Can’t Connect to Remote Computer but previously is okay

If you are able to connect to your remote windows machine but out of a sudden you fail to connect to the remote machine, this is post is the solution for you. However if it has never been working all the while, you should google it and it probably due to the firewall configurations.

Basically what you want to do is to remote restart your windows machine. That’s it. This is the fastest way to solve this problem assuming it did work previously. Somehow I have experienced this few times myself and I have no idea what causes the failure.

To Remotely Restart Your Windows Machine, you need to open your command prompt and perform the following commands:

shutdown /r /f /m \\my-remote-host

* /r is to shutdown and restart your PC. Without /r it is shutdown and you will never ever to wake him up again “remotely”.

* /f is to force to close any running applications. I’m not sure without this, it will be shutdown or restart probably. At first I tried without /f and it doesn’t work. So, I’m using to force to close any running application.

* /s m is to specify your windows host or you can put in the IP address (e.g. //123.123.12.34). Remember to put the “\\”.

* For more help just type “shutdown /?” in your command prompt.

Of course the drawback of this is you will lose any work in progress data in your remote windows machine. If you know exactly what causing remote desktop doesn’t work, you can try use “tasklist” and “taskkill” command to remote kill any process in the remote machine.

Example of the usage:

• tasklist /s my-remote-host
• taskkill /s my-remote-host /im outlook.exe

Perhaps outlook.exe causing this? I have no idea...

Using Google as World Time Clock

Accidentally find out that we can actually use Google search engine as World Time Clocks by using the following search query:

• Current Time "location"

For example to check time in Malaysia:

You can also check current time in more specific location. For example to check time in San Jose:

For example to check time in Maynooth, Dublin (This is where I’m right now :D):

The only thing it won’t work is I put in multiple locations. You don't see the displayed clock. For example:

So I guess this is fastest time to check world time clock assuming you have the internet access. :D

How to delete an undeletable file in Windows?

As you might have already faced this issue many times, somehow Windows (XP or Vista) always has a problem to delete files or folders occasionally. What is wrong with Windows? I have no idea… It shouldn’t happen if we have close all the programs but somehow it doesn’t work.

Here are the few versions of our friend:

• Cannot delete file: Access is denied
• Cannot delete folder: There has been a sharing violation
• Cannot delete file: It is being used by another person or program
• Cannot delete folder: Make sure the disk is not full or write-protected and that the file is not currently in use.

So what we normally do is to “restart” our PC and delete the file or folder after restart but it is not efficient. So you may want to try the following method to delete the locked files or folders by Windows:

(1) Close all open programs

(2) Open a Command Prompt window and leave it open.

• Start->Programs->Accessories->Command Prompt

(3) Kill the Windows Explorer (i.e. explorer.exe)

• Select “Shut Down..” from the Start menu.
• Hold CLTR+SHIFT+ALT and press the CANCEL button.
• Go back to the Command Prompt Window and CD to the directory where you want to delete your files or folders (i.e. del /f, rd /s)

(4) Run again the Windows Explorer (i.e. Explorer.exe)

• Press CTRL+SHIFT+ESC to run the Task Manager
• Click File->New Task(Run…)
• Type Explorer Open text box and click OK.
• Close the Task Manager

Does it work? I hope so…