The Windows and Windows Software Megathread

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taqueso: Mar 8, 2004

Thermopyle posted:

Swiftkey on Android has a nice feature that searches for emoji when you type something and suggests the appropriate emoji. So, like, if you type "OK," it suggests:

I was just thinking that something similar for Windows would be sweet. I often find myself looking up the alt-code for something like the em dash (�, aka ALT-0151). It would be cool if there was software that auto suggested symbol insertions.

Is there anything like that out there? I suppose I could whip up something with a text expander tool of some sort...

I would love a tool like that when I'm working in word.

# ? Nov 22, 2015 19:26

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# ? May 31, 2024 06:52

Roargasm: Oct 21, 2010; Hate to sound sleazy
But tease me
I don't want it if it's that easy

hooah posted:

I have a number of nested directories that look like
pre:
Data
    000
        stuff
            files
    001
        stuff
            files
    002
        stuff
            files
How can I remove the intermediate "stuff" folder from this structure? I'd do it by hand, but there are ~180 numerical folders.

If you just want to dump every file in .\stuff into . without preserving folder structure (I don't know if there are folders nested inside of .\stuff) it's a quick one in powershell:

PHP code:

 $folderlist = ls x:\Data | where {$_.PSIsContainer} #should return your 000,001, 002
 
 foreach ($folder in $folderlist) { #for each folder (say 002) in X:\Data, find every file in Data\002\stuff
    $nestedPath = $folder.FullName + "\stuff"
    $filesToMove = ls $nestedPath -Recurse | where {!$_.PSIsContainer}
    move-item -Source $filesToMove.FullName -Destination $folder.FullName #and move it to the folder X:\Data\002
    }

You can use a wildcard instead of literal "stuff" to search more nested folder names, and let me know if you want the extra lines to preserve folder structure at the destination. I'd delete all of the empty .\stuff folders later after you confirm it works. And back up your data before you run anything it's sunday morning for me :shobon:

Roargasm fucked around with this message at 20:38 on Nov 22, 2015

# ? Nov 22, 2015 20:29

hooah: Feb 6, 2006; WTF?

I get an error saying a parameter can't be found that matches parameter name "Source".

# ? Nov 22, 2015 21:42

Roargasm: Oct 21, 2010; Hate to sound sleazy
But tease me
I don't want it if it's that easy

Oh sorry the parameter name for Move-item is -Path not -Source, that's what I get for trying to write something readable :downs:

"move-item -Source $filesToMove.FullName -Destination $folder.FullName" should actually be:
"move-item -Path $filesToMove.FullName -Destination $folder.FullName"

Roargasm fucked around with this message at 23:12 on Nov 22, 2015

# ? Nov 22, 2015 23:09

hooah: Feb 6, 2006; WTF?

Great, that did it; thanks!

# ? Nov 22, 2015 23:14

Roargasm: Oct 21, 2010; Hate to sound sleazy
But tease me
I don't want it if it's that easy

Great glad to hear it. You can remove the .\stuff folders with "remove-item x:\data\*\stuff -force"

# ? Nov 22, 2015 23:28

hooah: Feb 6, 2006; WTF?

Another shell question. I've got an Android project on my Google Drive, but Drive keeps "helpfully" putting a loving desktop.ini file everywhere, which Android Studio of course chokes on. I've tried doing a del /s desktop.ini, but cmd says it can't find a desktop.ini at the current working directory. I've tried using rm -Recurse desktop.ini in Powershell, but it complains about the same thing. A simple rm *\desktop.ini doesn't have any problems, but also doesn't remove the drat files from any of the next-level directories. How can I get rid of this crap?

# ? Nov 23, 2015 02:06

frogbert: Jun 2, 2007

hooah posted:

Another shell question. I've got an Android project on my Google Drive, but Drive keeps "helpfully" putting a loving desktop.ini file everywhere, which Android Studio of course chokes on. I've tried doing a del /s desktop.ini, but cmd says it can't find a desktop.ini at the current working directory. I've tried using rm -Recurse desktop.ini in Powershell, but it complains about the same thing. A simple rm *\desktop.ini doesn't have any problems, but also doesn't remove the drat files from any of the next-level directories. How can I get rid of this crap?

Have you given this a try?:
http://jamesisin.com/a_high-tech_blech/index.php/2010/09/nevermore-be-bothered-by-desktop-ini/

# ? Nov 23, 2015 02:35

hooah: Feb 6, 2006; WTF?

No, but I will in the morning. Any idea why I couldn't recursively delete the buggers, even with an elevated prompt?

# ? Nov 23, 2015 02:47

frogbert: Jun 2, 2007

hooah posted:

No, but I will in the morning. Any idea why I couldn't recursively delete the buggers, even with an elevated prompt?

Desktop.ini is a hidden item. Dir/Get-ChildItem don't show these by default.

code:

Get-ChildItem -Hidden

Will show hidden items

code:

Get-ChildItem -Attributes !h,h

Will show everything. "!h,h" translates to "Unhidden stuff or hidden stuff"

The following should do what you need:

code:

get-childitem -Hidden "desktop.ini" -Recurse | Remove-Item -whatif

Get rid of the "-whatif" if you're sure the results are correct.

frogbert fucked around with this message at 06:57 on Nov 23, 2015

# ? Nov 23, 2015 06:55

Toast Museum: Dec 3, 2005; 30% Iron Chef

Is there a way to make Windows refuse to queue certain print jobs based on paper size and/or filename?

# ? Nov 23, 2015 15:54

Roargasm: Oct 21, 2010; Hate to sound sleazy
But tease me
I don't want it if it's that easy

Toast Museum posted:

Is there a way to make Windows refuse to queue certain print jobs based on paper size and/or filename?

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. If you invent this, sell it to school districts immediately - and add a parameter for >50MB print jobs too, please

# ? Nov 23, 2015 16:57

Polsy: Mar 23, 2007

Roargasm posted:

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. If you invent this, sell it to school districts immediately - and add a parameter for >50MB print jobs too, please

Well, they have (we trialled an alternative too but I've already forgotten the name), but it's overkill and presumably overpriced, at smaller scales.

e: I guess it's free for <=5 users

Polsy fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Nov 23, 2015

# ? Nov 23, 2015 19:14

baram.: Oct 23, 2007; smooth.

I have a huge excel document I need to pull rows out of based on a wildcard. Is there an easy way to do that? Specifically I want to pull out every row that has "??/??" in one of the columns and put them into a seperate sheet.

# ? Nov 23, 2015 19:54

slidebite: Nov 6, 2005; Good egg

How fussy is MS with activating old versions of Office?

I am giving Mrs. Slidebite my PC and she would like to put her legit copy of Office 2007 Ultimate on it (from that great steal deal a years ago) and I would like to put Office 10 on my new one, which has a key I got during university a year or two ago.

# ? Nov 23, 2015 21:27

Roargasm: Oct 21, 2010; Hate to sound sleazy
But tease me
I don't want it if it's that easy

Papercut does look great but I'm assuming you kind of have to build your org from the ground up to use it right

baram. posted:

I have a huge excel document I need to pull rows out of based on a wildcard. Is there an easy way to do that? Specifically I want to pull out every row that has "??/??" in one of the columns and put them into a seperate sheet.

Filter view in the data tab? You should be able to specify wildcards in Custom Filter

slidebite posted:

How fussy is MS with activating old versions of Office?

I am giving Mrs. Slidebite my PC and she would like to put her legit copy of Office 2007 Ultimate on it (from that great steal deal a years ago) and I would like to put Office 10 on my new one, which has a key I got during university a year or two ago.

Online activation breaks often but the phone number auto-attendant always works

Roargasm fucked around with this message at 23:21 on Nov 23, 2015

# ? Nov 23, 2015 23:18

baram.: Oct 23, 2007; smooth.

Yeah I finally figured that filter thing out a little after asking, thanks.

# ? Nov 23, 2015 23:22

MachinTrucChose: Jun 25, 2009

I'm looking for a flexible general-purpose file organization/tagging software that is multiplatform, and likely doesn't exist, but hey, I wanted to ask.

For music I'd use it to rate a song based on custom categories (drums, guitar, lyrics). I want to do queries like "all songs, sorted by Lyrics rating descending, AND with year < 2010".
For games I'd create my own rating categories, assign tags like "local co-op".
I'd also use it for photos and videos. Basically it should work on anything.

It's been suggested to me on IRC I use filesystem metadata, but that's Linux-specific (I use both Windows and Linux), I'd need to write my own import/export scripts and always do Dropbox sync. Also I'm wary of tying it to the filesystem. I don't want to lose my notes on a game just because I deleted the ISO or the file doesn't exist on another OS.

Any suggestions? Or will I have to create my own tool?

# ? Nov 24, 2015 16:27

hooah: Feb 6, 2006; WTF?

The building where my lab is is going to have the power shut off for a bit tomorrow evening, so I'll have to turn off my computer before I head home. However, I'll need to be able to remote in Thursday and Friday to finish homework. Is there a way on Windows 7 to boot the computer at a specified time?

# ? Nov 25, 2015 01:32

frogbert: Jun 2, 2007

hooah posted:

The building where my lab is is going to have the power shut off for a bit tomorrow evening, so I'll have to turn off my computer before I head home. However, I'll need to be able to remote in Thursday and Friday to finish homework. Is there a way on Windows 7 to boot the computer at a specified time?

Your bios will likely allow you to set a power on time.

# ? Nov 25, 2015 06:28

Ynglaur: Oct 9, 2013; The Malta Conference, anyone?

I have a question regarding Xmarks. Firefox, IE11, and Chrome all store bookmarks in the toolbar in folders that are named differently (see below). While Xmarks can sync bookmarks across browsers, I haven't figured out how to keep the bookmarks toolbars in sync, short of a lot of manual work. Does anyone have a good solution to this? Google and Wikipedia don't turn up any other cross-browser bookmarks syncing tool.

Firefox - Bookmarks Toolbar
Internet Explorer 11 - Favorites Bar
Chrome - Bookmarks bar

# ? Nov 25, 2015 14:12

Polsy: Mar 23, 2007

Roargasm posted:

Papercut does look great but I'm assuming you kind of have to build your org from the ground up to use it right

Yeah, I wasn't personally involved in setting it up but I remember we had some of their guys in to help with integrating it with what we already had.

# ? Nov 25, 2015 20:06

chippy: Aug 16, 2006; OK I DON'T GET IT

Before I go posting in Haus of Tech Support... can anyone help me with a slightly odd Windows issue?

Last night I used Dell's emergency recovery feature to restore my girflriend's laptop to factory fresh. It's a few year old Inspiron of some sort. It's running Windows 7 and after the restore it's on SP1. The problem I'm having is that I can't seem to install any updates. When I go to Windows Update and manually initiate the update check, it sits on 'Checking for updates' but never goes any further than that. I've left it overnight to make sure it just wasn't being slow, and it was in exactly the same state the next morning.

I've run the troubleshooter found here: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows7/open-the-windows-update-troubleshooter which claimed to find and fix a couple of problems, but it hasn't made any difference. Does anyone know what else I can try?

# ? Nov 26, 2015 10:18

fishmech: Jul 16, 2006; by VideoGames; Salad Prong

chippy posted:

Before I go posting in Haus of Tech Support... can anyone help me with a slightly odd Windows issue?

Last night I used Dell's emergency recovery feature to restore my girflriend's laptop to factory fresh. It's a few year old Inspiron of some sort. It's running Windows 7 and after the restore it's on SP1. The problem I'm having is that I can't seem to install any updates. When I go to Windows Update and manually initiate the update check, it sits on 'Checking for updates' but never goes any further than that. I've left it overnight to make sure it just wasn't being slow, and it was in exactly the same state the next morning.

I've run the troubleshooter found here: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows7/open-the-windows-update-troubleshooter which claimed to find and fix a couple of problems, but it hasn't made any difference. Does anyone know what else I can try?

You can try using a program like WSUS Offline to download and package all the updates from sp1 to now, and install them with the program it creates. This can take a few hours on a slow connection, but it'll also save a reboot or two and get past the Windows update stuff hanging

# ? Nov 26, 2015 17:03

chippy: Aug 16, 2006; OK I DON'T GET IT

fishmech posted:

You can try using a program like WSUS Offline to download and package all the updates from sp1 to now, and install them with the program it creates. This can take a few hours on a slow connection, but it'll also save a reboot or two and get past the Windows update stuff hanging

Thanks, I'll give that a go... Does anyone know if Windows Update itself would get updated in the process, potentially fixing the issue? If it's going to install the updates but still leave Windows Update broken, it's not going to be so useful.

# ? Nov 26, 2015 17:46

fishmech: Jul 16, 2006; by VideoGames; Salad Prong

chippy posted:

Thanks, I'll give that a go... Does anyone know if Windows Update itself would get updated in the process, potentially fixing the issue? If it's going to install the updates but still leave Windows Update broken, it's not going to be so useful.

There's been several updates to Windows Update itself, so that'll be included in the bundled updates. Should fix the problem.

# ? Nov 26, 2015 18:05

PPills: Oct 5, 2004

chippy posted:

Before I go posting in Haus of Tech Support... can anyone help me with a slightly odd Windows issue?

Last night I used Dell's emergency recovery feature to restore my girflriend's laptop to factory fresh. It's a few year old Inspiron of some sort. It's running Windows 7 and after the restore it's on SP1. The problem I'm having is that I can't seem to install any updates. When I go to Windows Update and manually initiate the update check, it sits on 'Checking for updates' but never goes any further than that. I've left it overnight to make sure it just wasn't being slow, and it was in exactly the same state the next morning.

I've run the troubleshooter found here: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows7/open-the-windows-update-troubleshooter which claimed to find and fix a couple of problems, but it hasn't made any difference. Does anyone know what else I can try?

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3102810

This should fix it. Make sure you disable automatic updates, or kill the svchost.exe before you run the hotfix.

# ? Nov 26, 2015 18:09

chippy: Aug 16, 2006; OK I DON'T GET IT

Thanks chaps. As it turned out, leaving it open all night and then all day seemed to work. Seems alright now.

# ? Nov 26, 2015 19:32

Henry Black: Jun 27, 2004; If she's not making this face, you're not doing it right.; Fun Shoe

I have a HTPC with OEM Home Premium on it. I'd like to switch it Pro for Remote Desktop, and I have a spare OEM key for Pro. Is there anyway I can switch it without reinstalling? I've tried the regular change key option and the 'Anytime Upgrade' option and neither will go through.

# ? Nov 29, 2015 11:52

slidebite: Nov 6, 2005; Good egg

I just built a new box on 8.1 (figure I can always upgrade to 10 before July if I want it) and went to use the calculator "app" and I'm horrified that it's some huge full-screen thing with no way to resize it like a normal window; only "split" the window. Is there some sort of a way I can make it look like the calc accessory program from Windows 95 - 7? Sometimes I need to have it in a small corner of the desktop and this split screen with the "metro" interface beside it just loving sucks.

slidebite fucked around with this message at 17:00 on Nov 29, 2015

# ? Nov 29, 2015 16:56

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

slidebite posted:

I just built a new box on 8.1 (figure I can always upgrade to 10 before July if I want it) and went to use the calculator "app" and I'm horrified that it's some huge full-screen thing with no way to resize it like a normal window; only "split" the window. Is there some sort of a way I can make it look like the calc accessory program from Windows 95 - 7? Sometimes I need to have it in a small corner of the desktop and this split screen with the "metro" interface beside it just loving sucks.

%windir%\system32\calc.exe

is still there and should be regularly accessible; look a bit harder in all apps or make the shortcut yourself.

# ? Nov 29, 2015 17:17

slidebite: Nov 6, 2005; Good egg

Ah, thanks!

# ? Nov 29, 2015 18:57

fishmech: Jul 16, 2006; by VideoGames; Salad Prong

slidebite posted:

I just built a new box on 8.1 (figure I can always upgrade to 10 before July if I want it) and went to use the calculator "app" and I'm horrified that it's some huge full-screen thing with no way to resize it like a normal window; only "split" the window. Is there some sort of a way I can make it look like the calc accessory program from Windows 95 - 7? Sometimes I need to have it in a small corner of the desktop and this split screen with the "metro" interface beside it just loving sucks.

Considering you're already on 8.1, you have nothing to lose by going to 10, where among other things the calculator is resizable sensibly.

# ? Nov 29, 2015 18:57

hooah: Feb 6, 2006; WTF?

Speaking of 10 and the calculator, does anyone who uses Launchy know how to get it to find the new calc?

# ? Nov 29, 2015 19:15

slidebite: Nov 6, 2005; Good egg

fishmech posted:

Considering you're already on 8.1, you have nothing to lose by going to 10, where among other things the calculator is resizable sensibly.

I almost certainly will at the end of the day, but the whole mandated forced down your throat updates really rubs me the wrong way. I had a couple bad experiecnes in the past with MS updates screwing stuff up, so I'll wait as long as possible to let them work as many kinks before I take the plunge.

# ? Nov 29, 2015 21:18

Wheany: Mar 17, 2006; Spinya^{ha^{ha^haha}ha}ha_{ha_{ha_haha}ha}ha!; Doctor Rope

I want to measure and record the amount of memory imagemagick is using when making a gif with different parameters.

Imagemagick is a command-line software and when I'm making a gif from a 1080p source, it will easily use several gigabytes of ram. This is not a problem in itself, but I have a hunch that a bug might be caused by high memory usage.

I want to replicate a the bug while recording the program's memory usage, then compare that to another run of the program where the bug doesn't happen.

I can ghetto it by opening the process details window in process explorer, but that will lose me several seconds of memory usage and the process might be done by the time I double click on it in process explorer. Also I would have to eyeball the numbers.

Is there some program I can use to sample the memory usage of another program say once a second, from start to finish?

# ? Nov 30, 2015 11:10

beefnoodle: Aug 7, 2004; IGNORE ME! I'M JUST AN OLD WET RAG

Perfmon will do that: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc749249.aspx

# ? Nov 30, 2015 14:44

Loel: Jun 4, 2012; "For the Emperor."

There was a terrible noise.
There was a terrible silence.

Quick question:

I have Windows 10 (I believe Home edition). I want to encrypt one of the drives with Bitlocker, but my initial searches say that Bitlocker only comes with Windows 10 Pro. Is this correct? And if so, is there a process of upgrading from Home to Pro?

# ? Dec 1, 2015 16:00

CovfefeCatCafe: Apr 11, 2006; A fresh attitude
brewed daily!

Coming up on the end of another year with Avast AV. I'm starting to wonder if there's something better. I mean, I've had no issues outside of the momentary lapse of reason when I installed GrimeFighter and it bricked my computer for a day. But I'm using a slightly older computer, want to trim some of the "fat", but also will be buying/building a new computer in the next month and want to know if I should continue using Avast, change to another free service, or grow up and get a paid AV program.

Also, need a decent alternative to iTunes that I can preferably still play songs I bought off of iTunes.

# ? Dec 1, 2015 16:59

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# ? May 31, 2024 06:52

Toast Museum: Dec 3, 2005; 30% Iron Chef

YF19pilot posted:

Coming up on the end of another year with Avast AV. I'm starting to wonder if there's something better. I mean, I've had no issues outside of the momentary lapse of reason when I installed GrimeFighter and it bricked my computer for a day. But I'm using a slightly older computer, want to trim some of the "fat", but also will be buying/building a new computer in the next month and want to know if I should continue using Avast, change to another free service, or grow up and get a paid AV program.

Windows Defender (Microsoft Security Essentials if you're on Win7) is fine. You don't need 3rd party AV.

# ? Dec 1, 2015 17:02

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