How to programmatically set the processor affinity of an application - Updated

A few months back I wrote a post explaining how to set the processor affinity of an application using a little free utility called process.exe. Soon after, our new antivirus software (NOD32) flagged process.exe as a threat, removed it, and prevented me from reinstalling it. I had to look for another solution and discovered Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.0.

As an example, I’ll show you how to set the processor affinity of Microsoft Word to force it to use only 1 processor on a dual core system:

1. Download and install Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.0 (you need Application Compatibility Toolkit.msi)

2. Go to Start>Programs>Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.0 and click on Compatibility Administrator. The following window appears (click to enlarge):

 

3. Right-click on New Database(1)[Untitled_1] and select Create New>Application Fix:

 

4. Complete the Program information page and click Next. Note that the name of the program and the name of the vendor can be anything you want, only the path to the exe has to be exact:

 

5. Because we are only interested in setting the processor affinity, select None on the Compatibility Modes page and then click Next:

 

6. This is the page we are interested in. Scroll down to select SingleProcAffinity in the list of compatibility fixes, then click Next:

 

7. Do not change any settings on the last page unless you know what you are doing. Just click Finish:

 

8. Click on File>Save. First give a name to your database:

Then save the actual database file:

 

9. Finally, install the fix by right-clicking the name of your database and selecting Install:

 

10. Done! You can now close the Compatibility Administrator. Next time you launch Word, it will only use one CPU.

How to add SATA drivers offline to a WIM image of Windows XP

I have been using ImageX to create WIM images of Windows XP for some time now. After imaging a Toshiba A9 laptop with an image created on a Toshiba A8, Windows XP failed to boot, displaying instead the dreaded Stop Error 0×0000007B INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE. To quote the Microsoft knowledge base article: “This error may occur if the registry entries and the drivers for the mass storage controller hardware in the backup computer are not installed in Windows XP.” In other words, Windows doesn’t have the SATA drivers needed to communicate with the hard disk. The next step is usually to:

1. Download the necessary drivers
2. Copy the drivers to a floppy disk
3. Run a repair install of XP
4. Press F6 when prompted during Setup to install the drivers
5. Run Sysprep
6. Recapture an image that will now have the necessary drivers installed

This time however, I decided to take advantage of ImageX’s ability to easily mount a WIM image for offline editing. So here is what I did (be aware that this is a hack, it worked for me but there’s no guarantee that it’ll work for you):

1. Downloaded and extracted the needed SATA drivers from the Toshiba website. The archive contains 6 files: iaahci.cat, iaahci.inf, iastor.cat, iastor.inf, iaStor.sys, and TXTSETUP.OEM.
   
2. Mounted the WIM image of Windows XP to an empty folder (C:\Mount) using the command:
   imagex /mountrw C:\PathToYourWIMImage\WindowsXP.wim 1 C:\Mount

3. Followed the instructions on this thread to copy the driver files where they belong:
   • Copied the .inf files (iaahci.inf and iastor.inf) to C:\Mount\Windows\inf
   • Copied the .sys file (iaStor.sys) to C:\Mount\Windows\system32\drivers
   • Copied all remaining files (iaahci.cat, iastor.cat, iaStor.sys, and TXTSETUP.OEM) to C:\Mount\Windows\system32

4. Loaded the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM hive of the mounted image in the registry:
   • Opened the Registry Editor (type regedit at the command prompt)
   • Selected the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE hive
   • Clicked on File>Load Hive and selected C:\Mount\Windows\system32\config\system
   • Named the loaded hive Temp (it can be named anything you want)
5. In Notepad, created a .reg file (SATA_Keys.reg for example) to import the appropriate settings into the mounted hive (click on the picture to download SATA_Keys.doc that you’ll have to rename SATA_Keys.reg):

How do you come up with this file? Well again, this thread helped a lot, as did that one.  Basically you have to open the .inf files (iaahci.inf and iastor.inf) and locate:

• the ClassGUID entry in the [version] section.
• the PCI\VEN entries in the [ControlFlags] section
• the AddService value in the [iaStor_Inst.Services] section in this case.

If you look back at the .reg file, you’ll notice that the first 6 keys, derived from iaahci.inf, all have the same ClassGUID, only the PCI\VEN values change. The next 6, derived from the other .inf file (iastor.inf), share a different ClassGUID. Finally, both .inf files refer to the same service (iaStor) which has to be added. Note that in this example, the hexadecimal value of ImagePath means “system32\drivers\iaStor.sys”.

6.   Double-clicked the .reg file to merge the settings in the registry

7.   Unloaded the Temp hive (File>Unload Hive)

8.   Unmounted the WIM image without forgetting the /commit switch (or all the changes would be lost):

imagex /unmount C:\Mount /commit

9.   Reimaged the laptop which booted just fine and installed the SATA drivers from within the OS to ensure proper installation.

How to programmatically set the processor affinity of an application

One of the user I support runs an older CAD application that doesn’t work properly on computers using a dual core processor. It creates ghosting artifacts when he draws and eventually crashes the application. The trick is to limit the application’s process to only one processor (or one core). To do it manually:

1. Launch the application
2. Locate the application’s process in the Task Manager (type taskmgr from the Run command or press Ctrl+Alt+Delete)
3. Right-click on the process and select Set Affinity
4. Uncheck all the selected CPUs except one.

It works well, but it needs to be done every time the application is launched.

To do it automatically, I downloaded a free command line utility from a company called Beyond Logic: process.exe. To have a process named ExampleAppProcess.exe use only CPU 1, type:

process -a ExampleAppProcess.exe 01

So, I copied process.exe in a folder and added the path to this folder to the PATH environment variable. Then, I opened Notepad and typed:

cd c:\Program Files\ExampleAppFolder
start ExampleApp.exe
process -a ExampleAppProcess.exe 01

I saved this file as Affinity.cmd and added a shortcut to it on the Desktop. I changed the name and the icon of the shortcut to match the one used by the original application, and then deleted the original shortcut.

Now my user doesn’t have to do anything special: He double-clicks on what appears the be the same shortcut as before, but now his application works.

How to launch Outlook Express from the command line

Even if you “uninstall” Outlook Express via Add/Remove Windows Components (type control appwiz.cpl,,2 at the command prompt), it is still very much installed. The icons and shortcuts pointing to it are gone but you can still easily launch Outlook Express by typing msimn at the command line.

More info here: OLEXP: Command Line Options for Outlook Express

Also, the site to go to for everything Outlook Express: Inside Outlook Express

How to non-destructively convert dynamic disks to basic disks

The official method to convert dynamic disks back to basic disks is to back up the data, format the disks, and finally restore the data from backup. See Microsoft’s instructions on how to do that here.

Of course, nobody wants to do that, and sometimes it’s not even possible to implement this method. It assumes that you can boot up the computer or at least access the drives and back up the data in the first place. So what are the other options?

Well, I unfortunately had to look for another solution last week when my computer refused to recognize any of my 4 dynamic hard drives. Here are the results of my search:

1. Use TestDisk. If you want to know why and how, keep reading or jump to the conclusion section.

2. If you are lucky enough to be able to boot, follow Microsoft’s own instructions to avoid the backup/format/restore method.
Note: Ignore the title of this knowledge base article and go straight to the WORKAROUND section.

Detailed instructions with screen shots can be found on thelazyadmin.com blog.

3. If your computer won’t boot, read on.

After installing the free VMWare server 1.0.2 and loading Vista Ultimate Edition as a virtual machine on my Windows XP Pro machine, my computer wouldn’t boot in any mode. Last Know Good Configuration didn’t change anything, and a repair install was not an option as neither Setup nor the recovery console were able to detect the Windows installation. Running the map command from the recovery console listed all my drives but they all had question marks instead of the expected drive letters. bootcfg /scan didn’t find anything. ERD Commander couldn’t help either (no Windows installation detected). I wasn’t even able to mount the drives using a Linux live CD.

My next step was to buy an external enclosure for my SATA drives (Vantec NexStar 3, works great) to backup the data from a working computer. When dynamic disks are connected to a computer running XP or Vista, they show up as Foreign in the Disk Management console (diskmgmt.msc). All you have to do is right-click the drive and select Import Foreign Disk. Except this time it didn’t work, and instead I received 2 error messages back to back:

INTERNAL Error - The disk group contains no valid configurations copies (C10000B6)

followed by

Unspecified error (80004005)

Looking up these error messages didn’t lead to anything useful so I decided to give up on the dynamic disk to basic disk conversion topic and started to search for data recovery software. That’s how I found TestDisk.

I ran TestDisk on a XP Pro laptop, it detected my USB-connected “foreign” drive, found all my “partitions” (dynamic disk volumes), allowed me to backup my data to the laptop, and offered the option to write a new partition table based on what it had found. I did just that, securely removed the USB enclosure, plugged it back and voila! My laptop detected a new basic disk, with partitions instead of volumes, drive letters, and best of all, all my data intact.
I was then able to reinstall the drive in my computer, repair Windows and from there run TestDisk on the three remaining drives so I can confirm that it works for external (USB) drives, IDE drives and SATA drives.

Conclusion:

TestDisk 6.6 will allow to backup your data and, if you let it rewrite the partition stucture, it will convert your dynamic disk to a basic disk without touching the data.

Run TestDisk:

Select Create to log information.

The program detects all the drives connected to your computer (internal, external, Flash drives).
Highlight the one you want to work on, select Proceed and press Enter.

Make the appropriate choice for your computer and press Enter.

Select Analyse and press Enter.

It displays the current structure. Select Backup first, then Proceed. Backing up first is a good idea if you later want to restore the drive’s partition structure.

It might take a while to get to that screen if your drive is having problems, but eventually, it’ll display all the partitions it found. Select a partition and press P if you want to see the files stored on that particular partition, then press c to copy the files to the folder TestDisk is running from any available drive with enough free space. [Thanks to commenter Bob Janes for pointing out to me that it is indeed possible to backup your data anywhere you wish]

Press Enter to continue.

This is where you can make the dynamic to basic drive conversion happen. Select Write, then press Y to confirm that you want to write the new partition structure to disk.
Quit the program, reboot the drive you just modified and enjoy your new basic drive.

Shortcuts to open Control Panel applets

To launch a Control Panel applet from the Run command, you just need to know its name:

Type	To launch
ncpa.cpl	Network Connections
appwiz.cpl	Add or Remove Programs
inetcpl.cpl	Internet Properties
sysdm.cpl	System Properties
control printers	Printers and Faxes
mmsys.cpl	Sound and Audio Devices Properties

The above list is not exhaustive. There are many more applets that can be launched in the same way; I listed the ones I use the most. The applets are .cpl files located in the %windir%\system32 folder.

If .cpl files are not associated to the control.exe application, you’ll need to type control name.cpl to launch the applet.

It is possible to pass arguments when launching an applet in order to select a particular page and/or tab. For example, typing control inetcpl.cpl,,4 will open the Internet Properties applet with the 5th tab already selected (the index is 0-based). Typing control is mandatory if you want to pass arguments.

For detailed info and a more complete list of available applets, check out these resources:

www.geekgirls.com
vlaurie.com

Keep Windows on time with the built-in Windows Time service

I had to keep a W2K machine on time as its main job is to control clocks in different locations. It turns out that Windows as a built-in SNTP client that can be set to retrieve the time from public SNTP servers.

The idea is to give Windows a list of time servers to check and then restart the Windows Time service for the change to take effect.

So, first you need a list of available SNTP time servers.

Then, you use the net time command to enter a list of time servers, e.g.:

C:\>net time /setsntp:"ns.scruz.net ntp.ucsd.edu ntp1.mainecoon.com"

Finally, you restart the Windows Time service:

C:\>net stop W32Time
C:\>net stop W32Time

Additional resources:
• Syntax of the net time command here.
• Windows Networking as an article entitled Configuring Windows Time Service.

How to deal with “CMD does not support UNC paths as current directories“

The solution is to use pushd instead of cd to change the current directory to a share accessed via a UNC path (e.g.: >pushd \\myserver\myshare).
Use popd when done.

More info on the Microsoft Web site.