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Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Windows 8.1 OEM FREE


Just something I went though and thought I might as well share it to save you some pain if you plan to go through it.As you know Windows 10 is not actually FREE if you have to buy it. Its pretty expensive actually from the leaked pricing. The best way to secure it is to get hold of the upgrade NOW by pre-booking.

BUT in order to quality, putting the license issue aside, you better be on Windows 7 SP1 or Windows 8.1 U1. Yes, nothing below is going to work. The pre-booking “app” is actually a Windows Update component which will not install on anything lower.
So, for those stuck in Windows 7 or 8.0, maybe it’s time to upgrade.

Windows 8.1 is kinda a SOB cos of the license key and all. Its not compatible with the keys used for 8.0 and such. But what I am going to share is a secret to get whole of the legitimate keys, right in front of you on that bloody machine of yours. A lot of people did not know this. When you buy a Dell, HP and what not, OEM machine, they actually implanted a CD Key into your BIOS. And its always activated automatically based on that key. Its usable for Windows 7-8.1. Meaning if you bought it a few years ago with Windows 7, you are supposed to get Windows 8 and 8.1 upgrade FREE. Looks like your school admins did not do their job :P

But nevertheless, I will tell you how to get it right. Pretty much without their help.
You will need to download the media to install Windows 8.1.
NOT, not from some torrent or fileshare site! But right from Microsoft, perfectly legit.


It’s a few GB of download, but ONLY this version works (out of the ISO) for OEM products. There are other ways to get it to work by changing the ISO or branding it, that’s pretty complex and I won’t discuss it here (Although the 26-in-1 OEM ISO is pretty exciting, with all the Asus wallpaper and all).

While download that, you should EXTRACT your OEM CD-KEY. 3 ways to do it, but I cut the chase and show you the easiest one.


Run the EXE and you better be sure to print it out, especially if you plan to wipe you HDD.

Now, you have all you need to “upgrade”. By Upgrading, Its far too glorified a term to use. I assure you 90% you will fail. But be my guest and try to upgrade your Windows 8.0 to 8.1. Its due to the amount of software and shit that had been in there since 8.0 was installed that cause a lot of complication to just upgrade. In the end, I guess most of us choose to REINSTALL 8.1.

I won’t say it’s a bad choice, but it’s definitely clean. Now, the important point is during the installation right from the start, you will see the CD-KEY prompt and you will be able to fully verified with the one you had extracted. It doesn’t matter if you bought your Acer with Windows 7 or Windows 8 at all. It’s a perfectly legit copy of Windows 8.1 in your hands now and nobody just want to talk about it.

Well, you may or may not need to activate it, more often than not, yes. But if you do not want to use an online account (which gives you Sky Drive Pro, which could sync your personnel settings onto the cloud. This however is flagged by Mcafee Webwasher as “Uploading to Skydrive” though  DOOH!), you should unplug you network during the installation and you will be given a choice to create a local account for Windows 8.1.

Let me know if you find this useful.  






Missing Email Inbox in Outlook 2013


Ever set up a new IMAP account on Outlook and suddenly find that no matter how you set it up, with all the configurations right, you can't seem to fetch your Inbox. Well, if you are getting your Sent or Outbox, then you are right onto this problem.

Its related to 2 of the Microsoft Update in fact, KB2837618 or KB2837643. The long version is here:

http://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/email/email-troubleshooting/imap-issues-affecting-outlook-2013-and-office-365-functionality

But to keep this short, all you need to do is to disable a feature call show only subscribed folders.
To access this,


  1. Open the Folder tab. Look for "IMAP Folders". Click it.
  2. You should see the dialog below. Uncheck it!


Well, I wondered if Microsoft asked anyone's opinion when implementing this, but this has cause me to loose some hair and a few hours of sleep. I hope I have some some of yours.

Let me know if this is helpful!

Saturday, June 13, 2015

SFC failed May 2015 - utc.app.json telemetry.ASM-WindowsDefault.json


After some Windows Update in May / Jun, you may find that your Windows 8.1 SFC /SCANNOW suddenly failed with some corrupted files. If you followed some instruction to check the logs, you will notice that there are 2 files mentioned.

  • telemetry.ASM-WindowsDefault.json 
  • utc.app.json


Well, the guys at Microsoft had did it again and broken their own tool. Luckily there is a way to fix this. Well, there are 2 exactly, the hard way or easy way. I would link you to the easy way instead.

The hard way is to manually do what the easy way did, line by line on console.

Tech Cookbook SFC Fix:
http://thetechcookbook.com/windows-7-update-kb3022345-causing-corrupt-files/

Thursday, June 11, 2015

Visual Studio 2010 Offline Help


Visual Studio 2010 is the old platform whereby you can still create Windows Form applications with C++. You can't from Visual Studio 2012 onward. However, you will find that it is quite troublesome when you needed some help and references while you are on the move and possibly offline. In the good old days, there was MSDN Library for older Visual Studio, but there isn't any for Visual Studio 2010 on... So what happened to it?

Simple. Its on the DVD for Visual Studio 2010. And a separate download for Visual Studio 2012 and 2013 here:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-in/download/details.aspx?id=34794

Well, since the steps are similarly, you should be able to follow through it similarly for Visual Studio 2012 and 2013. So back to Visual Studio 2012. Grab your DVD (or mount your ISO) and let's start.


  1. Launch Visual Studio 2010. Help Menu. Select "Manage Help Settings".
  2. Strange path, but accept it nevertheless.
  3. Select "Install content from disk".
  4. Browse to your DVD "ProductDocumentation" folder and select the file " HelpContentSetup.msha".
  5. Click "Add" for all items (or some, but don't cry when you can't access it when you are offline).
  6. Local help is available now.
Hope this helps. Let me know on the comments!


Tuesday, June 09, 2015

Bad Bad Cards from Dominion Adventures


As we look forward to the new release of Dominion Adventures, we should also remind ourselves that there are some hiccups with this release which may want you to hold back and wait for a re-print.

Some of the threads:
http://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/34c9wh/gamers_beware_newest_printings_of_rio_grande

TL;DR, The cards are inferior, lighter and so much so that it can be distinguished whether sleeved or not. That's bad enough, especially if you are mixing it with other elements from another Dominion set. This gives you the "predictability +5" ability to know whether the next cards are from Adventures.

I would suggest to hold back and wait. Look out for the "Made in USA with pride" logo. It means it sucks for this instance anyway.


Friday, June 05, 2015

Install Dot Net Framework 3.5 onto Windows 8 / 8.1 and Server 2012


Do you know that it is a lot more complicated than just throwing in a installer to install Dot Net Framework 3.5 on Windows 8 / 8.1 or Server 2012? The reason is that it already came with Dot Not Framework 4.5 and the installation of these Windows actually comes with Framework 3.5. It is just not enabled.

So, actually all you have to do is to enable it. But wait, why does it need to go to the Internet to do that? The installation is really stupid. If you are stuck in an offline environment, this is really terrible. But fear not, there is a way around it.

Simply locate your CD or where the Windows installation source files are and run this command to enable Dot Net Framework 3.5 :

Dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:NetFx3 /All /Source:(CD Drive):\sources\sxs /LimitAccess

Remember to run this as administrator though. And you should see something like this.


Hope this had been helpful. Let me know in the comments.

VMware vSphere Client V5.5 Update 2



I have no idea why VMware want to make life so difficult for everyone by going through so much forms and that and in the end you find that you are unable to find the download for VMware vSphere. Well, here I put up a direct link to their official copy for my own use and yours.

Download it here:
http://vsphereclient.vmware.com/vsphereclient/1/9/9/3/0/7/2/VMware-viclient-all-5.5.0-1993072.exe

If me know if this helps you.

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