Today I got one of these dreaded update reminders for software that I don't really want to have on my computer (no, not Flash this time). So after procrastinating the inevitable for a few days I just now started the update. I got an interesting surprise: What???!!!! Oracle doesn't want me to keep Java on … Continue reading Please remove unused versions of Java
Category: Windows
Man wird alt wie ‘ne Kuh und lernt immernoch dazu …
(German proverb, roughly translates to: You get as old as a cow and still learn something new.) I didn't know about the Windows assoc command which lets you deal with file associations on the command line. Found it via this post on StackOverflow.
Troubleshooting FTDI driver installation
So I don't forget: If the drivers for an FTDI USB-serial adapter don't install resulting in an "unknown device", try to remove all other USB connected devices. In my case it was a PeakCAN USB adapter, connected via a rather long USB extension cable, that caused the problem (not sure whether it was the adapter … Continue reading Troubleshooting FTDI driver installation
Add “Open with” for any executable to the Explorer context menu
Many tools optionally add an "Open with [Name of tool]" entry to the context menu of the Windows Explorer. Some others don't, even though it would be useful. Here is how to do it yourself: Open any text editor (Notepad will do) Copy and paste the following text into it: Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 … Continue reading Add “Open with” for any executable to the Explorer context menu
Installing dotNet 2.0 on Windows 10
In theory it is simple to install the dotNet 2.0 framework on Windows 10: Just go to "Programs and Features", select "Turn Windows Features on or off", set the checkmark for ".NET Framework 3.5 (includes .NET 2.0 and 3.0)", press OK and let Windows download the necessary files from Windows Update. Unfortunately this only works … Continue reading Installing dotNet 2.0 on Windows 10
Blocking the Windows Screen Saver in Delphi
Sometimes your program needs to block the screen saver from automatically kicking in. My use case was that the program was recording data and whenever the screen saver was active, the data was lost (No idea why, it probably had something to do with the way HID is implemented in Windows.) So I was looking … Continue reading Blocking the Windows Screen Saver in Delphi
Deleting unwanted entries from the “New” submenu of Windows Explorer
Microsoft Office has the annoying habit of adding itself to various places in the Windows user interface. One of them is the popup menu of the Windows Explorer. It adds one entry for each of the installed programs to the "New" submenu. Have you ever used them? I have only used that submenu for creating … Continue reading Deleting unwanted entries from the “New” submenu of Windows Explorer
How to defeat useful tools
Sizer is a very useful tool for sizing and positioning windows. It adds a right click menu to a window's title bar where you can select one of multiple configured window sizes and positions. It also displays the current window size while you are resizing it by dragging its frame. Now, why would somebody try … Continue reading How to defeat useful tools
Don’t give the user any information!
... seems to be the motto of Microsoft. How else can you explain that a recent update of Windows 7 and Windows 10, that broke older versions of one of our programs (no idea yet what exactly is the problem, but the error code indicates an out of memory error) has different effects. Windows 7 … Continue reading Don’t give the user any information!
DeltaChat Messenger
DeltaChat is a messenger that uses email as the transport medium, so potentially almost everybody already has an account for it. Today, they announced a new release, not only for the existing Android app but also for Desktop (Mac and Linux only so far) and iOS. I think that is a very interesting project since … Continue reading DeltaChat Messenger