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Windows emergency restart

Dave Farquhar Windows July 18, 2023July 18, 2023

For about as long as I can remember, one of the most frequent complaints I’ve heard about Windows is that it doesn’t have an emergency restart or shutdown option, something equivalent to the Linux reboot command. It turns out Windows emergency restart existed, hiding in plain sight, all along. In this blog post, I’ll share the secret.

Dave Farquhar

David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He started his career as a part-time computer technician in 1994, worked his way up to system administrator by 1997, and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He invests in real estate on the side and his hobbies include O gauge trains, baseball cards, and retro computers and video games. A University of Missouri graduate, he holds CISSP and Security+ certifications. He lives in St. Louis with his family.

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Change mouse direction on monitor

Dave Farquhar Windows July 10, 2023July 4, 2023

If you have more than one monitor, sometimes when you move your mouse to the edge of one screen, the mouse jumps to the monitor on the other side. Here’s how to change the mouse direction on your monitor when you have a setup with more than one monitor.

When you have two monitors, there is exactly a 50% chance that your computer will guess correctly which way they are arranged. On the computer gets it wrong, you can fix it easily enough. You just have to know where to look and what the computer calls the setting. Whether you have a Mac or a Windows PC, there is no setting for mouse direction, but there is a setting for multiple monitors. That’s the one you want.

Dave Farquhar

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Notepad++ wrap text

Dave Farquhar Windows June 28, 2023June 17, 2023

Wrapping text is an essential feature in any text editor, but the feature may be hiding somewhere you aren’t looking for it. Here’s how to wrap text in Notepad++.

Dave Farquhar

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What does OLE stand for

Dave Farquhar Windows June 6, 2023May 28, 2023

Sometimes, when dealing with Windows programming or Windows applications, you will find the acronym OLE. But what does OLE stand for, and what does it do? And this blog post, I will explain OLE and why it was important and still is, even though Microsoft doesn’t promote it any longer.

Dave Farquhar

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Notepad++ Go to line

Dave Farquhar Windows April 25, 2023April 22, 2023

Sometimes when you are editing a text file, you want to go to a specific line. Here’s how you go to a line in Notepad++, along with a few more go to tricks.

Dave Farquhar

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Replace carriage returns with commas in Notepad++

Dave Farquhar Windows April 4, 2023March 25, 2023

There are times when you need comma-separated lists but the data you have is separated by carriage returns instead. In this blog post, I’ll show you how to easily replace carriage returns with commas in Notepad++.

Dave Farquhar

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Fast Copy: Best and fastest copier for Windows?

Dave Farquhar Windows March 22, 2023March 23, 2023

People sure have strong feelings on their Windows copy utilities. Each of the command line utilities has their own strengths and weaknesses. But when it comes to copying with the GUI, a lot of times we just settle for Windows Explorer. Fast Copy is a utility that provides GUI ease of use with the power of the command line utilities. I think it might be the best file copier for Windows.

Dave Farquhar

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Chocolatey package manager for Windows

Dave Farquhar Windows February 7, 2023March 15, 2023

There has been a recent spate of malvertising targeting popular downloads. These paid advertisements masquerade as legitimate download links for popular software packages. The files they serve up look legitimate, but they include software that you don’t want. Using a package manager is one way to avoid this problem. Chocolatey is the name of a good package manager for Windows. It sidesteps malvertising and solves other system maintenance problems for you too.

Dave Farquhar

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Line count in Notepad

Dave Farquhar Windows February 1, 2022February 1, 2022

Sometimes you need to count the number of lines in a plain text file. And sometimes notepad is all you have. Here’s how to do a line count in notepad.

Dave Farquhar

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Update Windows third-party utilities semi-automatically

Dave Farquhar security, Windows January 17, 2022March 15, 2023

I used to have and recommend a tool for updating all your third party software on Windows machines. Unfortunately that tool went end of life several years ago. But Microsoft, of all people, has a tool that works suitably. Usage is similar to apt or yum on Linux. It’s called Microsoft App Installer, and at the command line, it takes the form of the command winget.

App Installer is a free tool that updates what Windows Update won’t. That means open source apps, but also some third party apps, and even some difficult-to-update Microsoft apps, like the Visual C++ runtime. It is capable of updating more than 3,000 apps.
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Dave Farquhar

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