Using Windows » Articles

Change your Windows 7 logon screen background with Tweaks Logon Changer

chaks — Sun, 10 May 2009 02:05:23 +0000

LogonStudio enables Windows XP and Windows Vista users to create, change and apply new logon screen backgrounds. Even though LogonStudio works for Windows 7, it is still not recommended to use LogonStudio to personalize Windows 7 logon screen background.

Tweaks.com Logon Changer

Tweaks.com Logon Changer for Windows 7 allows Windows 7 users to change the Windows 7 logon screen background with just few clicks!

Change the Logon Screen Background

To change the logon screen background, click the ‘Change Logon Screen‘ button and choose a new background image for the logon screen.

Logon Changer automatically resizes the image and file size to fit the Windows 7 logon screen background requirements by displaying a message to the user.

Testing the new logon screen

To test the new logon screen applied, just click the ‘Test‘ button.

This will lock the computer and display the newly applied logon screen. Enter your password to return back to the desktop.

Below is a new logon screen applied to Windows 7.

Reverting back

You can easily revert back to the default Windows 7 logon screen by clicking the ‘Revert to Default Logon Screen‘ button.

Download Tweaks.com Logon Changer

Visit Tweaks.com website to downlaod Tweaks.com Logon Changer for Windows 7.

The Logon Changer is compatible with Windows 7 Beta and Windows 7 RC releases.

Clubhouse Tags: clubhouse, windows 7, challenge windows 7, challenge response, tips, logon screen

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Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor Beta

chaks — Sun, 10 May 2009 01:14:50 +0000

Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor scans your PC for various factors and known compatibility issues to see if its ready for Windows 7.

After checking, the Upgrade Advisor produces a report which will let you know if your PC meets the system requirements and if there are any known devices and program compatibility issues.

You can also save this Upgrade Advisor report instead of running the tool again.

Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor also works in Windows 7 systems and lets you know whether there are any issues upgrading to a higher edition of Windows 7. Below is a screenshot of the Upgrade Advisor run in Windows 7.

Upgrade Advisor Download

Click here to download Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor. Below are the system requirements to run the upgrade advisor.

Supported Operating Systems: Windows 7; Windows Vista; Windows XP Service Pack 2

.NET 2.0 Framework or higher if running on Windows XP

Clubhouse Tags: clubhouse, windows 7, challenge windows 7, challenge response, windows 7 upgrade

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IE8 - Sign into multiple sessions

chaks — Fri, 08 May 2009 22:03:28 +0000

IE8 has already surprised users with many new features like InPrivate browsing mode, Accelerators, Web Slices etc., Adding to this list is the ‘New Session’ feature. This enables IE8 to open a new session which uses entirely different set of session cookies.

You can open a new session of IE8 from the File Menu as shown below in the screenshot.

(If you cannot see the menu bar, press Alt inside your browser)

For example, if you open your mail account, say Gmail, in a browser - the browser stores the logged in details (as cookies) for that session. When you open another tab or another window and browse to Gmail, the browser will automatically log into your Gmail account. This is because the session cookies are shared. But with the ‘New Session’ option in IE8, you will be able to log into two different Gmail accounts now as the session cookies are not shared between tabs or browser windows.

Below is a screenshot showing the ‘New Session’ feature in action

Below is a screenshot showing multiple Windows Live Hotmail sessions opened

In the coming weeks we will go through the other features of IE8 in detail.

Clubhouse Tags: clubhouse, internet explorer 8, tips

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A peek into Windows 7 Action Center

chaks — Fri, 08 May 2009 11:09:47 +0000

In Windows Vista, the ‘Security Center‘ provided information to the users about various system security messages such as - Firewall protection, Malware protection, Windows updates, UAC and Internet Security Settings and also the option to troubleshoot some of the security problems.

The Security Center informs users regarding various system messages in the form of alerts (balloon pop-ups) from the taskbar notification area. Sometimes, there were too many notifications which were annoying and distracting users from their usual work.

Windows 7 Action Center

The Security Center from Windows Vista is revamped to a more useful Action Center in Windows 7. Action Center is the central place where users can get information about various system messages as well as monitor system’s health status. The messages are also archived for viewing them later. Action Center also provides the troubleshooting options to find and fix problems in the system.

Notifications

The Action Center notifies users when there are important messages so that users can take appropriate action. The message notifications convey exactly what the users need to know, nothing more, nothing less.

The above screenshot shows the Action Center notification area icon and the fly-out menu.

The Action Center icon (white flag) in the system tray shows the number of messages in Action Center that needs attention and their level of importance. It also has a fly-out menu which on a left click on your mouse, lists the 4 most recent notifications. You can click on a message then to find and fix that issue.

Action Center messages are put in 2 important categories:

Normal - Normal messages appear in the Action Center control panel

Important - Important messages send a notification balloon as well as appearing in the Action Center.

The messages are marked important only if the security of the system or data is at risk.

Users can turn off the messages/notifications (if they want to) in the ‘Action Center Settings‘ which provides options to customize the notifications.

Archived Messages

Whenever a problem occurs, the messages which carry the problem details are reported to Microsoft, checked for a solution and archived automatically. This is the default behaviour, but it can be easily changed in the Problem Report Settings in the Action Center Settings window

And below is a screenshot showing the problem reporting options

To view the archived messages, just click on the View archived messages in the Action Center

This opens the message center where the archived messages can be seen

To view a solution on a problem, just right click and choose to View solution

This shows the possible fix that can applied for the problem

Security

The Security section handles the Virus protection, Windows Firewall, Windows Update, UAC and other security settings similar to the Security Center in Windows Vista. The status of each of the security item is listed along with the action/solution needed.

Maintenance

The Maintenance section handles system backup, compatibility issues, Windows Updates and troubleshooting options for system maintenance as shown below

And moreover you can see your system’s performance too from Action Center.

Action Center in Windows 7 is certainly a big improvement over Windows Vista’s Security Center. The ability to customize the messages/notifications, glance through the system health, find and fix issues makes Action Center the only place to look if you want to know what is happening with your System.

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Windows 7 Taskbar features - Jump Lists Personalization

chaks — Tue, 05 May 2009 12:41:28 +0000

Jump Lists are quite useful when it comes to ‘quick access’ to items and destinations. When used effectively, Jump Lists can save a lot of time.

You can currently personalize two aspects of Jump Lists:

Disable recent items, and

Choose the number of recent items to display.

Jump Lists options are available in the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties.

Disable Recent Items

Right click on the taskbar and select Properties to open the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties window.

In the Start Menu properties tab, uncheck the option to display ‘Store and display recently opened items in the Start Menu and the taskbar‘.

This will disable the recent items being listed in the Jump Lists. You will still have access to the pinned items in the Jump Lists.

Number of Recent Items in Jump Lists

In the Start Menu properties tab, click Customize button.

Now choose the number of recent items to display in your Jump Lists.

Below is a video demonstrating Jump Lists personalization options

This video was embedded using the YouTuber plugin by Roy Tanck. Adobe Flash Player is required to view the video.

Clubhouse Tags: clubhouse, windows 7, taskbar, jump lists, tips, challenge-windows 7

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Windows 7 Taskbar features - Jump List

chaks — Mon, 04 May 2009 11:35:29 +0000

Windows 7 taskbar provides many quick and easy ways to access your applications or files or programs that you frequently use. One such way is making use of Jump Lists

What are Jump Lists?

Jump Lists provide an easy and quick access to items used by an application. You can also consider it as a ‘mini start menu’ for the application.

To access an application’s Jump List, simply right click on the application icon on the taskbar or push the application icon upwards on the taskbar

Jump List Categories

Below is a snapshot of Internet Explorer 8 Jump List

As you can see in the above snapshot, a Jump List is categorized into:

Tasks

Common actions performed in applications

Frequent

Frequent items or destinations used in applications (populated automatically)

Pinned

Similar to bookmarks. Pin items or destinations for quick access

Below is another snapshot of Windows Live Messenger’s Jump List

You can see that the application just uses the Tasks, and access to each task is just a click away!

For the ‘out of the box’ Windows applications like Internet Explorer, Windows Explorer, Windows Live Messenger etc., Microsoft has already integrated Jump Lists into its applications. But for third party applications like Firefox, Google Chrome etc., - you get the default Jump List which is just with the Tasks category, like shown in the the snapshot below

Pin Items to Jump List

If you want to pin one of your frequently visited item in your Jump List, simply click the Pin button as shown in the snapshot below

Once pinned, that item goes to the Pinned category

Unpin Items from Jump List

If you want to unpin an item from the Pinned category, simply click on the Pin button as shown in the snapshot below

Jump Lists for your Applications (developer focussed)

You, as a developer of your application can integrate Jump List into your applications. You can consume the Windows 7 Taskbar and Libraries Sample Library to integrate Jump Lists in your applications

The JumpListManager class provides an abstraction of the application’s jump list, including facilities to manipulate custom destinations, user tasks, the Recent and Frequent lists, and items removed by the user

Clubhouse Tags: clubhouse, windows 7, taskbar, jump lists, tips, challenge-windows 7

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Windows 7 Taskbar features - Pin, Unpin and Open With

chaks — Mon, 04 May 2009 08:24:32 +0000

With the new Windows 7 taskbar, you can now ‘pin’ and ‘unpin’ applications or files from the taskbar. This is similar to ‘Add to Quicklaunch’ in the earlier versions of Windows, but with better functionality.

Pin to Taskbar

You can pin an application to the taskbar in two ways:

Drag and drop the application to the taskbar, or,

Right click the application and select ‘Pin to Taskbar’

Once pinned, you can see the application in the taskbar

Unpin from Taskbar

If you want to unpin an application from the taskbar, right click on the application and select ‘Unpin this program from Taskbar’

Pin a file to the Taskbar

Unlike applications, files cannot be directly pinned to the taskbar. If you pin a file to the taskbar, it gets pinned to its default application’s Jump List that it is set to ‘open with’

Taskbar ‘open with’

But if you do want to open the file with another application(other than the default application it is set), you can do so by dragging the file and holding Shift key & dropping it to that application you want to open with

Below is a video demonstrating the taskbar features discussed above

This video was embedded using the YouTuber plugin by Roy Tanck. Adobe Flash Player is required to view the video.

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Minimum RAM required to run Windows 7

chaks — Sun, 03 May 2009 10:02:13 +0000

Microsoft has set 1GB for 32bit and 2GB for 64bit as the minimum RAM required to run Windows 7. We already saw Windows 7 performing well in a netbook with 1GB RAM.

But how far can you go in testing the minimum RAM required to run Windows 7?

It appears that the smallest amount of physical memory required to run is as small as 196MB!

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Windows XP Mode in Windows 7

chaks — Fri, 01 May 2009 11:35:30 +0000

Starting from today, Microsoft has announced the availability of Windows XP Mode Beta for Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate and Enterprise customers. With the help of Windows XP mode, business customers will be able to run Windows XP applications in a virtual environment, right from their Windows 7 desktop.

Microsoft emphasizes that Windows XP mode will be of more use to business customers who want to upgrade to Windows 7 from Windows XP

Windows XP Mode provides an easier and simpler way to virtualize Windows XP in Windows 7. MSDN and TechNet subscribers can download from today, and will be broadly available from May 5 to general public along with Windows 7 RC.

System Requirements

Below are the system requirements for running Windows XP Mode

Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate

Intel-VT or AMD-V enabled in the CPU

Minimum 2GB RAM

15GB of additional space

Windows XP Mode is only available for Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate editions

Installation

Installation was pretty simple and self explanatory which guided through installing Windows XP. Windows XP mode comes with an already available Windows XP virtual environment, so setting it up doesnt take much time at all.

Below are the installation screenshots

Once your virtual Windows XP environment is created, you are ready to work with your favorite Windows XP applications!

(Click to enlarge)

You can install applications as you would normally, in Windows XP and they appear on your Windows 7 Start Menu!

If you start the virtual XP application when your virtual machine is running, you get prompted to close your virutal machine before opening the application

Below is your virtual Windows XP application running in Windows 7

Virtual XP Settings

You can access the virtual XP settings from the menu

Below is the settings window

Some settings cannot be changed if the virtual machine is running

USB Device Settings

You can also attach your USB devices to your virtual XP environment

To summarize, Windows XP mode is quite useful to business customers, especially for those who still use Windows XP only compatible applications and want to have a safe upgrade path to Windows 7.

For normal desktop users, it is very rare to enter a such a scenario where they need to run Windows XP only compatible applications. In many cases, the user shall make use of the Windows 7 Application Compatibility Mode to run applications that were working in earlier versions of Windows.

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Windows 7 and netbooks in a nutshell

chaks — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 11:34:04 +0000

Over the last two weeks, Using Windows had been testing Windows 7 in netbook, especially with the Windows 7 Starter and Windows 7 Home Premium Editions. The idea was to see how easy it was to use Windows 7 in low profile netbooks. Even though Windows Vista (minimum physical memory requirement starts from 2 GB of RAM) is the latest desktop operating system with new features like Aero Desktop and advanced security, Windows XP is still considered as the most viable operating system and is installed in many netbooks. Due to the various demands for the low cost netbooks, Microsoft built a netbook specific version of Windows XP.

With Windows 7, Microsoft might have got it right, with low footprint which enables the OS to perform well in low profile netbooks. Still in beta (RC available from May 5), Windows 7 is quick, responsive and caters the needs of a netbook user. Installation was a breeze with USB thumb drive and the desktop was presented with a 20 to 25 seconds boot time. Windows 7 identified all of the devices and installed the necessary drivers for the same. There was no need to download drivers manually from the netbook vendor’s website.

Choosing the right edition

With various Windows 7 editions - Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional, Ultimate - there isn’t a netbook specific version that you can choose to install in your netbook. But the beauty is that all Windows 7 editions perform equally well in netbooks. Windows 7 Starter and Windows 7 Home Premium were put to test and they both performed equally well, except for the version limitations like the ‘3 app limit’ in the Starter edition.

One thing to note is that the low cost netbooks are not meant for high profile usage like Laptops or Desktop PCs rather they are ‘on the go’ devices which you can use to browse, chat, blog while you travel etc., Using it wisely will help to get the best out of the netbooks and Windows 7 does exactly the same!

Application Compatibility

Windows being the familiar platform, it is easy to find applications and they aren’t different than installing and using them in normal Desktop PCs.

Below are some applications that you can use with your netbook and will prove to be productive:

Windows Live Messenger

Windows Live Writer

Windows Live Mail

Microsoft Office 2007

twhirl (if you are twitter fan)

Skype

Mozilla Firefox

Google Chrome

Out of the box applications like Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player are quite useful to browse and listen to music ‘on the go’. But if you dont like them, you can very well uninstall and use your favorite alternatives.

With various limitations in the Windows 7 Starter Edition, and Home Basic to be made available only in emerging markets, Windows 7 Home Premium becomes the obvious and best choice for netbooks!

If you had missed our Windows 7 and netbook series, follow the links below:

Windows 7 Starter Edition and netbook - Part 1

Windows 7 Starter Edition and netbook - Part 2

Windows 7 Starter Edition and netbook - Part 3

Windows 7 Home Premium Edition and netbook

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Windows 7 Home Premium Edition and netbook

chaks — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 12:12:33 +0000

After playing with Windows 7 Starter Edition, I decided to upgrade my netbook to Windows 7 Home Premium Edition. I couldn’t choose to upgrade as I did not have an upgrade key. So, I decided to dual boot. I installed Windows 7 Home Premium and had no problems dual booting with Starter Edition.

Home Premium Desktop

It was a welcoming change to see the fresh blue ‘betta fish’ again when compared with the grey color ‘betta fish’ wallpaper in Starter Edition, but this time I was able to change and personalize my desktop with themes, wallpapers etc.,

No more ‘3 app limit’

It was again a welcoming change to open more than 3 applications! No more ‘3 app limit’ as in the Starter Edition.

Performance

I went ahead and opened as many applications as possible to test how well my netbook behaved.

The above snapshot shows the system performance, with the following applications running.

Windows Media Player playing a movie

ESET NOD32 anti virus scanning the netbook

Defragmentation being analyzed

Windows Update

Magnifier

Gadgets

Windows Picture Viewer

And still I did not have any major problems viewing thumbnail previews or switch between applications, although there was a little delay to switch to another application.

Bitlocker To Go

The Bitlocker To Go experience was the same as in the Starter Edition.

You don’t have the option to turn on Bitlocker encryption but only to read/write encrypted drives in the Home Premium Edition.

Windows Media Player

I had no problems playing videos or music with Windows Media Player and was able to access my home media using the ‘Allow Internet access to home media feature’ in the Home Premium edition easily with few clicks!

HomeGroup

I was able to create as well as join HomeGroup in the Home Premium edition.

But I chose to connect to my already available HomeGroup than creating another one.

To summarize, Home Premium Edition in my netbook delivered a near to Windows desktop experience and was a refreshing change from Starter Edition. Windows 7 Home Premium Edition with Aero Desktop is one step ahead of the Starter Edition and worth installing in your netbook!

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chaks — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 13:10:22 +0000

Windows Media Player

I found the Windows Media Player in the Starter Edition to be quite good. I was able to play mp4 files too without any problems.

One feature that I noted, not present in the Windows Media Player in the Starter Edition is - Allow Internet Access to home media - It makes sense that since I am going to be travelling or using netbook outside my home network, this feature works better in other editions than in the Starter Edition.

You cannot set up the Internet access to home media option in Windows Media Player, but still you can automatically allow devices to play your media.

Sound Schemes

Even though there is no option to change your desktop wallpaper or the Windows 7 theme, you still have the option to change your Sound Schemes in Starter Edition. I think this is the only customization option available in terms of Desktop Personalization in Windows 7 Starter Edition!

You can choose between different Sound Schemes available in Windows 7 Starter Edition

Windows Features

Below is the full list of Windows Features that you can Turn On/Off.

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chaks — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 11:11:43 +0000

Bitlocker To Go

I run Windows 7 Ultimate in my office and home PC, whereas my netbook is running Windows 7 Starter Edition. Having tried the BitLocker To Go functionality in Windows 7 ultimate Edition successfully, I thought it would be a good idea to test my encrypted USB thumb drive in my netbook too. I wanted to see what were the limits of the new Bitlocker To Go feature in the Starter Edition.

As soon as I plugged-in the encrypted thumb drive, I got a Bitlocker pop-up window asking for the password to unlock the drive.

I was able to access my thumb drive after entering the password. But I found one very useful feature disabled in the above Bitlocker window. Yes, you cannot choose to automatically unlock your thumb drive on your computer in the Starter Edition. I had to type my password whenever I plugged-in my thumb drive.

And to add more, you don’t have the option to turn on Bitlocker encryption but only to read/write encrypted drives in the Starter Edition.

But I was happy that I was able to open and copy files to my thumb drive. This is not much worse because if I had Windows XP running in my netbook, I would be able to only read my encrypted thumb drive.

You don’t have the option to turn on Bitlocker encryption but only to read/write encrypted drives in the Starter Edition.

For more information on how to use the Bitlocker To Go feature, read my guide on Safeguarding portable drives using ‘Bitlocker To Go’

HomeGroup

HomeGroup - another new feature in Windows 7 which is very much useful if you have multiple Windows 7 PCs/laptops/netbooks connected to your home network. HomeGroup makes it easier to share your documents, pictures and music with other computers connected to the same home network. Well, why wouldn’t I not use this feature in my netbook then!

As I had my HomeGroup already set up, the only thing I had to do was to join the netbook to my HomeGroup.

I was able to see that a HomeGroup is available to join in my Network and Sharing Center applet.

I was able to join to my HomeGroup and access my home desktop without any problems.

But there is a downside to it:

You cannot create a HomeGroup in the Starter Edition, but only join to an already available HomeGroup

clubhouse Tags: clubhouse, windows7, challenge-windows 7, netbooks

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chaks — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 06:07:18 +0000

There has been a lot written and discussed about Windows 7 Starter Edition - which is nothing but an usual Windows 7 edition with much limited functionality.

I gave a test drive of Windows 7 Starter Edition in my Acer Aspire One netbook. You can see my netbook configuration in the screenshot below:

Windows 7 rated my netbook with an Windows Experience Index of 2.1, which I think is pretty good.

Starter Desktop

The Windows 7 Starter Edition desktop has a different wallpaper when compared to other editions.

You are left with the ‘betta fish’ and nothing else with the Windows 7 Starter desktop as there is no option to change your desktop wallpaper or Windows 7 themes.

The ‘3 app limit’

Windows 7 Starter Edition is much criticized for the the ‘3 app limit‘ which limits users from running only 3 applications at a time.

As I use my netbook ‘on the go’, mostly I keep a browser, twhirl (for tweets) running all the time. Below is a snapshot of my desktop.

You can see that I am running - Internet Explorer, Windows Live Messenger, twhirl and Desktop Gadgets.

I have already reached my ‘3 app limit’ by opening - Internet Explorer, Windows Live Messenger and twhirl.

When I opened Microsoft Word, I immediately got this popup telling me that my maximum programs limit has been reached.

But at the same time, I was able to open multiple tabs/instances of Internet Explorer and mutiple instances of twhirl. Windows 7 did not stop me from doing that.

How does this ‘3 app limit’ work? - Windows 7 counts individual applications for the ‘3 app limit’ and not multiple instances of that application.

There are some exclusions though, like:

Anti-virus programs

Windows Explorer

Basic Windows System Tools like,

Task Manager

Control Panel

Command Prompt

Desktop Gadgets

Though this is excluded, you won’t be able to run Gadgets once you have reached the maximum programs limit. So, if you want to use Gadgets, it is better to open the Gadgets initially before opening any other application(s)

Did this ‘3 app limit’ stop me from using my applications? - As I use my netbook mostly for browsing and tweets when i’m travelling and for few other stuffs in my Office, I did not often fall into this ‘3 app limit’, which really surprised me. But there were times when I had to close one application in order to open another application.

Performance

I found the netbook to be very responsive and quick. I had no trouble using any of the applications I installed. Below is the snapshot showing Task Manager with the maximum applications limit reached.

In the next post, I will take you through the BitLocker To Go and HomeGroup experience with Windows 7 Starter Edition.

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Upgrading Windows 7 beta and pre-RC builds to RC build

chaks — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 21:45:04 +0000

Microsoft recommends for a clean installation of the Windows 7 RC than upgrading from previous builds

E7 team earlier blogged that it wouldn’t be possible to upgrade the Windows 7 beta and pre-RC builds to RC. And yes, that is still true!

I was not able to upgrade my Windows 7 build 7068 to Windows 7 RC build 7100

As the E7 team suggested, I went ahead to change the minimum client version number required to upgrade and found something interesting. The minimum client version required to upgrade was not 7100 as told by the E7 team earlier, but it was 7077, the build which was considered to be the Windows 7 RC-Escrow build.

This change from 7100 to 7077 as the minimum client version indeed confirms that the build 7077 should have been the Windows 7 RC-Escrow build!

Once I changed the minimum client version to my build, which was build 7068, I was able to upgrade to RC!

Follow the steps below to change the minimum client version (from E7 blog post):

Download the ISO as you did previously and burn the ISO to a DVD.

Copy the whole image to a storage location you wish to run the upgrade from (a bootable flash drive or a directory on any partition on the machine running the pre-release build).

Browse to the sources directory.

Open the file cversion.ini in a text editor like Notepad.

Modify the MinClient build number to a value lower than the down-level build. For example, change 7100 to 7000 (pictured below).

Save the file in place with the same name.

Run setup like you would normally from this modified copy of the image and the version check will be bypassed

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Explore the Problem Steps Recorder

chaks — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 23:02:52 +0000

Problem Steps Recoder (PSR) allows users to record the problems they face in their system and e-mail the recorded reports to help desk or to friends & family or to someone who can assist them to solve the problem by reproducing the steps. PSR can also be used in creating useful step-by-step tutorials for your friends and family, like the one below which shows how to change your user account picture in Windows 7:

PSR will record each and every step a user takes and records the entire operation with screenshots along with a detailed documentation of the steps the user goes through. The recorded information is saved as a MHTML file and packed in a ZIP file which can be emailed for assistance.

You can launch PSR either from control panel under the ‘Troubleshooting’ menu or by searching for psr.exe from the start menu.

You can start and stop the PSR by clicking the ‘Start Record’ and ‘Stop Record’ buttons.

You can add your own comments by highlighting a particular area of the screen as shown below in addition to the documentation added by PSR while recording. Mouse clicks done by the user are highlighted too.

You will be prompted to save the recorded file as a Zip file at the end of recording. Now the zip file can be sent via email to anyone for further assistance.

To view the recorded session, open the zip file you saved, and double click on the compiled HTML file stored in the Zip file. You will be able to view the recorded session in a browser either step by step or view the steps as a slideshow. Do not expect a video of the recorded session.

You can also choose to record the problem in Administrative mode by choosing to bypass UAC, so that you can record the problems you face with applications running in Administrative mode.

By default PSR can record only 25 screenshots. But you can change the limit you want (3 digits maximum). Also you can change the location where you want to save the recorded file and choose whether you want to include screenshots or not while recording.

PSR won’t record anything as you type from your keyboard, but will just store the action as ‘user typed in keyboard’ in the recorded file. It takes screenshots only when you give some mouse input such as a click or a drag and not just a mouse move.

Although PSR is not a complete full-fledged server application like ObserveIT which can be used to record and index user activities in all windows sessions in an enterprise and replay them, it is simply a remarkable tool to help serve the purpose of a common Windows user, to help solving problems in their system.

You can also watch the video demonstration of Problem Steps Recorder below:

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Safeguard your portable drives using ‘BitLocker To Go’

chaks — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 12:26:21 +0000

BitLocker To Go - A full disk encryption tool that extends the BitLocker data protection to removable storage devices in Windows 7 and enabling them to be restricted with a passphrase.

IT administrators can set the length and complexity of passphrase and set a Group Policy that requires users to apply BitLocker protection to removable drives before being able to write to them to prevent popslurping. In Windows Vista, BitLocker was not that easy to setup and Microsoft released BitLocker Drive Preparation Tool to make things easier. This tool is available as an Ultimate Extras for Windows Vista Ultimate edition and is also available for Windows Vista Enterprise edition.

Windows 7 simplifies the encryption of internal drives by automatically creating the hidden boot partition necessary to use BitLocker to protect the OS volume, eliminating the need to manually select that option during installation or to repartition the drive later. Windows 7 also adds Data Recovery Agent (DRA) support for all protected disk volumes so that enterprises can store recovery data in Active Directory and recover volumes if needed.

BitLocker To Go works without the need of a Trusted Protection Module (TPM) in Windows 7 and allows users to more securely share data with users who have not yet deployed Windows 7.? Windows XP SP3 and Windows Vista SP1 users can have a read-only access to BitLocker To Go devices. Any other non-supported Windows OS, will treat the BitLocker encrypted device as an unformatted drive.

So, How to encrypt a portable drive using BitLocker To Go?

Select the portable drive and choose the option to ‘Enable BitLocker’ below from the Context menu or choose BitLocker Drive Encryption’ from the Control Panel.

Once you turn on BitLocker, System Volume Information folder is created on the drive and the drive is initialised. You can select how the drive should be unlocked, either via a password or a smart card.

Set a Recovery key to unlock the drive if you forget the passphrase.

Encryption will begin now and will take time depending on the size of the drive.

The USB drive I was encrypting was detached from the system accidentally before the encryption was complete and when i inserted it again, i was prompted to type the passphrase for bitlocker encryption and then the Encryptioncontinued from the point it was stopped.

When you insert your portable drive again , you will be prompted to enter the passphrase or insert the smart card to access it contents.

You can manage BitLocker Encryption from the Control Panel or from the right context menu.

BitLocker & BitLocker To Go is available only in Windows 7 Enterprise and Ultimate editions

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Multiple active firewall profiles in Windows 7

chaks — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 07:29:49 +0000

Windows Firewall has Multiple Profiles (rules) and can swap the set of profiles it uses, based on the type of network to which it is connected. In Windows Vista, only one profile can be active at a time. When your computer is connected to multiple networks and if any of the connected networks is identified as Public, then the Public profile is active to maintain security. If there are no Public networks, but there are one or more Private network connections, then the Private profile

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Windows 7 Home Basic removes the option to create homegroup

chaks — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 11:59:52 +0000

Well, a picture is worth a thousand words

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Windows 7 Home Basic makes it difficult to change your desktop background

chaks — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 11:44:25 +0000

Dont expect to see the Personalize option in the desktop context menu in Windows 7 Home Basic edition

Microsoft has not removed this option completely, but its rather available in ‘two clicks’

Open Control Panel and you will see the option to Change Desktop Background under Appearance category

Why would Microsoft make it harder to personalize the desktop by removing it from the desktop context menu!

And, what about desktop wallpaper slideshow?

Thats also gone!

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Windows 7 Home Basic - New UI to Change Welcome Screen

chaks — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 11:16:06 +0000

When questioned about various Windows 7 SKUs, Mike Ybarra, Windows General Manager, explained that:

“We know emerging markets have unique needs and we will offer Windows 7 Home Basic, only in emerging markets, for customers looking for an entry-point Windows experience on a full-size value PC“

This atleast made it clear that Windows Home Basic editions would be made avaialble from OEMs

May be this is the reason why we have this option in this edition

And here is what you get when you choose to change your Welcome Screen

You get only two options to choose from - OEM Background or Windows Background - This seems to be a good selling point for OEMs as they can brand their logo on Windows PCs. As my installation was not an OEM installation, nothing happened when I chose to use the custom background image that came with my computer. May be when Windows 7 gets released, OEMs might provide options to choose between several backgrounds.

It is not clear whether Microsoft will open the same to other editions to OEMs. I am atleast glad that I can choose to have Windows Background rather than seeing the OEM logo allover my login screen!

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Boot from VHD

chaks — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 12:47:21 +0000

One of the cool features introduced in Windows 7 is the ability to create and attach VHDs. You can also boot into VHDs directly from Windows 7 bootmanager!

There are two ways to achieve it, but make sure you meet the requirements

Pre-requisites

1) Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK) for Windows 7

2) Windows 7 Client or Windows Server 2008 R2

The ‘not-so-hard’ way

1) Windows 7: Boot from VHD First Impression: Part 1

Creating native Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) in Windows 7

Creating and Attaching VHDs using Diskpart utility

Attaching and Detaching the VHD file

2) Windows 7: Boot from VHD First Impression: Part 2

Booting a Windows 7 VHD or Windows Server 7 (aka Windows Server 2008 R2) VHD

Preparing VHD file using Windows 7 or Windows Server 7 Media or existing VHD running Hyper-V

Adding the VHD entry in Boot Menu for VHD Boot and then Boot from VHD

The ‘easiest’ way

The simplest way is to use the Windows Image to Virtual Hard Disk Converter (WIM2VHD) tool and convert a Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 image to a VHD and then configure the bcdedit to boot from that vhd.

Download the WIM2VHD tool and documentation here

Now, you can easily convert a Windows Image to a VHD using the following command:

cscript wim2vhd.ws /wim:N:sourcesinstall.wim /sku:HOMEBASIC /vhd:F:windows_7068_homebasic_sku.vhd

Some things to note in the above command (all in single line):

1) /wim

Specifies your install.wim location, which has the information of various SKUs available in the Windows Image.

2) /sku

Specifies the SKU that you want to use. You can either use imagex.exe (found in WAIK) or WIM2VHD to find the SKU info

Below is the imagex.exe command:

imagex.exe /info N:sourcesinstall.wim

Below is the WIM2VHD command:

cscript wim2vhd.wsf /wim:N:sourcesinstall.wim

Here is my output using the WIM2VHD command

Use the desired SKU you want

3) /vhd

The path and name of the VHD to be created.

Making the VHD bootable

Now that your VHD is ready, you can add it to bcdedit using the following commands

C:>bcdedit /copy {current} /d “My New VHD Description”

Note: This will Return the GUID of the Loader Object that you will use to replace below. If {current} fails, use {default}

C:>bcdedit /set device vhd=[driveletter:]

C:>bcdedit /set osdevice vhd=[driverletter:]

Note: vhd=[driveletter:] is the new syntax supported for BCDEdit.exe to locate VHD File and Bootmgr will locate the partition containing the VHD File to boot from.

C:>bcdedit /set detecthal on

Note: detecthal is used to force windows to auto detect the Hardware Abstraction Layer.

Restart your computer, boot into your VHD, complete the rest of the Windows installation and your VHD is ready!

You can also boot this VHD in HyperV or Virtual Box or Virtual PC

If you do want to remove your boot entry, then use the following command:

bcdedit /delete /cleanup

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chaks — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 11:38:04 +0000

Below are some cool Windows 7 themes for download

1) Sun Flower theme

2) Hello Kitty theme

3) Taj Mahal theme

4) China theme

5) Mike Swanson’s theme pack

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chaks — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 12:31:51 +0000

If for some reason you don�t like the new Superbar and want the Vista style taskbar back, below are the steps.

1) Right click on the superbar and select Properties

2) Now select Small Icons and choose to combine the taskbar buttons when they are full

3) There you go, you now have the Vista style taskbar!

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Using Gadgets in Windows 7

chaks — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 09:03:31 +0000

Accessing your Gadgets is just few clicks away in Windows 7

1) Right click on your desktop to open the desktop context menu

2) Select Gadgets from the menu

3) You can now select your gadgets from the Gadget Window

You can move gadgets all over your desktop in Windows 7, even to the right hand side where in Vista the gadget would automatically pile up!

4) You can get more Gadgets by clicking on Get more gadgets online in the Gadgets Window

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Change your Screen Resolution

chaks — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 08:48:04 +0000

Changing your screen resolution is a very easy job in Windows 7

1) Right click on the desktop to open the desktop context menu

2) Select Screen Resolution from the menu

3) You will be presented with the Screen Resolution Window

4) Selecting Resolution , you can change your screen resolution using the slider

Other Options Available in Screen Resolution Window

You can also try other options available in your Screen Resolution Window, such as:

Detect and Identify your display(s)

See your current display

Change your screen’s orientation

Make your text larger or smaller

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Get More Windows Themes

chaks — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 08:11:30 +0000

After playing with Windows Themes you might like to get more themes for your new Windows 7 desktop.

Microsoft Official Windows 7 Themes

The most easiest way to get more themes is by clicking Get More Themes Online in your Personalization Window

Get More Themes will allow you to download Microsoft’s official Windows 7 themes

Hidden Windows Region Themes

Even though you don’t see many themes in your Personalization Window, Windows 7 does come with few other themes which are well hidden inside the system folder. You might have got one installed if you fall into any of these hidden regions

To access these hidden Windows Region Themes:

1) Traverse to C:WindowsGlobalizationMCT in your Windows Explorer

2) There are five folders, which are:

Theme for Australia (MCT-AU)

Theme for Canada (MCT-CA)

Theme for United Kingdom (MCT-GB)

Theme for United States of America (MCT-US)

Theme for South Africa (MCT-ZA)

3) If you want to install any of the themes, open that particular folder and traverse to the Theme folder inside

Click on the .theme file to install that particular theme. Follow the same for the rest of the themes.

4) Now you can see all the themes in your Personalization Window

Other websites where you can download Windows 7 themes are:

Other Websites

You can also try other websites which offer free download of Windows 7 themes

ithinkdiff’s Windows 7 Themes

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Windows Themes

chaks — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 10:05:04 +0000

From Windows 7, you can make use of Desktop Themes. You can also have several desktop wallpapers in a theme, instead of one, and shuffle them periodically. I think this is a great feature added to the Windows Desktop. No longer you want to depend on third party tools to shuffle several desktop wallpapers or create a theme.

Windows Themes comprises of:

One or more wallpapers

Aero Colour Scheme

Windows Sounds

Screensaver

So, you can choose your own wallpapers, colour scheme, sounds, screensaver and bundle them into a theme! This wasn’t an easier job prior to Windows 7.

Start Creating your first Theme

Creating your own theme is very simple

1) Right click on the desktop to get the desktop context menu

2) Select Personalize

3) This will open the Personalization Window

4) Select Desktop Background at the bottom left of the Personalization Window

5) Choose your wallpapers

Along with the wallpapers, you can choose to shuffle them periodically by selecting your time preference

6) Once you save your changes, you can now see your custom theme under My Themes in the Personalization Window. Windows 7 would have applied the theme that you just created.

7) Now go ahead and choose your window colour, sounds and screen saver if you want to

Sharing your Theme

Sharing your theme with others is very easy

1) Click Save Theme in the Personalization Window

2) You will be prompted to enter the file name. Save it as a Theme Pack instead of a Theme File. This can be done by saving as type .themepack

Saving as a Theme Pack would pack all your settings like wallpapers as a package which can be later distributed to others.

You can now email your custom theme to your friends and family!

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Change your Desktop Wallpaper

chaks — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 09:27:01 +0000

The first thing you would like to do with new Windows 7 desktop is to change your wallpaper.

Below are the steps to change your desktop wallpaper in Windows 7

1) Right click on the desktop to get the desktop context menu

2) Select Personalize

3) This will open the Personalization Window

4) Select Desktop Background at the bottom left of the Personalization Window

5) Choose you wallpaper and save your changes

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Get to know your Windows 7 Desktop

chaks — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 09:49:05 +0000

Here is a picture describing various portions of your new Windows 7 Desktop

Click here for a larger view

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