How to install all your software on a fresh Windows install

One word: Chocolatey.

Have you ever got a new computer, and spent the first week finding the software you're used to, downloading and installing every one? Did it ever happen that you couldn't find the right download location? Well, this may be the solution.

Chocolatey is a package manager, sort of like a program store, or if you are familiar with apt or rpm from linux, it's much like that. It's command line based, and that's a good thing. In my opinion it's very often a great thing...

In short, it lets you download and install all the different software that has been packaged and uploaded to the chocolatey database. It also handles dependencies, for instance the .NET framework, or python 3, or any other prerequisite.

The great thing about it being command line based is this:
You can create a script that installs all your favourite software.

Doesn't that sound sweet? I realize that it may not appeal to all of you, but as a computer geek and developer, it's very helpful, not to mention cool. It's also a real time-saver since most of the installations require no user input at all.

So to get started, you need to visit Chocolatey, copy the text from the first box on the page, and paste it into an administrator command prompt.

Next, you need to either install programs from command prompt like so:
choco install vlc (installs vlc media player)

Or you can install everything from a config file, like my example below, just save it with a .config extension!

choco install filename.config

You can see my sample config file here, it includes my favourite development tools: https://gist.github.com/anonymous/425de7eb68dbf150df23

Have fun setting up your next computer in a jiffy!

And remember to contribute; if you find that something's missing from Chocolatey, it's easy to upload your own package for it! Please read Chocolatey's guide first, there are some rules to follow.

The search for a great free antivirus on Windows 8

So, I just got a new laptop. It's a great little machine, a Dell XPS 13, and it came preloaded with very little software. That's a good thing if you ask me!

One of the handful of programs preinstalled was MacAfee antivirus. It came with a free one-year license, and I decided to take it for a spin. That did not last very long... I constantly noticed it eating CPU time, slowing down  my computer while eating away battery. Huh! It did have some cool features such as an online central for managing all your MacAfee enabled devices, but that just didn't help. I had to find something less intrusive.

I tried AVG, which I remember that I liked some years ago. It's still free, and it looks like it's working well, but it's just so annoying with all the sales pitch! You have to be very alert to click the right button and not end up buying and expansion or upgrade. It's like "free to play" antivirus, so it had to go, too. In addition, it feels a little overzealous with what pages and extensions it alerts the user about.

Then I went to Avast, which I run on my desktop computer. It's not bad, but even Avast's free version is getting a bit naggy. It does not slow down my computer, however, which makes it better than AVG and MacAFee.

Then finally I arrived at my current choice: Avira. It has a free edition, it does not slow down your computer, it does not nag too much about purchasing the full version, and it does a great job in keeping updated on the newest threats.  Oh, just be aware that it wants to install dropbox along with it.

All the packages I tried, all were free and had both desktop and mobile versions. If you really need a "central" to manage all your household units in one place, MacAfee is the winner. Otherwise, try Avira!

Let me know if you have a favourite of your own I can try!

Peeking into Windows 8 themes

Windows 8 has it's themes, just like it's predecessors. Microsoft, as usual, has published a good amount of information, also about sharing themes that you have created.

What they fail to mention is that the magical .themepack file is just a file archive, compressed using the LZX algorithm. Microsoft is known for using format this previously.

Anyway, if you want to look at the specifics of themes you've downloaded just extract them using you favourite LZX-archiver - for example, 7-zip. You can now pick out images and sounds as you like and create "remix themes" for personal use, or edit the settings in the .theme file inside the archive.

Windows 8 status update

Thought I'd share with you what features are working and not on my laptop (HP Elitebook 2540p) with Windows 8. It may apply to other laptops as well.

What	Status	Comment
Validity Fingerprint Sensor	Working with Validity's drivers	Does not always work from hibernation
HotKeys	Works with HP's Win7 drivers
Wifi	Native Win8 support
Ricoh Card reader	Works with HP's Win7 drivers	In Win8RC, Explorer would crash if the card was unformatted.
Webcam	Native Win8 support
Sound	Native Win8 support

Related links: HP Drivers
and Validity drivers

One thing that had me fooled for a while was how to power off the computer. The power button of course is linked to hibernation, which works well, but to shut down, I had to go to metro/start menu/whatever and then click sign out, then find the power symbol and choose shut down.
An easier way is to go to desktop (win+d) and press alt+f4, for the regular shut-down menu.
An even easier way, if you're too lazy for the keyboard, is a shortcut on the desktop. To a .cmd file that contains only "shutdown /s /t 0". It will shut down immediately, so be careful, you can change the switches to whatever is your taste.

Synaptics Touchpad

The people at Synaptics have released a new driver suite that supports Windows 8 mouse gestures (or touchpad gestures, if you will). Luckily, it also works with the touchpad in 2540p. Just download their drivers for Windows 8 and install, reboot and you're off.

Right click the Synaptics icon in the system tray and go to "Touchpad properties" for a handy introduction to the gestures and switch on and off the different ones. In my experience they all work! Especially the three-finger scroll is helpful in modern/metro UI.


Happy Windows 8 install!

How to get Validity fingerprint sensor working on Windows 8 - updated

I have been trying out Windows 8 RC on my laptop, it's an HP Elitebook 2540p. One of the features I've not been able to set up properly is the fingerprint login. The 2540p sports a Validity VFS451 sensor, which worked fine under Windows 7. But searching for Windows 8 drivers gave no results.

If you use Help and Support in Windows, and search for fingerprint, it tries to help you by saying type "biometric", then select "Settings" and "Biometric Devices". This, of course, leads to nothing, unless the correct driver and software is installed. It also suggests to let Windows Update find the drivers, but let's face it, if that worked you wouldn't be reading this.

So I went ahead to HP's support site and downloaded the Windows 7 64-bit drivers. They installed with no problem, and the Validity Sensor appeared under Device Manager. Yay! Now to reboot and find out if it worked.

Windows-key, "biometric", Settings, .... nothing. Ok, I'll try rebooting again.

In the end I went to the source, downloaded the Windows 7 drivers from Validity, and tried installing them. It didn't go too well. I got an error message and a question if I wanted to retry in compatibility mode. Windows suggested we run it in "Windows XP Service Pack 3"-mode - went ahead and did that, but no luck. There's a folder in the archive called DPPersonal_FMA, and subfolders for 64-bit and 32-bit, which contains a DPSetup.exe. I ran that and got through the installer with no problems, and now when I typed in "biometric" in metro, lo and behold - Biometric Devices.

Successful "biometric" search in Metro!

Now enrolling the fingerprints sure is a piece of cake! But, as I soon found out, no - not really. By clicking "Manage your fingerprint data", you enter a wizard that helps you enroll fingerprints. At least two fingers are needed. The first scanning screen is just a "test" screen to let you figure out how to scan for success... It worked fine. Then, into the enrollment view, click to select a finger, and swipe. It worked the first time. But you have to swipe several times. The second time, and N times after, I only got "swipe unsuccessful". I tried going back, tried restarting the wizard, the only thing I came up with was "Unspecified Error" and then the app crashed.

I restarted the computer again, remembering that I had the same pain doing this with Windows 7! In fact, after some time, Fingerprints didn't play well with 7 at all. The software was there, but I was unable to scan my finger. So this next step applies to Windows 7 as well, I believe. A bit of black magic and totally unstable, but the fingerprint reader is working.

1. After the computer has restarted, log in as usual, but go straight to the Biometric Settings. 
2. Start the wizard.
3. Navigate the wizard using tab and enter. Do not test-scan before clicking "Enroll".
4. Now you should be able to click the finger and scan it the required two or more times.
5. If you get a message "the fingerprint reader is not connected", don't freak out. Just click Finish or Exit or whatever the option is. I got the same message. I rebooted again, and repeated steps 2-4. The fingerprints scanned the first time were still there the next time.
6. When you're happy, click Next and Finish. 
7. Try locking the screen and logging back in - using your finger!

Update August 7, 20:50 CET:
It's been a couple of days since I got it working, and I'm guessing 4 reboots. Suddenly I can't log on using my finger again. The option was there, but nothing happened when I swiped. So... I logged in using my password, went to Biometric Devices, and now the status for the reader was "Unavailable". That's just great!

I ran Update Driver... just for fun, and it installed a driver over a year older than the current. Great work! And then I was back to Biometric Devices being completely emtpy. Had to uninstall it, check the box for "remove driver software" and then reinstall the driver from Validity. Now it works again, but not sure for how long.

Update 2: December 5, 2014:
I've seen the comment that the file from validity is no longer available, but I haven't been able to research it. Today I had to reinstall the old laptop and do fix the fingerprint problem again... Guess what, HP have been busy. There's an updated driver available now, just download from here (64-bit version): HP support site   Looks like it's working out of the box this time! And for a bonus: It works on Windows 8.1, too.