Hello and welcome everyone, today we will be talking about power toys, a great, completely free, open-source, Microsoft-supported Windows project which aims to provide Windows itself with powerful features not found natively in it.
We will explore power toys completely here and explain each module and its features.
The first thing is of course to download power toys themselves. You can find them here. After you download them, double click on the downloaded file and install. Start power toys, you will find them at the bottom of the taskbar, note that power toys need to be active in order to use their features.
When opened you will be greeted with general settings window. These are settings for power toys themselves, Here you can check for updates, change the looks of power toys, run it on system startup and run them as administrator. Set them up so they best suit your needs.
Moving down next tab we have is Color picker.
The color picker will let you as the name suggests pick colors, it will sample colors from running applications and windows, snap their values, and place them in the clipboard. A useful application if you are working as a graphic designer, want to create some cool word document, or just want to compare the difference between colors.
After the Color Picker is activated, hover your mouse cursor over the color you would like to copy and left-click the mouse button to select a color. If you want to see the area around your cursor in more detail, scroll up to zoom in. The copied color will be stored in your clipboard in the format that is configured in the settings (HEX by default). The editor lets you see the history of picked colors (up to 20) and copy their representation in any predefined string format. You can configure what color formats are visible in the editor, along with the order that they appear. This configuration can be found in PowerToys settings. The editor also allows you to fine-tune any picked color or get a new similar color. Editor previews different shades of currently selected color - 2 lighter and 2 darker ones. Clicking on any of those alternative color shades will add the selection to the history of picked colors (appears on the top of the colors history list). Color in the middle represents your currently selected color from the history of the colors. By clicking on it, the fine-tuning configuration control will appear, which will let you change the HUE or RGB values of the current color. Pressing OK will add newly configured color into the history of the colors.
Moving down, we have fancy zones.
FancyZones is a window manager utility for arranging and snapping windows into efficient layouts to improve the speed of your workflow and restore layouts quickly. FancyZones allows the user to define a set of window locations for a desktop that are drag targets for windows. When the user drags a window into a zone, the window is resized and repositioned to fill that zone. When first launched, the zones editor presents a list of layouts that can be adjusted by how many windows are on the monitor. Choosing a layout shows a preview of that layout on the monitor. The selected layout is applied automatically.
Next, File Explorer.
Only 3 options here but maybe some are important to you. This extension lets you enable SVG file preview in File Explorer, enable Markdown preview, and enable SVG thumbnails. Turn on each one you might need.
Next down the line, we have Image resize.
Image Resizer is a Windows shell extension for bulk image-resizing. After installing PowerToys, right-click on one or more selected image files in File Explorer, and then select Resize pictures from the menu. You can specify your own sizes if you want, you can resize when dragging files, you can overwrite files or make new copies of new sizes, and many more options. A very useful tool I am sure plenty of users can use since this eliminates the need for pictures or any other image application for common resizing tasks.
The keyboard manager is the next tab in power toys.
The PowerToys Keyboard Manager enables you to redefine keys on your keyboard. For example, you can exchange the letter A for the letter D on your keyboard. When you select the A key, a D will display. You can also exchange shortcut key combinations. For example, the shortcut key, Ctrl+C, will copy the text in Microsoft Word. With the PowerToys Keyboard Manager utility, you can exchange that shortcut for ⊞ Win+C). Now, ⊞ Win+C) will copy text. If you do not specify a targeted application in PowerToys Keyboard Manager, the shortcut exchange will be applied globally across Windows. PowerToys Keyboard Manager must be enabled (with PowerToys running in the background) for remapped keys and shortcuts to be applied. If PowerToys is not running, key remapping will no longer be applied.
Nex we have a very cool and powerful Power Rename
PowerRename is a bulk renaming tool that enables you to:
Power Toys Run utility follows next.
PowerToys Run is a quick launcher for power users that contains some additional features without sacrificing performance.
PowerToys Run features include:
>
(for example, > Shell:startup
will open the Windows startup folder)Last but not least we have a Shortcut guide.
This guide uses PowerToys to display common keyboard shortcuts that use the Windows ⊞ key. Windows key keyboard shortcuts can be used while the guide is being shown and the result of those shortcuts (active window moved, arrow shortcut behavior changes, etc) will be displayed in the guide. Releasing the Windows ⊞ key will make the overlay disappear. Tapping the Windows ⊞ key will display the Windows Start menu.
Hey, you made it till the end, thank you for reading and I hope to see you soon.
Code 43, Device Manager Error, is reported when Windows doesn’t recognize a hardware device such as the video card, USB, printer, or any other piece of external hardware attached to your PC.
The Device Manager stops the hardware if it reports some kind of unspecified problem. It is mostly displayed in the following format:
“Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems. Code 43”
Code 43 can be triggered due to several reasons. However, 95% of the times it is related to the device driver problems such as:
Driver problems pop up when either new driver versions are available or drivers become damaged due to some underlying reasons like viral infections.
Other than driver problems, code 43 can also pop up when you install and remove the software. This can cause hardware conflict in the registry, altering driver communication.
Code 43 can hamper your ability to use your desired device smoothly. Although Code 43 is not a fatal error code like Runtime and BSoD errors, it is still advisable to resolve it immediately to avoid inconvenience.
You can sometimes bypass error code 43 temporarily by a simple PC reboot but this will not fix the problem permanently. For a permanent fix, try the methods given below.
To help you repair code 43 permanently from your PC, below are some of the best, easy perform, and effective solutions. Simply follow the steps to get rid of code 43 from your PC.
This is one way to find the exact nature of the problem that spurred error code 43 to pop up. To launch and run the Troubleshoot Wizard, here’s what you need to do:
The Wizard will diagnose the problem and provide you a solution to resolve it, all you have to do from there is to follow the Wizard’s instructions
If for some reason Method 1 doesn’t work, another solution would be to check the hardware documentation for more information about diagnosing the problem.
If the underlying reason for code 43 is related to driver problems, then the best way to resolve it is to uninstall faulty drivers and then reinstall new drivers. One of the many ways to uninstall drivers is:
Identifying and updating new driver versions manually can be both frustrating and time-consuming especially if you are in a rush and no computer whiz.
Also, after you update the drivers, you need to keep checking them time and again to ensure they don’t become outdated. You need to update them every time new versions are available which can be stressful.
To avoid this hassle by repairing code 43 permanently, download DriverFIX. This is an innovative and user-friendly device driver software program exclusively designed to resolve all kinds of driver problems.
Whether code 43 occurs on your PC due to missing or outdated drivers, DriverFIX can resolve the problem easily.
The intelligent programming system embedded in this software enables it to detect problematic and outdated drivers in seconds.
It matches new and compatible versions and updates the drivers immediately, automatically, and on a regular basis in just a few clicks. This resolves code 43 and also ensures that all your drivers remain up to date.
DriverFIX is compatible with all Windows versions.
Click here to download DriverFIX to repair and resolve code 43 right away.
Installation Error: Call to Driver Package Install returned error 1627 for package C:ProgramFilersHPHP deskjet 2510 seriesDriver storePipelinehpvplog.inf
Hive ransomware has been targeting Microsoft exchange servers lately vulnerable to ProxyShell security issues in order to deploy various backdoors. Once the backdoor has been placed various attacks can be performed including but not limited to network reconnaissance, stealing admin accounts, taking valuable data, and even installing and deploying file-encrypting algorithms.
ProxyShell is a set of three vulnerabilities in the Microsoft Exchange Server that allows remote code execution without authentication on vulnerable deployments. The flaw has been used in past by various ransomware like Conti, BlackByte, Babuk, Cuba, and LockFile.
Security vulnerabilities have been reported to be fully patched on May 2021 but how Hive was able to still be successful in exploiting PowerShell and infiltrating into the system there seems to be still some unpatched and open issues.
Hive has gone a long way since it was first observed in the wild back in June 2021, having a successful start that prompted the FBI to release a dedicated report on its tactics and indicators of compromise.
In October 2021, the Hive gang added Linux and FreeBSD variants, and in December it became one of the most active ransomware operations in attack frequency.
Last month, researchers at Sentinel Labs reported on a new payload-hiding obfuscation method employed by Hive, which indicates active development.
Administrators can download updates from the Microsoft Download Center or the Windows Update Catalog to deploy to multiple computers If you are running Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) 3.0, System Center Essentials (SCE), or System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) you can import updates directly into these applications. Security updates, critical updates, service packs, update rollups, definition updates, and critical drivers can be configured to synchronize with your server automatically. You can still import these updates into your application by using Microsoft Update Catalog; however, depending on how you configure WSUS, SCE, and SCCM, you may not need to import the updates.