HP DM1-4341: UEFI Secure Boot, Windows8 backup and OS install?

[David]

Hi,

[Apologies if the cross-post to uk.comp.homebuilt is inappropriate, but
uk.comp.os.ms-windows seems to be less than lively, and u.c.h seems to
be by far the most healthy of the reasonably-appropriate uk.comp.*
groups..]


I have just bought a new laptop (HM DM1-4341), which is a UEFI-based
laptop with Secure Boot enabled and Window 8 [sic] pre-installed.

I am not going to use W8 and am going to install Linux (probably Debian)
on the laptop. However, I don't want to discard the W8 install media
just in case I need to re-set the laptop to return it for service, etc.
Oh, that's apart from the fact that there *isn't* any install media, of
course <sigh>; we have to make our own from the recovery partition on
the hard disk. (Why do MS make this such a faff? If it's slightly/moderately
taxing for experienced computer users to have to do this, what hope is
there for the typical "it should just work" non-technical user? And what
if the reason you need to reinstall is because the hard disk has died
and so the recovery partition is unavailable? What a shoddy 'product'..
Yes, the lack of install media has been long grumbled over, but it makes
me feel a _little_ better to also take my turn to stoke that particular
fire..)

OK, first thing is to try to find out how to actually create the install
media and even that's not easy.. You'd think you'd get prompted about
this after logging in (seeing as how losing your OS if your disk dies
might just spoil your day a tiny bit). Nope. Nothing about it that I
could find in "Control Panel" or "Change PC settings" (why on earth
are there *2* separate control panels?) either. Windows Help and the
supposedly all-knowing search box don't seem to know anything about
creating install discs either..

I finally found what I was looking for in "HP Utility Center" (an
unhelpful name automatically suggestive of useless crapware/spyware
("Are you really, really, really sure that I can't interest you in a
Genuine HP printer cartridge?")). This is where a traditional applications
menu (rather than the computer-unfriendly "start screen" - I'll grudgingly
accept that it might work OK on tablets, but not anywhere where you want
real multi-tasking work done with minimal interruption to concentration)
would have come in useful: if all else failed, you could have scoured
through every sub-menu in "All Programs" and would have eventually have
found the requisite program.. (Search is no help if you don't know the
name of what you are looking for.)


Now that I've finally found the right program, it seems that I can choose
to create install media on a USB stick or on 'optical media' (I assume
this will take several DVDs as a 16 GB USB stick is otherwise required).
The laptop doesn't have an optical disc drive, but I have a external USB
DVD drive, so that wouldn't be a problem, at least (I'm not going to
fork out for a USB stick just for a crappy Windows backup that, for
pennies in DVD costs, should come with every end-user Windows copy *by
right*).

Assuming that I can make my recovery DVDs with no problems, what next?
UEFI and Secure Boot are a whole new world of inconvenience to me. For my
Linux install, I think I will just remove W8 (rather than shrink its
partition and just not use it - assuming that even doing that doesn't
cause Secure Boot and W8 fatal conniptions because something has changed?)

I'm assuming that I'll need to turn off Secure Boot to install Linux,
and possibly may need to enable "Legacy Support" (BIOS boot mode rather
than UEFI boot mode) as well.

Just out of curiosity, what effect would these steps have on the current
W8 installation (or on re-installing W8 from the recovery DVDs later: I
realise that this would wipe my Linux install, but: 1. backups, 2. if I
actually needed to re-install W8, that would be the least of my
worries..). Would W8 still boot with Secure Boot disabled, or would it
have a panic?

Further poking around the UEFI menus seems to suggest that, as well as
the W8 partition and the recovery partition, there is also some sort of
EFI partition on the disk as well?

If I pick: F9 Boot Device Options

I then get a menu:

OS boot Manager
Boot From EFI File

(I'm guessing that "OS boot Manager" means the *W8* boot manager: I
assume that trying to set up a W8/Linux dual-boot would probably cause
me more hassle here as I suspect that their respective boot managers no
longer play nice with each other? However, as long as I have working
recovery DVDs I'm not actually bothered about keeping W8 on the disk..)

"Boot From EFI File" gets you into a text-mode file manager for this EFI
disk partition. Select the disk, and then you have:

EFI/ (see below)
boot/ (seems to be empty)

EFI/
Microsoft/Boot/ (contains various language packs,etc, and .efi files)
Boot/bootx64.efi (I'm guessing a bootloader of some kind, for what?)
HP/ (system diagnostics, BIOS manager, yet more boot files..)

These are clearly areas that I don't want to go meddling in, but just
out of curiosity (if not getting too off-topic) does anybody know (in
fairly simple/brief terms) what this stuff all does (sorry, I forgot
that we're not supposed to look behind the green curtain nowadays..)?


There is also the boot option: F11 System Recovery

This loads up a fairly fancy recovery utility. I'm guessing this comes
from the hard disk rather than within the UEFI, in which case it seems
like I'd maybe better be careful about removing (or perhaps rather not)
the EFI disk partition?

Fancy it may look, but helpful it isn't. It's not immediately clear how
I would use this recovery utility to reinstall Windows from the DVDs, or
whether it can only use the files on the recovery partition (or on the
Windows partition, wherever they are?) to "refresh or reset your PC"?

Soooo, I guess my question here is: do I need to keep the EFI partition
and the Windows recovery partition, no matter what I do to the rest of
the hard disk? Or, once I've created the recovery DVDs, will I be able
to wipe the rest of the disk entirely? (Although, if it looks as though
the EFI partition has various HP UEFI utilities on it, probably I will
want to keep that..).


<sigh> This is all so much harder than it used to be.. :-(

Many thanks for any advice,

David.

[Bill]

Post by David
I have just bought a new laptop (HM DM1-4341), which is a UEFI-based
laptop with Secure Boot enabled and Window 8 [sic] pre-installed.
I am not going to use W8 and am going to install Linux (probably Debian)
on the laptop. However, I don't want to discard the W8 install media
just in case I need to re-set the laptop to return it for service, etc.

Is this any use? I have never heard of UEFI, so I suppose I'd better go
off and look it up.

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/12/using-windows-8s-hi
dden-backup-to-clone-and-recover-your-whole-pc/

[BillW50]

Post by David
I have just bought a new laptop (HM DM1-4341), which is a UEFI-based
laptop with Secure Boot enabled and Window 8 [sic] pre-installed.
I am not going to use W8 and am going to install Linux (probably Debian)
on the laptop. However, I don't want to discard the W8 install media
just in case I need to re-set the laptop to return it for service, etc.

Is this any use? I have never heard of UEFI, so I suppose I'd better go
off and look it up.
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/12/using-windows-8s-hi
dden-backup-to-clone-and-recover-your-whole-pc/

If you don't get any answers, I think those in the
"alt.comp.os.windows-8" newsgroup can help you with this.

[David]

BillW50 wrote in uk.comp.sys.laptops
about: Re: HP DM1-4341: UEFI Secure Boot, Windows8 backup and OS install?

Post by BillW50
If you don't get any answers, I think those in the
"alt.comp.os.windows-8" newsgroup can help you with this.

Thanks, that's useful to know about. I'll maybe re-post my question
there for wider audience (I'd never have dreamed of using a non-uk
group, but usenet isn't as busy as it used to be - sign of the times
that it's an alt.* group as well, I guess nobody can be bothered going
through the formalities for a comp.* group any more.. :-( ).

David.

[David]

Bill wrote in uk.comp.sys.laptops
about: Re: HP DM1-4341: UEFI Secure Boot, Windows8 backup and OS install?

Post by Bill

Post by David
I have just bought a new laptop (HM DM1-4341), which is a UEFI-based
laptop with Secure Boot enabled and Window 8 [sic] pre-installed.
I am not going to use W8 and am going to install Linux (probably Debian)
on the laptop. However, I don't want to discard the W8 install media
just in case I need to re-set the laptop to return it for service, etc.

Is this any use? I have never heard of UEFI, so I suppose I'd better go
off and look it up.

UEFI is essentially the replacement for BIOS. One of its features is
Secure Boot, which may or may not be a good thing in theory (my gut
feeling is "not", since it puts control over the PC in the hands of the
manufacturer, which is the antithesis of what the PC is about, or at
least was about, back in the day..), but in practice it makes installing
anything other than W8 on a W8 computer a hassle - this includes older
(ie, less horrible) versions of Windows as well.. :-( And I can see it
being a real hassle for everybody's favourite utility/rescue/anti-malware
boot CDs too..

Secure Boot being enabled (although it must be able to be disabled if
desired) is one of MS's requirements for W8 branding, so pretty much
every PC is going to have UEFI rather than BIOS from now on (possibly
that's a good thing in general, Secure Boot notwithstanding, since BIOS
dates all the way back to the origin of the IBM-PC and may well be due
rethinking..). Apple already switched to EFI (an earlier incarnation of
UEFI) on their PCs some time ago.

Post by Bill
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/12/using-windows-8s-hi
dden-backup-to-clone-and-recover-your-whole-pc/

Thanks, that looks useful, but not quite what I'm after: it seems to be
about doing a full disk backup, I just want to know how to make install
media from the recovery partition so that I can resize/wipe some/all of
the partitions from the disk in order to install a different OS.


David.

[Daniel James]

Post by David
UEFI is essentially the replacement for BIOS. One of its features is
Secure Boot, which may or may not be a good thing in theory (my gut
feeling is "not", since it puts control over the PC in the hands of the
manufacturer, which is the antithesis of what the PC is about, or at
least was about, back in the day..), but in practice it makes installing
anything other than W8 on a W8 computer a hassle - this includes older
(ie, less horrible) versions of Windows as well.. :-(

I think Secure Boot (but not necessarily in its current form) is more a
good thing than a bad one ... but the keys should be under the control of
the PC's owner, not of the manufacturer.

That is: The UEFI firmware should contain utilities that allow the user
(after supplying a superuser BIOS-type password) to install new keys to be
used for secure boot, and (if necessary) to delete any installed at the
factory. Ideally the keys would be stored in non-volatile memory on the
motherboards and there would be a physical switch that needed to be set to
allow updating of the key store, so that malware would never be able to
write there. Booting an OS would not be allowed while that switch was set,
so you'd *have* to reset it after managing the keys.

To install an OS you'd have to provide the key for that OS on physical
media (a USB drive or an optical disk, say) with the PC running the UEFI
utility in authorized mode. You would (of course) check that the key
material was from a trusted source before installing it. Having done that
you'd reset the write-enable switch and boot from your installation disk,
whose signature would be seen as valid using the new key.

Enterprises would be able to load only their own keys into their machines,
so that users would be unable to boot anything other than an enterprise-
approved image. The IT department would be able to test a new version of
$OS as much (or as little) as they wanted, customize it (remove solitaire),
and re-sign it with the enterprise key so that it could be run.

If Secure Boot were actually implemented in this way there would be no
problem. Motherboards would be shipped with just the signing keys of a few
common public CA's (VeriSign, etc) loaded, and shrink-wrapped OSes would be
supplied signed by one or more of those keys. Everything would just work,
and the user would have some confidence that the OS he was installing and
running had not been infected with malware.

Post by David
And I can see it being a real hassle for everybody's favourite
utility/rescue/anti-malware boot CDs too..

As it stands, yes. Done properly the CD would be signed by its author using
a key signed by one of the standard CA keys known to the UEFI software. The
UEFI boot system would pop up a message saying "You seem to be trying to
boot from a CD containing "everybody's favourite rescue tools", signed by
"Everybody's Favourite Corp", the signature is valid ... do you wish to
continue?

[In an enterprise you'd have to get IT Support to resign the CD using the
Enterprise's own key ... you can't have lusers running unauthorized
utilities on their PCs ...]

Post by David
Secure Boot being enabled (although it must be able to be disabled if
desired) is one of MS's requirements for W8 branding, so pretty much
every PC is going to have UEFI rather than BIOS from now on ...

I'm not sure about that ... W8 certainly boots just fine on machines that
don't have UEFI at all, and so can't have Secure Boot at all. Do Microsoft
allow W8 branding for PCs with a normal BIOS at all?

The main reason for wanting to have UEFI is because it supports GPT disk
partitioning, which allows disks larger than 2.1TB ... though I think it
will still be a few years before disks that large become commonplace in
bog-standard home or office PCs.

Cheers,
Daniel.

[David]

Daniel James wrote in uk.comp.sys.laptops

Post by Daniel James
That is: The UEFI firmware should contain utilities that allow the user
(after supplying a superuser BIOS-type password) to install new keys to be
used for secure boot, and (if necessary) to delete any installed at the
factory. Ideally the keys would be stored in non-volatile memory on the
motherboards and there would be a physical switch that needed to be set to
allow updating of the key store, so that malware would never be able to
write there. Booting an OS would not be allowed while that switch was set,
so you'd *have* to reset it after managing the keys.

[snip, just for brevity..]

Yes, the implementation you suggest seems pretty reasonable and
sensible, in fact! Unfortunately, we are where we are now, and I suspect
there are too many vested interests (well, at least one) and too much
money spent to change things "going forward" (ugh, I hate that
phrase..). :-(

Post by Daniel James

Post by David
Secure Boot being enabled (although it must be able to be disabled if
desired) is one of MS's requirements for W8 branding, so pretty much
every PC is going to have UEFI rather than BIOS from now on ...

I'm not sure about that ... W8 certainly boots just fine on machines that
don't have UEFI at all, and so can't have Secure Boot at all.

Indeed.

Post by Daniel James
Do Microsoft allow W8 branding for PCs with a normal BIOS at all?

I believe not. I read somewhere (well, various places, because it's come
up a lot as regards the switch-offable-ness of Secure Boot) that one of the
conditions for a (new) computer getting the special Window 8 sticker of
sparkliness is that it must ship with Secure Boot enabled (hence being a
UEFI-based system is implicit) but able to be disabled (unless it's an
ARM device, bah..).

So, indeed, people can "upgrade" [sic] to W8 an existing older computer (that
may not be UEFI-based and even if it was (UEFI computers have been
becoming increasingly common over the past year or so), wouldn't have
had Secure Boot enabled (or possibly even present?)), but they wouldn't
get the sticker(!). (I'm assuming that you never got a sticker (that's
the "Compatible with Windows [version]" sticker, not the licence
sticker), if you bought a retail version of Windows in the past anyway,
rather than it coming with the computer?)

Post by Daniel James
The main reason for wanting to have UEFI is because it supports GPT disk
partitioning, which allows disks larger than 2.1TB ... though I think it
will still be a few years before disks that large become commonplace in
bog-standard home or office PCs.

I suspect that either "a few years" will be <2 years (I've seen computers
on sale with 1 TB disks already) for all but lower-end models (although
the shift to SSD may slow the size growth, with SSDs gradually catching
up (in capacity/affordability) with _current_ disk drive sizes first),
or that the "your data is our data" Borg collective will have convinced
enough mugs to put their data in teh cloudz by then, that computer hard
disks (except for servers) stop getting significantly larger.. :-(


David.

[Daniel James]

Post by David
Yes, the implementation you suggest seems pretty reasonable and
sensible, in fact! Unfortunately, we are where we are now, and I suspect
there are too many vested interests ...

True enough.

Post by David
I read somewhere (well, various places, because it's come up a lot as
regards the switch-offable-ness of Secure Boot) that one of the
conditions for a (new) computer getting the special Window 8 sticker
of sparkliness is that it must ship with Secure Boot enabled (hence
being a UEFI-based system is implicit) but able to be disabled (unless
it's an ARM device, bah..).

I like "sticker of sparkliness"!

Wouldn't it be nice to see manufacturers proudly proclaiming that their
new shiny is NOT certified for Windows 8? It'd still run W8, but wouldn't
be sparkly enough for Microsoft's lock-in criteria.

That'd be particularly interesting on an ARM device, because then the
manufacturers would be able to sell a tablet with Win8 (if they thought
that was sensible) but not preclude the possibility of the purchaser
reflashing it with something else after purchase.

Yes, I want to see a "Better than Microsoft-Certified" sticker!

Post by David
So, indeed, people can "upgrade" [sic] to W8 an existing older
computer (that may not be UEFI-based ...

Indeed. I have used one of my MSDN "development only" W8 licences to carry
out a fresh W8 install on a spare drive installed /pro tem/ in an Athlon
X2 box (which more often runs XP64 or Debian) ... I have now done the
little bit of compatibility testing that I needed to do -- and experienced
the $DEITY-awful GUI first hand -- and I'm wondering whether I now need to
boil the HDD (or, indeed, the whole PC) in Dettol and consign it to a
skip, or whether reformatting will be sufficient to excise the demons ...

Post by David

Post by Daniel James
The main reason for wanting to have UEFI is because it supports GPT
disk partitioning, which allows disks larger than 2.1TB ... though I
think it will still be a few years before disks that large become
commonplace in bog-standard home or office PCs.

I suspect that either "a few years" will be <2 years (I've seen
computers on sale with 1 TB disks already) ...

So have I ... but disks larger than 1TB are still disproportionately
expensive, which makes them unlikely choices for box-assemblers with an
eye on the bottom line. Still, 2 years is a long time in computing.

Post by David
... the shift to SSD may slow the size growth, with SSDs gradually
catching up (in capacity/affordability) ...

That shift is price-driven, too ... though I think more people would be
prepared to pay more to get a faster disk than will be prepared to pay
more to get a disk that is larger than they will (possibly) ever use, so
SSDs (of current sizes) will probably sell in big numbers before very
large hard drives do.

That's not to say that there isn't demand for large amounts of storage,
just that I think a relatively small number of people care about having
more than (say) 1TB (and most of those that do want MANY TB).

Post by David
... the "your data is our data" Borg collective will have convinced
enough mugs to put their data in teh cloudz ...

The trouble with the cloud -- apart from the obvious issues of loss of
control -- is that it costs too much; in particular the data bandwidth to
access it is too slow, too unreliable (especially cellular data), and too
expensive. Fortunately most people don't seem to try to use it for more
than small amounts of data.

Cheers,
Daniel.

[Richard Kettlewell]

Post by David
Daniel James wrote in uk.comp.sys.laptops

Post by Daniel James
Do Microsoft allow W8 branding for PCs with a normal BIOS at all?

I believe not. I read somewhere (well, various places, because it's
come up a lot as regards the switch-offable-ness of Secure Boot) that
one of the conditions for a (new) computer getting the special Window
8 sticker of sparkliness is that it must ship with Secure Boot enabled
(hence being a UEFI-based system is implicit) but able to be disabled
(unless it's an ARM device, bah..).

Read it here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/jj128256.aspx

Specifically, search for System.Fundamentals.Firmware.UEFISecureBoot.

[Richard Kettlewell]

Post by David
I have just bought a new laptop (HM DM1-4341), which is a UEFI-based
laptop with Secure Boot enabled and Window 8 [sic] pre-installed.
I am not going to use W8 and am going to install Linux (probably Debian)
on the laptop. However, I don't want to discard the W8 install media
just in case I need to re-set the laptop to return it for service, etc.
Oh, that's apart from the fact that there *isn't* any install media, of
course <sigh>; we have to make our own from the recovery partition on
the hard disk. (Why do MS make this such a faff? If it's slightly/moderately
taxing for experienced computer users to have to do this, what hope is
there for the typical "it should just work" non-technical user? And what
if the reason you need to reinstall is because the hard disk has died
and so the recovery partition is unavailable? What a shoddy 'product'..
Yes, the lack of install media has been long grumbled over, but it makes
me feel a _little_ better to also take my turn to stoke that particular
fire..)

The bulk of the target audience take their computers to a shop to be
repaired when they stop working for any reason. They're not going to do
OS reinstalls or hard disk replacements themselves.

[...]

Post by David
Assuming that I can make my recovery DVDs with no problems, what next?
UEFI and Secure Boot are a whole new world of inconvenience to me. For my
Linux install, I think I will just remove W8 (rather than shrink its
partition and just not use it - assuming that even doing that doesn't
cause Secure Boot and W8 fatal conniptions because something has changed?)
I'm assuming that I'll need to turn off Secure Boot to install Linux,
and possibly may need to enable "Legacy Support" (BIOS boot mode rather
than UEFI boot mode) as well.

Depends what distribution you want to install; some support secure boot
now and others will probably get there in the end.
http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/20522.html is a fairly recent summary.

Post by David
Just out of curiosity, what effect would these steps have on the current
W8 installation (or on re-installing W8 from the recovery DVDs later: I
realise that this would wipe my Linux install, but: 1. backups, 2. if I
actually needed to re-install W8, that would be the least of my
worries..). Would W8 still boot with Secure Boot disabled, or would it
have a panic?

Windows 8 certainly *can* boot off disks which use MBR partitioning and
no secure boot at all.

Post by David
Further poking around the UEFI menus seems to suggest that, as well as
the W8 partition and the recovery partition, there is also some sort of
EFI partition on the disk as well?

Presumably http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EFI_System_partition

Post by David
If I pick: F9 Boot Device Options
OS boot Manager
Boot From EFI File
(I'm guessing that "OS boot Manager" means the *W8* boot manager: I
assume that trying to set up a W8/Linux dual-boot would probably cause
me more hassle here as I suspect that their respective boot managers no
longer play nice with each other? However, as long as I have working
recovery DVDs I'm not actually bothered about keeping W8 on the disk..)

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Operating-Systems-e-g-Windows-8-and-Software/quot-An-error-occured-with-the-boot-selection-verify-media/td-p/1630049

...sheds a little light on this point in the context of HP systems.

Post by David
"Boot From EFI File" gets you into a text-mode file manager for this EFI
EFI/ (see below)
boot/ (seems to be empty)
EFI/
Microsoft/Boot/ (contains various language packs,etc, and .efi files)
Boot/bootx64.efi (I'm guessing a bootloader of some kind, for what?)

That’s the fallback bootloader path; presumably it’ll be a copy of the
Windows boot manager in this case.

[David]

Richard Kettlewell wrote in uk.comp.sys.laptops
about: Re: HP DM1-4341: UEFI Secure Boot, Windows8 backup and OS install?
[..]

Post by Richard Kettlewell

Post by David
Yes, the lack of install media has been long grumbled over, but it makes
me feel a _little_ better to also take my turn to stoke that particular
fire..)

The bulk of the target audience take their computers to a shop to be
repaired when they stop working for any reason. They're not going to do
OS reinstalls or hard disk replacements themselves.

That's true, I suppose. It's easy to forget that computers are complete
'black boxes' to most people! But they should still provide recovery
discs, even if all the user does is loan them to the repair shop when
the shop does a reinstall. As it is: "Oh, your hard disk has died..? You
don't have the install discs? I'm afraid you'll have to buy a new
full-price copy of Windows..[1] " - I genuinely can't believe that
Microshit (I think I can justify that description here) thinks that's an
acceptable level of service for their customers. Anyway, this is a rant
that has been done many times, I just felt better for doing it myself
too.. ;-)

[1] ..or possibly, "Let me see what I can find underneath the
counter..", depending on the repair shop.. ]]

Post by Richard Kettlewell
[...]

Post by David
Assuming that I can make my recovery DVDs with no problems, what next?
UEFI and Secure Boot are a whole new world of inconvenience to me. For my
Linux install, I think I will just remove W8 (rather than shrink its
partition and just not use it - assuming that even doing that doesn't
cause Secure Boot and W8 fatal conniptions because something has changed?)

Do you happen to know what W8's reaction to switching off Secure Boot
would be? Would it still boot, or would it throw a panic? Would it have
to be re-installed to work with Secure Boot disabled? (Not that the
recovery DVDs would allow that sort of installation configuration, I
expect!). As I said, I'm not bothered at all about keeping W8 on the
computer (I'm half-inclined to install W7 for the few occasions I might
want to use it (my workplace Windows licensing allows home use), but I'm
not sure I could be bothered with the driver hunt that I'm sure would be
required, let alone everything else..)

Post by Richard Kettlewell

Post by David
I'm assuming that I'll need to turn off Secure Boot to install Linux,
and possibly may need to enable "Legacy Support" (BIOS boot mode rather
than UEFI boot mode) as well.

Depends what distribution you want to install; some support secure boot
now and others will probably get there in the end.
http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/20522.html is a fairly recent summary.

Thanks, I realise that there are some distros supporting Secure Boot
(from that page, more than I'd realised, actually), but it sounds like
even installing one of those would be a bit of hassle. As far as Linux
is concerned (when I get to that stage!), I think I'd just disable
Secure Boot and set the UEFI to legacy/BIOS boot mode (if necessary),
"for an easy life".

Post by Richard Kettlewell

Post by David
Just out of curiosity, what effect would these steps have on the current
W8 installation (or on re-installing W8 from the recovery DVDs later: I
realise that this would wipe my Linux install, but: 1. backups, 2. if I
actually needed to re-install W8, that would be the least of my
worries..). Would W8 still boot with Secure Boot disabled, or would it
have a panic?

Windows 8 certainly *can* boot off disks which use MBR partitioning and
no secure boot at all.

Thanks, that's useful to know. Does it need to be installed *after* the
UEFI has been reconfigured appropriately, or would the existing install,
which is presumably expecting a Secure Boot environment, continue to
work? (Given that Secure Boot presumably affects, err, things, at a,
err, very low level, I can't help but think it would cause it some
problems?)

Post by Richard Kettlewell

Post by David
Further poking around the UEFI menus seems to suggest that, as well as
the W8 partition and the recovery partition, there is also some sort of
EFI partition on the disk as well?

Presumably http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EFI_System_partition

Ahh.. oops, usually I *always* look up unknown things in Wikipedia first
of all, I guess here there is just too much new and unknown for me to
cope with (genuinely: for the first time in a *long* time, I'm feeling
distinctly uneasy about trying to use a new computer - you can easily
see how non-techie types get uncomfortable!), and I didn't even think to
look on this occasion..

OK, so it sounds like it might not be the best idea to delete the EFI
System partition (when I get to the re-partition stage). I'm guessing
that it would be ignored if the computer is booting in legacy/BIOS mode,
though?

Post by Richard Kettlewell

Post by David
If I pick: F9 Boot Device Options
OS boot Manager
Boot From EFI File
(I'm guessing that "OS boot Manager" means the *W8* boot manager: I
assume that trying to set up a W8/Linux dual-boot would probably cause
me more hassle here as I suspect that their respective boot managers no
longer play nice with each other? However, as long as I have working
recovery DVDs I'm not actually bothered about keeping W8 on the disk..)

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Operating-Systems-e-g-Windows-8-and-Software/quot-An-error-occured-with-the-boot-selection-verify-media/td-p/1630049
...sheds a little light on this point in the context of HP systems.

Thanks, that's useful/interesting ..but scarey! :-(

I'm hoping I won't have to go meddling with the EFI partition at all
(or that the Linux installer will do what it needs to do (if it needs
to do..) when I get to that stage). This is all well over my head!

Post by Richard Kettlewell

Post by David
"Boot From EFI File" gets you into a text-mode file manager for this EFI
EFI/ (see below)
boot/ (seems to be empty)
EFI/
Microsoft/Boot/ (contains various language packs,etc, and .efi files)
Boot/bootx64.efi (I'm guessing a bootloader of some kind, for what?)

That’s the fallback bootloader path; presumably it’ll be a copy of the
Windows boot manager in this case.

I see (I think.. ;-)).

Mind if I ask some more questions about this (since you seem to know
about this!)? I was just asking out of sheer curiosity - it's always
useful to try to get an understanding (even if limited!) of how things
work..

So... am I right in thinking that when a computer is booting in UEFI
mode, it uses the EFI partition for the initial stages of the desired OS
boot (sort of like an updated version of how the MBR starts off the boot
into the computer's OS (eg, Windows loader, or GRUB (etc) for booting
Linux (etc)))?

Again, just out of curiosity, what's the "fallback bootloader path" that
you mentioned? Would that be the default place that the UEFI looks to
boot from if somewhere else isn't already specified in the firmware
settings (I presume that W8 PCs ship with the path to the W8 bootloader
set by default)?

And (if it's not a Hard Question), so where does Secure Boot come into
this? Does it basically just check that the .efi file that it has been
told to boot(?) from has been signed with the key, or is there rather
more to it than that?


Thanks for your advice and useful explanations!


David.

[Richard Kettlewell]

Post by David
Richard Kettlewell wrote in uk.comp.sys.laptops
about: Re: HP DM1-4341: UEFI Secure Boot, Windows8 backup and OS install?

Post by Richard Kettlewell
Depends what distribution you want to install; some support secure boot
now and others will probably get there in the end.
http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/20522.html is a fairly recent summary.

Thanks, I realise that there are some distros supporting Secure Boot
(from that page, more than I'd realised, actually), but it sounds like
even installing one of those would be a bit of hassle. As far as Linux
is concerned (when I get to that stage!), I think I'd just disable
Secure Boot and set the UEFI to legacy/BIOS boot mode (if necessary),
"for an easy life".

I think it’s fair to say you’d be an early adopter, at the moment.

Post by David

Post by Richard Kettlewell

Post by David
Just out of curiosity, what effect would these steps have on the current
W8 installation (or on re-installing W8 from the recovery DVDs later: I
realise that this would wipe my Linux install, but: 1. backups, 2. if I
actually needed to re-install W8, that would be the least of my
worries..). Would W8 still boot with Secure Boot disabled, or would it
have a panic?

Windows 8 certainly *can* boot off disks which use MBR partitioning and
no secure boot at all.

Thanks, that's useful to know. Does it need to be installed *after* the
UEFI has been reconfigured appropriately, or would the existing install,
which is presumably expecting a Secure Boot environment, continue to
work? (Given that Secure Boot presumably affects, err, things, at a,
err, very low level, I can't help but think it would cause it some
problems?)

I expect it would just work but I’ve no idea. My Windows 8 PC came
configured to use BIOS partitioning and I haven’t checked whether its
firmware even supports anything else (neither disk is large enough to
require GPT).

Post by David

Post by Richard Kettlewell
http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Operating-Systems-e-g-Windows-8-and-Software/quot-An-error-occured-with-the-boot-selection-verify-media/td-p/1630049
...sheds a little light on this point in the context of HP systems.

Thanks, that's useful/interesting ..but scarey! :-(
I'm hoping I won't have to go meddling with the EFI partition at all
(or that the Linux installer will do what it needs to do (if it needs
to do..) when I get to that stage). This is all well over my head!

I would expect an EFI-aware Linux installer to sort this out without
much pain for the user.

Post by David

Post by Richard Kettlewell

Post by David
"Boot From EFI File" gets you into a text-mode file manager for this EFI
EFI/ (see below)
boot/ (seems to be empty)
EFI/
Microsoft/Boot/ (contains various language packs,etc, and .efi files)
Boot/bootx64.efi (I'm guessing a bootloader of some kind, for what?)

That’s the fallback bootloader path; presumably it’ll be a copy of the
Windows boot manager in this case.

I see (I think.. ;-)).
Mind if I ask some more questions about this (since you seem to know
about this!)? I was just asking out of sheer curiosity - it's always
useful to try to get an understanding (even if limited!) of how things
work..

Sure, but keep in mind that my knowledge of this is still fairly
superficial.

Post by David
So... am I right in thinking that when a computer is booting in UEFI
mode, it uses the EFI partition for the initial stages of the desired OS
boot (sort of like an updated version of how the MBR starts off the boot
into the computer's OS (eg, Windows loader, or GRUB (etc) for booting
Linux (etc)))?

Yes. It seems like an overdue innovation, given the nasty hacks that
(for instance) Linux bootloaders have used.

Post by David
Again, just out of curiosity, what's the "fallback bootloader path" that
you mentioned? Would that be the default place that the UEFI looks to
boot from if somewhere else isn't already specified in the firmware
settings (I presume that W8 PCs ship with the path to the W8 bootloader
set by default)?

I think that’s correct.

Post by David
And (if it's not a Hard Question), so where does Secure Boot come into
this? Does it basically just check that the .efi file that it has been
told to boot(?) from has been signed with the key, or is there rather
more to it than that?

AFAIK that’s about it - it protects one link in the chain and nothing
else. Any further integrity protection is up to the boot loader it
loads, the OS kernel which that loads, etc etc etc.

[TMack]

Post by David
Hi,
[Apologies if the cross-post to uk.comp.homebuilt is inappropriate, but
uk.comp.os.ms-windows seems to be less than lively, and u.c.h seems to
be by far the most healthy of the reasonably-appropriate uk.comp.*
groups..]
I have just bought a new laptop (HM DM1-4341), which is a UEFI-based
laptop with Secure Boot enabled and Window 8 [sic] pre-installed.

I think your best option would be to remove the existing hard disk, turn
off secure boot and use a replacement disk for your Linux install. That
way, if you ever need to return to the original configuration you can just
put the original disk back in.

[Andrew]

Post by TMack
I think your best option would be to remove the existing hard disk, turn
off secure boot and use a replacement disk for your Linux install. That
way, if you ever need to return to the original configuration you can just
put the original disk back in.

Or just image the existing disk to a file on an external USB drive and keep
the image handy in case you want to put it back.

[David]

Andrew wrote in uk.comp.sys.laptops
about: Re: HP DM1-4341: UEFI Secure Boot, Windows8 backup and OS install?

Post by Andrew

Post by TMack
I think your best option would be to remove the existing hard disk, turn
off secure boot and use a replacement disk for your Linux install. That
way, if you ever need to return to the original configuration you can just
put the original disk back in.

Yeah, I guess I could, but that would involve having to spend money on a
spare disk, which I wouldn't be keen on.. ;-(

Post by Andrew
Or just image the existing disk to a file on an external USB drive and keep
the image handy in case you want to put it back.

Ah, maybe (I'd still rather just create the recovery DVDs, though..). I do
have a spare USB drive not currently in use.

This raises a question, though. With all the joys of Secure Boot, how am
I able to boot the boot media for the imaging software in the first
place (and, if necessary, restore the image again appropriately working)..?
(I'm assuming that I can't install some imaging software in Windows and
attempt to image the disk while it is actually in use!)

I guess I'd have to disable Secure Boot first, than then boot the
imaging software (any (free) recommendations? The only imaging software
I have ever used (some time ago) was Clonezilla, and I found it a bit
confusing/unfriendly..). But I'm still wondering whether disabling (and
then subsequently re-enabling? (would I need to?)) Secure Boot would make
the W8 installation have a tantrum.. (Sorry if I'm asking stupid questions,
but this is still all new to me)


Thanks,


David.

[Daniel James]

Post by David

Post by TMack
I think your best option would be to remove the existing hard disk,
turn off secure boot and use a replacement disk for your Linux
install. That way, if you ever need to return to the original
configuration you can just put the original disk back in.

Yeah, I guess I could, but that would involve having to spend money
on a spare disk, which I wouldn't be keen on.. ;-(

It's exactly what I did when I got this laptop ... but I was upgrading the
disk anyway because the one it came with was a low-capacity 5400rpm drive.

Cheers,
Daniel.

[David]

[This is a re-post of an earlier query, now with alt.comp.os.windows-8
added, to perhaps reach a wider/more-specific audience. Apologies to
those of you who have already seen this post..]


Hi,

I have just bought a new laptop (HM DM1-4341), which is a UEFI-based
laptop with Secure Boot enabled and Window 8 [sic] pre-installed.

I am not going to use W8 and am going to install Linux (probably Debian)
on the laptop. However, I don't want to discard the W8 install media
just in case I need to re-set the laptop to return it for service, etc.
(I should add that if home-user laptops were still available with
Windows 7, then I'd just keep W7 (but reduce its disk partition),
because W7 is at least useful/usable. It's probably obvious to readers
in the W8 group that I really am not keen on it, but please don't hold
that against me (I know I'm not alone in my disgust!).)

Oh, that's apart from the fact that there *isn't* any install media, of
course <sigh>; we have to make our own from the recovery partition on
the hard disk. (Why do MS make this such a faff? If it's slightly/moderately
taxing for experienced computer users to have to do this, what hope is
there for the typical "it should just work" non-technical user? And what
if the reason you need to reinstall is because the hard disk has died
and so the recovery partition is unavailable? What a shoddy 'product'..
Yes, the lack of install media has been long grumbled over, but it makes
me feel a _little_ better to also take my turn to stoke that particular
fire..)

OK, first thing is to try to find out how to actually create the install
media and even that's not easy.. You'd think you'd get prompted about
this after logging in (seeing as how losing your OS if your disk dies
might just spoil your day a tiny bit). Nope. Nothing about it that I
could find in "Control Panel" or "Change PC settings" (why on earth
are there *2* separate control panels?) either. Windows Help and the
supposedly all-knowing search box don't seem to know anything about
creating install discs either..

I finally found what I was looking for in "HP Utility Center" (an
unhelpful name automatically suggestive of useless crapware/spyware
("Are you really, really, really sure that I can't interest you in a
Genuine HP printer cartridge?")). This is where a traditional applications
menu (rather than the computer-unfriendly "start screen" - I'll grudgingly
accept that it might work OK on tablets, but not anywhere where you want
real multi-tasking work done with minimal interruption to concentration)
would have come in useful: if all else failed, you could have scoured
through every sub-menu in "All Programs" and would have eventually have
found the requisite program.. (Search is no help if you don't know the
name of what you are looking for.)


Now that I've finally found the right program, it seems that I can choose
to create install media on a USB stick or on 'optical media' (I assume
this will take several DVDs as a 16 GB USB stick is otherwise required).
The laptop doesn't have an optical disc drive, but I have a external USB
DVD drive, so that wouldn't be a problem, at least (I'm not going to
fork out for a USB stick just for a crappy Windows backup that, for
pennies in DVD costs, should come with every end-user Windows copy *by
right*).

Assuming that I can make my recovery DVDs with no problems, what next?
UEFI and Secure Boot are a whole new world of inconvenience to me. For my
Linux install, I think I will just remove W8 (rather than shrink its
partition and just not use it - assuming that even doing that doesn't
cause Secure Boot and W8 fatal conniptions because something has changed?)

I'm assuming that I'll need to turn off Secure Boot to install Linux,
and possibly may need to enable "Legacy Support" (BIOS boot mode rather
than UEFI boot mode) as well.

Just out of curiosity, what effect would these steps have on the current
W8 installation (or on re-installing W8 from the recovery DVDs later: I
realise that this would wipe my Linux install, but: 1. backups, 2. if I
actually needed to re-install W8, that would be the least of my
worries..). Would W8 still boot with Secure Boot disabled, or would it
have a panic?

Further poking around the UEFI menus seems to suggest that, as well as
the W8 partition and the recovery partition, there is also some sort of
EFI partition on the disk as well?

If I pick: F9 Boot Device Options

I then get a menu:

OS boot Manager
Boot From EFI File

(I'm guessing that "OS boot Manager" means the *W8* boot manager: I
assume that trying to set up a W8/Linux dual-boot would probably cause
me more hassle here as I suspect that their respective boot managers no
longer play nice with each other? However, as long as I have working
recovery DVDs I'm not actually bothered about keeping W8 on the disk..)

"Boot From EFI File" gets you into a text-mode file manager for this EFI
disk partition. Select the disk, and then you have:

EFI/ (see below)
boot/ (seems to be empty)

EFI/
Microsoft/Boot/ (contains various language packs,etc, and .efi files)
Boot/bootx64.efi (I'm guessing a bootloader of some kind, for what?)
HP/ (system diagnostics, BIOS manager, yet more boot files..)

These are clearly areas that I don't want to go meddling in, but just
out of curiosity (if not getting too off-topic) does anybody know (in
fairly simple/brief terms) what this stuff all does (sorry, I forgot
that we're not supposed to look behind the green curtain nowadays..)?


There is also the boot option: F11 System Recovery

This loads up a fairly fancy recovery utility. I'm guessing this comes
from the hard disk rather than within the UEFI, in which case it seems
like I'd maybe better be careful about removing (or perhaps rather not)
the EFI disk partition?

Fancy it may look, but helpful it isn't. It's not immediately clear how
I would use this recovery utility to reinstall Windows from the DVDs, or
whether it can only use the files on the recovery partition (or on the
Windows partition, wherever they are?) to "refresh or reset your PC"?

Soooo, I guess my question here is: do I need to keep the EFI partition
and the Windows recovery partition, no matter what I do to the rest of
the hard disk? Or, once I've created the recovery DVDs, will I be able
to wipe the rest of the disk entirely? (Although, if it looks as though
the EFI partition has various HP UEFI utilities on it, probably I will
want to keep that..).


<sigh> This is all so much harder than it used to be.. :-(

Many thanks for any advice,

David.

[Paul]

Post by David
[This is a re-post of an earlier query, now with alt.comp.os.windows-8
added, to perhaps reach a wider/more-specific audience. Apologies to
those of you who have already seen this post..]
Hi,
I have just bought a new laptop (HM DM1-4341), which is a UEFI-based
laptop with Secure Boot enabled and Window 8 [sic] pre-installed.
I am not going to use W8 and am going to install Linux (probably Debian)
on the laptop. However, I don't want to discard the W8 install media
just in case I need to re-set the laptop to return it for service, etc.
(I should add that if home-user laptops were still available with
Windows 7, then I'd just keep W7 (but reduce its disk partition),
because W7 is at least useful/usable. It's probably obvious to readers
in the W8 group that I really am not keen on it, but please don't hold
that against me (I know I'm not alone in my disgust!).)
Oh, that's apart from the fact that there *isn't* any install media, of
course <sigh>; we have to make our own from the recovery partition on
the hard disk. (Why do MS make this such a faff? If it's slightly/moderately
taxing for experienced computer users to have to do this, what hope is
there for the typical "it should just work" non-technical user? And what
if the reason you need to reinstall is because the hard disk has died
and so the recovery partition is unavailable? What a shoddy 'product'..
Yes, the lack of install media has been long grumbled over, but it makes
me feel a _little_ better to also take my turn to stoke that particular
fire..)
OK, first thing is to try to find out how to actually create the install
media and even that's not easy.. You'd think you'd get prompted about
this after logging in (seeing as how losing your OS if your disk dies
might just spoil your day a tiny bit). Nope. Nothing about it that I
could find in "Control Panel" or "Change PC settings" (why on earth
are there *2* separate control panels?) either. Windows Help and the
supposedly all-knowing search box don't seem to know anything about
creating install discs either..
I finally found what I was looking for in "HP Utility Center" (an
unhelpful name automatically suggestive of useless crapware/spyware
("Are you really, really, really sure that I can't interest you in a
Genuine HP printer cartridge?")). This is where a traditional applications
menu (rather than the computer-unfriendly "start screen" - I'll grudgingly
accept that it might work OK on tablets, but not anywhere where you want
real multi-tasking work done with minimal interruption to concentration)
would have come in useful: if all else failed, you could have scoured
through every sub-menu in "All Programs" and would have eventually have
found the requisite program.. (Search is no help if you don't know the
name of what you are looking for.)
Now that I've finally found the right program, it seems that I can choose
to create install media on a USB stick or on 'optical media' (I assume
this will take several DVDs as a 16 GB USB stick is otherwise required).
The laptop doesn't have an optical disc drive, but I have a external USB
DVD drive, so that wouldn't be a problem, at least (I'm not going to
fork out for a USB stick just for a crappy Windows backup that, for
pennies in DVD costs, should come with every end-user Windows copy *by
right*).
Assuming that I can make my recovery DVDs with no problems, what next?
UEFI and Secure Boot are a whole new world of inconvenience to me. For my
Linux install, I think I will just remove W8 (rather than shrink its
partition and just not use it - assuming that even doing that doesn't
cause Secure Boot and W8 fatal conniptions because something has changed?)
I'm assuming that I'll need to turn off Secure Boot to install Linux,
and possibly may need to enable "Legacy Support" (BIOS boot mode rather
than UEFI boot mode) as well.
Just out of curiosity, what effect would these steps have on the current
W8 installation (or on re-installing W8 from the recovery DVDs later: I
realise that this would wipe my Linux install, but: 1. backups, 2. if I
actually needed to re-install W8, that would be the least of my
worries..). Would W8 still boot with Secure Boot disabled, or would it
have a panic?
Further poking around the UEFI menus seems to suggest that, as well as
the W8 partition and the recovery partition, there is also some sort of
EFI partition on the disk as well?
If I pick: F9 Boot Device Options
OS boot Manager
Boot From EFI File
(I'm guessing that "OS boot Manager" means the *W8* boot manager: I
assume that trying to set up a W8/Linux dual-boot would probably cause
me more hassle here as I suspect that their respective boot managers no
longer play nice with each other? However, as long as I have working
recovery DVDs I'm not actually bothered about keeping W8 on the disk..)
"Boot From EFI File" gets you into a text-mode file manager for this EFI
EFI/ (see below)
boot/ (seems to be empty)
EFI/
Microsoft/Boot/ (contains various language packs,etc, and .efi files)
Boot/bootx64.efi (I'm guessing a bootloader of some kind, for what?)
HP/ (system diagnostics, BIOS manager, yet more boot files..)
These are clearly areas that I don't want to go meddling in, but just
out of curiosity (if not getting too off-topic) does anybody know (in
fairly simple/brief terms) what this stuff all does (sorry, I forgot
that we're not supposed to look behind the green curtain nowadays..)?
There is also the boot option: F11 System Recovery
This loads up a fairly fancy recovery utility. I'm guessing this comes
from the hard disk rather than within the UEFI, in which case it seems
like I'd maybe better be careful about removing (or perhaps rather not)
the EFI disk partition?
Fancy it may look, but helpful it isn't. It's not immediately clear how
I would use this recovery utility to reinstall Windows from the DVDs, or
whether it can only use the files on the recovery partition (or on the
Windows partition, wherever they are?) to "refresh or reset your PC"?
Soooo, I guess my question here is: do I need to keep the EFI partition
and the Windows recovery partition, no matter what I do to the rest of
the hard disk? Or, once I've created the recovery DVDs, will I be able
to wipe the rest of the disk entirely? (Although, if it looks as though
the EFI partition has various HP UEFI utilities on it, probably I will
want to keep that..).
<sigh> This is all so much harder than it used to be.. :-(
Many thanks for any advice,
David.

Recovery discs are meant to return the hard drive to the
original factory state. So whatever mix of partitions is there,
the media is supposed to put it all back. For example, if the
hard drive needs to be replaced, and the new hard drive is
empty, the DVDs you prepare are supposed to put all the
stuff back. (Read the docs though, to be sure. If the
manufacturer fouled up, it may be documented in the user
manual, as to what additional steps might be needed.)

I don't know all the permutations and combinations of the
other things you're worried about. As an early adopter, you
can test this for us, and report back :-)

As a Win8 OEM user, you have downgrade rights to an older OS.
You can talk to the manufacturer about this, and see how
they can arrange for you to get Win7 or whatever. If you
want it, that's an option. As long as there are drivers,
that might be an option. If they agree to that, the Win7
would be OEM as well, and activation based on the SLIC
from the BIOs.

Secure boot is mandatory on WinRT (Windows 8 for ARM processors).
That's to lock the OS to the tablet. Secure boot is optional
on desktop x86. This machine has no secure boot, just legacy BIOS,
and Windows 8 boots up fine.

What I can't tell you, is if a default Windows 8 install will
"boot either way", or whether it only boots the way it was
installed. That I can't answer.

For Linux to install, you're probably going to need to disable
Secure boot, as otherwise, there'd be no certificate for
your Linux OS. I'm guessing that's how it works. I think
you've got the issue figured out there.

What I did with my laptop when I got it, was two things:

1) Burned a five DVD set, using the built-in "prepare recovery media"
menu option. You need to have enough blank media on hand, to
finish the job. One of those was probably the "recovery disc"
that Microsoft provides, for you to have a command prompt
when repairing stuff, or recovering using a System Image.
So on my laptop, it was four discs for Acer and one
disc for Microsoft.

I converted the DVDs into ISO9660 files, and also stored them
elsewhere. In case the DVDs get lost.

2) Imaged the entire hard drive, and stored it on my backup drive.
Once compressed, I think that takes about 26GB of storage.
I checked to make sure all the partitions were there. This operation
is in case step (1) has some failings I'll have regrets about
later.

Paul

[BillW50]

Post by Paul
Recovery discs are meant to return the hard drive to the
original factory state. So whatever mix of partitions is there,
the media is supposed to put it all back. For example, if the
hard drive needs to be replaced, and the new hard drive is
empty, the DVDs you prepare are supposed to put all the
stuff back. (Read the docs though, to be sure. If the
manufacturer fouled up, it may be documented in the user
manual, as to what additional steps might be needed.)

Sometimes I like to play around and trying different things. And
sometimes I drop a blank hard drive in and play around with recovery
discs. And some of them I discovered secrets that you can't find any
documentation on.

For example I was playing with one Gateway MX-6124 recovery disc. With a
blank hard drive, it sets it up to the factory state with the recovery
partition and all of the extra software junk like Norton and so forth.
It will also do this if there is a recovery partition already on the
hard drive.

But if you delete the recovery partition before using the recovery disc,
now it gets you a second secret option that never showed up before. As
now you have a choice between the factory install or just a standard
Windows install. The latter installs Windows in a non-branded way, just
like a stock Windows generic OEM install disc. So I thought all MX-6124
recovery discs worked this way.

Later I bought another MX-6124 that also came with a recovery disc.
Although this one was a CD and not a DVD like the first one. And this
one didn't have the factory option at all. But it only worked like a
stock Windows install disc and that is all. No extra crap, nor any
MX-6124 drivers either.

Now most of the recovery discs I see comprise of two or three discs. The
first one works like a generic Windows install. And the second and third
ones generally have drivers and all of the crapware.

Some other recovery discs are not even what I would call an install
disc. Some are really a recovery image disc. The nice thing about image
recovery, is they are generally much faster and no prompts for the user
to make (or far less of them anyway). Plus they will fit on a much
smaller drive than a Windows install would normally require.

For example, an Asus EeePC 701 only comes with a 4GB SLC SSD soldered on
the motherboard. You could get them with either Windows XP SP2 or
Xandros Linux EeePC edition. And there is no way to install XP SP2 with
a Windows install disc on a 4GB drive. As Windows creates lots of
temporary files and such during the install and it will always stop
because the install runs out of drive space. But copying an image from a
preinstalled XP SP2 fits nicely on the same drive.

[David]

Paul wrote in uk.comp.sys.laptops

Post by Paul
I don't know all the permutations and combinations of the
other things you're worried about. As an early adopter, you
can test this for us, and report back :-)

OK-dokie... ;-)

Here's where I'm at, at present, in case it's of help/use to others:

I've managed to make the W8 recovery DVDs. Despite my grumbles, the
program to make the recovery DVDs is actually reasonably user-friendly,
and verifies the discs as you make them. The recovery discs themselves,
however.. You get the non-communicative W8 "drunken juggler bootup balls"
for what seems like forever, with no real indication whether it is
booting successfully or not, and then, if you are booting with Secure
Boot off (which, given the amount of mucking around I've done to get
here, I am), you eventually get a meaningless script error window(!),
which you "OK" and then the DVD boots all over again, eventually getting
you to a recovery menu. I haven't actually tried the recovery option to
see whether it does work with Secure Boot off. If you boot with Secure
Boot on, the DVD boots without complaint (but with similar amounts of
drunkenness). I haven't actually tried recovery here, either. So far, so
good, and I hope I won't ever need to use them..!

Interestingly, I didn't have *any* success booting anything else (ie,
assorted Linux CDs) from my USB optical drive when booting the computer
*in UEFI mode* (with Secure Boot off, obviously: I don't feel up to
'experimenting' with any Secure-Boot-enabled Linux distros, far too
bleeding edge for me..). Despite making it the 1st boot device, the USB
optical drive spins up, but doesn't show up in the boot options list
when starting to boot the computer, and therefore can't be selected to
actually boot from.

The W8 recovery DVDs worked, as described above (and the optical drive
appears in the UEFI boot list here), so I'm guessing that there is
special magic that must be done to make a UEFI-friendly boot CD
that wasn't incorporated in the ISO images I tried (not cutting
edge versions (LTS/stable releases))?


I've managed (hopefully) to clone the hard disk to a USB hard drive
using Redo Backup (Linux live CD) <http://redobackup.org/>

I'm _hoping_ that the copy that Redo Backup has made has understood that
the hard disk is in GPT format (see below) and has "done the necessary".
I don't know how low-level these things get. Possibly it's low-level
enough not to notice/care about these things and the clone is just a
pure stream of data that will just get dumped back onto the disk in
The Right Way if ever needed?


Here's what the hard disk looks like, from the slightly different
opinions of Redo Backup and Xubuntu 12.04 (Xubuntu values in brackets,
where different). Best viewed with monospace font..

The disk is 320 GB, and (NB!) uses GPT partitioning format.


Label Type Flags (Flags-Xubuntu) \
Size Filesystem


WINRE Microsoft Windows Recovery Env. Required (hidden, diag).
419 MB, NTFS

- EFI System Partition. - (boot)
273 MB, FAT (32-bit version) (fat32)

- Microsoft Reserved Partition. - (msftres)
134 MB, filesystem type unknown to Linux

- "Linux Basic Data Partition". -
299 GB, NTFS

RECOVERY "Linux Basic Data Partition". Required (hidden).
20 GB, NTFS.


Yikes, complicated stuff!

The 5th partition is clearly the actual recovery data for making the
recovery boot media. I have no idea what the 1st (small) partition
(also described as "recovery" of some kind) is.

The 2nd partition is apparently the EFI boot partition (confusingly, it
appears that it is called "system" because it is where you boot into an
operating *system* *from*; apparently in the Windows world, the "boot"
partition is where the (rest) of the OS that you have thence booted
*into* lives (assuming Wikipedia to be correct [1])).

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_partition_and_boot_partition ]]


The 3rd, Microsoft Reserved, partition is used for some sort of Windows
dark magic. Some searching found this, which I'm sure is of help, but
doesn't enlighten me personally very much.. ;-/
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/302873

The 4th partition is what we would ordinarily recognise as the Windows
partition, although obviously some Windows boot/system files are
scattered over the other three partitions! This is the partition that
I'm going to shrink down in order to make room for Linux.

When Windows is booted, only the main Windows partition and the last 20
GB recovery partition show up in "Computer".

Post by Paul
As a Win8 OEM user, you have downgrade rights to an older OS.
You can talk to the manufacturer about this, and see how
they can arrange for you to get Win7 or whatever. If you
want it, that's an option. As long as there are drivers,
that might be an option. If they agree to that, the Win7
would be OEM as well, and activation based on the SLIC
from the BIOs.

Thanks, that's useful to know. Do you know if that is a universal [sic]
worldwide right, or restricted to certain countries?

Given the "We'll pimp your data, bitch" attitude that MS and HP seem
to have regarding personal (and (allegedly) non-personal data - you
thought "live tiles" were information for _your_ benefit, oh noes,
adware/spyware++.. Every time you hit 'Start', presumably a gazillion
despicable online ad pushers get notified.. :-( ), according to the
assorted EULAs (yeah, I read them, just to remind myself how evil big
corporates tend to be <sigh>), I'll not be entangling myself with HP
to take them up on such an offer, however - which I suspect would
require a lot of pushing and shoving to make them come good on, in any
case. My workplace W7 licence allows home use, so I might stick W7 on
from there in a virtual machine in case I need it :-)

Post by Paul
What I can't tell you, is if a default Windows 8 install will
"boot either way", or whether it only boots the way it was
installed. That I can't answer.

OK, I can now report that.. very surprisingly unexpectedly, W8 doesn't
seem to care either way (at least not this particular installation,
possibly an OEM modification to reduce support requests from users who
have inadvertently b0rked their computer, perhaps?)! :-)

The UEFI squeals slightly if you disable Secure Boot (on saving UEFI
changes, you have to enter a random 4-digit number to confirm the
setting change, and then it's fine after that one-time change).

The UEFI squeals much more loudly, however, whenever you enable/disable
"legacy boot support" ("BIOS mode"): "Changing this setting may make the
system unable to boot the OS." Again, once the setting has been saved,
it's fine after that.

As alluded to above, I don't seem to be able to boot from any of my
Linux CDs in UEFI mode (although the W8 recovery DVD is fine), but have
no problems booting from CD in legacy/BIOS mode.

I can boot OK from a Linux USB stick (Xubuntu 12.04) in UEFI mode,
however. When I get around to actually installing Linux, I'll report
back further (and amend followup newsgroups accordingly).


Thanks, all, for your advice. Hopefully this information might be of
further use to anybody experimenting with this laptop or with
UEFI/Secure Boot in general, whether using any version of Windows, or
Linux, or indeed anything else..

It's a nice compact laptop, as portability is important to me, and since
you have to spend *a lot* more to get any higher ( = decent) screen
resolution these days (1366x768 is about spot-on for this screen size,
although 1440x900 (yes, 16:10, dammit, none of this short-screen 16:9
rubbish) at a slightly larger screen size would be the real sweet spot
for a "not too small, not too big" portable productivity laptop.. Now,
are any manufacturers actually listening..?! :-)

Thanks again,

David.

[Gene E. Bloch]

Post by David
You get the non-communicative W8 "drunken juggler bootup balls"
for what seems like forever

OT - but I hate those. Thanks for giving them that name - it makes me
feel better :-)

I did a search to see if I could replace them, but came up empty handed.
Some day I'll try a bit harder, though. Unless I get used to them...

[Paul]

Post by Gene E. Bloch

Post by David
You get the non-communicative W8 "drunken juggler bootup balls"
for what seems like forever

OT - but I hate those. Thanks for giving them that name - it makes me
feel better :-)
I did a search to see if I could replace them, but came up empty handed.
Some day I'll try a bit harder, though. Unless I get used to them...

The juggler balls can be replaced. I seem to remember finding a .bmp
file of some sort, with "frames" stored one above the other. The
graphics editor I was using, displayed the .bmp as a "tall strip"
containing the frames. It looks a bit like a celluloid movie strip.

If you find that file, you should be able to replace the animation
content.

Paul

[Paul]

Post by Paul

Post by Gene E. Bloch

You get the non-communicative W8 "drunken juggler bootup balls" for
what seems like forever

OT - but I hate those. Thanks for giving them that name - it makes me
feel better :-)
I did a search to see if I could replace them, but came up empty handed.
Some day I'll try a bit harder, though. Unless I get used to them...

The juggler balls can be replaced. I seem to remember finding a .bmp
file of some sort, with "frames" stored one above the other. The
graphics editor I was using, displayed the .bmp as a "tall strip"
containing the frames. It looks a bit like a celluloid movie strip.
If you find that file, you should be able to replace the animation
content.
Paul

After going through the process again, I obviously didn't find this
without help. I managed to reproduce the process - seems to work
for Windows 7. Not sure about Windows 8.

To see the "four color ball" animation during the boot of Windows 7,
start by looking for bootres.dll 2,217,856 bytes.

Open it with 7ZIP, extract .rsrc. (It's possible you
could just hexedit it, and delete the stuff up to the following
point, and it might still work.)

Take the .rsrc, and rename to some file whose name you'll remember.
Files with a dot as the first character, are not a good choice for
file name. Using a hex editor, delete everything until you see
the string "MSWIM". The new file size of .rsrc is now 2,209,160 bytes.
MSWIM now appears at the very first byte position.

OK, open this file with 7ZIP. If you edited it properly, 7ZIP treats
it as an archive. It is in .wim format (same as used on an
installer DVD). 7ZIP will show two things at the
top level - a folder "1" and a file "1.xml".
Open the folder to find "activity.bmp" 12600054 bytes.
Extract it.

Open with an image editor. A tall picture similar to a film strip,
should now be evident. The .bmp file is being used as a frame by frame
animation data source.

The following picture, shows a snippage of a small section of the
activity.bmp file for Windows 7.

Loading Image...

*******

The bootres.dll file for Windows 8 is a lot smaller.
I don't expect it has a .bmp in it, but I'll give it
a try in a moment. Maybe they're not using the same
method.

Paul

[Paul]

Post by Paul

Post by Paul

Post by Gene E. Bloch

You get the non-communicative W8 "drunken juggler bootup balls" for
what seems like forever

OT - but I hate those. Thanks for giving them that name - it makes me
feel better :-)
I did a search to see if I could replace them, but came up empty handed.
Some day I'll try a bit harder, though. Unless I get used to them...

The juggler balls can be replaced. I seem to remember finding a .bmp
file of some sort, with "frames" stored one above the other. The
graphics editor I was using, displayed the .bmp as a "tall strip"
containing the frames. It looks a bit like a celluloid movie strip.
If you find that file, you should be able to replace the animation
content.
Paul

The bootres.dll file for Windows 8 is a lot smaller.
I don't expect it has a .bmp in it, but I'll give it
a try in a moment. Maybe they're not using the same
method.
Paul

OK, opened the bootres.dll on the Windows 8 drive.

There is something in there. Instead of activity.bmp,
there are six files. winlogo1.bmp , winlogo2.bmp ,
winlogo3.bmp , winlogo3n.bmp , winlogo4.bmp , winlogo5.bmp.
They're versions of the "four glass pane" logo of Windows 8.
So no "drunken juggler balls" are in there. They've got
to be somewhere else. Maybe even generated by code ???

Paul

[Gene E. Bloch]

Post by Paul

Post by Paul

Post by Paul

Post by Gene E. Bloch

You get the non-communicative W8 "drunken juggler bootup balls" for
what seems like forever

OT - but I hate those. Thanks for giving them that name - it makes me
feel better :-)
I did a search to see if I could replace them, but came up empty handed.
Some day I'll try a bit harder, though. Unless I get used to them...

The juggler balls can be replaced. I seem to remember finding a .bmp
file of some sort, with "frames" stored one above the other. The
graphics editor I was using, displayed the .bmp as a "tall strip"
containing the frames. It looks a bit like a celluloid movie strip.
If you find that file, you should be able to replace the animation
content.
Paul

The bootres.dll file for Windows 8 is a lot smaller.
I don't expect it has a .bmp in it, but I'll give it
a try in a moment. Maybe they're not using the same
method.
Paul

OK, opened the bootres.dll on the Windows 8 drive.
There is something in there. Instead of activity.bmp,
there are six files. winlogo1.bmp , winlogo2.bmp ,
winlogo3.bmp , winlogo3n.bmp , winlogo4.bmp , winlogo5.bmp.
They're versions of the "four glass pane" logo of Windows 8.
So no "drunken juggler balls" are in there. They've got
to be somewhere else. Maybe even generated by code ???
Paul

Thanks for the hard work.

Generated by code... Could be. That would be mean of them :-)

Or perhaps I should have said :-(

OTOH, there might still be a facility for linking another file to W8 for
an hourglass.

Please don't works so hard on my behalf - I've bought a pair of dark
glasses to wear during boot up and other times when the juggler's balls
are on screen :-)

[Paul]

Post by Gene E. Bloch

Post by Paul

Post by Paul

Post by Paul

Post by Gene E. Bloch

You get the non-communicative W8 "drunken juggler bootup balls" for
what seems like forever

OT - but I hate those. Thanks for giving them that name - it makes me
feel better :-)
I did a search to see if I could replace them, but came up empty handed.
Some day I'll try a bit harder, though. Unless I get used to them...

The juggler balls can be replaced. I seem to remember finding a .bmp
file of some sort, with "frames" stored one above the other. The
graphics editor I was using, displayed the .bmp as a "tall strip"
containing the frames. It looks a bit like a celluloid movie strip.
If you find that file, you should be able to replace the animation
content.
Paul

The bootres.dll file for Windows 8 is a lot smaller.
I don't expect it has a .bmp in it, but I'll give it
a try in a moment. Maybe they're not using the same
method.
Paul

OK, opened the bootres.dll on the Windows 8 drive.
There is something in there. Instead of activity.bmp,
there are six files. winlogo1.bmp , winlogo2.bmp ,
winlogo3.bmp , winlogo3n.bmp , winlogo4.bmp , winlogo5.bmp.
They're versions of the "four glass pane" logo of Windows 8.
So no "drunken juggler balls" are in there. They've got
to be somewhere else. Maybe even generated by code ???
Paul

Thanks for the hard work.
Generated by code... Could be. That would be mean of them :-)
Or perhaps I should have said :-(
OTOH, there might still be a facility for linking another file to W8 for
an hourglass.
Please don't works so hard on my behalf - I've bought a pair of dark
glasses to wear during boot up and other times when the juggler's balls
are on screen :-)

This might not mean anything, but I noticed something.

When I run Windows Update, there is a jugglers balls display
in there, and it is distorted. The aspect ratio of the pixmap
is wrong. I was hoping that meant a Windows 7 method was
being used, rather than a C program as such.

I ran Procmon while Windows Update was running in Windows 8,
but I'm still going through the trace. I captured about 40 seconds
worth of "ReadFile" calls. And there are a lot of files to
examine... My theory is, one of those files has a resource in
it, with the pixmaps. Time will tell.

*******

By the way, I had another CHKDSK failure last night. I left the
computer running, and when I came back, shut down Windows 8.
While in the BIOS, the WinXP disk wasn't showing up. It looks
like the WinXP disk had spun down while Windows 8 was running,
and then, no amount of rebooting would bring it back. I had to
power cycle the computer, before the disk showed up. And then
it needed CHKDSK. And this is after doing things like
disabling fast startup, changing the disk spindown settings
in the Power control panel and all that jazz. It's still
screwing up for some reason.

There's nothing wrong with the hardware that I know of.
All other OSes work fine with the disks, and the SMART stats
look good. I think there is some tiny issue with Win8 power
management or something.

In other Windows 8 news, I have Windows Update "neutered",
in the hope that the computer would not start doing random
downloads while I'm working on it. So I'm sitting there,
and all of a sudden, the computer is downloading stuff.
(About 100MB worth.) It seems the "tiles" in Windows 8,
are "self-updating". Which means they ignore Windows Update
intended settings (manual only), and bloody well do whatever
they please. I had to look in a CBS file of some sort, to
figure out what was going on. So now my "Bing Sports" or
"Zune somethingorother", stuff I have no interest in,
has been updated, and I didn't get a say in it.

Can you imagine what it would like to be on dialup, and
use an OS like Windows 8 ? It would take about 5 hours
to complete those tile updates, during which time any
other Internet operation would be virtually impossible.
Other times, when I've run Windows Update, there can be
several hundred megabytes worth of crap to download.
It's definitely a "broadband OS".

Maybe when Microsoft finishes their next "subscription"
OS, they can send a DVD with the Windows Update on it
every month :-)

Paul

[Gene E. Bloch]

Post by Paul

Post by Gene E. Bloch

Post by Paul

Post by Paul

Post by Paul

Post by Gene E. Bloch

You get the non-communicative W8 "drunken juggler bootup balls" for
what seems like forever

OT - but I hate those. Thanks for giving them that name - it makes me
feel better :-)
I did a search to see if I could replace them, but came up empty handed.
Some day I'll try a bit harder, though. Unless I get used to them...

The juggler balls can be replaced. I seem to remember finding a .bmp
file of some sort, with "frames" stored one above the other. The
graphics editor I was using, displayed the .bmp as a "tall strip"
containing the frames. It looks a bit like a celluloid movie strip.
If you find that file, you should be able to replace the animation
content.
Paul

The bootres.dll file for Windows 8 is a lot smaller.
I don't expect it has a .bmp in it, but I'll give it
a try in a moment. Maybe they're not using the same
method.
Paul

OK, opened the bootres.dll on the Windows 8 drive.
There is something in there. Instead of activity.bmp,
there are six files. winlogo1.bmp , winlogo2.bmp ,
winlogo3.bmp , winlogo3n.bmp , winlogo4.bmp , winlogo5.bmp.
They're versions of the "four glass pane" logo of Windows 8.
So no "drunken juggler balls" are in there. They've got
to be somewhere else. Maybe even generated by code ???
Paul

Thanks for the hard work.
Generated by code... Could be. That would be mean of them :-)
Or perhaps I should have said :-(
OTOH, there might still be a facility for linking another file to W8 for
an hourglass.
Please don't works so hard on my behalf - I've bought a pair of dark
glasses to wear during boot up and other times when the juggler's balls
are on screen :-)

This might not mean anything, but I noticed something.
When I run Windows Update, there is a jugglers balls display
in there, and it is distorted. The aspect ratio of the pixmap
is wrong. I was hoping that meant a Windows 7 method was
being used, rather than a C program as such.
I ran Procmon while Windows Update was running in Windows 8,
but I'm still going through the trace. I captured about 40 seconds
worth of "ReadFile" calls. And there are a lot of files to
examine... My theory is, one of those files has a resource in
it, with the pixmaps. Time will tell.
*******
By the way, I had another CHKDSK failure last night. I left the
computer running, and when I came back, shut down Windows 8.
While in the BIOS, the WinXP disk wasn't showing up. It looks
like the WinXP disk had spun down while Windows 8 was running,
and then, no amount of rebooting would bring it back. I had to
power cycle the computer, before the disk showed up. And then
it needed CHKDSK. And this is after doing things like
disabling fast startup, changing the disk spindown settings
in the Power control panel and all that jazz. It's still
screwing up for some reason.
There's nothing wrong with the hardware that I know of.
All other OSes work fine with the disks, and the SMART stats
look good. I think there is some tiny issue with Win8 power
management or something.
In other Windows 8 news, I have Windows Update "neutered",
in the hope that the computer would not start doing random
downloads while I'm working on it. So I'm sitting there,
and all of a sudden, the computer is downloading stuff.
(About 100MB worth.) It seems the "tiles" in Windows 8,
are "self-updating". Which means they ignore Windows Update
intended settings (manual only), and bloody well do whatever
they please. I had to look in a CBS file of some sort, to
figure out what was going on. So now my "Bing Sports" or
"Zune somethingorother", stuff I have no interest in,
has been updated, and I didn't get a say in it.
Can you imagine what it would like to be on dialup, and
use an OS like Windows 8 ? It would take about 5 hours
to complete those tile updates, during which time any
other Internet operation would be virtually impossible.
Other times, when I've run Windows Update, there can be
several hundred megabytes worth of crap to download.
It's definitely a "broadband OS".
Maybe when Microsoft finishes their next "subscription"
OS, they can send a DVD with the Windows Update on it
every month :-)
Paul

Not only the slowness of dialup, but lots of people pay for stuff they
think they have disabled :-(

My only oddities with W8 came when I used free tools (Macrium to clone,
EasdeUS and Partition Wizard) from boot disks to copy my 500GB to a 1TB
drive, then shrink the W7 and enlarge the W8. Things were flaky, but
Windows claimed to fxx them.

Since I didn't have any real stuff on the 1 TB drive, and since I was
paranoid about the problems, I repeated the process a couple of times.
The last time I ran the tools under Windows 8 rather than from the CDs.
That time everything was better.

Anyway, I blame the free tools, rather than Windows...I think...

[Joe Morris]

Post by Gene E. Bloch

Post by Paul

Post by Gene E. Bloch

Post by Paul

Post by Paul

Post by Paul

Post by Gene E. Bloch

You get the non-communicative W8 "drunken juggler bootup balls" for
what seems like forever

OT - but I hate those. Thanks for giving them that name - it makes me
feel better :-)
I did a search to see if I could replace them, but came up empty handed.
Some day I'll try a bit harder, though. Unless I get used to them...

The juggler balls can be replaced. I seem to remember finding a .bmp
file of some sort, with "frames" stored one above the other. The
graphics editor I was using, displayed the .bmp as a "tall strip"
containing the frames. It looks a bit like a celluloid movie strip.
If you find that file, you should be able to replace the animation
content.
Paul

The bootres.dll file for Windows 8 is a lot smaller.
I don't expect it has a .bmp in it, but I'll give it
a try in a moment. Maybe they're not using the same
method.
Paul

OK, opened the bootres.dll on the Windows 8 drive.
There is something in there. Instead of activity.bmp,
there are six files. winlogo1.bmp , winlogo2.bmp ,
winlogo3.bmp , winlogo3n.bmp , winlogo4.bmp , winlogo5.bmp.
They're versions of the "four glass pane" logo of Windows 8.
So no "drunken juggler balls" are in there. They've got
to be somewhere else. Maybe even generated by code ???
Paul

Thanks for the hard work.
Generated by code... Could be. That would be mean of them :-)
Or perhaps I should have said :-(
OTOH, there might still be a facility for linking another file to W8 for
an hourglass.
Please don't works so hard on my behalf - I've bought a pair of dark
glasses to wear during boot up and other times when the juggler's balls
are on screen :-)

This might not mean anything, but I noticed something.
When I run Windows Update, there is a jugglers balls display
in there, and it is distorted. The aspect ratio of the pixmap
is wrong. I was hoping that meant a Windows 7 method was
being used, rather than a C program as such.
I ran Procmon while Windows Update was running in Windows 8,
but I'm still going through the trace. I captured about 40 seconds
worth of "ReadFile" calls. And there are a lot of files to
examine... My theory is, one of those files has a resource in
it, with the pixmaps. Time will tell.
*******
By the way, I had another CHKDSK failure last night. I left the
computer running, and when I came back, shut down Windows 8.
While in the BIOS, the WinXP disk wasn't showing up. It looks
like the WinXP disk had spun down while Windows 8 was running,
and then, no amount of rebooting would bring it back. I had to
power cycle the computer, before the disk showed up. And then
it needed CHKDSK. And this is after doing things like
disabling fast startup, changing the disk spindown settings
in the Power control panel and all that jazz. It's still
screwing up for some reason.
There's nothing wrong with the hardware that I know of.
All other OSes work fine with the disks, and the SMART stats
look good. I think there is some tiny issue with Win8 power
management or something.
In other Windows 8 news, I have Windows Update "neutered",
in the hope that the computer would not start doing random
downloads while I'm working on it. So I'm sitting there,
and all of a sudden, the computer is downloading stuff.
(About 100MB worth.) It seems the "tiles" in Windows 8,
are "self-updating". Which means they ignore Windows Update
intended settings (manual only), and bloody well do whatever
they please. I had to look in a CBS file of some sort, to
figure out what was going on. So now my "Bing Sports" or
"Zune somethingorother", stuff I have no interest in,
has been updated, and I didn't get a say in it.
Can you imagine what it would like to be on dialup, and
use an OS like Windows 8 ? It would take about 5 hours
to complete those tile updates, during which time any
other Internet operation would be virtually impossible.
Other times, when I've run Windows Update, there can be
several hundred megabytes worth of crap to download.
It's definitely a "broadband OS".
Maybe when Microsoft finishes their next "subscription"
OS, they can send a DVD with the Windows Update on it
every month :-)
Paul

Not only the slowness of dialup, but lots of people pay for stuff they
think they have disabled :-(
My only oddities with W8 came when I used free tools (Macrium to clone,
EasdeUS and Partition Wizard) from boot disks to copy my 500GB to a 1TB
drive, then shrink the W7 and enlarge the W8. Things were flaky, but
Windows claimed to fxx them.
Since I didn't have any real stuff on the 1 TB drive, and since I was
paranoid about the problems, I repeated the process a couple of times.
The last time I ran the tools under Windows 8 rather than from the CDs.
That time everything was better.
Anyway, I blame the free tools, rather than Windows...I think...
--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

[Joe Morris]

Apologies for the resending of a note with no added text...fat-fingered the
send button before typing what I wanted to say.

Post by Paul
In other Windows 8 news, I have Windows Update "neutered",
in the hope that the computer would not start doing random
downloads while I'm working on it. So I'm sitting there,
and all of a sudden, the computer is downloading stuff.
(About 100MB worth.) It seems the "tiles" in Windows 8,
are "self-updating". Which means they ignore Windows Update
intended settings (manual only), and bloody well do whatever
they please. I had to look in a CBS file of some sort, to
figure out what was going on. So now my "Bing Sports" or
"Zune somethingorother", stuff I have no interest in,
has been updated, and I didn't get a say in it.

Can you identify which specific applications you've seen to be
self-updating? (I can't tell for sure if you were citing programs that
you've seen to be updated, or you were naming typical examples of the
crapware.) If you can get back sometime today I'll see if I can pass that
to Microsoft: I have a telephone call scheduled Monday morning with my
Microsoft account manager about some administrative problems that Redmond
has been ignoring for months and I might be able to work the question about
stealth updates into the discussion.

A critical item is what you mean by "neutered". Did you set the local
policy via a Registry change, or did you select an option like "tell me when
updates are available but don't download them"?

BTW: the Registry setting that blocks all automated Windows Update (perhaps
"other than Metro apps"), but still allows manual invocation:

HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU
NoAutoUpdate=dword:1

Post by Paul
Can you imagine what it would like to be on dialup, and
use an OS like Windows 8 ? It would take about 5 hours
to complete those tile updates, during which time any
other Internet operation would be virtually impossible.
Other times, when I've run Windows Update, there can be
several hundred megabytes worth of crap to download.
It's definitely a "broadband OS".

Since I hadn't heard of this until it was mentioned here (my POE has made no
moves yet to start a Windows 8 upgrade project) I've not investigated it,
but it's worth noting that several network tools are sensitive to the
bandwidth between the client and server, and will either throttle or never
start a connection. It's possible that the update process would behave
differently if the machine is on a slow network.


Joe

[Paul]

Post by Joe Morris
Apologies for the resending of a note with no added text...fat-fingered the
send button before typing what I wanted to say.

Post by Paul
In other Windows 8 news, I have Windows Update "neutered",
in the hope that the computer would not start doing random
downloads while I'm working on it. So I'm sitting there,
and all of a sudden, the computer is downloading stuff.
(About 100MB worth.) It seems the "tiles" in Windows 8,
are "self-updating". Which means they ignore Windows Update
intended settings (manual only), and bloody well do whatever
they please. I had to look in a CBS file of some sort, to
figure out what was going on. So now my "Bing Sports" or
"Zune somethingorother", stuff I have no interest in,
has been updated, and I didn't get a say in it.

Can you identify which specific applications you've seen to be
self-updating? (I can't tell for sure if you were citing programs that
you've seen to be updated, or you were naming typical examples of the
crapware.) If you can get back sometime today I'll see if I can pass that
to Microsoft: I have a telephone call scheduled Monday morning with my
Microsoft account manager about some administrative problems that Redmond
has been ignoring for months and I might be able to work the question about
stealth updates into the discussion.
A critical item is what you mean by "neutered". Did you set the local
policy via a Registry change, or did you select an option like "tell me when
updates are available but don't download them"?
BTW: the Registry setting that blocks all automated Windows Update (perhaps
HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU
NoAutoUpdate=dword:1

Post by Paul
Can you imagine what it would like to be on dialup, and
use an OS like Windows 8 ? It would take about 5 hours
to complete those tile updates, during which time any
other Internet operation would be virtually impossible.
Other times, when I've run Windows Update, there can be
several hundred megabytes worth of crap to download.
It's definitely a "broadband OS".

Since I hadn't heard of this until it was mentioned here (my POE has made no
moves yet to start a Windows 8 upgrade project) I've not investigated it,
but it's worth noting that several network tools are sensitive to the
bandwidth between the client and server, and will either throttle or never
start a connection. It's possible that the update process would behave
differently if the machine is on a slow network.
Joe

It's hard to collect all the details again, but here's what I could find.

21:08:33 to 21:17:20 <--- my recovered packet trace. Took a few minutes to install and set up.
pcap file is 132,435,968 bytes for the minutes that were captured.

My WindowsUpdate is supposed to be set, so that I initiate WindowsUpdate
tile when I want to, and then I review the updates. Instead, this happened
on its own as near as I can remember.

*******

From the ReportingEvents.log file (not what I was looking at that evening)

{1D0C9A3E-4BE3-4114-99FB-6467BC6E1922} 2013-02-15 21:02:42:796-0500 1 147 [AGENT_DETECTION_FINISHED]
101 {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000} 0 0 AutomaticUpdates
Success Software Synchronization Windows Update Client successfully detected 15 updates.
{FA6F53C1-79E8-49BF-96FA-5536EADB1E01} 2013-02-15 21:02:47:835-0500 1 189 [AU_UNSCHEDULED_INSTALL_READY]
102 {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000} 0 0 AutomaticUpdates
Success Content Install Installation Ready: The following updates are downloaded and ready
for installation. To install the updates, an administrator should log on to this computer
and Windows will prompt with further instructions:
- Update for Windows 8 for x64-based Systems (KB2764462)
- Update for Windows 8 for x64-based Systems (KB2777294)
- Update for Windows 8 for x64-based Systems (KB2769034)
- Update for Windows 8 for x64-based Systems (KB2780541)
{F9CFF9C2-B6FE-4514-9E63-DDF9BFC9BD0E} 2013-02-15 21:02:47:835-0500 1 189 [AU_UNSCHEDULED_INSTALL_READY]
102 {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000} 0 0 AutomaticUpdates
Success Content Install Installation Ready: The following updates are downloaded and ready
for installation. To install the updates, an administrator should log on to this computer
and Windows will prompt with further instructions:
- Microsoft.Camera
- Microsoft.Bing
- Microsoft.BingNews
- microsoft.windowsphotos
- Microsoft.Reader
- microsoft.microsoftskydrive
- Microsoft.XboxLIVEGames
- Microsoft.BingMaps
{CC8A9268-8B91-4679-BA34-BD460B9FC22F} 2013-02-15 21:05:34:565-0500 1 189 [AU_UNSCHEDULED_INSTALL_READY]
102 {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000} 0 0 AutomaticUpdates
Success Content Install Installation Ready: The following updates are downloaded and ready
for installation. To install the updates, an administrator should log on to this computer
and Windows will prompt with further instructions:
- Update for Windows 8 for x64-based Systems (KB2764462)
- Update for Windows 8 for x64-based Systems (KB2777294)
- Update for Windows 8 for x64-based Systems (KB2769034)
- Update for Windows 8 for x64-based Systems (KB2780541)
{6EEDBD41-5DF5-4CD9-ABF7-9810AAE240B8} 2013-02-15 21:05:34:565-0500 1 189 [AU_UNSCHEDULED_INSTALL_READY]
102 {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000} 0 0 AutomaticUpdates
Success Content Install Installation Ready: The following updates are downloaded and ready
for installation. To install the updates, an administrator should log on to this computer
and Windows will prompt with further instructions:
- Microsoft.Camera
- Microsoft.Bing
- Microsoft.BingNews
- microsoft.windowsphotos
- Microsoft.Reader
- Microsoft.BingFinance
- microsoft.microsoftskydrive
- Microsoft.XboxLIVEGames
- Microsoft.BingMaps
{A88C039A-3E3F-4540-ABD4-A300F88249BE} 2013-02-15 21:05:34:612-0500 1 162 [AGENT_DOWNLOAD_SUCCEEDED]
101 {67CE2B7B-059F-4AB8-8AFD-97D94FCC5A39} 2 0 AutomaticUpdates
Success Content Download Download succeeded.
{CCF53AA2-73E9-4504-91F9-5B4236A27FDE} 2013-02-15 21:06:56:326-0500 1 189 [AU_UNSCHEDULED_INSTALL_READY]
102 {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000} 0 0 AutomaticUpdates
Success Content Install Installation Ready: The following updates are downloaded and ready
for installation. To install the updates, an administrator should log on to this computer
and Windows will prompt with further instructions:
- Update for Windows 8 for x64-based Systems (KB2764462)
- Update for Windows 8 for x64-based Systems (KB2777294)
- Update for Windows 8 for x64-based Systems (KB2769034)
- Update for Windows 8 for x64-based Systems (KB2780541)
{256CBD59-671A-4C13-AF95-41DC9DBD1A9E} 2013-02-15 21:06:56:326-0500 1 189 [AU_UNSCHEDULED_INSTALL_READY]
102 {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000} 0 0 AutomaticUpdates
Success Content Install Installation Ready: The following updates are downloaded and ready
for installation. To install the updates, an administrator should log on to this computer
and Windows will prompt with further instructions:
- Microsoft.Camera
- Microsoft.Bing
- Microsoft.BingNews
- microsoft.windowsphotos
- Microsoft.Reader
- Microsoft.BingFinance
- microsoft.microsoftskydrive
- Microsoft.XboxLIVEGames
- Microsoft.ZuneVideo
- Microsoft.BingMaps
{1A60FBA9-6AE0-48A9-9800-AE8F5815617A} 2013-02-15 21:06:56:373-0500 1 162 [AGENT_DOWNLOAD_SUCCEEDED]
101 {05AA8B8F-3962-4AA7-9228-CEBE382555DF} 3 0 AutomaticUpdates
Success Content Download Download succeeded.
{7F69B770-3479-4EFF-AF91-DC7DF822BDF0} 2013-02-15 21:08:04:915-0500 1 189 [AU_UNSCHEDULED_INSTALL_READY]
102 {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000} 0 0 AutomaticUpdates
Success Content Install Installation Ready: The following updates are downloaded and ready
for installation. To install the updates, an administrator should log on to this computer
and Windows will prompt with further instructions:
- Update for Windows 8 for x64-based Systems (KB2764462)
- Update for Windows 8 for x64-based Systems (KB2777294)
- Update for Windows 8 for x64-based Systems (KB2769034)
- Update for Windows 8 for x64-based Systems (KB2780541)
{2E1D4DB6-EEFE-4C01-BFEA-6314420EA4EC} 2013-02-15 21:08:04:915-0500 1 189 [AU_UNSCHEDULED_INSTALL_READY]
102 {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000} 0 0 AutomaticUpdates
Success Content Install Installation Ready: The following updates are downloaded and ready
for installation. To install the updates, an administrator should log on to this computer
and Windows will prompt with further instructions:
- Microsoft.Camera
- Microsoft.Bing
- Microsoft.BingNews
- microsoft.windowsphotos
- Microsoft.Reader
- Microsoft.BingFinance
- microsoft.microsoftskydrive
- Microsoft.XboxLIVEGames
- Microsoft.ZuneVideo
- Microsoft.BingWeather
- Microsoft.BingMaps
{7A8A6241-A0F5-4830-89D6-8C85605B13DB} 2013-02-15 21:08:04:946-0500 1 162 [AGENT_DOWNLOAD_SUCCEEDED]
101 {12E056AD-4BA2-4A3F-AA47-7820708A4441} 2 0 AutomaticUpdates
Success Content Download Download succeeded.
{62D63547-47AD-48E9-8EC5-53D6DB62E573} 2013-02-15 21:10:08:858-0500 1 162 [AGENT_DOWNLOAD_SUCCEEDED]
101 {D97A25EE-D352-49DA-95EC-FB5E49758E78} 3 0 AutomaticUpdates
Success Content Download Download succeeded.
{B10E4FA7-903D-4A92-8017-D60A0DC5FB16} 2013-02-15 21:10:08:858-0500 1 189 [AU_UNSCHEDULED_INSTALL_READY]
102 {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000} 0 0 AutomaticUpdates
Success Content Install Installation Ready: The following updates are downloaded and ready
for installation. To install the updates, an administrator should log on to this computer
and Windows will prompt with further instructions:
- Update for Windows 8 for x64-based Systems (KB2764462)
- Update for Windows 8 for x64-based Systems (KB2777294)
- Update for Windows 8 for x64-based Systems (KB2769034)
- Update for Windows 8 for x64-based Systems (KB2780541)
{DA2E1F0B-C185-4C7E-825C-B6A2D4E843F7} 2013-02-15 21:10:08:858-0500 1 189 [AU_UNSCHEDULED_INSTALL_READY]
102 {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000} 0 0 AutomaticUpdates
Success Content Install Installation Ready: The following updates are downloaded and ready
for installation. To install the updates, an administrator should log on to this computer
and Windows will prompt with further instructions:
- Microsoft.Camera
- Microsoft.Bing
- Microsoft.BingNews
- microsoft.windowsphotos
- Microsoft.Reader
- Microsoft.BingFinance
- microsoft.microsoftskydrive
- Microsoft.XboxLIVEGames
- Microsoft.ZuneVideo
- Microsoft.BingWeather
- Microsoft.BingMaps
- Microsoft.BingSports
{AE5C9F89-69C8-411F-B9C2-91A406C12851} 2013-02-15 21:10:18:390-0500 1 147 [AGENT_DETECTION_FINISHED]
101 {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000} 0 0 AutomaticUpdates
Success Software Synchronization Windows Update Client successfully detected 18 updates.
{EDD3BC70-F243-4560-9723-5C991153D3C4} 2013-02-15 21:12:06:421-0500 1 189 [AU_UNSCHEDULED_INSTALL_READY]
102 {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000} 0 0 AutomaticUpdates
Success Content Install Installation Ready: The following updates are downloaded and ready
for installation. To install the updates, an administrator should log on to this computer
and Windows will prompt with further instructions:
- Update for Windows 8 for x64-based Systems (KB2777294)
- Update for Windows 8 for x64-based Systems (KB2769034)
- Update for Windows 8 for x64-based Systems (KB2780541)
{29145955-37A6-4ABC-B615-B629B5FB9A72} 2013-02-15 21:12:06:421-0500 1 189 [AU_UNSCHEDULED_INSTALL_READY]
102 {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000} 0 0 AutomaticUpdates
Success Content Install Installation Ready: The following updates are downloaded and ready
for installation. To install the updates, an administrator should log on to this computer
and Windows will prompt with further instructions:
- Microsoft.Camera
- Microsoft.Bing
- Microsoft.BingNews
- microsoft.windowsphotos
- Microsoft.Reader
- Microsoft.BingFinance
- microsoft.microsoftskydrive
- Microsoft.XboxLIVEGames
- Microsoft.ZuneVideo
- Microsoft.BingWeather
- Microsoft.ZuneMusic
- Microsoft.BingMaps
- Microsoft.BingSports
{D0DCC3A6-8C09-4DCA-B2EF-14C1F8514C6A} 2013-02-15 21:12:06:453-0500 1 162 [AGENT_DOWNLOAD_SUCCEEDED]
101 {C60C19B0-3499-4D3F-B162-40ECBC4BA8B7} 2 0 AutomaticUpdates
Success Content Download Download succeeded.
{369EE642-A505-4A58-9EFD-86BEDA6D9079} 2013-02-15 21:13:24:908-0500 1 189 [AU_UNSCHEDULED_INSTALL_READY]
102 {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000} 0 0 AutomaticUpdates
Success Content Install Installation Ready: The following updates are downloaded and ready
for installation. To install the updates, an administrator should log on to this computer
and Windows will prompt with further instructions:
- Update for Windows 8 for x64-based Systems (KB2777294)
- Update for Windows 8 for x64-based Systems (KB2769034)
- Update for Windows 8 for x64-based Systems (KB2780541)
{8B50FE14-CBF7-4937-B07E-6C1AA0254BA6} 2013-02-15 21:13:24:908-0500 1 189 [AU_UNSCHEDULED_INSTALL_READY]
102 {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000} 0 0 AutomaticUpdates
Success Content Install Installation Ready: The following updates are downloaded and ready
for installation. To install the updates, an administrator should log on to this computer
and Windows will prompt with further instructions:
- Microsoft.Camera
- Microsoft.Bing
- Microsoft.BingNews
- microsoft.windowsphotos
- Microsoft.Reader
- Microsoft.BingFinance
- microsoft.microsoftskydrive
- Microsoft.XboxLIVEGames
- Microsoft.ZuneVideo
- Microsoft.BingWeather
- Microsoft.ZuneMusic
- microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps
- Microsoft.BingMaps
- Microsoft.BingSports
{72D52F0F-E22E-40FC-908E-F8EC023FA5FD} 2013-02-15 21:13:24:923-0500 1 162 [AGENT_DOWNLOAD_SUCCEEDED]
101 {231F62BB-317E-438D-8207-57755B1516D5} 3 0 AutomaticUpdates
Success Content Download Download succeeded.
{71687FEB-F716-4C49-BDD3-1A55378D9EEC} 2013-02-15 21:19:51:979-0500 1 162 [AGENT_DOWNLOAD_SUCCEEDED]
101 {3F32F703-3B38-43DE-B861-39AB353F48D1} 2 0 AutomaticUpdates
Success Content Download Download succeeded.
{470B1EA7-88B3-400D-97B5-0C5415A746E5} 2013-02-15 21:19:51:979-0500 1 189 [AU_UNSCHEDULED_INSTALL_READY]
102 {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000} 0 0 AutomaticUpdates
Success Content Install Installation Ready: The following updates are downloaded and ready
for installation. To install the updates, an administrator should log on to this computer
and Windows will prompt with further instructions:
- Update for Windows 8 for x64-based Systems (KB2777294)
- Update for Windows 8 for x64-based Systems (KB2769034)
- Update for Windows 8 for x64-based Systems (KB2780541)
{F5EE7B72-539D-45AC-9B24-5EB2A25E1986} 2013-02-15 21:19:51:979-0500 1 189 [AU_UNSCHEDULED_INSTALL_READY]
102 {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000} 0 0 AutomaticUpdates
Success Content Install Installation Ready: The following updates are downloaded and ready
for installation. To install the updates, an administrator should log on to this computer
and Windows will prompt with further instructions:
- Microsoft.BingTravel
- Microsoft.Camera
- Microsoft.Bing
- Microsoft.BingNews
- microsoft.windowsphotos
- Microsoft.Reader
- Microsoft.BingFinance
- microsoft.microsoftskydrive
- Microsoft.XboxLIVEGames
- Microsoft.ZuneVideo
- Microsoft.BingWeather
- Microsoft.ZuneMusic
- microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps
- Microsoft.BingMaps
- Microsoft.BingSports

*******

I think what I was looking at, was some sort of CBSPersist file,
and it had more info about some of the things being downloaded.
I don't know why I got the impression it might be "content"
for the tiles.

*******
WindowsUpdate.log

2013-02-15 21:05:34:550 824 464 Handler AppX GDR: Package Microsoft.BingFinance_1.7.0.38_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
already installed for update DA1BF06D-11C9-470B-AF32-00047D960866.
No download required.
2013-02-15 21:06:56:295 824 464 Handler AppX GDR: Package Microsoft.ZuneVideo_1.1.134.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
already installed for update 7FFFBADC-7B14-4286-A2CF-DFBD75529F85.
No download required.
2013-02-15 21:08:04:899 824 464 Handler AppX GDR: Package Microsoft.BingWeather_1.7.0.26_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
already installed for update FEBCF6F2-CFCD-4B3C-A82F-C945B659A81D.
No download required.
2013-02-15 21:10:08:827 824 464 Handler AppX GDR: Package Microsoft.BingSports_1.8.0.51_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
already installed for update 50AF12D4-20C5-471B-BA40-48CDC3719090.
No download required.
2013-02-15 21:12:06:421 824 464 Handler AppX GDR: Package Microsoft.ZuneMusic_1.1.144.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
already installed for update 44CB1534-D7CF-48DE-86C9-D20D89311FD7.
No download required.
2013-02-15 21:19:51:964 824 464 Handler AppX GDR: Package Microsoft.BingTravel_1.7.0.26_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
already installed for update A06DBA77-4649-4B88-8217-DDB5F8DF6A4C.
No download required.
*******

Paul

[Joe Morris]

Post by Paul
My WindowsUpdate is supposed to be set, so that I initiate WindowsUpdate
tile when I want to, and then I review the updates. Instead, this happened
on its own as near as I can remember.

[snip update logs]

I've had little reason to delve into the guts of WU in general and Win8 WU
in particular; our policy is to disable it by policy, giving IT an
opportunity to do at least a fast sanity check on updates before our users
get it via our software maintenance tool. However, reading the material you
quoted from ReportingEvents.log suggest that a manual update cycle was
triggered by <something>.

The excerpt from ReportingEvents.log seems to have caught the system
downloading updates for the apps after having downloaded four Windows fixes.
One thing I don't see is why KB2764462 is present at the start of the log,
but disappears from the entries somewhere between 21:08 and 21:10. (This is
a compatibility patch for Win8 and Server 2012.)

I'll hit the MS rep on this but without a lot more research - which I can't
in good faith ask for - he probably can't give a good answer about what you
saw. I will ask him to dig out whatever he can on the subject of update
behavior for the Metro apps that are included in the Win8 distribution.

Stay tuned.

Joe

[Paul]

Post by Joe Morris

Post by Paul
My WindowsUpdate is supposed to be set, so that I initiate WindowsUpdate
tile when I want to, and then I review the updates. Instead, this happened
on its own as near as I can remember.

[snip update logs]
I've had little reason to delve into the guts of WU in general and Win8 WU
in particular; our policy is to disable it by policy, giving IT an
opportunity to do at least a fast sanity check on updates before our users
get it via our software maintenance tool. However, reading the material you
quoted from ReportingEvents.log suggest that a manual update cycle was
triggered by <something>.
The excerpt from ReportingEvents.log seems to have caught the system
downloading updates for the apps after having downloaded four Windows fixes.
One thing I don't see is why KB2764462 is present at the start of the log,
but disappears from the entries somewhere between 21:08 and 21:10. (This is
a compatibility patch for Win8 and Server 2012.)
I'll hit the MS rep on this but without a lot more research - which I can't
in good faith ask for - he probably can't give a good answer about what you
saw. I will ask him to dig out whatever he can on the subject of update
behavior for the Metro apps that are included in the Win8 distribution.
Stay tuned.
Joe

The thing that concerned me a bit, was the term "Self-updating"
that I saw somewhere, with respect to those programs. It implies they
fend for themselves, and are outside user control (sort of how
the latest Firefox can update itself when it feels like it).

On occasion, I need a "quiet system". If I'm running Procmon
and doing an experiment, the last thing I want is gallons of
downloads polluting any logs I'm collecting.

I was actually in the middle of debugging something,
when this second surprise was added to my plate. I had to rush to
try to get my packet sniffer set up, so I could have a trace for
later as to what was going on. The trace mainly has references to
Akamai in it, and very little of the trace contains intelligible
information.

Paul

[Joe Morris]

Post by Joe Morris

Post by Paul
My WindowsUpdate is supposed to be set, so that I initiate WindowsUpdate
tile when I want to, and then I review the updates. Instead, this happened
on its own as near as I can remember.

[snip update logs]

[...]

Post by Joe Morris
I'll hit the MS rep on this but without a lot more research - which I
can't in good faith ask for - he probably can't give a good answer about
what you saw. I will ask him to dig out whatever he can on the subject of
update behavior for the Metro apps that are included in the Win8
distribution.

Here's a summary of the answers I got; the MS rep got them from his contacts
in development. To be honest, there's nothing surprising here but it's good
for my POE to have these questions nailed down so I have no problem with
having gotten an "official" reading.

Q1: Under what circumstances will a Metro app initiate the download of an
update?

A1: Modern apps do not initiate downloads.


Q2: Are the Metro apps supposed to honor the “Windows Update” configuration
settings?

A2: No.


Q3: How can Metro updates be manually invoked?

A3: Through the Windows Store modern app.


Q4: Are the Metro apps supposed to honor the policy setting forcing a
specific Windows Update config?

A4: No.



Note that the second and fourth questions aren't the same; "settings" are
local; "policies" are (usually) domain impositions.


Joe

[John Doe]

On Fri, 22 Feb 2013 20:58:34 -0500, "Joe Morris"

Post by Joe Morris

Post by Joe Morris

Post by Paul
My WindowsUpdate is supposed to be set, so that I initiate WindowsUpdate
tile when I want to, and then I review the updates. Instead, this happened
on its own as near as I can remember.

[snip update logs]

[...]

Post by Joe Morris
I'll hit the MS rep on this but without a lot more research - which I
can't in good faith ask for - he probably can't give a good answer about
what you saw. I will ask him to dig out whatever he can on the subject of
update behavior for the Metro apps that are included in the Win8
distribution.

Here's a summary of the answers I got; the MS rep got them from his contacts
in development. To be honest, there's nothing surprising here but it's good
for my POE to have these questions nailed down so I have no problem with
having gotten an "official" reading.
Q1: Under what circumstances will a Metro app initiate the download of an
update?
A1: Modern apps do not initiate downloads.

Too bad Adobe doesn't know that.

[Chronos]

B73%!ur~>X:^O@+VaMV>l\tOh@[x`#&AHSdl`m<-EEhk=1%t9iRthI|;~8)***@qxJ}x5l:zhDO(.as
NeO!\oL7huHfsoF'I5,0G+Yo[G-G"FG,l`QJ$IgwH/[\a]vRH^'=`;cY+*_{Or`
Cancel-Lock: sha1:mo67ZgJVDx0JI4WcILCjv7bgxtY=
Bytes: 1975
Xref: number.nntp.dca.giganews.com uk.comp.homebuilt:242449 uk.comp.sys.laptops:58958 alt.comp.os.windows-8:3012

On Wed, 6 Feb 2013 00:48:45 +0000

Post by David
You get the non-communicative W8 "drunken juggler bootup balls"
for what seems like forever

Dammit, now I'm going to have to VM Win8 just to find out what the
"drunken juggler bootup balls" look like. I hope you're happy! ;-)

[charlie]

Post by Chronos
On Wed, 6 Feb 2013 00:48:45 +0000

Post by David
You get the non-communicative W8 "drunken juggler bootup balls"
for what seems like forever

Dammit, now I'm going to have to VM Win8 just to find out what the
"drunken juggler bootup balls" look like. I hope you're happy! ;-)

They are on some older win versions also.
Win 8 in addition, has a "circle" of white balls as well.
It's nothing but a wait indication, so you don't (possibly) see a
completely blank static screen.

Perhaps an image of a programmer flashing might be more to the point,
although I'd hate to see the grumbles and irate responses to that!

[David]

charlie wrote in uk.comp.sys.laptops

Post by charlie

Post by Chronos
On Wed, 6 Feb 2013 00:48:45 +0000

Post by David
You get the non-communicative W8 "drunken juggler bootup balls"
for what seems like forever

Dammit, now I'm going to have to VM Win8 just to find out what the
"drunken juggler bootup balls" look like. I hope you're happy! ;-)

oops, sorry! :-(

They're nothing special, they're just a progress/wait indicator, sort of
similar to the Firefox "throbber" or rotating/cycling 'loading'
indicators on any number of Ajax websites: a little circle of white
balls that spin around, except they do so in a disturbingly irregular
slowing down and speeding up way (yes, Gene, it annoys me, too), hence
the *drunk* juggler. It's all the more annoying because when they slow
down and/or vanish it kind of gives the impression that something has
gone wrong or stalled.. How on earth that got past user testing, I
don't know..

Post by charlie
They are on some older win versions also.
Win 8 in addition, has a "circle" of white balls as well.
It's nothing but a wait indication, so you don't (possibly) see a
completely blank static screen.

Makes a change from the infamous sand-timer / hourglass, I suppose! ;-)

The W7 boot progress indicator I always think is a somewhat odd, albeit
reasonably pretty, one. Is it just me, or does it show the Windows flag
coming together into a Christian cross and then emitting a heavenly
glow? I wonder if that's just a purely coincidental interpretation,
or whether somebody snuck that particular design style in purposefully
(did they get any such endorsement in writing?)? I'm surprised there
hasn't been a class action claiming religious discrimination.. ;-)

Post by charlie
Perhaps an image of a programmer flashing might be more to the point,
although I'd hate to see the grumbles and irate responses to that!

Windows Goatse Edition <*shudder..*> [NSFW ..or anywhere!]


David.

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

On Wed, 6 Feb 2013 23:52:12 +0000, "David"

Post by David
charlie wrote in uk.comp.sys.laptops

Post by charlie

Post by Chronos
On Wed, 6 Feb 2013 00:48:45 +0000

Post by David
You get the non-communicative W8 "drunken juggler bootup balls"
for what seems like forever

Dammit, now I'm going to have to VM Win8 just to find out what the
"drunken juggler bootup balls" look like. I hope you're happy! ;-)

oops, sorry! :-(
They're nothing special, they're just a progress/wait indicator, sort of
similar to the Firefox "throbber" or rotating/cycling 'loading'
indicators on any number of Ajax websites: a little circle of white
balls that spin around, except they do so in a disturbingly irregular
slowing down and speeding up way (yes, Gene, it annoys me, too), hence
the *drunk* juggler. It's all the more annoying because when they slow
down and/or vanish it kind of gives the impression that something has
gone wrong or stalled.. How on earth that got past user testing, I
don't know..

Post by charlie
They are on some older win versions also.
Win 8 in addition, has a "circle" of white balls as well.
It's nothing but a wait indication, so you don't (possibly) see a
completely blank static screen.

Makes a change from the infamous sand-timer / hourglass, I suppose! ;-)
The W7 boot progress indicator I always think is a somewhat odd, albeit
reasonably pretty, one. Is it just me, or does it show the Windows flag
coming together into a Christian cross and then emitting a heavenly
glow? I wonder if that's just a purely coincidental interpretation,
or whether somebody snuck that particular design style in purposefully
(did they get any such endorsement in writing?)? I'm surprised there
hasn't been a class action claiming religious discrimination.. ;-)

Post by charlie
Perhaps an image of a programmer flashing might be more to the point,
although I'd hate to see the grumbles and irate responses to that!

Windows Goatse Edition <*shudder..*> [NSFW ..or anywhere!]

All this talk of balls, throbbers & flashers *does* have me wondering
about you lot, that's for sure!

[charlie]

Post by Zaphod Beeblebrox
On Wed, 6 Feb 2013 23:52:12 +0000, "David"

Post by David
charlie wrote in uk.comp.sys.laptops

Post by charlie

Post by Chronos
On Wed, 6 Feb 2013 00:48:45 +0000

Post by David
You get the non-communicative W8 "drunken juggler bootup balls"
for what seems like forever

Dammit, now I'm going to have to VM Win8 just to find out what the
"drunken juggler bootup balls" look like. I hope you're happy! ;-)

oops, sorry! :-(
They're nothing special, they're just a progress/wait indicator, sort of
similar to the Firefox "throbber" or rotating/cycling 'loading'
indicators on any number of Ajax websites: a little circle of white
balls that spin around, except they do so in a disturbingly irregular
slowing down and speeding up way (yes, Gene, it annoys me, too), hence
the *drunk* juggler. It's all the more annoying because when they slow
down and/or vanish it kind of gives the impression that something has
gone wrong or stalled.. How on earth that got past user testing, I
don't know..

Post by charlie
They are on some older win versions also.
Win 8 in addition, has a "circle" of white balls as well.
It's nothing but a wait indication, so you don't (possibly) see a
completely blank static screen.

Makes a change from the infamous sand-timer / hourglass, I suppose! ;-)
The W7 boot progress indicator I always think is a somewhat odd, albeit
reasonably pretty, one. Is it just me, or does it show the Windows flag
coming together into a Christian cross and then emitting a heavenly
glow? I wonder if that's just a purely coincidental interpretation,
or whether somebody snuck that particular design style in purposefully
(did they get any such endorsement in writing?)? I'm surprised there
hasn't been a class action claiming religious discrimination.. ;-)

Post by charlie
Perhaps an image of a programmer flashing might be more to the point,
although I'd hate to see the grumbles and irate responses to that!

Windows Goatse Edition <*shudder..*> [NSFW ..or anywhere!]

All this talk of balls, throbbers & flashers *does* have me wondering
about you lot, that's for sure!

Obviously we are all a bit flaky, or we'd have better things to do than
spend time here! <G>

[..winston]

"David" wrote in message news:***@oregano.local.lan...
Hi,

I have just bought a new laptop (HM DM1-4341), which is a UEFI-based
laptop with Secure Boot enabled and Window 8 [sic] pre-installed.

I am not going to use W8 and am going to install Linux (probably Debian)
on the laptop. However, I don't want to discard the W8 install media
just in case I need to re-set the laptop to return it for service, etc.
If still under warranty, another option...
- purchase another hard drive, remove the Win8 drive, install the new drive and then install Linux.

[Glenn]

Post by David
Hi,
I have just bought a new laptop (HM DM1-4341), which is a
UEFI-based
laptop with Secure Boot enabled and Window 8 [sic]
pre-installed.
I am not going to use W8 and am going to install Linux
(probably Debian)
on the laptop. However, I don't want to discard the W8
install media
just in case I need to re-set the laptop to return it for
service, etc.
If still under warranty, another option...
- purchase another hard drive, remove the Win8 drive,
install the new drive and then install Linux.

Are you folks saying that I can't make a "Chinese copy" of
the hard disk to a blu-ray disc? I managed (Lenovo laptop
with Windows 8) by ignoring the warning that there wasn't
enough room. I assume a problem with using the wrong
cluster size in the calculation.

[Paul]

Are you folks saying that I can't make a "Chinese copy" of the hard disk
to a blu-ray disc? I managed (Lenovo laptop with Windows 8) by ignoring
the warning that there wasn't enough room. I assume a problem with
using the wrong cluster size in the calculation.

There are a zillion ways to make a copy of a disk.

You can even pull the SATA drive out of the laptop,
walk it over to your desktop, cable it up, and do
your copying there. I've done that a couple times with
my laptop, because it's physically more comfortable to
do the things at my computer desk. The SATA drive comes
out by removing three screws, sliding out the tray and
so on. And the cabling on a 2.5" SATA drive is the same as
a 3.5" drive.

So if it's an equipment/capacity issue, that's easy
to solve.

*******

When I got the laptop, brand new, I backed it up sector
by sector. Using a copy of the "dd" port. But that's not
a consumer friendly method. That's just how I do them.
To restore to factory, I just "dd" that image back
and I'm done. Most other people, would just name their
favorite commercial product for the job. At least with
"dd", I know I got everything (barring, say, an HPA).
Computers used to be shipped with these at one time,
and all sorts of trickery (like two boot sectors and
special BIOS etc). Probably less common today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Host_Protected_Area

Paul

[..winston]

"Glenn" wrote in message news:ke8ea5$14d$***@speranza.aioe.org...
Are you folks saying that I can't make a "Chinese copy" of
the hard disk to a blu-ray disc? I managed (Lenovo laptop
with Windows 8) by ignoring the warning that there wasn't
enough room. I assume a problem with using the wrong
cluster size in the calculation.
I only addressed the concern that the unit was still under warranty and thus recommended putting Linux on a new hard drive to avoid
having to return the original drive to factory condition using the Win8 media in the event the machine needed to be sent for
service (i.e. just reinstall the original drive).