Root Access

sidran32

00:00

I know what you're talking about. I've seen them.

I'm just saying the old school desktops were nice, and it is somewhat similar.

iglvzx

01:53

@JourneymanGeek Oh no. Windows XP installation was successful... but when I went to restart the computer, it only gives a black screen and no BIOS splash or anything. Hmm. Same problem with different monitors/cables. Time to open it up and make sure everything is plugged in correctly or not fried. :( lol

iglvzx

02:07

@iglvzx AHA! Loose cables here and there... The harddrive and one going to the motherboard -- not sure what it's for. lol

soandos

@iglvzx, its only the motherboard. Not like its a critical component or something

iglvzx

@soandos lol. We'll see how this old, hand-me-down PC behaves. It could be that it overheated and needed to cool down. We'll see

soandos

@iglvzx, any chance you know a reliable way to test if a motherboard is working?

(assuming that no BIOS/POST occurs)

iglvzx

@soandos Everything seems to be working now

soandos

@iglvzx, I mean in general

iglvzx

02:14

Nope. Do you have any recommendations for checking the motherboard health?

soandos

My usual ways are not so great

I check if the current moves from the power adapter part

and see if I can get any current out of the ports

its not a good way to do it though

iglvzx

I see.

soandos

@iglvzx, how do you do it?

iglvzx

@soandos I don't. I'm still a newb when it comes to hardware. I can do diagnostics from the software side, or removing/inserting drives, but that's about it. lol

soandos

@iglvzx, mind giving me your most perplexing hardware issue (looking for good interviewing questions)

iglvzx

02:19

Upgrading RAM is simple, though. Most people can do it.

soandos

agreed

iglvzx

@soandos Most perplexing? Hmm... Bad RAM and bad video cards. I've been pretty lucky, I suppose.

Bob

@iglvzx It's also simple to permanently destroy something in the process :P

soandos

I'm looking for something truly tricky :( (though happy to hear all is good for you on the hardware front)

@Bob, you have anything good (by which I mean bad)?

Bob

@soandos Hmm.. faulty SATA cable to the BD drive...

soandos

02:22

BD?

Bob

Took a while to figure it out, it would work part of the time

Blu-ray

soandos

ah, ok

Bob

Typical Windows reaction too, Explorer would freeze/crash when it tried (and failed) to access the drive

soandos

Yeah, seen that a bunch of times. Usually suspect the port though

Bob

The other would be bad RAM

Never had anything more serious

Typical failed HDD, nothing to do there

soandos

02:23

Ever heard of anything truly random?

Bob

@soandos I spent a week swapping ports :\

soandos

@Bob, ouch

Bob

It was about two months old, and worked perfectly for that time, so a faulty cable was unlikely

Hm

Truly random?

What do you mean by that? :P

soandos

The more devilishly tricky the better

Bob

Never had any CPU/MB issues, somehow

Nor PSU

soandos

02:25

lucky you

Bob

lol

soandos

I don't know, preferably something involving multiple partial failures of several components

Bob

PSU has tripped the RCD before, which was weird

soandos

Thats nifty...

Bob

hm

Computers have been fairly reliable for me

Phones (and their chargers), on the other hand...

iglvzx

02:27

My bad RAM issue was fun. Sudden crashes, no BSOD, but everything else was fine. Memtest+ didn't reveal any problems. It wasn't until I suddenly had 1GB less RAM in Task Manager, that I found out it was the RAM. Replaced the RAM and that was that.

soandos

Basically, something that someone can't look up in a book somewhere, they actually have to know what they are talking about.

@iglvzx, the problem is that people always guess RAM when they don't know what is going on

@Bob, fabulous link to that post on ELU

Bob

@soandos fixing multiple hardware failure is so often trial and error, though

soandos

@Bob, thats not a problem (in fact its a plus)

Journeyman Geek

02:59

There's a PCI/PCI-e card floating around thats supposed to help with motherboard failure analysis. Pretty cheap bit of kit too, but never used one

@iglvzx what windows XP installation? I was just bitching about the horribleness of dell cases ;p

soandos

@JourneymanGeek, any chance you could help me out with an unnervingly fickle hardware problem?

Journeyman Geek

@soandos: at worse, i can help with rubber duck debugging

soandos

@JourneymanGeek, I am looking for a problem, not a solution :)

Journeyman Geek

lol. Do you need a solved one?

2

Bob

@JourneymanGeek What's wrong with them?

Journeyman Geek

03:02

@Bob: The one i was working on cheaped out on hard drive cages. Was too small. Looked as cheap as it was.

OOH

@soandos: remember my dell video card question?

soandos

@JourneymanGeek, nope. Link?

Journeyman Geek

superuser.com/questions/333617/… also see superuser.com/questions/394082/…

Bob

@JourneymanGeek O.O

I had (actually, still have) a nVidia card that came with a Dell computer. Swapped it out after artefacts started appearing on the screen, after a little over a year of use (just after warranty ended)...

I think it was a G84

Almost entirely forgot about it too :\

studiohack

yo guys

@KronoS that's crazy!

Bob

Nope, G86

Annnd I just ripped the heatsink off :\

Synetech

03:17

@Luke, every time I see your 32x32 avatar, I think it looks like Will Wheaton.

jokerdino

woot! My answer is accepted.

Journeyman Geek

lol

did that with my old 8800 as well

I don't think i dismembered the 8300 tho

KronoS

Wow! the VTC are getting trimmed pretty significantly

jokerdino

bah. we still have quite a queue in our side ;/

Bob

@JourneymanGeek It was unlabelled

The only relevant markings were on the GPU itself...

KronoS

03:28

0

Q: Generate an installer based on a directory structure for an end user

What would be the easiest way for one of my end-users to generate an ad-hoc installer for my Windows software? What I'm trying to solve: Users with older versions of my software want to archive what they have without upgrading. For a new client install I could provide them a way to archive ano...

@studiohack you around?

I haz a question for you with the question above

superuser.com/review-beta/close/10051

Hey guys I'm seeing a lot of "dupes" that don't seem to me as dupes, but rather similar questions. Just make sure that you're looking at the questions closely.

I really wish that they would add the answers to these reviews

slhck

03:49

Anybody knows if this is going somewhere? I have no idea about Microsoft terminology here, so please vote to reopen if you think it can be answered

-2

Q: Should I use Remote Desktop or Remote Access for connecting to computers remotely?

We have six PCs that have Windows 7 Home edition in our domain. We have Windows Server 2008 R2. Our goal is to access and control two computers from outside. What service can we use to have full control over the computers remotely? Is it Remote Desktop or Remote Access? If I can use either of t...

windows-server-2008-r2

Bob

@slhck Apples and oranges...

Remote Access Service

Remote Access Services (RAS) refers to any combination of hardware and software to enable the remote access tools or information that typically reside on a network of IT devices. A RAS server is a specialized computer which aggregates multiple communication channels together. Because these channels are bidirectional, two models emerge: Multiple entities connecting to a single resource, and a single entity connecting to multiple resources. Both of these models are widely used. Both physical and virtual resources can be provided through a RAS server: centralized computing can provide multiple...

slhck

@Bob So where does he even get the idea from that he can use either?

Bob

> A RAS server is a specialized computer which aggregates multiple communication channels together. ... RAS was a service provided by Windows NT which allows most of the services which would be available on a network to be accessed over a modem link

Full control over computers remotely is what Remote Desktop does, anyway

I'm not sure, but it looks like "remote access services" is similar to connecting to a VPN

Ah, here. It does provide VPN functionality, among other things: technet.microsoft.com/en-us/network/bb545655.aspx

@slhck They sound similar? :P

slhck

@Bob No.. I mean, he makes it sound like there's an option to choose one, like in a dropdown box or something :P

Bob

@slhck Most likely he just came across two similar names. I don't have a Server installation, but perhaps they both come up in the start menu search for "Remote"?

slhck

04:05

Heh.. no idea

Luke

@synetech lmao i see it now

Sathya

@WilliamHilsum it was $4.99 + $4.99 for me.. i.imgur.com/bjpei.png

@ce4 not sure why you deleted your meta question. FYI you can use wildcards in your fav/ignore tags

Paul

04:58

@slhck I have just realised I don't know the process with MSO feature requests. Here we have meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/140491 which is pretty well voted for along with the answer. Does it have to reach a threshold before implementation, is there "internal" discussion that takes place, does it end up in a roadmap... what happens after this point normally?

soandos

@Paul no-one knows generally. There is nothing hard and fast that happens

Paul

Interesting :)

@soandos Does SU have its own development fork or would a change like this one have to go in the main engine?

soandos

Main engine, but MSU is a first class citizen, so the team sees things there as well as on MSO

Paul

@soandos Thanks.

soandos

@Paul, no problem

If you want to make something more of an issue than it is, on MSO you can post a bounty

On MSU, you can just ping the mods and ask for status

Paul

05:06

@soandos Aaah right. A bounty makes sense. So if it was MSU, but required an engine change, then what action could the mods take other than pinging the devs for status?

soandos

Mods can talk to the devs for you, and see what is going on

Don't expect too much though, its not like there is a firm timeline for most things

Bob

@soandos 6-8 weeks?

soandos

05:25

@Bob, no hard and fast if it even will be implemented

or on its status in the pipeline

studiohack

05:36

hey @KronoS - I'm in da house

what's up?

are you worried that I or other mods are closing stuff that's similar but not true dupes?

Journeyman Geek

06:07

Ugh. I hate windows server. It keeps rebooting a VM i don't want rebooted when my back is turned

KronoS

06:26

@studiohack. Not the mods but rather the community with the new review.

With that specific question I was wondering what would happen if I voted to close as off-topic BUT NOT to live ate to SO. Does the previous votes trump mine to send to SO? I felt like it belonged more on programmers.

Journeyman Geek

06:44

@KronoS: Usually i think if there's more than a certain number, it will migrate.

I often see my name in vote to migrate when i didn't ;p

studiohack

@KronoS ah, I see

yes, @JourneymanGeek is correct, a certain ratio, it goes a certain way

Journeyman Geek

ugh

can someone jog my memory? Were the old laptop hard disk drives 50 pins?

studiohack

laptop IDE's?

Journeyman Geek

ya

studiohack

I have a old laptop HDD but I don't have access to it right now

Journeyman Geek

06:52

no wait

cd/ide...

studiohack

perhaps count some pins in a photo from a google search?

Journeyman Geek

darn.

KronoS

@studiohack @JourneymanGeek oh ok thanks for the clarification

That's what I thought

WANTS!!!

Journeyman Geek

07:16

lol

Ya ;p

loves that ;p

ugh.Apparently paypay wants/needs me to verify that my bank account is my bank account by transferring money to me and making me tell them the exact account

sigh shouldn't we be more.. up to date?

ce4

08:06

> not sure why you deleted your meta question. FYI you can use wildcards in your fav/ignore tags

@Sathya: I was unsure if it's a good question, maybe that was too fast, right.

I'm rather new on SU, coming from AE. On first thought I was like 'what an obvious asnwer to that question' and it only had 3 views and Oliver's comment, so not too much invested time from other users.

Thanks for the answer, though. Should I undelete/reask? I decided to lurk a little here until I get the first time things sorted out by itself...

Sathya

08:51

@ce4 don't think it was a bad question. Feel free to undelete ( or I can do that for you)

ce4

10:10

Could you undelete that for me (cannot do it myself)... ty

jokerdino

@Sathya --^

ce4

Thanks, forgot that

Journeyman Geek

10:30

ugh, anyone running the office preview?

Bob

10:43

@JourneymanGeek The default save to cloud kinda scared me away

William Hilsum

11:09

@Sathya Ahh - I see... I wanted the deluxe version :( Oh well!

Mokubai

@WilliamHilsum Deus Ex was on 75% off yesterday, so the aumented edition would have been like £7.25 iirc

William Hilsum

Yeah, but, with the DLC, it was a bit pricey, considering I won't have time to play it for some time... so, I think I will wait for a price drop then the next sale.... Just me being cheap!

Mokubai

Oh, no, I got the Deus Ex Collection

William Hilsum

It doesn't as far as I can see... it just includes a book and some other things, nothing in game

Mokubai

Ah, I got the full collection for £9.99

forgive my poor memory, I'm getting old

Got this one

Can't say I was impressed enough with The Missing Link to pay full price for it though, £9 seems a bit steep, though I didn't mind paying what I did.

@WilliamHilsum So mea culpa, you were right, the DLC is separate from the aug'd edition

William Hilsum

11:26

Well, I want it all! That's why I want to wait... I LOVED the first Deus Ex Game!

second one was alright... but, the first was one of the best games I have played!

Mokubai

Deus Ex HR was awesome, I just wasn't convinced The Missing Link was worth the £9 non-sale price. Get them as a set on sale and it's definitely worth it.

I'm beginning to think that the Steam sales have spoilt me, I expect a lot of game for my £5-£10 these days...

William Hilsum

haha

Mokubai

I haven't played the original Deus Ex, but now I have it I may give it a go

I honestly find it difficult to buy a game that is newly released when I know within 6 months the price will be about half, and then you can count on Steam to have a nice 75% off sale on a regular basis

I really want to give the developers all the money they deserve for the game, but patience really does seem to save you a lot

William Hilsum

@Mokubai ditto!

@Sathya - If It goes on sale again, I'll get the deluxe one again - meant to be much better... Trying to trade the one I have now!

Journeyman Geek

12:49

@Bob: Naw, was using it for an assignment. Just realised that excel can't seem to import CSVs automagically like LO/OO calc can

which si a pain int he rear. I was using LO to convert CSV files, then pasting it into excel so i could paste it into word ;p

and done and uploaded. GOD that was a murderously hard assignment

slhck

13:07

@Paul I would probably formulate this as an actual feature-request question. Since you received so much support in the answer, it's unlikely it'll be voted down into oblivion right away. Just make sure to tell them why it's really needed. Then, they'll eventually implement it.

The thing with feature requests is that some of them could even have hundreds of upvotes and a lot of support, and they won't do anything about it, even if it's simple enough to fix.

HackToHell

And i missed stuff here for days, why have many withdrawn from the mod election ?

Also, anything kicking ?

Journeyman Geek

@HackToHell: primaries ended

Now is the actual vote...

so VOTE DAMN YOU :p

HackToHell

yeah, I missed that

and i voted

Journeyman Geek

/me is a little annoyed Romil made it through and simon didn't

even if my life is a LITTLE easier with who to vote for ;p

HackToHell

Oh, if you do not get enough votes, you get revoked ??

poor simon...

Journeyman Geek

13:11

/me also finally finished the horribly mismanaged assignment ;p

sadly missed seeing my bro off to oz cause of that

and ffff. NEED MOAR CLOSEVOTES

slhck

-6

Q: How are the Enthusiast and Fanatic badges calculated?

I am too lazy to visit SuperUser every day. I would instead write a bot that would automatically visit the site for me and help me get the Fanatic badge. The question is, what counts as a visit?

support enthusiast-badge fanatic-badge robots visited-days

:/

And this person wanted to run for moderator.

Journeyman Geek

lol

Mokubai

@slhck I'm sure he asked that before...

Journeyman Geek

I think he's idling here too ;p

XD. I considered asking my brother to log in for me when i went overseas ;p

Mokubai

@HackToHell no, we withdrew by choice

slhck

13:17

@JourneymanGeek … so?

HackToHell

@Mokubai why ?

Journeyman Geek

so, nothing, i guess ;p

slhck

@JourneymanGeek Yeah, I'm going to lose my 500 something days in August :/

Journeyman Geek

But, well, he does have a bit of a history

@slhck: Oh, and almost no questions answered in two days for me

got my rear handed to me by an assignment

slhck

Ohh, too bad

Journeyman Geek

13:19

lol

and i feel brainfried

I quite honestly need to watch a bad movie, and eat junkfood or something

Mokubai

@HackToHell my reason was that I actively wanted the top 4 in the running to be mods before me, I thought they were excellent examples of who we want moderating

I think I would make a good mod, don't get me wrong, but I think they'd be better

Journeyman Geek

@Mokubai: same reason i didn't stand, really. I see SIX good people for 3 places, and i'm like, nawwww.

OH

or catch up on continuum

Mokubai

And I'd like that little diamond, that'd be cool. Ooh, and the business cards!

HackToHell

@Mokubai k

Mokubai

@slhck I thought that that was on MSU, he asked on MSO?!?!?

slhck

13:23

@Mokubai Yup.. scared of MSU? Dunno :P

Journeyman Geek

right place to ask in theory

but god ;p

(I thought that was an old post for some reason)

Mokubai

To me that's the equivalent of broadcasting not only to one small (by comparison) community but to the entire larger community "Hey, I want to be a d*ck, help me now b*tches!"

I could have sworn I'd seen it on MSU before now though

Journeyman Geek

ya

HackToHell

So who saw TDKR ??

Mokubai

I can't help but wonder what goes on in that mind....

Journeyman Geek

13:29

planning on it next week ;p

Daniel Beck

13:44

hi everyone

Journeyman Geek

@OliverSalzburg: out of close votes too?

Heya @DanielBeck

Oliver Salzburg

@JourneymanGeek Nope

What did I miss? :D

Journeyman Geek

;p

superuser.com/questions/452108/where-to-download-windows you beat me to writing that by 2 seconds. ;p

HackToHell

13:58

And I missed this :'(

59

Q: Can avi files contain a virus?

I'm downloading an avi file via torrent but my anti-virus detects something. Is it possible that the avi file contains a virus? It is quite weird since the torrent has many positive reviews.

virus malware avi

Oliver Salzburg

superuser.com/posts/305434/revisions

What a piece of work :P

Mokubai

@OliverSalzburg O.O

slhck

@OliverSalzburg Holy smokes.. awesome!

Daniel Beck

@OliverSalzburg Great job

Oliver Salzburg

Thanks :)

Mokubai

14:13

Well, at least you can't claim we haven't tried to tell people where to find them...

Sathya

15:01

YAARRRGHH

anyone using WASAPI foobar plugin?

Journeyman Geek

@Sathya ya

Sathya

@JourneymanGeek any idea why my sound output stops when there's another background sound?

Journeyman Geek

Probably not, but might have something to do with exclusive mode

uses it with an external sound card

Sathya

:(

I don't why why it's causing a problem, used to be fine earlier. granted, long ago..

as in a year?

any ideas on where to debug this?

Journeyman Geek

Well.. in theory, the WASAPI plugin runs exclusive mode only

Sathya

15:06

hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=94866

yeah, that's how I remember it working.

Journeyman Geek

so, something is kicking it off that

Sathya

yeah, is there a settings/options for WASAPI?

Oliver Salzburg

And now I know what WASAPI is :D

Sathya

:P

Journeyman Geek

set your default playback device as something else?

Sathya

15:08

@OliverSalzburg Super User, broadening your computer horizons, every single day

2

Journeyman Geek

OH

that makes sense

Sathya

@JourneymanGeek what does :-s

Journeyman Geek

settings look the same as mine, more or less.

You can set the ATI/HDMI thing as the default sound device, and still use WASAPI is a workaround

Simon Sheehan

@Sathya I've found that sometimes putting that thing up to "studio quality" sometimes produces some whitenoise... not really sure what to keep it at

Journeyman Geek

lol

Sathya

15:11

@JourneymanGeek can't, it's disabled :(

Journeyman Geek

hm

settings look ok to me, though i have less devices

jokerdino

let's listen to "DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH MF?!"

Journeyman Geek

WHAT?

Sathya

ENGLISH M'FER. DO YOU SPEAK?

jokerdino

my friend is playing it on the loudspeaker over here ;p

Simon Sheehan

15:14

►

Journeyman Geek

god, i love most tarantino movies

Simon Sheehan

for those who havent seen it :P...although keep your volume down if family is around!

Journeyman Geek

even reservoir dogs, even if the ear scene makes me want to throw up

Oliver Salzburg

lol

"I have an application running on MS-DOS 6.22, which is installed in Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 on a WinVista machine"

Dude, replacing a splash screen is not your real problem :D

Journeyman Geek

lol

Sathya

15:16

bah.

Journeyman Geek

gave up or found a solution?

Sathya

workaround, but not happy.

Journeyman Geek

Honestly, i can't tell the difference between WASAPI and DS on a regular sound card ;p

Sathya

if I set device as Independent headphones, there's no more cutoff, but with that comes a significant quality/loudness drop ;/

@JourneymanGeek yeah, might as well forget about it for now :\

Journeyman Geek

hmm

set the defau;t device as independant headphones?

Sathya

15:19

have a bus to catch it, talk tomorrow.

Journeyman Geek

XD. K

Sathya

@JourneymanGeek it refuses to accept.

Journeyman Geek

needs to sleep anyway. Woke up and have been working on that damned assignment since 6am

jokerdino

hardcore dawgie

Journeyman Geek

lol

was due today. Didn't get everything i needed till friday

and DB forensics is a pain in the rear

jokerdino

15:21

I can imagine O_o

Santosh

19:12

Why isn't RGB color combination used in printers?

soandos

@Santosh CMYK gives better/crisper color. Plus, the RGB model is additive (add all three, and you get white)

Can anyone find what superuser.com/questions/452147/… is a dupe of?

Daniel Beck

19:49

If anyone here uses Sublime Text 2, could you please take a look at this and tell me whether I've made a fool of myself in case this is already available out of the box? Thanks.

CC @slhck in case you haven't checked out that editor yet. Almost like TextMate, but hasn't been mostly dead for half a decade.

soandos

20:13

@DanielBeck, can you make a call to grep?

Daniel Beck

20:32

@soandos Python has regular expressions. Why grep? It should be possible, but I'd rather not, so far it's even platform independent (and I desperately need a text editor on Windows that doesn't suck).

soandos

@DanielBeck, what are you looking for in a text editor? (seems like you put in a LOT of work to do something simple)

Daniel Beck

@soandos Well, Sublime Text 2 is pretty nice so far. I also tried e a while back, but couldn't use it properly for some reason.

soandos

@studiohack what is superuser.com/questions/452200/access-denied-windows-xp a dupe of?

Daniel Beck

20:49

@soandos Added basic Python RE support.

soandos

21:09

@DanielBeck, these seem like things that the deveoplers of the program should have written

Boris_yo

act.demandprogress.org/sign/cispa_senate

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