Statler's Rogue Valley Views

Batch file tricks

current directory of the batch file
%~dp0
cd /d %~dp0
xcopy %~dp0\*.* %~dp0\%var%\

use pushd instead of CD for UNC directories
If a network path is specified, PUSHD will create a temporary drive letter that points to that specified network resource and then change the current drive and directory, using the newly defined drive letter. Temporary drive letters are allocated from Z: on down, using the first unused drive letter found.
use %:~n,1% and %:~n,-1% to scan a string and remove heading and trailing blanks

pushd %~dp0
pushd “%~dp0:~n,-1%\SubDirectoryName”

%USERNAME%

Time didn’t automaticaly update so I had to:

net stop w32time
w32tm /unregister
w32tm /register
net time /setsntp:time.nist.gov
net start w32time

Once I rebooted it worked.

I turned off windows desktop search because the hard drive noise generated by indexing drove me crazy.

Control Panel /Administrative Tools /Services
Right click on Windows Search
Select Properties
Change “Enabled” to “Disabled”
Click on “Stop”
Done

Struggled some with purchasing Vista as a download from Microsoft’s online store.

First, of course, was the struggle with just what version to buy! Decided on Vista Premium Home 32 bit. The features on the higher end versions seemed nice, but really the only one I might have been interested in was the business edition with remote desktop, but there are other free things I can do to gain that funtionality. And the price for the 64 bit versions was just over the top for that feature set as well.

So, I purchased the Vista download at 10 PM PDT, but that didn’t get me a download right away. Had to wait until the next morning for the email with links and code.

Then, of course, it wasn’t an ISO that I could load on my clients computer. He already has XP but I want to do a clean install. A little searching and I found what I needed.

First, how to make an ISO, and then how to do a clean install.

The directions for the ISO was found here:

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/05/10/how-to-make-vista-bootable-dvd-with-wim-downloaded-files/

And that required the file from Microsoft called cdimage.exe ( the previous link mentions it but the download sites were available or something) which I found here:

http://code.google.com/p/create-iso-file/downloads/detail?name=CDIMAGE.EXE&can=2&q=

Then I needed directions for doing a clean install with an upgrade Vista which I found here:

http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_upgrade_clean.asp

Praise Google, praise mydigitallife.info and praise winsupersite!

Wireless headset using phone, recorded on the PC

Wireless headset

Speech to text

OCR

Search PDFs

Notify document ready to review

Multiple desktops on one PC

Scan, OCR and organize PDFs

File organizing by client or project

Opening client or project

Scheduling client or project

Closing client or project