Some tools, tips, and tricks fr administering Smallworld under a Windows Client or Server
Users and Permissions
- whoami /groups to display groups. (C:\Windows\System32\whoami.exe)
- net group <grp_name> /domain to display the users belonging to a domain group.
- net user <usr_name> /domain to display information about user including group membership
File Permissions
- To make all magik files under a directory read-only try: attrib +R c:\Smallworld\*.magik /S
Symbolic Links
One proposed solution to locked files is to create symbolic links and replace the symbolic link.
mklink /d ..\..\shared_folder folderSymbolic Link Permissions
Windows by default doesn't give permissions to do this, especially over network folders. You need to run the following in an elevated command.
fsutil behavior set SymlinkEvaluation L2L:1 R2R:1 L2R:1 R2L:1Junctions
Junctions are what Windows uses to have symbolic links in your user folder. These do not require special permissions to be utilized. To create junctions use this command.
mklink /j .\libs .\libs_%TIMESTAMP%The above command creates a junction from libs to libs_%TIMESTAMP%. The caveat to the junction creation is that it can only be done on "physical drives" not UNC paths. Once the junction is created, UNC paths follow the junctions correctly without special permissions.
We get around the creatin restriction by creating a script that looks for a file that says identifies the target & junction name and run it on the server. When we build the first thing that happens is we remove the existing libs junction and create a new one. This is good for 2 things. First it doesn't lock the libs folder so we can rebuild while users are in Smallworld. Second is that we have a backup of the JARs just in case we need to restore a previous "image."
System Information
- wmic qfe list brief /format:csv > c:/temp/patches.csv This will list all the patches on your system and save it to a CSV file that can be viewed in a spread sheet program.
- where <executable> to display the location of the executable.
Windows Ports
"netstat -a -b" will report all ports being used and which processes are using them
Java Information
Smallworld versions before 5.0 typically require 32 bit version of Java installed. At this time Java 8 is rolling out to more people and if you had Java 7 installed prior to installing Java 8, you may run into some problems.
Java Version mismatch
Do you are getting the following error message on the magik prompt and your application freezes upon starting?
Error: Registry key 'Software\JavaSoft\Java Runtime Environment'\CurrentVersion'
has value '1.8', but '1.7' is required.
Error: could not find java.dll
Error: Could not find Java SE Runtime Environment.Copy the 32 bit java, javaw, and javws EXE files from the java 8 install directory to C:\Windows\SysWOW64
Misc
Renaming '.' or 'Dot' files on Windows
In Explorer, select the file or directory and rename it to whatever you want like ".newfilename." and include the ending '.' Windows will take this as the new name without the last dot.
Windows Processes
WMIC
WMIC provides a command line interface to the processes running on your machine. Some examples…
wmic process where "Name like '%java%'" get Name,CommandLinesystem and compressed memory
I had a laptop with windows 8 and upgraded to windows 10. I kept hearing the fan go rev up when the system was idle. When I look at the task manager, I noticed that the process "system and compressed memory" was running at 20%. Looking on the web, I saw one spot where they suggested changing the Virtual Memory Settings from Automatic to a fixed size. That seemed to work a little, but I found another posting that said it was the Memory Diagnostics. I disabled this in the Task Scheduler, and it seemed to quiet the system down.
Windows Briefcase?
Do you miss the Windows Briefcase functionality to keep data synced between 2 folders, like thumb drive and desktop? You can restore that function by using the windows registry settings as seen below. This can be copied/pasted into a .REG file that you can import. It is supoosed to work on Windows 8 & 10. Source: http://winaero.com/blog/how-to-add-the-briefcase-feature-in-windows-10/
Shortcut Suffix
If you hate the "- Shorrtcut" suffix on all the shortcuts you create in Windows as much as I do, you will love this hack… Changing the registry value of HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Link to 00 00 00 00 and logging off immediately will stop the suffix from appearing. Below is the REG file contents to update your registry and the default user registry. [1] Don't forget you need to log/sign out. Restarting didn't seem to save the setting…
MSI Extraction
Do you need to extract an MSI file but do not want to actually instal it use the following… Probably needs to be run with Admin privileges.
msiexec /a "E:\core410.msi" /qb TARGETDIR=c:\temp\sw410Windows 10 File Drag Stops
Do you see all of a sudden in Windows 10 the file drag (and drop) stops working. No errors, just different behavior? Try this fix, select a file with left mouse button and hold the LMB down. Then hit the escape key. May fix problem. [2] I've killed and restarted explorer before (note you need the task manager open to do a run.
Windows Network
This Page goes into some Windows network problems/fixes.
Hard Drive Information
Partitioning MBR or GPT
GPT is for newer drives > 2TB [3]
HtmlHelp (CHM files)
In current versions of Windows they restrict the HtmlHelp (CHM) file access. In order to view the contents of CHM files you need to add the following to the registry. This is a REG file.
REGEDIT4
;; This content can be saved as a file such as chm_fix.reg.
;; You can then double click on the file to install it into your registry
;;
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\HTMLHelp\1.x\ItssRestrictions]
;1 is for intranet access But have to put in 3 on latest XP versions
"MaxAllowedZone"=dword:00000003
;;
; According to documentation: alternatively, you can put the directory here as
; \\\\server\share\\dir or website
;[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\HTMLHelp\1.x\ItssRestrictions]
;"UrlAllowList"=""you may also need to add it within 32bit registry (Wow6432Node)
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\HTMLHelp\1.x\ItssRestrictions]
"MaxAllowedZone"=dword:00000003[[/code]]
Windows 11
- Missing Toolbar functionality on Taskbar…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJD61-rm0mA&t=210s is a video that shows how to "restore" the functionality. The EXE it mentions is on GitHub: https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher/releases
Miscellaneous Links
- The “Little tricks every IT Support person should know” thread [4]: https://community.spiceworks.com/t/the-little-tricks-every-it-support-person-should-know-thread/205495?utm_source=swemail+community+newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=community+newsletter+669146&utme=article2+maincta&dm_i=78Z3%2CECBE%2C28XSZY%2C26JO5%2C1
