The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff

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

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Archive for the ‘Windows 7’ Category

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 »

Mouse Jiggler – MouseJiggle.exe will (virtually) move your mouse cursor so the screen saver does not start

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/08/12

Ideal to prevent unwanted screen savers: MouseJiggle.exe

  • Required .NET framework 2.0.
  • Commandline parameter -j or –jiggle will autostart it.
  • Works on all Windows versions I tried (including Windows 7 and up)
  • Does not prevent RDP/MSTSC idle detection imposed by the Session Time Limits group policy.

–jeroen

via: Mouse Jiggler – Documentation.

Posted in 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 »

How to access DSA.msc in windows 7: “Active Directory Users and Computers”

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/08/02

When you do not have DSA.msc installed in Windows 7, you cannot perform the “Active Directory Users and Computers”, which is a very valuable tool to browse/edit a Windows Active directory.

The How to access DSA.msc in windows 7 explains on how to install it, but when your Windows installation is not allowed to add/remove Windows features, you need to download it the .msu, then install it.

The download depends on your Windows service pack. For Windows 7 SP 1, it is here (it is about 230 megabyte):

Download Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 7 with SP1 from Official Microsoft Download Center.
You can download both an x86 (32-bit) and x64 (64-bit) version.

–jeroen Install Group Policy and AD Tools on Windows 7.

Posted in Power User, Windows, Windows 7 | Leave a Comment »

Mac OS X: disabled most Mission Control keyboard shortcuts

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/07/08

When doing a lot of remote desktop and VM work from a Mac to Windows machines, the Mission Control shortcuts (like Ctrl Up/Down) often get in the way.

Since I hardly use Mission Control anyway (I run VMs and remote machines to really cut dependencies: far stronger than multiple desktops), I just disabled all the Mission Control keyboard shortcuts you see here:

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Apple, Keyboards and Keyboard Shortcuts, Mac, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, MacBook, MacBook Retina, MacBook-Air, MacBook-Pro, OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, 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 »

Fake Internet Connectivity for your Lab (Tricking NCSI) – via: Canberra Premier Field Engineering

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/06/21

If you ever wondered why how in Windows – as of Vista – the NCIS (network connection status indicator) determines if you have a valid internet connection, it is pretty simple, as both these pages explain:

NCIS depends on the msftncis.com domain (link to the checks from IntoDNS) and is for supporting Network Awareness in applications.

The probing is done in this order: Read the rest of this entry »

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

Thinstuff Remote Application – NLDelphi

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/06/13

Interesting thread: Thinstuff Remote Application – NLDelphi.

Allows remote application access from Windows 7 / Vista / XP and Windows SBS, and it looks like you don’t need special CAL for it.

–jeroen

Posted in Power User, Windows, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP | Leave a Comment »

More ESXi5 installation steps

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/06/10

(note: part of this post is unfinished, but I wanted to make sure all the links are publicly accessible, so I posted earlier and incomplete)

I already did a few ESXi5 postings (they apply to 5.1 as well) of which the most important are:

Time to finish up some additional installation steps (with a big thanks to Matthijs ter Woord):

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in BIOS, Boot, ESXi5, ESXi5.1, Hardware, HP XW6600, Keyboards and Keyboard Shortcuts, Power User, PowerCLI, Virtualization, VMware, VMware ESXi, Wake-on-LAN (WoL), 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 »

I love my keyboard; why did they hide “Underline keyboard shortcuts and access keys” in Windows 8 and 7 so far away?

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/05/22

Despite the radically different first look, lot’s of Windows 8 is the same as in Windows 7

So this Windows 7 trick works just as well in Windows 8:

This is how you get the underline character to show for Alt and other keyboard shortcuts in Windows 7 (the link shows you how to do this with the mouse, but we are keyboard lovers, are’t we?):

  1. Press the WINDOWS-U combination to open the “Ease of Access Center”
  2. Under Explore all settings, select “Make the keyboard easier to use” by pressing TAB a couple of times, then press ENTER to select it.
  3. Press ALT-N to select and check “Underline keyboard shortcuts and access keys” under ”Make it easier to use keyboard shortcuts”
  4. Press ALT-O to fire the OK button action.
  5. Press ALT-F4 to close the “Ease of Access Center”

Done!

–jeroen

via: I love my keyboard; why did they hide “Underline keyboard shortcuts and access keys” in Windows 7 so far away? « The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff.

Posted in Keyboards and Keyboard Shortcuts, Power User, Windows, Windows 7, Windows 8 | Leave a Comment »

Interesting: CrossLoop (Free Screen Sharing and Remote Access Solutions)

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/05/20

CrossLoop is on my list of software to  try out soon:

Free screen sharing software and remote access solutions. Get affordable Technical Support & Computer Help with money back guarantee.

–jeroen

via: Free Screen Sharing and Remote Access Solutions.

Posted in Power User, Windows, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP | Leave a Comment »