Tag Archives: windows

How to make GPG4Win portable app

Lately I been using PGP more and more… and I wanted to have my portable application on a flash drive where I could carry all of the private and public keys (of course that if I loose my flash drive, I am at risk – I know that). But, there is really not good documentation that walks through a first time user on how to accomplish this.  So, here is my attempt to those first time users on how to do it.

  1. You need a Windows machine (physical or virtual)
  2. Download Gpg4Win -> http://www.gpg4win.org/
    In my case, I tested this with version 2.2.4
  3. When installing Gpg4Win, make sure that you have enable all of these options
    GnuPG 2.0.27
    Kleopatra 2.2.0-git945878c
    GPA 0.9.7
    GpgOL 1.2.1
    GpgEX 1.0.1
    Claws Mail 3.9.1
    Kompendium (de) 3.0.0
    Compendium (en) 3.0.0
  4. Once you are done with the installation, then you can run the following command in order to make your own Gpg4Win portable application.  Keep in mind that you can go two different routes.  Full or Lite.  In my example, I will show you how to have it fully loaded.
  5. Open command prompt (CLI)
  6. cd to the path where GPG4Win is located
    If you use the defaults it will be at “C:\Program Files (x86)\GNU\GnuPG\”
  7. Run “mkportable.exe –full –verbose TARGETDIR”
    where TARGETDIR in this case will be “E:\gpg4winapp”
  8. Then once the program runs, you will be able to open Kleopatra and there you have it
  9. Enjoy!!!

Can I delete the file C:\Windows\winsxs\ManifestCache to increase disk space?

Give the following credit to the source. 🙂 – Recently I was fixing a PC that had the manifest file at 30GB.  Below you would be able to find the proper steps to fix the issue.
Hi,
All the necessary files for specific additions, roles, applications will be contained in the %windir%\Winsxs directory. The %windir%\winsxs folder (also referred to as the component store) is used to store all the installation source files that are needed for Windows to service itself and its optional components, which takes the place of the traditional flat from media.
To achieve saving some space there is a workaround – to manually delete some folders from WINSXS. Take great care what folders you can delete, because you may break the functionality of your Windows installation and render your product unsupported.
a. Click on start and type cmd in the search bar and right click on cmd.exe in the search pane and click Run as administrator.
n. Navigate to folder C:\Windows\Winsxs
c. Run this command:
Net stop trustedinstaller
NOTE: Wait for this service to stop and ensure it stops successfully. If you are unable to stop the service, you must restart your machine. Do not attempt the next step if you are unable to stop the trustedinstaller service.
d. Then execute these commands:
Takeown /f %windir%\winsxs\ManifestCache\*

e. You should now have available, some more free disk space.

Hope this helps.

Del /q %windir%\winsxs\ManifestCache\* Icacls %windir%\winsxs\ManifestCache\* /GRANT administrators:F

Source Can I delete the file C:\Windows\winsxs\ManifestCache to increase disk space?.

Installing XML plugin in Notepad++

i recently started working on more XML data since i am trying to do more data transfer between databases.  i use notepad++ as my main editor and i wanted to keep using it with my XML data without having the need of installing another program on my computer.  i found out that that there was a plugin develop for notepad++ in order to allow me to use it as my XML editor.  the problem was that there was no documentation on how to install what file and where.  below you will be able to find the proper steps on how to do so.

NOTE: you need to have notepad++ installed in your computer before proceeding. if you don’t have notepad++ install you can click on this link.

  1. after you have notepad++ installed
  2. goto this link http://bit.ly/rcCK1N download these packages
    1. External libs -> ext_libs.zip
    2. XML Tools -> Xml Tools 2.3.1 r764 Unicode Beta1 -> xmltools_2.3.1_r805_unicode_beta2.zip
  3. when extracting the files here is where you will need to place them…
    i am going to assume that you have installed notepad++ in it’s default directory which is “C:\Program Files\Notepad++”
    1. the ext_libs.zip will extracted on “C:\Program Files\Notepad++”
    2. the xmltools_2.3.1_r805_unicode_beta2.zip will be extracted on “C:\Program Files\Notepad++\plugins”
  4. now, if you had notepad++ open, restart it and you should be able to use the XML plugin …

enjoy!!!

Splitting in Linux and Combining in Windows

i don’t know if you do this on a daily, monthly, yearly, or never basis, but i do some times.  what is it that i do?!

whenever i want to email or upload gigs of information over the net usually takes for ever.  the file might be upload it incorrectly or the file won’t go through because is too big.  well, there are applications out there that you can use in order to be able to split files.  for example, if you are compressing an application using WinRar, it will automatically create *.rar-xxx which it will have your files separated depending on the size that you specified.  well, i believe there is a easier way to be able to perform this.

OK, now lets say that you are using Linux and you would like to split a 1GB file into 100MB files.  the way to do this is using the split command… and it will go like this:

split --bytes=100mb file1 file_

where you will replace file1 with the actual name of the file (e.g. MyFamilyDVD.iso) and file_ will be how the files will be renamed (e.g. MyFamilyDVD.iso_)

now, lets say that you upload these files to a server and your friend download them.  your friend will need the following command in order to be able to combine the files:

cat file_* > file1

where file_* are all the files that were created (e.g. MyFamilyDVD.iso_*) and file1 is the actual name of the file to be created (e.g. MyFamilyDVD.iso).

so, lets say that your buddy doesn’t have Linux and they have Windows instead.  here is the command that they will need in order to combine all of those files.

copy /B file_1+file_2+file_3 file1

where file_1+file_2+file_3 (e.g. MyFamilyDVD.iso_*)will be all the files created and file1 will be the actual name of the file to be created. the bad thing in windows is that you won’t be able to use the asterisk and you will need to type file per file.

any ways i hope this helps!!!

BlackBerry blocking SMS

so after having my blackberry for two years i decided to block SMS since i had to pay for each one that i either receive or send.  and my blackberry blocked 657 messages :).  i always wondered how many SMS messsages would of windows block?!  i guess any because they do not have the utility to do so :P.

Workspaces in Windows

at some  point in my life i was a windows power user now i am not (just in case you wonder i use linux, mac, and windows).  one thing that i liked about linux was “workspaces.”  they are freaking amazing by allowing you to you multiple “virtual desktops” and move things around.  so in other words you will not have everything one in one desktop and you will be able to have one destop for web, chat, programming, and others in your only one monitor.

so whenever i was switching back and forth from linux and mac to windows it was freaking inrritaring.  i was only allowed to have everything on one screen/display only.  so i went for a search… 🙂 and i found this program called VirtualWin.  this program will allow you to have virtual desktops without the needing of buying multiple monitors.  the following information is a description from their site

VirtuaWin is a virtual desktop manager for the Windows operating system (Win9x/ME/NT/Win2K/XP/Win2003/Vista). A virtual desktop manager lets you organize applications over several virtual desktops (also called ‘workspaces’). Virtual desktops are very common in Unix/Linux, and once you get accustomed to using them, they become an essential part of a productive workflow.

VirtuaWin is designed to be simple and elegant to use yet still be highly configurable and extensible.

so if you are tired of having everything on one window and you would like to be organize (when it comes in terms of applications) then this app will do that for you.  oh!!! did i forget to say that it is for FREE. 😉

Resources:
VirtuaWin – The Virtual Desktop Manager

Reinstall Windows without CD on a Dell

i recently found out that you could reinstall your OS without needing the CD’s on a dell.  this system is embed to almost all dell laptops for sure.  it uses norton ghost in order to restore your system to the way it was at the beginning.  i am not a 100% sure if reinstalls the drivers, but it might.

so what do you need to do in order to reinstall your OS without the CD’s on a dell laptop?  all you need to do is…
Steps:

  1. turn on your laptop
  2. quickly hit ctrl+F11 before “windows boots up”
  3. then follow the instructions in order to reinstall and fully format your pc

hope this helps.  enjoy!

Missing HAL.DLL

last night i was restarting my company’s server (sbs 2003) because i moved couple of big files around and a lot of going on with exchange server.  well, i restarted and 1hr after i could not login remotely.  this morning when i came in i saw this error message on my company’s server screen:

“Winows <<root>>\System32\Hal.dll missing or corrupt: Please re-install a copy of the above file.”

also could appear like:

“Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \system32\hal.dll. Please re-install a copy of the above file.”
“Cannot find \Windows\System32\hal.dll”
“Cannot find hal.dll”

i was like, “Ok, easy fix.”  when i started researching about this problem things got a little bit hairy and ugly :(.  i spend half day trying to fix this problem and i finally got it fix.

first of all, i would like to explain to you what hal.dll does.  hal mean Hardware Abstraction Layer and it is responsable of loading the hardware and other drivers on the computer.  what causes this file to either be missed or corupt it could be hardware problems.  also, missing boot.ini or damage hard drive.

so in order for me to fix this i followed these two steps:
Option 1:

Boot from your CD and follow the directions to start Recovery Console. Then:

Attrib -H -R -S C:\Boot.ini
DEL C:\Boot.ini
BootCfg /Rebuild
Fixboot

Option 2:

Boot from your CD and follow the directions below to start Recovery Console.

Insert the Setup compact disc (CD) and restart the computer. If prompted, select any options required to boot from the CD.
When the text-based part of Setup begins, follow the prompts; choose the repair or recover option by pressing R.

If you have a dual-boot or multiple-boot system, choose the installation that you need to access from the Recovery Console.
When prompted, type the Administrator password. (if you didn’t create one try pressing enter).

At the system prompt, type Recovery Console commands; type help for a list of commands, or help commandname for help on a specific command.

Most likely you will need to expand the file from the CD. The command would be expand d:\i386\hal.dl_ c:\windows\system32\hal.dll. Substitute d: for the drive letter of your CD. Once you have expanded the file type “exit” to exit the Recovery Console and restart the computer.

Retrieved from http://kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_haldll_missing.htm

and it did not work at all.  so i decided to do some more research.  after an hour of research i found out that this problem is some thing that could corrupt my OS if is not done the right way.  so in order for me to fix this problem i decided to repair windows.  if you want to this step you are running the risks of loosing any special data if the setup installation gets corrupts.

Steps:

  1. boot up your OS CD
  2. select install windows
  3. select reinstall windows
  4. then fill out the requested information and then your computer should be back and running like this never happened

if these steps are not well explained you could visit this site and perform those steps one by one at http://pcsupport.about.com/od/operatingsystems/ss/instxprepair1.htm.

Fix NTFS Hard Drive

so the other day my friend lend me his external hard drive so i could import some big files that he had on it.  apparently he didn’t click on safe remove drive under windows and he disconnected the hard drive just like that.  i say this because when ever i was trying to open the hard drive windows was saying that the drive still being used by another application.  i couldn’t started in windows for nothing.

so i decided to move do the same thing in linux (ubuntu).  apparently i was receiving the same error.  after 30 minutes of trying i was getting tired and i was about to return his drive back and make him eject safely his hard drive.  well… before doing that i thought… mmmnnn i wonde if there any free app that i could use in linux in order to fix this problem.  guess what? YES, there is.

this app is called ntfs fix, and what it does is, fixes your ntfs drive.  i installed in ubuntu using the following command:
$ sudo apt-get install ntfsfix

then after installing this app all i had to do was running the following commands:
$ sudo ntfsfix /dev/sdc1
$ sudo ntfs /dev/sdc1

where sdc1 is the external hard drive.  then i mounted the drive and it load like a baby.  well, i hope that this helps 😉