How to Clone Windows with Clonezilla when the Destination Disk is Smaller than the Original – OR – Cloning a Large Drive to a Smaller SSD

I’ve done this dozens of times now over the last couple of years when it comes to swapping out workstation hard drives with SSDs and it’s pretty much become second nature at this point, but I think the world could use a good write up on this because I’ve wasted countless hours acquiring this knowledge.

So, for today’s lesson, we will be cloning a Windows 8.1 installation from a 500GB desktop hard drive onto a 250GB SSD. Basic knowledge of how to use tools like the command line and Disk Management are assumed. Continue reading “How to Clone Windows with Clonezilla when the Destination Disk is Smaller than the Original – OR – Cloning a Large Drive to a Smaller SSD”

HP 280 G1 MT/Intel HD4600 Dual Monitor DVI Problem Finally Resolved

Personally I’d been fighting this Intel HD 4600 DVI/dual monitor issue for several months now, but at the time I had bigger fish to fry, so I kept putting it off until today. Those poor people on the Intel forums have been complaining about this issue for like three or four years now because “they weren’t able to reproduce the issue”, very sad. Indeed it is a very strange problem. Initially I was convinced it was strictly a driver problem, but now I think it may be some sort of weird driver/OS oddity.

If you’re unfamiliar with the issue, there are multiple threads out there on the Intel forums and several I’ve seen on the HP forums as well. The problem is that after a system reboot, the display on the DVI port is no longer detected and all you get is a black screen. The second monitor is not detected in the operating system whatsoever and the monitor shows no input signal. Right after the initial installation of the display driver, dual monitors would work, but only until the next system reboot. One workaround for this issue was to uninstall/reinstall the display driver and just never reboot the machine again, which totally sucked donkey balls. Continue reading “HP 280 G1 MT/Intel HD4600 Dual Monitor DVI Problem Finally Resolved”

Server 2012 – Force a Network Type with PowerShell

Here’s an annoying one that I run into quite frequently. On Windows Server 2012, it appears there’s not a quick and easy way to change the network type for a network connection other than to use PowerShell. The problem that I typically run into, is that firewall rules for a specific program are only set for the “domain” profile, so here’s how to force the network type on some interface. This is just for my own personal reference, but I took this info directly from here. Continue reading “Server 2012 – Force a Network Type with PowerShell”

Ultra VNC – Send Custom Keys Workaround and ASCII Reference Chart

Unfortunately, not only is the option considered experimental, but the Ultra VNC documentation on how to “Send Custom Keys” is less than ideal, and remembering the decimal equivalent of each key on the keyboard is simply not an option for me. I currently have no want or need to know this information by heart, so I’m not even going to attempt to do so. So, when desperate times call for desperate measures, it’s time to start thinking on your feet and stop pouting like a little man-girl, you’ve still got options.

Luckily, if your running any newer version of Windows (I guess if you want to call it luck), you’re a slug-headed, loser douche, extraordinaire (present company included, I just wish the Linux desktop environments weren’t so damn slow) that doesn’t care about his or her right to computer privacy…Wait, I mean, luckily, you can use the On-Screen Keyboard as a workaround for this, and you can send whatever custom key combinations you need. Continue reading “Ultra VNC – Send Custom Keys Workaround and ASCII Reference Chart”

Cannot Log onto Windows – Trust Relationship Failed

There’s several different things that can cause the trust relationship issue and there are hundreds of post or more online about the subject. Sometimes simply resetting the computer account in Active Directory can fix the problem. Other times, unjoining/rejoining the computer from the domain will fix the problem. If either of those isn’t the case, usually that is a good indication that there is some sort of corruption in the Active Directory database that can only be fixed by manual intervention.
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uTorrent – Don’t Have Permission to Uninstall the Program

There are certainly versions of uTorrent that have massive problems. Whether it be the inability to click on magnet links and open them properly inside the program or the never-ending issue where the program constantly tells you some shit about there being an update when you open it and says something along the lines of “you already have a more recent version of the program installed, would you like to downgrade?”. Just an FYI, downgrading doesn’t do shit, it’s an endless loop of futility, sad faces, and teardrops.

It is even more disturbing when you want to uninstall uTorrent to try and install a more recent beta version that doesn’t have all these bugs and when you try to remove it the conventional way, you receive the message “You do not have sufficient access to uninstall uTorrent. Please contact your system administrator.” and you are logged on as the user with administrator rights.
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Mac OS X El Capitan – Cannot Restart into Boot Camp Partition

Ever since the 10.11 update, I couldn’t force a restart into my Windows Boot Camp partition on my Mac from the terminal, I would get an error message “Could Not Set Boot Device Property: 0xe00002bc”.

After a bunch of riggamaroll and dicking around with the USB keyboard not being detected for freaking ever, I was finally able to get booted into recovery mode. In the past, I have been able to hold the “Alt” key to select a boot device from the boot menu, but for some reason it wasn’t working any more on my Windows keyboard. I never could get the USB keyboard to show up until I was fully booted up into the OS, so eventually I swapped it out for a name brand keyboard and then it worked.
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Outlook 2010 – Only Starts in Safe Mode

What a surprise, this morning I came into the office only to find that all of my people running Outlook 2010 were now having it open in Safe Mode and I immediately thought, OK this had to have been a Windows Update issue. This seems to be the norm for old Microsuck these days, as I’ve had these sort of problems with Outlook happen twice within the last month. Perhaps they should come up with a new slogan, “Microsoft: Raising the Bar in Repudiation”. Continue reading “Outlook 2010 – Only Starts in Safe Mode”