Recovering Windows 7 'updates' Space

Redundant files left over from Windows updates can eat your space.  Not such a problem with the massive disks you get these days but every GB counts when your virtualising.

Running against my daily Windows 7 VM I recovered 2.5GB.

To clean these up run an elevated permissions command prompt :

dism /online /cleanup-image /spsuperseded /hidesp

MAC Keyboard with anything other than OSX

My friend @coringrieves recently posted a picture of his desktop. Which is a Windows PC (he is averse to anything other than Windows) and a wired MAC keyboard. After mocking him furiously I then went and did the same myself.

Still persevering with Ubuntu it has an English (UK, Macintosh)keyboard layout which works great.

Not so the VirtualBox Windows 7 VM I run nor the Win64 alternative OS I sometimes boot into (Never did find a decent/working H.232 Linux video client).

Trawling around it seems the options are mostly based on installing Apples bootcamp.  Which is huge, I'd rather have gone and bought a Mac looky likely kb than install that bloat-ware.

Stumbled across another suggestion of using Microsofts keyboard layout tool to create your own, or in this case someone else kindly did it.

http://www.logikdev.com/2010/02/18/apple-uk-keyboard-layout-for-windows/

Installed, VirtualBox VM and vanilla OS all work fine.

Windows Killed my MBR

Having recently acquired a SSD and some more geebees I re-installed Ubuntu x64.  The SSD already had a OEM Windows partition and I (foolishly) decided to just resize it 50/50 and put Linux on the back end.  With a mind to come back and build the Windows OS as a dual boot.

Well this morning I went back, built the Windows OS and then fried my GRUB boot loader.  Bye bye Ubuntu, insert sad face.

Recovering it wasn't so bad although as usual there is LOTS of conflicting documents and ways to get yourself out of this mess.  This method worked for me :

• Boot Ubuntu DVD in live mode.
• Jump into a terminal and switch to sudo -i and run parted -l to establish which partition you need to rebuild the MBR for.

~$ parted -l
Model: ATA SAMSUNG SSD PM83 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 128GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Number  Start   End     Size    Type      File system     Flags
 1      1049kB  106MB   105MB   primary   ntfs            boot
 2      106MB   45.1GB  45.0GB  primary   ntfs
 3      45.1GB  128GB   82.9GB  extended
 5      45.1GB  120GB   74.4GB  logical   ext4  <---- Ubuntu Install
 6      120GB   128GB   8453MB  logical   linux-swap(v1)

• mount the partition 

mount /dev/<partition> /destination

eg : mount /dev/sda5 /media/sda5

• run 

grub-install --root-directory=<mount> <disk>

eg : grub-install --root-directory=/media/sda5 /dev/sda 

Assuming you get a success message your good to go.  Reboot and you should have Linux back and in my case Windows 7 also now existed on the GRUB loader.

Caveat : The first time I tried to boot Windows it complained of a missing loaded.  The second time it worked fine .. I never got to the bottom of that.

Moral of this story is install Windows first and Ubuntu second.  Ubuntu is a clever OS and Windows is not.

Adding Console to Windows 7 Context Menu

Windows 7 has the menu item 'open command here' when you shift, right click a folder.  As a Console user  I wanted to open this rather than the generic windows cmd.


In trying to actually find out about something else I stumbled across :


Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\cmd\command


Change (Default) to :


"\Console.exe" /s /k pushd "%V"
eg
"C:\Program Files\Console2\Console.exe" /s /k pushd "%V"


You can also put a pretty little icon on the menu :


Create string value :


Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\cmd\Icon and make data the path of the exe, dll with the icon.

855GM Series video driver Windows 7 reverts back to Standard VGA

When installing 855GM Series video driver Windows 7 reverts back to Standard VGA adapter after restart. The problem is that 855GM Series video driver is not native for Windows 7 and it will always choose Standard VGA Adapter as native video driver. A lot of older laptops have this video chipset. Including my Vaio.


Solution - Spend hours looking on google.  Eventually finding a decent blog entry which I am blatantly reproducing here.


So all this is taken from http://www.groundstate.net/855GMWin7.html


The only driver that worked is: Intel(R) Graphics Controller 6.14.10.3722 . The reason why is that Standard VGA Adapter (Windows 7 native) is the same version (6.14.10.3722) but it has newer release date. Newest Intel driver 14.19.50 did NOT work. So get yourself the working video driver below. After Windows 7 install you will see that Standard VGA Adapter is installed and there is an exclamation mark on the "video controller". In order to install the driver we need to get exclamation mark on "video controller (vga compatible)". This spot is occupied by Standard VGA Adapter. Even when you unistall Standard VGA Adapter and install new driver after the reboot Standard VGA Adapter comes back. We need to disrupt Standard VGA Adapter from being installed. My way of disabling the adapter is to edit the driver file for it "c:\windows\system32\drivers\vgapnp.sys". There might be another way for letting Windows stop installing Standard VGA Adapter but I did not find it. 


STEP 1 


Make sure you unistall video drivers that do not work. If you see exclamation marks on your previous drivers in Device Manager, unistall them. Your Device Manager should say that you have Standard VGA Driver installed under Display category and exclamation mark on "video controller". Make sure you restart PC when asked. 


STEP 2


We will need to edit "c:\windows\system32\drivers\vgapnp.sys" file now, but there is a problem. Windows Vista and Windows 7 will NOT allow you to edit system files even when you are the admin. Changing security attributes of that file did not work either. The file is owned by "TrustedInstaller" service. We will need to own the file and give ourselves the full control to edit it.
Click 'Start' and in 'Search' type 'cmd'. The result will show on top. Right-click on 'cmd' and choose "Run as Administrator". If your account does not have admin rights you might be prompted to enter username and password. I used account that already has administrator priviledges. You should have a command prompt with administrator priviledges. 


STEP 3 


Lets say my logged in username is peter


First command you do is: 


takeown /f c:\windows\system32\drivers\vgapnp.sys 


This will give ownship to the current user. You should see a message saying SUCCESS etc.. 


Second command you do is: 


cacls c:\windows\system32\drivers\vgapnp.sys /G peter:F 


There will be a confirmation message so type 'y'. This will change the security attributes to give you ONLY all the permissions for the file. If you are paranoid as me and want original permissions restored, I will show you how to restore the permissions to the previous step later on in this tutorial . If 'cacls' command does not work you can try using 'icacls'. If you cannot edit this file try to boot to "Save Mode" and try it again (Thx to Giuseppe Chill). 


STEP 4 


Open c:\windows\system32\drivers\vgapnp.sys in any text editor. Just add any character to the begining of the text. Let's say we will add character x . So the text should start with xMZ and the rest of stuff. Save the file. This edit will render that file unusable. 


STEP 5 


In Device Manager uninstall Standard VGA Adapter. It will prompt you to restart so do it. After install you will see a message saying that certain devices did NOT installed successfuly, which is GOOD . Go to Device Manager and you should see the exclamation point next to "video controller" and "video controller (vga compatible)". Right-click on "video controller (vga compatible)" and do update driver. Choose "Browse for the Driver" (or something like it  ). Point to the driver directory that you downloaded and extracted (win2000). Click "OK". Wait for the driver to be installed. It might hang for a little (It will say that window is "not responding"). Do not worry as this is still installing the driver. It will prompt you to restart so do it. (If it does not prompt click anywhere and wait for message). After restart it will finish installing the driver. 


Congratulations!!! You should have a working video driver!!!  


STEP 6 


Open c:\windows\system32\drivers\vgapnp.sys in any text editor. Remove the first character you put there which was x. Save the file. Your file will be usuable again . You can stop here if you want, but if you want to restore the permissions for the file to original state go to next step. 


STEP 7 


Right-click on any other file in the c:\windows\system32\drivers. Choose "Properties". Go to "Security" tab. Now compare that security tab with the security tab of c:\windows\system32\drivers\vgapnp.sys. Just make sure the security tabs of those two files look the same (all tabs and advanced options). In order to add "TrustedInstaller" it is not the same as regular usernames because it is a service. 
You will need to type "NT SERVICE\TrustedInstaller" (without quotes) when adding it to own the file and to have all permissions. Once you done editing you can delete your account from c:\windows\system32\drivers\vgapnp.sys, because it was not there from the beginning. We took control over and the previous commands added it by default.

Building a Home Theatre PC (HTPC)

Whilst the PS3 has done a sterling job of being a front room media centre its not perfect and I'd debated building a true HTPC for while.


A certain error whilst watching something on the PS3 kicked started me into investigating alternative options.


Normal requirements. HDMI, decent sound and enough power to run a full 1080p on my TV. I'd had decent success with ITX in the past so quite fancied that route.


After a day of reading I settled on the Zotac ION ATOM N330 Dual Core D-E with 4GB (overkill) of RAM and a Morex Cubid 3688 Silver case.  Ordered and delivered the following day from ITX Warehouse.  Who run a fantastic service.  I already had HDD and cables, no SSD here.


My first intention was just to make use of VLC, web browser, maybe even look at MS Media centre.  But during the day of reading I stumbled across XBMC, something which everyone I spoke to afterwards had heard of and tried.  I must have been under my rock that day.  But the screen shots looked amazing, open source, ie free, live cd, all major OS' supported.  Interesting Mr Bond.


With the hardware assembled, which was the normal breeze I fired up the USB boot key created using instructions from mini-itx.com.  FAIL.  Maybe the keys, or something else but I couldn't get the PC to boot so ended up creating a XBMC liveboot CD and installed using that.  XBMC installed and started to load but bombed out just at the part the GUI launches.  So I suspect video drivers.  Being LINUX I knew this was a bad road to be walking down, and as this was R&D and I already new wireless mice and keyboards where on the horizon, ie more LINUX driver fun, I opted to fall back on tried and 'trusted' (well, trusted is probably the wrong descriptive) Windows 7. Unconsciously I made a 32bit decision - just habit I think.


Windows installed, drivers updated.  Installed XBMC and fired it up.  Oh I like this, allot. Pretty intuitive, adding the SMB media paths from my NAS all just worked and then I found the Library view which showed all the pretty covers, plot summaries etc .. Movies, TV Shows, Music .. all worked seamlessly.  The 'scrapers' went and matched all the TV shows, music and all but two of the films, which I fixed using NFO files.


The IONITX dealt easily with a local 1080p file.  Not so streaming across the LAN - Homeplugs, nor WLAN, which is expected.  That actually had me delving deeper into my homeplug speed only to discover its crap, seriously so.  I have something in the house which is killing the t/put.  I need to investigate that or hope AV2 resolves it.


I'm still experimenting with the look and feel of XBMC but so far its a hit for video 720p and below and music is fine.


I added a plugin for iPlayer - which works, and TVCatchup, which doesn't.  Although it did once, odd. 


So far so good .. Although I have ordered a new 60mm 'silent' fan.  The one with the case is a little noisy.


EDIT : TVCatchup now working again.  Nothing done.  Also found a great iPhone app which uses the HTML interface to control the server.  XBMC Remote.

Canon 'RAW' format thumbnails.

Trying to only shoot RAW pictures and was fed up with no native support thumbnail view in Windows 7 explorer.

Found that Canon supply a RAW codec which fix's the thumbnail.  Unfortunately it doesn't display the EXIF information - which is a pain and means you still need to open the files in an app.

http://software.canon-europe.com/

TVersity & Windows 7

My ongoing quest to enable all my media on my iPhone has led me back into the world of TVersity.  I've previously used this way back when to push MP3 content to my PS3.  I then got my hands on a NAS which I installed MediaTomb on making TVersity redundant.

MediaTomb & the NAS works fine for just MP3 streaming but for Video its CPU is just too slow.  So I've just been using the PS3 web browser and navigate to the NAS running Apache to show a file list and play from there.  Which work's great.

The iPhone on the other hand can't do the same.  I'd previously installed Plug Player which found MediaTomb and the music with no problems ..

So Enter TVersity again.  Installed it on my office PC, Windows 7.  Installed fine and I could browse to http://server:41951 but couldn't see the UPnP server either from PC's, PS3 or from PlugPlayer iPhone app.

The Tversity Trouble Shooting FAQ was the answer :

If the computer running the media server has more than one network interface, you need to make sure that the the TCP binding order on your machine is such that the network interface on which it is supposed to communicate with the media player appears first.

Start |  Control Panel | Network & Internet | View Network Status & Tasks | Change adaptor settings | Advanced | Advanced Settings.

I have Cisco VPN client installed which had inserted into top position.  Pushed my onboard NIC to the top and bingo.  All my devices see Tversity.