Darryl B buswedg

Disable Windows Hypervisor (Hyper-V) and Virtualization Based Security (VBS) on Windows 11

What?

Steps to completely disable Windows Hypervisor (Hyper-V) and Virtualization-Based Security (VBS), and configure modular BCD boot profiles—including CPU extended register management (XSAVE / XCR0).

Why?

Disabling the hypervisor eliminates VBS virtualization overhead on performance-focused machines and is often necessary when using low-level system tools or alternative virtualization software that conflicts with Hyper-V. Additionally, managing CPU extended states (XSAVE) prevents system crashes in custom hypervisors and low-level tools that only support standard 256-bit (AVX2) context buffers during VM-exits.

YubiKey for FIDO2 Auth on WSL2 (Ubuntu)

What?

I got my hands on a new YubiKey 5 over the weekend. For those unaware, this is a pretty well-known security key which provides options for hardware authentication using a variety of different protocols (e.g. FIDO2, OpenPGP etc.). I was keen to try this out for authenticating with GitHub and also handling SSH credentials when accessing servers I'm running on my local network.

The problem however, is that I'm a pretty heavy WSL (Ubuntu) user and needed something which plays well in that environment. I didn't think about it too much when I initially ordered the YubiKey, but worked out over the weekend that getting a USB device (particularly a security key) to play nicely with WSL, isn't exactly straight forward. So, I did a write-up of the steps I ended up taking for others (or myself) to refer back to.

References

Lenovo 430-x HBA Firmware/BIOS Update

What?

Guide on how to update the firmware and BIOS of a Lenovo ThinkSystem 430-x SAS/SATA 12Gb HBA.

References

Rebuilding a Windows 11 Machine from Scratch

What?

My very opinionated view of how to build a Windows 11 machine (from completely fresh OS install), with a focus on privacy and reduced bloat.

Why?

I normally rebuild my Windows machines a couple times a year. I've learnt various things along the way and would like to have something laid out that I can consistently follow. So, I'm going to use this guide for my own reference but also share it for anyone interested.

	import numpy as np
	import sklearn.base
	from sklearn import metrics


	class transform_predict(sklearn.base.BaseEstimator, sklearn.base.TransformerMixin):

	def __init__(self, clf: sklearn.base.BaseEstimator):
	self.clf = clf