Windows Tips

Run apps in Admin Mode

- Press `Win` key to open taskbar search
- Type in app name, ex, `CMD`
- To open the highlighted app in ADMINISTRATOR Mode,
  -> Press: `<ctrl>`+`<shift>`+`<enter>`

Note: If you don't want see the UAC prompt all the time,
- Type `UAC` in taskbar search
- Open `Change User Account Settings`
  -> Lower the setting to `Never Notify`

Run BAT files with Admin Privileges

At the top your bat file, add the following:

set "params=%*"
cd /d "%~dp0" && ( if exist "%temp%\getadmin.vbs" del "%temp%\getadmin.vbs" ) && fsutil dirty query %systemdrive% 1>nul 2>nul || (  echo Set UAC = CreateObject^("Shell.Application"^) : UAC.ShellExecute "cmd.exe", "/k cd ""%~sdp0"" && %~s0 %params%", "", "runas", 1 >> "%temp%\getadmin.vbs" && "%temp%\getadmin.vbs" && exit /B )

It will elevate to admin and also stay in the correct directory. If you want to kill the prompt after execution, you can add exit at the end of your bat file. Source

Store Powershell output

There might be times where you want to run a powershell command, and store it's output to be used in another script. You can use the Out-File parameter to store the output in a text file. For example, to store whether BIOS Virtualization is enabled or disabled in a system

Get-ComputerInfo -property "HyperVRequirementVirtualizationFirmwareEnabled" | Out-File -FilePath $HOME\virtualization.txt
# <powershell command> | Out-File -FilePath <FilePath>

The command out will be saved in the filepath mentioned (here: C:\users<username>\virtualization.txt as $HOME is expanded automatically)

Disabling Cursor Blink

In apps such as command promt, inside which you can open programs such as nvim, you will see a blinking cursor. If you are like me, you don't really want the cursor to blink, it is visible on it's own. To disable cursor blink,

Go to Run prompt (Win+R)
Paste this in the prompt:
```
control main.cpl keyboard
```
Press Enter/Ok to open the Keyboard Properties Dialogbox
Set cursor blink rate to None in the slider
Select Ok and the cursor will stop blinking.

Note: In gVim, you can disable cursor blinking via adding the following in your .vimrc

set guicursor=a:blinkwait0      " remove cursor blinking

Enable/Disable BlueTooth using Command Line

If you are like me and live inside the terminal, your taskbar will always be hidden. It is therefore a pain when you have to enabe/disable bluetooth. For that, you can use this powershell script below:

[CmdletBinding()] Param (
    [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)][ValidateSet('Off', 'On')][string]$BluetoothStatus
)
If ((Get-Service bthserv).Status -eq 'Stopped') { Start-Service bthserv }
Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Runtime.WindowsRuntime
$asTaskGeneric = ([System.WindowsRuntimeSystemExtensions].GetMethods() | ? { $_.Name -eq 'AsTask' -and $_.GetParameters().Count -eq 1 -and $_.GetParameters()[0].ParameterType.Name -eq 'IAsyncOperation`1' })[0]
Function Await($WinRtTask, $ResultType) {
    $asTask = $asTaskGeneric.MakeGenericMethod($ResultType)
    $netTask = $asTask.Invoke($null, @($WinRtTask))
    $netTask.Wait(-1) | Out-Null
    $netTask.Result
}
[Windows.Devices.Radios.Radio,Windows.System.Devices,ContentType=WindowsRuntime] | Out-Null
[Windows.Devices.Radios.RadioAccessStatus,Windows.System.Devices,ContentType=WindowsRuntime] | Out-Null
Await ([Windows.Devices.Radios.Radio]::RequestAccessAsync()) ([Windows.Devices.Radios.RadioAccessStatus]) | Out-Null
$radios = Await ([Windows.Devices.Radios.Radio]::GetRadiosAsync()) ([System.Collections.Generic.IReadOnlyList[Windows.Devices.Radios.Radio]])
$bluetooth = $radios | ? { $_.Kind -eq 'Bluetooth' }
[Windows.Devices.Radios.RadioState,Windows.System.Devices,ContentType=WindowsRuntime] | Out-Null
Await ($bluetooth.SetStateAsync($BluetoothStatus)) ([Windows.Devices.Radios.RadioAccessStatus]) | Out-Null

Store this file as bl.ps1

Now, you can call it from within powershell or command prompt. To enable Bluetooth

.\bl.ps1 -BluetoothStatus On

To disable Bluetooth

.\bl.ps1 -BluetoothStatus Off

To simplify the process even further, you can store the path of this file in path so you can access it from anywhere. Moreover, you can create batch scripts for both the scenarios, and add these batch scripts to path as well.

powershell -command bl.ps1 -BluetoothStatus On

powershell -command bl.ps1 -BluetoothStatus Off

Change PowerShell Theme to Dracula

Note: Run all the commands in an elevated session of PowerShell (i.e. Admin mode)

First, we need the PowerShellGet utility

Install-Module -Name PowerShellGet -Force

Open new instance of PowerShell to get the -AllowPrerelease flag:
```
Install-Module -Name posh-git -AllowPrerelease -Force
```
Open new instance of PowerShell to install the PSReadLine latest release:
```
Install-Module PSReadLine -AllowPrerelease -Force
```
Download and Extract ColorTool
Change Directory to the extracted path
```
cd path\to\colortool\extracted\utility
```
Run the installation script
```
.\install.cmd
```

Open your PowerShell profile and add the following to it

# Dracula readline configuration. Requires version 2.0, if you have 1.2 convert to `Set-PSReadlineOption -TokenType`
Set-PSReadlineOption -Color @{
"Command" = [ConsoleColor]::Green
"Parameter" = [ConsoleColor]::Gray
"Operator" = [ConsoleColor]::Magenta
"Variable" = [ConsoleColor]::White
"String" = [ConsoleColor]::Yellow
"Number" = [ConsoleColor]::Blue
"Type" = [ConsoleColor]::Cyan
"Comment" = [ConsoleColor]::DarkCyan
}
# Dracula Prompt Configuration
Import-Module posh-git
$GitPromptSettings.DefaultPromptPrefix.Text = "$([char]0x2192) " # arrow unicode symbol
$GitPromptSettings.DefaultPromptPrefix.ForegroundColor = [ConsoleColor]::Green
$GitPromptSettings.DefaultPromptPath.ForegroundColor =[ConsoleColor]::Cyan
$GitPromptSettings.DefaultPromptSuffix.Text = "$([char]0x203A) " # chevron unicode symbol
$GitPromptSettings.DefaultPromptSuffix.ForegroundColor = [ConsoleColor]::Magenta
# Dracula Git Status Configuration
$GitPromptSettings.BeforeStatus.ForegroundColor = [ConsoleColor]::Blue
$GitPromptSettings.BranchColor.ForegroundColor = [ConsoleColor]::Blue
$GitPromptSettings.AfterStatus.ForegroundColor = [ConsoleColor]::Blue

All subsequent PowerShell sessions will have the dracula theme applied to them

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