Category Archives: Tips & Tricks

Advice, tips and Information.

Tips & Tricks

Epson XP-3200 new printer problem

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After trying to set-up a new Epson Expression Home printer for a client and failing to get any usable printouts from the control panel I then connected directly by USB to a Windows 11 machine. Using the downloadable configuration tool the black prints became dense enough to read. After a couple of nozzle cleans and a head clean the black improved slightly more but the nozzle check report showed the colours were still full of gaps. The Epson support line advised me to then carry out multiple head cleans & nozzle checks in succession. My client intervened and started the return process. I cannot remember ever having this amount of set-up difficulty with a new printer to get to the output of printed sheets. Printer drivers and connectivity would not be such an issue as this involves so many combinations of products.

Epson Expression Home XP-3200
Tips & Tricks Utility Software Windows Commands

Using OpenSSH and SSH on Windows

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Secure Shell software allowing connections between clients and servers for remote administration.

Related Powershell Commands:
Check the installation status
Get-WindowsCapability -Online | Where-Object Name -like 'OpenSSH*'

Start the service
Start-Service sshd

Change the service startup behaviour
Set-Service -Name sshd -StartupType 'Automatic'

Add/Install the service
Add-WindowsCapability -Online -Name OpenSSH.Server~~~~0.0.1.0
Local Tunneling allows a port on your local client machine to act as a port on the remote server.
Jump to remote tunnel at 7m 43 secs
Useful Commands to show the logged in user account etc:

tasklist /s <pcname> /fi "imagename eq explorer.exe" /v

wmic /node: <pcname> computersystem get username

wmic /node: <pcname> computersystem get manufacturer, model, username

Or locally:
wmic computersystem get manufacturer, model, username

Change the Network Hostname (Requires Admin account)
Using CMD
wmic computersystem where name="%COMPUTERNAME%" rename "NewName"

Use Powershell and CMD to switch between sessions on either command line  

Using Powershell
Rename-Computer "NewName" -Restart
Tips & Tricks Windows Commands

Windows cURL on the command line

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Command line and scripting tool for transferring data with URLs see the website Curl.se

curl -L -A "Mozilla" http://website.com

This follows re-directs and uses a dummy header to anticipate 406 Not Acceptable errors then returns the page content, you can use a full header string to represent other browsers

This YouTube video is presented by the cURL creator

Tips & Tricks

Clearing & formatting a drive from the command line using Diskpart

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Run diskpart from the Commmand prompt – Run CMD from the Start Menu or Run dialogue box using WinKey + R to get to the command prompt

Then use the commands below in sequence within the diskpart interface

list disk

select disk [#] (adding the reference number from the list command above)

clean (permanent delete content)

create partition primary

format fs=ntfs

assign (gives a drive letter – unspecified)

exit to leave diskpart

Tips & Tricks

Managing Windows Device Drivers with Powershell

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Exporting the third party device drivers from your running windows installation.

Export-WindowsDriver -online -Destination D:\path\folder

Exporting the third party device drivers from a windows image 

Export-WindowsDriver -Path E:\ -Destination D:\path\folder

See Microsoft documentation

Add all device drivers from folder tree to a windows image

Add-WindowsDriver -Path "E:\offline" -Driver "D:\drivers" -Recurse

Add an unsigned device driver to a windows image

Add-WindowsDriver -Path "E:\offline" -Driver "D:\driver.inf" -ForceUnsigned

See Microsoft documentation