workaround for Acer E1-572G with HD8750M GPU and Win10 freezes

From the moment I opted to upgrade/format my Acer E1-572G to Windows 10 (since its initial release encouraging those in Win8.1 to avail the free upgrade), it was plagued with driver incompatibilities particularly the secondary AMD/ATI Radeon HD8750M graphics chipset. Initially I found a workaround wherein I left it stuck at the Feb2017 Crimson 17 (version 21.1 driver) release at the time of the 17XX update and kind of left it there throughout 1803 and 1809 release. But when the 1903 update finally popped up, the problem resurfaced and this time neither that old driver or the current Oct 2019 release didn't work and kept on freezing the OS even prior to logging-in. Just doing a fresh install will land you on the same problem.

I relied once again to the old ye faithful Google search and found an interesting post in the AMD community forum describing the same issue. The correct solution came from the user handle "lmarcelus" which described modifying the extracted inf driver file and disable the UIps. I've included the screenshot of his solution for archive sake in case AMD wants to clean house.

 I'm not entirely sure what the UIps is for or how it may affect graphics-intensive apps/gaming but it was worth a shot and actually worked! On my experience, I did a fresh install using the Windows10 1903 update and yes I finished the installation wizard process while staying offline. You will need the drivers ready and at-hand (USB perhaps?) if you don't have a spare PC/device that you can use to download it. Another item you may need to read-up is how to turn off the enforcement of driver signature (hint: through the same way how you boot to safe mode but this time select option 7 or was it 8).

If by chance reformatting is not in your itinerary, best thing I can suggest is to try and boot to safe mode (with no networking) and use the AMD cleanup utility. The tool will remove/disable all the AMD/ATI drivers installed, which will leave you a clean un-initialized video card device listed on your device manager. Only after doing that clean you can then perform the said modifications.

Scrolling further down that same forum page there's another comment by "ax7" (Github user "qbsa") who made a service/script that you can install to your machine to automatically modify any new/updated drivers being installed similar to the solution initially provided. The exact instructions and files are in his GitHub page. I suggest you put the install files (the exe and cmd file) in its own folder somewhere hidden or safe from normal browsing view before attempting to install because those files will need to stay there in order for the script service to remain working.

I hope this helps anyone out there who just wants to bring their laptop with that infernal ATI HD8600/8700M GPU back to working order. Cheers!

Error 80040154 when PST migration using GAMME and Outlook 2013

Hi guys! It's been a while since I posted something I encountered or stumbled upon that can help anyone... so here it goes.

Prelude...

I recently got a stint to migrate a client of mine to Google Apps for Work. Their old email set-up was relatively simple, and they asked me to migrate their old email data that was stored in their desktop-installed Outlook 2013 client. Although they're using a 64-bit Windows 7, I'm not quite sure if it was also a 64bit Office 2013 that was installed as they're the ones who did it. Once I exported their data with the "export to file/PST" function of Outlook 2013, I was about to make my move.

What I initially did...

I used one of their workstations (that already has Outlook 2013) and installed GAMME (ver. 5.0.25 to this writing) to be my migration staging area. I then followed and executed the necessary pre-requisites (API and json token permission and service certs). Once I was ready and prepared the userlist file and PST folder structure, I proceeded to start-estimate-migrate using the GAMME tool.

Everything went well initially and passed the testing and estimation. Once I reached the migration part, all the user accounts failed to migrate, with an "Error 80040154" kept showing up for each user.

What wrong?

Initially I thought it was the network but I was easily able to rule that out after some cable management and connected directly to our broadband modem/internet. I also checked if the Outlook 2013 was up-to-date, which apparently it was. I tried and looked for quite a long time across various support materials, forums and How-To manuals of Google for the GAMME tool but to no luck or even a mention of that particular error code.

It led me to conclude that the culprit might be the Outlook 2013 itself as I already had experience in the past that the migration tools Google provides only behaves correctly on legacy (or not a recent release) Microsoft products. Despite the GAMME website saying it supports Outlook 2013, it's not the first time I didn't believe in Google as they have a reputation on not properly maintaining any support/admin tools nor keeping their documentations up-to-date.

My Solution

I used a different workstation without the Outlook 2013 installation and then installed an Outlook 2007 (32bit) and downloaded the Office 2007 SP3 standalone patch since the GAMME tools requires Outlook 2007 SP2 at minimum. Once that's done, I installed again the GAMME tool and made the necessary set-up requirements... then it now works.

Hope I'm able to help anyone out there who might face (or currently in) this same dilemma. Cheers!

the reason why people stick to Windows... false!

Because of my current line of work, I've been deeply exposed into the utilization of Linux-based systems and servers, and due to that I started to appreciate the flexibility and power of what Linux can actually do as compared to Windblows (Windows). Yet most people still stick on to Windows, not just because their purchased machine came with it or so that they could play games, is because that Microsoft provides support and "liability" upon usage of their products... which is greatly misunderstood and mistaken.

To state a fact, not one operating system available in the (consumer) market is fault-tolerant and susceptible to errors. Even in the open-source community, it has been stressed that Linux and Windows are just as robust as each other, and each still has it's ups and downs. However, the stigma that since Linux-based OS are open source, in which you can't ask anyone for help if you stumbled into trouble, still sticks into society... but this is completely false. I think that Linux-based systems, in particular the widely popular distribution/flavor Ubuntu, has more help support (forums) over the internet than Windows.

People think that when they use Windows, they can "sue" Microsoft if "it" ruins their system, most applicable to corporate or enterprise level systems. But looking at the EULA (yep, the one you just scroll down and select "I agree"), it is stated there that Microsoft products are not fool-proof and therefore Microsoft has no liability on the damages their product can incur. With this, they are just practically the same as Linux, only you just paid Microsoft to use their applications.

I could say that open source is the way to go... it's free... and more flexible than Windows. I admit I still keep my Windows OS copy because I already paid for it before, but oftentimes I use my Ubuntu-partition, most especially on more detailed tasks as a Systems Administrator... but this still goes for ordinary users that just needs all the basic internet, office and multimedia functions. But apart from the basic necessities, photo and video editing are also possible in Linux-based systems. The best part of it, Linux doesn't have any virus to plague you.