Top all-time · #8659
Michael Niehaus
Personal blog · oofhours.comsystemsprogramming
Michael Niehaus writes Out of Office Hours, a personal blog at oofhours.com about systems and programming. Since 2020, 9 different Hacker News readers have linked it 11 times, most often “Geeking Out with UEFI”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-11-02, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (5) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN commenters cite this blog as a technical reference on Windows and UEFI internals, including UEFI variables, network-connectivity flags in UEFI, TPM attestation, and Windows 11 widget overhead.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 5 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Michael Niehaus' technology ramblings
Most-linked posts?
- Geeking Out with UEFI2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-10-25
- The overhead of Widgets and Teams in Windows 112 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-02-01
What Hacker News says?
> There is currently no legal way, from a licensing standpoint, to have an ARM build running on a device that Microsoft does not have an existing agreement with. That appears to be incorrect[0]: > Fortunately, they had something to share later, again through an official Microsoft spokesperson (that faceless PR-driven process where press or analysts can ask Microsoft for an official response to a question). A lengthy…
Comment linking /2022/04/12/microsoft-will-let-you-run-windows-11-on-an-m1-mac-but-they-wont-support-it/
on “Welcome to the M1 Windows project”Submitted Geeking Out with UEFI as a story · 143 points
HN discussionThe UEFI entries are just regular EFI variables, except they use a special GUID: 8BE4DF61-93CA-11D2-AA0D-00E098032B8C cf https://stackoverflow.com/questions/67395528/ and the actual description in https://github.com/erikberglund/AppleNVRAM/blob/master/EFI/8... with examples on how to access them from an UEFI shell on https://oofhours.com/2019/09/02/geeking-out-with-uefi/ These variables are what `efibootmgr` lists a…
Comment linking /2019/09/02/geeking-out-with-uefi/
on “Investigating a vanishing BIOS on the Fujitsu Lifebook AH532”Submitted An easy trick to get the old Notepad.exe back as a story · 4 points
HN discussionUntil the day the machine has been UEFI-flagged to require online connectivity regardless. Yes, that's a thing, and the flag's been lurking in the UEFI since Windows 10 1809, even. Intune/Windows Autopilot leverages it for out-of-the-box MDM enforcement. https://oofhours.com/2019/08/17/requiring-a-network-connecti...
Comment linking /2019/08/17/requiring-a-network-connection-for-the-windows-autopilot-process/
on “Dark patterns killed my wife's Windows 11 installation”Submitted Updated Media Tool Available as a story · 2 points
HN discussionTrue, and not that but they consume a lot of resources as-well https://oofhours.com/2022/01/30/the-overhead-of-widgets-and-...
Comment linking /2022/01/30/the-overhead-of-widgets-and-teams-in-windows-11/
on “Windows 11 is collecting more user data than you know”Submitted Geeking Out with UEFI as a story · 2 points
HN discussionCutting support for non-TPM capable hardware is a nice side effect, as is being able to use TPM manufacturer attestation [1] for DRM and anti-cheat. IMO the real goal is to revive Microsoft's Palladium technology [2], which is awful and incredibly user-hostile. [1] https://oofhours.com/2019/07/09/tpm-attestation-what-can-pos... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next-Generation_Secure_Computi...
Comment linking /2019/07/09/tpm-attestation-what-can-possibly-go-wrong/
on “Windows 12 Development Reportedly Begins in Earnest Next Month”Submitted The MDT download is gone, so RIP as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted The overhead of Widgets and Teams in Windows 11 as a story · 1 points
HN discussion