Archive for the ‘Windows’ Category

TV out | Thinkpad T23 | Linux and Windows

Sunday, January 20th, 2008

What I want is to display PC output on my TV (it fits DivX play very well!)

I bought:

_ 4-pin male-male S-Video Cable (Thomson KBV600)

_ Video Adapter From Scart to S-Video + 3RCA(2 audio + 1 video) (Thomson KBV608)

I connect my laptop t23 to my TV (Sony Triniton CRT)

The very first step is to set the LCD monitor resolution to 800×600 that it’s pretty close to the TV one.

I had the same problem both on Linux and Windows. I could see the picture on the TV but it was black and white. Then I solved with this howto:

http://www.camp0s.com/pc_related/svideo/svideo.php

Basically that says you need to connect the pins 15 to 20 of the scart -> S-Video adapter.

Windows XP

_ Right clicking on the Desktop

_ Settings (I guess you can do it through the Control Panel instead)

_ Video Adaptor OR Video Card OR Hardware

_ Settings

_ Advanced

_ Display Tab

_ Choose TV as an output. Have a look of all the options this tab should offer to you.

Linux
For those computers equipped by a S3 Savage Video Card (as the T23 is), you need the s3switch program.

  • List currently attached devices, active devices, and current format
$ sudo s3switch
  • Make CRT, LCD, and S-Video (TV) output active
$ sudo s3switch crt lcd tv
  • Set S-Video (TV) output format to NTSC
$ sudo s3switch ntsc

On Debian, you would simply launch:

apt-get install s3switch

But there’s a but. T23 users may need to apply the patch attached to this entry to avoid a Segmentation Fault. So you need to download the source of the program [attached, as well].

$ patch s3switch.c s3switch.patch

$ make

# mv s3switch /usr/local/bin

But there’s [one more] but. I can’t compile the source because of a weird inclusion in s3switch.c.

So I download the source of the Debian package

apt-get source s3switch

I apply the patch to it by hand (not through the patch command) and compile with make.

mv s3switch /usr/local/bin

Now it works! Very proud!

s3switch patch

s3switch source

Resetting Windows Account Passwords From a Linux Partition

Tuesday, October 9th, 2007

Scenario: a laptop with 2 partitions: a Linux one and a Windows XP one.

Problem: you completely forgot the Windows password for your user but you definitely need ( shame, I know :-) ) to run it.

Solution: chntpw

Yeah, it’s a smart Linux application to reset your Windows password.

If you have a Debian-based distribution, you can simply install it through this:

apt-get install chntpw

So you can run it in your Linux partition or you could acquire a live distribution (e.g. Knoppix) and launch the program in there.

The command to use is similar to this:

chntpw -u my_user /media/sda1/WINDOWS/system32/config/SAM

Be careful. It seems not able to change the password but just to reset it (you must insert an * while prompting for the new password).

AVG Free Antivirus for Windows

Thursday, July 19th, 2007

You can download it from the Official site.

It’s on the Product page, at the bottom of the list (Free Security).

There is no limit in duration, there’s a limit in the functionalities. However, all is well documented.