Walker News

Registry Hack To Open Elevated Command Prompt With Right Click In Windows 7

Walker — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 17:14:53 +0000

How to open elevated command prompt in right click context menu? In Windows Vista and Windows 7, there is this “Open command window here” option to execute cmd.exe with normal privilege if you press and hold the SHIFT key followed by right click on a folder.

However, there is a trick to open true administrator Command Prompt by just right click on the folder without having to press SHIFT key or whatever.

Trick to open elevated Command Prompt with right click

The trick is tested on Windows Vista SP2 and Windows 7 (should be applicable to Windows Server 2008).

In addition, this trick is actually a Registry hack, i.e. you have to make change in Windows Registry (leave now if you are not comfortable with it):

1) Press Windows key or click the Start button, type cmd and press CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER key to open a elevated Command Prompt window. Not get it? Try this:

Alternative: Click Start button, type cmd, right click the cmd.exe shortcut appears atop the Start menu and select “Run as Administrator”.

2) Copy these lengthy reg.exe commands, one by one, paste it to the opened elevated Command Prompt and press ENTER key to execute (see also “How to enable copy and paste in Windows 7 Command Prompt“):

To display new option in the right click context menu of directory:

reg add HKCR\Directory\shell\Runas /ve /t REG_SZ /d "open ELEVATED command prompt at this working directory" /f

The action or command to execute when that new option is selected:

reg add HKCR\Directory\shell\Runas\Command /ve /t REG_SZ /d "cmd.exe /k \"pushd %L ^&^& title Elevated Command Prompt Window\"" /f

To display new option when right click on a disk drive, CD/DVD-ROM drive, USB drive, etc:

reg add HKCR\Drive\shell\Runas /ve /t REG_SZ /d "open ELEVATED command prompt at this working directory" /f

The command to execute when that new option in right click context menu is selected:

reg add HKCR\Drive\shell\Runas\Command /ve /t REG_SZ /d "cmd.exe /k \"pushd %L ^&^& title Elevated Command Prompt Window\"" /f

Easier one-click to apply Registry hack

If those commands look complicated to you, just download this Registration Entries (.reg) file and double it to run:
ElevatedCmd.zip
[ md5 checksum (.zip): e94fc460bf480265670330203cb0c3cc ]
[ md5 checksum (.reg): 8a76ef862374e65bc9229ad6c32a58fe ]

How To Record Wireless Router Connection Log?

Walker — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 15:54:47 +0000

The trick to log wireless connection of router modem can be useful in securing WLAN, as the WIFI activities log allows network administrator (or broadband owner) to detect WIFI connection initiated from unknown clients or devices.

With that in mind, I developed a simple Windows-Bash shell script and run it repeatedly by Windows Task Scheduler to log WIFI connection activities on the D-LINK router modem.

For those who are using Linux, I think you will get the idea on how to do it after reading this post. For those who are using Windows (in my case, it is Windows 7 Ultimate x64-bit), you need the following to proceed:

The D-LINK DSL-2640T Wireless ADSL Router modem. Although most router modems are running on Linux, there might be some differences on display wireless connection in the router. For my DSL-2640T, the Linux command used to check WLAN connection status is:
```
cat /proc/wlan/mgmt/staStatistics
```
If you are kind to share, please leave a comment about the command for checking wireless connection in your router modem, if it is different than mine. Please specify the brand, model, and probably the firmware version too.
win-bash, the portable GNU bash shell for Microsoft Windows without relying on cygwin library or any other non-standard DLL and does not need any registry variables to run properly (even working fine on my Windows 7 Ultimate x64-bit).
plink, the open source SSH client for Windows command line.
CoreUtils for Windows (download the binaries zip file) – the script requires date, wc, and tail program to run properly.

Trick to generate wireless ADSL router modem connection log

1) Create folder in C:\ drive to keep the GNU utilities, e.g. C:\GNUTool

2) Download and keep the win-bash.exe, Putty (plink.exe) and GNU CoreUtils for Windows (wc.exe, tail.exe, date.exe) in C:\GNUTool

3) Copy the following Windows-Bash shell script code to Notepad, change the text in red accordingly (to suit your case) and save it as WifiChk.sh in C:\GNUTool folder:

Be careful when changing the Windows path, if necessary, as the path must use / (slash) and not the \ (backslash) when use in the Windows-Bash shell script.
The Windows-Bash shell script is case-sensitive, i.e. “A” is not equal to “a”.

RouterIP="192.168.1.1"
RouterID="admin"
RouterPasswd="Your_Router_Admin_Password"
RouterCmd="cat /proc/wlan/mgmt/staStatistics"

GNUPath="C:/GNUTool"
WifiLog="C:/GNUTool/WifiClient.log"

TDate=`$GNUPath/date +"%d-%m-%y %H:%M:%S"`
WIFICnt=`$GNUPath/plink -l $RouterID -pw $RouterPasswd $RouterIP "$RouterCmd" | $GNUPath/wc -l`
RecCnt=$((WIFICnt-2))
OutRes=""

if [ $RecCnt -ne 0 ]
then
	OutRes=$TDate" :: "`$GNUPath/plink -l $RouterID -pw $RouterPasswd $RouterIP "$RouterCmd" | $GNUPath/tail -$RecCnt`
	echo $OutRes >> $WifiLog
fi

4) Setup Windows Task Scheduler to run the WifiChk.sh by win-bash.exe repeatedly, as this:

C:\GNUTool\win-bash.exe C:\GNUTool\WifiChk.sh

In my setup, the WifiChk.sh script is executed every 15 minutes, at every hour, 24×7, and it doesn’t impair the router performance as well as broadband Internet experience.

How To Add Program Shortcuts To Send To Menu In Windows 7?

Walker — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 09:07:24 +0000

Just 2 simple steps to customize the Windows 7 Send To menu! To me, the Send To menu is one of the easiest ways to open a file with non-default program or application that is not associated with the file type.

For example, while double click a MP3 file is opened in Windows Media Player, I can also right click it and select VLC Player from the Send To menu for playback.

Simple steps to customize Send To menu

This trick is demonstrated in Windows 7, but it is applicable for other Windows with little change (or should be no change at all in Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008).

1) Open Windows Explorer, type shell:sendto in Address bar and press ENTER:

2) Locate the program (that you want it to appear in Send To menu) from the Start button, right click and drag it to the sendto folder (opened in step 1), release the right-click and select “Create shortcut here”:

Now, just right click any file and select Send To option in the context menu, there you should see a program shortcut added in step 2:

Using Google Chrome And Firefox To Play OGV and MP4 Video

Walker — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 06:19:38 +0000

The latest Google Chrome 4.0.249.89 and Firefox 3.6 support HTML5 and allows one to play OGV and MP4 video as well as MP3 audio by just drag and drop the file to the web browser.

With a customized Windows Send To option menu, you can also right click those media files and open it with either Firefox or Google Chrome shortcut appears in the Send To menu.

Although not all MP4 / OGV video file format are supported, but those video encoded by avc1 and theo codec should be working just fine, as shown in the following screencast:

How To Add Playlist To Windows Media Player Jump List?

Walker — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:35:14 +0000

One can customize Windows Media Player 12 Jump List in Windows 7 to include shortcuts of favourite songs or playlist, like the one shown in my screenshot.

Whether you’re using touchscreen computer or a point-and-click mouse, it is easier to open and play songs or playlist in the Windows Media Player Jump List – just click and slide the Windows Media Player shortcut at Taskbar towards Windows Desktop, there you will get the Jump List :-)

Windows 7 tip: Customize Windows Media Player Jump List

By default, there is one Windows Media Player shortcut at the Taskbar. If this is not your case, then locate Windows Media Player 12 shortcut from the Start menu and right click on it to select “Pin to Taskbar” option.

To add favourite songs to Windows Media Player Jump List, right click to select the song, drag it to the WMP shortcut at Taskbar and release mouse click when the “Pin to Windows Media Player” message appears:

Too bad, however, that it is only possible to click-and-drag one song at a time to the Jump List (maybe possible in SP2?). To add more than one song to Jump List at one go, you can use Playlist:

1) Open Windows Explorer and click the Music Library. Alternatively, click Windows Start button to type shell:playlists and press ENTER key.

2) Select and drag the playlist, one at a time, to the Windows Media Player shortcut at Taskbar.

How To Use Nokia Photo Browser?

Walker — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 15:01:14 +0000

The freeware Nokia Photo Browser is more attractive than my Nokia 5800 default image browser. Besides intuitive touchscreen interface, the 3D image gallery and image partial magnification are cool features to play with.

User Guide: Nokia Photo Browser cool features

Rotate the touchscreen to landscape mode and slide the image gallery towards the left or right, you will see the 3D Image Gallery:

While in image gallery mode,

Tap once on the thumbnail to get a full screen view of the image;
Tap once on the maximized image again will revert to thumbnail mode shown in image gallery.

Double tap (tapping twice continuously) the full screen image will switch to full resolution mode. Double tap again will switch full resolution image back to full screen mode.
To pan the full resolution image, just press and move finger on the touchscreen (the thumbnail appears on bottom-left as guide).

When an image is maximized to full screen view, press on the point where you would like to magnify, Nokia Photo Browser will enlarge that point of interest:

Besides, you can slide the maximized image towards right or left in order to see the next or previous image in full screen mode. Take a closer look on the left image (above), there are arrows on the left and right edge.

Looking for a S60v5 image browser with face detection feature? Well, the Nokia Photo Browser has the face recognition function, which makes it easier to see each faces of the group photo in full image resolution mode:

While a group photo is maximized to full screen mode, double tap on one of the faces, Nokia Photo Browser will switch the image to full resolution mode and highlight all the human faces detected with green, square boxes.

To see the next face detected, just slide on the touchscreen towards left or right, Nokia Photo Browser will intelligently switch to display next detected faces in full resolution mode.

In the image gallery mode, press the thumbnail for 2-5 seconds will activate the pop-up menu with options to

Send the image via email, Bluetooth, or upload to Ovi, Flickr or Vox.
Rotate the image, i.e. change the image orientation.
View the image detail, e.g. image path, date and time, resolution
Display the thumbnails in image gallery according to folder name or time order
Delete the image

Close the application properly or it will run at background and flat the battery faster. To close Nokia Photo Browser, just press the cancel call key (red button) or press the thumbnail for 2-5 seconds and then select “exit” option from the pop-up menu.

Downside of Nokia Photo Browser

The freeware doesn’t scan all images stored in the phone memory and memory card. Indeed, Nokia Photo Browser v0.095 only scans the C:\Images (phone memory) and E:\Images (memory card).

To fix it, you have to keep or save all images in either one of the Images folder!

How To Bypass View Page Source Restriction?

Walker — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:21:42 +0000

How to view page source if the webpage hides or blocks the view page source option? I just come across a website disables right click option in web browsers but then find out the Google Chrome cracks the restriction as if there is nothing.

Another example: Gmail disables the View Source option in Internet Explorer (but the View Page Source option is not blocked in Mozilla Firefox 3.5.8):

In Google Chrome, however, you can view the webpage HTML source code by just adding prefix view-source: to the URL shown in Address bar:

.