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KPTree - MSWindows Setup

I have Windows on my main desk top machine, it is dual boot with Debian/XFCE. I am using Debian almost exclusivly now. The BIOS based dual boot works well, I have it defaulting to Debian. I do not currently have a Windows VM setup on my main server. My 3 sons also have computers with Windows on them. Lastly, I am required to used company Windows machines at work. Hence I like to keep a list of my preferred Windows software reasonable up to date.

I have been using Microsoft products for quite some time, starting with MSDos then Windows 3.0, 3.1, 95, 98, XP, 7, 8, 8.1 and finally 10. (I managed to skip some of the duds, such as ME, 2000 and Vista, although I did occasionally use them on friends, family and work machines. Contrary to all the noise I never had any problems with version 8 & 8.1. I thought ME was bad and Vista too, but as noted basically managed to avoid them in the most part.)

tldr; Old build

So below is a list of Windows software often use.


I do not use Windows much at home anymore. I have highlighted the software I still use with a (!), and software I use on my Linux desktop L

Printing photos at home is very expensive. The photo paper and original ink are just too expensive (rip off). It is cheaper to setup the photos and get their files printed at the likes of Kmart. These photo printing services even have on-line services or take a USB drive to the store terminal. The photos get mailed to you. Old printer stuff

In windows both the link and drive substitution commands have their own nuances….. The main problem with “subst” is that the reference is not canonical. The mklink seems to sometimes fall back to the full path.

There are two main reasons to use:

  1. To overcome the path/name length restriction of 260 characters
  2. To simply the path name of regularly used references.

In Linux symlinks seem to be more robust (mind you just about everything seems more robust…) Symlinks to files are used as a control mechanism. Hard links are frequently used as a backup technique to minimise real backup space used.

For some reason Windows 10 will not show my network drives in the Explorer Network directory. Even when it did work it was slow to show the network drives. I can simply type in the network drive into the path, e.g. “\\User1NetworkDrive”, but this is a bit clumsy and is not always an option in some file modal windows. A symlink is the best overall solution.

Open up a Command Prompt (Admin) - right click the windows icon or type “Win + X”. In Windows 10 you can also type in Command into the Cortina search area and right click on the Command Prompt item.

For files the command syntax is: “mklink Link Target”.

I am only really interested in a directory link the syntax is: “mklink /D Link Target”, example: “mklink /D C:\Users\User1\User1NetworkDrive \\User1NetworkDrive”.

This is the command syntax to associate a path with a drive letter:

SUBST [drive1: [drive2:]path]
SUBST drive1: /D
Parameters
drive1: – Specify a virtual drive to which to assign a path.
[drive2:]path – Specify a physical drive and path to assign to a virtual drive.
/D – Delete a substituted (virtual) drive.
Using the SUBST command with no parameters will display a list of current virtual drives.

The GUI option in Windows is to right click the network icon in file explorer. Then select the option map network drive. A similar option to Disconnect network drive exists.

There is an “opposite” to the “subst” command called “join” that makes hardward devices appear as directories.

All too often the keyboard mapping seems to get set to the United Kingdom, which messes up a few of the Keys when using a US keyboard. I suspect this is a problem with selecting Australian as the primary English langage that seems to sometime also select the UK keyboard. In any case in Windows 10 the solution is as follows.

The simple solution is to remove the UK language setting and if necessary add the US one. The Australian can remain. Further to this the keyboard layout can be independantly set. The language can be adjusted in the “ region and language setting”, use Cortana if necessary to find. Click on the language and add the US QWERTY if necessary. Delete the UK QWERTY keyboard layout.

I have had problems with windows appearing off the screen partially or fully many times over the years, particularly when using multiple monitors.

I found an article on CNet, but will not link to it, as CNet is a real garbage filled site. In any case the simple solutions are listed below:

  • Cascading windows

Right-click on the taskbar and click Cascade windows. This will reset all open window positions and cascade them from the top left screen point. Unfortunately, many media players will not reposition in this manner, and it forces ALL of your windows to reposition – even the ones that were behaving themselves.

  • Manually moving

Right click on the task bar icon for the specific program and select move. Use the mouse or keyboard direction arrows to move the window selected.

  • Maximise the window

Right click on the task bar icon for the specific program and select Maximise. The window will maximise to the full screen area. When minimised its position will return to previous off screen.

For Windows 10 you need to move over the task bar program until the small program window appears, this also bring to foreground the main window too. Then right click on the small program window to get the move and maximise options.

MSExcel Tips

When pasting text from other applications on occassions Excel places all the columns into one column. To adjust into multiple columns the following feature can be used. Menu: Data : Text to Columns

The menu : Data : Get Data : From File : From Folder presents a dialogue to input a windows directory. Once the directory is shown the load button will place it into a new sheet

=CELL(“filename”,A1)
The cell function returns information about the cell contents.

This is performed in MSWindows Powershell using command: dir -Recurse -Directory | Select FullName | Export-Csv “list.csv”

After this I want to list the level of the directory, to do this I count the number of “\” in cell B3: =LEN(B3)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(B3,“\”,“”))

Frozen Program Safe Start

Sometime a program seems to get stuck when starting. This could be the add-in or other problems. A possible solution is to start the program in safe mode.

  • Open up run (Windows + R)
  • Type name of program with /safe, e.g. outlook.exe /safe, word.exe /safe or excel.exe /safe
  • Sometime this is enough to allow a normal restart
  • Check add-ins and stop start-up

Some other possible options to check:

  • Check task manager to see if a frozen process is the problem.
  • Restart the computer.
  • /app/www/public/data/attic/home_server/mswindows_notes.1682322595.txt.gz
  • Last modified: 2023-04-30 Sun wk17 17:44
  • (external edit)