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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

Tue, Sep 24, 2024 8:53 pm

Extracting files from a .jar file with the jar command

If you have a JAR ("Java archive") file and wish to extract the files contained within it from a command-line interface (CLI) on a Microsoft Windows system, you can do so by opening a command prompt window and using the jar xf filename.jar command, where filename.jar is the relevant .jar file, if you have the Java Development Kit (JDK) installed on the system — the JDK software can be downloaded for free from Oracle's Java Downloads page.

Minecraft uses .jar files for mods and if you wish to view the models (.json files), textures (.png files) within a JAR file used by Minecraft, you can use the jar xf filename.jar command to see those. If you copy the .jar file to a directory where you wish to extract its contents and then run the command from the directory in which the .jar file is located, you should see a directory named assets appear beneath which you can find blockstates, lang, models, and textures subdirectories. The .json files files, such as those you may see in a models/block subdirectory are JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) files, which you can view or edit in a text editor, such as the Windows Notepad application. The .png files, which you may see in a textures subdirectory are Portable Network Graphics (PNG) files, which you can view or edit in graphics applications such as Microsoft Paint on Microsoft Windows systems. You can also use a tool such as Blockbench to work with the JSON model files and PNG images.

[/os/windows/software/games/minecraft] permanent link

Sat, May 25, 2024 10:05 pm

Using MakeMKV for ripping DVDs and for other A/V tasks

If you wish to "rip" a DVD, i.e., create a video file on a disk drive from the DVD, one free program you can use on Microsoft Windows systems or Mac OS X systems is MakeMKV. The software can also be used to extract a video file from an ISO image of a DVD.

[ More Info ]

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

Fri, May 17, 2024 3:10 pm

View RDP Firewall Rule using PowerShell

If a Microsoft Windows system is running the Microsoft Defender Firewall, firewall software that comes with Microsoft Windows systems, you can check on whether connectivity is allowed on a particular network port from a command-line interface (CLI) using PowerShell. You can determine whether the Windows Firewall is active on a system from a command prompt using the command netsh advfirewall show currentprofile. If the value of "State" is "ON", then the Windows Firewall is active on the system.

C:\>netsh advfirewall show currentprofile

Domain Profile Settings:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
State                                 ON
Firewall Policy                       BlockInbound,AllowOutbound
LocalFirewallRules                    N/A (GPO-store only)
LocalConSecRules                      N/A (GPO-store only)
InboundUserNotification               Enable
RemoteManagement                      Disable
UnicastResponseToMulticast            Enable

Logging:
LogAllowedConnections                 Disable
LogDroppedConnections                 Disable
FileName                              %systemroot%\system32\LogFiles\Firewall\pfirewall.log
MaxFileSize                           4096

Ok.


C:\>

You can check on whether the firewall is permitting connectivity on a particular network port, e.g., TCP port 3389 for the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), from a PowerShell prompt, which you can obtain by typing powershell in the Windows "Search" field at the bottom of the screen and then clicking on Windows PowerShell when you see it returned by the search function. At the PowerShell prompt, you can issue the command Get-NetFirewallPortFilter | Where-Object { $_.LocalPort -eq 3389 } | Get-NetFirewallRule. If you wished to check on whether firewall connectivity is permitted for some other protocol, substitute the port used by that protocol, e.g., port 22 for Secure Shell (SSH) connections.

[ More Info ]

[/os/windows/software/security/firewall] permanent link

Mon, May 06, 2024 10:31 pm

Stopping automatic updates to Microsoft Paint and other Microsoft Store apps

When I sat down at a system running the Microsoft Windows 11 operating system on Saturday, I saw a message stating that Microsoft Paint had updated itself automatically. I had at least a dozen Paint windows open where I had posted screenshots over the past week for things I wanted to check later. I had not saved those Paint windows; I had anticipated going through them on Saturday, extracting information I wanted to keep from some images and then closing the windows and saving others. But I found the update had just closed them all without any prompt asking whether I wanted to save them and without saving the images. So I lost all the information from them irretrievably. Certainly, I should have saved the images in those Paint windows or used some other graphics application that automatically saves the contents of windows for that application or at least won't automatically update itself without saving any unsaved work, but I'm still irritated at the mindset of Microsoft developers regarding not caring about the impact to users if users have unsaved content in Microsoft applications, in addition to being irked with myself for not saving the information. I do use Paint a lot for simple graphics tasks, such as cropping and resizing screenshots, and I don't want it updating itself without warning when that may lead to a loss of information I haven't yet saved. You can determine when a Microsoft Store app was last updated and turn off automatic updates for apps obtained from the Microsoft Store, though you have to turn off the auto update feature for all apps, since there is not a way to do it only for a particular app, such as Paint.

[ More Info ]

[/os/windows/software/graphics/mspaint] permanent link

Mon, Mar 18, 2024 8:47 pm

Removing admin rights from programs running in a Sandboxie sandbox

Sandboxie is a free and open-source program that runs on systems using the Microsoft Windows operating system that allows you to run other programs in a secure sandbox. If you wish to run programs in Sandboxie without the programs having administrative rights, even if you are running Sandboxie from an account that is in the system's administrator group, you can do so by editing the Sandboxie configuration file, Sandboxie.ini. The file will usually be in the C:\Windows folder on most systems running a Microsoft Windows operating system. Sandboxie will first look for its configuration file in C:\Windows, but if it doesn't find the file there, it will then look in the Sandboxie installation folder, which will usually be C:\Program Files\Sandboxie or C:\Program Files\Sandboxie-Plus. When it finds an instance of the file, it will not check other locations. There is a DropAdminRights setting that can be used in the file. If you set the value to y for a sandbox, then any programs running in the sandbox will have administrative rights stripped from them, i.e,. the security credentials used to start the sandbox won't include membership in the Administrators and Power Users groups. If you are running Sandboxie from an account that is not an administrator account, then the setting won't have any effect.

[ More Info ]

[/os/windows/software/security/sandboxie] permanent link

Sun, Aug 13, 2023 6:42 pm

CDisplay Installation File

While installing software that my wife uses on a new PC, I discovered that the developer of CDisplay, David Ayton, died in 2003 and the program is no longer maintained. The application allows one to display comic book archive files, which are files with an extension of .cbr, cbz, .cbt, or .cba — those files are renamed RAR, ZIP, TAR, or ACE files. Since the website where I obtained the software almost two decades ago, www.cdisplay.me, no longer exists, I've placed a Zip file containing the installation program on this website at CDisplay 1.8.1 so that others who might need a copy of the software can access it.

[/os/windows/software/comics] permanent link

Mon, Nov 15, 2021 10:23 pm

Converting a transparent PNG file to GIF in Corel PSP X4

I wanted to convert a transparent PNG file to a transparent GIF file for placement on web pages in an area on the pages that had a black background. I could have modified the code for the pages to use the PNG file that had been provided to me, but I thought I could easily convert the PNG image I had been provided, which was an image of stylized white text on a black background, to a GIF image and just replace the old GIF image on the site with the one I had recently been given. Since I use Corel PaintShop Pro X4 for image editing, I thought I could just use its "save as" feature to resave the file in the GIF format. But when I saved the transparent PNG file as a GIF file expecting transparency to be maintained by clicking on File, selecting Save As and then choosing GIF as the new format for the file, I found that transparency was not maintained in the GIF file. I was able to produce the GIF file I needed by the following steps, however.

[ More Info ]

[/os/windows/software/graphics/corel/psp] permanent link

Sun, Oct 31, 2021 9:53 pm

Trimming an MP4 Video on a Microsoft Windows 10 system

On a Microsoft Windows 10 system, if you wish to save just a portion of a video that is in MP4 format, you can do so if you are viewing the video in the Movies & TV application, which is the default program for playing videos, by clicking on the pencil icon near the bottom, right side of the window. If you double-click on the file for the video, it will likely open in the Movies & TV app, but if that is not the default program for playing videos, you should be able to open it in the program by right-clicking on the file and choosing Open with then selecting Movies & TV. Once you click on the pencil item in the application, you can then choose Trim which appears beneath Edit in Photos. You should then see white circles at the beginning and end of a white line at the bottom of the video that represents the length of the video. You can drag those white circles to the points in the video that you wish to be the starting and stopping points for the video. E.g., if I had a video that was several hours long, but I only wanted the first hour of the video, I could drag the white circle at the bottom, ride side of the window to the left until I saw 1:00, which represents 1 hour and 0 minutes. Once you have just the portion of the video timeline you want isolated with the white circles, click on Save as, which appears near the top, right side of the window next to an icon that depicts a pencil over a 3 1/2" floppy disk. You can then chose a file name you want for the new copy as the program doesn't change your original file, but makes a copy with just the portion of the original file you opted to save. By default, the program will append "_trim" to the original file name. If it is a large video, you may need to wait a few minutes for the new file to be created from the larger original file.

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

Wed, Apr 22, 2020 4:44 pm

Disabling the execution of JavaScript in Foxit Reader

If you are concerned about malicious JavaScript being hidden inside a PDF file, you can upload the file to Google's VirusTotal site which will scan the file with many antimalware programs. The scan results will show if any of the dozens of antivirus programs the site uses in its scans have detected malware in the file. However, for additional security, you may want to know if the file contains code that will automatically be executed when you open the file in a PDF viewer or if it contains embedded JavaScript. The VirusTotal site will provide that information. For PDF files, you will see "pdf" displayed in a gray oval underneath the file that was scanned. If there is code within the PDF file that will automatically be executed when you open the file, next to that oval will be another one with "autoaction" in it. Embedded JavaScript is denoted by an oval with "js-embedded" within it. Just because you see "autoaction" or "js-embedded" doesn't mean the JavaScript is malicious, but if you want to ensure any malicious JavaScript isn't executed, if you are using the Foxit Reader program to view PDF files, you can disable its execution of JavaScript.

To disable the execution of JavaScript in Foxit Reader Version 5.3.1.0606, take the following steps:

  1. From the menu at the top of the Foxit Reader window, click on Tools and select Preferences.
  2. Click on JavaScript on the left side of the Preferences window that will open and then uncheck the check box for "Enable JavaScript Actions."

    Foxit Reader - disabling JavaScript

Also click on Trust Manager from the Prferences menu and make sure that the "Enable Safe Reading Mode" check box is checked. In the description of that setting, you will see "Foxit recommends that you check this option for controlling unauthorized actions and data transmissions; including URL connections, launching external files and running JavaScript functions to efficiently avoid attacks from malicious documents."

Foxit Reader - disabling JavaScript

[/os/windows/software/pdf/Foxit] permanent link

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