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Why Flash memory is good for your computer

Simply put, flash memory will enable a revolution in improving computer performance in daily utilization scenarios. Your computer will boot up faster. It will launch applications significantly faster. (Hey, it will shutdown faster as well.) The problem Read More...
Posted Wednesday, July 05, 2006 2:17 AM by AdiOltean | 6 Comments

How to run Defrag on a scheduled basis

On Windows XP, it's simple. Just run this command and you are done: schtasks /create /TN defrag /RU "NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM" /SC weekly /TR "defrag %systemdrive%" Read More...
Posted Friday, April 07, 2006 12:18 AM by AdiOltean | 5 Comments

Using NTBackup to achieve P2V

I always thought about writing a post about physical-to-virtual migration strategies in combination with VSS, but I never got to it. So it's not surprising that others started to uncover this trail :-) One particular technique in this area is described Read More...
Posted Friday, January 20, 2006 1:48 AM by AdiOltean | 4 Comments

Windows Backup - highlighted as one of the main Vista features!

Whoohoo! Windows backup is there. Proeminently: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/features/default.aspx#wvC2 They also mention the Shadow Copy (aka Previous Versions). This is a standard feature now in Windows Server 2003, which is invaluable for Read More...
Posted Thursday, January 05, 2006 12:20 PM by AdiOltean | 2 Comments

How to do atomic writes in a file

Let's assume that you want is to write some simple code that writes to a text file. A few assumptions: 1) You need avoid corruptions of any kind. 2) Either all of your writes have to make it to the disk, or none of them. 3) The file is updated serially Read More...
Posted Wednesday, December 28, 2005 2:51 PM by AdiOltean | 3 Comments

DOSDEV.EXE - a misterious tool

Once in a while, you might encounter this tool in some Microsoft-provided SDKs, or Resource Kits, for example in the Windows Resource Kit, the Exchange Report Toolkit, and others. But this tool never came with any relevant documentation. It just displays Read More...
Posted Tuesday, October 04, 2005 6:51 PM by AdiOltean | 4 Comments

How to query the list of disks/partitions for a certain volume (and viceversa)

A good comment in one of my previous posts : >>> Any idea how to get a Volume Name ( \\?\Vol{GUID }) or drive letter for a given disk XX + partition XX? i.e. If I have a partition table for DiskDrive0 I need to find out what volume/drive letter Read More...
Posted Wednesday, May 04, 2005 9:13 PM by AdiOltean | 2 Comments

NTFS curiosities (Part I): Short file names

Aaron Stebner noted that it is possible to configure Windows to always use short file names. This is a legacy feature left over from the Windows 95 land. Sometimes, you just have to run some old MS-DOS applications. These apps will get confused about Read More...
Posted Thursday, January 27, 2005 9:42 PM by AdiOltean | 7 Comments

Script recipe of the week: how to copy an opened file

I just read recently a post on the newsgroups - someone wanted to backup her PST file. The problem is that Outlook keeps this file open all the time, therefore we are unable to just copy this file once in a while. Argh... A cute little script Fortunately, Read More...
Posted Wednesday, January 05, 2005 3:50 AM by AdiOltean | 23 Comments
 
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