Archive for the ‘Tips & Tricks’ category

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2 Methods to Start SQL Server in Single User Mode

October 26th, 2014 by Admin

What is single-user mode?

There are certain situations when user may have to start a SQL Server instance in single-user mode. For example, you might need to restore your master database from a backup in the event of a failure or damage, detach the database and kill all the connections. Both actions require starting an instance of SQL Server in single-user maintenance mode.

When a database is started in single-user mode, the following events occur:

  • Any current connections to the database are dropped without warning
  • Only one user can connect to the database
  • The CHECKPOINT process is not started

I’m going to walk you through the process of putting your SQL Server database into single-user mode. This can be either done via SQL Server Configuration Manager by setting the startup parameters or through the Command Prompt.

Method 1: Start SQL Server in single-user mode through SQL Server Configuration Manager

Run SQL Server Configuration Manager. Choose SQL Server Services from the left panel and then right-click on desired SQL Server service that needs to run in single-user mode. Select Properties from the drop-down menu.

configuration-manager

In SQL Server 2014 or 2012, click Startup Parameters tab. Type -m in the Specify a startup parameter box and then click Add.

sql-startup-parameters

If you’ve installed SQL Server 2008, 2005 or an earlier version, click Advanced tab. Append the ;-m to the end of the Startup Parameters box.

startup-parameters

Click Apply to save your changes. Restart your SQL Server instance and it should then run in single-user mode.

Method 2: Start SQL Server in single-user mode through Command Prompt

First of all, you need to figure out the name of your SQL Server instance. Press Windows key + R to bring up the Run box. Type services.msc and press Enter to open the Services window.

Find your desired SQL Server service in the list, double click it. This will open the Properties dialog box for that service. Copy the service name listed there. In my example, the service name is MSSQL$SQLEXPRESS.

sqlserver-service

Open up a Command Prompt with administrative privileges and run the following command to stop the SQL Server service.
net stop service_name

The next step is to start the service in single-user mode. This is done by specifying /m parameter with net start command.

single-user-mode

How to know if a running SQL Server instance is in single-user mode

When your SQL Server instance is started in single-user mode, it prevents multiple clients from connecting to the server at the same time. For example, if you’ve already connected to your DB with the SA account, and then try to login again through SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS), you’ll get the following error message:

Login failed for user”. Reason: Server is in single user mode. Only one administrator can connect at this time. (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 18461)

sqlserver-connect-error

To fix this issue, you need to remove -m from the startup parameters and restart your SQL Server instance, which will bring the database back to multi-user mode.

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Posted in SQL Server, Tips & Tricks

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How to Extract Background Music from A Song or Movie

October 24th, 2014 by Admin

Is it possible to extract audio from a video file so that I can play music with MP3 player? Video Converter Assist is a handy utility that everyone needs nowadays which can extract audio, sound, or background music from home movies, YouTube videos, songs or any other video file. Here’s how.

How to Extract Background Music from A Song or Movie?

Click here to download the Video Converter Assist application. After the download is finished, run the setup file (about 8.2Mb) and follow the installation wizard to install it on your computer.

Launch the Video Converter Assist program. Click on Add File button and pick your video file which can be in AVI, FLV, MP4, MPG, WMV, MOV, SWF, RM format. It even supports more video formats than that, but those are the most common.

Set the mode as Audio, and then choose mp3, flac, wav, aac or mp2 as the output audio format. Click on the … button and choose the destination folder for storing your converted audio files.

Now, go ahead and click Convert and the extraction process will begin. The program is pretty fast, it took only one minute to extract audio from a 19 minute video clip. When extraction is over, you can see your audio file at the location specified! I checked the sound quality between the video and the audio file and they were exactly the same, so you’re not going to lose any quality in the extraction process. That’s it!

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How to Enable Remote Connections in SQL Server 2014/2012/2008

October 23rd, 2014 by Admin

When you try to connect to a SQL Server instance from a remote computer, you might receive the following error message:

Cannot connect to SQL Server.
An error has occurred while establishing a connection to the server. When connecting to SQL Server 2008, this failure may be caused by the fact that under the default settings SQL Server does not allow remote connections. (provider: SQL Network Interfaces, error: 26 – Error Locating Server/Instance Specified) (Microsoft SQL Server)

After installing SQL Server, the remote connection feature is disabled by default, and you’re only allowed to connect to your database locally. This article explains how to configure remote connections for a default SQL Server 2014/2012/2008 instance that you want to connect to from a remote computer.

How to Enable Remote Connections in SQL Server 2014/2012/2008?

Open the SQL Server Management Studio and log on to your DB locally. Right-click server name in the left pane and select Properties.

Select the Connections page in the left pane and make sure that checkbox Allow remote connections to this server is selected. Once this is done, exit SQL Server Management Studio.

allow-remote-connection

Open the SQL Server Configuration Manager, expand the node SQL Server Network Configuration and select Protocols for MSSQLServer (or whatever the name of your SQL Server instance is). Make sure that TCP/IP protocol is enabled.

enable-tcpip

Right-click on TCP/IP and select Properties. In the TCP/IP Properties dialog, select the IP Addresses tab and scroll down to IPAII. Make sure TCP Dynamic Ports is blank and that TCP Port is set to 1433.

tcpip-properties

Click OK to save your changes and restart your SQL Server instance. Now you should be able to connect to your SQL Server instance remotely using SQL Server Management Studio.

connect-to-sqlserver

If there is still problem in remote connection, you most likely need to configure your firewall settings and make sure the TCP port 1433 is not blocked by your firewall.

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How to Take Screenshots with Freeware Greenshot

October 22nd, 2014 by Admin

There are many programs available for taking screenshots. If you’re looking for a free option, Greenshot is is an excellent and open source screenshot tool for Microsoft Windows. It is free for both personal and commercial use. It’s much easier for a beginner to use than some paid screenshot tools. Here’s how to install Greenshot and use it to take screenshots in Windows 7.

How to Take Screenshots with Freeware Greenshot?

You can grab a free copy of Greenshot from its official website. Compatible with all Windows versions, the downloaded file is sized at nearly 1.3Mb. Double-click the setup file you have downloaded to install it on your computer.

After installation, right-click on the Greenshot icon in the system tray to access the Greenshot menu. Using this menu, you can take different types of screenshots, open an image in the Greenshot editor, set Preferences, and perform several other useful tasks.

capture-window

As an example, we’re going to take a screenshot of the Skype application. Simple select the Capture window from the Greenshot menu, and you can then pick the Skype window to capture with a single click.

skype

Thankfully, Greenshot also provides a list of keyboard shortcuts that making the jobs easier. If you need to take a screenshot for an active window, simply press the Alt + PrntScr hotkey. While pressing Ctrl + PrntScr you can capture the full screen.

greenshot

Once a screenshot has been captured, a popup menu will display asking what you want to do with the screenshot. We can choose to save it to a folder, or open it in Greenshot’s image editor to add some enhancements to it.

Conclusion

Greenshot may not be the best screenshot-taking program. But it handles most basic screen capture needs easily. If you don’t need to capture video and don’t mind editing captures in another program, it does everything you are likely to need. In fact, Greenshot has become my screen capture program of choice.

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Posted in Free Software, Software Reviews, Tips & Tricks, Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Vista, Windows XP

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Reset Windows 8.1 Password on Lenovo G410/G500/G510/G710 Laptop

October 21st, 2014 by Admin

If you forgot Windows 8.1 password on your Lenovo laptop, it’s no big deal to reset the password with the tool PCUnlocker. This step-by-step guide shows you how to reset lost Windows 8.1 password on Lenovo G series laptops, such as Lenovo G410/G500/G510/G710. PCUnlocker can run from either a boot CD or a USB stick, but I’ll use a CD in this guide.

How to Reset Windows 8.1 Password on Lenovo G410/G500/G510/G710 Laptop?

First, use an alternate PC to download the PCUnlocker software. Unzip the downloaded file and you’ll get a disc image named pcunlocker.iso. Burn the ISO file to a blank CD (or USB stick) with the freeware ISO2Disc.

Insert the burned CD to your locked Lenovo laptop. Before getting the laptop to boot from CD, you need to make some changes with the BIOS configurations. When your laptop is powered off, press the Novo button to turn it on.

Novo-button

When the Novo Button Menu screen appears, select BIOS Setup.

In the BIOS, go to the Exit tab. Set OS Optimized Defaults as Other OS, then Load Default Setting and save. Turn off the machine and then use the Novo button to enter BIOS Setup again.

lenovo-default-settings

Go to the Boot tab, change Boot Mode from UEFI to Legacy Support, and set Boot Priority as Legacy First. Save your changes and exit.

lenovo-boot-mode

Turn off your computer and then press the Novo button again. When the Novo Button Menu is displayed, select Boot Menu. Next choose your CD/DVD drive and press Enter to boot from it.

Your computer will load the contents of the CD drive. When it is finished you will be presented with the PCUnlocker program, which lists your Windows 8.1 user accounts.

Choose the user name for which you want to reset the password, and click on Reset Password button to clear the password.

Congrats! You just reset your Windows 8.1 password. Reboot and take out the CD, and then change the Boot Mode back to UEFI. After that you can log on with a blank password for a local account, or log on with the new password Password123 if you use a Microsoft account as your login method.

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Posted in Tips & Tricks, Windows 8

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VirtualBox and VMware Error 0x0000005D Fix: Your PC Needs To Restart

October 20th, 2014 by Admin

When you try to boot an existing virtual machine from a WinPE ISO image, your virtualization software VirtualBox or VMware may give you the following error, even if you’ve enabled the Virtualization Technology (VT) feature in your host PC’s BIOS.

Your PC needs to restart.
Please hold down the power button.
Error Code: 0x0000005D
Parameters:
0x000000000FABBBFF
0x0000000028100800
0x0000000000000000
0x0000000000000000

vmware-0x5d

The problem does not lie in the BIOS settings but your VirtualBox or VMware settings. 64-bit WinPE image cannot execute on virtual machine defined with a 32-bit operating system within VMware or VirtualBox. To temporarily work around the issue, change the Guest operating system to a 64-bit version. Remember to change it back when finished using WinPE on the VM.

Change Windows Version in VMware Workstation

In VMware Workstation, open the virtual machine settings editor (VM > Settings). Click the Options tab and you can then change the version of Guest operating system to x64 edition. For example, if your Guest OS is Windows Server 2003 Enterprise, try to select the corresponding 64-bit version – Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition – from the drop-down list.

vmware-settings

Change Windows Version in VirtualBox

In the Oracle VM VirtualBox Manager, highlight your virtual machine and click on Settings.

virtualbox-settings

On the General tab, change the Version to 64-bit OS. In my example, I change the version of my virtual machine from Windows 7 (32-bit) to Windows 7 (64-bit).

virtualbox-vm-version

Conclusion

This problem usually happens when you boot a 32-bit Guest OS from a Windows 8/8.1 or Windows 10 64-bit ISO image. But it’s no problem to boot a 64-bit Guest OS from 32-bit version of Windows PE.

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Windows 10 Tip: Switch Between Start Menu and Start Screen

October 18th, 2014 by Admin

With Windows 10 the Start Menu is back. You can expect a unique user interface depending on what you’re running Windows 10 on. On a PC, the Start Menu will be shown by default when you click the Start button in the lower-left corner of your screen, while you’ll get the Start Screen by default on a pure touch-screen device, such as tablet.

Start Screen:
start-screen

Start Menu:
start-menu

Thankfully, Microsoft has made it simple to switch between the Start Menu and the Start Screen. In just a few mouse clicks, you can switch from Start Screen to Start Menu, or from Start Menu to Start Screen. Here’s how.

How to Switch Between Start Menu and Start Screen?

  1. Right-click on the taskbar at the bottom of the screen and choose Properties.

    right-click-taskbar

  2. At the Taskbar and Start Menu properties window, click the Start Menu tab.

    use-start-menu

  3. Check or uncheck the “Use the Start menu instead of the Start screen” option. If it’s checked, Windows 10 will use the Windows 7-style Start Menu. If it’s unchecked, Windows 10 will use the Windows 8-style Start Screen.
  4. Click OK. Log out and then log back into Windows 10. Click the Start button or press the Windows key on your keyboard, it will display the Start Menu or Start Screen as you expected.

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How to Customize the Start Menu in Windows 10

October 17th, 2014 by Admin

Windows 10 is basically a combination of Windows 7 and 8 that borrows design elements from each of Microsoft’s two most recent operating systems. If you’re running Windows 10, you may have noticed that the Start Menu is back but it isn’t just the old menu that we have seen in Windows 7 and Vista. The left-hand side of it looks like the Windows 7 Start Menu, with a search bar, links to Documents, Pictures, individual apps, and so on. The right side has all the live tiles and Metro apps. Here’s quick guide to customize it to work the way you want.

start-menu

Remove Live Tiles

Windows 10 Start Menu gets crowded with too many live tiles. If you want to make the Start Menu look more like Windows 7 Start Menu, you can remove all live tiles from it. To remove a live tile, simply right-click on the tile and choose Unpin from Start.

unpin-from-start

Resize Start Menu

Want to make the Start Menu larger or smaller? It’s simple to do. Move your mouse to the top of the menu until the mouse pointer turns into a double-headed arrow. Then drag it in the direction where you want it to grow or shrink. If you just want to resize a live tile, right-click on it and select Resize and then pick a size.

Customize Start Menu

There is a new and dedicated customization menu for the Start menu. To access it, right-click on an empty area of Start Menu and select Properties.

start-menu-properties

In the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box, select the Start Menu tab, click Customize.

customize-task-start-menu

Now you can choose which folders and locations you want to include and exclude from the Start Menu.

customize-start-menu

Change Start Menu Color

You can change the color of the Start menu easily. Right-click on an empty area of Start Menu and select Personalize. Select a color and apply it. The same color will also be applied to the taskbar and window borders.

set-start-menu-color

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Posted in Others, Tips & Tricks, Windows 10

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How to Crack Windows 8.1 Password with A Bootdisk

October 13th, 2014 by Admin

How to unlock your computer after you’ve forgotten Windows 8.1 password? PCUnlocker is a powerful bootdisk that allows you to crack Windows 8.1 password on a computer where you forgot your password. The step-by-step guide below should work for Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and earlier versions of Windows.

How to Crack Windows 8.1 Password with A Bootdisk?

After you download PCUnlocker, you have to burn it on a CD by right-clicking the ISO file. If you don’t have an optical drive and you want to boot from a USB flash drive, you can use the free tool ISO2Disc.

Next, you have to ensure that the CD or USB flash drive comes before the hard drive in the boot order of your BIOS settings. Most PCs allow you to access the PC setup by pressing F2, F12 or Del right after you turn the PC on. If your computer comes with UEFI firmware, you might also need to set your PC to boot with Legacy BIOS mode instead of UEFI mode.

After you boot PCUnlocker, you should see the following screen. If you have more than one Windows installation on the computer, be sure to choose the correct SAM registry file for your target Windows installation.

Choose the user account where you want to reset the password, click on Reset Password button. This program will remove the existing login password and unlock your account in case it was locked out or disabled.

The password cracking process is now completed. Reboot your computer and take out the CD or USB flash drive. You can then login to Windows 8.1 without the need of a password!

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Posted in Tips & Tricks, Windows 8

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