Windows 8 Tips Series – Content Rollup

Post author:Dirk Strauss
Post published:July 30, 2013
Post category:How To
Post comments:1 Comment

Windows 8 Tips Series has been a regular post on this blog for the past couple of months. I think it is time to close the series and provide a content roll-up of all the posts. With Windows 8.1 around the corner, I will probably cover that from now on.

I do have to say that Windows 8 is definitely a paradigm shift for many. Over the past couple of months I have heard some people commenting that they just can’t get used to it.

I am interested to see if the Windows 8.1 update will change that perception amongst the users. I personally feel that Windows 8 is a stellar Operating System and that it can only go from strength to strength with Microsoft driving it. Nevertheless, here is the complete Windows 8 Tips Series for your reading pleasure. As usual, comments are always welcome.

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Resolve Windows Live Mail Error When Using smtp4dev

Post author:Dirk Strauss
Post published:July 15, 2013
Post category:How To
Post comments:12 Comments

smtp4dev is an excellent testing tool to add to your tools library. Go ahead and download smtp4dev from CodePlex. It is a dummy SMTP server which is compatible with Windows 7/Vista/XP/2003/2010. smtp4dev Will sit in the system tray and listen for messages on the port you specify (usually port 25).

The best thing about smtp4dev is that it will not deliver the received messages. You can then view the messages or save them and inspect the source/structure. This makes smtp4dev very useful for testing/debugging software that needs to generate emails. I recently used it to test the email functionality from a VBScript. (more…)

Clone VirtualBox VM’s Easily To Provide a Fresh Dev Environment

Post author:Dirk Strauss
Post published:July 11, 2013
Post category:How To
Post comments:0 Comments

Clone VirtualBox VM's - Lately I have fallen in love again with VirtualBox. I have decided that using the same installation of SYSPRO on my local dev machine to do all customisations is inefficient. As time moves along and different customisations need to be done for different clients, my SYSPRO installation…

Windows 8 Tips Part 19 – Bring back Boot Into Safe Mode With F8

Post author:Dirk Strauss
Post published:July 8, 2013
Post category:How To
Post comments:0 Comments

F8 Safe Boot seems to have vanished from Windows 8? One of the strange quirks of Windows 8 is that the Boot into Safe mode by pressing F8 at boot time has been disabled. Microsoft justifies this by saying that modern computers boot too fast.

The response window for pressing the F8 key on a Windows 8 SSD-based UEFI system is less than 200 milliseconds. This is surely okay for modern Windows 8 devices, but for the rest of us folks out there with slower machines (or for those who prefer the F8 Safe Boot method because it is familiar to us), we want the F8 Safe Boot key back. (more…)

VirtualBox CompareExchange128 Error on Windows 8.1 Preview Install

Post author:Dirk Strauss
Post published:July 4, 2013
Post category:How To
Post comments:47 Comments

VirtualBox CompareExchange128 Error

Over the past few days, the Internet has been abuzz with articles, Tweets and showcases of Windows 8.1 Preview and Visual Studio 2013 Preview. My curiosity got the better of me, so last night I decided to give Windows 8.1 Preview a whirl.

So as any good intrepid explorer will do, I decided to install this on a Virtual Machine (My weapon of choice being Virtualbox – current version 4.2.14). VirtualBox is truly one of my most favourite development tools I have and I use it on a daily basis.

I fired up my VM and proceeded to mount the Windows 8.1 Preview ISO. The installation started executing quite smoothly but unfortunately after a minute or two later I was presented with a curious error. “You can’t install Windows 8.1 Preview because your processor doesn’t support CompareExchange128”. (more…)

Twitter – Get All Your Tweets In One Archive

Post author:Dirk Strauss
Post published:July 2, 2013
Post category:How To
Post comments:6 Comments

Twitter is addictive. Can you remember your first tweet? I was so thankful that mine wasn’t one of those ‘Trying out this Twitter thingy’ tweets. You know, the one that is almost like making a good entrance. Well just how do you go about getting your Twitter Archive?

Finally they have made this really easy to do. I mean, there have been many services out there that offer to get your past tweets, but due to an API limitation, you were only able to get back the last 2,500 tweets from Twitter. (more…)

Windows 8 Tips Part 18 – Customize Task Manager

Post author:Dirk Strauss
Post published:May 15, 2013
Post category:How To
Post comments:4 Comments

Windows 8 has redesigned the Task Manager. It’s better and more advanced than the previous versions of it. Did you know that you can customize Windows 8 Task Manager to your liking?

Take a look at the tabs along the top and you will notice (among others) Performance, Startup, App history but to name a few. (You might also want to read this post: Windows 8 Tips Part 16 – Change Startup Programs… But Where Is Startup?)

Moving Startup here makes sense, because I can now have a one-stop screen for most things application and process related. For me anyway, I want to tweak the Task Manager a bit to suit my preferences. This is quite easy enough to do. (more…)

Windows 8 Tips Part 17 – Enable Merge Folder Dialogue

Post author:Dirk Strauss
Post published:May 9, 2013
Post category:How To
Post comments:0 Comments

Back in Windows 7, when you copied a folder into another folder that already contained a sub-folder with the same name, you would receive a warning dialogue warning you that the folders with the same name will be merged. This at least gave you a heads-up before continuing.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depends on how you look at this) Windows 8 does not display this warning dialogue any more. Windows 8 continues merrily on it’s own tangent and merges the two folders into one single folder.

Well I am not sure about you, but for me (being a bit of a control freak) I like to know what actions Windows 8 will perform on my files and folders. I also want a say in those actions. (more…)

Windows 8 Tips Part 16 – Change Startup Programs… But Where Is Startup?

Post author:Dirk Strauss
Post published:April 8, 2013
Post category:How To
Post comments:3 Comments

Change Windows 8 Startup Programs

Is your Windows 8 machine taking a millisecond longer to start up? Well, that’s easy to diagnose. Just head on over to the Startup Programs and change what apps are loaded when you start your PC.

Right…. the Startup Tab…. where is it? Well Microsoft have moved the Startup Tab from MSCONFIG to the Task Manager. (When did they tell us about that?)

Yes, and they’ve beefed it up a bit too. So start up your PC and let’s take a closer look. (more…)

Windows 8 Tips Part 15 – Take Back Control Of Your Settings

Post author:Dirk Strauss
Post published:April 4, 2013
Post category:How To
Post comments:0 Comments

Do you want to have an all access icon on your desktop? Some call this God Mode but I am sure that if it were, you would be able to do much more.

I came across this tip the other day and thought it would be nice to share here. Windows 8 settings are spread across the OS in various nooks and crannies. How many times have you rooted around the Control Panel in search for that one setting you used a few months ago?

Wouldn’t it be nice to have it all in one place (so that you can go rooting around in only one place)? Well, Mark Kaelin shared this tip on TechRepublic (reference link below) and here it is. (more…)