Some Notes on the Machines

In my experience, group policy is the only nearly indispensable tool on a Microsoft domain-controlled LAN which breaks very often and admits of almost zero solid documentation towards fix. Someday this may be thorough, Lord willing; for now, we have:

Part I, General
Part II, Destrangulation
Part III, Copying Files

Here is the only complete method known to this writer to automatically download and install all current Microsoft redists. It uses this:

https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/VcRedist

Steps:

1. You’ll need the PowerShell Gallery. Windows 10 and WMF 5.1 come with it.

2. If you have 10, or once you have WMF installed, you can just run GETREDISTS.CMD (part of windows-tools ) as administrator. Alternatively, you can continue :-)

3. VcRedist is the core, we’ll install that automatically as part of the procedure. In administrative PowerShell (the -Force takes in any new updates):

Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Force
Install-PackageProvider -Name NuGet -Force
Install-Module -Name NuGet -SkipPublisherCheck -Force
Import-Module -Name NuGet
Install-Module -Name VcRedist -SkipPublisherCheck -Force
Import-Module -Name VcRedist
New-Item C:\VcRedist -ItemType Directory
Get-VcList | Get-VcRedist -Path C:\VcRedist
Get-VcList | Install-VcRedist -Path C:\VcRedist

The above installs all of the redistributables which Microsoft currently supports. Reportedly, some older ones (going back to 2005 at this writing) can be had using this:

Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Force
Install-PackageProvider -Name NuGet -Force
Install-Module -Name NuGet -SkipPublisherCheck -Force
Import-Module -Name NuGet
Install-Module -Name VcRedist -SkipPublisherCheck -Force
Import-Module -Name VcRedist
New-Item C:\VcRedist -ItemType Directory
Get-VcList -Export All | Get-VcRedist -Path C:\VcRedist
Get-VcList -Export All | Install-VcRedist -Path C:\VcRedist

You may wish to delete the downloadables after the procedure:

Remove-Item C:\VcRedist -Recurse -Force

OWTAS sets a number of additional critical and delayed worker threads, plus service work items. The changes are autocalculated according to a combination of RAM and OS bit-width (32 vs. 64). Performance will increase, more so with more RAM. Available as VBS and as PowerShell 3 and up. Future development will be in PowerShell, as part of the windows-tools project.

The tool is designed for Windows 10 down through XP. As of 2017-10-10, it is self-elevating if run non-administratively.

No keys of course, but ISO media indeed, and very helpful for DISM and other fixes:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/15088/windows-create-installation-media

From the extraordinary Mike Hunsinger:

Today I learned something fascinating. You can run linux as a Windows Subsystem w/o using a vm or dual-boot. All you have to do is run PS as admin, execute this:

Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux

reboot when prompted and then you can use the windows store to install just about any Linux distro you want.

This article describes folks running Linux GUI apps talking to Windows-native X Windows. Ponderworthy hasn’t tested this yet, but the following X server looks like a very worthy candidate:

sourceforge.net/projects/vcxsrv/

Get the portable version here:

http://www.tweaking.com/content/page/windows_repair_all_in_one.html

1. Unpack it
2. Run Repair_Windows.exe as administrator
3. Click “Jump to Repairs”
4. Click “Open Repairs”
5. Uncheck all of the fixes except “Repair Internet Explorer”
6. Do it, and reboot.

Works very nicely.

1. There are three ways to reset the password if you need to do so:

https://www.mydigitallife.net/reset-and-fix-incorrect-or-wrong-password-for-windows-xp-mode-xpmuser/

2. If you need to transfer an XP mode virtual from one user profile to another, create a blank XP mode on the new user, then copy all of the old files replacing the new. Use the default filenames, don’t change anything. It will work, but you will need to change the password, above.

A registry entry:

reg add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced" /v SeparateProcess /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

which can be set up in group policy, under Computer Configuration, Preferences, Windows Settings, Registry.

Very nice:

https://gist.github.com/Zenexer/ae98c2b80d60fffcc588

This will make any Windows 10 machine run much faster, at the cost of the fancy Cortana query and search component.

1. In REGEDIT, browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, Software, Policies, Microsoft, Windows.
2. Create key “Windows Search” no quotes.
3. Create DWORD32 “AllowCortana” no quotes. Make sure the value is zero (0).
4. Create DWORD32 “AllowCortanaAboveLock” no quotes. Make sure the value is zero (0).
5. Create DWORD32 “DisableWebSearch” no quotes. Make sure the value is one (1).
6. Create DWORD32 “ConnectedSearchUseWeb” no quotes. Make sure the value is zero (0).
7. Create DWORD32 “ConnectedSearchUseWebOverMeteredConnections” no quotes. Make sure the value is zero (0).
8. Reboot.