Identification question
 

In the System control panel, W8 Pro clearly says Pro.

Is the W8 Home similarly clearly labeled Home?

I ask because we have 3 W8 computers at work that are not labeled at
all, they just say Windows 8.



--
Ken
Mac OS X 10.11.6
Firefox 51.0.1 (64 bit)
Thunderbird 45.7.1
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

Identification question
 

Ken Springer wrote:
In the System control panel, W8 Pro clearly says Pro.

Is the W8 Home similarly clearly labeled Home?

I ask because we have 3 W8 computers at work that are not labeled at all, they just say
Windows 8.

Try the Winver command. It's probably the same as through control panel,
but still worth a try.

Identification question
 

Ken Springer wrote:
In the System control panel, W8 Pro clearly says Pro.

Is the W8 Home similarly clearly labeled Home?

I ask because we have 3 W8 computers at work that are not labeled at
all, they just say Windows 8.

The non-Pro version may be referred to as "Core" or "Home".
And in some dialogs, may have no identifier at all. So
"Pro is Pro, the rest is Home".

And as the other Paul says, winver is available in many
of the Windows OSes, for your convenience. As an alternative
to the System Control Panel.

For license info, you can try "slmgr /dlv".

https://www.howtogeek.com/245445/how...ndows-license/

There may be two versions of slmgr, as some articles
reference slmgr.vbs, others just slmgr. And the arguments
could be delimited with a hyphen or a slash. Try this
to verify the syntax and get help on your machine.

slmgr /?
slmgr.vbs /?

HTH,
Paul

Identification question
 

On 3/12/17 5:30 PM, Paul in Houston TX wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:
In the System control panel, W8 Pro clearly says Pro.

Is the W8 Home similarly clearly labeled Home?

I ask because we have 3 W8 computers at work that are not labeled at all, they just say
Windows 8.

Try the Winver command. It's probably the same as through control panel,
but still worth a try.

I'm not working today, so I had a coworker run the winver command, no
identifier at all.

There must be something different behind the scenes. When we got the
machines used and free, they had been reset to "out of the box" state.

In the one I'm working with, doing the W7 Backup and Restore program to
do a system image, crashed every time. It couldn't get a "lock" on the
EFI(?) partition. A very much, much smarter coworker discovered some
service was turned off. (A situation that makes no sense to me for a
computer that's "out of the box".) He turned it on, and then it worked.


--
Ken
Mac OS X 10.11.6
Firefox 51.0.1 (64 bit)
Thunderbird 45.7.1
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

Identification question
 

Ken Springer wrote:
On 3/12/17 5:30 PM, Paul in Houston TX wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:
In the System control panel, W8 Pro clearly says Pro.

Is the W8 Home similarly clearly labeled Home?

I ask because we have 3 W8 computers at work that are not labeled at
all, they just say
Windows 8.

Try the Winver command. It's probably the same as through control panel,
but still worth a try.

I'm not working today, so I had a coworker run the winver command, no
identifier at all.

There must be something different behind the scenes. When we got the
machines used and free, they had been reset to "out of the box" state.

In the one I'm working with, doing the W7 Backup and Restore program to
do a system image, crashed every time. It couldn't get a "lock" on the
EFI(?) partition. A very much, much smarter coworker discovered some
service was turned off. (A situation that makes no sense to me for a
computer that's "out of the box".) He turned it on, and then it worked.

That sounds like VSS (Volume Shadow Service), something that a lot
of backup programs need. It allows you to backup C: "hot", without
having to reboot like you used to do with the old Ghost design.

If a VSS operation fails, you can also check the writers.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/...(v=ws.11).aspx

vssadmin list writers

This article has a table, relating certain services to a writer
for VSS. It means the "attack surface" is pretty big. But the
vssadmin command can help.

https://replibit.kayako.com/Knowledg...services---vss

Paul

Identification question
 

On Sun, 12 Mar 2017 23:07:44 -0400, Paul wrote:
The non-Pro version may be referred to as "Core" or "Home".
And in some dialogs, may have no identifier at all. So
"Pro is Pro, the rest is Home".


Unless it's Enterprise. (That's from memory, so I could be wrong. I
think my work computer shows "Windows 8.1 Enterprise, but I won't
swear to it. I'll try to remember to check tomorrow.)

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://BrownMath.com/
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
Shikata ga nai...

Identification question
 

On 3/13/17 9:24 AM, Paul wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:
On 3/12/17 5:30 PM, Paul in Houston TX wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:
In the System control panel, W8 Pro clearly says Pro.

Is the W8 Home similarly clearly labeled Home?

I ask because we have 3 W8 computers at work that are not labeled at
all, they just say
Windows 8.

Try the Winver command. It's probably the same as through control panel,
but still worth a try.

I'm not working today, so I had a coworker run the winver command, no
identifier at all.

There must be something different behind the scenes. When we got the
machines used and free, they had been reset to "out of the box" state.

In the one I'm working with, doing the W7 Backup and Restore program to
do a system image, crashed every time. It couldn't get a "lock" on the
EFI(?) partition. A very much, much smarter coworker discovered some
service was turned off. (A situation that makes no sense to me for a
computer that's "out of the box".) He turned it on, and then it worked.

That sounds like VSS (Volume Shadow Service), something that a lot
of backup programs need. It allows you to backup C: "hot", without
having to reboot like you used to do with the old Ghost design.

I will try to remember to ask him what he did.

This is why I tell people I've evolved into the quintessential Mac user.
I just want things to work. I've really grown tired of having to deal
with crap like this. :-(

This is the first Mac I've ever owned. Bought it in 2009. And except
for a couple OE errors in the beginning, I've never had to reinstall the
OS because it was screwed up. I haven't spent hours trying to figure
out why the backups aren't working, or why something like Dexpot is
giving me fits. (FWIW, desktops were built into the Mac OS in 2009.)
I've run Time Machine almost from the beginning, and I've retrieved a
couple files from the backup, and that's all.

I guess the optimum word here is "reliability". Or, like the old Timex
watches, "Takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'." LOL

If a VSS operation fails, you can also check the writers.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/...(v=ws.11).aspx

vssadmin list writers

This article has a table, relating certain services to a writer
for VSS. It means the "attack surface" is pretty big. But the
vssadmin command can help.

https://replibit.kayako.com/Knowledg...services---vss

Paul



--
Ken
Mac OS X 10.11.6
Firefox 51.0.1 (64 bit)
Thunderbird 45.7.1
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

Identification question
 

Stan Brown wrote:
On Sun, 12 Mar 2017 23:07:44 -0400, Paul wrote:
The non-Pro version may be referred to as "Core" or "Home".
And in some dialogs, may have no identifier at all. So
"Pro is Pro, the rest is Home".


Unless it's Enterprise. (That's from memory, so I could be wrong. I
think my work computer shows "Windows 8.1 Enterprise, but I won't
swear to it. I'll try to remember to check tomorrow.)


I think it's only Home that doesn't have an identifier.

And it's not clear why Microsoft slipped on this. It's
just stupid to not have a consistent naming scheme, in
operation at all times.

If Microsoft thought "Home" had bad connotations, why
didn't they select "Windows Cheap" as a moniker ? :-)
For that's how it is actually sold, as the "cheap" SKU.
Functionality be damned.

And for Starter (which might not exist any more),
they could have called that "Windows You'll Be Sorry",
or "Windows Heh Upgrade Immediately You CheapSkate"

Paul

Identification question
 

On 3/13/17 9:24 AM, Paul wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:
On 3/12/17 5:30 PM, Paul in Houston TX wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:

In the one I'm working with, doing the W7 Backup and Restore program to
do a system image, crashed every time. It couldn't get a "lock" on the
EFI(?) partition. A very much, much smarter coworker discovered some
service was turned off. (A situation that makes no sense to me for a
computer that's "out of the box".) He turned it on, and then it worked.

That sounds like VSS (Volume Shadow Service), something that a lot
of backup programs need. It allows you to backup C: "hot", without
having to reboot like you used to do with the old Ghost design.

Sorry for the late reply, Paul.

The VSS service was set to Manual. Once set to Automatic, it worked fine.

We will check the other 2 for this same problem.

It would seem strange this would be the default setting for a W8 system
that has been reset to an out of the box state. Maybe MS figures a Home
user will be too ignorant to want to do a W7 System Image.


--
Ken
Mac OS X 10.11.6
Firefox 51.0.1 (64 bit)
Thunderbird 45.7.1
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

Identification question
 

Ken Springer wrote:
On 3/13/17 9:24 AM, Paul wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:
On 3/12/17 5:30 PM, Paul in Houston TX wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:

In the one I'm working with, doing the W7 Backup and Restore program to
do a system image, crashed every time. It couldn't get a "lock" on the
EFI(?) partition. A very much, much smarter coworker discovered some
service was turned off. (A situation that makes no sense to me for a
computer that's "out of the box".) He turned it on, and then it worked.

That sounds like VSS (Volume Shadow Service), something that a lot
of backup programs need. It allows you to backup C: "hot", without
having to reboot like you used to do with the old Ghost design.

Sorry for the late reply, Paul.

The VSS service was set to Manual. Once set to Automatic, it worked fine.

We will check the other 2 for this same problem.

It would seem strange this would be the default setting for a W8 system
that has been reset to an out of the box state. Maybe MS figures a Home
user will be too ignorant to want to do a W7 System Image.

Some services are started on-demand. But I don't know the
details of all the ones fitting that category. For example,
some TrustedInstaller thing used to write to Program Files or
to the System32 folder during a Windows Update, that is
probably started manually. And it exits after a few mintes
of being idle later. Not every service has to remain running,
as long as there is a "boss task" to switch them on when
they are needed.

Paul

Identification question
 

On 3/15/17 10:09 PM, Paul wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:
On 3/13/17 9:24 AM, Paul wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:
On 3/12/17 5:30 PM, Paul in Houston TX wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:

In the one I'm working with, doing the W7 Backup and Restore program to
do a system image, crashed every time. It couldn't get a "lock" on the
EFI(?) partition. A very much, much smarter coworker discovered some
service was turned off. (A situation that makes no sense to me for a
computer that's "out of the box".) He turned it on, and then it worked.

That sounds like VSS (Volume Shadow Service), something that a lot
of backup programs need. It allows you to backup C: "hot", without
having to reboot like you used to do with the old Ghost design.

Sorry for the late reply, Paul.

The VSS service was set to Manual. Once set to Automatic, it worked fine.

We will check the other 2 for this same problem.

It would seem strange this would be the default setting for a W8 system
that has been reset to an out of the box state. Maybe MS figures a Home
user will be too ignorant to want to do a W7 System Image.

Some services are started on-demand. But I don't know the
details of all the ones fitting that category. For example,
some TrustedInstaller thing used to write to Program Files or
to the System32 folder during a Windows Update, that is
probably started manually. And it exits after a few mintes
of being idle later. Not every service has to remain running,
as long as there is a "boss task" to switch them on when
they are needed.

I can understand having the process start manually. It makes perfect
sense to me.

I'm curious as to why it could not work with the EFI (I I believe that's
the correct partition name) but had no issue with C:\.

While setting VSS to automatic, I also wonder if we treated the symptom
and not the disease.

But, at least it worked. :-)


--
Ken
Mac OS X 10.11.6
Firefox 51.0.1 (64 bit)
Thunderbird 45.7.1
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"