How To Prevent Windows 8.1 Booting From Removable Disc
Apr 6, 2014
How do I ensure that nobody can slip in a Windows 7 or 8 disc and reinstall windows on my laptop? I have a BIOS password, but in the boot priority order it doesn't list my disc drive as an option.. Only "Windows Boot Manager"... So I'm unsure as to whether someone can just stick a disc in and reinstall windows.
Reason being is that I had my laptop stolen two months ago. I had tracking software on it (Prey), but the theif never connected to the internet, which is required for the software to work. Which leads me to assume that they just formatted (my win 7) laptop and reinstalled windows straight away. So I'm learning from my mistakes, and wanting to do it right for my new laptop.
installed a new ssd with a fresh copy win 8 on my mb sabertooth fx990 r2.0 but for some reason it showing up under safely remove hardware and eject media ..
I like to watch videos on my left monitor while using windows 8 apps on my second. The only problem is that as soon as I interact with the monitor I'm watching the video on the app on my other monitor closes and it goes right to the desktop.
A lot of the time i like to just put on a youtube playlist and just lay in bed and watch it. Idk if this only happens with the youtube app that i am using or if its with jsut being inactive for anything. Is there a way i can prevent windows 8 from auto locking?. I have already disabled the lock screen, but it will still lock and jump to the login screen. I have turned screensaver off. And messed with the advanced power options. Nothing seems to work.
I run this copy of Windows 8 Professional in a virtual machine and every time I leave that VM for just a couple of minutes the OS starts using up an enormous amount of HDD that significantly slows down my host machine. It turns out that Windows 8 begins what they call "Scheduled scan" when there's no user input:
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and as soon I switch back to the VM with Windows 8 the HDD "hogging" stops. Obviously this is very annoying!
In light of this, I'd like to ask how to stop this background scanning?
PS. I tried going to the Action Center and schedule maintenance for 3AM or something remote but that doesn't seem to have any effect.
You can prevent Windows from downloading the latest drivers for whichever device, BUT you can't prevent it from auto-installing drivers that it already has for whichever device. Meaning, the below trick, does nothing and Windows still installs drivers for several devices after you uninstall them and restart:
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How can I prevent it from auto-installing drivers completely??
Am I able to use the Applocker to prevent this from occurring? I can sadly not give a screeny of this... because if the message appears, there seems to be no way to get rid of it, but making a new local account?
I have just bought a new laptop which came with Windows 8 preinstalled. I have since updated to 8.1 Pro with Media Center and so far, touch wood, things appear to be running well.
Having used Windows 7 for ages, I found the change to 8 somewhat difficult but I am slowly figuring it out. There will undoubtedly be things I cannot sort for myself but straight off the bat I have one question:
Where can I change a setting to stop in 8.1 from automatically going on line and downloading stuff I don't want? I do not want to prevent automatic downloading of Windows Updates etc, but I have just turned on and been greeted with a message telling me that Windows has downloaded 9 new apps - Alarms, Calculator, Food & Drink, Health & Fitness, Tips, Reading List, Scan, Sound Recorder, Bing Desktop, and MS Silverlight (yes, I know, this is 10!)
I particularly want to keep this new Laptop free of unnecessary software which I will never use, basically all I want is Word, Excel, email capability, the ability to view TV (when away from home, hence the upgrade to 'Pro with Media Center') but little else. I will soon be abandoning my home cable internet connection and will be relying on a much reduced plan and so will not want the limited data used up because the O/S automatically loads the computer with rubbish.
I like to make my own custom Username for any Windows installation. However, Windows 8.1 Pro will simply create a Username for me based on my Microsoft account and that Username is just not tidy enough for me with dashes and not something cool and it doesn't ask me whether I want to type one up myself. The only way I found to prevent that from happening is disconnecting from the internet or disabling NIC in BIOS. Is there another way of doing so?
I have Windows 8 home with IE 10. I want to DISABLE selective browser history deletion (open history, right-click-delete certain websites). I don't have gpedit.msc but I believe it falls under the "Prevent User from deleting websites visited" or something along those lines. I found a registry key edit "CleanHistory" and I have changed the value back and forth from 0 and 1 but it still hasn't stopped me from being able to selectively delete. I found the registry key on multiple websites so I imagine it's supposed to work but it just isn't. User error, perhaps?
F4.I really disliked the fact that a slip of the hand that results in me pressing F4 means closing a window, so I went to BIOS mode and added the prefix of 'Fn +.' So I pressed F4 to try it out and it performed the exact same function. So naturally I tried pressing Fn + F4 and it did the same thing. I'm pretty irked that F4 = Fn + F4.
So the question of the day is: how do I prevent F4 from closing my window? I don't want to disable it completely because I want to attach another hotkey to it (ex: F4 = go back one song for a music player.) If I wanted to do that, I would've used Sharpkeys.
Windows 8. When the monitor turns off on my laptop, it locks the computer and when i wake it i have to enter the password again, i wish to disable this option not to be have to enter password every time i wake the laptop.
I searched a solution and the closest thing i saw is "require a password when waking the computer" the problem is if i disable this option there is no password even when waking from hibernation/sleep.
I wish to keep password protection when returning from hibernation/sleep but not when the monitor just turns off. Is it possible?
I wonder if there is a way to prevent tiles from dragging on the start screen? Hard to believe MS left this out! I often drag or swipe across the start screen and move a tile wo/ intending to. This happens often on the touch screen of my Samsung slate. Not sure if it happens as easily with a mouse.
My wife and I share one computer, 2 user accounts. My pc is connected via line out to my stereo installation, music plays all the time when I'm at home. In Windows 7 when switching users, the music kept playing (foobar2000), but in Windows 8 it stops (mutes). This is annoying because my wife often logs on to check mail, etc..
Upgraded to windows 8 pro, worked fine for sometime, but now it does not boot- says either error loading operating system or disc read error. Re installed Windows 8 after booting with another hard drive with winXP, worked fine for sometime, then it failed again displaying the same error messages. Been using this system since long, but this has never happened before. I have reinstalled again by the same procedure, but always wary of the same problem happening again.
I am converting a file from my software onto disc and coz i leave the laptop to get on with the job and when i get back to the laptop its gone into like a sleep. I then have to right click the desktop and entre my password to find out that my converting to disc was dead.. when i stop at the laptop converting this never happens...is there a way to stop my laptop from doing this?
I am trying to copy a CD to disc using Media Player. When I try to set the destination location by clicking CHANGE in Rip settings/More options/Rip music to this location, nothing happens. I can't set a location. When I click the Rip CD button, I get the message "Windows Media Player cannot find the file. If you are trying to play, burn, or sync an item that is in your library, the item might point to a file that has been moved, renamed, or deleted."
The Media Player sees the CD and can play the tracks from the CD, so it's not that it can't find the CD.
So I just got my computer about a month ago and I have noticed that 2 or 3 times a week it freezes up for 15-20 minutes or more, and the Disk usage is at 100% on the performance monitor. I checked the system error logs and found that the Bonjour service from apple had a critical error when it froze. I then disabled the service from running and computer ran fine for a week or so then started freezing again. I have ran disk optimizer, defrag, and virus scans with no success to fixing the problem. On the processes tab of the performance monitor it will show a few different processes using the most disk i/o. Windows Installer, Windows Module Installer Worker, System, and few others I cant remember right now.
Side note: this problem happens at any time with 0 programs up and running or 10 programs. I have 16 GB of memory so its not a memory problem. Just hope its something that can be fixed and I didnt just waste a bunch of money on a crap machine.
My pc is a hp pavilion 64 bit desktop computer model # P6- 2220t it is 5 months old. It originally came with windows 7 then I upgraded to windows 8. I went ahead and used windows 8 to create an image of my hard disc and store it on a usb external hard drive I also made a repair disc.
Everything went well the pc backed up on scheduled and doing well in backing up. My big problem is this I tried to boot from the repair disc but it won't I looked at the bios but it is different from the type of bios that I am familiar.
I have a system that froze and I have been struggling with for days. Long story short, Lenovo Twist with solid state hard drive and no optical disc drive. I woke up last week and had a black screen. So I rebooted and went through the steps to recover (not 12 after a couple of days of free time I had to force the recovery with f10 and then I could only get the reset windows option to come up wanting me to insert my recovery media.
I don't have any. Windows 8 was preinstalled so I don't have the key. Yes it was visible on the system but that's not an option now and without a optical disc I couldn't burn a recovery disc.
After arguing with Lenovo, Staples, and Microsoft about warranties etc. I want to just get my system running. I want to buy windows 8 and install from a stick or external optical drive right? I cannot just download to the stick and insert into a usb slot. I cannot restore from a factory (Microsoft) CD if I bought the external drive.
The user account is automatically logged off from my PC Windows 8 though the antivirus program is still running. Thus, I have to reenter the password to check the program running status. How to prevent user account to be automatically logged off in windows 8? I have already selected Never in the option of Put the computer to sleep.
Windows 8 seems to detect my Xbox 360 and it automatically installs the SmartGlass app. While I quite like what SmartGlass can do, I have no need for it. If I uninstall it, it will just auto-install again next time I use my 360. How can I prevent this from happening?
My power settings say, while on battery, dim the display at 2min, turn off the monitor at 5min and put the computer to sleep after 15 minutes.
Is there a way to instruct Windows 8 that at the 5min mark, when it turns off my display to conserve power that I can avoid it going to the lock screen and then requiring my password? So, just turn off the display, but don't lock the computer?
I still would like the lock screen image to display if I hit WindowsKey+L. And I still want my computer to lock after it's been asleep (past the 15 minute mark), so the group policy stuff to "Do not display the lock screen" will not accomplish what I want.
I was wondering, am I able to use the Applocker to prevent this from occurring? I can sadly not give a screeny of this... because if the message appears, there seems to be no way to get rid of it, but making a new local account?
I have Windows 8 x64 preinstalled on my Toshiba Laptop. I created a startup disk (DVD) but i cannot boot from the DVD/CD Drive. I set my BIOS to boot from my DVD Drive but i think the problem may be my autoplay settings from DVD Drive. I just don't know how to set them up. the Disk is fine it is not scratched or anything. I don't know how to set up my media devices especially optical so that i can boot from the DVD Drive!
Today my beloved Win 8.1 gave me a surprising license deactivation, meaning the license just suddenly became void despite working properly for some few months. I suspect two reasons:
- I changed GPU the day before (but it's not like the problem occurred right after changing GPU) - during system boot right before occurrence of the issue Windows was performing (routine?) HDD autorepair. This could suggest that some system files were damaged in the process
Obviously, my license is genuine.
I did try slui.exe 4 - nothing loads after selecting region. The loading icon just keeps running. I also tried sfc /scannow. It said some files were corrupted which could not be repaired. I'm attaching the log file. I also tried performing autorepair from Windows CD - to no avail.
I don't even know if buying a new license key (which I obviously would like to avoid) would work for me. An activation suddenly disappearing is just so... windows.
Integrated French (fr-FR) language pack to Windows 8.1 Enterprise en-US (x64). Integrated French (fr-FR) language pack to Windows 8.1 Enterprise en-US (x86).
Combined the above 2 into an AIO.
I was able to install any of the 4 operating systems to install without requiring the serial number (image only contains enterprise sku).
The problem now is that I have a Windows 8 64-bit installation. I want to upgrade it to 8.1 using the disc. When I put the disc in, it complains that I need to insert the 64-bit disc.
Is there anyway to make my AIO image support upgrades for 32-bit and 64-bit?
On the screen where you choose which user account to log in to, I've noticed the user avatars/icons are sorted in "last used" order. This is extremely annoying because it forces you to actively look at the icons instead of just alway clicking on the same place on the screen. (Compare it to if the digits buttons on your cellphone switched places e.g putting the 0 first. Confusing.)
How can I prevent this, ie to have the avatars in a fixed position always?
Today I did a fresh install of Windows 8 build 9200 and I'm really liking it. However, there's one small problem: a lot of software can't be installed due to the repeating occurrence of error codes 2503 and 2502.
2503: something about Runscript 2502: something about InstallFinalize
I read that this happens because of an incorrect system date and time, but they are in fact accurate on my machine.
