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If you remember nothing except this, you will still be ahead of the scammers. Rules of the Road [h|t Michael Horowitz]

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wavy, Cybertooth, SueW, RetiredGeek

This snag seemingly only affects Windows 8.1 ESU, but since there is virtually no new content on that rubric, I will remark here.
On 29 November 2024, Bleeping Computer reported on a zero-day flaw affecting Windows Server 2012 R2.
The article mentions it was first introduced to Windows Server 2012 over two years ago, yet remained undetected or unfixed until [today].
0Patch has uploaded its unofficial patches to its World-Wide Web site.
I query if there will be an emergency patch for those using abbodi86’s procedure? `

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abbodi86, PKCano

Oh yes. Wandering around the Science and Engineering Laboratory at U. of Illinois-Chicago {Circle} in 1977, I discovered a room with hermaphrodite devices having a typewriter keyboard and a monitor screen.
“How do I get to use those?” Learned there was a procedure to register for a free account, even if you were not taking a class which required one.
Those devices ran HP-2000F Timeshare Basic.
I was subscribed to Creative Computing magazine, and had ordered David Ahl’s “101 Computer Games” book. I put a few of those games up on my account.
The most interesting program I installed was one which let you vote for your favorite program of the week on the system. Answering the question: A “Star Trek” designed game was usually at or near the top of the survey.
So I knew Basic. When I relocated to southern California in February 1981, I was looking for a job in data processing. (I had been hired as a mainframe programmer [COBOL] after graduating from UICC.)
But when looking at “Help Wanted” ads in this field, I noticed a quizzical addition to some corporations’ ‘requirements‘: Persons with two years experience on IBM Basic.
In 1981, if there were any real persons with two years experience coding of IBM Basic, they were not going to leave their position at IBM to work for less money at your corporation. So you had better consider me, even if my experience is not IBM Basic.
I was finally hired to work for McDonnell Douglas Automation Company (MCAUTO). But my programming there was not in anybody’s Basic. It was minicomputers.

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Respectfully, this is not new news. It was initially detected by ProtonVPN in March 2020.
Michael Horowitz (who is a member here at AskWoody) reported it in May 2022. It was picked up by ArsTechnica on 17 August 2022 and went viral. He scribed (and I agree) that using a VPN for security and privacy on MacOS is a scam. {If your use of a VPN is to get around GeoFencing, that works. But then, that is not fully protecting you.}
A VPN provider is in a rough spot. If it goes public with this, it may lose customers to VPN providers that say nothing.

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dg1261 wrote:

Nibbled To Death By Ducks wrote:

This sort of thing is one reason I have for not having ANY financial apps on my smartphone, period. Cash, bank ATM cards, PayPal, checks and a credit card (used very sparingly) may make me a Luddite, but I’m sorry.

If you write checks, make sure you protect yourself from check washing: https://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud/info-2023/stop-check-washers.html

Anything with a check in it should only be mailed from the slot inside the post office. Not even the mailbox outside in front of the post office is safe.

 

I keep tabs on the Weekly Flyer that gets left at the address here. (I had to jump through hoops to get on that list!) That flyer has an outside sheath.
Regularly, one of the ads on that sheath is for paper checks. When will these corporations give it up? When even your issuing bank is cautioning you to not write checks, to attempt to stay in business is foolhardy at the least, and dangerous at the worst. {‘Porch pirates’ would love to obtain the outbound mail with the paper checks therein.}
I have a long-standing account with my local bank. It includes free money orders for myself. To get those, I have to physically visit the bank. The financial amount is indelibly printed on the money order. The funds have already been pledged. The recipient can accept the amount upon its arrival. I recommend you investigate whether your financial institution offers money orders for free.
{It also helps that I am two blocks away from a ZIP Code post office, which is from where envelopes containing those money orders are mailed.}

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We’re up to v 13.5.4 now (as of 17 September 2024).

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Alex5723

Whew. I’ll keep this terse. Here is the correct cable hook-ups for my computer. Again, it was difficult to get to the back of the tower, and the light source decided to take a tumble off its perch while I was trying to get a picture of this! But this is it. I’m posting this image here as a tertiary backup if anything ever disappears from the drive on which it is stored. The cables go into the orange / pink, and lime ports.

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PKCano wrote:

Plug the green (lime) wired connector from the speaker into the green (lime) port on the sound card.

Thank you for attempting, pkcano.
But the connection emerging from the speakers is red | white. It is visible in computer037.
The lime port actually connects my USB 2.0 webcam. It somehow stands in for the default audio.
n0ads’ image from Amazon is not my connection cable. But it was working.
The pink port is my microphone. That is in the correct place.
Here is the current configuration. It plays audio, but it does not transmit to my speakers.

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Greetings. I am sorry I have to ask this again.
My mouse failed. It was scrolling the screen up & down all by itself, and zooming in and out as if somebody had clicked on something.
Tuesday, I went to Micro Center and bought a new mouse.

To disconnect the failing mouse and plug in the new mouse, I had to mess around with the connections at the back of the desktop.
Yes – something was disconnected.
Why didn’t I take a picture of the sound card connection when it was properly functioning?! Well – I will now!

I have no audio again. I have cables going into the black / pink, and lime ports on the sound card.
I’ve inspected the audio card gif previously posted. I’ve read Wikipedia’s definitions of what each port provides. Just what is it I have messed up? Please advise.

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jvnase wrote:

Is there a free tool that will capture a window that scrolls horizontally?

grumpygrampy wrote:

I’m looking for tool (free is possible) that will allow me to scroll down vertically to capture additional data below the current window?  Thank you

TechTango wrote:

I take a LOT of screenshots using a hotkey with Screenpresso (not free). It has a decent editor that includes combining multiple images.

I’m also a long time user of FastStone Image Viewer / Editor. It also takes screenshots but the tool cannot be started with a hotkey combo. FastStone is free for home users, but I’ve donated multiple times.

FastStone Capture v 7.6 (2013) is what I have on this Windows® 7 x64 computer. It has a feature that will capture a scrolling World-Wide Web page.
I am unsure if it is free. Visit its W-WW page.

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Whew.
Yes, thankfully I have restored all audio and video elements of this desktop.
I thank everybody who provided advice on this.

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This may be the solution.
I disconnected my video camera (partially to unclutter the wires), and have regained the audio.
I will reconnect the video camera later tomorrow, and test Zoom to see if it recognizes the devices.
But yes, for right now, I have audio. I did not have to reboot. Await a final post from me where I set this to ‘resolved’.

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Thank you so far.
Yours truly forgot he could get the color codes for the sound card on Wikipedia.
I still have not yet gotten the audio restored. But now I have reached a point where something is not in question. The pink port is for the microphone. That is correctly connected.
For what remains, the red and white jacks from the front subwoofer are going into the light blue and lime jacks on the rear of the desktop.
This is what the ‘Sound’ section of Control Panel now displays =
This is still no audio coming out of the speakers (@ 67%). I tried playing a podcast. The seconds tick, but nothing is heard.

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Deleting the remnant patch files from the C: drive worked.

Trying to run DISM produced an error message that it was 32-bit, but this laptop is 64-bit. I will look a little deeper later. Thank you, everybody.

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Microfix

n0ads wrote:

Steve wrote:

where abbodi86’s update program resides.

Don’t know if this applies in your case, but once the security patches for a particular month have been successfully installed the patch files are no longer needed and should be deleted from that folder (or at the very least moved to a different drive.)

If you don’t do this, they’ll slowly gobble up more and more space on your drive until you no longer have room to add new ones to the folder; BTDT on my Windows 7 PC!

This is the step I will attempt. Being terse, I did not inform you the Windows 8.1 computer is my laptop which travels with me, whether it is to Geneva, IL., or Asakusa, Tokyo, Japan. It no longer has to do as much downloading since I installed 1GB fiber internet here at the abode on the Windows 7 x64 system. (Before then, the patches were downloaded using public wi-fi onto that D: drive, which was then reattached to this desktop.)
Essentially, I was uncertain whether I needed to keep all those security patches. This response says ‘no’.

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