Posts Tagged ‘cmd’

How to install Toshiba Satellite L40 B14 Wireless Adapter ( ID 0bda:8197 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8187B) on Ubuntu and Debian Linux

Thursday, April 28th, 2011

https://www.pc-freak.net/images/toshiba-satellite-l40

How to install Toshiba L40 B14 Wireless Adapter ( ID 0bda:8197 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8187B) on Ubuntu and Debian Linux
I've been struggling for more than 10 hours to fix up issues on a Ubuntu Maverick-Meerkaat with a rtl8187B Wireless Adapter

The RTL8187B almost drove me mad. I could see the wlan0 which meant the kernel is detecting the device, I could even bring it up with ifconfig wlan0 up , however when I tried it in gnome's network-manager or wicd the wireless networks were not showing up.

Trying to scan for networks using the commands:


ubuntu:~# iwlist wlan0 scan

was also unsuccesful, trying to bring up and down the wireless wlan0 interface with:


ubuntu:~# iwconfig wlan0 up

or


ubuntu:~# iwconfig wlan0 down

Both returned the error:
iwconfig: unknown command "up" and iwconfig: unknown command "down"

Running simply iwconfig was properly returning information about my Wireless Interface wlan0 :


wlan0 IEEE 802.11bg ESSID:off/any
Mode:Managed Access Point: Not-Associated Tx-Power=20 dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off

The exact information I could get about the wireless device was via the command:


ubuntu:~# lsusb | grep realtek
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0bda:8197 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8187B Wireless Adapter

Trying manually to scan for wireless networks from console or gnome-terminal with command returned also the below weird results:


ubuntu:~# iwconfig wlan0 scan
iwconfig: unknown command "scan"

More oddly tunning wlan0 interface with commands like:


ubuntu:~# iwconfig wlan0 mode managed
ubuntu:~# iwconfig wlan0 essid ESSID
ubuntu:~# iwconfig wlan0 rate 11M

were succesful …

I read a bunch of documentation online concerning the wireless card troubles on Ubuntu, Gentoo, Debian etc.

Just few of all the resources I've read and tried are:

http://rtl-wifi.sourceforge.net/wiki/Main_Page (Returning empty page already a lot resource)
http://rtl8187b.sourceforge.net (A fork of rtl-wifi.sourceforge.net which is still available though it was not usable)

Some of the other resources which most of the people recommended as a way to properly install the RTL8187B wireless driver on linux was located on the website:

http://datanorth.net/~cuervo/rtl8187b/ (Trying to access this page returned a 404 error e.g. this page is no-longer usable)

I found even a webpage in Ubuntu Help which claimed to explain how to properly install and configure the RTL8187B wireless driver on which is below:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Device/RealtekRTL8187b

Even the Ubuntu help instructions were pointing me to the broken cuervo's website URL

Anyways I was able to find the rtl8187b-modified-dist.tar.gz online and made a mirror of rtl8187b-modified-dist.tar.gz which you can download here

Another rtl8187b driver I found was on a toshiba website made especailly for the wireless linux drivers:

http://linux.toshiba-dme.co.jp/linux/eng/pc/sat_PSPD0_report.htm

The questionable file which was claimed to properly be able to make the Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8187B Wireless Adapter to work out was called rl8187b-modified-804.tar.gz.
I've made a mirror of rtl8187b-modified-804.tar.gz is here

None of the driver archives rtl8187b-modified-dist.tar.gz and rl8187b-modified-804.tar.gz that was supposed to make the Toshiba L40 realtek wireless to work out, after compiling and installing the drivers from source worked out …

Both archives produced plenty of error messages and it seems on newer kernels like the one on this notebook:

Linux zlatina 2.6.35-28-generic #50-Ubuntu SMP Fri Mar 18 19:00:26 UTC 2011 i686 GNU/Linux, they're no longer usable.

The compile errors I got when I tried compiling the rtl8187b driver provided by the archive rtl8187b-modified-dist were:


root@ubuntu:/home/zlatina/rtl8187b-modified# sh makedrv
rm -fr *.mod.c *.mod *.o .*.cmd *.mod.* *.ko *.o *~
make -C /lib/modules/2.6.35-28-generic/build M=/home/zlatina/rtl8187b-modified/ieee80211 CC=gcc modules
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.35-28-generic'
scripts/Makefile.build:49: *** CFLAGS was changed in "/home/zlatina/rtl8187b-modified/ieee80211/Makefile". Fix it to use EXTRA_CFLAGS. Stop.
make[1]: *** [_module_/home/zlatina/rtl8187b-modified/ieee80211] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.35-28-generic'
make: *** [modules] Error 2
rm -fr *.mod.c *.mod *.o .*.cmd *.ko *~
make -C /lib/modules/2.6.35-28-generic/build M=/home/zlatina/rtl8187b-modified/rtl8187 CC=gcc modules
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.35-28-generic'
scripts/Makefile.build:49: *** CFLAGS was changed in "/home/zlatina/rtl8187b-modified/rtl8187/Makefile". Fix it to use EXTRA_CFLAGS. Stop.
make[1]: *** [_module_/home/zlatina/rtl8187b-modified/rtl8187] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.35-28-generic'
make: *** [modules] Error 2
root@ubuntu:/home/zlatina/rtl8187b-modified#

Another driver I tried which was found on aircrack-ng.org's website was rtl8187_linux_26.1010.zip

Here are the error messages I experienced while I tried to compile the realtek wireless driver from the archive rtl8187_linux_26.1010.0622.2006


compilation terminated.
make[2]: *** [/home/zlatina/rtl8187_linux_26.1010.0622.2006/beta-8187/r8187_core.o] Error 1
make[1]: *** [_module_/home/zlatina/rtl8187_linux_26.1010.0622.2006/beta-8187] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.35-28-generic'
make: *** [modules] Error 2
make: *** [modules] Error 2

I tried a number of fix ups hoping to solve the compile error messages, but my efforts were useless, as it seems many things has changed in newer Ubuntu versions and they could no longer be compiled.

As I realized I couldn't make the native drivers provided by the above sources compile, I decided to give a try to the Windows drivers for Realtek 8187B with ndiswrapper, a link for download of Realtek 8187B (RTL8187B_XP_6.1163.0331.2010_Win7_62.1182.0331.2010_UI_1.00.0179 is found here

I untarred the
RTL8187B_XP driver
and used ndiswrapper to load driver like so:


root@ubuntu:~# tar -zxvf
RTL8187B_XP_6.1163.0331.2010_Win7_....L.tar.gz
root@ubuntu:/home/zlatina/RTL8187B#
root@ubuntu:/home/zlatina/RTL8187B# cd Driver/WinXP
root@ubuntu:/home/zlatina/RTL8187B/Driver/WinXP# ndiswrapper -i net8187b.inf

In order to test the RTL8178B Windows driver I used:


root@ubuntu:~# ndiswrapper -l
net8187b : driver installed
device (0BDA:8197) present (alternate driver: rtl8187)

To finally load the Windows XP RTL8187B driver on the Ubuntu I used again ndiswrapper:


root@ubuntu:~# ndiswrapper -m

Further on I used the ndisgtk graphical ndiswrapper interface to once again test if the Windows driver is working on the Ubuntu and it seemed like it is working, however still my wicd was unable to find any wireless network ….

There were many online documentation which claimed that the driver for rtl8187b works out of the box on newer kernel releases (kernel versions > 2.6.24)

Finally I found out there is a driver which is a default one with the Ubuntu e.g. rtl8187.ko , I proceeded and loaded the module:


root@ubuntu:~# modprobe rtl8187

I also decided to check out if the hardware switch button of the Toshiba Satellite L40 notebook is not switched off and guess what ?! The Wireless ON/OFF button was switched OFF!!! OMG …

I switched on the button and wicd immediately started showing up the wireless networks …

To make the rtl8187 module load on Ubuntu boot up, I had to issue the command:


root@ubuntu:~# echo 'rtl8187' >> /etc/modules

Voila after all this struggle the wireless card is working now, it's sad I had to loose about 10 hours of time until I come with the simple solution of using the default provided ubuntu driver rtl8187 , what is strange is how comes that it does not load up automatically.

Thanks God it works now.

Disable Windows hibernate on a work notebook or Desktop Gamers PC – Save a lot of Space on Windows C Drive, delete hidefil.sys howto

Thursday, May 18th, 2017

how-to-to-disable-stop-hibernate-windows-8-10-to-save-disk-space-and-get-rid-of-hbierfil.sys-misteriously-occupying-space-improve-windows-performance

Some Windows  laptop / desktop users prefer not to shutdown computers (especially those coming back from Mac OS backgound) at the end of the day but  hibernate instead.

Hibernate is a great thing but historically we know well that in Windows hibernate is working much worser than on Macs and it is common that after multiple hibernates you will face problems with missing  C: drive space is it might be "misteriously" decreasing in a way that the PC performance degrades as the C:hibfile.sys hidden file occupies few 16Gigas or so (the occupied space by hibfile.sys does resemble the installed RAM Memory on the computer, so if your PC has 16Gigas the hibfile.sys will be lets say approximately 15 Gigabytes)

However most users never use hibernate and might never use it for a life time, especially those on a Desktop Windows PCs, I use Windows as a WorkStation as an employee of DXC (the ex Hewlett Packard or Hewlett Packard Enterprise that merged with CSC) but to be honest I've used hibernate function very raraly on the notebook, thus I find the hibernate more or less useless feature, especially because at many times I try to wake-up the PC after hibernate the computer boots but the display stays dark and I have to restart the Computer before I can go back to normal work operations. Of course my Windows 7 hibernation issues might be caused do to the corporate software installed on my PC or because the fact the hard drive is encrypted but nomatter that in my case and I guess in case of many the hibernate function on Windows 7 / 8 / 10 might be totally useless.
 


Few works is Hiberfil.sys File and Why you might want to complete disable / delete it


On Windows 7 / 8 / 10 the hiberfil.sys file is being used to store the PC current state at time of hibernation, so if you have to move from a place to place within an organization / university / office without a charger hibernation is a really nice way to save battery power without later wasting time for additional PC boot (where a lot of power is wasted for Operationg System to load and re-opening the opened Browser etc.

So in short sleeping the PC with Hibernate function does cause the Computer to write into C:hiberfil.sys all data at the moment stored in the PC RAM (Memory), which is being cleared up at time of Computer being in Sleep mode.
Once the computer receives a Wake-up call from the hibernation in order to present with the Desktop at the same state hiberfile.sys stored information is being red and transferred to PC flushable RAM so the RAM memory is again filled with same bits it used to have right before the hibernation was made.

Because hiberfil.sys is a system file it has the hidden attribute and it can only be write / read by a Administrator Win account and usually it is not a good idea to touch it

Some people haven't shutdown Windows for 20-30 days and especially if Windows has disabled updates it happens for some users to use the hibernate function for weeks (re-hibernating and waking up thousand times) for long periods so the effect is the hiberfile.sys might become gigantic and if you take the time to check what is file or directory is wasting all your C:> drive with leys say WinDirStat or SpaceSniffer you will notice the lets say 15Gigas being eaten by Hiberfil.sys.

Disable of hibfile.sys is also a great tip for Gamers desktop PCs as most gamers won't use hibernate function at all.

I. How to Disable Hibernate Mode in Windows 10, 8, 7, or Vista


In order to get rid of the file across Windows 7 / 8 / 10

Open command prompt (as an Administartor, right click on the Command Prompt cmd.exe and choose Run as Administartor) and issue below cmd:

disable-hibernate-on-windows-7-8-10-powercfg-off-screenshot

C:> powercfg -h off

If later you decide you need the hibernate function again active on the PC or notebook do issue:

C:> powercfg -h on

You’re likely reading this because you noticed a gigantic hiberfil.sys file sitting on your system drive and you’re wondering if you can get rid of it to free up some space. Here’s what that file is and how you can delete it if you want to.

 

II. Disable Hibernate Mode in Windows XP

Hibernate function command is not present on Windows XP so in order to remove it on XP (hope you don't use XP any more and you're not a viction of the resent crypt catastrophic ransomware WannaCry 🙂

disable-hibernate-mode-windows-xp-screenshot

Control Panel -> Power Options

In the Power Options properties window, switch to the “Hibernate” tab and disable the “Enable hibernation” option.

After you disable hibernate mode, restart PC, and manually delete the hiberfil.sys file.

Now enjoy free-ing up few gigabytes of useless wasted C: hard drive space from your PC 🙂

Note: Removing hiberfil.sys is a precious thing to do on old Windows Computers which have been made with a little leys say 40Gigabyte partition drive C: whether with the time due to User profile use and Browsing caches the C: drive has left with leys say 1-2 Gigabyte of free space and the computers overall performance has fallen twice or so.

This post is in memoriam of Chriss Cornell (our generation used to grow with grunge and his music was one of the often listened by me and our generation)

R.I.P: Chriss Cornell (the head of SoundGarden and AudioSlave who passed away yesterday right on the day when we in Bulgarian Eastern Orthodox Church commemorate the memory of a great-martyr Nicolay Sofijski (Great Martyr Nicolas from Sofia martyred by Turkish Ottomans during year 1555).

I found surprising fact for me  that Chriss Cornell converted to Greek Eastern Orthodox faith under influence of his Greek Wife, below is paste from his Wikipedia page:

"

Chriss Cornell Personal life (Rest in Peace Chris)

Cornell was married to Susan Silver, the manager of Alice in Chains and Soundgarden.[123] They had a daughter, Lillian Jean, born in June 2000.[123] He and Silver divorced in 2004.[123] In December 2008, Cornell reported via his official website that he had finally won back his collection of 15 guitars after a four-year court battle with Silver.[124]

He was married to Vicky Karayiannis,[125] a Paris-based American publicist of Greek heritage. The union produced a daughter, Toni, born in September 2004, and a son, Christopher Nicholas, born in December 2005.[126] Cornell converted to the Greek Orthodox Church through her influence.[127]

When asked how Cornell beat all his addictions he stated, "It was a long period of coming to the realization that this way (sober) is better. Going through rehab, honestly, did help … it got me away from just the daily drudgery of depression and either trying to not drink or do drugs or doing them and you know, they give you such a simple message that any idiot can get and it's just over and over, but the bottom line is really, and this is the part that is scary for everyone, the individual kinda has to want it … not kinda, you have to want it and to not do that crap anymore or you will never stop and it will just kill you."[128]

In a 2011 interview,[129] Cornell said the major change with the reformed Soundgarden is a lack of alcohol: "The biggest difference I noticed … and we haven't even really talked about it: There are no bottles of Jack Daniel's around or beers. And we never talked about … it's just not there."


Enjoy!

 

Windows missing volume control on Windows 7, 8 Fix / How to run volume control from command line

Thursday, March 9th, 2017

windows-7-missing-volume-controller-bring-back-volume-control-windows-7-command-to-show-volume-control-on-windows-os

 

Windows 7/8 Volume Icon disappear from Taskbar?

If you are using  Windows 7 or  Windows 8 Operating System inside a corporate network and your notebook PC is inside domain controller controlled by some crazy administrators who for some reason decided to remove the Taskbar from your Taskbar tray you have come over to exactly same situation like I do here.

Actually some might have experienced an icon "combined" feature which gives the opportunity of some of the standard Tray icons we know since Windows 98 / XP onwards to not show full time in order to save you space. No doubt this feature is great one to use as it is distracting sometimes to have a tons of applications constantly keeping in the Taskbar (right down corner) however if the Active Domain admin did it without any notification and you're a kind of victim you might dislike especially since this behaviour is making you impossible to easily control your phone / headspeakers and mic.

 

windows-7-8-grouped-taskbar-icons-screenshot-volume-dialog-bar

If you check in the Control Panel and click on Sounds  menu in Windows 7/8, you don't see any checkbox for adding the icon back as I have assumed, , but instead all the audio there you can only see the inputs and outputs on your system general settings.

windows-7-8-control-panel-sounds-dialog-box-properties

This behavior was made on purpose and makes sense cauze the taskbar icons since Win XP (if not mistaken) has to be controlled by the taskbar settings pan.

Thus in order to bring back the disappeared icon on  Winblows 7 / Win 8 there is a taskbar properties feature enabling to to hide or view the various taskbar running apps in that number the Volume icon, hence to bring back your Volme Control speaker icon to taskbar you need to customize it.

To do so do a mouse Right-click anywhere on the taskbar and choose Properties.

taskbar-properties-windows-7-8-dialog

Now, click on the Customize button under Notification area.

taskbar-and-startmenu-menu-properties-customize-taskbar-dialog-bar

In  Notification Area Icons dialog box, there is 2 ticks to check. Assure yourself the volume icon default behavior is set to

Show icon and notifications like in below screenshot

show-icon-notifications-volume-bar-windows-7-8-dialog

To make the new behaviour active click on Turn system icons on or off.

turn-system-icons-on-off-windows-7-8-notification-restore-default-icon-behavior-dialog

One thing to note here is the volume icon shoukld be set to On like in below| shot:

 

turn-system-icons-on-off-volume-icon-on-windows-7-8
If the reason for the disapperance of the Volume controller in task is not due to Domain Controllear policty it could happen due to late updates pushed by Microsoft if the PC needs a restart or after computer Log off operation.
Another reason for the casual disappearance of sound box could be also a buggy driver, so if the icon keeps disappearing over and over again, you better try to update the driver for your sound card.

However if you end up in a Windows Domain Controller (AD) Policy that is prohibiting the Sound Voulme to appear on your taskbar like in my case all the above won't help you solve it, but luckily there is an easy way to invoke the Volume Control dialog box via

 

sndvol.exe

 

the command will bring up the Volume Control as in upper left corner of screen like in below screenshot:

windows-volume-mixer-taskbar-windows-7-8-shot

 

If you to show it with a silder use -f flag

sndvol.exe -f

Running just

sndvol.exe


opens the volume mixer, as you noted.

 

On windows XP the respective command to open a missing Volume Control dialog in taskbar, use instead:

sndvol32

command from Windows Command Prompt:

 

Start -> Run -> cmd.exe

 

sndvol32

no params to display master volume window

 

 

sndvol32 -x

to display small master volume window

sndvol32 -t

to display volume control only (as per sound icon)

If you have the Volume Controller behavior to be hidden or you need to view any other taskbar hidden application icon  it will be useful for you to use:

AutoHotKey Win+B to focus on the system tray, Left (arrow) to highlight the Volume Control icon icon, and then Enter to bring up the popup.

 

A good tip you might be interestted to use occasionally is  how to show the current Wireless networks via a command (if that's prohibited otherwise via GUI) so you can easily see the  Connected Networks on Windows using cmd:

rundll32 van.dll,RunVAN

Check Windows load avarage command – Get CPU usage from Windows XP / 7 / 8 / 2012 server cmd prompt

Wednesday, August 19th, 2015

Check_Windows-load-avarage-command-Get_CPU_usage_from_Windows_XP-7-8-2003-2010-2012_server_cmd_prompt

If you used to be a long years Linux / UNIX sysadmin and you suddenly have to also admistrate a bunch of Windows hosts via RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol)  / Teamviewer etc. and you need to document The Load Avarage of a Windows XP / 7 / 8 servers but you're puzzled how to get an overall load avarage of Windows host via command in a UNIX way like with the good old uptime  Linux / BSD command e.g.

 ruth:$ uptime
 11:43  up 713 days 22:44,  1 user,  load average: 0.22, 0.17, 0.15

Then its time to you to get used to WMICWMIC extends WMI for operation from several command-line interfaces and through batch scripts. wmic is a wonderful command for Command addicted Linux guys and gives a lot of opportunities to query and conduct various sysadmin tasks from Windows command prompt.

To get an loadavarage with wmic use:
 

C:\>wmic cpu get loadpercentage
LoadPercentage
1

 


or
 

@for /f "skip=1" %p in ('wmic cpu get loadpercentage') do @echo %p%
1%
%

 

on Windows 7 / 8 and 10 as well Windows Server 2010 and Windows Server 2012 for more precise CPU loadavarage results, you can also use:
 

C:\> typeperf "\processor(_total)\% processor time"

"(PDH-CSV 4.0)","\\Win-Host\processor(_total)\% processor time"
"08/19/2015 12:52:53.343","0.002288"
"08/19/2015 12:52:54.357","0.000000"
"08/19/2015 12:52:55.371","0.000000"
"08/19/2015 12:52:56.385","0.000000"
"08/19/2015 12:52:57.399","0.000799"
"08/19/2015 12:52:58.413","0.000000"
"08/19/2015 12:52:59.427","0.000286"
"08/19/2015 12:53:00.441","0.000000"
"08/19/2015 12:53:01.455","0.000000"
"08/19/2015 12:53:02.469","0.008678"
"08/19/2015 12:53:03.483","0.000000"
"08/19/2015 12:53:04.497","0.002830"
"08/19/2015 12:53:05.511","0.000621"
"08/19/2015 12:53:06.525","0.768834"
"08/19/2015 12:53:07.539","0.000000"
"08/19/2015 12:53:08.553","1.538296"

 

How to get rid of Debian and Ubuntu GNU / Linux obsolete configuration files and system directories

Wednesday, October 19th, 2011

debian_ubuntu-linux-get-rid-of-obsolete-files
I've been using Debian GNU / Linux on my Thinkpad laptop for almost 3 years and half. Initially the Debian version which I had installed was a stable Debian Lenny. As I was mostly dissatisfied of the old versions of the programs, I migrated to testing / unstable
Testing / unstables shipped program versions were a bit better but still back in the day I wanted to get advantage of the latest program versions so for a while I switched to unstable .
Later I regretted for this bad idea, after the migration to Unstable, it was too buggy to run on a notebook one uses for everyday work.
Then to revert back to a bit stable I downgraded to testing unstable again.
When Debian launched Debian Squeeze I set in my /etc/apt/sources.list file software repositories to be the one for the stable Debian Squeeze.

As you can see, I've done quite a lot of "experiments" and "excersises". Many packages were installed, then removed, some became obsolete with time others I just temporary installed out of curiosity. Anyways as a result I ended up with many packages uninstalled / removed , which still kept some of their directory structres and configurations on the machine.

Today, I decided to check how many of these obsolete packages are still present in dpkg database and I was shocked to find out 412 debs were still in my package database! To check the number I used cmd:

root@noah:~# dpkg -l | grep -i '^rcs.*$'|wc -l

Considering the tremendous number of packs waiting to be purged, I decided to get rid of this old and already unnecessery files for the sake of clarity, besides that removing the old already uninstalled packages removes old configuration files, readmes, directories and frees some little space and therefore frees some inodes 😉

Before proceeding to remove them, I carefully reviewed and all the package names which I was about to completely purge in order to make sure there is no package with a configuration files I might need in future:

root@noah:~# dpkg -l |grep -i '^rcs.*$'
...
After reviewing all the deb packages possessing the rc – (remove candidate) flag, I used the following bash one liners to remove the obsolete deb packages:

root@noah:~# for i in $(dpkg -l |grep -i '^rcs.*$'|awk '{ print $2 }'); do echo dpkg --purge $i done...
root@noah:~# for i in $(dpkg -l |grep -i '^rcs.*$'|awk '{ print $2 }'); do dpkg --purge $i done

First line will just print out what will be purged with dpkg , so after I checked it out I used the second one to purge all the RC packs.

How to search text strings only in hidden files dot (.) files within a directory on Linux and FreeBSD

Saturday, April 28th, 2012

how-to-search-hidden-files-linux-freebsd-logo_grep
If there is necessity to look for a string in all hidden files with all sub-level subdirectories (be aware this will be time consuming and CPU stressing) use:
 

hipo@noah:~$ grep -rli 'PATH' .*

./.gftp/gftprc
./.gftp/cache/cache.OOqZVP
….

Sometimes its necessery to only grep for variables within the first-level directories (lets say you would like to grep a 'PATH' variable set, string within the $HOME directory, the command is:

hipo@noah:~$ grep PATH .[!.]*

.profile:PATH=/bin:/usr/bin/:${PATH}
.profile:export PATH
.profile:# set PATH so it includes user's private bin if it exists
.profile: PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"
.profile.language-env-bak:# set PATH so it includes user's private bin if it exists
.profile.language-env-bak: PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"
.viminfo:?/PATH.xcyrillic: XNLSPATH=/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/nls
.xcyrillic: export XNLSPATH

The regular expression .[!.]*, means exclude any file or directory name starting with '..', e.g. match only .* files

Note that to use the grep PATH .[!.]* on FreeBSD you will have to use this regular expression in bash shell, the default BSD csh or tsch shells will not recognize the regular expression, e.g.:

grep PATH '.[!.]*'
grep: .[!.]*: No such file or directory

Hence on BSD, if you need to look up for a string within the home directory, hidden files: .profile .bashrc .bash_profile .cshrc run it under bash shell:

freebsd# /usr/local/bin/bash
[root@freebsd:/home/hipo]# grep PATH .[!.]*

.bash_profile:# set PATH so it includes user's private bin if it exists
.bash_profile:# PATH=~/bin:"${PATH}"
.bash_profile:# do the same with …

Another easier to remember, alternative grep cmd is:

hipo@noah:~$ grep PATH .*
.profile:PATH=/bin:/usr/bin/:${PATH}
.profile:export PATH
.profile:# set PATH so it includes user's private bin if it exists
.profile: PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"
….

Note that grep 'string' .* is a bit different in meaning, as it will not prevent grep to match filenames with names ..filename1, ..filename2 etc.
Though grep 'string' .* will work note that it will sometimes output some unwanted matches if filenames with double dot in the beginning of file name are there …
That's all folks 🙂

How to install nginx webserver from source on Debian Linux / Install Latest Nginx on Debian

Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011

Nginx install server logo
If you're running a large website consisting of a mixture of php scripts, images and html. You probably have noticed that using just one Apache server to serve all the content is not that efficient

Each Apache child (I assume you're using Apache mpm prefork consumes approximately (20MB), this means that each client connection would consume 20 mb of your server memory.
This as you can imagine is truly a suicide in terms of memory. Each request for a picture, css or simple html file would ask Apache to fork another process and will consume (20mb of extra memory form your server mem capacity)!.

Taking in consideration all this notes and the need for some efficiency here, the administrator should normally think about dividing the processing of the so called static content from the dynamic content served on the server.

Apache is really a nice webserver software but with all the loaded modules to serve dynamic content, for instance php, cgi, python etc., it's becoming not the best solution for handling a (css, javascript, html, flv, avi, mov etc. files).

Even a plain Apache server installation without (libphp, mod_rewrite mod deflate etc.) is still not dealing efficiently enough with the aforementioned static files content

Here comes the question if Apache is not that quick and efficient in serving static files, what then? The answer is caching webserver! By caching the regular static content files, your website visitors will benefit by experiencing shorter webserver responce files in downloading static contents and therefore will generally hasten your website and improve the end user's experience.

There are plenty of caching servers out there, some are a proprietary software and some are free software.

However the three most popular servers out there for static file content serving are:

  • Squid,
  • Varnish
  • Nginx

In this article as you should have already found out by the article title I'll discuss Nginx

You might ask why exactly Nginx and not some of the other twos, well simply cause Squid is too complicated to configure and on the other hand does provide lower performance than Nginx. On the other hand Varnish is also a good solution for static file webserver, but I believe it is not tested enough. However I should mention that my experience with testing varnish on my own home router is quite good by so far.

If you're further interested into varhisn cache I would suggest you checkout www.varhisn-cache.org .

Now as I have said a few words about squid and varhisn let's proceed to the essence of the article and say few words about nginx

Here is a quote describing nginx in a short and good manner directly extracted from nginx.com

nginx [engine x] is a HTTP and reverse proxy server, as well as a mail proxy server written by Igor Sysoev. It has been running for more than five years on many heavily loaded Russian sites including Rambler (RamblerMedia.com). According to Netcraft nginx served or proxied 4.70% busiest sites in April 2010. Here are some of success stories: FastMail.FM, WordPress.com.

By default nginx is available ready to be installed in Debian via apt-get, however sadly enough the version available for install is pretty much outdated as of time of writting the nginx debian version in lenny's deb package repositories is 0.6.32-3+lenny3

This version was release about 2 years ago and is currently completely outdated, therefore I found it is not a good idea to use this old and probably slower release of nginx and I jumped further to install my nginx from source:
Nginx source installation actually is very simple on Linux platforms.

1. As a first step in order to be able to succeed with the install from source make sure your system you have installed the packages:

debian:~# apt-get install libpcre3 libpcre3-dev libpcrecpp0 libssl-dev zlib1g-dev build-essential

2. Secondly download latest nginx source code tarball

Check out on http://nginx.com/download the latest stable release of nginx and further issue the commands below:

debian:~# cd /usr/local/src
debian:/usr/local/src# wget http://nginx.org/download/nginx-0.9.6.tar.gz

3.Unarchive nginx source code

debian:/usr/local/src#tar -zxvvf nginx-0.9.6.tar.gz
...

The nginx server requirements for me wasn't any special so I proceeded and used the nginx ./configure script which is found in nginx-0.9.6

4. Compline nginx server

debian:/usr/local/src# cd nginx-0.9.6
debian:/usr/local/src/nginx-0.9.6# ./configure && make && make install
+ Linux 2.6.26-2-amd64 x86_64
checking for C compiler ... found
+ using GNU C compiler
+ gcc version: 4.3.2 (Debian 4.3.2-1.1)
checking for gcc -pipe switch ... found
...
...

The last lines printed by the nginx configure script are actually the major interesting ones for administration purposes the default complation options in my case were:

Configuration summary
+ using system PCRE library
+ OpenSSL library is not used
+ md5: using system crypto library
+ sha1 library is not used
+ using system zlib library

nginx path prefix: "/usr/local/nginx"
nginx binary file: "/usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx"
nginx configuration prefix: "/usr/local/nginx/conf"
nginx configuration file: "/usr/local/nginx/conf/nginx.conf"
nginx pid file: "/usr/local/nginx/logs/nginx.pid"
nginx error log file: "/usr/local/nginx/logs/error.log"
nginx http access log file: "/usr/local/nginx/logs/access.log"
nginx http client request body temporary files: "client_body_temp"
nginx http proxy temporary files: "proxy_temp"
nginx http fastcgi temporary files: "fastcgi_temp"
nginx http uwsgi temporary files: "uwsgi_temp"
nginx http scgi temporary files: "scgi_temp"

If you want to setup nginx server to support ssl (https) and for instance install nginx to a different server path you can use some ./configure configuration options, for instance:

./configure –sbin-path=/usr/local/sbin –with-http_ssl_module

Now before you can start the nginx server, you should also set up the nginx init script;

5. Download and set a ready to use script with cmd:

debian:~# cd /etc/init.d
debian:/etc/init.d# wget https://www.pc-freak.net/files/nginx-init-script
debian:/etc/init.d# mv nginx-init-script nginx
debian:/etc/init.d# chmod +x nginx

6. Configure Nginx

Nginx is a really easy and simple server, just like the Russians, Simple but good!
By the way it's interesting to mention nginx has been coded by a Russian, so it's robust and hard as a rock as all the other Russian creations 🙂
Nginx configuration files in a default install as the one in my case are to be found in /usr/local/nginx/conf

In the nginx/conf directory you're about to find the following list of files which concern nginx server configurations:

deiban:/usr/local/nginx:~# ls -1
fastcgi.conf
fastcgi.conf.default
fastcgi_params
fastcgi_params.default
koi-utf
koi-win
mime.types
mime.types.default
nginx.conf
nginx.conf.default
scgi_params
scgi_params.default
uwsgi_params
uwsgi_params.default
win-utf

The .default files are just a copy of the ones without the .default extension and contain the default respective file directives.

In my case I'm not using fastcgi to serve perl or php scripts via nginx so I don't need to configure the fastcgi.conf and fastcgi_params files, the scgi_params and uwsgi_params conf files are actually files which contain nginx configuration directives concerning the use of nginx to process SSI (Server Side Include) scripts and therefore I skip configuring the SSI conf files.
koi-utf and koi-win are two files which usually you don't need to configure and aims the nginx server to support the UTF-8 character encoding and the mime.types conf is a file which has a number of mime types the nginx server will know how to handle.

Therefore after all being said the only file which needs to configured is nginx.conf

7. Edit /usr/local/nginx/conf/nginx.conf

debian:/usr/local/nginx:# vim /usr/local/nginx/conf/nginx.conf

Therein you will find the following default configuration:

#gzip on;

server {
listen 80;
server_name localhost;

#charset koi8-r;

#access_log logs/host.access.log main;

location / {
root html;
index index.html index.htm;
}
#error_page 404 /404.html;

# redirect server error pages to the static page /50x.html
#
error_page 500 502 503 504 /50x.html;
location = /50x.html {
root html;
}

In the default configuration above you need to modify only the above block of code as follows:

server {
listen 80;
server_name yoursitedomain.com;

#charset koi8-r;

#access_log logs/access.log main;

location / {
root /var/www/yoursitedomain.com/html;
index index.html index.htm;
}

Change the yoursitedomain.com and /var/www/yoursitedomain.com/html with your directory and website destinations.

8. Start nginx server with nginx init script

debian:/usr/local/nginx:# /etc/init.d/nginx start
Starting nginx:

This should bring up the nginx server, if something is miss configured you will notice also some error messages, as you can see in my case in above init script output, thanksfully there are no error messages.
Note that you can also start nginx directly via invoking /usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx binary

To check if the nginx server has properly started from the command line type:

debian:/usr/local/nginx:~# ps ax|grep -i nginx|grep -v grep
9424 ? Ss 0:00 nginx: master process /usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx
9425 ? S 0:00 nginx: worker process

Another way to check if the web browser is ready to serve your website file conten,t you can directly access your website by pointing your browser to with http://yoursitedomain.com/, you should get your either your custom index.html file or the default nginx greeting Welcome to nginx

9. Add nginx server to start up during system boot up

debian:/usr/local/nginx:# /usr/sbin/update-rc.d -f nginx defaults

That's all now you have up and running nginx and your static file serving will require you much less system resources, than with Apache.
Hope this article was helpful to somebody, feedback on it is very welcome!

How to promptly interrupt Windows shutdown in case of shutdown, restart mistake

Thursday, April 17th, 2014

windows-shutting-down-by-mistake-interrupt-howto-shot
Its really annoying, when some Anti-Virus software or application updates itself and requires a Windows restart. It is even more annoying when you have 50 windows opened and suddenly they start closing one by one. In such cases it is precious to know there is way to Cancel Windows Shutdown using command line:

Just press Windows (button) + R: type in;


shutdown /a

and press enter.

That's it a quick cmd prompt will flash through the screen and Windows will stop shutdowning 🙂 Enjoy

Windows: VMWare Start / Stop from command line stop-vmware.bat / start-vmware.bat script

Wednesday, June 4th, 2014

vmware_start-stop-from-command-line-on-windows-os-bat-script
I'm experimenting with different Virtual Machines these days, because often running VMWare together with other Virtual Machines (like VirtualBox) might be causing crashes or VM instability – hence it is always best to have VMWare completely stopped. Unfortunately VMWare keeps running a number of respawning processes (vmnat.exe, vmnetdhcp.exe, vmware-authd.exe, vmware-usbarbitrator64.exe) which cannot be killed from Task Manager with Process KillEnd Tree option. Thus to make this services stop it is necessery run from cmd.exe (which is Run as Administrator):
 

NET STOP "VMware Workstation Server"
NET STOP "VMware USB Arbitration service"
NET STOP "VMware NAT Service"
NET STOP "VMware DHCP Service"
NET STOP "VMware Authorization Service"

If you will be doing regular START / STOP of VMWare on Windows servers it will be handy to create a little batch script stop-vmware.bat containing:
 

@ECHO OFF
NET STOP "VMware Workstation Server"
NET STOP "VMware USB Arbitration service"
NET STOP "VMware NAT Service"
NET STOP "VMware DHCP Service"
NET STOP "VMware Authorization Service"


Later whether it is necessery to start VMWare from Windows command line execute above services in reverse order (to prevent from getting warnings or errors on vmware dependent services.

NET START "VMware Authorization Service"
NET START "VMware DHCP Service"
NET START "VMware NAT Service"
NET START "VMware USB Arbitration service"
NET START "VMware Workstation Server"

To script it as a start script create file start-vmware.bat with:
 

NET START "VMware Authorization Service"
NET START "VMware DHCP Service"
NET START "VMware NAT Service"
NET START "VMware USB Arbitration service"
NET START "VMware Workstation Server"


Of course it is possible to also stop / start VMWare from GUI's Windows Services interface by righclicking on services with VMWare names and selecting "Start" / "Stop".

Windows key Shortcuts and Commands List every Win admin / support must know

Tuesday, November 25th, 2014

windows-XP-vista-7-8-server-2003-rc2-2012--full-complete-keyboard-shortcuts-list
If you're a system administrator of Windows Servers or or just a PC support in a small company and you have to fix PCs running Microsoft Windows XP / 7 / 8  daily, sooner or later you will be interested into how to optimize your windows maintainance work to be able to do more adminsitration work for less time.

M$ Windows OS has evolved a lot over the past 10+ years and many of the features available GUI are now either possibile to be done via a standard commands and the GUI interfaces. Various adminsitration and common daily work simplification goodies are now accessible through quick access shortcuts and commands.

Virtually all Windows operating system environment could be now customized by using such shortcuts, this reduces the multitude of annoying double clicks which are truely pissing off sysadmins and tech-supports involved in  Windows Ticket solving.

Win Shortcuts and Commands helps to:

  • Quickly invoke almost all System Settings available from Windows Control Panel
  • Access all admins tools GUIs throguh command
  • Speed up Opening Video, Pictures, Documents, Downloads folders start Windows Update, Configure Printers / Fax / Add Sharings

etc..

A lot of the commands were new to me thus I decided to try out all of the commands in command prompt (cmd). Many of the tools down-mentioned were news to me and let me understand better on Windows Internals, so if you time try them out.
 

Function Comand
Open Documents Folder Start menu -> Search (Type documents)
Open Videos folder Start -> Search (Type videos)
Open Downloads Folder Start -> Search (Type downloads)
Open Favorites Folder favorites
View Recent messages of your PC Start menu -> Search (Type recent)
Open Recent Folder N/A
Open Pictures Folder Start menu -> Search (Type pictures)
Windows Sideshow control.exe /name Microsoft.WindowsSideshow
Windows CardSpace (Windows ID Manager) control.exe /name Microsoft.cardspace
Windows Anytime Upgrade Start menu -> Search dialog (Type WindowsUpdate)
Taskbar and Start Menu control.exe /name Microsoft.TaskbarandStartMenu
Troubleshooting control.exe /name Microsoft.Troubleshooting
User Accounts (Run user accounts Interface) control.exe /name Microsoft.UserAccounts
Adding a new Device devicepairingwizard
Add Hardware Wizard hdwwiz
Advanced User Accounts Management netplwiz
Advanced User Accounts (Authorization Mgr) azman.msc
Windows Backup and Restore sdclt
Bluetooth File Transfer fsquirt
Calculator calc
Certificates Manager certmgr.msc
Change Computer Performance Settings systempropertiesperformance (Remove visual effects)
Change Data Execution Prevention Settings systempropertiesdataexecutionprevention
Change Data Execution Prevention Settings printui
Character Map charmap
ClearType Tuner cttune (Make text onscreen more readable)
Color Management colorcpl
Command Prompt cmd
Component Services comexp.msc
Component Services dcomcnfg
Computer Management Interface compmgmt.msc
Computer Management Interface compmgmtlauncher
Connect to Network Project via Network netproj
Connect to a Projector displayswitch (Alias for Fn key + F4)
Run Control Panel command control
Create A Shared Folder Wizard shrpubw
Create a System Repair Disc recdisc
Credential Backup and Restore Wizard credwiz
Data Execution Prevention systempropertiesdataexecutionprevention
Date and Time timedate.cpl
Default Location locationnotifications
Device Manager devmgmt.msc
Device Manager hdwwiz.cpl
Device Pairing Wizard devicepairingwizard
Diagnostics Troubleshooting Wizard msdt
Digitizer Calibration Tool tabcal
DirectX Diagnostic Tool dxdiag
Disk Cleanup cleanmgr
Disk Defragmenter dfrgui
Disk Management diskmgmt.msc
Display (Change font size of text onscreen) dpiscaling
Display Color Calibration dccw
Display Switch displayswitch
DPAPI Key Migration Wizard dpapimig
Driver Verifier Manager verifier
Ease of Access Center utilman
EFS Wizard rekeywiz
Event Viewer eventvwr.msc
Fax Cover Page Editor fxscover
File Signature Verification sigverif
Font Viewer fontview
Game Controllers joy.cpl
Windows Getting Started Iface gettingstarted
IExpress Wizard iexpress
Another alias for Getting Started irprops.cpl
Install or Uninstall Display Languages lusrmgr
Internet Explorer iexplore
Run Internet Explorer Internet Options inetcpl.cpl
iSCSI Initiator Configuration Tool iscsicpl
Language Pack Installer lpksetup
Local Group Policy Editor gpedit.msc
Local Security Policy secpol.msc
Local Users and Groups lusrmgr.msc
Location Activity locationnotifications
Magnifier magnify
Malicious Software Removal Tool mrt (Might be not existent on some Windows versions)
Manage Your File Encryption Certificates rekeywiz
Math Input Panel mip
Microsoft Management Console mmc
Microsoft Support Diagnostic Tool msdt
Mouse main.cpl
NAP Client Configuration napclcfg.msc
Narrator narrator
Network Connections ncpa.cpl
New Scan Wizard wiaacmgr
Notepad notepad
ODBC Data Source Administrator odbcad32
ODBC Driver Configuration odbcconf
On-Screen Keyboard osk
Paint mspaint
Pen and Touch tabletpc.cpl
People Near Me collab.cpl
Performance Monitor perfmon.msc
Performance Options systempropertiesperformance
Phone and Modem telephon.cpl
Phone Dialer dialer
Power Options powercfg.cpl
Presentation Settings presentationsettings
Print Management printmanagement.msc
Printer Migration printbrmui
Printer User Interface printui
Private Character Editor eudcedit
Problem Steps Recorder psr
Programs and Features (Install / Uninstall) appwiz.cpl
Protected Content Migration dpapimig
Region and Language intl.cpl
Registry Editor regedit
Registry Editor 32 regedt32
Remote Access Phonebook rasphone
Remote Desktop Connection mstsc
Resource Monitor resmon
Resultant Set of Policy rsop.msc
SAM Lock Tool syskey
Screen Resolution desk.cpl
Securing the Windows Account Database syskey
Services services.msc
Set Program Access and Computer Defaults computerdefaults
Share Creation Wizard shrpubw
Shared Folders fsmgmt.msc
Snipping Tool snippingtool
Sound mmsys.cpl
Sound recorder soundrecorder
SQL Server Client Network Utility cliconfg
Sticky Notes stikynot
Stored User Names and Passwords credwiz
Sync Center mobsync
System Configuration msconfig
System Configuration Editor sysedit
System Information msinfo32
System Properties sysdm.cpl
System Properties (Advanced Tab) systempropertiesadvanced
System Properties (Computer Name Tab) systempropertiescomputername
System Properties (Hardware Tab) systempropertieshardware
System Properties (Remote Tab) systempropertiesremote
System Properties (System Protection Tab) systempropertiesprotection
System Restore rstrui
Task Manager taskmgr
Task Scheduler taskschd.msc
Trusted Platform Module (TPM) Management tpm.msc
User Account Control Settings useraccountcontrolsettings
Utility Manager utilman
Version Reporter Applet winver
Volume Mixer sndvol
Windows Action Center wscui.cpl
Windows Activation Client slui (Runs on Windows license activation time)
Windows Anytime Upgrade Results windowsanytimeupgraderesults
Windows CardSpace infocardcpl.cpl
Windows Disc Image Burning Tool isoburn (Command line tool to burn images)
Windows DVD Maker dvdmaker (N/A on Windows 7, 8)
Windows Easy Transfer migwiz (N/A on many Windows versions)
Run Windows Explorer explorer
Windows Fax and Scan wfs
Windows Features optionalfeatures
Windows Firewall firewall.cpl
Windows Firewall with Advanced Security wf.msc
Windows Journal journal (N/A on Windows 7)
Windows Media Player wmplayer (N/A on many Windows releases)
Windows Memory Diagnostic Scheduler mdsched (Check your PC memory on next boot)
Windows Mobility Center (Stats) mblctr
Windows Picture Acquisition Wizard wiaacmgr
Windows PowerShell powershell
Windows PowerShell ISE powershell_ise
Windows Remote Assistance msra
Windows Repair Disc recdisc
Windows Script Host wscript
Windows Update wuapp
Windows Update Standalone Installer wusa
Show Windows Version winver
WMI Management wmimgmt.msc
WordPad write
XPS Viewer xpsrchvw


Most of above commands works fine with Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 / 8, Windows 2003 / 2012, however some cmds are missing across some win versions.

Here is list of other useful Windows shortcut keys:
 

General keyboard shortcuts

  • Ctrl+C (Copy)
  • Ctrl+X (Delete selected item and save a copy to the clipboard)
  • Ctrl+V (Paste)
  • Ctrl+Z (Undo)
  • Delete (Delete) 
  • Shift+Delete (Delete the selected item permanently without moving the item to the Recycle Bin) 
  • Ctrl while dragging an item (Copy the selected item)
  • Ctrl+Shift while dragging an item (Create a shortcut to the selected item)
  • F2 key (Rename the selected item)
  • Ctrl+Right Arrow (Move the cursor to the beginning of the next word) 
  • Ctrl+Left Arrow (Move the cursor to the beginning of the previous word) 
  • Ctrl+Down Arrow (Move the cursor to the beginning of the next paragraph) 
  • Ctrl+Up Arrow (Move the cursor to the beginning of the previous paragraph) 
  • Ctrl+Shift with any arrow key (Highlight a block of text) 
  • Shift with any arrow key (Select more than one item in a window or on the desktop, or select text in a document) 
  • Ctrl+A (Select all) 
  • F3 key (Search for a file or a folder)
  • Alt+Enter (View the properties for the selected item) 
  • Alt+F4 (Close the active item, or exit the active program) 
  • Alt+Enter (Display the properties of the selected object) 
  • Alt+Spacebar (Open the shortcut menu for the active window) 
  • Ctrl+F4 (Close the active document in programs that enable multiple documents to be open at the same time) 
  • Alt+Tab (Switch between the open items) 
  • Alt+Esc (Cycle through items in the order in which they were opened) 
  • F6 key (Cycle through the screen elements in a window or on the desktop)
  • F4 key (Display the Address bar list in My Computer or in Windows Explorer) 
  • Shift+F10 (Display the shortcut menu for the selected item)
  • Alt+Spacebar (Display the System menu for the active window) 
  • Ctrl+Esc (Display the Start menu) 
  • Alt+Underlined letter in a menu name (Display the corresponding menu)
  • Underlined letter in a command name on an open menu (Perform the corresponding command)
  • F10 key (Activate the menu bar in the active program)
  • Right Arrow  (Open the next menu to the right, or open a submenu)
  • Left Arrow  (Open the next menu to the left, or close a submenu)
  • F5 key (Update the active window)
  • Backspace (View the folder one level up in My Computer or Windows Explorer) 
  • Esc (Cancel the current task)
  • Shift when you insert a CD into the CD drive (Prevent the CD from automatically playing)
  • Ctrl+Shift+Esc (Open Task Manager) 

Dialog box keyboard shortcuts

  • Ctrl+Tab (Move forward through the tabs)
  • Ctrl+Shift+Tab (Move backward through the tabs)
  • Tab (Move forward through the options)
  • Shift+Tab (Move backward through the options)
  • Alt+Underlined letter (Perform the corresponding command, or select the corresponding option)
  • Enter (Perform the command for the active option or button)
  • Spacebar (Select or clear the check box if the active option is a check box)
  • Arrow keys (Select a button if the active option is a group of option buttons)
  • F1 key (Display Help)
  • F4 key (Display the items in the active list)
  • Backspace (Open a folder one level up if a folder is selected in the Save As or Open dialog box)

Microsoft natural keyboard shortcuts

  • Windows Logo (Display or hide the Start menu)
  • Windows Logo+Break (Display the System Properties dialog box)
  • Windows Logo+D (Display the desktop)
  • Windows Logo+M (Minimize all the windows)
  • Windows Logo+Shift+M (Restore the minimized windows)
  • Windows Logo+E (Open My Computer)
  • Windows Logo+F (Search for a file or a folder)
  • Ctrl+Windows Logo+F (Search for computers)
  • Windows Logo+F1 (Display Windows Help)
  • Windows Logo+ L (Lock the keyboard)
  • Windows Logo+R (Open the Run dialog box)
  • Windows Logo+U (Open Utility Manager)

Accessibility keyboard shortcuts

  • Right Shift for eight seconds (Switch FilterKeys on or off)
  • Left Alt+left Shift+Print Screen (Switch High Contrast on or off)
  • Left Alt+left Shift+Num Lock (Switch the MouseKeys on or off)
  • Shift five times (Switch the StickyKeys on or off)
  • Num Lock for five seconds (Switch the ToggleKeys on or off)
  • Windows Logo +U (Open Utility Manager)

Windows Explorer keyboard shortcuts

 

 

  • End (Display the bottom of the active window)
  • Home (Display the top of the active window)
  • Num Lock+Asterisk sign (*) (Display all the subfolders that are under the selected folder)
  • Num Lock+Plus sign (+) (Display the contents of the selected folder)
  • Num Lock+Minus sign (-) (Collapse the selected folder)
  • Left Arrow  (Collapse the current selection if it is expanded, or select the parent folder)
  • Right Arrow  (Display the current selection if it is collapsed, or select the first subfolder) 

Keyboard Shortcuts for Character Map

 

 

After you double-click a character on the grid of characters, you can move through the grid by using the keyboard shortcuts:

  • Right Arrow  (Move to the right or to the beginning of the next line)
  • Left Arrow  (Move to the left or to the end of the previous line) 
  • Up Arrow (Move up one row)
  • Down Arrow (Move down one row)
  • Page Up  (Move up one screen at a time)
  • Page Down (Move down one screen at a time)
  • Home (Move to the beginning of the line)
  • End (Move to the end of the line)
  • Ctrl+Home (Move to the first character)
  • Ctrl+End (Move to the last character)
  • Spacebar (Switch between Enlarged and Normal mode when a character is selected) 

Microsoft Management Console (MMC) main window keyboard shortcuts

 

 

  • Ctrl+O (Open a saved console)
  • Ctrl+N (Open a new console)
  • Ctrl+S (Save the open console)
  • Ctrl+M (Add or remove a console item)
  • Ctrl+W (Open a new window)
  • F5 key (Update the content of all console windows)
  • Alt+Spacebar (Display the MMC window menu)
  • Alt+F4 (Close the console)
  • Alt+A (Display the Action menu)
  • Alt+V (Display the View menu)
  • Alt+F (Display the File menu)
  • Alt+O (Display the Favorites menu) 

Microsoft Management Console (MMC) window keyboard shortcuts

  • Ctrl+P (Print the current page or active pane)
  • Alt+Minus sign (-) (Display the window menu for the active console window)
  • Shift+F10 (Display the Action shortcut menu for the selected item)
  • F1 key (Open the Help topic, if any, for the selected item)
  • F5 key (Update the content of all console windows)
  • Ctrl+F10 (Maximize the active console window)
  • Ctrl+F5 (Restore the active console window)
  • Alt+Enter (Display the Properties dialog box, if any, for the selected item)
  • F2 key (Rename the selected item)
  • Ctrl+F4 (Close the active console window. When a console has only one console window, this shortcut closes the console)

Remote desktop connection navigation

 

 

  • Ctrl+Alt+End (Open the Microsoft Windows NT Security dialog box)
  • Alt+Page Up (Switch between programs from left to right)
  • Alt+Page Down (Switch between programs from right to left)
  • Alt+Insert (Cycle through the programs in most recently used order)
  • Alt+Home (Display the Start menu)
  • Ctrl+Alt+Break (Switch the client computer between a window and a full-screen display)
  • Alt+Delete (Display the Windows menu)
  • Ctrl+Alt+Minus sign (-) (Put a snapshot of the complete client window area on the Terminal server clipboard and provide the same functionality as pressing Alt+Print Screen on a local computer)
  • Ctrl+Alt+Plus sign (+) (Put a snapshot of the active window in the client on the Terminal server clipboard and provide the same functionality as pressing Print Screen on a local computer.) 

Microsoft Internet Explorer navigation

 

 

  • Ctrl+B (Open the Organize Favorites dialog box)
  • Ctrl+E (Open the Search bar)
  • Ctrl+F (Start the Find utility)
  • Ctrl+H (Open the History bar)
  • Ctrl+I (Open the Favorites bar)
  • Ctrl+L (Open the Open dialog box)
  • CtrlL+N (Start another instance of the browser with the same web address)
  • Ctrl+O (Open the Open dialog box, the same as CTRL+L)
  • Ctrl+P (Open the Print dialog box)
  • Ctrl+R (Update the current webpage)
  • Ctrl+W (Close the current window) 

Complete list of Windows Keyboard Shorcuts is on Microsoft website