Computer Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread II

[Mise]

Put it in speech marks. E.g.: C:\>cd "long folder name"

 

[Zelig]

I usually tab-complete them.

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

Why is the "special permissions" box greyed out (in the security tab of a file or folder properties), even though it is in ...\users\<me>\documents\, and how do I force windows 8 to allow me to enable it?

 

[Zelig]

Why?

The fact that you're asking leads me to believe you don't know what the "Special Permissions" check box actually does, so you shouldn't touch it.

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

Too bad, I'm doing it anyway. How do I ungrey it?

 

[Zelig]

So how about you explain what you're actually trying to accomplish?

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

Why does that matter?

 

[Zelig]

Because I can guarantee there's a better way to accomplish it than checking the "special permissions" checkbox.

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

Ok. What I'm trying to do is to get windows to stop pestering me to allow an old program to make changes on my computer, and to just open it without giving me user account control popups. What the program does is generate stars and planets en masse for an open source space software, itself also residing in Documents. Basically, read, write, and create new files of text and code.

 

[Zelig]

Which program?

What you're trying to do might be impossible with UAC enabled. Prior to Vista, many programs were poorly coded in their requirements for admin rights, causing various security issues. The UAC popups forced developers to bring their programs up to coding standards or risk losing users.

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

A reeeeeally obscure (and old) program called the globular cluster generator, last update was in 2002 or so.

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

New question: I have an external hdd that was salvaged from my old HP HDX laptop that died on me last year. I have a few files on it in the users\<me>\documents\ part that I encrypted. I mistakenly encrypted the decryption key with it, but I do remember the password, sans which letters I replaced with numbers and specials. Is it possible to snoop around the registry on that hdd to see if I can find it or to find a way to unencrypt them? The OS on it was Win 7 64 bit.

 

[Mr.WorldWide]

If the code key was hashed before it was stored you wouldn't be able to use any registry entry I believe.

What sort of setup do you have here? I've never had a problem plugging in run of the mill consumer HDDS from other people's windows PCs and accessing all their user files.

 

[Souron]

You're not going to find the password by snooping around. You'll have to guess the password outright.

 

[Souron]

I recently installed linux on a flash drive, and it became unstable after a few uses. Is there any way there could be anything physically wrong with the drive, and how do I check for that?

 

[Michkov]

If I add additional RAM to my PC would I benefit from RAM with a faster clockrate than the one the already installed RAM has? To be clear, I'm adding not replacing the RAM

 

[Zelig]

I recently installed linux on a flash drive, and it became unstable after a few uses. Is there any way there could be anything physically wrong with the drive, and how do I check for that?

http://mikelab.kiev.ua/index_en.php?page=PROGRAMS/chkflsh_en

Excuse the janky looking site, it's a legit tool.

If I add additional RAM to my PC would I benefit from RAM with a faster clockrate than the one the already installed RAM has? To be clear, I'm adding not replacing the RAM

No, all installed memory will run at the speed of the slowest module.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

How do you get around without using java or flashplayer?

This site demands java. I'm usually able to allow the specific scripts through NoScript, but not all.

I'm using firefox, adblock, noscript and DoNotTrackMe.

What's a good, easy to use and secure set up? Uninstall java and flash? What is needed as replacement?

 

[Zelig]

For Flash I use either IE or Chrome, they both include flash now without installing it from Adobe. (Youtube I use html5, though I really don't use youtube much.)

Java I simply don't use. If your web service/program requires Java, I have no interest in it. But really, I can't think of any instance of this happening in years, other than trying to find retina-capable programs on Mac OS when my preferred program is all blurry.

I don't use NoScript, it's annoying and useless. Just use adblock and cookie controller, no need for mucking with any tracking prevention stuff if you simply don't allow cookies.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

Okay, thanks! I might try that set up, but I suspect I'll get cut off half the Internet. There's no way you'd be able to use some car configurators then?