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  • Showing only topics in ~tech with the tag "windows". Back to normal view / Search all groups
    1. Is there a markdown editor which let me open .md files from Windows?

      I have looked at various editors, but those I came across all had their own build-in file navigator which they insisted you'd use. I always hate that; it's the one thing I dislike about Godot. So...

      I have looked at various editors, but those I came across all had their own build-in file navigator which they insisted you'd use. I always hate that; it's the one thing I dislike about Godot. So is there one where you can simply open your .md files directly from Windows?

      Edit: What I'm after is WYSIWYG, not just synstax highlighting.

      20 votes
    2. Help with strange Windows 10 behavior/files. Do I have a virus?

      Edit2: I'm a mac user who doesn't understand how windows explorer works. Leaving the post for some hapless mac user who may come along. Windows explorer doesn't report how it is traversing the...

      Edit2: I'm a mac user who doesn't understand how windows explorer works. Leaving the post for some hapless mac user who may come along. Windows explorer doesn't report how it is traversing the directory tree, leading to some confusion about where the search result is, which happens to be waaaay down in a zip of a mac application installer I had inadvertantly archived on the Windows disk. I would ask any windows users, how do I make powershell ls | select-string "text" behave like ls | grep "text" on unix?

      edit3: Also, why the fudge would windows explorer search find <weird characters>net but not dotnet when typing 'net' into the search box?

      So I download the occasional, um, linux distro installation video. I use a vpn and private firefox windows for most.

      I'm doing some clean up today, and find a file with a bunch of strange characters, including the text characters, "net." "M⌐⌐v├▒├┼⌐▒net" is the filename listed in the properties window. Inside are a series of .ase files with mostly unrecognizable names.

      I don't see the filename when doing an ls in powershell of the directory reported in explorer.

      doing ls | select-string "net" in powershell results in an unending peristalsis of weird text like you might get from a binary file viewed in a text editor. I do notice, however, that some of the text might be from inside a zip file. But why is select-string searching inside the zip file? ls seems to ouptut only filepath information. Upon further investigation, the zip file is several directories down, it appears adding | select-string to ls makes ls travel the full tree. Wut?

      And when I say undending, I mean it kept going until I hit ctrl-c.

      Any ideas to what is happening here?

      Incidentally, I opened one of the ASE files by right-click->view file in notepad+, which never launched.

      Edit: lots of edits.

      12 votes
    3. Building a home media server on a budget

      Hi I figured before I start venturing into other forums dedicated to this sort of thing, I'd ask here on Tildes since I'm at least comfortable with the community and how helpful they can be here....

      Hi

      I figured before I start venturing into other forums dedicated to this sort of thing, I'd ask here on Tildes since I'm at least comfortable with the community and how helpful they can be here.

      I'm tired of all of the subscription services I have, movies and TV shows disappearing from them, buying a film on Prime and only being able to watch it offline through a specific app. Even then, half the time we're watching comfort TV shows that we have on DVD already (X-Files and Friends for instance).

      So I figured that building a home media server would give me the chance to cut the cord with a couple of these services and allow us to start using and controlling our own data again.

      I have a budget of around £300 (I could perhaps push to £400 if needed) and I'm honestly not sure at all where to start. I have knowledge on how to build brand new, medium to high end gaming PCs as I've done it since I was in my late teens and built my first PC with the wages from my very first job but building a budget minded PC for use as a home media server goes completely over my head.

      I've noticed that a lot of the pre-built NAS or media server boxes are very expensive so my first thought was to buy a refurbed workstation or small form factor PC that has enough "oomph" to do the trick but I don't know what ones to even start looking at and then I start to feel a little bit out of my comfort zone.

      Things like getting the right CPU in these refurbed machines that offers the features I'm looking for like hardware transcoding etc., integrated GPU's, ensuring there's enough SATA ports for multiple hard drives and an SSD for a boot drive, and then to top it all off ensuring that while achieving these features the thing shouldn't draw too much power when idling as it'll be on for long stretches of time, if not left on 24/7.

      I've also got no knowledge of Linux, I've never even looked at it but if it's genuinely easy enough (for someone with next to no Linux experience) then I'd be happy to give it a shot if it offers better performance compared to using Windows 10 or something.

      All the server will be used for is watching TV shows, perhaps the odd film, listening to a bit of music perhaps and the odd podcast now and again. Simultaneous streaming will be fairly minimal, perhaps 2 streams as me or my partner watch one thing and our daughter watches another on her tablet. In regards to streaming outside the house that will also be almost non-existent, perhaps, again our daughter watching a kids TV show like Pokemon or Fireman Sam on her tablet when we're out but me and my partner don't tend to watch anything when we're outside the house, certainly not TV shows or movies anyway.

      Redundancy isn't something I'm too horrendously worried about, I wouldn't be storing anything like photos that we wouldn't want to lose on it and while it'd be annoying, losing a drive with TV shows or films on it wouldn't be the end of the world.

      Any help would be massively appreciated, thanks.

      36 votes
    4. Computer savvy people of Tildes, do you have any advice re setting up a new MS Windows personal computer?

      Any advice should be suitable for a non tech person who knows how to google and follow instructions but not code in any way. Can anyone suggest which firewall and or antivirus might be best? All...

      Any advice should be suitable for a non tech person who knows how to google and follow instructions but not code in any way.

      Can anyone suggest which firewall and or antivirus might be best? All suggestions for making life easier while dealing with a new machine are welcome.

      37 votes
    5. Messaging programs: which is better privacy - browser versions or dedicated apps?

      I use Slack, WhatsApp, Discord and Facebook's Messenger. On my computers, rather than installing dedicated apps, I've always just used these services' browser versions. It allows me to block ads...

      I use Slack, WhatsApp, Discord and Facebook's Messenger. On my computers, rather than installing dedicated apps, I've always just used these services' browser versions. It allows me to block ads with my browser's ad blocker and modify the UIs with other extensions that I use.

      But in terms of privacy — and more specifically, in terms of what the service has access to outside of their own walled gardens — is there a difference between using these services through a browser or their dedicated apps? I use both Windows and Mac computers, if that makes a difference. My browser of choice is Firefox and I run the services in their own containers.

      On my phone, I just use the provided apps and get notifications that way. I am well aware that most of these protocols are not great for privacy to begin with, but I'm not currently looking for other messaging systems.

      21 votes
    6. Which OS to pick for my first home server?

      Edit: I've just purchased an Unraid license. I'll give it a go and it may not turn out well, but for the time being, the question is settled. I appreciate everyone for providing insightful and...

      Edit: I've just purchased an Unraid license. I'll give it a go and it may not turn out well, but for the time being, the question is settled. I appreciate everyone for providing insightful and informative answers!

      Hey everyone,

      I've recently bought myself a NUC (NUC11TNHi3) that I intend to run as a home server, using many of my external USB drives as the storage.

      My use case is very narrow. I'll use it as a Plex server and seed/leech torrents with it.

      I've never built a home server like this before (I did dabble with it on a RPi, but that was just for PiHole), so I've never had to research what operating systems are available to me. After some research, I narrowed it down to two options.

      1. Windows
        This option is the most straightforward given that it's the system I'm familiar with the most. My use case is also very narrow, so I could set everything up in a couple of hours. All I'd have to do is install Plex server, a torrent client, exposing them to the outside world with port forwarding or Tailscale (never used it before but seems easy enough), and share my external USB drives locally so that I can access them using my regular desktop computer at home. The downside of this is that Windows can be finicky. I'd also prefer to have my drives pooled under a single drive. A cursory research suggests that Windows can do this as well, but not in a way that inspires confidence.

      2. Unraid
        I hadn't heard about this since last week, but it seems like a nice option. It costs money, it's proprietary, and I'd likely have to reformat all my NTFS drives to be able to use it but I was wondering if this would be the best long term solution. The learning curve will be there. Arrays, cache drives, share drives etc. are terms I'm not familiar with (though I can guess what purpose they serve) so it will be more time consuming to set things up properly. But given how narrow my use case is, as elegant a solution as it seems, is it necessary? I'm only considering this because seems like this is the best purpose built OS in the market right now.

      Some clarifications:

      • I'm sure someone will suggest a Linux distro. I have used Fedora as my main OS for a couple of years and I was quite happy with it, however I could never wrap my head around the Linux permissions structure, which Plex is awful with, as it creates its own user and look for drives under that user. I must have spent hours and hours to make Plex read my external drives properly before, but I've never managed to make it do so without some sort of hacky way and I don't want to do that with my home server. I don't want to have any doubts that things can go wrong. I want something that just works. (If only Synology had a capable device that could handle multiple simultaneous 4K transcodings. I'd have just throw my money at them instead of buying a NUC.)

      • My use case will remain narrow. Maybe way down the road I can automate stuff with Sonarr or Radarr or stuff like that, but I don't think I'll ever consume enough recently released stuff to justify it. One thing is for certain, I'm never going to host my password server, feed reader, or something like that on this device.

      That's about it. What should I do?

      Given that I'm a novice is this area, I'd be all ears to listen any other related or unrelated advice for someone who's just starting to build their first home server.

      Thank you in advance.

      27 votes
    7. If you are using Android apps on Windows 11, what is your preferred installation method and use case?

      I've seen some tutorials that suggest installing the Amazon app store and then using a workaround to sideload apks. There's also emulators like Bluestacks. I'm curious as to what people prefer and...

      I've seen some tutorials that suggest installing the Amazon app store and then using a workaround to sideload apks. There's also emulators like Bluestacks. I'm curious as to what people prefer and what apps they've found useful.

      6 votes
    8. Best knowledge database for an Emacs Org-Mode "expat"

      I'm running Windows 10 now, and I understand I can still use Emacs, but I'm seizing the opportunity to give it a shot to other tools. In part because I'm not sure how "native" my Emacs setup would...

      I'm running Windows 10 now, and I understand I can still use Emacs, but I'm seizing the opportunity to give it a shot to other tools. In part because I'm not sure how "native" my Emacs setup would feel on Windows, but also because I reached a point of "tinkering fatigue" and I want things that require less maintenance.

      I used Org Mode a lot and was thinking if there is something with a similar feel that is more plug-and-play. Programs like Notion, Obsidian, and Roam Research are like that, I think.

      These are some of my requisites:

      • FOSS
      • markdown or org markup
      • I don't wanna pay for anything, ever
      • plug and play
      • text-based
      • easy export and backup
      • keyboard-centric or keyboard-friendly
      • can be used offline
      • local database can be synced using Dropbox
      • Emacs-like and/or Vim-like keybindings
      8 votes
    9. Is it possible to expand my Windows EFI partition?

      I currently dual-boot Arch and Windows and just use the Windows EFI partition in Arch as well, however I only have about 13 MB of space left on it. I’d like to try installing Gentoo on an extra...

      I currently dual-boot Arch and Windows and just use the Windows EFI partition in Arch as well, however I only have about 13 MB of space left on it.

      I’d like to try installing Gentoo on an extra SSD I have with nothing on it, but don’t really want to have a second EFI partition if I can avoid it.

      So my question is, can I shrink the Windows main partition towards the right and expand the the Windows EFI partition into the newly freed space?

      6 votes
    10. My experience with Windows 10

      I'm a longtime Linux user, and I haven't used Windows in a while aside from just launching games from Steam on my living room computer, but my new work laptop is Microsoft's flagship Surface Pro 4...

      I'm a longtime Linux user, and I haven't used Windows in a while aside from just launching games from Steam on my living room computer, but my new work laptop is Microsoft's flagship Surface Pro 4 so I figured it'd be the best experience you can have on a Windows machine.

      I got the laptop in yesterday, and here's the summary of my experience:

      • I am required by IT to use Chrome. To install Chrome, I had to click through no fewer than three "Are you sure you don't want to use Microsoft's more secure, faster browser?" banners to do so.

      • When I plug in my external monitor, by default, the two monitors were mirrored; when I went into display settings, it didn't show the external monitor until I closed and reopened the settings menu.

      • I have an Apple Magic Touchpad 2, and I had some issues getting it set up on Ubuntu 20.04 when I initially got it. These problems are now solved on the latest version of Ubuntu, but I was expecting a nice contrast in a good plug-and-play experience on Windows. Instead, I had to install sketchy drivers from some random GitHub page to get it to work properly.

      • I've had some minor annoyances with my audio interface (a Zoom R-22) not being set as the default when I want it to be on Ubuntu, and I was really looking forward to getting a smooth video calling experience with my nice mic and interface on Windows. Lo and behold, the R-22 audio input - the whole reason I have it - doesn't work at all, at least in the Zoom video calling app.

      • On Ubuntu, I use QV4L2 to configure the framing, zoom, exposure, etc of my camera. It's a bit clunky, and I was looking forward to having a smooth experience with this on the premier business OS. Unfortunately, the camera on this laptop has extremely aggressive aperture priority mode enabled, and there is no first-party app to configure it! The documentation tells me to go to Settings -> Devices -> Camera but there is no such menu item. So, I just look either washed-out or ultra-dark in every video call.

      • After running Windows Update and rebooting, I was greeted with a full-screen and quite annoying to exit tutorial for Microsoft Teams - an app I did not install, because my company uses Slack.

      This in addition to some setup papercuts, but I think those were probably due to my corporate IT's process rather than Windows itself.

      Is this common? Do people who use Windows just... put up with this kind of thing? Or am I having an exceptionally bad experience for some reason?

      15 votes
    11. Is it a good time to upgrade to Windows 11?

      I don't use Windows 10 all that much, but there's a Windows laptop in the house that I use from time to time. I generally wait like a year before upgrading, but I heard Windows 11 has better...

      I don't use Windows 10 all that much, but there's a Windows laptop in the house that I use from time to time.

      I generally wait like a year before upgrading, but I heard Windows 11 has better support for running Linux GUI applications with the Windows Linux Subsystem 2. Command-line Emacs is fine but is not exactly the same and there is no clipboard integration. That is the sole reason I'm thinking of upgrading. I don't care about any details or aesthetic changes, since I'll just make everything look and feel more like Windows 7 anyway. I just wanna know if it's stable enough, and if it will get in my way.

      Thanks!

      14 votes
    12. Help needed: slow external hard drive

      I've got a 2TB Toshiba drive (formatted as NTFS) that has become very slow and I was wondering if anyone here as any ideas what the problem could be and how I could fix it. All the data I'd need...

      I've got a 2TB Toshiba drive (formatted as NTFS) that has become very slow and I was wondering if anyone here as any ideas what the problem could be and how I could fix it. All the data I'd need off the drive is backed up, but I would at least like a drive to put it back on to!

      In short, it became slow after I had to force power-off the system it was connected to (Pop OS installed on another external drive which I unplugged by mistake) and I haven't bothered to try to fix it in the six months since.

      I've tested it on Pop and it takes about 10-20 minutes to mount, and 2 minutes to unmount and safely remove. The data itself seems fine but performance is slow, accessing a 20MB image takes several seconds and selecting the drive in GNOME Disks caused it to freeze.

      The drive sounded louder than normal, especially after plugging in.

      On Windows, the drive was recognised and browsable immediately, but browsing through folders was very slow - opening some folders causes Windows Explorer to freeze for a while. Some of my double-clicks were mis-recognised as click-to-rename, which took several seconds to activate and during which time Task Manager reported the average response time between 5000 and 11000 ms.

      Attempting to load an audio file resulted in lots of buffering. Task Manager reports an active time of 100% (even when not loading files or folders) and the activity never exceeded 100 KB/s (and doesn't sustain it for more than a second). Ejecting the drive takes forever - after ejecting it using the tray icon, the tray icon is not removed (even though there are no other drives connected or listed) and the active time is still 100% with the indicator LED blinking non-stop. The system did not enter sleep right away after me asking it to either.

      All of that to say, does anyone know what the issue could be, or how I could find and fix it? Thanks!


      Edit: fixed and normal functionality restored (at least so I can check the drive a bit easier) using Scan & Repair in Windows (see my comment).

      4 votes
    13. [SOLVED] A background process using a significant amount of CPU power stops immediately when I open task manager. Is there a way to identify what's doing thing?

      It started a day or two ago. Three threads (I think?) jump from nearly 0% to 100% and go back as soon as I open task manager to try figure out what's causing it. My first thought was a virus or...

      It started a day or two ago. Three threads (I think?) jump from nearly 0% to 100% and go back as soon as I open task manager to try figure out what's causing it. My first thought was a virus or bitcoin mining trying to hide itself (though isn't that done on GPU's?), but Windows' Defender came up empty handed.

      I know certain OS apps, like automatic VIRUS scans behave similarly, stopping when you click or type, but this culprit seems to only react to opening the task manager. It also doesn't start again until task manager has been closed for a while.

      17 votes
    14. How can I reproduce my somewhat complicated Linux keymappings on Windows 10?

      I am stuck on Windows 10 for the time being, and I wish to make it function similarly to the arrangement I have on Linux, using xcape and xmodmap. This is what I need: Caps sends Escape on tap and...

      I am stuck on Windows 10 for the time being, and I wish to make it function similarly to the arrangement I have on Linux, using xcape and xmodmap. This is what I need:

      1. Caps sends Escape on tap and Control on hold
      2. Tab sends Tab on tap and Alt/Meta on hold
      3. Escape sends Caps (I rarely use this one).

      I find this setup extremely comfortable. Is there a way to achieve this on Windows (that a layman like myself could do?).

      7 votes