Updating to Fall Creator (1809)

Frank Slootweg wrote:
Tim wrote:
"Jonathan N. Little" wrote in
news
[...]
Agreed. If doing a ''clean install'' was as simple and easy as in
Linux while preserving your profile, settings, and apps then it would
not be an issue. But a ''clean install'' in Windows is a real PITA if
you are not just a casual user.

Since my C: drive is a 256 gb SSD, the only thing on it is what Windows
put there and my user directory. I will copy my user directory to one of
the other drives, so that won't be a problem. I don't really have a
problem with doing a clean install except that it is such a PITA to
reinstall everything. Between system utilities, video editors, audio
editors, and a few other odds and ends, I probably have about 50
applications I would have to reinstall. I guess I will just do like I did
with the original Win10, immediately reinstall the few I need right away,
then add the others as I need them. Luckily I have copies of all the
installation stuff on another drive.

Many moons ago I used to support a couple DEC VAXes running VMS. It was
really nice becuase one could install each program within its own
separate space, and just set up pointers to it that would be initialized
either at boot time or unpon a user's login. And you could have Alpha,
Beta, and Production versions of the pointers which was great for
software development. Oh well.

$RANT ON

Don't be silly! You're talking about *structure*! We can't have THAT,
can we!? We're talking *Windows* here, so the aim is total chaos, or at
least something very close to it! So smarten up, will you!?

*Stucture* is for wimps or/and old geezers like us.

Luckily Google is following Microsoft's lead by making a total mess of
Android. Narrow escape that one!

So old UNIX loons like myself can only have (wet?) dreams (or
nightmares?) about things like the System V Release 4 filesystem layout,
etc..

$RANT OFF



sudo mv /home/jonathan /home/jonathan-old

sudo mkdir /home/jonathan

sudo chown jonathan:jonathan /home/jonathan

sudo sh -c "echo '/dev/sdb1 /home/jonathan ext4 defaults 0 2' /etc/fstab"

sudo mount -a

cp -rp /home/jonathan-old/* /home/jonathan

sudo reboot

If only Windows would be that easy...

--
Take care,

Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com

On 09/08/2018 01:12 PM, Jonathan N. Little wrote:
Frank Slootweg wrote:
Tim wrote:
"Jonathan N. Little" wrote in
news
[...]
Agreed. If doing a ''clean install'' was as simple and easy as in
Linux while preserving your profile, settings, and apps then it would
not be an issue. But a ''clean install'' in Windows is a real PITA if
you are not just a casual user.

Since my C: drive is a 256 gb SSD, the only thing on it is what Windows
put there and my user directory. I will copy my user directory to one of
the other drives, so that won't be a problem. I don't really have a
problem with doing a clean install except that it is such a PITA to
reinstall everything. Between system utilities, video editors, audio
editors, and a few other odds and ends, I probably have about 50
applications I would have to reinstall. I guess I will just do like I did
with the original Win10, immediately reinstall the few I need right away,
then add the others as I need them. Luckily I have copies of all the
installation stuff on another drive.

Many moons ago I used to support a couple DEC VAXes running VMS. It was
really nice becuase one could install each program within its own
separate space, and just set up pointers to it that would be initialized
either at boot time or unpon a user's login. And you could have Alpha,
Beta, and Production versions of the pointers which was great for
software development. Oh well.

$RANT ON

Don't be silly! You're talking about *structure*! We can't have THAT,
can we!? We're talking *Windows* here, so the aim is total chaos, or at
least something very close to it! So smarten up, will you!?

*Stucture* is for wimps or/and old geezers like us.

Luckily Google is following Microsoft's lead by making a total mess of
Android. Narrow escape that one!

So old UNIX loons like myself can only have (wet?) dreams (or
nightmares?) about things like the System V Release 4 filesystem layout,
etc..

$RANT OFF



sudo mv /home/jonathan /home/jonathan-old

sudo mkdir /home/jonathan

sudo chown jonathan:jonathan /home/jonathan

sudo sh -c "echo '/dev/sdb1 /home/jonathan ext4 defaults 0 2' /etc/fstab"

sudo mount -a

cp -rp /home/jonathan-old/* /home/jonathan

sudo reboot

If only Windows would be that easy...


I hate sudo. I just elevate to root. Or just use "su"

su -c "mkdir /home/jonathan"

I know... he who mess with root, eventually kill tree

On 09/07/2018 10:41 PM, Paul wrote:
Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth
Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth
Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
sfc /scannow

Hi Paul,

How would you modify this from the install media, rescue
mode, command prompt, where "/online" is disconnected?

-T

T wrote:

I hate sudo.Â* I just elevate to root.Â* Or just use "su"

Â*Â*Â* su -c "mkdir /home/jonathan"

I know... he who mess with root, eventually kill tree

Exactly. Also sudo auto *expires*, su does not. In my early days with
Linux before sudo was widely deployed I did some "bad oops" that were
painful. GUI sessions as root too was insane.

--
Take care,

Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com

On 10-9-2018 14:42, Jonathan N. Little wrote:
T wrote:

I hate sudo. I just elevate to root. Or just use "su"

su -c "mkdir /home/jonathan"

I know... he who mess with root, eventually kill tree

Exactly. Also sudo auto *expires*, su does not. In my early days with
Linux before sudo was widely deployed I did some "bad oops" that were
painful. GUI sessions as root too was insane.

My worst blooper: rm -rf / sometree.

notice the space behind the slash.

Result: a dead server.........

Sjouke Burry wrote:
On 10-9-2018 14:42, Jonathan N. Little wrote:
T wrote:

I hate sudo.Â* I just elevate to root.Â* Or just use "su"

Â*Â*Â*Â* su -c "mkdir /home/jonathan"

I know... he who mess with root, eventually kill tree

Exactly. Also sudo auto *expires*, su does not. In my early days with
Linux before sudo was widely deployed I did some "bad oops" that were
painful. GUI sessions as root too was insane.

My worst blooper: rm -rf / sometree.

notice the space behind the slash.

Result: a dead server.........

Mine was a careless mouse drag in Konqueror as root on a Mandrake
install... Oops, what did I just do? :-(

--
Take care,

Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com

T wrote:
On 09/07/2018 10:41 PM, Paul wrote:
Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth
Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth
Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
sfc /scannow

Hi Paul,

How would you modify this from the install media, rescue
mode, command prompt, where "/online" is disconnected?

-T

It's simply really, except it isn't simple.
Busted stuff lays strewn about.

From a Windows 7 System Rescue CD, where the OS drive appears
as D:\ , the command looks like this.

dism /Image:\ /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

If you use a Macrium Reflect Emergency Boot CD, if you use
WinPE10 PE kit for that, you have a dism command from
Windows10 version 14393 available. Macrium has a "Command Prompt"
icon on the bottom row.

dism /Image:C:\ /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

*******

Well, that was pretty easy. What's the problem ?

Networking.

First I tested on my VM, and I didn't note any
great amount of network traffic. When doing this
command, the claim is that DISM uses Windows Update
to fetch stuff. My guess, these would be packages,
and the repair leverages package level repair
(i.e. to get a DLL, you grab the package that
has the DLL in it). Windows 10 would have thousands
of small packages like that.

OK, so I was initially expecting an easy ride.

I prepared a Win7 Backup Rescue Disk. Or at least I
tried. The burn operation seemed to be making UDF discs
instead of ISO discs, and I wanted an ISO I could load
in VirtualBox to boot and test.

When I finally climbed that hill, the next problem was

ipconfig

was returning a blank. There is no networking set up in
there. Color me shocked.

Turns out, the geniuses at Microsoft think that the customers
are salivating for an opportunity to load a network driver,
using the "restore" menu of the backup. You don't need to
have a restore in hand - the "Add Driver" menu is in that
subsection of the interface.

OK, now what ? Where is my driver ? Since I'm in a VM, the
hardware is emulated, and I couldn't figure out, by using
the INF directory of the installed OS, where the driver for
that was. I tried a few content searches and had no luck
(in C:\Windows\INF when the OS is running).

*******

Knowing that Macrium has blessed me with working file sharing
when I've tried it, I installed Macrium 7 in the VM, and
had it make a rescue ISO. Notice that Macrium is no-hassle, whereas
Microsoft only offered to burn a disc, and wouldn't just make
an ISO. AFAIK, the macrium ISO is a standard ISO9660, and not some
botched UDF disc. It's constructed on the fly, and is not
a canned ISO.

But the thing is, when Macrium builds a rescue disc, it shows
a menu with the included drivers. There's no guarantee the
driver set is going to be any good for your "kit bag". If you
drag that disc with you, chances are you'll have no networking.
(Maybe you have an Intel NIC driver on the disc, but the
customer has an AMD machine with RealTek NIC.)

You would need to build a WinPE with "all NIC drivers" added.
How to do that ? Is there a kit ? Since the Win10 installer DVD
always seems to have running networking after it's finished,
one would suspect the drivers are in there... somewhere.

*******

To test properly, I need to break a C: enough to cause
DISM to go to the Internet and use Windows Update. And
I haven't done that yet.

*******

The SFC scannow is probably easier, in that you need
an "offwindir".

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...best-practices

"Running Sfc.exe can take a significant amount of time.
The expected result is that there are no system integrity
violations. However, if there are problems with Windows system
files, you should investigate the issues. We do not recommend
that you use the Sfc.exe scan options to automatically fix
Windows system files."

Yes, people repairing stuff should tidy up their resume,
quit their job, and open a flower shop. What were they
thinking ? Of course people want an sfc /scannow that
*works*. Why have automation, if it isn't automatic enough.
Where is Steve Jobs with his "this isn't magical enough"
wand ?

Read it and weep. Not the part I'm quoting here, which
is the implementation. But the rest of their suggestions.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-ca/...rrupted-system

"The sfc /scannow command will scan all protected system files,
and replace corrupted files with a cached copy that is located
in a compressed folder at %WinDir%\System32\dllcache."

This is someone elses take on it. They seem to have a hard
drive directory sitting around for the reference directory.
Does the tool consult the dllcache of the offwindir ?

https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorial...ompt-boot.html

sfc /scannow /offbootdir=f:\ /offwindir=f:\windows === single partition ref image
sfc /scannow /offbootdir=c:\ /offwindir=f:\windows === two partition ref image

This is the slightly reworked version for Win10.

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

You remember many posts ago, I built a set of "reference C: "
partitions for Windows 10 ? I guess now they're paying
off, as "offwindir" sources. Just need to do a V2P to
make them useful (as they're .vhd images).

This is a lot like being a Unix sys admin eons ago, and
not even having an "adduser" script that comes with the
machine :-/ I remember my IT guy explaining this to me
one day, how you start with nothing, code your own,
or "buy a set". Funny as hell. I can see him explaining
to his manager, what he spent all last week doing.
"This week, invent adduser. Next week, invent deluser".

Paul

On 09/10/2018 12:57 PM, Jonathan N. Little wrote:
Sjouke Burry wrote:
On 10-9-2018 14:42, Jonathan N. Little wrote:
T wrote:

I hate sudo.Â* I just elevate to root.Â* Or just use "su"

Â*Â*Â*Â* su -c "mkdir /home/jonathan"

I know... he who mess with root, eventually kill tree

Exactly. Also sudo auto *expires*, su does not. In my early days with
Linux before sudo was widely deployed I did some "bad oops" that were
painful. GUI sessions as root too was insane.

My worst blooper: rm -rf / sometree.

notice the space behind the slash.

Result: a dead server.........

Mine was a careless mouse drag in Konqueror as root on a Mandrake
install... Oops, what did I just do? :-(


My worst was

# chown -R todd.users /

I was up all night fixing that one. Good Time! Good Times!

On 09/10/2018 05:42 AM, Jonathan N. Little wrote:
T wrote:

I hate sudo.Â* I just elevate to root.Â* Or just use "su"

Â*Â*Â* su -c "mkdir /home/jonathan"

I know... he who mess with root, eventually kill tree

Exactly. Also sudo auto *expires*, su does not.

In my example above, it certainly does expire.

Some administration and networking things I do, it is just
to painful to keep using "su -c" or "sudo" over and over
again. So I just elevate and remember to get out as soon
as I am done.

"su" also lets you select a user, which is extremely
handy when copying profiles to other users.


In my early days with
Linux before sudo was widely deployed I did some "bad oops" that were
painful. GUI sessions as root too was insane.

On 09/10/2018 05:50 PM, Paul wrote:
dism /Image:\ /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

Thank you!

Which "Image" is dism talking about here? The one on your
installation media (resides in C or the native install,
which typically would reside on D: in PE mode?

The Fall Creator is described in Genesis.

T wrote:
On 09/10/2018 05:50 PM, Paul wrote:
dism /Image:\ /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

Thank you!

Which "Image" is dism talking about here? The one on your
installation media (resides in C or the native install,
which typically would reside on D: in PE mode?



No, D: there is the "C drive". D: is the
one you're trying to fix.

It depends on the partition discovery order of
your WinPE environment, as to the drive letter.

The WinPE boot OS gets the drive letter of X: ,
leaving C: for other purposes. But on some
WinPEs, the C: is the System Reserved, and
D: is the "C drive".

Paul

On 2018-09-08 13:07, Paul wrote:

Jonathan N. Little wrote:
[snip]
Agreed. If doing a ''clean install'' was as simple and easy as in Linux
while preserving your profile, settings, and apps then it would not be
an issue. But a ''clean install'' in Windows is a real PITA if you are
not just a casual user.


For $50-$60 or so, it can be "easy".

There are perhaps at least three companies offering
to transition your "stuff" from an old install, to
a clean install, after the clean install completes.

The license terms for the software, it's licensed per
machine, and perhaps per usage. Making it quite an
expensive proposition.

But if you want to talk to a support guy in India
about why it isn't working, it's probably worth
every dollar of the purchase price :-)

There's Laplink, Zemana, and maybe Easeus. The Easeus
had a trial (teaser) app, and that one didn't manage
to list everything in my Programs and Features listing.

You can probably use USMT - it used to come with WinPE, not sure if it
still comes with it. I've never used it but it came with AIK (now called
ADK.) it uses "templates" (xml files) that describe what you need to
copy over from old-new OS. After a couple years of trying it out, you
might have all the templates you need lol; maybe there are freely
available templates to grab...

Regards,

--
! _\|/_ Sylvain /
! (o o) Memberavid-Suzuki-Fdn/EFF/Red+Cross/SPCA/Planetary-Society
oO-( )-Oo And all the Borg Left was this Macintosh.

Lucifer wrote:
The Fall Creator is described in Genesis.


But feels more like Revelations

--
Take care,

Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com

On 09/10/2018 09:05 PM, Paul wrote:
T wrote:
On 09/10/2018 05:50 PM, Paul wrote:
dism /Image:\ /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

Thank you!

Which "Image" is dism talking about here?Â* The one on your
installation media (resides in C or the native install,
which typically would reside on D: in PE mode?



No, D: there is the "C drive". D: is the
one you're trying to fix.

It depends on the partition discovery order of
your WinPE environment, as to the drive letter.

The WinPE boot OS gets the drive letter of X: ,
leaving C: for other purposes. But on some
WinPEs, the C: is the System Reserved, and
D: is the "C drive".

Â*Â* Paul

Thank you!