Changing display resolution

On 6/21/19 12:55 PM, Paul wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:
On 6/20/19 5:35 PM, Paul wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:
Normally, the user is given a list of possible resolutions for whatever
monitor/graphics card is in use.

Is there a way to force a resolution that is not in the listed options?



There used to be a way to do that.

Powerstrip (no longer sold)

https://www.techspot.com/downloads/266-powerstrip.html

You can see the Modeline interface here.

https://www.entechtaiwan.com/util/ps.shtm

*******

On NVidia and ATI/AMD, it used an *available* facility
to set a custom resolution.

https://www.nvidia.com/object/custom_resolutions.html

A copy of the "CCC user manual", likely has similar
pictures for the ATI/AMD version.

Looking at the screenshots, it appears that the ability to make these
types of changes will vary from graphics card to graphics card. For my
goal, that is not a practical solution. I do need something like
Powerstrip, but will work with everything out there.

snip

I snipped all of your reply as it's so far above my pay grade! ROFL

As I just mentioned in a reply to Mayayana in this thread, this
dovetails with my question about aspect ratios.

Now that *I* have old eyes, I'm looking for the best way to adjust a
monitor for people who find it hard to read their monitor without the
use of a magnifying glass. I suspect most people will simply suggest
using a magnifying option, but it didn't take me long to realize that
solution really sucks, especially when it comes to ease of use. For one
thing, if you have older hardware, it seems to be incredibly slow and
cumbersome.

So, I'm off on a different path to a solution to the problem.

If you want to experiment with fuzzy options, the
regular VESA (and otherwise) resolution choices should
suffice.

On paper, you're right. But, I've gotten old enough to know that what
it says on paper doesn't always pan out in real life. So you could be
surprised when you try the "It's not supposed to work" solution.

A 3840x2160 screen could be operated at 1920x1080,
but this is basically saying you couldn't find a
1920x1080 screen at that screen size.

OK... I'm not fully understanding what your trying to say... :-(

Goofy resolution choices, like 1440x900 displayed
on a 1920x1080 screen, will be a bit fuzzy on text.
You really don't want to do that. Such a choice makes
no difference to video content.

Not to mention the aspect ratios of those two screen resolutions do not
match. So a square won't be square.

But, of the known resolutions I've identified, I'd be willing to try
1600 X 900 if that was a resolution that was offered. The aspect ratio
is the same. And, if also possible, I'd try other resolutions that have
the same aspect ratio as the monitor, if I could.

CRTs are much more forgiving on these choices. I
could run my Trinitron at 1280x1024 or 1152x864 and
it didn't really matter. Trying a lot of choices
like that on an LCD will gives you lots of bad options.

I've got a 19" HP9500 CRT that I'm operating at 1152 X 864. 1280 X 1024
is simply too small for me any more.

And there aren't too many "divisible by two" choices.
Your custom resolution might come in handy for that
purpose. Running the 3840x2160 screen at 1920x1080
should give you a sharp result, a bigger result,
but some would consider this a waste when the thing
could be running at full resolution (and some HiDPI
or scaling setting applied to make dialogs bigger or
something).

The goal isn't to run the monitor at it's best possible resolution. The
goal is to run the monitor at a resolution the user can read.

There seems to be some reading this group that can't grasp that concept.
Which indicates to me, they do not have, nor know anyone, with that
type of issue with their eyesight.

Custom resolutions can be used for things like projectors,
ones which happened to have a presentation problem.
Maybe you need overscan or underscan correction.
There might be some weird combinations (too large res,
some scan correction).

I'm looking for something as easy as possible to implement on someone
else's monitor, as well as on mine.


--
Ken
MacOS 10.14.5
Firefox 67.0.4
Thunderbird 60.7
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

Ken Springer wrote:


The goal isn't to run the monitor at it's best possible resolution. The
goal is to run the monitor at a resolution the user can read.

There seems to be some reading this group that can't grasp that concept.
Which indicates to me, they do not have, nor know anyone, with that
type of issue with their eyesight.

At least some display system features, are designed to
compensate for HiDPI.

I hear complaints sometimes that icons are "too small".

I don't believe the scaling they do is perfect in that respect.
I think they try to correct textual displays first,
so dialogs are still readable.

I recommend starting with some HiDPI web articles, so
you see the solution they use.

https://www.digitaltrends.com/comput...in-windows-10/

Large displays are not a bed of roses. They have aspects
that bother people. They're not for everyone. Notice that
the article I picked (the first hit in a search), involves
a *lot* of tinkering. Which suggests not enough automation
provided for the job. But, at least it implies there
are settings to use, if you need to solve a problem.

The icons in that article do look a bit small. At least
to my eyes. And that's "proof you're driving a Cadillac".

1) Set monitor to *native* resolution.
2) Investigate *all* the HiDPI features.
3) Yes, the icons are too small.

Paul

Ken Springer wrote:


AFAIK, any monitor will work with a Mini.

Once you get above 1920x1200, I recommend *checking*
before shooting from the hip.

There are monitors today in the 8K class, that
will challenge your assumption.

The DisplayPort and HDMI have standards release numbers,
and some Wikipedia shopping will give max resolution values
that would be available.

Occasionally monitors use *two* inputs simultaneously,
and the back of a compact unit may not have exactly
that pair of connectors. With adapters, you might
fix that.

If the objective is first time success, and the native
resolution is high on the unit, do your research.

If you span a number of monitors, you can actually
run out of video RAM for the config. Initially, you'll
be high fiving yourself... until you try to run some
application that wants to double buffer or uses
textures, and suddenly your plan falls apart.
I discovered that the lofty 16Kx16K the driver
teased me with, just wasn't practical, and you
need to back off a bit.

The crossbar has some address generator limits,
and again, if you're doing "acres of glass", at
some point, you will be doing the research.

For "regular monitors" or "cheap monitors" or some
moniker like that, sure, anything works.

*******

There's more to picking monitors than shopping for res.

1) IPS for color consistency, even when the recipient
has poor posture, and good ergonomic adjustment
of the sitting position is not possible. TN sucks
for this, and your head has to be just right to use
the very cheapest monitors.

2) Parallax issues. The glass cover on the monitor
affects the clarity of text. You will only realize this,
if you go to the Best Buy monitor section and examine
the monitors one at a time. On some units, you may
notice moving your head to the side, you're seeing
double copies of the letters. That's one of the
properties of the monitor I'm sitting in front of
right now - no parallax.

3) Monitors come with 6 bit dithered, 8 bit per pixel,
or 10 bits (deep color? don't know the right terms
for the exotic stuff). The 6 bit is the kind you
want to avoid. (With RGB, 8bpp is a 24 bit color space.)
A dithering panel alternates colors in a pattern
frame by frame, to achieve 8 bit color resolution.

4) Monitors use various schemes for overdrive, where
the display is "flashed" in a particular pattern,
to give the illusion of faster-than-normal gtg response.
A 1ms TN panel isn't actually 1ms, it uses tricks
to achieve that response. I don't know of a particular
eye malady that such a design might "set off", but
one thing to remember about the human eye, is it's
fickle, and a small percentage of people *cannot stand*
Cleartype. It's something about "Zebra patterns"
their optic nerve doesn't like.

So while you can prepare your flow chart of things
to check, a small percentage (maybe 2%) of your
customers are going to be saying things like
*I hate this*, and you will be looking at the same
screen and going "Huh?". As it won't appear objectionable
to you. There is more to the eye than "a dirty lens
and a few scratches". The optic nerve can also give
negative reactions to the best possible setup. For
some reason, the optic nerve processing is not
exactly the same on everybody. Some are more sensitive
to certain patterns than others.

When you run into a person like that, don't immediately
dismiss them as a kook. I've located some of these people
over in the Answers forum, when I was researching
ClearType. This article has such people...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ClearType

Windows 10: Only used in Win32 apps and Win32 system features,
not Universal Windows Platform.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...moved-features

"We've changed Windows 10 to use ClearType by default,

There's lots of options for this stuff.

https://github.com/snowie2000/mactyp...ctWrite-vs-GDI so we're removing this setting"

Paul

"Ken Springer" wrote

|
https://www.color-management-guide.c...ing-guide.html
|
| 2 browsers, both say the URL isn't found on the server.
|

Woops. Sorry. Weird thing. I took that link from my PM history.
I got the address it redirects to from my FF history. It seems to
work fine. But they're the same!

https://www.color-management-guide.c...aud-frich.html

That should work. The only thing I can think of is that maybe
there was some kind of weird character in the redirect page.

| I discovered that when I first tried Linux but never got
| used to the idea. It rquires switching.
|
| the Linux distro you were using... What do you mean by switching,
| as I've not experimented with multiple desktops. On the Mac, it's
| essentially the same as switching windows, just a bit simpler to do.
|
This was some years ago. My first foray into Linux was
late 90s. I worked to learn the system, then finally felt at
home only to realize there was no software. My last foray
was probably at least 10 years ago. Still not worth wasting
time on, in my opinion.
What I remember was 4 rectangle icons on the taskbar,
in a group, allowing switching between desktops. But I just
didn't use it. I couldn't see not having everything in one place
at once. The extras was a neat idea, but somehow the reality
seemed a bit too Salvador Dali-esque.

The only time I really feel crowded is occasionally when I'm
doing programming, with visual Studio barely big enough at
fullscreen, MSDN open, browsers, several copies of Notepad
with snippets and notes.... But I'm adept with taskbar icons.
It works OK.

On 6/21/19 4:25 PM, Paul wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:


AFAIK, any monitor will work with a Mini.

Once you get above 1920x1200, I recommend *checking*
before shooting from the hip.

There are monitors today in the 8K class, that
will challenge your assumption.

Anyone that may be interested in what I'm doing, at least locally, is
like to be a Windows user.

snip

If the objective is first time success, and the native
resolution is high on the unit, do your research.

Given the folks I'm likely to be talking with, I will be hard pressed to
get them to consider a 24-27" monitor, or even spending $250.

snip

There's more to picking monitors than shopping for res.

1) IPS for color consistency, even when the recipient
has poor posture, and good ergonomic adjustment
of the sitting position is not possible. TN sucks
for this, and your head has to be just right to use
the very cheapest monitors.

I wouldn't recommend any of the others.

2) Parallax issues. The glass cover on the monitor
affects the clarity of text. You will only realize this,
if you go to the Best Buy monitor section and examine
the monitors one at a time. On some units, you may
notice moving your head to the side, you're seeing
double copies of the letters. That's one of the
properties of the monitor I'm sitting in front of
right now - no parallax.

I wish there were more places to see and compare monitors. Personaly, I
don't care for the "shopping experience" you get with Best Buy. Same
for Apple stores, too.

snip

So while you can prepare your flow chart of things
to check, a small percentage (maybe 2%) of your
customers are going to be saying things like
*I hate this*, and you will be looking at the same
screen and going "Huh?". As it won't appear objectionable
to you. There is more to the eye than "a dirty lens
and a few scratches". The optic nerve can also give
negative reactions to the best possible setup. For
some reason, the optic nerve processing is not
exactly the same on everybody. Some are more sensitive
to certain patterns than others.

I don't tell anyone what to buy, just the type to buy. IE, I don't say
"You need MS Word", I say "You need a word processor."

When you run into a person like that, don't immediately
dismiss them as a kook.

There are 3 things I tell people they will have to try out for
themselves, keyboards, mice, and monitors.

But seeing and trying monitors is almost impossible to do.

snip


--
Ken
MacOS 10.14.5
Firefox 67.0.4
Thunderbird 60.7
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

On 6/21/19 4:29 PM, Mayayana wrote:
"Ken Springer" wrote

|
https://www.color-management-guide.c...ing-guide.html
|
| 2 browsers, both say the URL isn't found on the server.
|

Woops. Sorry. Weird thing. I took that link from my PM history.
I got the address it redirects to from my FF history. It seems to
work fine. But they're the same!

https://www.color-management-guide.c...aud-frich.html

That should work. The only thing I can think of is that maybe
there was some kind of weird character in the redirect page.

He sure didn't review very many monitors that are in the affordability
range for the majority of users.

| I discovered that when I first tried Linux but never got
| used to the idea. It rquires switching.
|
| the Linux distro you were using... What do you mean by switching,
| as I've not experimented with multiple desktops. On the Mac, it's
| essentially the same as switching windows, just a bit simpler to do.
|
This was some years ago. My first foray into Linux was
late 90s. I worked to learn the system, then finally felt at
home only to realize there was no software. My last foray
was probably at least 10 years ago. Still not worth wasting
time on, in my opinion.

Like anything else a person looks at 10 years ago, stoves, cars, sound
equipment, using the same conclusions for today's products is a fallacy,
IMO.

What I remember was 4 rectangle icons on the taskbar,
in a group, allowing switching between desktops. But I just
didn't use it. I couldn't see not having everything in one place
at once. The extras was a neat idea, but somehow the reality
seemed a bit too Salvador Dali-esque.

I rather prefer a clean working environment, too many windows become
frustrating for me. Having to mouse over something in the taskbar seems
less efficient that switching to a window that has exactly what I want.

snio


--
Ken
MacOS 10.14.5
Firefox 67.0.4
Thunderbird 60.7
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

Ken Springer wrote:
Well... This is not good...

W10 1903

I was experimenting a bit ago with the various scaling options available
in 1903, not the display resolutions.

125% that Rene says works good for him (her? Sorry, I don't know.)
looked as if it might be too big for some people. There may have been
other things but I didn't do a close "inspection" of the desktop.

So I thought I would try the custom scaling, and selected 110%. Nothing
seemed to happen. The field had a greyed out 100-500 in it, which
appears from the text to be the acceptable range. So I entered 110-110.
Up comes a message that says I have to sign out for the changes to take
effect. Darned if the system doesn't lock up during sign out.

Power off to reboot. Reboot is fine. I've now forgotten what I did, as
I had to attend to other things, but I needed to reboot again, and this
time the system locked up at the HP splash screen.

Power off to reboot once again. And... Nada. Nothing. No hard drive
activity, no indication of checking for the optical drive. Basically,
dead as a door nail! LOL

I can laugh about it because the computer was "rescued" from a recycle
pile. And it was used simply as a W10 learning platform.

Not sure where I will go with this, now.

Yeah, I had something like that happen.

Damned if I can remember for sure how I fixed it.

Safe Mode maybe ? Or perhaps after several tries,
it advanced to Boot Recovery mode on its own.

Anyway, there's a few suggestions here.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/...dows-10-a.html

One other thread I found, suggested the "prevent Win10
from booting" three times by using the reset button at
inopportune moments. Thereby forcing the boot recovery
code to run (WinRE based). This assumes you haven't
ruined WinRE (reagentc) setting, deleted the partition
containing WinRE.wim (partition 0x27 hidden NTFS), or
used reagentc to disable WinRE altogether. I have
run into at least one release of Windows 10, where
WinRE.wim setup was not configured properly, and not
expected to work unless you noticed and fixed it up.

Some installations have put WinRE.wim into C: itself,
and if C: is corrupted (in the CHKDSK sense), it may
not be possible to access WinRE.wim when the system
wants it. That's why it's supposed to be located in
its own partition.

The registry file in that TenForums article looks promising,
and maybe there is some registry editing command
you could use from Command Prompt or something.

The Kaspersky Rescue CD (normally used by people for
AV scans offline), has included a registry editor for
around a year and a half or so. It's claimed this
registry editor is open source, implying you may be
able to download it from other places. Kaspersky
Rescue CD is based on Gentoo, and there's really
nothing special about Registry Editing from a
Linux point of view. It's just an application making
binary edits to a set of files, as far as Linux is
concerned. And because permissions are largely not
an issue from Linux side, it's not a problem from
a permission perspective. It may be possible to
add a tool to your kit bag, based on that registry
editor. It allows "graphical" registry editing,
and would be less scary than some other ways of
doing it.

Paul

On Fri, 21 Jun 2019 18:23:35 -0600, Ken Springer
wrote:


I don't tell anyone what to buy, just the type to buy. IE, I don't say
"You need MS Word", I say "You need a word processor."


Same here, but I normally tell them what the choices are and what my
personal favorite is (WordPerfect, not Word). I recommend that they
try several, including at least one free one.


When you run into a person like that, don't immediately
dismiss them as a kook.

There are 3 things I tell people they will have to try out for
themselves, keyboards, mice, and monitors.



Speaking of mice, I have a new mouse, that I highly recommend and
recommend that you try--the Anker A7852M ($20 on Amazon.com). It's a
vertical mouse, not the normal horizontal type, and it's extremely
comfortable to use. I had thought it might take some time to get
accustomed to it, but it didn't.

It's also wireless. I finally broke down and bought a wireless mouse.
I'm not yet sure how much I like its being wireless; that
unfortunately makes it much easier to knock onto the floor.

On 6/21/19 11:38 PM, Paul wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:
Well... This is not good...

W10 1903

I was experimenting a bit ago with the various scaling options available
in 1903, not the display resolutions.

125% that Rene says works good for him (her? Sorry, I don't know.)
looked as if it might be too big for some people. There may have been
other things but I didn't do a close "inspection" of the desktop.

So I thought I would try the custom scaling, and selected 110%. Nothing
seemed to happen. The field had a greyed out 100-500 in it, which
appears from the text to be the acceptable range. So I entered 110-110.
Up comes a message that says I have to sign out for the changes to take
effect. Darned if the system doesn't lock up during sign out.

Power off to reboot. Reboot is fine. I've now forgotten what I did, as
I had to attend to other things, but I needed to reboot again, and this
time the system locked up at the HP splash screen.

Power off to reboot once again. And... Nada. Nothing. No hard drive
activity, no indication of checking for the optical drive. Basically,
dead as a door nail! LOL

I can laugh about it because the computer was "rescued" from a recycle
pile. And it was used simply as a W10 learning platform.

Not sure where I will go with this, now.

Yeah, I had something like that happen.

Damned if I can remember for sure how I fixed it.

Safe Mode maybe ? Or perhaps after several tries,
it advanced to Boot Recovery mode on its own.

Anyway, there's a few suggestions here.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/...dows-10-a.html

Those are the settings I was experimenting with when the system went
belly up.

One other thread I found, suggested the "prevent Win10
from booting" three times by using the reset button at
inopportune moments. Thereby forcing the boot recovery
code to run (WinRE based). This assumes you haven't
ruined WinRE (reagentc) setting, deleted the partition
containing WinRE.wim (partition 0x27 hidden NTFS), or
used reagentc to disable WinRE altogether. I have
run into at least one release of Windows 10, where
WinRE.wim setup was not configured properly, and not
expected to work unless you noticed and fixed it up.

This is an HP Slimline series, basic model number of 3700. It came with
Vista! LOL

But I found a way to get a legit copy of W10 installed. No hacking, no
piracy, no free copies or gifts, all just using the MS systems in place.
:-)

No reset buttons on these units, but I doubt it would work anyway. I'm
just going to pull the optical disk, RAM, and hard drive, and recycle it.

snip

Since neither the hard drive nor the optical drive spin, none of t he
snipped solutions are likely to work. G I'm going to keep my eyes
open for another old system to use for my W10 dedicated computer. And
I'll use Boot Camp on the Mac for awhile for W10, presuming it will
install. Just because Apple says it will, doesn't mean it will. LOL

--
Ken
MacOS 10.14.5
Firefox 67.0.4
Thunderbird 60.7
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

On 6/22/19 8:50 AM, Ken Blake wrote:
On Fri, 21 Jun 2019 18:23:35 -0600, Ken Springer
wrote:


I don't tell anyone what to buy, just the type to buy. IE, I don't say
"You need MS Word", I say "You need a word processor."


Same here, but I normally tell them what the choices are and what my
personal favorite is (WordPerfect, not Word). I recommend that they
try several, including at least one free one.

Ditto, except for the personal favorite. I checked out WordPerfect,
found it weighted too much towards the legal profession. Nothing wrong
with that, it's just not a product for someone who needs something for
more general use. Same for Papyrus Author, which is geared for writers
and publishing.

I use Softmaker Office 2016, which I paid $70 for, I believe. Gosh, if
I'd been paying the yearly subscription fee for Office 365, I'd have
paid $200 now for using the very same features! I see no value there. LOL

When you run into a person like that, don't immediately
dismiss them as a kook.

There are 3 things I tell people they will have to try out for
themselves, keyboards, mice, and monitors.



Speaking of mice, I have a new mouse, that I highly recommend and
recommend that you try--the Anker A7852M ($20 on Amazon.com). It's a
vertical mouse, not the normal horizontal type, and it's extremely
comfortable to use. I had thought it might take some time to get
accustomed to it, but it didn't.

It's also wireless. I finally broke down and bought a wireless mouse.
I'm not yet sure how much I like its being wireless; that
unfortunately makes it much easier to knock onto the floor.

That's an odd looking guy!!!! Since I've got a box of spare mice, I
think I'll pass. LOL


--
Ken
MacOS 10.14.5
Firefox 67.0.4
Thunderbird 60.7
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

On Sat, 22 Jun 2019 09:09:46 -0600, Ken Springer
wrote:

On 6/22/19 8:50 AM, Ken Blake wrote:
On Fri, 21 Jun 2019 18:23:35 -0600, Ken Springer
wrote:


I don't tell anyone what to buy, just the type to buy. IE, I don't say
"You need MS Word", I say "You need a word processor."


Same here, but I normally tell them what the choices are and what my
personal favorite is (WordPerfect, not Word). I recommend that they
try several, including at least one free one.

Ditto, except for the personal favorite. I checked out WordPerfect,
found it weighted too much towards the legal profession.
Nothing wrong
with that, it's just not a product for someone who needs something for
more general use.



I don't agree, but that's fine We all have different preferences, and
that's why we don't tell other what they *must* use.


Same for Papyrus Author, which is geared for writers
and publishing.

I use Softmaker Office 2016, which I paid $70 for, I believe. Gosh, if
I'd been paying the yearly subscription fee for Office 365, I'd have
paid $200 now for using the very same features! I see no value there. LOL

When you run into a person like that, don't immediately
dismiss them as a kook.

There are 3 things I tell people they will have to try out for
themselves, keyboards, mice, and monitors.



Speaking of mice, I have a new mouse, that I highly recommend and
recommend that you try--the Anker A7852M ($20 on Amazon.com). It's a
vertical mouse, not the normal horizontal type, and it's extremely
comfortable to use. I had thought it might take some time to get
accustomed to it, but it didn't.

It's also wireless. I finally broke down and bought a wireless mouse.
I'm not yet sure how much I like its being wireless; that
unfortunately makes it much easier to knock onto the floor.

That's an odd looking guy!!!!


It sure is. The first time I saw one on someone's desk, I asked
"what's that?" I wasn't sure it was a mouse.



Since I've got a box of spare mice, I
think I'll pass. LOL

Ken Springer wrote:

This is an HP Slimline series, basic model number of 3700. It came with
Vista! LOL

But I found a way to get a legit copy of W10 installed. No hacking, no
piracy, no free copies or gifts, all just using the MS systems in place.
:-)

No reset buttons on these units, but I doubt it would work anyway. I'm
just going to pull the optical disk, RAM, and hard drive, and recycle it.

snip

Since neither the hard drive nor the optical drive spin, none of t he
snipped solutions are likely to work. G I'm going to keep my eyes
open for another old system to use for my W10 dedicated computer. And
I'll use Boot Camp on the Mac for awhile for W10, presuming it will
install. Just because Apple says it will, doesn't mean it will. LOL

I keep two spare optical drives here.

One is in a USB2 enclosure.

The second is an IDE drive I keep for older machines.
The older machines tend to have CD-only drives, and
I can plug in the DVD drive as an alternative. Where
that doesn't work, is a year 2000 machine that won't
even touch the DVD drive (command set differences of
some sort). The year 2000 machine

1) Ignores PCI SATA cards. Doesn't know what they are.
2) Ignores DVD drives. Won't even flash the fricken light!

*******

When an HP machine "doesn't have a reset button", take
the side off and have a look at the header. There should
be a 2x4 header POWER,RESET,HDD_LED,PWR_LED, something
like that, and if they're not using the RESET, there
should be two pins open on the header. That format of
header is a kind of pseudo-standard on OEM machines.
Whereas an Asus retail motherboard, the FP_header
is a lot longer and includes room for a 1x4 SPKR connector.
OEM machines, use a piezo disc (black in color) right
on the motherboard, to take the place of SPKR ("beeps").
That's why an HP header connector and cable can be more
compact.

*******

The SLIC on a Vista or Win7 machine, can activate more
than one OS version on a royalty OEM machine. Whether
it moves forward (a Vista OEM machine can run Win7?),
I don't know. Haven't heard of anyone trying that.

Paul

On 6/22/19 10:50 AM, Paul wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:

This is an HP Slimline series, basic model number of 3700. It came with
Vista! LOL

But I found a way to get a legit copy of W10 installed. No hacking, no
piracy, no free copies or gifts, all just using the MS systems in place.
:-)

No reset buttons on these units, but I doubt it would work anyway. I'm
just going to pull the optical disk, RAM, and hard drive, and recycle it.

snip

Since neither the hard drive nor the optical drive spin, none of t he
snipped solutions are likely to work. G I'm going to keep my eyes
open for another old system to use for my W10 dedicated computer. And
I'll use Boot Camp on the Mac for awhile for W10, presuming it will
install. Just because Apple says it will, doesn't mean it will. LOL

I keep two spare optical drives here.

One is in a USB2 enclosure.

The second is an IDE drive I keep for older machines.
The older machines tend to have CD-only drives, and
I can plug in the DVD drive as an alternative. Where
that doesn't work, is a year 2000 machine that won't
even touch the DVD drive (command set differences of
some sort). The year 2000 machine

1) Ignores PCI SATA cards. Doesn't know what they are.
2) Ignores DVD drives. Won't even flash the fricken light!

*******

When an HP machine "doesn't have a reset button", take
the side off and have a look at the header. There should
be a 2x4 header POWER,RESET,HDD_LED,PWR_LED, something
like that, and if they're not using the RESET, there
should be two pins open on the header. That format of
header is a kind of pseudo-standard on OEM machines.
Whereas an Asus retail motherboard, the FP_header
is a lot longer and includes room for a 1x4 SPKR connector.
OEM machines, use a piezo disc (black in color) right
on the motherboard, to take the place of SPKR ("beeps").
That's why an HP header connector and cable can be more
compact.

Thanks for the info, Paul, but the truth is, I can't see good enough for
this kind of stuff anymore. :-(

W10 was pushing the system anyway, trying to use the magnifier was
"agony in defeat". I would get fed up waiting for it to actually just
track the mouse, and either get into Task Manager, or push the power button.

The path of least resistance, and looking at the long to do list, is to
just replace it.

*******

The SLIC on a Vista or Win7 machine, can activate more
than one OS version on a royalty OEM machine. Whether
it moves forward (a Vista OEM machine can run Win7?),
I don't know. Haven't heard of anyone trying that.




--
Ken
MacOS 10.14.5
Firefox 67.0.4
Thunderbird 60.7
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

In article ,
says...

On 6/21/19 11:38 PM, Paul wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:
Well... This is not good...

W10 1903

I was experimenting a bit ago with the various scaling options available
in 1903, not the display resolutions.

125% that Rene says works good for him (her? Sorry, I don't know.)
looked as if it might be too big for some people. There may have been
other things but I didn't do a close "inspection" of the desktop.

So I thought I would try the custom scaling, and selected 110%. Nothing
seemed to happen. The field had a greyed out 100-500 in it, which
appears from the text to be the acceptable range. So I entered 110-110.
Up comes a message that says I have to sign out for the changes to take
effect. Darned if the system doesn't lock up during sign out.

Power off to reboot. Reboot is fine. I've now forgotten what I did, as
I had to attend to other things, but I needed to reboot again, and this
time the system locked up at the HP splash screen.

Power off to reboot once again. And... Nada. Nothing. No hard drive
activity, no indication of checking for the optical drive. Basically,
dead as a door nail! LOL

I can laugh about it because the computer was "rescued" from a recycle
pile. And it was used simply as a W10 learning platform.

Not sure where I will go with this, now.

Yeah, I had something like that happen.

Damned if I can remember for sure how I fixed it.

Safe Mode maybe ? Or perhaps after several tries,
it advanced to Boot Recovery mode on its own.

Anyway, there's a few suggestions here.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/...dows-10-a.html

Those are the settings I was experimenting with when the system went
belly up.

One other thread I found, suggested the "prevent Win10
from booting" three times by using the reset button at
inopportune moments. Thereby forcing the boot recovery

Perhaps it's something to do with power supply? Though that seems
unlikely seeing as you indicated it hangs at Splash Screen which
suggests some hardware problem else it'd at least give you the "No OS"
message. Check cables, reseat ram etc. might work. I had to do that with
one came by my way same way as yours, e.g. pulled out of recycle bin.

On 6/22/19 12:43 PM, pjp wrote:
In article ,
says...

On 6/21/19 11:38 PM, Paul wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:
Well... This is not good...

W10 1903

I was experimenting a bit ago with the various scaling options available
in 1903, not the display resolutions.

125% that Rene says works good for him (her? Sorry, I don't know.)
looked as if it might be too big for some people. There may have been
other things but I didn't do a close "inspection" of the desktop.

So I thought I would try the custom scaling, and selected 110%. Nothing
seemed to happen. The field had a greyed out 100-500 in it, which
appears from the text to be the acceptable range. So I entered 110-110.
Up comes a message that says I have to sign out for the changes to take
effect. Darned if the system doesn't lock up during sign out.

Power off to reboot. Reboot is fine. I've now forgotten what I did, as
I had to attend to other things, but I needed to reboot again, and this
time the system locked up at the HP splash screen.

Power off to reboot once again. And... Nada. Nothing. No hard drive
activity, no indication of checking for the optical drive. Basically,
dead as a door nail! LOL

I can laugh about it because the computer was "rescued" from a recycle
pile. And it was used simply as a W10 learning platform.

Not sure where I will go with this, now.

Yeah, I had something like that happen.

Damned if I can remember for sure how I fixed it.

Safe Mode maybe ? Or perhaps after several tries,
it advanced to Boot Recovery mode on its own.

Anyway, there's a few suggestions here.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/...dows-10-a.html

Those are the settings I was experimenting with when the system went
belly up.

One other thread I found, suggested the "prevent Win10
from booting" three times by using the reset button at
inopportune moments. Thereby forcing the boot recovery

Perhaps it's something to do with power supply? Though that seems
unlikely seeing as you indicated it hangs at Splash Screen which
suggests some hardware problem else it'd at least give you the "No OS"
message. Check cables, reseat ram etc. might work. I had to do that with
one came by my way same way as yours, e.g. pulled out of recycle bin.

I'd bet power supply, but the system is too old, and slow for efficient
use of W10, to make the repairs worth the time. It's also not a generic
power supply, AFAIK this supply is only used in this series of computers.


--
Ken
MacOS 10.14.5
Firefox 67.0.4
Thunderbird 60.7
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"