Everything is Crap » windows

Clean install and activation with Windows 7 Upgrade key

kris — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 18:57:07 +0000

Don't you hate it when you replace a hard drive, install a perfectly legal copy of Windows 7 Upgrade and then try to activate it and it says it can't be activated because it is a clean install? Here's a fix that worked for me:

Make sure there are no pending updates

Change HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionSetupOOBE MediaBootInstall from 1 to 0

In an elevated administrator command prompt type slmgr -rearm

Reboot

Run Activate Windows and use your key!

Found it here. Thanks mydigitallife.info!

Setting up console session shadowing

kris — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 17:30:41 +0000

I recently learned a new trick (thanks Richard…) and this is how to set it up. To remote to a computer and then control the console session just type:

shadow 0

To initally set this up you have to do the following:

Open the Group Policy snap-in (Gpedit.msc).

In the left pane, under the Computer Configuration branch, expand theAdministrative Templates branch.

Expand the Windows Components branch.

Click the Terminal Services folder.

In the right pane, double-click Sets rules for remote control of Terminal Services user sessions.

On the Setting tab, click Enabled.

In the Options box, click Full Control with users' permission, and then click OK. (or pick the appropriate option)

(from here)

Yes, I think I will have an Ubuntu

paul — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 16:40:04 +0000

After flirting with Windows as a WordPress server we've realized that, since we went to the trouble of learning Linux, it's now easier to use Linux. So, Everything is Crap is back to Ubuntu and it's delicious.

Would you like an Ubuntu? You might want some milk to help wash it down.

Fixed slow Ubuntu in Hyper-V

paul — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 16:35:32 +0000

So, Windows doesn't work well for WordPress. The more plug-ins I install, the more I realize that the world of WordPress is still a Linux-based world. We'll keep Everything is Crap on Windows because our needs are simple for this blog. But, in the future, all my WordPress are belong to Ubuntu.

But, because Everything is Crap, Ubuntu has problems too. Specifically, the shiny and new Ubuntu 10.04 Server running on Hyper-V R2 is unusably slow. But, just on the console. Attaching via SSH works as quick as ever. Anyway, here's the fix:

edit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-framebuffer.conf and add the following line:
blacklist vga16fb

This guy fixed the Ubuntu slow console frame buffer problem for Hyper-V and Ubuntu 10.04. Thanks guy!

Adding static routes in Windows

kris — Wed, 26 May 2010 15:08:20 +0000

route -p add "network" mask "subnet mask" "gateway ip" (adding the -p makes it persistent after reboots)

Example:

route -p add 10.4.0.0 mask 255.255.255.0 10.1.0.1

Systeminfo is great

paul — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 19:56:48 +0000

SystemInfo is included with Windows and is run from the command prompt. It gives you lots of useful information like that last time the computer was booted, what type of processor you have and how much RAM is available. Very useful.

Clear DNS cache in Windows

paul — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 17:38:27 +0000

Here's a quick tip for when you're troubleshooting DNS stuff, but windows won't acknowledge your changes because the information is cached. (Bad, Windows, Bad, Bad!)

ipconfig /flushdns

Beauty!

Sharing from the command line

paul — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:19:00 +0000

Messing with Hyper-V this week I came across a situation where I wanted to share a folder, and the Hyper-V only allows you to do so from the command line. So, here's the command I used:

net share MyShareName=C:MyShareDrive /GRANT:MyDomainMyUser",FULL

Deleting a file with a space at the end (in Windows)

paul — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 23:16:00 +0000

One of our users somehow managed to upload a file with a space at the end, which neither he, nor we, could delete. I googled it, and the answer is simple, but not obvious. Use a command prompt to delete the file using the short file name. A "dir /x" will reveal the short file name, then you can "del" the file using the short file name. Easy.

Refreshing Group Policy

paul — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 16:42:00 +0000

A note for me: To refresh a machine policy just run gpupdate.exe