Removal Process

Press the WIN + R or right-click on the Start button and click “Run” to get a Run prompt.

Copy and paste the following into the Run prompt and click OK.

reg add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\NewStartPanel" /v "{2cc5ca98-6485-489a-920e-b3e88a6ccce3}" /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

A command window will flash for a moment while the command executes, and then you may click on your desktop wallpaper and press F5 on your keyboard, or right-click on an empty spot on your desktop wallpaper and click “Refresh”.

Boom! Gone.

Normally, you would send a single-page fax to the HP Fax Test line at 1-888-HPFAXME (1-888-473-2963) and about 5 to 10 minutes later you receive a fax back from HP, confirming that end-to-end fax communication is working correctly.

However, it seems the fax-back part of the service is defunct, at least for now. You can still send a fax and it will be accepted, but sadly no fax is ever sent back. This makes it useless as an end-to-end test.

Thankfully, you may still use Canon’s Fax Test line and it works just fine (last tested on December 17, 2024). Send a single-page fax to the Canon Fax Test line at 1-855-FXCANON (1-855-392-2666) and within a minute or two you will receive a fax back to verify the end-to-end communication. I would recommend that you add this fax number to the machine’s address book for future use.

Another alternative that isn’t quite as simple is from T38Fax.com (last tested on December 19, 2024). You start by visiting their ECM (Error Correction Mode) self-test page, enter your info, and a fax arrives within a couple minutes. Then you turn around and send that printed fax to the number on the page and after a few more minutes they will send an email letting you know whether the ECM feature is working on your fax machine. So it is an end-to-end test but not quite as quick, starts at the far end first, and requires you to enter a valid email address (use a temporary email address if this concerns you).

Hopefully this has helped you in some way. Happy faxing!

As I find more extremely useful applications I’ll add them here, so you may want to bookmark this page for future reference.

Updated: August 21, 2024

Web Development

• PhpStorm: https://www.jetbrains.com/phpstorm/ (Paid)
  Enjoy productive PHP and web development with PhpStorm. Deep code understanding, coding assistance, and support for all major tools and frameworks.
• VirtualBox: https://www.virtualbox.org/ (Free)
  Powerful virtualization product for enterprise as well as home use. Easy to use and religiously updated. Create virtual machines quickly to install and run multiple Windows, Linux, Mac operating systems.
• Vagrant: https://www.vagrantup.com/ (Free)
  Use with VirtualBox and Laravel Homestead to create and configure lightweight, reproducible, and portable development environments.
• XAMPP: http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html (Free)
  XAMPP is an easy to install Apache distribution containing MySQL, PHP and Perl. Quickly setup an local environment for developing web applications.

IT Management/Utilities

• Sysinternals Suite: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/sysinternals-suite (Free)
  An amazing set of local/remote administration, monitoring, and troubleshooting tools. An absolute must have for IT Managers.
• PowerRun: https://www.sordum.org/9416/ (Free)
  Run applications or execute scripts as the SYSTEM user or the even higher-privileged TrustedInstaller user to work around file or registry permissions issues.
• TreeSize Free: https://www.jam-software.com/treesize_free/ (Free)
  Great utility that shows disk usage and in a way that is visually informative. Paid version is required for Windows Server editions.
• WizTree: https://diskanalyzer.com/ (Free)
  Very fast disk space analyzer with a visual representation of the files.
• Hasleo WinToHDD: https://www.easyuefi.com/wintohdd/ (Free/Paid)
  Handy program that installs, unattended, Windows directly on to a separately connected drive so that afterwards you can remove it, install it in another PC, and boot into a fresh Windows installation. Paid version is required when working with professional and server operating systems.
• Hasleo EasyUEFI: https://www.easyuefi.com/index-us.html (Paid)
  Unique utility that allows you to backup, restore, rebuild, delete, explore, read and write EFI System Partition (ESP) or move EFI System Partition (ESP) to another drive. Available as Windows installation or bootable environment.
• Hasleo WinToUSB: https://www.easyuefi.com/wintousb/ (Free/Paid)
  Allows creation of Windows installation USB flash drive with BIOS & UEFI support. Can also be used to create Windows To Go USB drives but I haven’t needed that. Paid version is required when working with professional and server operating systems.
• IObit Unlocker: https://www.iobit.com/en/iobit-unlocker.php (Free)
  Helps you delete locked files. XP Context Tools mentioned later also has a similar feature.
• BackupChain DeleteLongPath: http://backupchain.com/DeleteLongPath.html (Free)
  Helps you delete folders that Windows can’t. In my experience this comes up when trying to clean up roaming profiles and it contains a file with a name that is longer than 260 characters.
• Driver Store Explorer: https://github.com/lostindark/DriverStoreExplorer/releases/latest (Free)
  Makes it easier to deal with Windows driver store – enumeration, staging, and deleting from the driver store.
• XP Context Tools: http://camtech2000.com/Pages/Context_Utilities.htm (Free)
  Adds the very useful “Copy This Path” item to the context menu so you can copy the path to a specific file or folder for use in another application. An older XP utility, but works on Windows 7. For Windows 10 and later, Microsoft added “Copy as Path” as a context menu item when you Shift + Right-click on a file or folder.
• Harddisk Search & Stats: https://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Hard-Disk-Utils/Harddisk-Search-and-Stats.shtml (Free)
  Search for files containing specified content far better than normal Windows search function. Also referred to as HDSearchandStats. Though last updated in 2005 this utility works fine on Windows 7, 10 and 11.
• ImgBurn: http://www.imgburn.com/ (Free)
  Simple program for burning CD/DVDs from files or images and making CD/DVD images from files or existing media.

Remote Management

• FileZilla: http://filezilla-project.org/ (Free)
  The app you need when using FTP/SFTP.
• HeidiSQL: http://www.heidisql.com/ (Free)
  A good MySQL client to create, read, update, and delete databases. Use with PuTTY Plink to access remote MySQL servers via SSH tunneling.
• PuTTY: http://www.puttyssh.org/ (Free)
  Simple SSH/Telnet/Console client. Use PuTTYgen to convert private keys for use with PuTTY.
• TeamViewer: https://www.teamviewer.com/ (Free/Paid)
  Great for remote controlling your home computer, work computer, or helping friends and family with their computer issues.

Drive Cloning, Partitioning & Backup

• Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows Free Edition: https://www.veeam.com/windows-endpoint-server-backup-free.html (Free)
  Simple standalone solution for backing up Windows-based servers, desktops and laptops. Easily back up your computer to an external hard drive or network share and recover what you need in minutes. After the initial backup only changed blocks need to be backed up so nightly backups usually only take a few minutes to complete.
• Macrium Reflect Free: http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx (Free)
  Great disk imaging utility for free; pretty fast as well. Use DiskRestore for restoring full hard drive images as opposed to a single partition image restore.
• Parted Magic: https://www.partedmagic.com (Paid)
  Bootable ISO Linux environment for disk partitioning, cloning, recovery, and erasing.
• AOMEI Backupper: https://www.ubackup.com/ (Free/Paid)
  Windows software installation or bootable environment for disk cloning and imaging. Paid version is required for business and server operating systems.
• AOMEI Partition Assistant: https://www.diskpart.com/ (Free/Paid)
  Windows software installation or bootable environment for resizing, moving, and merging disk partitions. Paid version is required for business and server operating systems.

File Editing

• Bulk Rename Utility: http://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/ (Free)
  Time-saving utility with tons of options for renaming large quantities of files.
• Beyond Compare: http://www.scootersoftware.com (Paid)
  Compare text, folders and files with power and ease. Mirror one location to another, etc.
• EditPad Pro: http://www.editpadpro.com/ (Paid)
  Best notepad-type application for text editing and manipulation. I like to use it for its regular expression search & replace, sorting, viewing SQL files. Pair with RegExBuddy for best results.
• RegExBuddy: http://www.regexbuddy.com/ (Paid)
  Wonderful app for creating, deciphering, testing regular expressions. Pair with EditPad Pro for best results.

Version Control

• TortoiseSVN: http://tortoisesvn.net/ (Free)
  Helps you manage your projects using SVN repositories. Great for WordPress plugin developers using Windows.
• TortoiseGit: http://code.google.com/p/tortoisegit/ (Free)
  Helps you manage your projects using Git repositories. Port of TortoiseSVN for Git.  Great for Github users using Windows.

Photo/Video/Audio Editing

• Fast Image Resizer: http://adionsoft.net/fastimageresize/ (Free)
  Though last updated in 2010 it does what it needs to and that’s what matters. Drag-and-drop images to resize to your defined pixel shape. You can also process one or more images by using the Send To menu and it will start resizing instantly using your last settings.
• Handbrake: https://handbrake.fr/ (Free)
  Great video ripper and converter.
• Avidemux: http://avidemux.sourceforge.net/ (Free)
  Simple video editor to cut, filter, and encode projects.
• Total Recorder VideoPro: http://www.highcriteria.com/ (Paid)
  Little known program that can record any sound that comes out of your computer whether its source be software or hardware. Total Recorder can take on any single-track audio editing needs including converting tapes and LP records to MP3s, audio restoration, support for many audio formats, normalization, EQ adjustments, scheduled recordings, and more. The VideoPro edition adds screen recording and video editing features as well.
• MediaInfo: http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/ (Free)
  Gives a massive amount of information about video files such as audio/video bit rates, codec used, video container format, and much more. The HTML view is the easiest for me to read.
• Audacity: https://www.audacityteam.org/ (Free)
  Audio software for multi-track recording and editing. You can also add effects and view audio as a spectrogram.
• Adobe Creative Suite: https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud.html (Paid)
  The defacto standard for creative professionals. Amazing apps for photo/video/PDF editing.

Productivity & Time Saving

• CopyQ: https://hluk.github.io/CopyQ/ (Free)
  Enhances Windows’ clipboard by creating a clip history and more. Simple and it just works. Useful when you keep overwriting that last thing you copied. Though more recently I’ve found the Windows 11 clipboard history (Win + V) to be quite sufficient also.
• File Converter: https://file-converter.io/ (Free)
  Very simple tool which allows you to convert and compress files (i.e. webp→jpg; png→pdf; etc.) using the right-click context menu in Windows File Explorer.
• Microsoft Office: https://products.office.com/ (Paid)
  The defacto standard for office productivity, especially Word & Excel.

Hardware Monitoring & Benchmarking

• HWiNFO: https://www.hwinfo.com/ (Free)
  Comprehensive hardware analysis and monitoring. Great for monitoring CPU and GPU frequencies and temperatures during tests or benchmarks.
• CPDT Benchmark: https://maxim-saplin.github.io/cpdt_results/?about= (Free)
  A portable Cross-Platform Disk Test (CPDT) application used to measure storage performance.
• CrystalDiskMark: http://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskmark/ (Free)
  Disk benchmark software.
• ATTO Disk Benchmark: https://www.atto.com/download/atto-disk-benchmark-windows/ (Free)
  Another disk benchmark software. Shows performance at various I/O data chunk sizes to tell a more complete story.

For the most part we’ll be following the “Manual Installation” section of their documentation and making some adjustments along the way.

Let’s get started, shall we?

UPDATE (3/29/2024): This method still works, tested with BookStack v24.02.2, however make sure you are running PHP 8.0.2 or greater for both web and CLI.

Prerequisites

As of BookStack v0.27.5 (the version this tutorial is based on), we’ll need to meet the following requirements:

• cPanel Login & SSH Access
  • I’ll be using the PuTTY SSH client for this tutorial.
• PHP >= 7.0.5
  • For installation and maintenance, you’ll need to be able to run php from the command line.
  • Required Extensions: OpenSSL, PDO, MBstring, Tokenizer, GD, MySQL, Tidy, SimpleXML & DOM
• MySQL >= 5.6
• Git Version Control
  • For installation you’ll need to be able to run git from the command line.
• Composer
  • For installation you’ll need to be able to run composer from the command line.

Installation

1. Log in to your cPanel account.
2. Use the MySQL Database Wizard to create a database and database user with all privileges to the database you’ve created. Take note of the full database name and user credentials for a later step.
3. SSH into your cPanel server using your login credentials.
4. Make sure you are in your home directory by running cd ~
5. Clone the release branch of the BookStack GitHub repository by running
   git clone https://github.com/BookStackApp/BookStack.git --branch release --single-branch. It will create a BookStack directory for you automatically.
6. Run cd BookStack to get into the application folder and then run composer install. It will take a few minutes to download all of the required packages.
7. Run cp .env.example .env to start your environment configuration file.
8. Run php artisan key:generate and confirm with a “yes” to generate a unique application key. This automatically updates the APP_KEY constant in your .env file.
9. Run nano .env and fill it with your database details from step 2; set the APP_URL to the expected full public-facing URL of your BookStack site; set your mail details; save and exit the editor.
   • Example .env file:

     APP_KEY=base64:ip93b4kVjnVZdDYPdW+leQQHHHPFM2yrqMZGhhn8hfc=
     APP_URL=https://www.howto.casa/bookstack
     DB_HOST=localhost
     DB_DATABASE=howto_bkstack
     DB_USERNAME=howto_bkstack
     DB_PASSWORD=ka$js08h3*2x
     MAIL_DRIVER=mail

10. Run php artisan migrate and confirm with a “yes” to prepare the database.
11. Run chmod u+w ~/BookStack/storage ~/BookStack/bootstrap/cache to ensure these folders are writable by the web server.
12. Ensure you are still in the ~/BookStack directory, then move the contents of the public folder into your ~/public_html directory or a sub-directory underneath if you are adding BookStack to an existing website. In our case we will run mkdir ~/public_html/bookstack and mv public/* public/.htaccess ~/public_html/bookstack to move them to ~/public_html/bookstack for a sub-directory installation.
13. Run chmod u+w ~/public_html/bookstack/uploads to ensure the folder is writable by the web server.
14. Change to your public installation directory, in our case we’ll run cd ~/public_html/bookstack.
15. Run nano .htaccess and add RewriteBase /bookstack/ on a line immediately below RewriteEngine On.
    • Note: If you are not installing into a sub-directory use RewriteBase /.
16. Run nano index.php and make the following changes:
    • On or around line 22 replace require __DIR__.'/../bootstrap/init.php';
      with require realpath($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].'/..').'/BookStack/bootstrap/init.php';.
    • On or around line 36 replace $app = require_once __DIR__.'/../bootstrap/app.php';
      with $app = require_once realpath($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].'/..').'/BookStack/bootstrap/app.php'; and immediately afterwards add the following line:
      $app->bind('path.public', function() { return __DIR__; });
17. Done! You can now navigate to your public-facing BookStack URL and login using the default admin details, admin@admin.com with a password of password. For security reasons, change these details immediately after logging in for the first time.