8thString

OPC Automation IDL, TLB and header files are not easy to find. You can obtain this files from OPC Foundation if you are a member or maybe from OPC application vendor. The IDL file can be reverse engineered using OLE-Com Object Viewer. Once the IDL is generated TLB and other files can be generated from it as well. Below is a general direction how to do this. Steps to reverse generate IDL, TLB and header files for OPCDAAuto.dll: Download Windows 7 SDK. I am using GRMSDKX_EN_DVD.iso as the OS is Windows 7 64-bit. Install the SDK. Open CMD Shell (Start | All Programs | Microsoft Windows SDK v7.0 | CMD Shell) Change directory to bin folder. Run oleview.exe , this will open a 32-bit version of the application. Note that this is important as the OPCDAAuto.dll I have is 32-bit as well. Navigate to Type Libraries | OPC Automation 2.0 (Ver 1.0) Double click to view Type Library definition. Do File | Save As... to D:\OPCDaAuto\OPCDaAuto.IDL . Go back to the cmd.exe as per step

Code below shows how to check for message queue input idle. Note that WaitForInputIdle waits only once per process on any thread. So if one of the thread returns idle then it will return right away.  Tested on: Windows 10 TH2 (build 1511) Python 3.5.1 64-bit Also need to install pywin32, like: c:\> pip install pypiwin32 This should be run on elevated prompt.

pfSense 2.2.5 does not automatically resolve external hosts (but not hosts from the internet) using DNS servers provided by DHCP from the WAN interface. To force it resolve, do: Navigate via Web UI: Services | DNS Resolver Scroll down to Domain Overrides Add entry Domain: [a domain suffix, e.g., test.org] IP address: [DNS server IP] What are the side effects without the above changes? pfSense clients not able to access internet, especially when internet is controlled via a proxy. Windows clients unable to access Windows share even using FQDN

Upgraded from Windows 8 to Windows 10, Mail app stopped working with the following message Something went wrong We're sorry, but we weren't able to do that. Error code: 0x8007000d. Workaround is to re-install the app, see http://8thstring.blogspot.com/2015/12/how-to-remove-windows-10-mail-and.html to remove it. Once removed you can go to Windows Store to install Mail again.

c:\> Get-AppxPackage | Where-Object {$_.Name -like "*microsoft.windowscommunications*"} | Remove-AppxPackage Note that you have to run PowerShell in elevated mode.