Finally retiring my last legacy windows box!

Final transfer from an ancient windows

This particular ancient server has stood as the glue holding several ancient record keeping systems together.  Today marks the last day that it was operating.  I supported this computer for almost it’s entire lifespan.  This Dell ran consistently for over 10 years with very little trouble.  Now your watch is over.

I have been retiring or upgrading unsupported systems all year. it’s to know that all the critical systems are up to date.  Let this be yet another warning if you are running Windows XP, Vista, 7, or 2008 Server (or anything earlier), you should upgrade immediately if you are online in any capacity.  Same goes for macs older then 10.13 (High Sierra). Seriously, don’t let it become a problem.

exFAT vs exFAT!

No exFATThe interoperable file system that is nearly impossible to interoperate.  Introduced in 2006 by Microsoft, it eventually gained compatibility from XP to Windows 10.  Apple introduced support in 10.6.5.  Even Linux got to play thanks to Fuse.  It turns out that any reasonable sized drive prepared in windows will not be compatible with Mac and unable to mount. This is because Apple’s implementation of exFAT requires less then 1048576 bytes per cluster, where as Windows varies it’s cluster size depending on the capacity of the volume.  Best advise for mac people is to format it on windows, but set the block size to 1024. Can we get a new file system now please?

GeForce Bootcamp Issues fixed with a tool for gamers!

GeForce Logo

So I had a bit of trouble with some bootcamp machines running the Nvidia GeForce 9400 in both Windows 7 & 8.  Intermittently they would boot without video.  Not right away, initially, it would show video during initial startup.   However, as it got to the login screen, the screen would go distinctly blank.  I had installed the latest drivers from apple (Bootcamp Additions), even tried 3rd party drivers.  Nothing solved the problem, the best I could do was reduce the frequency of occurrence.  I was about to resign just to deal with it when a came upon GeForce Experience.  This is a software suite to optimize Nvidia graphics cards for gaming.  The  9400/9400M is certainly not a gamer card, but that doesn’t stop the Experience from identifying and installing proper drivers before reporting that no gaming optimizations are available.  Despite it’s inability to enhance my gaming, the tool certainly resolved all my driver issues.  I cannot recommend it highly enough.  Give it a go if your Nvidia drivers are making you crazy.

link:
http://www.geforce.com/geforce-experience