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“Our words have the power to bring someone up and help them achieve their purpose in life, or bring to them down and make them go down a dark path.” -Grant Dean

Windows 10 Upgrade Warning

As we all know, Microsoft is going to introduce ‘Reserved Storage’ starting for Windows 10 Build 1903. This will consume a lump of storage from your hard drive which “cannot be removed from the OS” and ensures your computer can receive the latest upgrade.

The typical amount taken from Windows 10 users’ hard drives will be 7GB. In the other word, Windows 10 will make the upgrade process easier where Windows will download and install the updates without having uses to free up any of their disk space.

We knew that the Windows update is a good knows however certain of the Windows 10 updates have been a dangerous mess for some time. Microsoft must improve the stability of Windows 10 updates even few sites have reported about Microsoft having a “Software Quality Problem” and Windows 10 upgrades caused serious problems in January, April, October and November patches.

Rollback from OxygenOS Open Beta 11 to 9.0.3

As per my previous post, I have used the Open Beta version for quite sometimes. After few months struggling with battery performance, auto-restart issue and latestly my OxygenOS hangup issue getting worst.

Participating in the Open Beta program is quite good but anyway seeing no worth to being in Beta for quite sometimes and struggling with few issues, I thought I would go back to stable version.

Rollback to stable version doesn't require you to root your phone. There is a rollback firmware that you can flash in the local system update settings. Rollback from Open Beta to the Stable version will require a full data wipe, so keep that in mind before you make the jump.

You may refer to below link to download the package.

https://forums.oneplus.com/threads/oxygenos-9-0-ota-for-the-oneplus-6.909533/

or direct link as below here

http://oxygenos.oneplus.net.s3.amazonaws.com/OnePlus6Oxygen_22_OTA_015_all_1808102118_downgrade_68586451f7334c4d.zip

This rollback will clear all contents of the phone, please make sure to backup your phone data. After rollback to the stable version of Oreo, you can update to Pie version via OTA (global rollout).

Windows 10 Your Phone app

For those who already upgraded to v1803, surely you can see the Your Phone app from the Windows Settings. From Your Phone app, you can get instant access to your Android phone’s photos and texts on your computer and no need to dig for your phone to text or email yourself photos.

You can also drag and drop photos from your phone onto your PC. And you can copy, edit or ink that photo, right from your PC. You also can view, send and receive the SMS from your Android, on your PC. Android 7.0+ are compatible with Your Phone app.

Users must link their mobile phone to their PC in PC settings or through Your Phone app from the Microsoft Store. After that, you will receive an app from Microsoft which they must download to their mobile phone and follow the setup prompts. It's easy!

Cortana has been disabled during first time setup.

Have you ever experienced when setting up new machines, suddenly Cortana voice command will appear? This situation is really disturbing, for me.

The latest Windows build has disabled the Cortana voice-over when setting up Windows 10 for the first time in an enterprise setting.

Cortana has become a somewhat unwelcome feature in Windows 10, until Microsoft has been making increasing moves to distance themselves from their voice assistant.

This feature has been introduced in Windows Insider Preview Build 18309.

Reinstall macOS from macOS Recovery (using Wifi only)

For those who using macOS (Macbook Pro/MacBook), did you know that you guys able to reformat or perform clean installation of the operating system without using any USB installer or DVD installer.

macOS Recovery makes it easy to reinstall the Mac operating system, even if you need to erase your startup disk first. All you need is a stable and high-speed connection to the Internet. If a wireless network is available, you can choose it from the Wi-Fi menu in the menu bar.

How to do? Turn on your Mac and immediately press and hold one of the following combinations on your keyboard.

Command (⌘)-R – Install the latest macOS that was installed on your Mac.

Option-⌘-R – Upgrade to the latest macOS compatible with your Mac.

Shift-Option-⌘-R – Install the macOS that came with your Mac, or the closest version still available.

OxygenOS Open Beta 10 for the OnePlus 6

It's been a week after my phone upgraded to OxygenOS Open Beta 10. Such a pretty awesome update. This is a quick turnaround for the flagship smartphone.

The updates include app and display improvements for OnePlus 6, along with bug fixes and system stability improvements.

At this moment, the previous issue on Google Assistant still did not fix yet where it doesn't launch when holding the home button. However, the battery performance is improving and pretty awesome!

The phone feels smoother, compared to the Open Beta 8 and 9, specially the new animation it does when going back to the home screen.

Few tips, normally after I updated the system to the new OTAs, the first thing I did as to wipe the cache. I strongly recommend everyone to do that after any updates, it will save you a lot of problems. :)

IE Security Patch Preventing Some Lenovo Laptops Booting Up

As per my previous post, previously Microsoft has already issued a fix for the problem, but it seems that the fix has caused another set of issues. Yes!

Certain Lenovo laptops with less that 8GB of RAM may have issues with booting up after installing the patch for the security flaw.

My company that I am currently working also faced the same scenario where most of our users still using Lenovo machines. The workaround that we practice at this moment are:

  1. Entering the UEFI menu (BIOS) and disabling Secure Boot.
  2. If the affected machine has BitLocker enabled, then a recovery key will be required to decrypt files inside the machines.

It is pretty strange that an update to patch the security holes of Internet Explorer can cause an entire system to fail. Hahaha

Reset Forgotten Windows Password

Have you ever forgot your Windows password? Most of the cases, for sure you have no choice but to reformat your Windows right? Now, say no more!

You can reset the Windows password via Hiren’s BootCD PE (Preinstallation Environment). You can find it at https://www.hirensbootcd.org/

  1. Download the ISO image of Hiren’s BootCD PE from its official website.
  2. After getting Hiren’s BootCD PE ready, boot your Windows computer from Hiren’s BootCD PE.
  3. Once done boot, click on Start Menu > All Programs > Security > Unlockers
  4. Click on NTPWEdit
  5. Ensure that the “Path to SAM file” is point to C:\Windows\System32\Config\SAM
  6. Click on Open. The user list will appear.
  7. Choose the user list that you want to reset the password and then click on Change password.
  8. Enter the new password and verify again the new password.
  9. Click OK then click Save changes.
  10. Restart your PC and you can login to your Windows like normal.

DISM – Windows 10, version 1803 IT Pro

New DISM commands to manage feature updates:

DISM /Online /Initiate-OSUninstall – Initiates a OS uninstall to take the computer back to the previous installation of windows. DISM /Online /Remove-OSUninstall – Removes the OS uninstall capability from the computer. DISM /Online /Get-OSUninstallWindow – Displays the number of days after upgrade during which uninstall can be performed. DISM /Online /Set-OSUninstallWindow – Sets the number of days after upgrade during which uninstall can be performed.

/Get-OSUninstallWindow Run this command against an online image to see how many days after an upgrade that an uninstall can be initiated.

Syntax: DISM /Online /Get-OSUninstallWindow

/Initiate-OSUninstall Run this command against an online image to revert a PC to a previous Windows installation.

Syntax: DISM /Online /Initiate-OSUninstall

/Remove-OSUninstall Run this command against an online image to remove the ability to roll back a PC to a previous installation of Windows.

Syntax: DISM /Online /Remove-OSUninstall

/Set-OSUninstallWindow Run this command against an online image to set the number of days after an upgrade that an uninstall can be initiated.

Syntax: DISM /Online /Set-OSUninstallWindow /Value:

Example: DISM /Online /Set-OSUninstallWindow /Value:30

Microsoft Edge kiosk mode

We used to see some of the AIO devices at the Bank that running on Windows platform to allow their customer to browse the Bank's Internet Banking homepage, right?

However, besides browsing the Bank's Internet Banking homepage, their customer also have access to play around inside the Windows such as opening Folder or any other applications without any special restriction.

Recently on Windows 10 October 2018 Update, Microsoft added the capability to use Microsoft Edge as a kiosk using assigned access where with assigned access, user can create a tailored browsing experience locking down a Windows 10 device to only run as a single-app or multi-app kiosk and also access restricts a local standard user account. In the other word, user only has access to one or more Windows app, such as Microsoft Edge in kiosk mode.

Based on what Microsoft have shared, the public browsing kiosk types run Microsoft Edge InPrivate mode to protect user data with a browsing experience designed for public kiosks, same concept like when you use Internet Explorer InPrivate mode or Google Chrome Incognito mode. Microsoft Edge kiosk mode also has a built-in timer to help keep data safe in public browsing sessions.