IT Knowledge Base

In Windows XP you could simply login as administrator and rename the profile folder. As soon as logged back in as this user everything was recreated. In Windows 7 and Vista it doesn’t work like this anymore. If you just delete or rename the profile folder and you try to log back in it is going to create you a temporary profile. To avoid that you need to open the registry.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList

Search there for the profile you renamed or deleted and delete the folder. Reboot the computer and it should work again.

You need to set a registry key to really see all files.

In:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\

Set following DWord:
ShowSuperHidden (1)

You know the problem after a fresh windows installation. First you need to do all the windows updates and this takes some time to do it manually. This is the reason why I developed this script. I actually developed it for a packet manager called enteo but it can also be used without it.

Just download it and read the readme file carefully.

It is written in vbscript and can be easily adjusted to your packet manager. Use of course at your own risk!

PSWUInstaller100 4kb

1. Create a local user like Template
2. Login as this user and make all your adjustments
3. Best Restart your Computer
4. Login as Domain Administrator
5. Set your Explorer up so you can see all Hidden Files and Folder and System Files
6. Rename C:\Users\Default User in C:\Users\Default User Old
7. Rename your new Profile C:\Users\Template into C:\Users\Default User
8. Go to the Computer Settings [Windows Key+Break]
9. Go to the Users Profile and choose your Default User
10. Then click on Copy To and don’t forget to set the permissions to everybody 
11. IMPORTANT: Copy the file into %logonserver%\netlogon\Default User.v2 
      Don’t forget to put .v2 or you would just generate a profile for XP.

1. Delete all Snapshots or you can’t resize the disk
2. Shutdown Guest System
3. Go into Guest Properties and increase the disk size
4. Start Guest System
5. Create a Snapshot again

Windows Server Resize Partition
1. Download and install Diskpart from the Microsoft Webpage
2. Go into Command Console
3. Type: Diskpart
> LIST DISK
> SELECT DISK 0 [replace number with the disk you want to extend]
> LIST VOLUME
> SELECT VOLUME 1 [replace number with volume you want to extend]
> extend

Windows XP Resize Partition
Unfortunately Diskpart didn’t work for my Windows XP Version even it suppose to be supported. Anyway after try and error I found a good open source Partition Manager like Partition Magic.  It is called GParted and It is based on Linux and does a great job. You can get it here: http://gparted.sourceforge.net/

Well I lived in Australia for 1 1/2 year and I got used to the English keyboard. Especially if you start programming you can see the advantage of the English keyboard over the German Keyboard Layout. Because with the German keyboard you need to press the shift button a lot to get to this special characters which are used in program languages all the time.
Anyway we use in German ÄÖÜ sometimes but you can not get it easily with the English keyboard layout. With the help of the Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator I could create my own Layout and it works like this. When you need to type an ÄÖÜ character you just simply press ALT+GR + the button where the character on German Keyboard is. It takes some time to get used it but it is much faster than press alt+shift each time to switch the language layout. So it is exact the same Keyboard layout as the international English one except of my special characters and I also removed the dead keys.

 
Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator

Here my keyboard file to download:
English Keyboard with ÄÖÜ

Usually you can’t see all the installed devices in the device manager. To be able to see them run following command in the cmd to change the environmental variables:
SET DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES=1

Open the device manager and change the View Setting to Show hidden devices. After that you can select and uninstall the invisible devices you wish.

Command Prompt Command:
> Vssadmin List Providers

In the registry you will find them here:
HK\LM\System\Currentcontrolset\services\VSS\Providers

I had some trouble with our Backup System today and noticed that that another VSS was installed. After removing the Acronis Registy entry it worked like a charm.

We have a monitor at our work which we use to monitor our company’s state. But how lazy I am I was looking for a quick solution to switch off and on this screen. So I don’t need to do this task anymore each morning;-) I did some research on the net but didn’t found a solution to do it with the Windows inbuilt functions. Then I discovered this great command prompt tool: Nircmd. It offers a lot of other functions. Just copy it into your Windows System 32 folder and you can simply run the command “nircmd monitor off” to switch off your screen. I used Windows Task Planer to run it each morning (switch on) and evening (switch off). Check out this great tool which offers heaps of other functions:
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/nircmd.html

Here a couple of quick and dirty examples:
sc \\REMOTEMACHINE query
sc \\REMOTEMACHINE start SERVICE_NAME
sc \\REMOTEMACHINE config SERVICE_NAME start= auto