Windows

From modern Windows all the way to Win XP

Stuck in MSCONFIG Diagnostic startup? – Steps to fix

2017/11/23
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Modified: 2017/11/05
MSCONFIG - Diagnostic Startup

XPS12 is back online. I experienced a mini-crisis of my own creation.  My 3-year old Dell XPS 12 laptop with latest Win 10 Pro build started to misbehave here and there, and I used MSCONFIG and set computer to Diagnostic startup – the option in the middle. That locked laptop from starting up properly.  Laptop will boot normally, but will never show the login boxes.  Only my default picture and some language, disability and power button in the lower right corner. To fix the problem I had to fight for a solution for a little bit.   I was very close to reinstalling the whole Windows 10, and lose my Oracle JDE…

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Windows 7 – How to Copy and Delete Massive System Directories

2017/11/17
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Modified: 2017/11/05
2007-07-07

Problem: You have an old discarded instances of failed Windows 7 installs.  You can rename the directories, but they still clutter your hard drive, and they are very hard to get rid of. I simply can’t take this painful and slow process of deleting huge system directories under Windows 7.  Remember this endless stream of errors, and warnings, and skips.  The same task in Win XP only takes a few seconds.  But under Windows 7, it  is a project of its own.  Pain! Finally, my patience ran out.  I decided to write a script.  And it it worked!   Delete Windows System Directories Here is a fantastic way to delete huge Windows 7…

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How to Install WordPress 4.X on Windows 10 and IIS 7.5

2017/10/20
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Modified: 2017/09/16
Pick-IIS-FastCGI-Option

This article is written for those who need to test/evaluate features of new WordPress release on a local machine before rolling it out to all the serves. This article describes running PHP on IIS 7.5 through FastCGI. For best results, reader is required to be able to start and stop services, understand registry manipulations, be comfortable with copy and paste inside a command prompt (Alt+Space, E, P). To achieve better portability, try to match your test machine directory structure as close as possible with your server. Other IIS Features to Pick If you are planning to test old ASP sites on the same machine, you also need to pick: - ASP…

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Transfer Rosetta Stone user progress from PC to PC

2017/09/26
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Modified: 2017/09/16

To transfer your progress data from one PC to the next you need to copy one file: tracking.db3   On Windows XP this file is located in: “%AllUsersProfile%\Application Data\Rosetta Stone\Language Training\” OR “%AllUsersProfile%\Application Data\Rosetta Stone\” (on version 3) On Windows 7 this file is located in: “%ProgramData%\Rosetta StoneLanguage Training\” “%ProgramData%\Rosetta Stone” (on version 3) On Windows 10 “%ProgramData%\Rosetta Stone\Language Training\”     File is NOT transferable from Win XP to Win 7. File can be transferred from Win XP to Windows 10, as long as both machines have the same version of Rosetta Stone.   You might need to run a microphone recognition step (one single click) as hardware driver on your new…

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All Background Colors Are Gone from All Sites
Solved with One Click

2017/09/25
By
Modified: 2017/09/16
Backgound-Colors-Are-Gone

Just an hour ago your were a happy browser.  Everything worked great. All of a sudden, all the background colors are gone from all web pages on all sites. Pages are now looking bald and stripped.  What just happened?   If you are on Windows 7, I know the answer. You are in a “High Contrast” mode. To get out, press three buttons "Alt + left Shift + Print Screen" all at the same time.   Cheers.

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Windows Photo Viewer: Can’t Rotate Images on a Network Drive – Solved!

2017/09/22
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Modified: 2017/09/16
Windows Photo Viewer - Error

It is the the LITTLE problems that annoys the most!  I love Windows, but why Windows is so awkward in same strange and unexpected ways? This article is about one of such problems – Image viewing and rotation.  Why it is so hard? Do not even think to joke here. There is a very simple and very useful little program – Windows Photo Viewer.  It is great to open one photo at a time and quickly navigate through a pile of them.  It also allows to rotate and magnify the images. But it has a strange peculiar set of problems: – On Windows 7 x64 it sometimes can’t rotate images located in certain folders…

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Mapping remote WebDAV network drive for free (without NetDrive)

2017/09/15
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Modified: 2017/09/15

If you have a powerful NAS server with massive redundancy (RAID), you wish you can access all files and directories from anywhere on the planet. Recently I switched from Synchronizing Offline file to a real-time access my drive remotely using WebDAV.  This twist is that I am using Synology WebDAV on server side and Windows 10 without any third-party product.  I am using simple Map Network Drive option in Windows Explorer. Here are the steps: -01- Login to your Internet domain provider and create an “A” type DNS record to link your router external IP address with a permanent subdomain string of your choice.   In this example, I will use  nas.yourDomain.com…

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Error 2155348315 in Windows 7 Backup – Resolved

2017/09/10
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Modified: 2017/07/22
Windows 7 Backup Error 2155348315

I started getting this error 2155348315 in Windows 7 Backup, when I switched from wired to a Wi-Fi connection on my desktop PC. Here is what happened...

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IE opens blank new tabs instead of your home page

2017/09/04
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Modified: 2017/07/22
IE - Blank page on new tab

You have  masterfully designed custom home page for your Internet Explorer (IE).  All of a sudden, only first tab displays your home page.  All other new tabs in IE open as a blank page.  What happened?  Something is changing IE settings  back to “A blank page” ? This particular fix for this article was tested on Win7 x64 with IE9. In a few words, you need to delete this registry entry vprot.exe from location HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run   A little bit more radical solution is to run a 3 line script on Startup to delete all intruding entries from all 3 possible Startup locations in Registry. This solution is absolutely great, because it…

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*** Use Wildcards with REG DELETE (Almost) ***

2017/08/19
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Modified: 2017/07/22
Registry-After-Deletion

I loved writing this article.  It tought me so much about power of good old batch commands.  Amazing! Say, I am trying to resolve a problem in a registry.  To isolate the problem, I need to delete hundreds of branches from an externally loaded Registry hive QQ\Classes from a parallel instance. For example, I need to delete all branches that start with letter “M”.  Doing it manually means hours of tedious clicking and possibility of disastrous “user” errors.  Can I do this with a batch file and REG DELETE? This article shows the way to do that.  Here is a plan of action:     First, I saw a quiet lonely post…

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PC Sleep and PC Hibernate Shortcuts

2017/08/17
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Modified: 2017/07/22
Sleep-and-Hibernate

Everybody wants a shortcut for PS Sleep to save time on clicks. Instead of 3 clicks Start - Shutdown - Sleep every time, let's have just one click - Sleep. There is a way to do that. Please tell me, if this also works in Windows XP.

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