WWWalter » Software

Windows 7 : Thumbnails folder.jpg not showing (on networked shared drive)

walter — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 13:32:07 +0000

I had this annoying problem where only some of the folders in windows (7) would show the thumbnail, which was present as a “folder.jpg” file inside it. Most of the folders would just show the default folder-icon. Nothing I did would change this, except when I would navigate into the folder and back, the thumbnail would suddenly appear. This would typically happen on mapped network drives or network shares.

I could narrow the problem down to the way windows uses cashing of thumbnails. As of windows vista, thumbnails are stored in cashing files that are stored in the users application data folder: C:\Users\**username**\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer . These files are protected however, and can’t be deleted. Cleaning the thumbnails can be done by the “disc cleanup” tool, located in Accesoires -> System Tools. Whenever I cleaned like that, all thumbnails would disappear and leave a blank spot. Not even the default folder icon would return. I could, however, remedy this by killing and restarting explorer in the task manager. (or simply by rebooting). But the missing thumbnails would still be missing!!

Solution: My solution my be harsh, but effective: Disable the cash completely.
To go around disabling the cache, you need to use the “Local Group Policy Editor”. Run it by pressing the windows key + R and then typing “gpedit.msc” after the Open: field. Navigate to “User Configuration” -> “Administrative Templates” -> “Windows Components” -> “Windows Explorer”

Find “Turn off caching of thumbnail pictured” and double click it. Choose “Enabled” from the three radio buttons and confirm with OK.

Now restart explorer (by killing it in task manager. Restarting explorer using the “New Task…” button in Applications where you type “Explorer”). OR simply reboot windows.

Now all thumbnails will be loaded every time you open the folder. This may be a bit slow, but at least you’ll have the thumbnails.

Move file in use , who is blocking it or using it , force move delete

walter — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 09:22:15 +0000

We’ve all experienced it sometime: A file or folder is in use, and windows refuses to move or delete it. Even though it should, Windows rarely shows us what or who is blocking the file. Left in the dark, you’ll end up closing all sorts of apps, killing explorer, and what not. Then there are those cheesy apps, like “who’s blocking”, that do all but free the file. So.. there we are.

A few days ago, I stumbled upon a small command line app from Mark Russinovich. Now, that sounds like a guy who knows how to kill a blocking app. (just kiddin’). In fact, his app called “handle” is featured at Windows Sysinternals. Here is what it did for me.

I had this demo of Mixmeister and I wanted to “move” the downloaded install-file-folder to my backup drive. But somehow it was blocked. Windows, endlessly informative, told me nothing that I could use:

So I fired up HANDLE. I asked it to tell me who’s blocking Mixmeister.

Handle mixmeister

I then got a list of “handles”, two of them were explorer and one of them was my browser chrome. To chase these apps away from my folder (file), I needed the PID of the app and the handle on the file. Handle provides both. In my case, explorer had pid 3796 and the handle on my folder had 1978. I could now get it off by entering:

Handle -c 1978 -p 3796

I did the same for the other two handles, and see there: The folder was free and I could move it quite happily.

Just remember: Killing handles “can” crash your machine. When attempting this, always make sure any unsaved data is saved!

You can download HANDLE from here.

Create favicon online or import image

walter — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 18:05:06 +0000

Favicon creator is a nifty website to create favicons. Favicons are the small images that appear next to the title of website in the tabs of your internet browser. The site lets you import existing images on your HD.

End it all with enditall ;-)

walter — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:00:22 +0000

End it all with enditall That’s my motto for today.
This neat application is so powerful, it can kill any application on your computer, even when the task manager reports Error 5: Access denied message. It’s the IT equivalent to poison.

DivFix ++ herstellen van AVI video bestanden

walter — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 13:09:37 +0000

Als AVI ( Riff, Divx ) video bestanden beschadigd zijn, hapert het beeld of kan je niet langer vooruit of achteruit spoelen. De oorzaak zijn slechte frames of een beschadigde index.

Met DivFix++ , een kleine AVI scanner fixer, voor Windows, Linux en Macintosh computers, kunnen beschadigde AVI files hersteld worden. De te herstellen AVI’s kunnen eenvoudig in de grafische gebruikersinterface gesleept worden.

via: www.ghacks.net

DivFix++ website

Fix aspect ratio without loosing quality in H.264 quicktime

walter — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 14:04:04 +0000

Changing aspect radio of a video file that has no aspect info, or has the wrong aspect meta data, without having to re-render it, is simple and can be done keeping the original quality. I use YAMB to create MP4 files and to cut,join or multiplex MP4, M4A and M4V files. It is a GUI to MP4Box, which is a command line MP4 multiplexer. It can import MPEG-4 video, DivX, XviD, 3ivx, h264 etc, audio streams and subtitles into the .mp4 container. The end result is a compliant MP4 stream. Given an mpeg4 h264 file, it changes meta data but doesn’t have to compress or render the video. So it’s completely lossless.

I compiled a video on how to proceed:

So how do we change the aspect of a h.264 mov file.
If you’re on Windows, and the .MOV uses H.264 video, you can do it losslessly:
1. download and start YAMB
2. In Yamb choose “Creation” and click on “Click to create an MP4 filer …” and open your video file.
3. Select the H.264 stream and click the properties button.
4. From the dropdown menu Pixels Aspect Ratio menu select the value that you require.
5. Select the output filename and click “next”. Wait for the program to do its job.
6. finish.

Hack Attack: Safely install software in a virtual layer

walter — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 21:37:50 +0000

Hack Attack: Safely install software in a virtual layer
If you want to test install software but don’t want your OS to be in danger, use this software package. It’ll let you install and use software in a virtual layer. It keeps all changes to the file system and registry stored in a layer on top of the OS. It let’s you disable the installation, as if it were never installed, with the click of a button.