June 2015 – Cannot Display

June 15, 2015nick

Run elevated command prompt (CMD)

The quickest way to run an elevated command prompt from windows xp all the way through to Windows 10, is to simply right click and ‘Run as Administrator’ from the start menu, see below

Click on the start menu, or press the WIN key, then simply type (win vista+) CMD
Right click on cmd.exe and select, run as administrator

If that does not for some reason work, or you cannot get into your start menu, try pressing WIN + R and typing CMD, then enter:

runas /noprofile /user:Administrator cmd

This will prompt you for your admin password

June 12, 2015nick

Create new user via cmd

How to create new user via cmd (command Prompt)

create new user via cmd

Below are the quick steps to take if you are in the situation where you need to create a new pc user from command line. The example below is for creating a user named nick, with admin privileges.

Open up an elevated command prompt:
Type the below, exchanging *nick* ad *password* with your own username and password.

net user /add *NICK* *password*

To give this user admin privileges;

net localgroup administrators *NICK* /add

June 9, 2015nick

Enable or Disable user account from command line (CMD)

To Disable or Enable an account from a CMD terminal (command prompt)

Net user Nick /active:no

To re-enable the account :

Net user Nick /active:yes

June 4, 2015nick

Getting the path of AppData using PowerShell

Getting the path of %AppData% using PowerShell + $env: usage

There are 2 ways to find the folder location of AppData on a PC, and to check appdata path.

The first method uses the simple $env: command. This command has long been used by C# users to make multi platform software, in the case where your AppData or any other environmental variable may be living somewhere other than the normal factory set location.

Simply open up powershell and type:

$env:APPDATA

Method 2 is basically doing the exact same as above, but this time using a call and answer approach:

Get-Childitem env:APPDATA | %{ $_.Value }

Below are some extra $env: variables that you may find useful;

Name                           Value
----                           -----
TEMP                           C:\DOCUME~1\bob\LOCALS~1\Temp
SESSIONNAME                    Console
PATHEXT                        .COM;.EXE;.BAT;.CMD;.VBS;.VBE;.JS;.JSE;.WSF;.WSH;.PS1;.PSC1
USERDOMAIN                     WINGROUP
PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE         x64
SystemDrive                    C:
APPDATA                        C:\Users\bob\Application Data
windir                         C:\WINDOWS
USERPROFILE                    C:\Users\bob

June 1, 2015nick

Windows 10 release set for July 29th 2015

After a batch of updates over the weekend, Windows is now providing more info on the long awaited FREE windows 10 upgrade

Windows 10 release set for July 29th 2015

The popups, now appearing on some windows 7 and 8 PC’s are causing quite a stir. With some people on reddit calling it both ‘intrusive’ and ‘malware-like’
It would appear that it is KB3035583 that installs this notification, but that requires Windows 7 SP1 or Windows 8.1 to function correctly, at the bottom of the article we have included a step by step guide in forcing this update in order to be able to reserve your own copy of Windows 10

Below, the sirst 5 screens, then taking you through to the final offer, of ‘reserving Windows 10’

If you are still looking to get a hold of the update supplying this notification then Reddit user FearGX_ explains that you can force the update to do its thing. We’ve reformatted his instructions below.

Open the Control Panel, choose Administrative Tools, and then fire up the Task Scheduler.
Expand Task Scheduler Library, then Microsoft, then Windows, and finally scroll down to expand Setup.
Click the folder GWXTriggers and on the far right hit Run.

Again, this will only work if you’re running a legitimate copy of Windows 7 SP1 or Windows 8.1, have KB3035583 installed, and have all the latest updates.