Rants and Raves

I wrote this little batch file to make Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 have a user directory structure more similar to Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, and Windows 7.

You simply need to run it as a user with administrative privileges and it will create the “User” directory in the root of your drive along with all the other more “sane” directory structures that the newer Windows use — don’t worry, it uses links so that you won’t have two copies of the information, and applications that expect the old structure will continue to work.

There is an older BLOG post that describes how it works:  Revise Windows XP “Home” Directory Structure if you’re interested in the details.

MkLinks

Tags: Computers, Technology, Windows, ► Downloads by roger
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I use a lot of virtual machines, and I often RDP to my servers to manage them; sometimes I’ll have several windows open at once and it becomes fairly easy to get a little confused as to what window is associated with which machine.

Long long ago (in a galaxy far far away) I started making desktop background images that contained the machine name and installing them on each machine.  That was a fair amount of work, and require configuration on each and every machine.

Then I found BgInfo (from SysInternals, now Microsoft), and that was a great solution — but it did still require a moderate amount of configuration on every machine…

So, I created an “installer” for BgInfo that puts all the files in the right places, and creates the startup link so as to almost completely automate the configuration (OK – you have to run a single command on each machine; but if you map to a share or put this on a thumb drive it’s really simple).

BgInfo (my installer; includes an older version of BgInfo)

BgInfo on Microsoft

Tags: Computers, Software, Technology, Windows, ► Downloads by roger
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When you install Corel PaintShop Pro X2 (version 12) you get an extra service that you’re not told about — ProtexisLicensing.

It’s alleged to be spyware that monitors your system and reports back to the software vendor.

Removing it is simple:

1. Use the service manager GUI to stop it and set it to disabled (that’s probably enough, but not for me).
2. Open a command prompt (with elevated priviledges on Vista, Win7, or Server2008) and type “sc delete protexislicensing”
3. Now delete the file “C:\Windows\SysWOW64\PSIService.exe”

For your convenience I’ve included the command to do all these tasts below; simply put them into a batch file and run it (withe elevated priviledges) or copy paste execute each line in a command window.

Odd that I haven’t seen federal charges against Corel for cyber terrorism — they certainly didn’t have my permission to install any type of monitoring software on my machine (and that’s probably true of all their paying customers).

I certainly don’t feel that companies that take actions like this are on any higher moral or legal ground than software pirates — while perhaps not as devious as the root kits many software suppliers installed, it is every bit as invasive.

Join me in boycotting Corel (and any other company that violates the trust of it’s customers)… as a former first lady once said:

Just Say NO!

- Nancy Reagan

——

disable_corel_spyware.bat

sc stop protexislicensing
sc config protexislicensing start= disabled
sc delete protexislicensing
del “%windir%\SysWOW64\PSIService.exe”

You can also download a “fancy” batch file to do the job from my server as a batch file in a 7zip archive disable_corel_spyware.

Tags: ! ALERTS !, Computers, Software, Technology, Windows, ► Downloads by roger
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For some time now I’ve wanted an efficient way to be able to send myself rich email without having to waste a lot of bandwidth; so I wrote what I call a “null” SMTP server.

It’s a dotNET application (written in C#) that sits in the System Tray and “talks” SMTP.

You point your mail client’s outbound SMTP to localhost (127.0.0.1), it say “OK” to just about everything, and throws away the message (well — internally I have a logging method, but right now I don’t expose that)… doesn’t sound really useful does it?

How do I use it?

Easy; I setup an IMAP account that uses this as the send path, and the IMAP server as the receive path — Windows Mail (or Live Mail) will send the message (which throws it away basically) and then upload a copy to my “sent” folder.  I cut down on my bandwidth (and time) and still get a copy of the email I wanted.  In case you’re wondering, I use email to “record” lots of information (contents of web pages; to do list items; etc — since my IMAP server stores the messages in a format that Windows Desktop Search can index it makes it a snap for me to manage large amounts of information — and it by it’s very nature is shared… yes I could use OneNote, but previous to 2007 it’s clunky and it doesn’t share the information without a SharePoint server — and I already have an IMAP server, and already archive some of my email).

Here’s a link to the installer for it; I haven’t heavily tested either the installer or the applet — but I’m using it.

Null SMTP Server Installer

Remember to set your outbound SMTP connection to localhost (127.0.0.1); you don’t want authentication or SSL / TLS (I don’t support them — and won’t).

Tags: Communications, Computers, Email, Software, Technology, Windows, ► Downloads by roger
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I’ve been listing to “Internet radio” some on my computer while I work; but the only utility I had loaded on my computer that handled .pls files was Nero Showtime… and I preferred to have Windows Media Player handle it.

So I created a little Windows program in C# (it would be trivial to do in any language, but that’s my preference at the moment) and associated it with .pls files that does nothing but take file1 out of the play list and url-ize it in a format that Windows Media Player likes and pass it on to Windows Media Player.

Give it a try!

Installer: WinAMP Play List for Windows Media Player Installer

Playlists: http://www.di.fm/

You can save the MP3 play list to your computer and you need not visit the web site again.

Tags: Computers, Software, Technology, ► Downloads by roger
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