[ More Info ]

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

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

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

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

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

[ More Info ]

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

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

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."

   

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."

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

I then clicked on the link for "Installer" rather than "Windows Installer on the website from which I had downloaded the installation file, which resulted in a .jar file being downloaded. I right-clicked on the .jar file, forge-1.12.2-14.23.5.2768-installer.jar, and chose "Open with" then "Java(TM) Platform SE binary". I was then able to install the Minecraft client. When the client was successfully installed, I saw the message "Successfully installed client profile forger for version forge 1.12.2-14.23.5.2768 into launcher and grabbed 1 required libraries."

Note: These are notes from an October 12, 2019 installation that I hadn't posted, but I am posting now in case I encounter a similar error again.

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

If you installed UltraVNC, which is free and open-source software, to provide Virtual Network Computing (VNC) connectivity from/to a system for remote administration capabilities, but haven't enabled the UltraVNC server service to allow the system itself to be managed remotely, you can enable that service by taking the following steps:

1. Run the uvnc_settings.exe program, which you can find in the directory where you installed UltraVNC. You will need to provide the login credentials for an account with administrator-level access on the system.
2. Click on the Service tab then click on the Install Service button, which will install the software as a service, i.e. as a function provided by a server, on the system.
3. Once the service is installed, you can click on the Start Service button to run the service.
4. You can set the password to be used for VNC connections by clicking on the Security tab. You can set two passwords. The "VNC Password" will allow remote control of the system whereas the "View-Only Password" will only allow viewing the display on the system, which is helpful if you want to show someone what is happening on the system without giving the person the ability to control the system. You can then click on the OK button to close the UltraVNC settings window.

[ More Info ]

[/os/windows/software/remote-control/vnc/ultravnc] permanent link