Tag Archives: howto

tech pit

HOWTO switch off Defender in Windows Sandbox

Recently I tried to run a setup program into the Windows Sandbox, but Windows Defender blocked it. About 60 seconds later, I discovered that I cannot disable/configure it from the usual UI. After some investigation, I discovered that we can do it by a couple of commands in PowerShell with administrative access rights: Set-ItemProperty -Path “HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\CI\Policy” -Name “VerifiedAndReputablePolicyState” -Value “0” CiTool.exe -r After applying these … Continue reading HOWTO switch off Defender in Windows Sandbox »

tech pit

HOWTO Upgrade to W11 on PC with Unsupported CPU

With Windows 10’s incoming end-of-support, I started to study the destiny of some of my old PCs. A good idea might be to run the MS PC Health Check for a detailed view of the situation. Without a maintained OS, I might consider installing some linux distribution, or even dismiss the asset. My preferred solution would be to find a way to upgrade to W11 … Continue reading HOWTO Upgrade to W11 on PC with Unsupported CPU »

tech pit

HOWTO integrate NASM with VS2022

updated 01/11/2024 Occasionally I use Intel assembler language to squeeze processing power from my programs. A cheap solution was C inline assembler sections, but VS2022 doesn’t support them in a 64-bits program.  Other compilers use more or less complex solutions (IBM assembler, …). This forced me to consider including and linking .asm files in my projects.  I can split them with 32 and 64 bits … Continue reading HOWTO integrate NASM with VS2022 »

tech pit

HOWTO install ‘winget’ from command line

Sometimes we might need to use the amazing ‘winget’ command where it isn’t available (for example from a Windows Sandbox, …). The few steps below will solve this problem. The installation process To install ‘winget’ command, you will need to download C++ Runtime framework packages for Desktop Bridge from MS, selecting the proper package (x86, x64, …) from the ‘How to install and update Desktop … Continue reading HOWTO install ‘winget’ from command line »

Windows programming tips

HOWTO detect WIN11 using Windows API

The main problem here is that Windows 11 is a Windows 10++, and there is no function like IsWindows10OrGreater(). This forced us to write down our own IsWindows11OrGreater(). I want to write a function similar to the existing IsWindows*() using VerifyVersionInfo(). Here is the working body of such a function: BOOL IsWindows11OrGreater() { OSVERSIONINFOEX vi; ULONGLONG conditions; memset (&vi, 0, sizeof(vi)); vi.dwOSVersionInfoSize = sizeof(vi); vi.dwMajorVersion … Continue reading HOWTO detect WIN11 using Windows API »

Windows programming tips

HOWTO uninstall a program from Inno Setup kit

Introduction One of the many challenges in releasing the latest version of Horodruin was that the main edition switched to 64-bits. This means that we cannot simply install/update the new program over the existing one, mainly because 64 bits programs have a different default system folder (‘Program Files‘) than 32 bits ones (‘Program Files (x86)‘). The best option here is to uninstall the old one, … Continue reading HOWTO uninstall a program from Inno Setup kit »

tech pit

HOWTO block Windows 11 automatic upgrade

Introduction Recently I tried to upgrade my previous flagship notebook to Windows 11 but it didn’t work. The update constantly failed because of several problems that I wasn’t able to fix. When I decided to sign off from W11 upgrade, I discovered that I cannot change my previous decision anymore. This problem is that Windows Update constantly tries the upgrade process failing every single time … Continue reading HOWTO block Windows 11 automatic upgrade »