The Settings app has taken over, but Control Panels aren't going anywhere yet. //

What's incredible about some of the Control Panels at this point is how far back some of their designs go. You're never more than a double-click away from some piece of UI that has been essentially exactly the same since 1996's Windows NT 4.0, when Microsoft's more-stable NT operating system was refreshed with the same user interface as Windows 95 (modern Windows versions descend from NT, and not 95 or 98). The Control Panel idea is even older, dating all the way back to Windows 1.0 in 1985.

You can compress the Windows 10 installation size to use less space, and in this guide, we show you how.

If you are looking how to remove invalid files from your system, you will need to run the del /s command:

 del /s "\\?\<File path>"

This command deletes specified files from the disk. Keep in mind that deleting files from the Windows command line does not send files to the Recycle Bin, that means that the file will be lost. However as it's invalid you shouldn't be worried about it. For example, to delete a file that can't be deleted manually with the name helloworld. and located in the path E:\Our Code World\Workspace, you could use the following command to remove it:

 REM Delete the helloworld. file !
 del /s "\\?\E:\Our Code World\Workspace\helloworld."

Microsoft has confirmed that the venerable Windows Control panel will finally be put out to pasture in favor of a shiny new Settings app. //

Re: cue the wailing
Control panel also lets you do amazingly complicated and advanced things like... opening more than one control panel item at a time!!!

The number of times I've forgotten that Settings is a kids toy, been looking at one part of the settings menu, realised I needed info from elsewhere so separately go to that other area... and then realise that no, you can't do that. It's binned off what you were looking at before and used the existing Settings session/window to open the new thing instead.

Re: cue the wailing
No, about how you can't set multiple IPs on a network adapter using the settings app.

Or change advanced hardware settings like jumbo frames or VLAN tagging.

Or update the drivers of the thing you're looking at.

Re: cue the wailing
It is done using PowerShell 7 only

Re: cue the wailing
Using undocumented commands - which will eventually be documented, but by then they'll be deprecated.

Prank your friends, family and co-workers into believing their workstation has crashed!
Simply follow the instructions below!

When running in kernel mode rather than user mode, security software has full access to a system's hardware and software, which makes it more powerful and flexible; this also means that a bad update like CrowdStrike's can cause a lot more problems.

Recent versions of macOS have deprecated third-party kernel extensions for exactly this reason, one explanation for why Macs weren't taken down by the CrowdStrike update. But past efforts by Microsoft to lock third-party security companies out of the Windows kernel—most recently in the Windows Vista era—have been met with pushback from European Commission regulators. That level of skepticism is warranted, given Microsoft's past (and continuing) record of using Windows' market position to push its own products and services. Any present-day attempt to restrict third-party vendors' access to the Windows kernel would be likely to draw similar scrutiny. //

For context, analytics company Parametrix Insurance estimated the cost of the outage to Fortune 500 companies somewhere in the realm of $5.4 billion.

Not long after Windows PCs and servers at the Australian limb of audit and tax advisory Grant Thornton started BSODing last Friday, senior systems engineer Rob Woltz remembered a small but important fact: When PCs boot, they consider barcode scanners no differently to keyboards.

That knowledge nugget became important as the firm tried to figure out how to respond to the mess CrowdStrike created, which at Grant Thornton Australia threw hundreds of PCs and no fewer than 100 servers into the doomloop that CrowdStrike's shoddy testing software made possible.

All of Grant Thornton's machines were encrypted with Microsoft's BitLocker tool, which meant that recovery upon restart required CrowdStrike's multi-step fix and entry of a 48-character BitLocker key. //

Woltz is pleased that his idea translated into a swift recovery, but also a little regretful he didn't think of using QR codes – they could have encoded sufficient data to automate the entire remediation process.

Try Basic Fixes
Uninstall any third-party antivirus program: Third-party antivirus programs can sometimes interfere with the Windows Security app and prevent it from opening on your Windows 11 PC. To avoid any conflicts, it’s best to disable or uninstall any third-party antivirus program.
Install Windows updates: Updates are crucial for any operating system and Windows is no exception. Aside from new features and security patches, these updates also carry important bug fixes. You can download and install any available updates and see if that resolves the issue.

Is your Windows Defender not turning on? Are you looking for full solutions to get rid of this issue? This post will show you how to repair Windows Defender in Windows 11/10/8/7 so your PC can be protected from viruses.

Support for Windows 10 will end in October 2025

After October 14, 2025, Microsoft will no longer provide security updates or technical support for Windows 10. Your PC will still work, but we recommend moving to Windows 11.

1. Hold down the power button for 10 seconds to turn off your device.

2. Press the power button again to turn on your device.

3. On the first sign that Windows has started (for example, some devices show the manufacturer’s logo when restarting) hold down the power button for 10 seconds to turn off your device.

4. Press the power button again to turn on your device.

5. When Windows restarts, hold down the power button for 10 seconds to turn off your device.

6. Press the power button again to turn on your device.

7. Allow your device to fully restart. You will enter winRE.

Now that you are in winRE, you will follow these steps to take you to safe mode:

1. On the Choose an option screen, select Troubleshoot > Advanced options > Startup Settings > Restart.

2. After your device restarts, you'll see a list of options. Select option 5 from the list or press F5 for Safe Mode with Networking.

Folder2Iso is a portable Window and Linux application that creates an ISO from any folder. The root folder can contain sub-folders.
It's a GUI of mkisofs.
Works under Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10 and Linux.
Folder2Iso is compiled for 32 and 64bit systems.

HDGraph helps you to free disk space : it finds for you the largest folders on your drive.

It's a free tool allowing to graphically display the hard disk space usage : it shows all the directories and subdirectories of the hard drive on a single graph, allowing to see the largest directories at a glance.

Rename files at once. One of the most powerful renamers. And it's freeware.
One For All

Advanced Renamer is a program for renaming multiple files and folders at once. By configuring renaming methods the names can be manipulated in various ways.

It is easy to set up a batch job using multiple methods on a large amount of files. The 14 different methods enables you to change the names, attributes, and timestamps of files in one go. The files can also be copied or moved to new locations based on information in the files.

With Advanced Renamer you can construct new file names by adding, removing, replacing, changing case, or giving the file a brand new name based on known information about the file.

Before performing the operations on the files you can verify that the output will be correct and if you perform the rename and regret it, you can undo the complete batch.

Bypass TPM restrictions and embrace the future.

Others such a RegFind and Pping were popular tools. More information on these tools later...

Copyright © 2011-2012 Intellisoft AG, Switzerland ///

www.intellisoft.ch

pping - parallel ping

Our famous port ping tool written in .NET Core

I want the exact same behavior ping gives me on the console and I wished I just could add a port number to it and it will work.

An A-Z Index of Windows CMD commands.