If you ever need to find when was Windows installed on your computer or laptop, then here is a Windows command Systeminfo that can help you with that.

1. Open command prompt

2. Run the command

   systeminfo | findstr /C:"Install Date"

Windows built-in command compact allows one to compress or un-compress files on a NTFS file system. Using this command we can set compression attributes on a directory also so that the new files added to the directory will be compressed automatically.

To compress all the files in the current directory and also the sub directories and the files within them recursively

compact /c /s *

To un-compress all the files in the current directory and also in its sub directories:

compact /u /s *

The IconsExtract utility scans the files and folders on your computer, and extract the icons and cursors stored in EXE, DLL, OCX, CPL, and in other file types. You can save the extracted icons to ICO files (or CUR files for cursors), or copy the image of a single icon into the clipboard.

Windows operating system: Windows 95/98/ME, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2003 Server, or Windows Vista/7/2008/8.x/10 .

IconsExtract can only extract icons from 32-bit executable files. It cannot extract icons from 16-bit files.

The common source format for a WinHelp project is an .HPJ file defining the help file's general properties, with a corresponding RTF file containing the actual help text. These files are used by the WinHelp compiler to create the final .HLP file.

Having a pair of .HPJ and .RTF files for an existing help project, you can use these files to convert by HTMLHelp Workshop. If you have troubles converting the existing .HPJ and .RTF files exported by your previous help authoring tool, use the decompiler instead.

If you have an existing WinHelp .HLP file without the .HPJ and .RTF source files only, you can use the WinHelp decompiler to recreate the HPJ and RTF sources from the HLP file. The decompiler will generate the .HPJ and *.RTF files, along with a series of bitmap files if the help file contains images.

Run WinHelp on Windows 10:

The WinHelp (.hlp) format has been around since the very early 1990s and is superseded by HTML Help 1.x (.chm). Microsoft strongly advise you move away from WinHelp about ten years ago. But for a test application it's running on my Windows10 machine like a charm.

• Make a batch file and make the original be replaced by the new one, and use the already existing settings to REALLY open *hlp files and not just redirect to some M$ webpage.

batch content (command prompt must have admin privilege):

 takeown /F C:\Windows\winhlp32.exe
 icacls C:\Windows\winhlp32.exe /grant "you username without the quotes":F
 ren C:\Windows\winhlp32.exe winhlp32.exe.bak
 copy "PATH to the folder of the batchfile and the downloaded x86 or  x64 hlp viewer without quotes(I use x64)"\XP64winhlp32.exe C:\Windows\winhlp32.exe

User Profile Wizard 3.16 is the latest version of ForensiT's powerful workstation migration tool. User Profile Wizard will migrate your current user profile to your new user account so that you can keep all your existing data and settings.

The steps I took to convert the domain accounts to local accounts are:

1. Windows 7 seems to be the first system not locking profiles when logging out, you can insure by reboot in order to clear any locks on user profiles.
2. Log in using local administrator account. (Enable local administrator account and set a password for it, if you didn’t did it by now)
3. if you have roaming profiles – Convert them to domain local:
   Control Panel -> System -> Advanced System Settings -> User Profiles -> Settings… -> Select account -> Change Type… -> Set to ‘Local Profile’. (if applicable)
4. Create a new local user account:
   Control Panel -> User Accounts – > Manage User Accounts – > Advanced – > Advanced
   or simply
   • Run (Start+R) -> lusrmgr.msc.
5. Run User Profile Wizard (I used v3.6),
   convert domain user to local user
6. click Next, Select the local machine name option (not the domain), enter the username for the account created in step 4 into the account name box, you can try the ‘Set as default logon’ (didn’t work for me) and click Next.
   convert domain user to local user
7. Select the domain account that you want to convert into a local account and click Next.
8. After it’s finished, test it by logging on as the local user (i.e.MACHINENAME\Username) you created in step 4, all settings and data from old domain profile should be applied. (optional)

you can Remove machine from domain and reboot.

Extends Explorer by tabs and extra folder views

• Free/Donationware
• Multiple-language support by contributors
• for Windows7 & Windows8 & Windows8.1 & Windows10 (32bit/64bit) + .net Framework 4.0

Image Composite Editor (ICE) is an advanced panoramic image stitcher created by the Microsoft Research Computational Photography Group. Given a set of overlapping photographs of a scene shot from a single camera location, the app creates high-resolution panoramas that seamlessly combine original images. ICE can also create panoramas from a panning video, including stop-motion action overlaid on the background. Finished panoramas can be saved in a wide variety of image formats, including JPEG, TIFF, and Photoshop’s PSD/PSB format, as well as the multiresolution tiled format used by HD View and Deep Zoom.

Apparently if the Windows Update icon can not popup in the Notification Area, Windows Update won’t.
windows-update-failed-with-error-80243004-notification-area

Solution:

1. Right click the START BUTTON (or any empty space on the task bar) and select PROPERTIES
2. Click the TASKBAR tab
3. Click the CUSTOMIZE button for the Notification Area
4. At the VERY bottom of the window, click on the ALWAYS SHOW ALL ICONS AND NOTIFICATIONS IN THE TASK BAR
5. Try your Windows Updates again. Note that I did not have reboot, log off or even restart services

This allowed about a third of my 20 outstanding updates to install but others still would not. I found that changing to a different profile allowed me to install the balance.

Take Command organizes your Windows command prompts
Take Command is a comprehensive interactive GUI and Windows command line toolkit that makes your Windows command prompts easier to use and far more powerful. Take Command includes optional Windows Explorer integration, tabbed console windows, and major enhancements to standard Windows CMD commands such as COPY, DEL, FOR, MOVE, REN, SET, and START And it and adds 200+ new commands, command dialogs, command line syntax coloring, vastly improved command line editing, programmable filename and directory completion, and thousands of other features.

Take Command is also a powerful batch file programming tool, including an integrated IDE with a sophisticated editor and batch debugger. Take Command offers extensions such as DO loops, SWITCH statements, error and exception handling, system monitoring and event triggers, third-party plugins, and 698 built-in variables and functions.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\DriveIcons

1. Under the DriveIcons subkey, create a new subkey and use the drive letter (ex: D ) that you want to change the icon for.
2. create a new subkey and name it DefaultIcon
3. modify the (Default) value. Double click it and set its value to the full path to your custom icon file. In my case, I will use the file named "Longhorn Drive.ico" which I have in the C:\icons folder

go to Computer and at the top right click on search. Click on kind and Select folder, now click again on search and click on size, select 0 and click on search. ///

Windows-F3 to search, then type kind:folder size:empty <enter>

Windows 10’s default diagnostic setting, “Full,” says it sends “info about websites you browse and how you use apps and features,” so this data may just be sent to Microsoft through Windows 10’s normal telemetry. You can find these options at Settings > Privacy > Diagnostics & Feedback.

Update: Microsoft has confirmed this, telling us you’ll need to set this option to “Basic” to stop Windows from sending your app usage history to Microsoft.

In a post on Microsoft’s Tech Community blog, Hari Pulapaka details the new Windows Sandbox. Previously referred to as InPrivate Desktop, this feature creates an “isolated, temporary, desktop environment” that you can run software on without fear of harming your machine.

Much like a standard VM, any software you install in the Sandbox stays isolated and cannot affect the host machine. When you close the Sandbox, any programs you installed, files you added, and settings changes you made are deleted. The next time you run Sandbox, it’s back to a clean slate. Microsoft is using hardware-based virtualization, through hypervisor, to run a separate kernel so it can isolate Sandbox from the host.

This means you can safely download an executable file from a risky source and install in Sandbox without risk to your host system. Or you could quickly test out a development scenario in a fresh copy of Windows.

Impressively, the requirements are fairly low:

Windows 10 Pro or Enterprise build 18301 or later (currently not available, but should soon be released as an Insider Preview build)
x64 architecture
Virtualization capabilities enabled in BIOS
At least 4GB of RAM (8GB recommended)
At least 1 GB of free disk space (SSD recommended)
At least 2 CPU cores (4 cores with hyperthreading recommended)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Search.

If you don’t see a “Windows Search” key (folder) below the Windows folder, right-click the Windows folder and select New > Key. Name it “Windows Search”.
Right-click the “Windows Search” key (folder) in the left pane and select New > DWORD (32-bit) Value.