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Category: Windows 7 support

  • Volume Mixer – Windows 7 Tips

    Windows 7 Volume Mixer Enables Quick Access to Sound Settings
    Windows 7 does more than just add big, shiny new features—it also has loads of little tiny tweaks that just add a really nice touch to the overall usability of the operating system. Let’s take a quick look at one of those tweaks in the volume mixer.

    We should start off by pointing out that you can right-click the sound icon in the tray, and get a quick menu that gives you access to Sounds, Mixer, etc.
    If you single-click on the volume icon, it’ll pop up the slider that we’re all familiar with—but you can also click the Speaker icon to open up the Speaker Properties dialog.
    Not surprisingly, you can change your speaker settings in here.
    If you open up the full mixer panel, you can also click on the System Sounds icon
    Which, naturally, pops up the Sounds panel where you can disable particular sounds, or all of them.
    It’s nothing revolutionary, but Windows 7 is full of these little tiny tweaks that just make things easier to use.

  • Local user and groups – Windows 7 Tips

    Using Local Users and Groups to Manage User Passwords in Windows 7
    If you have multiple user on your local machine or manage workstations in an office, you might want to enable or disable their password protection for added security. Today we take a look at how to do it in Windows 7.

    Note: Unfortunately this method does not work in Home versions of Windows. Also, these are stand alone machines and not part of a domain.
    Manage Passwords in Vista & Windows 7
    Here we will start with basic password management. Right-click on Computer in the Start Menu or from the Desktop icon and select Manage.
    Navigate to Local Users and Groups \ Users and double-click on the user account where you want to manage password expiration.
    In this example we used User_geek and we can select if they need to change the password on next login, disable them changing it, or password never expires. The process is essentially the same in Vista as well.
    For User_geek we set their account to change the password on the next logon. So when they logon they’ll see the following message.
    Since this is the first time they have logged on, there was no Password yet, but they will need to create one.
    Password was successfully created

  • $INPLACE.~TR and $WINDOWS.~Q – Windows 7 Tips

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    What Are the $INPLACE.~TR and $WINDOWS.~Q Folders?
    So you’ve upgraded from Vista to Windows 7 and you’re wondering what those new hidden folders are doing in the root of your system drive, wasting 1+ GB of space. They are system protected, so should you really delete them?


    So What Are They?
    These two folders are leftover folders created by Windows during the upgrade process, but unfortunately they don’t get deleted at the end of the setup process. You’ll only see them if you’ve got the option to show hidden files enabled under Organize –> Folder and Search Options.
    The good news is that you can definitely get rid of them.
    Use Disk Cleanup
    The easiest way to remove them is to just run Disk Cleanup (type it into the start menu search box), and then click the button to “Clean up system files”, which will re-launch Disk Cleanup as administrator.
    Now that you’ve done that, find the option for “Files discarded by Windows upgrade” and make sure it’s checked, then click the OK button. We’d recommend using Disk Cleanup on a regular basis, of course, and checking most of the rest of the boxes.
    Once you’re done, it’ll clean up the files.

  • Mirror 2 drives – Windows 7 Features

    Set Up Two hard drives as mirrored

    If you have two new equal-sized drives, you can format them to be mirrored copies of each other from the get-go.

    Heres How:

    Open the Disk Management window as described above. Make sure that the drives are unallocated. If they’re not, and you don’t need the data on either of them, right-click and select Delete volume

    Right-click on one of the unallocated drives and select New Mirrored Volume


    A wizard will pop up. Click Next.

    Click on the drives you want to hold the mirrored data and click Add. Note that you can add any number of drives. Click Next.

    Assign it a drive letter that makes sense, and then click Next.

    You’re limited to using the NTFS file system for mirrored drives, so enter a volume label, enable compression if you want, and then click Next.

    Click Finish to start formatting the drives.

    You will be warned that the new drives will be converted to dynamic disks.


    And that’s it! You now have two mirrored drives. Any files added to E: will reside on both physical disks, in case something happens to one of them.

  • Disable Mouse wakeup – Windows 7 Tips

    Stop Your Mouse from Waking Up Your Windows 7 Computer

    If you use Sleep Mode on your PC, have you ever noticed that moving your mouse will wake the computer from sleep mode? If you would prefer to only have the PC wake up when you hit a key instead, there’s a simple tweak.


    Just type Mouse into the start menu search box, or the Control Panel search box, and then open up the Mouse Properties panel. Find the Hardware tab, select your mouse in the list, and then click the Properties button.

    You’ll have to click the “Change settings” button before you can see the Power Management tab

    And now, you can uncheck the box from “Allow this device to wake the computer”.

  • Drive Mirroring for Instant Backup – Windows 7

    Use Drive Mirroring for Instant Backup in Windows 7

    Even with the best backup solution, a hard drive crash means you’ll lose a few hours of work. By enabling drive mirroring in Windows 7, you’ll always have an up-to-date copy of your data.

     
    Windows 7’s mirroring – which is only available in Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions – is a software implementation of RAID 1, which means that two or more disks are holding the exact same data. The files are constantly kept in sync, so that if one of the disks fails, you won’t lose any data.
    Mirroring an Existing Drive
    Click on the start button and type partitions in the search box. Click on the Create and format hard disk partitions entry that shows up.
    Alternatively, if you’ve disabled the search box, press Win+R to open the Run window and type in:
        diskmgmt.msc
    The Disk Management window will appear. We’ve got a small disk, labeled OldData, that we want to mirror in a second disk of the same size.
    Note: The disk that you will use to mirror the existing disk must be unallocated. If it is not, then right-click on it and select Delete Volume… to mark it as unallocated. This will destroy any data on that drive.
    Right-click on the existing disk that you want to mirror. Select Add Mirror
    Select the disk that you want to use to mirror the existing disk’s data and press Add Mirror.
    You will be warned that this process will change the existing disk from basic to dynamic. Note that this process will not delete any data on the disk.
    The new disk will be marked as a mirror, and it will starting copying data from the existing drive to the new one.
    Eventually the drives will be synced up (it can take a while), and any data added to the E: drive will exist on both physical hard drives.

  • Reliability Monitor- Windows 7 Features

    Troubleshoot Computer Problems with Reliability Monitor in Windows 7


    Windows Vista introduced us to the Reliability and Performance Monitor utility to help keep track of hardware and software crashes. It’s now a stand alone utility in Windows 7 and we will take a look at how to access and use it.

    Reliability Monitor in Windows 7
    To access the Reliability Monitor in Windows 7, open Action Center from the icon in the Notification Area or from Control Panel.
    Under the Maintenance options click on View reliability history.
    Alternately you can enter Reliability Monitor into the search box in the Start menu.
    The Reliability Monitor opens and you can start checking out where and when hardware or software errors have occurred.
    On the chart you’ll see icons for warnings and failures based on a scale from 1 to 10 (1 being least stable and 10 the most stable). Click on the date where errors have occurred so you can view the details.
    You can choose between Days or Weeks View.
    In the details section you can click on any of the errors and get the technical details.
    The Problem Details section tells you what the problem is, date and time it happened, and a description of the problem. You can copy the details to the clipboard in case you need to email it to tech support.
    It also allows you to View all problem reports that will show only computer errors. It doesn’t show other events like software installations.
    It provides a list of problems on the computer, luckily in this example there is only one issue.
    Double click on any error in the list to get detailed results.
    You can also click on Check for solutions to all problems.
    When a solution is found, the information is presented in Action Center under the Maintenance section. In this example there is a wireless network adapter that’s missing a driver. It provides a link to the driver and gives directions on how to download and install it.
    If you are experiencing problems with your Windows 7 machine such as devices not working or are getting different error messages, the Reliability Monitor is a good place to start looking for a solution.

  • Using ClearType Tuner – Windows 7 Tips

    Using ClearType Tuner in Windows 7

    Back in Windows XP there was an important Power toy created to enable ClearType for users of LCD screens. Now it’s standard in Windows 7, but you may not know about it. So let’s take a look.

    Access Clear Type in Windows 7
    Click on the Start Menu and type cleartype into the search box and hit Enter.
    It should be enabled by default, but if not just check the box to enable it.
    Now, in the next step, you can enable it for two or more monitors if you have them. Or you could select an individual one if it works best for one but not another. Some people might want it turned off if they have a CRT and a LCD monitor for example.
    Now you can go through the wizard and pick out what resolution works best for the monitor(s) you choose.
    Just select the text in each step that looks best for you.

    Then finish it out.

  • Add Internet Search to Start Menu – Windows 7 Tips

    Add Internet Search to Start Menu

    The new Search feature in Windows 7 has greatly improved for navigating your PC. But how neat would it be to search the Internet from the Start Menu? Here we show you how to do it.

    This method uses Group Policy Editor which is not available in Home versions of Windows 7.
    Using Group Policy Editor
    First type gpedit.msc into the Search box in the Start Menu and hit Enter.
    When Group Policy Editor opens navigate to 
    User Configuration \ Administrative Templates \ Start Menu and Taskbar. 
    Then double-click on Add Search Internet link to Start Menu.
    In the screen that comes up select Enable, click OK, and close out of Group Policy Editor.
    Now when you want to search for something in the Start Menu, you’ll see an extra link so you can search the Internet.
    Then your search query will open up in your favorite browser.

  • Add External Drive – Windows 7 Tips

    How To Pin an External Drive to the Windows 7 Taskbar

    Adding Drive to Windows Explorer

    You would think the process would be as easy as dragging the external drive icon to the Taskbar. Unfortunately that isn’t the case. If you try to drag the external drive icon to the Taskbar, it just adds it to Windows Explorer.

     
    Then if you right-click on the Windows Explorer icon, you’ll be able to access it from there. This might be enough for some users, but we want to add it to the Taskbar as an icon.
    Steps for Pinning External Drive to Taskbar
    With a quick work around we can add the drive as an icon. First what you need to do is right-click an empty area on your desktop and select New \ Text Document.
    Then name the text doc whatever you want to call it and change .txt to .exe. Like in this example we’re adding the external E:\ drive, so we named it Drive E.exe then hit Enter.
    After hitting Enter you will get a message asking if you’re sure you want to change the extension, click Yes.
    Now you’ll have the “dummy” executable on the desktop. Right-click on it and select Pin to Taskbar.
    Now you’ll have the executable icon on the Taskbar. Right-click on it, then right-click on the name of the file and select Properties.
    Under the Shortcut tab change the Target to the drive letter and Start in to the drive letter as well and click OK. You can actually use this technique to add any folder to the Taskbar too. The main thing to remember is changing the Target to the correct path.
    While you’re there, you might want to change the icon to something more appropriate like a hard drive icon.
    You can see we have a more appropriate looking hard drive icon on the Taskbar.
    And when we click on it, it opens up to our external USB drive so we can access its content.
    Or maybe you want to have the drive open to a specific folder. Just change the Target path to the folder you want it to open in.
    Then when you click the icon it will open to the directory you specified.