Chocolatey – a software management system for Windows

Chocolatey (https://chocolatey.org/) is a software manager for Windows. There are almost 5000 packages. The one you use are certainly in there. All mine are.

Install choco from an administrator command line:

@powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))" && SET "PATH=%PATH%;%ALLUSERSPROFILE%chocolateybin"

Then run installs like:

choco install -y ccleaner

https://chocolatey.org/packages contains a list  of all the packages

I recommend the GUI:

choco install -y chocolateygui chocolatey-core.extension

But I like the command line, too.

And I like, that you can update all your installed packages at once (yes they need to be installed by choc first):

choco upgrade -y

Sysadmin

windirstat winrar treesizefree TeraCopy Recuva nmap lockhunter ccleaner autoruns

User

sublimetext3 vlc WhatsApp XnView WindowsLiveInstaller WindowsLiveWriter PDFXchangeEditor paint.net notepadplusplus.install libreoffice lastpass irfanview GoogleChrome-AllUsers Firefox dropbox ditto

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How to turn off the existing Junk mail filter in Outlook, Windows Mail, and Windows Live Mail

Running more than one spam filter at a time can cause both filters to become ineffective, thus it is only necessary to run Cloudmark’s filter. To disable the Junk filter, follow the instructions below.

To turn off Junk filtering in Outlook, Windows Mail, and Windows Live Mail:

For Outlook 2010:

1. Click on the Home tab.
2. In the “Delete” section of the task bar, click on the “Junk” icon.
3. From the drop down menu, select “Junk mail options.”?
4. Select “No automatic filtering.”
5. Click “Apply” then “OK.”

For Outlook:

1. Open Outlook.
2. Click on the Tools menu.
3. Choose Options from the drop-down menu.
4. Click the Preferences tab on the window that appears.
5. Under “E-mail”, click the Junk E-mail button.
6. Choose “No Automatic Filtering”, then click Apply, then OK to accept the change.
7. Restart Outlook.

For Windows Mail:

1. Open Windows Mail.
2. Click on the Tools menu
3. Choose Junk E-mail Options from the drop-down menu.
4. Click the Options tab on the window that appears.
5. Choose “No Automatic Filtering” then click Apply, then OK to accept the change.
6. Restart Windows Mail.

For Windows Live Mail:

1. Open Windows Live Mail.
2. Click the Actions menu.
3. Choose Junk e-mail, then safety options from the drop-down menu.
4. Choose “No Automatic Filtering” then click Apply, then OK to accept the change.
5. Restart Windows Live Mail.

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User profile service failed the logon User profile cannot be loaded NO BAK file

Came across a weird issue.

All of a sudden I couldn’t log into a windows machine, that was properly joined into a DOMAIN with a new user name. Domain administrator worked, but that could have been a coincidence.

The error I got was:

User profile service failed the logon User profile cannot be loaded

I searched the web and came across the one solution, which talks about BAK files in the registry, but I had no BAK files.

Then later I found in one of the posts:

I discovered it was caused by a security problem on a few files/folders in the C:\Users\Default folder. I was able to easily fix it by going into the Advanced Security Settings for the C:\Users\Default folder and checking the box to “Replace all childobject permission with inheritable permissions from this object”.

This solved my problem on the workstation.

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Microsoft server products affected by TIFF vulnerability

Exchange and Lync, plus other Microsoft products. (Click here for a full list: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/advisory/2896666)

Microsoft has identified a “zero-day” vulnerability involving .TIFF files. This means that neither Microsoft nor the antivirus companies have been able to develop tools to address this vulnerability. Because this is a zero-day vulnerability, the only way to protect yourself is to exercise extreme caution when opening .TIFF files, no matter how they reach you—whether via Exchange or Lync or through unknown websites. We advise all users to be very careful with .TIFF files. Anti-virus and firewall protection applications may not stop this threat. Do not open any files with a filename ending in .tiff – either through your personal mail or Exchangemail. There are a number of news articles discussing the specific details of the vulnerability. You can read them here: https://news.google.com/news?ncl=d-A1C6SaxJzq77M7R5cmrPtUUtToM&q=zero+day+microsoft&lr=English&hl=en

Here are some answers to questions you may have:

Q: Won’t Blue Net’s Mail Filter catch any viruses that are trying to get through?
A: No. The very definition of zero-day means that as of today, there are no signatures that let us detect any attachments containing malware. Your best defense is user awareness until Microsoft delivers a patch, and until signatures can be developed.

Q: Can I block .TIFF files from being delivered to my end users mailboxes?
A: Unfortunately, that functionality is not available.

Q: When is Microsoft anticipated to deliver a patch?
A: Microsoft has stated that it will “take the appropriate action to help protect our customers. This may include providing a security update through our monthly release process or providing an out-of-cycle security update”. Rest assured that we’ll apply the updates as soon as they’re made available to us.

From Wikipedia:

“A zero-day (or zero-hour or day zero) attack or threat is an attack that exploits a previously unknown vulnerability in a computer application, meaning that the attack occurs on “day zero” of awareness of the vulnerability. This means that the developers have had zero days to address and patch the vulnerability.” The vulnerability is a remote code execution vulnerability that exists in the way affected components handle specially crafted TIFF images. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by convincing a user to preview or open a specially crafted email message, open a specially crafted file, or browse specially crafted web content. An attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the current user. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.

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Setting up multiple hosted exchange accounts in one Outlook 2010 on Windows 7

Set up the first account with the supplied setup facility. That is the easiest. However these instructions will also work for the first account

In windows go into: Control Panel / mail / email accounts

Click on New…

and you get

Click next

The select “Manually configure…..

Then Next

And select “Microsoft Exchange or compatible service”

then Next

And enter the right server and username:

The click “More Settings”

And in the “Connections” tab down the bottom select “Connect to Microsoft Exchange using HTTP”

Then click “Exchange Proxy Settings…”

And fill the page in as appropriate (server names might be different to these)

Then OK and OK and Next

Then you will have to log in with the right username and password and the setup of the second account is complete.

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How to Take a Screenshot in Microsoft Windows

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How to open/view archived Outlook .PST and Data Files for all versions

I beleive this only works with Outlook 2007 and later.

To attach a data file to existing email/personal folders in Outlook:

Tools>Account Options/Settings>Data Files..
Find the one you want and check where it is located

Go to:
File>Open>Data file…
Navigate to directory that we found in the step above, select the data file (or .pst file) and and click open

This will load it on the left along with your personal folder and inboxes.

__________________________________________________________

If you are trying to do this on an earlier version of Outlook, there is another way to do this.

Go to Control Panel>Mail

Click the Data Files button

When the window pops up click on ‘Add…’

Navigate to directory that we found in window that popped up before, select the data file (or .pst file) and and click open

This should have the same result as above and is a bit quicker.

OG

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Bigpond/Optus wireless and Blue Nets outgoing mail server port restrictions

When out and about and are unable to send mail for no apparent reason or when using a bigpond connection:

Try changing the outgoing mail server port from 25 to either 587 or 9393.

This little workaround should allow you to send mail.
iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -i eth0 -p tcp --dport $srcPortNumber -j REDIRECT --to-port $dstPortNumber

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Terminal Server Patch

This patch will enable two or more concurrent sessions in Windows XP PRO Service Pack 2 (SP2) and Service Pack 3 (SP3) if you have FAST USER SWITCHING enabled, and your windows is NOT in a domain.

Uninstaller is also included and can be found at windows Control Panel -> Add or Remove Programs.

Windows XP PRO SP2 screenshot
<missing>

Windows XP PRO SP3 screenshot

Download Latest 2.1 Binary

Download Outdated 1.0 Binary

Originally from http://www.kood.org/terminal-server-patch/

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Determining the name of your computer through Windows

Windows XP users

1. Right-click My Computer.
2. Click Properties.
3. In the Properties window, click the Computer Name tab. Within this tab you’ll be able to see the full computer name, workgroup and also a description.

Windows 2000 users

1. Right-click My Computer.
2. Click Properties.
3. In the Properties window, click the Network Identification tab. Within this tab you’ll be able to see the full computer name as well as the workgroup you’re using.

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