Shameless plug: I've developed and maintain a couple of tools to control Windows 10/11 updates, telemetry and other potentially unwanted network traffic: FlashBoot and Emergency Boot Kit. Using these tools you can make Windows 10/11 completely silent online if you want to (akin to Windows 7 or Windows XP).

https://www.prime-expert.com/flashboot/

https://www.prime-expert.com/embootkit/

You are welcome. One-time purchase, lifetime updates. Not a subscription.

Why would I purchase this compared to the million other scripts and tools that exist today? Many of which are completely open source.

There's WinAeroTweaker, Win11Debloat, FlyOOBE, ChrisTitus App, and dozens more that don't cost a thing because they're basically a collection of powershell scripts and a wrapper.

It's a valid question. What does a paid app offer that these free and easier to get alternatives do not?

Microsoft has dropped 16-bit application support via builtin emulator (NTVDM) from 64-bit builds of Windows, whether it happens to be Windows 10 or earlier version of Windows, depends on user (in my case, it was Windows Vista). However, you can still run 16-bit apps on 64-bit builds of Windows via third party emulators, such as DOSBox and NTVDMx64.

> you can still run 16-bit apps on 64-bit builds of Windows via third party emulators, such as DOSBox and NTVDMx64.

Or Wine, which is less reliable but funnier.

Do you mean winevdm? https://github.com/otya128/winevdm

Wine itself doesn't run on Windows AFAIK.

> Wine itself doesn't run on Windows AFAIK.

It does, if you use an old enough version of windows that SUA is available :). I never managed to get fontconfig working so text overlapped its dialogue boxes and the like, but it was good enough to run what I needed.

Wine ran sort-of-fineish in WSL v1 and I'm pretty sure it'll run perfectly in WSL v2 (which is just a VM).

True, but at this point you're basically doing Windows-on-Linux-on-Windows. But why not anyway... applications will anyway run way faster than on the hardware they were originally thought for.

The real prize is running Win16 apps on 64-bit Windows.

Mind you, Wine might lose that too ...

I can reset my advertisement profile by creating a new account on ChatGPT, for Meta platforms (Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp) this is not the case.

I maintain a software to aid in installation of Windows 7 to new PCs (FlashBoot Pro): https://www.prime-expert.com/flashboot/ . Recently there was a reduction in sales. You are welcome.

Could you please provide more info on this topic, e.g. a link? I intended to buy EV code signing certificate as a sole proprietor to fix long-standing problem with my software when Windows Defender pops up every time I release a new version. Is EV code signing certificate no longer a viable solution to this problem? Is there no longer a difference between EV and non-EV code signing certificate?

After Microsoft's March 2024 update, EV Code signing certs don't offer instant Microsoft Defender reputation. Now, OV and EV both code signing certificates can be installed and stored on FIPS 140 Level 2 or Common Criteria EAL 4+ certified HSM, tokens, or cloud HSMs. So, you can consider EV Code Signing as higher security and higher validation with no more difference. If u want to buy code signing at affordable cost, I recommend: https://signmycode.com/cheap-code-signing-certificates

Sure: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/security/trusted-root/prog...

3.D.3 covers the details about EV CS.

This remind me of when everybody and his dog was shoehorning blockchain into everything. Blockchain-based pet platforms, pet owners earning tokens for participating in community, pet care services fueled by smart contracts, and the like.

NASM has an option (-Ox) to specify how many passes it should take trying to optimize near jumps for short jumps. I usually specify -O9.

Thanks for mentioning nasm.

Both GNU assembler and LLVM integrate assembler parse and match instructions only once. hey then store an internal representation in memory and perform fixed-point iteration. The section/fragment representation gives a lot of flexibility.

In contrast, nasm parses and matches instructions multiple times depending on the optimization level. It also assigns addresses during parsing and uses an ad-hoc method for JMP/JCC instructions. The end conditions of the fixed-point iteration algorithm (global_offset_changed and stall_count) seem unconventional. -O0 does not "relax all" short jumps to near jumps.

My idea of getting one step ahead of similar backdoors is to wrap sshd traffic into a spiped tunnel. Spiped is compiled from source and linked statically (last stable version from 2021).

jeez, why not just compile ssh static?

I still want sshd updated by my OS package manager. Statically linked spiped, which is out of scope of my OS package manager, is just a second line of defense.

spiped is solid. Wireguard is another good option that is included in the Linux kernel.

There's no Win 9x phase in Win XP setup, of course. :) There's optional DOS phase, then text-mode phase (running NT kernel under the hood, but UI is in VGA text mode), and then finally GUI phase of the setup.

You're absolutely right, I noticed my mistake only when I couldn't edit the comment anymore.

Still, the graphic part with progress bar on left does kinda mimic the 9x installer

Problem 5 has a simpler geometric solution, it's enough to plot circle of radius sqrt(2) on the Oab plane and a few lines b=-a, b=-a+1, b=-a+2, b=-a-1, b=-a-2 to observe the intersections. The rest of the lines are too far from this circle to intersect with it.

That's cool observation.

It's a good reflex when you see the sum of two squares to think at the Circle.

Problem 6 has a similar resolution too: you have the circle of radius sqrt(3) and the rect a+b=n^2.

Considering the fact that n is natural is easy to find the solutions: n=0 and n=1