It should be noted up front that this method only covers software that is registered in Add/Remove in Windows. Other software (like PuTTY or JkDefrag which are standalone executables) won’t show up in a list like this. But if it’s in Add/Remove, it will.

Why would you want to do this?

There are several good reasons:

• You plan on upgrading from XP to 7 and need a complete list of all your software for reinstallation after 7 is installed.
• You’re going to buy another computer and want to clone it as close as possible to your old computer the manual way; this requires a complete installed-app list.
• You plan on doing a backup of all your installed software and want a nice simple list to make this process easier.

I’m sure you can think of a few more. The ability to generate a list like this will come in quite handy from time to time.

What versions of Windows should this work on?

This is known to work in XP, Vista and 7. As far as Win2000, I haven’t tested it because I don’t have it – but if you do have that, feel free to test and post in a comment below whether it worked or not.

How it’s done

This is yet another instance where we’re going to go to the good ol’ command line to get things done.

In XP: Start, Run, type cmd, press Enter.

In Vista/7: Windows logo, type cmd in search box, right click cmd in list above, Run as Administrator.

When the black Command Prompt window appears, type the command:

MKDIR C:\MyList

..and press Enter.

(Note: Don’t put a space in the folder title. Type as MyList and not My List)

Then type:

wmic

..and press Enter.

In XP, you will probably get a notice that states "wmic is being installed" if you’ve never run this command before. Should this occur, just wait a moment or two while it installs itself.

There is no such notice in Vista/7.

Your command prompt will change to:

wmic:root/cli>

Next what we will do is create a simple text file in the root of C that we can open with Notepad when generated.

Type the following command and press enter:

/output:C:\MyList\list.txt product get name,version

Pay strict attention to the slashes and spacing. /output is a forward slash. C:\MyList.. and so on uses backslashes. Also note that name,version has no spaces between those words separated by the comma.

The time it takes to create this list depends how much stuff you have installed, but it shouldn’t take longer than 1 minute to complete. During this time your hard drive light will be active while the list is being written.

When finished, a new line will appear that simply states:

wmic:root\cli>

At that point, type:

exit

..and press enter.

This is what your Command Prompt window should look like to this point in Vista/7:

In XP it would look something like this:

At this point, type (again):

exit

..and press Enter. The Command Prompt window will close.

Now we have to open our newly created text file to see what’s in there.

Click Start (or Windows logo), Run, type C:\MyList and click OK. It will look like this:

A Windows Explorer window will open. The only file there should be list or list.txt. Double-click the text file to open it. You should see something like this:

From here you can examine the list, then when finished close Notepad. The list file can then be copied or moved anywhere you like, or left as is.

Important note:

If you want to go thru this process periodically on the same PC, you can skip the "MKDIR C:\MyList" on the second time and each instance after that as you will have already created that folder previously (that is unless you delete it.) Any old list.txt file will be overwritten with the new one.

This guide is for anybody that has a whole bunch of files, be they photos, MP3s, documents or any other type of file you have that needs quick-sorting by date at a glance.

There is only one right way to put the date in a file name. When I say "date in a file name" I mean that the actual title of the file has the date in it.

The format you must use for proper date formatting every time is:

1. Four-digit year
2. Dash
3. Two digit month or single digit month with leading zero
4. Dash
5. Two digit day of month or single digit day of month with leading zero
6. Underscore
7. Description of file in lowercase letters with words separated by underscores (optional, but more compliant)

Here’s an example:

2009-03-27_my_document.doc

Now I’m going to explain why this is the proper date formatting structure for file names.

Four-digit year

You do this so as not to confuse a year with a month. If you have a date written as 08-07-08, is that August 7, 2008 or 8 July, 2008? You can’t tell.

"That doesn’t matter, I always use month/day/year."

It does matter because not everybody uses month/day/year.

Two digit month or single digit month with leading zero

A two digit month is each enough to understand. For example, December is 12.

A single digit month, like May, is 5. But you don’t write it like that. You add in a leading zero so it’s written as 05.

Why?

Because some operating systems will not list files in proper numeric order without the leading zero. Windows XP and all previous versions prior to it do this.

Example: You have 10 DOC files from 0 to 10. The single digits have no leading zeroes on them.

This will show in XP in Windows Explorer as:

0.doc
1.doc
10.doc
2.doc
3.doc
4.doc
5.doc
6.doc
7.doc
8.doc
9.doc

Note the 1 and the 10 are right on top of each other. Why does XP do this? Because 1 comes after 0, before 2 and all other numbers. XP is only going by the first character it "sees."

Even Windows Vista and 7 still do this when listing files outside the Windows Explorer interface (such as a File/Open dialog box.)

Second example: 00, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10

All these numbers will be listed in proper order. 0 always comes before 1, and even with the way Windows lists files, it absolutely will not get this "wrong"; that’s why you do it.

Two digit day of month or single digit day of month with leading zero

You do this for the exact same reason as for the month.

Underscore

The underscore (this character: _) is necessary because the dates uses dashes already. Using underscores gives a clean visual cue as to what’s a descriptor and what’s a date.

In addition, you use underscores because trying to send a file over the internet with a literal space in it results in a %20, or just fails on attempt to transfer. A replacement must be used for the space to avoid this. Underscore is it.

Description of file in lowercase letters with words separated by underscores

As said above, this is optional. You use lowercase just in case you ever have to upload this from a command line via FTP. Where case of letters is involved, mistakes can be made easily – especially if it’s a long file title. If you know all the letters are lowercase, this decreases typing mistakes significantly.

Why Year/Month/Day and not Year/Day/Month?

Year/Month/Day is proper big endian formatting and follows ISO 8601 international standard. Year/Day/Month does not. You can see more info here on that if you like.

Okay, so I know a bunch of stuff about date formatting in files now. Why should I care?

You should care for three good reasons.

First and most obvious, it will make your files easier to manage no matter what OS you use. And if you plan on sticking with XP for a while longer, this is mandatory because of the way it lists files starting with digits.

Second, being that the world is getting smaller every day, chances are you’ll be trading files with someone across the pond sooner or later, if not doing so already. Using the internationally recognized big endian standard eliminates any and all confusion as to what a date format truly represents.

Third, in addition to files being sorted properly no matter the OS you use, they will also sort properly no matter what web site you use. Using Windows SkyDrive, Google Docs, plain FTP or other means of online storage? You’ll be able to sort a whole lot easier using proper date formatting in the titles of your files.

Wouldn’t it be easier just to sort by date modified or date created?

Not necessarily because it can add in many repetitive steps.

In Windows (XP/Vista/7,) two columns that can be added via Windows Explorer are Date Modified and Date Created. However in order to see these, you have to be in Details view mode when looking at files.

Date Modified is usually there by default, but Date Created isn’t, so you have to add that in by right-clicking a column to see all that are available, then choose Date Created so it can be seen.

Example from Windows XP:

To get to this point, it took five clicks just to see this stuff.

1. View
2. Details
3. Right-click column
4. Date Created
5. Click to sort by date created

You may have to do this over and over again – particularly in XP – because this view mode may not be "remembered" by Windows. It can get very frustrating quickly.

Adding in the date to the title of the file eliminates the need to do any of this.

Where would using date formatting like this in file titles be most useful?

Three instances comes to mind:

1. Photos
2. Documents
3. Dated audio or video broadcasts

Is there ANY WAY to automate the process of renaming multiple files with the date like this?

Absolutely. The tool you need is Rename Master for Windows. Here’s how to use that software to modify as many files as you want – all at once – with their creation date at the front:

1. Launch Rename Master.

2. Remove all existing steps. This is done easily by clicking Edit then Clear Renaming Options, like this:

3. In RM, navigate to the folder where the files are. Do this by using the Folder Browser on the left of the application. If you don’t see it, press CTRL+B while using Rename Master.

4. Click the New Step button, then Add to Beginning/Ending, like this:

5. Add the following in: ?dc:FYYYY-MM-DD?_

Yes, I know that looks weird, but it works. It looks like this:

Make sure to select "at the Beginning" and "to the Name" as shown above.

6. Click the New Step button again and choose to Replace Name/Phrase, like this:

7. Set the step to look like this, and follow the steps carefully:

Next to "Replace the" we select phrase. This will enable the other fields.

In the field directly to the right of phrase, click inside and press the spacebar once to add in a space. You cannot see this in the screen shot above because a space obviously cannot be seen.

In the field directly to the right of with, type in an underscore (this character: _).

8. Click the Case & Wildcards tab, check Override configuration settings and tick the option for lowercase, like this:

9. Compare the Name to the New Name column to make sure the appropriate changes will be made.

Above is exactly what we want. The best example is "New OpenDocument Text.odt."

As you can see from the New Name column, it will be changed to:

2009-09-23_new_opendocument_text.odt

The file creation date is added using the proper date formatting. All spaces are replaced with underscores and letters that were capitalized are changed to lowercase.

After that it’s a click of this button:

(Located at the bottom of Rename Master)

..and that’s all there is to it.

Always remember to proceed carefully with the renaming of files, especially for large amounts of them. Pay close attention to the New Name column in Rename Master when using the software, because whatever you see there is exactly what the files will be renamed to verbatim. So if it looks wrong, it is wrong. Correct it before hitting that rename button at the bottom.

Final notes for Vista/7 users

As you know, file permissions are needed in order to rename files in specific places. RM may not function correctly if you try to modify files it doesn’t have proper access to. To overcome this, rename files that you have located either in a specific folder you create on the desktop or a specific folder you create in My Documents. RM should work without issue when renaming files from those locations. Just remember to create a specific folder to do it so you don’t rename anything else by mistake.

In 2007 I did a video on how to share files/folders to Windows with Ubuntu. But since version 8 of that OS the way in which this is done has changed a bit. It is simplified somewhat, but the drawback now is that in order to change the Workgroup name you must edit a configuration file manually instead of having the ability to do it in the GUI like before.

In the video – and here on this post – I make the request that if anybody knows how to change the Workgroup name without manually editing the smb.conf file, please feel free to comment and explain how that’s done, because I couldn’t find it.

Granted, the command line is not a bad thing, but the point here is that you used to be able to edit the Workgroup name via the GUI and now that feature seems to be gone – unless it’s hiding somewhere where I can’t find it?

See video for details.

The best advice concerning email attachments I could ever give is to simply never open them. But that’s unreasonable considering so many people trade files in email these days, be it documents, video clips or the like.

There are certain file types I absolutely will not open, or will use an alternative method to open them with.

And here they are:

.EXE

Fortunately, most email servers outright ban the use of sending .EXE files and I think that’s a good judgment. This is an executable file in Windows. You have no idea what it will do. And it may not be something your anti-virus/spyware/malware scanner can detect. You never know.

On the extreme rare occasion I get one of these, I will only open it in a virtual machine environment. And if it blows that up, no big deal because I can just kill the session and create another.

.ZIP

When one cannot send an .EXE, they archive it with ZIP and send it that way. Well, it’s just as bad.

.PDF, .DOC, .XLS

DOCs and XLSes can contain anything from simple macro viruses (relatively harmless but just annoys the crap out of you) to full-blown malicious code.

I do not open these locally. Instead I bring them into Google Docs.

Funny, true and somewhat sad story:

Years ago at a help desk job, the manager walks in and tells us all that there’s a particular applicant (we needed a position filled) who absolutely won’t be getting the job. Why? Because he sent his resume as a Word DOC, and it had a macro virus in it.

See the irony here. The guy was applying for a tech-help position yet sent his resume with a virus in it. Just plain sad.

.WMV, .ASF, .ASX, .MOV

WMV is Windows MediaVideo. ASF is Advanced Systems Format. ASX as Advanced Stream Redirector (yet has an X and I don’t know why, nor do I care). MOV is the Apple Quicktime Movie format.

All of these are video formats. And all routinely contain malware in them. I won’t open any sent to me.

Workaround: If it’s something I have to view, I’ll upload it to YouTube as a private video and watch it that way. Yes, that’s a real long runaround just to watch a vid, but it guarantees no malware code will be launched on my local system.

Is there a safe video format? Yes. MPEG or just MPG. But nobody uses that anymore unfortunately. Not when trading files in email anyway.

File formats I have no problem opening

Any image (BMP, GIF, JPG/JPEG, TIF/TIFF)

To the best of my knowledge there is no malicious code that can be executed from a static image format. With project files (such as Adobe Photoshop projects) I’m not sure.

HTML formatted email

I used to be very anti-HTML when it comes to email but not so much these days. Both local email clients and web-based ones have become "smart" enough not to load images or any other "bad" stuff automatically like they used to.

Audio files (MP3, WAV)

I have never received a virus or been infected with malware from a static audio file.

Unknowns?

If I receive an email with an attachment that has a format I’ve never seen before, I’ll Google it first to see what it is and decide whether to open it or not.

Example: I received a file from a friend once that was a 3G2, and had no clue what that was. I Google’d it and found it was a video file. In particular, 3GP format. When someone sends a video to you from their cell phone, chances are it will be this file type. You can use Quicktime to view it or just upload to YouTube privately to check it out.

Being it was sent to my email from a cell phone, I knew there was no virus or malware within it and it was safe to open.

I recommend this to anyone who receives files where you just don’t know what it is. Google it first and make your call from there.

Are there attachments you absolutely won’t open?

Let us know in the comments.

Time and time again I run into people who think "torrent" translates to "illegal". Is it?

Let’s find out what this all means by examining the definitions.

A torrent is a small file usually ending with the file extension .torrent. You use the .torrent file with a BitTorrent client. BitTorrent itself is a peer-to-peer file sharing protocol. The .torrent file is used to get a larger file you want from the peer-to-peer network using the BitTorrent client that "understands" the BitTorrent protocol.

The Big Question however is: Are torrents illegal?

No. And they never have been.

Using BitTorrent is the most efficient way of getting large files on the internet without having them hosted in any centralized location.

The best example of this is Linux distributions. For example, Ubuntu themselves (as do all other Linux distros) offer a way to get their OS via BitTorrent. It’s fast; it works; it’s probably going to be faster than downloading via a direct HTTP. And obviously, downloading Ubuntu or any other Linux distro via a torrent isn’t illegal.

People assume torrents are illegal because many files are traded illegally via that particular peer-to-peer network. But does this mean all torrents are illegal?

Not by a long shot.

BitTorrent is a protocol and nothing more.

It is wrong to assume "torrent" = "illegal" because it just isn’t true.

In this series I’m going to covers the ins and outs of using Linux as your primary home computer operating system. It will cover in a realistic sense what you can and moreover cannot do with it.

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Some people are confused (or just have the wrong idea) about what a computer server actually is.

The technical definition is that a server is a computer dedicated to providing a specific service or services.

Concerning what you would use in the home, the most common example is a file server, i.e. a computer where its sole purpose in life is to store files you can upload or download at any time on your home network. Continued

This article covers the following:

1. Setting up a workgroup in Windows XP.
2. Setting up a workgroup in Ubuntu 8.10.
3. How to share out files from your Windows XP computer on your home network so you can access them with Ubuntu 8.10.
4. How to access files shared by your Windows XP computer on your home network in Ubuntu 8.10.
5. How to share files out from Ubuntu 8.10 to a Windows XP computer on your home network.

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Eraser is a secure file deletion utility. It works with any version of Windows (from Windows 95 to Vista) and even DOS.

When you delete a file from your computer it is not securely erased. There are ways it could be retrieved. However with Eraser, when a file is deleted using the utility, a file is deleted and overwritten several times with patterns. This makes it nearly impossible to retrieve a file deleted just by pressing the delete key on your keyboard.

Cool things about Eraser

• Runs on any version of Windows (as noted above)
• Has both 32-bit and 64-bit versions
• Has both an “On-Demand” mode and a “Scheduler” mode. You can do right-now deletion or scheduled deleting (could be handy for clearing browser cache).
• Free
• Very easy to use
• Fast
• Puts itself in the system tray so you know when it’s running (and when it isn’t)

Who would benefit most from Eraser?

People who use shared computers would benefit most from this utility. If the other people who use the same computer you do are nosy and try to retrieve files you’ve deleted, this utility as said above will make it nearly impossible to retrieve deleted files.

And even if no one else uses your computer but you, one can never be too careful with secure deletion of files.

This chapter is a video presentation.

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