How to find your processor architecture is x64 or IA64

Today we had a situation in office that a COM component for zip compression is not working in 64 bit server machines. It was working fine in desktop machines .Most of the desktops have 32 bit OS and some are 64bit. When we looked into the issue little deeper, we could see that there are different COM for different processors. In 32bit we need to register one com library file which is not same in 64bit machine. 64 bit file is suffixed with the '64' word. The 64 bit desktops are working fine then why the 64 bit servers are not working.

Little more google brought one more file for 64 bit machine which is nothing but the com lib file suffixed with IA64. Then the direction of work turned to find out the version of processor architecture of server machines. We opened the properties of 'Computer' from start menu,DxDiag etc...But no luck. Finally a google gives the name of the environmental variable "%PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE%". Yes it works.

echo  %PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE% 

Executing the above command in command prompt gives us the processor architecture of current machine. Still confusing what is x64 and IA64 ? Just google to get links like this or read wikipedia articles.

X86:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86

X64: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X64

IA64: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IA64

If you are interested more on environmental variables see this link.

Setting password for bsnl modem WA3002G4

I was not considered about my wireless network security at home till yesterday because my house is situated in a village and no nearby houses in which the wireless network reaches.But yesterday I could see one of my neighbor boy having a mobile with WiFi connectivity and he asked my permission to connect through my wireless network. It was a shocking moment for me that there are so many with these types of mobiles in our area.But on the other hand I am proud that my village is also growing with the technology world.

So decided to put the security in my bsnl wireless modem model WA3002G4.It was tough first time.There is no direct password mechanism. At last after a fine google I got the below link from bsnl which explains each steps with screen shots.Thanks to bsnl…

http://www.chennai.bsnl.co.in/BBS/WA3002G4.htm

NB: I had to restart my WiFi router as well as computer to get into the security enabled WiFi network.

Hard disk partitioning in Win 7

My requirement was very simple which I used to get very easily using Partition Magic in Win 98 and XP.But now it is Windows 7 which contains a bunch of tools to help us to get rid of third parties.

Coming to my requirement.I have a 80GB HDD in my desktop where I had partitioned 10GB –C:,10GB-d:,10GB-E: and remaining in F: drive. C: for windows ,d: for program installation , e: for learning materials and my projects and finally F: for entertainment.This worked well with previous Win98 and XP.But when I came into Win7 the windows installation itself took around 9GB in c: hence the system started crying after few days.So decided to free up some space in f: by deleting some movies and and give that space to c:.

Simple.Isn’t it.I started with the Disk Management tool in Win 7 but soon realized that my requirement will not be served using that tool.The tool is nice .We can create ,delete and shrink partitions.But can’t move a partition.In other words we can’t do without data loss.We can increase size of the drive if there is vacant space nearby.

As usual started googling and saw some tools are not up to date with Win 7 and some are again paid.After spending some more time I got the below tool which is free and allows me to move data as well as manage partitions.

http://www.partition-tool.com/easeus-partition-manager/

I would say this is Win 7 disk management + partition mover.

Vista and DVD drive

Today I got an serious issue with DVD drive in my Vista laptop.The problem is the drive is not detecting the data which is written using it.It says "Prepare this blank disk" if we put the written disc.I tried putting the disc in other machines and its working.The real joke is the DVD was just being written by same DVD drive.

After a google I found the solution.We need to uninstall and install the dvd drive from device manager.Links are given below.

 

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/729655.html
http://www.vistax64.com/general-discussion/157820-help-please-dvd-rw-thinks-every-disc-needs-formatted.html

Hats off vista...