Category: Windows

Windows has a path length limit that are typically at the order of 250 (260 for Windows 10) that’s a pain in the butt when moving files. Despite you can override it, it’s no fun when you copy a jillion files just to find out a few can’t make it because the path is too long and you have to find out which ones are not copied!

There’s a short command to check if the path exceed certain number of characters, which I recommend testing for 240 character so you can at least have a 10+ character folder on the root folder to put the files in:

powershell: cmd /c dir /s /b |? {$_.length -gt 240}

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• Microsoft Edge does default search provider is set using opensearch: you need to go to www.Google.com first before the Google option is available in the “Change Search Provider” lists. Otherwise all you’ll see is a disabled option
• EasyBCD messes up the boot menu under UEFI. VisualBCD Editor is too low level. Use BootICE instead: it’s simple and free. It was designed for up to Windows 8.1, but it works for Windows 10.

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Windows 10 cannot access network file shares of older Windows (7 and before) out of the box, and I’m not impressed that Microsoft let millions of users waste their productivity to figure it out.

The issue is caused by SMB negotiatons. Basically at the time of writing, there are 3 major versions of SMB:

More accurately, this blog post provides the negotiation chart for up to Windows 8 (think of Windows 10 is the same for now).

Turn on SMB 1.0 in newer Windows (8, 10 and above):

The SMB v1 does not have encryption, therefore a security risk. Makes sense to disable it unless there’s a compelling reason (like obsolete industrial computer under tightly controlled network).

SMB v2 might need to be enabled by registry in Windows 2008 if not already done so:

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters
SMB2 (DWORD): 1 for enable, 0 for disable

This web page tells you how to turn on/off each SMB version individually.

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My sister’s computer is was infected with a bunch of stubborn malware. Even after cleaning the offending files, a lot of things won’t wouldn’t work.

Windows Update, run sfc /scannow, or DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image fails with unknown reasons, which I found it somehow related to “Windows Module Installer” service not running.

I saw something weird in services.msc: “Windows Module Installer” doesn’t exist, but I know the underlying name is “TrustedIntaller” and noticed a service named as such is there, but it cannot be started, nor there are any descriptive information.

So I searched registry for “TrustedInstaller” and got to its entry. I noticed these two:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\TrustedInstaller]
"DisplayName"="@%SystemRoot%\\servicing\\TrustedInstaller.exe,-100"
"Description"="@%SystemRoot%\\servicing\\TrustedInstaller.exe,-101"

It means the meaningful names and descriptions I saw on services.msc are generated by calling the underlying  service executable file with switches. I checked my “C:\Windows\servicing” and found that “TrustedInstaller.exe” is not there at all! Of course you cannot start a service where the file does not exist at the promised path (ImagePath).

I searched the hard drive and found only one instance of the file stored somewhere (like C:\Windows\winsxs\x86_microsoft-windows-trustedinstaller_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7600.16385_none_90e389a7ae7a4b6c) and I tried to move the file to “C:\Windows\servicing”. However the ownership and permissions to write to “C:\Windows\servicing” goes to “TrustedInstaller” account, not “Administrator”, so I took the ownership, gave Administrator full rights, then move the file over.

Everything worked after that! Just the mere trick of deleting TrustedInstaller.exe is enough to make the user miserable trying to clean the system up! “sfc /scannow” or the like requires TrustedInstaller/WIM to be working in the first place, so you cannot use it to repair TrustedInstaller/WIM problems.

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Turns out it is as easy as typing “shell:sendto” in the address bar of Windows Explorer. If I knew about it a decade ago, I would have used it more often.

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Back in the days, we use “net send” to display dialog boxes (I used it to chat with my friend after we dial up to the other’s computer).

Since Windows XP, there’s a more intuitive tool to do the same. It’s convenient if you want to add GUI interactions so that the user won’t ignore the text on the command prompt screen:

msg %SESSIONNAME% "your message goes here"

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