Windows 11

[doug293cz]

I saw that yesterday.
I do have that on my Win Sys drive, but hadn't noticed it.

I have the inetpub directory, but it's (apparently) empty. What could it be for?

Brew on

 

[day_trippr]

I came across that a week ago last Tuesday, first on my wife's system, then mine. I created a Restore Point and messed with it on my machine and then learned I shouldn't have, so did the System Restore and all was fine again. Left it alone on both systems from there.

One article I read back then said the folder was empty, but my system had folders and files in a tree rooted at C:\inetpub. One of the files is this IIS image:

and the other file launches a "free" IIS trial...

Cheers!

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

https://www.windowslatest.com/2025/...elete-inetpub-folder-after-causing-confusion/

 

[doug293cz]

https://www.windowslatest.com/2025/...elete-inetpub-folder-after-causing-confusion/

"Microsoft will not explain why the empty folder is required to apply the security fixes." wtf?

Brew on

 

[balrog]

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. MS knows what is best for you.



When does Clippy come back I wonder.

 

[Kent88]

From what I understand Clippy is living well on his royalties from his ... ahem... adult book.

Don't Google it. I wish I hadn't.

Or do Google it. I still don't recommend googling it, but I have no say in what a bunch of random people on the Internet do, and I'm not here to kink shame.

 

[shoengine]

I came across that a week ago last Tuesday, first on my wife's system, then mine. I created a Restore Point and messed with it on my machine and then learned I shouldn't have, so did the System Restore and all was fine again. Left it alone on both systems from there.

One article I read back then said the folder was empty, but my system had folders and files in a tree rooted at C:\inetpub. One of the files is this IIS image:
View attachment 873514

and the other file launches a "free" IIS trial...

Cheers!

inetpub is the default root of IIS, but that is strange that they are sticking it on machines with no IIS. Mine is devoid of anything for sure. No symlinks as far as I can tell.

Hopefully we all get obligatory IIS installs to vastly increase our attack surface!

 

[estricklin]

Update on my transition from win10 to linux mint (cinnamon)... It's been very easy to adjust to. My 4 biggest peeves are:

• Inkscape doesn't work exactly like it did on win10 (I haven't put much effort into figuring out why yet)
• Haven't found anything as nice/simple as paint-dot-net for raster image editing (installed gimp: YIKES, Pinta looks like it might do with some effort put into learning it's interface layout).
• Most of my steam games don't work on anything but windows
• I liked having Visual Studio on hand to whip up a quick-n-dirty WinForms app in C# for any old task and I don't know where to even begin for anything like that in linux.

Don't grieve for the loss of Winforms, it's outdated at this point. In Linux, GTK is a very widely used GUI toolbox, but can also be used cross platform. I've only used it in C, so if your dead set on C# there are some options out there, but I won't speak to them because I have no personal experience.

 

[Hoochin'Fool]

Don't grieve for the loss of Winforms, it's outdated at this point. In Linux, GTK is a very widely used GUI toolbox, but can also be used cross platform. I've only used it in C, so if your dead set on C# there are some options out there, but I won't speak to them because I have no personal experience.

Oh, I know it's outdated, has been for almost 20 years! But I just knew it really well, and now the prospect of learning something completely new just has me thinking: ain't nobody got time for that.

 

[estricklin]

Oh, I know it's outdated, has been for almost 20 years! But I just knew it really well, and now the prospect of learning something completely new just has me thinking: ain't nobody got time for that.

I completely understand, I work in tech and I've had the rug jerked out from under me before too. If your looking for something to get up and going fast with, TKinter (Python) is as easy as it gets for building GUI Applications with, and Linux friendly to boot.

 

[Hoochin'Fool]

Any recommendations? I'm on Linux Mint (Cinnamon)... I'm okay with the command line, if need be, but I like the idea of using the system packages that handle upgrading and whatnot without too much effort on my end. Feel free to tell me to just google this stuff (cuz I haven't looked any further than my software manager app)!

 

[Kent88]

According to a quick Google and a forum post from 09/'21, that top left one, Python3-tk should be what you want, but I'm not guaranteeing anything.

 

[Kent88]

If you're pretty confident you know what you are doing, I'd suggest you install the Synaptic Package Manager, but *don't* ever use it to mark all upgrades. I've used that as my primary software manager for years, and it's terrific, but Linux distributions have moved away from it handling upgrades by default, instead using update managers that help keep users safe from the bleeding edge software that is still being tested.

But if you aren't that confident, don't use it.

 

[balrog]

 

[estricklin]

View attachment 873712

Any recommendations? I'm on Linux Mint (Cinnamon)... I'm okay with the command line, if need be, but I like the idea of using the system packages that handle upgrading and whatnot without too much effort on my end. Feel free to tell me to just google this stuff (cuz I haven't looked any further than my software manager app)!

On Linux, it's highly advisable to use a virtual environment for python. Python is used for various system functionality, and you don't wanna go messing with the Python/package versions. I suggest using pip for installing and managing python packages, and venv for your virtual environment.

You should be able to install venv and pip from the Software Manager (I've never actually tried it). If not resort to the "hammer"

sudo apt install Python3.Xx-venv

or something similar should work.

This may help:
https://packaging.python.org/en/latest/guides/installing-using-pip-and-virtual-environments/

 

[day_trippr]

Intel didn't mess around with my Core i9-14900KS return before sending its replacement. They got my old CPU Monday, tested it (and apparently confirmed it was borked) and the replacement arrived today.

The quick turn-around is good for at least one thumb up; if the replacement CPU can keep its poop together it'll be two thumbs up. Looks like this one was fabbed two batches after mine, I doubt they changed the fab process at all but hopefully they tested the KS parts to a tougher spec than before...

Cheers! (Fingers crossed)

 

[day_trippr]

Latest W11 update packs a lot for Copilot systems, not that much for non-Copilot machines...

https://www.neowin.net/news/windows-11-kb5055627-is-a-massive-update-with-a-lot-of-new-features/

 

[sibelman]

whip up a quick-n-dirty WinForms app in C# for any old task and I don't know where to even begin for anything like that in linux.

C# and Linux -- hmm. You'd need the .NET SDK for Linux to do that. There's even a snap for that. Also, Visual Studio Code is still probably available for Linux for what that's worth.

For a "quick'n'dirty WinForms app" under Linux, what I've done is to build a form using LibreOffice, which in turn drives one or more macros that in turn can call programs written in C, rust, whatnot. Not exactly elegant, but it provides a basic GUI (remember PowerBuilder?).

Happy coding, Hooch.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

JetBrains Rider (IDE for C#) is currently free for non-commercial use. I'm using it on a Mac and so far, it's been a smooth transition from Visual Study 2022. For ideas for replacing WinForms, I found that the latest round of LLMs were useful. Eto.Forms (event based), Avalonia (WPF, MVVM), and GTK# (signal/slot approach) appear to be active projects.

 

[day_trippr]

I received my replacement Intel Core i9-14900KS processor a couple of weeks ago but have been reticent about swapping it for the i9-12900KS I'm currently running because it just seemed that the Raptor Lake fiasco was not fully played out yet. That notion was mostly because I had installed a bios that had the Intel mandated "0x12B microcode" that was supposed to fix everything that ailed that processor series - before my processor crapped its pants, so to speak. So I knew there had to be something lurking out there they had not addressed yet, and have been holding up the swap.

Sure enough, this came out today:
https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-com...releases-0x12f-update-to-fix-vmin-instability

Now I get to wait until ASUS comes out with yet another updated bios before I screw up the courage to put fire on this CPU.

Ugh...

 

[sibelman]

All this sturm und drang re Intel makes me wonder if my next desktop will be ARM-based.

 

[balrog]

I received my replacement Intel Core i9-14900KS processor a couple of weeks ago but have been reticent about swapping it for the i9-12900KS I'm currently running because it just seemed that the Raptor Lake fiasco was not fully played out yet. That notion was mostly because I had installed a bios that had the Intel mandated "0x12B microcode" that was supposed to fix everything that ailed that processor series - before my processor crapped its pants, so to speak. So I knew there had to be something lurking out there they had not addressed yet, and have been holding up the swap.

Sure enough, this came out today:
https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-com...releases-0x12f-update-to-fix-vmin-instability

Now I get to wait until ASUS comes out with yet another updated bios before I screw up the courage to put fire on this CPU.

Ugh...

...not to mention, wondering what the heck were updates 0x12C, 0x12D, and 0x12E.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

...not to mention, wondering what the heck were updates 0x12C, 0x12D, and 0x12E.

Likely--as I don't work for ASUS but understand how code revisions work--those were internal test versions which either didn't fix the problem, or fixed the problem and yet ended up breaking something else and failed regression testing.

From a code version management standpoint, you don't want to go through internal iterations 0x12c, 0x12d, 0x12e, and finally achieve 0x12f which is releasable, and then go back and try to rename it 0x12c because that's the next letter in *released* code versions. All you do there is risk all SORTS of confusion when someone is looking for 0x12c and there are now two versions of it, the internal one which doesn't work and the external one which does... All it takes is one person who lets the wrong version out into the wild and now you'll never know who in the field is running what.

 

[balrog]

Likely--as I don't work for ASUS but understand how code revisions work--those were internal test versions which either didn't fix the problem, or fixed the problem and yet ended up breaking something else and failed regression testing.

From a code version management standpoint, you don't want to go through internal iterations 0x12c, 0x12d, 0x12e, and finally achieve 0x12f which is releasable, and then go back and try to rename it 0x12c because that's the next letter in *released* code versions. All you do there is risk all SORTS of confusion when someone is looking for 0x12c and there are now two versions of it, the internal one which doesn't work and the external one which does... All it takes is one person who lets the wrong version out into the wild and now you'll never know who in the field is running what.

Ha!
I worked in a shop that supposedly used "strict code versioning control" with CA Harvest.

It was always bitterly amusing to me to find a time/date stamp on an in-production executable, which was **LATER** than the version control last check in date/time, and compiling the Harvest version gave different byte count than said EXE.

Because, you know, software engineers sometimes "have" to take code home on their laptops to make quick repairs and don't always "have time" to "finish everything up just to make things pretty".

It was a small-ish place. DB analysts slash system admins were beneath software engineers and should just learn to "figure things out". It was maddening. But fun to revoke random Oracle access to sporadically different database tables to certain users. Not that I'd ever admit to that.

 

[day_trippr]

Phoebe Cam 2025

Lighting sucks but there are three phoebe eggs plus one parasitic house finch egg (the mottled brown one in the back).
If they don't take that one out, I will...

[edit] Last one of these in this thread, but had to show the proud mommy.

 

[z-bob]

I think that's a cowbird egg rather than house finch.

 

[day_trippr]

Nope. This has been going on for many years now, 100% house finches every time...

Cheers!

 

[Kent88]

https://bsky.app/profile/oregonthedm.bsky.social/post/3lpfil4hz622w

 

[Hoochin'Fool]

Linux's command-line "join" command is driving me batty!

 

[sibelman]

Linux's command-line "join" command is driving me batty!