Windows backup command line

Windows 8.1 does not have an GUI tool to schedule a regular system image backup.
But there is a command line which could be placed to the task scheduler:

wbAdmin Start Backup -backupTarget:E: -include:C:,D: -allCritical -quiet

Get the description of the wbAdmin command options by typing:

wbAdmin Start Backup /?

To restore the backup, first boot to the recovery partition. To do so on a healthy system (if the system is corrupted it should boot the recovery automatically) hold the Shift key when you click the "Reboot" button.

Cure for IE's paranoia

After the update KB3025390 was installed for IE11, it's stopped to allow access to its internal objects from outside. As it was described in this article, this behaviour could be cured by the following registry changes:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\MAIN\FeatureControl\FEATURE_DISABLE_INTERNAL_SECURITY_MANAGER]
"iexplore.exe"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\MAIN\FeatureControl\FEATURE_DISABLE_INTERNAL_SECURITY_MANAGER]
"iexplore.exe"=dword:00000001

Update: MS has released an update KB 3021952. To be installed to solve the issue instead of hacking the registry.


See also: http://www.inflectra.com/Support/KnowledgeBase/KB105.aspx

PC hunter

Sometimes when you try to modify a registry key you are getting "access denied" and even changing the ownership does not help. In this case try a free utility called "PC Hunter". It lets you to delete a problem registry node and then you could just created it back with default permissions.
The link to download: http://www.xuetr.com/download/PCHunter_free.zip
Original article the utility was mentioned:
https://www.raymond.cc/blog/full-control-permission-to-delete-or-edit-restricted-windows-registry/2/

hyperswitch

On windows, you should choose, either you use the Hyper-V or a third party virtual machines (such as android emulator with virtualization support provided by Intel x86 Emulator Accelerator (HAZM)).

In the second case the system hypervisor should be turned off:

bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off

 To turn it back on execute:

bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype auto start

Reboot.

Skype little hack

As we all know, all of the sudden Micro$oft stopped to support old version of Skype. But new Linux version of skype client is buggy and glitchy.
I was able to make the skype work. Do the following. Open the file /usr/bin/skype in a hex editor (I used the Midnight Commander viewer) and search for the version number. In my case it was the string 4.2.0.11
Replace the string with 4.3.0.37 and save.
Run skype now and enter the credentials. Should connect just fine.

runas.vbs

Very simple script to run a command line application with elevated privileges: 

if WScript.Arguments.Length > 0 Then
    Set objShell = CreateObject("Shell.Application")
    dim a : a = ""
    for i=1 to WScript.Arguments.Length-1
        a = a & WScript.Arguments(i) & " "
    next
    objShell.ShellExecute WScript.Arguments(0), a, "", "runas"
end if

Sick FTP service

On Windows 2008R2 server, a freshly installed FTP service does not accept an external connection attempts, even if the FTP firewall rule is enabled.
Could be cured by issuing the following command:
netsh advfirewall set global StatefulFTP disable
Then restart of the ftpsvc service.