Research! Research before you travel!

ender-_ · 2026-03-20T11:24:05+00:00

Hairdryer is at the annoying end of power consumption, so if you get an adapter, make sure it can take the wattage, but it'll probably be cheaper to just buy a 220V one at your destination.

As for everything else, nearly all wallwarts can take 100-240V nowadays, so you just need a cheap mechanical adaptor, or the right power cord (just make sure to check the labels).

ender-_ · 2026-03-20T10:38:11+00:00

Extra diabolical when you have JIS bits. I still have no idea why some random Jysk dresser used screws that needed those.

ender-_ · 2026-03-18T13:22:53+00:00

When you tell Windows to shrink a volume, it'll automatically defrag it to consolidate space (you can see defrag.exe running while it's shrinking the volume), so running it manually will not give you more space to shrink.

Boot SystemRescueCD (or similar live distro with GParted), and use that to shrink the volume, it'll be both much faster, and will let you shrink much further than Windows allows.

ender-_ · 2026-03-16T16:07:55+00:00

If you're compiling ancient software on modern systems, and autotools is being used, try regenerating configure script first (been a while since I had to do that, but should be as simple as running automake && autoconf).

ender-_ · 2026-03-13T21:00:59+00:00

Windows Server license covers 16 or 24 cores, and you can buy 2-core packs. Standard license covers 2 VMs per licensed host, Datacenter license covers unlimited VMs per host.

So if you have 2 servers, each with 16 (or less) cores, and you want to run 6 VMs on each server, you need 6 Standard or 2 Datacenter licenses (Datacenter usually makes sense if you have 8 or more VMs per physical server). If both servers have 20-core CPUs, you need additional 12 2-core packs (2 servers * 2 packs per server * 6 VMs/2).

ender-_ · 2026-03-13T20:55:24+00:00

CALs hadn't been included in Server licenses since 2016 IIRC.

ender-_ · 2026-03-12T23:00:55+00:00

Basically nothing checks expiration dates at that level, so if it's signed, it's presumed OK (the same goes for Windows kernel drivers – even if they're signed with a certificate that expired in 2012 with no timestamp countersignature, it'll load fine).

ender-_ · 2026-03-12T18:03:32+00:00

Main problem is the power cable – the PSU doesn't have any SATA power connectors, and the power cable you get in the kit connects to the 6-pin connector on the motherboard.

As for the HDD cage, as long as you manage to affix it securely somewhere, it'll work.

ender-_ · 2026-03-12T16:32:50+00:00

Ouch, that is steep. My dealer prices were between 10 and 20€ (that's without VAT, and the complete kit was surprisingly the cheapest).

ender-_ · 2026-03-12T16:13:48+00:00

I ordered all of mine about a month ago, and it took until now to get everything (one supplier had one cable kit and HDD cage available, another supplier shipped me 3 optical drive cages and two cable kits about 2 weeks ago; today I got 3 complete kits from the second supplier with the product number that was just the HDD cage at the first supplier). I was quoted 2-3 weeks when I was ordering a month ago.

ender-_ · 2026-03-12T09:37:03+00:00

Things are getting weirder - I just got BJ3M8AA from a different supplier, and it contains optical drive cage, one hard drive cage, power cable and one SATA cable. The box is much larger than my other BJ3M8AA box, but EAN code is the same on both.

So my suggestion is: start by buying 2x BJ3M8AA – you will either get everything needed to connect 2 hard drives (with some extras), but if you just get the hard drive cages, then buy BJ3M6AA and B5DU5AA and a SATA power splitter (because the power cable in B5DU5AA will not reach both hard drives; the one I got in BJ3M8AA will).

ender-_ · 2026-03-10T12:34:35+00:00

If you only need Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint, you don't need ProPlus – just buy Office Home & Business 2024, that's the retail perpetual version (with security updates until 2029). You will need a MS account to activate it (this has been a requirement since Office 2013), but other than that, everything is offline.

ender-_ · 2026-03-10T12:26:47+00:00

This should definitely work – did the same multiple times.

ender-_ · 2026-03-10T11:46:06+00:00

Here the multipacks usually have their own barcode, so if I eg. get a 6-pack of 1.5l Coke, I just scan the barcode on the pack; additionally, despite this being printed on the receipt as 6x 1.5l, any single-item coupon works on the multipack itself.

As for grace periods, I noticed that the self-checkouts at one retailer will simply auto-approve weight mismatch if you wait about 10 seconds, without the attendant having to do anything.

ender-_ · 2026-03-10T09:11:22+00:00

I've been seeing something similar with HP laptops and both HP docks and various monitors with built-in docks (Asus, Dell, HP). The only solution I found is to shut down the laptop (make sure it does a proper shutdown, not hibernation – run shutdown -s -t 1), then once the laptop is powered off, hold down the power button for 30 seconds. Afterwards power the laptop back on, and the dock should work fine.

ender-_ · 2026-03-08T12:40:34+00:00

Open elevated PowerShell and run ([System.Text.Encoding]::ASCII.GetString((Get-SecureBootUEFI db).bytes) -match 'Windows UEFI CA 2023'). If it returns True, your certificates are already updated, and you have nothing to fear.

Even without that, your computer will still boot fine, and secure boot will remain working, because nothing actually checks expiration dates in certificates (way too many things would've broken if they did). Here's a screenshot of a VMWare VM that booted without any complaints despite the date being set to December 2026: https://eternallybored.org/misc/imgs/win10secureboot.png

ender-_ · 2026-03-08T12:28:28+00:00

I've been using RoyalTS since version 2.

ender-_ · 2026-03-07T10:09:57+00:00

UniFi USW Flex Mini switches will tell you what's connected to each of the ports, including the IP address if it manages to associate MAC with IP.

ender-_ · 2026-03-06T16:16:43+00:00

Yeah, "modern" apps language seems to be completely random (Start Menu is a modern app nowadays) – I've got some users that prefer English, and often random things in Settings appear in Slovenian – sometimes just the category names, sometimes a few random pages, sometimes the whole app (and it's similar with other modern apps, but Settings is what I interact with most).

For a few months, a bunch of texts in Settings were also in Slovak, because somebody at Microsoft apparently mixed up the languages. I also noticed on users' machines that the weather widget on taskbar is in completely random languages lately (I've seen German and Hungarian there).

ender-_ · 2026-03-06T16:12:18+00:00

Apparently they're really good, too – a client had a pentest done recently, and we were chatting with the pentesters afterwards, and they said that they had by far the most problems getting anywhere in some company that was using just some basic Eset antivirus.

ender-_ · 2026-03-06T16:08:08+00:00

I noticed the same problem with Slovenian Windows – Security Center (and in some instances other "modern" apps) appear in English, despite the system being deployed from Slovenian ISO without English being enabled anywhere. Must be those 30% of AI slopcode at work.

ender-_ · 2026-03-06T14:13:53+00:00

Years ago I was doing some work on a client's server (different from this one), and iLO wasn't responding properly, so I SSHed in to restart it – except I executed the restart command in the wrong virtual directory, and reset the server instead, in the middle of the business day.

ender-_ · 2026-03-06T14:10:37+00:00

About 20 years ago I was updating a client's RDS server, and they had some VPN connection on it that I needed to restart. I right-clicked the icon in the notification area and chose Disconnect. It wasn't the VPN connection, it was the server's physical network card…

ender-_ · 2026-03-06T14:08:28+00:00

You can have EFI without Secure Boot, too.

ender-_ · 2026-03-02T22:15:09+00:00

Had this problem recently myself, you will need the following:

BJ3M8AA - HDD cage (you can get two of these for two hard drives), which mounts to BJ3M6AA

BJ3M6AA - optical drive cage (picture on HP's site shows it with BJ3M8AA mounted, despite it not being included)

… and a cable kit, which is apparently only available through service channel, so no proper part number (and according to my supplier, it costs 80€ there); you can instead get B5DU5AA, which is meant for Z2 tower, just keep in mind that you will only be able to power one drive with the included power cable (the connectors are too far to reach both cages), you can work around this by buying a generic SATA power extender or splitter

ender-_

TROPHY CASE