Windows – Mortens Website

Windows shortcuts

Morten — Sun, 10 Jan 2021 15:16:07 +0000

CPL system shortcuts

	CPL system shortcuts
Shortcut	Description
access.cpl	Accessibility controls
appwiz.cpl	Add/remove programs
desk.cpl	Screen settings
hdwwiz.cpl	Add/remove hardware
inetcpl.cpl	Internet Explorer settings
intl.cpl	Regional and international settings
joy.cpl	Gaming settings
main.cpl	Mouse settings
main.cpl,@1	Keyboard settings
mmsys.cpl	Sound settings
ncpa.cpl	Network Connections
nusrmgr.cpl	User management
powercfg.cpl	Power management
sysdm.cpl	System Settings
telephon.cpl	Phone and modem settings
timedate.cpl	Time and Date settings

CPL system shortcuts

	MSC system shortcuts
Shortcut	Description
ciadv.msc	Indexing service
compmgmt.msc	Computer Management
devmgmt.msc	Device Management
dfrg.msc	Disk Defragtmentation Management
diskmgmt.msc	Disk Management
gpedit.msc	Group Policy Management
services.msc	Windows Services Management
eventvwr.msc	Event Viewer

MSC system shortcuts

	Other shortcuts
Shortcut	Description
msinfo32	System Information
msconfig	System Configuration utility
dxdiag	DirectX diagnostics
psr.exe	Problem Steps Recorder

Other shortcuts

Useful logfiles in Windows

Morten — Sun, 10 Jan 2021 15:16:07 +0000

The following tables contains a list of useful log file paths on a Windows client.

Application or service	Path	Description
Internet Explorer 7	%windir%\ie7.log %windir%\ie7_main.log	Only applicable to IE7. Deprecated.
Internet Explorer 8	%windir%\ie8.log %windir%\ie_main.log	Only applicable to IE8. Deprecated.
Internet Explorer 9	%windir%\ie9_main.log	Only applicable to IE9. Deprecated.
Windows Update Log	%windir%\WindowsUpdate.log	Only applicable to Windows versions up to and including 8.1. Deprecated.
SFC-log / CBS-log	%windir%\logs\cbs\cbs.log
SECedit-log	%windir%\security\logs\scesrv.log
Service Pack log	C:\svcpack.log
msinfo32	msinfo32 /report %userprofile%\desktop\msinfo32.txt	Exports the results from msinfo32 to a file and places it on the desktop of the current user.

Corrupted file permissions on Microsoft Windows

Morten — Sun, 10 Jan 2021 15:16:07 +0000

From time to time you might find yourself having troubles with file permissions in a Windows environment. This issue will show itself in you not being able to edit, change, move or delete one or multiple files on your computer. This can happen if the ownership settings of the file(s) are corrupted which happen once in a while. To recover the file permissions we are going to use two tools native to Windows; takeown and cacls.

The way to recover the file permissions are to do the following:

Right-click the Start button and press Windows Powershell (Administrator)
Execute the command takeown /f e.g., takeown /f C:\Windows\WindowsUpdate.log
This will transfer ownership from whichever user- or system account to the account executing the command. However, ownership does not necessarily grant access to deleting the file.
To reset this permission set, execute the command cacls /G :F e.g., cacls C:\Windows\WindowsUpdate.log /G Morten:F
You have now effectively transferred ownership permissions to your account.

To read the full list of operators and parameters for the commands, please refer to the official Microsoft documentation for cacls and takeown.