Rebuild Windows PC - 202301win

[scottmuc]

Yay for Repaving!

As much as possible is documented inline in this issue template. In case of problems you may find help by viewing all the previous repave issues. Have fun!

Prep

• [x] backup stuff if you think you need it.

  Instructions

  • Desktop
  • Downloads
  • Documents

[x] prepare USB device with a Windows installer.

Instructions

Here's the latest documentation I followed to make a USB installer.

Repave

• [x] boot to the USB.

  Instructions

  • Hit F12 while machine is rebooting to load boot menu.
  • The drive that is less than 50GB is likely the bootable USB device.

[x] wipe old partitions.

[x] run Windows installer.

Post Paving

• [x] Set machine hostname

  Instructions

  This can come in handy for all services that have recorded the machines hostname for security verification. The timestamp in the name and other metadata can make future auditing a bit easier.

  The convention is YYYYMMDD-something meta.

  Test if this can be done in powershell.

• [x] Install Chocolatey

  Instructions

  • https://chocolatey.org/install

[x] Install BoxStarter

Instructions

• choco install Boxstarter

[x] Install my Box Starter Package

Instructions

Thanks Rich Turner for your excellent example!

Launch Powershell with elevated privileges:

Install-BoxstarterPackage -DisableReboots -PackageName https://raw.githubusercontent.com/scottmuc/infrastructure/master/homedirs/windows/boxstarter.ps1

[x] Windows update

[x] Configure Brave

Instructions

Do the following:

• Ensure 1 Password extension works
• Getpocket installed
• Unhook extension is installed (and support the author)
• Set searrch engine to DuckDuckGo

[x] Install and configure Google Drive

[x] Turn off all Windows notification sounds

[ ] Setup Radeon Software

Instructions

I'm not sure what to do here. Here are a couple helpful links:

• https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/faq/gpu-kb205
• https://raptoreumcalculator.com/blog/radeonsoftware-exe-windows-complaining-about-missing-mfplat-dll-mf-dl-and-mfreadwrite-dll-files/
• https://www.amd.com/en/support

[x] Install and configure Samsung Magician

Instructions

Download the installer and run it. Enable the performance profile.

• [x] Run Novabench

  Instructions

  Score should be around:

  • CPU 1600
  • RAM 260
  • GPU 1000
  • Disk 340

[x] Make this template slightly better

[scottmuc]

Something noteworthy is this is the first time using Boxstarter 3.0.0 and it worked just fine.

Still manually installing 1 Password which is fine. I'm still re-evaluating my password management anyways. Was able to log into GitHub without knowing my credentials, so that's a good start.

[scottmuc]

Realized that the only reason I install Google Drive is for my Gnucash accounting files. I could move those to my Z: drive and setup a backup process instead (or finally look at OSS alternatives)

[scottmuc]

I ran Novabench before installing any AMD Radeon software:

CPU: 1647 RAM: 269 GPU: 1078 Disk: 359

Total: 3353

I'd like to avoid installed the Radeon stuff. I don't know if it really improves anything.

[scottmuc]

An interesting issue has come up. Previously, when I run my Autohotkey gaming script, the audio output would switch to my TV and PC accordingly. Now I'm having to change the output device manually. The previous install I must have fallen into the successful path by accident.

More importantly though... I can play Elden Ring without any issues and without installing the AMD Radeon software.

[scottmuc]

Also, I need to step up the filesystem and dot files game in the windows setup. Things that need to be sorted:

• git config
• gpg config
• Alacritty config
• Autohotkey scripts (current implementation isn't working)

Also tempted to separate into 2 BoxStarter scripts. One to bootstrap the machine, install git, and clone the repo. This needs to be self-contained in one .ps1 file since the script to boostrap won't be cloned. The latter can then benefit from defining some functions and including them.

[scottmuc]

As the commit above shows, I'm not signing my commits in Windows yet. Hopefully with better separation of concerns, I can figure out how to test isolated parts as I develop this library of configuration functions.

[scottmuc]

Had a BSOD when the machine woke from sleep this morning. Also, this reminds me that I don't have the node exporter installed, so metrics aren't being obtained.

[scottmuc]

Calling this repave done. Going to quickly do another one with the new scripting to ensure that works.