Category: Windows Tips

how-to fix “usb read error” on toyota mp3 player

I have a 2012 Toyota Yaris, that can play mp3 / aac audio files from an USB key.

So, I bought a 128G usb key, load it with my audio files on it, and it works fine for months.

Then, I decided to update the usb key with new songs. Before copying my files to it, I format it using Windows format utility. Then, I copy all my new mp3 files on it.

And now, what? I can’t read them! My car player always displays the “USB READ ERROR” message. I thought I put too much files on the USB key, so I tried with only 1 album, with the same result.

After lot of research, I found that, using the windows format tool, I changed the original “FAT32” partition, to a exFAT partition type. And, most car player can’t read that partition type.

So, I tried to format it using the command prompt: “format f: /fs:FAT32”. It took almost 1 hour, before completing with the error: “The volume is too big for FAT32”. I tried the “/q” method before, with the same result. That’s why I retry without the /q, but don’t lost your time, it doesn’t work.

I searched again… then I found that, only third party apps can format a large USB key with the real FAT32 format. There were lot of tools that can do that, but I choosed the one that looks the more simple, as I don’t always trust apps from unknown sources…

The app I used is this one: FAT32 guiFormat from Ridgecrop Consultants.

It was just simple, nothing to setup, and does the job perfectly.

I was able to copy all my mp3-aac, and now my can read read them!

Now, I strongly suggest you to make them a donation on their web site if you like this tool.

How to change the default Log Files location for Filezilla Server

When you enable Logging in FileZilla Server, there’s no option in the configuration to change the location of these files.

By default, you get them in this folder:
C:\Program Files (x86)\FileZilla Server\Logs

As they say in their documentation, “This location cannot be changed.”

In my case, I like to get all my logs at the same place, e.g. d:\logs, where have all my iis, smtp, hmailserver, … log files.

So, why can’t I get filezilla logs too?

There’s a solution, just follow these steps.

  1. Stop Filezilla Service
  2. Open a command prompt, as admin.
  3. Go to C:\Program Files (x86)\FileZilla Server\ folder.
  4. Rename “Logs” to “Logs2”, (or just delete it)
  5. Type: “mklink Logs m:\logs\filezilla /d”
    1. (replace m:\logs\filezilla with any folder you want)
  6. Restart FileZilla Service

That’s it, Filezilla Server thinks that the local folder exists, but it is located elsewhere!

How to do video capture on windows 10 without third party

I’ll show how to do a video capture in windows 10, without installing any third party app.  It’s all integrated freely in the OS.

How already know how to take a static snapshot of your app without any third party, by sending an image to clipboard like this:

  • Print Screen Key: All your visible screens, of all monitors.
  • Alt + Print Screen Key: Copy Current app to Clipboard
  • WARNING: Alt + Shift + Print Screen = Active the “high contrast” !!!

But now, you want to do a video capture of your app.

When you search the internet for that, found lots of browser plugins and extensions, or complete apps like SnagIt or Greenshot.

Windows 10 integrates features for gamers.  One of them is the “Game Bar“.  It’s used to record your game and share it with friends on the Xbox app.

But, you can use it for other apps that are not games, like your Web Browser or even Notepad.

Instructions

Open the app you need to record, and hit Win + G key.

The bar will initialize, asking you if the app is a game.  Just click the box, and the record bar will appear.

If you use it for the first time in that app, you will need to confirm that the app is a game, even if it’s not.

Then, the record bar will appear.

Click the Record button, and now start clicking or typing in your app.

While recording, the bar is shown smaller on the right of that application.

When you have finished, click stop.

The recorded files can be accessed by the Xbox Windows10 app, or you can go to the “My Video\Captures” folder, that can be hit directly by using Win+R key, and pasting:

shell:My Video\Captures + Enter.

(that’s another hidden Windows trick) (more details…)

These captures uses the .mp4 extension, are well compressed to offer a good quality with a small file size.

This is how the final result looks like:

The small record bar is not visible in the video, even if you see by following the mouse that I click on the “stop” button at the end.

 

Disable ssl3 for more security

SSL3 is over.  Some servers keep it active because they need to serve pages to IE6/XP users.  But, these days are over, as most of the updated to, at least IE8, and they have all the last updates allowing to connect using TLS 1.1 or 1.2.

SSL3 can also be enabled by default on older Windows Servers, like 2008 R2, even if you installed all Windows Updates.

Now, it’s time to disable SSL3 completely.

If your SSL3 is active, you may get one of these warnings from Qualys SSL Test:

  • This server is vulnerable to the POODLE attack. If possible, disable SSL 3 to mitigate. Grade capped to C.
  • This server uses SSL 3, which is obsolete and insecure. Grade capped to B.

It’s easy to disable it from a Windows registry, as described here.

Solution

Create a file, called DisableSSL3.reg, and copy that content on it:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurityProviders\SCHANNEL\Protocols\SSL 3.0\Server]
"Enabled"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurityProviders\SCHANNEL\Protocols\SSL 2.0\Server]
"Enabled"=dword:00000000

Save it, double-click on it, and accept.

Finally, reboot, and all SSL3 server services are disabled on your Windows server.

How to get “A” Rating on Qualys SSL Labs Test

That blog is hosted on an Amazon EC2 Instance, running Windows 2012 R2 Server.  And our SSL certificated is provided by Let’s Encrypt.

Starting from that default configuration, we ran the SSL test, and we got a B note.  We wanted to get the “A” Rating, and these are the 2 major warning we had to solve.

  • “This server supports weak Diffie-Hellman (DH) key exchange parameters”
  • “This server accepts RC4 cipher, but only with older protocols”

Solution

We were able to fix these issues with some simple registry tweaks that we describe in these articles

Then, after we ran these steps, we now have our A Grade!

Now, if you want an even better grade, you can continue to solve these little warnings that the SSLLabs test can give you.

How to solve RC4 warning on Qualys SSLLabs Test

In a previous article, I talked about how you can solve the Diffie-Hellman warning on Qualys SSLLabs test, by applying a registry configuration.

Now, we’ll talk about another common warning that most AWS EC2 customer can get.  By default, we got that security issue from SSLLabs:

This server accepts RC4 cipher, but only with older protocols. Grade capped to B.

Solution

Microsoft proposes a solution for disabling the 3 weak RC4 cipher suites in that article.
You need to create 1 new registry entry.  Create an empty text file called rc4fix.reg, and paste that content to it:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurityProviders\SCHANNEL\Ciphers\RC4 128/128]
"Enabled"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurityProviders\SCHANNEL\Ciphers\RC4 40/128]
"Enabled"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurityProviders\SCHANNEL\Ciphers\RC4 56/128]
"Enabled"=dword:00000000

Then, double-click on it to apply these settings, an reboot.

Finally, run your SSL test again, that warning disappeared.

How to solve Diffie-Hellman warning on Qualys SSLLabs Test

In a previous article, I talked about how you can get a better note on Qualys SSLLabs test, by configuring CAA DNS entry.

Today, we’ll talk about another warning most of us must resolve to get the “A” Rating.

On our AWS EC2 Windows 2012 R2 server, by default, we got that security issue from SSLLabs:

This server supports weak Diffie-Hellman (DH) key exchange parameters. Grade capped to B.

Solution

That is caused by the Diffie-Hellman protocol accepted at 1024 bits.  The fix proposed by Microsoft (article) is to still accept that protocole, but only at 2048+ bits.

You need to create 1 new registry entry.  Create an empty file called df.reg, and paste that content to it:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurityProviders\SCHANNEL\KeyExchangeAlgorithms\Diffie-Hellman]
"ServerMinKeyBitLength"=dword:00000800

Then, double-click on it to apply these settings, an reboot.

Run your SSL test again, that warning disappeared.

Stingray Windows Desktop App

You like stingray music. But when you work on your PC, you want to listen to it from a real Windows Desktop App, independent from your browser, instead of using your phone.

Actually, that product doesn’t exists.  But, they offer a Web Player, available at
https://webplayer.stingray.com

If you’re using Google Chrome, you can use “pin tab”, to make it locked on the left side of your tabs, in a mini-size tab.  But, if you close chrome, the music stops playing.

Fortunately, there’s a workaround that will almost do what you want.

You can use a quite unknown feature from chrome, to convert any web site to a look-alike windows application, that run outside of the regular browser context.

These are the steps to achieve that.

First, open your regular chrome browser, and open the Stingray web player URL.

Then, click Options (3 dots) / More Tools / Add To Desktop.

Next, you can type any name you want for the app, then click Add.

You can now see that new icon in your desktop, that looks like a standard application.  Double-click on it to launch it.

As you can see, the web site is opening inside a non-browser-like window.  You only see the title of the page, and there’s no browser address bar, or navigation buttons.  Only the web app is visible.

Also, on your Windows Taskbar, you can see the Stingray app besides the Chrome app.  Even if it’s the chrome.exe engine that run that app, it’s independent from the browser.
So, you can open only stingray, or only the browser, or both.  And you can now close or restart your browser without losing your currently playing music!

One final step, right click the stingray icon on the taskbar, and choose “Pin to taskbar”, to make it easier to start or navigate to directly.

That’s all! Have a nice listening to Stingray Music with your new Desktop App.

How to test IE8 to 11 on windows 10

Sometimes, because your customers uses old versions of Internet Explorer in enterprise, you may have undiscovered issues with your web app, and need to reproduce these bugs.

BrowserStack offers a good solution, with tons of different virtual machines available in multiple versions to run your tests.  But, if you need to do some debugging in the development console (F12), that service is extremely slow, even unusable.

If you need to run IE versions 8 to 11 without performance issues, I suggest to download these Virtual Machines made by Microsoft.  You can get them there (link).

You can choose between IE8, IE9, IE10, IE11 on Win7 and Win8.1, and Edge.
Each of these machines are offered to these architectures:

These virtual machines are already configured and ready to run, with a limited windows licence available for 90 days.  After that delay, you may need to re-download a new VM.

My favorite vm engine was vmware, because I can run it for free using VMware Player.  But, they recently changed their licencing for these machines, so I discovered that other product, that is as good as vmware.  I now use Oracle VirtualBox, a totally free solution even for enterprise.

One thing I must do on these VM before running them, is changing the network adapter setting (of the VM), and choose Bridged network instead of the default option already selected.

Once they are configured and running, instead of using them in the native Player UI, I like to install them as a service (using that method), because I can connect to them using Remote Desktop, from my computer, or from any other computer of the Local Area Network.

Then at work, any developer of our team can connect to these VM, we only need to install them once, and they are always running.

How to run any program as a service on Windows

Sometimes, you want an application to always run.  Even if you are not logged on.  You want the app to start automatically with Windows.

You know that Windows Services are kind of software that do that.

But, what if you want a non-service app to run automatically, like a service, even notepad.exe?

You may have found softwares like AlwaysUp, FireDaemon, or srvany (from Windows Resource Kit) that can help you achieve that goal.

But, did you know that you can do that, directly inside windows, without any third party software?

The solution is to simply use the windows integrated Task Scheduler.

  • You can use it, to launch any app.
  • You can make it run on any username.
  • You can set it to run even if you are not logged.
  • And, the best of all, you can set it launch trigger to “Windows Startup”!

That’s all you need, to launch any app with windows start, like a windows service.

Ok, it’s not a real windows service, you can’t see it in the services area, but you will see them running in the Task Scheduler console, where you can stop it, restart it, etc.