Learn how to display Administrative Tools menu option on Windows 7 Start Menu.

Administrative Tools in Windows hosts some of the system level tools that a normal user won’t need in their day-to-day usage. But if you are a power user or you know what you are doing with your computer you might need to get to the Administrative Tools to accomplish certain tasks like viewing system events, configuring data source, performance monitoring, task scheduling etc. If you are a power user you might already know this trick but if you are someone who is following a guide to accomplish certain tasks and would like to learn more about Windows in that process, this tip is for you.

Since these are tasks for advanced users Windows 7 does not come with the Administrative Tools option turned on. You have to do that manually and it’s pretty simple to do.

Right-click on the Windows “Start” button and click on the “Properties” menu option. Windows will open the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog, click on the “Start Menu” tab and then click on the “Customize” button.

When the “Customize Start Menu” dialog comes up scroll down to locate the “System Administrative Tools” section. Click on either the “Display on the All Programs menu” option or the “Display on the All Programs menu and the Start menu” option depending where you see fit. Once enabled Windows will now display an “Administrative Tools” menu option on the Windows Start Menu which is a simpler way to get to the administrative tools.

Use these techniques to stop your Windows 7 computer from automatically waking up from sleep which can be quite dangerous sometimes.

Windows 7’s Sleep Mode is pretty slick and useful especially when you are on the move with your laptop. It comes off of sleep pretty quick and restore itself to an earlier stage without much fuzz. If you have been actively using Windows 7’s Sleep mode you would have faced this annoying problem where your Windows 7 computer automatically wakes up from sleep without you doing anything.

That’s no big deal,  let it wake up…what’s wrong? Right? Well, if your laptop (this problem is more annoying on laptops, BTW) wakes up by itself and drains the battery by itself unnecessarily then that’s a problem, especially if you expect your laptop to be ready for use when you ask it to wake up. You’d be clearly surprised to see that your battery is all drained out by the unnecessary wake up.

The good news is that you can easily stop this behavior. Most of the time it’s your network card that wakes up your computer from sleep. To stop your network card from waking your computer up you need to tweak a few settings.

Start by searching for “Device” on your Windows Start menu Search Bar. Under the Control Panel section you should be able to see “Device Manager” listed. Click on it to launch Device Manager. Alternatively you can use the Control Panel to navigate into Device Manager.

Once Device Manager launches navigate to the “Network Adapters” node and expand and right-click on your network card and click on “Properties”.

When the network card Properties window launch navigate to the “Power Management” tab and make sure to uncheck the “Allow this device to wake the computer” option. Once done dismiss all the open dialogs to accept the settings.

Sometimes automatic Windows Update can wake up your computer from sleep. This is not the majority of the case but could be a culprit and wouldn’t hurt to check and make sure.

On Windows Start menu search for “Update” and click on “Windows Update”. When Windows Update screen comes up click on the “Change Settings” option on the left side of the screen.

When the Windows Update Settings page opens up make sure you have a reasonable time set for Windows to install new updates. You don’t want to pick a time when you are sleeping or when you are driving. Pick a time when you can either be on the computer or could get to the computer in case if you notice the computer being turned on.

If you are curious to know what device woke your computer up from sleep the last time you can run this command to find out,

powercfg -lastwake

You can also use the command

powercfg –devicequery wake_armed

to find out the list of devices that are capable of waking your computer up from sleep. Once you have the list of devices you can use Device Manager to disable those devices from waking up your computer from sleep.

If you are experiencing this automatic wake up issue you need to focus a little bit to get this fixed especially if you are using your laptop. When you keep them in the bag and when it get woke up your laptop could heat up pretty quick and pretty bad. So do focus on this issue to resolve it if you are experiencing automatic wakeup from your Windows 7 computer.

Adjusting the Virtual Memory settings could literally speed-up your computer.

Virtual Memory is a medium that doesn’t exist as a physical memory but rather it’s a technique to mimic a storage device as physical memory. Physical Memory is the RAM module that comes with your computer and are limited in size even though those modules are getting cheaper and cheaper these days. To make things perform faster your Windows PC leverages virtual memory where in a portion of your hard disk would be used as a volatile memory. By leveraging this extra space your computer can perform things faster than it can with just the physical memory.

If for some reason you started experiencing slower computer performance but there is no way for you to either spend on expanding the memory module or if you have maxed out on your system memory capacity you can tap into adjusting your computer’s virtual memory setting to see if you can squeeze out a little more performance juice out of your computer. Adjusting your computer’s virtual memory setting is easy.

Start by typing “System” into the Search Bar. Click on the “System” link under Control Panel. Alternatively you can launch Control Panel and open up the System applet.

It would give you a screen where it displays basic information about your computer. Click on the “Advanced system settings” link on the left side of the dialog.

You’ll then get the System Properties dialog. Click on the “Advanced” tab and then click on the “Settings” button under the “Performance” section.

Windows will open up the “Performance Options” dialog. Navigate to the “Advanced” tab and click on the “Change…” button on the “Virtual Memory” section.

You are then presented with the Virtual Memory dialog where you can adjust couple of things to specify a custom virtual memory size that you feel comfortable. If the “Automatically manage paging file size for all drives” is checked make sure to uncheck the option. Everything else will enable by now and change from “System managed size” to the “Custom Size” choice. You’d then need to specify the initial and maximum sizes for the virtual memory. If you know what you are doing you can pick your number but if you don’t then a range of 3,000 for the Initial size and 6,000 for the Maximum size would be a safer bet. This is more important, once done make sure to click on the “Set” button to set this new size. Otherwise things wouldn’t work. Once done click on the “OK” button to dismiss the dialog (make sure to do it only after you click the “Set” button). You might want to restart your computer for the settings to take effect.

Now your system should be on the extra gear to give you the maximum performance possible.

Windows 7 provides a comprehensive set of tools to restrict and keep an eye on the computer usage of your kids.

Earlier we have mentioned about how to make use of Windows Vista’s Parental Controls and also a little primer on Mac OSX Parental Controls. It’s time to take a look at what Windows 7 has to offer in this regard.

Before you setup parental controls on your Windows 7 machine you need to make sure you create appropriate user accounts for each user of your computer. And also make sure you grant the Administrative access to a trusted account.

Once you have these setup you can then move on with implementing parental control setting for your family computer. With Windows 7’s Parental Control capabilities you can set limits on the hours your children can use the computer, the types of games they can play and also the applications they can run on a computer. Implementing parental controls on Windows 7 is easy and straight-forward.

On the Control Panel click on “Set up parental controls for any user” link under “User Accounts and Family Safety”.

You can also get to Windows 7’s Parental Controls if you go into Internet Explorer Options and then on the “Content” tab you can see “Parental Controls” button.

Once in there, choose the user you want to set parental controls for. The user cannot be an Administrator of the machine, as a kid account is not supposed to have Administrator privileges.

On the User Controls dialog enable Parental Controls by checking the “On, enforce current settings” option under Parental Controls. Once you enable it you should be able to see 3 different settings that you can use to restrict how your kid can use the computer,

• Time limit – this option allows you to set time limits on when your children can use the computer
• Games – this option allows you to set  the type of games your children can play on a computer
• Allow or block specific programs – this option allows you to restrict the programs your kid can use on a computer

Start by trying to set time limits on when your kid can use the computer.

You can “left-click and drag” your mouse over the time columns across the days to block the time when your kid can’t use the computer. The cells would turn blue to indicate that those time are blocked from usage. White cells indicate the time the computer usage is allowed. Make sure to hit the “OK” button.

On the Game Controls section you can indicate whether your kid can play games on this computer or not. If you allow your kid to play games then there are some more restrictions that you can use to block the type of games your kid can play. Either you can restrict the games based on ratings or by specific games.

If you choose to set restrictions based on ratings you can set to allow or block games with no rating. Also you can set a wide variety of ratings to allow or restrict the type of games your kid can play on this computer.

You can also restrict the games by the type of content like animated blood, comic mischief, drug reference etc. There are a whole bunch of options out there for you to consider.

If you want to restrict specific games you can do so by setting the “Always Allow” or “Always Block” options next to the game name. Keep in mind that this might not be a great option if your kid installs new games or when you don’t actively maintain this parental control setting.

Lastly, you can also choose to restrict usage of certain programs/applications. This would be a handy thing to have as in most cases you might have an application that you don’t want your children to get to for various reasons. By allowing your kid to use only certain applications you can keep your computer stable.

Even though parental controls on Windows 7 provides some decent control it is certainly not the most extensive. For most of day to day computer usage of your children this would provide a decent way to keep a tab on them.

Windows can suggest preferred settings based on your physical condition so you see, hear and use your computer with ease.

If you have a physical condition that demands some special needs when using your computer you’ll certainly love to hear that Windows can recommend optimal settings for you so you can see, hear and use your computer better.

Getting Windows recommended settings is a lot easier than you think. Just answer 5 simple questions and follow the recommendations.

To get started, launch Control Panel.

Click on the “Let Windows suggest settings” link under “Ease of Access”.

Windows will start to ask 5 simple questions starting with “Eyesight” related questions. Answer the one that’s most appropriate to you.

In the next screen you’ll be asked about “Dexterity” related questions.

In the following screen you’ll be asked questions related to “Hearing”. Again answer the ones that are most appropriate to your condition.

In the 4th step you’ll be asked about your “Speech” related questions. Answer the ones that apply to you.

In the last and final step you’ll be asked “Reasoning” related questions. Answer the ones that’s appropriate to you and hit the “Next” button.

Windows will then reveal an elaborate report detailing what could be done to improve your computer so you can see, hear and use it in ease. All these recommendations are optional and so if you don’t like to turn on a recommendation you can feel free to do so. But if you have a physical condition that you answered yes to some of the questions it is highly recommended to follow the suggested settings.

Use this simple trick to reveal hidden files and folders in Windows.

Windows, by default, hides system files and some other important files for security reasons. Which means you won’t be able to see those hidden files using Windows Explorer. That doesn’t mean you cannot see those files forever. All you have to do is to tweak a Folder setting to reveal those hidden files.

Launch Windows Explorer and click on the “Organize” menu. Then click on the “Folder and search options” item. If you are using Windows XP then you might want to use the “Tools”  menu “Folder Options” item.

Navigate to the “View” tab and locate the “Hidden files and folders” item under “Advanced Settings”. Choose the “Show hidden files, folders and drives” option and hit the OK button.

From now on you should be able to see all hidden files and folders using Windows Explorer. If you are looking for a file that you know it exists for sure but couldn’t locate it then you might want to turn this option on and see if you can locate it in your computer. Make sure to turn this off when you are not using it. If you leave this option on forever you might accidentally delete files that are important to your system. So use this option only when needed.

Windows 7 allows you to change the way the power button on your computer behaves.

Power button is meant to power up and down your computer. Sort of. But if you have a little son or daughter at home you know that they want to be all over your laptop when you are at your laptop. I don’t know about you but it happens in many of our households. Most of the time we are okay to let them have a hand on the laptop but it would be terribly annoying if you are in the middle of doing something and they accidentally press the power button and your laptop shuts down all of a sudden.

Well, if we can’t control the kids pressing the power button on your laptop at least we can control the way the power button behaves on your laptop. That’s possible! Windows 7 let you customize the power button behavior of your computer in a couple of simple steps.

Launch Control Panel.

Click on the “System and Security” option.

Click on the “Power Options” item.

On the list of Power Plans choose the appropriate plan (or it must have been chosen for you already). For this walk-thru we are using the “Balanced” power plan. Click on the “Change plan settings” link.

Click on the “Change advanced power settings” link.

In the “Power Options” dialog scroll down to locate the “Power button and lid” item. Expand the “Power button action” item. On the “Plugged in” choice choose “Do nothing”.

Hit OK buttons all along to dismiss all the open dialogs. That’s it. From now on when you (or your little son or daughter) press the power button, nothing will happen.

Your laptop will continue to operate and the only way to shutdown the laptop is to use the “Start” menu options.

I hope this is a simple enough tweak to make the power button on your laptop do nothing so you won’t accidentally shutdown your computer.

Enhance your experience using Windows Explorer on your Windows XP computer with these 5 really useful add-ons.

Everyone agrees that Windows Explorer is one of the most important piece of software without which browsing for the files would be a nightmare (imagine using the Command Prompt and DOS commands!). These days with Windows 7 and Windows Vista the Windows Explorer functionality has been enhanced a lot but the Windows Explorer that comes with Windows XP is very minimal in terms of features that makes it plain blank to use. If you are still stuck with Windows XP (for various reasons) then here are 5 very useful add-ons that make using Windows Explorer on Windows XP a fun and useful experience.

QTTabBar

QTTabBar brings tabbed browsing to Windows Explorer. Wouldn’t it be nice to open multiple tabs of the folders that you are working on instead of going back and forth? This add-on truly enhances the Windows Explorer experience. None of the latest enhancements to Windows Explorer brought tabbed-viewing capabilities and to the good news, QTTabBar works on Windows XP and Windows Vista (32-bit).

QTAddressBar

This comes from the same developer of QTTabBar. Windows Vista brought a nice breadcrumb navigation to Windows Explorer and indeed it was really useful to get back to folders very easily than jumping into those folders with the Back/Up button. If you really like Windows Vista’s (and Windows 7′s) breadcrumb navigation you’ll love to have this add-on on your Windows XP machine.

Folder Size

One major drawback with Windows Explorer on Windows XP is the fact that it doesn’t show the size of the folder but rather only shows the size of each files. If you really need to know the size of a folder you have to get to the Properties dialog. Sometimes it would come in handy to see the folder size just as a column in Windows Explorer so you can sort by folder size. Folder Size add-on brings the folder size to a column in your Windows Explorer, very handy!

Vista Drive Icon

Windows Explorer on Windows XP only shows the drive names without much visual indication of the size of those drives. Windows Vista brought a nice icon and a capacity bar to those drives. If you quickly want to glance at the size of those drives on your Windows Explorer look no further than Vista Drive Icon.

File Menu Tools

You can only do a few things with the default actions provided by the Windows Explorer’s context menu (when you right-click). File Menu Tools adds quite a lot useful functionalities as shortcuts to the context menu and so when you right-click on a folder or a file you can do a lot more to get things done quickly.

I hope you find these 5 Windows Explorer add-ons very useful. If you have been using an add-on that you think is helping you a lot please share with us on comments.

Windows 7 Compatibility Center can help you figure out what software and hardware

are compatible with Windows 7.

With every new release of a major operating system like Windows 7 comes compatibility issues. Some of the software might not work, drivers might have clashes and some of the updates might not get installed etc. It’s always a hassle to figure the compatibility issues on our own, unless you are tech-savvy.

With Windows 7 Compatibility Center you can figure out what software works  and what drivers are compatible. Just visit Windows 7 Compatibility Center and choose the category that you wanted to browse for, either software or hardware.

On the software side you can browse for software on these categories,

• Business & Home Office
• Communications & Internet
• Graphics & Printing
• PC Gaming
• Kids & Educational
• Hobbies & Personal Improvement
• Photo & Video
• Music & MP3
• Utilities
• Assistive Technology
• Development Tools
• Enterprise Applications

That certainly is quite an array of categories that you can drill down to locate the software compatibility list.

When you drill down to each of these categories you can see a long list of software that are marked as either compatible or incompatible.

On the hardware end you can browse through these categories,

• Cameras & Photo
• Printers & Scanners
• MP3 & Media Players
• TV Devices
• Communications Devices
• Mice, Keyboards & Input Devices
• Displays
• Networking
• Graphics Cards & Components
• Storage Devices

Again, when you drill down to each of these categories you could see a huge list of hardware items listed as either compatible or incompatible.

If the sheer volume of the product list overwhelms you, you can use the search feature instead to look for specific item’s compatibility rating.

Apparently, Microsoft is trying to make everything correct with Windows 7 and the Compatibility Center is another crown jewel that can help people figure out software and hardware compatibility issues with Windows 7 in a better way.

What’s your thought on Windows 7 Compatibility Center? Do you care to use it?

AutoPlay feature of the USB device on Windows can be quite dangerous.

It is certainly more convenient to have Windows immediately pick-up the USB device once you plug it into the USB port. But, as you might realize, it comes with a heavy price. No matter how careful you are, it is quite possible that your USB device could pick up a virus or if you allow others to use your computer it is more probable that the USB device that they might be plugging into your computer could contain viruses and all sort of nasty things, who knows!

It is, obviously, better to be on the safer side than sorry. Instead of allowing Windows 7 (or Windows Vista for that matter) to automatically play the USB device once you plug it in, why not just disable Windows from auto playing the USB device? With that way you won’t run into accidental virus issues and if you are certain that the device is safe to browse you can then obviously get to the device manually using Windows Explorer.

It is pretty simple to turn off the AutoPlay feature on Windows 7 for any external media devices.

Start by typing “group policy” on the Windows Search Box. Windows 7 will narrow down to “Edit Group Policy” on the list. Click on “Edit Group Policy” item.

Once Windows launches “Local Group Policy Editor” window, on the left side of the window expand the nodes “Computer Configuration” and then “Administrative Templates” and then “Windows Components” and then choose “AutoPlay Policies”. On the right side of the window you should be able to see “Turn off AutoPlay” option.

Double-click on the “Turn off AutoPlay” option and Windows will present you with the “Turn off AutoPlay” dialogue. On that window click on the “Enabled” option to disable the auto play feature of Windows. Make sure to hit the OK button to dismiss the dialogue.

From now on Windows won’t try to automatically play the device when you plug-in a USB device or any other external media devices. Keep in mind that this tweak requires Administrative privileges and this applies to all the users of the computer including the Administrator.

I hope you take the precautionary step to make sure you don’t accidentally run into issues with your computer with viruses and such. This is just one more prevention on the cautious side.

Windows 7 has a neat disk quota management option which helps you restrict hard disk space usage for individual users.

If you live in a household with many users using a common desktop/laptop computer and often run into issues of kids downloading huge files and filling-up the hard disk space? Windows 7 has a simple answer to limit the usage of hard disk space.

Windows 7 has a simple Disk Quota Management capability with which you can limit the usage of disk space based on each individual users and per disk partition. So, if you want to restrict disk usage to 3 users and have 2 partitions (C: and D: typically) you have to set the quota assignments 6 times to cover all users and all partitions.

It’s simple to get started with disk quota management.

Right click on the partition where you want to set the quota limitations and click on the Properties menu option.

Click on the “Quota” tab and then click on the “Show Quota Settings” button.

On the Quota Settings dialog click on the “Enable quota management” checkbox to, of course, enable quota management for the selected partition. Check the “Deny disk space to users exceeding quota limit” checkbox to make sure that the users don’t exceed their quota limit.

Click on the “Limit disk space to” option and key-in the amount of space you want to limit the user to use. Also, key-in the amount of space at “Set warning to” to notify the user that they are approaching their allocated quota.

Choose the logging options to keep track of how the users are doing with their quota. This will set the disk quota for the currently logged-in user if you are an an user with administrative privileges.

You can also set quota for each individual users of the computer by clicking on the “Quota Entries…” button.

You’ll be presented with the “Quota Entries” dialog where it lists all the users that have the quota limitations set. It gives you the status of their quota usage as well.

To set hard disk quota limitations for another user click on the “New quota entry” icon or click on the “Quota” menu and then click on the “New quota entry…” menu option.

On the “Select Users” dialog type-in the username of the user whom you wanted to restrict their disk usage. Hit the “Check Names” button to make sure you have the name correct. Hit the OK button to dismiss the dialog.

You’ll be presented with the “Add New Quota Entry” dialog where you can specify the disk space limitations (in terms of KB, MB, GB, TB, PB and EB) and also the warning level. Once again hit the OK button to dismiss the dialog.

You’ll now see the new quota limitations added to the list.

When you hit the OK buttons on all the other open dialogs to dismiss those dialogs you’ll get a warning questioning your intention and a rescan heads-up. If you are sure to allocate these quota limitations hit the OK button to enable the hard disk usage restrictions.

Disk Quota Management option on Windows 7 is a simple way to keep track of your computer’s limited hard disk space, particularly when there are more than one person involved in using the computer. Use it with care (and fairness!) and you’ll find it more useful.

Do you see any other usage of Windows 7’s Disk Quota capability? Please let us know in comments.

Search Connector can bring Bing search to your Windows Explorer on Windows 7.

Microsoft has got something right with Bing.com. It was an instant hit and to me it deserves it. You might get a better experience using Bing on a browser (IE8 in particular) but if you hate launching the browser to Bing It then you can use this plugin to bring Bing search to Windows Explorer on Windows 7.

Search Connector is a simple plugin that you can download and install.

Once installed and the next time when you open Windows Explorer on Windows 7 you should be able to see a Bing sidebar item on the left sidebar.

When you use the Search Box on the top right of Windows Explorer to search on Bing the results will show up as soon as you type your search query.

When you select a search result item it won’t immediately take you to the corresponding website but rather the appropriate toolbar items comes alive for you to take further action with your conscience. It makes clear sense to not take us to the website right way as this is being done within Windows Explorer.

Bing Search Connector is a no fuzz little utility that can certainly convince some people to use Bing on Windows Explorer.

Download Bing Search Connector.

Microsoft makes available Windows Vista SP2 for public download.

Microsoft just released Service Pack 2 for Windows Vista. It is now available at the Microsoft Download Center for public download. You can either download the standalone installer which will install SP2 on your Windows Vista machine or you can download the ISO image which you can burn it to a DVD and install/reinstall later. If you are looking for a decent software to burn the ISO image to a DVD then learn from this article on how to burn an ISO image to a DVD.

The only pre-requisite for installing Windows Vista SP2 is that you should have Service Pack 1 installed. Keep in mind that Service Pack 2 is not a cumulative package and what that means is that Service Pack 1 is required to install Service Pack 2.

The standalone installer is around 350 MB. If you think downloading and installing such a huge file is an overhead just sit back and wait till June 30th for the Windows Update to take its own course.

You might have to run the System Update Readiness Tool before you install Service Pack 2.

Read the release notes for Windows Vista Service Pack 2.

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Increase the Windows Experience Index score to play those unplayable games in Windows Vista play.

Windows Vista has a nifty feature with which it computes a score to announce its capabilities, the Windows Experience Index. Vista calculates the Windows Experience Index by running a number of diagnostic tests to test your computer’s capabilities. The intention is to have a scale which can be referred to when you upgrade your computer and identify the factors that make your computer underperform.

Games also use the same Windows Experience Index to find out ahead of launching whether your computer’s capabilities are good enough to meet the demands of the game. That’s why you must have found out that some of the games cannot be played in Windows Vista. Sometimes you might just want to play the game no matter what. Well, before you plunge into figuring out how to play that game try this trick to fake your Windows Experience Index so that the games can be played.

Step-1: Disable UAC

To perform this hack you need to disable UAC temporarily. If you haven’t done it before learn from this article on how to disable UAC in Windows Vista. You can enable UAC once you don’t need the higher Windows Experience Index score anymore.

Step-2: Navigate to the DataStore folder

Navigate to the C:\Windows\Performance\WinSAT\DataStore folder.

Step-3: Open the most recent XML file

Open the most recent XML file on the DataStore folder. If you have many files on that folder try to sort the files by Date Modified column in descending order and choose the very first file.

Step-4: Edit WinSPR node

Edit the elements under the WinSPR node, particularly line numbers 14 thru 20. Focus on to increase the scores that are low in number. The SystemScore node has a maximum of 5 and all the other nodes have a maximum of 10.

Now you should be able to see the hacked Windows Experience Index. Play the game that wasn’t playing before and now you should be able to play the game. If it still doesn’t play try to fake the score again to a higher number. If you have any questions or comments regarding this please let us know in comments.

Configure Windows Vista to allow automatic logon.

If you are the only user on your computer and you don’t share your computer with anyone else then you can configure Windows Vista to automatically logon without an username and password. Even though it’s a bit convenience, you should keep in mind that this might pose a security risk and you should enable automatic logon in Windows Vista only if you are sure that your computer is safe or if you don’t keep any important data in your computer.

Follow these steps to configure Windows Vista to allow automatic logon,

Step-1: Netplwiz

Type-in NETPLWIZ on the Start menu Search box and press the Enter key.

Step-2: User Accounts dialog

Click thru the UAC prompt and Windows Vista will popup User Accounts dialog. Select the username for which you want to enable automatic logon. Then uncheck the “Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer” option.

Step-3: Restart the computer

Windows Vista will prompt for the password. Key-in the password and allow Windows Vista to restart the computer.

Once restarted Windows Vista will allow you to automatically logon to the computer without an username and password. I just want to re-iterate that this could pose a security risk and so this option should only be enabled if you are the only user of your computer or you don’t care much about the security of your computer. If you have any questions/comments regarding this article please let us know in comments.

Learn how to prepare a USB Flash Drive to install Windows 7 Beta using the USB Flash Drive.

If you are actively using those NetBooks (the slim-line version of Notebooks) you must have realized the lack of optical drives (DVD Drives). With Windows 7 Beta out in the wild why not try Windows 7 Beta on those NetBooks? Wait a minute, since those NetBooks doesn’t have DVD Drives how am I going to install the ISO image to a NetBook?

In this detailed video Dennis Chung shows you how to prepare a USB Flash Drive that can be used to install Windows 7 Beta. He uses a command interpreter DiskPart that comes with Windows Vista and Windows XP. Here are the steps involved to prepare a USB Flash Drive, in Windows Vista, that can be used to install Windows 7 Beta.

Step-1: Write the ISO file to DVD

Download the Windows 7 Beta bits and write the ISO DVD image file to a DVD.

Step-2: Launch DiskPart

Launch the DiskPart utility by typing-in DiskPart on the Start Menu Search box. More on DiskPart.

Step-3: List Disk

Issue the command,

list disk

This command will display summary information about all the disks on your computer, including any external disks.

Step-4: Select Disk

select disk 1

Select a disk using this command replacing the number# 1 with the number corresponding to your USB Flash Drive.

Step-5: Clean the USB Thumb Drive

clean

Clean the content of the drive with this command. Make sure to backup any stuffs from your USB Flash Drive as this will erase everything on your USB Flash Drive.

Step-6: Create Partition

create partition primary

Create a primary partition with this command.

Step-7: Activate the Partition

active

Set the current partition as active using this command.

Step-8: Format the partition to FAT32

format fs=fat32 quick

Format the partition using this command. If you have time then you can leave out the quick parameter to do a full format (which obviously takes time).

Step-9: Assign a drive letter

assign

Assign a drive letter to the new volume. If you don’t issue a letter parameter (letter=F, for example) then the next available drive letter will be used.

Step-10: Copy the bits from DVD to the USB Flash Drive

Now, since everything else is all set, you can copy the content of your DVD drive (created on Step-1) to the new drive (the USB Flash Drive).

If you run into any issues with this you can try to remove the USB Flash Drive and repeat the process again.

[Source]

Windows 7 allows you to customize the notification area to show or hide icons on the notification area.

Windows 7 has an improved notification area on your Windows Taskbar where it just only displays a small subset of the icons and then an arrow button to let you browse all the other hidden icons on the notification area.

That’s cool and it really improves on the long list of icons that we got used to seeing on the notifications area for so long with Windows XP and Windows Vista. But if you want to have some icons always displayed by default without you clicking on that arrow button then you have to customize the Notification area. In this walkthrough we’ll see how we can make the Windows Task Manager icon always displayed on the Notification Area.

Step-1: Configure Task Manager to hide when minimized

This is a pre-requisite only for this example so that when the Task Manager window gets minimized we’ll still get an icon on our Notifications Area indicating the activity.

Step-2: Task Bar and Start Menu Properties

Right-click on the Windows Orb (Start button) and click on the Properties menu option.

Step-3: Customize Notification Area

Click on the "Customize…” button on the Notification Area panel.

Step-4: Show icon and notifications

When Windows pops-up the Notifications dialog you should be able to see the Windows Task Manager item on the list having a defaul value of “Only show notifications”. With that option set Task Manager icon won’t show up  on the Notifications Area by default. We have to change the value to “Show icon and notifications”. Hit the OK button to close all dialogs.

Now you should be able to see the Task Manager icon showing up on the Notifications Area along with the icons whose Behavior values are set to “Show icon and notifications”.

If you have any questions/comments regarding this please let us know in comments.

TeraCopy makes it easy to copy files faster and in a better way.

Windows Vista’s file copy mechanism is just basic that it’s absolutely slow when you copy large files and it’s not flexible enough to reliably copy files. It works but is certainly not efficient.

TeraCopy is a little program that improves the file copy process and makes it more reliable.

• TeraCopy copies files faster by utilizing adjusted buffers to reduce file seek time.
• TeraCopy utilizes asynchronous file copy mechanism to speedup copying multiple files.
• TeraCopy allows you to pause the file copy progress and allows you to resume to process anytime.
• When more files are involved in a copy process and when some of those files fail to copy it skips those files and continues the copy process.
• TeraCopy lists the files that failed to copy and let’s you fix any errors and allows you to recopy.
• TeraCopy integrates well with Windows and allows you replace the Windows Copy process with TeraCopy process giving you a seamless experience.

Once installed, TeraCopy gives you a nice context menu if you prefer to still keep the standard Windows copy process.

You can change that behavior to integrate TeraCopy into Windows shell by clicking on the Menu button on the TeraCopy window and clicking on the “Options…” menu choice. Then on the Preferences dialog check the “Use TeraCopy as default copy handler” option.

Once you use TeraCopy to copy files, it pops open TeraCopy window where you can choose to either copy or move files. As its known, “Copy To” keeps the original and makes a copy on the location you specify. “Move To” on the other hand allows you to move the source file to a different location.

You can adjust the buffer size that TeraCopy uses by adjusting the “Buffer Size” slider. The initial size is 1.0 MB but if you have a powerful computer then you can obviously increase the buffer size to improve the copy performance.

TeraCopy is a great alternative to the default Windows copy process as it brings-in a lot more flexibility to copy process. I hope you find TeraCopy useful. If you have any questions/comments regarding this please let us know in comments.

Download TeraCopy.

Windows 7 Beta doesn’t ask for a password while installing. Make sure to secure your computer by password protecting it manually.

Note: This post is not for the geeks (aka. advanced users).

I’m sure by now many of you must have installed Windows 7 Beta and must have started loving it given the fact that it’s only a beta version and seems to be pretty solid and have some UI eye-candies.

One thing that I noticed with Windows 7 Beta installation is that it didn’t ask for an Administrator password while installing. All it asked was the username. Now, considering this is a beta install it is understandable that the final version of Windows 7 will look a lot different than the beta in terms of fixing these corners.

If you’ve installed Windows 7 Beta and didn’t realize of this threat, make sure to secure your account with a password. The process of setting up password is pretty much the same as Windows Vista.

Step-1: Control Panel

Click on the Start button and then click on Control Panel.

Step-2: User Accounts and Family Safety

Click on User Accounts and Family Safety option.

Step-3: User Accounts

Click on the User Accounts option. You can also click on the Change your Windows Password option. If you do then you skip Step-4.

Step-4: Create a password for your user account

Click on the Create a password for your account option. Note that since we haven’t assigned any password yet (the default Windows 7 Beta behavior) you can see on the right side of the above screenshot that it doesn’t say anything about password protection for the account.

Step-5: Assign a Password

Assign a password on this screen and type-in a Password Hint for you to get reminded of your password if you forget your password in the future. Click on the Create Password button.

Once you assign a password to your account, a Password Protected message appears just below your username, as you can see on the above screenshot, to indicate that this account is password protected.

That’s all to it. This is a basic thing that can easily get ignored and can cause issues if you share your computer, particularly. I’m sure the further versions will have it fixed but just wanted to make aware of this behavior in Windows 7.

Enable 2 way blocking capabilities of Windows Vista Firewall.

Windows Vista’s built-in Firewall does a decent job of blocking incoming requests. It is capable of blocking outgoing requests as well but that feature is turned off by default. An unblocked firewall that can don’t have any control over outgoing traffic is quite dangerous that a malicious program can mass-email spam, forward passwords, credit card details and any other critical information to the wrong person.

So if you are running Windows Vista you can follow these simple steps to enable Windows Vista Firewall to block any outgoing traffic as well,

Step-1: Windows Firewall with Advances Services

Click the Start button and type-in Firewall in the Search box. When you see the list narrowed down click on the “Windows Firewall with Advanced Security” option.

Step-2: Windows Vista Firewall Properties

Click thru the UAC prompt and when the “Windows Firewall with Advanced Security” dialog pops-up click on the “Windows Firewall Properties” link.

Step-3: Domain Profile Tab

On the Domain Profile tab you should be able to see Outbound connections have a default value of “Allow”. Change that to “Block”.

Step-4: Private Profile Tab

Navigate to the Private Profile tab and there again you should be able to see Outbound connections have a default value of “Allow”. Change that to “Block”.

Step-5: Public Profile Tab

Once again, when you navigate to the Public Profile tab, you should be able to see Outbound connections have a default value of “Allow”. Change that to “Block”. Click OK to dismiss the dialog.

Ultimately we want all the 3 tabs to have the Outbound Connection values set to “Block”. Once you do that Windows Vista Firewall will now block all outbound traffic as well, providing you with a firewall that you can trust.

Alternatively, you can use the best free firewall program Comodo Internet Security.

If you have any questions or comments please let us know in comments.

Keep your kids safe by making use of Windows Vista’s Parental Controls.

It is better to be safe than sorry. If you are a parent you know what I mean when it comes to kids using computers and the kind of threats available online. As a parent it is our responsibility to make sure our kids are not exposed to vulnerabilities. Windows Vista has some great support for Parental Controls to keep your kids safe. All you have to do is to configure and monitor the activities.

Before you setup parental controls in Windows Vista you need to make sure that you have created separate user accounts for your kids so that you can setup parental controls for certain user accounts or you can adjust the level of control depending on the user account (or kid).

Follow these steps to configure Windows Vista to keep your kids safe using computers,

Step-1: Launch Control Panel

Login as an Administrator on your Windows Vista computer and click the Start button and then click on Control Panel.

Step-2: User Accounts and Family Safety

Click on the User Accounts and Family Safety link.

Step-3: Setup Parental Controls option

Click on the “Set up Parental controls for any user” link.

Step-4: Choose the user whom you want to set up Parental Controls

Click thru the UAC prompt and click on the username for whom you want to setup Parental Controls.

Step-5: Turn on Parental Controls and Activity Reporting to keep your kids safe

Click on the “On, enforce current settings” option under Parental Controls and also “On, collect information about computer usage” option under Activity Reporting.

By now, you’ll have parental controls enabled for the selected user. There are so many settings that you can configure to fine tune the parental controls. Here are some suggestions,

Windows Vista Web Filter

Click on the Windows Vista Web Filter link to control the allowed websites and file downloads.

Leave the “Block some websites or content” option so that you can control what websites to block.

If you have a small kid using computer or if you are a conservative parent and wanted to keep a close eye on your kids’ computer activity then you can check the “Only allow websites which are on the allow list” option to make sure only the kid can access the websites that are allowed. You can add a bunch of websites that you are okay with your kid accessing. If your kid want to visit a new website he/she can request you to allow access and by this way you’ll have absolute control of what kind of websites your kid is visiting.

Click on the “Edit the Allow and Block list” link to specify which websites you want to allow and which websites you want to block.

In the “Allow or Block specific websites” window type-in the website name you want to allow and click on the “Allow” button to add the website to the “Allowed websites” list. Click on the “Block” button to add the website to the “Blocked websites” list. Once done click on the OK button.

Now, your kid can only access the websites that you’ve added to  the “Allowed websites” list. If you know of your kid visiting websites that you don’t want your kid to visit then add those websites to the “Blocked websites” list.

If you don’t want to specify any specific websites then you can uncheck the “Only allow websites which are on the allow list” option. Windows Vista will enable “Block web content automatically” section. Adjust the restriction level based on your preference. Check the “Block file downloads” option if you want to restrict your kid downloading any files.

Time Limits

You can also set time limits of when you want your kid to use the computer and when you don’t want your kid to use your computer. Just click on the “Time Limits” link at the main Parental Control window. When the above window pops-up mark the blocks with blue color on the time you want to block your kid from using the computer. Hit the OK button once done.

Games

If your kid plays games then you can use Game Controls to control if your kid can play games and if so the type of games that you allow your kid to play. Click on the “Games” link to bring up the Game Controls dialog. Configure if you allow your kid to play games on this computer and if you allow then control what type of game that you allow your kid to play.

Allow and Block Specific Programs

You can also restrict the applications/programs that your kid can use on the computer by clicking on the “Allow and block specific programs” link on the main Parental Controls window. When you see the above window you can configure to allow your kid to use all programs or you can choose to allow some of the programs. Use your common sense to restrict the programs that you want your kid to use on the computer. You can always adjust the list anytime you want.

Activity Reports

When you have configured all these settings, once in a while you can review the activity reports to make sure the parental controls you’ve set are effective and if you see any suspicious activities then you can fine-tune the parental control settings. Click on the “View Activity Reports” link at the main Parental Control window to see the activity report. The Activity Report gives you information on “Web Browsing”, “System Activities”, “Application Activities”, “Gaming Activities”, “Email Activities”, “Instant Messaging Activities” and any “Media Activities”.

Windows Vista’s Parental Controls feature offers you rich settings so that you can really keep an eye on your kid’s internet and computer activities. I hope this detailed article helps you get an understanding of how to use Parental Controls in Windows Vista to keep your kids safe. If you have any questions/comments regarding this please let us know in comments.

Resolve Windows Vista’s “audio cannot be played back because it’s being used by another device” error with this simple trick.

Once in a while I keep getting an error on my Windows Vista desktop that says something like Windows Vista was not able to playback the audio as the device is already being used by another program. Even after quitting all the programs it still gives the same error. Turned out that Vista grants exclusive usage of the audio device to those programs by default. It could be a bug that even after the program gets closed it still locks the audio device.

Follow these simple steps to fix the audio exclusive use issue in Windows Vista,

Step-1: Launch Control Panel

Click on the Start button and then on Control Panel.

Step-2: Hardware and Sound

Click on the Hardware and Sound link.

Step-3: Manage Audio Devices

Click on the Manage Audio Devices link.

Step-4: Windows Vista Sound dialog

When Windows Vista’s Sound dialog pops-up choose the appropriate audio device, in this case Speakers/Headphones. Then click on the Properties button.

Step-5: Uncheck to not allow audio exclusive use

Windows Vista will pop-up the Properties dialog for Speakers/Headphones. Click on the Advanced tab and make sure to uncheck the “Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device” option. Click on the OK buttons to close all dialogs.

This trick would be particularly applicable if you have external speakers connected to your Windows Vista computer. I hope this helps you have some peaceful experience with Windows Vista when it comes to audio issues. If you have any questions/comments please let us know in comments.

Use this simple trick to prevent users from clearing out the Browsing History information in IE7.

If you are a parent of a teenager or a young child then you’d prefer to keep an eye on your kids’ Internet activity. One way of doing this is to watch when they browse but that’s not practically possible in many cases. The alternate is to spy on their Internet activity. One way of doing this is to not let your kids clear out their browsing history information from the browser so that you can review it to see what websites they have visited and what kind of files they have downloaded.

Internet Explorer 7 in Windows Vista has a nice feature with which you can prevent your kid from clearing out the browsing history information. Follow these simple steps to prevent users from deleting the browsing history information,

Step-1: Login as an Administrator

Login to your computer as an Administrator so that you can make this change.

Step-2: Launch Local Group Policy Editor

Click on the Start menu and type-in “gpedit.msc” (without the quotes) at the Search box and press the Enter key. Windows will launch “Local Group Policy Editor” dialog.

Step-3: Locate the Internet Explorer node

On the left pane, expand the nodes User Configuration >> Administrative Templates >> Windows Components >> Internet Explorer. When you click on the Internet Explorer node you should be able to see a whole bunch of settings that you can change for Internet Explorer.

Step-4: Locate the “Prevent the deletion of temporary Internet files and cookies” item

Locate the entry on the right pane “Prevent the deletion of temporary Internet files and cookies”. Double-click or right-click to bring up the Properties dialog.

Step-5: Enable the setting to prevent users from deleting the browsing history

Click on the “Enabled” option and click the “OK” button and dismiss all dialogs.

Step-5: Logout as Administrator

Logout as Administrator from the computer.

If you leave your computer to be logged-in as Administrator and let you kid browse the Internet using your computer or if you’ve given your kid his own computer but with Administrator privileges then this might not work. If your kid is tech-savvy enough they can easily revert this change. So, I would recommend that you let your kid use their computers with non-Administrative privileges. Create their own user accounts and make it not an Administrator.

You can also tweak the setting to hide “Delete Browsing History” menu option in Internet Explorer 7 but then your kid would already be aware of this and might act accordingly.

I hope this helps you keep an eye on your kids’ Internet activity. If you have any questions/comments regarding this please let us know in comments.

Disable or turn off UAC in Windows Vista with this simple trick.

One of the most annoying feature on Windows Vista is the User Account Control (UAC) feature. It is a feature that’s been baked into Windows Vista to make Windows Vista more secure but the implementation of UAC made it so bad that many of us would prefer to trade-off the security advantage that it brings-in to the annoyance in itself.

Note: Turning off UAC is a security risk to your computer and you should only do this if

• you are sure of what you are doing with your computer
• you are the only user of your computer
• you are tech-savvy enough to understand what’s getting installed and what system settings are being changed

Follow these simple steps to disable / turn off UAC in Windows Vista,

Step-1: Launch Control Panel

Click the “Start” button and click on the “Control Panel” menu item.

Step-2: Search for UAC

Type-in UAC in the Search box at the top right side of the Control Panel dialog. Windows Vista will filter down the result to “User Accounts” with an option to “Turn User Account Control (UAC) on or off”. Click on the “Turn User Account Control (UAC) on or off” option.

Step-3: Disable / turn off UAC

In the next window make sure to uncheck the “Use User Account Control (UAC) to help protect your computer” option. Hit the “OK” button to close the dialog.

Windows Vista will ask you to restart the computer for the changes to take effect. Restart the computer if it is convenient to you.

If not hit the “Restart later” button and Vista will notify you about the change that UAC is turned off.

You should be extra cautious when UAC is disabled as it poses a security risk to your computer without UAC. I hope this article helped you easily disable UAC. If you have any questions/comments regarding this please make sure to let us know in comments.

Sysinternals’ free utility Process Explorer makes Windows troubleshooting a lot easier.

You must have hated the limited capabilities of Windows’ built-in Task Manager when it comes to drilling down to figure out that Windows issue that’s slowing down your computer. You must have hated the very limited information the “Processes” tab on Task Manager provides about processes. I’m not sure about you but I hated it until I started using Process Explorer.

Process Explorer is a fantastic Windows Task Manager alternative that gives you quite a lot of information about the processes and dependencies that makes Windows troubleshooting a breeze. Download Process Explorer. There is no installation involved, so go ahead and create a desktop shortcut or a Quick Launch Bar shortcut for easy access. Launch ProcExp.exe to launch Process Explorer.

There are bunch of things that you can do better with Process Explorer than with Windows Task Manager. You can examine the processes that are stealing CPU cycles, finding out which files are open by which process, find the process dependencies (which process depends on the other) etc.

Identify misbehaving processes

Click on the “CPU” column to sort it descending (see the downward pointing arrow at the top of the CPU column). The processes that are taking more CPU cycles will be displayed at the top.

Select the processes and the bottom portion of the Process Explorer window displays more information about the selected process. If the process is taking more CPU cycles than it deserves (take a guess) you can either kill the process or you can suspend the process temporarily. This helps you to see if the chosen process could be the culprit. If not then you can use the “Restart” menu option to restart the suspended process and move on with the next process in line. If, for sure, you think the process is the culprit you can obviously use the “Kill Process” menu option to kill the process and get your CPU processing back to normal.

Find out more about a suspicious process

If the information displayed at the lower panel is not sufficient enough for you to identify the process as being culprit you can right-click on the Process name at the top pane and click on the “Properties” to reveal more about the process including performance, performance graph, TCP/IP, security, environment, threads etc.

Search Online for extra information about a process

If you are still not sure about the process you can right-click on a process and click “Search Online…” menu option to search online for extra information about the process.

Tips on identifying suspicious processes

• Any process that has a weird name might be suspicious, like for example, exwyup.exe.
• Any process that doesn’t have a decent Description or Company Name could be an obvious suspect.
• Any process with a “C:\Temp” or “C:\Windows\Temp” on the “Command Line” column would draw the attention to be suspicious. (Click on “View” >> “Select Columns…” to select “Command Line” column to be displayed).
• Processes like services.exe, winlogon.exe, smss.exe, alg.exe are safe.

Replace Task Manager with Process Explorer

If you are like me who don’t use the built-in Task Manager at all and would rather prefer to use Process Explorer instead then Process Explorer has a “Replace Task Manager” option under the “Options” menu which will replace Task Manager with Process Explorer so the next time when you try the “got-used-way” of launching Task Manager Windows will launch Process Explorer instead.

No doubt, Process Explorer is a great tool for Windows troubleshooting to see the processes that might be causing issues. It might take a little get-used-to but once you get a little familiar you’ll find it a lot better than the Windows’ built-in Task Manager. I hope you can make use of this free tool from Microsoft to make your life in front of the PC a bit easier. If you have any questions/comments regarding this article please let us know in comments.

Download Process Explorer from TechNet.

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year 2009!

Use this simple trick to elevate Windows Vista Command Prompt.

One of Windows Vista’s UAC annoyances is that when you run commands in Command Prompt certain commands would still complain about administrator privileges. Even though you’ve logged-in as Administrator it doesn’t help, particularly when it comes to Windows Vista’s Command Prompt.

One solution is to right click on the Command Prompt program menu item and click on the “Run as Administrator…” option. But that’s an annoyance in itself if you use Windows Vista Command Prompt quite often.

Follow these simple steps to create an Elevated Command Prompt,

Step-1: Create a desktop shortcut

Right-click anywhere on your desktop and click on the “New” menu option and then the “Shortcut” option.

Step-2: Assign CMD to the shortcut

Type “cmd” (without quotes) to the location box and click the “Next” button.

Step-3: Name your Shortcut

Type “Elevated Command Prompt” (or anything that you prefer) on the Name box and click on the “Finish” button.

Step-4: Shortcut’s Advanced Properties

By now, your shortcut must have got created on your desktop. Right-click on the newly created desktop and click on the “Properties” menu option. Windows Vista will open up the Properties dialog and will have the focus on the ‘”Shortcut” tab. Click on the “Advanced…” button on the “Shortcut” tab.

Step-5: Run the shortcut as Administrator

On the “Advanced Properties” dialog make sure to check the “Run as administrator” option and hit the “OK” buttons to close all open dialog windows.

Now you’ll have a Windows Vista Command Prompt shortcut that’s having true administrative privileges. You can keep the desktop shortcut or can drag the shortcut to your Programs list or to the Quick Launch Bar.

You can even assign shortcut keys to the newly created shortcut by right-clicking on the shortcut and choosing “Properties”. Then on the “Shortcut” tab click on the “Shortcut key” box and press the keys that you want to assign to the new shortcut to launch the shortcut. Hit the “OK” button to close the dialog.

I hope this articles helps you get rid of one of the UAC annoyances. If you have any questions/comments regarding this please let us know in comments.

If you’ve had any issues with your Windows Time you might want to switch the time provider to “time.nist.gov” to get an accurate time sync. Follow this article to set your Windows time provider to “time.nist.gov”,

Step-1: Adjust Windows Time

Right click on the Windows Time on your Windows Taskbar and click on the “Adjust Date/Time” menu option.

Step-2: Change Settings at the Internet Time tab

When Windows Vista pops-up the “Date and Time” dialog click on the “Internet Time” tab. You might be able to see the text “This computer is set to automatically synchronize with ‘time.windows.com’”. We ultimately wanted to change this to use “time.nist.gov”. So go ahead and click on the “Change settings…” button.

Step-3: Change Time Server to “time.nist.gov”

Click thru the UAC prompt and on the “Internet Time Settings” dialog change the value on the “Server:” dropdown from “time.windows.com” to “time.nist.gov” and then click on the “Update now” button. Click the “OK” buttons to dismiss all dialogs.

I’ve had issues with my earlier time provider (the Windows default time provider) “time.windows.com”. The time was off by couple of minutes some times and the Daylight Savings Time were not getting adjusted automatically. After switching my Windows Time provider to “time.nist.gov” all those time issues went away.

I hope this resolves your Windows time issues as well, if you are facing any issues with your Windows time. If you have any questions/comments regarding this please let us know in comments.

If you don’t like the default size of Windows Vista’s glass border and would like to make it bigger to see more of the glass transparency there is a simple Windows Vista customization tweak that you can follow to make the Aero border size bigger (or smaller).

Step-1: Personalize Vista customization

Right click on an empty space on your desktop and click on the “Personalize” menu option.

Step-2: Window Color and Appearance

Click on the “Window Color and Appearance” link.

Step-3: Classic Appearance Properties

Click on the “Open classic appearance properties for more color options” link to bring up the “Appearance Settings” dialog.

Step-4: Advanced Display Customization

On the “Appearance Settings” dialog make sure to select “Windows Aero” on the “Color Scheme” list and then click on the “Advanced…” button.

Step-5: Adjust the Border Padding

Choose “Border Padding” on the “Item” list and then set a size of your desire. The default size is “4” and you can increase or decrease the size to your preference.

For example, a “16” size border padding window looks like the above.

If you have any questions or comments regarding this Vista customization trick please make sure to let us know in comments.

On a similar note, if you don’t want anyone to change your display settings you can read this article to on how to prevent anyone from changing your computer’s display settings. Or you can read this article to learn how to disable Windows Vista’s color scheme. If you’d prefer to do the same with a simple mouse right click then you can read this article to learn how to disable Windows Vista’s Aero color scheme with a simple mouse right click.

Another cool (hidden) feature of Windows Vista is its in-built support for XPS documents.

XPS (XML Paper Specification) is a device independent and resolution independent, vector based, fixed-document format developed by Microsoft based on XML (XAML to be precise). You can think of XPS as a PDF equivalent with vector support and what that means is that the print quality of XPS documents would be a lot better than the PDF equivalent. If you ask me if this is going to replace the ultra-famous PDF formats…I’m not sure, but for those who need a better print quality than PDF you sure have an alternative in XPS format.

Creating an XPS document is pretty simple in Windows Vista. Follow these simple steps to create your own XPS document,

Step-1:

Launch Notepad (Start >> Type-in “Notepad”) or any other editor of your preference.

Step-2:

Write whatever you like and click on the “File” >> “Print” menu option.

Step-3:

On the “Print” dialog select “Microsoft XPS Document Writer” as the printer and hit the “Print” button. Vista will ask you to save the .XPS file to a location. Give it a name and save the file.

Congratulations! You’ve just created your first XPS document.

XPS Essentials Pack for Windows XP

Window Vista comes with support for XPS documents. The viewer is hosted within IE. If you are using Windows XP you can still make use of XPS documents by downloading .NET Framework 3.0. If you don’t like to view your XPS documents in Internet Explorer you can download the XPS Essentials Pack which includes a standalone XPS Viewer and a XPS Document Writer. The XPS Essentials Pack is available for Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Vista.

Remove XPS

For some reason if you don’t like the XPS capability of Windows Vista and never intend to use it then you can use the Rogosoft XPS Removal Tool. XPS Removal Tool can be used to remove the Microsoft XPS Document Writer (MXDW) print queue and the driver package from Windows Vista. XPS Removal Tool can also uninstall XPS Essentials Pack from Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.

I hope this article is useful to you. If you have any questions or comments please let us know in comments.

Wouldn’t it be cool if we can talk to our computer rather than using the keyboard and mouse to get things done? Well, Windows Vista allows you to make use of your own voice to control many of the activities that you do with your computer. With Windows Vista’s Speech Recognition you can train your computer to recognize your voice and react to what you say.

With Windows Vista’s Speech Recognition you can start programs, open menus, click on buttons and links, dictate text into documents and you can compose and send emails as well. You can do most of the activities with your voice that you do with your mouse and keyboard otherwise. Depending on your accent Vista might have some hard time understanding what you are saying but if you train it with a slow and steady voice then it shouldn’t cause much issues. Follow these steps to control your Windows Vista using your own voice,

Step-1:

Click on the “Start” button  and then click on the “Control Panel” option.

Step-2:

Click on the “Ease of Access” link.

Step-3:

Click on the “Start speech recognition” link under “Speech Recognition Options”.

Step-4:

Vista will pop-up with a “Speech Recognition” dialog that allows you to setup a microphone with which you can record and instruct the computer. Just follow the “Next” button.

Step-5:

On the microphone selection page choose the microphone option that’s applicable to you.

Step-6:

On the”Adjust the microphone volume” dialog speak as clear as you can so that Vista can adjust the volume to better fit your needs.

Step-7:

On the “Speech recognition accuracy” dialog click on the “Enable document review”. Enabling document review helps Vista learn the words and phrases quick and your privacy is not compromised as it is not revealed to other or sent to Microsoft.

Click thru the “Next” button until you hit the “Start Tutorial” button. Click on the “Start Tutorial” button to get an understanding of Speech Recognition.

Once all is done, Vista will display a Speech Recognition gadget that keeps an eye on what you voice command your computer.

You can even see a “Speech Recognition” icon on your system tray.

Right clicking on the system tray icon reveals quite a bit of options that you can make use of.

To get started, here are some frequently used commands,

Windows Vista’s Speech Recognition is a very powerful tool if made use of it in the right way. I hope this article helps you get started with Vista’s Speech Recognition. If you have any questions regarding this please make sure to ask in comments.

If your computer is unstable or if you suspect that something might be wrong with your computer, there is good news if you are running Windows Vista. With many of the useful feature-sets that Windows Vista offers, the Reliability Tool is something that stands out in its usefulness. You can use these tools to figure out problems with your computer’s reliability. Follow these steps to know how to make use of Windows Vista’s Reliability Tool,

Step-1:

Click on the “Start” button and then click on the “Control Panel” menu option.

Step-2:

Click on the “System and Maintenance” link.

Step-3:

Then, click on the “Performance Information and Tools” link.

Step-4:

Click on the “Advanced Tools” link on the left.

Step-5:

Click on the “Open Reliability and Performance Monitor” link.

Step-6:

Click thru the UAC prompt and click on the “Reliability Monitor” node on the left side under “Monitoring Tools”. Vista will display the “Reliability Monitor” that has some quite a lot of useful information to diagnose some of the issues.

There are couple of useful things to look at here. Your computer’s historic reliability information is displayed on a timeline. When you click on a timeline you can get more information about the problem. There are icons that represent the severity of those information.

A red icon with an “x” mark indicates that something has failed and is a serious thing to consider. A triangle icon with an exclamation mark indicates that something has not installed or uninstalled properly.  An information icon indicates a “FYI” type of information.

Depends on where these icons appear helps you diagnose the specific problem. If it appears on the very 1st line then that means it is a software install or uninstall issue. If the icon is on the 2nd line then that means it is an application failure. If the icon is on the 3rd line then that means that it could be a hardware failure. If it is on the 4th line then that means it could be because of a Windows failure. And if it is on the 5th line then it could be because of some other failures. Having an understanding of these locations would help you quickly judge the cause of the problem and would help you focus on the important ones first.

I hope you can now make use of Windows Vista’s Reliability Tools to diagnose any of your computer issues, if you many have. If you have any questions or comments regarding this please make sure to ask in comments.

Windows Vista comes with a built-in memory check tool that at times might come-in handy to diagnose any of the known memory issues with your computer. If you ever hack with your BIOS settings or when you suspect that that your computer’s memory could be the culprit for the problems that you have, it wouldn’t hurt to run this free built-in Windows Vista tool to make sure that your computer’s memory is sound and solid.

Keep in mind that this requires a computer restart and so be prepared.

Follow these steps to diagnose your computer’s memory issues,

Step-1:

Click on the “Start” button and type-in “Memory” on the Search box.

Vista will filter down to “Memory Diagnostics Tool” and click on the “Memory Diagnostics Tool”.

Step-2:

Vista will launch the “Windows Memory Diagnostics Tool” dialog. There are 2 options that you can choose on that dialog. If you’d like to restart the computer now and do a memory check click on the “Restart now and check for problems” link. If not then click on the “Check for problems the next time I start my computer” option.

Step-3:

When Windows Vista restarts it will run the Memory Diagnostics Tool and will check for any issues with your computer’s memory. Let it finish the test and once done will boot your computer the normal way.

Step-4:

Once you login, if you see a tooltip like above then your computer’s memory is sound and solid. Otherwise Vista will notify you of any known memory issues with your computer.

Hope this helps. If you have any questions regarding this please make sure to ask in comments.

Another cool feature of Windows Vista is that it has a built in screenshot tool that you can easily make use of to capture screenshots. Follow these steps to enable and make use of Windows Vista’s Snipping Tool,

Step-1:

Click on the “Start” button and then click on the “Control Panel”.

Step-2:

Click on the “Turn Windows features on or off” option under “Programs and Features” section.

Step-3:

Click thru the UAC prompt and on the “Windows Features” dialog scroll down to locate the “Tablet PC Optional Components” option and make sure to have a check mark in front. Click the “OK” button to dismiss the dialog.

Step-4:

Click on the “Start” button and type-in “Snipping” on the Search box. Windows Vista will display “Snipping Tool” at the top of the Programs list. Click on the “Snipping Tool”.

Step-5:

Vista might ask you if you’d like to add Snipping Tool to the Quick Launch Bar for easy access. Choose the option you prefer.

Step-6:

Vista will gray out the screen and will ask you to select the area of screen that you want to capture as a screenshot. Just choose the area of the screen that you’d like to capture and Vista will make a screenshot of that area and will have it copied to the Snipping Tool application.

Once the screenshot is in the Snipping Tool you can use the toolbar buttons to handwrite text on the screenshot, highlight a portion of the screenshot etc.

I hope you make use of this built-in Windows Vista feature to take screenshots easily. If you have any questions regarding this please make sure to ask in comments.

Update: Sorry for not updating DemoGeek.com for the past 2 days…gotten a bad cold and couldn’t do much…I still have cold but wanted to get these to you. I hope you understand.

Gotten tired of holding the Control (Ctrl) key down while selecting multiple files in Windows Explorer? Would rather prefer a simple way of selecting multiple files in Windows Explorer? Follow these steps to use checkboxes to select multiple files in Windows Explorer,

Step-1:

Launch Windows Explorer (press Windows key and “E” key) and click on the “Organize” menu and then click on the “Folder and Search Options…”.

Step-2:

On the “Folder Options” dialog click on the “View” tab and then on the “Advanced Settings” section check the “Use check boxes to select items” option.

Step-3:

Click on the “OK” button and now you should be able to see a check box infront of the file name when you roll your mouse over the file name. You can check the boxes to select those files.

I hope it helps you have a better experience with Windows Vista. This is just one of the many cool features that Windows Vista has. If you have any questions regarding this please make sure to ask in comments.

Even with the FiOS (Fiber Optic Service) connection I still feel that my internet connection speed is not that blazing fast. Have you ever felt the same with your internet connection as well? Follow this simple Windows hack to speed up your internet connection and to experience a faster, better and secure internet browsing experience.

If you’d like some technical backgrounds of why this hack will improve and secure your internet browsing experience then read this paragraph. I’m not going to go into too much details but here are the basics.

Most of the browsing or your internet connection bottlenecks happen when you make a request for a domain name and the Domain Name Servers (DNS Servers) are too busy to not quickly respond back to your request to resolve the domain name to an IP address. No matter how much speed your ISP claims you’ll face this bottleneck if you rely on the age-old DNS Servers.

OpenDNS is a free Domain Name Service that does more than just resolve the domain names for you. Once registered (free and simple registration) you get quite a lot of control on how you manage your web browsing experience. Here are some of cool features of Open DNS that might convince you to make the switch (at least these made me to switch and I don’t regret at all),

• Super Fast Internet Access: With DNS servers spread across the globe OpenDNS  quickly routes your requests to a nearby DNS Server and that gives you a huge performance boost.
• Secure Internet Access: OpenDNS works with PhishTank, the Web’s most trusted source of phishing data and the community that flags the phishing sites are very active to keep up-to-date on the phishing sites. When you enter a domain name that’s a phishing website OpenDNS warns you with a page before taking you to the actual page. Modern browsers have inbuilt phishing protection but this would one more level of protection.
• Content Filtering: You can set filters on at the DNS level to filter out the websites that you don’t want your family to watch. You can adjust the predefined filter settings of High, Moderate, Low, Minimal or you can adjust the level of filtering for each setting. This gives you a fantastic control on how you want the content delivered on to your home network be filtered out. You can also block out a list of domains that you don’t want to be served to your home network. Parents beware!
• Browsing History: Don’t panic, ONLY if you turn on this feature at OpenDNS you get the ability to get historic information about the network’s browsing history.
• Custom Logo and Custom Page Not Found Messages: When you search for a domain that’s not in existence OpenDNS informs you with a page that you can customize to include your own message and logo. Instead of seeing your ISP’s boring 404 Page Not Found page you can spruce up your own pages.
• Automatic Typo Correction: When you accidentally type-in a wrong domain name extension like for example (.cmo instead of .com) OpenDNS automatically corrects the mistake and saves you time and frustration.
• Domain Shortcuts: OpenDNS allows you to create shortcuts for your most visited or hard to type websites so you can get to them easily by typing the shortcut name, for example, if you create a shortcut as “DG” in OpenDNS you can get to DemoGeek.com by just typing DG on your browser’s address bar. Very handy feature.

And much more features that would probably convince you to switch to OpenDNS for your network’s DNS needs.

Now, having said all the goodies about OpenDNS, how would you make the switch to OpenDNS? It’s pretty simple if you follow these steps,

Step-1: Open Control Panel

Click on the “Start” button and then click on the “Control Panel” menu option.

Step-2: View network status and tasks

Click on the “View network status and tasks” link under “Network and Internet”.

Step-3: View the status of your network connection

On the “Network and Sharing Center” dialog click on the “View Status” link next to your active network connection.

Step-4: Network Connection Properties

On the “Local Area Connection Status” dialog click on the “Properties” button.

Step-5: Choose TCP/IPv4 Properties

Continue thru the Windows Vista UAC prompt and select “Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4)” on the list. Hit the “Properties” button.

Step-6: Use specific DNS address provided by OpenDNS

Windows will display the IPv4 properties for your network and by default “Obtain an IP address automatically” and “Obtain DNS server address automatically” will be selected.

Leave the “Obtain an IP address automatically” option as it is and change the DNS option to “Use the following DNS server addresses:” and key-in these entries (as shown above as well),

Preferred DNS Server: 208.67.222.222

Alternate DNS Server: 208.67.220.220

Then hit the OK buttons on all the open dialogs to close them.

That’s it. You are now on OpenDNS! Go ahead and register for a free account at OpenDNS and enjoy the new control and features that you have on your network.

Above if you see a graphic of “Use OpenDNS Get Started” then that means you are not on OpenDNS. Follow the above steps to experience a new browsing experience. Give it a try.

If things doesn’t work or if (for some reason) you experience slower page loads then you can obviously revert back the settings to obtain the DNS server address automatically.

Hope this helps and I hope your internet connection speed increases with this hack and I hope you experience a better browsing/faster internet experience with OpenDNS. If you have any questions regarding this please make sure to ask in comments.

Both Windows XP and Windows Vista comes with built-in support for keyboard shortcuts that helps you save time by not clicking around. Apart from the default Windows’ own shortcuts, both Windows Vista and Windows XP supports application shortcuts as well and what that means is that when you are within an application you can use those shortcuts to quickly get the applications to do some action.

It might be a bit harder to memorize and get familiar with all those keyboard shortcuts but here are the most important 25 keyboard shortcuts that you can easily get familiar with which could save you a lot of time when you are actively using your computer,

Ctrl C

Copy Command – Allows you to copy any selected items (text, files, folders, images, music etc.) to the Windows Clipboard. Make sure to have the item you want to copy selected and then press the “Ctrl” key and the “C” key to have that item copied to the clipboard.

Corresponding Menu Item: “Edit” >> “Copy”

Ctrl X

Cut Command – If you’d prefer to move the original content to a different location then you make sure to select the content you want to move and then press the “Ctrl” key and the “X” key. Don’t panic, if the content you’ve selected to move either gray’s out or disappears, it should be in your Windows Clipboard.

Corresponding Menu Item: “Edit” >> “Cut”

Ctrl V

Paste Command – Of course, after you’ve copied or cut an item you’d want to paste that on something. Press the “Ctrl” key and the “V” key to paste the already copied content to the target location (could be a text editor, image editor, folder, file etc.). Alternatively, you can press the “Shift” key and the “Insert” key if you prefer. Both does the same action.

Corresponding Menu Item: “Edit” >> “Paste”

Ctrl Z

Undo Command – If you’ve made a mistake while working on your PC (on the software side) and wanted to go back to the previous step press the “Ctrl” key and the “Z” key to let Windows take you one step back. You can press “Ctrl” key and the “Z” key as many times as you’d want to go back, one step at a time.

Corresponding Menu Item: “Edit” >> “Undo”

Ctrl Y

Redo Command – If you’ve stepped back quite a lot and wanted to move forward couple of steps you could press the “Ctrl” key and the “Y” key as many steps as you’d want to move forward, one step at a time.

Corresponding Menu Item: “Edit” >> “Redo”

Ctrl A

Select All Command – If you are in a text editor or on a folder where you have many files and wanted to select them all you can press the “Ctrl” key and the “A” key to select all the items in focus. Once you select all the items you can copy it – Ctrl C or cut it – Ctrl X.

Corresponding Menu Item: “Edit” >> “Select All”

Ctrl F

Find Command – If you wanted to search for a text in a document you can press the “Ctrl” key and the “F” key to popup the Find dialog where you can key-in the phrase that you want to search for.

Corresponding Menu Item: “Edit” >> “Find”

F3

Find Next Command – Once you’ve keyed-in your search phrase and once Windows locates the first match within your document you can press the “F3” key to find the next occurrence of the phrase.

Corresponding Menu Item: “Edit” >> “Find” >> Choose “Find Next”

Ctrl B

Bold Command – If you are editing a document and wanted to bold some text you can press the “Ctrl” key and the “B” key to make the selected text bolded. Make sure to select the text that you want to be bolded before you press the “Ctrl” key and the “B” key.

Corresponding Menu Item: “Format” >> “Font” >> Choose “Bold”

Ctrl U

Underline Command – When editing a document if you want to underline certain text you can press the “Ctrl” key and the “U” key to make the selected text underlined. Make sure to select the text that you want to be underlined before you press the “Ctrl” key and the “U” key.

Corresponding Menu Item: “Format” >> “Font” >> Choose “Underline”

Ctrl I

Italic Command – If you are editing a document and wanted to make some text look italic then you can press the “Ctrl” key and the “I” key to make the selected text italic. Make sure to select the text that you want to look italic before you press the “Ctrl” key and the “I” key.

Corresponding Menu Item: “Format” >> “Font” >> Choose “Italic”

Ctrl N

New Command – If you are working on, let’s say,  a Word document and wanted to create a new document, you can press the “Ctrl” key and the “N” key to create a new document. Most of the Windows programs support this and so when you have one of those programs (notepad, Word, Excel, any of the web browsers etc.) open you can press the “Ctrl” key and the “N” key to create a new item on that program.

Corresponding Menu Item: “File” >> “New”

Ctrl O

Open Command – Again, if you are working on, let’s say,  a Word document and wanted to open another document, you can press the “Ctrl” key and the “O” key to open a new document. Most of the Windows programs support this and so when you have one of those programs (notepad, Word, Excel, any of the web browsers etc.) open you can press the “Ctrl” key and the “O” key to open a new item on that program.

Corresponding Menu Item: “File” >> “Open”

Ctrl S

Save Command – When you have one of those programs open you can press the “Ctrl” key and the “S” key to save the active item on that program to the disk.

Corresponding Menu Item: “File” >> “Save”

Ctrl P

Print Command – When you have one of those programs open you can press the “Ctrl” key and the “P” key to print the active item on that program.

Corresponding Menu Item: “File” >> “Print”

Ctrl Home

Go Home Command – If you are in the middle of a lengthy document and would like to go to the very beginning of that document, you can press the “Ctrl” key and the “Home” key to jump to the very first character of that document.

Ctrl End

Go to End Command – If you are in the middle of a lengthy document and would like to go to the very end of that document, you can press the “Ctrl” key and the “End” key to jump to the very last character of that document.

Shift Home

Select till Line Start Command – If you are in the middle of a line in your document and would like to select the text from where you are currently on that line to the beginning of that line, you can press the “Shift” key and the “Home” key to select the text from the current position to the beginning of the line.

Shift End

Select till Line End Command – If you are in the middle of a line in your document and would like to select the text from where you are currently on that line to the end of that line, you can press the “Shift” key and the “End” key to select the text from the current position to the end of the line.

Tab

Insert Tab Command – I’ve seen people typing in 5, 6 or 7 spaces to put an indentation at the beginning of a sentence. That’s just wrong. You can press the “Tab” key where you want the indentation to be and Windows will automatically add 8 spaces for each tab.

Shift Tab

Undo Tab Command – If you’ve accidentally inserted more tab spaces than you need and would like to take one tab space off, you don’t have to press the “Backspace” key 8 times, just press the “Shift” key and the “Tab” key and Windows will reduce one tab space.

Ctrl T

New Tab Command – If you want to open a new tab in any of the modern browsers you can press the “Ctrl” key and the “T” key. Most of the browsers have a little “New Tab” image that you can click on but some of the browsers, aka Apple Safari, don’t have that image for you to click on. Remembering this shortcut will come in handy.

Corresponding Menu Item: “File” >> “New Tab”

Ctrl W

Close Tab Command – If you don’t want to click on those close tab buttons on each tab you can press the “Ctrl” key and the “W” key to close the active tab. If you want to quickly close many tabs this would come in handy.

Corresponding Menu Item: “File” >> “Close Tab”

Ctrl D

Bookmark Command – If you are on a web page and would like to bookmark it for later reference you can press the “Ctrl” key and the “D” key to bookmark the currently open page.

Corresponding Menu Item: “Bookmarks” >> “Add Bookmark” (or something similar)

Alt F4

Exit Program Command – This is a shortcut that you’d only prefer if you prefer to use your keyboard a lot than clicking with the mouse. Press the “Alt” key and the “F4” key to close the active program.

Corresponding Menu Item: “File” >> “Close” (or something similar)

I hope this is something that you’ll try to memorize and make use of it. Over a period of time it saves you a lot of time and of course, saves a lot of clicks. If you have any questions regarding this please make sure to ask in comments.

On a similar note, while typing, if the Caps Lock becomes accidentally on and is annoying you then you can read this article on how to let Windows notify you when the Caps Lock becomes accidentally on.

Running a PC does consume energy. Even if you think that you are not in front of your computer working, if your PC is running or in stand by, it does consume energy. If your electricity cost has gone up for no reason other than that you leave your PC running the whole day then you might want to look into some of the tools that Windows Vista provides to adjust your power settings on your computer to save on the power consumption.

To get to the Power Options in Windows Vista, follow these steps,

Step-1:

Click the “Start” button and click on the “Control Panel” menu.

Step-2:

Once you are in the Control Panel click on the “System and Maintenance” option.

Step-3:

On the “System and Maintenance” window click on the “Power Options” link.

Step-4:

Vista will list the predefined power options on your computer and hopefully, if you haven’t changed any power settings so far, will have the ‘’Balanced” option selected under ‘”Preferred plans”.

As you can see, a “Balanced Plan” has a moderate energy savings with a moderate performance but there are settings that could be tweaked for your need. A “Power Saver” plan will save more power but the performance will suffer. On the other hand, a “High Performance’” plan will consume more energy and gives you the best performance.

To save on your electricity bill, just choosing the “Balanced Plan” won’t just be enough. Obviously “Power Saver” plan will make a dent on performance. So how do we save on power without affecting performance much? Follow these steps to save on your electricity bill while not giving up much on the performance,

Step-1:

Click on the “Create a power plan” option on the left of the window.

Step-2:

On the “Create a Power Plan” window click on the “Power Saver” option and then give your power plan a name. Click on the “Next” button.

Step-3:

Leave the defaults for both “Turn off the display” and “Sleep” options, we’ll customize the settings later, just click on the “Create” button.

Step-4:

Vista will create the new power option for you and will display the above dialog. As you can see, your newly created power option is selected by default with no rankings. You might also notice that the power option you’ve started with (in this case, “Power Saver”) is moved down so that you can hide that power option if you wish.

Now, click on the “Change plan settings” links below the newly created power option.

Step-5:

Vista will display the default settings for that power plan. Click on the “Change advanced power settings” link.

Step-6:

On the “Power Options” dialog, go thru each of the settings and on the “Setting:” option choose the option that makes more sense to you. I would typically set these for a desktop,

1. Additional setting >> Require a password on wakeup >> “Yes”
2. Hard disk >> Turn off hard disk after >> “20 minutes”
3. Wireless Adapter Settings >> Power Saving Mode >> “Maximum Power Setting” (since I don’t use wireless on my desktop)
4. Sleep >> Sleep after >> “30 minutes”
5. Sleep >> Allow hybrid sleep >> “On”
6. Sleep >> Hibernate after >> “Never”
7. USB >> USB selective suspend setting >> “Enabled”
8. Power button and lid >> Power button action >> “Shut down”
9. Power button and lid >> Sleep button action >> “Sleep”
10. Power button and lid >> Start menu power button >> “Sleep”
11. PCI Express >> Link State Power Management >> “Maximum power savings”
12. Search and Indexing >> Power Savings Mode >> “Balanced”
13. Display >> Turn off display after >> “20 Minutes”
14. Display >> Adaptive display >> “On”
15. Windows DreamScene Settings >> “Power Saver”

If you are using a laptop, you might want to explore the different options on 3, 6, 8, 12 and 13. Keep in mind that you want to balance between power saving and performance.

I hope this helps you save a little bit on your electricity bill and conserving energy is good for the environment as well. So, go ahead and make your PC more power efficient.

If you have any questions regarding this please make sure to ask us in comments.

I’m sure you must have liked the convenient “Run…” menu option on your Windows XP Start menu.

If you look at Windows Vista’s Start menu, to your surprise, you won’t be able to find a “Run…” menu option.

Wouldn’t it be cool to have that convenient “Run…” menu option on Vista as well? Follow these simple steps to add “Run…” menu option to your Windows Vista’s Start menu,

Step-1:

Right-click on your Vista Task Bar and then click on the “Properties” option.

Step-2:

On the dialog that pops-up, go into the “Start Menu” tab. You might have the “Start menu” choice chosen already. If it is, then click on the “Customize…” button next to it. If not, and if the “Classic Start menu” choice is chosen then click on the corresponding “Customize…” button.

Step-3:

Windows will pop-up a “Customize Start Menu” dialog. Scroll down to locate the “Run command” option. Make sure to check the “Run command” option (have a tick mark up front) and then hit the OK button.

Now you should be able to see the “Run…” menu option on your Vista’s Start menu.

If you have any questions regarding this please make sure to ask us in comments.

Let’s say you are making drastic changes to a file and later down the road you realize that you didn’t backup the file prior to making those changes. Would be very frustrating, isn’t it?

Not anymore, if you are using Vista Ultimate or Vista Business versions. They both come-in with a handy feature called “Previous Versions” with which you can restore previous versions of your files without you doing much to begin with. It is kind of like version control functionality if you can speak software development terms.

“Previous Versions” uses Shadow Copies which are created when Windows Vista creates Restore Points. If you are not sure how to create restore points then read on first how to create restore points in Windows Vista. With every restore point Vista shadow copies your files as well so you can go back to that copy if/when needed. Keep in mind, that you can only go back to the copy of the file when the restore point was created. If “System Protection” is turned on, Vista automatically creates shadow copies of files that have been modified since the last restore point was made. Typically restore points are made once a day.

One more important thing to keep in mind is that only one version of a file is saved as a shadow copy. For example, if you modify a file several times a day, only the version that was current or most recent when the restore point was made is saved. Still it brings you a huge benefit when you are in need of a previous version of a file.

By now you know what advantage “Previous Versions” bring in, so let’s see how to restore previous versions of files on Windows Vista using shadow copies,

Step-1:

Launch Windows Explorer and navigate to the folder and choose the file you want to restore.

Step-2:

Right click on the filename and then choose Properties on the context menu.

Step-3:

On the dialog that pops-up, go into the “Previous Versions” tab. If you’ve created any restore points before you should be able to see some entries on the “Folder Versions” list.

Step-4:

Choose the version you want to revert to. Then click on one of the buttons that you see at the bottom.

If you want to open that version of the folder/file you can click on the “Open” button. Vista will open that version of the file/folder in Windows Explorer.

If you prefer to have a copy of that particular version then you can click on the “Copy” button and Vista will open a dialog where you can choose the destination folder to copy the file to.

If you are sure and you just want to restore that version of the file/folder then you can click on the “Restore” button and acknowledge by clicking on the “Restore” button on the newly popped-up dialog and Vista will restore that file/folder to the selected version.

Keep in mind, that this wouldn’t help much if your hard disk crashes. So it’s always recommended that you do regular backups.

If you didn’t pay those extra $$$ for Vista Ultimate or Vista Business then on another article I’ll show you how to create shadow copies of files on, let’s say, Vista Home Premium version.

If you have any questions regarding this please make sure to ask us at the comments.

When you install programs that make major changes to your Windows Vista system or when you make any tweaks that might make your Windows Vista computer unstable, it is a good idea to create a restore point so that you can restore from that point when things go absolutely the wrong way with your tweaks.

Restore Points are kind of like snapshots of your operating system at a given moment that you can go back to that moment when the system becomes unstable. If “System Protection” is turned on, Vista automatically creates restore points once a day.

Follow these steps to create a restore point on a Windows Vista computer,

Step-1:

Click “Start >> Control Panel” and then click on “System and Maintenance” link and then click on “Backup and Restore Center”.

Step-2:

Click on the “Create a restore point or change settings” link on the left side under “Tasks”.

Step-3:

Acknowledge the UAC prompt and Windows will popup “System Properties” dialog with “System Protection” tab focused. If for some reason the “System Protection” tab is not focused then click on the “System Protection” tab. Check the disks that you want the restore points to be created on and click on the “Create…” button.

Step-4:

Windows will ask you to name the restore point so that you can identify it later when needed. Give it a decent name. You don’t have to type-in the date and time as the date and time are added automatically to the name. Hit the “Create” button once you type-in a name.

Windows will create a restore point at the selected disk(s) and will acknowledge with a message, like below, once done.

Step-5:

Click on the OK button to dismiss all dialogs.

You’ve successfully created a restore point of your computer. Now if things go wrong you can restore your computer from any of the restore points that you’ve created. Again, keep in mind, restore points are stored on your hard disk and if your hard disk gets corrupted then there is no way to restore your computer. So, always try to backup your important files periodically.

If you have any questions regarding this please make sure to ask us in comments.

Windows Vista has this cool Preview Pane on Windows Explorer that helps you preview a file without opening the file. This would be extremely helpful if you have bunch of files and wasn’t sure which one to open. Instead of opening each file and waiting for it to open and close, you can utilize Windows Vista’s Preview Pane to give you a sneak preview of what the file is and display its content on the Preview Pane.

To enable Windows Vista’s Preview Pane follow these steps,

Step-1:

Launch Windows Explorer (“Windows E” or right click on the Start button and choose “Explore” or Start >> All Programs >> Accessories >> Windows Explorer) and navigate into the folder which you want to preview.

Step-2:

Click on the “Organize” menu and then click on “Layout” and then choose “Preview Pane”.

Step-3:

Windows Vista will enable its Preview Pane (on the extreme right side of Windows Explorer) and when you choose the file you want to preview, Vista will render the content of the file on its Preview Pane. On the screenshot above, you can see a .TTF font file getting rendered on the Preview Pane. If you open up the file you’ll see the same exact content.

Windows Vista’s Preview Pane greatly helps you quickly swift thru the piles of files you have, if you have. Make use it when needed and it really comes-in handy.

If you have any questions regarding this please make sure to ask us in comments.

Since now you know how to turn on ClearType in Windows XP it’s time to get to know of how to fine tune ClearType so that it suits your reading eyes. ClearType is a great technology to enhance the screen readability on Windows XP but it is not a one step solution that you can just turn on and your display will be crisper and clear than before. For most cases the default ClearType setting should be enough but in some cases you might want to fine tune your ClearType settings to make sure ClearType meet your needs.

Microsoft has an answer to fine tuning your ClearType settings, and that answer is ClearType Tuner. ClearType tuner is a plugin that’s signed by Microsoft (so it’s safe to install) and once installed will help you fine tune ClearType settings using your web browser, preferably Internet Explorer. Follow these steps to fine tune your ClearType settings (I would recommend using Internet Explorer for this as I’ve got negative results trying the same with other browsers),

Step-1:

Launch your Internet Explorer and navigate to http://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartype/tuner/Step1.aspx and Internet Explorer will ask you to allow installation of the “ClearType Tuner” plugin. Just go ahead and allow it to be installed.

Click on the little pop-in that says “This website wants to install…” and then click on the “Install ActiveX Control…” menu option.

Internet Explorer will popup a “Internet Explorer – Security Warning” dialog. Make sure the name says “Microsoft ClearType Tuning Control” and the publisher says “Microsoft Corporation”. Once sure hit the “Install” button.

Step-2:

Internet Explorer will install the plugin and will reload the Microsoft Typography page again, and you’ll arrive at Step-1 of the fine tuning process. It will show you a visual difference of how ClearType enhanced page will look like. You should be able to make out the difference. Make sure to check the “Turn on ClearType” if it’s not checked already (make sure to have a tick mark in front). Hit the “Next >” button.

Step-3:

You’ll arrive at Step-2 of the fine tuning process. Here you’d have to choose the section that’s more readable and comfortable to your eyes. on the above screenshot you can see that I’ve selected the left pane and so it’s surrounded with a blue border. Once you’ve selected the pane you feel comfortable reading hit the “Next >” button.

Step-4:

Now, you’ll arrive at Step-3 of the fine tuning process. Of the 6 blocks of text you see on this page, select the one that you feel more comfortable reading and then hit the “Finish” button. If you’ve messed selecting the block just hit the “Restore Default” button.

Once you’ve hit the “Finish” button your ClearType settings would be fine tuned to make your eyes feel a bit more comfortable reading. Internet Explorer will display the above page. Just make sure the texts look fine to your eyes and move on.

If you want to change the settings again in the future just visit the site  and then you can follow from Step-2, you don’t have to install the plugin every time unless you’ve removed it.

I hope you read this on your monitor more comfortably than before. If you have any questions regarding this please make sure to ask us at the comments below.

Warning: This involves editing your Windows Registry. Before you make any changes to your Windows Registry it would be a good idea, on the safer side, to backup your Windows Registry. If you don’t know how to backup your Windows Registry then read this article on how to backup Windows Registry first and then come back to read this article.

Since you know by now how to disable Windows Vista’s Aero color scheme, wouldn’t it be nice to have a little shortcut to turn on or turn off Vista’s Aero effect? Follow these steps to include a “Enable Aero” and “Disable Aero” on your desktop’s right-click context menu,

Step-1:

Click on the “Start” button and type “run” and press the Enter key.

Step-2:

On the “Run” dialog, type-in “regedit” and press the Enter key.

Step-3:

Windows will launch “Registry Editor”. Follow this key path to arrive at the “shell” key, HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\Shell

Step-4:

Right click on the “shell” key and then click on the “New” menu option and then click on “Key”. Windows will create a key below “shell” and will allow you to type a name for the key. Type-in “Enable Aero” and press Enter. You’ll have something like below,

Step-5:

Right click on the “Enable Aero” key and then choose “New” and then “Key”. Type-in “command” for the key name.

Step-6:

Click on the “command” key under “Enable Aero” on the left and then right-click on the “Default” key on the right pane and click “Modify…”.

Step-7:

On the “Edit String” dialog, type-in (or copy this) Rundll32 dwmApi #102 and then hit the OK button.

Step-8:

Right click on the “shell” key again and choose “New” and then “Key” and type-in “Disable Aero” for the key name.

Step-9:

Create a “command” key below “Disable Aero” as you’ve done on Step-5.

Step-10:

Choose the “Default” key on the right pane and then right click and “Modify” and enter Rundll32 dwmApi #104 on the “Edit String” dialog. Hit the OK button.

Now you should have “Enable Aero” and “Disable Aero” on your desktop’s right-click context menu, as you can see below,

Isn’t that a handy thing to have? If you have any questions regarding this please make sure to let us know in comments.

If you don’t enable/disable Aero effect quite often then just follow this article to disable the Aero effect with out messing up with the Windows Registry.

Let’s clear off the basics first, so what is ClearType?

ClearType is an anti-aliasing font display technology developed by Microsoft that improves the readability of text on existing LCDs (Liquid Crystal Displays), such as laptop screens, Pocket PC screens and flat panel monitors. With ClearType font technology, the words on your computer screen look almost as sharp and clear as those printed on a piece of paper. If you’d like to know the technicalities of ClearType you can read more on ClearType from this Microsoft article.

How to turn on ClearType?

You’d be interested to know that Windows Vista comes with ClearType turned on, Windows XP does not. You need to manually turn on ClearType on Windows XP machines. So how do turn on ClearType on Windows XP? Follow these steps to turn on ClearType on Windows XP machines,

Step-1:

Right click on your desktop and click “Properties” on the menu.

Step-2:

On the “Display Properties” dialog click on the “Appearance” tab. Then click on the “Effects…” button at the bottom right.

Step-3:

On the “Effects” dialog make sure to have the “Use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts:” option selected. And once selected click on the dropdown and choose “ClearType”.

Step-4:

Hit the OK button on both the dialogs to dismiss the dialogs.

Now your display will be a lot better than the jagged, broken and pixelized “Standard” type. Here is how the same context menu on Step-1 looks with ClearType turned on. (You might not notice the effects of ClearType much on this but it will be noticeable on web pages and on many other applications. If you look closer on the below image you’ll notice that the broken edges of the font are more smoothened which makes it easy on eyes).

ClearType improves readability on Windows XP machines. But your mileage might vary depends on the graphics card you have on your machine. It’s definitely worth trying to see if ClearType improves readability on your Windows XP machine.

If you have any questions regarding this please make sure to ask us in the comments.

Windows Vista has this cool UI enhancer, Aero, the technology that brings the glass effect to the windows on Windows Vista, as well as the Flip-3D preview when you use the Windows + Tab key. It is more of a UI enhancer than any additional value to the operating system. If you have a powerful machine with high end configuration then Aero would be a cool thing to have. But if you have a machine that’s gasping for air when you are at your “productive high” then you might want to look into turning the Aero effect off.

Follow these steps to disable the Aero effect in Windows Vista,

Step-1:

Right click any where on your desktop and choose “Personalize” on the context menu.

Step-2:

On the “Personalization” dialog, click on the “Window Color and Appearance” link at the top.

Step-3:

On the “Window Color and Appearance” dialog click on the “Open classic appearance properties for more color options” link at the bottom of the window.

Step-4:

Windows will popup the “Appearance Settings” dialog and on the “Color Scheme” list you’ll see “Windows Aero” selected. Change that to select “Windows Vista Basic”. Hit the “OK” button to dismiss the dialog.

Windows will now disable the Aero effect and will instead use the Vista Basic effect which uses a lot lesser processing power. To turn Aero effect on, follow the same steps but select the “Windows Aero” item on the “Color Scheme” list.

How do you know Vista’s Aero effect is off? Here is how a window control buttons look on Aero,

And here is how the window control buttons look on Vista Basic scheme,

If you have any questions regarding this please make sure to ask us in comments.

On my earlier post I’ve talked about how to let Windows XP warn you with a beep sound when you press the Caps Lock, Num Lock or Scroll Lock keys. Why did I just mention Caps Lock key in the title? Because that’s the most vulnerable key that you might press accidentally as it sit between the commonly used Shift key and the Tab key.

In this article I’ll address the same problem but with Windows Vista. Follow these steps to let Windows Vista warn you when you (accidentally) press the Caps Lock key,

Step-1:

Click the “Start” button and then click on the “Control Panel” menu option.

Step-2:

On the Control Panel, click on the “Ease of Access” option.

Step-3:

On the “Ease of Access’” window click on the “Change how your keyboard works” option.

Step-4:

On the “Make the keyboard easier to use” dialog locate the “Make it easier to type” section and then locate the “Turn on Toggle Keys” option. Make sure to check the “Turn on Toggle Keys” option (make sure to have a check mark in the front).

Toggle Keys are nothing but the Caps Lock key, Num Lock key and the Scroll Lock key.

If you’d prefer to have a shortcut key to turn on or off the Toggle keys then make sure to check the “Turn on Toggle Keys by holding down the NUM LOCK key for 5 seconds” option. As verbose as this option is, it will turn on or off the Toggle keys when you press and hold the Num Lock key for 5 seconds. It would be handy to keep that shortcut to quickly control the Toggle keys. Hit the OK button to dismiss all dialogs.

From now on, whenever you want Windows Vista to notify you when the Caps Lock, Num Lock or the Scroll Lock keys get turned on just press and hold down the Num Lock key for 5 seconds. Windows Vista will beep to acknowledge that the Toggle Keys are effective. To turn the notification off just press and hold the Num Lock again for 5 seconds.

If you have any questions regarding this please make sure to ask us in the comments below.

Read about how to let Windows XP warn you when you press the Caps Lock key.

One of the few things that I hate with my time in front of the computer is the accidental enabling of the Caps Lock key. It’s in a location that’s very close to the often used Tab key and that makes it more vulnerable to accidental turn on. Wouldn’t it be nice if Windows XP notifies you, or at least make a beep, when you accidentally hit the Caps Lock key (or Num Lock key and Scroll Lock key for that matter)? Follow these steps to make Windows XP make a beep sound when you press the Caps Lock, Num Lock or the Scroll Lock keys,

Step-1:

Click the “Start” button and click on the “Control Panel” menu option.

Step-2:

Windows will popup the “Control Panel” dialog. Go ahead and double-click on the Accessibility Options entry.

Step-3:

Windows will popup the “Accessibility Options” dialog. At the “ToggleKeys” section make sure to check the “Use ToggleKeys” option (make sure to have a tick mark in front). Then hit the “OK” button.

From now on, when you press the Caps Lock, Num Lock or Scroll Lock keys on your keyboard Windows XP will make a beep sound to indicate you that one of those keys has been pressed.

I can hear you saying that it would be nice if we can turn on and turn off this feature with a simple key press than to go thru these steps every time. Well, just follow these steps,

Step-1:

Only for the first time just follow the above steps from 1 to 3 to arrive at the “Accessibility Options” dialog and make sure to have the “Use ToggleKeys” option checked. Then click on the “Settings” button.

Step-2:

Windows will popup a “Settings for Toggle Keys” dialog. Make sure to check the “Use Shortcut” option (make sure to have a tick mark in front). Hit the OK button to dismiss all dialogs.

From now on, whenever you want Windows XP to notify you when the Caps Lock, Num Lock or the Scroll Lock keys get turned on just press and hold down the Num Lock key for 5 seconds. Windows will beep to acknowledge that the Toggle Keys are effective. To turn the notification off just press and hold the Num Lock again for 5 seconds.

Hope it’s useful to you and if you have any questions please let us know in comments below.

Read about how to let Windows Vista warn you when you press the Caps Lock key.

I’m sure you must have seen these dialogs in Windows Vista when a software crashes or if it doesn’t respond,

Windows Vista has this built-in Windows Error Reporting (WER) mechanism with which Windows would be able to communicate to Microsoft an occurrence of a software crash and the many factors that lead to it.

From Microsoft point of view it would be useful for them to gather those details to make sure Windows can deal with it in the future (at least!). But from our (users) point of view it is a bit annoying everything something goes wrong with Windows it pops up this dialog. So how we suppress this dialog from popping up? It’s pretty simply. Just follow these steps to disable Windows Error Reporting,

Step-1:

Click on the Start button and type-in “Run” on the Search Box.

Step-2:

On the “Run” dialog type-in “gpedit.msc” and press Enter. “gpedit” is the program name for Windows Group Policy Editor Snap-In.

Step-3:

Click thru the UAC prompt and Windows will popup Local Group Policy Editor dialog. On that dialog, expand these keys “Computer Configuration >> Administrative Templates >> Windows Components” on the left to arrive at “Windows Error Reporting” key.

Step-4:

Double click on the “Disable Windows Error Reporting” on the right pane. Windows will popup with the “Disable Windows Error Reporting Properties” dialog. On that dialog, by default either “Not Configured” or “Enabled” might be selected. Make sure to select the “Disabled” option and hit the “OK” button.

That’s all to it. Gone are the days of those annoying Windows Error Reporting popups!

If you are using Windows XP, don’t worry, DemoGeek.com have you covered. Read this article on how to disable error reporting in Windows XP.

In one of my other article I’ve explained to you how to backup Windows Registry. It wouldn’t be much use if you don’t know how to restore your Windows Registry from an earlier backup. Follow these steps to restore Windows Registry from an earlier backup.

Step-1:

Click the “Start” button and type-in “run” on the Search box and press the Enter key.

If you are using Windows XP then click on the “Start” button and then click on the “Run…” menu option.

Step-2:

On the “Run” dialog type-in “regedit” and press the Enter key.

Step-3:

Windows will open up the Registry Editor. Click on the “File” menu and then click on the “Import…” submenu.

Step-4:

Windows will display an “Import Registry File” dialog allowing you to choose the backup file that you’ve backed up earlier. Choose the file that you want the Registry to be restored to and then hit the “Open” button.

Windows will now restore the Registry to the state it was when you backed up the file.

As you all know Windows Registry is one of the key component on Windows. Most of the Windows behavior is driven by the entries on Windows Registry. So wouldn’t it be a good idea to backup the important piece of Windows, the Registry, once in a while at least? Backing up Windows Registry would be handy when you manually try to change entries in Windows Registry.

Follow these steps to safely backup your registry so when needed you can restore your Windows Registry to a decent state,

Step-1:

Click the “Start” button and type-in “run” on the Search box and press the Enter key.

If you are using Windows XP then click on the “Start” button and then click on the “Run…” menu option.

Step-2:

On the “Run” dialog type-in “regedit” and press the Enter key.

Step-3:

Windows will open up the Registry Editor. Click on the “File” menu and then click on the “Export…” submenu.

Step-4:

Windows will display “Export Registry File” dialog. On that dialog make sure to choose the “All” option under “Export Range”. If you want to backup just selected branches then you can choose the “Selected branch” option and then specify the branch that you want to backup. Once you choose the range that you want to be backed up then give a name for the backup file and save it to a location that you prefer.

That’s it. You’ve just backed-up your Windows Registry. Make sure to backup your Windows Registry every time you make any changes that you are not much sure of. It is always better to be on the safer side than “sorry”.

So, now you’ve backed up your Windows Registry. It wouldn’t be much use if you don’t know how to restore Windows Registry from the backup that you’ve just made. Read this article to know how to restore Windows Registry from a backup file.