HashFlare

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Bioshock Infinite DLC: Burial at sea

Just let me say something, you’ll be able to play as Elizabeth. Enjoy the video.

Booting Windows 7 and 8 from USB

We now live in an era where CDs are no longer relevant and a USB drive is way more useful than it should. And this is awesome, I no longer need a bunch of different CDs around to install different versions of different OSs, all can be done with one drive. But some companies (specially Microsoft) are not keeping up with this, there is no Windows-USB-Ready-to-boot, instead you need to download a software to do this (the Windows 7 USB/DVD Tool works like a charm). The problem is that I don’t want to do this for all my 5 versions of Windows, and if a new version comes I need to wipe my drive just to create a USB-Bootable OS… it’s annoying. So I found a practical solution.

I know nothing about modifying boot files, leave that to the pros, but I guessed that the files responsible for the booting were these:

USB Installation working

This is a Windows installation already booting from the USB, so I took an .iso Windows installation, remove the files and replace them with the ones I already had…

Worked like a charm. Let me explain. Download this file, extract it. Inside you’ll see the following files:

Replace the original files with these

Put them into your Windows installation, like the first image. If you don’t want to delete the original files, rename them or save them somewhere else. That’ll do the trick, and should work with Windows 7, 8, and 8.1.

A side note, the boot folder I uploaded is in English, meaning that the boot menu will be in English, but if you’re installation is in another language this shouldn’t be a problem.

Download Windows 8.1 Enterprise Preview

win81I really like Windows 8.1, I consider it a nice upgrade from W8, with many new features and more user customization. And as soon as many people are starting to hear about the W8.1 preview, the enterprise version of it get released as well.

Ok, so here are the links:

Here’s the activation key (according to the download site “The Enterprise Preview expires January 14, 2014”, but I assume that it’s a 30-day key and the preview will stop working on 2014):

YNB3T-VHW8P-72P6K-BQHCB-DM92V

One important think, the links are not supported by download managers. Meaning that you are forced to download the links with your browser, I tried to download the files with Orbit, jDownloader and Mipony without luck, if you manage to download them with a download manager, please let me know.

Anyway, the main differences between W8.1 and W8.1 Enterprise are, according to PC World, and I quote:

A Windows to Go creator tool. Windows to Go allows admins to create fully bootable Windows drives allowing employees to port their desktops from PC to PC.

-- Sounds like a persistent Windows installation (?).

Start screen controls that allow admins to control the layout and make sure important corporate apps are easily seen.

-- I guess the start screen could be more manageable.

Direct Access, which allows remote users to access corporate resources without tapping into a VPN.

-- I assume an improvement of the ol’ Remote desktop.

BranchCache, which allows frequently-accessed data to be "cached" in branch offices without the need to constantly re-download it.

-- There is a reason why is called “Enterprise”.

Virtual Desktop (VDI), which allows users to tap into the power of a Windows Server 2012 to remotely render graphics, use touch devices and USB peripherals without a powerful local client.

-- Let’s be realistic, this sounds awesome, even if would be limited to Windows Server, it’s still sounds good in theory, we just need to see it in practice.

Apps can now be side-loaded onto PCs, and the client can be locked down to run only apps and files selected by the admin.

-- Again, “Enterprise”, but I could thing of a thousand different uses for this on a family PC.

Just remember, this is only a preview and can change in any time. If you’re not into testing stuff before others, don’t waste time downloading it. In fact, if you don’t share a network or anything, just stay with your non-Enterprise edition and you should be fine.

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

The Upgrade Fairy - PopStrip

I love XKCD because of the simplistic drawing style and the geekeness of the jokes. Another one like this is PopStrip, it’s just plain funny with amazing IT-related jokes. In this case, the one below is called Upgrade Fairy (part 2) -- here’s the part 1. This is a limited time offer, better get it while is hot.

Can you go back to the old Facebook layout?

Nope. No. No way, Jose. You can’t do it.

Now that we establish that, let’s explain a bit further. Facebook is a social network that grew (and grows) amazingly fast from being something limited to a University to something… what it’s today. The thing with Facebook, and any popular website, is that is forced to evolve fast to keep up with the user’s need and the web requirements. You create a site where people want to talk, you try to make it universal so people talk anywhere, anytime.

Now, as any popular site, people will get bored eventually and move on to another and new popular site, completely forgetting about the previous one or just making it irrelevant (Metroflog? Windows Live Spaces? MySpace? Rings a bell?), so you have to make an effort to create new content or new features so people won’t get bored (so quickly), and keep talking and using your site.

The problem with providing new features is that you have to make them obvious somehow, people won’t spend all their free time trying to found out if you have new stuff (if any), no, they prefer that you show these to them… or instead, you should make it obvious to them, and the only way is to modify your site a little so the new feature get’s, well, featured. This is way better than showing flying notifications balloons every time the user logs in or just browse your site.

So, new features force the programmers and designers to change the layout, even a little bit. Then why we see these massive layout changes? Well, these are programmers and designers we’re talking about. If the layout doesn’t change, the user gets bored of the interface and we’re back to the previous paragraph - Just as life, when nothing happens, you can get bored very easily -, and the people behind the monitor know this, and that’s why they need to update and change the layout once in a while.

TL; DR: To keep people entertained with the site, new features and new layouts are needed.

Now, what’s with these extensions, tricks, pages, programs, Likes, hacks that allow you to revert your Facebook to the old layout? Pure crap. Bullshit at it’s best. In fact, most of the sites/extension/pages that offer this service tend to be places where you need to click an ad or install a special software in your PC to get it. Well, if you do this, sucks to be you. If there were a way to get back the old layout, Facebook will provide it, not a third party service;

  • Extensions that revert the layout: change your search provider, change your homepage, can access your stored passwords and history, can modify your browser behavior, and a lot more… except revert Facebook layout.
  • Facebook pages: ask likes and for you to invite all of your friends to work, why? Because most of the time they’re selling a product and they need traffic to their own full-of-ads-website to get a revenue with your clicks. Most of the time all links are adf.ly links, meaning that each click generate money.
  • Install a especial Software: really? Will you go that far to revert your layout? Are you aware of how many malicious software are there? A lot. Most of these software install malware and even keyloggers on your computer with your consent. Do not install these.
  • Tricks and hacks: Do you actually think that there are magical ways to make Facebook obey you? You’re so naïve.

So, in conclusion, don’t be stupid.

YSK how to quickly send messages using Facebook Graph Search

UPDATE: Apparently, this no longer works… or at least is not working for me. It was good while it lasted.

Did you noticed the new Facebook layout? I bet you did. And the main reason for this new layout is the Graph Search, which is a complete new search feature (different than the old one) with many options and many customizable searches.

One of the main usage of it is the ability to quickly send messages using it. It’s just a matter of typing “message USERNAME” and then enter to get into the message box, like this:

type "message USERNAME" then hit enter

After hitting enter you should get into the message inbox ready to type the message to the person you want, saving you a little time and several clicks.

message2

Sunday, July 28, 2013

Lynda’s HTML Essential Training

I’m trying to learn new stuff, and as someone who’s trying to make a good blog, there are thing I need to know, HTML is one of those (rhymes, FTW). And even though I had very basic knowledge of HTML, the new semantics and rules that HTML5, browser, and search engines are adopting was something that I wasn’t aware of.

html

HTML Essential Training 2012 is a course that lasts 5 hours with 34 minutes and has 82 videos for you to watch and learn. The contents covers all the basics, and some of the intermediate, or at least all you can learn without getting to deep into CSS and JavaScript. Things like lists, iframes, audio/video embedding, image positioning, section semantics, text styles, form types, browsers compatibility, and a lot more.

If you can’t afford to pay for the course (if you can, please do it), here’s a link to Mega where you can get it without problem (as long as they don’t delete or my account gets blocked).

UPDATE: Links are down, people. I’ll try to upload them somewhere else in a near future if possible. Meanwhile, you can use a torrent to get the files. Sorry for the inconvenience.

This is the link

https://mega.co.nz/#!1kgGCRxI

And this is the key

qIf7pvvIyYvHBceIkN6bZFGTvKjUvDVmZIXIkmnwBoc

Again, if you want to use a download manager for it, just add a “!” between the link and the key, like this:

https://mega.co.nz/bunchofletters!encryptionkey

The file is around 730Mb of size, and includes the exercises.

Add a Instagram user to your RSS Feed Reader

Not using Instagram but still want to follow/stalk someone who use it? Here’s a simple way to do it.

Since Instagram doesn’t support this feature, we’re going to use another one called Webstagram, which was one of the first sites that allowed you to browser Instagram without a mobile device… of course, this was way before Instagram decided to launch a site for desktop users.

Anyway, first you need the username of the user that you want to add to your feed.

http://instagram.com/USERNAME

Now, just copy the user at the end of this link:

http://widget.stagram.com/rss/n/USERNAME

Let’s say I want to add “theellenshow” into my feed, I’ll just go and

http://widget.stagram.com/rss/n/theellenshow

Then, proceed to my Feed Reader (Feedly, in my case) and just paste the link, and voila!

feedly1

You can now follow anyone you want. FYI, if Webstagram shuts down, you’ll need to find another way to do it.

 

ellen2

XKCD - Time, The End

3094

As you may, or may not know, Time just ended. A comic with 3100 frames ended after 125 days (4 months). The comic was posted on March 25, 2013, with the caption “Wait for it.”, and ended on July 26, but I was actually hoping that it wasn’t the end, but it was… a bitter and kind of “WTF?” end with an amazing history.

The comic takes place in Europe, and according to some “theorists”, it either happens 5.3 millions of years in the past (Zanclean Flood) or millions of years into the future.

2907

If you look at the map, you can clearly see Italy to the right, and if you check this image you can overlap the two and see the resemblance. Meaning that there is a huge chance the Mediterranean Flood theory is the right one, meaning that the comic takes place millions of years ago (5.33 millions to be exact) and shows us the journey of two villagers trying to find out what’s going on and trying to escape the impending doom. The second theory, put them in the future, a future where the flood is happening again and local villagers are trying to save themselves (since there’s no reference to other humans, we can say if it’s actually an apocaliptic future… although is cool to think it is).

2445

The comic has very dark moments and very awesome ones, showing the pure human spirit and the “we can do it!” attitude that the author has. And since his wife was diagnosed with cancer (Fuck cancer), many claims that this comic is a metaphor of their lives before and after the treatment/diagnostic. But no matter what this comic means, the meaning (as a lot of Randall comics) is up to you. Watch it and enjoy it.

Saturday, July 27, 2013

Lynda’s Web Design Fundamentals

No, I won’t talk about web design here, I’m not capable of doing that because I know very, very little about this subject, but I’m trying to learn about it and to me one of the best ways to doing that is using Lynda’s videos. If you’re not familiar with Lynda.com, you should start browsing it and checking the thousand of video courses the site offers. If you can pay, even better.

webdesign
I downloaded the Web Design Fundamentals course that consist on 38 videos explaining the basics of web design, from what’s HTML to how to pick a host and domain. The course 2 hours and 43 minutes, and was uploaded on 2010, but even for those like me who had no idea on how to get into web design, this is a nice start.

UPDATE: Links are down, people. I’ll try to upload them somewhere else in a near future if possible. Meanwhile, you can use a torrent to get the files. Sorry for the inconvenience.

And for those who can’t afford to pay for it, here’s a Mega link to it, it’s 820Mb and the key is “TDwfrJLFG3Xyub8tuhzCkKwUV5vlneG2--46WAUdMDM” (without the quotes).

If you want to use a download manager, like jDownloader, just copy the link and add a “!” between it and the key (https://mega.co.nz/querty!encryptionkey).

BTW, there is a pretty easy way to download public videos from Lynda, but only public videos.

Disable notifications on Windows 8.1

notif

Although I consider that notifications are great and useful, for desktop users that don’t use apps these are plain annoying. On W8 it was easy to disable them, (Settings > Notifications > Disable), but on W8.1 they changed the PC Settings menu allowing you to disable the notifications from two different path, one easier than the other (although they’re both very simple).

First, the fastest way to do it. Go to PC Settings (hover your mouse to the bottom right > Settings > PC Settings)

settings1

When launched, that first options that appear are called “Top Settings”, in there just go to the bottom and disable the notifications. Easy as hell.

notif2

As you can see, below that option there is a Link, you can either follow it manually on the left menu or click it to get to the main notifications area. You can also disable/enable the notifications here, as well modify it’s behavior and which apps can send notifications.

notif3

Thursday, July 25, 2013

Riddick Motion Comic shown on Comic-con

I love Riddick, I just love it. It’s an amazing trilogy that shows Vin Diesel as a plain badass instead of a driver or a funny man who can punch. Yesterday Vin Diesel posted on his Facebook page the new motion comic that was shown during the Comic-con this year and which acts as a small prequel to the third movie and the events we’ll see there.

Anyway, here’s the video, enjoy it.

Individual packages of Visual Studio Express 2010

Downloading a whole .iso when all you need is one of the files contained in it can be a lot of work if you have a slow connection, and most companies won’t release their products individually, no, they’ll give you a big download package so you’ll get all of their products. But, one thing Microsoft did good, in this case, is that the .iso file has Visual Basic, Visual C++, Visual C#, and Visual Web Development, as independent instances within the .iso itself, meaning that you can install whatever version you want and it doesn’t require files from the other ones.

vb

So, I uploaded the individual application of Visual Basic Express 2010 to Mega (hoping they won’t get deleted in a near future).

All files are password protected, the password is the name of the file. For “vb10.rar”, the pass is “vb10”, simple as that. These are official 30-days trial versions. No serial, key, crack, or anything is available. That’s up to you.

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Disable apps that can’t be uninstalled on Windows 8.1

I like W8.1 so far, I think is better than W8 in some aspects and a lot worse on others. Like for example, I don’t use any of the native apps that Windows 8.1 pre-installs like Camera, Store, Video, Music, Photos, and several others. Maybe these are necessary for Tablet and Phone users, but for a lot of desktop users, this is a waste of time and space.

The good thing is that you can remove several of these apps very easily by right-clicking them and hitting Uninstall

unistall

But some apps are now mandatory and can’t be uninstalled, such as Camera, Photos, Skydrive, and Store. And since you can’t uninstall them, you need to disable them manually so they can’t be accessed and launched by third-party apps (been there) or even disable them to keep your information safe. For one reason of another, here’s what you need to do.

Let’s start with the camera, to disable it we need to know where is stored:

C:\Windows\Camera

camera

As always, just rename the folder to something else, or the .exe inside, you call. I always go for the root.

camera2

Now, you just need to do this for the other three (Photos, Store, Skydrive), and just in case, here’s the location of the folders or files you need to rename:

  • Camera: C:\Windows\Camera
  • Store: C:\Windows\WinStore
  • SkyDrive: C:\Windows\System32\SkyDrive.exe
  • Photos: C:\Windows\FileManager\PhotosApp.exe

---

BTW, what I did in this thread is a horrible thing to do. By doing it you’re making the Store and all other apps completely useless, and in some cases (the Camera) didn’t work by returning the name to normal. But that may be my computer alone.

Anyway, I repeat, do this only if you actually want to do this and are completely desperate, like if you have a small Hard Drive and want to remove useless crap, or want to ruin someone else’s computer…’

Uploading Files to Mega with MegaDesktop

I’m not into software reviews, it’s boring and everyone does it, but sometimes one software deserves to be mentioned for one reason or another. Yesterday I spend 3 hours uploading a file to Mega only to get canceled when it was about to end. The I tried again and it just canceled at random times, I got tired and downloaded a desktop app which worked perfectly.

mega

MegaDesktop is a very simple program that allows you to upload and download files to your Mega account. And that’s pretty much it, only download files already uploaded or upload the files you want to store remotely. There is a sync feature that I guess that works by syncing the files you have on Mega with the ones you have locally, but since I didn’t try that part out, I have no idea how it works.

If you have a Mega account this is the best way to go, once in a while browser apps tend to get unstable and using a local application can get you way better results.

Disable Facebook’s Global Pages for Brands

Do you know what Global Pages are? Global Pages are a Facebook feature on which pages and brands can go International by creating sub pages redirecting the user to it’s region. When searching for a brand, the name you’ll see is the name of the brand, but without you knowing it, you are automatically directed to a page that was created by that brand and is aimed thinking on your language and your location.

Fox example if I search for Hearthstone, I get Hearthstone in the search:

search

And that’s why I wanted, right? NO. Check out the link:

search2

Since I’m in LatinAmerica, they thing I actually want to go into my region, but I’m not. I want to check out the original site.

search3

If you’re just finding out about this feature and try it out yourself, you may like it, you may hate it, but in any case, there is a workaround we can use to get to the original site without much trouble. Let me clear something up right now, Facebook doesn’t offer a way to disable this from the account settings, privacy settings, or any settings at all. Knowing that, let’s do this.

Go to the site you’re being redirected to: (in my case Hearthstone LA)

search4

In the link, add “?brand_redir=1” to the end, like this:

https://www.facebook.com/HearthstoneLatAm?brand_redir=1

This seems like something dumb and useless, but it does a lot for us, the site now shows the original site on it’s name.

search5

And that’s it, click it to be redirected to the original site. A few things to note, BTW:

  • The site will have a “?brandloc=DISABLE” on it’s URL, don’t remove it or you’ll be redirected to the global site again
  • Don’t bother Liking it, you’ll only receive the news from the local site, not the original one
  • Whether doing this or not, every time you do a search, the local site will appear on it instead of the global one

“Well, then, what’s the point of this?” – The point is that most of the time the official sites are the ones that do the contests and giveaways (or at least more), so just keep the site bookmarked and you won’t need to do this every time you want to access an specific site.

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

World of Warcraft 5.4: Proving Grounds

This is one of the most amazing features I’ve seen in WoW in a long, long, long time. I actually just installed WoW to test this new feature and I’m completely amazed.

WoWScrnShot_072313_162344

A simple explanation: Proving Grounds is a new feature that will allows you to test your DPS, Healing, and Tanking skills against a variety of enemies, and each version has different mechanics.

  • DPS: Kill all enemies before times runs out.
  • Healing: Heal all your allies until they kill all enemies.
  • Tanking: Keep the agro and make sure nobody dies.

Pretty straight forward, and the best part is that you can unlock a new difficulty each time you beat one (Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Endless). Not limited to this, according to Blizzard official post about it:

Depending on the role you choose, you may not have to go it alone.  (Then again, you just might. Aren’t you brave?)

Meaning that you can face the challenges individually or with a group, making it excellent for practice and for testing skills, new combos, teamwork, etc. You can’t die while on Proving Grounds and you can’t use potions either, is all up to you and your skills.

And what I like the most about it is that it can help old WoW players to get into the new mechanics and gameplay, the new talents, spells, and interface that game offers now that didn’t offer two or three years ago. It’s amazing, you should try it, everyone should try it.

PS: To enter you need to talk to Trial Master Rotun. He’ll take you there.

WoWScrnShot_072313_165737

Monday, July 22, 2013

How to overlay transparent images using C#

A few days ago someone asked me to code a little program using C#, the program was simple: three comboboxes, the first one will show a shape of X sides (an image in a picturebox), the second one will show something behind that image, and the third one show a color. Pretty easy. If you’re a programmer you already did half or all the coding in your head.

Easy as hell, 40 minutes tops coding and testing the boxes and trying out all possible outputs, all good… until I get into the images. I spend over 2 hours trying to overlap the images on the pictureboxes without any success (at the end I succeeded, obviously) because the way Visual handle transparent images is not how we think it works.

First of all, for those of you who don’t know, when you put a transparent image into the interface, the system will render the background of the parent of the picturebox, creating the illusion of transparency. This doesn’t work too well when overlaying pictureboxes because these don’t have parents, the main Form is the parent. So, when you put one over another, you get something like this:

iamge1

  • The image in the middle is transparent in the center and shows the color of the form behind it as intended.
  • The image on the left are dotted lines, these are also transparent and show the color of the form behind them, but they don’t appear behind the center image.
  • The color to the right, doesn’t appear behind the center image because is not the parent. And as you can’t guess, it won’t appear behind of the left one neither.

Many people suggested to force the parent into the images. Something like:

FrontImage.parent = Backimage;

A fuckin’ mess.

image2

After a while of doing searches (a lot of searches), I was about to give up, until I decided to do the only thing I hadn’t tried yet.

FrontImage.BackgroundImage = BackImage;

And that’s it. As simple as that. Assuming that the images are already in your resources, it will be something like:

pictureBox1.Image = Properties.Resources.FrontImage
pictureBox1.BackgroundImage = Properties.Resources.BackImage;

Of course, for this example we need the color, so:

pictureBox1.Image = Properties.Resources.FrontImage
pictureBox1.BackgroundImage = Properties.Resources.BackImage;
pictureBox1.BackColor = System.Drawing.Color.ColorYouWant;

And the result is pretty much what I wanted:

image3

Of course, this may seem and sound dumb, “Who would need to overlay a shape over a line over a color?”… many people, actually. And most of them are forced to create a custom class just for this. Which seems like a lot of work I don’t want to do.

WoW Addons: pError

I’m a World of Warcraft fan, I love the game, I love the lore, I may not love the latest changes when it comes to gameplay and some mechanics, but with every new patch a new feature appears and it’s like a duty to try it out. And every time I install WoW, there are some addons that I NEED to have or I won’t play it, seriously. WoW without addons feels empty.

errors1

One of my favorites, and a not son known addon is pError. What it does is hide the annoying red error messages that appears when you can’t do something; you may be familiar with them:

  • There is nothing to attack
  • You have no target
  • Not enough rage
  • Ability is not ready yet
  • Can’t do that while moving
  • Interrupted

And so on…

pError can fix this by typing “/perror ERRORMESSAGE”:

  • /perror there is nothing to attack
  • /perror not enough rage
  • /perror interrupted

By doing this, the error will no longer appear, making your interface much cleaner and leaving space for those errors you really care about.

perror

In case you want to restore an error (show it again), you need to go to your WoW folder (with the game already closed):

\WTF\Account\YourAccount\SavedVariable\

In there you need to open the pError.lua with the notepad and remove the errors you want to show again.

perror2

Remember that if you delete an entry, make sure that the number corresponds with the line in the DB. If the addon finds errors, it will use it’s backup and you just wasted your time.

Opting out from Google’s Interest-based ads

I like Google, the search is great, Gmail is great, Reader was great, and I understand that all of these services having ads, there’s where the money is coming from, but when ads are based on your browsing habits, personal interest, and basic information… well, I don’t like that. You may not be able to opt-out from Google using your browsing habits without using extensions, changing to DuckDuckGo or something, but you are able to opt-out from Google using your information to display custom ads.

Go to Settings for Google Ads. Scroll down to “Opt-out settings”. Click on “Opt-out”.

optout

A message will appear with the text:

  • You'll still see ads after opting out of interest-based advertising. The ads will be less relevant.
  • You'll no longer be able to block specific advertisers.
  • Ads won't be based on your interests and may appear in other languages.
  • Your opt outs may not occur instantaneously.

If you still want to opt-out, click on “Opt-out” and you’re done. You should see the change on the site going something like this:

optout2

If you want your ads based on your interest, it’s your call. At the end I guess that it’s better than having random ads popping up from now on.

Sunday, July 21, 2013

Hide Libraries from This PC on Windows 8.1

This update is pretty cool actually. There are a lot of things I’m loving about it, and at the same time there are a lot of things I’m hating about it. First it was the watermark, but I found a way to remove it. Then we have the libraries on “This PC” - which is the new  name for “Computer” –, and these are annoying as fuck.

thispc

As you may know by now, there is no “Hide” or “Remove” button for these ones, but luckily, I found a post on EightForums in which the poster list a lot of different .reg files to remove all the folders, remove one by one, or restore them. For a quick fix go there, for a manual fix, keep reading.

The shortcuts to the folders are located on the registry. so we need to edit it to remove them. Go to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MyComputer\NameSpace

On that key you’ll find several subkeys that, believe or not, are the shortcuts you want removed.

regedit

By deleting an specific key, a folder will be removed. To know which is which:

{B4BFCC3A-DB2C-424C-B029-7FE99A87C641} = Desktop

{A8CDFF1C-4878-43be-B5FD-F8091C1C60D0} = Documents

{374DE290-123F-4565-9164-39C4925E467B} = Downloads

{1CF1260C-4DD0-4ebb-811F-33C572699FDE} = Music

{3ADD1653-EB32-4cb0-BBD7-DFA0ABB5ACCA} = Pictures

{A0953C92-50DC-43bf-BE83-3742FED03C9C} = Videos

As soon as you delete a key, a folder will be removed. You can even delete the ones you don’t want to appear there and only left the ones you want.

folders2

After you delete all of them, you’ll see the result without the need to restart.

thispc2

----

PS: After you delete all the folders, you should see that one remains. You could delete it if you want, but as far as I can tell, it didn’t affect My PC whatsoever. I recommend don’t delete it until knowing to what it stand for… but it’s your PC, if you want to delete it, it’s your problem, dude.

Saturday, July 20, 2013

Remove the watermark from Windows 8.1 preview

So I finally found a little space of time to install Windows 8.1 and test it out when I’m greeted with this:

wat81

An annoying watermark… I hate those. Even though Windows is activated, it still remains there. After reading a little I discovered that an update is responsible and the best part is that there is already a fix for this.

MyTechBlog posted an article showing the steps you need to follow to remove it, first you need to download this file. It’s a zip file, proceed to unzip it. In it you’ll find three folders: Edited Files, Original Files, Take ownership.

folder

 

Go into Take Ownership and install the .reg file (Install_Take_Ownership.reg). (If you use Unlocker, jump to the next image)

folder2

Now go into edited files, you’ll see two files “Shell32.dll.mui” and “basebrd.dll.mui”. You’ll find these to in these two folders respectively:

C:\Windows\System32\En-US\shell32.dll.mui

C:\Windows\Branding\Basebrd\En-US\basebrd.dll.mui

folder3

Now, if you installed Take Ownership, use it on these two files.

folder4

Now that you have control over this file, you can do whatever you want with it, and what you’re going to do is rename it. Whether you use Take Ownership or Unlocker, make sure you JUST RENAME IT.

folder5

Now copy the files on Edited Files onto it’s respective folder.

folder6

After this open the command prompt, the Windows PowerShell in this case, with Admin privileges. (Windows Key + X > Windows PowerShell (Admin)). You’re going to type the following:

mcbuilder

powershell

Restart your PC and enjoy.

wat812