Windows 11 on an older PC

Robin S
How to get an old PC or laptop to run Windows 11 If you have an old laptop which is running Windows 10 very nicely, but when you tried to upgrade it to Windows 11 you got a message telling you your PC was too old and not supported by Windows 11, it’s quite likely that your PC is perfectly able to run Windows 11, but Microsoft have put some artificial limits in place to prevent older PCs and …

Reminders for Microsoft Windows

Robin S
Clean up WinSxS folder using DISM /cleanup-image How to enable the built-in Administrator account SYSPREP fails: ‘reserved storage in use’ Disable Wi-Fi from the command line Windows kernel versions Topic Various handy tips and shortcuts Shift-F10 : (during OOBE) open a Command Window Control-Shift-F3 : (during OOBE ) logs you in as Administrator Control-Shift-Win-B : Windows desktop …

Linux apt Package Manager

Robin S
Since I mainly use Debian-based Linux flavours, I have had to get used to the apt package manager which Debian uses. I find it a bit unintuitive to use, as there seem to be several different programs to do basic things. Note: many of the apt commands shown below need to run as root, so you should prefix each command with ‘sudo’ if running as a normal user. # apt update - this downloads package …

M.2 SSD info

Robin S
M.2 SSDs come in 3 different physical sizes : ‘2230’ : 22mm wide, 30mm long ‘2242’ : 22mm wide, 42mm long ‘2280’ : 22mm wide, 80mm long An M.2 SSD’s connector has one of two shapes : ‘M key’ or ‘B+M key’ : M k e y M B B + M k e y M M-key are normally NVMe SSDs, which use PCIe x2 or PCIe x4 . B+M are normally older/slower SATA devices(600 MB/sec) , but you occasionally see NVMe SSDs (usually PCIe …

Mac keyboard shortcuts

Robin S
Handy reminders of some of the many useful things you can do with keyboard combinations on a Mac. Note: if you’re using a PC keyboard, ‘Option’ is the Alt key , and ‘Command’ is the Windows key Key combination what it does Command-Shift-4 Take a screen capture (selected area) Command-Shift-3 Take a screen capture (whole screen, saved straight to your desktop) Option-# print the £ sign (if you have …

How to reset Windows password

Robin S
Locked out of your PC ? If you forget the password of the account on your Windows 10/11 PC/laptop, and you’re not able to log into it, here’s how you can reset your password. Note: this method probably won’t work if you have BitLocker encryption set up on your PC/laptop. find a USB stick or CD/DVD which can be used to boot your PC. This could be a USB stick or DVD which was used to install …

Dell Latitude blink codes

Robin S
When a Dell laptop encounters a hardware problem, it may blink its LEDs in a certain pattern, which indicates where the fault lies. Dell Latitude 2017-2023 The battery charge LED will blink X times in amber (orange) colour, then Y times in white. X , Y FAULT 2 , 1 CPU 2 , 2 Motherboard BIOS/ROM error 2 , 3 No RAM detected 2 , 4 RAM failure 2 , 5 invalid RAM 2 , 6 motherboard Chipset error 2 , 7 …

Reminders for MacOS

Robin S
Topic 1 Create a USB stick to install MacOS MacOS versions Section ONE Create a USB stick to install MacOS Find a download link for the version of MacOS you want ( usually a large 7GB file named something like ‘Install macOS Sequioa’ ) Use the MacOS Disk Utility to erase a 16GB USB stick : choose format type ‘MacOS Extended format’, and give it a name like ‘sequoiastick’ or similar In a Terminal …

various Linux reminders

Robin S
Topic 1 Next Topic 2 Another Topic 3 Reminders on how to do various things in Linux which I always have difficulty remembering. Many are for Debian Linux, since I mainly use Debian-based systems: Raspberry Pi , Ubuntu, Zorin OS and small ARM/embedded systems such as Seagate Dockstar. Section One ps -ef |grep ntp find . -name "pnec*" -mtime +50 | xargs ls -l ( takes a couple of minutes) apt …