Clone system disk from larger to smaller size HDD

Items

1. Windows 10 USB (for fixing MBR)
2. Gparted USB

Procedure

1. Bootup the GParted USB
2. Shrink the volume of the large HDD enough for the smaller HDD to save to
3. Copy all the partitions of the source HDD to destination HDD
4. Reboot the system
5. Boot up the Windows 10 USB
6. Repair Windows MBR partition
1. Choose troubleshoot > command prompt
2. Type Diskpart
3. List disk > sel disk X, where X is the one of the new HDD
4. List vol 
5. Sel vol X, where X is the EFI partition (the one with ~500MB volume)
6. assign letter=V:
7. Type "exit"
8. Type "V:"
9. Type "bcdboot X:\windows /s V: /f UEFI"

References

• Windows 10 bootrec /fixboot access is denied

Dual/Multiple OS Installation

We often need to install multiple OS in one system, for example

1. Windows 8 & Ubuntu 12
2. Ubuntu 12 & Ubuntu 14
3. Windows 8 & Ubuntu 12 & Ubuntu 14...

We often follow the below instructions to achieve (assuming you have ONE Windows pre-installed and ONE Ubuntu pre-installed and you want to install the third OS, also Ubuntu)

1. Navigate to the BIOS, set the USB Ubuntu stick as the booting machine
2. Turn off the security boot to prevent the laptop not loading the USB (subjected to change on different BIOS)
3. Turn off the EUFI boot specifically for Windows 8 to avoid always booting to Windows instead of Ubuntu
4. Boot overriding the USB drive (subjected to change on different BIOS), if no boot overriding exists, just follow the old school boot priority function
5. Make a new partition for your Ubuntu, remember if you lack disk space, you will need to do partition resizing and  be-careful not to override the Windows partition or you may not be able to boot into Windows again!! Before installing the new OS, make sure you which partition which OS refers to.
6. After adding/resizing the partition, format it with ext4
7. You will need to provide the mounting point (I usually pick "/") and create a very small bootloader partition called "Reserved BIOS Boot Area" for GRUB's code, this is VERY IMPORTANT, grub provides a boot menu for you to navigate to different OS, we need to provide it with some space (normally as small as 1MB), after creating both partitions, you are okay to proceed to the installation processes.
8. Follow the Ubuntu install guide to finish the installation. 
9. In the final step, Ubuntu will ask you to restart the machine, just do so.
10. Luckily you will find a Linux boot menu listing all the partitions included (e.g. /dev/sda1,sda2.... etc.) but we will miss our newly installed OS partition, we need to update the grub file to reflect the changes (OS addition)
11. Boot into the pre-installed Ubuntu (the one before our third OS installation), navigate to /etc/default/grub and use text editior to edit it.
12. We only interest in GRUB_DEFAULT, this controls which OS the default OS should boot in, choose the one you want and save the setting
13. Remember after updating the file, you will need to UPDATE by sudo update-grub , if not the newly installed OS will not appear in the grub menu
14. Reboot the machine and you will see the newly installed OS appeared.

Reference:

1. http://askubuntu.com/questions/16042/how-to-get-to-the-grub-menu-at-boot-time
2. http://askubuntu.com/questions/343268/how-to-use-manual-partitioning-during-installation 

 

[Steam] Streaming Games in Windows using VPN

Steam contains a very good feature called "Steam In-Home Streaming" which allow streaming of PC games in LAN or even through the Internet using VPN, with this feature one can use the strong desktop power to stream to other machines with different platform like MAC and Ubuntu, with the help of Steam software.


Environment

• Windows 7 64 bit Ultimate Edition / MAC OS/ Ubuntu
• A strong processing power PC (Steam suggest Intel Core i3 or above for the host computer for better performances)
• OpenVPN (ASUS routers internally includes openVPN servers), do not use PPTP server inside the router as this will not work (reason: PPTP has no UDP port forwarding)
• OpenVPN client URL: http://openvpn.net/index.php/open-source/downloads.html
  

Steps

1. Set up VPN server (in my case, I use openVPN server provided by merlin build), turn on it.
   
   
   
2. Select advance settings, follow the below settings
   * Remember to select "TAP", for steam steaming to work, bridging is required.
   * Username auth and password should be enabled
   * Allow connections between clients
   
   
3. Make a new open vpn account in the top page (not in the advance set up page!)
   
   
4. Export the settings (.ovpn)
   
   
   
5. Import the ovpn file to the client openVPN located in C:\Program Files\OpenVPN\config and do the connection.
   
   
   
   
6. Back to application, both side should have Steam opened, and make sure they are at the same LAN, you should have an option to stream your game.
   

[Windows] Hide User Account from the Home Screen

Sometimes, we open a new account for special purposes but do not want to the account to be shown at home screen, if it is so, please follow the below steps to achieve.

Environment:
Windows 7 (64 bit) Ultimate Edition


1) Go to start

2) Type Regedit

3) Navigate to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

4) Right click "Winlogon" and make a new key (K)

5)  Name "SpecialAccounts" and press enter

6) Right click the newly created SpecialAccounts, make a new key again named "UserList"

7) On the RHS of the panel, add a DWORD (32bit) value, name the value with the account name you want to hide.

8) The value of the DWORD is evaluated as follows
0: Hide 
1: Show

9) You do not need to restart computer, this will be in effect instantly.


Finally result

Reference: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/16378967-8a39-4aef-85e4-d859a71648d3/hide-user-accounts-on-windows-7-logon

[Windows] Setting Up Remote Login in Windows 7

The following is the some notes of setting up remote login for machines behind routers (NAT)

Environment:

1. Windows 7 (64 bit) Ultimate Edition
2. Asus N66U router

• Setup port forwarding (default 3389 port)
  
  
• Under Windows "Firewall > Advanced setup, choose inbound connection, open tcp port 3389 to allow remote login services
  
  
  
• Finally, go to Advanced system settings > remote > allow all remote connections from different versions of Windows (default is closed for security, need to open manually)
  

[Windows] Solve Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Redistribute 1935 Error

When installing Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 getting the 1935 error, follow the below instructions to solve the issue.

Error message

"Setup failed to install Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable..."

To resolve the issue, you tried to install Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable, but you get the following error message:

"Error 1935. An error occurred during the installation of assembly 'Microsoft.VC80.ATL..."M

Steps to solve
1) Start terminal with admin privelege

2) Run the following cmd'

fsutil resource setautoreset true C:\

3) Restart the machine


Reference: http://esupport.trendmicro.com/solution/en-US/1059423.aspx

Windows sucks,right?