How to Hose Windows...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Rick Altman
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Rick Altman

If you give me 15 seconds and three steps, I can most likely ruin your copy
of Windows

1. Go to Display Properties | Settings | Advanced.

2. Click the Adapter page and click Properties.

3. At Device Usage, choose Do Not Use This Device.


In my testing, this becomes a potentially unrecoverable situation, in which
Windows starts normally but the screen remains completely dark. Safe mode or
external display will not address this. The only options that I know of are
to reinstall Windows (and that would have to be done as a fresh install from
boot, not an upgrade from within Windows) or to know every keystroke to
Device usage and implement them blind.

Is this true? Am I missing something, or is this a frighteningly easy way to
render the OS unusable...?




Rick Altman
Pleasanton CA
 
Rick Altman said:
If you give me 15 seconds and three steps, I can most likely ruin your copy
of Windows

1. Go to Display Properties | Settings | Advanced.

2. Click the Adapter page and click Properties.

3. At Device Usage, choose Do Not Use This Device.


In my testing, this becomes a potentially unrecoverable situation, in which
Windows starts normally but the screen remains completely dark. Safe mode or
external display will not address this. The only options that I know of are
to reinstall Windows (and that would have to be done as a fresh install from
boot, not an upgrade from within Windows) or to know every keystroke to
Device usage and implement them blind.

Is this true? Am I missing something, or is this a frighteningly easy way to
render the OS unusable...?




Rick Altman
Pleasanton CA
Click to expand...
Hello, I am not computer literate. I am making a assumption. It seems to me
that you have disabled the video card. There should be a VGA capability on
the motherboard. Do not know if upon reboot and use of "safe mode" the system
would use the onboard video, or if one needs to enter the BIOS and change the
configeration.
take care.
beamish.
 
Since the black screen will not allow you to login, restart, press F8 and
choos 'last known good config'. Y=That control set is created at logon.
 
Rick Altman said:
If you give me 15 seconds and three steps, I can most likely ruin your
copy of Windows

1. Go to Display Properties | Settings | Advanced.

2. Click the Adapter page and click Properties.

3. At Device Usage, choose Do Not Use This Device.


In my testing, this becomes a potentially unrecoverable situation, in
which Windows starts normally but the screen remains completely dark. Safe
mode or external display will not address this. The only options that I
know of are to reinstall Windows (and that would have to be done as a
fresh install from boot, not an upgrade from within Windows) or to know
every keystroke to Device usage and implement them blind.

Is this true? Am I missing something, or is this a frighteningly easy way
to render the OS unusable...?




Rick Altman
Pleasanton CA
Click to expand...
Try rebooting in VGA Mode instead of Safe Mode.
Ted
 
Actually, you can do all of those things, and I did try "Last known good
config." Windows doesn't seem to see anything wrong with the current config,
and treats it like the last known. So, yes, I tried that also, and no, that
didn't work.

Earlier in the thread, the suggestion to insert another video card would be
great advice...if this had not all taken place on a notebook PC...!
 
Not sure about the options here, but at least in win 98 (it has been
a while) there was a way to run setup again and reset the adapter
to the std VGA mode then go from there. Maybe in the repair
console mode ? First time I had to find out about that in win 98
was when I picked a wrong display setting and the display became
unreadable ... click OK to continue ... oooooops !!

mikey
 
Actually if you reboot, and know the keystrokes to use you could recover -

[Enter] or arrow keys followed by [Enter] (if using a boot manager, to
select OS), wait two minutes to be sure one is at the XP account selection -
use arrow keys if you need to select anything other than the default
account, other wise [Enter]. Wait another few minutes to be sure the desktop
has stopped loading all the start up stuff.

Windows HotKey to get the start menu, down arrow, right arrow, letter c (for
control panel), Enter, d (gets us to date and time), again d for display,
Enter, right arrow five times to get the settings tab, tab four times for
advanced, Enter, right arrow for Adapter, Alt+P for properties, tab to
device usage dropdown combobox, u to use, tab (to OK), Enter, tab, tab,
Enter, tab, Enter, hard reboot.if required.

Haven't tested this and there may be some variations depending on individual
settings, BUT in theory it would be possible for anyone to record their
sequence, print it off and keep it handy.
 
Usually on the selection screen when you F8 to get the boot menu.
It's there above last known good on my screen.
 
If you give me 15 seconds and three steps, I can most likely ruin your copy
of Windows

1. Go to Display Properties | Settings | Advanced.

2. Click the Adapter page and click Properties.

3. At Device Usage, choose Do Not Use This Device.


In my testing, this becomes a potentially unrecoverable situation, in which
Windows starts normally but the screen remains completely dark. Safe mode or
external display will not address this. The only options that I know of are
to reinstall Windows (and that would have to be done as a fresh install from
boot, not an upgrade from within Windows) or to know every keystroke to
Device usage and implement them blind.

Is this true? Am I missing something, or is this a frighteningly easy way to
render the OS unusable...?




Rick Altman
Pleasanton CA
Click to expand...


You do something that stupid, you deserve to be hosed.
 
I would contend that it is not that stupid. Would you agree that deleting a
device in Device Manager is a legitamate move to a plausible end? You and I
do it all the time to allow the plug-and-play engine to kick in. While not
nearly so accessible, this could easily be mistaken for the same action.

Or am I being delusional...?
 
You also have to delete the VGA driver (you know the one to recover from idiots like you doing exactly that).
 
Deleting a device in device manager and telling windows to not use a
device are 2 different things completely.

If you delete a device then the next time Windows boots it finds it
and tries to install drivers etc for it. It is treated as a new device
even though it has been there all along.

Choosing the "do not use" option then tells windows that the device is
present but you dont want it to be used because something is wrong
with it. So Windows does exactly what you tell it to do and ignores
the device completely.

Windows is not going to ever attempt to reinstall that device thru pnp
because the device has never been removed. It has always been there
you just told Windows not to use it so Windows does what it is told to
do, ignores it, and you end up hosed.

Like I said its stupid to ever choose that option for a device.
 
I think it's very kind of Mac to take time to figure out the keystroke
sequence. I'm curious to know what Rick will say.
 
Deleting a device in device manager and telling windows to not use a
device are 2 different things completely.
Correct.

If you delete a device then the next time Windows boots it finds it
and tries to install drivers etc for it. It is treated as a new device
even though it has been there all along.
Click to expand...

Yep. Often that is exactly what you do not want, i.e. if you want
Windows to ignore a device rather than drive it.
Choosing the "do not use" option then tells windows that the device is
present but you dont want it to be used because something is wrong
with it. So Windows does exactly what you tell it to do and ignores
the device completely.
Click to expand...

That's exactly what you want in a number of contexts.
Like I said its stupid to ever choose that option for a device.
Click to expand...

On the contrary; let's say you have an onboard device you do not use,
that clashes with something else that you do use. You cannot
physically remove that device, and sometimes you cannot effectively
disable it in CMOS either, for one reason or another.

So "[x] Disable in this profile" is *exactly* what you want to do.

It may seem absurd to disable the primary display, but there may be
contexts even for that - such as using a "headless" system that is
managed remotely. Dangerous, because if the OS fails to boot, it
never reaches a point at which it can be managed remotely.

Normally, you'd boot up a maintenance OS off CDR or similar instead,
and from there, change the settings involved. The real scandal is
that XP does not ship with a suitable maintenance OS for such
purposes; fortunately, a couple of individuals have done what MS
cannot (or would not), and created Bart PE as a suitable mOS.

In this case, you'd boot from a Bart PE CDR, then access the HD's
registry via Regedit as redirected via Paraglider's RunScanner plugin,
and manually fix up the registry settings from there. You could also
load Regedit without RunScanner, and manually find and bind the
relevant hives to edit them, but that's more tedious.
 
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