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

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Archive for the ‘Windows’ Category

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Converting an existing XP machine to a VMware ESXi  Virtual Machine and having boot issues?

Posted by jpluimers on 2022/05/02

A while ago I wrote about Stop 0x0000007B after converting an existing XP machine to a Virtual Machine (ESXi, Hyper-V, or other).

After this, the machine still had boot issues (a grey or black screen after boot, unless booted via Grub from a rescue CD).

The solution in retrospect was simple, but I only figured out after the fact what the solution had done.

Of course this gave me a facepalm moment, as back in the days, this was exactly the warning I gave everyone when installing Windows XP on ESXi anyway: use a SCSI buslogic based virtual disk, not an IDE or SATA virtual disk.

The reason is that Windows XP does not like the IDE/SATA disk that VMware provides. Windows Vista and up are less of a problem.

This is indeed what my practical solution did:

  • VMware Converter 4.x creates a VM with an IDE/SATA disk (as it cannot talk to the more recent ESXi versions at all because of API changes)
  • VMware Converter 6.x creates a VM with a buslogic SCSI base disk (and it can create it directly on your ESXi rig, though it will use a directory in the root of your data store, even if you prefer it somewhere deeper in the directory tree)

References:

–jeroen

Posted in ESXi6, ESXi6.5, ESXi6.7, Hardware, Power User, SAS/SATA, SCSI, Virtualization, VMware, VMware Converter, VMware ESXi, Windows, Windows XP | Leave a Comment »

virtualization – Convert a hard-drive into a VMWare machine – Server Fault

Posted by jpluimers on 2022/04/29

Sometimes machines die without one having had the chance of doing a proper bootable file-system backup instead of a file-by-file-backup.

You can still P2V these machines (convert them from physical to virtual), but it is a lot more pain as you have to try to grab any installation keys for them and create a compatible virtual machine configuration by hand like I did in P2V of an existing XP machine to Hyper-V to have an emergency fallback when retiring old XP physical machines.

The below linked answer (with steps) uses Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery (now back in the hands of Veritas again as Backup Exec) to make part of this process towards VMware ESXi less tedious: [Wayback] virtualization – Convert a hard-drive into a VMWare machine – Server Fault (thanks [Wayback] Mark Booth and [Wayback] Dave M)

Doing this might require you to find old Windows XP media. Those are in the Internet Archive (often slower, but has the file hashes too) and The Eye (much faster from where I live in Europe); Internet Archive examples are for English, though other languages are present as well:

Got the Internet Archive tip from [Wayback/Archive.is] Where can I download an official Windows XP ISO? I have a license key if that helps? : windows, found the correct filename there, then downloaded the [Wayback] The Eye.

–jeroen

Posted in Hyper-V, Power User, Virtualization, VMware, VMware ESXi, Windows | Leave a Comment »

Cleaning up Google Drive (for instance when a rogue supplier decides to fill your Windows Documents folder) and preventing TomTom HOME to use too much information

Posted by jpluimers on 2022/04/12

The below links helped me clean the Google Drive of a friend that grew way too large because TomTom HOME decided to put 100 gigabyte of data in the Documents folder instead of the local AppData folder (yup, this is a follow-up of Windows applications: storing your data in the correct place (Roaming, Local, LocalLow, not Documents)).

The trick with extensions to exclude is you have to add exclusions before syncing. Which is a kind of catch-22 or chicken and egg problem.

In case of the friend I helped we made a backup of the TomTom HOME data, then applied the exclusions and restored the data.

For TomTom HOME in order not to fill your Google Drive, but still allow backing up your Documents folder, these are extensions you might want to exclude (roughly in descending order of space) where you have to mind not storing any of these extensions in other subfolders of your Documents folder.:

  • .zip
  • .cab
  • .toc
  • .tmp
  • .meta
  • .sat
  • .tlv
  • .ttd
  • .dat
  • .vif
  • .chk
  • .bin
  • .rex
  • .lde
  • .gpr
  • .dbl
  • .so
  • .ov2

The problem with this? Google Backup and Sync does not allow that many exclusion extensions.

–jeroen

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

Prevent link rot before the public condemns you

Posted by jpluimers on 2022/04/05

I’ve written about link rot quite a few times (it even has a category on my blog).

Preventing it is important, as it improves user experience.

For most users this is an unconscious thing when it works and becomes consciously annoying when it fails.

Some user groups are vocal enough to force you to fix link rot after the fact, causing brand reputation damage.

One good example was last year: [Wayback] Users condemn Microsoft for removing KB IDs from some bug documentation | Computerworld.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Bookmarklet, Development, Internet, link rot, Power User, Software Development, Web Browsers, Web Development, Windows, WWW - the World Wide Web of information | Leave a Comment »

Wow, the Windows 3.x winfile.exe File Manager still lives on!

Posted by jpluimers on 2022/04/01

By sheer luck, Jen Gentleman pointed out that winfile.exe still lives on:

The source is at [Wayback/Archive.is] microsoft/winfile: Original Windows File Manager (winfile) with enhancements, and it looks exactly like the Windows 3.x through Windows NT 4.0 days.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Apri1st, Fun, Power User, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 3.11, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows NT | Leave a Comment »

10 things you can do when Windows XP won’t boot – TechRepublic

Posted by jpluimers on 2022/03/30

For my link archive:

If your computer powers up okay, but the Windows XP operating system won’t boot properly, you have some troubleshooting ahead of you. Here’s a look at the likely culprits and what you can do to fix the problem.

[Wayback] 10 things you can do when Windows XP won’t boot – TechRepublic

Via: [Wayback/Archive.is] Product IDs – Lunarsoft Wiki

–jeroen

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

windows xp – How to know which license version has an XP installed system – Super User

Posted by jpluimers on 2022/03/29

When virtualising your final physical Windows XP machines (just in case you need to hook up old hardware that is unsupported from newer Windows versions), you need to figure out the kind of license of each physical Windows XP machine in order to stand a chance to keep it licensed.

This answer by [Wayback] Moab [Wayback] windows xp – How to know which license version has an XP installed system – Super User helped me a lot.

I tried to make it a bit easier to read:

  1. First obtain the “Product ID” from the Windows XP machine. It is derived from the original Windows XP installation product key and displays a few values:

    xxxxx-yyy-zzzzzzz-zzzzz

    • xxxxx: the MCP (Microsoft Product Code) describing which product version, or in case of Windows XP: what language, edition (like “Home” and “Pro”) and often some more information)
    • yyy: the Channel ID (especially important to set apart OEM from other channels; OEM is not allowed to be virtualised, so would need a complete new Windows XP key to be activated as Virtual Machine; Channel IDs being neither OEM nor VLK (volume license key) can often be re-activated, sometimes over the phone to explain the situation; I’ve not tried virtualising a VLK based Windows XP yet.
    • zzzzzzz-zzzzz: semi-random values

    [Wayback/Archive.is] Product IDs – Lunarsoft Wiki has quite detailed lists of not just the MCP and Channel ID values for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, but also the disk volume labels and setup.ini label values.

    Often this is easier to do from the physical machine before virtualising it, but even afterwards you can get it by running Windows in Safe Mode, then use either of these to get the Product ID:

    1. Run the Windows Contol Panel applet sysdm.cpl which shows the “Product ID” us under the “Registerd to” information.
    2. From the console, run reg query "hklm\software\microsoft\windows nt\currentversion" /v ProductID
    3. From another machine or boot CD (like Hiren’s Boot CD or Windows Ultimate Boot CD), mount the hard disk, mount the registry hive, then show the above registry key value
    4. Download and run NirSoft [Wayback] ProduKey (which usually will give you both the Product ID and Product Key)
  2. From the product key, determine if you can re-activate Windows, either by phone, or by this link:

    [Archive.is] Self Service for Mobile

    I got the link from [Wayback] activate windows xp – Microsoft Community via [Wayback] windows xp – How do I activate WindowsXP now that support has ended? – Super User.

    Phone (in most countries) and on-line activation should still work; it worked in 2016 (see [Wayback] license – Will I still be able to activate Windows XP after support ends? – Super User) 2019 (see [Wayback] windows xp – How do I activate WindowsXP now that support has ended? – Super User) and 2020 (see [Wayback] XP activation – Windows XP Home and Professional).

  3. When OEM, try to obtain a legal Windows XP license key that matches the MCP, then change the key using steps in for instance:

    Note that it is no use searching Google for Windows XP License keys: Microsoft did and invalidated them back in the Windows XP SP1, SP2 and SP3 days: Wayback: Error message when you install Windows XP Service Pack 1 (SP1) or Service Pack 2 (SP2): “The product key used to install Windows is invalid

     

The 2001 Windows XP Professional License is archived in the Wayback machine as Microsoft Windows XP Professional END-USER LICENSE AGREEMENT: Windows%20XP_Professional_English_9e8a2f82-c320-4301-869f-839a853868a1.pdf (via [Wayback] Convert your existing Windows XP system into a virtual machine – TechRepublic).

Note this does not cover OEM or Volume Licenses.

–jeroen

Posted in ESXi6, ESXi6.5, ESXi6.7, Power User, Virtualization, VMware, VMware ESXi, Windows, Windows XP | Leave a Comment »

Increase audio quality in Remote Desktop Connections – Increase audio quality in Remote Desktop Connections

Posted by jpluimers on 2022/03/25

I wish mstsc.exe had a command-line parameter for this, but you have to either change it server-wide, or for each client using a .rdp file as per [Wayback] Increase audio quality in Remote Desktop Connections – Increase audio quality in Remote Desktop Connections

I really dislike fuzzy/tinny audio. Sometimes RDP connections with RDC clients results in laggy and/or poor quality audio. A two step tip that you can use to try and solve these problem in Windows7:

#1 on the server (the machine you are connecting to)

Using the Group Policy editor, Go to Computer Configuration:Administrative Templates:Windows Components: Remote Desktop Session Host:Device and Resource Redirection. Set “Limit audio playback quality.”  to “Enabled,” and set “Audio Quality” option “to High”.

#2 on the client (the machine you are connecting FROM) save and edit the RDP file for the connection and add  set audioqualitymode:i:2 to the file (you can use Notepad or a similar text editor to do this)

I got there via [Wayback] Remote Desktop software that works with audio (Windows) – Software Recommendations Stack Exchange which also taught me this (thanks [Wayback] Basj):

The last one is backed up by [Wayback] Audio FAQ – RealVNC Help Center

What can and can’t I do with audio?

Audio is available for [Wayback] Professional and Enterprise users, and allows the user to play audio on the Server and hear it on the Viewer. Now, in addition to seeing what is displayed on the Viewer and controlling the remote computer as though you were sitting in front of it, you can also hear what is playing on its speakers.

…

How do I turn the audio feature on or off?

The audio feature can be controlled from both the Server and the Viewer and must be activated on both for sound to work. On the Server, you can allow connected Viewer users to hear audio using “Global Permissions” in Options > Users & Permissions. (You can also set audio on a per-user basis.)

mceclip1.png

The audio permissions can be controlled per connected user account via the Server options page. On the Viewer, there is a mute/unmute setting to tick.

mceclip0.png

From [Wayback] audio – How can I forward sound over VNC? – Unix & Linux Stack Exchange, I learned that on Linux, PulseAudio might help, but requires SSH access:

You can use PulseAudio to move sound over SSH, though, which may be better than nothing for you.

Check out this post: [Wayback] https://razor.occams.info/blog/2009/02/11/pulseaudio-sound-forwarding-across-a-network/

–jeroen

Posted in Power User, Remote Desktop Protocol/MSTSC/Terminal Services, Windows | Leave a Comment »

Chocolatey 1.0.0 got released last week (chocolatey/choco · GitHub)

Posted by jpluimers on 2022/03/24

Last week finally there was the stable [Wayback/Archive] Release version 1.0.0 · chocolatey/choco · GitHub.

So I fixed the Wikipedia page

It was a few days after the 11th birthday “Celebration”: [Wayback/Archive] Chocolatey Software Blog | This One Goes To 11! Celebrating 11 Years Of Chocolatey. Not a really festive post, though it does have a really nice overview of 11 years of Chocolatey history and clearly showing the momentum of it has been a few years behind us.

The thing is: hardly anybody noticed the celebration nor the 1.0.0 release. Being at various 0.* versions for like a decade makes people not follow sudden version bumps closely. I only noticed when updating a bunch of testing VMs of which one had a problem, so I inspected the logs and saw the 1.0.0 version.

So these recent tweets did not gain much attention:

Anyway: the release notes indicate a few things scheduled for 2.0.0. Given the sudden 0.12.0 -> 1.0.0 bump, I have no clue far (or near!) in the future that will be.

It is kind of both a saddening and relieved feeling: like for instance Stack Overflow/Stack Exchange (both in the same age cohort as Chocolatey), Chocolatey is just there and mostly works.

–jeroen

Posted in .NET, Batch-Files, C#, Chocolatey, CommandLine, Development, Power User, PowerShell, PowerShell, Scripting, Software Development, Windows | Leave a Comment »

Some links on making a Windows 10 image backup to a network share and restoring from it

Posted by jpluimers on 2022/03/24

Earlier this month, I posted How to make a full backup of your Windows 10 PC | Windows Central.

That solution describes how to backup to and restore from a (different) local drive using the Windows 7/8.x tools ([Wayback] “Create a system image”) that still ship with Windows 10.

Soon, I need to be able to store a backup on a network location (and restore from it), so here are some links that hopefully solve this with the same tools (all via [Wayback] windows 10 restore image from network folder – Google Search):

–jeroen

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

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