Check or Turn Off Windows UAC (User Account Control)

Windows User Account Control or UAC is another Windows feature that may cause any non-Microsoft application to malfunction.

Deciding whether the security benefit is worth the trouble is your choice.

Here's my preferred way of verifying it:

1- Open Regedit on the machine
2- check the registry key HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\EnableLUA 
(REG_DWORD) if the key is missing or its value is 0, then it's disabled, any other value (like 1) then it's enabled


The way to do it from the UI is as follow:

From your "Start Menu"
Launch the "Control Panel"
Select "User Accounts"
Then "Change User Account Control Settings"

reboot your computer after any change!

How to really disable DEP (Data Execution Prevention) / BCDEdit

Windows DEP or Data Execution Prevention is often blocking you or your application from working properly.

If you explore Windows configuration and Help, you will find

My computer
  -> Right click
     -> Properties
         -> Advanced System Settings
            -> Performance Settings
               -> Data Execution Prevention

You can set a few options on or off, but this is rarely enough.

In order to REALLY disable DEP, you need to tell Windows at boot time.

For Windows 2003 or Windows XP
You need to go to

My computer
  -> Right click
     -> Properties
         -> Advanced System Settings
            -> Startup and Recovery Settings 

and edit your boot.ini from there
and add the parameter /NoExecute=AlwaysOff


For Windows Vista or Windows 7
There is a command line tool to do so, make sure to launch your command prompt "As Administrator" and run the command

BCDEdit.exe /set {current} nx AlwaysOff

You can also see all your boot options with

BCDEdit /enum

you will something similar to
Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier              {bootmgr}
device                  partition=C:
description             Windows Boot Manager
locale                  en-US
inherit                 {globalsettings}
default                 {current}
resumeobject            {5a9684f2-9ec0-11e1-a7c3-00137290c993}
displayorder            {current}
toolsdisplayorder       {memdiag}
timeout                 5

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier              {current}
device                  partition=C:
path                    \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description             Windows 7
locale                  en-US
inherit                 {bootloadersettings}
recoverysequence        {5a9684f6-9ec0-11e1-a7c3-00137290c993}
recoveryenabled         Yes
osdevice                partition=C:
systemroot              \Windows
resumeobject            {5a9684f2-9ec0-11e1-a7c3-00137290c993}
nx                      AlwaysOff


Don't forget, this is a boot option, so you do need to reboot for Windows to take it into account.

Synaptics LuxPad V1.5 keeps disabling accidently

I recently got a new laptop, HP EliteBook 8570w, and like all the new line of HP laptops, it comes with the Synaptics LuxPad. It's a very large touchpad that supports multitouch and advanced gestures the way your smartphone would.

However frustration often comes because the touchpad tends to disable itself if my hand rests on it while typing.

I'm then left without my touchpad trying to go in the LuxPad's configuration panel in order to re-enable it. After this happened a couple times, frustration rises.

Today I found out the proper way to enable or disable it, I simply need to double tap the top left corner of the pad! and Voila

Back to work now ! :)

Failed updating configuration file

Sometimes you install applications or services that creates their own service account to run under. Unfortunately since the installer or configuration itself creates the service account, this also means that you ran the installer under a different account and thus the service account is not the owner of its own folder structure where the binaries resides.

In a secure environment, think with Windows UAC (User Access Control) turned on the application or service might fail to update its own configuration files and send you errors

"Failed updating the server config file."
"Service user does not exist."
"Permission denied"

In this case it would often help to set the owner of the installation directory to be the service account under which the application run.
If you know the exact file that the service needs to update you can change only this file, if not you can change for the entire directory.

To do so: 

Right click on the folder -> Properties -> Security -> Advanced Security Settings -> Owner -> Edit -> select your service account user and check  also ‘Replace owner on subcontainers’, OK OK OK OK 

How to set Proxy settings for SYSTEM account? / BITSAdmin tool

Earlier (dec 2010) I was posting about how to set the proxy settings for a SYSTEM account using manual registry modifications.

There is actually a much easier way to do this using the BITSAdmin tool from Windows.

This tool allows you to change the proxy settings for

• LOCALSYSTEM
• NETWORKSERVICE
• LOCALSERVICE

Quick examples:

Static proxy for LOCALSYSTEM:
bitsadmin /util /setieproxy localsystem MANUAL_PROXY http://myproxy.mydomain.com:8080

Static proxy for NETWORKSERVICE that bypasses local addresses:
bitsadmin /util /setieproxy networkservice MANUAL_PROXY http://my.proxy.com "<local>"

Set a proxy.pac for LOCALSERVICE:
bitsadmin /util /setieproxy localservice AUTOSCRIPT http://myproxy.mydomain.com/proxy.pac.js

Remove all proxy settings for LOCALSYSTEM:
bitsadmin /util /setieproxy localsystem RESET

full details are on MSDN Library

How to set Proxy settings for SYSTEM account?

Sometimes you need to run a service under SYSTEM user account, and sometimes this service needs to access the internet, and sometimes, your network admin will require you to go through a proxy to access the internet.

easier to do this:

- set the proxy setting for your user
- export HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\Connections\DefaultConnectionSettings
- re import in HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-18\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\....

Enjoy!

C drive running out of space

- delete obsolete user accounts, temp files, temporary internet files, log files uninstall useless programs add-ins)

- move your %temp% to another drive (Right-Click on My-Computer - Manage - Advanced - Environment Variables and change the variables TEMP and TMP for the User and for System)

- Move to another drive (Right-Click on My-Documents - properties, change the target)

- Move the Pagefile.sys to another drive (Right-Click on My-Computer - Manage - Advanced - Performance Settings - Advanced - change, define on your second drive whatever was defined on your C drive, and set your C drive to 64-64 or so)

- If like me you have never uninstalled a Microsoft update and are not planning to do so, delete Microsoft Updates uninstall information, C:\windows\$NtUninstallKB933729$, you could very well have a few hundreds of these.

- While you are at it you can also remove the Windows service pack installation files, C:\Windows\ServicePackFiles and uninstallation files C:\Windows\$NtServicePackUninstall$

- Clear *.Log under c:\windows c:\windows\system32\logfiles

- uninstall from c:\windows\Downloaded Program Files

- Clear C:\windows\Downloaded Installations