Simple Smiley in HTML/Unicode
article #1581, updated 17 hours ago

There are a lot of smileys out there now. But reliable display can be a question. The original is preserved:

 ☺

The code is:

&#263A;

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Download Microsoft Teams (newest)
article #1568, updated 3 days ago

Here’s the download page:

www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-teams/download-app

This downloads an .MSIX, which one can usually double-click effectively. The link appears to be nicely static at this writing:

statics.teams.cdn.office.net/production-windows-x64/enterprise/webview2/lkg/MSTeams-x64.msix

And some Powershell to do the download and the install:

cd $env:TEMP
curl.exe -O "https://statics.teams.cdn.office.net/production-windows-x64/enterprise/webview2/lkg/MSTeams-x64.msix"
Add-AppxPackage -Path '.\MSTeams-x64.msix'

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Cross-Platform Flowchart Application a la Visio
article #1150, updated 6 days ago

My favorite by far is draw.io. Online:

app.diagrams.net/

or cross-platform installable:

github.com/jgraph/drawio-desktop/releases/

Two more I have used:

http://www.yworks.com/products/yed

https://www.calligra.org/flow/

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Ion Injection into Internal Combustion Engines
article #1267, updated 7 days ago

As of March of 2024, there is clear success to report, and more to come. This is negatively ionized air, being sent into engine air intakes. Here it is:

ioninjection.ponderworthy.com

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Certificate Signing Request (CSR) Generator
article #1580, updated 13 days ago

Sometimes you need an SSL cert, but you don’t have a request generator. This works very well:

csrgenerator.com

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Windows PE / 10PE / LiveCD / Boot CD / USB for PC Repair and Hardware Testing
article #1013, updated 32 days ago

Many old friends, e.g. Hiren’s and UBCD4Win, are no longer in development, and do not boot on quite a lot of newer hardware; for a while there was no clear replacement. But there is Medicat, which is Linux-based:

gbatemp.net/threads/medicat-usb-a-multiboot-linux-usb-for-pc-repair.361577/

and there is a new Hiren’s renaissance:

www.hirensbootcd.org

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Windows password reset tool
article #1546, updated 32 days ago

There is a renaissance of Hiren’s Boot CD, called Hiren’s Boot CD PE:

https://www.hirensbootcd.org

Today (2024-02-12) my up-to-date Lazesoft could not reset a Windows password, but when I booted into the above, loaded drivers using the embedded Lazesoft, and then reset the password using the NT password edit/reset tool, it worked. There’s also a way to build the bootable with custom driver additions.

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Prevent ROBOCOPY from Hiding Files
article #1579, updated 33 days ago

When you copy an entire folder with ROBOCOPY, sometimes it hides files. Use this on the end to prevent:

/A-:SH

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msftconnecttest.com
article #1578, updated 40 days ago

This is the Internet DNS name of a Microsoft server. On a Windows operating system, immediately before any and all of a wide variety of things occur, the machine will contact this server for some bandwidth and connectivity tests.

There are often issues with this. If attempt is made and fails, Windows may throw up a popup in the lower-right corner, asking for a mouse-click. Sometimes DNS servers lack this record for some reason, causing odd and unusual troubles. There have been other consequences.

There are ways to turn this off altogether. So far testing has found zero gotchas for shutting it off, it is not clear whether it is essential. The simplest way to do so, is probably to enable this item in local or domain group policy:

Computer Configuration
Administrative Templates
System
Internet Communication Management
Internet Communication settings
Turn off Windows Network Connectivity Status Indicator active tests

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Major performance boost: Disable NETBIOS and related on all Windows NICs
article #1557, updated 45 days ago

NETBIOS is a very legacy protocol, security of it is very poor. Substantial performance gains by disabling it have been noticed. This is probably because when active it broadcasts constantly to every single NIC on its LAN, creating NIC and switch contention. Also, a large proportion of security violation exploits use it, so disabling becomes a very good idea in general. The only exceptions occur when there are needs to do SMB sharing with very old machines, machines all long out of support. By default, it is still active on all current Microsoft Windows operating systems.

Here is a paste to Powershell that does it all:

Get-CimInstance -ClassName 'Win32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration' | Invoke-CimMethod -MethodName 'SetTcpipNetbios' -Arguments @{ 'TcpipNetbiosOptions' = [UInt32](2) }

Get-WmiObject Win32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration | Invoke-WmiMethod -Name SetWINSServer -ArgumentList @('','')

$nicall = [wmiclass]'Win32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration'
$nicall.enablewins($false,$false)

The various bits are below.

Turn off NETBIOS over TCP/IP, for each NIC:

Get-CimInstance -ClassName 'Win32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration' | Where-Object -Property 'TcpipNetbiosOptions' -ne $null | Invoke-CimMethod -MethodName 'SetTcpipNetbios' -Arguments @{ 'TcpipNetbiosOptions' = [UInt32](2) }

Get rid of all WINS entries, if present (sorry, no CimInstance code yet):

Get-WmiObject Win32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration -Filter "IPEnabled='True'" | Invoke-WmiMethod -Name SetWINSServer -ArgumentList @('','')

Uncheck of LMHOSTS lookups:

$nicall = [wmiclass]'Win32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration'
$nicall.enablewins($false,$false)

If Microsoft DHCP is in use, DHCP can tell clients to do the simple disable, the first item above:

learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-server/networking/disable-netbios-tcp-ip-using-dhcp



Below is another script, to reenable the protocols, though it does not try to put back any WINS server IPs that may have been deleted, and it cannot override Microsoft DHCP:

Get-CimInstance -ClassName 'Win32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration' | Invoke-CimMethod -MethodName 'SetTcpipNetbios' -Arguments @{ 'TcpipNetbiosOptions' = 0 }

$DisableLMHosts_Class=Get-WmiObject -list Win32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration
$DisableLMHosts_Class.EnableWINS($true,$true)

And if you want to combine the above with a new Microsoft standard preventing Windows port exhaustion:

Get-CimInstance -ClassName 'Win32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration' | Invoke-CimMethod -MethodName 'SetTcpipNetbios' -Arguments @{ 'TcpipNetbiosOptions' = [UInt32](2) }
Get-WmiObject Win32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration | Invoke-WmiMethod -Name SetWINSServer -ArgumentList @('','')
$nicall = [wmiclass]'Win32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration'
$nicall.enablewins($false,$false)
netsh int ipv4 set dynamic tcp start=49152 num=16384
netsh int ipv4 set dynamic udp start=49152 num=16384

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