Brain Blurb – Technology blurbs from us to you

So over the weekend I got bored and decided to waste some time playing old console games on my computer. I soon became uncomfortable sitting at my desk and pondered a more portable solution. As luck would have it I had purchased an EEEPC a couple of years ago and once the novelty wore off it has received virtually no use. So a project was born.

I wanted an ultra portable gaming system that had enough horsepower to handle those old school console games that I had grew up with and here is what it took to make it happen.

Here is a complete list of the hardware that I used:

I started off with an EEEPC 4G Surf, a very low power netbook which I had already previously upgraded from 512 MB of RAM to 2 GB (I would highly recommend this upgrade if you have an older netbook). The first thing that I did was to install Windows XP on the device. I chose XP mostly because I was already familiar with the emulation software for that operating system, I had a spare copy laying around, and I knew that my gamepad was compatible with it.

Installing XP was nearly a straight forward process. There was however one slight hang up that could cause you some problems. I initially tried to install Windows XP off of a disk that did not contain Service Pack 2 it repeatedly gave me a Blue Screen of Death. After a few minutes googling, reading a couple of forums, and a trip to get an XP disk with SP2, then the installation went through without a hitch.

Once I had a functioning install of Windows XP it was just a matter of filling an SD card with the emulation software and games that I wanted and configuring my Logitech Gamepad. XP installed the Gamepad automatically and the emulation software would actually run from the SD card itself.

I can honestly say that it has already gotten a fair amount of use and when I have kids I will definitely have something like this handy for those long rode trips.

Popularity: 27% [?]

We have all been there.  It’s the day after Microsoft has pushed out a ton of patches and your system keeps interrupting you with this simple, solitary, and frustrating message.

We have two choices: 

1. Restart Now – Yeah, you could get it over with and stop everything that you are
   doing, save everything, and reboot (really who wants to do that).
2. Restart Later – Sounds good, oh wait later only means 10 minutes later.  The
   Automatic Updates window will popup every 10 minutes, take focus away from the application
   you are using, and generally bug the hell out of you until you finally restart.

So there we are with two choices, two horrible choices…. There has to be a better way.

Luckily there is. 

Stop WUAUSERV the Automatic Update Service

Since the popup is part of the WUAUSERV system used to update your computer if you stop
this service the popup itself will stop as well.  Below I will walk you through
stopping this service by using both the Graphical User Interface (GUI) and Command Line
Interface (CLI).

GUI:

1. Go to the Services snapin by typing “services.msc” at the run prompt or by navigating to
   Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services.
2. Find the service labeled Automatic Updates, right click it, and choose Stop.

CLI:

1. Enter the following command in either the run dialog box or a command prompt:  net stop wuauserv
2. If wuauserv is a little hard to remember this command will produce the same results: net stop “automatic updates”

Once the service has been stopped the popup will go away and not return, which will allow you to restart at your own convenience.

Popularity: unranked [?]