Technology Tales

Mouse configuration in macOS

Now having a new location from which I can work, I acquired an all-in-one desktop computer for use while there. While tempted by an HP option that runs Windows, I ended up choosing an iMac instead. That gained me extra disk space and more memory at a cost. Having UNIX-style command line capability was another attraction. After living with the Windows terminal for a while, its limitations were all too apparent to me.

While I started off desktop computing on a Macintosh Classic and having owned a MacBook Pro in the more recent past, there still was a learning curve. One of these related to the configuration of the mouse supplied with the system. Whatever about only having one button and needing to learn gestures, it was the speed at which the pointer goes that really got me reaching for my more usual Evoluent. Even so, the subsequent discovery of LinearMouse makes things much more bearable once all the requisite permissions were assigned.

Getting the Evoluent configured to my liking needed another third-party application: USB Overdrive. If Evoluent’s own software fitted the bill, that would have done. However, they have done some finger pointing at Apple instead of updating it to work with the latest Mac technology. There may be truth in the accusations, but it is striking that another piece of software works when theirs does not. Nevertheless, the other option worked once it got the permissions to detect the hardware. Then, it was a matter of working out which button was which on the mouse, so I could have them assigned as I wished.

After that, I could settle into the new system and get used to its idiosyncrasies. Adding Parallels got me a Windows 11 virtual machine for business compatibility, while I got going with setting up some automation using the macOS terminal. All is becoming more settled than working out of a laptop.

Needing third-party software does have a catch, though: underlying changes to macOS could scupper things. It was the sort of thing that made me move away from GNOME Shell as my Linux desktop. The extensions on which I was depending kept getting obsoleted by every new release. It is something to watch, even if macOS evolves less dramatic than GNOME 3 in its various forms.

Opening up Kindle for PC in a maximised window on Windows 11

One irritation with the Windows app for Amazon Kindle is that it does not open in a maximised window, and it scarcely remembers your size settings from session to session. Finding a solution to this sizing issue is no easy task, so I happened on one of my own that I previously used with File Explorer folder shortcuts.

The first step is to find the actual location of the Start Menu shortcut. Trying C:\Users\[User Name]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Amazon\Amazon Kindle should do that.

Next, right-click on the Kindle icon and choose Properties from the context menu that appears. In the dialogue box that causes to appear on the screen, look for the “Run:” setting. By default, this appears as “Normal Window” but you can change this to “Maximised”, which is what I did before clicking on Apply before doing the same for the OK button to dismiss the dialogue box.

If you have pinned the shortcut to the taskbar or elsewhere, you may need to unpin it and pin it again to carry over the change. After that, I found that the Kindle app opened up in a maximised window as I wanted.

Making the LanguageTool embedded HTTP Server work on Windows 11

My choice of Markdown editor is VS Code or VSCodium, the latter being a fork of the former with Microsoft telemetry removed. In either case, I use the LanguageTool Linter extension for the required grammar and spelling checks. Pointing that to the remote web service offered by LanguageTool could get punitive, even if I am a subscriber. Thus, I use a locally installed equivalent instead.

In my usual Linux system, that is how I work. However, I have replicated the set-up on a Windows laptop for added flexibility. The needed the JRE, so that was downloaded from the Oracle website and then installed. The next step is to download the LanguageTool embedded HTTP Server zip file and decompress it to a chosen location. To run the server, the command like the following is issued from the Windows Terminal (the single line may break over two here):

java -cp "[Chosen Location]\LanguageTool-stable\LanguageTool-6.4\languagetool-server.jar" org.languagetool.server.HTTPServer --port 8081 --allow-origin

That is enough to get things going because it fulfils the default settings of the LanguageTool Linter extension in VS Code or VSCodium. The fastText application is unavailable for Windows, so I did without it. So far, things are operating acceptably, even if there is a way to address more memory should that be required.

Getting Adobe Lightroom Classic to remember the search filters that you have set

With Windows 10 support to end in October 2025 and VirtualBox now offering full support for Windows 11, I have moved onto Windows 11 for personal use while retaining Windows 10 for professional work, at least for now. Of course, a lot could happen before 2025 with rumours of a new Windows version, the moniker Windows 12 has been mooted, but all that is speculation for now.

As part of the changeover, I moved the Adobe apps that I have in an ongoing subscription, Lightroom Classic and Photoshop are the main ones for me, to the new virtual machine. That meant that some settings from the previous one were lost and needed reinstating.

One of those was the persistence of Library Filters, so I had to find out how to get that sorted. If my memory is not fooling me, this seemed to be a default action in the past and that meant that I was surprised by the change in behaviour.

Nevertheless, I had to go to the File menu, select Library Filters (it is near the bottom of the menu in the current version at the time of writing) and switch on Lock Filters by clicking on it to get a tick mark preceding the text. There is another setting called Remember Each Source’s Filters Separately in the same place that can be set in the same manner if so desired, and I am experimenting with that at the moment, even though I have not bothered with this in the past.

Getting a Windows 11 Guest to run smoothly on VirtualBox

In recent days, I have been trying to get Windows 11 to run smoothly within a VirtualBox virtual machine, and there has been a lot of experimentation along the way. This was to eradicate intermittent freezes that escalated CPU usage and necessitated hard restarts. If I was to use Windows 11 as a long-term replacement for Windows 10, these needed to go.

An internet search showed that others faced the same predicament but a range of proposed solutions did nothing for me. The suggestion of enabling 3D graphics capability did nothing but produce a black screen at startup time so that was not a runner. It might have been the combination of underlying graphics hardware and the drivers on my Linux Mint machine that hindered me when it helped others.

In the end, a look at the bug tracker for Windows guest operating systems running on VirtualBox sent me in another direction. The Paravirtualisation interface also may have caused issues with Windows 10 virtual machines since these were all set to KVM. Doing the same for Windows 11 seems to have stopped the freezing behaviour so far. It meant going to the virtual machine settings, navigating to System > Acceleration and changing the dropdown menu value from Default to KVM before clicking on the OK button.

Before that, I have been blaming the newness of VirtualBox 7 (it is best not to expect too much of a fresh release bringing such major changes) and even the way that I installed Windows 11 using the streamlined installation or licensing issues. Now that things are going better, it may have been a lesson from Windows 10 that I had forgotten. The EFI, Secure Boot and TPM 2.0 requirements of Windows 11 also blindsided me, especially given the long wait for VirtualBox to add such compatibility, but that is behind me at this stage.

Windows 11 is not perfect but Start11 makes it usable and the October 2025 expiry for Windows 10 also focuses my mind. It is time to move over for sake of future-proofing if nothing else. In time, we may get a better operating system as Windows 11 matures and some minds surely are thinking of a “Windows 12”. However things go, it may be that we get to a point where something vintage in the nature of Windows XP, Windows 7 or Windows 10 appears. Those older versions of Windows became like old gold during their lives.

Lessons learned on managing Windows Taskbar and Start Menu colouring in VirtualBox virtual machines

In the last few weeks, I have had a few occasions when the colouration of the Windows 10 taskbar and its Star Menu has departed from my expectations. At times, this happened in VirtualBox virtual machine installations and both the legacy 5.2.x versions and the current 6.x ones have thrown up issues.

The first one actually happened with a Windows 10 installation in VirtualBox 5.2.x when the taskbar changed colour to light grey and there was no way to get it to pick up the colour of the desktop image to become blue instead. The solution was to change the Windows from Light to Dark in order for the desired colouration to be applied and the settings above are taken from the screen that appears on going to Settings > Personalisation > Colours.

The second issue appeared in Windows 10 Professional installation in VirtualBox 6.0.x when the taskbar and Start Menu turned transparent after an updated. This virtual machine is used to see what is coming in the slow ring of Windows Insider so some rough edges could be expected. The solution here was to turn off 3D acceleration in the Display pane of the VM settings after shutting it down. Starting it again showed that all was back as expected.

Both resolutions took a share of time to find and there was a deal of experimentation needed too. Once identified, they addressed the issues as desired so I am recording here for use by others as much as future reference for myself.

Quickly changing between virtual desktops in Windows 10

One of the benefits of running Linux is the availability of virtual desktops and installing VirtuaWin was the only way to get the same functionality in Windows before the launch of Windows 10. For reasons known to Microsoft, they decided against the same sort of implementation as seen in Linux or UNIX. Instead, they put the virtual desktop functionality a click away and rather hides it from most users unless they know what clicking on the Task View button allows. The approach also made switching between desktops slower with a mouse. However, there are keyboard shortcuts that addresses this once multiple virtual desktops exist.

Using WIN+CTRL+LEFT or WIN+CTRL+RIGHT does this easily once you have mastered the action. Depending on your keyboard setup, WIN is the Windows, Super or Command key while CTRL is the Control key. Then, LEFT is the left arrow key and RIGHT is the right arrow key. For machines with smaller screens where multi-tasking causes clutter, virtual desktops are a godsend for organising how you work and having quick key combinations for switching between them adds to their utility.

Using PowerShell to reinstall Windows Apps

Recently, I managed to use 10AppsManager to remove most of the in-built apps from a Windows 10 virtual machine that I have for testing development versions in case anything ugly were to appear in a production update. Curiosity is my excuse for letting the tool do what it did and some could do with restoration. Out of the lot, Windows Store is the main one that I have sorted so far.

The first step of the process was to start up PowerShell in administrator mode. On my system, this is as simple as clicking on the relevant item in the menu popped up by right clicking on the Start Menu button and clicking on the Yes button in the dialogue box that appears afterwards. In your case, it might be a case of right clicking on the appropriate Start Menu programs entry, selecting the administrator option and going from there.

With this PowerShell session open, the first command to issue is the following:

Get-Appxpackage -Allusers > c:\temp\appxpackage.txt

This creates a listing of Windows app information and pops it into a text file in your choice of directory. Opening the text file in Notepad allows you to search it more easily and there is an entry for Windows Store:

Name                   : Microsoft.WindowsStore
Publisher              : CN=Microsoft Corporation, O=Microsoft Corporation, L=Redmond, S=Washington, C=US
Architecture           : X64
ResourceId             :
Version                : 11607.1001.32.0
PackageFullName        : Microsoft.WindowsStore_11607.1001.32.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
InstallLocation        : C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\Microsoft.WindowsStore_11607.1001.32.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
IsFramework            : False
PackageFamilyName      : Microsoft.WindowsStore_8wekyb3d8bbwe
PublisherId            : 8wekyb3d8bbwe
PackageUserInformation : {S-1-5-21-3224249330-198124288-2558179248-1001
IsResourcePackage      : False
IsBundle               : False
IsDevelopmentMode      : False
Dependencies           : {Microsoft.VCLibs.140.00_14.0.24123.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe,
Microsoft.NET.Native.Framework.1.3_1.3.24201.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe,
Microsoft.NET.Native.Runtime.1.3_1.3.23901.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe,
Microsoft.WindowsStore_11607.1001.32.0_neutral_split.scale-100_8wekyb3d8bbwe}

Using the information from the InstallLocation field, the following command can be built and executed (here, it has gone over several lines so you need to get your version onto a single one):

Add-AppxPackage -register “C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\Microsoft.WindowsStore_11607.1001.32.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe\AppxManifest.xml” -DisableDevelopmentMode

Once the above has completed, the app was installed and ready to use again. As the mood took me, I installed other apps from the Windows Store as I saw fit.

Forcing an upgrade to Windows 10 Anniversary Update

There remain people who advise those on Windows 7 or 8.x to hold fire on upgrading to Windows 10. Now that the free upgrade no longer is available, that advice may hold more weight than it did. Even so, there are those among us who jumped ship who do not mind having the latest versions of things at no monetary cost to see what is available and I must admit to being one of those.

After all, I do have a virtual machine with a pre-release version of the next update to Windows 10 installed on there to see what might be coming our way and to get a sense of what changes that may bring so that I am ready for those. Otherwise, I usually am happy to wait but I noticed that the Windows 10 Anniversary Update only came to my HP Pavilion dm4 laptop and not other machines with Windows 10 installed so I started to wonder why there was a lag when it came to automatic upgrades.

So that these things do not arrive when it is least convenient, I took advantage of a manual method in order to choose my timing. This did not involve installation from a disk image but was in-situ. The first part of the process is standard enough in that the Settings app was started and the Update & security item chosen. That dropped me onto the Windows Update and I first clicked on the Check for updates button to see what would happen. When nothing came of that, the Learn more link was clicked to bring me onto part of the Microsoft support website where I found that the Windows 10 Anniversary Update installer could be downloaded so I duly did just that.

Running it produced a screen asking whether or not I wanted to proceed. Since I wanted to go ahead, the appropriate button was clicked and the machine left alone until the process complete. Because the installer purely is a facilitator, the first stage is to download the rest of the files needed and that will take a while on any connection. Once downloading was completed, the actual process of installation commenced with several restarts before a log-in screen was again on offer. On logging in to the machine, the last part of the process started.

The process took quite a while but seemingly worked without a hitch. If there was anything that I needed to do, it was the re-installation of VirtualBox Guest Additions to restore access to shared folders as well as dealing with a self-inflicted irritation. Otherwise, I have found that previously installed software worked as expected and no file has been missed. Waiting a while may have had its advantages too because initial issues with the Anniversary Update will have been addressed but it is best not to leave it too long or you could have the feeling of being forgotten. A happy balance needs striking.

Killing Windows processes from the command line

During my days at work, I often hear about the need to restart a server because something has gone awry with it. This makes me wonder if you can kill processes from the command line like you do in Linux and UNIX. A recent need to reset Windows Update on a Windows 10 machine gave me enough reason to answer the question.

Because I already knew the names of the services, I had no need to look at the Services tab in the Task Manager like you otherwise would. Then, it was a matter of opening up a command line session with Administrator privileges and issuing a command like the following (replacing [service name] with the name of the service):

sc queryex [service name]

From the output of the above command, you can find the process identifier, or PID. With that information, you can execute a command like the following in the same command line session (replacing [PID] with the actual numeric value of the PID):

taskkill /f /pid [PID]

After the above, the process no longer exists and the service can be restarted. With any system, you need to find the service that is stuck in order to kill it but that would be the subject of another posting. What I have not got to testing is whether these work in PowerShell since I used them with the legacy command line instead. Along with processes belonging to software applications (think Word, Excel, Firefox, etc.), that may be something else to try should the occasion arise.