Firefox – with Legacy addon support downgrade to 56.0.2 windows
Posted: 15/11/2017 Filed under: Software | Tags: downgrade firefox, downgrade firefox with legacy addon support, firefox final version before 57, firefox old version 56, firefox quantum addons not working, firegestures not working, legacy addons, noscript not working, old addon support Leave a commentUpdate 2017-11-21
NoScript now supports the new Firefox version 57! I do not recommend you to downgrade Firefox unless you absolutely have to use other legacy addons.
The latest Firefox 57 “Quantum” version no longer supports legacy addons.
It now enforces the new WebExtension standard. This will currently disable legacy addons that may be essential for some users like NoScript and FireGestures.
You can check the current status of some popular addons migration in to WebExtension on this documentation page.
In order to use legacy addons first you need to disable automatic updates in Firefox under Tools->Options->General and then downgrade your Firefox Version. Not bringing up the issues and potential risks with using old software (security wise) this is easy to do. All you need to do is retrieve and download the old installer and reinstall over the previous version.
Mozilla official statement and instructions on installing older versions.
If you are only swapping between version 56 and 57 your profile storing all your settings and bookmarks will remain the same and unharmed. I’ve been swapping back and fourth on the same profile for a while without any issues. Please note that downgrading to very old versions can however cause issues however.
Unfortunately Mozilla has made it a bit difficult to locate the downloads of previous versions and the top Google results (as of checking today at least) unfortunately links to unreliable third party download sources. A typical modern phenomenon which appears to become more common. Always avoid downloading software from unofficial sources. Try to make a habit of checking domains names carefully.
If you know your language codes you can browse the official Mozilla Version history directory and download version 56.0.2 from there. In case you don’t know the language codes then you can check your language version of Firefox from the Mozilla and modify the download link URL. Click here to view the official list of different downloads and languages.
The following link example is for the 64 bit windows version with Swedish Language. Scroll down for some quick link examples.
The original URL links to the latest Swedish (sv-SE) version:
https://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-latest-ssl&os=win64&lang=sv-SE
We edit that to point to 56.0.2 Swedish (sv-SE) version instead:
https://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-56.0.2-ssl&os=win64&lang=sv-SE
Some language specific direct link URL version 56.0.2 downloads
Firefox 56.0.2 – English American (en-US) 64 bit 
https://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-56.0.2-ssl&os=win64&lang=en-US
Firefox 56.0.2 – English British (en-GB) 64 bit 
https://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-56.0.2-ssl&os=win64&lang=en-GB
Firefox 56.0.2 – Swedish (sv-SE) 64 bit 
https://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-56.0.2-ssl&os=win64&lang=sv-SE
Firefox 56.0.2 – Danish (da) 64 bit 
https://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-56.0.2-ssl&os=win64&lang=da
Firefox 56.0.2 – Norwegian Bokmål (nb-NO) 64 bit 
https://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-56.0.2-ssl&os=win64&lang=nb-NO
After downloading it’s as easy as running the installer and clicking next, next and then upgrade. This is the same procedure used to change the language of Firefox’s user interface.
Settings wise – changing between version 56 and 57 is safe. All your profile settings and bookmarks will remain the same.
This is a temporary solution until (hopefully) NoScript or an equivalent feature gets supported somehow in the latest version of Firefox 57 Quantum.
FireGestures has an equivalent replacement addon for 57 Quantum named FoxyGestures but it is not supported on Mozilla pages or system settings inside the browser.
I wrote this guide as a basic “for dummies” guide that I can link to whenever I get the question: Why have my Firefox addons stopped working?
Baldur’s Gate Enhanced Edition – Local save folder
Posted: 13/04/2017 Filed under: Batch & VBScripts, Games, Windows registry | Tags: baldur's gate 2 enhanced edition, baldur's gate enhanced edition, local save files, portable, symbolic links Leave a commentMake Baldur’s Gate Enhanced edition portable.
The following batch file will create symbolic links to set your save folder to the game folder instead of “My Documents”. This is useful if you intend to play the game portable. For example from a USB stick if you intend to be moving between different computers.
In the original Baldur’s Gate you had your save files in your local path, this is a workaround to make the enhanced edition act the same way.
Instructions
- Move the following files from your “My Documents\Baldur’s Gate – Enhanced Edition” folder into the “Baldur’s Gate – Enhanced Edition” install folder
• Baldur.lua
• characters
• mpsave
• portraits
• save - Copy the following code into your favourite plain text editor or notepad or download it directly by right clicking the following link and selecting “Save link as”
@ECHO OFF FOR /F "tokens=3 delims= " %%G IN ('REG QUERY "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders" /v "Personal"') DO (SET MYDOCUMENTS=%%G) mkdir "%MYDOCUMENTS%\Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition" rmdir "%MYDOCUMENTS%\Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition\portraits" rmdir "%MYDOCUMENTS%\Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition\save" rmdir "%MYDOCUMENTS%\Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition\characters" rmdir "%MYDOCUMENTS%\Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition\mpsave" del "%MYDOCUMENTS%\Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition\Baldur.lua" pause mklink /d "%MYDOCUMENTS%\Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition\portraits" "%~dp0\portraits" mklink /d "%MYDOCUMENTS%\Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition\save" "%~dp0\save" mklink /d "%MYDOCUMENTS%\Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition\characters" "%~dp0\characters" mklink /d "%MYDOCUMENTS%\Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition\mpsave" "%~dp0\mpsave" mklink "%MYDOCUMENTS%\Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition\Baldur.lua" "%~dp0\Baldur.lua" pause - Save it as anything.bat in your Baldur’s Gate Enhanced edition install folder.
- Run anything.bat when the black window says press any key to continue, do so until the window disappears.
- Check that the folders in your “My Documents\Baldur’s Gate – Enhanced Edition” now have a little arrow on their icons. This indicates that they are not the actual files/folders but symbolic links.
- When you move to a new computer run anything.bat again and start the game!
Baldur’s Gate 2 Enhanced editon
Repeat the same steps as above but for the folder “Baldur’s Gate II – Enhanced Edition” and instead copy and paste the following or right click this and select “Save link as”.
@ECHO OFF
FOR /F "tokens=3 delims= " %%G IN ('REG QUERY "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders" /v "Personal"') DO (SET MYDOCUMENTS=%%G)
mkdir "%MYDOCUMENTS%\Baldur's Gate II - Enhanced Edition"
rmdir "%MYDOCUMENTS%\Baldur's Gate II - Enhanced Edition\portraits"
rmdir "%MYDOCUMENTS%\Baldur's Gate II - Enhanced Edition\save"
rmdir "%MYDOCUMENTS%\Baldur's Gate II - Enhanced Edition\characters"
rmdir "%MYDOCUMENTS%\Baldur's Gate II - Enhanced Edition\mpsave"
del "%MYDOCUMENTS%\Baldur's Gate II - Enhanced Edition\Baldur.lua"
pause
mklink /d "%MYDOCUMENTS%\Baldur's Gate II - Enhanced Edition\portraits" "%~dp0\portraits"
mklink /d "%MYDOCUMENTS%\Baldur's Gate II - Enhanced Edition\save" "%~dp0\save"
mklink /d "%MYDOCUMENTS%\Baldur's Gate II - Enhanced Edition\characters" "%~dp0\characters"
mklink /d "%MYDOCUMENTS%\Baldur's Gate II - Enhanced Edition\mpsave" "%~dp0\mpsave"
mklink "%MYDOCUMENTS%\Baldur's Gate II - Enhanced Edition\Baldur.lua" "%~dp0\Baldur.lua"
pause
Caveats
May require administrative rights on the computer you’re on.
After moving to another computer you may have to run the installer for the OpenAL codec once.
Baldur’s Gate 2 Enhanced Edition – Voices from BG1EE
Posted: 12/04/2017 Filed under: Games | Tags: baldur's gate 2 enhanced edition, baldur's gate enhanced edition voice sets missing, bg1ee, bg2ee, BG:EE Voices in BG2:EE, copy voice sets from bg1ee to bg2ee, enhanced edition missing voices Leave a commentI noticed that the voice packs included in Baldur’s Gate Enhanced edition (BG1EE) wasn’t included in Baldur’s Gate II Enhanced edition (BG2EE) for some reason.
Here is how to fix it:
Alternative A – Renamed files
- Download this zip file with the voice files already renamed.
- Extract it into your install directory BG2EE\lang\en_US\sounds
- Start the game!
Alternative B – Manually rename and copy files
- Make a temporary folder anywhere. For example on your desktop named “work”
- Go into your install directory BG1EE\lang\en_US\sounds
- Copy the files beginning with the following names to your work folder:
• Female4Y.wav
• Female5Y.wav
• Female6Y.wav
• Male4Y.wav
• Male5Y.wav
• Male6Y.wav - Rename the files as follows; (if you copy them directly you will get conflicts)
Naming syntax explanation
• Here you will notices files named with the syntax FemaleXY.wav and MaleXY.wav
• The filenames can’t exceed 8 characters. 12345678.wav is OK. 123456789.wav is NOT.
• The AnyX is just a name identifier and can be anything.
• The Y represents the type of situation the sound will be played. The situations for Y are listed alphabetically a to m.
Explanatory Image:
- Rename the red characters Female4 to BGEFem1Y.wav (keep the blue character)
- Rename the red characters Female5 to BGEFem2Y.wav (keep the blue character)
- Rename the red characters Female6 to BGEFem3Y.wav (keep the blue character)
- Rename the red characters Male4 to BGEMal1Y.wav (keep the blue character)
- Rename the red characters Male5 to BGEMal2Y.wav (keep the blue character)
- Rename the red characters Male6 to BGEMal3Y.wav (keep the blue character)
- Copy all the files from your work folder to your install directory BG2EE\lang\en_US\sounds
- Now when you start the game you should have the new voice sets in the voice list!
NVidia OpenGL display driver lost connection error troubleshooting
Posted: 19/07/2016 Filed under: Graphics, Windows registry | Tags: display driver crash, display driver stopped responding, Display driver stopped responding and has recovered, driver lost connection with the display driver, error code: 7, game close, game crash to desktop, graphics driver, lost connection with the display driver, nvidia, nvidia crash to desktop, nvidia ctd, nvidia display driver stop responding, opengl, TdrDelay, windows Leave a commentIn recent operating systems and more recent games you may have encountered the following message every now and then.
Sometimes the message won’t show at all depending on your windows settings and or game.
“The NVIDIA OpenGL driver lost connection with the display driver due to exceeding the Windows Time-Out limit and is unable to continue. The application must now close.
Error code: 7″
This is actually a good thing which prevents freezes of your whole operating system. In some cases however we want to workaround it by increasing the time before timeout. You can read more about this on Microsoft Support.
We do this by editing a key in the windows registry. For example I have to change this to 8 seconds or so in order to take high resolution screenshots in SpaceEngine.
Warning! Before proceeding you should know that setting this to a bad value could mess up things on your computer. Create a system restore point and backup your data!
NOTE! This affects all graphics programs and games on your computer. I recommend restoring the value after you’re done testing.
Proceed on your own risk!
Option 1: Right and select save as on any of the registry patches. Double click on them in explorer to install
TdrDelay-8sec.reg – TdrDelay set to 8 seconds (this should be enough for SpaceEngine)
TdrDelay-32sec.reg – TdrDelay set to 32 seconds (try this if error still shows)
TdrDelay-uninstall.reg – This removes the registry value which will use windows default. (Windows default is 2 seconds)
Option 2: Manually edit the registry
Open regedit.exe and navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers
Create a new key DWORD32 and name it exactly TdrDelay
I tried 64 but it wouldn’t work for me even though I use a 64 bit OS.
Remember that this key name is cAsE sEnSiTiVe.
Double click on the key, choose decimal value and set it to the delay that you want.
I recommend trying 8 to 32. Delete the key when you’re done.
Here is a tiny gif animation. Please excuse the Swedish 🙂
If you have any additional information to add or if I got anything wrong, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment!
Cheers
Robocopy sync multiple folders – to one location – batch script
Posted: 21/06/2016 Filed under: Batch & VBScripts | Tags: bat, batch, multiple folders, one-way sync, portable, robocopy, script, simple, sync folders, syncing, unicode, windows, xcopy 3 CommentsFrom Wikipedia:
This makes it a very useful simple syncing tool. The following is the script that I use to sync my laptop documents when I’m leaving the office. There are a lot of applications and tools for this but sometimes you just want a portable script.
Please note that this is a one-direction sync. It will not change or remove anything from the source folder.
Instructions
- Copy and paste the following batch (*.bat) script into your favourite text editor of choice or notepad. (Not Microsoft word) You can also download it directly from here or here mirror. (You might have to right click and select save destination as)
@echo off ::Unicode CHCP 1252 echo %~dp0 ::Remove old log file if exist "%~dp0\robocopylog.txt" del "%~dp0\robocopylog.txt" ::Ignore the following file types. You can add more separated by space set exclude=*.bak *.backup ::Go through each line in the folders.txt file for /f "skip=2 delims=" %%f in ('find /v "" %~dp0\folders.txt') do ( ::Check if the relative path from current directory works if exist "%~dp0\%%f" ( ::Sync relative path robocopy "%%f" "%~dp0\%%f" /v /xf %exclude% /mir /tee /fft /log+:robocopylog.txt ) else ( ::Sync absolute path if relative didnt work robocopy "%%f" "%~dp0\%%~nf" /v /xf %exclude% /mir /tee /fft /log+:robocopylog.txt ) ) ::Wait for keyboard input before closing the window. Remove pause if you want it to close pause - Save it where you want your backups to be stored (destination). Use whichever name you like. For example robocopy sync unicode folders.bat
- Create a new text file named folders.txt using any text editor and enter each folder that you want to make a backup off separated by a line break. (sources) Save the text file in the same folder as the batch script. Relative paths work too. Example:
- Run the script! The black window will stay open when it’s completed.
With the above example the result would look something like this:
Notes
- If source folders share the same name, they will be merged. Keep this in mind.
- This is a one-direction only sync. It will not move or remove anything from the source folder.
- If you don’t want the window to stay open when it’s complete remove the last line “pause” from the script.
- A log file is saved for each operation in robocopylog.txt
- You can add more files to exclude if you want, example:
exclude=*.bak *.backup *.mp4 *.avi
GitHub changing user account on windows
Posted: 18/06/2016 Filed under: Coding | Tags: 403 error, bug, credentials, git push, git push 403, git push wrong username, github, login, windows, wrong credentials, wrong username 2 CommentsI’m a beginner slowly learning how to use git and right away during my learning process I encountered a big thorn in my foot. The following article applies to git on windows.
Search for git push 403 and you’ll get a grip of this problem.
The problem for me was swapping between different github user accounts but no reinstall or changing of user credentials would do it for me. Changing the local account did not work:
git config user.name MyNewUsername git config user.email MyNewEmail
Neither did changing the global account:
git config --global user.name MyNewUsername git config --global user.email MyNewEmail
Not even adding username and password directly into the push URL worked:
git push https://username:password@github.com/yourname/yourrepo.git
It would still attempt to push using my old account username…
The request URL returned error: 403
The next thing I tried that almost worked. However it would require me to re-enter login credentials every single time I was pushing files to the repository. What I did was delete the SSH settings stored in a file named known_hosts located in the path %userprofile%\.ssh
This is not a good workaround as re-entering both username and password every time you push can be a bit tedious.
I don’t know if I’m missing some kind of setting or if git is just ignoring to check the proper account name associated with stored SSH key. Is it just attempting to use the most recent and giving up? Shouldn’t it check and use the proper key if there are multiple?
If it’s not a setting (which I can’t find for the life of me) this is probably a bug in the windows release.
The best solution ?
The following was the solution that finally worked satisfactory for me: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15381198/remove-credentials-from-git
This command changes so that git uses windows own credential manager:
git config --global credential.helper wincred
After this setting is changed try pushing once again, if it fails then remove the entries related to github in the windows Credential Manger in the Control Panel. See the screenshot image below.
The next time you push it should now prompt you for login credentials AND REMEMBER THEM! phew
It never occurred to me that git could use windows own credential manager in the windows control panel.
The only minor annoyance remaining is that you still have to delete your old credentials every time that you wish to use another github account.
Please leave a comment and/or correct me if I got something wrong or if you want to add additional information.
VBScript Map Network Drives
Posted: 18/12/2015 Filed under: Batch & VBScripts | Tags: annoying, could not reconnect, map network drives, network drive, network drive error, persistent, popup, system tray, taskbar, windows 7 Leave a commentThis script will silently map specified network drives in the background and retry for a specified number of times with a specified delay before giving up. (Default: 10 retries per second for 120 retries)
You can change this by editing the script and changing:
delay = delay between each retry
timeout = number of retries
Using a batch command would also work but then you would see a black window popping up, hence the vb script.
Why?
In Windows 7 when you’ve mapped persistent network drives they can give error messages depending on different booting priority issues. This is a fairly common problem that doesn’t overall affect the functionality, it just adds an annoying pop up message on startup marking drives over with a red cross.
There are other workarounds that delay network before login or some such but that can cause other issues with services and this workaround was just simpler and quicker for me. This is just one example and with this simple script you can easily get rid of the message.
Instructions
If you already have mapped drives (persistent) you need to disconnect them.
1. First step – Download the file or save the script manually
Right click this link and select save as / save link and download the script (mirror) directly.
OR
Manually copy and paste the following text into your favorite plain text editor or windows notepad (not Microsoft Word) and save the file as MapNetworkDrives.vbs
'This script will silently attempt to map network drives of your chosing and retry doing so for 120 seconds
'If drive letters are already mapped the script will exit
'nirklars.wordpress.com
set shell = wscript.createobject("WScript.shell")
set filesys = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
'Change this to the number of retries you want before giving up
timeout = 120
'Change this to the delay between retries, in milliseconds 1000=1 second
delay = 100
function MapDrive(pathNetwork, driveLetter,loginCred)
count = 0
do
if filesys.DriveExists(driveLetter) or count > timeout then
'msgbox "Drive exists"
exit do
end if
commandString = shell.ExpandEnvironmentStrings("%WINDIR%") & "\system32\net.exe use " & driveLetter & ": " & pathNetwork & " /p:no " & loginCred
'InputBox " "," ",commandString
shell.run(commandString), 0, true
WScript.Sleep delay
count = count + 1
loop
end function
'Copy and paste for each network drive to map
MapDrive "\\netgear\test1","Y","/USER:guest"
MapDrive "\\netgear\test2","Z","/USER:guest"
MapDrive "\\netgear\test3","W","/USER:guest"
2. Second step – Edit the file
Edit the bottom of the file where it says MapDrive. Each line adds another network drive mapping so copy and paste for each drive you want mapped. Example:
MapDrive “\\netgear\test1“,”Y“,”/USER:guest“
This example will map the folder test1 on a NAS server with the network name netgear with the drive letter Y.
3. Third step – Set it to start automatically when booting windows
If you’re on Windows 7 you can most probably just place it in your start menu startup folder.
Hold down the windows button and press R and type shell:startup and press enter to quickly open it.
On Windows 8 or more recent you can’t do that. Instead you must schedule a task to run on start up and login to launch the script. See instructions here.
