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KPTree - MSWindows Setup
Background
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.)
So below is a list of Windows software often use.
MSWindows 10 - Software Install List
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
- First up to make easier to load up system
- Nextcloud Windows client - Cloud server client (!L)
- Keepass - Password and other secret info repository (!L)
- I just use the built in Windows Defender for virus protection now
- Xplorer2 - a multi-paned file explorer replacement - I do not use any more. See notes below.
- Notepad- a good general text editor for Windows *Utilities *%%Notepad++%% - a good general text editor for Windows. Seemed really good on Windows. I use VIM on Linux now. *7Zip - a good general file compression program (**!**) *CCleaner - a Windows system maintenance program, clean junk files and registry and other - **Do not use anymore, looks like spam now** *FileZilla - and sFTP client program (**!**) *Ghostscript - a PDF manipulator (**!L**) *iTunes - Apple iOS update control software - See Separate Section below (**!**) *Setup printer / scanner - See separate notes below (**!**) *Vuescan - Is a paid scanner program. It is just for scanning and is simple and does the job __very__ well. (**!L**) *I no longer use Rsync on the Linux systems to do the back-ups, I basically do not store and main archive or working data on the local windows machines anymore. I try to copy anything important into the Nextcloud sync directory or work of the server. *Multimedia *Firefox web browser (I do not like using Microsoft and Google browser) (**!L**) *Calibre - an electronic book database and reader (**!L**) *VLC - seems to do a better job than mPlayer / Media player classic (**!L**) *PolyView - a picture / photo view (sadly would seem no longer supported) It is no longer supported and does not operate that well with Windows 10. //I no longer use this software as it does not work will with Windows 10. I use Faststone now// *Windows Media Player Classic - a video player -//I no longer use as prefer to use VLC now.// *Faststone Image View - A simple photo viewer that seems fast - Freeware (**!**) I also use this at work. *SystemMechanic - a Windows system maintenance program - paid software -**I am no longer using this, looks like spam now** *AIMP - Music player (reminds me of the old lost classic Winamp) -//I am no longer using this// *Clementine - Music player, looks like a modern take on Winamp. I am using on Linux via Flatpak and also have installed on Windows 11 desktop. (**!L**) *Spotify (**!L**) (I have family license as my sons have demanded.....) I am now family subscribed to YouTube which automatically gives YouTube Music. I will probably move away from Spotify for this reason. *Youtube / Youtube Music, is web based on desktop and has apps for iOS (**!L**) *Remote Control / Cloud *Nextcloud Windows client - Cloud server client (**!L**) *Putty - a SSH terminal program for Windows (**!**) *TigerVNC - remove video terminal program (**!L**) *Security *Keepass - Password and other secret info repository (**!L**) *iSpy - an IP camera viewer program - I have not been playing with the Security cameras lately. I need to upgrade the system. *Tor - a more secure web browser (**!L**) *Productivity (Unless otherwise noted the software I use at work provided by work. I believe it to be appropriately licensed by work too.) *ACadLT2017 - CAD - got rid of this subscription, just too expensive for my occasional use. *ACAD 2022 - CAD software I use at work. *Navisworks - 3D productivity software, I started using the limited free, version at work, Freedom. I now have the full version at work, Manage. *Foxit Pro - a PDF reader and writer (**!**) I use my private license at work. *Qoppa PDF Studio - I got this for my Linux desktop. It is sadly the only **full** pdf suit I could find on Linux. I have not tried on Windows or for work. It looks pretty good though.(**!L**) *Bluebeam Revu - a PDF reader and writer I use at work now, definitely has the best PDF technician editing functions I have seen. I still find working on standard documents easier on Foxit or Qoppa. *LibreOffice - a office software suite -//I have not been using lately, and just using MSOffice, but will probably try again// (**!L**) *Microsoft Office 365 home subscription, allows use on 5 home computers and give 1TB One drive cloud access (**!**) Notes on licensed software: *Xplorer2 :- I am going back to using plan Windows Explorer. The licensing requirements were a pain in the arse. I appreciate that the author fairly and reasonably wants to make money from the product he has worked on, however I was primarily use this product at home on a few machines and on on work machine. The author required that I have licenses on every machine. This couples with learning the interface that is not identical to vanilla Explorer made me give up on the software. Also at home I now primarily use Linux desktop for which Xplorer2 does not function. I believe I had 2 for life licenses. I suspect the author may have modified the "for life *Polyview :- Went the way of the Dodo..... I had a license. I do not regret purchasing this license once off. I got many year of use. It worked really well at the time. I remember sending a query to the author concerning font comparability, circa 2008. He said the program was ANSI font only not compatible with the expanded font set, I forget what it is called now. *Vuescan :- simply the best scanner program around, consistently an well supported. Multi platformed, Windows, Linux, perhaps Mac. *Youtube Premium Family. As much as I do not like supporting Google / Alphabeta I have been enjoying the use of Youtube Premium and they throw in Youtube Music too. The family like too. *Spotify - My son original wanted and I ended up going with family option. Will probably move to Youtube option as it included Youtube plus Music. ====Microsoft PowerToys: Utilities to customize Windows==== [[https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/install tldr; ++
Offsite Printing
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
Windows Drive Link / Substitution
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:
- To overcome the path/name length restriction of 260 characters
- 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.
Windows Symlink equivalent command - mklink
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”.
Windows Drive Substitution - subst
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.
Windows Keyboard Mapping Problems
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.
Windows Off Screen Problems
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
Text to Column
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
List Windows files and directories into MSExcel
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
MSExcel List file path and name in cell
=CELL(“filename”,A1)
The cell function returns information about the cell contents.
List Directories to csv file
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.