How to get into the BIOS menu on a Windows 10 computer.

When you select Shut down on a Windows 10 computer, your machine is really not shut down. When you turn the computer on again it executes a fast start, so you cannot open the BIOS menu. To get into the computer’s BIOS first shut down you computer as described in How to completely shut down a …

How to completely shut down a Windows 10 computer

Windows 10 does not really shut down the computer when you select Shut down. This enables the operating system to start quickly, but if you want to cold start your computer to enter the BIOS menu you need to turn off your computer. To really shut down your Windows 10 computer: Right click the Windows …

Delay updates in Windows 10

On more occasions Microsoft released Windows 10 updates that disabled the network connection, the webcam or caused other inconveniences. Windows 10 automatically downloads and installs the updates without asking for permission from the owner of the computer. In Windows professional you can delay the installation of updates, so your work is not interrupted with frequent …

Launch Windows instances locally with Chef Test Kitchen

Most Linux distributions are free, and do not require product keys to launch them. The steps below are based on the great article at http://kitchen.ci/blog/test-kitchen-windows-test-flight-with-vagrant/ I have summarized the steps below to create a free Virtual Box Windows Server 2012R2 image on your workstation, so Test Kitchen can use Vagrant and Virtual Box to launch Windows instances and test cookbooks …

OLD- DevOps Engineering part 1. (Win) – Make your Windows computer easier to use

Set up your computer Display the file extensions On Windows 11 Open the File Explorer Click the arrow next to View and select Show Mark File name extensions and Hidden items On Windows 10 Open File Explorer On the View tab select File name extensions Hidden items On Windows 7 (if you accidentally run into …

How to rename a TeamCity agent

It is important to keep the TeamCity agent names unique. If you launch a TeamCity agent with a name that is already used by another agent that is connected to the TeamCity server, the new agent will not show up in the Unauthorized agent list. To change the name of an agent, change the “name” value …

DevOps Engineering part 5. – Create an enterprise cookbook

In this exercise we will create a Chef cookbook for a corporation. It will be robust and include all the necessary elements to be used in a large enterprise. If your company already has established standards, as you progress with this tutorial, copy the appropriate file from an existing cookbook. If this is the first …

List the installed Windows Features on the Windows server with PowerShell

When you set up a new Windows server and want to make sure all necessary Windows features are installed on it, you can list them in text format. If you want to replicate the configuration of an existing server, just list the features of both servers and compare them in a comparison tool, like Araxis …

How to copy files to the clipboard

When you work in the graphical user interface (GUI) of your operating system, and want to copy the contents of a file to the clipboard, you can use the following commands: On OS X run: cat FILE_NAME | pbcopy On Linux run: cat FILE_NAME | xclip On Windows (via Cygwin/Git Bash) run: cat FILE_NAME | clip