The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff

Jeroen W. Pluimers on .NET, C#, Delphi, databases, and personal interests

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Archive for 2023

Waarom verschillen buizerds zo sterk in kleur? – rootsmagazine.nl (dank @HermVerm)

Posted by jpluimers on 2023/09/13

Ik vroeg @HermVerm (twitter) via DM wat een grote bijna zwarte roofvogel lijkend op een buizerd en in de buurt van Lisse plots tussen de bomen de weg overvloog zou kunnen zijn. Herman kwam met [Wayback/Archive] Waarom verschillen buizerds zo sterk in kleur? – rootsmagazine.nl

Erfelijk bepaald

Kleurvariaties, oftewel genetisch polymorfisme, komen bij 3,5 procent van de vogelsoorten voor en zijn erfelijk bepaald. Het overgrote deel van de buizerds is min of meer bruin. Zo’n 5 procent is (spier)wit, eenzelfde percentage zwart. De basis voor die kleurvariaties ligt in de hoeveelheid pigment: hoe meer melanine, hoe donkerder de buizerd.

Ik heb nu dus geleerd dat een buizerd ontzettend veel kleurvariaties van licht tot donker kan hebben.

–jeroen

Posted in LifeHacker, Power User | Leave a Comment »

Figuring out the cause of “Controlled Folder Access” error messages.

Posted by jpluimers on 2023/09/13

Still need to investigate why every now and then Windows Remote Desktop causes this error:

C:\Windows\System32\mstsc.exe has been blocked from modifying %userprofile%\Documents\ by Controlled Folder Access.

Related links about EventID numbers 1123, 1124 and 5007:

This is the place in the Settings where you can enable the Controlled Folder Access feature:

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Power User, Windows, Windows 10 | Leave a Comment »

Microsoft Store: update all apps from the command-line

Posted by jpluimers on 2023/09/12

TL;DR

I have converted the below PowerShell one-liner into this batch file (the ^| syntax is to ensure the pipe runs within PowerShell, not within the batch file):

PowerShell 'Get-CimInstance -Namespace "Root\cimv2\mdm\dmmap" -ClassName "MDM_EnterpriseModernAppManagement_AppManagement01" ^| Invoke-CimMethod
 -MethodName UpdateScanMethod'

The why and how

Since I am a CLI person, and some Windows applications are only available on the Microsoft Store, I wanted to be able to initiate an update cycle from the command-line interface.

So I searched for [Wayback/Archive] microsoft store update all apps from the command-line – Google Search and found these to be valuable:

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Batch-Files, Development, Microsoft Store, Power User, PowerShell, Scripting, Software Development, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 11 | Leave a Comment »

Seams I might in part be the cause of (#3186) Remove easter egg “You are smarter than the average bear …” by pauby · Pull Request #3276 · chocolatey/choco

Posted by jpluimers on 2023/09/11

Only having really learned to speak English starting in my late teens, I never got the “smarter than the average bear” reference, so I filed what I thought was a bug early 2019: [Wayback/Archive] “You must be smarter than the average bear…” after upgrading to 7zip.install v18.6 and notepadplusplus.install v7.6.2 · Issue #1700 · chocolatey/choco which last year got this useful comment

I had this for several packages now, since I am updating them daily.
I am assuming there is a way to remove versions, which leads to this error until there is a new update.

It was confirmed this summer from

I’m smarter than the average bear at least once or twice a month. I think it might be packages which are pulled back and you happen to have installed that version

The bug got referenced this summer from [Wayback/Archive] Remove warning message about “smarter than the average bear” · Issue #3186 · chocolatey/choco.

This in turn lead to [Wayback/Archive] (#3186) Remove easter egg “You are smarter than the average bear …” by pauby · Pull Request #3276 · chocolatey/choco

That made me realise that for large groups of English speaking people “smarter than the average bear” would actually be a well known thing.

So I searched and learned a thing or two:

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Posted in .NET, Chocolatey, CommandLine, Development, Power User, PowerShell, PowerShell, Scripting, Software Development, Windows | Leave a Comment »

Fixing a broken xs4all internet connection was a simple as a cold NTU reboot – jpluimers on Twitter

Posted by jpluimers on 2023/09/11

Translation of solving a broken xs4all connection:

Solved. Summary:

  • Liander and UPS functiond, so both Fritz!Box and NTU had power
  • NTU LEDs show Power and Glass, but no Ethernet
  • Fritz!Box has green Power and WLAN LEDs and a red Info LED

Solution was cold reboot of NTU.

I also neatly tucked away the NTU power cord for an additional 8 minutes extra down time: [Wayback/Archive] mwgp ping – wiert.me

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Fritz!, Fritz!Box, Hardware, Network-and-equipment, Power User, Security | Leave a Comment »

At last: WireGuard VPN with FRITZ! | FRITZ!Box 7490 | AVM International

Posted by jpluimers on 2023/09/08

Early spring 2023 I posted Reminder to self: check if FritzOS 7.50 has become available for Fritz!Box 7490 because it would (likely partially) introduce WireGuard support as I knew it had been available for other Fritz!Box devices since december 2022: [Wayback/Archive] Fritzbox: AVM startet die Verteilung von FritzOS 7.50 | heise online

Das Betriebssystem FritzOS 7.50 für Fritzbox-Router ist fertig. Mit dabei sind das Wireguard-VPN und Verbesserungen im Smart-Home-Funktionsumfang.

Finally, early september 2023 my Fritz!Box 7490 devices updated from firmware version 7.29 to 7.57 so apparently it took AVM quite a while to test and stabilise the new features on Fritz!Box 7490.

The final push for 7.57 might actually be a security issue in prior versions that already looks like being exploited according to [Wayback/Archive] AVM: Fritzbox-Firmware 7.57 und 7.31 stopfen Sicherheitsleck | heise online

In Internetforen finden sich Hinweise darauf, dass die mit dem Update geschlossene Sicherheitslücke bereits angegriffen wird. Den Gerüchten zufolge können Angreifer Zugriff durch den HTTPS-Port 443 erlangen und hätten dann Zugangsdaten zur Fritzbox sowie PPP-Zugangsdaten verändert. Dadurch sei kein Internetzugang mehr möglich, und auch der Zugriff auf die Fritzbox werde verhindert. Einzig ein Werksreset helfe dann, um wieder Zugriff zu erlangen.

The odd thing of the upgrade logs is that the fiber connected 7490 mentioning a DSL settings reset, but the DSL connected 7490 didn’t:

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Ethernet, Fritz!, Fritz!Box, FritzOS/Fritz!OS, Hardware, Network-and-equipment, Power User | Leave a Comment »

Windows 10: whitelisting domains so updates still work

Posted by jpluimers on 2023/09/08

The internet access for my mentally retarded brother is fully based on whitelists.

It’s a simple reasoning: his mental abilities is basically a fixed box that does not grow. If he gains one part, he loses on another part.

This makes his risks assessments low and unpredictable at best, especially on the rapidly changing internet, hence whitelisting at the router level.

Whitelisting also implicates I need to update the ever changing list of domains that Windows 10 uses to keep newer versions up-to-date.

If you don’t, then you get an error [Wayback] 0xc1900223 while searching for or a applying updates. The description of that error isn’t accurate; what it actually means is that your computer cannot connect to one or more of the many update locations.

These links should help finding the ones for newer Windows versions (at the time of writing, there was no documentation for Windows 10 21H1 or newer):

Maybe one day someone makes an overview of these in one big worksheet to easily spot the differences. Until then it is a trial and error process every 6 months or so.

Related: [Archive.is] Jeroen Wiert Pluimers on Twitter: “Anyone knows when the 21H1 update of these instructions will be available?  Need to update the site of my mentally retarded brother. Maybe @shanselman or @JenMsft can help me get in touch with the right people for this?”

–jeroen

Posted in Power User, Windows, Windows 10 | Leave a Comment »

Remove unused accounts and groups (especially privileged ones) as Multiple Nation-State Threat Actors Exploit CVE-2022-47966 and CVE-2022-42475 | CISA

Posted by jpluimers on 2023/09/07

Remove unnecessary (disabled) accounts and groups from the enterprise that are no longer needed, especially privileged accounts.

https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/cybersecurity-advisories/aa23-250a

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Installing the Microsoft To Do app from the Microsoft Store on Windows via the CLI was impossible at first, and requires GUI configuration

Posted by jpluimers on 2023/09/07

I prefer installing applications through the CLI (command-line interface). This way, things can be scripted and installation parameters be stored under version control.

A few months back I published Different ways for installing Windows features on the command line – Peter Hahndorf which wrote way earlier and amended with a few highlights I learned from unsuccessfully trying to Microsoft To Do. Of course that is possible from the GUI by following these links:

  1. [Wayback/Archive] To Do List and Task Management App | Microsoft To Do
  2. [Wayback/Archive] Get Microsoft To Do: Lists, Tasks & Reminders – Microsoft Store

But I don’t want GUI, I want CLI as that is way easier to automate than GUI. I knew this should theoretically be possible from my the above winget post.

Putting this to practice however at first failed. Later I found a GUI-based workaround. So this was not possible purely on the CLI.

This post is both a summary of the most important bits and a reminder for myself to check if installing Microsoft Store via [Wayback/Archive] Winget without a Microsoft Store account is still impossible (as when downloading via the GUI from the Microsoft Store site an account is not needed).

winget

First however on how I ended up at winget for anyway were these posts:

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Posted in Chocolatey, Microsoft Store, Power User, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 11, winget | Leave a Comment »

Help:Two-factor authentication – Wikipedia

Posted by jpluimers on 2023/09/06

For my link archive as this page contains instructions to request 2FA privileges at Wikipedia: [Wayback/Archive] Help:Two-factor authentication – Wikipedia

Checking whether 2FA is enabled

To determine whether your account has 2FA enabled, go to Special:Preferences. Under “Basic information”, check the entry for “Two-factor authentication”, which should be between “Global account” and “Global preferences”:

Viewing m:Steward requests/Global permissions#Requests for 2 Factor Auth tester permissions is possible to do without being logged on at Wikipedia, but for requesting the 2FA permission and accessing Special:Preferences you need to be logged on.

Visit [Wayback/Archive] Steward requests/Global permissions/2018-12 – Meta and look for “OATH tester” for some examples of motivations for requesting.

–jeroen

Posted in 2FA/MFA, Authentication, Power User, Security, SocialMedia, wikipedia | Leave a Comment »