Category Archives: Notebook

DiskPart “Attribute Volume” Object Not Found

The title isn’t very pretty, but it gets the point across.  I had a weirdly partitioned computer come in to my shop, and I needed to make corrections.  The last issue I confronted was that the Recovery partition had a drive letter… it shouldn’t.  The user shouldn’t see it at all, normally.  But when I tried

attribute volume set nodefaultdriveletter

I was presented with an “Object Not Found” message.  I searched for a solution but could not find one; I was about to give up when I had an idea.

(Note that the drive in question was a Basic disk.  This likely doesn’t work the same way for Dynamic disks; I haven’t tried it so I can’t say for sure.)

First, I did:

select partition <x>

where <x> was the partition for the C: drive.  Then I did:

detail partition

I highlighted and copied the GUID after the Type: heading and pasted it into a notepad window.  I then selected the “problem” partition and did the same thing, so that now I knew both of the Type ID values.  Then, with the problem partition still selected I did:

set id=<drive-C-type>

Now I was able to fix the volume:

select volume <problem-partition>

attribute volume set nodefaultdriveletter

This time it worked.  Finally, I made sure the problem partition was still selected and did:

set id=<problem-partition-type>

to put the partition back to the correct type.

Rebooted just to make sure, and all was well.

Killing GWX (as in, I really don’t want Windows 10)

FOR THE NON-TECHNICAL:

So you’re happy with your Windows 7, 8, or 8.1 computer, and you just don’t want Windows 10 to install on it?  Got your fix right here.  Right-click the following link and choose Save Target As or Save Link As, then save it somewhere you can find it (in the Downloads folder or on your Desktop are good choices):

http://newcenturycomputers.net/user/KillGWX.reg

Now find the file where you downloaded it, and double-click it.  You will be asked up to four different times if you are really sure you want to run it… each question will be different, but in each case you need to go forward.  The last dialog will tell you the process is a success, and provide an OK button.

After you click the final OK, restart your computer in the normal way.  This should be enough to prevent Windows 10 from installing on your computer.  Note if you have msn.com as your home page, you will still see ads telling you that you should upgrade… just ignore them, or change to a different home page if it gets really annoying.

ORIGINAL POST:

I don’t use Windows myself, but I do sell and support computers that must run Windows.  Most of my customers are very fond of Windows 7, and even though its days are numbered they still want to keep using it.

When Microsoft pushed out the GWX update (KB 3035583, if you care), things became… annoying… for those people I just mentioned.  There’s no apparent way to turn that nonsense off.  The only solution I found in the early days was to kill the program, then change the privileges on the folder C:\Windows\System32\GWX and delete it.  So I went around doing just that.

And Microsoft re-issued the update, and they all came back.  Gah.

I searched again, and after extensive revisions of my Google search parameters I finally found a page on Charles Allen’s blog where he explained the secret.  But he gave the steps in the manual mode, and I’m too lazy for that.

So here’s a registry patch to do the job.

http://newcenturycomputers.net/user/KillGWX.reg

Mostly this is here so I can find it later… as usual for Notebook entries.

UPDATE:  In addition to the anti-GWX registry entry, I’ve become aware of the group policy option entitled “Turn off the Upgrade to the latest version of Windows.”  Even with GWX disabled by the aforementioned option, Windows Update may still offer Windows 10 as a “regular” Windows update (especially now that it is “Recommended” instead of merely “Optional”).  This new policy option just sets a registry entry, of course, and I’ve added that registry entry to my KillGWX.reg and uploaded it to the location above.

I found this information here:

Turn off the Upgrade to the latest version of Windows GPO

It’s been there for months, but it’s darned hard to find with an ordinary Google search; when I tried to find it again to post it here, I kept finding ways to block ALL Windows updates (not a good idea) rather than the specific upgrade block I was wanting.  So as usual, I’m posting it here so I can find it again.

Can’t Login to Netflix on Roku

So I wanted to watch Netflix on my new Roku stick, and I found myself looking at this message:

There was an error processing your request.

Following that was a paragraph stating that my (actually, my wife’s) account could not be found.  I picked up my Samsung tablet and opened Netflix… same account, no problem.  Checked on the computer… still good.  What the heck?

Several minutes of frustration searching Google turned up nothing, until I dropped Roku from the search and found the following info on a Samsung Smart TV forum:

Open the Netflix app and use the arrow buttons on your remote in the following sequence: UP, UP, DOWN, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT, RIGHT, UP, UP, UP, UP.  It should take you to a menu.  Choose SIGN OUT and then sign back in again.

Surprise, surprise… this exact procedure worked on my Roku.  Same app, apparently.

Useful git alias

I found this on Hacker News and I love it.  Since I used this blog as my project notebook, I thought I should perhaps document it here (lest I forget where I got it later).

Here’s the alias:

git config –global alias.lg “log –color –graph –pretty=format:’%Cred%h%Creset -%C(yellow)%d%Creset %s %Cgreen(%cr) %C(bold blue)<%an>%Creset’ –abbrev-commit”