Enable Disk Clean-up

It seems in Windows Server latest versions the good old disk clean up tool is not enabled by default. If you just want it back you can run the below commands in a command prompt to copy the required files.

Copy C:\Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-cleanmgr_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7600.16385_none_c9392808773cd7da\cleanmgr.exe C:\Windows\System32\

Copy C:\Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-cleanmgr.resources_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7600.16385_en-us_b9cb6194b257cc63\cleanmgr.exe.mui C:\Windows\System32\en-US\

Then create a shortcut pointing to the Disk Clean up tool found in the following path.

C:\Windows\System32\CleanMgr.exe

I did try this on Windows Server 2008 R2 and hope it works as it is or with slight changes on other versions of Windows as well.

Removing all Partitions from a Disk

Today I thought of writing an article on how to remove all the partitions from a disk so you can re-use the disk.

If you tried removing existing partitions using the Computer Management (type computer management on the start menu to open it) tool in Windows you will find that, you can delete partitions by right clicking on the partition / volume and clicking on Delete Volume option.

However you will notice Computer Management is useless on some of the protected volumes since the options to work on them will not be available.In this case you will need to use the DiskPart utility in the Command Prompt.

In the Start type Cmd or Command Prompt to open a command prompt. Then type DiskPart, it is a powerful utility which can even work on protected volumes.

In my case, I would like to work on Disk 3 to remove all the existing volumes on it. Below are the steps required to clean the drive.

1. Select the disk.

List all the disks by typing List Disk, this will list all the disks connected and active at the time in your computer including the disks connected via USB ports.

Once you identify the disk you need, selection can be made by using the command Select Disk x. In my case Select Disk 3.

To confirm, list all the partitions on the selected list by using the command List Partition.

2. Delete all partitions by using the Clean command.

Ensure the proper disk is selected by Listing all disks by command List Disk, the currently focused disk will have a star at the beginning since recovering disks is not easy.

Type Clean and press enter. This will remove all the partitions from the disk. You can check the results by re issuing the List Partition command.

Close the DiskPart tool by entering the command Exit.

Computer Management will now show that the disk is uninitialized as below, Initialize the disk and create partitions / volumes as necessary to use it again.

Removing a Partition from a Disk

You can remove simple partitions by using the Computer Management tool found in Windows. Search for it on the Start menu to launch it.

But if it is a protected partition you will need to use the tool DiskPart. In the Start menu type Cmd or Command Prompt to open a command prompt. Then type DiskPart, it is a powerful utility which can even work on protected volumes.

To delete one partition, follow the steps.

1. List all disks by using the command List Disk.

2. Select the disk by using Select Disk x command.

3. You can confirm the disk by listing all the partitions on it by using the command List Partition.

4. Select the partition by using the command, Select Partition x command.

5. Delete the partition by command Delete Partition Override.

Override parameter needs to be passed if the partition is not a simple data partition.

You can confirm the deletion by re-listing the partitions on the disk by List Partition command.

Open Live Writer – Plugin Not Working

While trying to setup and use the Code Plugin by Rich Hewlett I had trouble getting the plugin loaded into Live Writer. I did add the registry entry required as mentioned in the site, but still the plugin did not load.

Registry

Location - HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\OpenLiveWriter\PluginAssemblies

Key - SyntaxHighlight_WordPressCom_OLWPlugIn

Value - C:\Users\Arjuna\AppData\Local\OpenLiveWriter\Plugins\SyntaxHighlight_WordPressCom_OLWPlugIn.dll

After a while I figured out that, when loading the plugin Live Writer encounters the following error.

"System.IO.FileLoadException: Could not load file or assembly 'file:///C:\Users\Arjuna\AppData\Local\OpenLiveWriter\Plugins\SyntaxHighlight_WordPressCom_OLWPlugIn.dll' or one of its dependencies. Operation is not supported. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80131515)
File name: 'file:///C:\Users\Arjuna\AppData\Local\OpenLiveWriter\Plugins\SyntaxHighlight_WordPressCom_OLWPlugIn.dll' ---> System.NotSupportedException: An attempt was made to load an assembly from a network location which would have caused the assembly to be sandboxed in previous versions of the .NET Framework. This release of the .NET Framework does not enable CAS policy by default, so this load may be dangerous. If this load is not intended to sandbox the assembly, please enable the loadFromRemoteSources switch. See http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=155569 for more information.

This is due to a security feature of .Net Framework 4 or later. Before framework 4, if a DLL is downloaded (which is created in another computer), they used to run in full trust in the zone the assembly is running, but with frameworks 4 and later, downloaded DLLs will not run by default. To make them run, simply grant the DLL full access by going to file properties and selecting the Unblock checkbox in the security section as seen in the below image. This will apply to any plugin you download from internet. Also keep in mind to do this to DLLs you trust safe. Otherwise your computer will be unsafe.

To troubleshoot plugin and other errors you can refer to Open Live Writer log file located in C:\Users\Arjuna\AppData\Local\OpenLiveWriter\Open Live Writer.log.

Resetting Windows XP Mode

Recently I had a problem using Windows XP mode simply because the password for Windows XP mode was not working.This can happen when Windows XP mode password was changed in Windows XP Mode or when the Windows XP Mode was created from another user account to the one currently logged into the physical machine.

One way to fix this is by opening Windows XP Mode Windows Virtual PC Settings and deleting saved credentials. But in my case there were no saved credentials so my button was disabled.

Second way to fix this is by uninstalling Windows XP Mode and reinstalling it.

Third way is a quicker way to do this by simply cleaning the virtual machine files in folder “C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Virtual PC\Virtual Machines”. Make sure you are only deleting the files relevant to Windows XP Mode.

Then when you relaunch Windows XP mode, it will say that some of the required files are missing and will prompt to create a new environment. When you press “Create New” it will start the wizard to create a brand new Windows XP Mode.

If it generates any errors, you should try deleting the virtual machine file found in “<User Folder>\Virtual Machines”

After finishing the wizard you will get a new Windows XP Mode.

Enabling Hibernate in Windows

Some server versions of Windows are having the hibernate feature disabled by default. So if you need to change the hibernation do the following simple steps.

1. Click start and type “cmd” or type command in the search box.

2. Then in the search results, right click the Command Prompt and click on Run as Administrator.

3. If you are prompted by the user account control click continue.

4. Then,

To turn hibernation on in your machine type -

“powercfg.exe /h on” or “powercfg.exe /hibernate on”

To turn hibernation off in your machine type -

“powercfg.exe /h off” or “powercfg.exe /hibernate off”

5. Lastly you can exit the command prompt by typing “exit”.

 

Sometimes you might get an error similar to the following while trying to enable hibernation.

Hibernation failed with the following error: The request is not supported. The following items are preventing hibernation on this system.         An internal system component has disabled hibernation.

 

This means your machine is running roles or services that are disabling hibernation feature. One such a role is Hyper-V. If your version of Windows 2008 is running Hyper-V then you cannot enable hibernation. This is not an error but is deliberately done since hibernating a server running virtual machines is a very complicated and rarely requiring service in an enterprise server.

But there is a way to enable hibernation on a Hyper-V installed machine, which you will be able to find in my next article.

How to Make a Bootable Flash Drive

Recently I installed Windows using a flash (Pen/Thumb) drive, since I couldn’t get hold of a blank DVD to burn the ISO into.

It might be helpful to you as well. Because we don’t need to burn DVDs to install OSs that are coming as ISOs anymore.

Follow the steps below.

1. Find a good USB Flash drive with required space.

Make sure you have backed up all the required data in the flash drive because the flash drive will be formatted.

2. Get a command prompt by typing “cmd” in the run window.

3. Type “diskpart” and press enter.

This will open up a new window for DiskPart utility, you need to use the following commands within the diskpart utility to make the flash drive bootable.

4. In the diskpart utility select the flash drive by typing “select disk 2”.

Use extra caution when selecting the flash disk since if you select the wrong disk you will loose all data of that disk. You can use “list disk” command within the diskpart utility to list all the disks attached to your computer. Note the disk referred here is a physical disk attached to the computer not a partition.

5. Clean the disk by using the command “clean”.

6. Create a primary partition inside the flash drive by typing in “create partition primary”.

7. Select the newly created partition by using command "select partition 1”.

8. Make the selected partition active by typing in the command “active”.

9. Then you need to format the partition by using the command “format fs=fat32” inside the diskpart.

Note that we are formatting the disk using FAT32 file system.

10. Use the command “assign” to assign a drive letter for the newly formatted drive, since we are not giving a drive letter it will get the next available drive letter automatically. Then exit the diskpart utility by typing in “exit”.

11. Now we need to copy the setup files to the flash drive.

For this we can use the good old xcopy command as of below.

“xcopy F:\*.* /s/e/f G:\”

In the above command I am coping the contents of the drive F (which is a virtual drive created by Power ISO) to drive G which is the flash drive I created.

The meanings of the flags I used are as follows.

“xcopy F:\*.* /s/e/f G:\”

F:\ – Source Drive

*.* – All Contents

/s – Copies directories and sub directories which are not empty

/e – This will add the empty directories also so now all the directories and sub directories will be copied even though they are empty

/f  – Will show the source and destination file names while copying.

G:\ – Destination Drive

When xcopy completes you will have a flash drive which you can boot your computer, in my case I had a Windows 2008 R2 installer. You may even be able to copy the OS files to your flash drive and boot an OS with this method.

Then you may need to change your BIOS options and/or press function keys to let you boot from the flash drive.

Windows XP Mode in Windows 7 – Knowing, Installing and Using

There is a cool feature provided by Microsoft for Windows 7 named Windows XP Mode. Simply this is an improved virtual machine which you can use to install applications that are not compatible with Windows 7.

Some advantages of this over Virtual PC are,

• Use of virtually installed applications are faster and easy.
• Virtual applications are performing faster.
• Your Windows 7 start menu can be used to access all the applications that are installed on Windows XP Mode.
• No need to start the virtual machine your self.
• Application is run in normal Windows 7 not in another virtual environment.
• Copy Paste is supported between applications without needing to install any other software addons.

To setup Windows XP Mode you need to download and install Windows XP Mode from Microsoft site. You can use the following link for that.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx

There you need to download and install,

1. Windows XP Mode (WXPM)
2. Windows Virtual PC
3. WXPM Update

Note - If you have installed Microsoft Virtual PC you need to uninstall that first, other wise WXPM will not work.

After you installed WXPM, it will be in your start menu.

Setting up Windows XP Mode

1. Start WXPM by clicking on the start menu item.

2. Select an appropriate path for the installation of WXPM and give a suitable password, this password will be the password used for the Virtual PC (VPC) user. If you needed to manually connect to the VPC then you need this.

3. Use the next screen to enable the Windows Updates on the VPC.

4. Start the setup to initiate the configuration.

5. After the completion of the configuration WXPM will start a of shown below.

6. All your physical drives will be available on the WXPM as well so you will be able to select and install applications from either of them.

7. For the demonstration I installed “Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery” software since it takes less time to setup.

8. After successfully installing the application on WXPM it will appear on your Windows 7 start menu so you will be able to invoke it directly from Windows 7.

9. As you see there is no difference to the way application is running or shown, and you will even not notice that the application is running in VPC.

Notes – Even though you don’t need, you can even connect to external networks or browse internet using the WXPM, if you do connect the VPC, remember to install a virus guard and enable the firewall for maintaining your computer safety.

Windows Update Error

Today I faced an error when trying to install few updates for Windows. The message Windows was showing was “Windows update encountered an unknown error.”. So it was not helpful in resolving the issue.

This is happening due to either update not getting downloaded properly, getting corrupt while downloading, space issues in your hard disk, errors while applying updates, etc.

To my satisfaction one thing I did, fixed the issue. If you are also getting similar error I recommend you to first browse to your SoftwareDistribution folder inside Windows installation folder. For example I found it in “C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution”.

Then delete all the folders in the folder (make sure the Windows Update is closed before doing this) and restart your computer.

After making sure your Windows installation partition is having enough free space (about 1 GB) try running Windows Update again. This time the updates will get installed successfully.

Accessing Windows XP Machines

Have you noted that when you try to access a Windows XP machine, in the Connect To window (Login screen) the User name field is disabled?

Earlier versions of Windows did not had this disabled so we were able to logon as any valid user by typing the account name and the password. But in Wondows XP this was disabled by a security policy.

This policy will also restrict the machine's ability of sharing files, per user sharing will not be possible.

Want to change it? Ok proceed by openning the Local Security Policy Settings window through Start -> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Local Security Policy.
Now go to Network Access section and find out Net access : Sharing and security model for local accounts.
Then open the properties page of that by double clicking or right clicking and clicking on properties.

Did you note that the default is, Guest only - local users authenticate as Guest change this to Classic - local users authenticate as themselves.
Then press Ok to apply the setting and close all the opened windows.

Now from some other machine try to access your machine. See the difference. Now you can type any user name and the appropriate password and log in.

Also if you now go to folder properties you will see that the Sharing tab is having different content than earlier and also you will see a new tab named Security. You can use these tabs to set per user security and access rights.

For people who would like to know more, following is the explanation for the setting Net access : Sharing and security model for local accounts given by Microsoft.

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Network access: Sharing and security model for local accounts
This security setting determines how network logons using local accounts are authenticated. If this setting is set to Classic, network logons that use local account credentials authenticate by using those credentials. If this setting is set to Guest only, network logons that use local accounts are automatically mapped to the Guest account.

The Classic model allows fine control over access to resources. By using the Classic model, you can grant different types of access to different users for the same resource. By using the Guest only model, you can have all users treated equally. All users authenticate as Guest, and they all receive the same level of access to a given resource, which can be either Read Only or Modify.

There are two models available:

• Classic: Local users authenticate as themselves.
• Guest only: Local users authenticate as Guest.

Default:Guest only on Windows XP Professional. Classic on the Windows Server 2003 family and Windows XP Professional computers joined to a domain.

Important:With the Guest only model, any user who can access your computer over the network (including anonymous Internet users) can access your shared resources. You must use the Internet Connection Firewall (ICF) or other similar device to protect your computer from unauthorized access. Similarly, with the Classic model, local accounts must be password protected; otherwise, those user accounts can be used by anyone to access shared system resources.
This setting only affects computers running Windows XP Professional which are not joined to a domain.This policy will have no impact on computers running Windows 2000.

Notes:This setting does not affect interactive logons that are performed remotely by using such services as Telnet or Terminal Services.When the computer is not joined to a domain, this setting also modifies the Sharing and Security tabs in the Windows Explorer to correspond to the sharing and security model that is being used.

Windows 2003 Boot Error
Have anyone of you installed Windows XP on a machine which is having Windows 2003. If you have, you may have noted that after Windows XP installation Windows 2003 stops booting up. If you do try to start Windows 2003 in safe mode it will stop at CRCDisk.SYS.
The reason behind this is that when Windows XP installs it will replace some of the required common files with Windows XP version. When Windows 2003 tries to start it will fail since it cannot find the required files.

To start Windows 2003 again you have to replace 'NTDETECT.COM' and 'ntldr' on the boot drive (C:). These two files are located in the Windows 2003 CD inside I386 folder.

If this does not start Windows 2003 try running Windows 2003 setup again up until the first restart. When the system restarts Windows 2003 should start as normal.

In the worst case if that also wont solve your problem then you have to repair your Windows 2003 installation by continuing Windows 2003 setup and selecting Repair mode.