via:
- Andrej Kvasnica – Google+ commenting in HP detonates its timebomb: printers stop accepting third party ink en masse – Alan Cox – Google+
Archive for the ‘Windows’ Category
How to downgrade firmware on HP OfficeJet Pro 8610 to allow using old or refilled cartridges – Brozkeff’s lala-land
Posted by jpluimers on 2016/09/20
Posted in HP Printer Drivers, Power User, Printer drivers, Windows | 2 Comments »
SysInternals sdelete: zero wipe free space is called -z instead of -c
Posted by jpluimers on 2016/09/20
In the 2009 past, sdelete used the -c parameter to zero wipe clean a hard drive and -z would clean it with a random pattern.
That has changed. Somewhere along the lines, -c and -z has swapped meaning which I didn’t notice.
This resulted in many of my virtual machines image backups were a lot larger than they needed to be.
The reason is that now:
-cdoes a clean free space with a random DoD conformant pattern (which does not compress well)-zwrites zeros in the free space
Incidently, -c is a lot slower than -z as well.
TL;DR: use this command
sdelete -z C:
Where C: is the drive to zero clean the free space.
–jeroen
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Posted in Batch-Files, Development, Fusion, Hyper-V, Power User, Proxmox, Scripting, sdelete, Software Development, SysInternals, View, VirtualBox, Virtualization, VMware, VMware ESXi, VMware Workstation, Windows | Leave a Comment »
Batch files to show the User/System environment variables stored in registry – via: Stack Overflow
Posted by jpluimers on 2016/09/20
I wrote two tiny batch files that would dump the environment variables from the registry.
Various reasons:
- Environment variables can be stored in two contexts: System and User (SET will show them all at once and for instance combine PATH up to 1920 characters).
- Environment variables can be set to auto-expand or not, which you cannot see from a SET command (REG_EXPAND_SZ versus REG_SZ).
show-user-environment-variables.bat:
reg query "HKCU\Environment"
show-system-environment-variables.bat:
reg query "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment"
Filtered results:
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Posted in Batch-Files, Development, Power User, Scripting, Software Development, Windows, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 9, Windows NT, Windows Server 2000, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Vista, Windows XP | Leave a Comment »
4K/5K monitors: when your RDP session has small black bands limiting the height/width to 2048/4096 pixels
Posted by jpluimers on 2016/08/29
Sometimes RDP limits you to 2048 pixels vertical (or 4096 pixels horizontal)
Just found out why on some Windows versions, the RDP sessions form my 4K monitor has some small black bands on top/bottom: older versions of Windows limit their RDP server to 4096 x 2048.
A 4K monitor will not hit the width limit (as 4K cheats: it is usually “just” 3840 pixels wide), but it does hit the height limitation (2160 is slightly more than 2048: you miss 112 pixels that show as two small black bands).
A 5K monitor is worse: it will hit both limits (5K does not cheat: at 5120 × 2880 it is exactly 5*1024 pixels wide) so you miss 124 pixels horizontally and a whopping 832 pixels vertically.
Don’t buy a 5K monitor yet if you do a lot of RDP work to older Windows versions.
The link below has a table listing various Windows versions, but it omits end-of-life versions so I’ve done some testing: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2003 R2 share the same limitations as Windows Server 2008 most likely because their latest service packs share the same RDP 6.1 version.
I updated this in the table:
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Posted in 4K Monitor, 5K monitor, Displays, Hardware, Microsoft Surface on Windows 7, Power User, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 9, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Vista, Windows XP | Leave a Comment »
Some notes on apcupsd, a SUA3000XLI and a SUA48XLBP battery pack
Posted by jpluimers on 2016/08/22
I’ve had a SUA3000XLI for years using the USB cable and default Windows support as PowerChute Personal Edition would fail to recognise it and abort installation (so I could not use APC drivers as described on youtube).
A while ago, Liander – the energy distribution company – wanted to replace both the gas and electricity meters to become “smart” during day time. The server configuration load was heavy enough for Windows to indicate the UPS would last about 30 minutes. At night that’s not much of a problem but during 1 hour replacement day-time it would be a problem.
So I bought a SUA48XLBP battery pack (and a SUA039 cable as the cable wasn’t long enough to keep an inch or so air space between UPS and battery pack) so the battery would last about 3 times as long.
Windows would still show it would last about 30 minutes. Strange. So I started looking around and it appeared the SUA3000XLI needed calibration which requires PowerChute. Since PowerChute won’t work, I was almost back at square 1. Almost, as I know knew it required calibration.
In the past I had come across apcupcd but that was a long time ago when it supported a limited set of operating systems and a limited set of features so I never installed it.
But when searching how to calibrate the without using PowerChute, it quickly appeared that the apctest part of apcupsd can do just that: soft calibrate the UPS/battery combo. There are some steps and prerequisites (the most important ones are to turn off the apcupsd and provide enough load and 100% battery charge at start).
Spoiler: the combined UPS/battery-pack now lasts for almost 2 hours which is long enough.
Installing apcupsd
I’m describing this from a Windows perspective and it’s dead easy:
- download the latest release
- run the installer
- allow the driver to be installed
- indicate it’s OK to install an unsigned driver
- now Windows won’t recognise the UPS any more, but in a few steps the apcupsd and helper program will
- update the configuration file (no changes needed when it’s a USB connected one)
- wait for the service to start
- wait for the apctray helper program to start
- look in the “system tray” for apctray helper program icon
- optionally configure your system to auto-start apctray after logon
The USB connection to the UPS delivers slightly less options than using a serial cable
Using a serial cable instead of a USB one
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Posted in APC Smart-UPS, apcupsd, ESXi5, ESXi5.1, ESXi5.5, ESXi6, Liander, Power User, UPS, Virtualization, VMware, VMware ESXi, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 9, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows XP | 1 Comment »
If your Solitaire Collection on Windows 10 has display issues: ditch your old ATI/AMD Radeon graphics adapter
Posted by jpluimers on 2016/08/15
Solitaire Collection display issues on older ATI/AMD Radeon graphics cards
If you’ve installed Windows 10 and the Solitaire Collection looks like the picture on the right, then there is a good chance your machine has an older ATI/AMD Radeon graphics adapter (or mobile one).
At least these categories are affected:
- Radeon X1200 – General Windows 10 issues with old ATI/AMD hard… | Community [WayBack]
- Radeon X1300 – first hand experience
- Radeon X1600 – solitaire collection display problems – Microsoft Community [WayBack] / i have a problem with microsoft solitaire collection – Microsoft Community [WayBack]
Despite Microsoft knowing this (heck it fails on some Windows 8 systems as well), it keeps luring people into upgrading their working systems with Windows 10 resulting in non-working systems.
Not a smart move…
–jeroen
via: solitaire collection display problems radeon – Google Search
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Posted in Power User, Windows, Windows 10 | Leave a Comment »
Setting the language of HP Solution Center needs a full uninstall/install cycle *and* the non-Unicode Windows Language to be set
Posted by jpluimers on 2016/08/12
I can imagine why some people hate the HP Solution Center software: it’s a dork on the language front and not even Unicode-aware.
You cannot set the language form inside it. The language is fixed at install time. You’d think it would take the users language settings for that. But it doesn’t: it takes the users non-Unicode language setting for it. Which – of course – you cannot find when searching in the control panel for Language (or Dutch Taal) you get there by searching for Region (or Dutch Regio).
This succeeds:
Nederlands (Nederland)
It fails when it is set to:
Engels (Verenigde Staten)
–jeroen
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Posted in HP Printer Drivers, Power User, Printer drivers, Windows, Windows 10 | 2 Comments »
Und noch ein Trick, weiterhin kostenlos an Windows 10 zu kommen | heise online
Posted by jpluimers on 2016/08/09
Obwohl das Angebot eigentlich am 29. Juli endete, stellt Microsoft selbst das Werkzeug zum Download bereit, das man zum Umwandeln einer Windows-7/8.1-Installation in Windows 10 braucht.
Sources:
- Und noch ein Trick, weiterhin kostenlos an Windows 10 zu kommen | heise online
- https://support.microsoft.com/help/12387/windows-10-update-history
- https://download.microsoft.com/download/0/4/7/047889D0-578C-4A44-A38F-7F30A6CB3809/current-version/Windows10Upgrade28084.exe
- Rename this to Windows10upgrade24074.exe
Via:
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Posted in Power User, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 9 | Leave a Comment »
Windows Flaw Reveals Microsoft Account Passwords, VPN Credentials
Posted by jpluimers on 2016/08/08
Attack from the ’90s resurfaces more deadly than before
Source: Windows Flaw Reveals Microsoft Account Passwords, VPN Credentials
TL;DR: block LAN->WAN port 445
Note this won’t affect web-dav shares like \live.sysinternals.com\DavWWWRoot as that uses ports 443 and 80.
–jeroen
via:
- TIL NTLM Auth is still a thing, still broken and at the core of all Microsoft properties, including Skype. And that is why we can’t have nice things. – Kristian Köhntopp – Google+
- TIL NTLM Auth is still a thing, still broken and at the core of all Microsoft properties, including Skype. And that is why we can’t have nice things. – Jeroen Wiert Pluimers – Google+
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Posted in Communications Development, Development, https, Internet protocol suite, Microsoft Surface on Windows 7, NTLM, Power User, Security, SMB, TCP, WebDAV, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 9, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Vista, Windows XP | Leave a Comment »
When you get a black screen with mouse cursor: Fast Startup – Turn On or Off in Windows 10 – Windows 10 Forums
Posted by jpluimers on 2016/08/05
The Windows 10 installation does not warn you about it but the Fast Startup in Windows 10 will fail with many video cards and display drivers. This happens a lot on older hardware which somehow Microsoft thinks deserves to be auto-upgraded to Windows 10.
Usually you will see this when – after a previous shutdown – you boot and you get a black screen with a mouse cursor.
If you wait long enough, the machine will go to sleep and if you un-sleep it by pressing the spacebar most of the times everything will be fine.
The actual solution that works most of the time is to disable Fast Startup as described in Fast Startup – Turn On or Off in Windows 10 – Windows 10 Forums.
Sometimes there are other solutions which you can see in the below video.
–jeroen
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Posted in Power User, Windows, Windows 10 | Leave a Comment »
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 