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 Server 2012’ Category

Only a few years back I learned that CrystalDiskMark is using Microsoft MIT-licensed diskspd for the actual measurements

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/ArchiveCrystalDiskMark 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/ArchiveDISKSPD 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: , | Leave a Comment »

URL File Extension – What is a .url file and how do I open it?

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 »

Mimikatz and password dumps | Ivan’s IT learning blog

Posted by jpluimers on 2025/01/17

Having had to use Mimikatz a few times in the past, I was not aware of the history.

So I was glad to find this elaborate article [Wayback/Archive] Mimikatz and password dumps | Ivan’s IT learning blog and the video (embedded after the signature). [Wayback/Archive] How to fix mimikatz null password in Windows 10 | WORKING 2019!!! – YouTube

Besides the history, it also explains why sometimes you only get hashes and other times you do get plain text passwords.

Recommended reading.

--jeroen

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Power User, Red team, Security, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2016 | Leave a Comment »

Thread by @0gtweet on Thread Reader App – retrieve your BitLocker password, store the password in your password manager and make a backup of it!

Posted by jpluimers on 2025/01/13

Image[Wayback/Archive] Thread by @0gtweet on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App

A very friendly reminder, especially for non-corporate PCs protected with BitLocker: if you are not sure if you have your Recovery Password handy, you can display it any moment with “manage-bde -protectors -get c:”
Store the password in your password manager and make its backup!

Note: manage-bde.exe -protectors -get c: needs admin rights!

--jeroen

Posted in Microsoft Surface on Windows 7, Power User, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2019, Windows Server 2022 | Leave a Comment »

PRANK: Windows XP Updates

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 »

Different ways for installing Windows features on the command line – Peter Hahndorf

Posted by jpluimers on 2023/06/02

If course you can configure Windows Optional Features using the GUI as for instance explained at [Wayback/Archive] How to manage Windows 10’s many ‘optional features | Windows Central.

However, I prefer command-line management.

About the only post doing the comparison of command-line mangement options I could find about is [Wayback/Archive] Different ways for installing Windows features on the command line – Peter Hahndorf and hopefully will be further updated in the future. It is dated 2015, but has been updated until at least Windows Server Nano.

I added one, and then rewrote the tool-set availability table in the post into this:

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Communications Development, Development, Internet protocol suite, Microsoft Store, OpenSSH, Power User, SSH, TCP, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2016, Windows Vista | Leave a Comment »

A year ago on Telegram: “Do I need to use GarbageCollectAtoms in Delphi? I used it in delphi 7, but I dont know what is benefit. 😐”

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 »

I had some Windows ATOM issues before, but this beats them easily

Posted by jpluimers on 2022/10/19

I’ve had some issues with Windows ATOM tables filling up, but nothing like this security bypass:

A new Windows code injection technique, atombombing, which bypasses current security solutions.

Source: AtomBombing: Brand New Code Injection for Windows – Breaking Malware [WayBack] with source code at BreakingMalwareResearch/atom-bombing: Brand New Code Injection for Windows

Note that since writing the first draft, the above AtomBombing article moved via Wayback: blog.ensilo.com to [Wayback/Archive.is] AtomBombing – A Brand New Code Injection Technique for Windows | FortiGuard Labs.

Read the rest of this entry »

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 »

How can you export the Visual Studio Code extension list? (via: Stack Overflow)

Posted by jpluimers on 2022/06/16

Adapted from [Archive.is] How can you export the Visual Studio Code extension list? – Stack Overflow, presuming that code is on the PATH:

  1. From the command-line interface on MacOS, Linux, BSD or on Windows with git installed:
    code --list-extensions | xargs -L 1 echo code --install-extension
  2. From the command-line interface on MacOS, Linux, BSD or on Windows without git installed:
    code --list-extensions | % { "code --install-extension $_" }

    or, as I think, more clearly (see also [WayBack] syntax – What does “%” (percent) do in PowerShell? – Stack Overflow):

    code --list-extensions | foreach { "code --install-extension $_" }

    or even more explanatory:

    code --list-extensions | ForEach-Object { "code --install-extension $_" }
  3. From the command-line interface on Windows as a plain cmd.exe command:
    @for /f %l in ('code --list-extensions') do @echo code --install-extension %l
  4. On Windows as a plain cmd.exe batch file (in a .bat/.cmd script):
    @for /f %%l in ('code --list-extensions') do @echo code --install-extension %%l
  5. The above two on Windows can also be done using PowerShell:
    PowerShell -Command "code --list-extensions | % { """""code --install-extension $_""""" }"

    Note that here too, the % can be expanded into foreach or ForEach-Object for clarity.

All of the above prepend “code --install-extension ” (note the trailing space) before each installed Visual Studio Code extension.

They all give you a list like this which you can execute on any machine having Visual Studio Code installed and its code on the PATH, and a working internet connection:

code --install-extension DavidAnson.vscode-markdownlint
code --install-extension ms-vscode.powershell
code --install-extension yzhang.markdown-all-in-onex

(This is about the minimum install for me to edit markdown documents and do useful things with PowerShell).

Of course you can pipe these to a text-file script to execute them later on.

The double-quote escaping is based on [Wayback/Archive.is] How to escape PowerShell double quotes from a .bat file – Stack Overflow:

you need to escape the " on the command line, inside a double quoted string. From my testing, the only thing that seems to work is quadruple double quotes """" inside the quoted parameter:

powershell.exe -command "echo '""""X""""'"

Via: [Archive.is] how to save your visual studio code extension list – Google Search

--jeroen

Posted in *nix, *nix-tools, .NET, bash, Batch-Files, CommandLine, Console (command prompt window), Development, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, Power User, PowerShell, PowerShell, Software Development, Visual Studio and tools, vscode Visual Studio Code, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows Development, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2016, WSL Windows Subsystem for Linux, xargs | Leave a Comment »

Windows: shutdown or reboot while preserving most of the running apps has been possible since…

Posted by jpluimers on 2022/05/26

Vista!

Shutting down or rebooting Windows allowing existing applications to reopen

Windows Vista introduced the /g switch in shutdown.exe and was unchanged in Windows 7:

    /g         Shutdown and restart the computer. After the system is
               rebooted, restart any registered applications.

I never noticed it until Windows 10 which began actively use it when applying system updates: then suddenly many of the previously running applications would reopen during startup.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Power User, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2016, Windows Vista, Windows XP | Leave a Comment »