Category: Windows

Windows 10 saw the introduction of a enw Settings app, which has been improved in every major update. The Settings app is a replacement for the old Control Panel, the applets of which could be accessed from either the command line or from the Run dialog.

The Settings app also allows you to directly open individual settings pages by using a URI. The list of URI’s below is for Windows 10 “Creators Update” (version 1704).

Not all dettings pages will be available in every SKU of Windows 10. The notes column details any additional requirements that must be met for a page to be available.

Continue reading “Access Windows Settings App Using ms-settings URIs”

While I like Windows 10, I absolutely detest the Caculator app. It is extremely slow to open and doesn’t allow you to see the history of calculations.

I had a little complain on Twitter about this:

My friend and fellow MVP, Steve Endow suggested a solution as a replacement to the new Calculator app:

Well, Steve played canary for me and installed the Old Windows Calc app from Winaero without issue, so I figured I could give it a go myself.

The app is fairly simple to install and appears to work well.

It appears on the Start menu; for me it is the second app and is the default app when using Win+R and typing calc.

I am going to continue testing this over the ext few days to see how well it works over a more extended period of time, but first impressions are positive.

I’ve only recently started using Cortana in any meaningful way, but it has been doing one thing that is really annoying. It has been giving me travel tips based on travelling around by Transit instead of by car. The main one it reminds me of is getting home from the office when I am at the PI office and less often getting to that office from home (I spend a lot of time out on site with clients).

What’s the problem you’re wondering. The problem is that because it is using Transit, it tells me I have to leave work at 1320; or even worse that I need to leave home at 1400 on Saturday to get to the offic for 0700 Monday.

These messages have been popping up on my Windows Phone for a while and I have scoured the settings repeatedly looking for a way to fix it by changing the method of travel to car without success and had started thinking about switching off Coretana entirely.

Then the other day I had to get my laptop rebuilt (new OS installed after replacment of parts leading to jokes about the Laptop of Theseus) and activated Cortana. I found something called Notebook with lots of settings broken into areas.

To find Notebook, hit the Windows key and type Cortana. The third icon down on the side of the Start menu is Notebook:

Continue reading “Changing Cortana’s Selected Method Of Travel”

This post is a diversion from the usual Microsoft Dynamics GP focused ones, but is related to Microsoft. The admin team at work recently emailed everyone asking for a list of all the applications installed on laptops and desktop machines for a licence audit. They asked for a screen shot of the Add/Remove Programs window, but one of the developers replied with an email containing a set of commands which would list all programs. Which is much easier when you have a lot of software installed which would require multiple screenshots.

To run the script, open a command prompt in administrator mode and type:

cd c:\windows\system32\wbem (hit enter)
wmic (hit enter)
/output:C:\InstallList.txt product get name,version

The first highlighted section above contains the output location and the second shows the fields to return.

You can use the following to get a list of available fields:

cd c:\windows\system32\wbem (hit enter)
wmic product get /?(hit enter)