Speed up folders with many similar named files

This is a little known reghack: When Windows stores files in a folder on an NTFS partition, it still creates so-called 8.3 file names for compatibility with 16-bit Windows programs. When a folder has more than 4000 file entries, it becomes noticeable that access performance decreases. When the folder has more… Read more »

Windows Explorer search for text in ALL files

windows explorer search

You are sure that the text files in a folder contain a certain string, but the Windows Explorer search doesn’t return anything! WTF? Maybe, the files just have an extension which Windows doesn’t recognize, and are therefore skipped. This is a hack to enable Windows Explorer to search in all… Read more »

Network share connections using logical DNS name

Situation: You have an application server, but its network name is like abcx0143.domain.intra, which is just too hard to remember for your users. You have created a DNS alias like shares.domain.intra, but when you try to open the shared folders through that alias, it won’t work.. 🙁 BUT! There is… Read more »

Balloon tips OFF in windows

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Want to get rid of those nasty balloon tips, hovering over the task tray? Here’s the registry command: reg add “HKCUSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerAdvanced” /t REG_DWORD /v EnableBalloonTips /d 0 If you’d wish to re-enable them again, this is the code reg add “HKCUSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerAdvanced” /t REG_DWORD /v EnableBalloonTips /d 1

Suppress printer warning popups on Windows Server

Want to get rid of the popups that appear on your Windows Print server when print jobs are to be retried? Type the following command in any command prompt window: reg add HKLMSYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlPrintProviders /v RetryPopup /t REG_DWORD /d 0 And for those who want to enable them: reg add HKLMSYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlPrintProviders… Read more »

Cmd.exe: Workaround for “if not exist *.*” and other uses for the FOR command

One of the annoying things in Windows XP/2003 and later, is that the construct if not exist c:\test\*.* echo No files! does not work as expected if c:\test is empty. This seems to be due to the fact that Windows regards the “.” and “..” file entries as valid files… Read more »

CMD.exe recursion in batch: Deleting empty subdirectories

This article addresses one specific use case for recursion in batch: Recursively looping through a directory (also called a folder) and its sub directories. Normally, this is a pain, and it took me a while to come up with an algorithm that works. For recursion to work correctly, you need:… Read more »