disable windows 10, 11 activity history storage on local device

 

Activity history going to MS should be off by default.  To disable it use this

 

Stop saving activity history locally on your device

1. Select Start , then select Settings > Privacy > Activity history.

2. Clear the Store my activity history on this device checkbox.

    

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/-windows-activity-history-and-your-privacy-2b279964-44ec-8c2f-e0c2-6779b07d2cbd 

 

run windows "run" tasks with elevated privileges

One can run tasks from the "Windows" button, run line w/o finding the executable and using that method to launch as administrator.

Alternatively, press Win + R, type taskschd.msc, and press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to launch with elevated privileges. 

--30--

Windows antimalware executable task running as cpu hog

 

This shows how to reduce the priority of this task, which can run very long for no reason to be at high priority.

It's the windows cache maintenance.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/3230441/high-cpu-usage-because-of-antimalware-service-exec

1. Press Windows key + R. This will open Run. Alternatively, you can go to Start and search for Run.
2. In Run dialog box, type taskschd.msc and hit enter.
3. Navigate to Task Scheduler Library > Microsoft > Windows > Windows Defender.
4. On the right hand pane, double-click on Windows Defender Scheduled Scan.
5. On the General tab, uncheck the option Run with highest privileges.
6. Click on Conditions tab and uncheck all the options.
7. Click on OK.

right click the task to change the privileges off

--30--

Install WSL2 Windows 10 and 11 notes

 

install using

powershell as admin

wsl --install -d ubuntu

 

 then install windows manager to run desktop

in ubuntu bash box

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/ii79t0/wsl2_gui_using_vcxsrv_complete_guide_for_beginners/

 

don't use apt upgrade on ubuntu.  Probably tries to upgrade from 24.04 now and hoses the install

only do apt update

 tried this, didn't work

https://superuser.com/questions/1803992/getting-this-error-failed-to-take-etc-passwd-lock-invalid-argument

version list

NAME                            FRIENDLY NAME
Ubuntu                          Ubuntu
Debian                          Debian GNU/Linux
kali-linux                      Kali Linux Rolling
Ubuntu-18.04                    Ubuntu 18.04 LTS
Ubuntu-20.04                    Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
Ubuntu-22.04                    Ubuntu 22.04 LTS
Ubuntu-24.04                    Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
OracleLinux_7_9                 Oracle Linux 7.9
OracleLinux_8_7                 Oracle Linux 8.7
OracleLinux_9_1                 Oracle Linux 9.1
openSUSE-Leap-15.6              openSUSE Leap 15.6
SUSE-Linux-Enterprise-15-SP5    SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 SP5
SUSE-Linux-Enterprise-15-SP6    SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 SP6
openSUSE-Tumbleweed             openSUSE Tumbleweed

sudo apt install xfce4 xfce4-goodies

--30--

usb pi zero dongle and ndis networking

usb pi zero dongle and ndis networking

https://learn.adafruit.com/turning-your-raspberry-pi-zero-into-a-usb-gadget/ethernet-gadget

Notes here about setting up forwarding on the windows box, and route add on the pi zero to get out to the internet.

Another guys blog post on the subject.

https://jon.sprig.gs/blog/post/2243

--30--

Windows timeline enable / disable

Using settings is preferable to using this method, which involves a register edit.  Recording here for information only.  

 

https://www.majorgeeks.com/content/page/how_to_disable_or_enable_timeline_in_windows_10.html

Windows com ports (or other devices) finding and uninstalling old ports

https://learn.adafruit.com/how-to-find-hidden-com-ports

Open a cmd box with admin permission.

enable option to show all devices
set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1

start device manager

start devmgmt.msc

Overview

by lady ada

This mini tutorial will show you how you can find and uninstall all those extra COM ports you may have registered from years of microcontroller-hacking.

You may have noticed that every time a new FTDI-based board is plugged in, you get a new COM port. You might also get new COM port assignment with adapters, etc. Eventually you can get into pretty high COM port numbers and that can be really annoying! For example, on my 6-month old Windows 7 install I'm already up to COM38!

At some point you may want to figure out what were all those other COM ports and perhaps uninstall the "ghost" devices. Under windows this isn't particularly easy unless you know how. Luckily, this tutorial will show you how and its really easy once you know!

First up, you'll have to open up a Command Prompt and in Windows 7 it has to be run as administrator. Open up the start menu and start typing in "Command" until the black C:\ icon appears. Right click and select Run as Administrator If you have some other version of Windows, you may not have to run as admin.

Now type in set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1 (which is the magic command to show ghost devices) followed by start devmgmt.msc (which starts up the device manager)

Now you're almost done, select Show hidden devices from the View menu

Voila! You can now see every COM port you've ever made, and you can also now select which ones you want to uninstall so the COM port number can be recycled

Adding system tray to a project c# and a console application

Need to add to references

System.Windows
System.Windows.Forms
System.Drawing

so that the Icon reference will work



            NotifyIcon tray = new NotifyIcon();
            tray.Visible = true;

            tray.Icon =
                new System.Drawing.Icon(System.Environment.GetFolderPath
                (System.Environment.SpecialFolder.Personal)
                + @"\Icon.ico");

            tray.Text = "Ice Essentials";

An Icon.ico file must exist as this example uses that method to get the "ico"-ized bitmap file for use.

If one were using windows with forms, other than a console window project to start with, the ico object could be taken from objects created for forms.  But this allows the system tray object to be created w/o that on a console type exe in c#

display operating system versions

windows systems

system info msc page

linux

armbian    /etc/armbian-release

windows 10 startup at first logon

We only need to have our program running after the first user login, so no need for an earlier start.  Also none of the functions are required to be present when the user is not logged on, so logoff killing all applications, including this one is okay.

The start menu example:

C:\Users\jws\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

is sufficient for starting the fso.  shortcut to app needs to be installed there to launch

manual way to do it:
https://www.windowscentral.com/how-launch-apps-automatically-during-startup-windows-10

shell:startup

shell:AppsFolder

will bring up installed apps and startup folder (abs path above) for the user it is run on.

application is run w/o admin privileges so should be find with just a shortcut, not rights elevation.

https://www.howtogeek.com/208224/how-to-add-programs-files-and-folders-to-system-startup-in-windows-8.1/

With registry entries

https://winaero.com/blog/how-to-add-or-remove-startup-apps-in-windows-10/

To add or remove startup apps for the current user from the Registry, you need to follow the instructions below:

• Open Registry Editor.
• Go to the following key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run.
• There you will find startup items for current users which are stored in the Registry:

If we need runonce vs. run always.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/desktop/SetupApi/run-and-runonce-registry-keys

The Windows registry includes the following four keys:

• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
• HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce
• HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce

 complaint from github about Installshield

https://github.com/HandBrake/HandBrake/issues/414




-30-

save and restore of putty session definitions from machine to machine

Putty sessions are saved in the registry entries for the Putty application.   That entry for the user must be backed up and restored to transfer the session information between machines.

Saving:
This incantation will back up the registry entries for a user to a file.

regedit /e "%userprofile%\desktop\putty-registry.reg" HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Simontatham

The "manufacturer is "Simontatham" and is the same on all machines.

This saves the session entries in a Desktop file putty-registry.reg

File names on machine on restore (Merge):
In each Session entry there will be a location for any sessions which have a key file set for SSH preshared key.  It is not a good idea to save and transfer the preshared keys between machines, unless they are ones you have generated, and know what you are doing.

"PublicKeyFile" will be the path to the preshared key, and will need to point at the location for the preshared private key file on the new machine.  This should be done before merging and restoring onto the machine.

Restore (Merge):
This incantation will allow one to restore them on another machine.

The saved file will need to be located on a drive with a drive letter.  Otherwise the restore will not work.  Copying the putty-registry.reg file back to the new machine Desktop would be a good way to ensure this (it will be on C:).

Double clicking on the reg file once transferred to the other machine will restore those registry keys, and they should appear on the next invocation of putty.

You can also run regedit (from the run feature of the start menu) and select to import the file.

https://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/putty-session.html

stackoverflow article method here

Export

cmd.exe, require elevated prompt:

Only sessions:

regedit /e "%USERPROFILE%\Desktop\putty-sessions.reg" HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SimonTatham\PuTTY\Sessions

All settings:

regedit /e "%USERPROFILE%\Desktop\putty.reg" HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SimonTatham

---

Powershell:

Only sessions:

reg export HKCU\Software\SimonTatham\PuTTY\Sessions ([Environment]::GetFolderPath("Desktop") + "\putty-sessions.reg")

All settings:

reg export HKCU\Software\SimonTatham ([Environment]::GetFolderPath("Desktop") + "\putty.reg")

---

Import

Double-click on the *.reg file and accept the import.

Alternative ways:

cmd.exe, require elevated command prompt:

regedit /i putty-sessions.reg
regedit /i putty.reg

PowerShell:

reg import putty-sessions.reg
reg import putty.reg

---

Note: do not replace SimonTatham with your username.
Note: It will create a reg file on the Desktop of the current user.
Note: It will not export related SSH keys.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13023920/how-to-export-putty-sessions-list

30

Notes for running Windows 98 (or older OS's) on Rpi

Snip from a posting about making up a Raspberry Pi running QEMU running Windows 98.  Mainly a QEMU note.

This part needs to be done on a Windows based computer, not the Pi:
I broke out my copy of Windows 98 and followed this chaps guide to get the .img file needed for the emulator, copied it over to my Pi (into ‘/home/pi’ for ease of access).
Now back to the Pi:
Don’t worry about the Youtube video in the post above, that is for an older version of Raspbian, now Jessie has QEMU available and easily obtainable by typing:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install qemu -y

Time to test it. Navigate to ‘/home/pi’ and run:

qemu-system-i386 -localtime -cpu 486 -m 96 -hda win98.img

QEMU should pop up and begin launching Windows 98, when its loaded have a click around and then shut it down as you would a normal 98 machine.
When QEMU has shut off it’s time to apply…

******************

https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=117228

I just installed debian jessie on a desktop PC. Ran the update and upgrade. And then I simply ran the apt-get install for qemu. That allowed me to do the entire win98 install on the desktop PC.

After installing qemu, I used the following command to create the img file:

qemu-img create win98.img 1G

Then I used the following command to install windows from a win98 ISO created from an original install disk.

qemu-system-i386 -localtime -cpu 486 -m 256 -cdrom d win98se.iso -boot d -hda win98.img

Doing that resulted in a quick, clean, problem-free windows 98 install. It bypassed all the Win98 installation problems I was having on the RPI. And this works much better anyway since the desktop is a much faster PC to work with.

After the win98 install, I took the resulting img file and copied it over to the PI. And then I used these instructions to get qemu running on the PI.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrq_VtrnhHE.

After qemu installed, I used the following command to run 98 on the RPI.

qemu -cpu 486 -m 256 -hda win98.img

It's slow, but seems to work great. The only problem I have found is it does not close cleanly. It always hangs on shutdown which means it always does a scandisk when it restarts. If anyone has any ideas how to fix that, I'd love to hear them.

possible workaround to readynas windows 10 share problem. (relevant to developer win 10 installs)

Note on removing credential (If I understand it), as a workaround fix for broken Windows 10 fix. 

Windows 10 upgrades to the developer releases seem to be invalidating stored credentials with each update with some regularity.  if you have a drive share mount with stored credentials, or on another front though not with the readynas nas, stored logins for say remote desktop, you have to reinput them.

That was working up to the latest 9/14 or 9/16 set of updates.  now it seems to retain the credential and not let you easily reinput the login, or share.

And it was not accepting any password on other shares, even valid ones.

A fellow on the Readynas forum (where this became a topic) suggested a workaround worth documenting.

Thanks to Readynas forum user nayadn for this.

nayadn (Aspirant) posted a new reply in R6000 Series AC WiFi Routers on 2016-09-17 07:32 AM :

---

Re: Can no longer access ReadyShare drives on Windows 10

i googled again the error and i came up with a sideway solution
go into user account in control panel
if you're in windows 10 select manage your credentials this will open 2 options
web credentials and windows credentials
head to windows credentials and add a new windows credential
enter the location of the drive \\readyshare on the first line
your windows user name in the second line
your windows password in the third line
and you're done, you should see the drive under network and be able to access it as before
good luck

Ten things to turn off in Windows 10 as of 2016

Summary from article at end of this post.  To get to various options, follow the tabs / screens.  Some links explain more detail as a reference.  This is a quick summary to make it more handy to run thru the settings for a new install, or a system which has not been adjusted.

Update sharing outside your house
Settings > Update & security > Advanced options > Choose how updates are delivered
stop-windows-10-from-using-your-pc-for-file-sharing 

Advertising ID
You can turn this off by going to Settings > Privacy > General > Let my apps use my advertising ID for experiences across apps (turning this off will reset your ID).

Start menu ads:
Settings > Personalization > Start > Occasionally show suggestions in Start.
get-rid-of-ads-in-your-windows-10-start-menu

Notifications (select and turn some off)
Settings > System > Notifications & actions and turning off things like Show me tips about Windows

Cortana "getting to know you".  another privacy leak to the mothership.
Settings > Privacy > Speech, inking, & typing and clicking Stop getting to know me.

Review Background Apps:
Settings > Privacy > Background apps

Disable Lock screen (where prudent)
Lock Screen
 how-to-disable-the-windows-10-lock-screen
 
Select which syncing you want
Settings > Accounts > Sync your settings. You can turn off all settings syncing

Visual effects in interface:
System > Advanced system settings. Under the Advanced tab, go to Performance and click Settings

Select update policy:
Settings->Updates and Security->Advanced Options  Automatic Updates

Original article 2016
http://www.cnet.com/how-to/10-things-to-disable-in-windows-10/

Windows 10 wasted space

I have a windows 10 system with the $windows.~bt file still occupying space.

It is supposed to be the queued upgrade from 8 to 10, and hopefully can be deleted.

A page with info on it is here

http://www.thewindowsclub.com/delete-windows-bt-ws-folders-windows-10

There is an interesting bit about forcing deletion of files like this which is worth recording

Copy-paste the following and hit Enter to delete the contents of $Windows.~BT directory

takeown /F C:\$Windows.~BT\* /R /A 
icacls C:\$Windows.~BT\*.* /T /grant administrators:F 
rmdir /S /Q C:\$Windows.~BT\

Now copy-paste the following and hit Enter to delete the contents of $Windows.~WS directory

takeown /F C:\$Windows.~WS\* /R /A 
icacls C:\$Windows.~WS\*.* /T /grant administrators:F 
rmdir /S /Q C:\$Windows.~WS\

lost profile on windows xp (possibly on later as well)

When you get an error logging in on windows complaining that the profile is invalid, windows will attempt to create a new temporary profile.

It appears under such as

c:\Documents and Settings\<account name> not being accessible or such.

In the case encountered it got an access error.

There is an article below which explains at length how to recover.

The short of it is that one should do a System Restore.  This is under Accessories->System Tools->System Restore.

No need to remove the temp profile, unless you are tight on space.

BTW the temporary directory / profile created is TEMP

Substitute for C: above <system root> in the general case, but for most systems hopefully people had sense enough to leave it c:\  All bets are off in the case of running multiple versions, which might necessitate using a different directory.

Link to Tech Republic

how-do-i-recover-a-damaged-windows-xp-user-profile