Category Archives: Windows

[iOS] iPhone 4 and the iOS 6.x firmwares

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iphone4-pwnedAbstract

You are using an iPhone 4 and you coincidentally updated to iOS 6.1.3, which cannot be jailbroken at the moment. Since you saved the SHSH blobs you think you can restore by doing a replay APTicket attack with TinyUmbrella or Cydia. Sadly iTunes shows errors like 1600, 1601, 1602, 1604 etc.

If you have an iPhone 4s or iPhone5 you can stop reading here. This article will not be able to help you. The iDevices with an A5 CPU or later cannot be downgraded with replay attacks at the moment. Continue reading →

[Muzaq] Universal Audio Annouces UAD-2 Octo

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uad-cto_core_hq

Universal Audio is stepping on. Producers who still thought the UAD-2 Quad’s power ain’t sufficient can soon get a UAD-2 Octo, thus effectively using 8 SHARC processors. Nuff powa foa de ppl ;-)

As a side effect of this step the prices for the rest of the UAD-2 family (PCIe and Satellite) are lowered. Entry price for the UAD-2 Octo is about 1,500€ (1,200 GBP). Distribution in Europe is expected to start between middle and end of October.

1. UAD-2 Starter Packages

Version

Amount of
SHARC DSPs

Entry Features

Current
Street Prices
1. UAD-2 Solo (PCIe) 1
Compressors: LA-2A, 1176LN, 1176SE
EQ: Pultec EQP-1A
Reverb: RealVerb Pro
Channelstrip: CS-1
 ~ 300€
~ 240GBP
2. UAD-2 Duo (PCIe) or
UAD-2 Duo Satellite		 2
see above
 ~ 700€
~ 560GBP
3. UAD-2 Quad (PCIe) or
UAD-2 Quad Satellite		 4
see above
 ~ 1,000€
~ 800GBP
4. UAD-2 Octo (PCIe) 8
see above
 ~ 1,500€
~ 1,200GBP
5. UAD Apollo Duo 2
see above
 ~ 2,000€
~ 1,600GBP
6. UAD Apollo Quad 4
see above
 ~ 2,500€
~ 2,000GBP
7. UAD Apollo Thunderbolt Card -,-
Thunderbold Expansion Card for
Apollo Duo or Quad. In
comparison to Firewire Thunderbolt
reduces UAD plugin latency.
 ~ 500€
~ 400GBP

2. UAD-2 Custom Packages

Continue reading →

[iOS] iPhone Enterprise Configuration Links

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Do you wanna configure large numbers of iOS devices at once? Apple made some tools available for enterprise customers. Find them here:
» iOS Enterprise Deployment: https://www.apple.com/support/iphone/enterprise/
» iPhone Configuration Utility (Mac OS X): http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1465
» iPhone Configuration Utility (MS Windows): http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1466

screen-shot-2012-09-30-at-10-37-40-pm

[Win] Oracle VirtualBox: Workaround For Initialization Issue Pt. II

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Find our previously released workaround for initialization issues here.

CPU VT-X/AMD-V Issue

After configuring a dual core virtual machine and trying to start you may encounter a message box indicating:

  • Hyper-V launch failed; Either VMX not present or not enabled in BIOS.
  • Hyper-V launch failed; at least one of the processors in the system does not appear to provide a virtualization platform supported by Hyper-V.

This issue may occur no matter which host operating system you’re using. The reason for this might be:

  • you’re not using a CPU that supports hardware virtualization
  • your BIOS does not support hardware virtualization properly
  • hardware virtualization is disabled in your BIOS settings (check it!)
  • there is a bug in your current BIOS version
  • the trusted execution flag prevents booting properly

Known Workarounds

Try these settings in your BIOS:

  • Enable Execute Disable bit (depending on the motherboard manufacturer this can be called: XD-Bit, EDB, NX-Bit, AMD EVP)
  • Enable Virtualization bit (depending on the mobo manuf. this can be called: VT, IVT, AMD-V)
  • Enable VT for Direct I/O Access (depending on the mobo manuf. this can be called: VT-d based I/O)
  • Disable Trusted Execution Technology (depending on the mobo manuf. this can be called: Intel TXT, TET)

Of course, upgrading your BIOS to the latest version can also be of help, but flashing the BIOS is always a little risky.

Final Words

As we’re currently using VirtualBox only on the Windows XP platform we categorized this article under Win, anyway it is very likely that the same issue also occurs under Linux or Mac OS, as VirtualBox on all platforms derives from the same source code.

The above settings apply for example for installing MacOS SnowLeopard in a VM under Windows 7 on Gigabyte EP35-DS3 or Dell Optiplex 745/755.

[MacOS] Handle DMG Images under Microsoft Windows

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Are you one of those lonesome people who tried to access the contents of a DMG image under Windows? Yes, there are several ways like converting to ISO with programs like Magic-Iso or mounting with Mac-Drive. All these solutions are nice, handy and well… expensive…

Simply using 7-zip is in my opinion the easiest way, as all of us should have 7-Zip installed anyway ;-)

  • right click the .dmg file
  • choose:
    7-Zip
  • a submenu opens, in that submenu choose:
    unpack to <nameofmydmg\>
  • wait a couple of secs while unpacking and
    open the subfolder <nameofmydmg\>
  • you should find a bunch of files:
    0.MBR
    1.Primary GPT Header
    2.Primary GPT Table
    3.free
    4.hfs
    5.free
    6.Backup GPT Table
    7.Backup GPT Header
  • The file for further examination is “4.hfs”. It mostly is a lot bigger than all the rest of the files.
  • now do a right click on "4.hfs" again and
  • choose 7-Zip
  • a submenu opens again, now in that submenu choose:
    unpack to <4\>
  • et voilà…

you’re done with unpacking… now fire IDA and find the jump ;-)

[Win] Oracle VirtualBox: Workaround For Initialization Issue

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“and first for something complete different”: Muzaq… coding or administrating system can’t do without gooood muzaq. Check our latest tunes here :-)

History

VirtualBox is an open source virtualization software. Originally it has been developed by a german company named Innotek, which has been acquired by SUN Microsystems in 2008. SUN Microsystems in turn has been acquired by ORACLE in 2010.

Innotek originally collaborated with Connectix on Virtual PC – a virtualization software targeting the Mac OS platform. Connectix has been bought by Microsoft in 2003. Innotek then decided to develop VirtualBox.

Status Quo

VirtualBox is used by many companies for virtualization and thus developing. Palm for example uses VirtualBox for WebOS development in an emulated environment. Thus allowing either Linux, Mac OS or Windows host systems for development.

CPU VT-X/AMD-V Issue

After configuring a dual core virtual machine and trying to start you may encounter a message box indicating:

VERR_VMX_MSR_LOCKED_OR_DISABLED

This issue may occur no matter which host operating system you’re using. The reason for this might be:

  • you’re not using a CPU that supports hardware virtualization
  • your BIOS does not support hardware virtualization properly
  • hardware virtualization is disabled in your BIOS settings (check it!)
  • there is a bug in your current BIOS version regarding

Known Workarounds

  • Disable USB for the virtual machine
  • Reduce the amount of CPU cores to 1
  • upgrade your BIOS to the latest version (this might be dangerous)
  • Disable VT-X/AMD-V
  • Disable 3D acceleration
  • Shutdown your host machine, unplug (!) from electricity for say 30 secs, reboot then

As we’re currently using VirtualBox only on the Windows XP platform we categorized this article under Win, anyway it is very likely that the same issue also occurs under Linux or Mac OS, as VirtualBox on all platforms derives from the same source code.

Any suggestions, hints or things need to be added? Don’t hesitate to tell us below…

[Windows] Recommended Apps: Really Slick Screensavers

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Abtract

Have you also been trying to find a really nice screensaver for your Windows machine. There are so many nice screensavers for the Mac, but for the Windows world you can’t find them.

What we found

While searching for nice screensavers we came accross this collection of free of charge and open source screensavers called “Really Slick Screensavers”. Check them out. The screensavers included are named:

  • Cyclone
  • Euphoria
  • FieldLines
  • Flocks
  • Flux
  • Helios (YouTube video below)
  • Hyperspace
  • Lattice
  • Plasma (YouTube video below)
  • Skyrocket
  • SolarWinds (YouTube video below)

Download

» Really Slick Screensavers…

By the way: some of the screensavers have also been ported to Mac OS and Linux.

Demo Videos

[Windows] Unleash Vista with Language Packs

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I. Abstract

One of the obstacles with Windows in earlier times was: you could not simply change the language from say german to english or german to french. For me as a german loving the languages this always was a big prob. I saw the easiness of changing languages under Linux and wondered. Now with Windows Vista you can also install and use up to 16 different languages.

As always with Windows operating systems there are also limitations: changing of languages is (officially) only supported by Windows Vista Ultimate. Although you might choose any language during installation of Windows Vista Basic or Home Premium or what ever, you sadly will not be able to officially change it once you installed it. But by digging the dark places of the net, we found there are ways to change the language even in non Ultimate versions. With the help of a tool called “Vista MUI Tool”, which is being developed by some chinese guys, you can enable multi language on all Vista versions. Anyway this topic will not be covered here, because we ain’t got no Vista Basic version here. But we confess to come back to the “Vista MUI Tool” in a short while, simply because activating functions that have been disabled is an interesting topic for all of us, isn’t it?

The following short article will deal with changing the language in an Vista Ultimate version by using onboard tools – no modifications required. As an ultimate user using it in english you’ll enjoy the following advantages: you will have access to the  Windows Ultimate features (english only!) and to tons of different Widgets, that are also available in english, only.

II. Premises

For following this little tutorial and for playing with me the following 15 minutes, you need the following:

  • Windows Vista Ultimate (go and buy it, it really got cute effects, once you got used to it, you wonder how crappy XP looks like in contrast)
  • Have Administrator privileges
  • a little concentration, although there won’t be too much Zen in this article

III. Installing new languages

Have Vista booted and be logged in as user with admin privileges. In the following example we’re gonna install a french language pack while we are running an english language version. Do the following:

  1. Click the Start button and choose the Windows Update:
    vista-language-pack-01.jpg
  2. The Windows Vista Update window will open and you click show available updates (on the screenshot partly german: verfügbare Updates anzeigen)
    vista-language-pack-02.jpg
  3. A window gets opened then where you can choose your updates, besides the language updates there may be others, but hic et nunc we’re not gonna deal with those. Choose the languages you wanna install and click the install button.
    vista-language-pack-04.jpg

    Note: (automatic background download and) installation of languages takes time. We experienced it may take up to 10 minutes per language pack. So better install them manually, not all of them at once. Each language pack is 300-500MB download size and requires between 1GB to 2GB space on your harddisk!
  4. There will be a security question if you really want to install the language pack. Click the Continue button.
    vista-language-pack-04a.jpg
  5. The download begins and then it gets automatically installed. This will take time now. Instead of wasting your precious time, you may consider some advertisements on our site, would you?
    vista-language-pack-05.jpg

    vista-language-pack-07.jpg
  6. When the installation is finished and your screen looks like that (at least the symbols ;-) You’re good to go then.
    vista-language-pack-08.jpg

You may repeat this step with as much language packs you need.

IV. Activating the new language

So after having prepared all the required languages, we really like to use them. Do the following:

  1. in Vista click the Start button and open the Control Center
    vista-language-activ8-01.jpg
  2. In the area Clock, Language, Region choose Change display language
    note: click the Control Panel Home button, in case you’re in Classic View
    vista-language-activ8-02.jpg
  3. In the field Choose a display language select your language and click the Apply button
    note: after having clicked Apply it may take some seconds to some minutes
    vista-language-activ8-03.jpg
  4. Windows will want you to log out to apply the language changes:
    vista-language-activ8-04.jpg

After logging in again you’ll have the selected language set

V. Final words
That should do for the moment. Next time we’re gonna take a Windows Vista Basic and unleash the language pack thing there. Ob Duh…

[Windows] Kaspersky Internet Security Kills Vista 64

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An update that has been distributed yesterday is likely to be the cause for sudden blue screens on Windows Vista 64bit. The yesterday update forces the user to restart, but after restarting, Windows Vista64 customers report that their system would not boot anymore. Instead a blue screen of death was shown.

Although the problem should be fixed now, many users still cannot boot. What you can do, if your system still hangs:

  • boot into Safe Mode (hit F8 when Window begins to boot after the BIOS messages)
  • click Start -> all Programs -> Kaspersky Internet Security
    bsod_kaspersky1.png

  • right click on Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 to Run As Administrator
    bsod_kaspersky2.png
  • Click Update and choose to Rollback to previous Databases
    bsod_kaspersky3.png
  • Wait some secs to some minutes for the rollback to perform
  • you may change the Update mode (from automatically to manually). But we’ve heard everything is under control again. So this step is not necessary.
    bsod_kaspersky4.png
  • Reboot your system

Enjoy…