Sometimes you might want to check for which Windows “edition” is installed on a computer. Let’s say you’ve made an app that you want to be free for personal use, but want to force enterprises to pay a licensing fee if they want to use it in their environment.

I wanted to print a document the other day, so I switched on my dusty and trusty inkjet printer, only to find a nice red blinking error on the display greeting me. The message was something along the lines of “Printing is impossible, replace yellow ink cartridge”. Here’s the solution…

There’s a lot of people who have had issues with their SSD not showing up in the list of available hard drives when installing Windows 7, and today I got to be one of them.

With many new graphics cards, unless at least one of your monitors has DisplayPort support or is connected using VGA*, an active DisplayPort to DVI adapter is needed in order to get a picture on more than two digitally connected monitors at the same time. As DisplayPort is only found in the most expensive monitors, this is a fact that many buyers miss.

This problem applies especially to AMD Radeon EyeFinity enabled cards such as the Radeon 5xxx and 6xxx series, which enable use of three monitors simulatenously for a combined resolution of up to 7680×1600 pixels, or even six on certain models, for a combined maximum resolution of up to 7680×3200 pixels.

The first active DP to DVI adapters made available were and can still be very expensive, at around $100 each. Also, they have to be plugged into a USB port for external power.

For HD monitors supporting resolutions of up to 1920×1200 (max resolution of DVI Single Link), manufacturers solved this problem by creating an active DP to DVI Single Link adapter, that requires no extra power, and can be had at more reasonable prices.

DVI is not DVI! This DVI Connectors chart will help you figure out which type of DVI cable or DVI adaptor you need.

A driver that finally enables TRIM support for Intel SDDs in RAID mode?

Sadly, the news were too good to be true. The latest Intel driver was incorrectly reported ^{(techPowerUp!)} to enable TRIM for SSDs in all RAID modes except for RAID5. However, this was bogus information from Intel. The correction came shortly thereafter, that support is ONLY for single disks and not while in RAID arrays.

Intel X25-V SSD – no TRIM for you!

The truth is that the new driver allows single disks that are connected while running the storage controller in RAID mode to receive the TRIM command.

It seems passing the TRIM command to SSDs in a RAID array is not a simple case with current chipsets and drivers.

The recommended workaround:
Yes, there’s actually a workaround! Just leave some 15-20% free, unformatted, unallocated space when formatting your RAID array of SSDs, seen as a single disk during OS install. The SSD controller will use this as “scratch space”. Also, do note that the much talked about performance loss over time that occurs with SSDs – is much less of an issue when in a RAID.

But what if I already formatted and used my drives?
No worries! You can still perform a Secure Erase ^{(ata.wiki.kernel.org)} to bring them back to basics. The same procedure can also be performed every 1-2 years if you experience noticeable loss of performance. But by then, maybe they will have conjured up some magical new drivers? Only time will tell …

Oh, almost forgot; for those “I run my single disk SSDs while in RAID mode” kind of guys:

Click here to get the latest Intel® Rapid Storage Technology Driver for Intel Desktop Boards.
Select your OS, then “Driver”.