I recently swapped out my old home cinema audio system (a Yamaha DSP-E800 and a Denon stereo receiver) connected via USB DAC και 6 channel analog for an Onkyo TX-SR605 which has HDMI audio connections. In most ways this was an instant upgrade but one issue really frustrated me — volume…
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Posts Tagged: windows
2Updating firmware on Conbee II stick for Home Assistant
I use a ConBee II USB stick for my zigbee mesh in Home Assistant. I wanted to update the firmware and found it is easiest to do this by shutting down HA, unplugging the stick and using a windows machine to update it, then putting it back into the HA system and booting HA back up. There are full instructions for the process in Windows on Dresden Elektronik’s website
0script to create and name network shares
When updating or replacing a home PC I use Windows Deployment Services (WDS) to reinstall Windows. It means I only have to maintain a single up-to-date source for all the little free apps I use (Firefox, 7zip, Kodi, και τα λοιπά) and makes a new setup much more painless. One of the few bugs that has irritated me for ages is the network drive map that I create has always had to be renamed manually.
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0Windows shares not connected after wake fixed
I’ve had a very long standing problem where mapped drives on Windows PCs are shown as disconnected after a PC wakes from sleep or after a reboot. Clicking to open the drive results in a delay of several seconds and then the share opens. I had this problem with Windows 7 right through to Windows 10 1909. Today, thanks to a different issue, I finally cracked it.
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0Free up disk space on Windows
Most PCs that I encounter have drives that are full. This was the case in the days of HDD, and with modern SSD typically being smaller it is even worse. A full drive will slow your PC down, as well as the annoyance of running out of space at a key moment. Here are a good range of ways of freeing up space
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2Set up “home assistant” on a windows PC
As I’ve written about before I have a range of “smart home” devices that I’ve been gradually experimenting with. One of the greatest frustrations of linking some of them is that many force you to go via “the cloud” which even with high speed internet can lead to delays of multiple seconds for some tasks (“ok google, mute kodi”) for example. I’ve decided to give the free “home assistant” a try. As usual with anything linux based, getting it up and running just isn’t straight forward. Here’s how…
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0Enable access to the c$ share on Windows 7 and newer
I have a range of HTPCs running windows around the house, which I largely administer via remote desktop. Occasionally it is useful to access the root of the C drive remotely. Windows has always catered for this by creating some default administrative shares, which are hidden. The C drive is accessed via \\remote-pc\c$ for example. In windows 7 I found I wasn’t able to access these shares by default as they have been restricted (understandably). I needed a way to make them accessible again.
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1Fixed: Media Center PC wakes in wrong resolution
Since I upgraded my HTPC to an AMD A5400 series (from the old E350) I have had a problem where on wake from sleep the resolution would be set wrong (1024×768 I think) instead of the full 1920×1080 that the TV supports. Exiting media center would trigger a resolution correction and then media center could be reloaded without issue. This was not satisfactory as a solution.
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11Fix Windows Update or Service Pack error 80073712
It’s that time of year again, and as always, when I visit the family over xmas there are various PC issues to resolve. This year there were blessedly few issues, but there was 1 problem that it took me quite a while to track down and resolve. One of the families PCs was failing to install Windows 7 service pack 1. It’s a fairly new PC and came with an OEM install of Windows 7 x64 Home Premium, all legit and activated. It also has up-to-date anti-virus protection, and other than the SP1 install problems it seemed to be in excellent working order.… Διαβάστε ολόκληρο το άρθρο
0Retrieving serials from Windows
I am frequently given PCs to repair that require a reinstall of windows. These often don’t come with a full list of serial numbers for the software installed on them. To avoid the hassle of asking the owner to dig the serials out, it is easier to simply pull the serials from the old install before wiping.… Διαβάστε ολόκληρο το άρθρο
“Hi James I realise it has been a long while, but I just checked this on windows 11 (build 23H2)…”