Category Archives: Operating Systems

HackTheBox: FFUF not showing file sizes in Kali console

Was working my way through the exercises on hackthebox.com and every FFUF scan was saying the file size as 0.

 

 

 

 

 

Turns out it was Bitdefender’ “Online Threat Protection” ->”Network threat protection”.

This blocks the filesize of FFUF results so the will come out as 0 if you are connected using VirtualBox.

 

Linux Parrot-OS How to switch window control box to right side

ParrotOS is another nice Security based Debian Linux Distro i found the other week but if your a windows user the placement of the “minimise and maximise” windows buttons is very frustating as there on the left side.

Open the menu and select “Control Center”. Then from the “Look and feel” section select “MATE Tweak” and then from the left side pick “Windows”.

Change the “Window control placement” from left to right.

Parrot Security (ParrotOS, Parrot) is a Free and Open source GNU/Linux distribution based on Debian Stable designed for security experts, developers and privacy aware people.

It includes a full portable arsenal for IT security and digital forensics operations. It also includes everything you need to develop your own programs or protect your privacy while surfing the net.

Parrot is available in three main editions, SecurityHome and Architect Edition, even as Virtual Machine (Virtual Box, Parallels and VMware), on Raspberry Pi and also on Docker.

From version 5.0 LTS, support for ARM platforms (arm64 and armhf) is back, and some images are also available for boards like Raspberry Pi.

The operating system ships by default with MATE Desktop Environment, but it is possible to install others DEs.

https://www.parrotsec.org/

Kali 2020.2 Linux Update Problem

If your getting this error while trying to update Kali Linux via with sudo apt update

Get:1 http://kali.download/kali kali-rolling InRelease [41.2 kB]
Err:1 http://kali.download/kali kali-rolling InRelease
The following signatures were invalid: EXPKEYSIG ED444FF07D8D0BF6 Kali Linux Repository <[email protected]>
Reading package lists... Done
W: GPG error: http://kali.download/kali kali-rolling InRelease: The following signatures were invalid: EXPKEYSIG ED444FF07D8D0BF6 Kali Linux Repository <[email protected]>
E: The repository 'http://http.kali.org/kali kali-rolling InRelease' is not signed.
N: Updating from such a repository can't be done securely, and is therefore disabled by default.
N: See apt-secure(8) manpage for repository creation and user configuration details.

The solution is to run the command;
sudo wget -q -O - archive.kali.org/archive-key.asc | sudo apt-key add

 

Huge thanks to the kalitut.com for this solution, i  had no idea how to fix it.

how to update Kali Linux and Fix update error – KaliTut

Windows 10 Wont enter sleep mode with Logitech Extreme 3D Pro Joystick plugged in

 

 

 

 

 

 


Windows 10 Wont enter sleep mode with Logitech Extreme 3D Pro Joystick plugged in.

I ran into this problem a while back as no matter what i did my PC would enter sleep mode.  i tried everything;

  • bios settings
  • windows power saver settings
  • driver updates

Turns out it was due to having the Logitech Extreme 3D Pro Joystick plugged in which i might add is a superb Joystick for Flight Simulator 2020.

Geforce Experience Bug:

Turned out, there is a bug in nVIDIA experience, down in the Windows driver level that would prevent the system from being idle, if you have a joystick plugged in (the article goes a bit deeper into details, it is very interesting if you are a software development related kind of person).

TL:DR , if you have nVIDIA GPU + nVIDIA GeForce Experience installed + have any kind of joystick plugged into the system , Windows won’t be able to sleep/turn screen off automatically until either:

  1. You turn off nVIDIA GeForce Experience in-game overlay.

  2. You unplug ALL joysticks off your system.

PSA: if GeForce Experience is enabled and joysticks are plugged in, Windows can’t automatically turn off screen / go to sleep. This is critical if you are using an OLED screen for your simpit. from flightsim

Windows 10 send to menu Tweak

The send to menu is located below in windows explorer. Press Windows Key + R to get to the Run dialog Window and enter “shell:sendto”

You can add shortcuts to folders to this location by placing them inside this folder;

C:\Users\<your windows username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\SendTo

Removing the list of Drives from the sendto menu requires a Registry tweak;

This is one of the most annoying things aboutr the sendto menu as it will list the drives on your system which most of the time isnt needed.

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
"NoDrivesInSendToMenu"=dword:00000001

Credit to tenforums;

Windows 10 1903 freezes PC – Fix Found

Microsoft did it again, released another f***king update for Windows 10 that broke things. This is the second or third time this has happened now.

This time the problem is similar again to one i had just solved a while ago where my PC would just freeze randomly.

Again this problem was caused by updating Windows 10 to 1809 which i only did a few months ago due to all the issues that update had.

This fucking update is a disaster and i have not been able to roll back to 1809 yet and i still down know whats causing the problem. All the evidence points to the Windows 1903 update.

The problem:
Only seems to occur when the PC is either idle or watching youtube or netflix.

Windows 10 Reliability:

Windows 10 Reliability after the Windows 10 1809 update

 

Windows 10 Reliability after the Windows 10 1903 update

 

So far ive;

Did Not work:

  • Reinstalled Video drivers
  • Reinstalled Bluetooth dongle drivers
  • uninstalled Realtek sound drivers
  • uninstalled Realtek ethernet drivers
  • Changing the ‘Default Sound Format’ from 48khz to 44khz
  • Reinstalling Realtek Lan Drivers
  • Reinstalled Realtek sound drivers
  • Uninstalled USB 3.0 Drivers
  • Ran the system file checker command ‘sfc /scannow
  • Reinstalling Asmedia USB 3.0 drivers
  • Disabled C1E power state in BIOS
  • Update Graphics card drivers (New Nvidia version)
  • Ran chkdsk on all drives-no errors reported
  • Reset Power saving settings
  • Reinstallion of Clean Windows 10 1903
    • The problem remained despite having a brand new clean install of Windows 10.
  • Turn Off Link State Power Management
  • Disable AppXsvc using Registry Editor
  • USB 3.0 – front side of PC disabled
  • Installed dot.net 3.5
  • Running Windows Memory Test
  • DPC Specfic fixes
    • disabled IPv6

The Fix in the BIOS:

  • Disable Core C6 state
  • Disabled C1 Support

Note:
This may be a BIOS or Motherboard compatability issue with Windows 10 1903. The motherboard in question here is an Asus m5a97 r2.0 with BIOS version 2501.

 

Windows 10 May 2019 Update Megathread from Windows10

Fixing DPC latency;

The below article which im still reading recommends a few things;

Fix High DPC Latency on Windows 10


Problem *seems* to be a compatability problem between windows and a Bluetooth Dongle.

I had old Bluetooth dongle from Motorola “BCM92035DGROM” which worked fine but i did have problems with it and the 1809 update.

The cause is still unknown the PC froze again for no known reason. The below article has some tips to stop it happenening;

Laptop freezes randomly after Install Windows 10 May 2019 update
https://windows101tricks.com/windows-10-freezes-randomly/

 


Articles about this problem;

https://howtofixwindows.com/windows-10-laptop-freeze-and-crash-issues/

https://wintechlab.com/windows-10-freezes-applications-not-responding/

Finding the cause of freezes;

https://www.digitalmastersmag.com/magazine/tip-of-the-day-how-to-find-crash-logs-on-windows-10/

How to rollback on the update;

https://howtofixwindows.com/rollback-windows-10-update/

Windows 10 wiped all my hard drives without warning

With the recent news that the latest Windows 10 update build (1809) deleted users downloads;

Microsoft:
We have paused the rollout of the Windows 10 October 2018 Update (version 1809) for all users as we investigate isolated reports of users missing some files after updating.
(via engadget.com)

i thought id post this story which ive been too lazy to post about for months.  If anything it shows that Windows 10 is not all its cracked up to be.

Over the years ive installed every Microsoft Windows OS;

  • Win 95
  • Win 98
  • Win Vista
  • Win 7
  • Win 8
  • Win 10

Windows 10 is the only one of those Operation Systems that wiped four hard drives without even a confirmation prompt to say you were “going to wipe out 5 hard drives”.

So what did you do?
It was almost new years eve and well my Windows 10 install was getting more broken after each update and the October 2017 update gave constant blue screens when using bluetooth headphones.  So i thought dam im going to have to reinstall windows 10 and all the dam updates.   At this point i really didnt want to do this with college work and programming source code scattered all over the shop.

F*ck it!
I had made a point of always backing up my PC since a horrable incindet back in 2003 where i lost the source code to two applications i was working on (fucking Maxtor Hard drives).  So yes i had a back up which was on another physical drive other than the SSD drive that Win 10  was installed.

Fed up of blue screens and problems since the October 2017 update i decided i had to reinstall Windows 10.  So i seen in Windows 10 there was a “Reset this PC” feature;

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was hoping this was one of “Ronseal” moments where it does “exactly what it says on the tin”,  it didnt.

What could go wrong
I had a back up and was ready to go, so i pressed the “Get Started” button and thought great, it will all be fine.  Now this is the part that is kinda fuzzy ill admit, i cant remember what it said but i was sure that “nothing” would go wrong when i presses the enter button to “reset this PC” that as i pressed it i walked out of the room to get a cuppa Tea.

The horror:
I was away from the PC for a while and thought to myself “sure might as well let it do its thing” and ill watch some TV.

I had expected than when i would return to the PC that Windows 10 would be installed and ready to go.  An hour later i came back to the PC to see that it hadnt booted into any Windows 10/Any kinda interface, nothing.  Black screen and a DOS prompt saying the dreaded message;

“No system drive found”

Windows had mangled or rahter me the menu which Windows used to find the system drive to boot from. After using the BIOS to boot of the correct drive Windows 10 booted.

Not only had the the main Windows drive been wiped but all other internal hard drives were wiped with exception to the External USB 3.0 drive.

External USB Drive to the rescue:
For some reason Windows 10 didnt wipe this drive if it had it would have been an utter fucking nightmare.  I had my programming and college work from over the tears on this drive and somewhere in the “cloud” with Goggle Drive.

Theres hope:
I knew that when you delete a file its not really deleted rather the location where it was is marked as a place for new files to be written.  So i had not make sure that i didnt save or write anything to all the hard drives in question.

Recovery Software:
I had used recovery software before and i knew that

  • it can recovery a lot of files
  • it takes a very long time depeneding on the hard drive in question

So i needed to find the best recovery software available and hope that it would work.

Recommended software:
Figuring out which recovery software was the best was difficult but after a few days of trial and error i found that EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard was the best due to its simeple to use approach via a wizard which walks you through the steps of what drive to recover etc.

It was easy to use and recovery almost everything that was deleted.  Some files cannot be recovered but it managed to recover ALL of my Music collection which was nothing short of a miracle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notes:

This is not a  Paid advert but just a personal opinion from a Windows 10 nightmare.