Posted by jpluimers on 2013/02/01
There are (rare and offline) occasions where you want to want to stop/start the service that provides Microsoft Security Essentials.
A few notes first:
This is how: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Power User, Windows, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Vista, Windows XP | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2013/01/29
A while ago, I had to adapt a DOS app that used one specific version of Excel to do some batch processing so it would support multiple versions of Excel on multiple versions of Windows.
One of the big drawbacks of DOS applications is that the command lines you can use are even shorter than Windows applications, which depending you how you call an application are:
This is how the DOS app written in Clipper (those were the days, it was even linked with Blinker :) started Excel:
c:\progra~1\micros~2\office11\excel.exe parameters
01234567890123456789012345678901234567890
1 2 3 4
The above depends on 8.3 short file names that in turn depend on the order in which similar named files and directories have been created.
The trick around this, and around different locations/versions of an application, is to use START to find the right version of Excel.
The reason it works is because in addition to PATH, it checks the App Paths portions in the registry in this order to find an executable: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Batch-Files, Development, Encoding, Power User, Scripting, Software Development, Unicode, 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 »
Posted by jpluimers on 2013/01/25
Just found out about the AkelPad Editor.
It is tiny, has a lot of functionality.
Too bad that Alt+V does not go to the View menu, but is bound to a kind-of-past functionality.
Similar for other Alt+letter combinations in their keyboard shortcuts.
They should have used Ctrl+Alt+letter combinations for it.
So I continue my search for a good, tiny, syntax highlighting and multi-encoding capable NotePad alternative.
–jeroen
Posted in Keyboards and Keyboard Shortcuts, Power User, 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 »
Posted by jpluimers on 2013/01/17
Every once in a while, Office Communicator indicates a contact is not off-line and allows me to send messages to him/her, but then gives an error 504.
The reason is that the off-line status replicates slowly, so you were not aware your contact went off-line while typing the message.
The Error ID 504 is just an unfrienly way of saying “your contact went off-line, but you didn’t know that when sending the message, and I don’t have a friendly way of telling you this”.
–jeroen
via: Communicator 2007 R2 Help on Error ID 504.
Posted in Communicator, Office, Power User, Windows, Windows 7, Windows XP | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2013/01/17
In the past you have seen my interest in multi-touch Windows devices (for instance the Dell’s S2340T 23″ Multi-touch monitor and Microsoft Surface 2.0).
This year a I expect vendors to deliver Windows 8 based computers that resemble a lot of the Microsoft PixelSense (formerly “Microsoft Surface”) technology:
Lenovo seems the first to announce, with an expected availability in June 2013: IdeaCentre Horizon Table PC, with support for 10-finger, guesture, multiple-user, and two-hour battery life.
–jeroen
Posted in Development, Microsoft Surface on Windows 7, Power User, Software Development, Windows, Windows 7, Windows 8 | Tagged: battery life, computer, finger touch, gadgets, gaming, microsoft surface, technology, touch monitor, touch windows | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2013/01/17
Even though the JavaRa tool is Windows-only, it is a tremendous help scraping old vulnerable versions of the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) from your systems and keeping only the fixed versions.
Regular JRE installs from Oracle/Sun will keep the old-and-vulnerable JRE versions.
(note that it seems the recent JRE update did not actually fix the vulnerability, just the exploit, and that a new Java vulnerability might already be exploited. Be sure to keep a watch upcoming Java updates for these).
JavaRa is an effective way to deploy, update and remove the Java Runtime Environment (JRE). Its most significant feature is the JRE Removal tool; which forcibly deletes files, directories and registry keys associated with the JRE. This can assist in repairing or removing Java when other methods fail.
JavaRa 2.1 (released 20130116) Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Development, Java, 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: commandline arguments, internet, java jre, java runtime environment, java updates, java version, java vulnerability, software, technology | 1 Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2013/01/14
So I won’t forget:
–jeroen
Posted in ESXi5, Power User, VMware, VMware ESXi, Windows | 1 Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2013/01/07
Experimenting with ESXi5, I accidentally got a GPT formatted USB stick that no XP systems could handle.
I used Convert GPT Disk to MBR Disk – Windows 7 Forums to convert it back to MBR.
I needed to perform these DiskPart steps on a Windows 7 machine, as
–jeroen
Posted in ESXi5, Power User, VMware, VMware ESXi, Windows, Windows 7, Windows XP | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2013/01/04
Sometimes the Java Update checker crashes in the middle of something.
The long solution to restart it is to logoff/logon or reboot/logon and wait for it to come up.
The short solution is to manually restart it (you probably need to be Administrator to do this though) using either of these commands:
"%CommonProgramFiles%\Java\jucheck.exe" -auto
"%CommonProgramFiles%\Java\Java Update\jucheck.exe" -auto
"%CommonProgramFiles(x86)%\Java\jucheck.exe" -auto
"%CommonProgramFiles(x86)%\Java\Java Update\jucheck.exe" -auto
To keep it simple: The exact command depends (:
jucheck.exe is in the Java directory itself, or in a Java Update directory–jeroen
Posted in Development, Java, Power User, Software Development, Windows, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2000, Windows Server 2003 | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2012/12/31
A lot of scripts you find on the internet have hardcoded Windows account names or groups, for instance BUILTIN\Administrators
Those don’t work on many localized Windows versions, as part of the account names have been translated as well. Not only Administrators is translated, but BUILTIN can be translated too. Basically, expect everything in Windows to be translated as part of the localization process.
Some people keep translations lists, but that is not the real solution.
The real solution is that each such group, account or other identifier stems from a SID or Security ID.
Many of those SIDs are the same on any machine, or structured the same within a domain.
Microsoft has a list of these called Well-known security identifiers in Windows operating systems.
That list isn’t in a format most Windows tools use it, so I generated the list below that is more suitable.
The list below is based on a Windows 7 machine. Other versions or editions give slightly different results, but it is a good start.
At the bottom is the batch file that I used to generate this table. That file is adapted from the Microsoft list above.
The batch file depends on a few tools and tricks: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Batch-Files, Development, Power User, Scripting, 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 | 1 Comment »
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 