Windows

If you ever need to wait to execute something until the last mile of Windows’ Setup (also called OOBE, or Out-of-the-Box-Experience) is done, there isn’t much information out in the wild about what you need to wait on. You also can’t programmatically determine the current boot state (without running a boot trace, and you still have to process it after ...

In this short guide, I’ll be reviewing the necessary information for how to manage services from the command line on Windows workstations and servers. It should also go without saying that “services” are an integral part of pretty much all computer systems. You should also be aware that “services” are sometimes referred to as daemons (pronounced “demons”), especially in various ...

In this article, we’ll review the necessary information for how to backup and restore information from a Microsoft Windows DHCP server database. Depending on how familiar you are with this procedure, you may or may not be aware that there’s more to it than just a simple “backup and restore the database”. Besides wanting a full copy of your database, sometimes ...

If you’ve ever managed workstation printer installations for a decent-sized Windows environment, you likely already know that it can be challenging at times. But if you’re just now gearing up for the first time to do some deeper management in this area, this article should prove to be very helpful! NOTE 1:  I’ve seen some very short, concise posts or ...

Have you ever needed to install printers on a workstation, and you thought to yourself, “If only I could quickly copy the installed printers from another PC, it would save me so much time!”? Well, today’s your lucky day! Microsoft has actually had a way of accomplishing this for many years (a separate utility named “Print Migrator”, which has since ...

I’m spending my time between Mac OS and Windows, and when I go back to my Windows machine I always feel the lack of my Mac command prompt. Almost a year ago Amir posted how you can get a nice command prompt on a Mac. I’ve always wanted a post like that, but for a Windows machine. Today I stumbled ...

I like to use Cygwin for having a bash shell on a windows machine. In combination with Console2 you have a powerful command-line tool for windows. I’d like to describe how to install Cygwin and Console2 under windows 7 (I think this instruction works on Windows XP, too) and how to embed Cygwin in Console2. I used for Cygwin version ...