Posts Tagged ‘USB’

Create Bootable Windows installer USB from a MAC PC, MacBook host or Linux Desktop computer

Thursday, February 8th, 2024

Creating Windows bootable installer with Windows Media Creation tool is easy, but sometimes if you're a geek like me you don't have a Windows personal PC at home and your Work PC is so paranoidly restricted by its administrator through paranoid Domain Controller Policies, that you can only copy from a USB drive towards the Win PC but you cannot write to the USB. 

1. Preparing Linux installer USB via Mac's Boot Camp Assistant

If you're lucky you might have a MAC Book Air or some kind of other mac PC, if that is the case you can burn the Windows Installer iso, with the Native Mac tool called BootCamp Assistant, by simply downloading the Win Boot ISO, launching the app and burning it:

Finder > Applications > Utilities and open Boot Camp Assistant.

create-windows-10-bootable-installer-usb-mac-screenshot.png

2. Preparing Bootable Windows installer on Linux host machine

On DEBIAN / UBUNTU and other Deb based Linuxes

# apt install gddrescue 

On CENTOS / FEDORA :

# dnf install ddrescue

To install the Windows Image to the right USB drive, first find it out with fdisk and list it:

# fdisk -l
 

Disk /dev/sdb: 14.41 GiB, 15472047104 bytes, 30218842 sectors
Disk model: DataTraveler 3.0
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0xc23dc587

Device     Boot    Start      End  Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sdb1           8192 30216793 30208602 14.4G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb2       30216794 30218841     2048    1M  e W95 FAT16 (LBA)

Then Use ddrescue to create the bootable MS windows Installer USB disk.

# ddrescue windows10.iso /dev/sd1 –force -D

3. Using GUI Linux tool WoeUSB-ng to prepare Microsoft Windows start up USB drive

If you're a lazy Linux user and you plan to prepare up to date Windows image files regularly, perhaps the WoeUSB-ng Graphical tool will suit you better, to use it you will have to install a bunch of python libraries.
 

On Ubuntu Linux:

# apt install git p7zip-full python3-pip python3-wxgtk4.0 grub2-common grub-pc-bin
# pip3 install WoeUSB-ng

On Fedora Linux:

dnf install git p7zip p7zip-plugins python3-pip python3-wxpython4
# sudo pip3 install WoeUSB-ng

Launch the WoeUSB-ng program :

 

$ python3 /usr/local/bin/woeusbgui

 

Download, the latest Version of Windows Installer .ISO IMAGE file, plug in your USB flash disk and let the program burn the ISO and create the GRUB boot loader, that will make WIndows installer bootable on your PC.

WoeUSB-ng-python-burn-windows-installer.-tool-screenshot

With WoeUSB-ng you have to be patient, it will take some time to prepare and copy the Windows installer content and will take about 15 to 20 minutes from my experience to finalize the GRUB records required, that will make the new burnt ISO bootable.


Then just plug it in to your Desktop PC or laptop, virtual machine, whatever where you would like to install the Windows from its latest installation Source image and Go on with doing the necessery evil to have Microsoft Spy on you permanently.

P.S. I just learned, from colleagues from Kvant Serviz (a famous hardware second hand, shop and repair shop here in Bulgaria, that nowadays Windows has evolved to the points, they can and they actually do overwrite the PC BIOS / UEFI as part of updates without any asking the end user !!!
At first I disbelived that, but after a short investigation online it turned out this is true, 
there are discussions online from people complaining, that WIndows updates has ovewritten their current BIOS settings and people complaining BIOS versions are ovewritten.

Enjoy your new personal Spy OS ! 🙂

Get dmesg command kernel log report with human date / time timestamp on older Linux distributions

Friday, June 18th, 2021

how-to-get-dmesg-human-readable-timestamp-kernel-log-command-linux-logo

If you're a sysadmin you surely love to take a look at dmesg kernel log output. Usually on many Linux distributions there is a setup that dmesg keeps logging to log files /var/log/dmesg or /var/log/kern.log. But if you get some inherited old Linux servers it is quite possible that the previous machine maintainer did not enable the output of syslog to get logged in /var/log/{dmesg,kern.log,kernel.log}  or even have disabled the kernel log for some reason. Even though that in dmesg output you might find some interesting events reporting issues with Hard drives on its way to get broken / a bad / reads system processes crashing or whatever of other interesting information that could help you prevent severe servers downtimes or problems earlier but due to an old version of Linux distribution lets say Redhat 5 / Debian 6 or old CentOS / Fedora, the version of dmesg command shipped does not support the '-T' option that is present in util-linux package shipped with newer versions of  Redhat 7.X  / 8.X / SuSEs etc.  

 -T, –ctime
              Print human readable timestamps.  The timestamp could be inaccurate!

To illustrate better what I mean, here is an example from the non-human readable timestamp provided by older dmesg command

root@web-server~:# dmesg |tail -n 5
[4505913.361095] hid-generic 0003:1C4F:0002.000E: input,hidraw1: USB HID v1.10 Device [SIGMACHIP USB Keyboard] on usb-0000:00:1d.0-1.3/input1
[4558251.034024] Process accounting resumed
[4615396.191090] r8169 0000:03:00.0 eth1: Link is Down
[4615397.856950] r8169 0000:03:00.0 eth1: Link is Up – 100Mbps/Full – flow control rx/tx
[4644650.095723] Process accounting resumed

Thanksfully using below few lines of shell or perl scripts the dmesg -T  functionality could be added to the system , so you can easily get the proper timestamp out of the obscure default generated timestamp in the same manner as on newer distros.

Here is how to do with it with bash script:

#!/bin/sh paste in .bashrc and use dmesgt to get human readable timestamp
dmesg_with_human_timestamps () {
    FORMAT="%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %Y"

 

    now=$(date +%s)
    cputime_line=$(grep -m1 "\.clock" /proc/sched_debug)

    if [[ $cputime_line =~ [^0-9]*([0-9]*).* ]]; then
        cputime=$((BASH_REMATCH[1] / 1000))
    fi

    dmesg | while IFS= read -r line; do
        if [[ $line =~ ^\[\ *([0-9]+)\.[0-9]+\]\ (.*) ]]; then
            stamp=$((now-cputime+BASH_REMATCH[1]))
            echo "[$(date +”${FORMAT}” –date=@${stamp})] ${BASH_REMATCH[2]}"
        else
            echo "$line"
        fi
    done
}

Copy the script somewhere under lets say /usr/local/bin or wherever you like on the server and add into your HOME ~/.bashrc some alias like:
 

alias dmesgt=dmesg_with_timestamp.sh


You can get a copy dmesg_with_timestamp.sh of the script from here

Or you can use below few lines perl script to get the proper dmeg kernel date / time

 

#!/bin/perl
# on old Linux distros CentOS 6.0 etc. with dmesg (part of util-linux-ng-2.17.2-12.28.el6_9.2.x86_64) etc. dmesg -T not available
# workaround is little pl script below
dmesg_with_human_timestamps () {
    $(type -P dmesg) "$@" | perl -w -e 'use strict;
        my ($uptime) = do { local @ARGV="/proc/uptime";<>}; ($uptime) = ($uptime =~ /^(\d+)\./);
        foreach my $line (<>) {
            printf( ($line=~/^\[\s*(\d+)\.\d+\](.+)/) ? ( “[%s]%s\n", scalar localtime(time – $uptime + $1), $2 ) : $line )
        }'
}


Again to make use of the script put it under /usr/local/bin/check_dmesg_timestamp.pl

alias dmesgt=dmesg_with_human_timestamps

root@web-server:~# dmesgt | tail -n 20

[Sun Jun 13 15:51:49 2021] usb 2-1.3: USB disconnect, device number 9
[Sun Jun 13 15:51:50 2021] usb 2-1.3: new low-speed USB device number 10 using ehci-pci
[Sun Jun 13 15:51:50 2021] usb 2-1.3: New USB device found, idVendor=1c4f, idProduct=0002, bcdDevice= 1.10
[Sun Jun 13 15:51:50 2021] usb 2-1.3: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
[Sun Jun 13 15:51:50 2021] usb 2-1.3: Product: USB Keyboard
[Sun Jun 13 15:51:50 2021] usb 2-1.3: Manufacturer: SIGMACHIP
[Sun Jun 13 15:51:50 2021] input: SIGMACHIP USB Keyboard as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb2/2-1/2-1.3/2-1.3:1.0/0003:1C4F:0002.000D/input/input25
[Sun Jun 13 15:51:50 2021] hid-generic 0003:1C4F:0002.000D: input,hidraw0: USB HID v1.10 Keyboard [SIGMACHIP USB Keyboard] on usb-0000:00:1d.0-1.3/input0
[Sun Jun 13 15:51:50 2021] input: SIGMACHIP USB Keyboard Consumer Control as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb2/2-1/2-1.3/2-1.3:1.1/0003:1C4F:0002.000E/input/input26
[Sun Jun 13 15:51:50 2021] input: SIGMACHIP USB Keyboard System Control as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb2/2-1/2-1.3/2-1.3:1.1/0003:1C4F:0002.000E/input/input27
[Sun Jun 13 15:51:50 2021] hid-generic 0003:1C4F:0002.000E: input,hidraw1: USB HID v1.10 Device [SIGMACHIP USB Keyboard] on usb-0000:00:1d.0-1.3/input1
[Mon Jun 14 06:24:08 2021] Process accounting resumed
[Mon Jun 14 22:16:33 2021] r8169 0000:03:00.0 eth1: Link is Down
[Mon Jun 14 22:16:34 2021] r8169 0000:03:00.0 eth1: Link is Up – 100Mbps/Full – flow control rx/tx

Fix Blocked Unresponsive keyboard keys on Windows 7 / 10

Tuesday, February 25th, 2020

Scroll-lock-keboard-work-around-windows-issues

 

The Problem


If you're still using Windows 7 Operating system in your company due to some weird security concern policies and your company gets custom end user updates from Microsoft due to a special EULA agreement and you are new to using Windows E.g. have for many users used for your daily work Linux and Mac OS you might hit a strange issue wtih many of the keyboard keys strangely being locked with some of the keys such as Num Lock, Escape tab working where the Alphabet keys then don't panic. This is not a Windows bug its a feature (as usual) 🙂
 

Reason behind Blocked Unresponsive Keyboard

 

First logical thought I had is maybe my Logitech K120 Membrane 17 EURO cheap keyboard externally attached keyboard broke up thus I've tried to connect another LOGIC keyboard I had at hand just to assure myself the problem with partial keys on kbd reacting was present with the other Working keyboard as well.
This was an indicator that either the custom installed Windows by the company Helpdesk Office with the preassumed common additional features for corporations such as Keyloggers on this Laptop has messed up somohow the Windows service that is managing the keyboard or some kind of mechanical error or electronic circuit on the laptop embedded keyboard has occured or the KBD DLL Loaded driver damaged
I have to say here a colleague of mine was having a weird keyboard problems back in the day when I was still working in Project Services as a Web and Middleware in Hewlett Packard, where misteriously a character was added to his typed content just like a key on his keyboard has stuck and he experienced this issue for quite some time, he opened the keyboard to physically check whether all is okay and even checked the keyboard electricity whether levels on each of the keys and he couldn't find anything, and after running Malware Bytes anti-malware and a couple of other anti-malware programs which found his computer was infected with Malware and issue resolved.

 

Hard Fix – Reboot ..

 

As as a solution most times so far I've restarted the Windows which was reloading the Windows kernel / DLL libraries etc.

However just hit to this Windows accessibility feature once again today and since this is not the first time I end up with unworking keyboard (perhaps due to my often) furious fast typing – where I press sometimes multiple keys in parallel as a typing error then you trigger the Windows Disabled accessibiltiy Windows Feature, which as I thought makes the PC only usable for Mouse but unusuable for providing any meaningful keyboard input.

This problem I've faced already multiple times and usually the work around was the good known Windows User recipee phrase "Restart and It will get fixed", this time I was pissed off and didn't wanted to loose another 5 minutes in Restarting Reconnecting to the Company's Cisco Secure VPN reopening all my used files Notepad++ / Outlook / Browsers etc plus I was already part of online Lync (Skype) Meeting in which Colleague was Sharing his remote Desktop checking some important stuff about Zabbix Monitored AIX machine, hence didn't wanted to restart but still wanted to use my computer and type some stuff to send Email and do a simple googling.

Temporary work around to complete work with Virtual Keyboard

Hence as a temporary work around, I've used the Windows Virtual Keyboard, I've mentioned it in the earlier  blog post – How to run Virtual Keyboard in Windows XP / Vista article
To do so I'verun by typing osk command in cmd.exe command Prompt:

Either Search for osk.exe from Start menu

windows-7-osk-virtual-keyboard-screenshot-from-start-menu

or run via command line via

Windows Button (on the Keyboard) + R and run
 

cmd.exe -> osk

 


windows-7-osk-virtual-keyboard-screenshot2

 

Solution Without PC Restart


After a bit of thought and Googling I've found the fix  here

From the Start -> Control Panel from here I had to go to Accessibility Options.
Select Ease of Access Center.

Keyboard_Locked-Windows_7_Accessibility_Options-HP-Customer-Support

Select the keyboard settings and
Ensure the following options are unchecked: Turn on Sticky Keys, Turn on Toggle Keys and Turn on Filter Keys.

Keyboard-Locked_Find-Out-How-to-Unlock-make-keyboard-easier-to-use

I've found in the Turn on Toggle Keys tick present (e.g. service was enabled) – hence  after unticking it and 

Press Apply and OK, keyboard restored its usual functions.
Now all left was to  Enjoy as your keyboard was back usable and I could conitnue my Citrix sessions and SSH console Superputty terminals  and complete my started to write E-mail
without loosing time meanlessly for reboot.


N.B. !!!! A VERY IMPORTANT NOTE TO MAKE IS IF NOTHING ELSE HELPS PLEASE TRY TO RUN OSK ViRTUAL KEYBOARD
UNDER SOME OCCASIONS THE VIRTUAL KEYBOARD FORCES THE WINDOWS KEYBOARD DRIVER TO RELOAD AND THAT WILL FIX THE KEYBOARD !!!

Windows 10 Disable the Filter Keys option

 

This feature makes your keyboard ignore brief or repeated keystrokes, which might have led to your WinKey issue in Windows 10. To disable filter keys, use the instructions below:

1. Right-click on your Start menu icon.
2. Select Settings from the menu.
3. Navigate to Ease of Access and click on it.
4. Go to the left pane and click Keyboard.
5. Locate the Filter Keys feature.
6. Toggle it off.
7. Check if this manoeuvre has resolved your issue.
 

Closing Notes 


Of course this might be not always the fix, as sometimes it could be that the Winblows just blows your keyboard buffer due to some buggy application or a bug, but in most of the times that should solve it 🙂
If it didn't go through and debug all the other possible reasons, check whether you have a faulty keyboard cable (if you're still on a non-bluetooth Wired Keyboard), unplug and plug the keyboard again,
scan the computer for spyware and malware, rethink what really happened or what have you done until the problem occured and whether blocked keyboard is triggered by your user action or was triggered
by some third party software anti-virus stuff that did it as an attempt to prevent keylog sniffer / Virus or other weird stuff.

Upgrade old crappy Windows 7 32 bit to Windows 10 32 bit, post install fixes and impressions / How to enter Safe Mode in Windows 10

Wednesday, June 28th, 2017

Upgrade-Windows-7-Vista-XP-to-Windows-10-upgrade-howto-observations-post-fixes

However as I've been upgrading my sister's computer previously running Windows 7 to Windows 10 (the process of upgrading is really simple you just download Windows-Media-Creation-tool from Microsoft website and the rest comes to few clicks (Accept Windows 10 User Agreement, Create current install  restore point (backup) etc.) and waiting some 30 minutes or so for the upgrade to complete.

windows-7-to-10-windows-setup-upgrade-this-pc-prompt

Then it was up to downloading some other updates on a few times and restarting the computer, each time the upgrades were made and all the computer was ready. I've installed Avira (AntiVirus) as I usually do on new PCs and downloaded a bunch of anti-malware (MalwareBytes / Rfkill  / Zemanta)  to make sure that the old upgraded  WIndows was not already infected before the upgrade and I've found a bunch of malware, that got quickly cleared up.

Anyways I've tried also another tool called ReimagePlus – Online Computer Repair in order to check whether there are no some broken WIndows system files after the upgrade

Reimage_Repair-Windows-fix-windows-failing-services-and-broken-windows-installations-clear-up-malware
(here I have to say I've done that besides running in an Administrator command prompt (cmd.exe) and running
 

sfc /scannow


command to check base system files integrity, which luckily showed no problems with the Win base system files.

ReimagePlus however showed some failed services and some failed programs that were previously installed from Windows 7 before the upgrade and even it showed indication for Trojan present on computer but since ReImagePlus is a payed software and I didn't have the money to spend on it, I just proceeded to clean up what was found manually.

After that the computer ran fine, with the only strange thing that some data was from hard drive was red a bit too frequently, after a short call with a close friend (Nomen) – thx man, he suggested that the frequenty hdd usage might be related to Windows Search Indexing service database rebuilt and he adviced me to disable it which I did following this article How to speed up Windows by disabling Search Index Service.

One issue worthy to mention  stumbled upon after the upgrade was problems with Windows Explorer which was frequently crashing and "restarting the Desktop", but once, I've enabled all upgrades from Microsoft and Applied them after some update failures and restarts, once all was up2date to all latest from Microsoft, Explorer started working normally.

In the mean time while Windows Explorer was crashing in order to browse my file system I used the good old Win Total Command or Norton Commander for Windows – WinNC (with its most cool bizzarre own File Explorer tool).

Windows-Total-commander-tool-running-on-MS-Windows-10

As I wanted to run a MalwareBytes scan and Antivirus under Windows Safe-Mode, I tried entering it by restarting the Computer and pressing F8 a number of times before the Windows boot screen but this didn't work as Safe-Mode boot was changed in Windows 10 to be callable in another way because of some extra Windows Boot speed up optimizations, in short the easiest way I found to enter Windows 10 Safe Mode was to Hit Start Button -> Choose Restart PC and keep pressed SHIFT button simultaneously
that calls a menu that gives you some restore options, along with safe mode options for those who want to read more on How to Enter Safe mode (Command Prompt) on Windows 10 – please read this article.

Windows-10-enable-Safe-Mode-options-screen

Once the upgrade was over and all below done unfortunately I've realized her previously installed WIndows 7 is x86 (32 bit) version and the Acer notebook 5736Z where it is being installed is actually X64 (64 bit), hence I've decided to upgrade my dear sis computer to a 64 Bit Windows 10 and researched online whether, there is some tool that is capable to upgrade WIndows 10 from 32 bit to Windows 10 64 bit just to find out the only option is to either use some program to creaty a backup of files on the PC or to manually copy files to external hard drive and reinstall with a Windows 10 64 bit bootable USB Flash or CD / DVD image, so I took my USB flash and used again Windows Media Creation Tool to burn Windows and re-install with the 64 bit iso.

If you're wonder about why I choose to re-install finally Win 10 32 bit with Win 64 bit, because you might think performance difference might be not really so dramatic, then I have to say the Acer notebook is equipped with 4 Gigabytes of RAM Memory and Windows 10 32bit  (Pro) could recognize a maximum of 3 Gigabytes (2.9 GB if I have to be precise) and 1 Gigabyte of memory stays totally unusued all the time with  Winblows 10 32 bit.

Windows-10-4gb-memory-present-only-3gb-usable-why-reason-and-solution

I've tried my best actually to not loose time to fully upgrade Windows 7 (32 bit) -> Windows 10 (64 bit) but to make Windows 7 32 bit Windows to use more than the default Limitation of 3GB of memory by using this thirt party PAE Externsion Kernel Patch
which is patching the Windows Kernel to extend the Windows support for PCs with up to 128 GB of memory however it turned out that this Patch file is not compatible with my Windows Kernel version once I followed readme instructions.

It seems the PAE (Physical Address Extension) is supported by default  by Microsoft only on 32 bit Windows Server 10 to read more on the PAE if interested give a look here.

Well that's all folks, the rest I did was to just boot from the USB drive just burned and re-install WIndows and copy my files from User profile / Downloads / Pictures / Music etc. to the same locations on the new installed Windows 10 professional 64 bit and enjoy the better performance.

Unique MenuetOS – Free Software 32 / 64 bit OS entirely written in assembly language

Wednesday, July 10th, 2013

 

unique operating-system menuetos written-in-assembler-programming-logo

Something very unique, I stumbled on some time ago and worthy to mention and recommend for everyone to test is MenuetOS. Can you imagine, someone might write an operating system entirely from scratch in 32 / 64 bit Assemler? Idea sounds crazy and impossible but in fact developers of MenuetOS already achieved it!

Unique OS - menuetos asm free os start-menu screenshot

Normally every modern operating system nowadays is based on some kind of UNIX / Linux / or NT (Windows) technology or at least follows some kind of POSIX standartization.
 The design goal of MenuetOS since the first release in year 2000, is to remove the extra layers between different parts of an OS. The more the layers more complicated the programming behind is and therefore this creates bugs more bugs. MenuetOS follows the idea of KISS model (Keep It Simple Stupid). Its amazing what people can write in pure asm programming!! 64 bit version of menuet is also backward compatible with 32 bit. MenuetOS supports mostly all any other modern OS does. Here is list of Supported Features:

 

 

 

 

  • – Pre-emptive multitasking with 1000hz scheduler, multithreading, multiprocessor, ring-3 protection
  • – Responsive GUI with resolutions up to 1920×1080, 16 million colours
  • – Free-form, transparent and skinnable application windows, drag'n drop
  • – SMP multiprocessor support with currently up to 8 cpus
  • – IDE: Editor/Assembler for applications
  • – USB 2.0 HiSpeed Classes: Storage, Printer, Webcam Video and TV/Radio support
  • – USB 1.1 Keyboard and Mouse support
  • – TCP/IP stack with Loopback & Ethernet drivers
  • – Email/ftp/http/chess clients and ftp/mp3/http servers
  • – Hard real-time data fetch
  • – Fits on a single floppy, boots also from CD and USB drives

MenuetOS has fully functional Graphic interface (environment). Though it is so simple it is much more fast (as written in assembler) and behaves more stable than other OS-es written in C / C++.
Its bundled with a POP3 / Imap mail client soft

menuetos assmebly OS mail client
As of time even some major legendary Games like DoomQuake, Sokoban and Chess are ported to MenuetOS !!!

doom2-id-games-running-on-menuetos-operating-system-in-assembler-from-scratch

MenuetOS Doom

quake legendary game running on Menuetos asm free OS

Quake I port on MenuetOS

Below are some more screenshots of Apps and stuff running

Maniac Mansion running on MenuetOS assembler build free Operating system

The world famous Maniac Mansion (1987)

Prince of Persia running on 32 64 bit assembler written GPL free-OS

Arcade Classic of 16 bit and 8 bit computers Prince of Persia running on top of dosbox on MenuetOS

For those who like to program old school MenuetOS has BASIC compiler, C library (supports C programming), debuggers, Command Prompt.

It even supports Networking and has some  most popular network adapters drivers as well as has basic browsing support through HTTP application.

unique-os-menuetos-browsing-with-httpc-browser

You can listen music with CD Player but no support for mp3 yet.
To give MenuetOS a try just like any other Live Linux distribution it has Bootable LiveCD version – you can download it from here
MenuetOS is a very good for people interested to learn good 32 bit and 64 bit Assembler Programming.
Enjoy this unique ASM true hacker OS 😉

USB Stick – Holy Scriptures of Roman Catholic Bible

Saturday, June 16th, 2012

While browsing the internet, I've found an interesting "gadget" a USB made to look like a holy bible cover. The Holy Bible distributed is Roman Catholic. This probably means Roman Catholics has already approved and blessed the distribution of the Holy Bible in digital form.


Though I think the digital distribution of Holy Bible is a good think I think it is better the primary source of distribution of the Holy Bible be the now almost old fashioned paper form. If the Holy Bible (Holy Scriptures) and livings of the saints are primary distributed in a digital form over the internet. This could mean that there disappearance could happen very quickly if the Internet is filtered or the information on the Internet gets encoded not to include certain texts. Though from current standpoint encoding certain content on the Internet seems like impossible, I'm quite sure in the short future this will be possible. In a way that certain texts which are talking things against the governmental powers could be possibly filtered out … I truly hope this will never happen but it is one possible scenario that might come true.  Bill Gates has already a vision for disappearance of the paper all around the world.Gates desire for abondoning the paper  is stated in his books The Road Ahead. I truly hope Gates book predictions will never come true.

Archive Outlook mail in Outlook 2010 to free space in your mailbox

Thursday, May 15th, 2014

outlook-archive-old-mail-to-prevent-out-of-space-problems-outlook-logo
If you're working in a middle or big sized IT company or corporation like IBM or HP, you're already sucked into the Outlook "mail whirlwind of corporate world" and daily flooded with tons of corporate spam emails with fuzzy business random terms like taken from Corporate Bullshit Generator

Many corporations, because probably of historic reasons still provide employees with small sized mailboxes half a gigabyte, a gigabyte or even in those with bigger user Mailboxes like in Hewlett Packard, this is usually no more than 2 Gigabytes.

This creates a lot of issues in the long term because usually mail communication in Inbox, Sent Items, Drafts Conversation History, Junk Email and Outbox grows up quickly and for a year or a year and a half, available Mail space fills up and you stop receiving email communication from customers. This is usually not too big problem if your Mailbox gets filled when you're in the Office (in office hours). However it is quite unpleasent and makes very bad impression to customers when you're in a few weeks Summar Holiday with no access to your mailbox and your Mailbox free space  depletes, then you don't get any mail from the customer and all the time the customer starts receiving emails disrupting your personal or company image with bouncing messages saying the "INBOX" is full.

To prevent this worst case scenario it is always a good idea to archive old mail communication (Items) to free up space in Outlook 2010 mailbox.
Old Outlook Archived mail is (Saved) exported in .PST outlook data file format. Later exported Mail Content and Contacts could be easily (attached) from those .pst file to Outlook Express, leaving you possibility to still have access to your old archived mail keeping the content on your hard drive instead on the Outlook Exchange Mailserver (freeing up space from your Inbox).

Here is how to archive your Outlook mail Calendar and contacts:

Archive-outlook-mail-in-microsoft-outlook-2010-free-space-in-your-mailbox

1. Click on the "File" tab on the top horizontal bar.Select "Cleanup Tools" from the options.

2. Click "Cleanup Tools" from the options.

3. Click on the "Archive this folder and all subfolders" option.

4. Select what to archive (e.g. Inbox, Drafts, Sent Items, Calendar whatever …)

5. Choose archive items older than (this is quite self-explanatory)

6. Select the location of your archive file (make sure you palce the .PST file into directory you will not forget later)

That's all now you have old mails freed up from Outlook Exchange server. Now make sure you create regular backups ot old-archived-mail.pst file you just created, it is a very good idea to upload this folder to encrypted file system on USB stick or use something like TrueCrypt to encrypt the file and store it to external hard drive, if you already don't have a complete backup corporate solution backuping up all your Laptop content.

Later Attaching or detaching exported .PST file in Outlook is done from:

File -> Open -> Open Outlook Data File

outlook-open-backupped-pst-datafile-archive-importing-to-outlook-2010


Once .PST file is opened and attached in Left Inbox pane you will have the Archived old mail folder appear.

 

outlook-archived-mail-pannel-screenshot-windows-7
You can change Archived name (like I did to some meaningful name) like I've change it to Archives-2013 by right clicking on it (Data File properties -> Advanced)