Archive for the ‘Windows Server 2003’ Category
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/08/25
I was looking for a way to measure Windows disk performance from the console as I was used to using the [Wayback/Archive] CrystalDiskMark GUI measurement tool.
So I was glad to learn a few years back at the end of 2022 that [Wayback/Archive] CrystalDiskMark 8.0.4c is based on [Wayback/Archive] DISKSPD 2.0.21a. Which back then was an older version as [Wayback/Archive] DISKSPD 2.1 had been released fall 2021.
I found this out via [Wayback/Archive] Performance benchmarking with CrystalDiskMark on Nutanix: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Power User, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, 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 Server 2016, Windows Server 2019, Windows Server 2022, Windows XP | Tagged: 159, 23 | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/08/22
I got the below error when booting a Dell Optiplex 7060 Micro, a machine not just supporting supporting UEFI but preferring it, on which I had copied a backed-up disk image, then moved the hidden Recovery partition to the end of the physical disk (to make room to extend either the OS or DATA partitions).
Fixing it lead me to a trip that was on the boundary of software archaeology, so this blog post has a truckload of archived links to information that is still relevant, but for which the original links have long vanished due to link rot or (often worse) part of the historic information got lost because of migration to new tooling forgot to cover important additions (especially in comments).
One thing that I had to unlearn was MBR disk basics, for instance the fact that on GPT disks a partition can be active (they can only be on MBR disks, but despite UEFI supporting both MBT and GPT, GPT disks are way more common and required). The same holds for partitions having a boot flag: that too only applies to MBR disks. For the same reason, bootrec is only useful for MBR disks. More details towards the end of this blog post. CSM (Compatibility Support Module) booting is the UEFI way to simulate BIOS boot for operating systems that do no support UEFI.
Back to the error at hand:
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Development, History, link rot, Power User, Software Archeology, Software Development, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, Windows XP, WWW - the World Wide Web of information | Tagged: 1 | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/06/20
I thought I had long gone blogged about the .URL file extension as it has been in Windows for some 25 years now to point to URLs, but I didn’t.
So here are two links on them:
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Power User, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, 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 Server 2016, Windows Vista, Windows XP | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2024/01/25
This one is cool: [Wayback/Archive] PRANK: Windows XP Updates.
Note that unlike the screenshot below, the actual prank does count the percentage. The actual page does.
You can start this one and various other OSes plus Windows versions and other pranks via [Wayback/Archive] FakeUpdate.net – Windows Update Prank by fediaFedia (at the time of writing Windows 98 install, Windows Vista update, Windows 8 update, Windows 7 update, Mac OS boot, Windows 10 install, Windows 10 update, steam and “fake ransomware”).
It is a cool and relatively harmless way of teaching people to use their lock screen when away from their machine (Windows: Win+L, Mac OS: Ctrl+Shift+Power).
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Awareness, Fun, Power User, Security, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 11, 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 Server 2016, Windows Vista, Windows XP | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2022/10/20
Last week I found out that I had some Windows ATOM issues before, but this beats them easily was still a draft in stead if in the blog queue.
I got reminded to it by someone asking on Telegram about
“Do I need to use GarbageCollectAtoms in Delphi? I used it in delphi 7, but I dont know what is benefit. 😐”.
The short answer is: yes, if your Delphi application does terminate in a way that the Controls unit cannot cleanly unload (and cannot free the Windows atoms) or leaks Windows atoms in a different way. I have been in that situation and that’s why I wrote the above blog post that got published in 2016.
The longer answer is likely no, both the Windows atom and registered Windows message table share a heap and that registered VCL Windows message leaking bug got fixed some 10 years ago in Delphi XE2, see:
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Conference Topics, Conferences, Delphi, Development, Event, Power User, Software Development, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, 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 Server 2016, Windows Vista, Windows XP | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2022/10/19
Posted in Development, FortiGate/FortiClient, Hardware, Network-and-equipment, Power User, Security, Software Development, VPN, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 9, Windows Development, 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 Server 2016, Windows Vista, Windows XP | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2022/06/08
Posted in Chocolatey, CommandLine, Development, Microsoft Surface on Windows 7, Power User, PowerShell, PowerShell, Scripting, Software Development, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2 | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2021/08/23
lFor Mac keyboard keys, almost all (except the old solid and open Apple logo’s) have a Unicode code point, see for instance the modifier keys from the [WayBack] List of Mac/Apple keyboard symbols · GitHub (the “Alt” column has a solid Apple logo in the bottom right; on non-Mac systems it will look differently as it is in the Unicode private range: [WayBack] Unicode Character ” (U+F8FF): ‘<Private Use, Last>’):
| Sym |
Key |
Alt |
| ⌃ |
Control |
|
| ⌥ |
Option |
|
| ⇧ |
Shift |
|
| ⌘ |
Command |
|
These are the code points for the “Sym” column:
Keys on many platforms
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Microsoft Surface on Windows 7, Power User, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 95, Windows 98, 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 Server 2016, Windows Vista, Windows XP | 1 Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2021/08/09
[WayBack] How to turn on automatic logon in Windows
Describes how to turn on the automatic logon feature in Windows by editing the registry.
Most archivals of the above post fail with a 404-error after briefly flashing the content, but this particular one usually succeeds displaying.
It is slightly different from the one referenced in my blog post automatic logon in Windows 2003, and because of the archival issues, I have quoted most of it below.
A few observations, at least in Windows 10 and 8.1:
- Major Windows 10 upgrades will disable the autologon: after each major upgrade, you have to re-apply the registry patches.
- If the user has a blank password, you can remove the DefaultPassword value.
- Empty passwords allow local logon (no network logon or remote desktop logon), no network access and no RunAs, which can actually help improve security. More on that in a later blog post
- For a local machine logon, you do not need the DefaultDomainName value either (despite many posts insisting you need them), but you can technically set it to the computer name using
reg add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon" /v DefaultDomainName /t REG_SZ /d %ComputerName% /f
- If another user logs on and off, the values keep preserved, so after a reboot, the correct user automatically logs on
- you need a full reboot cycle for this to take effect
- The AutoLogon tool does not allow blank passwords
I wrote a batch file enable-autologon-for-user-parameter.bat that makes it easier:
if [%1] == [] goto :help
:enable
reg add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon" /v AutoAdminLogon /t REG_SZ /d 1 /f
:setUserName
reg add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon" /v DefaultUserName /t REG_SZ /d %1 /f
:removePasswordIfItExists
reg delete "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon" /v DefaultPassword /f
if [%2] == [] goto :eof
:setPassword
reg add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon" /v DefaultPassword /t REG_SZ /d %2 /f
goto :eof
:help
echo Syntax:
echo %0 username password
The article quote:
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Batch-Files, Development, Microsoft Surface on Windows 7, Power User, Scripting, Software Development, 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 Server 2016, Windows Vista, Windows XP | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2019/10/25
By default, Chrome uses the same proxy server as Internet Explorer: the system one that your Chrome settings page accesses from chrome://settings/search#proxy through this command-line call:
"C:\Windows\system32\rundll32.exe" C:\Windows\system32\shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL C:\Windows\system32\inetcpl.cpl,,4
There is no GUI way inside Chrome to change this, but there is a command-line parameter: --proxy-server="ipaddress:port"
So create a new shortcut to Chrome, then you can change it.
This comes in very handy if you want to test
- some sessions through for instance Internet Explorer going through HTTP Fiddler (that defaults at localhost:8888)
- other sessions through Cntlm (that defaults to localhost:3128)
Some background information:
–jeroen
Posted in Chrome, Cntlm, NTLM, Power User, Web Browsers, Windows, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, 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, Windows-Http-Proxy | Leave a Comment »
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 