The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff

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

  • My badges

    Mastodon

  • Twitter Updates

  • My Flickr Stream

    20140508-Delphi-2007--Project-Options--Cannot-Edit-Application-Title-HelpFile-Icon-Theming20140430-Fiddler-Filter-Actions-Button-Run-Filterset-now20140424-VMware-Fusion-6.0.3.-no-reclaimable
    More Photos

  • Pages

  • All categories

  • Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

    Join 1,861 other subscribers

Archive for the ‘Windows’ Category

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »

Windows batch files: How to set a variable with the result of a command (via: Stack Overflow)

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/12/11

One of the easy things in *nix is to set the value of an environment with the output of a command.

Something like this is possible in Windows too, but you have to instruct Windows to keep an empty set of delimiters to capture the full first line.

There is also a small but important difference between Windows and *nix upon command failure: *nix will always return an empty value, but in Windows you must make sure to empty the value first.

Thanks Jesse Dearing for this summary: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Batch-Files, Development, Power User, Scripting, Software Development, Windows | Leave a Comment »

Office Communicator 2007 Keyboard Shortcuts – Communicator – Office.com

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/11/29

I wasn’t aware that Office Communicator supported keyboard shortcuts for text formatting in the chat window.

Since I normally use RDP/MSTSC connections to a work machine (the laptop often moves around which means that network connections aren’t
“persistent”), which means that every once in a while a key like Shift, Alt, Ctrl, or Windows hangs.

That’s how I found out why sometimes the font in the chat window changed a bit: most often the font became strike through, which corresponds to Ctrl-T.

Three things that Microsoft should improve here:

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Communicator, Keyboards and Keyboard Shortcuts, Office, Power User, Windows | Leave a Comment »

Windows Vista/7/8 and up: setting the user environment variables as regular user (non-administrator)

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/10/14

As a non-administrator, as of Windows Vista, you are not allowed to change the environment variables the regular way.

Various people have quoted the official Microsoft way of changing the environment variables as a regular user on Windows Vista and up (including Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows Server 2008 and up).

It means going through the account settings doing half a dozen steps or so.

Quickest way however is to put this in a batch file to set/edit those environment variables like PATH:

"C:\Windows\System32\rundll32.exe" sysdm.cpl,EditEnvironmentVariables

Whereas for the full sysdm.cpl you need Administrator privileges, you don’t for this specific rundll32 call.

The cool thing is that Windows will automatically merge the user and system environment PATH in this format:

system-PATH;user-PATH

–jeroen

via: How can I set user environmental variables such as PATH from a non-administrator account on Windows 7 – Super User.

Posted in Power User, Windows, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Vista | Leave a Comment »

Test which Java version you have installed

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/10/11

Java.com has a test page that checks which Java version is installed and accessible through your web-browser:

http://java.com/en/download/installed.jsp?detect=jre

–jeroen

Posted in Power User, Windows | Leave a Comment »

performance – How is TeamViewer so fast? – Stack Overflow

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/10/07

Interesting Q/A thread because it mentions quite a few alternatives next to the well known TeamViewer, RDP, VNC combo.

--jeroen

via:  performance – How is TeamViewer so fast? – Stack Overflow.

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

When KB2844285 fails to update on Widows XP after the 20130813 refresh

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/09/30

KB2844285 failed to update on one of my XP systems, probably because it got re-released on 20130813: MS13-052: Description of the security update for the .NET Framework 2.0 Service Pack 2 on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003: July 9, 2013.

The .NET Framework Repair Tool failed as well, so I needed more rigorous measures.

To get it working, the below steps are what I did after reading Updated: what to do if other .NET Framework setup troubleshooting steps do not help – Aaron Stebner’s WebLog – Site Home – MSDN Blogs.

The reason for all these steps is that there is are dependencies (3.5 SP1 depend on 3.5, which depends on 3.0 SP2, which depends on 3.0, which depends on 2.0 SP2, which depends on 2.0; the language packs depend on their respective versions).

  1. run Appwiz.cpl (that’s the Add or Remove Programs wizard in the Control Panel).
  2. uninstall .NET 3.5 SP1 (I didn’t have language packs for that installed).
  3. uninstall the language packs for .NET 3.0 SP2.
  4. uninstall the language packs for .NET 3.0.
  5. uninstall .NET 3.0 SP2.
  6. uninstall the language packs for .NET 2.0 SP2.
  7. uninstall the language packs for .NET 2.0.
  8. uninstall .NET 2.0 SP2.
  9. uninstall .NET 2.0 SDK ENU.
  10. read the .NET Framework Cleanup Tool User’s Guide, then ran the .NET Framework Cleanup Tool for .NET versions 3.5, 3.0, 2.0 in that order.
  11. reboot
  12. download and install the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Service Pack 2 (it is needed by the SDK from the next step).
  13. that failed: “DepCheck indicates Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0a is not installed.”.
  14. uninstall .NET 4 Client Profile
  15. uninstall .NET 1.1 language packs
  16. uninstall .NET 1.1 SDL
  17. uninstall .NET 1.1
  18. run the .NET Framework Cleanup Tool for .NET versions 4, 3.5, 3.0, 2.0, 1.1 in that order
  19. download and install the .NET 1.1
  20. download and install the .NET 1.1 SDK
  21. download and install the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Service Pack 2 (it is needed by the SDK from the next step).
  22. download and install the Microsoft .NET 2.0 Framework SDK (some tools on this machine required this).
  23. downloaded and installed Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 (as it contains .NET 2.0 through 3.5 SP1 including all intermediate versions and updates).
  24. read the .NET Framework Setup Verification Tool User’s Guide, then ran the .NET Framework Setup Verification Tool: no problems.
  25. installed the updates and hotfixes for the above .NET versions using the Microsoft Update site.

It was a single processor system, so it took a few hours to complete, but now it works well again.

BTW: in preparation of the Windows XP / Windows 2003 Server, I plan to create and archive a few activated VMs with as many .NET frameworks and language packs on it. Just in case I need it for clients that still depend on them.

–jeroen

via: KB2844285 – fail to update – Microsoft Community.

Posted in Power User, Windows, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows XP | Leave a Comment »

Speedup Youtube Playback: Watch Lectures In Half The Time with YouTube’s HTML5 Player

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/09/13

I wish I had kept an eye on it after it was announced (which was 3.5 years ago, but not very stable): The Youtube HTML5 viewer trial.

It has come a long way since then. Full screen it is still not as good as the official one, but the main attraction introduced since is: configurable playback speed!

Yes, you can choose playback at 25%, 50%, 100%, 150% or 200% of the original speed. Ideal for lectures or watching replays of conference sessions.

Quote from the life hacker post LifeHacker on this:

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Apple, Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Mac, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, Opera, OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, Power User, Web Browsers, Windows, Windows 7, Windows 8 | Leave a Comment »

Windows library search order (EXE/DLL/module) (via “The Old New Thing”) and max PATH length

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/08/27

From The Old New Thing:

Recall that the library search path searches directories in the following order:

  1. The directory containing the application EXE.
  2. The system32 directory.
  3. The system directory.
  4. The Windows directory.
  5. The current directory.
  6. The PATH.

Note that the PATH environment variable has a limited length, which can be impacted by the installation programs you use and the Windows versions you use.

To be on the safe side, use 1024 or 1920.

I found various limitations: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Development, Microsoft Surface on Windows 7, Power User, Software Development, Windows, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2000, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Vista, Windows XP | Leave a Comment »

Paint.NET v3.5.11 is now available (via: Paint.NET Blog)

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/08/17

Programmers scale: time versus project completeness

Programmers scale: time versus project completeness

I totally agree that Paint.NET is the best free image and photo editor on Windows.

Writing quality software takes time, not only when writing it in spare time like Rick Brewster does. Getting things “right” is a tedious process and often will set you back: just watch the graph on the right.

So I’m not surprised that it took a very long time after the first Paint.NET 4.0 idea in 2008 to get “close” to a release.

And indeed, it looks like Rick has become much closer which will please many people waiting for Paint .NET 4.

I’m really glad with the announcement that Paint.NET v3.5.11 BETA is now available – Paint.NET Discussion & Questions – Paint.NET Forum.

Edit: while writing this, the final Paint.NET v3.5.11 came out.

It paves the way for Paint .NET 4.0 update in the future, and fixes/improves quite a few things.

A few quotes from it:

This is probably not the update you were expecting I need to push out an update to v3.5 in preparation for the eventual release of v4.0 […] releasing a “beta” today […] I’ll be pushing out the Final/RTM in a few days.

The primary goal of this update is preparing for the v4.0 release: v3.5.10 will not be able to offer the v4.0 update, but v3.5.11 will. […]

Here are the changes for this release:

  • Fixed: The Gaussian Blur effect was incorrectly calculating alpha values for non-opaque pixels. (http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/18483-gaussian-blur-mistreats-alpha/)
  • Improved performance of the Sharpen effect by about 25%
  • Improved performance of the Median effect by about 30%
  • Improved performance of the Fragment effect by about 40%
  • Improved performance of the Unfocus effect by about 100%
  • Reduced memory usage when many selection manipulation operations are in the history/undo stack (the undo data is now saved to disk)
  • The built-in updater now supports upgrading to paint.net 4.0 (once it’s available)

There have been rumors floating around that Paint.NET is “dead.” This is not true!

–jeroen

via: Paint.NET Blog | The best free image and photo editor. By Rick Brewster..

Posted in .NET, .NET 3.5, .NET 4.0, Algorithms, Development, Floating point handling, Power User, Software Development, Windows, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2000, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Vista, Windows XP | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

CmdKey.exe can be used to save passwords for MSTSC.exe

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/08/16

You can use CmdKey.exe to save a username/password combination to be used by MSTSC.exe

CmdKey allows you both to store and delete these credentials.

–jeroen

via: c# – Run mstsc.exe with specified username and password – Stack Overflow.

Posted in Power User, Windows | 4 Comments »

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »