What every Windows user must know about DISM and SFC

Microsoft Windows offers two built-in utilities for repairing the operating system: DISM and SFC. As of this writing, these utilities have gained farcical popularity! People who see the slightest sign of something wrong with their dog run them.

This article briefly covers what everyone who would ever run these tools must know.

Top themes of Visual Studio 2022… and their defects

Microsoft released Visual Studio 2022 (VS2022) on 8 November 2021. I had been expecting this release with enthusiasm because Microsoft had promised that VS2022 would support better color themes, on par with what you see in VS2022’s more celebrated sibling, Visual Studio Code (VSCode).

Nine months have passed since the initial release. Did Microsoft make good on its promise? Let’s find out.

How can I tell if a file in the “Windows” folder is from Microsoft?

Question: I’m looking at a file in the “C:\Windows\System32” folder. How do I know whether it is from Microsoft or a rouge file?

I am publishing this post with permission from Codename Flux of Reddit.com. If you found this article helpful, please visit the original write-up and perhaps give Codename Flux a thumbs up.

All online “Codes of Conduct” are flawed

All online codes of conduct are flawed. Their purpose is to indemnify their web service operators against potential lawsuits, not help their online communities thrive. Their contents boil down to a short list of forbidden misconducts and a few rosy words that draw a vague picture of a well-mannered community member. They do not define the rights and responsibilities of the community members and have no provisions against provoking others into violating the code. The moderators who enforces them are usually a far cry from a model judge.

Imagine a community with 1,000 members. Members #556 and #557 hate each other to an extreme degree. Yet, they are willing to collaborate civilly with the remaining 998 members. The contemporary codes of conduct sanction only one course of action for these two: They must accomplish the herculean feat of going from extreme hatred to extreme love. If they fail, they risk being branded as repeat offenders. This expectation, however, is unfair and unrealistic. In such situations, “live in peace and let the other live in peace” is a more realistic course of action.

The case of the missing Share button in the new Microsoft Store

A few days ago, the Microsoft Store app on Windows 10 received an update. Now, the store looks like its Windows 11 counterpart. The update brings a new UI and new apps.

However, on some apps, the “Share” button is missing. What’s going on?

Ace Combat 7: How realistic is it?

Question: How realistic is Ace Combat 7?

Short answer: It’s an arcade combat flight simulator with a sci-fi story set on a fictional planet called “Strangereal”! Hence, it is very unrealistic, so much so that it is better to ask, “is there anything remotely realistic in Ace Combat 7?”

Most grown-ups know that 99.99% of what they see in games and films is unrealistic. However, almost none of them can distinguish what’s realistic and what’s not. To make matters worse, Ace Combat 7 has a misleading appearance. People seem to want to believe most of what they see in it is realistic.

Console, Shell, and Terminal: Words with too many meanings

Do you think you know the meanings of “console”, “shell”, and “terminal”? You probably do. Everybody does. And yet, when you bring everybody together, they realize how little they agree.

In this article, we’ll review the meanings of these three words in the IT world.

Notepad++ 8.0 released with a dark theme!

Yesterday (7 June 2021), Notepad++ 8.0 reached general availability. The key feature of this release is a dark theme. The release announcement contains a witty joke.

Why do developers prefer the dark theme? Because the light attracts bugs.

Now, look at the following screenshot; you might find a different meaning in this release joke.

This image shows Notepad++ 8.0 with the dark theme enabled, having opened a Markdown file. As you can see, there are still many bugs in Notepad++ to fix.

Looking at its GitHub repo, Notepad++ had 1,309 open bug reports, some of them dating back to 2015.

Managing Windows event logs from PowerShell

When it comes to managing Windows event logs via PowerShell, finding the proper command could be difficult. PowerShell’s verb-noun naming scheme does very little to help. In this article, I’ll show you what to use.

Cumulative blunder for .NET Framework!

On 11 May 2021, Microsoft announced the release of the May 2021 cumulative Update for .NET Framework 3.5 and 4.8 (KB4601554). This update was supposed to be made available through Windows Update, WSUS, and Microsoft Update Catalog for Windows 10 version 20H2.

Unfortunately, this update is faulty.