fully working AMD Hackintosh system.
A Final Note regarding this guide, I’ve ran into some issues with my system that seem to be related to the built in sleep functions for Snow Leopard and how the AMD Cool and quiet bios functions work.
This would cause the system to go to sleep even though I didn’t install the sleep enabler kext, and the system would ignore all input from the USB keyboard and mouse. I was able to work around this issue by going into the Snow Leopard power management settings and setting the sleep setting to never. At this writing my M68M-S2 system has been running for 3 days and hasn’t had anymore problems with this happening. I wanted to advise everyone about this particular problem and how to work around it if you experience it.


If you run into any problems head over to the insanelymac forum to ask for help
The main thing to remember when asking for help.

1. Patience, it may take a couple of days before someone answers your question, don't get pushy and don't keep posting the same question over and over.

2. scan the forum and make sure that someone else hasn't posted a similar problem, if they have you may already have the answer to your question.

3. understand that running a hackintosh isn't for the average person, you have to be willing to work on problems by yourself if you can't get anyone to assist you. Being pushy or disrespectful of others on the forum will cause your questions to be ignored.
4. Remember you're on your own if you do decide to build your own hackintosh. If you want a smooth out of the box experience, you should probably save up the money and buy yourself a real Macintosh system from Apple. I'm too cheap to do this, and I'm the kind of person that I think it's fun when you have to work a little to get something to run the way you want it to.
Having warned you about these things, I hope those of you who do decide to continue with building a AMD M68M-S2 hackintosh have fun and learn a lot from the process.

I remain your obedient servant

Doctor Evil 30564

Coming soon: Gigabyte M68M-S2 with PATA drives install guide

I've successfully used the AMD compatible 1.085 R2 Boot CD made by Prasys to install Snow Leopard on a Gigabyte M68M-S2 system with the following config

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000 2.6 GHz
2 GB DDR2 Memory
IDE (PATA) DVD/CD-RW combo drive
IDE (PATA) 80 GB Maxtor Hard Drive

I'm in the middle of doing the write-up for the guide so it'll take me a few days to get it polished up and ready.

The only issue I've noticed so far is that even with the nullcpumanagement kext installed and not having the sleep enabler kext installed I still had to go into the power management settings to turn off the systems ability to sleep due to a problem with it not wanting to wake up.

Other than this I haven't had any issues with the performance, I've downloaded and installed all available updates on this system. I'm using the chocolate kernel that can be installed with the myhack boot loader install package.

Stay tuned for the complete guide.

 

UPDATE: The Guide has been written up and can be viewed here

I remain your obedient servant

Doctor Evil

Creating a Recovery USB Drive for OSX86 Snow Leopard

Creating a Recovery USB Drive for OSX86 Snow Leopard

Posted using ShareThis

Guide to installing OSX Snow Leopard version 10.6 (original Retail Disk) on a Intel D945GCLF with SATA drives

instructions for using Empire EFI 1.085 Atom compatible Boot CD to Install Snow Leopard 10.6 (original retail)

System Specs for system that this guide was written for:

Intel Motherboard D945GCLF with Intel Atom 230 CPU

2 Gigabytes of DDR2 533 MHz Memory (Generic)

Seagate 120 GB ST3120026AS Sata hard drive

HL-DT-ST Sata Dual Layer DVD +/- DVD Burner

Onboard Intel GMA 950 Video

Onboard Realtek R1000 Network card 

Onboard Sound card

Cooler Master CM-360 Case

Apevia Java Power 500 Watt 24 Pin ATX Power Supply

Software needed: Empire EFI 1.085 Atom compatible Boot CD found here

Realtek R1000 Kext, and Kext Utility file found here 

VoodooHDA Kext (found on the Empire EFI 1.085 Boot CD)

DSDT.aml file for a D945GCLF series (needed to have ability to chose supported resolutions higher than 1024 x 768 32 bit. Found here

Instructions:

download the Empire EFI 1.085 Atom compatible Boot CD Iso images using the link I provided at the start of this guide. You may want to try both versions of the iso on a rewritable disk to determine which works better for you. On my particular D945GCLF Motherboard I have to use the regular version as the Legacy version has the same isolinux image is corrupt error that caused me to develop the USB Snow Leopard on a D945GCLF Guide found on my blog.

Boot your system using the Empire EFI Boot CD, after it has booted eject it and insert your Snow Leopard install DVD and then wait until the drive stops flashing and then press F5, this should refresh the menu options so that you now see Mac OSX Install DVD instead of Empire EFI.

Press Enter to Boot your Mac OSX Install DVD and start the OSX Snow Leopard Operating System Installation.

make sure you partition your hard drive as a MacOS Journaled drive with GUID format, select the desired fonts,etc. and then install Snow Leopard.

If you get an error about the system not being able to bless the drive don't panic, this is common, you'll be using the empire efi boot cd to boot your system until you get the myhack bootloader software installed.

When the install finishes reboot your system, remove the Snow Leopard install DVD and reinsert your empire efi boot cd and allow the system to boot from it.

At the chooser screen select the hard drive (named to whatever you named it to during the instal)l and then hit enter to boot. If you want to watch a verbose boot to watch for errors press the down key after selecting this disk and choose the verbose option and then press enter to boot.

after the system has booted you'll want to go into the post-installation folder on the empire efi disk, and run the myhack installer.

If you are using a USB keyboard and Mouse, then all you'll need to do is do a standard install for Myhack, but if you are using a PS2 Keyboard or Mouse you need to do a customized install and select PS2Controller in addition to the other selected options. This will add the needed Kext file to make your PS/2 Devices work.

Note: I don't advise using the sleep enabler kext, as you'll run into problems with updating your kernel if you use this kext, it's not really needed unless you absolutely want or need the ability to put your hackintosh to sleep.

After Myhack is done installing remove the Empire EFI Boot CD and then restart your Hackintosh. If everything went ok you should now be able to boot into OSX from the myhack (chameleon) bootloader that you installed.

Next we're going to work on getting your sound card and network card working.

copy the realtekR1000.kext   I gave you a link for to /system/extensions along with the voodoohda.kext file from the post-install folder on the Empire EFI Boot CD and then run Kext Utility to update your kext caches and fix your file permissions

If you get an error about either of these two kexts being installed improperly before Kext Utility finishes running don't worry as Kext Utility will fix the problem before it finishes running. All you need to do now is reboot your hackintosh and if everything went ok, you should now have a working network card and a working sound card in Snow Leopard.

Next we are going to work on giving you the ability to select resolutions for your video display so you aren't stuck at 1024x768. This will require two things to be done. 

1. You'll need to open finder (the two tone blue smiley face in the lower left corner on the dock) and go to the /Extra folder, copy the com.apple.boot.plist file that is in the folder to your desktop so we can edit it. double click on the file on your desktop and use textedit to remove the following info Graphics Mode 1024x768x32 This info hard codes the display to only display at 1024 x 768 32 bit resolution so we need to get rid of it. after editing this save the file and then copy it back into the Extra folder. You'll get a prompt for your password, if you created one for your user account enter it, otherwise just click ok.

2. copy the DSDT.aml file I provided the link to earlier into the /Extra Folder Then reboot your Hackintosh. When you reboot you should now have the ability to change your display resolution 

before you install the 10.6.2 update from apple's website be sure to install the Nawcom 10.6.2 kernel found here

After installing the new patched kernel you should be able to download the 10.6.2 update directly using the Apple update utility.

After running all of the updates you should wind up with a fully patched and operational Hackintosh system.

Congratulations.

If you run into any problems head over to the insanelymac forum to ask for help

The main thing to remember when asking for help.

1. Patience, it may take a couple of days before someone answers your question, don't get pushy and don't keep posting the same question over and over.

2. scan the forum and make sure that someone else hasn't posted a similar problem, if they have you may already have the answer to your question.

3. understand that running a hackintosh isn't for the average person, you have to be willing to work on problems by yourself if you can't get anyone to assist you. Being pushy or disrespectful of others on the forum will cause your questions to be ignored.

4. Remember you're on your own if you do decide to build your own hackintosh. If you want a smooth out of the box experience, you should probably save up the money and buy yourself a real Macintosh system from Apple. I'm too cheap to do this, and I'm the kind of person that I think it's fun when you have to work a little to get something to run the way you want it to.

Having warned you about these things, I hope those of you who do decide to continue with building your hackintosh have fun and learn a lot from the process.

I remain your obedient servant

Doctor Evil 30564