Category Archives: tech pit

everything related to technical stuff

tech pit

HOWTO remove F12 exceptions during debugging sessions

I was debugging a new feature when I discovered that every time VK_F12 is pressed, the debugger triggered an exception. After some investigations, I found this forum thread, and I discovered that it is a kernel debugger reserved key. The Solution To fix this annoying problem, we can remap this hotkey going into the registry: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AeDebug and editing the following value: UserDebuggerHotKey Setting it … Continue reading HOWTO remove F12 exceptions during debugging sessions »

tech pit

HOWTO to tune remote session font size

I am in need to frequently use remote desktop sessions, and I was struggling to increase the font size. I finally I discovered an easy way to complete the task. open the Settings window (by pressing <windows_key> + I) type the following string in the search bar: make text size bigger click the suggested topic The program will take you into the Display Settings page … Continue reading HOWTO to tune remote session font size »

tech pit

HOWTO enable Powershell script execution

updated: 09/10/2021   Powershell is indeed a very powerful tool, and sometimes we may need to commit several similar operations that we can quickly organize in a script.  By default, you cannot execute any unsigned PowerShell script.  This can be a problem if we don’t know how, or you need to do a quick maintenance task. We can update this setting, by opening a Powershell … Continue reading HOWTO enable Powershell script execution »

tech pit

HOWTO restore hidden or deleted power plan

Sometimes you may need to restore the default Windows Power Plan, because you deleted them or because they were hidden by preloaded settings or by a preloaded utility, … The first option is the following command from an administrative Command Prompt: powercfg -duplicatescheme <Power Plan GUID> where the known Power Plan GUIDs are: Friendly Name GUID Power Saver a1841308-3541-4fab-bc81-f71556f20b4a Balanced 381b4222-f694-41f0-9685-ff5bb260df2e High Performance 8c5e7fda-e8bf-4a96-9a85-a6e23a8c635c Ultimate … Continue reading HOWTO restore hidden or deleted power plan »

tech pit

HOWTO Recover a stored WiFi password

Sometimes it is useful to recover a password from its Windows stored WiFi profiles. We can do this by opening an administrative Command Prompt and typing this command to list all stored profiles: netsh wlan show profile Then type the following command with the proper profile name: netsh wlan show profile name=<profile_name> key=clear You can find it in the Security Settings section in the listed … Continue reading HOWTO Recover a stored WiFi password »

tech pit

HOWTO fix Windows 10 upgrade process

Once again some weeks ago, I had to upgrade an old Windows 7 notebook to Windows 10. Up to now, it is possible by downloading the Media Download Tool, and following the program instructions. In the end, you will have a licensed Windows 10 notebook migrated by the previous OS. My problem this time was that Windows 10 installation met several problems and failed. I … Continue reading HOWTO fix Windows 10 upgrade process »

tech pit

HOWTO fix Windows 10 installation blocked in updates searching phase

Several weeks ago, I updated an old notebook from Windows 8 to the latest Windows 10. One of the problems, I faced is that the W10 installation hung in the updates searching phase. From my investigations, it seemed a Windows Update problem of the almost phased-out OS. Simply I didn’t want to fix a problem in an OS that I was going to wipe out. … Continue reading HOWTO fix Windows 10 installation blocked in updates searching phase »

tech pit

HOWTO set account lockout by command line

Recently I read an article about how to harden Windows 10 accounts’ security vs brute force attacks. One of the ‘easy’ countermeasures is to enable the account lockout. The idea is to lock the attacked account after a number of consecutive failed login tries to increase the time-costs of the attack. You can set it up by using Local Security Policies from your Administration Tools, … Continue reading HOWTO set account lockout by command line »

tech pit

HOWTO restore inaccessible boot disks

A day before Christmas, a friend of mine called me telling me that one of his notebooks didn’t start anymore. A glorious BlueScreen pops up giving an error 0xC000000E because a device isn’t accessible anymore. We downloaded the latest Windows 10 Media Creation Tool to create a bootable USB Windows 10 image from where to try to fix the problem.  Naturally, the automatic recovery didn’t … Continue reading HOWTO restore inaccessible boot disks »

tech pit

HOWTO fix Performance Monitor ‘unable to add counter’ errors

Several days ago, I started Performance Monitor, and I tripped the following error: Unable to add these counters: \Memory\Available MBytes \Memory\% Committed Bytes In Use \Memory\Cache Faults/sec \Memory\Cache Faults/sec \PhysicalDisk(*)\%Idle Time \PhysicalDisk(*)\Avg. Disk Queue Length \Network Interface(*)\Bytes Total/sec Looking around, I found and followed this article. The Solution I fixed the problem by executing the following command from an administrative Command Prompt window: lodctr /r … Continue reading HOWTO fix Performance Monitor ‘unable to add counter’ errors »