O.T. Missing Folder/files

Robert in CA wrote:
I'm not exactly sure what you mean? I understand the concept
your suggesting but I don't understand what you mean by 'clicking
outside of the text box so it's not considered part of the test input'.

What text box? When I'm writing in Word the space key functions
on the same line as the text to remove it. If I'm on eBay I look at an
item and then press backspace to return to the previous screen.

Robert



When you open the google.com page, there is a text search box.
When you open a yahoo.com page, there is a text search box.

The I-beam is placed in the text box for you, as preparation
for text input. But, if you use the backspace key in this state,
it is assumed you want to backspace in the text box itself. It's
not treated as a page navigation key at that point.

That's why I wrote this answer for you previously.

http://al.howardknight.net/?STYPE=ms...nt-email.me%3E

Paul

Ahhhhhh I understand now.

btw could you recommend a good Win 10 book (just in case)
I have Windows 7 Inside Out by Bott, Siechert, and Stinson
which I believe you recommended.

Thanks,
Robert

Robert in CA wrote:
Ahhhhhh I understand now.

btw could you recommend a good Win 10 book (just in case)
I have Windows 7 Inside Out by Bott, Siechert, and Stinson
which I believe you recommended.

Thanks,
Robert

Windows 10 changes a bit with each release,
so if a book existed, it might need edits between
versions.

Paul

I did a search and used the same title and found this:

https://www.abebooks.com/Windows-10-...30806756149/bd

but your correct about the versions and there's no rush.

Just for fun while were waiting for the keyboard I did a HD Tune scan
on both computers. The first is the 8500 which I did after it had sat idle
for about 30 minutes and nothing else was opened.

https://postimg.cc/bGxPRhL0

The second is the 780 which I did right after the 8500 but it had not sat idle
with nothing else opened.

https://postimg.cc/gw116Bv9

Interesting the difference in the scans with the 780 graph at the bottom
with spikes and the scattering of dots. The transfer rates are way off and so are
the burst rates yet the only difference between the two scans was the 30 minute
idle time.
So now I'm letting the 780 sit for 30 minutes with the HD Tune still
open (I would have to reopen it anyway) and here's the second scan on the
780 after 30 minutes:

https://postimg.cc/18kL8jGk

Now this scan is much more like the 8500. It's amazing the difference of letting it
sit for 30 minutes does. I looked it up an it says that the burst rate should be higher
than the max transfer rate and neither computer is. Is this of concern?


Robert

Robert in CA wrote:
I did a search and used the same title and found this:

https://www.abebooks.com/Windows-10-...30806756149/bd

but your correct about the versions and there's no rush.

Just for fun while were waiting for the keyboard I did a HD Tune scan
on both computers. The first is the 8500 which I did after it had sat idle
for about 30 minutes and nothing else was opened.

https://postimg.cc/bGxPRhL0

The second is the 780 which I did right after the 8500 but it had not sat idle
with nothing else opened.

https://postimg.cc/gw116Bv9

Interesting the difference in the scans with the 780 graph at the bottom
with spikes and the scattering of dots. The transfer rates are way off and so are
the burst rates yet the only difference between the two scans was the 30 minute
idle time.
So now I'm letting the 780 sit for 30 minutes with the HD Tune still
open (I would have to reopen it anyway) and here's the second scan on the
780 after 30 minutes:

https://postimg.cc/18kL8jGk

Now this scan is much more like the 8500. It's amazing the difference of letting it
sit for 30 minutes does. I looked it up an it says that the burst rate should be higher
than the max transfer rate and neither computer is. Is this of concern?


Robert

Burst rates are notoriously difficult to get right when
writing benchmarking software.

They could make a change to the way the OS works,
requiring you to make tweaks to the burst routine.

In theory, invalidating caches and warming-up caches,
should be all that is needed. For example, when memtest
measures the speed of the system, if you look at the
source code, you can see how they attempt to invalidate
caches that might throw off the results.

But in practice, some things are harder to do than
others, and getting the burst measurement right
is very hard (you don't want the OS System Read cache
answering the probe, and want only the cache RAM chip
on the disk controller doing it, which means you also
need a way of ensuring the "item" you want to read,
is already inside the cache RAM chip).

Under Windows 10, HDTune was returning slightly incorrect
results for the basic transfer curve, so even that can
be screwed up by time base problems or OS scheduler problems.
If I needed to measure a disk today, I'd try it on several
OSes, just to check the honesty of the lot.

Paul

Understood

I assume my scans were OK then, otherwise you
would of mentioned something.

I sure hope the keyboard resolves the problem otherwise
I think the only other option open to us at this point is to
buy another non-Microsoft keyboard as I mentioned earlier.
Perhaps I should of done that in the first place?

Robert

Robert in CA wrote:
Understood

I assume my scans were OK then, otherwise you
would of mentioned something.

I sure hope the keyboard resolves the problem otherwise
I think the only other option open to us at this point is to
buy another non-Microsoft keyboard as I mentioned earlier.
Perhaps I should of done that in the first place?

Robert


Without knowing the root cause of the Backspace problem,
I can't guess what the cure will be. The controller chip
inside keyboards is not made by Microsoft, and more than
one brand of keyboard could be using the same controller.
They program the PNP identifier to "brand" the product,
but the behavior is determined by the chip, independent of
the identifier used.

Certain failure modes will point at a hardware-based cause.
The keyboards generally always use a scanning matrix. The
row wires and column wires don't follow a "pure rectangular"
pattern. Like I could wire 1-Q-A-Z as a column wire, but
maybe I need more items on the wire than that. Maybe the
matrix is 7x17. If suddenly 1-Q-A-Z stopped working, you'd
say "oh, that's a column wire".

The Backspace probably has "friends" too, but unless you notice
a very weird pattern of seven keys that stopped working
or seventeen keys that stopped working, that's probably not it.

An individual key could fail of course, if some debris got
inside it. But not both keyboards on both machines. That
tells us you have a common utility you use on both of
them, which is doing this. I've had a few keyboards here,
and I don't recollect any "correlated" failures. Each keyboard
will develop its own bad habits, if it's a hardware cause.

*******

Your hard drives don't show anything to be alarmed about.
You can use the Health tab, and note whether the "Reallocated"
Raw Data column still has a value of zero, as that's a good
indicator of health too.

Paul

Agreed, I was just 'shooting from the hip' with the keyboard;
in fact the new keyboard just arrived and I tested it on the 780
but of course it didn't work. However I'm not out anything as
it's always nice to have a backup keyboard.

However, since it's on both computers I'm trying to think of
anything I've added to the 780 since I use it very little. I've
done updates for FF, Macrium, and the VLC player, and of course
Spywareblaster, Malwarebytes, SuperAntiSpyware and Avast.

Oh, I installed Sea Monkey !! that's new to both computers.
Could that be doing this? That's the only new program I've added
and it fits when the backspace key went out.

I opened the HD-Tune and checked the Health tab on the 8500
but all I could find was 'Reallocated Sector Count' but the data
column is zero.

https://postimg.cc/yDdpV31Y

However, when I checked the 780 Health tab there was nothing. I
thought maybe if I ran a scan it would show up although I didn't
have to do this on the 8500. I included the rest of the tabs.

https://postimg.cc/rRDbfdDp

https://postimg.cc/bZx5Vfw1

https://postimg.cc/bd4FzwGQ

https://postimg.cc/1f67416b


Robert

Robert in CA wrote:
Agreed, I was just 'shooting from the hip' with the keyboard;
in fact the new keyboard just arrived and I tested it on the 780
but of course it didn't work. However I'm not out anything as
it's always nice to have a backup keyboard.

However, since it's on both computers I'm trying to think of
anything I've added to the 780 since I use it very little. I've
done updates for FF, Macrium, and the VLC player, and of course
Spywareblaster, Malwarebytes, SuperAntiSpyware and Avast.

Oh, I installed Sea Monkey !! that's new to both computers.
Could that be doing this? That's the only new program I've added
and it fits when the backspace key went out.

I opened the HD-Tune and checked the Health tab on the 8500
but all I could find was 'Reallocated Sector Count' but the data
column is zero.

https://postimg.cc/yDdpV31Y 8500 disk is zero, OK.

However, when I checked the 780 Health tab there was nothing. I
thought maybe if I ran a scan it would show up although I didn't
have to do this on the 8500. I included the rest of the tabs.

https://postimg.cc/rRDbfdDp 780 disk, spike near end

https://postimg.cc/bZx5Vfw1 (Info tab)

https://postimg.cc/bd4FzwGQ (Hmmm. SMART data unavailable.)

https://postimg.cc/1f67416b (Error scan option...)


Robert

A disk might not have SMART passthru if connected via USB.
The page might not work for the external drive.

The internal drive SATA connection, the SMART should work
and the window should populate on that.

It's possible that the user account in the 780 case is a
"limited user" and the lack of elevation for HDTune
is causing some problem.

*******

VLC has hot keys , but the hot keys pressed would only
be when VLC was the foreground application and had the focus.
In the same way that typed characters enter a Notepad window.
VLC really should not be snagging keys at all times. And
in the default setup in mine, the backspace key isn't used there.

Malwarebytes had a prototype Anti-Rootkit scanner (MBAR),
but it's possible it was rolled into the main program by now.
And rootkits aren't as popular as they used to be. It would be
pretty sloppy to use a rootkit, "just to mess with Backspace".

Not many programs have a "global view" for hotkeys. Maybe
a program that takes screenshots, could be triggered under
more conditions. In the VLC case, you'd expect any hotkey set
in its preferences, to only work when VLC is accepting input
(VLC window has the focus). Most application programs need
focus. A program that takes screenshots, an AV program,
these have a more global view in their design.

It's not that difficult to do things like this, as the
HID device, you could install a filter driver. It would
take elevation for the driver to be installed, and the
fllter works all the time (global view). Laptop
touchpad HIDs use this technique, keyboards not so much.
Usually when a keyboard gets one here, it's a mistake.

https://i.postimg.cc/6qb14SJW/check-for-kbd-filter.gif

The UpperFilter and LowerFilter concept, refers to the
"level" in the software stack. The filter could be
above or below the keyboard driver. Filter drivers
can remove data, and that's a way for a backspace
key to go missing. But, there's no particular reason
for such an animal to be present. It would have to be
a software with a "defined purpose" doing this, and
not just a "lark to break the keyboard". Because
there are better ways to completely break a keyboard
and render a computer useless. Messing with one
key is just "lame".

Paul

Yes but the 780 isn't an external drive and the health page should be similar
to the 8500. I tried to go back and check the boxes like the 8500 was
checked but it wouldn't let me.

https://postimg.cc/Mvzg0S4Q

https://postimg.cc/z32Phgn9

I'm on the User Account on both computers so if it works on the 8500 it should
also work on the 780.

What do you think of Sea Monkey being the problem? It's the only new program
that I've added recently to both computers. I thought maybe Adobe Flash Player
was doing this but I don't have it on the 780 but I noticed I have Apple programs
on the 780. Why would I have Apple programs?

Thoughts/suggestions?
Robert

Robert in CA wrote:
Yes but the 780 isn't an external drive and the health page should be similar
to the 8500. I tried to go back and check the boxes like the 8500 was
checked but it wouldn't let me.

https://postimg.cc/Mvzg0S4Q

https://postimg.cc/z32Phgn9

I'm on the User Account on both computers so if it works on the 8500 it should
also work on the 780.

What do you think of Sea Monkey being the problem? It's the only new program
that I've added recently to both computers. I thought maybe Adobe Flash Player
was doing this but I don't have it on the 780 but I noticed I have Apple programs
on the 780. Why would I have Apple programs?

Thoughts/suggestions?
Robert


Apple programs could have come in at a previous
time, with iTunes for PC, or with Safari Web Browser for PC.
Orphan components from such fun, could be QuickTime (movie player)
or Bonjour (similar to SSDP nameserving or Network Neighborhood).
If you had uninstalled iTunes, uninstalled Safari, and QuickTime
and Bonjour were still there, you could look in Programs and Features
and remove them.

A person could buy a copy of QuickTime Pro and install that,
in which case, you'd probably leave it installed. A lot of video players
have come along since QuickTime came out, so it's hardly necessary
any more. I ditched my QuickTime Pro eons ago.

Seamonkey is similar to Netscape Communicator, a suite
of a few different programs, rolled into one. It does
not have a particular hotkey streak to it. I've used Seamonkey
for a lot of years, and have nothing bad to report about it.
It probably works better than Safari :-)

You have lots of AV programs, and... those make me nervous.
Companies like Avast or AVG, they just can't stop adding
functions that don't belong, which is what makes me
nervous. Some of the AV programs are similar to root kits,
which isn't necessarily bad. Except when the companies
get carried away.

There are also things like Microsoft Intellitype. Which is
a software product specifically for keyboards. Maybe that
would make me nervous.

I have an experiment I want to try, but I can't get it running
on Windows 7, because Microsoft has removed the downloads
for the software for it. If I move my experiment to Windows 10,
then the experiment might work... but it won't be doing you
a damn bit of good. That's an ETW tracer with different events
in it than Process Monitor from Sysinternals uses. That's my only
hope, in terms of automation. I'm not convinced it can do what
I want, which is why I had to try to test it. But it's so annoying
to get running, forget it.

*******

Over the years, I've had various SMART failures (Health tab won't
load), so what has happened to you is not unheard of. It's
not supposed to happen, because SMART over SATA is inband,
and is part of the protocol. Nothing should particularly
be able to stop it. On Windows 10, maybe a year or a year
and a half ago, there was an "outage" on SMART and garbage
leaking through, and that was some nitwit at Microsoft
trying to do something clever with the data (never did find
out what "improvement" caused the breakage). They broke
it somehow, and it took a while for them to put things
back in a working state. That's what I mean by "breakage happens",
even though if nobody screws with it, it would have "just worked".
It's when the people get too big for their britches, that
it breaks.

A person could try "SmartMonTools for Windows", but I don't see
the point of even trying, when it's more likely to be a
filter driver somewhere which has messed it up. It's a lot
like the "turn it OFF and turn it ON" experiments, the
rote solutions that are so popular on the web. I don't like
to waste time banging my head against the wall, unless there
is some indication we could fix it that way. I don't think HDTune
is a bad program, and if there was a working SMART subsystem, it
would have found it.

There's very little you can switch off on hard drives now.
At one time, you could mess with power states, but at least
some of that was removed for "patent reasons". You can certainly
load new firmware into a drive (the protocol allows short term
test until the power goes off, or, burning the firmware into
flash and making it permanent). But unless a drive has a known
issue, there generally aren't any firmware files on offer. For
example, for the drives that used to brick after they ran for
30 days, there was a firmware to fix that. But unless a problem
on a drive is a serious one, they don't always offer a firmware,
not even the original one.

Paul

I think I do have Quick time but I do believe I need that for
something. Maybe Dell Imaging uses it I forget. I think I
uninstalled it once then needed it so re-installed it.

Well the AV programs are there for a reason but I know what
you mean about companies getting carried away. What would
you recommend? I just want as secure a computer as I possibly
can have. As I said, I get hit with Avast pop-up warnings even on
eBay or when I'm watching the news.

I thought I would show you my programs/downloads on the 780
I also went into task manager. and maybe you can spot something
that shouldn't be there?

https://postimg.cc/3y9npYnx

https://postimg.cc/QFJbGjLJ

https://postimg.cc/w3RQxX8v

https://postimg.cc/5XgwKpvP

https://postimg.cc/WdNZZrK0

https://postimg.cc/bSfDw2kD

https://postimg.cc/PPhvGYd0

https://postimg.cc/hQ0j4ZK6

https://postimg.cc/bszrVPTh

https://postimg.cc/Vrqs4Z0v

https://postimg.cc/gnNqkmkz

https://postimg.cc/r0156LPL

https://postimg.cc/N5fmnS8W

https://postimg.cc/SnH9Js0h

https://postimg.cc/JyJkJLmB

https://postimg.cc/p5Vhg5jD

Robert

Robert in CA wrote:
I think I do have Quick time but I do believe I need that for
something. Maybe Dell Imaging uses it I forget. I think I
uninstalled it once then needed it so re-installed it.

That could be it.

Well the AV programs are there for a reason but I know what
you mean about companies getting carried away. What would
you recommend? I just want as secure a computer as I possibly
can have. As I said, I get hit with Avast pop-up warnings even on
eBay or when I'm watching the news.

I thought I would show you my programs/downloads on the 780
I also went into task manager. and maybe you can spot something
that shouldn't be there?

I took a look at list of pictures, every one, but a name in the list could
be a "disguise".

They tested some anti-keyloggers here, and the results
for one of them, it seems to only have signature analysis.
And you could probably get signature analysis from MalwareBytes
when it scans. One of the keyloggers only seems to do a good
job on a particular keylogger. The keylogging idea here, is
a surrogate for anything which filters input and has hooked
into things we don't feel it should be hooking. I can't be
sure this is a keylogger, or just a hotkey somewhere. But
if the backspace is generally blocked, without any specific
window having the focus, that's not a normal behavior.

https://www.raymond.cc/blog/what-is-...re-software/2/

Even if you installed a "test keylogger" on the system, you
can't do a fair test, because many things detect the "injection"
of the software and not its "actions". If you were targeted
by someone, the "injection" step would not be detected, and then
only the "actions" of the item, would identify its presence.

It's like if we used the EICAR test file, as a means to validate
AV software. Sure, most all of them detect EICAR, so at least
you "know the code isn't dead", but as for real protection,
you really have no idea how it would do against a practical threat.

Summary: Maybe an MBAM scan can see it. I don't think these other
candidates are exactly "hot sauce".

Paul

Hmmmmm I'm trying to think of anything that has a hot key that
I use. My banking login is a hotkey setup where it already has
the information but I click a box to enter it manually instead. I
guess my emails would be another example of hotkeys. The
information is already there. Of course I may be confusing cookies
with hotkeys.

I do have Quick Time but I've had it for a long time and as I said I
believe my Dell Imaging uses it because I remember I uninstalled it
once and then had to re-install it. It would seem odd that it would
start acting up after all this time. It's just a reasonable to suspect
Sea Monkey since that is a recent addition. Whatever it is it's holding
us up to create Win 7 Pro clones which I very much want to do especially
since we found that the 8500 still has it's original 1TB hd.

I ran all the scans and they all came back OK:

SpawarewareBlaster:

https://postimg.cc/xkysZ56q

Malwarebytes:

https://postimg.cc/rzphhSxF

SuperAntiSpywa

https://postimg.cc/qzh1r41P

Avast:

https://postimg.cc/Ffmp0chv

Thoughts, suggestions?
Robert

Robert in CA wrote:
Hmmmmm I'm trying to think of anything that has a hot key that
I use. My banking login is a hotkey setup where it already has
the information but I click a box to enter it manually instead. I
guess my emails would be another example of hotkeys. The
information is already there. Of course I may be confusing cookies
with hotkeys.

I do have Quick Time but I've had it for a long time and as I said I
believe my Dell Imaging uses it because I remember I uninstalled it
once and then had to re-install it. It would seem odd that it would
start acting up after all this time. It's just a reasonable to suspect
Sea Monkey since that is a recent addition. Whatever it is it's holding
us up to create Win 7 Pro clones which I very much want to do especially
since we found that the 8500 still has it's original 1TB hd.

I ran all the scans and they all came back OK:

SpawarewareBlaster:

https://postimg.cc/xkysZ56q

Malwarebytes:

https://postimg.cc/rzphhSxF

SuperAntiSpywa

https://postimg.cc/qzh1r41P

Avast:

https://postimg.cc/Ffmp0chv

Thoughts, suggestions?
Robert


Funny, I see Malwarebytes doesn't include the rootkit
in the main product ? It's available here as a separate download.

https://www.malwarebytes.com/antirootkit/

https://downloads.malwarebytes.com/file/mbar/

Before leaving the web page, copy and paste the usage
instructions from the web page, to some place you'll be
able to read them, if there is a network outage on the machine
and you can't get back there. Save as text in Notepad perhaps.

It's highly unlikely to be a rootkit, and by suggesting
running this, I'm hoping the hooking of the backspace
key is something MBAR recognizes. Rather than me suggesting
it's an actual rootkit, because the black hats are not
supposed to be using those any more. Whether MBAR detects
RATs, we'll just have to test and see.

Paul