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.
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 »
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.
Posted in Apri1st, Fun, Power User, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 3.11, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows NT | Leave a Comment »
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 »
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:
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 apartOEMfrom other channels;OEMis not allowed to be virtualised, so would need a complete new Windows XP key to be activated as Virtual Machine; Channel IDs being neitherOEMnorVLK(volume license key) can often be re-activated, sometimes over the phone to explain the situation; I’ve not tried virtualising aVLKbased 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.inilabel 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:
sysdm.cpl which shows the “Product ID” us under the “Registerd to” information.reg query "hklm\software\microsoft\windows nt\currentversion" /v ProductIDI 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).
I’m not a lawyer, and Microsoft Licensing is a pain (especially for products that are out of support), but it looks like it is about three licenses:
- the original OEM license on the physical machine that allowed you to install the original Windows XP on that machine
- the non-OEM license for the Virtual Machine (if I read the thread correctly, it needs to be a Volume License that has Software Assurance) to activate it
- an access license so you can logon to the Virtual Machine or otherwise access it
Alternatively, if you started with a non-OEM license, and you could re-activate it on the virtual machine, it looks like you only need 3 (if you could not reactivate, you’d need 2 and 3)
Chris (Microsoft) had many interesting responses in the thread: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17
Other interesting bits in the thread: the XP activation servers are still working, but buying new keys for it can be problem and given the right licenses, reinstalling a virtual machine is virtually indistinguishable from cloning the physical machine.
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 »
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 “toHigh”.#2 on the client (the machine you are connecting FROM) save and edit the RDP file for the connection and add
set audioqualitymode:i:2to 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):
- Windows 7’s built-in RDP / “Remote Desktop Connection” tool => works with audio, but there are crackles/pops, even with this trick and this one.
- UltraVNC => no audio support
- TightVNC => no audio support
- RealVNC Enterprise => very good audio support, no lag / no crackle, high quality ; but not free
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.)
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.
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 »
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 »
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):
SERVERNAME\username to authenticate to the network share as opposed to just a username and avoiding bitlocker. Reminder to self: figure out how to do this with bitlocker.–jeroen
Posted in Power User, Windows, Windows 10 | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2022/03/22
In 2015, I posted P2V of an existing XP machine to Hyper-V to have an emergency fallback when retiring old XP physical machines and did a short edit on 20210727 promising about a future article on trying to fix the [Wayback] stop 0x0000007B blue screen.
This stop can that can happen during boot when the converted Windows XP requires different disk drivers than the physical Windows XP. Windows Vista and up are smarter to figure out the required changes, but Windows XP wasn’t.
The above screenshot is actually from the same physical Windows XP machine after doing the conversion, I wanted to try and run the virtual machine on physical hardware close to the original before moving it to the actual VMware host (yup, the Windows XP machine had been used as a VMware host before, so it had both VMware Workstation 6.5 and VMware Converter 4.01 installed).
The reason I wanted to move my last Windows XP machine to a virtual machine was that it was the only computer that could still print to my old, but nice, Olympus P-400 color dye sublimation printer. I mentioned this in 2015 when Installing the PIXMA mini260 – Canon Europe drivers under Windows 8.1 x64 – trying to say goodbye to Windows XP
I need to find a way to get my [Wayback/Archive.is] Olympus Camedia P-400 Digital Color Photo Printer. That is a lot harder: the latest Windows [Wayback] P-400 Printer > Software Downloads are for Windows XP.
At the end, of the blog post are a few links on the stop 0x0000007B and the Universal Boot CD for Windows workaround.
Posted in Fusion, Hyper-V, Power User, View, Virtualization, VMware, VMware Converter, VMware ESXi, VMware Workstation, Windows, Windows XP | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2022/03/18
[WayBack] Driver Store-File Repository using huge disk space. How can I reduce – Microsoft Community
Try deleting the unneeded drivers by following the steps below:
- On the search bar, type command prompt, right-click on it from the list then run it as Administrator.
- Type the command
pnputil.exe /e > c:\drivers.txtthen click Enter.- This command will create a file
drivers.txtonC:drive with the list of driver packages that are stored in the File Repository folder.- Delete all unnecessary drivers with the help of command
pnputil.exe /d oemNN.inf(NN— is a number of drivers file package fromdrivers.txt, as exampleoem07.inf). In case the driver is in use, you will see an error while trying delete it.
This can happen if you swapped a lot of hardware around. Especially graphics drivers tend to be bloatware.
Note this only deletes uninstalled drivers. The problem: some driver software, especially video drivers, keeps parts installed, even during uninstall, and even when running in Safe Mode.
Examples for AMD:
One of the nagging Windows 10 things is that out of the box it is hard to boot in safe mode: you have to reset and fail the boot your Windows system multiple times, or you have to hold a shift key (which some BIOS versions do not allow).
Luckily, you can reset the “press F8 during boot” behaviour of older Windows versions:
bcdedit /enum > %temp%\bcdedit.original.txt bcdedit /set {bootmgr} DisplayBootMenu true bcdedit /enum > %temp%\bcdedit.F8-enabled.txt fc %temp%\bcdedit.original.txt %temp%\bcdedit.F8-enabled.txt
(many sites you also need to run something like bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy legacy or bcdedit /set {current} bootmenupolicy legacy or replace the “default” and “current” with the boot option of your choice, but that is not needed)
F8 once (not multiple times!) as soon as the boot screen appearsDo not press
F8twice, as it usually runs the mode with early loading of anti-virus software disabled.
F4 for “Safe Mode”This works way better than holding the shift key during rebooting: often that does not work on the machines I tried it on (despite [WayBack] How to boot Windows 10 in Safe Mode – CCleaner.com claiming it should work).
The DisplayBootMenu for bootmgr (which I found via [WayBack] Boot menu policy – set text or graphical style boot menu Windows 8) seems only documented for Azure site:docs.microsoft.com “bcdedit” “DisplayBootMenu” “bootmgr” – Google Search:
Disregard the official documentation and other links indicating about bootmenupolicy as they require you to set it for each boot configuration, while setting DisplayBootMenu for bootmgr sets it for all configurations at once:
The BCDEdit /set command sets a boot entry option value in the Windows boot configuration data store (BCD) for Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, Windows 8, Windows 8.1,Windows 10, Windows Server 2012, and Windows Server 2012 R2.
Without bcdedit, be prepared for lengthy steps:
These options will be enabled when you have a boot menu (the numbers are the number keys or function keys to press in order to activate the option) via [Archive.is] Windows Startup Settings (including safe mode) – Windows Help:
- Enable Safe Mode with Networking
- Enable Safe Mode with Command Prompt
[WayBack] Image via [WayBack] Image Search from [WayBack] How to Fix a Computer That Won’t Start in Safe Mode:
The most effective way to fully get rid of a video driver is to run DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller) in Safe Mode.
I found it via [WayBack] Windows downgrade my Radeon Software down to 15.11 | Community.
–jeroen
Posted in Power User, Windows, Windows 10 | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2022/03/15
The below image is Dutch, but it presents Windows Update errors [Wayback] 0x80070643 and [Wayback] 0x80073712. The first happened when any update was installed after the second occurred.
My hunch was that both were related, so fixing the second should fix the first.
Windows update errors 0x80070643 and 0x80073712
The first step in any odd error is trying to reboot.
With most Windows Update errors, after rebooting, I usually check disk space (since quite a few of my Windows installs are VMs, so I need to keep VM disk sizes low enough to be able to store all these VMs): there was a comfortable 13 gigabytes free.
Running cleanmgr.exe showed some 5 gigabytes was taken by Windows Update files and almost 1.5 gigabyte by Windows Delivery Optimisation. Cleaning that up brought the free space to almost 20 gigabytes and clear any potential download corruptions: they happen, despite TLS.
Oh Delivery Optimization is just a distributed peer-to-peer cache of Windows related updates, see List of Microsoft Windows components: Services – Wikipedia and [Wayback] Delivery Optimization for Windows 10 updates – Windows Deployment | Microsoft Docs.
After cleanup did not resolve the issue, so the next step is to either run the [Wayback] GUI version of the Windows Update Troubleshooter or from the console equivalent using the below DISM statements.
The below steps are from [Wayback] Windows Update error 0x80073712, but many other sources describe the same steps:
Start a Command Prompt as elevated Administrator
In the Administrator: Command Prompt window, type the following commands. Press the Enter key after each command:
DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Scanhealth
DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth- When finished, re-run the updates
Note that DISM can take a very long time, even on a recently installed Windows machine: the first took 5 minutes, the second also 5 minutes on a VM that was backed with fast SSD storage and had plenty of CPU and memory. These are my results show no corruption, but did repair the problem:
C:\temp>DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Scanhealth Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool Version: 10.0.19041.844 Image Version: 10.0.19043.1052 [==========================100.0%==========================] No component store corruption detected. The operation completed successfully. C:\bin\bin>DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool Version: 10.0.19041.844 Image Version: 10.0.19043.1052 [==========================100.0%==========================] The restore operation completed successfully. The operation completed successfully. C:\temp>
Despite DISM not showing any issues, it did repair the problem.
A retry of the updates (without even rebooting) showed a successful update requiring a reboot:
Success: updates were installed and Windows wanted to reboot
If the above fail, there are two more things to try: reset the whole update mechanism, or verify/repair the .NET framework integrity.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/startup-settings-windows-8-56a6f90f3df78cf7729134e1.png)
0x80070643)Via [Wayback] Windows Update – error 0x80070643 – Microsoft Community.
From [Wayback] Download Microsoft .NET Framework Repair Tool from Official Microsoft Download Center, download NetFxRepairTool.exe (the actual download is via the [Wayback] Download Microsoft .NET Framework Repair Tool from Official Microsoft Download Center:confirmation at [Wayback] download.microsoft.com/download/2/B/D/2BDE5459-2225-48B8-830C-AE19CAF038F1/NetFxRepairTool.exe) and run it.
This is a two part exercise of which the second part is not always needed.
%windir%\SoftwareDistributionSuggested by for instance
Run these commands in an Administrator elevated command prompt:
net stop wuauserv rename %windir%\SoftwareDistribution SoftwareDistribution.old net start wuauserv
If after this, Windows updates work again, then recursively delete the %windir%\SoftwareDistribution folder.
%windir%\System32\catroot2Order slightly corrected from [Wayback] Can’t rename Catroot2 and SoftwareDistribution folder in Windows – Microsoft Community because of service dependencies:
net stop bits net stop wuauserv net stop cryptsvc rename %windir%\System32\catroot2 catroot2 .old net start bits net start wuauserv net start cryptsvc
Note that some sources
msiserver too, but that does not seem necessary any more.cryptsvc, but that is indeed needed.This is hardly needed, but [Wayback] Windows Update – Additional resources – Windows Deployment | Microsoft Docs has even more steps to fully reset the Windows Update components on your system.
–jeroen
Posted in Power User, Windows, Windows 10 | Leave a Comment »
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 