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 8.1’ Category

Windows PPTP – How to Create a VPN Server on Your Windows Computer Without Installing Any Software

Posted by jpluimers on 2016/07/18

Windows has the built-in ability to function as VPN server, although this option is hidden. This trick works on both Windows 7 and Windows 8. The server uses the point-to-point tunneling protocol (PPTP.)

Source: How to Create a VPN Server on Your Windows Computer Without Installing Any Software

One day this might come in handy though I need to investigate a bit more on PPTP security issues first: might need to go for L2TP/IPsec instead.

Later: indeed, I should follow Don’t use PPTP, and don’t use IPSEC-PSK either (via: CloudCracker blog)

–jeroen

Posted in IPSec, Network-and-equipment, Power User, PPTP, VPN, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 | 1 Comment »

windows 7 – Available memory differs by several GiB from what is installed – Super User

Posted by jpluimers on 2016/07/01

Very interesting question and answers: windows 7 – Available memory differs by several GiB from what is installed – Super User.

Basically the missing memory can be due to:

  • Windows licensing limitations
  • Mapping of device memory into virtual memory space (especially on x86 systems)

This affects both server and client versions of Windows. Client versions are more restrictive because of the vast amounts of potentially faulty drivers involved.

Some links (read the full question for details):

–jeroen

Posted in Power User, SysInternals, 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 »

HP Color LaserJet 9500HDN and stock Windows 8.1 x64 drivers: PCL XL error Warning: IllegalMediaSource – via: Server Fault

Posted by jpluimers on 2016/06/20

HP Printers, PCL6 and drivers are always a fight to get right.

In this case the Microsoft stock Windows 8.1 x64 drivers always result in my HP LaserJet 9500 HDN printing a page like this from the same tray the last print job ran:

PCL XL error

        Warning: IllegalMediaSource

I’ve seen similar results with other Windows, printer and driver combinations (not limited to Microsoft drivers, but always PCL related), but never knew the solution.

Reading the answer, I totally recognise it: always some form of PCL6 driver was involved, and switching to PostScript solved it.

Note that there are three varieties of the HP Universal Print Driver for Windows:

  • PCL5
  • PCL6
  • PostScript

So now I know to always install the first and the last (:

–jeroen

via: windows xp – PCL XL error Warning: IllegalMediaSource – Server Fault.

Posted in HP Printer Drivers, Power User, Printer drivers, Windows, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows Vista, Windows XP | Leave a Comment »

(Roaming) Profile and Folder Redirection

Posted by jpluimers on 2016/06/17

The article I quote from is about Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP, but still holds for modern Windows Server and Client versions:

After you enable roaming profiles for a couple of users, the first thing that you will probably notice is that logins and log offs become extremely slow for those users. […]

The solution to obscenely long logons and log offs is to use folder redirection. Folder redirection allows you to save portions of the user’s profile in a different location on the network. […]

You can’t redirect every folder in a user’s profile.[…] The folders that you can redirect are:

  • Application Data,
  • Desktop,
  • My Documents, and
  • Start Menu.

[…] I recommend creating a share point on the server to which you can redirect these folders.  […]

To redirect a folder, open the Group Policy Editor and navigate to User Settings | Windows Settings | Folder Redirection. The group policy requires you to redirect each of the four folders separately, but the procedure for doing so is the same for each folder:

  1. Set the folder’s Setting option to “Basic – Redirect Everyone’s Folder To The Same Location”.
  2. Next, select the Create A Folder For Each User Under The Root Path option from the Target Folder Location drop down list.
  3. Finally, enter your root path in the place provided.

–jeroen

via: Profile and Folder Redirection In Windows Server 2003 :: Windows 2003 :: Articles & Tutorials :: WindowsNetworking.com.

Posted in Power User, Windows, 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 »

GWX Control Panel – get rid of Windows 10 forced update – Ultimate Outsider – Software Downloads

Posted by jpluimers on 2016/06/06

GWX Control Panel
This is a free tool that can remove and disable the ‘Get Windows 10’ notification area icon on Windows 7 and Windows 8. Recent versions can also disable ‘Upgrade to Windows 10’ behavior in the Windows Update control panel and do much more. See the user guide at the Ultimate Outsider blog. You can still download GWX Control Panel as a standalone executable if you don’t like installers. Please see the “GWX Control Panel Release Notes and Version History” post at the blog for MD5 and SHA-1 checksums of all official releases.

Source: Ultimate Outsider – Software Downloads

Via: Now, that’s going to make them a lot of friends. Good thing I removed the bloody GWX program today from two more PCs. – Thomas Mueller (dummzeuch) – Google+

–jeroen

Posted in Power User, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8.1 | Leave a Comment »

repair windows 7 recovery partition boot configuration – Google Search

Posted by jpluimers on 2016/06/06

If I ever need to repair windows 7 recovery partition boot configuration – Google Search:

Some commands:

bootrec /fixmbr

bootrec /fixboot

 

–jeroen

Posted in Power User, Windows, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 9 | Leave a Comment »

Burn Image context menu item missing in Windows 7 and up – via Super User

Posted by jpluimers on 2016/06/03

Windows 7 and up come with a built-in ISO file burner called Disc burner however, some times %windir%\System32\isoburn.exe is not associated with .iso files any more, so you have to re-associate it.

Source: Burn Image context menu item missing in Windows 7 – Super User

Still it doesn’t always recognise burn hardware so I usually revert to installing the latest ImgBurn (given my audio experience with it and that it is a nice tool to create ISO images from and burn them to DVD / CD media; just be sure to uncheck the “optional” software that comes with it).

–jeroen

Posted in Power User, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 | Leave a Comment »

Setting your DTAP environments apart: Push a solid colored background to a Windows Server 2012 or later | Tidbits of Information from Virot

Posted by jpluimers on 2016/05/17

This post summarises it nicely: [Wayback/Archive.is] Push a solid colored background to a Windows Server 2012 or later | Tidbits of Information from Virot.

I already knew about the one below, but the post above gives a more complete picture with:

  • Background color
  • Wallpaper
  • tells how to set the menu and

These I already knew:

–jeroen

 

Posted in Agile, Color (software development), Development, Power User, Software Development, Windows, 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 »

Windows RDP error 3489661694 when connecting from a Mac, connecting from Windows fails without any message

Posted by jpluimers on 2016/05/16

Connecting from Mac OS X edition of Microsoft Remote Desktop
Sometimes I connecting to various Windows systems over RDP fails. On Windows the mstsc (Remote Desktop Connection) application recognises the server has a certificate, presents you with a login dialog, then just stops without any message.

Connecting from Mac OS X edition of Microsoft Remote Desktop does give you error message “The server denied the logon with reason: 3489661694”.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Power User, Remote Desktop Protocol/MSTSC/Terminal Services, Windows, Windows 8.1 | 4 Comments »

Cool Windows tool of the day: RegJump by SysInternals

Posted by jpluimers on 2016/05/13

RegJump.exe is really cool, and has already there for more than a year (:

This little command-line applet takes a registry path and makes Regedit open to that path. It accepts root keys in standard (e.g. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE) and abbreviated form (e.g. HKLM).

usage: regjump <<path>|-c>
-c Copy path from clipboard.
e.g.: regjump HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows

–jeroen

via: RegJump.

Posted in Power User, Windows, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 9, 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 »