If Windows 7 won’t boot all the way, if it gives a bluescreen involving win32k.sys, it may be a bad update. Boot into startup repair and rename FNTCACHE.DAT in system32 to .OLD. That forces Windows to make a new one and boot will occur next time.
Courtesy of the excellent Matt Quick.
Categories:
Windows OS-Level Issues
One way this can be fixed at least sometimes, is to give “NETWORK SERVICE” full rights to:
C:\Windows\System32\Tasks\Microsoft\Windows\SoftwareProtectionPlatform
Categories:
Windows OS-Level Issues
This tool:
http://www.pcstarters.net/performance-maintainer/
is an aggregator which appears to be very helpful so far.
Categories:
Windows OS-Level Issues
Tools
Best I’ve found so far:
http://nssm.cc/download
Categories:
Windows OS-Level Issues
Tools
To set a Windows NIC to full DHCP via netsh, do this, replacing “Local Area Connection” to the name of the NIC if it’s not the same:
netsh interface ip set address "Local Area Connection" dhcp
netsh interface ip set dns "Local Area Connection" dhcp
netsh interface ip set wins "Local Area Connection" dhcp
Sometimes, if WINS is set static, you have to do this before WINS can be set DHCP:
netsh interface ip set wins "Local Area Connection" static none
Categories:
Networking Analysis, Ports, & Protocols
Windows OS-Level Issues
Categories:
Windows OS-Level Issues
Windows Installer, Updates, Patching
A 539-megabyte monster! Appears to be designed to solve lots of problems.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=20858
Categories:
Windows Installer, Updates, Patching
Windows OS-Level Issues
In Windows, some audio drivers provide something called “Stereo Mix” and some don’t; this is what is usually recommended if you want to record everything audio happening at once in Windows. But increasingly this doesn’t exist. There are software replacements which do the job:
http://vb-audio.pagesperso-orange.fr/Voicemeeter/
http://www.virtualaudiostreaming.net/
Categories:
Audio-Video
Windows OS-Level Issues
Very useful procedure, does not need a role/feature install. Slightly different on each. Note the locale suffix which will have to be changed. Does not work on 2012R2, from that point we have to enable the desktop experience, which can be done in Powershell using Install-WindowsFeature Desktop-Experience
.
Server 2012R1:
copy C:\Windows\WinSxS\amd64_microsoft-windows-cleanmgr_31bf3856ad364e35_6.2.9200.16384_none_c60dddc5e750072a\cleanmgr.exe %systemroot%\System32
copy C:\Windows\WinSxS\amd64_microsoft-windows-cleanmgr.resources_31bf3856ad364e35_6.2.9200.16384_en-us_b6a01752226afbb3\cleanmgr.exe.mui %systemroot%\System32\en-US
Server 2008R2:
copy C:\Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-cleanmgr_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7600.16385_none_c9392808773cd7da\cleanmgr.exe %systemroot%\System32
copy C:\Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-cleanmgr.resources_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7600.16385_en-us_b9cb6194b257cc63\cleanmgr.exe.mui %systemroot%\System32\en-US
Server 2008 64-bit:
copy C:\Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-cleanmgr_31bf3856ad364e35_6.0.6001.18000_none_c962d1e515e94269\cleanmgr.exe %systemroot%\System32
copy C:\Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-cleanmgr.resources_31bf3856ad364e35_6.0.6001.18000_en-us_b9f50b71510436f2\cleanmgr.exe.mui %systemroot%\System32\en-US
Server 2008 32-bit:
copy C:\Windows\winsxs\x86_microsoft-windows-cleanmgr_31bf3856ad364e35_6.0.6001.18000_none_6d4436615d8bd133\cleanmgr.exe %systemroot%\System32
copy C:\Windows\winsxs\x86_microsoft-windows-cleanmgr.resources_31bf3856ad364e35_6.0.6001.18000_en-us_5dd66fed98a6c5bc\cleanmgr.exe.mui %systemroot%\System32\en-US
Categories:
Windows OS-Level Issues
Cleanup
This is a service to be found in many versions of Windows, but its in-OS documentation states that it is present for application compatibility only. And yet on at least one LAN it has been seen to be essential for printing. Research has provided no results. Anyone with input, please contact me by email!
Categories:
Windows OS-Level Issues