Dell Broadcom USH Drivers

This always happens to be when I do a fresh install of Windows on a Dell notebook…

Dell’s got a page now with drivers for most of their recent computers:

Download here: https://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/19/sln129590/download-the-broadcom-ush-drivers-and-resolve-unknown-device-issues?lang=en

These are the ones I use the most.  Windows 10 x64 drivers for the Latitude e6540, e7240, e7440, and Precision M4800, Latitude e7270

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Windows middle-button scroll icon!

I was trying to find an icon for this to put in a document, but couldn’t find one with the circle and all 4 arrows, so I made my own.

In case anyone else needs one, here you go.

It’s not perfect, but good enough for internal tech docs.

VirtualBox 5.1.16 Maintenance Release

Download here: https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

This is a maintenance release.

The following items were fixed and/or added: Changelog https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Changelog

• VMM: don’t access the MSR_IA32_SMM_MONITOR_CTL MSR if dual-monitor treatment is not available (KVM workaround, bug #14965)
• VMM: another fix for handling certain MSRs on ancient CPUs without VT-x support for MSR bitmaps
• VMM: fixed VERR_SSM_LOAD_CPUID_MISMATCH errors when restoring a saved state with SMP guests on hosts without the CPUID/HTT bit set (bug #16428)
• VMM: fixed a bug in call gate emulation
• VMM: FWAIT instruction fix
• VMM: fixed a sporadic guest hang under certain conditions
• GUI: hide the mini-toolbar from the taskbar and the pager on certain X11 hosts
• GUI: better error handling on the global settings / network / host-only / DHCP server settings
• GUI: fixes for full-screen with multiple screens
• Host-only Network: fixed host-only adapter creation issue preventing VirtualBox installation on Windows 10 hosts (bug #16379)
• NAT network: fixed two potential crashes in the DHCP server
• ICH9: fixed incorrect initialization of the primary bus for PCI bridges (5.1.14 regression)
• Storage: LsiLogic fix for Windows 10
• USB: fixed not being able to attach certain USB devices having invalid characters in the device strings (5.0.18 regression; bug #15956)
• USB: several fixes for the USB/IP support (bug #16462)
• VBoxSVC: fixed another crash during shutdown under rare circumstances
• VBoxSVC: fixed a stack overflow on (Windows debug builds only; bug #16409)
• OVF: when importing an appliance handle more than 10 network adapters if the OVA was created by VirtualBox (bug #16401)
• OVF: fixes for exporting and importing appliances with many disks (bug #16402)
• VBoxManage: fixed regression with modifyhd –resize (bug #16311)
• rdesktop-vrdp: source code tarball fixes
• Linux Installers: do not rebuild kernel modules unnecessarily (bug #16408)
• Linux hosts: added an action for opening the VM manager window to the .desktop file
• Linux hosts / guests: Linux 4.11 compile fixes (bug #16506)
• Linux Additions: added vboxsf FS modules alias (bug #16404)
• Linux Additions: fix for the shared folders kernel module to compile on Linux 4.10
• Linux Additions: properly install the Linux kernel module override rule on distributions without /etc/depmod.d
• Windows Additions: fixed a crash with recent Windows 10 builds if 3D is disabled (bug #15973)

Hyper-V VMGuest.iso for older Windows OSes in Win10/2016

If you’re playing around with older OSes in the latest versions of Hyper-V, you’re missing one thing, the Integration Components (IC).

With Win10/Server2016 they no longer include this ISO as the current “supported” OSes all get their IC viaWindows Update.

You can get the IC from Hyper-V 2012/2012R2 Server, a free download, here:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-hyper-v-server-2012-r2 ( to extract, you’ll need to mount the ISO, open the x:\sources\install.wim file with something like 7zip, browse to Windows\system32, and extract the vmguest.iso or install Hyper-V Server in a VM to get the vmguest.iso)

Or, if you’ve got a Windows 8/8.1/2012/2012R2 VM/system available with Hyper-V installed you’ll find it in the C:\windows\system32\ folder.

I’ve got a copy from Hyper-V 2012 R2 here: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AnbqFQxI6C6pibttEpT9LXnRf4jcYg 

Hyper-V 2008 R2 here: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AnbqFQxI6C6pio4TpkS4Yi9Pl0_Ejg 

Hyper-V 2008 here: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AnbqFQxI6C6pio4UYt3Jn_VLbrQs4w

No guarantees how long MS will allow it will stay up here, though it’s freely distributed with Hyper-V Server.

After installing the IC on OSes older than Windows Server 2012R2,  you will still see 2 unknown devices.  Per Microsoft, this is expected: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2925727/unknown-device-vmbus-in-device-manager-in-virtual-machine-for-avma

If you view the properties of these devices and check driver details, Hardware IDs or Compatible IDs, they will show the following:

• vmbus\{4487b255-b88c-403f-bb51-d1f69cf17f87}
• vmbus\{3375baf4-9e15-4b30-b765-67acb10d607b}
• vmbus\{99221fa0-24ad-11e2-be98-001aa01bbf6e}
• vmbus\{f8e65716-3cb3-4a06-9a60-1889c5cccab5}

These Virtual Devices (VDev) are provided for Automatic Virtual Machine Activation (AVMA) to communicate with the host. AVMA is only supported on virtual machines running Windows Server 2012 R2 or later versions of operating systems.

Windows XP Pro running in Hyper-V. Device Manager shows the 2 unknown devices after the IC have been installed.

—

Update:  The Integration Components won’t install in the Home and Starter versions of Windows.

No More Ransom Compiles List of Free Anti-ransomware Tools

“The No More Ransom project, a coalition of law enforcement and security companies, has expanded with 30 new members and added 32 new decryption tools for various ransomware variants,” Computerworld reports.

First launched earlier this year, the No More Ransom project is headed by Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre, the National Tech Crime Unit of the Netherlands’ police force, Kaspersky Labs, and Intel Security. As of today, No More Ransom has announced that Bitdefender, Check Point, Emsisoft, and Trend Micro have joined as associate members. “Other companies, computer emergency response teams, information sharing and analysis centers, and industry associations have joined the project as supporting partners,” Computerworld says. “The organizations have contributed an additional 32 new decryption tools to the existing eight, which have so far been used by over 6,000 victims to successfully recover their ransomware-encrypted files.”

References:

https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/1949761-snap-no-more-ransom-launches-new-free-tools-california-adopts-pc-energy-rules

http://www.computerworld.com/article/3150817/security/ransomware-fighting-coalition-adds-members-and-decryption-tools.html#tk.rss_all

https://www.nomoreransom.org/decryption-tools.html

Easy (lazy) way to get your serial number for your Dell, or other OEM system?

Need your serial number?  Laptop’s docked, or workstation not easily accessible?

Here’s an easy way to get your vendor serial number:

1. Start a command prompt, click start, type “cmd”, hit enter
2. type “wmic bios get serialnumber”

This will return your Dell, Lenovo, etc serial number.

Note: If you have a custom or home built system, you’re not likely to get an serial number, you’ll probably see something like  “system serial number” or “to be filled in by o.e.m”

VMware Workstation 12.5 now available

What’s New

• Support for Windows 10 Anniversary Update
• Support for Windows Server 2016

Also included are bug fixes, security updates, and performance improvements.

Full Release Notes here: http://www.vmware.com/products/workstation.html

Download: http://www.vmware.com/products/workstation.html

 

VirtualBox 5.1.6 Available

VirtualBox 5.1.6 (released 2016-09-12)

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

• GUI: fixed issue with opening ‘.vbox’ files and it’s aliases
• GUI: keyboard grabbing fixes (bugs #15771 and #15745)
• GUI: fix for passing through Ctrl + mouse-click (Mac OS X hosts only; bug #15714)
• GUI: fixed automatic deletion of extension pack files (bugs #11352 and #14742)
• USB: fixed showing unknown device instead of the manufacturer or product description under certain circumstances (5.1.0 regression; bug #15764)
• XHCI: another fix for a hanging guest under certain conditions as result of the fix for bug #15747, this time for Windows 7 guests
• Serial: fixed high CPU usage with certain USB to serial converters on Linux hosts (bug #7796)
• Storage: fixed attaching stream optimized VMDK images (bug #14764)
• Storage: reject image variants which are unsupported by the backend (bug #7227)
• Storage: fixed loading saved states created with VirtualBox 5.0.10 and older when using a SCSI controller (bug #15865)
• Storage: fixed broken NVMe emulation if the host I/O cache setting is enabled
• Storage: fixed using multiple NVMe controllers if ICH9 is used
• NVMe: fixed a crash during reset which could happen under certain circumstances
• Audio: fixed microphone input (5.1.2 regression; bugs #14386 and #15802)
• Audio: fixed crashes under certain conditions (5.1.0 regression; bug #15887 and others)
• Audio: fixed recording with the ALSA backend (5.1 regression)
• Audio: fixed stream access mode with OSS backend (5.1 regression, thanks to Jung-uk Kim)
• E1000: do also return masked bits when reading the ICR register, this fixes booting from iPXE (5.1.2 regression; bug #15846)
• BIOS: fixed 4bpp scanline calculation (bug #15787)
• API: relax the check for the version attribute in OVF/OVA appliances (bug #15856)
• Windows hosts: fixed crashes when terminating the VM selector or other VBox COM clients (bug #15726 and others)
• Linux Installer: fixed path to the documentation in .rpm packages (5.1.0 regression)
• Linux Installer: fixed the vboxdrv.sh script to prevent an SELinux complaint (bug #15816)
• Linux hosts: don’t use 32-bit legacy capabilities
• Linux Additions: Linux 4.8 fix for the kernel display driver (bugs #15890 and #15896)
• Linux Additions: don’t load the kernel modules provided by the Linux distribution but load the kernel modules from the official Guest Additions package instead (bug #15324)
• Linux Additions: fix dynamic resizing problems in recent Linux guests (bug #15875)
• User Manual: fixed error in the VBoxManage chapter for the getextradata enumerate example (bug #15862)

VirtualBox 5.1.2 released today

This a maintenance release.

VirtualBox 5.1.2 (released 2016-07-21)  Download here: https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

• VMM: several fixes
• GUI: fixed screenshot if the VM is started in separate mode
• GUI: fixed issue with double-click/opening registered file types (.vbox and .vbox-extpack) on Mac OS X (bug #15648)
• GUI: fixed a bug which made it impossible close some error/warning messages using the close button
• GUI: weakened the control over the VM window behavior allowing to resize it across multiple screens and to use in Snap Assist techniques
• GUI: jump to the second tab of the session information window (5.1.0 regression)
• GUI: fix for Alt-Tab
• Storage: fixed creating fixed size VHD images (bug #15601)
• Storage: fixed a hang during power off if the VM was suspended before and a NVMe controller is configured
• USB: fixed a crash under certain conditions
• Audio: make AC’97 volume control work again (5.1.0 regression; bug #15598)
• Audio: fixed rare VM hangs when using AC’97 emulation
• Audio: SB16 fixes
• EFI: fixed access to devices attached to SATA port 2 and higher (bug #15607)
• OVA: fix for checking certain signatures
• OVA: fixed MAC address generation for appliances created by VirtualBox (5.1.0 regression; bug #15623)
• API: fixed audio settings handling for older config files (bug #15626)
• API: fixed truncation of USB product/vendor IDs on Linux hosts (5.1.0 regression; bug #15644)
• API: fixed VRDP with authentication (bug #15653)
• API: don’t crash if there is no graphics controller configured (bug #15628)
• Linux hosts: fixed EL5 builds (bug #15634)
• non-Windows hosts: fixed a crash during shutdown under rare circumstances (bug #15568)
• Linux Additions: fixed SELinux issue which prevented certain Linux guests to work in 3D mode (bug #15574)
• User Manual: updates

VirtualBox 5.1 Released

VirtualBox 5.1 has been released. This is a major update.  Download here: https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

VirtualBox 5.1 (released 2016-07-12)

This is a major update. The following major new features were added:

• VMM: new APIC and I/O APIC implementations that result in significantly improved performance in certain situations (for example with networking, bug #15295)
• VMM: added support for Hyper-V paravirtualized debugging of Windows guests
• VMM: emulate even more MMIO and shadow pagetable exits without going back to user mode
• GUI: overall migration to Qt5 (bug #11775)
• GUI: passive API event listener improving the VM GUI performance and response time
• Audio: added HDA (High Definition Audio) support for newer Linux guests
• Audio: added on-demand timers which should improve the overall performance and reduce the CPU consumption
• Audio: more fine-grained volume control for the AC’97 emulation, which now also takes the master volume control into account
• better support for Python 3

In addition, the following items were fixed and/or added:

• VMM: activate the x2APIC by default for Linux guests
• VMM: many more fixes
• GUI: the Detach UI action is now a part of the VM Machine menu
• GUI: reworked session information window
• GUI: the new VM wizard now allows to choose the VM location for the VM which is being created
• GUI: fixed location of touch events in unscaled HiDPI mode (bugs #14366, #14367)
• GUI: various bugfixes and internal cleanup
• Storage: use fallocate() or similar if present to speed up creating fixed-sized disk images (bug #5967)
• Storage: implemented NVMHCI-compatible storage controller
• Audio: various bugfixes and infrastructure improvements
• E1000: implemented interrupt throttling for performance improvements
• EFI: many improvements, for example allow to boot from USB
• OVF: improved handling of signed manifests
• API: Windows XP guests and Windows 2003 server guests now default to the E1000 T Server network card
• VBoxSVC: fixed several memory leaks when handling .dmg images
• Installers: ship VBoxBugReport
• Windows hosts: reworked COM proxy (e.g. bug #8298)
• Linux installers: no longer rely on DKMS for module rebuilding
• Linux Additions: fix a problem when updating the initramfs after the guest modules are compiled (bug #15579)
• Linux Additions: try to fix a problem where the OpenGL libraries where loaded by the X server when we only support X clients (bug #15574)