Even after Microsoft abandoned the stupid idea of the Windows 8 start screen and gave us back the start menu in Windows 10 there is still a lot to desire. Of course you can replace the the start menu with a tool like Open Shell (formerly known as Classic Shell) which improves it quite a … Continue reading How to use JumpFolder to create multiple “start menus”
Category: Windows
Automatically make your PC wake up at a given time
Due the the COVID19 pandemic I am currently working from home, using Putty + ssh + Remote Desktop to log into and work on my office PC. For this to work, the office PC must be turned on and booted. So far I have let it running 24h which is really a waste of energy … Continue reading Automatically make your PC wake up at a given time
If the hosts file on Windows XP does not work
I just had one of these dreaded occurrences where the hosts file did not work on a Windows XP installation. (Yes, you read that correctly: "Windows XP". I still have got a few installations of that to maintain.) I could not figure out what the problem was, so I turned to Google which found "hosts … Continue reading If the hosts file on Windows XP does not work
Updating to Windows 10 broke Delphi 6 and 2007 again
Since Microsoft will end the free support for Windows 7 in January 2020, we are updating all our computers to Windows 10 (I would really have liked to avoid that. Windows 7 is definitely not the best Windows ever but its annoyances are known. Windows 10 started to annoy me with new so called "features" … Continue reading Updating to Windows 10 broke Delphi 6 and 2007 again
Please remove unused versions of Java
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
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