MoonPoint Support Weblog

Windows Files Flagged as Malware by Avira Rescue System Scan

Some antivirus companies provide "rescue system" software that you can download for free and used to create bootable DVDs or flash drives to boot a PC outside of windows and scan the system for viruses and other malware. The software can be used if a system won't boot because of the malware. Avira, a German antivirus company, provides Avira Rescue System antivirus software that can be used to scan a system running a Microsoft Windows operating system. The ISO file that you download to create a bootable DVD or flash drive contains the Ubuntu Linux operating system, but you don't need to be familiar with a Linux operating system to use the software.

[ More Info ]

[/security/antivirus/avira] permanent link

Fri, Mar 14, 2025 7:18 pm

Determining the mount point for a USB flash drive on a Lubuntu system

I booted a PC from a USB flash drive on which I had installed Lubuntu Linux. I also plugged another flash drive into the system, but I didn't know where it was mounted. The hard disk drive (HDD) in the system was /dev/sda and I assumed the Lubuntu Linux bootable drive was /dev/sdb and the new drive would be /dev/sdbc. You can type for devlink in /dev/disk/by-id/usb*; do readlink -f ${devlink}; done at a shell prompt, which you can obtain on a Lubuntu system by clicking on the bird icon at the lower, left-hand corner of the screen and selecting System Tools then Qterminal, to see a list of the USB devices attached to a system.

lubuntu@lubuntu:~$ for devlink in /dev/disk/by-id/usb*; do readlink -f ${devlink}; done
/dev/sdc
/dev/sdc1
/dev/sdb
/dev/sdb1
lubuntu@lubuntu:~$

You can find the location where a USB drive is mounted by issuing the mount command and then piping the output into the grep command to find information on just the particular drive in which you are interested.

lubuntu@lubuntu:~$ mount | grep sdc
/dev/sdc1 on /media/lubuntu/EMTEC C450 type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,rela
time,uid=1000,gid=1000,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=is
o8859-1,shortname=mixed,showexec,utf8,flush,errors=remount-ro,uhelper=udisks2)
lubuntu@lubuntu:~$

In this case, I knew the USB flash drive was a 16GB Emtec device and I was able to see it was mounted at /media/lubuntu/EMTEC C450. I was then able to view the files and folders for the drive from the shell prompt.

lubuntu@lubuntu:~$ ls /media
cdrom  lubuntu  root
lubuntu@lubuntu:~$ ls /media/lubuntu
'EMTEC C450'
lubuntu@lubuntu:~$ ls /media/lubuntu/'EMTEC C450'
 EMTEC.icns   EMTEC.ico  'System Volume Information'   autorun.inf
lubuntu@lubuntu:~$

References:

How do I figure out which /dev is a USB flash drive?
Date: September 16, 2008
superuser

[/os/unix/linux/lubuntu] permanent link

Sun, Mar 09, 2025 9:53 pm

Creating a bootable USB flash drive from an ISO file using Rufus

If you have an ISO file that could be written to a CD or DVD to boot a system, but wish to use it to create a bootable USB flash drive and wish to do so using software on a Microsoft Windows system, you can use Rufus. The developer is Pete Batard and his blog can be found at Pete's Blog; the GitHub page for the software is at rufus.

[ More Info ]

[/os/windows/utilities] permanent link

Fri, Feb 28, 2025 7:55 pm

Burning an ISO file to a CD or DVD on a Windows 11 System

If you wish to burn a .iso file to a CD or a DVD on a Microsoft Windows 11 system, you can do so by taking the following steps.

In the Windows File Explorer, Right-click on the .iso file, then click on Burn, which appears above the file list.
If the appropriate CD/DVD drive does not appear in the "Disc Burner" field, select it then click on Burn (check the box first for "Verify disc after burning", if you wish to have the program verify that the disc can be read successfully after the iso file is burned to the disc).
When the iso file has successfully been written to disc, you should see "The disc image has been successfully burned to disc." You can then click on the Close button.

The disc will then be ejected.

[/os/windows/win11] permanent link

Thu, Feb 13, 2025 8:08 pm

Add an AddEvent calendar to the desktop version of Outlook

AddEvent provides organizations and companies a means to add their event calendars to their users' calendars. When I was helping my wife add an organization's calendar to her desktop version of Outlook, when I tried to add the calendar through the AddEvent website, I saw two options for Outlook when I clicked on Add to Calendar. On the " Subscribe to the calendar" list of email options were the following:

Apple
Google (online)
Office 365 (onlilne)
Outlook
Outlook.com
Yahoo (online)

When I tried the Outlook option, the AddEvent website gave me no option to download the .ics calendar file for the organization, instead the only option was to have the site open the new Office 365 version of Outlook on the system, which would force her to sync her email, contacts, and calendar with the Microsoft cloud, which I didn't want to do. I wanted the .ics file so I could add it to the older version of Outlook on her desktop system that she uses for her email, calendar, and task list. There is a way to get the .ics file and use it with Outlook or another application, but you have to choose the "Yahoo (online)" option. In step 3 for the Yahoo instructions, you will see a URL for the .ics file which you can copy and paste into a new tab in your browser, which will allow you to download the .ics file to your system.

Once I had the .ics file, I was able to click on File then Open & Export in Outlook on my wife's PC to open the .ics file I downloaded and add the organization's calendar to her Outlook calendar.

[/network/email/clients/outlook] permanent link

Mon, Jan 27, 2025 10:06 pm

Transferring files over an RDP connection

If you are connected to a remote Microsoft Windows system from another Windows system via the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) using the Microsoft terminal services client provided by Microsoft with its Windows operating systems, mstsc.exe, you can copy and paste files from one system to the other as you would from one directory to another on one of the systems. E.g., if I want to copy a file from a remote Windows 11 system to my local Windows 11 system, I can select it in the Windows File Explorer on the remote system and then switch back to my local system and go to the directory where I want to place it using the File Explorer on that system and then hit Ctrl-V, i.e, the Ctrl and V keys, to paste the file into that directory. You can use the same technique to copy a directory, i.e., you can right click on the directory and choose "copy" and then switch to the other system and navigate in the File Explorer to where you wish to copy the directory and then and use the paste function, e.g. Ctrl-V to copy

I don't know how well the technique may work on very large files or directories, e.g., ones that are multiple gigabytes, but I've found it works well at least for those several megabytes in size. I also have not tested what happens if you try another copy and paste operation before the first one has completed.

Transferring Files Via the Remote Desktop
Date: March 13, 2010

[/os/windows/software/remote-control/rdp] permanent link

Sun, Oct 20, 2024 10:30 pm

Dryer not drying

I put a bunch of sheets, pillowcases, and other laundry in the dryer around midday and set the dryer to dry for an hour, but when I opened the dryer to remove the items in the evening, the items were still wet, though my wife told me she had restarted the dryer twice during the day. A few months ago when we had a similar problem with clothes not drying even after several cycles in the dryer, when I looked in the vent outside, I saw a clump of lint was blocking the vent. When I removed it, the dryer then performed as expected. I had looked in the vent a month ago, but had not seen any lint blocking the opening, but I went out again with a flashlight, since it was nighttime, and peered into the opening. Though the dryer was running, I could not detect much air coming out of the duct. With the flashlight, I could see what appeared to be a clump of lint near a bend in the tube leading to the vent opening. I had a hard time getting my arm far enough into the duct to pull out the clump of lint, but I was eventually able to get it out. When I did so, I suddenly felt a great deal of hot air coming out of the vent. So if your dryer isn't drying as well as you would expect, check the lint filter and the outside vent. Fixing the problem might be as simple as removing lint lodged in the vent. If there is no blockage visible, you might have to pull the dryer further away from a wall and remove any ducting/tube leading from the dryer to the outside to check it, but there may be a no-cost solution to the problem. I didn't think the problem with our dryer could be a faulty moisture sensor, since I had set the dryer for a timed drying period, which normally would be enough to dry a load of laundry. I've also ordered a flexible drain snake (drain clog remover) one can use for cleaning sinks to make it easier to remove lint. I'm hoping I can feed it into the vent opening and pull out lint, if a similar clog occurs.

[/home] permanent link

Sat, Oct 05, 2024 10:51 pm

Resizing an image with CSS

If you want to resize an image on a webpage, e.g., to have it display as a smaller image on a webpage than it would based on the image's dimensions, you can edit the image with a graphics editing application to create a smaller version of the image or you can use Cascading Stylesheets (CSS). If you wished to apply the reduction in size to just one image on the page, you could apply a style directly to the IMG tag for that image. E.g., if image1 is 663 pixels wide by 307 pixels high, and you wanted to have the image displayed as 75% of that size, you could use <img src="image1.jpg" alt="Image 1" style="transform: scale(0.75)"> to have it display as an image 75% of the actual dimensions of the image. E.g.:

Image 1 at full scale

Image 1 at 75% scale

Note: The image above is a photo of Robert H. Goddard with an A-series rocket circa 1935

Automatically resizing an image for mobile devices

[/network/web/html/css] permanent link

Thu, Oct 03, 2024 10:32 pm

Starting the Windows Media Player (WMP) from a command prompt

If you wish to start the Windows Media Player (WMP) application from a command-line interface (CLI), such as a command prompt window, you can do so by entering the command

"%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Windows Media 
Player\wmplayer.exe"

at a command prompt window (be sure to enclose the command within double quotes since there are spaces in the directory path). You might wish to do so if you are logged into one user account, but wish to open a movie or music file that is not accesible from the currently logged in user account. If you wished to run the program from an administrator account, you can open a command prompt window as an administrator or you can open a unprivileged command prompt window from the currently logged in account and then use the runas /user command e.g.,

runas /user:username 
"%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe"

where username is the account name for the account from which you wish to run the program. E.g.,

runas /user:jane "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Windows 
Media Player\wmplayer.exe"

to run the Windows Media Player with Jane's account privileges. If you need to run the command from a Windows domain account, you can use

runas /user:domainname\username
"%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe"

where domainname is the name of the domain and username is the name of the domain user account. Once the Windows Media Player app is open, you can then hit the Ctrl-O keys (the Ctrl and the letter "O" key) simultaneously to open a window where you can then browse for audiovisual files in directories to which the other user account has access.

[/os/windows/software/audio-video/WMP] permanent link

Wed, Sep 25, 2024 10:17 pm

Viewing network connections on a Microsoft Windows system by protocol

If you just wish to see TCP ports in use on a Microsoft Windows system, you can issue the netstat -a -p TCP command at a command prompt. The -a parameter specifies all connections and listening ports should be displayed while the -p parameter can be used to select a protocol from TCP, UDP, TCPv6, or UDPv6. If used with the -s option to display per-protocol statistics, the protocol argument may be any of: IP, IPv6, ICMP, ICMPv6, TCP, TCPv6, UDP, or UDPv6. If you only wish to view IPv6 TCP ports in use, you can use netstat -a -p TCPv6. If you only wish to see currently established connections, you can pipe the output of the netstat command to the find command. E.g., netstat -a -p TCP | find "ESTABLISHED". Or, if you wished to see all of the TCP ports on which the system was listening for a connection, you could use netstat -a -p TCP | find "LISTENING". If you wanted to see connections to a particular port, e.g., 22, for Secure Shell (SSH) connections, you could use

netstat -a | find ":ssh"

, which would show the IP addresses of the remote systems connected via SSH, or netstat -a | find ":https" for HTTPS connections to web sites. If you wished to see host names rather than IP addresses, you could add the -f option, which displays a Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) instead of an IP address for a remote system. E.g., netstat -a -f | find ":https". Since SSH, HTTP, and HTTPS use TCP rather than UDP transmissions, you don't need to add the -p parameter.

[/os/windows/network] permanent link

Fri, Mar 28, 2025 9:22 pm