The New Rant Thread

[Alan Phipps]

We haven't had any takers on the old Rant Thread here for several years now, and it's always good to let off some steam harmlessly.

Here's my starter:

Today I had an email from my energy supplier with a banner headline of 'Good news - Energy prices are going down!'. It went on to tell me that with the coming lowering of the UK energy price cap, electricity unit prices would be going down.

Then this little killer sentence - "As your electricity usage is low you may see a slight increase in your electricity annual costs, due to a small change to your daily standing charge." (I have solar panels and so low grid usage, and the 'small change' in daily standing charge was actually a 27% rise.)

So my 'Good news' is that my estimated electricity bills will actually go up by about £17 per year - and I'll probably get less for the surplus solar electricity that I sell back to them too.

[fiksal]

ah yes, the old good news bad news switcharoo


I will add a rant then.

one more year of changing clock, because we live in pretend WW1 time

[alt3rn1ty]

C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\DDDriver64DCSa.sys

This is a bit of a success story, but also a rant at Dell

For about a year now I have been unable to turn on Win 11 Core Isolations Memory Integrity.
Windows would report I had an out of date driver which needed updating, but did not list any drivers which were the cause ???.

Found out yesterday Microsoft have a Memory integrity system readiness scan tool you can download from here ..
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/downloa ... ?id=105437
.. hvciscan_amd64.exe
Run it via an elevated Command line, and you will get actual results for any problem drivers/files.

In my case it was one file, which was left behind by Dell when they decided to pull a part of their support software. Idiots.
DDDriver64DCSa.sys - Dell Data Vault Control Device Driver

Code: Select all

VbsGetIssues: 0x00000000 

VbsIsRecommended: 1 

HVCI incompatible driver scan start... 

HVCI: Error 1168 querying "C:\WINDOWS\System32\drivers\dddriver64Dcsa.sys" in the SDB 

HVCI: Driver scanning complete 

HVCI: scan get result failed.

I had to right click on the file and choose Properties, Security tab, and then go through the process of giving myself rights to delete it.
Once deleted, I could now select Windows Core Isolation Memory Integrity .. Peace of mind at last.

Historically Dell do things like this occasionally, little foobars with their support software not managing itself 100% correctly, overlays of old update extensions to support software for example which dont get uninstalled when the base update software is updated negating the need for the update extension which is still run after the base update and is incompatible .. causing knock on effects for windows and turn into a nightmare of trying to figure out what the hell is going wrong.

Dell, sort your shit out!.

Its pointless me going onto a Dell support site as Dell don't seem to listen, its just other users listening and helping, so Dell Tech guys never get to see any issues they need to solve .. So I may aswell shout out from here as anywhere else.

[Chips]

Ha, the increase in the standing charge. The cost increase that also covers clawing back money from taking over failed energy companies...

The same energy companies that failed because as the energy prices rose, the price cap prevented them passing on the cost to consumers, leading to wide scale bankruptcies.

So now the few surviving companies can pay off that debt via standing charges, and once done, be making wayyyy bigger profits* that aren't dependent upon actual usage \o/


*maybe they'll lower them, but with much less competition in the market place I wouldn't bet on it

[jlehtone]

So my 'Good news' is that my estimated electricity bills will actually go up by about £17 per year

That is clearly good news ... for them.

a rant at Dell

Recent years the Dell monitors available to us were S-series. Latest purchase was a S2721DS.
It includes a HDMI cable. The standard desktops are Dell Optiplex. They have only DP-ports ...
(Now there seems to be P-series and they are supposed to include a DP-cable. Perhaps my rants did go somewhere.)

[Oldman]

We haven't had any takers on the old Rant Thread here for several years now, and it's always good to let off some steam harmlessly.

Here's my starter:

(Abbreviated).....

So my 'Good news' is that my estimated electricity bills will actually go up by about £17 per year - and I'll probably get less for the surplus solar electricity that I sell back to them too.

Now why doesn't that surprise me. It's a trend (as we all I think know) that seems to have been more noticeable since the start of the covid epidemic. I personally think it's various company's and organisations still trying to claw back revenue they lost over that period.
Thanks btw. for creating the new 'rant thread' !
I've a feeling I might be contributing frequently to this topic in the near future .

On the positive side, @ linolafett...Thanks for sorting out my login problems, it's very much appreciated!

Oldman