Options for auto login missing in Windows 8.1

I have hooked up my computer to my TV in the living room and set up Windows to auto log in at start up.  However, today this failed.  I know Windows can be forgetful at time.  No problem, a trip to "netplwiz" will fix it, won't it?


Well, it isn't quite as easy as it turned out.  It seems a recent update had done something to the security policies that made the option for auto login disappear.  A quick search in Google shows that this option can be restore by resetting the security policy as follow:

1. Press Windows-X to bring up the menu
2. Select Control Panel
3. Click User Accounts and Family Safety
4. Click User Accounts
5. If your security policies are non-standard you will see a link "Reset Security Policies" at the bottom of the left column. If the security policies are default you will not see this link. Click Reset Security Policies
6. You will see a confirmation box.
7. Press Windows-R
8. Type control userpasswords2
9. The check box should be there, uncheck the box and select your login information
10. Note that it now defaults to your local account - if you login with a Microsoft account don't forget to enter that email address in the user name.

Since I don't have custom local policies, this fix does me no harm.  However, if you have done some customizations to your local policies, you may look for a more precise solution.

Intel 945 Graphics, Windows 8.1 and low resolution error

After upgraded my micro server, I moved to upgrade my Netbook.  This time things are much smoother with the exception of the 945 Graphics in my Netbook.


It seems the default driver from Microsoft's repository does not support the down scaling option, which is needed if you want to run Modern App with vertical resolution less than 720 pixel.  If I enable this option, my screen will just go blank.  To fix this problem, I needed to go to safe mode, and remove the drive.


The solution to the problem is simple (sort of).  Use the driver from Intel instead.  The driver works on my netbook is the Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator Driver for Windows* 7(exe)


https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?lang=eng&DwnldID=18223


After installed the driver, I can turn on the down scaling option by hacking the registry with regedit.exe. The key should you look for is Display1_DownScalingSupported. Simply change the value from 0 to 1. Restart the machine. The low resolution message is history!


Edit: It is important to disable automatic drivers installation, otherwise, all hard work may get overthrown! The instructions on how to stop Windows automatically installing drivers can be found at.  It is for Windows 7, but it is applicable to Windows 8.1


http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2500967

N54L and Windows 8.1

I spent whole last night wrestling with Windows 8.1 and my micro server.  it hangs at the restart after the installation.  The first thing came to my mind was the RAID setup I had, so I reinstalled my server with custom RAID driver again.  Unfortunately, the same thing happened.


Cut the long story short, at the end I found out it is actually the BIOS and the Broadcom NIC caused my problem!  As soon as I updated my bios to the latest version 2013.10.01, everything just works!


http://h20566.www2.hp.com/portal/site/hpsc/template.PAGE/public/psi/swdDetails/?sp4ts.oid=5336618&spf_p.tpst=swdMain&spf_p.prp_swdMain=wsrp-navigationalState%3Didx%253D%257CswItem%253DMTX_57720d956df94dfcbaa0e28256%257CswEnvOID%253D4168%257CitemLocale%253D%257CswLang%253D%257Cmode%253D%257Caction%253DdriverDocument&javax.portlet.begCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken&javax.portlet.endCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken

Windows 8.1 with exclamation marks next to the processors.

I have got Windows 8.1 freshly installed on my computer, and it works fine.  In most cases, it manages to find and install drivers itself without much intervention from myself.  However, there is an exception and as you can guess from the title, it is the processor!


Anyway, today I finally found a solution at:


http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-hardware/error-code-52-intel-i5-processor-driver-64-bit/3a46fd52-a798-43b5-9506-8c451980a567


It seems the problem is not new as the solution is for Vista.


Microsoft's knowledgebase: Device Manager does not show updated processor information on a Windows Vista-based computer or on a Windows Server 2008-based computer

Before following through the article (for method 2), I disabled automatic driver installation. To do this, I did the following:
1) Opened Devices and Printers.
2) Right-clicked my computer's device icon and clicked on Device Installation Settings.
3) Set the option to No Let me choose what to do -> Never install driver software from Windows Update, but kept the bottom checkbox checked.


After this I manually assigned a driver to the processors in the device manager one by one.  I chose "Processor" rather than "Intel Processor". This seems to solve the problem.


Hope this helps.

Start application maximized from Start Menu in Windows 8

There are occasions when you want to start an application maximized.  This is easy in Windows 7 as you can easily find the shortcuts for an application in Start Menu, and change its settings to maximize itself when it starts.

Since Windows 8 revamped the Start Menu, things simple as maximizing an application when open is difficult.  To do this, you need to go to Start Screen, then press the Down Arrow to show all applications.  Right click the application you want to change.  You should see more option at the bottom of your screen.  Select the option of Open File Location.  Now you should see the Shortcut behind the button appears on your start screen.  From this point forward, you can do the same thing you can do with previous version of Windows.  You can make the application start maximized, run as Administrator etc.

From Public To Private

Windows 7 has predefined a set of network locations, namely Home, Work and Public.  The aim of these locations is to alter the protections offered according to the selected locations.  To change from a location to another location is simple in Windows 7.  You simply click on the location, and select a new one, and that is you done.

However, this has changed in Windows 8.  In order to make it more "finger" friendly, Microsoft has changed the location setup to just two locations, namely Private and Public (On and Off), and placed it under network settings (Charm -> Change PC Settings -> Network).  In there, you will the network you are connecting to.  If you click the network icon where you are connecting to, you will see a switch controlling the sharing, i.e. on (Private) and off (Public)

However, there is a catch!  Most of the tutorials I found does not mention a very minor but a very important detail which is this switch is only shown if your Account Control Settings is not set at the highest level.  Since I have my Account Control Settings set to its maximum, I COULD NOT see this options till I found this article: http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/9837-network-location-set-private-public-windows-8-a.html

If you are like me, like a bit of extra security, and have set the Account Control Settings to its highest level, then you may want to dial it down temporary to see this switch.

Getting My S2W 3300U to work

I have been trying to retire my last Windows XP machine at home.  One of the reason I was keeping it is my scanner, Benq S2W 3300U.  It is a good scanner but is not supported by anything beyond Windows XP.

Today, I got a work around for it.  I run it from my Linux virtual machine following the instructions on

http://zoffix.com/other/Installing-Benq-SZW-4300U-Scanner-on-Ubuntu

In short, in download the firmware from http://zoffix.com/snapscan/u176v046.bin and put it at /usr/share/sane/snapscan

Then use pico to update the /etc/sane.d/snapscan.conf file

I looked for the line

firmware /usr/share/sane/snapscan/your-firmwarefile.bin

and replace the path with the path where I stored my firmware, e.g. /usr/share/sane/snapscan/u176v046.bin

That's it.  The scanner just work in SimpleScan! Hurray!