Showing posts with label FreeAsInKoolAid. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FreeAsInKoolAid. Show all posts

Thursday, December 17, 2015

How To Tell Which Version Your Windows 10 DVD/ISO Is

There are a few different ways that I've found in my time testing, remotely deploying (and uninstalling accidental installs, gulp!) in my time at Atlanta I.T. Service in Lawrenceville, Georgia (which is a great company to work for, by the way) to be able to determine which release your build of the Windows 10 DVD or the ISO 9660/UDF image is. Since we only have two major RTM and post-RTM builds, one of the below methods should work and make things simple.

Open the ISO9660/UDF file in 7Zip. Extract the file located at sources/Setup.exe and run Grep/Strings on it: This seems to show the most accurate release number, including an internal build number. I have yet to install this ISO, so I am not sure if the 151029 number is indicative of it being a 10.0.10586.29 build number. The command below uses Sysinternals' strings program, in case you work in a high security environment that only allows signed/whitelisted executables:
> strings setup.exe | findstr -i 10\.
10.0.10586.0 (th2_release.151029-1700)

DLL Method: Once you've extracted the files from your Windows 10 ISO file, find at any DLL file in the Sources folder. Right-click it and choose Properties. Then click the Details tab. Under Product Version or File Version, it will show the build number:




Sources/Ws.dat: This file is in the sources folder. This file is in the .inf format. Open it in Notepad and it will show the build in the ClientVersion field. Note that in the 10240 build this file was empty, but going forward it might be used in the future.
ClientVersion=10.0.10586.0

Sources/Idwbinfo.txt: This file is in the sources folder. Open it in notepad and it will show the major release. th1_release is for 10240 and th2_release is 10586. The TH(N) naming scheme refers to Threshold, eg. TH2 is Threshold 2:
BuildBranch=th2_release
Sources/schema.dat: This file is in the sources folder. It's a binary file, but you can still open it in notepad. Search it for the string version and you'll see the full build number

Sources/sxs/microsoft-windows-netfx3-ondemand-package.cab: This file is in the sources/sxs folder. Open the file with 7-zip, and the file names will show the Windows build number:

amd64_addinprocess32_b77a5c561934e089_10.0.10586.0_none_0d954895973e1712

Here's my copy of the Media Creation Tool, version 10586, which as of December 17, 2015, will still download a build 10586 ISO. If you have the original July 10240 Media Creation Tool, it will download the RTM build 10240 ISO.

Saturday, August 29, 2015

Windows 10 Upgrade Install Failing With A PRE_OS Error (Something Happened)

I have seen other guides that say to fix a failed Windows 10 install by doing a clean boot among other things:

  • disabling items in MSCONFIG
  • run setup.exe as administrator
  • ensure that a bunch of services are set to automatic and start them
  • disabled all antivirus
  • boot into safe mode and run delete both folders that start with $Windows at the root of the C: Drive
  • change your locale settings.
  • remove all previous files, settings, and applications
  • Create a registry key called AllowOSUpgrade to 1
I tried all of these at the same time, and none of them worked. The upgrade to Windows 10 kept failing and it would not give any reason why other than an inexplicable error message. I did two things after this: I installed Windows 7 Service Pack 1, which was not installed before. Still no dice. So I imaged the drive to another drive, and lo and behold, Acronis True Image found some unreadable sectors. I set it to ignore read errors while cloning, then booted up into 7 and Windows 10 installed just fine!

People are also saying to do a clean install of 7 or 8 first, or run chkdsk, which could be the reason that the upgrade then proceeds, if the hard drive errors are correctable!

Hey Apple, will you be giving away OS X version 11 away for free? (Or OS XI or OS 11 or OS 10.11?)

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

How To Permanently Disable Windows 10 Home Edition Updates

This will also work on Windows 10 Pro or Enterprise, but on those editions you can disable the Windows Update service by running services.msc, finding the Windows Update service, stop it, and set startup to Disabled.

Please note that this may also block Windows 10 from phoning home to Microsoft, and is also likely to disable most Microsoft Cloud products (OneDrive, etc...)

Disable Windows 10 Updates:

Click on Start and Run, or type the "Windows Key" and "R", then type this command:

notepad %windir%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

or this one:

notepad c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

Add these lines below to the hosts file and click save. If it asks you for a location to save, then launch notepad as an administrative user first and then open the hosts file and make the edits above/below. You'll have to type this filename directly into the File Open box, since normally only .txt files are shown:

c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

Then paste the list below into the hosts file above and save the file.


0.0.0.0    0.0.0.0     # Important! fix for network status and diagnostic tools
0.0.0.0  dns.msftncsi.com
0.0.0.0  ipv6.msftncsi.com
0.0.0.0  win10.ipv6.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0  ipv6.msftncsi.com.edgesuite.net
0.0.0.0  a978.i6g1.akamai.net
0.0.0.0  win10.ipv6.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
0.0.0.0  en-us.appex-rf.msn.com
0.0.0.0  v10.vortex-win.data.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0  client.wns.windows.com
0.0.0.0  wildcard.appex-rf.msn.com.edgesuite.net
0.0.0.0  v10.vortex-win.data.metron.life.com.nsatc.net
0.0.0.0  wns.notify.windows.com.akadns.net
0.0.0.0  americas2.notify.windows.com.akadns.net
0.0.0.0  travel.tile.appex.bing.com
0.0.0.0  any.edge.bing.com
0.0.0.0  fe3.delivery.mp.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0  fe3.delivery.dsp.mp.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
0.0.0.0  ssw.live.com
0.0.0.0  ssw.live.com.nsatc.net
0.0.0.0  login.live.com.nsatc.net
0.0.0.0  directory.services.live.com
0.0.0.0  directory.services.live.com.akadns.net
0.0.0.0  bl3302.storage.live.com
0.0.0.0  skyapi.live.net
0.0.0.0  bl3302geo.storage.dkyprod.akadns.net
0.0.0.0  skyapi.skyprod.akadns.net
0.0.0.0  skydrive.wns.windows.com
0.0.0.0  register.mesh.com
0.0.0.0  BN1WNS2011508.wns.windows.com
0.0.0.0  settings-win.data.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0  settings.data.glbdns2.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0  OneSettings-bn2.metron.live.com.nsatc.net
0.0.0.0  watson.telemetry.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0  watson.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
0.0.0.0  vortex.data.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0  vortex-win.data.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0  telecommand.telemetry.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0  telecommand.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
0.0.0.0  oca.telemetry.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0  oca.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
0.0.0.0  sqm.telemetry.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0  sqm.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
0.0.0.0  redir.metaservices.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0  choice.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0  choice.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
0.0.0.0  df.telemetry.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0  reports.wes.df.telemetry.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0  wes.df.telemetry.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0  services.wes.df.telemetry.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0  sqm.df.telemetry.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0  telemetry.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0  watson.ppe.telemetry.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0  telemetry.appex.bing.net
0.0.0.0  telemetry.urs.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0  telemetry.appex.bing.net:443
0.0.0.0  settings-sandbox.data.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0  vortex-sandbox.data.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0  survey.watson.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0  watson.live.com
0.0.0.0  watson.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0  statsfe2.ws.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0  corpext.msitadfs.glbdns2.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0  compatexchange.cloudapp.net
0.0.0.0  cs1.wpc.v0cdn.net
0.0.0.0  a-0001.a-msedge.net
0.0.0.0  statsfe2.update.microsoft.com.akadns.net
0.0.0.0  sls.update.microsoft.com.akadns.net
0.0.0.0  fe2.update.microsoft.com.akadns.net
0.0.0.0  diagnostics.support.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0  corp.sts.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0  statsfe1.ws.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0  pre.footprintpredict.com
0.0.0.0  i1.services.social.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0  i1.services.social.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
0.0.0.0  feedback.windows.com
0.0.0.0  feedback.microsoft-hohm.com
0.0.0.0  feedback.search.microsoft.com
0.0.0.0  preview.msn.com
0.0.0.0  ad.doubleclick.net
0.0.0.0  ads.msn.com
0.0.0.0  ads1.msads.net
0.0.0.0  a.ads1.msn.com
0.0.0.0  a.ads2.msn.com
0.0.0.0  adnexus.net
0.0.0.0  adnxs.com
0.0.0.0  az361816.vo.msecnd.net
0.0.0.0  az512334.vo.msecnd.net


This list came from DSLReports. If anyone has any updates on this issue, such as a more complete list, or a better way to disable updates, please post a comment below.