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System restore from command prompt

Sometimes a Windows computer is so broken that you have to run system restore from the command prompt. If you’re reading this, I don’t have to elaborate. This works in Windows 7, Windows 10, and any other recent version.

And when a system is that broken, you can expect to run into a couple of snags. Maybe you can’t even get a command prompt. Or maybe you got a command prompt but the executable file is buried. Here’s how to solve those two problems.Read More »System restore from command prompt

Compress system files doesn’t show up in Disk Cleanup

One of the new features of Windows 10 is better file compression, which was intended to help Windows fit better in low-resource devices like tablets. But it’s helpful on computers with SSDs too. But for whatever reason that option doesn’t show up on mine.

But you can still compress your system files even if the Disk Cleanup utility (which you can also launch from the Free up disk space by deleting unnecessary files control panel) doesn’t show the Compress system files option.

Read More »Compress system files doesn’t show up in Disk Cleanup

Google’s migrating corporate apps to the cloud is less crazy than it sounds

Google is moving its corporate applications to the Internet. A year ago I would have said that’s the dumbest thing I ever heard. Today I’m not so sure.

Sticking stuff in the cloud is the popular answer to everything these days, and I just see the cloud as the new mainframe. It’s not a solution so much as a different take on the same problem, and while I see a couple of potential disadvantages, believe it or not I see some real advantages to the approach as well.

Read More »Google’s migrating corporate apps to the cloud is less crazy than it sounds

Victory ping.

“Whatever happened to the Legions of Doom server?” a coworker asked me as a technician swapped her computer.

I smiled a wicked smile. “Victory ping!” I then turned to my computer. “Ping pmprint02. Request timed out. Request timed out. Request timed out. Request timed out,” I read as the words scrolled onto my screen.

“Victory ping?” my boss–yes, my lunch ninja boss–came over and asked.

“I know that box,” the technician said. There’s a good reason he didn’t say “server.”

Read More »Victory ping.

Accessing the Programs and Features control panel app from the command line

From time to time I have to pull up Programs and Features (formerly known as Add and Remove Programs in obsolete versions of Windows), but I’m not an administrator. Not normally, at least. When I need to do so, I run cmd.exe using my administrative ID–I created a shortcut and pinned it to my Start Menu so I can right-click cmd.exe and select “Run As”–and then, from the command prompt, I type appwiz.cpl. Then I can make all the changes I need to make, without the hazards associated with logging in as an administrator and running everything with admin rights.

A security professional fights back against tech support scammers

I guess Matt Weeks is as sick as I am of tech support scammers, because he developed a way to fight back, in the form of a Metasploit module that exploits a software defect in the AMMYY remote access tool that these scammers sometimes use. Metasploit is a tool that penetration testers use to demonstrate–with permission–how hackable a computer network is. In this case, the would-be victim is penetration testing someone without permission. Run the module when the scammer connects to the would-be victim, and he or she gets a command prompt on the criminal’s PC. At that point, the would-be victim can break their computer, perhaps by deleting critical files, corrupting the Windows registry, or something else. Anything you can do from a command prompt would be possible at that point.

I’m anything but heartbroken that this threat exists, although I’m not going to do this myself. Let me explain.Read More »A security professional fights back against tech support scammers

How to clean up a Windows server

From time to time, Windows patches will fail to install because a server doesn’t have enough space to install them. Finding the ginormous files are that are hogging all the space on the C drive is really tedious if you do it by clicking around in Windows Explorer, but there’s a better way.

Download the free Sysinternals Du.exe utility and you can find the behemoths in minutes, if not seconds.Read More »How to clean up a Windows server

Don’t fall for the netstat scam

A longtime friend’s aunt almost got taken by a fake tech support scammer. He told me about it, and in the process, this was also the first I’d heard of the netstat scam.

She saved herself by saying she’d have to check things out with her nephew first. That’s a good trick. Fortunately for her, the scammer didn’t try to delete anything, though he did immediately change from being very pleasant to being very rude. That matches my recent experience with these low-life crooks precisely.

She was vulnerable because the flawed MS14-045 gave her trouble and she had a case open with HP. So when this crook called, she thought at first that HP or Microsoft were following up with her about that.

The scammer’s best trick was to get her to open a command prompt and type netstat.Read More »Don’t fall for the netstat scam