Showing posts with label Windows 8. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Windows 8. Show all posts
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Labels:
Windows 8
This is a slight modification of the instructions over at Lifehacker.com, but I just tested this in Windows 8 and it works!
Read More
Windows 8: Force Windows to Use Your Wired Connection Instead of Wi-Fi
 |
| Image Credit: Lifehacker.com |
- Open the Control Panel (Win Key + X > Select Control Panel)
- Click on Network and Internet and then on Network and Sharing Center
- On the left hand side, click on Change adapter settings
- Press Alt to open the Folder Menu, and click on Advanced and then Advanced Settings
- Now you see the same graphic as that depicted above!
Make sure Ethernet is above Wi-Fi, click OK, and you're done!
Thanks to Melanie Pinola at Lifehacker.com for this tip. Be sure to check out her article for reader comments that may provide additional tips.
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Labels:
aacs
,
Blu-Ray
,
VLC
,
Windows 8
Windows 8: VLC Blu-Ray playback
Background
When I first purchased my Sony laptop, it came with PowerDVD or something similar installed in Win7 allowing Blu-Ray playback. Any time I travel, I always take this laptop so I can play my Blu-Rays for shows not available through streaming methods. When I upgraded to Windows 8, Sony doesn't offer the Blu-Ray playback software in the list of software available for download for my laptop model, so I basically lost my ability to play Blu-Rays.
I've used VLC before, and it's a great open-source, multi-platform video player. I encourage everyone to check it out if you haven't had the privilege to use it. Since it was free, I installed it and tried to play a Blu-Ray - no luck. I used the 32-bit version, which is the default download version for Windows. When I inserted the disc, I just pointed VLC to my disc drive and clicked "Play." Since that didn't work, I opened the menu: Media > Open Disc, and on the Disc tab I selected BluRay and tried to play it. Still no luck, but this time I received a more informative error, which was that VLC was missing libaacs.
The Fix
I Googled how to add libaacs capability to VLC, and came across an older guide. Here's my specific steps:
Read More
When I first purchased my Sony laptop, it came with PowerDVD or something similar installed in Win7 allowing Blu-Ray playback. Any time I travel, I always take this laptop so I can play my Blu-Rays for shows not available through streaming methods. When I upgraded to Windows 8, Sony doesn't offer the Blu-Ray playback software in the list of software available for download for my laptop model, so I basically lost my ability to play Blu-Rays.
I've used VLC before, and it's a great open-source, multi-platform video player. I encourage everyone to check it out if you haven't had the privilege to use it. Since it was free, I installed it and tried to play a Blu-Ray - no luck. I used the 32-bit version, which is the default download version for Windows. When I inserted the disc, I just pointed VLC to my disc drive and clicked "Play." Since that didn't work, I opened the menu: Media > Open Disc, and on the Disc tab I selected BluRay and tried to play it. Still no luck, but this time I received a more informative error, which was that VLC was missing libaacs.
The Fix
I Googled how to add libaacs capability to VLC, and came across an older guide. Here's my specific steps:
- Install VLC
- Visit http://vlc-aacs.whoknowsmy.name/
- Copy the libaacs.dll to the root VLC installation directory:
- C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC (x64)
- C:\Program Files (x86)\VideoLAN\VLC (x86)
- Open your appdata folder
- Start > Run (or Windows key + R)
- Type %appdata%; on Windows 8 the qualified path is: C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\
- Look for an aacs folder, and if there isn't one, create it
- Inside the aacs folder place the KEYDB.cfg file
- Insert a Blu-Ray disc, open VLC, and try to play it.
Once I completed that process, I can play Blu-Ray discs again! Hope it works for you. Feel free to leave feedback if your steps differed from mine.
P.S. alternatively, you could just fork over the $50 to $100 for a Blu-Ray playback software suite and save yourself the time/trouble.
P.S. alternatively, you could just fork over the $50 to $100 for a Blu-Ray playback software suite and save yourself the time/trouble.
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Labels:
Sony Drivers
,
Windows 8
Windows 8 Pain Point #3 - Intel Centrino Wireless-N 6150
So, I've been on Windows 8 for a couple months now, and all in all it's not too bad. One trend that has started to irritate me quite a bit is the fact that my WiFi connection continually drops. It's intermittent, but for whatever reason, my adapter just disconnects from the WiFi router. Then, when I go to reconnect it, Windows tells me I can't connect back to the network.
When this first happened, I thought okay, let me try a different WiFi signal. Nope! No matter what other WiFi signal I chose, my adapter basically said it had eaten enough packets. So, what's the classic solution in these circumstances? Reboot! Sure enough, everything started working fine again. I dealt with that for a couple days before I decided having to reboot every time was ridiculous. My next troubleshooting effort led me to re-install the driver. No luck - the problem intermittently persisted. Then, just out of curiosity, I disabled the network adapter and re-enabled it. BOOM! Fixed...temporarily. Now I just have to disable/re-enable the network adapter, which is less irritating than having to reboot, but still a pain.
I didn't have this issue in Win7, so the only thing I can think of at this point is that the driver is causing issues. My driver version is 15.5.0.43. I'm not sure if I can stand to wait for an update. I think I may go back to Win7. Anyone else having this issue?
Update #1: just went to Intel's site, and there's an update for the software suite. To detect if your adapter needs an update, check out Intel's scanning web-app. You'll have to enable Java for the scanning to work, so only do it if you trust Intel.
By the way, here's the output of the scanner:
Read More
When this first happened, I thought okay, let me try a different WiFi signal. Nope! No matter what other WiFi signal I chose, my adapter basically said it had eaten enough packets. So, what's the classic solution in these circumstances? Reboot! Sure enough, everything started working fine again. I dealt with that for a couple days before I decided having to reboot every time was ridiculous. My next troubleshooting effort led me to re-install the driver. No luck - the problem intermittently persisted. Then, just out of curiosity, I disabled the network adapter and re-enabled it. BOOM! Fixed...temporarily. Now I just have to disable/re-enable the network adapter, which is less irritating than having to reboot, but still a pain.
I didn't have this issue in Win7, so the only thing I can think of at this point is that the driver is causing issues. My driver version is 15.5.0.43. I'm not sure if I can stand to wait for an update. I think I may go back to Win7. Anyone else having this issue?
Update #1: just went to Intel's site, and there's an update for the software suite. To detect if your adapter needs an update, check out Intel's scanning web-app. You'll have to enable Java for the scanning to work, so only do it if you trust Intel.
By the way, here's the output of the scanner:
| Product Detected | Intel® Centrino® Wireless-N + WiMAX 6150 | ||
| Current Driver Installed | 15.5.2.0 | ||
| |||
I have my fingers crossed!
Update #2: After updating directly from Intel's site, the problem appears to be fixed. I'll keep monitoring in case the situation changes, but it looks to be corrected. NOTE: anyone expecting the Windows Update to fix this should instead go to the links above to download the driver directly as Windows Update does not correct the problem.
Update #2: After updating directly from Intel's site, the problem appears to be fixed. I'll keep monitoring in case the situation changes, but it looks to be corrected. NOTE: anyone expecting the Windows Update to fix this should instead go to the links above to download the driver directly as Windows Update does not correct the problem.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Labels:
Windows 8
,
Wireshark
Windows 8 Pain Point #2 - Erased, Wireshark Functions!
I wanted to look at a packet capture today, and realized I hadn't installed one of my favorite tools: Wireshark. For the uninitiated, Wireshark is dependent on the WinPCAP driver and when installing Wireshark you have to install the WinPCAP driver at the same time. Much to my dismay, the WinPCAP driver fails during installation due to "known compatibility issues" in Windows 8.
Even after downloading the driver separately and switching the compatibility settings on both installers to "Windows 7," it still fails. I know it's only a matter of time until the folks at Wireshark/Riverbed update their software, but I'm saddened all the same.
Since I use Wireshark pretty frequently, I'll post an update once I get a working version.
Update (12/6/2012): I got the WinPCAP driver to install! Just download the current version of Wireshark and install it. It will error out during the installation of WinPCAP, but that's fine, complete the installer anyway. Once you finish, go to the directory in which you installed Wireshark and right-click on the WinPCAP.exe file. Click on the "Compatibility" tab and set it to Windows 7 and check the run as administrator at the bottom. Then, when you run it, you'll still get an error but at least you can click on "Run the Program" to get it installed.
What I notice also is that when taking a PCAP (which works fine), it no longer observes the activity with the named interface I was used to - now it's just under a "Microsoft" interface. But hey, it works!
Update (01/31/2014): I realized that I forgot to update this post. Wireshark now works seamlessly on Windows 8/8.1 with the most recent version.
Read More
Even after downloading the driver separately and switching the compatibility settings on both installers to "Windows 7," it still fails. I know it's only a matter of time until the folks at Wireshark/Riverbed update their software, but I'm saddened all the same.
Since I use Wireshark pretty frequently, I'll post an update once I get a working version.
Update (12/6/2012): I got the WinPCAP driver to install! Just download the current version of Wireshark and install it. It will error out during the installation of WinPCAP, but that's fine, complete the installer anyway. Once you finish, go to the directory in which you installed Wireshark and right-click on the WinPCAP.exe file. Click on the "Compatibility" tab and set it to Windows 7 and check the run as administrator at the bottom. Then, when you run it, you'll still get an error but at least you can click on "Run the Program" to get it installed.
What I notice also is that when taking a PCAP (which works fine), it no longer observes the activity with the named interface I was used to - now it's just under a "Microsoft" interface. But hey, it works!
Update (01/31/2014): I realized that I forgot to update this post. Wireshark now works seamlessly on Windows 8/8.1 with the most recent version.
Labels:
hotkeys
,
Sony Drivers
,
Windows 8
Read More
Windows 8 Pain Point #1
Continued from Three great things about Windows 8 so far...
The hotkey driver was another matter. For starters, there was no driver for it for the Windows 8 64-bit driver set listed on Sony's website! For those that have ever loaded an OS from scratch, this will immediately bring to mind one of the greatest features hotkeys provide, adjusting the brightness without having to navigate through control menus.
The hotkey driver was another matter. For starters, there was no driver for it for the Windows 8 64-bit driver set listed on Sony's website! For those that have ever loaded an OS from scratch, this will immediately bring to mind one of the greatest features hotkeys provide, adjusting the brightness without having to navigate through control menus.
So there I was,
squinting at my screen, pondering my next step. Since Win7 provided
backwards compatibility for applications, I figured Win8 did as well, so I
downloaded the Win7 version of the driver. Running the install program
failed with a prompt informing me the driver couldn't be loaded for this OS.
I then thought (hopefully) that maybe Sony rolled up the hotkey
functionality in some of their bloatware, so I went back to the Win8 list of
software and installed everything. Shortly after doing so I started
receiving this error:
If I clicked
"OK" my laptop immediately went into hibernation mode. To make
matters worse the prompt had an "Always On Top" attribute which
refreshed my mouse/keyboard focus onto the prompt every 5 seconds. I have
to say, that was extremely annoying (this means you Sony). A Google
search revealed the culprit to be a program called "ISBMgr.exe" in
the C:\Windows directory which was also added to the Startup Programs List.
Struggling for mouse/keyboard focus, I managed to open Task Manager and
kill the program and the prompt thankfully went away. I also disabled it
in the Startup Programs List to make sure I didn't re-encounter it. Why
the program thinks something's amiss is a mystery to me.
Now that I had my
mouse/keyboard control again I continued my search for hotkey functionality.
Device Manager hinted that the functionality depended on a driver for
hardware id "SNY5001" - also known as the SFEP: Sony Firmware
Extension Parser. I found numerous posts in support forums related to
similar circumstances and followed the trail. It led me to a download
posting of the most recently available driver version. The download,
luckily, was not a packaged installer - just the .inf and cab files needed.
Once I downloaded it, right-clicked on the .inf, and installed it I COULD
ONCE AGAIN CONTROL LIGHT ITSELF. Or at least control the brightness
through hotkeys again.
So to summarize, I
lost hotkey functionality after the upgrade to Win8 and installing all
available Sony software I started receiving nigh-unavoidable prompts regarding
my laptop battery. With these now resolved, I continued exploring what
else Win8 had to offer. Because the driver files were such a pain to locate, I'm posting them for download here so others can save time.
Please NOTE: I am in no way liable for your use of the drivers referenced for download. They are provided AS-IS without any guarantee or warranty and users download the file at their own risk. The hash of the uploaded file is: BD9B677BEE0DC81E0C6F2D79EA165328DF8EC2AE
Labels:
ISO support
,
Windows 8
Three great things about Windows 8 so far
NOTE: I have not read about any features of Windows 8, so some of these items may already be old news.
I decided to go head and upgrade to Win8 and mess around with it for a week to see what's what. I figured that if it was bearable, I would just stick with it. So I installed Windows 8 Professional and my initial impression is that it's not vastly different than Windows 7, other than the obvious re-positioning of the start menu. I'll expand more on that later.
To give a breakdown of system specs, I'm running an i7 2nd gen processor with 8 GB of RAM and a SATA III solid state drive. I recently had Windows 7 on this this system and boot time was probably about 10-15 seconds. That was already a vast improvement over my previous config, which included the Sony-branded Win7 and OEM SATA drive, where my boot time took about two minutes on average. However, after installing Windows 8 my boot time decreased to literally less than 5 seconds. And for those wondering what I mean by boot time, I consider it the point where you can click on a browser to start accessing a website.
I do find occasional use for ISO files, and after downloading one of them, I found I could double-click into it without Windows asking me what program I wanted to use to open it. Shocked, I navigated out of the ISO and right-clicked on the file. What did I see? Low and behold, native support for ISO files! Right click and mount is pretty nice, that's for sure.
After the initial OS load, I found only two unknown devices listed in my device manager. One was a USB host controller, and the other was the hotkey controller for this laptop. That means out of the at least 15 drivers I had to load separately in Windows 7, I now only had two! Talk about a time-saver. I loaded the USB host controller driver from Sony's website with no problem. To read about the near-maddening battle in resolving these two driver issues, read on.
Read More
I decided to go head and upgrade to Win8 and mess around with it for a week to see what's what. I figured that if it was bearable, I would just stick with it. So I installed Windows 8 Professional and my initial impression is that it's not vastly different than Windows 7, other than the obvious re-positioning of the start menu. I'll expand more on that later.
First up: Blazing Boot Time
To give a breakdown of system specs, I'm running an i7 2nd gen processor with 8 GB of RAM and a SATA III solid state drive. I recently had Windows 7 on this this system and boot time was probably about 10-15 seconds. That was already a vast improvement over my previous config, which included the Sony-branded Win7 and OEM SATA drive, where my boot time took about two minutes on average. However, after installing Windows 8 my boot time decreased to literally less than 5 seconds. And for those wondering what I mean by boot time, I consider it the point where you can click on a browser to start accessing a website.
Discovery: Native ISO support
I do find occasional use for ISO files, and after downloading one of them, I found I could double-click into it without Windows asking me what program I wanted to use to open it. Shocked, I navigated out of the ISO and right-clicked on the file. What did I see? Low and behold, native support for ISO files! Right click and mount is pretty nice, that's for sure.
Driver Support: overall better than Win7
After the initial OS load, I found only two unknown devices listed in my device manager. One was a USB host controller, and the other was the hotkey controller for this laptop. That means out of the at least 15 drivers I had to load separately in Windows 7, I now only had two! Talk about a time-saver. I loaded the USB host controller driver from Sony's website with no problem. To read about the near-maddening battle in resolving these two driver issues, read on.
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