Category: Windows

With a faulty drive stop Windows from mounting

Published September 02, 2018 / by Chris Smith / Leave a Comment

Credit: A Video from Linus Tech Tips reminded me of a way to stop Windows 7/10 from automounting drives

If you have an issue with a hard drive (That is spinning up, doesn’t sound like its head is craching/clicking and a SMART tool like CrystalDiskInfo Standard edition shows its healthy) that simply appears to hang your machine/take forever to mount, Windows can annoy you by attempting to mount drives. Windows can be told not to mount new drives so it can be told to not mount and forget older external drives which were plugged in.
This is useful if you want to drive and image the drive with software (If you don’t have a stand alone duplicator).

diskpart
automount disable
automount scrub
exit

diskpart

automount disable

automount scrub

exit

Autoscrub disable means you don’t have to modify the windows registry.
Automount scrub means you don’t have to remove the device from device manager (Often a pain with lots of external drives)

Obviously afterwards re-enable to restore default functionality

diskpart
automount enable
exit

diskpart

automount enable

exit

Posted In Windows 10 | Windows 7

Creating a shortcut to a non existent location on Windows

Published May 13, 2018 / by Chris Smith / Leave a Comment

Credit: ServerFault
Credit: Craig Tolley
I came across the need to create a shortcut to a non existent file share (Where a wireless network had a different ip range on a different site). I thought Windows would let shortcuts for SMB shares be created if they didn’t exist, but Windows 10 insisted the share had to exist before being created.
ServerFault has a nice little VBS script (Although it created the shortcut, when run it didn’t close the Microsoft Script Host program. I just closed the command prompt window after)

Set oWS = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
sLinkFile = "C:\MyShortcut.LNK"
Set oLink = oWS.CreateShortcut(sLinkFile)
oLink.TargetPath = "C:\Program Files\MyApp\MyProgram.EXE"
oLink.Save

Set oWS = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

sLinkFile = "C:\MyShortcut.LNK"

Set oLink = oWS.CreateShortcut(sLinkFile)

oLink.TargetPath = "C:\Program Files\MyApp\MyProgram.EXE"

oLink.Save

The forum post shows it has been run on Windows 7, I have run this on Windows 10 Enterprise 64 Bit 1607 and created the shortcut on the desktop

After finding another use for the code I ran into an issue adding parameters to the shortcuts.
I wasn’t aware “Arguments” can be used, Craig Tolley has a nice post on how it is used.

Set oWS = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
sLinkFile = "C:\MyShortcut.LNK"
Set oLink = oWS.CreateShortcut(sLinkFile)
oLink.TargetPath = "C:\Program Files\MyApp\MyProgram.EXE"
oLink.Arguments = "-argument1 -argument2 option"
oLink.Save

Set oWS = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

sLinkFile = "C:\MyShortcut.LNK"

Set oLink = oWS.CreateShortcut(sLinkFile)

oLink.TargetPath = "C:\Program Files\MyApp\MyProgram.EXE"

oLink.Arguments = "-argument1 -argument2 option"

oLink.Save

Posted In Batch File Scripting

Display the old USB Device Removal Tab

Published February 11, 2018 / by Chris Smith / Leave a Comment

Credit:
Waseemulla S on Microsoft Answers

I had a USB device that I could not unload, I prefer the old dialog box anyway and found it is still possible to show this box in Windows 10. The forum post above has the answer, however according to someone was a very poor answer. For me the answer from “Waseemulla S” worked exactly as expected, it was then I found the USB Caddy I had plugged in didn’t support stopping the USB device in this way. Waseemulla S’s steps are below (I see no need to change it)

Create a batch file that will prompt you to “Safe to remove Hardware” with just a click.
Open notepad and type

“rundll32 shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll”

1	“rundll32 shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll”

Click save as and change file type to all files, type the file name Filename.bat (Where Filename is the name of your choice)
Double click the file anytime you want to get “Safe to remove Hardware” prompt.

Posted In Windows 10

Generate a text file with subfolders in a location on explorer

Published January 20, 2018 / by Chris Smith / Leave a Comment

I needed to generate a list of folders and their subfolders, I used a simple command for dir command and slapped into a text file.
Below replaced with the folder you want to get the list from (i.e C:\Users\Default) and replace with where you want to save a textfile (i.e C:\textfile.txt).

dir /b /s /a:d "<Location>\*" > <TextFile>

1	dir /b /s /a:d "<Location>\*" > <TextFile>

Credit: SS64

Posted In Batch File Scripting

Getting a Kodak i160 to work on a KEC 1582t card in Windows 7

Published November 12, 2017 / by Chris Smith / Leave a Comment

We had an issue where a Kodak i160 scanner would appear when a Windows 7 machine booted but then disappear after the Kodak i160 scanner went to sleep.
The Kodak scanner was using a Kofax Virtual Rescan driver, after some checking it turned out the machine was using a standard fire wire driver for the KEC 1582t PCI card which worked fine on Windows XP Professional SP3.

The way around this was to use a legacy driver which is included as part of Windows 7 (It appears to work with a number of other fire wire cards as well for slow performance).

Windows 8 doesn’t have this driver as part of the OS and it can be obtained from Microsoft Support
The original MS article announcing this seems to show it doesn’t work for Windows 10, however a website called Studio 1 seems to show it does. I haven’t tested this as the Kodak i160 Scanner has no Windows 10 support, the parts are difficult to get hold of and therefore we are replacing them.

Posted In Windows | Windows 10 | Windows 7

Sage Line 500 EDI IN Intermediary tables inner join on sql query

Published August 12, 2017 / by Chris Smith / Leave a Comment

On ocassion I need to look at what is in the EDI IN modules intermediary tables, scheme.eiordtm has an annoying key_code which it combines multiple objects. It also doesn’t always have the same amount of characters. As the key_code on scheme.eiordtm starts with the key_code from scheme.eiorhdm all I do is find out how many characters are in key_code from scheme.eiorhdm and use the SQL LEFT function on the join.
Additional columns can be added but this is just the defaults I use.

SELECT customer,received_date,customer_order,"filename",warehouse,product,long_description,required_quantity
 FROM "scheme"."eiorhdm" t1
  INNER JOIN "scheme"."eiordtm" t2
   ON t1.key_code = LEFT(t2.key_code,LEN(RTRIM(t1.key_code)))

SELECT customer,received_date,customer_order,"filename",warehouse,product,long_description,required_quantity

FROM "scheme"."eiorhdm" t1

INNER JOIN "scheme"."eiordtm" t2

ON t1.key_code = LEFT(t2.key_code,LEN(RTRIM(t1.key_code)))

Posted In Sage Line 500 ERP | SQL Server 2008

Display advanced properties of scheduled tasks in command line

Published July 22, 2017 / by Chris Smith / Leave a Comment

The following command requests a detailed display of the tasks on the local computer. It uses the /v parameter to request a detailed (verbose) display and the /fo LIST parameter to format the display as a list for easy reading. You can use this command to verify that a task you created has the intended recurrence pattern.
Before running increase the command prompts screen buffer (Right click the Window, go to properties, go to Layout and set the Screen Buffer Height to 9999). If this is not done you will find due to the amount of Windows scheduled tasks, that the tasks you want are cleared from thje screen buffer.

schtasks /query /fo LIST /v

1	schtasks /query /fo LIST /v

SchTasks.exe displays a detailed property list for all tasks. I normally will then copy everything into the clipboard (Ctrl + A) and pout it into a text editor, I then delete anything after “Folder: \Microsoft” so I then only have my list of scheduled tasks.

Credit: Technet

Posted In Batch File Scripting | Windows Server 2008 | Windows Server 2012

A simple batch file which compresses every folder into a 7z Archive

Published July 22, 2017 / by Chris Smith / Leave a Comment

For backing up old files I tend to sort into lots of different folders, anything I am finished with I put in a 7zip Archive
The following batch makes use of a For loop in the batch, uses 7-zip with Ultra Compression and names the archive the same as the folder.

for /D %%X in (*) do "c:\Program Files\7-Zip\7z.exe" a -mx9 "%%X.7z" "%%X\"
pause

1 2	for /D %%X in (*) do "c:\Program Files\7-Zip\7z.exe" a -mx9 "%%X.7z" "%%X\" pause

Credits: SS64

Posted In Batch File Scripting

Rebuild a V1 DBCapture Database Queue

Published July 16, 2017 / by Chris Smith / Leave a Comment

We have an issue where on a rare occasion a scan from V1 DBScanner to DBCapture can corrupt the queue and cause DBCapture Admin to state it is unable to open a document rendering the whole application unusable.
I have a batch script to perform some maintenance. Over time I have commented out lines which are not required. I have left my change drive to d script as this is normally where server applications are installed. I have replaced our port with as this can be different per install (As well as having more than once instance of the service on different ports)
After the queue is rebuilt the program actually starts the server as normal, in my batch the program is executed in a seperate process and then killed off after 400 seconds (As long as the rebuild is complete then V1 is fine with this, if running line by line press Ctrl + C to close the program instead). Depending on the amount of documents in the queue it may need to be increased.

ECHO *********************************
ECHO * Restarting DBCapture Services *
ECHO *********************************
ECHO *********************************
ECHO * Change to drive D             *
ECHO *********************************
d:
ECHO *********************************
ECHO * Stopping V1 Services          *
ECHO *********************************
REM net stop DbADepServer
REM net stop DbCSArchiveServer-<port>
REM net stop DbADepServer-<port>
REM net stop DbCSAuthServer-<port>
net stop DbCapComms-<port>
net stop DbCapOCRServer
REM net stop DbCapturePDFFileWatcher
net stop DbCSCaptureServer
net stop DbCSCaptureServerExport
REM net stop DbCheckFilewatcher
REM net stop DbLoginServer
REM net stop DbWebQLiveCacheClean
REM net stop DbArchiveCacheClean
ECHO *********************************
ECHO * Rebuild DBCapture Queue       *
ECHO *********************************
start "DBCapture" "<path to dbcapture communications server>\dbcapcomms.exe" -debug <port> -queueupdate
ECHO *********************************
ECHO * Waiting 400 seconds           *
ECHO *********************************
rem Credit For lower CPU usage, instead of using WAIT use Ping as suggested on http://ss64.com/nt/timeout.html
PING -n 401 127.0.0.1>nul
ECHO *********************************
ECHO * Kill of DBCapture program     *
ECHO *********************************
Taskkill /IM "DbCapComms.exe" /F
ECHO *********************************
ECHO * Starting V1 Services          *
ECHO *********************************
REM net start DbLoginServer
REM net start DbCapComms-<port>
REM net start DbCheckFilewatcher
REM net start DbWebQLiveCacheClean
REM net start DbArchiveCacheClean
REM net start DbADepServer-<port>
REM net start DbCSArchiveServer-<port>
REM net start DbCSAuthServer-<port>
net start DbCapComms-<port>
net start DbCapOCRServer
REM net start DbCapturePDFFileWatcher
net start DbCSCaptureServer
net start DbCSCaptureServerExport
ECHO *********************************
ECHO * Complete Exiting              *
ECHO *********************************
EXIT

ECHO *********************************

ECHO * Restarting DBCapture Services *

ECHO *********************************

ECHO * Change to drive D *

ECHO *********************************

ECHO * Stopping V1 Services *

ECHO *********************************

REM net stop DbADepServer

REM net stop DbCSArchiveServer-<port>

REM net stop DbADepServer-<port>

REM net stop DbCSAuthServer-<port>

net stop DbCapComms-<port>

net stop DbCapOCRServer

REM net stop DbCapturePDFFileWatcher

net stop DbCSCaptureServer

net stop DbCSCaptureServerExport

REM net stop DbCheckFilewatcher

REM net stop DbLoginServer

REM net stop DbWebQLiveCacheClean

REM net stop DbArchiveCacheClean

ECHO *********************************

ECHO * Rebuild DBCapture Queue *

ECHO *********************************

start "DBCapture" "<path to dbcapture communications server>\dbcapcomms.exe" -debug <port> -queueupdate

ECHO *********************************

ECHO * Waiting 400 seconds *

ECHO *********************************

rem Credit For lower CPU usage, instead of using WAIT use Ping as suggested on http://ss64.com/nt/timeout.html

PING -n 401 127.0.0.1>nul

ECHO *********************************

ECHO * Kill of DBCapture program *

ECHO *********************************

Taskkill /IM "DbCapComms.exe" /F

ECHO *********************************

ECHO * Starting V1 Services *

ECHO *********************************

REM net start DbLoginServer

REM net start DbCapComms-<port>

REM net start DbCheckFilewatcher

REM net start DbWebQLiveCacheClean

REM net start DbArchiveCacheClean

REM net start DbADepServer-<port>

REM net start DbCSArchiveServer-<port>

REM net start DbCSAuthServer-<port>

net start DbCapComms-<port>

net start DbCapOCRServer

REM net start DbCapturePDFFileWatcher

net start DbCSCaptureServer

net start DbCSCaptureServerExport

ECHO *********************************

ECHO * Complete Exiting *

ECHO *********************************

EXIT

Credits:
SS64 for recommending Ping instead of Wait – SS64
Datel Support for providing the command to rebuild the queue – Datel

Posted In Batch File Scripting | V1 Document Management

Updating a network location in Windows 2012

Published May 14, 2017 / by Chris Smith / Leave a Comment

I had an issue where a server which was joined to a domain had incorrectly set its network as Public.
A TechNet article and TenForum article provided the answer (As it states Windows 10 it also applies to Server 2012) so I have placed credits above the steps I followed.
Following a re-occurrence I have found my steps below didn’t work for me a second time, so this post now has a second way of performing this with PowerShell thanks to a blog post from Clint Boessen.

Credits:
MS Technet
TenForums

Press [Windows Key] + [R] together at the same time, the Windows Run prompt should appear. If it hasn’t appeared press Windows Key and type Run, a Run desktop program should appear in the list
Type “gpedit.msc” and press enter
If this also fails try and launch it via the Microsoft Management Console
Local Group Policy Editor should appear
Expand Computer Configuration –> Windows Settings –> Security Setting –> Network List Manager Policies
Right click “Network List Manager Policies” and click Show All Networks
Choose your affected Network name from the right pane (If you are unsure check its name in Control Panel –> Network and Sharing Centre)
Go to Network Location tab and change the Location type from Public to Private
Close Local Group Policy Editor
Restart the computer or server for it to take effect.

Clint Boessen’s method actually worked much better for me and also didn’t need a machine reboot.

Open up Command Prompt as Administrator
Type “PowerShell” and press enter
Get a list of interfaces by using the command:
“Get-NetConnectionProfile”
You will want the InterfaceIndex as I prefer to specify exactly the interface to be modified (Required when you have more than one network cable attached)
To modify the interface you require use the command in Powershell, however swap out and choose whether you want Private or Public set:
“Get-NetConnectionProfile ¦ Set-NetConnectionProfile -InterfaceIndex -NetworkCategory “

Posted In Windows Server 2012

CJSmith dot me

I dump stuff I find useful here

Category: Windows

With a faulty drive stop Windows from mounting

Creating a shortcut to a non existent location on Windows

Display the old USB Device Removal Tab

Generate a text file with subfolders in a location on explorer

Getting a Kodak i160 to work on a KEC 1582t card in Windows 7

Sage Line 500 EDI IN Intermediary tables inner join on sql query

Display advanced properties of scheduled tasks in command line

A simple batch file which compresses every folder into a 7z Archive

Rebuild a V1 DBCapture Database Queue

Updating a network location in Windows 2012