Tag: how-to

How to: Be a freeware champion

Posted on August 21, 2012 by Dexter

Windows in general can a be a pain in the ass.  There’s tonnes of software on the market that’s pricey depending on what you want get done.  Sometimes you need an enterprise class solution for your vexing problem and it can only be achieved by dropping a few thousand dollars.

 

And sometimes, just sometimes you can peruse the freeware section of a website and be astounded by what is lying in wait that can be your perfect solution.  The problem therein is which website offers the safest surfing experience?  Can you trust a websites freeware?  Is it really malware just waiting for you to execute?  There’s never an easy answer.  So here’s a sure fire list of websites that offer freeware that I know and use on a regular basis:

 

Gizmo’s freeware
http://www.techsupportalert.com/
A real nugget of free applications that do everything.  All content is nicely organized in categories that make sense.  Most freeware is crapware free and each software has independent reviews based on a 5-star rating system.  All pro’s and con’s for each software is listed, and offers up screenshots for any software you’re wary of installing.

 

NirSoft
http://www.nirsoft.net
For all the IT Administrator essentials, most are packed away in this must-have website.  Utilities range from wireless sniffers, DNS checkers, password recovery options to system tweaking tools.  Everything is laid out right on the main page heading style.  This website scores extra points as all software is developed by the same programmer Nir Sofer, and most are stand alone executable files that do not require installation!

 

Major Geeks
http://majorgeeks.com/
One mother of a download site, Major Geeks has been a staple of the internet and continues on with it’s tradition of offering all it’s freeware hosted locally on it’s internal servers. Just about anything can be found right here.

 

So go on, give it a shot and see what you can download.

How to: Save your contacts in Outlook

Posted on August 1, 2012 by Dexter

Here’s a protip: Save your contacts!  Should your computer need to be reformatted or upgraded, you run the risk of losing the contacts you email on a frequent basis.

Why is this?

When you start typing a name in your address field and Outlook offers completion suggestions, that’s called auto-complete – and that does NOT get backed up anywhere.

Solution?

Copy that person into your address book.  When you get a new person’s email, right click on their name in your outlook, and choose “Add to Outlook Contacts”

It’s really that simple: plus it takes away [some] the woes of your IT Administrator.

How to: locate product numbers and serial numbers on HP and Dell computers

Posted on July 28, 2012 by Dexter

You have to know the serial numbers of HP computers and servers in order to get warranty.

If you run Dell machines, you need the Dell asset taags in order to get warranty.

As it turns out, many times you’ll be no where near your computers but have remote access (hopefully).  So how can you get either the HP Serial Number or the Dell Asset tag remotely?  Read on.

As it turns out, many times you’ll be nowhere near your computers but have remote access (hopefully).  So how can you get either the HP Serial Number or the Dell Asset tag remotely?  Read on.

See the below table to obtain the corresponding information on the right:

commandinformation
wmic bios get serialnumberHP: shows Serial Number, Dell: shows Dell Asset tag
wmic csproduct get nameHP: shows model name: Dell: shows base model
wmic /namespace:\\root\wmi path MS_SystemInformationHP: shows product number, Dell – nothing man, just nothing

This handy spot of information might come in handy for you one day if your ILO or Dell Open Manage software isn’t installed.

How to: Check your .Net Framework version on Windows 7

Posted on July 26, 2012 by Dexter

.Net Framework was easy to spot in the older versions of Windows XP, if you went and checked your ‘Add or Remove Programs’ section of control panel you’d see it plain as day:

As Windows matured, the .NET Framework became intertwined with the operating system.  So it became tougher to figure out if you actually had it installed.  A hint for anyone using Windows 7 right now: if you’ve installed Service Pack 1, you will undoubtedly have it installed: it’s required to run most, if not all of the fancy graphics engine behind aeroglass and most of the search functions.

If you’re ever inquisitive enough to wonder which version you have installed, you’ll notice your listing of installed programs and windows updates will usually not have it listed – again, this is because it’s such a core component of it’s Common Runtime Language, it’s become a given.

Websites offer up ways to see what version you have by way of checking directories and registry items.

I however, prefer a more direct approach instead of copying and pasting version numbers into Microsoft’s website – a little tool that’s downloaded doesn’t require any other run time to show you exactly what version you have installed: Asoft version detector.

Just Download and run right from the desktop, and it gives you all the juicy details you need.

So why would you need to know the version?  In my case it was work related as a program needed a particular framework to run a monitoring tool.  I can’t even speak as to why you would need it.  But it’s just a damn handy, if not very cool way of knowing what you got installed.

How to: uninstall Trend Micro OfficeScan [locally]

Posted on July 24, 2012 by Dexter

This applies if this is true to you:
*it is Windows XP/Windows 7
*A Version of Trend Micro OfficeScan, probably 10 or above
*Computer is offline, or not connected to network
*You don’t know the uninstall / unload password
*the computer was part of your domain, but is no longerTrend Micro makes a great product, so great in fact that’s it’s near impossible to crack uninstall the product if you forgot the uninstaller key.This is generally an easy thing to do if you access to the Trend Micro admin console.  Of course, that would be too easy.  My case involved a computer from a company that was bought out, had the software installed and needed our company’s AV installed.Go to the Trend Micro Office Scan Client directory; usually:  C:\Program Files\Trend Micro\OfficeScan Client\Locate and open Ofcscan.ini with notepad (or any other text editor).

look for the

[INI_CLIENT_SECTION]

change the value of the Uninstall_Pwd to:
!CRYPT!523F7DC2E525044E2800FCDEA7E5D78B70C0A4165387060525E3EE66D5D2D2F460EA361E712B5F871FD473C7A6C

and change the value of Unload_Pwd to:
!CRYPT!523F7DC2E525044E2800FCDEA7E5D78B70C0A4165387060525E3EE66D5D2D2F460EA361E712B5F871FD473C7A6C

save and close the file.

Unload officescan by right clicking the icon on the bottom dock and choosing ‘unload’.

for the password, enter:  “trendmicro” (without the quotes).

You can now uninstall the program with the same password!

How to: Add Ctrl+Alt+Del to your Windows 7 Computer

Posted on July 19, 2012 by Dexter

If your computer is part of a Windows Domain, you will likely see this screen staring at you first thing in the morning:

Most Windows domain computers offer the basic security principles in place, such as the now famous Press CTRL +ALT+DEL screen you’re familiar with.

The screen itself is meant as a security measure to deter humans and bots alike from logging in, as the keys are strategically placed so they’re not pressed accidentally.

If you’re not part of a domain, but would like the added security that CTRL+ALT+DEL offers, you can do it with a few simple steps:

1. From the start menu, type “netplwiz”

2. Click the Advanced tab, and in the Secure Logon section, place a checkmark on “Require users to press Ctrl+Alt+Delete”

3. Hit Apply, and OK.  And log off to see the changes

How to: Export Android phone contacts to Microsoft Outlook

Posted on July 11, 2012 by Dexter

Topic originally covered in another article.

This set of instructions is a bit misleading.  Misleading if you have the following set of circumstances:

-Microsoft Office Outlook  2007 – 2010 to import the files into

-Windows 7, or any Windows platform

These instructions ask you export your contacts from your android phone using:

people->options->import/Export to SD Card

You get one singular .VCF file for your troubles.  Once you get that .VCF file onto your computer it’s not a simple task of dragging it to your outlook.  Outlook only imports one contact from that .VCF file into your contacts.

Here’s the thing: the Android phone converts all your contacts into one really big .VCF file.  That one file has multiple contacts inside – Microsoft office only imports the first entry it sees.

Microsoft Outlook can only import .VCF’s, or rather only sees .VCFs as using the <STARTVCF> and <ENDVCF> headers in the file.  Once it sees the first <ENDVCF> it stops importing.  How incredibly novel.

Here’s the trick: you need to convert the .VCF file into a .CSV.  Happily, there’s a solution online.  The link will upload the file for you and output it into a .CSV file.

When you import into Outlook, choose file->import from a file.  And you map the fields so it all makes sense.

How to: Export Text from Any Screen

Posted on July 11, 2012 by Dexter

There’s just some things you can’t copy from a Windows explorer pane.  The other night I was trying to copy and paste the list of Windows KB updates from my computer.  As is with some windows panes, it’s actually a table built from a SQL query a la Windows that has no copy/paste functionality.

A solution exists in free 3rd party software:  Nirsoft, a treasure trove of Windows executable files that require no installation offers SysExporter.

As the name of the software implies, it can lift the text off any text based program you see on your screen.  I happily could copy and paste the KB names of the Windows updates I wanted to manually download into an Excel sheet and was on my way.

Google Chrome – millions of .sst files!

Posted on June 29, 2012 by Dexter

If you’re a Chrome user like me, beware of the latest Google Chrome update preceeding 16.0.912.63.  This version has a problem with the way the database is sorting through web traffic.  It was putting over 20 GB of data of .sst files in

C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\IndexedDB\ directory.

SST files from my experience is like a developer’s placeholder file.   Something that acts like cache and gets destroyed as soon as you’re done with it.  However, in this case the file never gets destroyed and actually multiplies.

Personally I didn’t even notice until my antivirus seemed like it was stuck in the same directory for over 4 hours.  It was then that I noticed the size it was chewing up on my hard drive.

Here’s what didn’t work:

1. Uninstalling – even removing the registry keys with Revo uninstaller for 64 bit machines

2. removing Google sync services and re-applying as I figured it was trying to grab my bookmarks and history

3. Moving the directory elsewhere -it’s not the size of the volume that’ the problem it’s the number of files.  Each one being around 2KB, it calculated it would take close to 8 hours to move.

 

Here’s what did work:

1. Uninstalling Google Chrome

2. Manually deleting the files via an elevated command line (akin to del *.sst)

 

It does take some time, mine was little more than 4 hours on a Solid State Drive, but it did all eventually disappear.  On the new Chrome releases it appears okay.  So hopefully this fix saves your bacon and hard disk space.

 

-Dexter