Category Archives: Windows

How to install Windows or Linux from USB? 6 solutions

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01 -ISO to USB

A free and small software that can burn the ISO image file directly to the USB drives, these USB drives include USB flash drives, memory sticks and other USB storage devices, it also supports to create a bootable USB disk with Windows operating systems. Freeware.

Works most of the times, grade: 6 out of 10.

http://www.isotousb.com/

02 – Rufus

Rufus is a utility that helps format and create bootable USB flash drives, such as USB keys/pendrives, memory sticks, etc. It can be especially useful for cases where:

  • you need to create USB installation media from bootable ISOs (Windows, Linux, UEFI, etc.)
  • you need to work on a system that doesn’t have an OS installed
  • you need to flash a BIOS or other firmware from DOS
  • you want to run a low-level utility

Works very well without know issues. grade: 10 out of 10.

https://rufus.akeo.ie/

[rufus screenshot]

03 – Windows USB/DVD Download Tool

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/windows-usb-dvd-download-tool

http://wudt.codeplex.com/

Works sometimes, most of the times doesn’t work. grade: 3 out of 10.

The Windows USB/DVD Download tool allows you to create a copy of your Windows 7/8 ISO file on a USB flash drive or a DVD. To create a bootable DVD or USB flash drive, download the ISO file and then run the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool. Once this is done, you can install Windows 7 or Windows 8 directly from the USB flash drive or DVD.

04 – UNetbootin

UNetbootin allows you to create bootable Live USB drives for Ubuntu and other Linux distributions without burning a CD.

screenshot

http://unetbootin.github.io/

05 – Universal USB Installer

Universal USB Installer aka UUI is a Live Linux USB Creator that allows you to choose from a selection of Linux Distributions to put on your USB Flash Drive. The UniversalUSB Installer is easy to use. Simply choose a Live Linux Distribution, the ISO file, your Flash Drive and, Click Install. Upon completion, you should have a ready to run bootable USB Flash Drive with your select operating system installed. Other features include; Persistence (if available) – note that casper persistence will only work with fat16 or fat32 formatted drives.

Universal USB Installer Steps

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/universal-usb-installer-easy-as-1-2-3/

06 – PenDriveLinux

Easily install your favorite Linux operating system on a flash drive or USB key no larger than your thumb (Thumb Drive). YourPortable Linux operating system can then be taken with you, and run from any computer that can boot from the USB flash device. Bring your operating system, applications, files, email, bookmarked favorites, games and more with you. It’s your very own portable operating system you can carry in your pocket.

Portable USB Linux Desktop Screenshot with Compiz

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/

07 – Win32 Disk Imager

Image result for win32diskimager

Keywords

  • Usb drive
  • UsbDrive
  • Boot
  • Usbboot
  • Rufus
  • Win32 usb
  • Boot from USB
  • Win32diskimager
  • Win32 Disk imager
  • ISO
  • IMG
  • Extract Image
  • Extract ISO
  • Copy ISO
  • Flash image
  • Burn image
  • Make usb bootable
  • bootable
  • Ubunti image flash

Install & Run Windows/WinPE on a USB drive!

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WinToUSB is a free software that allows you to install and run Windows operating system on a USB hard drive or USB flash drive, using an ISO image or CD/DVD drive as the source of installation. In the newest version you can clone current Windows OS (Windows 7 or later) to a USB drive as a Windows To Go Workspace. WinToUSB also support creating bootable WinPE USB drive, it can help you to transfer the contents of WinPE to the USB drive and make the drive bootable.

Read more here and download WinToUsb:

http://www.easyuefi.com/wintousb/

NAPS2 (Not Another PDF Scanner 2)

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NAPS2 is a document scanning application with a focus on simplicity and ease of use. Scan your documents from WIA- and TWAIN-compatible scanners, organize the pages as you like, and save them as PDF, TIFF, JPEG, PNG, and other file formats. Requires .NET Framework 4.0 or higher.

NAPS2 is currently available in 17 different languages. Want to see NAPS2 in your preferred language? Help translate! See the wiki for more details.

This is a fork of the NAPS project with many bug fixes and other improvements.

 

How to create bootable windows on USB Flash disk (disk on key)

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How to create bootable windows on USB disk on key

1. On windows 8, at the search bar of windows, search for windows to go:

2. Enter at the Search Bar: “Windows to go”.

3. Open “Windows to go” and follow the instruction there.

4. Note 1: You will have to use Windows 8 Enterprise edition only.

5. Note 2: USB Flash drive need to be at least 32GB.

6. Note 3: You will have to supply .WIN image file which locates on the installation disk of windows under sources directory.

Experience Index scores in Windows

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Method 01:
01 - Open command prompt - cmd.
02 - Enter: winsat prepop
03 - Wait till it finishes.
04 - Open PowerShell.
05 - Enter: Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_WinSAT
06 - Results:
PerformanceIndexWin8.1
CPUScore is the score for the processors on the PC.
D3DScore is the score for the 3D graphics capabilities of the PC.
DiskScore is the score for the sequential read throughput on the system hard disk.
GraphicsScore is the score for the graphics capabilities of the PC.
MemoryScore is the score for the memory throughput and capacity of the PC.
Method 02:
01 - Browse to %WINDIR%PerformanceWinSATDataStore
02 - Double click on Formal.Assessment (Initial).WinSAT
03 - View data under WinSpr block.
Method 03: 
01 - Run CMD as admin.
02 - Type at CMD the following: Winsat formal -restart
03 - Browse to %WINDIR%PerformanceWinSATDataStore
04 - Open <date.time>.Formal.Assessment (Initial).WinSAT.XML file.
05 - Find data under WinSPR.

 

Freeing Disk Space on C: Windows Server 2008

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Freeing Disk Space on C: Windows Server 2008

  • Deleting any files/folders from C:windowstemp and C:Users%UserName%AppDataLocalTemp
  • Delete all EventViewer logs
    • Save to another Disk if you want to keep them
  • Remove any unused programs, e.g. Firefox
  • Remove anything in C:inetpublogs
  • Remove any file/folders C:WindowsSystem32LogFiles
  • Remove any file/folders from C:Users%UserName%Downloads
  • Remove any file/folders able to be removed from C:Users%UserName%Desktop
  • Remove any file/folders able to be removed from C:Users%UserName%My Documents
  • Stop Windows Update service and remove all files/folders from C:WindowsSoftwareDistribution
  • Deleting an Event Logs
  • Run COMPCLN.exe
  • Move the Virtual Memory file to another disk

However this wasn’t enough & I found the most space was cleared by using the Disk Cleanup tool “cleanmgr.exe” but of course this isn’t installed by default on Windows Server 2008.
In order to get the Disk Cleanup you need to go to Server Manager > Add Features > and turn on “Desktop Experience”

desktop_experience

After running the Disk Cleanup I found this gem “Hibernation File Cleaner” was using almost 7.45 GB, I’m pretty

sure I don’t need Hibernate functionality on an always on Web Server.

hibernation_file_cleaner

 

Derived from:
http://blog.willbeattie.net/2013/06/freeing-disk-space-on-c-windows-server.html

Windows Directory Statistics

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WinDirStat is a disk usage statistics viewer and cleanup tool for various versions of Microsoft Windows.

Note: if you are looking for an alternative for Linux, you are looking for KDirStat (apt-get install kdirstat on Debian-derivatives) and for MacOS X it would be Disk Inventory X or GrandPerspective.

Please visit the WinDirStat blog for more up-to-date information about the program.

On start up, it reads the whole directory tree once and then presents it in three useful views:

  • The directory list, which resembles the tree view of the Windows Explorer but is sorted by file/subtree size,
  • The treemap, which shows the whole contents of the directory tree straight away,
  • The extension list, which serves as a legend and shows statistics about the file types.

Screenshot

The treemap represents each file as a colored rectangle, the area of which is proportional to the file’s size. The rectangles are arranged in such a way, that directories again make up rectangles, which contain all their files and subdirectories. So their area is proportional to the size of the subtrees. The color of a rectangle indicates the type of the file, as shown in the extension list. The cushion shading additionally brings out the directory structure.

Derived from here:
https://windirstat.info/index.html
 
Download from here:
https://windirstat.info/download.html

Keyword to find this post

Win Disk Stat, WinDiskStat, Hard Disk space, hdd space, Disk free space, Disk Stat, Disk statistics, hdd free disk space, free space

Windows Installer Folder – Is it safe to delete

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Windows Installer Folder – Is it safe to delete

Over time this folder can grow to over a Gigabyte or more in size. Some laptops that may only be a few years old could have relatively small hard drives and free drive space is at a premium. Here is a relatively simple solution to the problem.

Background Information:
The C:WindowsInstaller folder is where some but not all applications uninstall files and folders are stored. In my previous article on using a utility named “msizap” I showed how you can reduce the size of this folder by deleting orphaned files. However on a well maintained computer you may not have all that many orphaned files and msizap can only recover a small amount of drive space. So try running msizap first and if there is still a large amount of space being consumed then it’s time for the next suggestion.

Backing up or Relocating the Installer files and folders:
For laptop or desktop users burn the contents of the Installer folder to a DVD (even if you have more than 12GB of files and folders it’s only 3 DVD(s). You can use an external USB drive but if the drive should fail then all is lost. After the files have be safely burned to DVD media then delete everything under the C:WindowsInstaller folder.

Warning:
Once you have deleted these files you will no longer be able to uninstall some of your applications. As a test I tried uninstalling at random applications listed in the Control Panel’s Add or Remove program list. Two software applications uninstalled just fine, Turbo Tax did start the uninstall process but failed to complete, MS Office 2007 Visio Viewer gave a warning that it could not uninstall and asked to insert the CD Media. MS Office 2003 gave a warning about not being able to find the “Msocache” folder. For more information on the Msocache folder see: “Local Install Source (Msocache)” http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=825933#appliesto

I After I restored the files/folders back into the C:WindowsInstaller folder I tried to uninstall Turbo Tax again but found that clicking on the “Change/Remove” button did nothing. Retrying to uninstall the Visio Viewer work fine and the product was uninstalled. MS Office also uninstalled properly after I had copied all the installer files
and folders back.

Conclusion:
Backing up the files and folders to a DVD and then deleting the contents of the
C:WindowsInstaller folder can free up valuable disk space. Just remember to restore
these files and folders before you try to uninstall any software. After you have uninstalled
the unwanted software application then (since you have a DVD backup) delete the
files/folders once again until the next time they are needed.

 

Driveled from:
http://www.pagestart.com/windowsinstallerfolder.html

Enable Hyper-V on Windows 8

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Enable Hyper-V on Windows 8

Note 1: it will work on windows 8 enterprise / Pro / Ultimate and etc.

Note 2: You need to enable Hyper-V on bios.

Step 1: Open Control Panel and select Program and Features:

HyperV1

 

Step 2: Click on “Turn Windows features on or off”:

HyperV2

 

Step 3: Check “Hyper-V”:

HyperV3

 

Step 4: Run “Hyper-V Manager”:

HyperV4

 

Howto switch from Windows Server 2012 Standard Server to Windows Server 2012 Datacenter Server without having to reinstall

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open an administrative power shell session and pop your new key in using the dism tool

dism /online /set-edition:ServerDatacenter /productkey:<Datacenter key, e.g. AAAAA-BBBBB-CCCCC-DDDDD-EEEEE> /AcceptEula

http://community.spiceworks.com/how_to/show/30293-howto-switch-from-windows-server-2012-standard-server-to-windows-server-2012-datacenter-server-without-having-to-reinstall

 

HOW TO DISABLE PASSWORD EXPIRY AND COMPLEXITY REQUIREMENTS IN WINDOWS 2008

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HOW TO DISABLE PASSWORD EXPIRY AND COMPLEXITY REQUIREMENTS IN WINDOWS 2008

1) Load Group Policy Editor ( Start –> Run –> gpedit.msc )

2) Expand sections as follows:

Computer Configuration –> Windows Settings –> Security Settings –> Account Policies –>

Password Policy Set ‘Maximum password age’ to 0 to totally disable expiry.

Password Complexity Requirements set to Disable.