Yeah, I managed to get one of the older builds to install into a KVM machine on a linux host under libvirt, but not managed to get it to update as it blue screens. Fairly sure it was something about an unhanded system thread exception. If you google the BSOD message and google it there was an article somewhere which helped me but I can't find it again. It was to enable a certain CPU instruction inside virtual box which is disabled by default, I'm away from home at the moment at last I checked the power was out so I can't SSH in and try to find what I enabled, enabling it solved the issue but I couldn't figure out how to do it elsewhere.

It's effectively a standard term in their service agreement to protect their ass, and this type of agreement is probably in a lot of products on the web that you use. Could be related to Cortana, it searches in several places for information and even uses your emails in order to provide information such as events, order delivery dates, etc. Agreements such as this, in a sane court of law, won't affect your rights of IP, not sure how crazy the law system is over where ever you are, but over here in the UK MS wouldn't get away with pulling a stunt ripping off IP from its users. ( I would hope, at least, the system is stupid but sane against its own stupidity)

F8 only works at a specific stage in the boot process, only optimizations in the whole boot process and everything else leaves you like a slither of a second to hit F8 at the right time, it still works, providing you can get in there in time. There was a way to get to it if you managed to boot to a login screen, fairly sure it was either ctrl or shift, holding that and hitting restart would take you to the boot options, but widely useless if you can't even get that far, your left praying the successful boot flag isn't marked due to how far it manages to get before it topples itself.

Yeah, At least the start menu opens on Vista. And it wasn't actually too bad once they patched the thing up, it's name was just stained forever due to it being a complete flop on launch. In windows 8.1/10 TP I find that pressing the start menu button sometimes leaves the desire for the start menu to actually open.

Thanks for the replies and the help so far! Updated OP with my current progress, hopefully one more to go! UPDATE: THE UNIT TEACHER SCREWED UP SAYING WHAT HE REQUIRED!!!!111!!! Okay, time to adjust this whole darn thing then...

Shamefully it seems to matter to the teacher which is the ball-ache, Just got in lesson with him now so going to speak to him, hopefully he might be able to shed more light onto it.. Hopefully, but I have doubts as to him helping with it...

Same here, I work as a junior system administrator (well, more in a lead position as I'm the only SysAdmin there) and I have some crazy stories of the system which would fit a few of these, just not sure I'd get away with it for the assignment...

Same here, I work for a small firm as the sole IT System Admin, The management system suffered from massive scope creep of 'Starting/Stopping process and deployment' all the way up to 'ticketing, FTP, Deployment, billing, starting/stopping'. Panel is a complete mess of rushed deadlines and bad architectural and security issues. Fixing it was deemed to require more work and disruptions than just rewriting the whole darn system from scratch

Good point, I was debating on using TAURUS inside time frame to replace the one I have, I managed to trace the case study to Denver University. Using TAURUS for scope creep and Time frame should save my behind a reasonable amount, the teacher is a royal pain in the ass at times and I know he'd be willing to send it back just because a case study isn't a UK one :/

I think we're on the same stupid mailing list.

Sorry, this may be useless, I hardy touch windows but try opening the policy editor for local policies and checking out the options in there, you're probably likely to find it. Fairly sure thats where all the applicable settings where last time I had an issue like this, Fairly sure I've had a security suite kill me with something like that.

A few protips, I swapped over to OSx full time a few months ago, and I can say going back to Linux or Windows is not on my todo list for a every-day machine. Renaming files can be done easily; click on the name for 1/2 a second, and leave your cursor over it, it will allow you to rename it. Install LightShot, works on Windows and OSx, I assigned like CMD+^+9 for it and I can easily take a selection and save to where I want quickly, or just CMD+C and paste as normal. USB port overpopulation is something you can't really complain about, I have a desktop running a 'Slightly modified version of OSx'; USB sound card, webcam, keyboard and USB dongle plugged in, I could ditch the sound card (Internal went funny, and I had this on the side so I figured it will keep me running) and the webcam if needed, but USB ports are handy! With my macbook on the other hand, I hardly use them because its always being moved around. USB ports are handy on desktops, but on laptops they're more of a 'Ohh, I can plug a mouse in while I do this tedious bit of work' or for USB drives, however I transfer most files over the network using the file sharing or just good ol' rsync. Moving files is more done using drag-and-drop methods, if you wish to move a file between devices you're screwed, better move and delete or just fire up a terminal. All in all, OSx is designed for simplicity for new users, the biggest issue is coming from Windows or Linux and expecting stuff to work how it used to. Best tip I can give is to forget how you worked on another operating system and just accept what they've given you, or abuse the terminal to hell.