Change Test 1.0.0.0

Change Test is for testing that the Windows filesystem change notification API (ReadDirectoryChangesW) is working correctly.

There are other tools for monitoring and recording filesystem events. This is not intended to replace those. The aim is to keep the source code (included) as simple as possible and just report the raw details of what the API says is happening.

Full detail on the main site:

https://www.pretentiousname.com/miscsoft/index.html#ChangeTest

ConnectOpenVPN 1.0.0.1

ConnectOpenVPN is a new tool, similar to my older ConnectVPN but this time for the OpenVPN client rather than the VPN client built in to Windows.

This small command-line tool acts as a wrapper around openvpn-gui.exe to help you run it from scripts. It can test whether the connection already exists or not, and can be asked to connect (or disconnect) and wait for the connection to succeed, then return a success or failure code.

See here for full details, download and C++ source code: ConnectOpenVPN

ConnectVPN 1.0.0.2c

ConnectVPN.exe and ConnectVPN-UI.exe now have 64-bit counterparts, ConnectVPN-x64.exe and ConnectVPN-UI-x64.exe.

If you are using the old 32-bit binaries on a 64-bit version of Windows 10 1809 or above then you will want to switch to the new 64-bit binaries.

Windows 10 1809 introduced a bug in the operating system where if a 32-bit program creates a VPN connection, and that VPN is a "split tunnel" (i.e. not set to "use as the default gateway"), then all of your internet-bound traffic becomes unroutable while the VPN is connected.

(Absolutely outstanding development work and QA by Microsoft and the Windows team, as we've come to expect lately. Not!)

More information, download and source code

RestartViaManager 1.0.0.2

RestartViaManager is a small tool which can ask programs to restart themselves via the Restart Manger API in Windows.

It has been updated to allow you to specify a PID (process ID) to restart as an alternative to specifying the exe path.

More information, download and source code

Clear Icon Cache 1.1.0.0

Clear Icon Cache is a small tool for fixing problems with missing or incorrect icons shown on the desktop, taskbar, and so on caused by Windows incorrectly caching icons.

It has been updated to find the new icon cache location used by Windows 8 and Windows 10. It now also deletes the localised shell thumbnail cache.

More information, download and source code

New tool: RestartViaManager

RestartViaManager is a new command line tool for restarting processes via the Restart Manager API in Windows.

For this to work, the program you are restarting must have opted in to the Restart Manager. Most programs do not do this, but some of the more important ones do.

Using this is better than killing the process and re-running it:

• Killing a process when you do not need to is a bad idea because it may be in the middle of writing data which is then corrupted.
• The program you want to restart may do a better job of restoring its previous state (open windows, documents, etc.) than if you simply re-launched it normally. (Of course, this is up to the program, so it may not.)

Download, C++ source code and usage instructions can be found under Miscellaneous Software: RestartViaManager.

PDF thumbnail fix - What's happening?

If you're wondering what happened to the PDF fix updates, life and sick pets got in the way, as did the new Adobe Reader release which breaks things even worse than before and will require a lot more work to fix.

I still plan to create a new version, but the plans I had a year ago were scuppered and something bigger is required now.