Tag Archives: windows 7

Use PS3 to play content stored on Computer

Before we proceed I would request you to note down the MAC address of your PS3

You can find your PS3 MAC address in

1) System Setting > System Information

2) Network Settings. (Scroll towards bottom)

Once you note down the Mac address then on your PC go to Control Panel > Network and Sharing Center > Change Advance Sharing Settings.

Then you need to make sure:

– Network Discovery is ON
– File & Printer Sharing is ON

After that click on Media Streaming options.

Once you are done with it you would see a window of Media Sharing

On the Show devices drop bar, select All Networks

Then you would see some Unknown device / devices.

I Recently bought a PS3. Now yoy can not copy all your videos, music and photos to the 320 GB HDD. But you can use your windows 7 to act as media server for PS3 and play all your content on PS3

Here is how to go about it.

Double click each Unknown device to see the MAC address of the device. If the address matches your PS3 MAC address then allow that device for media sharing.

You would now be able to share your media (If your firewall is not blocking media access)

 

With the latest updates in Windows 7,  you also need to make sure the following setting

Open “Services”  (just type on the start search bar)

In that make sure you have set Windows Media Player Sharing Service on “Automatic”. Also set LogOn as “Local System”

Launcher 7

https://ssl.gstatic.com/android/market/info.tikuwarez.launcher3/hi-256-1-50b8fe022933887ce4f4356df95c559ace887952

I had a look at windows mobile 7 phone and I was hooked at the user interface. Since then I was looking for something that could change my Galaxy 3 home screen to windows 7 tiled home screen. And then I found Launcher 7. It is more than decent at giving the feel of windows 7 user interface.

It is still a long way ahead for this app. But it will not disappoint the user.

It is a Windows Phone 7 style launcher for Android.

Unlike other current WP7 launchers (Windows Phone Android, Metro UI), this one allows you to properly modify your start screen. Just long press on a tile and drag tile where you want!

Point your androids barcode reader to the code to get it.

http://qrcode.kaywa.com/img.php?s=5&d=https%3A%2F%2Fmarket.android.com%2Fdetails%3Fid%3Dinfo.tikuwarez.launcher3

Windows 7 64 bit demystified

win7 64Windows 7 represents the first viable upgrade from Windows XP for PC users in many ways, especially considering that Vista was largely overlooked due to various problems with compatibility and performance.  For engineering and scientific applications, the combination of Windows 7 (64-bit) and the latest version of LabVIEW and NI Device Drivers make it possible to tap into the potential of 64-bit hardware thanks to native support.
Not every application stands to benefit from the x64 architecture, and it will take time for 64-bit editions of Windows to gain widespread adoption, but the following types of applications are most likely to see performance benefits on Windows 7 x64 Edition, provided that both 64-bit application software and drivers are available:

* Applications that require mathematical precision and floating-point performance
* Applications that involve large, high-performance databases
* Vision acquisition and analysis applications with large amounts of data moving directly into memory at rapid rates

Performance and Virtualization

64-bit versions of operating systems such as Windows Vista and Windows 7 are not automatically faster than their 32-bit counterparts. In some cases, they may even perform slower because of the larger pointers as well unrelated OS overhead. Overall, an application’s performance depends on what it is used for and how it is implemented. Emulated applications running within the Windows on Windows (WOW) 64 layer (discussed in more detail later in this article) will not be able to address any more memory than they could on a 32-bit system.
Most 32-bit software will still function because of a Microsoft emulation layer. This emulation layer, known as Windows on Windows 64 or WoW64, enables 32-bit programs to run as though on a 32-bit version of Windows by translating instructions passing in and out of 32-bit applications into 64-bit instructions. Emulated programs act as though they are running on an x86 computer and operate within the 2 GB of virtual memory that a 32-bit version of Windows allocates to every process. However, despite Wow64, 32-bit programs on 64-bit versions of Windows Vista and Windows 7 cannot take advantage of the larger 64-bit address spaces or wider 64-bit registers on 64-bit processors.

Potential Benefits of 64-bit

The transition to the 64-bit architecture is overwhelmingly driven by the limitations of the x86 architecture in terms of addressing memory. Applications running on a 64-bit edition of Windows should theoretically experience improved performance because of the larger quantity of available memory, even if the application is running within the WoW64 layer. Much like the advantage offered by increasing physical memory in a 32-bit system, the larger memory space on 64-bit versions of Windows Vista and Windows 7 allows more processes to actively reside in the system RAM simultaneously.  It allows allows users to add additional RAM beyond the previous 4 GB limit, up to the amount supported by the mainboard.
This change potentially eliminates or reduces time spent loading and switching between processes, a condition that can lead to “thrashing” when all the processor’s efforts are spent merely loading and switching between threads. To reap the benefits of a 64-bit operating system such as Windows Vista x64 Edition, you should invest in a large amount of RAM (4 GB or more) and a compatible motherboard.
For 64-bit version of Windows, Microsoft also requires a digital signature on all drivers. By requiring new, signed drivers, Microsoft aims to reduce failures and improve stability by shining a spotlight on vendor responsibility for bugs. With 32-bit version of Windows, administrators can install unsigned drivers, but Microsoft continues to discourage their use. All non-legacy National Instruments drivers are digitally signed and available for both the 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows.
Potential Drawbacks to Windows x64 Edition

Windows XP was available only as a 32-bit operating system for 32-bit processors until 2005, when Microsoft released a 64-bit edition. This version of Windows XP did not see widespread adoption due to a lack of available software and hardware drivers. Vendors were hesitant to invest in a platform that seemed more novel than practical for consumers at the time, which led to compatibility issues with common devices such as sound and graphics cards.  Developers interested in using 64-bit operating systems found the migration path to Vista much smoother due to the WOW emulation layer, which allowed older applications to run.  However, most did not see performance increases due to a lack of applications with native support for 64-bit processors.
Given the increasing number of 64-bit processors, Windows 7 x64 Edition is unlikely to suffer the same lack of support.  A potential drawback stems from the possibility that some hardware vendors may not release Windows Vista/7 x64 Edition-compatible versions of drivers quickly.

Windows 7 x64 Edition represents the first mainstream 64-bit operating system from Microsoft in terms of general availability and support from third-party add-on vendors. Because of this, moving from a 32-bit operating system such as Windows XP to a 64-bit operating system such as Windows 7 x64 Edition merits serious consideration in many cases.
However, the feasibility of successfully making the jump to Windows 7 x64 Edition depends largely on your application and its requirements. For some, Windows 7 x64 Edition offers much needed performance improvement, while for others, it could needlessly complicate applications designed to operate on x86 platforms or even have a negative effect on performance.

Windows 7 and Snow Leopaprd head to head

Both windows 7 and Snow Leopard have been on the board for quite some time and bow lets pitch them head to head and see if they are worth the upgrade.

Interface

Both operating systems have improved the user experience, and which one you prefer is largely a matter of taste. There’s no doubt that Windows 7 is the prettiest Windows yet, but to our eyes Apple still has the more refined appearance while the redesigned Windows Taskbar is, well, a bit minging.

Snow leopard vs windows 7

SERVICES MENU: OS X’s Services menu is handy, but it gets awfully cluttered. Hurrah, then, for the new context-sensitive version. Snow Leopard is all about simple but useful UI tweaks like this

Snow Leopard includes lots of welcome interface changes, including a context sensitive Services menu, a QuickTime interface that isn’t utterly hideous, a redesigned Exposé that’s now integrated into the Dock, scrollable Stacks and the latest Safari, which brings iTunes-style Cover Flow browsing to your favourite sites and browser history.

Snow leopard vs windows 7

STACK IT UP: Snow Leopard refines rather than reinvents a lot of features, so for example Stacks are now scrollable for easy navigation

Windows 7 gets Taskbar icon thumbnail previews and the fun Aero Shake, which enables you to hide everything but the current window by giving it a wiggle. Jump lists make Taskbar icons more useful, the streamlined Notification Area is considerably less annoying than before and you now get an OS X-style pop-up preview that enables you to listen to MP3s without opening Windows Media Player.

Snow leopard vs windows 7

PREVIEW IT: Thumbnail previews are little things that make a huge difference, and they’re among several useful UI improvements in Windows 7

In interface terms, then, Windows 7 is Vista with knobs on and Snow Leopard is Leopard given a bit of polish. The difference between Vista and Windows 7 is much more dramatic than the difference between Leopard and Snow Leopard, but both make your computer a nicer place to be.

Performance

Both operating systems promise improved performance and smaller footprints, with Apple suggesting that you’ll free up 7GB of hard disk space by upgrading. Microsoft is rather coy on this one, but if we look at the recommended system requirements Windows 7 wants 16GB free disk space for 32-bit and 20GB for 64-bit. Snow Leopard wants 5GB.

Windows and Snow Leopard have a number of performance features, but some of them are very hardware-dependent – so for example Snow Leopard’s hardware acceleration for QuickTime only works on Macs with an Nvidia 9400M graphics processor.

Similarly OpenCL, which uses the graphics chip for additional processing muscle, only works on specific Nvidia and AMD graphics chips, while the 64-bit processing naturally requires a 64-bit processor. If you do have all the right bits you should notice a dramatic difference in system performance, but even if you don’t Snow Leopard boasts faster waking, a faster Finder, speedier Time Machine backup and Safari, which is positively rocket-powered compared to Windows’ Internet Explorer 8.

However, to make all of this possible Apple has decided that it needs to make a sacrifice: Snow Leopard doesn’t support PowerPC Macs, so if you’ve got an ageing PowerBook kicking around you won’t be able to upgrade from Tiger or Leopard.

Snow leopard vs windows 7

QUICK TIME: Bye-bye horrible old QuickTime interface; hello minimalist new UI, hardware acceleration and iPhone-style editing

Windows is noticeably quicker too. As we discovered when we benchmarked the RTM version Windows 7 is significantly quicker to boot, to sleep and wake, to shut down and to copy files than Vista, and it feels much snappier too.

Like Snow Leopard it enables programs to take advantage of the graphics processor for additional horsepower, although like Snow Leopard you need specific hardware to get the benefit: in the case of Windows 7, that means DirectX 11-compatible graphics kit.

Windows 7 has tweaked its multi-core support, although if you install the 32-bit version you won’t be able to take advantage of 64-bit processing. We’d recommend installing 64-bit Windows unless you’re running peripherals whose manufacturers can’t be bothered making 64-bit drivers; thankfully such firms are becoming increasingly rare.

In both cases the real performance increases will turn up in the longer term, when application developers take advantage of OpenCL and Grand Central Dispatch in Snow Leopard and DirectX 11 in Windows 7.

Functionality

Rather bizarrely, Macs now support Microsoft Exchange by default while Windows doesn’t. But there’s more to Snow Leopard than support for Microsoft’s collaboration and communication system – which is just as well, given that few home users give a monkey’s about Exchange.

iChat AV does a better job using less bandwidth than before, PDF handling has been improved to make selecting text in multi-column layouts much simpler, and networking has been cleverly tweaked so that a sleeping Mac will wake up when files need to be shared and nod off again when it’s no longer needed.

The most dramatic new feature is QuickTime X, a major overhaul of Apple’s media player. It can use hardware acceleration for smoother playback, supports HTTP Live Streaming and provides easy video capture and uploading to YouTube or MobileMe. You also get iPhone 3GS-style video editing and a much less obtrusive interface.

Windows 7 gets better multimedia too. Media Player supports more formats including H.264 video, and there’s a nice feature called Play To that enables you to send media to other devices such as the Xbox 360. Cleverly, Play To will convert media into formats that your chosen device can understand.

Snow leopard vs windows 7

PLAY TO: Windows 7 quite likes multimedia, and its Play To feature enables you to send music to a wide range of devices

Windows’ networking has been given a major kick up the backside too. The new HomeGroup feature makes home networking pretty simple, and it’s designed to make home file sharing as easy as possible. You also get Internet Explorer 8, which is Microsoft’s best browser to date, and while it’s nowhere near as speedy as Safari or other rival browsers – especially with JavaScript – its Accelerators, Web Slices and improved security mean it’s a big improvement over IE7.

Snow leopard vs windows 7

ACCELERATE IT: IE8 might not be as fast as Safari in the JavaScript stakes, but features such as Accelerators and Web Slices are pretty useful

Last but not least, Windows 7 gets Windows Touch, which supports iPhone-style multi-touch input (provided, of course, you have the hardware). OS X has touch support via laptop trackpads, of course. Windows Touch could be very important when you’re choosing your next PC, but it’s irrelevant at the moment for the majority of upgraders.

Everyone’s a winner, baby

On the face of it, Apple beats Microsoft in several key areas. The first is price – Snow Leopard is £25, while Windows 7 Home Premium is currently £64.98 at Amazon – and the second is ease of installation: while Windows 7 supports in-place upgrades that keep your files intact, XP users will need to do a clean install, as will anybody upgrading from a 32-bit Vista installation to a 64-bit Windows 7 one.

Snow Leopard is designed to be an in-place upgrade, and there’s no version confusion either: Apple sells one version to Microsoft’s three retail editions.

Microsoft could certainly learn some lessons from Apple in these areas – although Apple isn’t entirely angelic, as Tiger users can only get Snow Leopard if they also buy iLife and iWork in the £129 Mac Box Set.

At least, that’s the official story. According to Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal, “Apple concedes that the $29 (£25 in the UK) Snow Leopard upgrade will work properly on these Tiger-equipped Macs.” We’ll let you know what Apple says about that one.

Overall, though, it’s impossible to say whether one operating system is better than another – we’re comparing apples and oranges here, no pun intended. As most of its key changes are under the hood Snow Leopard feels more like a service pack than a new OS, and it’ll be a while before its biggest changes – such as the new toys for software developers to play with – become obvious to the average punter.

The price reflects that, and there’s enough tweakery and polish to ensure that no Intel Mac owner is going to regret spending their twenty-five quid.

Windows 7 is a different beast, with some dramatic differences to Windows Vista. In many respects it feels like the operating system Vista promised to be, but there’s enough innovation here to make it more than just Windows Vista Fixed Edition. As with Snow Leopard, you’re not going to regret purchasing it – especially if you pre-order it right now before the prices go up on 1 September.

So which is better? We think that’s the wrong question. Snow Leopard is better than Leopard, and Windows 7 is better than Windows Vista. If you aren’t planning to buy a new computer in the not too distant future, that’s all that matters: whichever platform you’re currently running, upgrading is well worth the money.

Windows 7 zero day exploit

A security researcher has said there is a zero-day vulnerability affecting Windows 7 and Vista.

The flaw in Windows 7 could allow an attack which would cause a critical system error, or “Blue Screen of Death”, according to researcher Laurent Gaffie.

Gaffie wrote in his blog that the flaw lies in a Server Message Block 2 (SMB2) driver.

“SRV2.SYS fails to handle malformed SMB headers for the NEGOTIATE PROTOCOL REQUEST functionality,” wrote Gaffie in a blog post on Monday.

Gaffie said he had contacted Microsoft. Comments on his blog by other users said that the flaw could lead not only to denial of service, but could also lead to remote code execution.

Computer security publication ‘The H’ wrote on Tuesday that its German sister publication had tested the proof-of-concept code, and that while the exploit had caused a reboot on Vista, the exploit had not worked on Windows 7.

Metasploit creator HD Moore said in a tweet on Tuesday that an SMB bug appeared to have been introduced into Vista SP1. Coder Josh Goebel said in a blog post that he had added the exploit code to Metasploit.

Microsoft had not responded to a request for comment at the time of writing.

from : Zdnet UK

Story of windows 7 blue fish

As Microsoft has given green light to the public downloads of Windows 7 Beta 1 Build 7000, millions of testers will be greeted by the new default wallpapers of the operating system, featuring none other than the Siamese fighting fish. In fact, Windows 7 has been offering users a chance to have the creature, a member of the Betta splendens species, as their background since before Christmas 2008, when Build 7000 was initially leaked. Microsoft’s reason for choosing the Siamese fighting fish for Windows 7 was rather simple. The wallpaper is included only in the Beta version of Windows 7, and not in the previous three milestone developments, because this very popular freshwater fish is actually known as betta.

There is no telling, at this point in time, whether the Redmond company will continue to feature the Windows 7 betta fish wallpaper into the operating system moving forward to the next development milestone, or if the specimen will end up out of water. Should users expect an RC (release candidate) fish next? Or maybe even a gold fish for the RTM (gold) edition of Windows 7?

The betta fish featured in Windows 7 Beta on the default background is native of Thailand. However, Microsoft has chosen a specific variety of betta. Fact is that the wild and “plain vanilla” bettas are not much to look at. Just brown with shades of green and with short fins, the natural betta fish would never have been chosen to complement the Windows 7 Beta 1 default wallpaper. Nevertheless, the process of selective breeding has produced Betta splendens fish with a wide range of colors, including the blue and red, as the specimen on the Windows 7 background.

Fact is that, with the inclusion of the selectively bred betta in Windows 7 Beta, Microsoft is hinting that the previous Milestone releases of the platform were just the native versions of the fish. Yet, at the same time, Milestone 1, M2 and M3 of Windows 7 were much more Windows Vista than the next iteration of the Windows client. The inclusion of the betta fish in Windows 7 Betta is accompanying the evolution process from Vista to Win 7, as Microsoft is doing a tad of “selective breeding” of its own.


from: softpedia news

Windows 7 tricks and secrets

Lately I installed windows 7 on my xps 1210 and its awesome. I had been discovering small tricks in win 7 and then I stumbled upon to this mega tricks list of the OS on msdn blogs.

Enjoy.

  1. Windows Management. By now, you’ve probably seen that Windows 7 does a lot to make window management easier: you can “dock” a window to the left or right half of the screen by simply dragging it to the edge; similarly, you can drag the window to the top of the screen to maximize it, and double-click the window top / bottom border to maximize it vertically with the same horizontal width. What you might not know is that all these actions are also available with keyboard shortcuts:
    • Win+Left Arrow and Win+Right Arrow dock;
    • Win+Up Arrow and Win+Down Arrow maximizes and restores / minimizes;
    • Win+Shift+Up Arrow and Win+Shift+Down Arrow maximizes and restores the vertical size.

    This side-by-side docking feature is particularly invaluable on widescreen monitors – it makes the old Windows way of shift-clicking on two items in the taskbar and then using the context menu to arrange them feel really painful.

  2. Display Projection. Had enough of messing around with weird and wonderful OEM display driver utilities to get your notebook display onto an external projector? In that case, you’ll be pleased to know that projection is really quick and simple with Windows 7. Just hit Win+P, and you’ll be rewarded by the following pop-up window:
    The Win+P Projector Settings window allows you to quickly switch display settings.
    Use the arrow keys (or keep hitting Win+P) to switch to “clone”, “extend” or “external only” display settings. You can also access the application as displayswitch.exe.

    If you want broader control over presentation settings, you can also press Win+X to open the Windows Mobility Center, which allows you to turn on a presentation “mode” that switches IM clients to do not disturb, disables screensavers, sets a neutral wallpaper etc. (Note that this feature is also available in Windows Vista.)

  3. Cut Out The Clutter. Working on a document in a window and want to get rid of all the extraneous background noise? Simply hit Win+Home to minimize all the non-active background windows, keeping the window you’re using in its current position. When you’re ready, simply press Win+Home again to restore the background windows to their original locations.
  4. Multi-Monitor Windows Management. The earlier tip on window management showed how you can dock windows within a monitor. One refinement of those shortcuts is that you can use Win+Shift+Left Arrow and Win+Shift+Right Arrow to move windows from one monitor to another – keeping them in the same relative location to the monitor’s top-left origin.
  5. Command Junkies Only. One of the most popular power toys in Windows XP was “Open Command Prompt Here”, which enabled you to use the graphical shell to browse around the file system and then use the context menu to open a command prompt at the current working directory. In Windows 7 (and in Windows Vista, incidentally – although not many folk knew about it), you can simply hold the Shift key down while selecting the context menu to get exactly the same effect. If the current working directory is a network location, it will automatically map a drive letter for you.
  6. It’s a Global Village. If you’ve tried to change your desktop wallpaper, you’ve probably noticed that there’s a set of wallpapers there that match the locale you selected when you installed Windows. (If you picked US, you’ll see beautiful views of Crater Lake in Oregon, the Arches National Park, a beach in Hawai’i, etc.) In fact, there are several sets of themed wallpapers installed based on the language you choose, but the others are in a hidden directory. If you’re feeling in an international mood, simply browse to C:\Windows\Globalization\MCT and you’ll see a series of pictures under the Wallpaper directory for each country. Just double-click on the theme file in the Theme directory to display a rotation through all the pictures for that country. (Note that some countries contain a generic set of placeholder art for now.)
  7. The Black Box Recorder. Every developer wishes there was a way that an end-users could quickly and simply record a repro for the problem that they’re running into that is unique to their machine. Windows 7 comes to the rescue! Part of the in-built diagnostic tools that we use internally to send feedback on the product, the Problem Steps Recorder provides a simple screen capture tool that enables you to record a series of actions. Once you hit “record”, it tracks your mouse and keyboard and captures screenshots with any comments you choose to associate alongside them. Once you stop recording, it saves the whole thing to a ZIP file, containing an HTML-based “slide show” of the steps. It’s a really neat little tool and I can’t wait for it to become ubiquitous on every desktop! The program is called psr.exe; you can also search for it from Control Panel under “Record steps to reproduce a problem”.
    The Problem Steps Recorder provides an easy way for users to record a problem repro for later diagnosis.
  8. The Font of All Knowledge. Long Zheng will be happy: we’ve got rid of the Add Fonts dialog that has served Windows faithfully for the last twenty years. (Of course, for most of that time, it’s been deprecated – the easy way to install a set of fonts has simply been to drag them into the Fonts folder via Control Panel.) But now font installation is really easy – we’ve added an “Install” button to the font viewer applet that takes care of the installation process:
    You can install a font in Windows 7 from the standard font viewer dialog.
    There are lots of other new features built into Windows 7 that will satisfy those of a typographic bent, incidentally – grouping multiple weights together, the ability to hide fonts based on regional settings, a new text rendering engine built into the DirectWrite API, and support in the Font common file dialog for more than the four “standard” weights. For example:
    The new common font dialog in Windows 7 supports more than four weights for a font.
  9. Gabriola. As well as the other typographic features mentioned above, Windows 7 includes Gabriola, an elaborate display type from the Tiro Typeworks foundry that takes advantage of OpenType Layout to provide a variety of stylistic sets, flourishes and ornamentation ligatures:
    Some sample variants of the Gabriola display font.
  10. Who Stole My Browser? If you feel like Internet Explorer is taking a long time to load your page, it’s worth taking a look at the add-ons you have installed. One of the more helpful little additions in Internet Explorer 8 is instrumentation for add-on initialization, allowing you to quickly see whether you’re sitting around waiting for plug-ins to load. Just click Tools / Manage Add-ons, and then scroll right in the list view to see the load time. On my machine, I noticed that the Research add-on that Office 2007 installs was a particular culprit, and since I never use it, it was simple to disable it from the same dialog box.
  11. Rearranging the Furniture. Unless you’ve seen it demonstrated, you may not know that the icons in the new taskbar aren’t fixed in-place. You can reorder them to suit your needs, whether they’re pinned shortcuts or running applications. What’s particularly nice is that once they’re reordered, you can start a new instance of any of the first five icons by pressing Win+1, Win+2, Win+3 etc. I love that I can quickly fire up a Notepad2 instance on my machine with a simple Win+5 keystroke, for instance.What’s less well-known is that you can similarly drag the system tray icons around to rearrange their order, or move them in and out of the hidden icon list. It’s an easy way to customize your system to show the things you want, where you want them.
  12. Installing from a USB Memory Stick. My wife has a Samsung NC10 netbook (very nice machine, by the way), and we wanted to install Windows 7 Beta on this machine to replace the pre-installed Windows XP environment. Like most netbook-class devices, this machine has no built-in media drive, and nor did I have an external USB DVD drive available to boot off. The solution: I took a spare 4GB USB 2.0 thumbdrive, reformatted it as FAT32, and simply copied the contents of the Windows 7 Beta ISO image to the memory stick using xcopy e:\ f:\ /e /f (where e: was the DVD drive and f: was the removable drive location). Not only was it easy to boot and install from the thumbdrive, it was also blindingly fast: quicker than the corresponding DVD install on my desktop machine.It’s also worth noting in passing that Windows 7 is far better suited to a netbook than any previous operating system: it has a much lighter hard drive and memory footprint than Windows Vista, while also being able to optimize for solid state drives (for example, it switches off disk defragmentation since random read access is as fast as sequential read access, and it handles file deletions differently to minimize wear on the solid state drive).
  13. I Want My Quick Launch Toolbar Back! You might have noticed that the old faithful Quick Launch toolbar is not only disabled by default in Windows 7, it’s actually missing from the list of toolbars. As is probably obvious, the concept of having a set of pinned shortcut icons is now integrated directly into the new taskbar. Based on early user interface testing, we think that the vast majority of users out there (i.e. not the kind of folk who read this blog, with the exception of my mother) will be quite happy with the new model, but if you’re after the retro behavior, you’ll be pleased to know that the old shortcuts are all still there. To re-enable it, do the following:
    • Right-click the taskbar, choose Toolbars / New Toolbar
    • In the folder selection dialog, enter the following string and hit OK:
      %userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch
    • Turn off the “lock the taskbar” setting, and right-click on the divider. Make sure that “Show text” and “Show title” are disabled and the view is set to “small icons”.
    • Use the dividers to rearrange the toolbar ordering to choice, and then lock the taskbar again.

    If it’s not obvious by the semi-tortuous steps above, it’s worth noting that this isn’t something we’re exactly desperate for folks to re-enable, but it’s there if you really need it for some reason. Incidentally, we’d love you to really try the new model first and give us feedback on why you felt the new taskbar didn’t suit your needs.

  14. It’s a Drag. Much play has been made of the Jump Lists feature in Windows 7, allowing applications like Windows Live Messenger to offer an easy task-based entry point. Jump lists replace the default right-click context menu in the new taskbar; another way to access them (particularly useful if you’re running Windows 7 on a one-button MacBook) is by left-clicking and dragging up in a kind of “swooshing” motion. This was designed for touch-enabled devices like the beautiful HP TouchSmart all-in-one PC, where the same gesture applies.Another place where you can “swoosh” (not an official Microsoft term) is the IE 8 address bar, where the downward drag gesture brings up an expanded list containing the browser history, favorites and similar entries. The slower you drag, the cooler the animation!
  15. Standards Support. Every review of Windows 7 that I’ve seen has noted the revamped WordPad and Paint applets that add an Office-like ribbon to expose their functionality. Few, however, have noticed one small but hopefully appreciated feature: WordPad can now read and write both the Word 2007-compatible Office Open XML file format but also the OpenDocument specification that IBM and Sun have been advocating:
    WordPad in Windows 7 allows you to save in ODF or OOXML formats.
  16. Windows Vista-Style Taskbar. I wasn’t initially a fan of the Windows 7 taskbar when it was first introduced in early Windows 7 builds, but as the design was refined in the run up to the beta, I was converted and now actively prefer the new look, particularly when I’ve got lots of windows open simultaneously. For those who really would prefer a look more reminiscent of Windows Vista, the good news is that it’s easy to customize the look of the taskbar to more closely mirror the old version:
    The Windows 7 Taskbar can be configured for a Windows Vista compatibility view.
    To achieve this look, right-click on the taskbar and choose the properties dialog. Select the “small icons” checkbox and under the “taskbar buttons” setting, choose “combine when taskbar is full”. It’s not pixel-perfect in accuracy, but it’s close from a functionality point of view.
  17. Peeking at the Desktop. While we’re on the taskbar, it’s worth noting a few subtleties. You’ve probably seen the small rectangle in the bottom right hand corner: this is the feature we call “Aero Peek”, which enables you to see any gadgets or icons you’ve got on your desktop. I wanted to note that there’s a keyboard shortcut that does the same thing – just press Win+Space.
  18. Running with Elevated Rights. Want to quickly launch a taskbar-docked application as an administrator? It’s easy – hold down Ctrl+Shift while you click on the icon, and you’ll immediately launch it with full administrative rights (assuming your account has the necessary permissions, of course!)
  19. One More of the Same, Please. I’ve seen a few folk caught out by this one. If you’ve already got an application open on your desktop (for example, a command prompt window), and you want to open a second instance of the same application, you don’t have to go back to the start menu. You can simply hold down the Shift key while clicking on the taskbar icon, and it will open a new instance of the application rather than switching to the existing application. For a keyboard-free shortcut, you can middle-click with the third mouse button to do the same thing. (This trick assumes that your application supports multiple running instances, naturally.)
  20. Specialized Windows Switching. Another feature that power users will love is the ability to do a kind of “Alt+Tab” switching across windows that belong to just one application. For example, if you’ve got five Outlook message windows open along with ten other windows, you can quickly tab through just the Outlook windows by holding down the Ctrl key while you repeatedly click on the single Outlook icon. This will toggle through each of the five Outlook windows in order, and is way faster than opening Alt+Tab and trying to figure out which of the tiny thumbnail images relates to the specific message you’re trying to find.
  21. Walking Through the Taskbar. Another “secret” Windows shortcut: press Win+T to move the focus to the taskbar. Once you’re there, you can use the arrow keys to select a particular window or group and then hit Enter to launch or activate it. As ever, you can cancel out of this mode by hitting the Esc key. I don’t know for sure, but I presume this shortcut was introduced for those with accessibility needs. However, it’s equally valuable to power users – another good reason for all developers to care about ensuring their code is accessible.
  22. image The Widescreen Tip. Almost every display sold these days is widescreen, whether you’re buying a notebook computer or a monitor. While it might be great for watching DVDs, when you’re trying to get work done it can sometimes feel like you’re a little squeezed for vertical space.As a result, the first thing I do when I set up any new computer is to dock the taskbar to the left hand side of the screen. I can understand why we don’t set this by default – can you imagine the complaints from enterprise IT departments who have to retrain all their staff – but there’s no reason why you as a power user should have to suffer from default settings introduced when the average screen resolution was 800×600.

    In the past, Windows did an indifferent job of supporting “side dockers” like myself. Sure, you could move the taskbar, but it felt like an afterthought – the gradients would be wrong, the Start menu had a few idiosyncrasies, and you’d feel like something of a second-class citizen. The Windows 7 taskbar feels almost as if it was designed with vertical mode as the default – the icons work well on the side of the screen, shortcuts like the Win+T trick mentioned previously automatically switch from left/right arrows to up/down arrows, and so on. The net effect is that you wind up with a much better proportioned working space.

    Try it – in particular, if you’ve got a netbook computer that has a 1024×600 display, you’ll immediately appreciate the extra space for browsing the Internet. For the first day you’ll feel a little out of sync, but then I guarantee you’ll become an enthusiastic convert!

  23. Pin Your Favorite Folders. If you’re always working in the same four or five folders, you can quickly pin them with the Explorer icon on the taskbar. Hold the right-click button down and drag the folder to the taskbar, and it will be automatically pinned in the Explorer Jump List.
  24. Starting Explorer from “My Computer”. If you spend more time manipulating files outside of the documents folders than inside, you might want to change the default starting directory for Windows Explorer so that it opens at the Computer node:
    The Computer node in Windows 7.
    To do this, navigate to Windows Explorer in the Start Menu (it’s in the Accessories folder). Then edit the properties and change the target to read:
    %SystemRoot%\explorer.exe /root,::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}

    If you want the change to affect the icon on the taskbar, you’ll need to unpin and repin it to the taskbar so that the new shortcut takes affect. It’s worth noting that Win+E will continue to display the documents library as the default view: I’ve not found a way to change this from the shell at this time.
  25. ClearType Text Tuning and Display Color Calibration. If you want to tune up your display for image or text display, we have the tools included out of the box. It’s amazing what a difference this makes: by slightly darkening the color of the text and adjusting the gamma back a little, my laptop display looks much crisper than it did before. You’d adjust the brightness and contrast settings on that fancy 42” HDTV you’ve just bought: why wouldn’t you do the same for the computer displays that you stare at every day?
    image image
    Check out cttune.exe and dccw.exe respectively, or run the applets from Control Panel.
  26. ISO Burning. Easy to miss if you’re not looking for it: you can double-click on any DVD or CD .ISO image and you’ll see a helpful little applet that will enable you to burn the image to a blank disc. No more grappling for shareware utilities of questionable parentage!
    You can burn an ISO image to disk with this built-in utility in Windows 7.
  27. Windows Movie Maker. Windows 7 doesn’t include a movie editing tool – it’s been moved to the Windows Live Essentials package, along with Photo Gallery, Mail and Messenger. Unfortunately, Windows Live Movie Maker is currently still in an early beta that is missing most of the old feature set (we’re reworking the application), and so you might be feeling a little bereft of options. It goes without saying that we intend to have a better solution by the time we ship Windows 7, but in the meantime the best solution for us early adopters is to use Windows Movie Maker 2.6 (which is essentially the same as the most recent update to the Windows XP version). It’s missing the full set of effects and transitions from the Windows Vista version, and doesn’t support HD editing, but it’s pretty functional for the typical usage scenario of home movie editing.
    Windows Movie Maker 2.6 is compatible with Windows 7.
    Download Windows Movie Maker 2.6 from here:
    http://microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=d6ba5972-328e-4df7-8f9d-068fc0f80cfc
  28. Hiding the Windows Live Messenger Icon. Hopefully your first act after Windows 7 setup completed was to download and install the Windows Live Essentials suite of applications (if not, then you’re missing out on a significant part of the Windows experience). If you’re a heavy user of IM, you may love the way that Windows Live Messenger is front and central on the taskbar, where you can easily change status and quickly send an IM to someone:
    Windows Live Messenger appears by default on the taskbar.
    On the other hand, you may prefer to keep Windows Live Messenger in the system tray where it’s been for previous releases. If so, you can fool the application into the old style of behavior. To do this, close Windows Live Messenger, edit the shortcut properties and set the application to run in Windows Vista compatibility mode. Bingo!
  29. Enjoy The Fish. I’m surprised that not many people seem to have caught the subtle joke with the Siamese fighting fish that is part of the default background, so I’ll do my part at keeping the secret hidden. Check out wikipedia for a clue.
  30. When All Else Fails… There are always those times when you’re in a really bad spot – you can’t boot up properly, and what you really want is something you can quickly use to get at a command prompt so you can properly troubleshoot. Windows 7 now includes the ability to create a system repair disc, which is essentially a CD-bootable version of Windows that just includes the command prompt and a suite of system tools. Just type “system repair disc” in the Start Menu search box, and you’ll be led to the utility.

from: msdn blogs

Microsoft Windows 7 scam

Today I came across this website www.windows7giveaway.com which promises to give away a free copy of windows 7 ultimate if you pay $25 as the shipping cost. This looks like a very attractive deal. One of our friends from Pune startups group took the initiative to verify it from Microsoft and here is what they have to say.

windows 7 scam

“Dear Sir,

Thank you for your e-mail concerning the Microsoft lottery. We would

like to confirm this is a hoax website and did not originate from

Microsoft. Microsoft does not have any connection whatsoever with

this alleged lottery. It’s unfortunate that some people have chosen to

abuse the freedom that the internet offers by conducting fraudulent

activity.

Privacy and security are very important to Microsoft. For more

information please visit the following website:

http://www.microsoft.com/security/lottery/default.mspx

Yours sincerely,

Microsoft UK”

I would recommend everyone to inspect such offers closely as this might make you pocket a few bucks lighter and you would not be getting anything in return except frustration and annoyance.

Moreover any such issues can be reported here http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9661492

Ten Things To Know About Windows 7

Here are the top 10 things to know about Windows 7:

 

1 – Application compatibility

The Windows Vista operating system introduced architectural changes down to the kernel level that made the OS inherently more secure than Windows XP. However, this came at a cost; many applications needed modification to function properly in a Windows Vista environment. While at this point in the lifecycle of Windows Vista (post Service Pack 1) most applications are now compatible, deploying Windows Vista into the desktop environment early on required some “heavy lifting” and creative shimming—not to mention a few late nights.

 

Windows 7 is built on the same basic architecture as Windows Vista, so most applications will retain their compatibility between these operating systems. This alone will make adopting Windows 7 much less challenging than migrating from Windows XP to Windows Vista. If your organization is like many that are still standardized on Windows XP, you will need to transition to updated versions of your key applications, but the availability of Windows Vista–compatible versions and well-proven shims will make this task more manageable.

 

2 – Hardware compatibility and requirements

Much like the application compatibility issues, adopting Windows Vista early-on was a challenge because of the higher system requirements—such as RAM and graphics.  On the flip side, Windows Vista provides manageability and security that just isn’t available on Windows XP, and with more capable hardware, Windows Vista is able to perform a number of useful functions that improve productivity (such as Windows Search 4 and the Windows Aero desktop experience) and increase PC responsiveness (the ReadyBoost technology launches applications more quickly by maintaining a portion of frequently used applications in memory).

 

Windows 7 was designed to perform well on the same hardware that runs Windows Vista well, while delivering additional performance and reliability improvements. The design team for Windows 7 had a specific focus on the fundamentals—as well as maintaining compatibility with existing applications and hardware. In operation, you will find that Windows 7 boots faster and has a smaller memory footprint than Windows Vista.

 

3 – Better Together with Windows Server 2008

One of the key benefits of the modern operating system is that Windows 7 and the Windows Server 2008 operating system share a common code base, and are maintained with a single servicing model. This servicing model means updates and security updates are shared across both client PCs and servers, simplifying the process of maintaining an up-to-date infrastructure.

 

In addition, environments with both Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7 unlock capabilities that extend functionality and help ensure a more secure environment. One example is DirectAccess, which allows management and updating of remote mobile PCs that are connected to the Internet, even when they are not connected to the corporate network. This capability helps ensure that remote users receive security patches on a timely basis, and allows IT to update configuration setting via Group Policy. For the end user, DirectAccess allows access to locations on the corporate network without using a virtual private network (VPN) connection. (In addition to Windows Server 2008 R2, DirectAccess requires IPSec and IPv6 implementation.)

 

4 – Extend data encryption to removable media

News reports are rife with stories about companies losing control over sensitive information. In some industries, this is an issue with grave legal implications, while in other situations the issue is inconvenience. Regardless, smart compliance policy dictates that sensitive information be safeguarded in the event of a lost or stolen laptop. Further, preventing sensitive information from being removed from corporate resources is a pillar of effective compliance management.

 

Windows 7 includes BitLocker technology, first implemented in Windows Vista, which now provides full encryption of all boot volumes on a PC; along with introducing BitLocker To Go that offers data protection on portable storage, such as USB flash drives. In addition, BitLocker Drive Encryption and BitLocker To Go can be managed via Group Policy, placing more control over sensitive information in the hands of the professionals.

 

5 – Control the application portfolio available to end users

Windows 7 features AppLocker, a new capability that allows IT administrators to specify which applications are permitted to run on a laptop or desktop PC. This capability helps you manage license compliance and control access to sensitive programs, but also importantly, it helps reduce the opportunity for malware to run on client PCs. AppLocker provides a powerful rule-based structure for specifying which applications can run, and includes “publisher rules” that keeps the rules intact though version updates.

 

To see how AppLocker is set up and managed, click here for a screencast demonstration.

 

6 – Automate routine tasks with powerful scripting

To help IT administrators better maintain a consistent environment and improve personal productivity, Windows 7 includes an updated graphical scripting editor, Windows PowerShell 2.0—a powerful, complete scripting language that supports branching, looping, functions, debugging, exception handling, and internationalization.

 

  • PowerShell 2.0 has an intuitive, graphical user interface that helps make script generation easier, especially for administrators who are not comfortable in command-line environments.
  • PowerShell 2.0 supports two types of remoting—fan-out, which delivers management scripts on a one-to-many basis, and one-to-one interactive remoting to support troubleshooting of a specific machine. You can also use the PowerShell Restricted Shell to limit commands and command parameters to system administrators, and to restrict scripts to those who have been granted rights.
  • PowerShell 2.0, with the Group Policy Management Console (available as a separate download), allows IT professionals to use scripting to manage Group Policy Objects and to create or edit registry-based group policy settings in Windows 7. Similarly, you can use PowerShell to configure PCs more efficiently, using richer logon, logoff, startup, and shutdown scripts that are executed through Group Policy.

 

Click here to take a quick tour of PowerShell 2.0.

 

7 – Troubleshoot faster and more effectively

Windows 7 provides rich tools to identify and resolve technical issues, often by the end users themselves. If a help desk call is unavoidable, Windows 7 includes several features and troubleshooting tools to help speed resolution.

 

  • The Problem Steps Recorder allows end users to reproduce and record their experience with an application failure, with each step recorded as a screen shot along with accompanying logs and software configuration data. A compressed file is then created that can be forwarded to support staff to help troubleshoot the problem.
  • Windows 7 includes a suite of troubleshooting packs, collections of PowerShell scripts, and related information that can be executed remotely by IT professionals from the command line, and controlled on the enterprise basis through Group Policy Settings.
  • Windows 7 also includes Unified Tracing to help identify and resolve network connectivity issues in a single tool. Unified Tracing collects event logs and captures packets across all layers of the networking stack, providing an integrated view into what’s happening in the Windows 7 networking stack and aiding analysis and problem resolution.

 

8 – Create, deploy, and manage images more efficiently

Windows 7 includes several tools to streamline the creation and servicing of the deployment image, and to get users up and running as quickly as possible.

 

The Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) tool in Windows 7 provides a central place to build and service Windows images offline. With DISM, you can perform many functions with one tool: mount and unmount system images; add, remove, and enumerate packages and drivers; enable or disable Windows features; configure international settings, and maintain an inventory of offline images that contain drivers, packages features, and software updates. Windows 7 also enables the same processes and tools to be used when managing virtual machine (VHD) and native file-based (WIM) image files.

 

Windows 7 also includes Dynamic Driver Provisioning, where device drivers are stored independent of the deployed image and can be injected dynamically based on the Plug and Play ID of the hardware, or as predetermined sets based on information contained in the basic input/output system (BIOS). Reducing the number of drivers on individual machines reduces the number of potential conflicts, ultimately minimizing setup time and improving the reliability of the PC.

When you are ready to deploy Windows 7, Multicast Multiple Stream Transfer enables servers to “broadcast” image data to multiple clients simultaneously, and to group clients with similar bandwidth capabilities into network streams to permit the fastest possible overall transfer rate while optimizing bandwidth utilization.

 

Watch a screen cast demonstration of the deployment tools for Windows 7 here.

 

9 – Easier migration of user data and profiles

Windows 7 includes enhancements to the User State Migration Tool (USMT), a command-line tool that you use to migrate operating system settings, files, and other user profile data from one PC to another. In Windows 7, USMT adds a hardlink migration feature for computer refresh scenarios, a capability that stores user data and settings in a common place on a drive, eliminating the need to “physically” move the files during a clean install.

 

10 – Improve user productivity in branch offices

Windows 7 introduces BranchCache, a technology that caches frequently accessed content from remote file and Web servers in the branch location, so users can access this information more quickly. The cache can be hosted centrally on a server in the branch location, or can be distributed across user PCs. One caveat: to take advantage of BranchCache, you will need to deploy Windows Server 2008 R2 on the related servers.

 

And, as a bonus:

 

Better support for client virtualization

Windows 7 delivers a richer experience when users are connected to a virtual desktop—much closer to the experience provides by a native Windows desktop. For example, Windows 7 provides multi-monitor support, bi-directional audio to enable Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and speech recognition applications, and access to local devices, such as printers.