Windows NTFS has a nice but relatively unknown feature called NTFS junctions.  It is like hard links in Unix except it is only for directories.  Microsoft has a KB article about it which points to several utilities.  However I have been using Mark Russinovich’s junction tool exclusively.

Using Junction

Usage: [-s] <directory or file name>

-s Recurse subdirectories

If you want to create or delete a junction, use Junction like this:

Usage: [-d] <junction directory> [<junction target>]

To delete a junction specify the -d switch and the junction name.

Here is an example of using junction.  Note that the order of arguments is opposite of the Unix ln command.

> junction foo d:\docs\foo

The above example will create a junction called “foo” in the current directory.  This junction will point to d:\docs\foo.

To do the same in Cygwin:

$ junction foo `cygpath -aw /d/docs/foo`

One tip is to use the DOS dir command.  It will display <JUNCTION> instead of <DIR> in directory listings for junctions.

Previously I recommended TcpView to help figure out what ports are being used.  But today I was informed of an even better, more informative program called What’s Running.

Update Feb 27 2014: Unfortunately this does not work on Windows 8.0. Development for this program apparently ceased in 2010.

I am not a big fan of Outlook, I prefer Gmail, but it does have some nice features and in a corporate environment you almost never have another choice.

One of the nice features of Outlook is the ability to color code your messages.  For example you can color code the subject line to highlight messages addressed directly to you via:

Tools > Organize >  Using Colors > Messages sent only to me now appear [Blue] > Turn On

There are other filters you can turn on by clicking on “Automatic Formatting…” at the top right in the Tools > Organize > Using Colors window.

Sometimes I will start up a server process and get an error about a port already in use. This problem always bedeviled me before as I randomly stopped processes until that port was freed up.

But today a colleague pointed out a great Microsoft tool called TcpView.

TCPView is a Windows program that will show you detailed listings of all TCP and UDP endpoints on your system, including the local and remote addresses and state of TCP connections. On Windows Server 2008, Vista, NT, 2000 and XP TCPView also reports the name of the process that owns the endpoint. TCPView provides a more informative and conveniently presented subset of the Netstat program that ships with Windows. The TCPView download includes Tcpvcon, a command-line version with the same functionality.

With TCPView I discovered and stopped the anti-virus program which was taking up one of the ports that the server needed.  This is much nicer than netstat. 🙂

Another nice tool to discover what programs are holding onto files is Process Explorer.

Update Feb 27 2014: Fortunately this still works on Windows 8.0 even though I am not sure if there has been any new development on it since 2011.

In PC World’s January 2008 issue I saw this great tip on how to add “Copy to Folder” and “Move to Folder” to the right-click menu in Explorer.

To save people time I have already created the registry file which you use to merge into your Windows registry to create these menu entries.

Often when you’re consultant you find yourself stumbling into a LAN with no proper access. IT doesn’t have time to set you up so instead of waiting you have your client friend tell you his login information and then you can start mounting drives from a DOS command prompt like this.

C:\Documents and Settings\fkim>net use z: \\iis1\e$ password /user:domain\username