How to install unsigned printer driver on Windows 8

Do you have an older printer whose driver works on Windows 7, but the printer refuses to install on windows 8? I found that my Xerox Phaser 4400N laser printer installation got into a loop, displaying a prompt to install the driver, and never proceeded to the next step.

After some hunting on the web, I found out what I needed to search for: "Install unsigned driver in windows 8".

Once I searched for that, I found several pages all describing the same procedure. I am repeating the helpful instructions here:

First I downloaded the printer driver from the manufacturer's website. 

Move the mouse curser to the upper right part on the screen and select
Settings -> Change PC Settings -> General –> Under “Advanced Startup” –> Restart Now

Now the system will restart and might take some minutes to show up the boot menu. Wait for It patiently.

After some time you will be prompted with a menu with following options.

• Continue
• Troubleshoot
• Turn off

Choose Troubleshoot

Then the following menu appears.

• Refresh your PC
• Reset your PC
• Advanced Options

Choose Advanced Options

Then the following menu appears

• System Restore
• System Image Recovery
• Automatic Repair
• Command Prompt
• Windows Startup Settings

Choose Windows Startup Settings, then click Restart.

Now the computer will restart and the boot menu appears.

Press the number for “Disable Driver signature Enforcement” from the menu. 
Now windows will start and you can do the installation of the driver that is not signed.

I ran the downloaded driver executable. It extracted all the driver files in C:\Xerox\...

Then you need to do this:

Press Windows + X for the windows menu, press P or click Control Panel

Click on Hardware and Sound

Under Devices and Printers, click on Advanced Printer Setup

It detected my printer, so I clicked Next
Click Have Disk.
Browse to the folder where the printer drivers were extracted (in my case it was C:\Xerox\... )
Find the inf file and click Open, then OK

IMPORTANT: Now change the printer manufacturer and model to the correct one before clicking Next. (This is not obvious at this point.)


Proceed with the installation as prompted.

After installation, re-start windows as usual so windows in not in the unsafe unsigned driver installation mode.

Major security hole in many routers

Check your router for a major security hole NOW! This is a big issue. Hackers are trying to get into our internal networks through this security hole.

https://www.grc.com/shieldsup

Update: 
Click on the above link, then Click on "Proceed", then on the next page, click on "GRC's Instant UPnP exposure Test".

Warning - fake FedEx emails - do not click any links in it

I have received several fake emails supposedly from FedEx. They claim to have a package that could not be delivered, and a link for me to click.

The link goes to some other website other than FedEx. The email's from and/or reply-to addresses are also not FedEx.com. Both these facts mean it is a fake email. 

If you get any such email, immediately DELETE the email.

DO NOT CLICK on any links in any such email. It will probably take you to a website that will attempt to download a virus to your computer.

HP Printer on HP Windows 8 Furstration

We had bought an HP desktop computer with windows 7 a few months ago.
Using the Microsoft upgrade offer we upgraded to Windows 8 for something like $15.

Then we found the HP scanner/printer driver needed to be re-installed (among some other things).

So we got the latest driver for the printer from the HP website.
Unfortunately the driver kept telling us that there was a registry key missing, and forced us to re-boot.
After re-boot, it did the same thing again.

So I added the registry key as it described it, which made it go further, but in the end it said it failed, and when I told it to continue, it undid everything it had done.

ARGH!

After a few re-tries, I had an idea. I ran the install again until it said it failed, but before I let it continue to undo everything it had done, I opened up task manager and killed the install program.  Interestingly the spinning disk didn't go away, so I re-booted (after making sure there was nothing left in the Run registry key or my startup folder to make the install program run again).

After re-boot, the printer appeared as healthy in the printer and devices control panel applet (I was able to print a test page), and the HP solutions app works for scanning! Whew!

Boo to HP for the faulty driver install program and all the bloatware in it.

Debug PHP in Notepad++ and Windows IIS

Finally, I can debug my php code with breakpoints, watches, stepping through, etc from within Notepad++ in Windows with a website hosted in IIS on my local computer.  I have it working on Windows XP with IIS 5.1 and also on Windows 7 with IIS 7.5.

I have missed the ability to debug php for so long, having to resort to calling error_log(print_r($value, true)); all over the place when trying to locate bugs in my code er.. oops, I mean other people's code, got it?

I had to install xdebug into php, and install the DBGp plugin into Notepad++ . Just download DBGp from that link, extract and copy dbgpPlugin.dll into the plugins folder in the Notepad++ install folder (C:\Windows\Program Files\Notepad++\plugins for 32-bit systems, C:\Windows\Program Files (x86)\Notepad++\plugins for 64-bit systems).

I followed the detailed instructions here for setting it up and getting it going.

I had to change the path to the php extensions folder and the temp folder from the unix-like path to my correct Windows path. I set the xdebug output and remote log folders to the xdebug folder under the error_log folder which is defined elsewhere in the php.ini file. My php.ini on one of my PC's already had a zend section with some of the settings, so I just added the missing debug lines under that zend section.

Looks like you can use xdebug.remote_enable=On instead of xdebug.remote_enable=1. I didn't try changing the other 1's to on or 0's to off.

More details on turning debugger on and off:


Start debugging by attaching debug parameter ?XDEBUG_SESSION_START=<session name> to the test script like this:
  http://localhost/test.php?XDEBUG_SESSION_START=1

Doing so stores a cookie called XDEBUG_SESSION in the browser, which is good for one hour, and causes xdebug to try to connect to a debugger.

To stop xdebug from trying to connect to a debugger, add ?XDEBUG_SESSION_STOP parameter like this:
  http://localhost/test.php?XDEBUG_SESSION_STOP

Other Debugger Options

The xdebug website has other browser based debugger plugins, but I have not tried them yet.:

    http://xdebug.org/docs/remote#browser-extensions

I hope this helps someone out there.