Configure Shadow Copy size for Windows Vista

Wonder why the Windows Vista system taking so much of space in your system drive? Well there are many things which can easily take up your precious space in your hard drive. Windows Vista new features, Vista search and also the backup mechanism so called System Resotre, and Shadow Copies are the main culprit in such issues.

Well we can choose to limit which folder or drive to have the Vista search features so that it minimize the indexing size, and we can also turn off System Restore easily if you don't really play with new drivers or applications everyday. Hence in my opinion it's extremely safe even without the System Restore. Shadow Copies is a very good and cool features which provided by Windows Vista. Imaging one day, you accidentally deletes a file or edited a file which you don't intended to, Shadow Copy can easily restore the files back in just a blink.

However, Shadow Copies actually occupied very large of hard disk space. In my scenario, I have a 40GB hard disk parition for Windows Vista alone, and Windows Vista "intelligently" reserve 15% of my hard disk space for this purpose. In another words, it's whopping 6GB of space.

Right click on my C:\ drive and navigate to properties, proceed to Previous Version tab, you can see that there is a long list of C:\ drive being "Shadow Copied". Initially I thought of deleting the old Shadow which I think I won't be needing it. However I realised that it doesn't not even have an option to do that.

Well... not to say that it donesn't have any option at all. Windows Vista actually do comes with a very good tools to configure the resize the amount of space that reserved Shadow Copy. This tools is called as VSSAdmin. Fire up this tools via command prompt under administrative privileges, and type vssadmin.

VSSAdmin

To see how much space that Windows Vista actually allocated for the Shadow Copies, key in "vssadmin list shadowstorage" in the command prompt.


You can actually resize the amount of space allocated for Shadow Copies via vssadmin too. For example now, I want to resize my shadow copies size to only 3GB instead of 6GB, just key in "vssadmin resize shadowstorage /for=C: /on=C: /maxsize=3GB" and immediately the older Shadow Copy will be deleted and release quite an amount of hard disk space.

Shrinked to 3GB

Before shrink



After shrink



Hope that this tips can help you too. :)

Boring weekend

Well it is a boring Saturday, and there is no plans in my mind on what should I do. Wake up at 10am in the morning, finished up few episode of HK drama, and went out for lunch after awhile. After back from lunch, again jump into the boring mode. Looking at my dusty table fan, I decides to give the fan a good bath. See the pictures below and you'll know how dusty it is. :P




And finally it regains it's clean look.


After cleaning the fan, tidy up my bedroom, cleans my toilet, and also my computer mouse, it was already 4pm. Resumes my HK drama, and waiting for my dinner after that. That's it for the whole day. In the end, my housemates and I sat down together and plan for tomorrow, Sunday programme. We decides for a one day trip to Melaka. :P

Goodbye 932B-Plus, and Welcome T220

Yesterday my dad told me that his monitor at home was broke down so without hesitation, I offered my 1year old Samsung 932B Plus to my dad. This morning I went to Lowyat Plaza and my target was 22" Samsung monitor. As I went into the Samsung showroom, Samsung T220 draws my attention to it. The design was nice and it comes with specially designed touch-sensitive power button. However it was in dark rose color, which doesn't gain much of my interest. Just when I plan to gave up, I saw a blue color T220 in the catalogue, so I asked for the salesgirl if they have any blue color unit of T220. Too bad she told that it was out of stock and they have no idea when would it be restocked. Without giving up my hope, I walk around Lowyat and finally saw that Thundermatch in Level4 has few units left. Happily I bought this new baby home. :)

My old 932B+

Unbox my T220 Blue

Stupid.. Why they provide me this kind of power cord.. Where and How am I suppose to plug this? Waste my RM10 to buy a new standard power cord.

Contrast ratio was amazingly high (Although is only dynamic) 20000:1

Touch-sensitve power button. I found it difficult to switch it On when my room are dark as it lacks of physical button.

This is how it normally looks like. (When there is no direct light applied)

It glows when there is a light shine on it.

My new screen and my new wallpaper :)

Leopard in to a Non-Apple Computer? - Part3

Having only one hard disk detected in my mac was somehow irritating as I need to move out some of my favourite files from the "missing" hard disk to the "visible" hard disk in Windows before I could access it from my Mac. I've been figuring on this for around 2 days and I've done enough google'ing yet I found no solutions on this yet. However on the 3rd days, I found out a clue when I take a look on my Hardware Properties in my Windows Vista. This is the possible culprit :
Hard disk 1 - Location 0 (Channel 0, Target 0, Lun 0) and
Hard disk 2 - Location 0 (Channel 0, Target 0, Lun 0) too while
Optical Drive - Location 0 (Channel 1, Target 0, Lun 0).


Hence obviously there is some problem with the channel as it was not suppose to have 2 drive plugged in the same channel. By taking out my computer's casing and take a look on my mainboard, it has 3 pairs of SATA interface where 2 pairs are powered by Intel ACHI8, and a pair of Gigabyte own interface. By plugging only one device to each pair of the SATA interface, it corrects up the Channel listing. Reboot the computer and logged onto my Mac, yes... it shows up both of my hard disk and also optical drive living happily with each other.


Hard disk issue solved, however LAN interface was not running as expected. Did a google and it was solved by following this guide here.

After the LAN was up and running, WiFi is the next item on the list. This really makes me smack my head as I was pairing up hardwares to make sure that it was able to run in Mac, however I forgot to choose a Mac compatible WiFi adapter. I got a Prolink WG2000R WiFi adapter which I have no idea what chipset it was using, so the only thing I can do is guess. After a few guessing which makes me almost gave up and settle down with cables, the RaLink driver works like charm. I followed the guide in the InsanelyMac forum which explains on how to makes RaLink WiFi adapter works proerply in Mac and now I got the WiFi works in my Mac.


Problems solved. This is my Mac screen caps.. :)

Annoying System Beep Sound

Few weeks ago, I was working on one of the SCCM issues and I was reading the execmgr.log using Trace32.exe. Annoyingly each time I select/highlight a row in the logs, the system speaker would starts beeping.


Well there are several methods to solve a problem actually. In few years back, I might have the idea of disabling the system speaker, or just open up the CPU and unplug the cord which connecting from the machine’s mainboard with speakers. However this time, I would spend some time on it and find out what really causing the system speaker to beep. The tools that I would be using are Process Monitor from SysInternal.


From the Procmon trace, it shows that trace32.exe was anxiously searching for a wav file which having an improper name. Now we knew that the System Beep was triggered as Windows having issue on finding a proper *.wav file when an event was triggered. This raised another question, “What event was triggered? And where it defines the wav file to be played?”. Looking back to the Process Monitor, it actually point me to HKey_User\[UserSID]\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\Default\CCCSelect\.current . Upon open up the keys using Registry Editor (Regedit), it clearly shows that the key carries some weird ASCII values in the Data field. By delete the value from the specified key, it actually solves my issue. Now no more annoying beep sounds from system speakers anymore. :)

Leopard in to a Non-Apple Computer? - Part2

Continue from my previous post.... Slot the IATKOS dvd into my optical bay, and let's have fun. Installation of the OSX actually is rather straight forward, and it takes me about 15mins - 20mins with my machine. A quick walk in Google brings me to the OSX installation guide which is here.

Basically my first attempt actually failed as it keeps on looping in the mac account settings page. Looking into Google, it tells me that I would need to unplug or disconnect any network devices or disable LAN in BIOS.

Welcome screen appeared telling you that "Hey, you have installed a Mac"

Mac account setup screen

Well the trick doesn't work at first as it brings me to a deadly "Kernal Panic REBOOT" screen. No matter how many times I reboot my machine, I end up on the same deadly screen.

Kernal Panic Restart Screen

Holding my breath, I reformat my Mac Volume and start everything over again. This time, I excluded almost most of the items in installation option and yes, I managed to get back the Mac OSX welcome screen. The loop starts again from Mac OSX welcome screen to mac account setup wizard. I reboot my machine and reconfigure my BIOS again, and this time it works. I finally get into the MAC.

Everything is cool however there are several issues with my MAC.
1. First of all, it only detects one of my Hard drive instead of both of it.
2. Second, neither my NIC nor WLAN/WiFi Adapter being recognized properly.
3. Third, booting up Mac OSX tooks quite a long time compared to Vista.

In Part3, I would tells you how I solve 3 of these issues. Stay tuned. ;)

Leopard in to a Non-Apple Computer?

As most of us know that in order to run a Macintosh/Apple OS, you would need to buy a Mac from Apple or add some amount to Job Steve's pocket. However with the help of a developer and geek, it actually enables you to install Mac right on your standard pc. Honestly speaking, with the migration of Mac from PowerPC platform to Intel platform, the idea of running Mac OS in PC gets much more simpler.

I bought my computer last year, and what I was trying to do is to make my setup as close as the real Mac. Due to the budget constrains, it might not be 100% identical with the real Mac of course. This is the specifications of my computer :

Processors : Intel Pentium Core 2 Duo E6600 - 2.4GHz
Mainboard : Gigabyte 965P - DS3 (Intel 965 Chipsets)
Ram Module : 2GB DDR2 667MHz
Graphic : Colorful - ATi X1950 with 256MB memory and 256bit.
Optical : LG DVD writer (SATA)
Hard Drive : Western Digital SATA WD2500KS + WD6400AAKS

The other parts which I didn't mentioned here was not important as it would support anyway.

Now get the tools ready and ready to go :
- An iATKOS_V1_R2 DVD
- GOOGLE and insanemac forum.

Stay tuned for part II.

This is what happen when the Apartment's Management gets hungry

Yesterday afternoon around 12pm, My housemate messaged me and informed me that my car was clamped. The most furious thing is that my car was parked at the correct bays, which is reserved for my unit, so by any means they shouldn't clamp my wheels. Sound's ridiculous isn't it?

Of course in order to release my clamp, I went to talk to the staff in the management office. I was clamped with the reason of no apartment stickers was sticked on my windscreen. First of all there is no single notice stated that vehicles without stickers will be clamped, and the worse thing is that they demand RM50 from me in order to release the clamp.

It really boils up my blood, and they thought that they are the king in this apartment. Luckily the supervisor of the security guards know me, and he open up the clamp for me. Else I would rather pay locksmith to open this thing than giving those idiots RM50. They find all ways to earn our money and finding all the lame excuse for it. Sigh.... if you want to buy/rent an apartment in future, do some research on the apartment's management.

Malaysia International Fireworks Competition is back

I guess most of us would still remember that last year, Malaysia had the International Fireworks Competition at Putrajaya Convention Centre in conjunction of Malaysia 50th National Day during the month of August. Good News to all is, it's back. The event would be started off on August 12, 2008 (Tuesday) which kickstarts by Team Malaysia. Unlike last year, there would be no competition being held on the 31st August. Hence I'm not sure if there would be any firework display on National Day or not. Also namely International Firework competition, from the list in their official webpage, there is only 4 countries that would be participating this competition including Malaysia. These are the schedules of the competition for this year :
12 August 2008 - Malaysia
16 August 2008 - China
20 August 2008 - Canada
24 August 2008 - Spain
29 August 2008 - Grand Finale

Putting the event apart, I would like to put some comment on the MIFC official webpage. I have no idea who design the page, and I am very confident that even college student can come out with better web design than them.


Obviously I've selected for HTML navigation (because I doubt they make good flash page from the first impression of the intro page) but I still get some flash content in the sites for retrieving informaiton.


It's so unbelievable that it can be so dull, unprofessional and I wonder if the webpage manage to tell the world "Hey, we are good in design, webpage, and I.T., please pour your resources to our cybercity - Cyberjaya".

Too see is to believe. Please see the link below :

http://www.mifc.com.my/ (Last accessed on : 28 August 2008 12:00AM GMT8+)

New Member For My PC

I've added another two member for my personal computer. Initialy I just plan to buy a 500GB hard disk, however the Lowyat.Net seller zhen^wei told me that the particular model which I interested left only 640GB version. Well the price difference between 500GB and 640GB was RM40. After a short calculation, I told myself "Why not, there is no harm to get the 640GB since I got 140GB extra space". Well it actually sized almost 600GB when I plugged into my PC, because 640GB was estimated size without taking allocation table and bytes loss during bits conversion.


Besides a Hard Disk, I got myself a 5megapixel webcam for testing purpose too. The webcam comes with 2 extra bright led serves as extra light source when you are in dark condition. The brightness can be adjusted too. One thing good about this webcam was it supports plug and play where you can directly plug it into your Windows Vista box and it runs straight away without needing you to find the driver.

Secret Recipe Durian Durian Cake is Back

Just now, Nico and I went for dinner at Equine Park and decided to take a walk at Jusco there. Our main motive is to spend away all the Jusco vouchers that I've collected all year long from various of events organized by my company. After finish shopping there, we buy some cakes home for desert. We walked into Secret Recipe and I was scratching my head what cake should I buy as most of the cakes there are cheese cake. Then suddenly I saw a yellow cake which look cheezy, but when I looked closer, it was actually the limited time durian cake called "Durian Durian". The first question which came across my mind was "is that contains cheese?". Then Nico asked the salesgirl if the cake contains cheese. The salesgirl give us a strange look and replied "No!". Haha.. Lucky me.. Straight away I bought a slice of that and give it a try.

When we open the typical red-box that house the slice of cake, the durian aroma was pretty nice. It looks abit watery and I thought that it's sure ran out of the original taste. However when I take a bite, the durian taste is pretty strong as if you take a bite of durian and a bite of cake. It was really nice and is worth to try that piece of cake again. Personally give the cake 4.8 out of 5. :)

.NET Mamak @ KLCC

Yes I know is such a long time ever since I wrote something here. Since I have a little time right now, here I am. Sounds busy huh? You bet..~! :P

Early morning yesterday, my colleges and I went for the .NET Mamak session at Microsoft Auditorium which located at 29th floor of KLCC Tower 2. Well throughout these 5years in KL, honestly I had never been to the KLCC Tower. We get lost our way where we went up to 41st floor, then to 36th floor, then back to 40th floor, then down to ground floor and finally 29th floor. Anyway cut the craps on the KLCC things and back to the main topic, .NET Mamak session which organized by Microsoft was pretty up to my expectation. :) The session kicked start with introduction of .Net Framework 3.5, and mostly the speakers focused on Windows Presentation Foundation which is nothing new to frequent .NET event participants, I believed. That doesn't really caught much of my attention.

On the session 2 and 3, the speakers introduced and explained some of the tools which is really cool such as the Windows Mobile 6 SDK where it really makes development of Pocket PC application a breeze. Tools like "Cellular Emulator" and "FakeGPS" enables the Pocket PC emulators to receive Calls, Texting, 3G Connections and even GPS. Yea it's cool. I think is time for me to get one and play around with it (provided that I have time to do that). For more information, visit :
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb278115.aspx

Extras : Candids from KLCC Tower 2. :P

Creating backdoor for your Windows Vista

Recently my colleague shown me an article about creating a backdoor for Windows Vista and after we tried it out, it was pretty cool and I would like to share with you guys. What we gonna achieve is to create a backdoor so that we can access almost anything in the computer includes those operations that requires UAC, reset/changing admin password and etc without needing you to logon as an authenticate user. Sounds cool?

The overview of the whole thing is that by replace some of the features in Ease of Access provided by Windows Vista, we can actually brings up the command prompt console in the CAD (Ctrl+Alt+Del) Screen.

To achieve this, first you would need to logon as an administrator or whoever that has sufficient privileges to play with the Windows files. After you logon, now starts to gets your hand dirty. I am using a Windows 2008 beta Virtual PC Image for demo as I don't want to mess up with my machine.

Open up your windows explorer, navigate to C:\Windows\System32, and when you open up the properties for magnify.exe, it shows that TrustedInstaller own the file and has the rights to modify it.


In order for you to have the rights to change the file, simply open your command prompt and pump in these command :

takeown /f magnify.exe

This will update the ownership of the file to your account. Next followed by this command :

cacls magnify.exe /g administrator:f

This will grant full access to "administrator" account for magnify.exe. In case you are not running as administrator, you can grant to your current user account by changing the "administrator" to whatever name that your current user account was. After you pump in this command, you will usually prompted with a confirmation, type Y for yes to proceed. Now you hold full permission on magnify.exe, you can proceed to change the file. As for safety reasons, I would suggest that you rename the original magnify.exe instead of replacing it. For eg, type in this command:

rename magnify.exe magnify.bak

which basically will update magnify.exe to magnify.bak.



After done with the command, just copy the original cmd.exe and paste it on the same directory. You should be able to see something like "cmd - copy.exe". Just rename the copy to "magnify.exe" and logoff.




To see the wonders, simply click on the Ease of Access button at the CAD screen, and check on the Magnify option, a command prompt would be prompted out right after you click on the OK button. To double confirm you are running on what kind of user account, you can type on the following command :

whoami /user

You can also enter the GUI mode by pump in the explorer.exe command at the command prompt. The only limitations of this account is you have to depends on the command prompt mode as Windows Explorer wouldn't open when you try to trigger it by double click on My Computer icon.


*Please consume information above at your own risk and I am not responsible for any damage caused by the steps above.

Original guide that I read : http://www.computerperformance.co.uk/vista/vista_backdoor_logon.htm