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#16
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Running Headless: How to Force Display Rez?
"(PeteCresswell)" wrote:
Per Paul: You'd toss a command like this in some Startup thing, then see if it takes. http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/nircmd.html I started, then chickened out when WebOfTrust gave the site it's worst rating in all categories. The problem is likely that nirsoft offers a number of administrator-type tools which can be used for both good and evil. One consequence of this is that the anti-virus program on my systems routinely flags a number of nirsoft tools as malware until I tell it to ignore the folder where I keep them; this could lead some reports to consider nirsoft to be a nasty place. H'mmm...just went to the WOT web site; it classifies nirsoft as "excellent" in *ALL* categories, although it notes that the site has "appeared on a list of malware distributors" published by Malware Patrol. http://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/nirsoft.net ObGrammarPolice: the word you wanted is "its", not "it's". Joe |
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#17
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Running Headless: How to Force Display Rez?
(PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per Paul: Per Paul: Try putting back the Radeon driver before you give up on it. Now it seems to have stopped offering up any choices except for opening the Screen Rez control panel. Well, it was just a thought. I can't play with it any more here, as my "eval" for Powerstrip, ran out years ago. Maybe you'll just have to live with 1600x1200. That should be enough to administer the remote box. It's one thing, to perhaps jam something into the Registry to set the resolution. It's the behavior of the driver that we can't predict (what it does when the monitor is missing). In theory, the video card (via the driver) is supposed to turn off outputs which have no monitor connected. But the Microsoft VESA driver (whatever runs when the Radeon is missing), might not be as well equipped to police those rules. Before impedance sensing became available, video cards could just keep the outputs enabled. So whether this is an "improvement" is debatable. It could be, that someone thought it would reduce emissions from the computer or something. I've never read a justification for the usage of impedance sensing. Paul |
#18
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Running Headless: How to Force Display Rez?
On 9/15/2012 9:03 AM, Paul wrote:
Before impedance sensing became available, video cards could just keep the outputs enabled. So whether this is an "improvement" is debatable. It could be, that someone thought it would reduce emissions from the computer or something. I've never read a justification for the usage of impedance sensing. Having a massive mismatch of impedance with an amp causes all power going out to be reflected right back into the amp. And if the design can't handle twice the power of normal, the final will blow like a fuse. In this case, we are talking about very small power output. So the final handling twice the power of normal most likely won't hurt the final. But in any case, it is still good practice to just switch it off if there is no load to deliver to. And true emissions do increase when there is a mismatch of impedance. So that would be another reason to do so. -- Bill Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Thunderbird v12.0.1 Centrino Core2 Duo T5600 1.83GHz - 4GB - Windows XP SP2 |
#19
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Running Headless: How to Force Display Rez?
On Sat, 15 Sep 2012 08:22:32 -0400, "(PeteCresswell)"
wrote: Per Char Jackson: I don't know what the basis of that might be, but Nirsoft has been around for ages and have proven themselves to be completely trustworthy. Based on that, I went back and clicked the "Download 64-bit version" button, but Chrome popped "nircmd-x64.zip appears malicious". I don't know who that is coming from. Avast, maybe? I think I'll take Paul's suggestion and go back and aim PowerStrip at an installed Radeon driver. *shrug* Suit yourself. I don't get the whole "scared to download" thing. You can download malicious files all day long and not have a problem until you execute one or more of them. In this case, you could simply download, scan with your favorite scanner(s), upload to virustotal, whatever. I see absolutely NO reason to be scared to download something, especially something from a site like Nirsoft. Sorry for the rant, but I just went through a similar scenario with one of my clients. You give them the tools, you give them the knowledge, and still they freeze. -- Char Jackson |
#20
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Running Headless: How to Force Display Rez?
On 9/15/2012 10:19 AM, Char Jackson wrote:
On Sat, 15 Sep 2012 08:22:32 -0400, wrote: Per Char Jackson: I don't know what the basis of that might be, but Nirsoft has been around for ages and have proven themselves to be completely trustworthy. Based on that, I went back and clicked the "Download 64-bit version" button, but Chrome popped "nircmd-x64.zip appears malicious". I don't know who that is coming from. Avast, maybe? I think I'll take Paul's suggestion and go back and aim PowerStrip at an installed Radeon driver. *shrug* Suit yourself. I don't get the whole "scared to download" thing. You can download malicious files all day long and not have a problem until you execute one or more of them. In this case, you could simply download, scan with your favorite scanner(s), upload to virustotal, whatever. I see absolutely NO reason to be scared to download something, especially something from a site like Nirsoft. Sorry for the rant, but I just went through a similar scenario with one of my clients. You give them the tools, you give them the knowledge, and still they freeze. I understand the fear. Even though I have been using Windows since '93 and I never had a virus or trojan yet. But I still understand the fear of others. As all it takes is been bitten once or twice even with the correct tools installed to be very leery. -- Bill Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Thunderbird v12.0.1 Centrino Core2 Duo T5600 1.83GHz - 4GB - Windows XP SP2 |
#21
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Running Headless: How to Force Display Rez?
On 9/15/2012 5:32 PM, BillW50 wrote:
I have been using Windows since '93 and I never had a virus or trojan yet. Liar. You're probably infected and don't even know it. -- Alias |
#22
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Running Headless: How to Force Display Rez?
On Sat, 15 Sep 2012 10:32:16 -0500, BillW50 wrote:
On 9/15/2012 10:19 AM, Char Jackson wrote: I don't get the whole "scared to download" thing. I understand the fear. Even though I have been using Windows since '93 and I never had a virus or trojan yet. But I still understand the fear of others. As all it takes is been bitten once or twice even with the correct tools installed to be very leery. You understand something that I don't. -- Char Jackson |
#23
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Running Headless: How to Force Display Rez?
Per Char Jackson:
*shrug* Suit yourself. I don't get the whole "scared to download" thing. You can download malicious files all day long and not have a problem until you execute one or more of them. In this case, you could simply download, scan with your favorite scanner(s), upload to virustotal, whatever. I see absolutely NO reason to be scared to download something, especially something from a site like Nirsoft. That's probably because you know a lot more. My assumption was that it had already been scanned by something on my PC and found wanting bco the "Malicious..." message when I started the download. I'm totally clueless on the modalities of malicious software. But, unimpeded by any knowledge, would think that something could be malicious once unzipped and installed. How would one know if an application that does something perfectly useful hasn't become the vector or host for some StuxNet-type code? Yesterday's XYZ app might be fine. Today's download of the nominally-same app might be something else altogether. Seems to me like it comes back to: - Whether one trusts the supplier or not. - How confident one is in one's ability to recover (assuming they even know they're infected...) from an infection by re-imaging. I'd venture that most users don't even know what a system image is - much less have a known good image to recover with. That brings it down to trust and I think most users would trust their anti-virus app more than they would trust a source that they do not know anything about. That lets your users off the hook, IMHO. But, now that everybody in this thread as spoken up on behalf of NirSoft, I guess I'm still on the hook... -- Pete Cresswell |
#24
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Running Headless: How to Force Display Rez?
In article ,
"(PeteCresswell)" said... Per Char Jackson: I don't know what the basis of that might be, but Nirsoft has been around for ages and have proven themselves to be completely trustworthy. Based on that, I went back and clicked the "Download 64-bit version" button, but Chrome popped "nircmd-x64.zip appears malicious". I don't know who that is coming from. Avast, maybe? I've had the nirsoft utilities forever. MS Security Essentials started complaining about one of them a year or so ago and I stopped using MSSE for that very reason. The nirsoft utilities include password readers and resetters that MS doesn't think I should have. |
#25
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Running Headless: How to Force Display Rez?
On 9/15/2012 8:22 AM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per Char Jackson: I don't know what the basis of that might be, but Nirsoft has been around for ages and have proven themselves to be completely trustworthy. Based on that, I went back and clicked the "Download 64-bit version" button, but Chrome popped "nircmd-x64.zip appears malicious". I don't know who that is coming from. Avast, maybe? I think I'll take Paul's suggestion and go back and aim PowerStrip at an installed Radeon driver. That is because to do its work Nirsoft & Nircmd use some of the same methods that malicious programs do. Go ahead and d/l the entire Nirsoft package - it includes many usable routines. -- Zaidy036 |
#26
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Running Headless: How to Force Display Rez?
(PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per Char Jackson: *shrug* Suit yourself. I don't get the whole "scared to download" thing. You can download malicious files all day long and not have a problem until you execute one or more of them. In this case, you could simply download, scan with your favorite scanner(s), upload to virustotal, whatever. I see absolutely NO reason to be scared to download something, especially something from a site like Nirsoft. That's probably because you know a lot more. My assumption was that it had already been scanned by something on my PC and found wanting bco the "Malicious..." message when I started the download. I'm totally clueless on the modalities of malicious software. But, unimpeded by any knowledge, would think that something could be malicious once unzipped and installed. How would one know if an application that does something perfectly useful hasn't become the vector or host for some StuxNet-type code? Yesterday's XYZ app might be fine. Today's download of the nominally-same app might be something else altogether. Seems to me like it comes back to: - Whether one trusts the supplier or not. - How confident one is in one's ability to recover (assuming they even know they're infected...) from an infection by re-imaging. I'd venture that most users don't even know what a system image is - much less have a known good image to recover with. That brings it down to trust and I think most users would trust their anti-virus app more than they would trust a source that they do not know anything about. That lets your users off the hook, IMHO. But, now that everybody in this thread as spoken up on behalf of NirSoft, I guess I'm still on the hook... Just because something "scans as clean", doesn't mean it's clean. In the case of NirCmd, when I run it on virustotal, Sophos "detects" it. When I go to the Sophos site, and look for references to NirCmd, yes they list it, and they say absolutely nothing about why they flagged it. It's a PUA (potentially unwanted application), but they couldn't even be bothered to explain way. To test NirCmd, I used regedit, exported the registry, ran the command, then ran regedit and exported the registry again. I did that in a virtual machine, to protect my main OS. First off, make sure the command actually does something. If the command syntax is wrong, nothing happens to the registry. The NirCmd documentation gives this as an example: nircmd.exe setdisplay 800 600 24 But in the virtual machine I tested in, the video card can only go in 16 bit or 32 bit mode. There is no 24 bit, so the command fails. As given, that command doesn't change the registry. Once I change it to nircmd.exe setdisplay 800 600 32 then it actually does something. This is the kind of entry you'll find in the registry. There are multiple of these. In this case, the virtual machine has an emulation of an S3 video chip (a relatively dumb frame-buffer style chip), and that's noted by the identifier "VPC-S3" for the video card. [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet002\Hardware Profiles\0001\System\CurrentControlSet\SERVICES\VP C-S3\DEVICE0] "Attach.ToDesktop"=dword:00000001 "DefaultSettings.BitsPerPel"=dword:00000020 "DefaultSettings.XResolution"=dword:00000400 "DefaultSettings.YResolution"=dword:00000300 "DefaultSettings.VRefresh"=dword:0000004b "DefaultSettings.Flags"=dword:00000000 "DefaultSettings.XPanning"=dword:00000000 "DefaultSettings.YPanning"=dword:00000000 "Attach.RelativeX"=dword:00000000 "Attach.RelativeY"=dword:00000000 The BitsPerPel is hex, and 0x20 is 32 bits per pixel. XResolution of 0x400 is 1024 decimal width. YResolution of 0x300 is 768 decimal width. The NirCmd syntax doesn't include refresh rate (at least, as given in the example). And the refresh rate of 0x4b is 75Hz. Whereas, if I'd set it manually, for an LCD I would have chosen 60Hz refresh. 60Hz would be 0x3C hex. The "XPanning" (not used) could apply to cases where what the user sees, is a "window" into the entire desktop surface. For example, with the appropriate hardware and driver support, I could be looking at a 1024x768 chunk of a 4000x3000 surface. Some of the video drivers (SIS being one), allow the desktop to be larger than the display can present, and then when you move the mouse and bang against the side of the 1024x768 window, the window "moves" to expose a different view of the 4000x3000 area. It could be that is what the XPanning and YPanning values are for. Anyway, that's what NirCmd seems to be changing. The tough part, is figuring out just which of the multiple sets of those keys, should be changed. So you don't have to use NirCmd. You could experiment with those kinds of registry entries, reboot, and see what resolution it comes up in. Just be careful to use values that are reasonable, or be prepared to use a Restore Point to bring sanity to the system. (Like, go into Safe Mode, restore to a previous sane state, such that on the next reboot, you can see the screen again.) Paul |
#27
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Running Headless: How to Force Display Rez?
On 9/15/2012 10:55 AM, Char Jackson wrote:
On Sat, 15 Sep 2012 10:32:16 -0500, wrote: On 9/15/2012 10:19 AM, Char Jackson wrote: I don't get the whole "scared to download" thing. I understand the fear. Even though I have been using Windows since '93 and I never had a virus or trojan yet. But I still understand the fear of others. As all it takes is been bitten once or twice even with the correct tools installed to be very leery. You understand something that I don't. Perhaps because I felt that fear before. I decided to reinstall Windows 2000 from scratch on a Toshiba 2595XDVD. It was 2001 or maybe the latest was 2002. I was still using dialup (shortly later I was using DSL). I was also very cocky about malware back then. As I was always one step ahead of the hackers. And whatever they could come up with, I was already ready for them. Still believing this, I reinstalled Windows 2000 from scratch. Logged on dialup and got the updates from Microsoft. When asked to reboot, I selected later. I didn't have an AV yet on this computer, so I downloaded and installed AVG. I don't recall if AVG wanted me to reboot too or not. I guess it doesn't matter. But at this point I logged off and I could get AVG to scan before a reboot. Why I did it this way, I dunno, I guess it was that little voice in your head telling you to do it this way. I couldn't see the harm, so ok. And I was totally shocked at the end result! One virus was downloaded in the background and was ready to install on the next reboot. Luckily AVG found it and removed it and removed the launch from the Windows registry before it could even run. I was now totally blown away! All of my cockiness was gone. They almost got me! I didn't access any malware site or anything. Just Microsoft and AVG websites and that is it. No I didn't have a firewall installed. And the only thing that makes sense is that a hacker's computer (BOT) pinged my computer and my computer answered back in the background. My computer not running in stealth mode was talking to a stranger. So the BOT found an easy way through an open port to slip the malware in and to modify the Windows registry. Ready to do its dirty deed when I rebooted. That was my scariest day when it comes to malware. I couldn't believe they almost got me. All I had to do was to reboot and they would have. So I had to rethink everything and how I almost got nabbed. I lost sleep that night worrying about this. But that was the closest I came. I am not as cocky about malware anymore. And I look more over my shoulder a lot more than I did before. ;-) -- Bill Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Thunderbird v12.0.1 Centrino Core2 Duo T5600 1.83GHz - 4GB - Windows XP SP2 |
#28
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Running Headless: How to Force Display Rez?
On Sat, 15 Sep 2012 01:54:19 +0100, Robin Bignall wrote:
In fact, I have used that very app above, nircmd, in a script to turn off the monitor during an overnight backup operation, because the brightly lit screen interfered with my sleep :-) Can you imagine normal people wanting to sit in their bedrooms for hours on end corresponding with other people, few, if any, they know or will ever meet? Me neither. Yes, I can imagine that, but still, I have no idea why you asked. Mystified... -- Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch) |
#29
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Running Headless: How to Force Display Rez?
On Sat, 15 Sep 2012 15:18:16 -0700, "Gene E. Bloch"
wrote: On Sat, 15 Sep 2012 01:54:19 +0100, Robin Bignall wrote: In fact, I have used that very app above, nircmd, in a script to turn off the monitor during an overnight backup operation, because the brightly lit screen interfered with my sleep :-) Can you imagine normal people wanting to sit in their bedrooms for hours on end corresponding with other people, few, if any, they know or will ever meet? Me neither. Yes, I can imagine that, but still, I have no idea why you asked. Mystified... It was the line about your screen causing insomnia. I keep fangled gadgets (new and old) out of my bedroom. -- Robin Bignall Herts, England |
#30
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Running Headless: How to Force Display Rez?
BillW50 wrote:
On 9/15/2012 10:55 AM, Char Jackson wrote: On Sat, 15 Sep 2012 10:32:16 -0500, wrote: On 9/15/2012 10:19 AM, Char Jackson wrote: I don't get the whole "scared to download" thing. I understand the fear. Even though I have been using Windows since '93 and I never had a virus or trojan yet. But I still understand the fear of others. As all it takes is been bitten once or twice even with the correct tools installed to be very leery. You understand something that I don't. Perhaps because I felt that fear before. I decided to reinstall Windows 2000 from scratch on a Toshiba 2595XDVD. It was 2001 or maybe the latest was 2002. I was still using dialup (shortly later I was using DSL). I was also very cocky about malware back then. As I was always one step ahead of the hackers. And whatever they could come up with, I was already ready for them. Still believing this, I reinstalled Windows 2000 from scratch. Logged on dialup and got the updates from Microsoft. When asked to reboot, I selected later. I didn't have an AV yet on this computer, so I downloaded and installed AVG. I don't recall if AVG wanted me to reboot too or not. I guess it doesn't matter. But at this point I logged off and I could get AVG to scan before a reboot. Why I did it this way, I dunno, I guess it was that little voice in your head telling you to do it this way. I couldn't see the harm, so ok. And I was totally shocked at the end result! One virus was downloaded in the background and was ready to install on the next reboot. Luckily AVG found it and removed it and removed the launch from the Windows registry before it could even run. I was now totally blown away! All of my cockiness was gone. They almost got me! I didn't access any malware site or anything. Just Microsoft and AVG websites and that is it. No I didn't have a firewall installed. And the only thing that makes sense is that a hacker's computer (BOT) pinged my computer and my computer answered back in the background. My computer not running in stealth mode was talking to a stranger. So the BOT found an easy way through an open port to slip the malware in and to modify the Windows registry. Ready to do its dirty deed when I rebooted. That was my scariest day when it comes to malware. I couldn't believe they almost got me. All I had to do was to reboot and they would have. So I had to rethink everything and how I almost got nabbed. I lost sleep that night worrying about this. But that was the closest I came. I am not as cocky about malware anymore. And I look more over my shoulder a lot more than I did before. ;-) That could be something like this. Direct connection to a modem, with no Windows firewall, would be enough. Even if you had a box with NAT between you and the Internet, it would help. Some of those exploits, are stopped by the NAT in a home router. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasser_(computer_worm) Paul |
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