Archive for Windows 7
Windows 7 Tips, Hacks & News
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from Release Party in NYC (pic from Paul Thurrott's site)
Today was the Windows 7 release date – a date anticipated eagerly by some. Microsoft is hoping to erase the bad memories of Vista from consumers’ minds. I think they’ve hit a homerun with Windows 7. I’ve been using it on two computers since the RC (release candidate), came out earlier this year and won’t go back to either XP or Vista. I found Windows 7 very easy to adapt to. Even my husband caught on to navigating his way easily through the upgrade from XP to 7.
For this week’s article, I’ve decided to assemble a list of tips and special offers I’ve gathered from some of my favorite sites and put them all together to make it easy to browse around and decide what you might want to try to personalize your Windows 7 machine.
The How-To Geek has compiled a list of 175 Windows 7 Tips, Tweaks & Geeky things. They are divided into these categories:
- Windows 7
- Disabling Features and Annoyances
- Networking and Sharing
- Privacy and Security
- Shortcuts and HotKeys
- Tips
One I took advantage of right away was a little tweak to find and install regional themes from Canada, the United Kingdon, Australia and South Africa into my theme gallery. These are already on your hard drive, but not installed. It took just five minutes to get and install them.
Microsoft has 7 Days of Windows 7 special offers – it started on launch day, Thursday, October 21st, so hurry.
Lifehacker assembled it’s ultimate guide to Windows 7. They’ve included screenshots and videos to help you along.
Paul Thurrott of the Windows Supersite and author of recently released Windows 7 Secrets, blogs about the addition of Netflix and Internet TV access through the new Win 7 Media Center.
The world’s first Microsoft retail store opened today in Scottsdale, AZ. Word was there was a crowd of hundreds, some who waited over 12 hours for the store’s opening and to receive goody bags, some containing Ashley Tisdale concert tickets in them.
A couple of months ago, Microsoft was looking for people to host house parties for the Windows 7 launches. If you were one of the ‘chosen’, I understand Microsoft provided party favors and for the host, a copy of Windows 7! Anyone out there a host?
Enjoy!
Microsoft Security Essentials & Bitlocker Tip
Posted by: | CommentsThere’s a new anti-virus/anti-spyware product on the market. This one’s from
Microsoft and it’s free to anyone with a licensed copy of Windows. It’s called Microsoft Security Essentials. It replaced Microsoft’s fee-based One-Care software and was released September 29, 2009.
Information and download of Microsoft Security Essentials
Why is this free, we all ask? Some think Microsoft is trying to make amends for its spotty history of delivering operating systems that continually need patching and updating. We’re all familiar now with ‘patch Tuesday’ – the second Tuesday of every month when there’s usually patches to be pushed out to users.
Some feel that since Microsoft developed the OS, they should take responsibility for providing the tools to keep us safe. The software seems to be working great on my system. It’s lean and fast. It installed in minutes, updated itself and did an initial scan of my computer.
I really like that it’s not bloated like Symantec & Norton. I refuse to run either of these on my systems. I have used both the free AVG and the fee-based Nod-32 by Eset. Both have worked well for me, but I decided to switch over to this product because to me it makes sense to have a security suite by the same people who made my OS.
Here’s a screen shot of a protected computer – green is good!
There are tabs to check out for fine-tuning your system. The settings tab has many options on it for configuring when, where and how to handle whatever the scan might find.
There aren’t a whole lot of reviews out yet, but here’s one by Computerworld that will give you a more technical, in-depth assessment of the software.
Use Bitlocker on a USB Drive
Bitlocker is a premium feature found only on Windows 7 Ultimate & Premium (it’s on higher-priced Vista systems too). It’s an easy-to-use encryption tool to encrypt your entire drive, an external drive or usb thumb drive.
For those of us who’ve downloaded Windows 7 for the free test drive, we all received the Ultimate version of Windows 7, which has Bitlocker installed on it.
For those of us who will be ‘downgrading’ to Home Premium, we should be able to put Bitlocker on any thumb or external drives now and it should continue to work. I haven’t been able to test this yet, but I have encrypted a thumb drive.
To encrypt a removable drive, insert it into your usb drive and then go to the Start button and type in Bitlocker, then manage bitlocker encryption. It takes several minutes to encrypt the drive, especially if it’s large. You will be prompted to enter and verify a password. It’s very important to save it to a file on your computer or print it out. When finished, then move files, folders, etc. over to the drive.
Now, you’ll want to verify that your data is encrypted. Take it to a different computer and try to access the thumb drive. You should get a notice that a password is needed.
I tried this with my encrypted drive on my daughter’s computer, running Vista (without Bitlocker), and I was able to enter in my password and view the files on it. Microsoft says that you can take the drive to a computer without Bitlocker, running either Vista or Windows 7 and enter your password and view your files. I haven’t tried it on an XP machine. I’ve read reviews of folks using the Beta Win 7 and this feature didn’t work, but it’s working with the RC version of Windows 7.
Bitlocker can be turned off if you decide not to use this feature later on. If you routinely carry thumb drives around with your or customer data, why not take advantage of this free feature. If the drive is lost or left somewhere, at least it won’t be accessible to prying eyes.
HomeGroup Feature in Windows 7
Posted by: | CommentsWindows 7 has a new feature called HomeGroup, which is really another word for home network. Windows 7 has really made it easy to connect to other computers in the same household that are also running Windows 7.
To get started, go to the start>control panel and then click on the Network and Internet section, finally select HomeGroup.
Here’s where you choose what you want to share with other computers on your network.
As you can see from the graphic below, Win 7 makes it easy to share a variety of documents, media and even printers.
Windows assigns your network password to you. It’s viewable by anyone in your network simply by going to the Network And Sharing Center and clicking on ‘show password’. You can keep the one given to you or change it. Write it down or print it out and take it to the next computer on the network and follow the instructions below…
If more users, libraries or printers are added to the network later, follow the instructions below to add them into your HomeGroup.
After you’ve set up sharing on the computers in your network, you’ll want to access them to play music or view documents. Simply go to Windows Explorer and click on the HomeGroup icon and it will expand to show you what is available. Click and enjoy.
I’ve been using HomeGroup just a couple of days now. It seems to be working well. By that, I mean I can click on my Win 7 folder icon and see that my HomeGroup is still in my network. A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the new sharing feature in iTunes, but it’s not worked very reliably for our network, so I’m glad we can share our music the Microsoft way.
Windows 7 Review
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s been a week since I installed Windows 7, RC (release candidate), on our Dell Dimension 9100, (circa 2005) computer with 2 GB ram and a spacious hard drive. I thought I’d share my experience as you might find it helpful.
We’d been running XP Home since 2005 and it was fine, but I was ready for a change. I like to do a reformat every year or so just to clean out the cruft. So I backed up my data and got my free Windows 7 RC download and key. I also found this advisor from Microsoft. It’s a quick download and install and will tell you if your system is ready or if you may have compatibility issues. Here are a set of short videos from Microsoft that give you a tour of what you’ll get. If you want really detailed information, i.e. upgrade from Vista, clean install from XP or Vista visit Microsoft TechNet for the hand-holding version.
With XP, you will need to do a clean install – which means you’re reformatting your drive. I thought about using Microsoft’s free Virtual PC software, and run XP and Windows 7, but alas, the wizard said it wasn’t compatible with my machine.
The install was actually pretty quick and painless and when it was finished, I first visited Microsoft Security to get any updates I might need. I was looking at updates and getting my preferences set, anti-virus software downloaded, updating Windows Defender, etc. when I realized that all my drivers had been loaded for me! I had no idea Windows 7 would take care of this tedious and sometimes frustrating chore. This feature/benefit alone makes me recommend doing the upgrade. I think there are a lot of people out there who hesitate doing a reinstall of their OS because of making sure all the drivers are reinstalled.
Any glitches you may ask? Well, unfortunately I had no sound! My era 2005 SigmaTel audio driver had never been updated by Dell, and in my voluminous research, I found out Dell would be the only one to upgrade this driver. I did find (by a tedious search), that there was a Vista version of the SigmaTel driver made for my machine, but after downloading and installing, it didn’t work. Unfortunate, because I had read that if you had a Vista driver, most likely Windows 7 would be able to use it. I spent way too much time researching, looking at forums, etc. I found others with SigmaTel audio issues along with other brands. The Windows 7 techs would say to either contact the manufacturer, or wait until 7 is officially released. That’s the risk you take.
After speaking to Tim, my tech guy, I decided to get a new sound card. I got an Xtreme 5.1/16 bit Sound Card, went to their site, downloaded the Vista driver, and we had sound!
Paul Thurrott, who blogs regularly about Microsoft products and writes Windows books, has a very detailed review on the beta release and is worth a look if you want to delve into the nooks and crannies of changes, upgrades and how to utilize features.
Takeaways
- Easy to download and install. You will need to burn the download to a DVD. Instructions from Adrian Kingsley-Hughes on ZDNet.
- DO think about consequences if something goes wrong. Make an informed and thoughtful choice of what computer to install the RC on—you probably don’t want to put it on your work computer.
- It is all they say – faster, prettier, UAC not as intrusive, what Vista should have been.
- One issue that I haven’t figured out it is that Adobe Flash Player will not stay installed when we’re using the Firefox browser. It continually says we need to install it, which we have many times (and uninstalled it). Still won’t work, so we use IE in those cases. Java works fine with Firefox.
- If your PC and peripherals are newer, compatibility should not be a problem If you do have driver issues, Windows 7, go to Control Panel and look for the new UI called Printers & Devices and run the troubleshooting.
- Just GET IT! Use it free for a year.
Windows 7 – Release Candidate – Use Free for a Year!
Posted by: | CommentsI thought there was a lot of buzz around Vista pre-release, but it’s nothing compared to the Windows 7 chatter. Have you heard that the Windows 7 Release Candidate is available for free download – from now until the end of July, so get your Windows 7 Release Candidate here. If you already have the beta version of Windows 7 on your computer, they strongly urge you to do a clean install; that is to back up your data and reformat your hard drive.
Your copy of the RC (release candidate), will be free for you to use until June of 2010. However, beginning March 1, 2010, your computer will shut down every 2 hours as a ‘friendly reminder’ that time is running out and you’ll need to buy a copy. Pricing details have not been released and rumors are plentiful with the range of free for those who have Vista Ultimate, up to over $300 for the Ultimate flavor of Windows 7.
I’m only hearing good about this version of Windows. It’s more stable, more lightweight, more compatible, faster and consumes less resources than Vista. It runs well on netbooks with the Atom processor and only 1GB of Ram.
The Windows 7 desktop continues using aero – the see-though desktop. Now, there are more colors, more wallpapers and location themes to choose from. They look beautiful. I’ve heard the graphical interface referred to as “Mac-like”. I’m assuming that’s a compliment :0
There are many enhancements and changes, we’ll just talk about three of them.
The Task Bar
With current versions of windows, we’re accustomed to looking down and seeing both an icon and description of what we have open on our desktops. Not so with Windows 7. There is only a graphical representation of each program open and if your task bar fills up the bottom of the screen, then the icons will flow in a row on your desktop. This could bewilder inexperienced users.
RMS (Remote Media Streaming)
A huge change and improvement is a brand new feature called Remote Media Streaming (RMS), To utilize this feature, all computers involved will have to be running Windows 7. Then, using your Windows Live ID, you can access media from any connected computer to the computer you’re in front of. You can be down the hall or out of town. For example, you’re in your office and you decide you want to hear a particular album, but you don’t have it with you or on your computer. Sign in with your ID and instantly access and play the music. Works for videos, movies, etc. Kind of like having a slingbox.
The new ‘Library’ and better search function
Windows 7 introduces the ‘library’ concept. Here’s what it does. You first start with four main components: pictures, videos, documents and music. Then, new folders can be added to your photo library from another computer. The photos themselves will stay on the other machine, but as long as the computer you’re on can access the remote machine, that data can be accessed.
It’s how Windows Media Player works right now with XP or Vista. When you use WMP, it asks if you want to add folders to the player’s library. You can choose folders from an external drive or another computer and WMP groups them all together for you.
For example, say you added folders of videos from two computers and an external hard drive on your computer. Since these folders are in your library, whenever you do a search for a video, the videos from the remote computers and drive will be shown on the computer you’re on and they will be instantly available to you. Nice!
If youve installed Windows 7, what has been your experience. Please share.
