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How to Show Windows Updates by Command Line?

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There are several methods mentioned in the internet:

Method Comment
systeminfo.exe Doesn’t show all packages that are installed, quite surely.
wmic.exe qfe get hotfixid |sort Shows the same packages as systeminfo.
in Powershell: Get-HotFix | Sort-Object HotFixID Shows the same as the tools above.
dism /online /get-packages /english Finds a lot of packages but not the KB number for all of them. Some KB numbers showing up in the commands above don’t show up here.

As these tries did not work out well and the Windows-i/Updates/Update history is not searchable well, I tried other ways:

NirSoft’s WinUpdatesView

NirSoft’s WinUpdatesView

  • It is freeware. It is quite good, but it also does not show the same information as Windows/Update history
  • It shows also attempts to install an update with date and current state (failed, succeeded, in progress).
  • It’s got a search function (Ctrl-f).
  • And a quick filter function (Ctrl-q). With this you can filter only for succeeded or failed attempts.
  • You can sort the view by any of the many columns.
  • You can save the history to a text or csv by starting WUV with the parameters /scomma filename.
  • Minus: for me, it does not show anything older than 31. March 2021. Windows/Update history shows older packages.

Via Registry

The following method I did find also, I have not yet tested it.

In the registry under Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Component Based Servicing\Packages, each key represents an update.
For each update there is a list with values and CurrentState shows the state of the update. These are the decimal values that can occur:

Decimal Meaning German
0 absent nicht installiert
5 uninstallation pending
16 resolving ermitteln
32 resolved ermittelt
48 staging aktualisieren
64 staged akutalisiert
80 superseded ersetzt
96 install pending
101 partially installed
112 installed
128 permanent

CSS Cheat Sheet

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margin: top right bottom left;
border: 1px dashed red;

CSS Functions

Some important css functions

Description
calc(….) A complete guide to calc().
clamp(min, val, max) Clamps a value between a max and a min. E.g. clamp(10px, 5vw, 2px) == 5vw as long as 5vw is between min and max.
max(a, b, …) Mathematical maximum of a set of values.
min(a, b, …) Mathematical minimum of a set of values.
var(--name) Gets the value of a predefied css variable called --name.
Trigonometry Trigonometrical functions sin, cos, tan, asin, acos, atan, atan2 are not yet available in Feb 2022.
sqrt, pow Not yet available in Feb 2022.
All A complete guide to css functions.

CSS Selectors

These are the most important selectors. There are many more, though.

Example Example description
.intro elements with class=”intro”
.na.me elements with both na and me set within its class attribute
.name input input elements that are descendants of an element with name class
.na .me elements of class .me inside elements of class .na
#firstname the element with id=”firstname”
* all elements
p all <​p> elems
div.intro Selects all <​div> elems with class="intro"
div, p all <​div> elems and all <​p> elems
div p all <​p> elems inside <​div> elems
div > p all <​p> where the parent is a <​div>
p ~ ul every <​ul> elem that is preceded by a <​p> elem
[target] all elems with a target attribute
[target=_blank] all elems with target="_blank"
input[type=”checkbox”] all input elems with type="checkbox"
a[href^=”https”] <​a> elems whose href attribute value begins with “https”
a[href*=”w3s”] <​a> elems whose href attribute value contains the substring “w3s”

CSS Length Units

Unit Name Description
px pixel Not pixels on screen, but an angular measurement. Defined as 1px = 0.0213 degrees or 1.278 minutes of arc. So one pixel should seem the same size on all devices.
cm centimeter Not a real centimeter, but defined as 1cm = 37.8px or 1px ≈ 0.265mm. On desktop screens really ≈ 1cm.
mm millimeter 1mm = 3.78px. On desktop screens, this is really ≈ 1mm.
in inch 1in = 96px by definition, on desktop screens ≈ 2.54cm.
em em Originally from typography, the width of a M. In css 1em = font-size, independent of font-family. Em-sizes multiply, so if an element with font-size 1.1em is within an element with font-size 1.2em within yet another element with font-size 1.3em, the resulting size is 1.1×1.2×1.3 == 1.761rem (root em).
rem root em Like em, but always relative to the root element. No multiplying. Much better than em.
pt point 1pt = 1/72in ≈ 0.353mm
pc pica 1pc = 12pt = 4.24mm ≈ the size of well readable script.
ex ex Height of character x of current font. Depends on font-family and font-size.
ch ch Similar to ex: width of char 0 (zero) of the current font.
vh viewport height 100vh = full height of viewport.
vw viewport width 100vw = full width of viewport.
% percent Based on the length of the same property of the parent element. E.g. if an element renders at 450px width, a child element with a width set to 50% will render at 225px
fr fraction Mainly for grids. Similar to % but takes into account gaps. Instead of using 50% 25% 25% you can use 2fr 1fr 1fr in the grid-template-columns tag.

CSS Gotchas

  • The position relative property only moves the item, but not its bounding box.
  • The css grid does not work in IE like everywhere else. Here some workaround.

How to Find a Deactivated Task in Win 10 Task Scheduler

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It is easy to deactivate a task in Win 10 TaskScheduler. But it is hard do activate it again. Because if you don’t know in which folder of Task Scheduler it resides, you can’t find it anymore.

So, if you – in the moment you deactivated the task – didn’t even realize that a task in the scheduler is in a folder or you didn’t remember or write down the folder, you have to do this:

In an elevated command shell, type the following; it writes all tasks, including the deactivated ones, into file 1.txt.

schtasks /query > 1.txt

Then open the file 1.txt in an editor and search for your task. When you’ve found it, look for the folder it is in and then in the Task Scheduler select that folder in the left pane. Then all tasks in this folder should be shown in the upper section of the middle pane.
There you can select the task and activate it by clicking activate in the right pane.

By the way, on some systems it is not easy to find the task scheduler at all. If you have no start menu entry for it, you can find it always under Computer management/Task scheduler or in german Computerverwaltung/Aufgabenplanung.