Manage stored wireless networks in W8

Microsoft, in all their wisdom, have removed the Manage my wireless network option that was available on the wireles interface in Windows 7 and earlier. So, how to we manage it now?

See stored wireless profiles

/> netsh wlan show profiles

Delete a profile

/> nets wlan delete profile name=mynetwork

To show saved information, including key

/> netsh wlan show profiles name=mynetwork key=clear

 

Or to use the gui-way

Charms>PC Settings>Networks>Connections>WiFi>Manage known networks

But only thing you can do from here is see the name and forget the network, so learn the cli way.

References:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/ac80d8ec-21ad-4d44-9a0c-c8777f861db7/windows-8-manage-wireless-networks?forum=w8itpronetworking

Free up space in Windows 8

This is sort of up there in terms of freeing up space. A bit over the top for the ordinary users.
There is however a method of removing the install files for Windows features you don’t need. It goes like this:
/>dism.exe /online /disable-feature /featurename:sua /remove
But if you want to remove a lot of not needing features this could be tedious. enter powershell

------------flushfeatures.ps1-----------

foreach ($item in get-content featuresclean.txt)
{
write-host "Removing feature $item"
dism.exe /online /disable-feature /featurename:$item /remove
    }
-----------eof-------------

Where featuresclean.txt is a file where every line contains a feature to be flushed.
To get all windowsfeatures on the system in a single list it can be a bit tricky.
I solved it a bit rough bit
/>get-windowsoptionalfeature –online |? state –eq ‘disabled’ |export-csv output.csv
and then copied the relevant columns from the csv to featuresclean.txt
Really not recommended if you don’t know what your doing
References:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2007.04.powershell.aspx
http://blogs.technet.com/b/joscon/archive/2012/11/20/features-on-demand-in-windows-8-and-windows-server-2012.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh824822.aspx
http://www.howtogeek.com/174705/how-to-reduce-the-size-of-your-winsxs-folder-on-windows-7-or-8/

Autoend task Windows 8.1

More annoyances. When I choose reboot or shutdown windows timeouts and waits for the user to actually push end tasks. This happens on most of my W8 machines.

To shutdown these apps more brutally heres another reghack.

-----autoend.reg-------------

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop]
"AutoEndTasks"="1"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control]
"WaitToKillServiceTimeout"="2500"

------------------eof----------------

 

References:

http://www.anushand.com/2013/02/auto-end-tasks-windows-8-at-shutdown.html

http://www.reddit.com/r/windows/comments/1936nl/waiting_for_background_programs_to_close_how_do_i/

Windows 8.1 and the mythical WinSxS

To see the actual size of the WinSxS folder in Windows 8.1

/>dism /online /cleanup-image /analyzecomponentstore

Backups and Cache is the actual space used by WinSxS

To cleanup the folder in Windows 8.1

/> dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup /ResetBase

To do it on previous versions (to w7 or vista)

/>dism /online /cleanup-image /spsuperseded

After running this command its no longer possible to uninstall updates or servicepacks. But most people don’t and if you change your mind, you can always get the msi-package and still do an uninstall.

References:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn251566.aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn251565.aspx

Reghacks for W8 annoyances

To get rid of the first-time-logon animation.

-----------DisableFirstLogonAnimation.reg----------

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]
"EnableFirstLogonAnimation"=dword:0

-----------eof----------------------------------------------------

To get rid of “Do you really want to run this file” warnings….

--------------------DisableOpenFileWarnings.reg--------------

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Associations]
“LowRiskFileTypes”=”.exe;.bat;.reg;.vbs;”

---------------------------------eof----------------------------------------

References:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/4c1d26e0-5d2e-487e-ab5a-7ded6d03b30c/how-to-completely-disable-the-first-logon-animation?forum=w8itprogeneral

http://www.howtogeek.com/167579/how-to-make-your-own-windows-registry-hacks/

http://www.windowsreference.com/windows-7/how-to-disable-open-file-security-warning-in-windows-7/

Open with explorer causes IE10 to crash

This started happening a while ago, so don’t really know which update that caused this.

Symptom:

From a Sharepoint 2013 Document library a user tries the feature “Open With Explorer” only to be presented with error Page not responding or IE10 simply crashes. Users with IE10+W8 and IE10+W7 and S2008R2 is reporting error.

Solution:

When changing browsing mode to IE8 in the  Developer Tools in the function starts to work again. (Hit F12)

If this is true, install KB2600100 and reboot sharepoint server. Worked for me.

Se GigaJim post below for more details as exactly what the Kb does.

References:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2600100/en-us

http://gigajim.com/blog/2012/12/11/sharepoint-2010-and-ie10-incompatibility

Lockscreen shortcut

When bouncing about on different desktops, virtual and otherwise physical its easy to leave a computer unlocked sometimes. This isn’t so good, but shortcuts tends to flip out when accessing remote systems. A good security practice is to create a desktop shortcut that can lock the computer very easily.

So,

1. Create a shortcut

2. Enter: rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation

3. Save and change icon to a padlock or something more logical. This among other icons can be found in Shell32.dll under system32

References:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/13278-lock-computer-create-shortcut.html

http://ask-leo.com/how_do_i_change_the_icon_of_a_desktop_shortcut.html

Can’t update or uninstall Firefox

While trying to install Firefox 19 over previous Firefox 17 installation the following issue occurred.

Symptoms:

• When trying to run installationpackage for Firefox 19 message appears showing “Your computer must be restarted to complete a previous upgrade of Firefox. Do you want to reboot now?”
• When trying to uninstall Firefox 17 same message occurs.

 

Restarting didn’t make any difference. Same message after 5 restarts.

Solution:

• Delete all files in Mozilla Firefox folder ending with –delete
• Delete file firefox-exe.moz-upgrade in Mozilla Firefox installation folder.
• Run uninstall again, and then install Firefox 19.

References:

http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/757325

Autologin to Windows 8

Good for democomputers or bigscreen-computers. This only works if the computers isn’t member of domain. Otherwise “Users must enter….” isn’t visible.

• Hit run /> netplwiz
• Uncheck “Users must enter a username….”
• Autologon problably only works if there only is one user account.

References:

http://www.ghacks.net/2011/09/16/windows-8-how-to-automatically-log-on/

Bootmgr not found after imagex deployment

Issue with deployment of Windows 8 wim with imagex deployment.

Applied image like below from WinPE

1. Diskpart
2. Select disk 0
3. Clean
4. Create partition primary
5. Select partition 1
6. Active
7. Format quick
8. Assign letter=c
9. Exit
10. Imagex /apply h:\lab\windows8.wim 1 c:

Afterwards system wouldn’t boot, giving error about bootmgr not found. Checked files and everything disk had been imaged correctly. Had to do the following to get the system to start:

1. bootsect /nt60 c:
2. bcdboot c:\windows

Strange, but short on time so this solution works for now.

Problems running applications using older dotnet framework on W8

When trying to download dotnet 3.5 automaticly the download fails. Oddly enough, using an previous offline package installer for dotnet3.5 this package also tells me that it needs the dotnet package.

Chew on that for a minute. The actual install package for dotnet 3.5 requires some older version of dotnet (that is included in this dotnet3.5 package) to installa on Windows 8.

Anyways, if you have a W8-disc you can use solution below.

Solution: This is using a w8 installationsdisc or image.

1. From elevated cmd
2. /> dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:netfx3 /all /limitaccess /source:x:\sources\sxs

Where x:\ is your mountpoint or discdrive.

/all enables all parent features of dotnet

/limitaccess prevents dism from contacting Windows Update

/source specifies location of files.

References:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh506443.aspx

IE10 and certificates

I’ve started using Windows 8 now. Some issues will appear.
This is one of them.
Websites that are using self-signed certificates or certificates shorter than 1024bits encryption cannot be accessed using Internet Explorer 10. Browser doesn’t allow it.
This is a workaround for the issue:

1. From elevated cmd run : certutil -setreg chain\minRSAPubKeyBitLength 512
2. Restart cert propagation service.
3. Reload webpage.

This is probably going to be solved in MS patch in time for the real Windows 8 release in oktober.
References:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2661254
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/advisory/2661254