Handy Windows 7's utilities you may not know about

Many PC users love to tinker with the hardware and software on their machines. Other people consider any time they spend using Windows' built-in system tools a total waste. In between are those of us who understand the value of a little preventive maintenance--as long as it doesn't take all day.

Windows 7's arsenal of maintenance and system-tweaking utilities has been enhanced through the addition of new tools and improvements to existing programs. Unfortunately, one of my favorite Windows utilities isn't available in the Home Premium version of Windows 7: the Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc) is included only in Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate, and Enterprise. (Vista Home versions also lack Group Policy Editor.)

You can download a spreadsheet from the Microsoft Download Center that lists the Registry key values for each setting that can be changed via the Group Policy Editor. Editing the Registry manually is less elegant and potentially more dangerous than Group Policy Editor's automatic approach.

I came up empty on my first attempt to make a Group Policy Editor-type change (adding a Web search box to the Start menu) by creating a Registry key based on the spreadsheet's instructions. However, I was able to find a simple workaround that achieved the same goal, as I describe below.

Be ready for trouble by creating a repair CD
In the two-and-a-half years I've been using Windows 7 on three different PCs, I'm convinced I spend less time on system maintenance and repair than I did when using Vista and XP. That doesn't mean there's not trouble on the horizon, though. Windows 7 lets you create a system-repair disc that replaces missing or damaged files in an existing installation.

Note that a system-repair disc is not a System Restore backup. To create a restore point (which backs up your Registry and other system settings), follow the instructions on Microsoft's Help & How-to site. The site also describes all your Windows 7 system-recovery options.

Windows 7's "create system repair disc" wizard pops up an alert to let you know your system-repair disc is ready to use. (The disc was created in Windows 7 despite the message's reference to Windows Vista.)

To burn a system-repair disc, press the Windows key, type "backup and restore," and press Enter. Click "Create a system repair disc" in the left pane, select an optical drive, insert a blank disc, and click "Create disc." When the repair disc is ready, a message appears indicating that the disc can be used to access system recovery options.

There are a couple of caveats, however. First, the version of System Restore used by the system-repair disc lacks an undo feature, so there's no going back if you use the disc to enable a restore point. Second, the System Image Recovery option works only if you've used Win7's backup program to create a separate system-image disc. Andy Rathbone compares System Repair and System Recovery discs on his Windows blog.

View your PC's performance and reliability report card

Now and then you may notice a hitch in your system's giddyup. It may be nothing major--just a bit of hesitation or an unexpected pause as the machine opens a program or performs some other routine operation. The Performance Monitor and Reliability Monitor tools in Windows 7 give you an up-close look at the past and current state of your system.

To open the Performance Monitor, press the Windows key, type "performance monitor," and press Enter. A System Summary appears on the Performance Overview screen. Click Open Resource Monitor under the overview in the right pane to see graphs of your CPU, disk, network, and memory performance along with statistics for each app currently running.

The Resource Monitor in Windows 7's Performance Monitor applet provides a snapshot of your PC's CPU, disc, memory, and network performance.

Click Performance Monitor under Monitoring Tools in the left pane to view a graph showing the percentage of your CPU in use second by second. If something looks fishy, take a closer look by opening Win7's Event Viewer: press the Windows key, type "event viewer," and press Enter.

Click the categories under Windows Logs in the left pane and select an Error or Information entry in the main window to see more information about the event. Click Event Log Online Help to open a page on Microsoft's site that may provide more details on the event.

The Event Viewer in Windows 7 provides more details about recent system events logged by the OS.

It's easy to get lost in the numbers, graphs, and obscure entries in the Performance Monitor and Event Viewer. You get a more palatable view of the same data in Windows 7's Reliability Monitor. To open the utility, press the Windows key, type "reliability monitor," and press Enter. (Are you seeing a pattern in these how-to-open instructions?)

Your system's history of problems and noteworthy events are graphed by the day or week: icons indicate critical errors, warnings, and informational events. Click an entry to view more information about it and links to a possible solution or technical details.

The Reliability Monitor in Windows 7 lists important system events logged by the system each day or week.

Links at the bottom of the main Reliability Monitor window let you export a reliability report, review all problem reports, or check for solutions to all reported problems. I'm not sure I favor the one-fell-swoop approach because if one of the fixes introduces a new glitch, it might be difficult to roll the system back or to determine which patch caused the problem.

Search the Web from the Start menu
One of the most useful options in the Group Policy Editor is the ability to add a Web search box to the Start menu. The How-To Geek provides step-by-step instructions for using Group Policy Editor to put an Internet search field on the menu.

Win7 Home Premium users can get much the same effect by adding an Address box to the taskbar: right-click the taskbar and choose Toolbars > Address. Then simply enter your search term in the box and press Enter to open your default browser with a page of results from your default search engine.

The Address box can put a serious dent in an already-crowded taskbar, but you can save space by using small icons and grouping them: right-click the Start button, choose Properties > Taskbar, and make the required changes to clear some taskbar space.

Choose the type that's right for you
Eyestrain sneaks up on computer users. One way to prevent eye fatigue on LCDs and other flat-panel displays is by enabling Microsoft's ClearType technology. Press the Windows key, type "clear type tuner," and press enter. A wizard opens describing the technology. With the Turn on ClearType option checked, press Next.

The wizard will verify that your screen is set to its optimum resolution and then will display several text samples. Choose the one that looks best to you and press Next again.

The Clear Type Tuner utility in Windows 7 lets you choose the type that displays best on your monitor.

Clear Type Tuner is also available as a free download for Vista and Windows XP; the program installs as a Control Panel applet. You may not notice an immediate improvement in the quality of the text on your screen, but any opportunity to reduce your risk of PC-related health problems is worth taking.

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13880_3-20072652-68/handy-windows-7s-utilities-you-may-not-know-about/#ixzz1Q5dwWok9

How to Use the Windows Help Feature

If you use the Windows application you will eventually come across a time when you need help to solve a problem or learn a feature you do not fully understand. Therefore, when you find yourself in this situation you can go to the help section to find the answer to your question. With the Help menu you can browse by topic to enable you to narrow down your search.

Try the following steps

Step One
Begin by clicking on Start - Help and Support to access the Windows Help and Support section.

Step Two
Use your mouse to click on the Browse Help icon. You will be able to see this as it is located on the upper right hand corner. You can also select the Table of Contents icon. When you click this icon a vertical list of help topics will appear. The first topic usually is 'Getting started'.

Step Three
Look through the list of topics and select one. When you click on the selected link a list of subtopics will appear. You can identify this by a blue box that appears at the left of the topic. This informs you that extra subtopics are available.

Step Four
Choose a subtopic and click on it. As you are reading through the information related to the subtopic you will find blue links. When you click on these blue links they will lead you to other related topics to the subtopic you originally accessed. As well as the blue links you may notice green links. These green links when clicked on will for example, open up a dialogue box that will assist in you in finishing a certain job.

Step Five
After you have read through a topic you can click close and exit.

If you cannot find an answer from any of the table of contents then you can use the search feature to help you narrow down your search to find what you are looking for. All you do is type in the key word that is related to your query. When you have entered the keyword the top related searches will appear. Choose the one that is most related to your query. Click on the link and this will take you to articles based on the chosen link.

Source: http://goo.gl/q7yx4

Windows 7 Internet Explorer Freezes - Fix Internet Explorer Freezes

Are you the victim of Windows 7 internet explorer freezes? Not strangely you are not alone. Unfortunately this error has been reported by a number of Windows 7 users looking to find solution for fixing internet explorer freezes in their computers and laptops. There are few simple things which can help you prevent such incidence to happen.

Users have faced a similar situation and they resort to either close internet explorer or restart it frequently to keep it running. But you don't need to change your browser because there is a solution to fix Windows 7 internet explorer freezes.

Although internet explorer freezes can be frequent and troublesome there is a need to adopt a simple strategy to avoid these freezes.

Make it your habit to delete cache and internet history so that there are no Active-X components including the trojan worms are sent to your system. Some internet explorer freezes are linked to the infected worms penetrating into the system and destroying the Windows settings. Similarly there can be a spyware attack which could not only hit hard on the computer as a whole but chisel into the Windows registry database. At the Windows registry database, which is a store room for keeping information about softwares and hardware's in the form of registry keys, a spyware can manipulate and corrupt the important registry elements.

You should daily delete the internet temporary files if you want to beat Windows 7 internet explorer freezes. Also you shall try to keep the history saving time period to a shorter length. And importantly automatically delete cookies through internet explorer.

Conduct antivirus/antispyware and the malware scan. After that conduct the registry scan to fix corrupt registry and stop internet explorer keeps freezing.

It is very important to clean Windows 7 registry to fix internet explorer freezes since the spyware effect from registry is well removed only through a good registry repair software for computer.
Read more: http://goo.gl/F5NuN

How to Install IIS in Windows 7

Windows 7, the latest avatar of the Windows operating system from Microsoft, comes bundled with upgrades for many useful features of the operating system. One of these is the IIS 7, which has got some additional features other than the IIS 7 bundled with Windows Vista. You will need to install IIS 7, especially if you wish to work with ASP .NET in Windows 7, or wish to do some web development with Adobe Dreamweaver.

Here is how you can install IIS in Windows 7:

1. Click on Start button, and then select the option Control Panel.

2. Click on the link named "Turn Windows features on or off".

3. In the next window that opens up, you will see a host of options with checkboxes beside these. Checking the boxes fills those with blue color, and turns the corresponding features on, while removing the checks turns those off.

4. Click on the item named "Internet Information Services" to expand the corresponding node. Be sure to check the box beside the item.

5. Now under the node, look for the services you would need for development in ASP .NET. Check all that you think may apply to your field of work. Checking the box for Internet Information Services does not turn on all the services under it, so you will have to do that manually, one at a time.

6. Once you are done, click on OK.

7. You will see a message box with a progress bar, indicating that the changes you made are being applied to the operating system. Do not interrupt the process, or some of the necessary files may get corrupted. Once all the changes have been applied, the progress bar will disappear automatically.

8. Now, open your web browser.

9. Type http://localhost in the address bar and press Enter.

10. You will now be able to see the new local host page in IIS 7, with the word "Welcome" written in it in many languages.

Source: http://goo.gl/DOYMp

LG Launches Windows 7 Tablet in Korea

LG has launched a Windows 7-based tablet computer for the Korean market, named the E-Note H1000B.

The tablet features a 10.1-inch capacitive touchsreen, an Intel Atom Z510 or Z530 CPU, 1 GB of RAM, 16 GB of SSD storage, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, an SD card reader and two USB 2.0 slots. Interestingly enough, it comes with the severely limited Windows 7 Starter Edition and it has no camera, which is the distinguishing feature of most tablets in the post-iPad era.

The slightly lackluster specifications of this tablet won’t send anyone into ecstasy, and neither will the price of about $850. However, LG also plans to launch an Android tablet soon, which will hopefully be more of an iPad competitor than the E-Note H1000B.

Source :mashable

Windows 7 Reaches 10 Percent Market Share

It’s official: Microsoft got it right this time. After the mistake that was Vista, Windows 7 was greeted like the second coming, and it many ways it really was better than its predecessor: less annoying, faster, smoother, more compatible with various pieces of hardware and software.

Initial sales numbers and market share reports have shown that Windows 7 is on the right track, but today it’s obvious that it will be one of the most successful products in Windows history, as it already caught 10 percent market share, approximately three months after it arrived on the market.

Windows Vista currently holds around 20% market share, while the 9-year-old Windows XP is (still) between 60-70%.

In other news, Internet Explorer 8 recently became the world’s most popular web browser with 25.6%. Love it or hate it, it’s a good thing, as it means that less and less people are using the dreaded IE6.

Source: mashable

Windows 7 Mobile Launch Will Be Lacking Features

The long anticipated Windows 7 Phone launch (well, long since the Kin was killed) will occur at this month in NYC. However, the phone is alluding to missing features that bring the word "smart" into question on this smart phone.

To view the full article in its entirety, please visit eWeek: Windows Phone 7 Will Lack Flash, Multitasking, CDMA at Launch

Windows Phone 7 will appear first on GSM-based cellular networks such as AT&T's, moving later to CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) carriers such as Verizon in the first half of 2011.

Microsoft executives confirmed in September that Windows Phone 7 will not support tethering, which would have made the smartphones a Web hub for any nearby devices.

At launch, Windows Phone 7 will apparently lack in-browser support for Adobe Flash. However, Microsoft and Adobe executives have suggested Flash support will come later.

No Cut-and-Paste: Windows Phone 7 will initially lack a cut-and-paste function.

Source:-www.devsource.com