Syncthing Windows Setup (herein referred to as "Setup") provides a Syncthing installer for Windows, built using Inno Setup. It provides the following features:

Installs the appropriate 32-bit or 64-bit version of Syncthing using a single installer

Supports administrative (all users) and non administrative (current user) installation (see Administrative vs. Non Administrative Installation Mode)

When installing for all users, installs Syncthing as a Windows service using NSSM (see Windows Service Installation)

When installing for the current user, creates a scheduled task that starts Syncthing in a hidden window at logon

Allows configuration of GUI configuration page listen IP address and TCP port number during installation

Supports adding a Windows Firewall rule for Syncthing (see Windows Firewall Rules)

Installs a set of scripts for ease-of-use (see Scripts)

Supports silent (hands-free) installation (see Silent Install and Uninstall)

Allows localization of Setup and scripts (see building.md file for details)

This post is just a reminder of the necessary steps in order to backup Windows 7 activation status before doing a clean re-install and then restoring it back.
They are taken from post on the following link : http://www.mydigitallife.info/how-to-backup-and-restore-windows-7-and-server-2008-r2-activation-status-activate-offline-on-reinstall/

1. Copy and save or backup the following activation-related files to external storage medium such as USB flash drive or portable hard disk drive: C:\Windows\ServiceProfiles\NetWorkService\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\SoftwareProtectionPlatform\Tokens.dat and,C:\Windows\System32\spp\tokens\pkeyconfig\pkeyconfig.xrm-ms
   Note: For 64-bit (x64) OS, C:\Windows\SysWOW64\spp\tokens\pkeyconfig\pkeyconfig.xrm-ms have to be backed up too.
2. Retrieve and record the product key used to install and activate the current Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2.
3. Reinstall Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2. When installation wizard prompts for a product key for activation, leave it blank (do not enter anything).
4. In the newly installed Windows operating system, stop the Software Protection Service in Services.msc or with the following command (run in elevated command prompt): net stop sppsvc
5. Navigate to the following folder: C:\Windows\System32\spp\tokens\pkeyconfig\
   Note: In 64-bit (x64) operating system, also perform the action in C:\Windows\SysWOW64\spp\tokens\pkeyconfig\ folder.
6. Take ownership and give user full control permissions (alternatively add grant full control right click menu item) to pkeyconfig.xrm-ms file.
7. Delete the original default pkeyconfig.xrm-ms file, and replace with the backup copy.
8. Navigate to the following folder: C:\Windows\ServiceProfiles\NetWorkService\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\SoftwareProtectionPlatform\
9. Take ownership and give user full control permissions (alternatively add grant full control right click menu item) to tokens.dat file.
10. Delete the original default tokens.dat file, and replace with the backup copy.
11. Restart the Software Protection Service in Services.msc or with the following command (run in elevated command prompt): net start sppsvc
12. Register the product key for Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 with the following command (run in elevated command prompt): slmgr.vbs -ipk xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx
    Replace xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx with the actual product key.
13. Windows will activated instantly, off-line. To check activation status, uses of of the following commands:
    slmgr.vbs -dlv
    slmgr.vbs -dli
    slmgr.vbs -ato

Updated Jul 5, 2017

Before Windows 95, Windows only allowed file names that were eight characters long, with a three character file extension–commonly known as an 8.3 filename. Windows 95 abandoned that to allow long file names, but still limited the maximum path length (which includes the full folder path and the file name) to 260 characters. That limit has been in place ever since. If you’ve ever run into this limit, most likely it was when you were trying to copy deep folder structures into other folders, such as when copying the contents of a hard drive to a folder on another drive. The Windows 10 Anniversary Update finally adds the option to abandon that maximum path length.

There is one caveat. This new setting won’t necessarily work with every application out there, but it will work with most. Specifically, any modern applications should be fine, as should all 64-bit applications. Older 32-bit applications need to be manifested in order to work, which really just means that the developer has indicated in the application’s manifest file that the application supports longer paths. Most popular 32-bit apps should experience no problem. Still, you don’t risk anything by trying the setting out. If an application doesn’t work, the only thing that will happen is that it won’t be able to open or save files that are saved in places where the full path exceeds 260 characters. //

In the Registry Editor, use the left sidebar to navigate to the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem

On the right, find a value named LongPathsEnabled and double-click it. If you don’t see the value listed, you’ll need to create it by right-clicking the FileSystem key, choosing New > DWORD (32-bit) Value, and then naming the new value LongPathsEnabled .

In the value’s properties window, change the value from 0 to 1 in the “Value data” box and then click OK.

You can now close Registry Editor and restart your computer (or sign out of your account and sign back on).

If you ever want to reverse the changes, just head back to the LongPathsEnabled value and set it from 1 back to 0.

the company itself posted official guidance on its website detailing how to circumvent the TPM 2.0 requirement. The process involves taking your Windows 10 machine and changing the registry key values in the OS to ignore the check for TPM 2.0. However, the bypass only applies to PCs that have at least TPM 1.2, which has to be enabled. This can usually be done by going into the machine’s BIOS settings on startup.
The Microsoft-provided bypass should also enable a Windows 11 installation on PCs that have a CPU older than the official system requirements, for example an AMD Ryzen 1000 processor or an Intel 7th-generation Core chip. The company’s webpage notes: “An image install of Windows 11 will not check for the following requirements: TPM 2.0 (at least TPM 1.2 is required) and CPU family and model.”

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/ways-to-install-windows-11-e0edbbfb-cfc5-4011-868b-2ce77ac7c70e //

If you want Windows 11 on an unsupported CPU, you should use the Windows 11 Disk Image installation process.
Still, using the bypass has caveats. Microsoft’s instructions link to a whole page that warns installing Windows 11 on an unsupported PC could lead to malfunctions arising from compatibility problems. The company also vaguely says: “Devices that do not meet these system requirements will no longer be guaranteed to receive updates, including but not limited to security updates.” If you do get denied for a Windows update, you’ll have to download and install the patches manually.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows11

A long time back, most of the software used to ship with .hlp (WinHelp help format) help files. Since Windows Vista, the legacy .hlp format has been deprecated. To view 32-bit Help files with the .hlp file extension in Windows Vista (and higher — through Windows 8.1), you will need to download and install WinHlp32.exe (KB917607 package) from the Microsoft Download Center.However, this update isn’t available for Windows 10. This article tells you how to restore the missing WinHelp (.hlp) viewer in Windows 10.

If you want to record or meter what you are hearing over your speakers/headset then you may not find the option not available. By default in Windows the ‘What U Hear’ or ‘Stereo Mix’ input is disabled.

You will need to un-hide and enable recording options. If you are using a Creative Sound Blaster sound card this option will be called "What U Hear" if you are using another audio device such as Realtek on-board or generic sound devices this option will be called "Stereo Mix".

Right-click over the speaker icon.

Click ‘Open Sound Settings’.

Click ‘Sound Control Panel’ as above.

On Windows 10 this takes you to Settings as above.

Click on "Sound Control Panel"

On older Windows you go straight to the original Sound Control Panel as below.

1. You should now have the old Sound Control Panel open.

2. Go to the "Recording" tab.

3. Right click over any source and check the ‘Show disabled devices’ option.

4. Now that the hidden options are visible, right click on each of them and click on enable.

5. Right click on the What U Hear or Stereo Mix source and click on ‘Set as default device’.

6. Once the device is set as default you will be able to use the "What U Hear"/"Stereo Mix" option in your recording or metering applications to record or monitor the audio you are currently hearing over your speakers or headset.

Media Player Classic - Home Cinema (MPC-HC) is a free and open-source video and audio player for Windows. MPC-HC is based on the original Guliverkli project and contains many additional features and bug fixes.

1. Search for Command Prompt and choose Run as AdministratorType in diskpart and press Enter.
2. Type in list disk and press Enter to show all the available disks on your computer.
3. You can see which disk is offline. Then, type in select disk ( stands the number of the offline disk) and press Enter.
4. Type in unique disk ID=(New signature) and press Enter. The new signature should be a new ID in hexadecimal. For example, you can set the new id as uniqueid disk ID=BEFBB4AA.
5. Type in online disk and press Enter.
6. Type in list disk and press Enter to see whether the disk is online now.

Of all the weird and frustrating problems in Windows 11, this one might take the cake. Microsoft removed the “Add a Folder” option from Windows 11’s File History tool, meaning that you can only back up Documents, Photos, and other pre-made folders in Windows 11. That is, unless you pay for some OneDrive storage.

File History is the main backup tool in Windows. It was first introduced in Windows 8, and allows users to automatically back up select folders to an external drive. In short, File History is like an automatic cloud storage solution that sits at your desk and doesn’t cost $15 a month.

As the screenshots below show, Microsoft considers the Intel Pentium 4 661 a supported processor. Intel released the Pentium 4 661 in early 2006, with a solitary core to its name. Apparently, Microsoft forgot to add any Intel Family 15 (Netburst) SKUs in its unsupported processors list for Windows 11.

Hence, the PC Health Check tool sees that the Pentium 4 661 has a 3.6 GHz boost clock, which satisfies one of Windows 11's requirements. Curiously, the tool states that the Pentium 4 661 has two or more cores, even though it lists it as having one.

@Carlos_SM1995 has even got Windows 11 (Build 22000.258) running on a Pentium 4 661. Supposedly, Windows Update still works too, highlighting the ridiculousness of Microsoft's overtures regarding Windows 11 compatibility.

Gain Access (Control) of WindowsApps folder:

icacls "%ProgramFiles%\WindowsApps" /save  WindowsApps.acl

[ icacls "%ProgramFiles%" /restore WindowsApps.acl]
takeown /F "%ProgramFiles%\WindowsApps"
takeown /F "%ProgramFiles%\WindowsApps" /r /d y
icacls "%ProgramFiles%\WindowsApps" /grant Administrators:F
icacls "%ProgramFiles%\WindowsApps" /grant Administrators:F /t
icacls "%ProgramFiles%\WindowsApps" /setowner "NT Service\TrustedInstaller"

Are you just getting started with PowerShell? Use this guide to create and run your first script file on Windows 10.

Easy to automate if you want to (I do this to save space as I have very small ssd)
Code:

$apps=@(     
    "9E2F88E3.Twitter"
    "ClearChannelRadioDigital.iHeartRadio"
    "Flipboard.Flipboard"
    "king.com.CandyCrushSodaSaga"
    "Microsoft.3DBuilder"
    #"Microsoft.Appconnector"
    "Microsoft.BingFinance"
    "Microsoft.BingNews"
    "Microsoft.BingSports"
    "Microsoft.BingWeather"
    "Microsoft.CommsPhone"
    "Microsoft.Getstarted"
    #"Microsoft.Messaging"
    #"Microsoft.MicrosoftOfficeHub"
    #"Microsoft.MicrosoftSolitaireCollection"
    #"Microsoft.Office.OneNote"
    "Microsoft.Office.Sway"
    "Microsoft.People"
    "Microsoft.SkypeApp"
    "Microsoft.Windows.Phone"
    "Microsoft.Windows.Photos"
    "Microsoft.WindowsAlarms"
    #"Microsoft.WindowsCalculator"
    "Microsoft.WindowsCamera"
    "Microsoft.WindowsMaps"
    "Microsoft.WindowsPhone"
    #"Microsoft.WindowsSoundRecorder"
    #"Microsoft.WindowsStore"
    "Microsoft.XboxApp"
    "Microsoft.ZuneMusic"
    "Microsoft.ZuneVideo"
    #"microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps"
    "Microsoft.MinecraftUWP"
    "ShazamEntertainmentLtd.Shazam"        
)

foreach ($app in $apps) {    
    Get-AppxPackage -Name $app -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage
    Get-AppXProvisionedPackage -Online | where DisplayName -EQ $app     | Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online

    $appPath="$Env:LOCALAPPDATA\Packages\$app*"
    Remove-Item $appPath -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction 0
}

It looks to us as though somebody has started setting up a new instance of Windows and then thrown in the towel, perhaps not realising that the out-of-box experience (OOBE) has become more of an out-of-platform setup (OOPS), causing minor confusion among passengers that are expecting to see when the next Yellow Line train might depart.

A whole new world indeed. Where once blue screens or boot loops were the order of the day, now it is forgetful admins shovelling code onto servers that probably don't really need it.

Huntington is at the southern end of the Yellow Line, acting as a terminus, and was opened in the 1980s. It recently underwent a renovation which is, alas, incomplete as far as Windows is concerned. The cheery exhortation to set up Windows Hello, hook up a mobile phone, and perhaps put on Office 365 seems a bit excessive for something that has one job: telling punters how long they have to wait for a train.

Lots of people confuse “shrink” with “compact” for virtual hard disks. The “compact” operation squeezes the empty bits out of a dynamically expanding hard disk to reduce the amount of space that it consumes on physical disk. Compacting does not alter the maximum size of the disk, nor does it report anything different to the guest operating system. Furthermore, “compact” does not work on fixed VHDX at all. The “shrink” operation, the topic of this article, reduces the physical consumption of a VHDX and reduces the disk size reported to the guest OS. //

What to remember: A compact operation reclaims the space from empty blocks. A shrink operation reclaims the space from unallocated blocks. We will make the distinction more obvious when we look at the shrink operation. //

You Cannot Shrink a VHDX that Contains a Dynamic Logical Disk

If the logical disk inside the VHDX that you’re working with is Dynamic, then you can’t shrink it. Do not confuse the Dynamic logical disk with dynamically expanding VHDX, as they are dramatically different things. //

The moral of the story: don’t use Dynamic logical disks. Hyper-V isn’t the only thing that doesn’t know what to do with them. Unfortunately, some products out there require Dynamic disks. Even at Microsoft, at least one team hasn’t yet gotten the memo to stop using Dynamic disks. So, the secondary moral: if you must use Dynamic logical disks, provision small because you can always grow them.

Optimize-VHD

Module:
Hyper-V

Optimizes the allocation of space used by virtual hard disk files, except for fixed virtual hard disks.

Resize-VHD

Module:
Hyper-V

Resizes a virtual hard disk.

One of the many benefits of virtualization is portability, meaning that you can easily move selected virtual machines (VMs) from one location to another without experiencing downtime or service disruption. Portability within a Hyper-V environment is ensured through the Hyper-V Export and Import functionality, which allows you to easily copy and move a Hyper-V VM to a target location and then restore the VM to how it was at the time of export.

Microsoft has traditionally made installing WSL more of a hassle than it should be, but the company finally got the process right in Windows 10 build 2004. Just open an elevated Command prompt (start --> type cmd --> click Run as Administrator), type wsl --install at the prompt, and you're good to go. Windows 11, thankfully, carries this process forward unchanged.

A simple wsl --install with no further arguments gets you Hyper-V and the other underpinnings of WSL, along with the current version of Ubuntu. If you aren't an Ubuntu fan, you can see what other easily installable distributions are available with the command wsl --list --online. If you decide you'd prefer a different distro, you can install it instead with—for example—wsl --install -d openSUSE-42.

If you're not sure which distribution you prefer, don't fret. You can install as many as you like, simply by repeating wsl --list --online to enumerate your options and wsl --install -d distroname to install whichever you like.

Installing a second distribution doesn't uninstall the first; it creates a separate environment, independent of any others. You can run as many of these installed environments as you like simultaneously, without fear of one messing up another. //

Finally, Ubuntu's excellent baked-in OpenZFS support is missing. You can apt install zfsutils-linux without difficulty, but that package depends on Canonical's in-house kernel with built-in ZFS support, which Microsoft has not picked up in its own WSL2 kernel.

Microsoft has implemented linking tools in its NTFS operating file systems since Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000. These links provide a convenient method for users to access their data.

Over the years Microsoft continued to improve these tools which can now be used to link files and/or directories together. The latest form of file link was introduced in Windows Vista and continues to form part of their latest operating system. In this article we will look at what these file links are and how they differ from one another.
What are NTFS Hard Links, Junctions and Symbolic Links?

Hard links, junction points and symbolic links are linking processes used by Windows to associate other files, directories or volumes. One of the methods to create file links is to use the command line program mklink:

• To create a file hard link: mklink /H linkName target
• To create a directory junction: mklink /J linkName target
• To create a directory symbolic link: mklink /D linkName target
• To create a file symbolic link: mklink linkName target

The following sections describe each type of file link in detail.