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Category: Windows 7

  • Dual boot Windows 8 with Windows 7

    Information
    This article will show you how to set up a dual boot installation with Windows 8 Consumer Preview and Windows 7, when Windows 7 is already installed.

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  • Windows 7: Enable Run command

    Steps to Enable Run Command in Windows 7 Start menu
    Windows 7 is really amazing as compared to Windows Vista and Windows XP. The main feature it missed out is the Run command shortcut in Windows 7 start menu. We all know the importance of RUN command in our daily computer usage but due to some mysterious reason it is not available in Windows 7 Start menu. Even if the start menu is doing a great job as a substitute, it’s hardly a substitute to the almighty run command.

    But don’t worry there is a way to bring back Run command in Windows 7 Start menu with a few clicks of your mouse. To do this we should enable Run Command in Start menu properties.
    Steps to bring back Run Command in Windows 7 Start Menu
    To bring back Run Command in Windows 7 start menu follow the steps below.
    1. Right click on Windows 7 Start menu
    2. Click on Properties
    This will open Taskbar and Start Menu Properties Window
    3. Click on Customize button
    Click on Customize button under Start Menu tab. Now Windows 7 start menu customization option window will be opened. To activate run command in Windows 7 start menu we need to check Run Command check box in the customization window.
    Click on OK. Now the Run Command short is added in Windows 7 Start Menu.

  • Windows 7 VS Vista

    Mind blowing things Windows 7 does that Vista doesn’t
    Shake them away
    Ever had 10 Notepad, two Powerpoint and 50 Outlook windows open? Want to minimise all of them except the most important one? In Windows 7, you can grab the top of the window and shake it about to scare away all of the other open windows. Simple.
    A step forward in previewing
    In Vista, hovering over a minimised window on the taskbar would provide a preview of the window. In Windows 7, a similar preview pops up which also gives the option to close a window (within the preview), along with a full-size ‘peek’. You can also press Win + T to scroll along previews in the taskbar.
               A smaller preview, along with a full-size ‘peek’ with the ability to close the window
    Snap into place
    Simply drag your window to the left or right edge of the desktop to snap and resize the window to one half of the screen. Drag the window to the top to maximise it. A pretty neat idea made neater by the use of the keyboard shortcuts (Win + respective arrow keys). No longer do you have to frustratingly position the mouse at the edge of the window to resize it.
    Jumplists
    Jumplists are a new feature that give you the option to view a list of recently accessed files by application, even when the application isn’t open, by right-clicking on the application’s icon in the taskbar. It also allows you to quickly access a favourite playlist without opening your media player. Jumplists can also be found integrated into the Start Menu.
                                         The Jumplist for Windows Explorer – pretty useful
                                                 A Jumplist integrated into the Start Menu
    XP Mode
    This time, you do not have to slap your head that same way when Vista would not run an XP application. For those XP applications that do not work under Windows 7, you can download XP Mode free from the Microsoft website and run XP applications in an emulated XP environment in Windows 7. Imagine Parallels on Mac OS X without the need to fish out money on an extra OS.
    An easier and quicker way to adjust multiple displays
    Do you constantly connect your computer to different external monitors or projectors, especially at work? Try Win + P, and duplicating or extending your display to the other monitor takes just a second. Win + P presents you with an Alt + Tab style menu, which is ideal if you give a lot of presentations at work on your laptop.
    A personalised Stage for your device
    With the new ‘Device and Printers’ button on the Start Menu, devices which are connected to your computer can have their own Stage. This Device Stage presents supported devices with a photo-realistic render and a link to the vendor’s website, along with other updates and useful information (such as firmware updates and manuals).
    Eliminate the notification area!
    What, I can even get rid of the clock and volume icons? Yes. Click the arrow that gives access to the overflow icons in the notification area and click ‘customise’. Select each icon and click ‘hide icon and notifications’ to remove it. Clean.
                                                            Stop all those notifications
    Problem Steps Recorder
    The ‘Problem Steps Recorder’ lets you record a particular problem you are having with your PC so you can send it to someone who may be able to help. Click ‘Record’, and a screenshot is taken with every mouse click, allowing comments to be added in between if required. These screenshots (and comments, if any) are placed in a well-formatted HTML document that is placed inside a zipped folder on your desktop – ideal to be attached to an email.
                                    Simple, yet so effective. Send this to friends or manufacturers
    A brand new Magnifier tool
    If you are, or someone you know, is visually impaired, then the Windows 7 Magnifier provides two options for providing a bigger display. One of which is using the traditional dock (which took up a lot of the screen) and the other being a rectangular lens that is stuck to the cursor (meaning there is no loss of workspace).
                   A sleek new magnifier that follows your cursor, without decreasing your workspace
    A new way to preview your music files
    Opening and listening to an MP3 is a lot more snappier with Windows 7 due to its new smaller preview player, presenting you with album art, basic music functionality and a link to the full-blown Windows Media Player. This is an obvious attempt to mimic the preview feature of Mac OS X, but it is very well executed.
                                                The new preview is simple – and loads up very quickly
    Homegroup Networking
    In Vista (or, frankly, any Windows OS), creating a shared folder over a network at home could be a bit of a pain. In Windows 7, using the ‘Homegroup’ wizard, check the default folders you would like to share. This will give you a passcode that will have to be entered in another computer on the same network to share the files. Sounds too good to be true? There is a catch: only a Windows 7 computer can join a Homegroup.
    Stream Music directly to another computer
    If you do create a Homegroup, Windows Media Player allows you to stream music directly to another computer. So, instead of listening to music through your measly laptop speakers, you can wirelessly stream to the 7.1 Surround Sound Speakers of your PC in your living room, without stepping away from your laptop. Sweet.
    Action Center
    The Action Center is the new Security Center for Windows 7, along with other notifications such as updates and access to the improved troubleshooting and recovery using restore point facilities. Basically, it is everything windows usually annoys you with, rolled into one place with one icon in the notification bar. If you find the alerts irritating, you can check out this tip to make the Windows 7 Action Center less annoying.
    Pin just about anything to the new Windows Taskbar
    Imagine a blank Mac OS X Dock with the start menu, the notifications bar and the improved ‘Show Desktop’ button added to it. Drag just about anything on to it and the associated application will place itself on the translucent taskbar, with an option to open the file in the Jumplist.
    Improved Touch Navigation
    Windows 7 has much improved touch navigation. The larger taskbar with squarer icons makes it a lot easier to navigate with your fingers, and Macbook-like multi-touch gestures on various applications could change the way you interact with windows. Subtle enhancements such as a larger Start Menu appearing when Touchscreen hardware is detected also help.
    Native ISO Burner
    There are those times when you inevitably have to burn an ISO file (such as when you have to copy a downloaded Windows 7 beta or RC) to a DVD. With Windows 7 you do not need to download third-party software (some of which are pretty confusing to use). Double-clicking on an ISO file will take you to a window that allows you to change the disc burner drive. Click ‘Burn’. After a while, your disc is ready. Simple.
                                            Burning an ISO file has never been so easy
    Native calibration tools
    If you tend to hook up your computer to an HDTV or care about getting the highest quality from your monitor, then the in-built basic and easy-to-use calibration tools built into Windows 7 will please you.

  • Change Startup Programs in Windows 7

    When Windows starts up, it automatically loads a number of programs, many of which you may not need. As you install more and more programs, this list can continue to grow.

    The following guide can help you improve your computer’s startup times by decreasing the number of startup programs. This will be done be disabling certain programs from running as windows starts up.

    Instructions

    Add a Link to the Startup Folder

    1. Click the Windows “Start” button and select “All Programs.” Right-click the “Startup” folder in the menu and select “Open All Users.” This option opens the folder for all users on the computer. Choose “Explore” to open the folder for the currently logged-in user only.
       
    2. Right-click the folder or file you want started when the computer boots. Select “Copy” from the menu.
       
    3. Right-click any white space in the “Startup” folder you opened in Step 1. Select “Paste” from the menu list. The program will now open the next time you start the computer.
    Change Current Startup Programs
    1. Click the Windows “Start” button and type “msconfig” in the search text box. This opens the System Configuration console.
       
    2. Click the “Startup” tab. This gives you a view of all the programs installed as startup options on your computer.
       
    3. Check boxes of the applications you want to start when you boot the computer. For programs you no longer want to start, clear the check box.
       
    4. Click “Apply” and close the configuration window. A popup window will ask if you want to reboot the computer. Click “Restart” to reboot the computer and save the changes.

  • Disabling system tray: Windows 7

                 In this article we are going to see how to disable the system tray completely  If you are the type of person that never uses any applications in the system tray, you might be interested in this registry tweak to turn it off entirely. I can’t imagine using my own system this way, but we’re all about providing information.


    Note: that you could also use this in reverse… if your system tray is disabled and you don’t know why, you should check this registry key.

    You can even remove the clock if you’d like, by right-clicking on the taskbar and choosing Properties. It’s on the Notification Area tab.
    Manual Registry tweak:
    Open up regedit.exe through the start menu search or run box, and then navigate down to the following key (Create if it doesn’t exist):
        “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer”

    Create a new 32-bit DWORD value in the right hand pane with these values:
        * Name: NoTrayItemsDisplay
        * Value: 1
    You will have to logoff and back on for this to take effect. To remove the hack, just delete the key, or change the value to 0.
    Note that disabling the system tray doesn’t actually prevent system tray apps from running, it just hides them. You should still disable any applications that aren’t needed.
    Update: Note that the same registry key may exist in more than one location, so if you are trying to reverse this hack, you should search the registry for NoTrayItemsDisplay.
    Note that this tip should work in all versions of Windows like windows XP and Windows 7 or vista.

  • Managing Action center : Windows 7

                        In Windows 7 it can get annoying seeing the Action Center icon pop up notifications every time you turn on your computer.  Today we will look at changing the messages that it displays and even completely disabling it.
    New in Windows 7 is the Action Center which is an activity center that allows you to control system notifications.  This is definitely an improvement to previous versions so you can control the amount of annoying messages the OS pops up from the taskbar.  To get to Action Center select it from Control Panel or simply type “action center” (no quotes) into the search box in the Start Menu.


    By default the Action Center notification icon will be displayed in the taskbar and display messages about security and maintenance settings.

    While in Action Center you can view which settings are enabled or not and change them by clicking the different hyperlinks.

    Click on Change Action Center settings to turn messages on or off.

    If you are an experienced user and don’t care to see the Action Center icon in the taskbar at all, here is how we disable it.  Click on Start and go to Control Panel.

    Now in Control Panel select All Control Panel Items and then click on System Icons.

    The Turn system icons on or off window will open and here you change Action Center to Off.  Notice you can also turn other system icons on or off as well.

    Also if you click on Customize notification icons in the screen above you can select the behavior of other tray notifications individually.

    If you are new to computers or Windows 7 you might not want to disable the Action Center entirely until you get a better feel for it.  With these tips you can definitely control the amount of notifications that pop up.

  • Media center Live TV setup: Windows 7

    If you’re moving from Windows XP to Windows 7, one of the new features you might be interested in is Media Center. In this article we’ll walk through the process of setting up Live TV 

    Unless you happened to be using Windows XP Media Center Edition or Vista and are new to Windows 7, Media Center is probably completely new to you. Let’s take a look at setting it up for the Live TV
    Note: Windows Media Center is only available in Windows Home Premium and above.
    Windows 7 Media Center Live TV Setup: 
    Click on the Start Menu and click on Windows Media Center.

    Windows Media Center will launch…click on the Continue button.

    On the Get Started screen you can select Learn More, Custom setup, or Express. The quickest way to get rolling is to click Express. You can start with Custom setup, but it will take longer, and you want to get started right away. Also, you can change customizations at any time after you have it up and running. 


    Setup Live TV
    If you do have a TV tuner card, another thing you’ll want to setup right away is live TV. Make sure you’re antenna, cable, or satellite cable is connected to the card.From the main menu under TV scroll over to Live TV Setup.

    Verify the Region for your local TV service is correct.

    Enter in your zip code to get the Program Guide for your area.

    Agree to the Program Guide Terms of Service…

    Then you’ll need to agree to the EULA for Microsoft PlayReady.


    Wait while the Program Guide is downloaded and PlayReady is installed.

    After everything is setup you’ll be able to navigate through the Guide to view you’re favorite shows. If you like to use WMC to mainly watch Live TV, a cool trick is automatically starting Media Center in Live TV mode.

  • Media center sleep timer: Windows 7

      
                         Do you make it a habit of falling asleep at night while watching Windows Media Center? we are going to take a look at the Media center 7 Sleep Timer for Windows 7 Media Center. This simple little plugin allows you to schedule an automatic shutdown time in Media Center.

    Note: At this point MC7 Sleep Timer doesn’t work with extenders. If you’re using ClamAV or Panda it may detect this plugin as a virus, we’ve tested it and this is a false positive for these two antivirus apps.
    Installation and Usage


    After the installation is finished, you will find MC7 Sleep Timer located in the Media Center Extras Library. Click on the tile to open the timer and configure your settings.

    The Media Center  Sleep Timer will open in full screen mode. You can choose to shutdown the PC after 30 or 60 minutes, create a custom length shutdown timer at any 5 minute interval, or select the exact time you want the PC to shutdown.  After setting your PC to shutdown, you’ll get an audio confirmation.

    To set a custom timer length, scroll to the “Custom timer” option and click right or left on your Media Center remote or, the right or left arrow keys, to choose how many minutes before shutdown.

    To schedule a shutdown for a certain time, browse to the “Shutdown at time” button, and scroll right or left with the arrow keys on the keyboard or remote. When you’ve chosen your time, hit “Enter” on the keyboard or “OK” on the remote.
    Clicking the “Monitor Off” button will turn off only the monitor and “Cancel Timer” will cancel your shutdown request.



  • Conhost.exe In windows 7

    What is conhost.exe and Why Is It Running?

    You might be wondering what is this process and why is it running in windows 7?

    Well, we have an answer.

    What Is It?

    The conhost.exe process fixes a fundamental problem in the way previous versions of Windows handled console windows, which broke drag & drop in Vista.

    It’s a completely legitimate executable as long as it’s running from the system32 folder, and is signed by Microsoft. Scanning your computer for viruses is never a bad idea, though. 

    Why Do I Need It?

    There was a problem with the way the console process works on previous versions of Windows—they are all hosted under the csrss.exe (Client Server Runtime Process) service. This process runs as a system privileged account.

    Checking out in Process Explorer under Windows 7 shows that the conhost.exe process is running underneath the csrss.exe process.

    The conhost.exe process sitting in the middle between CSRSS and cmd.exe allows Windows 7 to fix both of the problems in previous versions of Windows not only do the scrollbars draw correctly, but you can actually drag and drop a file from Explorer straight into the command prompt

    If you really want to be sure, check out the file properties for the conhost.exe executable, and you’ll see that the description says Console Window Host

    If you look at the details of the process from within Process Explorer, you’ll notice that the ComSpec is set to cmd.exe, a clear indication that it’s hosting the command prompt. 

  • Network (WORKGROUP) Shortcut -Windows 7


    How to Create a “Network (WORKGROUP)” Folder Shortcut in Windows 7
    Information
    This article will show you how to create or download a Network (WORKGROUP) folder shortcut in Windows 7.
    You can also Pin to Taskbar or Pin to Start Menu this shortcut, or move where you like for easy use.
    This article is made for Windows 7 only and may or may not work for Windows XP

    EXAMPLE:
    Network (WORKGROUP) folder
    HERE’S HOW:
    Create the “Network (WORKGROUP)” folder Shortcut
    1. Right click on a empty area on desktop, and click on New and Shortcut.
    2. Type the location below into the location area, and click on the Next button. (see screenshot below)
    Code:
    C:\Windows\explorer.exe /e,::{208D2C60-3AEA-1069-A2D7-08002B30309D}
    3. Type Network (WORKGROUP) for the name, and click on the Finish button. (see screenshot below)
    NOTE:
    You can name this anything you would like though.
    4. Right click on the new Network (WORKGROUP) shortcut on the Desktop and click on Properties.
    5. Click on the Shortcut tab, then click on the Change Icon button. (see screenshot below)
    6. In the line under “Look for icons in this file”, type in the location below and press Enter. (see screenshot below)
    C:\Windows\System32\imageres.dll
    7. Select the icon highlighted in blue above and click on OK. (see screenshot above)
    NOTE:
    You can use any icon that you would like instead though.
    8. Click on OK. (see screenshot below)
    9. Move the shortcut to where you like for easy use.

    This article is made for Windows 7 only and may or may not work for Windows XP