Category Archives: Windows

Anaconda/Spyder Python IDE Not launching [SOLVED]

If you’ve just installed Anaconda / Spyder IDE (available here for personal use) in Windows find it’s not launching, and neither is the Anaconda launcher, and you have a previous installation of Python e.g. Python 2+<3, remove Python 2.X from your Windows PATH variables and retry opening it.

To do this, right click on ‘My Computer’,
select Properties to bring up System Properties and
click ‘Advanced System Settings’.
Agree to the UAC prompt and click ‘Environment Variables’ then look for Python references anywhere, edit and delete as required.

Retry launching Anaconda/Spyder and it will now work.

If this doesn’t work, open a command prompt (Type cmd/enter from the start menu), navigate to the Anaconda installation (in Windows 10, ‘cd c:\programdata\anaconda3\” and try launching anaconda or spyder (.\scripts\spyder.exe) and noting any error messages that appear which can then be googled for the relevant fixes.

Hope this helps!

Garreth

Find Windows workstation logon script

This is a super quick tip from an online forum…
[Sevenforums.com: Where is the location for the windows logon script?]

If you’re looking for the location of the active logon script in a Windows domain network on a workstation, or just to figure out which logon script is being used for a workstation

TLDR; ‘Get to the point, where is the bleeding thing?!’:

To find the location of a user’s logon script, while logged in as the user, run the command:
net user “%USERNAME%” | find “Logon script”
or for a domain user,
net user “%USERNAME%” /domain | find “Logon script”

Standard location

The logon scripts themselves can be found on the network in the standard domain network share location:

\\%USERDOMAIN%\netlogon

Additionally, the commands:

net user “%USERNAME%” /domain

and

gpresult /r

Give interesting results for the current user and what Group policy rules are active for the currently logged in user/(machine?) respectively.

Obviously this is only relevant to windows computers in active directory with primary domain controller and group policy ordaining that each machine should run a logon script.

 

Search Terms:

Things i searched for in order to try and find this out:

  • find out what logon script a computer is using
  • find path of logon script from workstation
  • find path of logon script from workstation registry

(I couldn’t find the registry location as it turns out!)

If this post helped you, or you have additional tips, please leave them in the comments!

Link

Just a super-quick post here.

If you’re looking for addons or plugins for Microsoft Outlook to help you organize your emails and extend the functionality of Outlook

(note Outlook is very extensible, as with all Microsoft Office applications you can write Visual Basic code for Applications to hook into it’s functions. Absaloutely fantastic for hacking excel as I have been doing for the last few weeks – my work needs to invest in a proper database program for sure *sigh*)

You’d do no better than looking here

Snapfiles Outlook Add-ons

http://www.snapfiles.com/freeware/comm/fwoutlook.html

 

They have addons that are useful – and unlike most of the sites on i’ve found so far – up to date and compatible with recent versions (2003+) of Outlook.

Hope this helps folks!

 

USB Key reminder script

Here’s something for all you windows network admins out there.
(I apologize in advance to Johnathon’s linux followers)

Here’s a little script I wrote to be used as a group policy logoff script to remind users to remove their USB memory sticks/keys when logging off.

I wrote it while working in IT Support for a High School, to help out our IT teachers and ourselves as we were weekly gathering a collection of various USB Memory Sticks and memory keys (and since i was the one trying to reunite them with their owners each week.)

It’s written in VBS so it’s perfect for using as a group policy in active directory on say a Windows 2003 server/XP network. I haven’t tried it on Vista, Windows 7, or Server 2008 because I wasn’t using those technologies at the time, but it will most likely work with Vista and Windows 7 when deployed from a 2k3 or 2k8 server.

It detects removable drives (the type it looks for can be modified) that are connected and won’t pop-up without a drive detected.

If a USB drive is connected, it pops up a dialog reminding the user to take their memory stick with them and then auto-closes after a few seconds (as not to hang the logoff procedure).

I hope this is usefull to someone. If you use it, please leave me a comment.
[LICENCE GPL? NC-SA?]Also, feel free to modify and redistribute this script, but please don’t remove my details, as I’d like to know if it gets used and of any usefull additions others can think of.

[code]

‘ Script to display a list of drives connected to this machine
‘ http://authors.aspalliance.com/brettb/VBScriptDrivesCollection.asp
‘ MODIFIED to detect only removable drive. GTinsley 2008 @ Wallington County Grammar School.
‘  May cause false positives on some SATA ‘puters.
‘  Tested working on ‘puters with card readers.

Set FileSystemObject = CreateObject(“Scripting.FileSystemObject”) ‘Create a filesystem object
Set Drives = FileSystemObject.Drives ‘Create a drives collection

‘ Step through the drive collection, and get both the drive letter and the drive type.
‘ There are 6 distinct types of drive:
‘Select Case DriveType
‘   Case “0” DriveType = “Unknown type of drive”
‘   Case “1” DriveType = “Removable drive”
‘   Case “2” DriveType = “Fixed drive”
‘   Case “3” DriveType = “Network drive”
‘   Case “4” DriveType = “CD-ROM drive”
‘   Case “5” DriveType = “RAM Disk”
‘End Select

For Each DiskDrive in Drives

DriveLetter = DiskDrive.DriveLetter
DriveType = DiskDrive.DriveType

‘ Check for a removable drive connected that:
‘     Is not the drive letter A B or C
‘    Folder exists (proves the drive exists)
IF Drivetype = “1” and not driveletter = “C” and not driveletter = “A” and not driveletter = “B” and FileSystemObject.FolderExists(driveletter & “:\”) then

‘ Old method. Waits until user has clicked OK before logoff completes.
‘WScript.Echo “The removable disk drive ” & DriveLetter & ” is a still connected. Don’t forget your USB drive!”

‘ New method waits 5 seconds then logs off.

time_out = 5      ‘ wait max. 5 seconds
title = “Forgetting something?”
button = vbOKonly  ‘ vbOKOnly
message = “The Removable Disk (” & DriveLetter & “:\) is a still connected. Don’t forget your USB drive!”

Set objWSH = WScript.CreateObject(“Wscript.Shell”)     ‘ create object
objWSH.Popup message, time_out, title, buttons     ‘ popup
end if
Next

‘ Clear objects and collections
Set Drives = nothing
Set FileSystemObject = nothing

[/code]