Daniel B's Tech Blog

First cab of the rank in my new series is the ModernFlyouts app. ModernFlyouts is a Microsoft Store App that changes the look and functionality of the standard Windows 10 UI for things like volume controls. It's easy to install and works immediately once you open it. First thing I tried was the volume control and found it awesome change to the standard UI. In the above example, this is the Volume Control flyout modification. I was immediately impressed that it was able to provide me with additional information and controls from Spotify. Other objects like Airplane Mode and Caps Locks also see a change to the UI. The settings provide a few switches to change the layouts and the selections as you need them, but for a simple utility, it's enough. Known Issues One issue I experienced was that after I uninstalled the app when testing, it did not immediately restore the standard UI flyouts on Windows 10. Cost Free Link Show your support for the app by heading over to the Microsoft St

Through the day-to-day I forget sometimes how customizable the Windows 10 system is. Windows 10 for productivity is often (at least in my line of work) just once Office 365 is install its about getting to work. But there is a lot that developers are creating to make  Windows 10 not only do almost anything these days but look awesome doing it. In my new series, I am taking a look at the latest in Windows 10 apps on the Microsoft Store that give Windows 10 an edge. These apps can either be small utilities that give some visual appeal or something that just adds something extra to your work flow. Why Microsoft Store Apps? The Microsoft Store is often given a lot of flack for being a terrible App Store (and in most case is it a garbage pile), but sometimes there are some gems that you can find and these deserve some exposure. I have tried and tested a lot of operating systems in my time, but in an age where I need to get work done I am always looking for tools, utilities and new software t

In the homelab again working on converting a Linux box to a virtual machine and a popular tool to do this is VMware Converter. So while I was doing work on my main computer, I was using my laptop which is a HP EliteBook x360 1030 G2. Notably with the touch screen. I installed VMware Converter and started it up and... Nothing. It appears that its not starting. Run as Administrator... Nothing. Compatibility Mode with Windows 8.1... Nothing. Compatibility Mode with Windows 7.... Nothing. So looking through the Event Viewer and I find the following error: Faulting application name: converter.exe Faulting module name: ISD_Tablet.dll I have seen the ISD_Tablet.dll error before on other applications and a quick Google Search found that it was related to the Wacom ISD Service. This is used for controlling the touch screen and the stylus pen that his available for this model of laptop. Solution Stop the Wacom ISD Service. Stopping the service will kill the ISD_Tablet.dll and the application wil

I have had a couple of these Lenovo ThinkCentre m53 computer for a while now, but I thought it would be great to be able to get more use out of them than just running Windows 10 and Ubuntu Linux bare metal, and install a hypervisor. Out of the box, these units aren't supported by VMware to install vSphere ESXi. But this is a challenge I was up for today. System Specifications These are the specifications of the unit that I will be using in this guide. There are some variants to this model and your experience may differ. Processor Intel Pentium Processor J2900 2M Cache, 2.41GHz, up to 2.66GHz burst frequency Form factor Tiny desktop Onboard SATA 1 x SATA 3.0Gb/s controller 1 x connector on planar Hard drive Kingston 2.5" SATA, 6.0Gb/s, 128GB SSD (Non-Standard) Chassis Dimensions (W x D x H)  179 x 182 x 34.5 mm Power supply 65W, autosensing, 88% PSU Audio support HD Audio, Realtek® ALC283 codec Speaker Internal speaker for business audio (1.5 watt) Wireless 11b/g/n wireless, PC

Update (6/8/2020): This appears to be resolved as Microsoft have updated the requirements. AVX2 is required for computers running less than Windows 10. The optional Background video effects are not supported on processors without an AVX2 instruction set running on Windows 8.1 or below. For me running Windows 10, this is working for me now using AVX instruction sets.

I recently had to replace a few parts in my PC and thought that my Windows 10 activation through the Microsoft Account would be enough. However it wasn't. I went through Microsoft Support to get it reactivated. However as the original build was done through the free upgrade, the PC had changed too much to be considered the same computer for a reactivation. When speaking to the engineer they asked me for a Windows 7 key since the original computer was upgraded. Luckily I had a key available. This command allows you to enter a Windows 7 Product Key to activate Windows 10. It will work as long as it it is a matching edition of Windows (e.g. Windows 7 Pro to Windows 10 Pro). slui 3 This has worked a couple of times for me now. See if it works for you.

Our work is using Microsoft Teams more and more lately and a new feature that has been turned on was Shifts for Microsoft Teams. There is a feature (at time of writing) that allows you to Export the Shifts schedule to a Excel spreadsheet. However, with the current version of Shifts there are some interfaces that are missing or lacking. For example, when you do this Export of the schedule, there are no prompts. None. Nothing to ask when you where to save the file, nor that the export was completed. So after some digging I have found out that, when you do an export, the Excel file is save to your default Downloads folder. It should be clearer that this is happening, and hopefully they fix this up and make it more obvious in future versions. Thanks to this forum thread for the answer.