windows vista - Single Monitor act exactly like dual monitor?

Does anyone know if there is a way to make a single monitor act like a dual monitor with 2 totally seperated areas that are detected at the window's level.

Eg. 2560x1600 monitor to show up as 2 panels with 1280x1600 resolution each or a 1920x1200 showing up as 2 960x1200 monitors. I am usually looking at code/documents mostly so larger vertical vs horizontal resoutions are preferred.

Is there any video card drivers that support this or is there some layer to put over windows to allow for this functionality. The solution should make windows see 2 monitors when looking at the display settings. There should be no difference from a real 2 monitor solution.

Is this even possible?

Edit: Using windows Vista.

Edit 2: I am looking for something that virtualizes the multiple monitors so windows itself thinks there is 2 monitors. Not looking for something that will give me split bars etc.

Answer

Try WinSplit Revolution.

Edit: Since you want Windows to think there are two physical monitors, maybe Matrox PowerDesk or Virtual Display Manager would fit your needs.

macos - "Show desktop" keyboard shortcut in Mac OS X

I am using a MacBook Pro with Mac OS X 10.5. Is there a similar function to "show desktop" (shortcut is WIN+D) on a Mac? 

It should hide all applications and show a clean desktop.

Answer

On older versions of OS X, it's one of the Exposé keys. Starting with OS X 10.7, Exposé has been replaced by Mission Control.

The default is F11. On a MacBook you will have to press fnF11, as the keys are used for controlling volume by default.

Note that F11 will not work if you have a full screen window on screen (like the browser in full-screen mode), you will have to switch to the Desktop mode first (using F3, for example) before using F11.

If that's not the right one, look in your System Preferences to see which one it is.

installation - How to find out which windows version my product key matches?

I retrieved my Windows 8 product key from the firmware but have no idea which version it's supposed to match. My Windows 8 cannot be booted into (hence the need to re-install in the first place)

How do I find out the correct version of Windows that my product key matches with?

Answer

Windows includes a DLL called pidgenx.dll which includes this function:

[DllImport("pidgenx.dll", EntryPoint = "PidGenX", CharSet = CharSet.Auto)]
static extern int PidGenX(string productKey, string pkeyPath, string mspid, int unknownUsage, IntPtr productID, IntPtr digitalProductID, IntPtr digitalProductID4);

For pkeyPath Windows setup passes a path to pkeyconfig.xrm-ms. In this file, the product key are defined and in the digitalProductID4 (last parameter), the Edition and Product key type (MSDN, Retail, Trial) is encoded.

The Ultimate PID Checker is one of several tools that call the function to decode the key.

Here you can see which edition the key belongs to.

macos - Automount SMB using keychain password

Is there a way to use the automount service to mount my NAS share but without specifying my password in my SMB path?

Currently, I have the following:

/etc/auto_master

#
# Automounter master map
#
+auto_master            # Use directory service
/net                    -hosts          -nobrowse,hidefromfinder,nosuid
/home                   auto_home       -nobrowse,hidefromfinder
/Network/Servers        -fstab
/-                      -static
/Volumes/NAS1           auto_nas

/etc/auto_nas

home    -fstype=smbfs,soft smb://ericb:mypassword@NAS1/home

But I would like to remove "mypassword" from the config file and have automount use the data stored in the keychain.

Is this possible?

windows 7 - Can the "copying" step from 7zip be sped up?

I use 7Zip to extract compressed files.

I am currently working with a compressed 7GB RAR file that expands to 55.6GB.

I understand the time it takes to unzip the file, but then I have to sit and wait while the file "copies" from a temp folder (e.g. D:\Users\Ray\AppData\Local\Temp) to an extraction folder (D:\MyBackupFolder).

Since this is essentially just a move, I would think this would almost be instantaneous.

As noted above by my directories above, the folders are on the same Drive (1TB HDD), but my OS is installed on an 80GB SSD (if that matters).

Can this copying process be sped up somehow?

Answer

When all else fails, read the FAQ:

Why does drag-and-drop archive extraction from 7-Zip to Explorer use temp files?

7-Zip doesn't know folder path of drop target. Only Windows Explorer knows exact drop target. And Windows Explorer needs files (drag source) as decompressed files on disk. So 7-Zip extracts files from archive to temp folder and then 7-Zip notifies Windows Explorer about paths of these temp files. Then Windows Explorer copies these files to drop target folder.

> To avoid temp file usage, you can use Extract command of 7-Zip or drag-and-drop from 7-Zip to 7-Zip.

I just tested it and, instead of "Drag & Drop", I can use "Extract Here" from the context menu and there's no delay after extraction:

networking - Internet Connection Sharing with Wireless Hosted Network (WHN) is not providing a DNS server for WHN clients

On Windows 8, I'm using a wireless hosted network with ICS. I have one interface connected to internet, and my WiFi interface as a wireless access point. The interface that is connected to internet is a USB modem.

This is what I did, I ran these commands:

netsh wlan set hostednetwork ssid=* key=*
netsh start hostednetwork

Then I configured the ICS on the interface connected to internet and linked it up with the new virtual WiFi access point interface.

Then I connected my Android phone to the WiFi access point and tried to access the internet.

An error occurred on the browser, telling me that the DNS did not resolve.

So I modified (static config) the WiFi configuration on my Android phone to use Google DNS 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 and everything worked.

The WiFi interface is on 192.168.137.1, so my Android phone connected in that particular range, and set the gateway & DNS to the same IP.

In all the guides I've read on the internet, no site mentioned this problem. I don't understand why the DNS information is not propagating from the USB modem -> WiFi Access Point -> Android phone WiFi?

Even if I set the DNS servers on the WiFi access point interface statically to Google DNS, it still doesn't work.

The internet connection only works properly if I set the DNS servers on my Android phone's WiFi configuration. If I don't, I can only use direct IPs.

Any ideas?

Answer

I had the same issue, frustrating to get no connection when connecting to the windows hostednetwork because of no DNS being sent to the connected devices.

I found the solution here: https://4sysops.com/archives/how-to-share-wi-fi-in-windows-8-with-internet-connection-sharing-ics/ I read it before but didn't get it until the second time around, the steps that go like this are important:

• Start the hostednetwork as you are doing.


• Be connected to the network with the internet access you want to share with others.


• Go to Control Panel\Network and Internet\Network Connections and you will see your internet connection and your hostednetwork as something like "Local Area Connection* XX". Even though it's a wifi connection you are hosting, it will still be called a "LAN" connection.


• Now open the Properties of your source internet connection and go to Sharing tab and select to share the connection with the "LAN * XX" connection.

Now in summary, when you connect to the hotspot after sharing the source connection with your hostednetwork connection, the DNS will start being sent to the devices that are connected via DHCP automatically.

Addendum A: Make sure that there is no DNS setting manually set on the "Local Area Connection*3" for example, it should just be empty:

How do you list all processes on the command line in Windows?

Is there a command equivalent to 'ps' on Unix that can list all processes on a Windows machine?

Answer

Working with cmd.exe:

tasklist

If you have Powershell:

get-process

Via WMI:

wmic process

(you can query remote machines as well with /node:ComputerOrIP, and there are a LOT more ways to customize this command: link)