Windows OS

• Download APPX file from this website by pasting the Microsoft application URL into the box.
• Install from PowerShell: Add-AppxPackage -Path D:\Microsoft.UI.Xaml.2.3_2.32002.13001.0_x64.appx
• Uninstall from PowerShell: Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.UI.Xaml* | Remove-AppxPackage
  • List all installed packages: Get-AppxPackage | Select Name, PackageFullName

One can follow the instructions to turn Your Windows 7 PC Into a Wireless Hotspot, however such hotspot is not recognized by some devices (see The majority of Android devices do not support Ad-hoc connections, Android devices do not support connecting to Ad-Hoc networks and What is the difference between Access Point mode and Ad Hoc mode?).

Luckily there is way to set up your windows machine as a very simple wireless access point:

netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=<ssid> key=<passphrase> keyUsage=persistent
netsh wlan start hostednetwork

After that you should enable connection sharing in the network interface that provides Internet (this interface may well be a WiFi connection established via the same WiFi card (e.g. Intel 6250 WiFi), but usually this is Local Area Connection). For that go to Properties → Sharing, enable Allow other users to connect through this computer's Internet connection and select Microsoft Virtual WiFi Miniport Adapter as an interface to share this connection with (check Using ICS for details).

Using USB-to-USB cable like Belkin Easy Transfer:

or USB 3.0 to Gigabit Ethernet Network Adapter:

or USB3.0 3× port hub + Gigabit ethernet network adapter:

Exposing file as block device to USB host using usb_f_mass_storage.ko module and then mounting it via loopback:

• Make a computer act as a virtual USB device for other equipments
• Emulate physical USB device Linux
• Using USB Mass Storage Gadget

Exposing filesystem using MTP:

• uMTP-Responder – supports among others Raspberry PI Zero (W) and BeagleBone Black.
  • Setting up a Raspberry Pi as an access point in a standalone network (NAT)

Programming MTP under Windows:

• IPortableDeviceManager interface
• PortableDeviceApi.h –header files from Windows SDK
• FarPortaDev_3.13.0.4040_x64.7z – example on C++ which utilizes Portable Device API
• Can I use COM from Java via JNA?
• Typelib parser and code generator (Maven plugin)

See also:

• Ethernet over USB
• The GNU/Linux "usbnet" Driver Framework

• Open Device manager and click Action → Add legacy hardware.
• Select Install the hardware that I manually select from the list (Advanced) and choose Modems.
• Select Don't detect my modem; I will select it from a list, and then click Next.
• Select the following options, and click Next:
  • In the Manufacturer column, select (Standard Modem Types).
  • In the Models column, select Communications cable between two computers.
• Click Selected ports, select a port that is not used by the installed modem (say, COM4), and click Next.

Set up dial-up networking by doing the following:

• Click Control Panel → Network and Internet → Network and Sharing Center → Set up a new connection or network
• When the Set Up a Connection or Network wizard starts, select Set up a dial-up connection and click Next.
• Select Communications cable between two computers, click Next.
• Enter any dummy phone number (e.g. “0”) and press Next.

Go to Control Panel → Network and Internet → Network Connections → Dial-up Connection → [right click] → Properties

• Click the Configure… button on the General tab.
• From the Maximum speed drop-down list, select 921600 bps.
• Make sure Enable hardware flow control is selected, and then click OK.
• Click the Options tab, then click PPP Settings….
• Make sure that Enable LCP extensions and Enable software compression are selected, and then click OK.
• Click the Networking tab, select Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), and then click Properties.
• Make sure that Obtain an IP address automatically and Obtain DNS server address automatically, are selected and then click Advanced….
• Clear Use default gateway on remote network, select Use IP header compression, and then click OK three times.

See also problems.

In Linux the analogous value is the value of search in /etc/resolv.conf.

mount \\192.168.1.1\backup k:

• Lanman Server Parameters
• Вопросы и ответы о средствах обзора в Windows

Without this when trying to mount this Windows returns Error code: 0x80004005 Unspecified error and Linux mount error(12): Cannot allocate memory.

You may also wish to turn off public folder sharing.

REGEDIT4
 
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\Browser\Parameters]
"IsDomainMaster"="No"

• Web Folder is integrated into Explorer. It supports HTTP/HTTPS.
• NetBox – SFTP/SCP/FTP/FTPS/WebDAV client for Far.
• Cyberduck – FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, S3 & OpenStack Swift browser for Mac and Windows.
• How To Map A HTTPS-only Web Folder To A Drive (or Mapping WebDAV folder as a network drive letter) is a way to map remote folder via net use utility.

REGEDIT4
 
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\WebClient\Parameters]
; For Windows XP:
;"UseBasicAuth"=dword:00000002
; For Windows Vista and higher:
"BasicAuthLevel"=dword:00000002

but it didn't work for me. See also:

• Accessing your WebDav files
• Mapping a Network Drive to WebDAV Share in Windows 7
• WebDAV with Basic Authentication and Windows 7

• via Control Panel → Windows Firewall
• using the registry HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\SharedAccess\Parameters\FirewallPolicy\FirewallRules
• using CLI:

  netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="WePrint" dir=in action=allow profile=any description="MyServer Firewall Exception" program="C:\Program Files\MyServer.exe" enable=yes

References:

• Windows Firewall – Add or Remove an Exception
• Edit Win 7 inbound firewall exception in registry
• Programatically add Windows Firewall Exception

• bcdedit /v will display all boot entries together with entry UIDs
• bcdedit /delete {83838-234234-44234234-234234} (ID will be different in your case) will remove this entry

• Read Recovering the Vista or Windows 7 Bootloader from the DVD
• Main guidelines (please, refer the documentation before executing):

  bootrec.exe /fixmbr
  bootrec.exe /fixboot
  x:\boot\bootsect.exe /nt60 all /force
  bootrec.exe /rebuildbcd

• If you get Element not Found error, that means, the partition is not marked as active. Use diskpart utility and execute¹⁾:

  DISKPART> list disk
  
    Disk ###  Status         Size     Free     Dyn  Gpt
    --------  -------------  -------  -------  ---  ---
    Disk 0    Online          298 GB  1024 KB
  
  DISKPART> select disk 0
  
  Disk 0 is now the selected disk.
  
  DISKPART> list partition
  
    Partition ###  Type              Size     Offset
    -------------  ----------------  -------  -------
    Partition 1    OEM                 39 MB    31 KB
    Partition 2    Primary             24 GB    40 MB
    Partition 3    Primary            273 GB    24 GB
  
  DISKPART> select partition 2
  
  Partition 2 is now the selected partition.
  
  DISKPART> active

• Copy files BOOT.INI, NTDETECT.COM, NTLDR, Bootfont.bin. I suggest to modify the label to make sure the right BOOT.INI is used.
• Make the necessary partition active.
• Reboot.

See Перенос NTLDR с раздела на раздел, с диска на диск and Make Windows bootable after copying from one partition to another.

• From Additional information on FDISK /MBR:

  The fdisk /mbr command is an undocumented switch used with the FDISK command (MS-DOS 5.0 and higher) that recreates the master boot record (loader) on a hard drive.

  Use fdisk /cmbr <drive number> where <drive number> represents the drive you want to recreate the master boot record. To determine the drive number, run the fdisk /status command.

• In Windows recovery console use bootrec.exe /fixmbr or fixmbr <device name> e.g. fixmbr \Device\HardDisk0.
• On Linux use ms-sys: ms-sys -7 /dev/sdx
• On Linux you can also do the following: dd if=/dev/hdx of=/dev/hdy bs=446 count=1
• From Acronis forum: Download mbrautowrite_en.iso and boot from it.

1. Download and install Windows_7_SP1_Updates_x64.ulz:

   WindowsUpdatesDownloader.exe -install Windows_7_SP1_Updates_x64.ulz

2. Open WindowsUpdatesDownloader.exe and download all critical updates for Windows 7 SP1.
3. Download NTLite

See also:

• Install Windows 7 from USB flash drive
• Create an integrated up to date Windows 7 install disc

• Copy the contents of your ×32 installation disk into e.g. D:\x32\
• Mount your ×64 installation disk as F: and do the following commands:
  • imagex /export /compress maximum "F:\sources\install.wim" 1 "D:\x32\sources\install.wim" "Windows 7 Home Basic (x64)"
  • imagex /export /compress maximum "F:\sources\install.wim" 2 "D:\x32\sources\install.wim" "Windows 7 Home Premium (x64)"
  • imagex /export /compress maximum "F:\sources\install.wim" 3 "D:\x32\sources\install.wim" "Windows 7 Professional (x64)"
  • imagex /export /compress maximum "F:\sources\install.wim" 4 "D:\x32\sources\install.wim" "Windows 7 Ultimate (x64)"
• Open ×32 installation disk in UltraISO and remove all contents (bootable data is preserved). Add everything from D:\x32\ and create ISO.

See also:

• ImageX – utility to create Windows images or to incorporate service packs into Windows image.

dism /online /Cleanup-Image /SPSuperseded

To remove old versions of system components (system updates cannot be uninstalled after this operation):

dism /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup /ResetBase

References:

• Remove Windows 7 SP1 Backups To Free Up Disk Space
• Как уменьшить размер папки WinSxS в Windows 7 и 8?

REGEDIT4
 
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU]
"NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers"=dword:00000001

Remove %WINDIR%\System32\GWX folder. Then uninstall KB3035583 and KB2952664. Finally mark these updates hidden.

Also add the following to registry:

REGEDIT4
 
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Gwx]
"DisableGwx"=dword:00000001
 
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\OSUpgrade]
"ReservationsAllowed"=dword:00000000
 
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate]
"DisableOSUpgrade"=dword:00000001

Also this helps when WiFi connection is unstable (drops down) under high load.

• to setup a new product key:
  slmgr.vbs -ipk GJ9BQ-8QK7G-BTR2G-9PW1Y-9RFY8
• to activate windows:
  slmgr.vbs -ato
• to check operation status:
  slmgr.vbs -dlv

• Активация Windows 7
• Как прошить SLIC 2.1 в BIOS?
• Активацию Windows 7 доломали окончательно

• In order to activate automatic elevation of administrator rights start secpol.msc utility, navigate to Local Policies → Security Options and change User Account Control: Behaviour of the elevation prompt for administrators in Admin Approval Mode to Elevate without prompting value.
• Alternatively you can tick Run as administrator in link properties.
• Or you can right-click on program shortcut in main menu and Run as administrator

See also Disabling User Account Control (UAC) in Windows 7.

Better use some utility like this or that.

taskkill /F /PID `wmic process where Description=\"java.exe\" get ProcessID,CommandLine | perl -ne '/command-line-filter\s+(\d+)/ && print $1'`

• sleep²⁾:
  rundll32.exe powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState 0,1,0
• sleep:
  psshutdown -d -t 0
• lock:
  rundll32.exe User32.dll,LockWorkStation
• hibernate:
  rundll32.exe PowrProf.dll,SetSuspendState
• restart:
  shutdown.exe -r -t 00
• shutdown:
  shutdown.exe -s -t 00

• Your BIOS is out of date.
  Update your BIOS firmware.
• S1/S3 ACPM option is disabled in BIOS.
  Enable this option in BIOS.
• Your graphic video card driver prevents this.
  Update your video card driver. Make sure the standard (default) video driver is not used (disabled).

More information:

• Sleep and hibernation: frequently asked questions
• Enable sleep/standby options in gpedit.msc

• There is wake up time scheduled in BIOS. Reset your BIOS.
• Some Windows scheduled task has Wake the computer to run this task options set (see How to Make Any Computer Boot Up or Shut Down on a Schedule).

REGEDIT4
 
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]
"AutoAdminLogon"=dword:00000001
"DefaultUserName"="your_account@microsoft.com"
"DefaultPassword"="microsoft_password"

On Windows 10: If this option is not present then turn of Settings → Accounts → Sign-in options → Require Windows Hello sign-in for Microsoft accounts or apply the following reg file:

REGEDIT4
 
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\PasswordLess\Device]
"DevicePasswordLessBuildVersion"=dword:00000000

REGEDIT4
 
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\UserList]
"backuppc"=dword:00000000

More information: here, or here, or here.

• Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service
• Windows Search (there will be no search in Control Panel)
• Windows Update

• when WPF-applications are started on Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 platform
• when video-drivers are reinstalled
• …

The service creates invalid cache file %windir%\ServiceProfiles\LocalService\AppData\Local\FontCache3.0.0.0.dat which needs to be deleted to solve the problem.

See also:

• How to fix: Svchost.exe (netsvcs) memory leak or high CPU usage problems
• BEST FIX: High CPU Usage by svchost.exe (netsvcs)
• How to Fix Svchost.exe netsvcs High CPU Usage

• Use better thermopasta
• Use RMClock

• It is shown in Task Manager on tab Performance.
• It is output by systeminfo utility.

• How to remove Dr.Watson
  • Collecting crash dumps
    • AeDebug registry variable.
  • Capturing Application Crash Dumps with Dr.Watson
  • Как звали Доктора Ватсона?
• Crash Dump Analysis – Writing a Minidump
  • Windows Error Reporting (WER): Getting Started (dumps are located in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive\)
  • How to read the small memory dump files that Windows creates for debugging
  • Download Debugging Tools for Windows (WinDbg software+symbols) (installation steps for Debugging Tools).
  • WinDbg Quick Links (articles, books)
  • WinDbg command guide
• How to report crash or hang or BSOD

Relevant registry settings:

REGEDIT4
 
; For x64 use this key:
;[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AeDebug]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AeDebug]
; 0 = no prompt is issued to the user before the selected debugger is executed
"Auto"="1"
"UserDebuggerHotKey"=dword:00000000
 
; Alternative for drwtsn:
;"Debugger"="drwtsn32 -p %ld -e %ld -g"
; Alternative for windbg:
;"Debugger"="C:\\Debug\\windbg -p %ld -e %ld -c \".dump /mfh C:\\myfile.dmp ;q\""
' Two below lines are identical, but later allows the variable expansion:
;"Debugger"="%Applications%\\Debug\\cdb.exe -p %ld -e %ld -g -c \"~*k;.dump /mfh /u %SystemRoot%\\Temp\\crash.dmp;.kill;qd\""
"Debugger"=hex(2):25,50,72,6f,67,72,61,6d,73,25,5c,44,65,62,75,67,5c,63,64,62,\
  2e,65,78,65,20,2d,70,20,25,6c,64,20,2d,65,20,25,6c,64,20,2d,67,20,2d,63,20,\
  22,7e,2a,6b,3b,2e,64,75,6d,70,20,2f,6d,66,68,20,2f,75,20,25,53,79,73,74,65,\
  6d,52,6f,6f,74,25,5c,54,65,6d,70,5c,63,72,61,73,68,2e,64,6d,70,3b,2e,6b,69,\
  6c,6c,3b,71,64,22,00

• Start windows with /3Gb switch in boot.ini.
• Link application with /LARGEADDRESSAWARE option.

See Are there any drawbacks of "/3Gb" switch in boot.ini for 32bit Windows? and also Physical Address Extension.

• Check netsh wlan show drivers output
• Use WiFi adapter which is Miracast-certified, e.g. Intel 7260/8260 or Qualcomm Atheros AR5B22. Atheros is better choice because of better support on Linux, see Error when trying to switch Atheros card to master mode.

• EFS – file level encryption within NTFS (available on Windows XP)
  • How secure is NTFS encryption?
• BitLocker – a full drive encryption (available on Windows Vista and later)

One can use BitLocker To Go Reader utility on Windows XP to gain read-only access to encrypted FAT volume.

• For windows XP use linkd or fsutil to create links.
• For Windows 7 additionally use mklink to create symbolic links.
• Links in Windows

Windows XP does not generally support symbolic links, however there is a workaround for it, see Symbolic links for Windows XP (from Symbolic Link Driver for Windows XP). One needs to:

• Download CAB archive and unpack it.
• Run senable.exe install to install driver to %WINDIR%\system32\drivers.
• Now one can use ln.exe utility to create symlinks: ln.exe -s \\host\share\folder link_name

@echo off
 
for %%* in (.) do set dir=%%~n*
 
echo %dir%

echo %1 | findstr /C:"%2" >nul && (
    echo Found
)

for %%i in (1 2 3) do (
    some_util.exe %%i
    echo %ERRORLEVEL%
)

does not work: it always prints 0 to console.

Solutions:

1. Use subcall
   

   for %%i in (1 2 3) do call :routine %%i
    
   exit /b
    
   :routine
    
   some_util.exe %~1
   echo %ERRORLEVEL%
    
   exit /b

2. Enable delayed expansion
   

   setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
    
   for %%i in (1 2 3) do (
       some_util.exe %%i
       echo !ERRORLEVEL!
   )

%APPDATA%\Skype\
%USERPROFILE%\Desktop\

The following script will the lines from that file, apply variable substitution, accumulate them in one variable which can be used as argument for some utility:

@echo off
 
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
 
set args=
 
for /f %%i in (file.lst) do (
    for /f %%a in ('echo %%i') do call :expand %%a
)
 
7z a -mx=9 -ms=on -mqs=on all.7z %args% > NUL
 
exit
 
:expand
set args=%args% %1
 
exit /b

References:

• How expand a CMD shell variable twice (recursively)
• How to append a variable in a loop?

for /f "delims=" %%x in (common.sh) do (set %%x)

where common.sh has only lines in format var=value.

where /q myapplication

IF ERRORLEVEL 1 (
    ECHO The application is missing. Ensure it is installed and placed in your PATH.
    EXIT /B
) ELSE (
    ECHO Application exists.
)

assoc .ext=Util
ftype Util=C:\Programs\util.exe "%1" %*
set pathext=%pathext%;.ext

After that instead of util.exe test.ext one may simply type test.

for /L %%n in (1,0,10) do (...)

start "" "some file with spaces.pdf"

• Right click on desktop → Personalize (or navigate to Control Panel → Appearance and Personalization → Personalization)
• Click on Window Color → Advanced appearance settings, select Border Padding from drop-down menu and decrease the value.

REGEDIT4
 
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]
"ForegroundLockTimeout"=dword:00030d40

• Create the following XML file:

  input-languages.xml

  <gs:GlobalizationServices xmlns:gs="urn:longhornGlobalizationUnattend">
    <gs:UserList>
      <gs:User UserID="Current"/>
    </gs:UserList>
    <gs:InputPreferences>
      <!-- Add keyboard en_US -->
      <gs:InputLanguageID Action="add" ID="0409:00000409" Default="true"/>
      <!-- Add keyboard ru_RU (Byrman Typewriter) -->
      <gs:InputLanguageID Action="add" ID="0419:a0000419"/>
   
      <!-- Remove keyboard en_GB-SwissGerman -->
      <gs:InputLanguageID Action="remove" ID="0809:00000807"/>
      <!-- Remove keyboard fr_FR-SwissGerman -->
      <gs:InputLanguageID Action="remove" ID="040c:00000807"/>
      <!-- Remove keyboard de_DE-SwissGerman -->
      <gs:InputLanguageID Action="remove" ID="0407:00000807"/>
    </gs:InputPreferences>
  </gs:GlobalizationServices>

• Apply it using the following command: control intl.cpl,,/f:"input-languages.xml"