Tag: Windows

Copy files between Windows and Linux computers

Posted on by Laszlo Pinter

There are many tools to copy files between Windows and Linux computers, I have found this method the simplest.

It does not require any software installation on the Windows machine, and only one package installation on the Linux machine.

Share a folder on the Windows machine

Share a folder on the Windows machine and allow access to it for a user. If the Windows computer is in the Windows domain, the domain user does not have to be a member of any security group on the Windows machine.

If you copy files from Windows to Linux, make the folder read-only for the user. If you copy files to the Windows machine, allow write access to the folder for the user.

Set up the Linux machine

  1. Install the cifs-utils on the Linux machine
    1. On Red Hat, CentOS, and Amazon Linux 
      sudo yum install cifs-utils
    1. On Ubuntu 
      sudo apt-get install cifs-utils

Mount the shared Windows folder on the Linux machine

  1. On the Linux machine create a directory to mount the Windows folder to 
    mkdir /tmp/windows
  2. Mount the Windows share 
    sudo mount.cifs '\\WINDOWS_SERVER_IP\attachments' /tmp/windows -o domain=MY_DOMAIN,username=MY_USERNAME,password=MY_PASSWORD,vers=1.0

    First, you will be asked for the root password on the Linux machine.
    If you do not specify your password in the line above, you will be also asked to enter your password on the Windows machine.

Access the Windows share

  1. On the Linux machine navigate to the mount directory 
    cd /tmp/windows
  2. List the files of the Windows share 
    ls -al

 

Edit the HKEY_CURRENT_USER Windows Registry keys of another user

Posted on by Laszlo Pinter

The user-specific settings in the Windows registry are stored under the HKEY_CURRENT_USER key. If you open the Regedit.exe application the HKEY_CURRENT_USER key contains the settings for your user account.

To access the registry keys of another user we need to

Find the Security ID of the user

  1. In Regedit navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\hivelist
  2. The key lists the Security IDs and usernames
  3. Save the Security ID of the user.

Another Security ID list location:

The partial list of the Security IDs is also available at
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList

Not all user profiles are listed here.

Click the Security ID folders on the left to see the username in the ProfileImagePath.

Open the user-specific registry keys

  1. In Regedit navigate to the HKEY_USERS key
  2. Select the Security ID of the user you are looking for
  3. The user-specific values are under that key

 

Send Alt-Control-Delete to a Windows server via Remote Desktop

Posted on by Laszlo Pinter

When you log into a Windows server via the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) in some cases you need to send the Alt-Control-Delete ( in other notations Alt-Ctrl-Del, Control-Alt-Delete, Ctrl-Alt-Del ) key combination to the remote server.

From a Macintosh laptop

On a Macintosh laptop press the fn+control+option+delete keys to send Alt-Control-Delete to the server.

From a Windows workstation

If the Remote Desktop window is not in full-screen mode, Alt+Control+Delete will control your own Windows workstation.

On a Windows workstation press the Alt+Control+End keys to send Alt-Control-Delete to the remote server.

 

org.apache.jasper.JasperException: java.lang.IllegalStateException: No output folder

Posted on by Laszlo Pinter

This error can happen on Linux and Windows, and the cause could be the same.

On Windows Server 2012R2 I opened a command prompt. To be able to delete a directory from the Tomcat webapps folder, I have issued the shutdown command.

When I started the server with the startup command, and navigated to my local website, my Java Spring MVC web application displayed the error message

org.apache.jasper.JasperException: java.lang.IllegalStateException: No output folder

The problem was, that the Tomcat service runs under root on Linux, and SYSTEM on Windows.

When you issue the startup command, Tomcat will run under the user account you logged in with.

Solution:

Stop and start the TomCat Linux or Windows service instead of issuing the shutdown and startup commands from the terminal or command prompt.

 

Git Bash and Command Prompt cannot see the VirtualBox shared folder on Windows 10 guest

Posted on by Laszlo Pinter

When you start a Windows 10 guest machine in VirtualBox on your workstation, you can set up shared folders to seamlessly copy files between your workstation and the Windows 10 guest machine.

The shared folder appears in Windows Explorer as a mapped network location.

For more on this see Configure the Windows virtual machine in VirtualBox

On a Windows 7 guest machine the Git Bash, Command Prompt, and PowerShell windows all can see the mapped E: network drive, so you can change the working directory with

cd E:

and execute commands in the shared folders.

On a Windows 10 guest machine, only the PowerShell window can see the shared folder as a mapped network drive, E:

Command prompt will display the error message

The system cannot find the drive specified

When you try to start the Git Bash window with Git Bash Here, nothing happens.

If you start Git Bash from the menu and try to change the working directory to the E: drive, you get the error message

bash: cd: /e: No such file or directory

Map the shared drive

If you need to use the Command prompt or the Bash terminal, you can temporarily map the shared folder

  1. Open the Command Prompt on the Windows 10 guest machine
  2. Execute the command
net use x: \\vboxsvr\Users

Automate the drive mapping

Mapped drives are user-specific so if you want to use a mapped drive as an Administrator, you have to map is as Administrator.

Enable the visibility of the mapped drives

  1. Start Regedit
  2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
  3. Create a DWORD value EnableLinkedConnections with the value 1
  4. Restart the computer

Create the automated process to map the drive of the host computer

  1. Create a new batch file in your Documents folder: map_drive.bat 
    net use x: \\vboxsvr\Users
  2. Create a new scheduled task: Map the Mac file system to X
    1. Set the user account to SYSTEM
    2. Run with highest privileges
    3. Configure for Windows 10
    4. Set the trigger to startup
    5. Create a new action

To use the Bash terminal

  1. Open the Bash terminal in a directory on the C: drive
  2. Change to the shared directory with 
    cd /x/...

To use the command prompt

  1. Open the command prompt
  2. Change to the shared directory with 
    x:
cd ...

Refresh the environment variables in the Windows Command Prompt and PowerShell window

Posted on by Laszlo Pinter

When the Windows Command Prompt and PowerShell windows open, they read the environment variables from the registry. If another process changes the value of an environment variable or creates a new one, the already open windows don’t reflect those changes. To reload the environment variables into open Command Prompt and PowerShell windows execute

refreshenv

Install Git on Windows

Posted on by Laszlo Pinter

If you use two-factor authentication see Create a Personal Access Token to use it as password in the command line tools at Switching to 2-factor authentication in GitHub

  1. Navigate to https://git-scm.com/download/win to download Git for Windows. The page automatically downloads the installer for the operating system you use.
  2. Install the application
  3. Accept the default values, including these:
    1. Make sure the Windows Explorer integration for Git Bash is checked.
    2. Enable the Git tools in the command prompt too
    3. HTTPS transport backend. For large corporations with internal root certificates and  Windows Active Directory, the second option may be a better choice,
    4. Line endings for Windows computers
    5. Terminal emulator
    6. Caching
    7. Finish the installation.

Configure Git for Windows

Enable Page Up and Page Down

  1. In Windows Explorer right click in the white area and select Git Bash Here,

  2. Stretch the Bash window to the full width of the page to have more room to work later,
  3. Right-click the Bash window and select Options…,
  4. On the Window tab,
    1. Click the Current size button to save the size,
    2. Select PgUp and PgDn scroll without modifier to be able to scroll quickly up and down in the window with the Page up and Page down buttons.

Set up Git Bash to always run as Administrator

Certain commands need elevated rights to run, so we will set up the Bash window to run as administrator.

  1. Click the Windows Start button and type bash
  2. Right-click the found link and select Open file location

  3. Right-click the menu shortcut and select Properties
  4. On the Compatibility tab select Run this program as administrator

Using the Bash window

  • When you will start the Git Bash window you will always get the confirmation popup.

You can start the Git Bash window from the Windows Explorer

  1. Right-click a white area in Windows Explorer and select Git Bash Here. This does not work in the shared folders of Windows 10 virtual machines.

Configure the Git command line tool

To configure Git see Git configuration.

Install Chocolatey

Posted on by Laszlo Pinter

The Chocolatey home page is at https://chocolatey.org/

Install Chocolatey

Navigate to the Chocolatey website at https://chocolatey.org/ and follow the latest instructions. At the time of writing the instructions were

Using the Command prompt

  1. Open a command prompt as Administrator,
  2. Install Chocolatey with the command 
    @"%SystemRoot%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe" -NoProfile -InputFormat None -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))" && SET "PATH=%PATH%;%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\chocolatey\bin"

Using PowerShell

  1. Open a PowerShell window as Administrator,
  2. Check the execution policy for your computer 
    Get-ExecutionPolicy
    1. If the command returns Restricted, enable PowerScript execution with 
      Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process
    2. Answer Y to the question,
  3. Install Chocolatey with 
    Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force; iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))

Apply the Chocolatey license

  1. If the C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\license directory does not exist, create it,
  2. To place the Chocolatey license file, chocolatey.license.xml into C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\license folder follow the recommendations at …refers to a location that is unavailable
  3. Install the Chocolatey extensions 
    choco upgrade chocolatey.extension -y

Ignore the error:

Error when attempting to load chocolatey licensed assembly. Ensure
that chocolatey.licensed.dll exists at
‘C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\extensions\chocolatey\chocolatey.licensed.dll’.
Install with `choco install chocolatey.extension`.
The error message itself may be helpful as well:
The system cannot find the file specified. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070002)

Determine the Windows PowerShell version

Posted on by Laszlo Pinter

To reliably display the version of the Windows PowerShell engine

  1. Open a PowerShell command window,
  2. Execute the command, 
    $PSVersionTable.PSVersion

    PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> $PSVersionTable.PSVersion

    Major Minor Build   Revision
    —–   —–   ——-  ——-
    5       1        16299  64

  3. If no value is displayed, the version is 1.0, as it does not have the referenced variable.