SQL Developer UAC Weirdness

I am running Windows 8 with Classic Shell's start menu. Today I installed the new Oracle 12 client on my workstation, along with SQL Developer. I then attempted to start SQL Developer from the shortcuts in my Classic Shell start menu, but doing so always elicited a Windows UAC prompt.  I tried a few things, but the simplest solution ended up being to navigate to the directory of sqldeveloper.exe and create a shortcut to it right there in the same directory.  Then copy this shortcut to the Start Menu.  Result, no more UAC prompt when selecting it from the Start Menu.

Windows 2000 reporting incorrect drive capacity

At work I restored a disk image I had saved from a previous Windows 2000 install onto a Dell Optiplex GX260.  Except I saved the image from a 20GB drive, and restored it onto a 40GB drive.  (Disk images saved and restored using Partimage.)  After I restored the image, Windows showed the C: drive as having a capacity of 20GB, but I knew it was more than that.  Here's what I tried:

1. Ran chkdsk C: /f  which needs to be done after a restart.  No change.


2. Updated the BIOS, and checked the drive capacity there.  It reported the drive capacity correctly.  No joy.


3. Opened a recovery console using the Windows 2000 install CD and ran fixmbr.  But even when the drive capacity was correct in the MBR, still Windows reported it as only a 20Gb drive...


4. Ran GParted off System Rescue CD 1.1.4.  The partition showed as the correct size there.  However, I noticed GParted had a "Check and repair" option, which I ran on the primary partition.  This finally did the trick!

Windows 2000 Server Display Problems

When I uninstalled PCanywhere from our Windows 2000 Server (Dell Poweredge 2600 Tower) at work, my display adapter stopped working (i.e. I could only display in 16 colors and at limited resolution).

My first attempt at troubleshooting was to buy a PCI video, card and install it, but that still didn't work. Whether it was the onboard video, or the new video card, it kept giving me "Code 31" errors when I clicked the device properties in the device manager.

I kept hunting around on the web, and this is what finally led me to a solution:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/270008

Even though this link is about CD-ROM devices, the problem was the same for me and my display adapter trouble. In the registry key [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlClass{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}] there was an entry called "UpperFilters" that was set to "aw_host." It turns out this was left over from PCanywhere (found that out by Googling "aw_host.") I deleted that registry entry, and now my video works again! (high color, higher resolution display settings work now.)

I haven't tried the regular on-board video, but it probably still works too.