You can do the same with Far Manager. Open drive menu (Alt+F1 or Alt+F2), select your flash drive and press Shift+Del. You should get this confirmation:

Select “Remove” and you’re done. Note that the key combo (Shift+Del) is different from ejecting CD/DVD (Del).

1. You can’t pass arguments to the script, and
2. You can’t launch script in a separate window

Here’s how to fix this:

1. Start regedit, open HKCR\Microsoft.PowerShellScript.1\shell\Open\command key
2. Set it to
   "C:\WINDOWS\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe" "-file" "%1" %*

Now you can press Shift+Enter to start PowerShell script in a new window.

As a bonus, you can now double-click .ps1 files in Windows Explorer to launch them. Why is this not a default behaviour? Most likely Microsoft decided to be extra cautious here.

Make sure you have Powershell version 2.0 or higher for this to work. How to check Powershell version.

I decided to use PowerShell. It’s new, it’s powerful, it comes pre-installed with Windows Server 2008. PowerShell is very popular among system administrators.

Also, I got an idea to save output of backup application to log file so that I could see results later. And this is where things didn’t work as I expected. Here’s how to redirect console program output to a file:

s3.exe > log.txt

If you run this you will be surprised to find that log.txt is empty. As it turns out s3.exe, being a good Windows citizen, writes errors to STDERR stream. To redirect error output to the same file you need to add magic string 2>&1:

s3.exe 2>&1 > log.txt

Two new problems appear. First, errors appear as exceptions in log file:

s3.exe : s3.exe version 1.6 - check for updates at http://s3.codeplex.com
At PS Logging.ps1:4 char:43
+ s3.exe <<<<  2>&1 > log.txt
    + CategoryInfo          : NotSpecified: (s3.exe version ...s3.codeplex.com
   :String) [], RemoteException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : NativeCommandError

PowerShell helpfully wraps STDERR output into exceptions. This is nice but I don’t need it! All I want is to see how a program worked by examining log file. Do this to unwrap exceptions and show plain text:

s3.exe 2>&1 | foreach-object {$_.ToString()} | Out-File log.txt

And second, errors are out of order with normal output. They could appear before or after normal lines emitted by a program, making it hard to diagnose problem. To confirm that, I created a simple console program:

static void Main(string[] args)
{
   for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
   {
      Console.WriteLine("Hello");
   }
   Console.Error.WriteLine("Bah bah");
   for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
   {
      Console.WriteLine("2");
   }
}

If you run this program from PowerShell and redirect output to a file, error message (bah bah) could appear anywhere in the log file:

Hello
Bah bah
Hello
Hello
Hello
Hello
Hello
Hello
Hello
Hello
Hello
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2

The solution I came up with is to let old reliable cmd.exe to do the work:

cmd /c s3.exe `>log.txt 2`>`&1

Note backsticks – I use them to prevent PowerShell from parsing redirect operators.

Links

PowerShell ABC's - O is for Output
How to capture exe output to a PowerShell variable
Another approach to unwrap exceptions: use add-content cmdlet.

1. Go to Commands › File association.
2. Create a new association by pressing Ins.
3. Enter *.doc;*.docx;*.xlsx;*.pptx as a mask.
4. Enter @"!.!" as Execute command (used for Enter).

You can still open docx file as an archive by pressing Ctrl+PgDn.

Select CD-ROM and press Delete. CD/DVD will get ejected.

You can also press Del key on network drives to unmap them.

Fortunately it’s very easy to restore this functionality:

1. Launch [C:\Program Files\Far2\Addons\Macros\MiddleClickAsEnter.reg]. If you don’t have this folder re-install Far and add Addons » Macros feature.
2. Restart Far Manager.

Here’s how to make its window bigger:

1. Right-click on the window title, select Properties
2. Switch to Font tab
3. Select a bigger font. I prefer raster font 10 x 18.
4. (optional) Switch to Layout tab and change window size there. I leave it as 80 x 25.

If you want context menu in Far Manager you need EMenu plugin. Fortunately, it is included with Far by default. Here’s how to set it up:

1. Execute [C:\Program Files\Far\Plugins\EMenu\Hotkey.reg]
2. Restart Far Manager
3. Open Options menu, then Plugins configuration. Select EMenu in the list.
4. Uncheck “Show message after execution”.

Now Menu key should invoke context menu. Nice trick is to select Send To – Mail Recipient to quickly open new email with the file attached.

Here’s how to configure Far Manager to launch PowerShell script by pressing Enter key:

1. Open Commands menu, select File associations.
2. Press Ins key to add new association.
3. Enter *.ps1 as file mask.
4. Enter the following as execute command:

   powershell.exe "&'.\!.!'"

Bonus: how to change colour of PowerShell scripts to green:

1. Open Options menu, select Files highlighting.
2. Locate *.exe,*.com,*.bat entry, press Enter to edit.
3. Add *.ps1 to the list, select Ok to save.

See also: Running Windows PowerShell Scripts

Update: there is an enhancement that allows passing arguments to the script and launch script in a separate window.

I don’t like anything moving on the screen and I don’t like screen space to be wasted.

The only problem with classic Windows Messenger 5.1 (you can download it here) is that links are non-clickable. They are blue, when you type them (http://www.google.com) but they become black in the main chat window:

To fix this problem, open regedit and create HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Messenger\Client key (it might be already there). Create DWORD value EnableURL under that key. Set it to 1. Restart Windows Messenger.