I wonder how the power profile settings were configured on the machines. Edge and IE altar their behavior quite significantly depending on how those settings are configured. Last I checked, Chrome outright ignores most of those settings while Firefox at least attempts to respect some of them.
Settings such as minimum Javascript timer frequency, GPU power profile (impacts GPU compositing) can have a big impact on battery life.
Also important is whether or not the power profile was set to throttle the CPU when on battery power and how much to throttle. (Setting it up so that the system is passively cooled while on battery via CPU and GPU throttling can greatly increase battery life at the expense of peak performance.)
Generally while web browsing you don't need 100% CPU and GPU power - especially when operating off of a battery so throttling makes sense. However if the power plan was set to tell applications that it is OK to use 100% of CPU and GPU resources all of the time while on battery power then applications typically won't try to reduce usage and battery life will be significantly worse as a result.
That typically only occurs if the machine hasn't been updated in quite some time or is far behind on updates for some reason (such as a fresh install). There are updates to the Windows Update service that attempt to address most of these but the client still requires a large amount of memory and CPU time when processing a large number of pending updates.
The best thing to do when you encounter such a system is to manually download and install the latest convince rollup which includes most updates up to the date of the rollup in a single handy install package. After that, the machine should be able to get the few remaining updates via Windows Update and the problem shouldn't reoccur as long as the machine is updated fairly regularly.
High performance shared storage arrays based on SSDs typically need as many PCIe lanes as they can get. In fact, many use PCIe switches to allow more devices to be connected. See this article for an example of where high performance storage is going.
Also quite a few lanes need to be dedicated to high speed network adapters. Modern servers often have at least 2 NICs that run anywhere from 10 GBps up to 100 GBps each.
The other thing high numbers of lanes is used for is compute servers with large number of GPUs to provide high floating point performance (typically using GPUs optimized for floating point use - not quite the same as consumer GPUs used for graphics.)
Amazon is typically very good about issuing credit (usually $5 or so) if a prime package arrives later than the guaranteed delivery date shown when the order is placed. Also after requesting compensation a few times via their online support I notice that almost all of my Amazon packages now come UPS 2-day instead of via USPS.
I suspect the change was because of the multiple "Package arrived late" support requests I made.
What makes you think they are using a type 2 hypervisor for this? Hyper-V is a type 1 hypervisor and is included as an optional feature in most client versions of Windows starting with Windows 8.
When Hyper-V is enabled, the currently installed instance of Windows is moved into a VM that runs under the hypervisor and becomes a management VM that is automatically started on boot. The management VM does not have access to the RAM assigned to any other VMs. It can potentially ask the hypervisor to suspend or shutdown a VM and possibly tamper with the disks assigned to the VM but only if the ACLs governing access allow it.
I highly suspect the VM hosting Edge will in fact be a Hyper-V VM since most of framework is already there. However this may cause problems with the DRM included in some AAA game titles that currently refuse to run if Hyper-V is enabled.
The problem is, downloading or ripping the audio track from videos is a violation of the Youtube Terms of Service section 5B unless the video is one of the few that actually has a download link in the video description.
Like it or not, sites like YTMP3 are violating the current Terms of Service for Youtube. However Google is really the ones going after them, not the record companies. And, so far Google has put little effort into actually enforcing their Terms of Service beyond forcing the removal of a small handful of Youtube extensions available for Chrome in the past.
Secure Boot only protects against unexpected changes to the boot loader (which typically only changes legitimately when a new OS is installed.)
This protects against malware that relies on infecting boot media with a compromised boot loader but not against rootkits that use OS drivers or some other attack vector.
Apple sells SD card readers that work with almost all iOS devices including the iPhone 7.
Not quite as nice as having a slot built-in to the phone and application support is a bit limited due to the fact that only a few iOS applications support external storage devices but it does work.
Apple also sells a Lightning to USB host adapter which lets you use other USB devices such as keyboards, mice, flash drives, and external hard drives (as long as they don't attempt to pull too much power over USB)
The settings are saved in the registry - not the shortcut and are applied regardless of how the executable is launched once they are set.
If I remember correctly a hash of the excitable is used to identify which settings go with which executables so an update to an executable could reset the compatibility settings to defaults.
On the other hand, an update to an application or game could potentially fix any compatibility or DPI-related issues a previous version had, although game developers in particular appear to like ignoring DPI-related issues in my experience.
Unfortunately, Windows doesn't support UHD very well. You can use display scaling but it completely hoses windowed fullscreen mode in games because Windows cheerfully applies its scaling to those as well, telling them that your desktop resolution is something like 1706x960
This is primary the fault of lazy game developers and not Windows. Windows only lies about display resolution to applications if the application doesn't signal that it understands how to render to displays that are greater than 96 dpi. This allows older applications that always assume a display is running at 96 dpi to still be at least somewhat usable on a very high DPI display.
If an application (or game) signals it is DPI-aware then Windows will report the true resolution and DPI of the display so the application can render itself appropriately.
You can also manually disable the high DPI detection for an individual application or game by modifying the Compatibility properties on the shortcut for the application and checking the box labeled "Disable display scaling on high DPI settings". This causes Windows to treat the application as being high DPI-aware even if it isn't.
Apple doesn't even protect their OS, and only go after people trying to sell hackintoshes.
While Apple does push for DRM-free audio that does not extend to other forms of media. Most of the video content in the iTunes store is protected with DRM and apps for iOS devices are also protected with DRM,
It is also worth pointing out that OS X does attempt to identify the hardware it is running on and will halt during boot if it detects a non Apple motherboard. In fact, a bug in the hardware detecting routines of the initial releases of OX X 10.10 would cause certain models of Mac Mini to halt when booting the impacted versions via netboot because the hardware was detected as being non Apple.
The hackintosh community has found several ways to either bypass or fool the checks but the fact remains that Apple does actively try to prevent OS X from being run on non Apple hardware.
Performance depends on the speed of the USB device. Good quality USB 3 flash drives can be read at 300 MB/s or more making them much faster than the traditional hard drives installed in most consoles - not to mention optical drives.
Most print drivers do not run with Local System privileges by default on Windows but the driver installers do. This vulnerability involves replacing the real driver installer with a malicious one and exploiting systems that way.
Windows supports signature verification for print drivers - it is just disabled by default even though most current print drivers are signed. You can also configure Windows to only install print drivers served from specific print servers. Enabling either option would be pretty effective at making this vulnerability very hard if not impossible to exploit.
SD cards (and CF) are not going to be replaced in cameras any time soon so this new standard provides zero benefit to me,
Except that SD cards are not nearly fast enough for current high megapixel cameras when shooting using RAW. Many higher end cameras have abandoned CF and SD cards and have moved to using XQD due to needing continuous write speeds of 400 MBps or more.
A camera that shoots RAW files around 80 MB (which is what the current crop of high-resolution cameras do - such as the Nikon D800, Canon 5DS, and Sony a7rii) needs at least 400 MBps to maintain a 5 fps burst without needing a very large buffer. Some professional cameras can do up to 10 fps bursts which requires even higher speeds.
Funny. That doesn't seem to have stopped the Hackintosh community from installing El Capitan on their Hacks.
Yes, people have found ways around it like they do for every version. However almost all of the solutions involve some combination of patching the installation to remove the checks and/or software solutions that use UEFI modules to intercept and spoof the results of various hardware checks to trick the OS.
The points is, you cannot simply take a current OS X install drive and get it to boot directly on non Apple hardware without using such tricks and modifications due to the checks done during the boot process.
Apple actually already has some degree of hardware verification built into OS X and it will refuse to boot in some cases if it thinks the hardware isn't genuine.
In fact, a major bug in this verification system prevented some builds of OS X 10.11 from booting via Netboot on certain Mac Minis causing the system to freeze in the middle of booting. Fortunately a later build fixed the issue but the problem persisted for several months before they finally fixed it.
As I understand it, OS X primarily checks for a particular string reported by the SMC in Apple hardware. If the string is missing or incorrect the boot process is halted. But I suspect their are probably additional checks in the current versions of OS X which is probably what caused the Netboot problems on some hardware configurations.
Are they actually sold by Amazon or are you simply seeing listing on the Amazon Marketplace? Most of the time when I see stuff like that on Amazon, the items are listed and sold by a marketplace seller - not Amazon directly.
Almost anyone can setup an Amazon Marketplace account and list almost anything they want for sale (much like eBay's Buy It Now option). Marketplace sellers can put up new listings at almost any time.
If Amazon receives enough complaints for a particular marketplace seller (selling counterfeit goods for example) they have been known to disable the seller's account and pull all of their items from sale. The problem is, new sellers often pop up faster than they can be removed.
No, there is still a difference. By default in Windows even with extensions off blah.torrent.exe will be listed as an "Application" type while blah.torrent will be listed as something else (by default "Torrent File" but could be different if an installed Torrent client customized the file type description).
The problem is people blinding clicking on things without looking at what the OS is trying to tell them.
That is due to the way TPM chips are designed and the exact same problem occurs when changing/ or re-installing any OS while the TPM is provisioned and in use. Indeed by coupling the TPM to the installed OS, it makes it much less likely someone would be able to boot off of some form of external media and convince the TPM to provide it's keys.
That is why most BIOS or UEFI interfaces on machines that are equipped with a TPM contain an option to clear/reset the TPM chip and suggest doing so immediately prior to installing or re-installing an OS.
I say most, but I have yet to encounter any machine that has a TPM chip that doesn't have a reset option somewhere. There was one motherboard that I encountered that required the TPM to be reset by moving a jumper on the motherboard which was a bit more of a pain. Pretty much every other machine I have worked on has had the reset option in the BIOS or UEFI interface.
The Microsoft Surface machines are a little different in that WMI can interact with UEFI directly and reset the TPM for you as long as the TPM is currently unlocked. If it is in a locked state, you still have to reboot into the UEFI interface and reset it manually.
Apple is more to blame than Microsoft for that particular limitation. iOS apps are not allowed to run in the background for more than around 10 minutes or so unless they are explicitly approved by Apple to do so. The iOS client lacks that approval and the OS kills it when it runs for longer than it's allotted time.
Apple is generally quite slow to grant approval for background apps and the review process for that is separate from the App Store review process. As a result, it is entirely possible for an iOS app to be available for download in the App Store for months before being granted the background app permission by Apple.
This isn't really a bug and more of a case of failing to use the INDEX() function in the formula.
When a cell is moved in Excel, there is a feature that attempts to rewrite formulas in any cells that reference the moved cell so that they point to the new location.
When it works, this can be quite handy and in my experience does the right thing most of the time. However, there are certain situations where it doesn't always do what you want.
The proper way to ensure a forumla always references a particularity cell/location is to use the INDEX() function. This function is specifically designed for specifying cell references that should not be automatically updated.
Are you sure you are running an actual RTM/release build and not a Insider or preview build? I have never seen such a survey prompt on any of my systems running the RTM release but I have seen it on my test system running an Insider build.
Surveys in the Insider builds make perfect sense and are to be expected given that those builds are designed to gather feedback from users to be incorporated in future updates and are not supposed to be used on primary or production systems.
The Windows 10 ISO is over 6 GB. Thank you for proving that the lynch mob was right!
No it's not. I have the 64-bit Windows 10 build 1511 ISO that has Home and Pro versions and it is slightly less than 3.6 GB.
Even the Enterprise version ISO is only slightly larger at 3.7 GB. Only the ISOs that include both 32-bit and 64-bit versions are larger than that and that is just because that version effectively is two separate install images in a single ISO (the 32-bit and 64-bit installers don't share files).
That $100 gets you more than just being able to list apps in iTunes though. Among other things, it gives you 2 support incidents which you can use to get Apple to look at your code and tell you why something isn't working properly and how to fix it.
Also, If the problem was caused by a bug in iOS then the support incident is credited back to your account. As far as I am aware, there is no way to submit a support incident without an active developer account.
You also get access to the Apple developer forums which can be quite helpful and limited access to the Apple bug database for reporting and tracking bugs in iOS (production and beta releases.)
It sounds like the LTE device wasn't configured properly and was setup as an unmetered connection. If a network connection is marked at "metered" updates (including Windows 10) are not downloaded automatically, and if the user manually tries to download updates they receive warnings about possible data charges.
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I wonder how the power profile settings were configured on the machines. Edge and IE altar their behavior quite significantly depending on how those settings are configured. Last I checked, Chrome outright ignores most of those settings while Firefox at least attempts to respect some of them.
Settings such as minimum Javascript timer frequency, GPU power profile (impacts GPU compositing) can have a big impact on battery life.
Also important is whether or not the power profile was set to throttle the CPU when on battery power and how much to throttle. (Setting it up so that the system is passively cooled while on battery via CPU and GPU throttling can greatly increase battery life at the expense of peak performance.)
Generally while web browsing you don't need 100% CPU and GPU power - especially when operating off of a battery so throttling makes sense. However if the power plan was set to tell applications that it is OK to use 100% of CPU and GPU resources all of the time while on battery power then applications typically won't try to reduce usage and battery life will be significantly worse as a result.
That typically only occurs if the machine hasn't been updated in quite some time or is far behind on updates for some reason (such as a fresh install). There are updates to the Windows Update service that attempt to address most of these but the client still requires a large amount of memory and CPU time when processing a large number of pending updates.
The best thing to do when you encounter such a system is to manually download and install the latest convince rollup which includes most updates up to the date of the rollup in a single handy install package. After that, the machine should be able to get the few remaining updates via Windows Update and the problem shouldn't reoccur as long as the machine is updated fairly regularly.
High performance shared storage arrays based on SSDs typically need as many PCIe lanes as they can get. In fact, many use PCIe switches to allow more devices to be connected. See this article for an example of where high performance storage is going.
Also quite a few lanes need to be dedicated to high speed network adapters. Modern servers often have at least 2 NICs that run anywhere from 10 GBps up to 100 GBps each.
The other thing high numbers of lanes is used for is compute servers with large number of GPUs to provide high floating point performance (typically using GPUs optimized for floating point use - not quite the same as consumer GPUs used for graphics.)
Amazon is typically very good about issuing credit (usually $5 or so) if a prime package arrives later than the guaranteed delivery date shown when the order is placed. Also after requesting compensation a few times via their online support I notice that almost all of my Amazon packages now come UPS 2-day instead of via USPS.
I suspect the change was because of the multiple "Package arrived late" support requests I made.
What makes you think they are using a type 2 hypervisor for this? Hyper-V is a type 1 hypervisor and is included as an optional feature in most client versions of Windows starting with Windows 8.
When Hyper-V is enabled, the currently installed instance of Windows is moved into a VM that runs under the hypervisor and becomes a management VM that is automatically started on boot. The management VM does not have access to the RAM assigned to any other VMs. It can potentially ask the hypervisor to suspend or shutdown a VM and possibly tamper with the disks assigned to the VM but only if the ACLs governing access allow it.
I highly suspect the VM hosting Edge will in fact be a Hyper-V VM since most of framework is already there. However this may cause problems with the DRM included in some AAA game titles that currently refuse to run if Hyper-V is enabled.
The problem is, downloading or ripping the audio track from videos is a violation of the Youtube Terms of Service section 5B unless the video is one of the few that actually has a download link in the video description.
Like it or not, sites like YTMP3 are violating the current Terms of Service for Youtube. However Google is really the ones going after them, not the record companies. And, so far Google has put little effort into actually enforcing their Terms of Service beyond forcing the removal of a small handful of Youtube extensions available for Chrome in the past.
Secure Boot only protects against unexpected changes to the boot loader (which typically only changes legitimately when a new OS is installed.)
This protects against malware that relies on infecting boot media with a compromised boot loader but not against rootkits that use OS drivers or some other attack vector.
Apple sells SD card readers that work with almost all iOS devices including the iPhone 7.
Not quite as nice as having a slot built-in to the phone and application support is a bit limited due to the fact that only a few iOS applications support external storage devices but it does work.
Apple also sells a Lightning to USB host adapter which lets you use other USB devices such as keyboards, mice, flash drives, and external hard drives (as long as they don't attempt to pull too much power over USB)
The settings are saved in the registry - not the shortcut and are applied regardless of how the executable is launched once they are set.
If I remember correctly a hash of the excitable is used to identify which settings go with which executables so an update to an executable could reset the compatibility settings to defaults.
On the other hand, an update to an application or game could potentially fix any compatibility or DPI-related issues a previous version had, although game developers in particular appear to like ignoring DPI-related issues in my experience.
This is primary the fault of lazy game developers and not Windows. Windows only lies about display resolution to applications if the application doesn't signal that it understands how to render to displays that are greater than 96 dpi. This allows older applications that always assume a display is running at 96 dpi to still be at least somewhat usable on a very high DPI display.
If an application (or game) signals it is DPI-aware then Windows will report the true resolution and DPI of the display so the application can render itself appropriately.
You can also manually disable the high DPI detection for an individual application or game by modifying the Compatibility properties on the shortcut for the application and checking the box labeled "Disable display scaling on high DPI settings". This causes Windows to treat the application as being high DPI-aware even if it isn't.
While Apple does push for DRM-free audio that does not extend to other forms of media. Most of the video content in the iTunes store is protected with DRM and apps for iOS devices are also protected with DRM,
It is also worth pointing out that OS X does attempt to identify the hardware it is running on and will halt during boot if it detects a non Apple motherboard. In fact, a bug in the hardware detecting routines of the initial releases of OX X 10.10 would cause certain models of Mac Mini to halt when booting the impacted versions via netboot because the hardware was detected as being non Apple.
The hackintosh community has found several ways to either bypass or fool the checks but the fact remains that Apple does actively try to prevent OS X from being run on non Apple hardware.
Performance depends on the speed of the USB device. Good quality USB 3 flash drives can be read at 300 MB/s or more making them much faster than the traditional hard drives installed in most consoles - not to mention optical drives.
Most print drivers do not run with Local System privileges by default on Windows but the driver installers do. This vulnerability involves replacing the real driver installer with a malicious one and exploiting systems that way.
Windows supports signature verification for print drivers - it is just disabled by default even though most current print drivers are signed. You can also configure Windows to only install print drivers served from specific print servers. Enabling either option would be pretty effective at making this vulnerability very hard if not impossible to exploit.
Except that SD cards are not nearly fast enough for current high megapixel cameras when shooting using RAW. Many higher end cameras have abandoned CF and SD cards and have moved to using XQD due to needing continuous write speeds of 400 MBps or more.
A camera that shoots RAW files around 80 MB (which is what the current crop of high-resolution cameras do - such as the Nikon D800, Canon 5DS, and Sony a7rii) needs at least 400 MBps to maintain a 5 fps burst without needing a very large buffer. Some professional cameras can do up to 10 fps bursts which requires even higher speeds.
Yes, people have found ways around it like they do for every version. However almost all of the solutions involve some combination of patching the installation to remove the checks and/or software solutions that use UEFI modules to intercept and spoof the results of various hardware checks to trick the OS.
The points is, you cannot simply take a current OS X install drive and get it to boot directly on non Apple hardware without using such tricks and modifications due to the checks done during the boot process.
Apple actually already has some degree of hardware verification built into OS X and it will refuse to boot in some cases if it thinks the hardware isn't genuine.
In fact, a major bug in this verification system prevented some builds of OS X 10.11 from booting via Netboot on certain Mac Minis causing the system to freeze in the middle of booting. Fortunately a later build fixed the issue but the problem persisted for several months before they finally fixed it.
As I understand it, OS X primarily checks for a particular string reported by the SMC in Apple hardware. If the string is missing or incorrect the boot process is halted. But I suspect their are probably additional checks in the current versions of OS X which is probably what caused the Netboot problems on some hardware configurations.
Are they actually sold by Amazon or are you simply seeing listing on the Amazon Marketplace? Most of the time when I see stuff like that on Amazon, the items are listed and sold by a marketplace seller - not Amazon directly.
Almost anyone can setup an Amazon Marketplace account and list almost anything they want for sale (much like eBay's Buy It Now option). Marketplace sellers can put up new listings at almost any time.
If Amazon receives enough complaints for a particular marketplace seller (selling counterfeit goods for example) they have been known to disable the seller's account and pull all of their items from sale. The problem is, new sellers often pop up faster than they can be removed.
No, there is still a difference. By default in Windows even with extensions off blah.torrent.exe will be listed as an "Application" type while blah.torrent will be listed as something else (by default "Torrent File" but could be different if an installed Torrent client customized the file type description).
The problem is people blinding clicking on things without looking at what the OS is trying to tell them.
That is due to the way TPM chips are designed and the exact same problem occurs when changing/ or re-installing any OS while the TPM is provisioned and in use. Indeed by coupling the TPM to the installed OS, it makes it much less likely someone would be able to boot off of some form of external media and convince the TPM to provide it's keys.
That is why most BIOS or UEFI interfaces on machines that are equipped with a TPM contain an option to clear/reset the TPM chip and suggest doing so immediately prior to installing or re-installing an OS.
I say most, but I have yet to encounter any machine that has a TPM chip that doesn't have a reset option somewhere. There was one motherboard that I encountered that required the TPM to be reset by moving a jumper on the motherboard which was a bit more of a pain. Pretty much every other machine I have worked on has had the reset option in the BIOS or UEFI interface.
The Microsoft Surface machines are a little different in that WMI can interact with UEFI directly and reset the TPM for you as long as the TPM is currently unlocked. If it is in a locked state, you still have to reboot into the UEFI interface and reset it manually.
Apple is more to blame than Microsoft for that particular limitation. iOS apps are not allowed to run in the background for more than around 10 minutes or so unless they are explicitly approved by Apple to do so. The iOS client lacks that approval and the OS kills it when it runs for longer than it's allotted time.
Apple is generally quite slow to grant approval for background apps and the review process for that is separate from the App Store review process. As a result, it is entirely possible for an iOS app to be available for download in the App Store for months before being granted the background app permission by Apple.
This isn't really a bug and more of a case of failing to use the INDEX() function in the formula.
When a cell is moved in Excel, there is a feature that attempts to rewrite formulas in any cells that reference the moved cell so that they point to the new location.
When it works, this can be quite handy and in my experience does the right thing most of the time. However, there are certain situations where it doesn't always do what you want.
The proper way to ensure a forumla always references a particularity cell/location is to use the INDEX() function. This function is specifically designed for specifying cell references that should not be automatically updated.
Are you sure you are running an actual RTM/release build and not a Insider or preview build? I have never seen such a survey prompt on any of my systems running the RTM release but I have seen it on my test system running an Insider build.
Surveys in the Insider builds make perfect sense and are to be expected given that those builds are designed to gather feedback from users to be incorporated in future updates and are not supposed to be used on primary or production systems.
No it's not. I have the 64-bit Windows 10 build 1511 ISO that has Home and Pro versions and it is slightly less than 3.6 GB.
Even the Enterprise version ISO is only slightly larger at 3.7 GB. Only the ISOs that include both 32-bit and 64-bit versions are larger than that and that is just because that version effectively is two separate install images in a single ISO (the 32-bit and 64-bit installers don't share files).
That $100 gets you more than just being able to list apps in iTunes though. Among other things, it gives you 2 support incidents which you can use to get Apple to look at your code and tell you why something isn't working properly and how to fix it.
Also, If the problem was caused by a bug in iOS then the support incident is credited back to your account. As far as I am aware, there is no way to submit a support incident without an active developer account.
You also get access to the Apple developer forums which can be quite helpful and limited access to the Apple bug database for reporting and tracking bugs in iOS (production and beta releases.)
It sounds like the LTE device wasn't configured properly and was setup as an unmetered connection. If a network connection is marked at "metered" updates (including Windows 10) are not downloaded automatically, and if the user manually tries to download updates they receive warnings about possible data charges.