Windows Stuff

Some people like to complain about windows but I don't mind it all that much.  Windows is pretty easy to use for most people and there are many apps.  This page is just for storing some useful information and utilities. 



Dan Rodney - Windows Keyboard Shortcuts


Registry and Shell Extensions
Import this registry file into your registry.  When you right click on .ocx and .dll files you will get a context menu for registering and unregistering the ocx/dll. Also shows OLEView and stuff for tlb,olb,etc.  Very handy. [Reg File]

Copy the full path of a file to the clipboard from a context menu in explorer.  [Link] [Local Cache] [XP DLL] [64bit DLL]
Run exe files from content menu in explorer with command line params. [Link] [Local Cache] [XP DLL]
When you download files off the web, many times they provide MD5/SHA checksums. Get [Hashtab].

Helpful programs
Restore deleted files on FAT and NTFS filesystems - Restoration
FTP client and server with SCP support! - FileZilla
A good program for keeping your passwords. KeePass (Even port to PocketPC AND Linux/MacOS with KeePassX)
Another FTP/SCP client but I use it mostly for SCP and SFTP. WinSCP

Annoyances
Printers - When printing in windows, sometimes the job gets stuck in the spooler.  Don't ask me why but when you try and delete the job from the printer dialog it says its deleting but it never goes away.  Turn of the print spooler in the services, and delete the job from the C:\windows\system32\spool\PRINTERS\.

WebDav - Webdav is broken, this is information I found from some samba site.  *Useful*
Just to inform you that things at MS are apparently not about to change soon :)

Many of you have noticed the XP redirector does not work well with mod_dav,
notably when URLs are password-protected. The XP redirector sends erroneously
something like DOMAIN\login:password when it should only send login:password

The net use command is also buggy, except when used with the following syntax:
net use * http://xxx/yy /u:login password
If you use this instead:
net use * http://xxx/yy /u:login
(which prompts for the password interactively) it does not work.

Additionally, you must set high values for the KeepAlive-related parameters of
Apache, because otherwise the redirector loses the credentials after a while
and asks for them often, until it finally trasmits empty credentials, whatever
you input.

Furthermore, the credentials are cached, meaning that if you change a login on
the server while an XP client is already connected, the XP clients prompts for
credentials (of course), but DOES NOT send what you type in, but re-sends the
old credentials instead. You need to delete the network shortcut, reboot, and
recreate it again to empty the cache.

The silly answer from MS, which was contacted on this, is that they probably
won't fix the damn thing because , quote: "modifications of this part of the
code are likely to imply regression in the Passport authentications". Glad to
hear Passport uses basic authentication :) They don't explain why all other
DAV or plain HTTP clients they have (the WebFolders client, the IE client, the
Explorer Web Client) work normally.

Well, I guess it could be possible to resort to a specific apache auth module
that would strip off the domain part if the client is this catastrophic XP
WebDAV-Miniredir redirector (maybe this already exists, does anybody know?)
but what a shame...

Here, we'll use the stupid workaround of duplicating our very small users
database, prefixing the login with a dummy domain string. But this won't help
if you use an external (say, LDAP, maybe) users database which cannot be
modified.

Useful ports to have around
Remote Assistance runs over the top of Terminal Services technology and uses the same TCP port used by Terminal Services: port 3389.
Remote Assistance will not work if outbound traffic from TCP port 3389 is blocked.

Created: 2004-10-05 00:41:11 Modified: 2009-05-18 02:13:17