I haven’t had much use for Windows for a while, but I like to keep abreast of whatever fuckery Redmond has in store for everyone else. I picked up a new laptop with the dreaded Copilot key, and thus had to figure out how to make it useful. And along the way, found a bunch of other settings to adjust. The plan is that I won’t need any of this knowledge until it becomes obsolete, but the only way to ensure that outcome is to write it all down; thus by being available it will never be necessary.

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Saving this here so it’s less trouble to find in the future. Ten years later and there’s still no generic means to accomplish this most simple of tasks without device specific junkware except via registry hackery.

Get-ItemProperty HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\HID\*\*\Device` Parameters FlipFlopWheel -EA 0 | ForEach-Object { Set-ItemProperty $_.PSPath FlipFlopWheel 1 }

From superuser.

Some observations regarding edge vs chrome. Not a complete investigation, some aspects not mentioned may have been outside the scope of inquiry.

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Another chapter from the ongoing quest to find an efficient music player, this time tackling the unexplored wilderness of Windows. I have a new Surface, which I sometimes use to watch a video or two, then read a web page. Since I already have my headphones on and connected to the Surface, why not listen to the music while I’m at it?

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Decided to go full dark side. A few notes about the new Surface Pro and my setup. Until yesterday Amazon was telling me that my order would ship on the 15th to arrive perhaps next week, but then miraculously it shipped and arrived all in the same day. So about a day of playing with it.

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How hard is it to preload a PC with the software it needs to work? Really fucking hard.

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The Windows (7) Action Center announces that I have a problem. Or rather, a Lenovo 32-bit application or service has a problem. But help is on the way. I can install an update (for some reason not included in Windows Update) from ye old local Microsoft Download Center.

After I validate of course. So I click continue. I download the GenuineCheck.exe verificator. I run it. “This version of the Windows Genuine Advantage validation tool is no longer supported. Please download the newest version and ensure that your system clock is accurate” (No trailing period after the second sentence.)

hmmm. I downloaded it five minutes ago. Rather short support timeline.

hahahaha. I switch to IE. I install the Genuine Advantage ActiveX control. I finally get to download my precious msu update file. “The update is not applicable to your computer.” For serious? If the Action Center had told me that, might have saved me some trouble.

Bit the bullet and installed the Windows 8 Release Preview on my HP laptop for poking around. Here are some initial impressions, likely to be updated as time goes by. I haven’t yet done anything with it, this is just from an hour of trying to bludgeon the system into shape.

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I notice that the latest round of Windows Updates includes a Thinkpad Display 1400x1050 update. And there’s a link for details. But following the link tells me that Winqual has moved! Follow the new link and I’m redirected to a sign in form for the Windows Developer Center Dashboard. Seriously? I have to sign up as a developer to find out what a recently installed driver update does? That sounds like something an open source operating system would make me do!