Windows 10: Download and Install VirtualBox.

Posted on March 25, 2021 by test_ll6rez

VirtualBox is a powerful x86 and AMD64/Intel64 virtualization product for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2. See “About VirtualBox” for an introduction.

Windows 10: Download VirtualBox:

To download the latest VirtualBox Installed open a browser and go to Oracle VM VirtualBox.

Windows 10: Download and Install VirtualBox.

Click on the Download VirtualBox button to start the download:

This will take you to the download page:

Click on the OS that you are using. In this case we want Windows hosts:

This will start the download:

Once the installer has downloaded we are ready to install:

Installing Virtual Box:

To install Virtual Box you need to click on the Open file link under the download:

This will start the VirtualBox installation wizzard:

Click Next to move to the next option.

Click next to choose the default settings.

Click Next again.

Click Yes to allow networking to be installed.

Click Install.

The installation will run

Click Yes to install the software as an administrator and also Install to install the device software:

Click Finish to finish the installation and open VirtualBox:

VirtualBox is now installed:

For more VirualBox How To’s go to our VirtualBox Category.

Windows 10 PowerToys, Installing and configuring FancyZones to make a 34″ Ultrawide Monitor act like 2 screens.

Posted on March 7, 2021 by test_ll6rez

I started using Windows 10 PowerToys, Installing and configuring FancyZones to make a 34″ Ultrawide Monitor act like 2 screens when I installed my Iiyama ProLite XUB3493WQSU 34″ Ultra Wide monitor on my laptop (https://www.ithowtoo.com/2021/03/07/iiyama-prolite-xub3493wqsu-monitor-arrived-07-03-2021/) I found it really annoying to have to manually resize windows manually to fit side by side to make the monitor act like 2 monitors.

After about 15 minutes I was ready to swap back to my old 2 monitor setup and give the ultrawide monitor to my son to use.

I decided to do some googling as for a program to split the screen into defined areas as I knew that other monitors shipped with software to do this as standard! After about a 5 minute search I found out that Microsoft has an app that does this in their power tools for Windows 10 that does exactly what I wanted to do.

Download Windows 10 PowerToys:

The process to install the Power Tools is also very easy:

In a browser go to https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/ and click on Install PowerToys:

This will open a new page.

Install Windows 10 PowerToys:

Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on PowerToysSetup-0.33.1-x64.exe:

Wait until the installer is downloaded.

Click on the arrow by the download name and select Show in Folder:

This will open a new window with the folder where the download was saved:

Double click on the executable to start the install and open the Installer Wizard.

Click Next to start the install:

Click Next to accept the License.

Select all the options and then click Next.

Click Install:

Click Yes and then wait for the PowerToys to install. Then click Finish:

Windows 10 PowerToys is now installed on your machine.

Go to the desktop and open the PowerToys Icon.

On the menu on the left of the Power Tools General Settings, click FancyZones.

Click Edit Zones.

Click on the pencil next to Columns to edit the settings:

Change the settings to be the same as below:

Click Save.

Your screen will now have 2 zones setup.

To move apps to a zone press and shod the shift button and move the App to the side of the screen that you want it to move to and you will now have 2 equally sized zones or screens so you can work as though you are using 2 monitors:

The advantage of this is that if you want one window to cover both screens you can do this too my making the app full-screen so you get the best of both worlds:

I have now been using the screen in this way for the past hour and I am loving the flexibility of going from 2 screens to one big screen with just a few button and mouse clicks! I am so glad that I tried this instead of going back to my old 2 monitor setup.

See the video below to see how the shift and move function works:

Update after 2 Weeks Use:

https://www.ithowtoo.com/2021/03/07/iiyama-prolite-xub3493wqsu-monitor-arrived-07-03-2021/I have been using the Windows PowerToys Fancy Zones feature configures in 2 zones with my laptop and my Iiyama ProLite XUB3493WQSU 34″ Ultra Wide monitor for both Work and Personal Use and I am loving it over the 2 monitor setup that I had before as I have the flexibility of using the full 34″ screen for things like Excel spreadsheets and certain web sites that work better in the Ultra Wide format, but can then go back to using the 2 screen setup by holding shift and moving the app to either the left or right side of the screen. Also not having the lines down the middle of the screens also helps a lot.

I have adjusted so well that I can’t see myself going back to a 2 screen setup ever again! I am dreading having to go back into the office as there is no way that my firm will shell out for a 34″ screen for me 🙁

Zentyal: Add a Windows 10 Pro PC to a Zentyal Domain

Posted on January 9, 2021 by test_ll6rez

If your PC is running Windows 10 PRO and your Zentyal Server is configured as a DC then the Windows PC can be added to the Domain to add the benefits of centralized login and management using AD users.

If you need to install a Zentyal Server then follow THIS guide. To configure a Zentyal server after installation go HERE.

For more information on Active Directory (AD) there is an excellent article on the Microsoft Site.

Before you try and add the PC to the domian you will need to make sure that the PC is using the Zentyal DC as its DNS server.

Make Sure PC is using Zentyal Server as the DNS server:

To do this open settings and click Network and Internet:

Zentyal: Add a Windows 10 Pro PC to a Zentyal Domain

Click the Properties button under Ethernet adapter name:

Click the Edit button:

Make sure that the DC IP is set as the Preffered DNS. If it is not change it to be:

Click Save and close the Setting Window.

Another quick Check is to make sure that DNS is working is to ping the doman name and make sure that it responds from the correct IP address:

Add PC to Zentyal AD Domain:

The easiest way to add the PC to the domain is to:

Type sysdm.cpl into the search bar:

Click on the sysdm.cpl Icon:

This will open the System Properties Window:

Click the Change button which will open the Computer Name/Domain Changes window:

Click the Select the Domain Option:

Now add the domain name to the Domain field:

Click OK.

Add the Admin user details in the window that opens:

You will get another window open to say that the PC has been added to the domain:

Click OK to close this window.

Click OK to restart the PC:

Click Close to close the System Properties:

Click Restart Now to restart the PC:

When the PC has rebooted log in using a domain user account and select the correct domain to log into:

The new domain user profile will be crearted:

Once windows has created the new user (this used to take seconds not sure why it takes so long now) you will be taken to the users desktop.

You are now ready to use the PC using the domain user. The PC is now a member of the domain and can be controlled by AD and centrally managed! Yay!

Ubuntu 20.04/20.10: How to enable RDP access from Windows PC.

Posted on December 17, 2020 by test_ll6rez

There have been a number of times that I have wanted to access my Ubuntu 20.04/20.10 PC from a Windows PC using Remote Desktop Access (RDP). This is how I have configured it to work.

Enable RDP on the Ubuntu 20.04/ 20.10 PC:

Open the terminal and type the following command:

sudo apt install xrdp

Ubuntu 20.04/20.10 - How to enable RDP access from Windows PC.

Type your password and enter.

Enter Y and enter.

Xrdp will be installed:

Once installed the installer will return to the command line:

Enable xrdp to start after reboot and to run now type:

sudo systemctl enable --now xrdp

The command will run and then return to the command line:

Run the following command to open the rdp port on the local firewall for incoming traffic.

sudo ufw allow from any to any port 3389 proto tcp

The rules will be added:

Run the following command to find the ip address of the machine. This will be needed to rdp from the windows machine.

sudo ip a

The ip address of the machine is highlighted in red:

This is all you have to do on the Ubuntu PC. Now go onto the windows PC and connect to the Ubuntu PC as follows:

Connecting to the Ubuntu PC from Windows using RDP.

Click on the start button and type mstsc. Click on Open.

Type in the ip address of the Ubuntu PC and click Connect.

Click Yes.

Type the username and password and click OK.

You will now have access to the linux desktop. Yay.

To log off again just click on the x of the RDP window or log out:

Troubleshooting:

Black Screen at logon:

If there is a user logged in on the Ubuntu PC you may get a black screen when you rdp to the PC. This can be resolved by logging off of the Ubuntu PC.

For more things to do with your new Ubuntu 20.10 Desktop go to my other articles HERE.

Authentication Required login

In some cases you will get the following window appear and even though you log in it will not disappear:

A permanent fix for this is to edit the following file:

sudo vim /usr/share/polkit-1/actions/org.freedesktop.color.policy

Go to the defaults section and modify no to yes

<defaults>
    <allow_any>auth_admin</allow_any>
    <allow_inactive>yes</allow_inactive>
    <allow_active>yes</allow_active>
</defaults>

To:

Save the changes and log off and back on again and you should not see the popup again.

Windows 10 Pro: How to Install Windows 10 Pro.

Posted on December 12, 2020 by test_ll6rez

This is my guide to Installing Windows 10 Pro on a PC/VM. The process is basically the same for both after you have booted from the boot media.

Windows 10 boot media can be created by downloading the Windows 10 Media Creation tool from HERE.

For a walk through of creating Windows 10 boot media click HERE.

Installing Windows 10 Pro:

Once the Windows 10 boot media is created boot the machine to be installed from the media. The install will land on the following page. Select the correct regional settings and click Next:

Click Install now.

If you have a key add it and click Next. If you do not have a key (which I do not) click I don’t have a key:

Choose the version of Windows 10 that you want to install (Pro in this case) and click Next to move to the next step. This will install the 180 day trial version of Windows 10 Pro.

Installing Windows 10 Pro - Chose Version

Accept the license terms and click Next

Installing Windows 10 Pro - accept license

Click on Custom to install a clean version of Windows 10

Installing Windows 10 Pro - choose custom Install

Click next to use the new unallocated space.

Installing Windows 10 Pro - Format disk.

Windows 10 will now install.

Click restart now or wait for the timer to restart the PC

Windows 10 will start booting

Select the correct Region and click Yes to continue

Installing Windows 10 Pro - choose Region

Choose the correct keyboard layout and click Yes to continue

Installing Windows 10 Pro - select keyboard Layout

Click skip unless you want to add a second keyboard layout in which case click Add layout

Wait

Chose to set up for personal use if not adding to a domain or for an organisation if you are. I selected Set up an organisation and pressed the Next button.

Installing Windows 10 Pro - personal use

To not use a Microsoft account to login click on Offline account

Installing Windows 10 Pro - Offline Account

Click on Limited experience to not have to create a Microsoft account

Installing Windows 10 Pro - Limited experience

Add the user name and click Next

Type a password for the new user (Make sure that you type the password correctly as it is the only user on the PC). Click on the icon on the right of the password field to show the password to make sure it is typed correctly. Click Next

Installing Windows 10 Pro - add password

Retype the password and type Next

Select a security questions, type an answer and click Next

Installing Windows 10 Pro - security question 1

Installing Windows 10 Pro - security question 2

Installing Windows 10 Pro - security question 3

Select don’t use speech recognition unless you want it, click Accept

Choose the desired option for location service and click Accept

Installing Windows 10 Pro - Location service

Select the desired option for Find my device and click Accept

Installing Windows 10 Pro - Find my Device

Choose the desired diagnostics settings and Accept

Installing Windows 10 Pro - Diagnostic Data

Choose the desired setting for inking and typing and Accept

Installing Windows 10 Pro - Inking and Typing

Choose the desired diagnostics data option and Accept

Choose the desired advertising ID and click Accept

Installing Windows 10 Pro - Advertising ID

Click Not Now if you do not want Cortana help

Finally the installation will start creating the user profile.

After what feels like forever windows will actually finish booting. Click Yes to allow the PC to be discoverable or No for it not to be

Installing Windows 10 Pro - logs in finally

Click on Get started to start configuring Edge or Maybe later to not do it now.

Click complete setup

Installing Windows 10 Pro - Finish Edge setup

Click Continue without Signing-in

Edge setup is now complete

Windows is now Installed and ready to use.

It is now highly advisable to run Windows updates as there are bound to be a bunch of missing updates which is never a good idea.

Instructions of how to Install Windows Updates can be found HERE.

Windows 10: How to install Windows 10 updates.

Posted on December 11, 2020 by test_ll6rez

Although running Windows 10 updates is a simple procedure it is a crucial process for keeping a Windows 10 machine as secure as possible so it is worth documenting.

For more information about Windows updates take a look at this great post on TechRepublic.

Install Windows 10 Updates:

To run windows updates click on the start button

Running Windows updates on Windows 10 - click start

Click on the Settings button

Running Windows updates on Windows 10 - click Settings

Scroll to the bottom and select Update & Security

Running Windows updates on Windows 10 - Click Updates & Security

Click Check for updates and wait for Windows to check if it has any missing updates

Running Windows updates on Windows 10 - click check for updates

Windows will then start installing the updates

Running Windows updates on Windows 10 - wait for updates to install

If the updater asks for a reboot click Restart Now to reboot:

Updates will then be installed and the PC will be rebooted

Once the Updates have installed and the PC has rebooted log in and check to see if there are any more updates needing installing

There will most likely be more to install so continue installing until there are no new updates to install:

Your Windows 10 PC is now fully up to date.

For more Windows 10 related posts click HERE.

Windows 10: Create a Windows 10 Installation ISO.

Posted on December 11, 2020 by test_ll6rez

The first step to create a Windows 10 iso is to download the Media Creation tool from HERE.

Create the Windows 10 ISO.

Once the Media Creation tool is downloaded double click on the exe and it will open the following window:

Accept the License by clicking the Accept button:

Create a Windows 10 ISO - Accept License

Wait for the wizard

Select Create installation Media (USB flash drive, DVD, or ISO file) for another PC and click Next

Choose the desired Language, edition of Windows and Architecture and click Next

Create a Windows 10 ISO - Choose ISO options

Choose the ISO file option and click Next

Select the path and the name of the iso file and click Save

Wait for the iso to be created

Click Finish

The Wizard will close and the Windows 10 ISO will be wherever you saved it in the earlier step.

For more Windows 10 Articles go to our Windows 10 Category.

Ubuntu 20.04: How to install Ubuntu 20.04 using Windows 10 and no USB device.

Posted on August 10, 2020 by test_ll6rez

I had an occasion when I was trying to install Ubuntu 20.04 onto a laptop but found that I was without a usb pen drive, external usb drive or a recordable DVD media and had no way to easily get any so I tried installing Ubuntu without installation media and this is the technique that worked for me:

To install Ubuntu without CD/DVD or USB pendrive, follow these steps:

Download Unetbootin from here.
Run Unetbootin.
Now, from the drop-down menu under Type: select Hard Disk.
Next select the Diskimage. Browse to the directory where you downloaded the iso file of Ubuntu.
Press OK.

Install Ubuntu 20.04 from the hard drive:

Next when you reboot, you will get a menu like this:
Select Unetbootin and you will get the “Try” or “Install” option there.
Finally, you can install your version of Ubuntu alongside Windows.

For UEFI devices:

First, download rEFInd.
Then, extract it.
Now, follow the below steps to install rEFInd^[source], so that, you have a boot menu to boot to Ubuntu Live environment. Summary of the installation process given in the source is as belows:
1. Open cmd with Administrator privileges.
2. Then,mountvol S: /S
  - (you may change S: to any available drive letter)
3. Type cd in cmd and then drag and drop the extracted folder to the already open cmd window. E.g.,cd "C:\Program Files"
4. Copy refindxcopy /E refind S:\EFI\refind\
  - In this step S: will be the drive letter that you used above.
5. Change directory to rEFIndcd S:\EFI\refind
6. Rename config filerename refind.conf-sample refind.conf
7. Note that {bootmgr} is entered as such; that’s not a notation for a variable. Also, change refind_x64.efi to refind_ia32.efi on systems with 32-bit EFIs. Such computers are rare, and most of them are tablets. Check your Windows bit depth to determine which binary you should use.bcdedit /set {bootmgr} path \EFI\refind\refind_x64.efi
8. Download EaseUS Partition Master Free and run it.
9. Select your last partition.
10. Right-click on it and from the context menu select Resize/Move partition.
11. From the size shown beside Partition Size minus 4096 MB (to mimic a 4GB pendrive).
12. Press tab and the rest will be auto-completed.
13. Select the newly created partition and right-click on it. Select Create Partition from context menu.
14. In this window, select FAT32 as the File System. Click on OK. Finally, click on Apply (present at the top-left of the window).
15. Next, extract Ubuntu iso to this partition and finally reboot.
16. You will be presented with a rEFInd menu. From here select the Ubuntu partition. It will boot into a Live environment. Continue with the installation. After the installation finishes boot to Windows.
17. Run EaseUS Partition Master Free again.
18. Right-click on the 4 GB partition and from the context menu select Delete Partition.
19. Right-click on the partition above the Unallocated partition and select Resize/Move Partition from the context menu.
20. Extend the bar to the extreme right by dragging the button.
21. Click on OK. Finally, click on Apply (present at the top-left of the window).
22. Open cmd with Administrator privileges.
23. Then,mountvol S: /S
  - (you may change S: to any available drive letter)
24. Remove rEFIndrmdir "S:\EFI\refind" /S /Q
  - In this step S: will be the drive letter that you used above.
25. Reinstall grub as your primary boot managerbcdedit /set {bootmgr} path \EFI\ubuntu\grubx64.efi

The machine will then boot into Ubuntu.

For more Ubuntu posts take a look at our Ubuntu category.

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