Often, even if you are logged on as a user which belongs to the local Administrators group, you may have to open a command prompt (or other program) as “administrator.” Simply right-click the shortcut (Start, All Programs, Accessories, Command Prompt) and select Run As Administrator.
Applies to:
Microsoft changed things up again. Back in the day (Windows 2000, 2003, XP, etc.) you could easily open Windows Task Manager using Ctrl + Alt + Del, then pressing T. Now in Windows 7 and Windows Vista you can still use Ctrl + Alt + Del which displays a screen whith options like Lock this Computer, Switch User, Log Off, Change Password, and Start Task Manager. However, pressing T does nothing, and in fact, no keyboard shortcuts work on this screen to choose one of the items from the list – even tab and arrow keys don’t let you pick from the list. You have to use your mouse pointer. Stupid, stupid, STUPID! Way to go Microsoft!
So to launch Task Manager in Windows 7 and Vista you would have to go through this double step process of pressing Ctrl + Alt + Del, then reaching over to your mouse and clicking on Start Task Manager. I can understand Microsoft trying to make things easier for new users and for the masses. But for heaven’s sake please leave old keyboard shortcuts in place for those of us who have been using Windows for a while.
Enough ranting and raving. Although this has probably been the case all along (this old dog had to learn a new trick), you can use Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open Task Manager directly and bypass the hassle and frustration introduced by MS with Vista.
You can restart IIS and disable Reliable Restart using the command prompt and Iisreset.exe. See the following command-line usage and parameters.
iisreset [computername]
/RESTART Stop and then restart all Internet services.
/START Start all Internet services.
/STOP Stop all Internet services.
/REBOOT Reboot the computer.
/REBOOTONERROR Reboot the computer if an error occurs when starting, stopping, or restarting Internet services.
/NOFORCE Do not forcefully terminate Internet services if attempting to stop them gracefully fails.
/TIMEOUT:val Specify the timeout value (in seconds) to wait for a successful stop of Internet services. On expiration of this timeout the computer can be rebooted if the /REBOOTONERROR parameter is specified. The default value is 20s for restart, 60s for stop, and 0s for reboot.
/STATUS Display the status of all Internet services.
/ENABLE Enable restarting of Internet Services on the local system.
/DISABLE Disable restarting of Internet Services on the local system.
iisreset /restart
Have you ever wanted a quick and easy way to know how long your Windows 7 (or Vista or Windows 2008 server) system has been running? When it was last restarted or rebooted? There are a few easy ways this can be done, most from the Windows command line. So open a Windows command prompt and choose the one that works best for you. (Most of these commands work with Windows XP, Windows 2003, 2000, etc. See notes below for specifics.)
From a command prompt window run the following (the ‘S’ in ‘Statistics’ must be capitalized):
net statistics workstation | find "Statistics"
You can shortcut it as well using:
net stats work | find "Stat"
Result:
Or ever shorter use either of the following:
net stats work
netstats work |more
systeminfo | find "System Boot Time"
Result:
You can use the following on XP, Windows 2003 and earlier (however this will give only the length of uptime and not the system boot time):
systeminfo | find "Up Time"
wmic OS Get LastBootUpTime
cscript c:windowssystem32eventquery.vbs /fi "ID eq 6005" /l system
Over the years I have found system event log event 6005, “The Event log service was started.” to be the the most consistent entry after a computer restarts, even from a power outage, BSOD or other event. This command will also give you a history of system startups listed in the System event log.
Just like with anything there are many ways to skin this cat, so choose your favorite one (or two to double-check data) and go for it.
While Windows 7 (and Vista, if I remember right) does have a “Show Desktop” shortcut – it’s in the system tray, to the right of the clock – you may long for the days when it was in the Quick Launch toolbar like in XP or Windows 2003.
Not to fear. You can easily create a show desktop shortcut and place it anywhere you’d like.
Open your favorite text editor and type the following code:
[Shell]
Command=2
IconFile=explorer.exe,3
[Taskbar]
Command=ToggleDesktop
Save the file as ‘Show Desktop.scf’ and make sure theat ‘All Files’ is selected in the File Type list. Save this file on your desktop, then drag it to the Quick Launch toolbar.
If you want to customize the icon and use your own Icon instead of using the Windows default, put the path of the icon next to ‘IconFile=’ as follows:
IconFile='PATH_TO_ICON',0
See also Create Windows Shortcuts With a Script at the Command Line.
The only way to ensure that deleted files, as well as files that you encrypt with EFS, are safe from recovery is to use a secure delete application. Secure delete applications overwrite a deleted file’s on-disk data using techiques that are shown to make disk data unrecoverable, even using recovery technology that can read patterns in magnetic media that reveal weakly deleted files. SDelete (Secure Delete) is such an application.
You can use SDelete both to securely delete existing files, as well as to securely erase any file data that exists in the unallocated portions of a disk (including files that you have already deleted or encrypted). SDelete implements the Department of Defense clearing and sanitizing standard DOD 5220.22-M, to give you confidence that once deleted with SDelete, your file data is gone forever. Note that SDelete securely deletes file data, but not file names located in free disk space.
Using SDelete
SDelete is a command line utility that takes a number of options. In any given use, it allows you to delete one or more files and/or directories, or to cleanse the free space on a logical disk. SDelete accepts wild card characters as part of the directory or file specifier.
Usage: sdelete [-p passes] [-s] [-q]
sdelete [-p passes] [-z|-c] [drive letter]
| -c | Zero free space (good for virtual disk optimization). |
| -p passes | Specifies number of overwrite passes. |
| -s | Recurse subdirectories. |
| -q | Don’t print errors (quiet). |
| -z | Cleanse free space. |
Securely deleting a file that has no special attributes is relatively straight-forward: the secure delete program simply overwrites the file with the secure delete pattern. What is more tricky is securely deleting Windows NT/2K compressed, encrypted and sparse files, and securely cleansing disk free spaces.
Compressed, encrypted and sparse are managed by NTFS in 16-cluster blocks. If a program writes to an existing portion of such a file NTFS allocates new space on the disk to store the new data and after the new data has been written, deallocates the clusters previously occupied by the file. NTFS takes this conservative approach for reasons related to data integrity, and in the case of compressed and sparse files, in case a new allocation is larger than what exists (the new compressed data is bigger than the old compressed data). Thus, overwriting such a file will not succeed in deleting the file’s contents from the disk.
To handle these types of files SDelete relies on the defragmentation API. Using the defragmentation API, SDelete can determine precisely which clusters on a disk are occupied by data belonging to compressed, sparse and encrypted files. Once SDelete knows which clusters contain the file’s data, it can open the disk for raw access and overwrite those clusters.
Cleaning free space presents another challenge. Since FAT and NTFS provide no means for an application to directly address free space, SDelete has one of two options. The first is that it can, like it does for compressed, sparse and encrypted files, open the disk for raw access and overwrite the free space. This approach suffers from a big problem: even if SDelete were coded to be fully capable of calculating the free space portions of NTFS and FAT drives (something that’s not trivial), it would run the risk of collision with active file operations taking place on the system. For example, say SDelete determines that a cluster is free, and just at that moment the file system driver (FAT, NTFS) decides to allocate the cluster for a file that another application is modifying. The file system driver writes the new data to the cluster, and then SDelete comes along and overwrites the freshly written data: the file’s new data is gone. The problem is even worse if the cluster is allocated for file system metadata since SDelete will corrupt the file system’s on-disk structures.
The second approach, and the one SDelete takes, is to indirectly overwrite free space. First, SDelete allocates the largest file it can. SDelete does this using non-cached file I/O so that the contents of the NT file system cache will not be thrown out and replaced with useless data associated with SDelete‘s space-hogging file. Because non-cached file I/O must be sector (512-byte) aligned, there might be some left over space that isn’t allocated for the SDelete file even when SDelete cannot further grow the file. To grab any remaining space SDelete next allocates the largest cached file it can. For both of these files SDelete performs a secure overwrite, ensuring that all the disk space that was previously free becomes securely cleansed.
On NTFS drives SDelete‘s job isn’t necessarily through after it allocates and overwrites the two files. SDelete must also fill any existing free portions of the NTFS MFT (Master File Table) with files that fit within an MFT record. An MFT record is typically 1KB in size, and every file or directory on a disk requires at least one MFT record. Small files are stored entirely within their MFT record, while files that don’t fit within a record are allocated clusters outside the MFT. All SDelete has to do to take care of the free MFT space is allocate the largest file it can – when the file occupies all the available space in an MFT Record NTFS will prevent the file from getting larger, since there are no free clusters left on the disk (they are being held by the two files SDelete previously allocated). SDelete then repeats the process. When SDelete can no longer even create a new file, it knows that all the previously free records in the MFT have been completely filled with securely overwritten files.
To overwrite file names of a file that you delete, SDelete renames the file 26 times, each time replacing each character of the file’s name with a successive alphabetic character. For instance, the first rename of “foo.txt” would be to “AAA.AAA”.
The reason that SDelete does not securely delete file names when cleaning disk free space is that deleting them would require direct manipulation of directory structures. Directory structures can have free space containing deleted file names, but the free directory space is not available for allocation to other files. Hence, SDelete has no way of allocating this free space so that it can securely overwrite it.
Download SDelete
(47 KB)
If you are like me you use the command prompt a lot. It seems each time I logon to a new system I have to setup the command prompt just the way I want. The first thing I do is create a shortcut in the Quick Launch toolbar. Next I modify that shortcut so it will better suit my needs.
Right-click the shortcut and select Properties. On the Shortcut tab add ” /f:on” (without the quotes) to the Target – make sure there is a space between cmd.exe and /f:on, and if cmd.exe ends with a quote place the /f:on outside the quotes. This will enable file and directory name completion characters – you can use Ctl + d for directories and Ctl + f for files. I also like to set the Start In target to C:.
Click the Options tab. I like to increase the command history buffer to at least 100, this is especially useful if you have a command prompt open for a long time and want to scroll back through your previous commands. Check discard old duplicates to, well, do just that. And check QuickEdit mode. This is a great one as it enables selecting text directly and pasting directly (with right-click) without having to right-click and select copy and/or paste.
Personally I don’t change the fonts or colors, but you may prefer different settings. Play around, have fun.
Now click the Layout tab. I normally increase the height and width of the window size a bit, especially with today’s higher resolution monitors. And I definitely increase the screen buffer size height, usually to a couple thousand or more. Make sure to increase the screen buffer width to at least match that of your window size width.
I usually leave “Let System Position Window” checked so Windows will tile subsequent command prompt windows:
See also:
CMD.exe /? (help) in Windows 7
Starts a new instance of the Windows command interpreter
CMD [/A | /U] [/Q] [/D] [/E:ON | /E:OFF] [/F:ON | /F:OFF] [/V:ON | /V:OFF] [[/S] [/C | /K] string]
/C Carries out the command specified by string and then terminates
/K Carries out the command specified by string but remains
/S Modifies the treatment of string after /C or /K (see below)
/Q Turns echo off
/D Disable execution of AutoRun commands from registry (see below)
/A Causes the output of internal commands to a pipe or file to be ANSI
/U Causes the output of internal commands to a pipe or file to be Unicode
/T:fg Sets the foreground/background colors (see COLOR /? for more info)
/E:ON Enable command extensions (see below)
/E:OFF Disable command extensions (see below)
/F:ON Enable file and directory name completion characters (see below)
/F:OFF Disable file and directory name completion characters (see below)
/V:ON Enable delayed environment variable expansion using ! as the
delimiter. For example, /V:ON would allow !var! to expand the
variable var at execution time. The var syntax expands variables
at input time, which is quite a different thing when inside of a FOR
loop.
/V:OFF Disable delayed environment expansion.
Note that multiple commands separated by the command separator ‘&&’
are accepted for string if surrounded by quotes. Also, for compatibility
reasons, /X is the same as /E:ON, /Y is the same as /E:OFF and /R is the
same as /C. Any other switches are ignored.
If /C or /K is specified, then the remainder of the command line after
the switch is processed as a command line, where the following logic is
used to process quote (“) characters:
1. If all of the following conditions are met, then quote characters
on the command line are preserved:
– no /S switch
– exactly two quote characters
– no special characters between the two quote characters,
where special is one of: &<>()@^|
– there are one or more whitespace characters between the
two quote characters
– the string between the two quote characters is the name
of an executable file.
2. Otherwise, old behavior is to see if the first character is
a quote character and if so, strip the leading character and
remove the last quote character on the command line, preserving
any text after the last quote character.
If /D was NOT specified on the command line, then when CMD.EXE starts, it
looks for the following REG_SZ/REG_EXPAND_SZ registry variables, and if
either or both are present, they are executed first.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftCommand ProcessorAutoRun
and/or
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftCommand ProcessorAutoRun
Command Extensions are enabled by default. You may also disable
extensions for a particular invocation by using the /E:OFF switch. You
can enable or disable extensions for all invocations of CMD.EXE on a
machine and/or user logon session by setting either or both of the
following REG_DWORD values in the registry using REGEDIT.EXE:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftCommand ProcessorEnableExtensions
and/or
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftCommand ProcessorEnableExtensions
to either 0x1 or 0x0. The user specific setting takes precedence over
the machine setting. The command line switches take precedence over the
registry settings.
In a batch file, the SETLOCAL ENABLEEXTENSIONS or DISABLEEXTENSIONS arguments
takes precedence over the /E:ON or /E:OFF switch. See SETLOCAL /? for details.
The command extensions involve changes and/or additions to the following
commands:
DEL or ERASE
COLOR
CD or CHDIR
MD or MKDIR
PROMPT
PUSHD
POPD
SET
SETLOCAL
ENDLOCAL
IF
FOR
CALL
SHIFT
GOTO
START (also includes changes to external command invocation)
ASSOC
FTYPE
To get specific details, type commandname /? to view the specifics.
Delayed environment variable expansion is NOT enabled by default. You
can enable or disable delayed environment variable expansion for a
particular invocation of CMD.EXE with the /V:ON or /V:OFF switch. You
can enable or disable delayed expansion for all invocations of CMD.EXE on a
machine and/or user logon session by setting either or both of the
following REG_DWORD values in the registry using REGEDIT.EXE:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftCommand ProcessorDelayedExpansion
and/or
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftCommand ProcessorDelayedExpansion
to either 0x1 or 0x0. The user specific setting takes precedence over
the machine setting. The command line switches take precedence over the
registry settings.
In a batch file the SETLOCAL ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION or DISABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION
arguments takes precedence over the /V:ON or /V:OFF switch. See SETLOCAL /?
for details.
If delayed environment variable expansion is enabled, then the exclamation
character can be used to substitute the value of an environment variable
at execution time.
You can enable or disable file name completion for a particular
invocation of CMD.EXE with the /F:ON or /F:OFF switch. You can enable
or disable completion for all invocations of CMD.EXE on a machine and/or
user logon session by setting either or both of the following REG_DWORD
values in the registry using REGEDIT.EXE:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftCommand ProcessorCompletionChar
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftCommand ProcessorPathCompletionChar
and/or
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftCommand ProcessorCompletionChar
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftCommand ProcessorPathCompletionChar
with the hex value of a control character to use for a particular
function (e.g. 0x4 is Ctrl-D and 0x6 is Ctrl-F). The user specific
settings take precedence over the machine settings. The command line
switches take precedence over the registry settings.
If completion is enabled with the /F:ON switch, the two control
characters used are Ctrl-D for directory name completion and Ctrl-F for
file name completion. To disable a particular completion character in
the registry, use the value for space (0x20) as it is not a valid
control character.
Completion is invoked when you type either of the two control
characters. The completion function takes the path string to the left
of the cursor appends a wild card character to it if none is already
present and builds up a list of paths that match. It then displays the
first matching path. If no paths match, it just beeps and leaves the
display alone. Thereafter, repeated pressing of the same control
character will cycle through the list of matching paths. Pressing the
Shift key with the control character will move through the list
backwards. If you edit the line in any way and press the control
character again, the saved list of matching paths is discarded and a new
one generated. The same occurs if you switch between file and directory
name completion. The only difference between the two control characters
is the file completion character matches both file and directory names,
while the directory completion character only matches directory names.
If file completion is used on any of the built in directory commands
(CD, MD or RD) then directory completion is assumed.
The completion code deals correctly with file names that contain spaces
or other special characters by placing quotes around the matching path.
Also, if you back up, then invoke completion from within a line, the
text to the right of the cursor at the point completion was invoked is
discarded.
The special characters that require quotes are:
&()[]{}^=;!’+,`~
If you are like me you 1) access numerous Windows computers, in my case mainly servers through Remote Desktop; and 2) like to have your Windows desktop setup a certain way. Here are some examples of a quick and easy way to create shortcuts with a script. These examples are Visual Basic Scripts (.vbs) and use Windows Script Host to execute. Create any or all of the examples and execute it from either the command prompt or Start / Run using:
wscript xyz.vbs
Note: These scripts were all tested on Windows 7, Windows 2008 and 2003. They should run fine on earlier versions of Windows (XP, Vista, 2000, etc.) as well.
Although most of these examples will create shortcuts to Windows Explorer (the last one is a shortcut to the Command Prompt), they are being placed in different locations. Of course you could modify the examples to launch any program of your choosing. Additionally you could combine them into one script that could be launched the first time you logon.
For easy reference I highlighted the values you may want to change to tailor the script to your needs.
Windows 7, Vista and Windows 2008 Server note: You will probably have to execute these with administrative rights. One way to do this is to launch a command prompt (the old fashioned way – Start [All] Programs / Accessories / Command Prompt) using right-click and selecting “Run As Administrator.”
Example 1 – Shortcut to Windows Explorer in the “All Users” Desktop folder. I named the script Explorer_Shortcut_on_AU_Desktop.vbs.
set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell" )
strDesktop = WshShell.SpecialFolders("AllUsersDesktop" )
set oShellLink = WshShell.CreateShortcut(strDesktop & "Windows Explorer.lnk" )
oShellLink.TargetPath = "%SYSTEMROOT%explorer.exe"
oShellLink.WindowStyle = 1
oShellLink.IconLocation = "%SystemRoot%explorer.exe"
oShellLink.Description = "Windows Explorer"
oShellLink.WorkingDirectory = "%HOMEPATH%"
oShellLink.Save
Example 2 – Shortcut to Windows Explorer in the “All Users” Start Menu folder. I named the script Explorer_Shortcut_in_AU_Startmenu.vbs.
set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell" )
strStartMenu = WshShell.SpecialFolders("AllUsersStartmenu" )
set oShellLink = WshShell.CreateShortcut(strStartMenu & "Windows Explorer.lnk" )
oShellLink.TargetPath = "%SYSTEMROOT%explorer.exe"
oShellLink.WindowStyle = 1
oShellLink.IconLocation = "%SystemRoot%explorer.exe"
oShellLink.Description = "Windows Explorer"
oShellLink.WorkingDirectory = "%HOMEPATH%"
oShellLink.Save
Example 3 – Shortcut to Windows Explorer in the “All Users” Startup folder. I named the script Explorer_Shortcut_in_AU_Startup.vbs. This will cause one instance of Windows Explorer to launch during logon. If you’re like me you will be using it anyway, so why not have it open automatically.
set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell" )
strStartup = WshShell.SpecialFolders("AllUsersStartmenu" )
set oShellLink = WshShell.CreateShortcut(strStartup & "programsstartupWindows Explorer.lnk" )
oShellLink.TargetPath = "%SYSTEMROOT%explorer.exe"
oShellLink.WindowStyle = 1
oShellLink.IconLocation = "%SystemRoot%explorer.exe"
oShellLink.Description = "Windows Explorer"
oShellLink.WorkingDirectory = "%HOMEPATH%"
oShellLink.Save
Example 4 – Shortcut to Windows Explorer in the “Current User” Quick Launch toolbar. I named the script Explorer_Shortcut_in_CU_QuickLaunch.vbs.
set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell" )
strStartup = WshShell.SpecialFolders("AppData" )
set oShellLink = WshShell.CreateShortcut(strStartup & "MicrosoftInternet ExplorerQuick LaunchWindows Explorer.lnk" )
oShellLink.TargetPath = "%SYSTEMROOT%explorer.exe"
oShellLink.WindowStyle = 1
oShellLink.IconLocation = "%SystemRoot%explorer.exe"
oShellLink.Description = "Windows Explorer"
oShellLink.WorkingDirectory = "%HOMEPATH%"
oShellLink.Save
Example 5 – Shortcut to Command Prompt in the Quick Launch toolbar for you, the current user. I named the script CMD_Shortcut_in_CU_QuickLaunch.vbs.
set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell" )
strStartup = WshShell.SpecialFolders("AppData" )
set oShellLink = WshShell.CreateShortcut(strStartup & "MicrosoftInternet ExplorerQuick LaunchCommand Prompt.lnk" )
oShellLink.TargetPath = "%SYSTEMROOT%system32cmd.exe"
oShellLink.WindowStyle = 1
oShellLink.Hotkey = "Ctrl+Alt+C"
oShellLink.IconLocation = "%SystemRoot%system32cmd.exe"
oShellLink.Description = "Windows Command Prompt"
oShellLink.WorkingDirectory = "%HOMEPATH%"
oShellLink.Save
See also:
Beginning with Windows Vista Microsoft removed HyperTerminal (aka HyperTerm & Hyper Terminal). Of course, this means it isn’t in Windows 7 either. There are several options you can use to replace its functionality.
xterm terminal emulator.RichCopy is a free utility from Ken Tamaru of Microsoft. The tool was first developed in 2001 and has been updated regularly to keep pace with evolving needs. Worthy of note is that RichCopy is a multithreaded copying tool. That means that rather than copying one file at a time in serial order, RichCopy can open multiple threads simultaneously, allowing many files to be copied in parallel and cutting the total time required to complete the operation several times over. You can also pause and resume file copy operations, so if you lose network connectivity at any point, you can just pick up where you left off.
Of course, these are really just the simplest features of RichCopy. As the figure below shows, you also get a vast array of granular controls that allow you to customize all of those fancy aspects of your file copying —filtering files, saving attributes, adjusting cache size, and so on. If you regularly copy lots of files over the network or between various storage devices, these features will significantly ease your daily life.
For those of you like me who prefer the command line see the following about RoboCopy: