It’s simple logic really. Have you ever seen a stock car or drag race of seemingly normal cars? What they do is get rid of useless weight. They don’t need a passenger and back seat – gone! They don’t need carpet and fancy electronics – gone! They don’t need the spare tire in the trunk and all the excess trim – gone! They’ve stripped that car down to the essentials to do one thing really fast and really well. That’s what we’re going to do. Only, when we’re done, we’ll be able to put all the fancy bits back on with – you guessed it – just one double-click!

Identify the Dead Weight

First things first. Download and install a program that allows you to view all the processes currently running on your windows computer. I’m a big fan of Sysinternals Process Explorer. Once you’ve done that, open it up. You’re likely to see something like this:

Look at the Working Set and Peak Working Set columns. That shows how many kilobytes of your RAM are being used by the program right now, and what the peak amount used at one time was. As you can see, my Firefox is using roughly 245 MB of RAM. That’s about one-quarter of the RAM in my computer.

As I look down further, I see that RoxMediaDB12, iTunesHelper and SnagIt32 are taking up another approximately 43 MB of RAM. Let’s say that I want to use a program that is a real memory hog, like my DivXConnected. It has to compete with all of these other programs that I won’t be using, while I’m using DivXConnected. That’s the program that works with my D-Link Media Device I was raving about lately.

Now order your running services and applications by process, by clicking on the Process column header until you get everything shown to you in a tree, like this:

What this shows us is which excess things are Processes and which are Services. This is important, because what we do next requires us to know the difference. Those things that are under the Services branch are services. Typically the processes will be shown further down.

Let’s write down all the proper names for the services and processes as we’ll need those later. To find the proper names, right-click on a service and then select Properties. Once you are in the Properties window, click on the tab Services. This will give you the correct name of the service you wish to stop. I’ve used the CinemaNowSvc.exe as an example.

To find the Image Name for a process, it should be what you see in the Description Column. For example, the iTunes Helper Process has the description iTunesHelper. If you aren’t sure what the Image Name is, you can right-click on the process, open the Properties window and find it on the Image File tab.

Do that for all the services and processes that you know aren’t necessary for your computer, or the single program you want to go faster, to run. That may take some research, but it’s worth it.

I can do one of two things here. I can shut down all the high-memory usage applications and services that run in the background one by one OR I can write a batch file to do all of that. Batch files are the old-school way to do lots of really cool stuff. Once you learn how to craft them, there are an infinite number of cool, and powerful, things you can do.

Trim the Dead Weight

Let’s use Notepad to write this batch file. Open it up and type:

@ECHO OFF
echo *** Stopping Services ***

NET STOP “Name of the Service You Want to Stop”

echo *** Services Stopped ***

Now I know the proper name I’ll need to use is CinemaNow Service. So the command that I will write looks like:

NET STOP “CinemaNow Service”

You’ll need to write this command for every service that you wish to stop. This could be a dozen lines or so. The line that reads echo *** Services Stopped *** just lets us know when all the services are stopped. Yep, I’m Captain Obvious.

To stop the process, you’ll type a block like:

echo *** Stopping Processes ***

TSKILL  “iTunesHelper”

echo *** Processes Stopped ***

PAUSE

TSKILL kills the task of course.  You don’t need to use the Image Name, you can also use the Process ID as it is shown in Process Manager. As usual, the echo lines let us know when the stopping of the processes begins and ends. The PAUSE command results in a line asking us to hit any key to continue. It’s just a more concrete way of letting you know the batch file is done.

To save this as a batch file that you can run by just double-clicking on it, we need to do a few things. Click on File > Save As in Notepad. Then when the Save As… window opens, name the file whatever you want. I chose StopServicesProcesses.bat. You need the .bat on the end. Now change the Save as type: box to All Files. Click Save.

Now you have a batch file! Double-click on it and enjoy your speed! You should see a command window open that will look something like this:

Feel the speed!

Oh, I did say something about restarting those services and process when you are done using your one intensive program, didn’t I? Well, that’s a story for another time.

Got better tips on how to speed up a computer? Let us know in comments!

Image credit: Davichi

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[Update: This list is continuously updated ]

These are the essential programs that we recommend you install and keep on your arsenal.

1. Firefox / Chrome (Web Browser)
2. AVG Anti-Virus (Anti-virus Software)
3. Auslogics Disk Defrag (Disk Defragmenter)
4. Glary Utilities (System Maintenance)
5. Malwarebytes (Spyware Removal)
6. IZArc (Universal Archiver / Extractor)
7. Google Picasa Software (Photo Management)
8. doPDF (PDF Printer)
9. Memento (Post-It Notes)
10. xVideoServiceThief (YouTube Video Downloader)
11. Mozy (Backup)
12. Digsby (Multi-protocol Instant Messenger)
13. VLC Media Player (Video Player)
14. Foobar2000 (Music Player)
15. ImgBurn (CD / DVD Image Burner)
16-20. Plus 5 Bonus Programs

1. Firefox / Chrome (Web Browser)

Both Firefox and Google Chrome are excellent browsers. They are both fast, user-friendly and known to be secure. So, which one do you choose? The rule of thumb here is that you should use Firefox if you’re looking to add additional features (i.e. ad blocker, password manager, video downloader, page translator etc.) to your browser.

You can see all add-ons for Firefox at https://addons.mozilla.org/. There are extensions for Google Chrome as well, but the choice is rather limited. See, 10 Cool Extensions for Google Chrome.

2. AVG Anti-Virus (Anti-virus Software)

AVG Free Anti-Virus is the most popular free anti-virus software in the world. It’s also the most downloaded software program according to Download.com.

Most of the MakeUseOf authors use AVG and we highly recommend it to others. It’s easy to use, consumes a relatively small amount of system resources and auto-updates itself with virus definitions on a daily basis. Install it once and it will keep your system secure without your intervention.

For those of you who frequently shop online and do regular online banking, AVG recommends AVG Internet Security. While it’s not free, it does offer complete Internet Protection that will keep you safe even from advanced online threats.

Download AVG Free: http://free.avg.com/gb-en/homepage
Download AVG Internet Security (Free Trial): www.avg.com/gb-en/download

(Platform: Windows only)

3. Auslogics Disk Defrag (Disk Defragmenter)

Auslogics Disk Defrag is a must-have free PC maintenance tool that was designed to cure system sluggishness and prevent crashes caused by disk fragmentation. Windows already comes with its own disk-defragmenter but Auslogics Disk Defrag is considerably faster and much more efficient.

It’s extremely simple to use, does not require any analysis phase and is faster than most of the other disk defragmentation software.

While there are several other free disk defragmenters, Auslogics seems to be the defragmenter of choice according to the poll results on MakeUseOf, Lifehacker and mega tech sites like CNET.

Download: www.auslogics.com/en/software/disk-defrag/overview

(Platform: Windows only)

4. Glary Utilities (System Maintenance)

Glary Utilities is a free system maintenance tool for protecting, cleaning, repairing, and speeding up your PC. It comes with a one-click maintenance option that automatically runs all optimizations and repair jobs with a click of a button.

But the best thing about Glary Utilities is that it integrates over 15 other useful tools that nearly every computer user is likely to make use of. These are:

- Uninstall Manager
- Startup Manager
- Memory Optimizer
- Context Menu Manager
- Registry Defrag Tool
- Track Eraser
- File Shredder
- File Undelete
- File Encrypt/Decrypt Tool
- Disk Space Usage Analysis
- Duplicate File Finder
- Empty Folder Finder
- File Splitter and Joiner

Highly recommended!

Please note, it’s highly recommended that you create a System Restore point when using system maintenance tools like Glary Utilities. This is a precaution to ensure that you can always revert your PC to an earlier state in case something goes wrong unexpectedly.

Note: During the installation process make sure to uncheck the Ask Search toolbar.

Download: www.glaryutilities.com/gu.html?tag=download

(Platform: Windows only)

5. Malwarebytes Anti-Malware (Spyware Removal)

[update: In the original list we recommended the Spyware 360 as a primary tool for fighting spyware. But then we found out that Security 360 was actually using the definition library of Malwarebytes.]

Malwarebytes currently ranks among the top 10 most downloaded software on Download.com. It’s a very simple tool that does an important job, that is protecting your computer from spyware, hijackers, keyloggers and other kind of malicious craplets.

What makes Malwarebytes standout from the pack is its huge library of threats to protect against. That’s exactly what it makes so effective when it comes to detecting spyware that other spyware scanners miss. This same library made the earlier recommended Security 360 a powerful tool.

Malwarebytes may not be as feature-laden as say Spybot Search and Destroy (another good spyware removal tool), which has a ridiculous number of tools, but it is a very lightweight alternative with good spyware coverage.

There are both free and premium versions. The only difference between the two is real time protection. With real-time protection, Malwarebytes will alert you about the spyware before it’s even able to install itself on your system.

Download MalwareBytes (Free): www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php
Download MalwareBytes (Premium): https://store.malwarebytes.org

(Platform: Windows only)

6. IZArc (Universal Archiver / Extractor)

One archive utility to rule them all. You no longer need a separate program for ZIP, RAR, ACE, 7-ZIP, TAR files and so on, IZArc can handle ALL of them.

Basically this unpacker/archiver gives you everything you get with other popular archivers (ex. Winzip, Winrar etc.) but with additional features and support for a huge number of archive formats. It can decompress archived folders in over 40 formats. It supports pretty much every format you’re likely to come across.

There is something else, you can also use the IZArc utility to open CD image files like ISO, BIN, CDI and NRG. Do you know of any other free archiver that can do that?

Note: When installing IZArc make sure to uncheck the “recommended” option to install PalTalk.

Download: http://www.izarc.org/download.html

(Platform: Windows only)

7. Google Picasa Software (Photo Management)

Picasa automatically finds all the photos on your PC, wherever they are, and organizes them in seconds. It’s an excellent photo manager, editor and viewer for your computer.

With Picasa not only you can nicely organize your photos but also fix common problems (i.e. red eyes), add cool effects and even browse photos by people in them. Yes, it includes face recognition!

Plus one really cool thing about it is that regardless of changes you make to your photos on Picasa the original version of each photo always preserved.

Features include:

- create video slideshows and photo collages from your photos.
- organize photos based on the people in them.
- browse photos by folders, albums, people.
- geotag your photos on Google Maps.
- one-click fixes for common problems like red-eye, color, and lighting.
- 12 cool effects to make your best photos look even better.

You can find out more about Picasa by watching this Youtube video. The Google team compiled a getting started guide for Picasa. Highly recommended for new users.

Download: http://picasa.google.com/

(Platform: Windows / Mac / Linux)

8. doPDF (PDF Printer)

Almost everyone once in a while needs to convert documents to PDF. The doPDF is the easiest tool that does exactly that. It installs a virtual printer on your computer that you can select using the print option from any program on Windows.

Whenever you need to convert a web page, Word document, Excel spreadsheet, photo or pretty much anything else to a PDF file just go to the print option in your program and select doPDF from the ‘Printer’ drop-down menu.

You can set the resolution to anything from 72 dpi to 2400 dpi, and the “printed” files are text searchable.

Download: www.dopdf.com

(Platform: Windows only)

9. Memento (Post-It Notes)

Chances are you have never heard about this program before. Memento is a simple bare-bones post-it notes program for your desktop. It’s better than anything else out there because it’s extremely simple and yet a very effective tool.

Whether you want a program to keep track of your tasks or quick note taking, Memento can help. It’s very intuitive to use and consumes very few system resources. Highly recommended!

It’s an excellent program – and I’ve compared many other free ones! I have been using this for the last 5 years and recommend it to everyone. The very first MakeUseOf article was about this app .

It’s also easily transferable from one PC to another, it saves all your notes in Memento.notes file that is stored in the My Documents folder.

Features:

- double click memento icon on the taskbar to create a note
- show/hide notes on the desktop
- keep notes expanded or closed
- notes always remain on top of other windows
- position notes anywhere you like
- instant autosave
- notes are resizable
- randomly makes each note a new color
- make notes transparent

Download: http://www.guyswithtowels.com/downloads.html

(Platform: Windows only)

10. xVideoServiceThief (YouTube Video Downloader)

Almost everyone is on Youtube these days. And the fact that Youtube has more searches than Yahoo is good indication of this. The only issue with Youtube is that there is no option to download videos so that you can watch them on your computer, PSP, iPhone, mobile phone, iPod etc.

Fortunately there are lots of free software for that, and my favorite is xVideoServiceThief. Apart from downloading videos, it can automatically convert the downloaded video file to another format.

xVideoServiceThief can convert videos to several formats, including AVI, MOV, MPEG, DIVX, MP4 and several others.

Moreover, xVideoServiceThief works with other sites as well, not only Youtube. It can also download videos from Yahoo Video, Google Videos, Metacafe, Dailymotion, CollegeHumor etc.

Download: http://xviservicethief.sourceforge.net/index.php?action=downloads

(Platform: Windows / Mac / Linux)

11. Mozy (Backup)

Backups are very important! Here on MakeUseOf we have published dozens of articles explaining why you should always keep a fresh backup of important data. And Mozy is the perfect program for that. It’s an online backup and recovery service that allows you to select files and folders on your computer and safely back them up online.

It’s fully automated, just set it once and it will do the backups without bothering you again. What’s even better, whenever you make changes to individual documents or files within selected folders, your changes will be replicated on your backup copy as well. So your backup always stays up-to-date.

In the case of file corruption, accidental deletion or hardware failure, you may easily restore your backed up files from the web to the original computer or any another computer, be it a Windows or Mac.

Mozy offers both free and premium accounts (only $4.95/month). The only difference between those two is that free account comes only with 2GBs of storage space. It should be more than enough for backing up important files and documents. On the other hand, if you want to backup your music library, photos, videos or maybe an entire drive then we recommend signing up for a premium account.

(Note: Discount for MakeUseOf users. When signing up for premium account use ‘ MAKEUSEOF’ (all caps) promo code to get 10% off.)

Download Mozy (Free): https://mozy.com/registration/free/
Download Mozy (Unlimited): https://mozy.com/registration/unlimited/

(Platform: Windows / Mac)

12. Digsby (Multi-protocol Instant Messenger)

If you chat on a regular basis and are active on social networks then this is a must-have program for you. There is so much this app does that it’s hard to explain it all in a few lines. Firstly, it’s a universal instant messenger that allows you to chat with your friends on MSN, Yahoo, AIM, Google Talk, Facebook, Myspace, ICQ and Jabber, all from a single messenger.

Secondly, it allows you to read and reply to your emails. That’s right folks, whether you have a Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail account you can receive and reply to emails all from Digsby’s slick interface. Currently Disgby works with Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, AOL/AIM Mail, POP Email, IMAP Mail accounts.

And that’s not all, you may also monitor alerts and set status message notifications for Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and LinkedIN accounts. Pretty cool, huh!

Other less important but still noteworthy features include:

- chat history (with search option)
- file transfer history to keep a log of sent/received files
- a widget for site owners to chat with visitors

(Note: Pay close attention when installing Digsby on your computer and make sure to deselect (selected on default) the additional components you don’t need. Plus, once the app is installed go to the preferences window and disable Digsby research.)

Download: www.digsby.com

(Platform: Windows / Mac / Linux)

13. VLC Media Player (Video Player)

With over 67 million downloads so far and roughly 7 downloads per second it’s one of the most popular video players around.

VLC is a highly portable multimedia player supporting most audio and video formats and can play pretty much any video files you throw at it, including physical media like DVDs. Plus it doesn’t need any external codec, program or codec pack to work.<

The VLC can be used both by beginners as well as expert users for working with video files.

The player can also play Youtube videos, convert video files, play subtitles, etc.

Download: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

14. Foobar2000 (Music Player)

The foobar2000 is an advanced audio player for Windows and supports pretty much all popular audio formats. This is an audio player of choice for many audiophiles (the reader polls on MakeUseOf and Lifehacker confirm that). But what’s in it for you? Well, leaving aside its rich feature set, there are two things that make it stand out from the crowd.

First, when it comes to the appearance of the player, it’s HIGHLY customizable. There is NO OTHER audio player out there that can be customized as much. The Foobar2000 lets you change everything starting from buttons, layout, background colors, menus to visualization details.

But the best thing about this gem, it needs very little of your system resources when compared to Windows Media Player, iTunes or Winamp.

The Foobar2000 has also plug-ins for iPod support and things like lyrics and album art. There is also a portable version if you prefer to carry it on your thumbdrive.

Download: http://www.foobar2000.org/download

(Platform: Windows only)

15. ImgBurn (CD / DVD Image Burner)

There are many reasons we need a simple, fast way to burn disks. ImgBurn is a CD/DVD/HD-DVD/Blu-ray burning application that is fast, lightweight, and completely free.

With ImgBurn you can:

- backup your data or media files to DVD.
- backup your DVD movies to your PC.
- create Audio CDs from any music files such as MP3, WAV.
- create a duplicate copy of any DVD or music CD
- create video discs (DVD / HD DVD / Blu-ray) playable in your DVD player

ImgBurn supports a variety of image formats and almost all types of discs, so you don’t need to look any further for your disc burning needs. There is also a portable version that you can carry with you on your USB drive. For additional details see the MakeUseOf ImgBurn review here.

(Platform: Windows / Linux)

Download: http://www.imgburn.com/index.php?act=download

BONUS (+ 5 programs)

16. Revo – Free powerful uninstaller for Windows. It can uninstall programs that you are not able to remove using Windows’ default program manager.

17. OpenOffice – Free alternative to Microsoft Office. Though requires some adjustments to program settings before it can fully replace the Microsoft Office.

18. Foxit – This one is basically a lightweight replacement to Adobe PDF reader. With Foxit you may launch PDF documents as fast as notepad files.

19. Spyware Terminator – A compliment to the above mentioned Malwarebytes. It’s not as comprehensive but comes with real-time malware detection and fast daily scans.

20. Portable Apps – A huge collection of free programs that you can carry on your USB thumbdrive. The suite includes several of the above apps, plus many more. Carry your favorite computer programs along with all of your bookmarks, settings, email and more with you where ever you go. Use them on any Windows computer without leaving any personal data behind.

So there you go, the top 15 that you should have on your system and use on a frequent basis. Since everyone is different with different needs, you will probably disagree with us on some of these choices. If so, head on down to the comments section below and let us know which apps you would put in their place and why.

If you like this article, please spread it around and share it with your friends. It took us us a while to get it done and test all the apps thoroughly.

[Update: This list is continuously updated]

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The registry is the central part of the system data and the one most likely to cause problems. It contains all information about installed software, drivers, plugins, updates, and more. After countless edits due to software being added, changed or removed, errors and bad entries pile up in the registry. This can make your computer slow or even unstable.

Here are 3 ways to backup the registry, two of them along with other critical system data.

1. Export Specific Registry Keys

If you are going to make changes to a specific registry key, you can selectively export or restore this key.

Backup

Click > Start > Run, type > regedit and click > OK. The registry editor will open.

Select the key you wish to backup, right-click to open the menu and click > Export.

Enter a name for the REG file and save it to a safe location.

In the same fashion you can export an entire registry branch or the registry as a whole.

Restore

To restore, you simply double-click the backed up REG file and it will automatically update the registry with its contents.

2. System State Backup

Windows XP Pro and other NT based Windows versions have an internal backup feature, which can be used to backup essential system data, including the Boot file, the COM+ class registration database, and the registry.

Backup

Go to > Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Backup Option.

The Backup or Restore Wizard will open. Click and switch to > Advanced Mode and open the > Backup tab.

Select the files you would like to backup, in this case > System State, which can be found under > My Computer.

Be sure a path is displayed under > Backup media or file name. If this is not the case, click > Browse… and select a destination. You can also change the name of the backup file. Then click > Start Backup.

A window summarizing the backup data will open. Change the backup description and eventually make further settings. Then click > Start once more. This backup can take up to 5 minutes.

Restore

To restore a system state backup, open the Backup or Restore Wizard in Advanced Mode as described above.

Switch to the > Restore and Manage Media tab. Your previous backups should be listed. Select the one you would like to restore and click > Restore Backup.

3. System Restore Point

When you set a system restore point, several files are saved, including files in the Windows File Protection (Dllcache) folder, the local user profile, COM+ and WMI databases, IIS metabase, all files that are monitored due to their file extension and the registry.

With a system restore point you can return to a previous system state. This can be helpful in case changes to the registry, new drivers or program installations have caused damage. Your personal documents, such as browser bookmarks, eMails or photos are not affected.

Backup

To create a system restore point manually, click > Start > Run, type > %SystemRoot%\System32\restore\rstrui.exe and click OK to launch the tool.

On the welcome page select > Create a restore point and click > Next. On the following page enter a name for this restore point and click > Create.

Stefan recently reviewed a tool called Single Click Restore Point, which significantly speeds up this process.

Restore

To restore previous computer settings and an older registry, you open the System Restore welcome page as described above, select > Restore my computer to an earlier time and click > Next.

On the subsequent page select a recent system restore point from the calendar and click > Next.

The Confirm Restore Point Selection page displays the restore point you chose. Click > Next to continue. Your computer will now start to restore the previous Windows XP configuration and reboot.

If you’re running into issues after installing hot fixes or patches from Microsoft, you might want to know How To Roll Back Windows Hot Fixes & Patches in XP. Fortunately, Sharninder has explained it in a recent article.

Did you ever ruin your system or the registry to the point where only a backup could save it?

Image credits: flaivoloka

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So it was with me when I had to convert a delimited text data file to Excel and format it within the columns and rows. That’s a rough challenge for a guy who has a chronic fear of anything that resembles figures. The raw file that I had in my hand consisted of higgledy-piggledy blocks of text and numbers. My simple task was to make sense out of this jumble by importing it into Excel and sorting the data into columns and rows.

Thankfully, many web tutorials came to the rescue of my dead brain cells.

Delimited files are a simple way to store data and import or export it between various applications. Delimited in essence means, data that’s separated by specific delimiter characters. Common delimiters are tab, comma and semicolon.

Think of delimited files as the most basic file format that’s almost uniformly accepted by most spreadsheet and database programs. For those of us who don’t go down that road, a common example is the CSV (Comma Separated Value) files or Tab-separated files we come across in the Import Export wizards of email programs like Outlook and Gmail.

A delimited file is of no actual use unless it is converted into some form suitable for analysis and study. Microsoft makes it easy to convert a delimited file to a spreadsheet in three easy steps.

Let’s start with a text file with some data separated by commas.

To bring the data into Excel –

1. Open Excel and copy-paste the text contents into a spreadsheet. The contents take up one column and several rows.



2. Click on the column header to select the entire column. Click on the Data tab in the ribbon and then Text to Columns in the Data Tools group.



3. Clicking on the above command opens the Convert Text to Columns Wizard.
4. Alternatively – You can directly import a text file into Excel. Excel handles file types – Text, Comma Separated Values and Printer Text File. Make sure to dropdown to All Files or Text Files in the File Open dialog while selecting the file to import. If Excel recognizes it to be a delimited file, it opens the Text Import Wizard which is similar to the Convert Text to Columns Wizard.



In the Wizard, choose Delimited and click on Next.

5. In the second step, choose the Delimiter for you particular file (comma, in our case). For some other character, check Other and enter the character in the little field. The Data Preview window gives you an idea how the contents get separated into columnar data. Click on Next.



6. In the final window, you get to set the data type for each column by selecting it in the preview. The default data format is General. Date and numeric values can also be handled here.



7. Click on Finish to exit the wizard and get your neatly arranged spreadsheet.

It’s just three easy steps courtesy of a wizard. This simple utility gives us the ability to import delimited text files into Excel and apply its number crunching tools on it.

Liked this? We have other Excel tutorials to make an analyst out of you.

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But that’s not all – no sir re bob! QMMAnder is not a one hit wonder! You can also have two separate listing types going on at the same time. Qmmander is written in C++ and uses Qt, a cross-platform application and GUI framework from Nokia. The Google Code page says that the application is buggy but I have not run into any issues yet.

You can have one window preview showing a detail listing so you can sort by file size, while in the right pane you have big icons so you can easily recognize the file icons you are looking for. The software is also portable and can (should) be run from a USB or thumb drive.

A person’s Explorer tells a lot about them. If you are using the built in Windows Explorer it shows that you do not like to tweak but if you are using something like this – it shows you think outside the box. That’s not just because I am a geek right?

Let’s see what QMMAnder can do! When you first launch the application you will be seeing double – the same thing on both sides, as you can see below:

Let’s fix that and make them two different drives You can see this view below:

Yeah yeah, we all know you can sort by each column by simply clicking on the headers but let’s check out the program’s other options. As we said before, you can change each view. Here is an example:

You change the view on each item by selecting a pane and then clicking on one of these buttons in your toolbar:

The buttons are as follows: details, list, little symbols, big symbols, directory tree or split horizontally instead of vertically (respectively). You can also change these from the options menu as you can see below:

You can also swap the left side with the right or vice versa as well as refresh or switch which side is active. Let’s check out how the horizontal split looks. This seems like it would be a better view for me:

And that is my view! Wow I love it – the detailed listing on top and the tree view on the bottom. This Windows explorer alternative is very versatile and uses very little memory.

What do you guys use for a file browser? I know that Make Use of readers aren’t using Explorer – are you? We would love to hear about what you are using in the comments – so leave us a comment!

Oh and if you do hit any bugs leave them in the comments as well so we can all bombard the author with them! Karl Gechlik over and out.

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• WinHack – Speed Up Your Windows XP Computer (Part 1) (21)
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In both of these articles, I described connecting your cell phone to your PC via USB cable. However, there is another way; Bluetooth. This will work in precisely the same was as a USB cable in terms of transferring data but it eliminates the need for a cable (I’m told many budget phones are being shipped without USB cables).

You’ll need two things for this to work:

1. A Bluetooth-enabled computer. Most laptops now have Bluetooth and so do some desktops. If yours doesn’t, you can buy a USB Bluetooth adapter cheaply on sites such as EBay.
2. A Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone.

Go to Control Panel under the Start Menu and look for ‘Bluetooth devices’ as pictured in the screenshot. If you’re using Vista, select classic view to display all of  the icons. Click on the Bluetooth icon. The window below should open.

Click ‘Add Wireless Device’ as seen in the screenshot. Before scanning for devices – turn on Bluetooth on your cell phone.

The exact location of the Bluetooth setting will differ depending on the model of the phone however it will normally follow something along the lines of:

Menu > Settings> Connections > Bluetooth > Turn On

Now scan for devices on your computer. It should pick up your cell phone. If it doesn’t, make sure Bluetooth is turned on and ensure that your status is set to ‘Visible’ or ‘Detectable’. Your phone must also be within 7 meters of your PC to ensure a connection can be established. Once you have done these checks, search again.

When your device is detected, click on the phone’s icon to connect. You may be asked to enter in a security pin. Enter something easy like ‘1234′. You phone will then ask you to enter in said pin. This is not a specific number but rather done just for paring purposes. Once you have done this correctly the connection will be established as though the phone were connected via USB cable.

If you disconnect or simply power off your PC, the connection should be saved. That means that when you turn back on your PC (assuming both Bluetooth setting are still activated) the connection should resume itself. Your PC may launch a pop-up in the bottom right hand corner at the task bar asking your permission for the connection. This is for security reasons and depends on your security/firewall settings.

Your phone should now be visible under ‘My Computer’ so you can transfer files, etc. Note that Bluetooth can be pretty slow for transferring large files such as videos or establishing an internet connection.

Make sure that you turn off the Bluetooth on your phone if you won’t be using it again for some time. It consumes your battery like crazy and is also a security issue.

What do you use your phone’s Bluetooth connection for?

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We will actually be doing a Repair. Once the repair session hits the GUI screen we can launch a command prompt that will let us reset your password, create new accounts or promote another user to be the administrator. Heck we can even make it so the machine logs in as the Administrator automatically! So here’s how you do it.

Grab your CD along with its CD key and boot to your media. Once you boot to your CD, it will say, “Press a key to boot to CD”. Go ahead and press any key.

Let Windows do its thing and start. We will not format or lose any data if you follow my explicit instructions. I was amazed when I got this to work and also sickened by how insecure workstations can be! If you have a third party SCSI, RAID or SATA adapter you will have to point it at the drivers so it can access your hard drive. If this is you then you know what to do already – F6 and point it to the drivers.

Another few minutes will pass by and Windows setup will say that it is starting Windows. Be forewarned – DO NOT HIT THE R KEY ON THE NEXT SCREEN. We will be hitting Enter to start the installation.

On the screen below that says Welcome to Setup make sure you hit the ENTER key and not R. R here will take you to the recovery console – if you do not have the administrators password you will have to start ALL OVER AGAIN! So hit Enter to set up Windows and continue.

The agreement pops up hit the F8 key to continue.

Ah ha! Now on this screen below you will want to highlight your installation of Windows if there is more than one. And hit the R key! Yes, here is where you will hit that key to repair the installation. The process rewrites all the system files and what not.

After you hit that R key the Setup wizard will start to copy the system files from the media to your hard drive/Windows Installation. This took about 4 minutes on my machine.

Windows will now reboot automatically or you can hit ENTER to speed things up a little. When the machine restarts DO NOT BOOT FROM THE CD! DO NOT HIT A KEY TO BOOT FROM YOUR CD! Take the CD out of the drive if you think this is going to be an issue for you.

Once the computer starts back up it will jump into the installer. Here, when you get to about 37 minutes left on the installer it will say Installing Devices on the bottom left hand side of the screen – Hit Shift-F10 at the same time and a command prompt will pop-up! Just like that.

Using some basic command line kung fu we type control userpasswords2 and we can do whatever we want to. You can get at anything from this command prompt you have full root/administrator access!

Once you have the user accounts control panel up, you can add, modify or remove users. Promote a user to administrator status or what have you. Remember only use this for good and not evil.

Log in and you are good to go! Do you have another method to get back into your machine that does not require any media? We would love to hear about it in the comments.

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But for argument’s sake, let’s say you are the Human Resources manager and you have an Excel chart of everyone’s salary – that should not be stored on the network and if the file falls in the wrong hands, the consequences could be severe. But if you were able to hide that drive from prying eyes even if they are able to circumvent your security, you will be safe.

Let us take a look at No Drives Manager, an application you can use to hide drives. You can grab the download from this link on SourceForge directly or from the users page on SourceForge here.

The application does not need to be installed and can be run from a memory stick. What the application does is modify the registry so you don’t have to! Take a look at the GUI.

The interface is very intuitive and easy to use. There are drive letters listed along the top drives A: through Z:. If the drive has been hidden, it will have a check box next to it. Chances are starting out no drives will be selected. You can hit the Hide all drives button to hide all your drives. But more likely you will want to hide a single drive. Let’s see how to do that.

Here is what my Explorer has to say about my current drives on my system:

Let’s say, I want to hide my D: drive aka WhosYourDaddy. I simply check the box next to the letter D. The Binary and decimal settings will be auto-populated and you will not need to mess with them. If you want to use this application to teach yourself how to hide drives manually – you can use this data to do so.

After you choose the drive you want to hide, you have to hit the Write current setting to the registry button. That will tell you that you need to log off and back on to see your changes.

I am logging off to complete my task. OK, I am back and logged back in. Now let us take a look at my Windows Explorer – My Computer again:

I feel like a cheap magician! Wow, look it has disappeared! And with a wave of my magic stick I can make it re-appear. Well, a click of the Run button that is…

This exercise will show you that the drive is hidden but shortcuts and typing in a path or direct file path will take you to where you need to go as you can see below.

Un-doing it is just as easy concealing the drive. Bring the application back up, then uncheck the box next to the drive letter you hid – the D: drive in my case. And write your modifications back to the registry using the Write current setting to the registry button. After you log out and back in again your drive will be magically restored. We have tried doing this with the Windows tool diskpart – but we wound up corrupting data so this is far less risky!

Do you have an easier way of doing this? We would love to hear about it in the comments, come on don’t be shy!

No Drives Manager.

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Do you know where your 200GB is on free space? What’s that? You only have 72MB free? What is using all that lost hard drive space? What do you mean you don’t know?

It looks like you are in need of a virtual canine application called Space Sniffer (Windows only)… Get it? Like a dog.

Umm well, the software is MUCH better than my joke – I assure you. No, really!

Go ahead and grab the download from here. It is a 1.1MB file. Once you get that file downloaded, go ahead and extract the executable file from the zip file. It is called SpaceSniffer.exe and it is completely portable!

Once you get the file out and run it you will see a screen that looks like this:

On that first screen, select the drive you want to analyze or sniff for lost hard drive space. I selected my C:\ drive. And hit Start. That starts the action and you will see a moving representation of your selected drive as it sorts out what is on your drive. You will see something similar to this as it runs:

If you click on any of the drive portions, you can “Zoom In” like so (even while you are still scanning). I double-clicked on the desktop portion occupying 5.4GB of data and saw this:

It is pretty damn cool to see the directories or drives broken down like this. My drive did take some time to complete. In the area of 15 minutes. But I was using the system as I went for normal day to day activities. Then it was complete.

Now let’s take a look at your options. You can see them by hitting Edit – Options. Then, you can see each of the four tabs below:

The first tab denotes if you should show free space, show unknown space, sort item and the minimum size of an element (this is the smallest items), proportions of items against each other and initial detail level. Mess around with them and see what works for you.

Hmm dynamic zoom as a effect? Let’s enable it and see what happens. After enabling this feature it, shows the effect of “Zooming in”. It’s cool but not very useful. It did not use as much memory as I expected.

Scan alternate data steams? This had me stumped so I checked my friend Google and read this:

Just after that I heard about an Alternate Data Stream (ADS) scanner named LADS. When I ran it on one of my drives I was shocked to find that I had over 17,000 hidden objects that ETrust had apparently placed there as part of it’s virus scanning procedure. They’re “Alternate Data Streams”, and one was associated with every file on my NTFS partitions. [http://www.2kevin.net/datastreams.html]

That sparked my interest enough for me to check the box and re-run my scan.

My new scan showed free space but no Alternate Data Streams – but I will scan my servers tonight and let you guys know via the comments how it went later on.

The last option in the preferences is the colors of items placed on your map. Tweak them to your heart’s desire and let us know how it works out in the comments!

Do you use a similar free program to find lost hard drive space? We would love to hear how you keep your hard drives in check! Voice it out in the comments.

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There are a lot of things which can go into creating a professional looking document. But when we are talking about first impressions, then we have to speak about the first thing that catches the eye and that’s the cover page.

The cover page is the very first page of your document. Its purpose right at the beginning is to give the reader the Big Idea about the document. The why and wherefore is communicated through a specific title, the author name, date, a one-liner on the subject and any other bit of important information on the cover page.

If Black Text On A White Page Is A Turn Off…

One of the reasons I am writing this post is that Microsoft Word makes it painless to create a professional cover page. Unlike the previous versions, Word 2007 has Building Blocks which are pre-formatted templates for cover pages, headers, footers etc. Learning how to make a cover page in MS Word is as easy as a few clicks.

So let’s move away from the monochromatic black on white to more colorful beginnings.

1. Open MS Word 2007 in a new document or the document you wish to create the cover page for.
2. Click on the Insert menu on the ribbon. The very first section, Pages contains the dropdown for Cover Page. Click on Cover Page to open the inbuilt gallery of templates.



3. The inbuilt gallery has about 15 pre-formatted cover pages that you can scroll though. Click on the one you like to select and open it. The cover page appears at the beginning of the document by default.



4. If you want it in any other location, right click on the cover page thumbnail in the gallery and select from the options given.



5. Now, you can click on each pre-formatted field (the square brackets) and the whole thing gets highlighted with a blue field label on top. Type in your version for the given field. The author name might appear by default if the Office installation was in your name.



6. For date fields, you can click the dropdown arrow to select a date from a calendar. You can format all fields as you would for normal text.



7. Building blocks have editable regions which can be customized again. For instance, some of the cover page templates use tables which again can be formatted for size and color of borders or fills using Word’s table tools. Also, some templates have pictures which can be swapped for another or formatted. Think a logo would go better with the page? Just right click on the picture and click Change Picture in the context menu.



8. While working on one cover page, you can change it for another cover page by selecting a new template from the dropdown. The field entries are retained in the new template.
9. Click on Save to finalize the cover page as a document.
10. If you would like to save the cover page for later use in another document, select the entire cover page. Click on Insert – Cover Page – Save Selection to Cover Page Gallery. You can use the same menu to remove a selected cover page from the gallery.

Adding a cover page to a document not only helps in stylizing it but it also gives a sketch to the reader about the contents. You can create a generic cover page for your company and save it in the gallery for frequent use. Another use is to create a document in Word with a nicely laid out cover page and save it in PDF. It can add oodles to the way you present your document (and you don’t have to have any designing IQ).

If a book can be known by its cover, so should a document. Most of us don’t commonly employ a cover page with a document. Or do you? Let us know the benefits you find in inserting a well designed cover page.

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MUI transforms almost the entire user interface to the language of your choice. The other option is to install what is called a language interface packs. Unlike the MUI, language interface packs are more freely available online and can be installed on Windows Home and Home Premium versions as well. One downside is that it won’t transform the entire user interface to another language. Rather, it concentrates on the most commonly used areas of the interface and makes them available in the language you choose.

Language packs can help you customize your computer to display text in language of your choice. Everything from dialog boxes, buttons and windows would display text in the language you want. As I pointed out earlier there are essentially two ways you can install additional languages. Either using Windows Update, or you can download and install the language packs separately. You can find language packs over at MSDN and Technet. And of course there are thousands of other places on the Internet where you can always find them.

Here are the steps you should follow to install additional language packs on your computer.

Open up Control Panel. Click on Change Display language under Clock, Language and Region section.

In the dialog that opens, see if the language you are looking for is installed on your computer. If it is you can choose it, or else click on Install and Uninstall languages.

In the resulting screen you can choose to install using Windows update, or if you have downloaded the files separately you can choose the second option to Browse computer or network.

Now simply point it to the folder containing the downloaded language pack. The wizard then lists the languages that are included in that language installer pack.

Choose the languages you want to install, click Next. You will be presented with the license agreement. Read through and choose to Accept or Decline the license. Naturally, you should choose to accept.

The installation will take some time. Once the it has finished, you can choose the newly-installed language.

With a little effort, you can also add the required languages to installation CD/DVD, so that they can be easily installed together with the operating system every time in case you need to install them on multiple computers. It requires a bit of effort you can find the details at this TechNet page.

You can find various language packs that you can use on your computer at Microsoft’s site. Do you use a language other than English on your computer? Let us know if you got it built in or installed it as an addon and the steps you took to do it.

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Snarl is a universal notification handler for Windows. Under normal running, applications (or Windows) display bits of information in a comment balloon or a bubble in the area of the system tray called the notification area. They simply inform or suggest a course of action for us to follow – through the instructions or by clicking on the notification itself.

Windows offers very little by way of customizing Windows notification messages. You can, at the most, change the color by modifying the Tooltip color or disable/enable them from some individual applications. There is no universal notification manager.

Snarl is a freeware program which attempts to change that by giving some customizing power to the user. By the looks of it, it’s almost similar to Mac’s Growl (another huffy name!). Growl has a Windows counterpart too, which is in the beta stage now.

Is Snarl worth a shout? Let’s check it out.

Snarl R2.21 (V40.15) is a 5.9 MB download and, on installation, can be accessed from the Start Menu and the system tray. The first time Snarl starts up for your system, it tests the rate of blended images which your graphics card can render. A few seconds later, Snarl is ready to go.

Snarl operates in the background silently using a very light memory footprint. The interface can be accessed with a right click on the system tray icon.

Working with a Snarl

1. Snarl supports a variety of applications and manages their notifications from its centralized interface.Straight after an install Snarl supports system notifications like battery level warnings, system events, timer and on the hour clock alerts.



2. Snarl is extensible through many available extensions. Extensions are like small modules, each for a specific application or task.Snarl’s real use lies with the gallery of extensions. Extensions are like modules designed for specific applications. Installation and registration of these little extension files with Snarl’s allows the program to capture the Windows notification messages and display them through Snarl’s centralized system.



3. The extensions are grouped in various categories. They can be managed and disabled from within Snarl.
4. Snarl can display multiple notifications and does not take keyboard focus away when displaying a notification.Snarl brings all Windows notification messages for applications it supports under a common umbrella. Whether it’s a Firefox download progress or a Gmail notifier, a user knows where to look for all the info. The user can also select or deselect the types of notifications from a single program from the Preferences box.

   

   Notifications can also be setup with sound alerts using Snarl. A ‘view only’ mode makes the notification box invisible to the mouse pointer, so the user can click any Windows program right through it.

5. Snarl allows the user to customize the appearance and the display characteristics of individual notifications.Snarl supports a variety of styles (23 in its gallery). The styles can be downloaded for use. Styles have themes which are like color schemes for each style.

   

   Notification appearance can be customized by setting there opacity levels, duration of display and positions.

6. Snarl captures missed notifications.A right click on the system tray icon and you can access the Missed Notifications box in case you missed an important one.

So is it worth the shout?

As a notification manager, yes it has lots of bells and whistles. The real essence though lies with the extensions and the program’s extensibility to the wide range of applications out there. Some of the most used ones like Gmail notification, iTunes, Firefox, Sunbird, Google Reader, PidGin, Skype, Thunderbird and a couple of Twitter clients are covered. But definitely a lot more need to be added. Handling the app takes a bit of trial and error and though the Preview button on the program helps, a Help file would have been better.

Snarl is pleasing to the eye with its gallery of looks enhancing styles. It is very light and does act as an attractive shell replacement program.

Snarl is a free and open source program and is compatible with Windows XP/Vista

What are your thoughts on the program? Have you used Snarl or a similar notification alternative?

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Step 1: The checks

First off, you would want to make sure your existing hardware can support Windows 7. Windows XP has been out for a long time and your hardware might not support the newer and comparatively more demanding versions of Windows like Windows 7. These are the official system requirements:

• 1 GHz processor (32- or 64-bit)
• 1 GB of RAM (32-bit); 2 GB of RAM (64-bit)
• 16 GB of available disk space (32-bit); 20 GB of available disk space (64-bit)
• DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

You can use the Windows 7 Upgrade advisor to see if your computer will run Windows 7. Once you are sure that you are good to go, hop up to the next step.

Step 2: Backup and Migration

It is always a good idea to have backup of your important files and settings that you worked so hard to create. We have shown you various applications to backup your files and settings in the past. If you would rather not install any new software, a simple copy and paste would suffice for the time being. Just make sure to include everything you might need. While you might have set up your folders differently according to your taste, here are some key locations that you should check out and decide if you would like to back them up:

• My Documents
• My Music
• My Pictures
• (If you have more than one user account on your computer, make sure to back up their files as well)
• Your projects folders and files, if it is your work computer
• Browser bookmarks, saved passwords, etc.
• Other program data under %AppData% (This doesn’t always work. It is better if you use respective applications to export settings)

Another option you can use to quickly backup and transfer your settings is the Windows Easy Transfer tool that you can find on the Windows 7 DVD. Browse to the folder named support and then to migwiz on your Windows 7 DVD and launch migsetup.exe. This will launch the Windows Easy Transfer tool.

Choose how you would like to transfer the settings:

and then select what to transfer:

and Windows Easy Transfer will do the rest and give you a file you can store, on say a flash drive to transfer the settings to new installation later.

Step 3: Drivers

Next up are the drivers. It is always a good idea to search your computer manufacturer’s website to see if they have newer drivers for Windows 7. Older drivers may not always work, or may not work as intended. This is especially true for drivers made for Windows XP. I was able to use an XP display driver with Windows 7 beta but it didn’t work when Windows 7 RC came out. You might have more luck with Vista drivers on Windows 7, but nothing is guaranteed. So if you are trying to get older drivers to work, you better be prepared to play around after installation.

Step 4: Install

Finally, you are ready to install Windows 7. Pop in the DVD and restart your computer. Boot from the DVD and follow the prompts to install Windows 7.

Choose Custom (Advanced install) when given the choice:

Then choose the system drive (which was your C: on Windows XP) as the partition you would like to set up Windows 7.

Wait for the installation to complete, and boot into Windows 7 once you are done.

Installed, now what?

Already here? Way to go. Now that you have Windows installed there are few additional steps you should take before you are ready to go. First off, make sure you install an antivirus before you start browsing the web or transferring files using USB drives. MS Security Essentials, AVG, Avast and Antivir are good free choices. You might want to look into commercial ones if you want something better. ESET and Kaspersky are good choices over there (Oops! Did I start a flame war?).

Install your favorite applications now. This would be a good time to get the latest versions if you have been postponing pending software updates. Looking for some software recommendations? Check out the Mark pack.

Oh and don’t forget to restore the settings you backed up earlier. If you went the copy-paste route, its time to do some more copy-paste. If you used Windows Easy Transfer instead, click on Start button and type Windows Easy transfer, launch the application and let it know that this is your new computer, then browse to the location you stored those settings to and let it do the rest.

Hope this helps you plan your upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7. Once you are done, use the comments area and tell us know how it went and if Windows 7 is worth the price tag!

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Which are your two favorite calendar apps? I hope its Microsoft Outlook on the desktop and Google Calendar on the web; because this is what the post is all about. Both are full blown calendar utilities and adopting any one decidedly makes our life a whole lot easier.

But what if you decide to use both, like I do? One reason is that both have their own features and also I like to store my my plans in two places (offline and online) for all time access. As I said before, maintaining one is a chore…two could be a headache. Thankfully no, because there are some ways we can sync Outlook with Google Calendar.

The Little But Handy Outlook/Google Calendar Sync

A 684KB tool from Google takes away the pain of keeping both calendars updated. Google Calendar Sync works with Outlook 2003/2007 on Windows XP and Windows Vista. The utility not only allows us to sync Microsoft Outlook calendar events with Google Calendar, it also allows us to set the direction of flow (1-way or 2-way). Also we can specify the sync frequency by giving a time interval.

Google recommends deciding on the calendar which will act as the source and the one that will be the sink. The source will be the main calendar and contain most of the information. It’s better to clear the other calendar of all events and start with a clean slate.

Now, let’s install and sync. Close Outlook if it’s running. Installation is clear cut and simple.

1. The Google Calendar Sync window looks like this –



2. The first part covers the log-in details of your calendar account. The second part is about how you plan to sync between Outlook and Google Calendar. You have three options to choose from which are pretty self explanatory.
   • 2 – Way: The data flows both ways. Change any detail in one calendar and it gets updated in the other too.
   • 1 – Way (Google Calendar to Outlook): Information flows from Google Calendar to the default Outlook Calendar. Any changes in the Outlook calendar will not be shown in the Google Calendar automatically.
   • 1-Way (Outlook to Google Calendar): Information goes from Outlook to Google Calendar. Any changes in Google Calendar will not get updated Outlook automatically.



3. All that’s left is to set the update/sync interval. The bare minimum is 10 minutes while the default is 120 minutes.
4. Google Calendar Sync runs from the system tray and you can access the settings with a right click. For instance, a manual sync is right click and Sync.

When the syncing operation is on, you will notice swirling arrows in the system icon. It’s a simple solution and probably the only thing that would make it more complete would be a date range selection feature.

Did You Know You Can Subscribe To Your Google Calendar In Outlook?

Outlook offers an easy way to add internet calendars like Google. Google Calendar obliges by giving us a private URL to use. Using this private URL we can view updated Google Calendars within Outlook. This is just one way as any changes in our Outlook Calendar will not get reflected in Google Calendar.

But here’s how you can view your updated Google Calendar in Outlook –

1. Log-in to your Google Calendar account.
2. On the left-hand side, click on Settings for the calendar you want to use under My calendars.



3. On the Calendars tab, click on the (account name) of your calendar.



4. The Calendar Details tab opens up. Go down to Private Address and click ICAL. Select the Internet Web address that appears, and then press CTRL+C to copy the selected text. This private link is intended for your use only.



5. Open Outlook. Go to Tools – Account Settings. On the Internet Calendars tab, click New.



6. Paste the Internet Web address copied from Google Calendar and click Add.



7. Give a name to the calendar in the Folder Name field. Now, any changes made in Google Calendar will show up in Outlook.

A little utility called Google Calendar Sync does the synchronizing job for us. That’s the easy part…the difficult part is keeping to the calendar (as the multi-million dollar time management industry always tells us).

There are a few other tools which do the job. We have briefly covered OggSync before which also allows you to do a two-way sync between Outlook (and Microsoft Exchange) and Google Calendar(s). You can also try out SyncMyCal Lite which comes with all basic calendar synchronization features.

Do you use both calendars? How do you keep them concurrent? Let us know.

Download: Google Calendar Sync.

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You can’t upgrade from 32-bit to Windows 7 64-bit without doing a fresh “clean” install, which requires you to reinstall all applications from scratch. Therefore, you need to decide on either 32-bit or 64-bit before you install Windows 7.

While I recommend you go with 64-bit, read through this article to make an informed decision.

Background: What is 32-bit and 64-bit?

32-bit and 64-bit are computer architectures that specify the length of data types and addresses that are supported. What this means for the average user is how much memory can be used effectively and how powerful the number-crunching capacity of the CPU is.

Since Windows XP was originally only released as a 32-bit operating system, and because older hardware have 32-bit device drivers, application development on the Windows platform has been slow in moving to 64-bit. However, after both Windows XP and Vista were released in 64-bit, Microsoft is now pushing 64-bit strongly, and you can expect application developers to take advantage of 64-bit computing soon.

Should You Buy 32-bit or 64-bit Windows 7?

Fortunately, you do not need to worry about all this when purchasing a computer or Windows 7. If you are buying a new PC from a vendor, it will ship with 64-bit Windows pre-installed if the configuration supports 64-bit. If you buy retail boxed versions of Windows 7, they will include both 32-bit and 64-bit editions, except for the Home Basic edition.

Advantages of 64-bit

There are several benefits of going to Windows 7 64-bit:

• With 32-bit Windows, you can use a maximum of 4GB RAM. 64-bit Windows 7 runs very fast with 4GB and you can upgrade your RAM to 8 or 16 GB later, making your system future-proof.
• A 32-bit OS can theoretically use up to 4 GB of RAM, but 32-bit versions of Windows Vista and Windows 7 see a maximum of 3.12 GB. With 64-bit Windows 7, you can use the full 4GB RAM.
• You get better security with 64-bit Windows. All 64-bit device drivers are digitally signed, which means you will not have random crashes. You also get more advanced security features like Kernel Patch Protection with 64-bit Windows 7.
• Since 64-bit systems process more information and support greater RAM, Windows 7 is more responsive when you are running complex applications or many applications simultaneously. If you use graphics applications like Photoshop, video editing, games, CAD, etc., you should go 64-bit.
• Not all applications have 64-bit versions that take advantage of the 64-bit architecture, but you can expect more of them after Windows 7 goes mainstream. Meanwhile, most 32-bit applications work fine under 64-bit Windows. If any of them don’t for some reason, you can reasonably expect the application developers to fix any issues, because a lot of people will be running 64-bit Windows.

Check If Your PC Supports 64-Bit Windows 7

If you have bought or upgraded your computer in the past couple of years, with an Intel Core 2 Duo or equivalent/higher processor, your PC is already equipped to run 64-bit Windows 7. If you want to make sure, you can do any of the following:

• If you are running 32-bit Windows Vista, go to Control Panel > System and Maintenance > Performance Information and Tools. Click View and print details. In the System section, you can see whether your PC is 64-bit capable.
• You can use the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor to find out if your system can run 64-bit Windows 7.
• Check the Windows 7 Compatibility Center to see if your devices have 64-bit drivers.

When You Should Use 32-bit

There are some situations in which you are better off using 32-bit Windows 7:

• If you use only 2GB of RAM, and do not plan to upgrade anytime soon. To really take advantage of 64-bit Windows 7, you need minimum 4GB RAM.
• You have legacy devices like scanners and printers that do not have 64-bit device drivers. 32-bit drivers are not supported under 64-bit Windows 7, so you should make sure all the devices you need to use are compatible with 64-bit.
• You run old 16-bit applications that were developed for Windows 3.1 or DOS. These won’t run under 64-bit Windows.

Did this post clear your doubts about 32-bit and 64-bit Windows versions? Is your system ready for 64-bit Windows 7? Feel free to share and ask any questions in the comments!

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So hopefully this tutorial will allow you to share files and folders to other computers on your network without a password. This tutorial is assuming that you do not have or use any type of user account password on your computer.  Since we will not be using a password to share our files and folders, other network users will be able to access, read or modify the contents of the files you choose to share. Only do this if you trust all computers and users that have access to your network.

The first thing to do to enable this kind of file sharing on Vista is to head over to the Network and Sharing Center. To do this, go to ‘Control Panel\Network and Internet\Network and Sharing Center’ (you can simply paste this into a folder URL bar).

The first step is to customize the settings under ‘Sharing and Discover’. Under Network Discover, check ‘Turn on network discovery’ and click apply. Under File Sharing, click ‘Turn on file sharing. It is up to you if you want to have Public Folder Sharing active or deactivated.

This simply means that any files and folders in the Public account on your computer will be accessible. If you only want to share certain files with all networked users, this is simply your easiest option to choose. However, if you want to share certain folders on your computer, continue reading.

The next thing is to ensure you select ‘Turn off password protected sharing’. When I was testing this setting, when I had Password Protected Sharing on, I could not access my computer on another computer. When I had it set to Off, I could.

With the above settings set, you may already be able to access shared files on other computers. If you can’t, or you want to share individual folders, keep reading.

There is a folder on my hard drive that I want all users of my home network to be able to access. To share this folder, simply right click and choose Share.

If you do not see something similar to this, you must have ‘Use Sharing Wizard’ disabled. To enable it, type in ‘Folder Options’ in the Start Menu search bar, select view and tick Use Sharing Wizard.

Now to share files with every computer on the network without a password, you have to add Everyone to be allowed access to the folder. So what you have to do is type the word ‘Everyone’ in the text bar and click add. Click on the Permission Level and choose Co-owner, then click share. Everyone on the network should now be able to access and change files in that folder. If you only want to allow read access, simply choose ‘Reader’.

If Sharing Wizard is switched off, pretty much follow the same principles. Right click on folder you want to share, and choose Share. Then click on Advance Sharing, then click on Permission, Click on Add, type in Everyone and click OK. Then set the appropriate access controls, and click OK to all the open dialog boxes.

You should now be able to access the folders on network computers without using a password. But remember, not using a password enables all networked computers to access your files, so be careful about the files you share. If you are still having problems with file sharing on Vista, make sure you ask for help in the comments.

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My requirements were pretty simple. I wanted a little character in the lower right corner of the screen that talks to me and interacts with me when I want it to, and otherwise keeps its trap shut when I don’t. I wanted a little dude that’s helpful and functional, but wouldn’t get in the way when I wanted to click on the screen.

With all of these requirements listed, I struck out in search of a cool application that could accomplish all of these things. Needless to say, I was terribly disappointed for many hours. As my search grew old, I almost gave up. Other than countless websites with viruses or malware doubled as an alleged virtual desktop characters – there was no legitimate application to be found. That is until I landed on the very last link that I found – and then like that I discovered the perfect app, simply called DeskBot. Let me introduce you to my brand new free talking desktop buddy.

DeskBot, The Free Talking Desktop Buddy – It’s For Real

First of all, kudos to Gordon Bell at BellCraft Technologies for developing this cool little app and offering it for free. After installing the base application from the download page and running it, you’ll immediately discover a little blue Genie in the lower right corner of your screen, and you’re presented with the settings window.

The two features you can set up on this first screen are the ability for your character to read any text that you highlight and copy in a digitized voice, and in various intervals (which you can set), your little desktop buddy will tell you the current time. The next few tabs let you configure everything about the character.

The software comes default with the Genie or Merlin, and you can set the voice, the animations, whether a balloon appears when your character talks, and a whole bunch of other customizations. Now, as an aid for those learning to read or elderly who can’t read the small text on the screen, the next “Read” tab is fantastic.

Your desktop buddy is prepared, at any time, to read entire texts out loud for you. Just copy and paste the text into this screen and click on the green “Read” button – and your character comes to life and starts reading to you, complete with a pop-up balloon (if you’ve configured one). Now, the next tab is my favorite part of this little app.

This is where you can configure a variety of greetings that your little buddy will greet you with when your computer first starts up. I have to say, hearing the Microsoft digitized voice saying, “Let’s rock and roll” had me on the floor in stitches laughing. Honestly, the standard voices and characters just don’t cut it for me – they’re way too 1990’s for my taste. Thankfully, the DeskBot download page offers downloads for additional Microsoft Agent characters and voices (including French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish).

To be honest, the default characters remind me too much of those annoying little animated guys in Word and Excel that keep getting in your way. So, searching through the characters, I found the guy I wanted – a bouncer guy wearing the most hilarious bright green suit.

This guy is a riot. When he’s bored he puts on sunglasses, drinks from a soda can and then chucks it off screen (complete with the sound effects of the clinking can).

Your new friend will greet you every time you start up your computer. You can open up entire text files and have your talking desktop buddy dictate the text while you finish other tasks. Your character will let you know the time as often as you like, and even while you’re working and don’t need the help, your little friend will wait patiently, snoozing or sleeping, until you need something.

Deskbot – link

Have you ever made use of any other applications with Microsoft Agent technology? Can you think of any other cool uses for DeskBot? Share your opinions in the comments section below.

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The command line lets you communicate directly with your computer and instruct it to perform various tasks. For this you have to use specific commands. The commands are not necessarily intuitive, so they have to be learned, just like words in a language. Fortunately, there are graphical user interfaces (GUIs) replacing most procedures that formerly required using the command line.

However, sometimes using the command line is quicker or even the only way to access certain information. Thus knowing how to use the command line can be extremely valuable. And that’s where this Windows command guide comes in.

To access the Windows command line in XP, click > START > Run, type cmd into the > Open: field, and click > OK.

Alternatively, you can go through > Start > All Programs > Accessories and select > command prompt.

This launches cmd.exe, a window that reminds us of the old days in computer history: pure white text on a uniform black background. Despite its resemblance to a DOS windows, cmd.exe merely is a command line interpreter merely similar to DOS.

Now that you have successfully accessed the command prompt, what is there to do here?

To operate at command prompt level, you need to know some commands. Let me give you some basics to play with.

Help

First let me say that there is intrinsic help in the command prompt. If you’re not sure whether a certain command really exists or what it does or what switches there are to it, type the command followed by a /? and you shall be enlightened.

Switches

Switches are optional extensions to a command, which change the command’s behavior. We actually saw an example of a switch in the previous section. /? is a switch to any command, explaining its function rather than executing it in any way.

Note that you can add several switches to each command, but always leave a space between the command and each switch.

Now let’s get on with serious commands.

dir

The dir command lists the contents of the current directory.

There are some useful switches to it. For example dir /d (/d being the switch) will list the directory contents in up to three columns. Alternatively, you can use dir /w, which will sort the contents differently. With dir /p the information doesn’t scroll, but pauses at the end of the screen, until you hit a random key for the next screen full of data.

cd

To change directories, use the cd command.

Pick a directory seen in the previous dir listing. Directories are indicated by <DIR> in the directory listing. For example type cd desktop and you will switch into the Desktop directory. Type cd.. to return to the previous directory. To go directly to a specific directory, rather than haggling your way through each single one, type in the entire path. Let’s say you went back to C:\> and want to return to the Desktop directory. Simply type cd documents and settings\administrator\desktop.

Note that switching between drives doesn’t require the cd command. Simply type in the respective drive letter and a colon, e.g. d: to switch.

mkdir

This one is used to make a directory, i.e. create a new directory. Type mkdir name to create a directory called name.

rmdir

To remove a directory, use this command. So that would be rmdir name to remove a directory called name. Only empty directories can be removed.

You can of course create and delete directories located in any other directory, you just have to specify the respective path in your command, starting from where you are.

For example mkdir documents and settings\administrator\test when you’re in C:\ or mkdir administrator\test if you’re already in the documents and settings directory.

del

This is the command to delete files. It works similar to the mkdir and rmdir commands. So you type del example.exe to delete the file example.exe in your directory. If you’re not already in the right directory, you add the respective path.

This was a short list of commands to make you familiar with the command line environment. For an entire list of commands, please refer to this list.

We will now look at some very helpful commands for tasks that can not easily be completed by any other means. For all of them you can use the /? switch, to find out what all you can do with these commands.

driverquery

For a list of all drivers installed on your system, driverquery is the quickest solution.

ping

Ping must be the most popular command line prompt. It’s used to check an IP address and see whether the respective computer is online or responding, i.e. whether network communication between your and that computer is possible.

ipconfig

Here you can reveal network data of your own computer, such as the name of your computer in the network, your IP address or your MAC address.

systeminfo

The command to retrieve extensive information about your system, including Windows serial number, computer model, and available RAM.

This Windows command guide can merely touch on the surface of what the command line can do. For more extensive information, please refer to The Command Line in Windows and PCStats’ WindowsXP Command Prompt Guide.

If you got hooked, you might want to check out the following MakeUseOf articles dealing with the command line. Varun wrote about 10 Windows Command Line Tips You Should Check Out and he introduced Nircmd – A Power Packed Command Line Tool. Mark explained how to Change the Windows User Password via Command Line.

What command do you find most useful?

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If you are stuck with XP or Vista and would like to have a piece of Aero Peek and Aero Shake, no need to get disheartened. This is what I am talking about:

Users over at the WinMatrix forums (the source of many such innovations) has created an excellent software that brings such functionality to Windows XP and Vista. The application is called WinShake and is available for download here. Make sure you download the latest version (2.02 at the time of writing). Written using AutoHotKey, Winshake offers quite a functionality as you shall see:

An improved show desktop which can only hide minimizable windows, leaving the gadgets and sidebars intact, or hide everything to show the entire desktop. It also remembers the minimized programs and can restore them to their previous state even if you fire up more any more applications or windows.

A very good Aero Shak-ish feature: In Windows 7, holding a window’s title bar and shaking it a little, minimizes all other windows letting you concentrate fully on the window, that is under the mouse pointer. Winshake does something similar – hold the shift key and middle click on any window to shake it and minimize all other windows.

A Ctrl + Middle Click on the right end of the taskbar activates the peek functionality similar to Windows 7 peek functionality. While this one lacks the eye candy it certainly does let you peek at your desktop. Using Ctrl + Middle Click on the close button in the title bar of any window, makes it translucent and lets you peek through it at the window underneath.

There is a taskbar peek function as well that lets you peek at specific windows using the taskbar, but that is part of a nag and you can only use that for seven days after which you would need to buy a code to keep running this specific function. All other functions will however keep running even if you don’t shell out those bucks.

The application also offers shortcut keys for the above functions, which are easier to use as opposed to the mouse control, however you can easily disable them if you desire. Alt-Win-D shows the Desktop, Shift-Alt-Win-D restores the windows, Alt-Win-S activates Shake, Shift-Alt-Win-S restores the windows. Alt-Win-Space can be used to activate peek functionality.

If you don’t like the mouse activation commands, you can customize those too using the system tray icon. In addition to that the tray icon gives you access to other settings as well. You can customize animation speeds and transparency levels that will be used while performing various actions.

The application definitely lacks the eye candy you would get if you use similar functionality on Windows 7. That said, it does a pretty decent job of emulating the functionality and if a very good alternative if you are wanting such functionality on Windows XP or Vista.

Also check out Tina’s article on how to make Windows XP to look like Windows 7. She mentions AeroSnap among other things which brings the Windows Seven’s Aero Snap feature to Windows XP as well.

Give Winshake a spin and pour in your thoughts about it. Know some other applications that emulate Windows 7 features? We would love to hear about them as well.

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You want to show someone a letter composed in MS Word, but want to keep some of the content private; or it’s an official letter with some part of it having critical data. As important as these two are, the most common use could involve a normal printing job. Many a time we have to print different versions of a document, one copy for one set of eyes and others for other sets.

Rather than creating multiple copies and therefore multiple printing jobs, what if we could just do it from the same document? That too, without the hassle of repeated cut and paste.

We can, with a simple feature in MS Word – it’s just called Hidden and let me show you how to use it to hide text in Microsoft Word 2007. It’s a simple single click process.

1. Open the document which you want to work upon. The screenshot below shows the before state, i.e. before we activate the Hidden feature.



2. Select the text you want to hide from prying eyes. Right click and choose the Font option from the context menu.



3. Under Effects, put a checkmark against Hidden. Click OK.

The text has done a Houdini act.

But with the important part invisible to the eye, how do we get it back? Houdini usually made dramatic reappearances, MS Word’s Hidden feature doesn’t quite match up but it’s dead easy.

1. Select the entire document with a Select All (Ctrl-A or Toolbar – Editing – Select – Select All). Right click and go back to the Font option again from the context menu.
2. The Hidden setting is solid and active. Click on it once to display the checkmark. Click again to remove the checkmark and unhide all the content. Click OK to exit and reveal the content.



3. Note: There is another way to reveal hidden content. Click on the Office Button – Word Options – Display. Click on the Hidden text formatting marker under Always show these formatting marks on the screen. Any hidden text in the document is revealed underlined with the marker.

Thus, with a simple toggle of a setting you can selectively hide blocks of text, print the documents and then unhide the text again. That’s great, but what if you need to send the document over to someone with hidden content? Then we need to fall back on the Protect Document feature of MS Word for more ironclad security.

Protect Document is a security feature that prevents modification of a text document unless allowed by the author. To start protection, click on the Review tab and go to the Protect group and follow these steps.

1. Click on Protect Document – Restrict Formatting and Editing.



2. Drill down and click on Limit formatting to a selection of styles – Settings under Formatting Restrictions.



3. In the Formatting Restrictions box, select None to disallow formatting for styles.



4. Click OK and then put a check against Allow only this type of editing in the document and keep it set on No Changes (Read Only) in the dropdown.



5. To make the protection active click on Start Enforcement and provide a password to secure the document. Now, you can forward this document to others with the text hidden and protected from changes.

Hidden text as a formatting control is usually more useful for quick print jobs rather than as a secretive cloaking device.

Though, the latter too can be used creatively. Think of school quizzes with the answers hidden. I personally use it to hide and unhide sections while writing. Sometimes, it helps me understand the flow and length (word count) without having to delete any section.

Do you use this feature to hide text? How…or has it stayed hidden and unused?

Image Credit: CarbonNYC

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There are various software available for creating and running virtual machine image. Microsoft’s Virtual PC, VMware, and Sun Microsystems’ VirtualBox to mention a few. Usually, there are several steps you would need to follow in order to create a virtual machine. These include creating a virtual hard disk and then installing the required operating system on the virtual hard disk.

Recently, Microsoft-owned Sysinternals released a utility that would be useful for easily creating a virtual machine image from your existing hard drive contents. This can be very useful if you have one of your computers at home or work set up for a particular task and you want to access all the same tools and software temporarily from your laptop.

The tool is aptly called Disk2vhd. Its a small download and doesn’t require installation. Just fire up the application with administrator rights and you are good to go. It will show you various hard disks and partitions on your computer. Select the one you would like turned into virtual hard disks, hit create and the applications goes about doing its thing.

In the ‘Space Required’ column, Disk2vhd shows you the amount of hard disk space you will need to have in order to create the virtual hard disk from your computer’s partitions. The process could take really long so you might as well go out grab something to eat/drink and come back — and if you are lucky, it would have created the virtual hard disk. The time it requires would depend on the size of the disk you are trying to turn into a virtual hard disk. Generally be prepared to wait for quite a while.

Once the VHD file is created, you can use one of the virtualization apps mentioned above to run a virtual machine off the hard disk image you’ve just created. All three support VHD files. Here are the details in case you want to look into them.

In addition, Vista (and now Windows 7) users can mount .vhd files as regular hard disks as well. Follow these steps:

• Right click on My Computer icon and choose ‘Manage’.
• Listed under Storage, choose ‘Disk Management’.

• From the Action menu, choose Attach VHD, browse to the location of the VHD file, check read-only if you want to safeguard the contents against modification and click OK.

• You will now be able to access it like a regular hard disk.

Disk2vhd is a great tool that lets you create a virtual machine image from your existing hard disk setup. The tool does all this from within the operating system without requiring you to boot from a CD. You can easily take your current computer and run it as a virtual machine on another computer. One thing you would require is free hard disk space.

What do you think of it? Do you know about similar tools? Share them with everyone in the comments.

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It is convenient to hop over to web services like MyLiveSignature or Retaggr and get yourself an embeddable signature. It’s easy but it ain’t that much fun for the really creative souls among us. I use the online services myself as business cards and signatures, but sometimes I feel like standing away from the crowd. After all shouldn’t a signature be – one of a kind?

Gmail’s covered. Now let’s do a bit of rummaging around in MS Outlook and see if we can setup a nice, neat and nifty personal signature simply with the tools we have.

We have one – the right side of our brain, and Outlook has the other – Clipart. Clipart is a neutral choice if you don’t like to include your own photo. Also, you have cliparts covering a wide range of moods and environments.

Before deciding on the style of your signature, you might want to consider the information to include and the mail account to use the signature in. Deciding on the graphic you want to use is a particularly important detail to chew over.

To create a new email signature in MS Outlook 2007, the usual route is to start with Tools – Options – Mail Format. And then click on Signature to open the Signatures and Stationery dialog box.

Instead, we will take a different approach by creating an email signature in a new message body and then do a copy-paste on to the Edit Signatures dialog box. This approach, gives us more formatting controls (as the editor is based on MS Word) and the use of the Clipart gallery. With creativity as your playground, here’s how…

1. Click on New – Mail Message to open a blank email.
2. For a better control over the layout you can use tables. From the ribbon click on Insert tab – Table to draw a table with the appropriate number of rows and columns. As in the illustration, I have used a 2×2 table with the bottom two rows merged.



3. In the first cell, you can insert your own picture or a clipart. Place the cursor on the first cell. On the Insert tab, in the Illustrations group, click on Clip Art.



4. In the Clip Art task pane – Search for field, key in a word or phrase that describes the clip art that you want, or type in all or some of the file name of the clip art. Click on the one clipart to insert it in the cell.



5. The other cells can now be filled with your contact info or any custom content and hyperlinks too.
6. As a final design step you can decide to keep the borders of the table or set it to none for a more seamless look.



7. The signature is complete. All that’s left is to select the entire signature (i.e. the table) and copy it to the Signatures and Stationery dialog box.
8. Open the Signatures and Stationery dialog box as mentioned in the beginning. Click on New and type in a name for the signature in the New Signature field.



9. Paste the signature in the Edit Signature field area. Click on OK.



10. You can set it as the default for a particular mail account.
11. Alternatively, to use it, place the cursor in an appropriate location in the email body and click on Signature on the ribbon to select.

Just like the real deal, email signatures also carry a reflection of your personality. In a business setting, it is especially important to be clear, concise and exact. So create your signature with these tenets in mind.

Using a clipart is just one way. Sometimes the text information could be more important than snazzy graphics because a lot among us set emails for plain text format.

Have you given a thought to your email signature?

Image Credit: Gunnar Wrobel

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Today, I will show you how to put your old otherwise junky desktop to great use as a Home Media Server. Lets begin!

(For more cool articles on how to build home media servers, check out these articles by Damien on how to set up a Media Server [Part 2] using Linux. Or if you are ready to invest some cash check out our PDF guide on How To Build A Great Media Center For Your Home.)

In this installation guide on how to build home media servers, I am using an old, reinstalled version of Windows XP SP3 with a 1TB Hitachi hard disk drive. (Note: This should work equally well on Windows Vista with User Account Control (UAC) off and an Administrator account set up on the server.)

Start by clicking “Start” and “Control Panel.” Select “Network Setup Wizard.” Press next twice and then select “This computer connects to the internet thorough a residential…” and then select “Next.”

Enter a name and description for your server and then click “Next.” In the next window, leave “MSHOME” as the workgroup name and then click “Next.”

Now, select the “Tun on Windows File and Printer Sharing” option and click “Next.” Make sure the info is right and click “Next” again. On the following screen select “Just finished;” and then click “Next” and “Finished.”

Since we now have your home server connected to your home network we need to actually start allowing for the storing and sharing on files on the network. To do this, find a directory, for example, C:\ and then create a new folder called whatever you like. Now, right-click on the folder and click “Network Sharing and Security”. When the Security and Sharing window loads, select “Share this Folder on the Network” and “Allow Network User to Change My Files.”

Now that you have a shared home server directory set up you need to be able to start sharing your files! To do so, simply go to your other computer(s) that you wish to access these files at and click on “Start” and then right-click on “My Computer” and select “Map Network Drive.” Now, click “Browse” and select the name of the home server and click the “+” beside it to expand the options and click the folder that we just created.

To access your newly established home media server, simply go to “My Computer” and double-click on the drive you created and your in! You should now be able to copy and paste files to your hearts desire! (If Windows asks you for a username and password, enter your username and password for your home server account.)

Do you use a Home Media Server? What do you use it for? Tell us in the comments!

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Did I forget to mention that the ebook folder was really filled with a lot of titles? It must have had almost 120 ebooks. I almost started manually typing the names when I figured that there must be a less laborious way to print out the directory contents.

Printing directory contents seems so mundane an activity that we forget it has very useful applications in our day to day usage. Especially in a professional setting where you might be told to send over a list of so and so files about such and such subject. In a jiffy. If it’s a small bunch of files then manually writing it down is not a problem. But what if it numbers a few dozen?

Instead of searching for a poor flunky to lend a hand, you can just tap a few keys and get it for yourself. All in double quick time with a few methods.

So let’s work on not one but five ways to print folder and directory contents and get that file list.

Command DOS

This is one command line that’s easy to remember and easy to do.

1. Start the command prompt from Run – cmd. Type cd and the directory path of the folder you want to list.
2. Type dir > print.txt
3. Press Enter and exit from the DOS window.
4. Open the folder you wanted the listed file content for and you should see a print.txt file. This is a simple Notepad file that can be copied or printed easily.

Setting A Contextual Menu

A print directory feature can be added to the right-click context menu for a folder. This sends the folder content list directly to the printer. For Windows XP follow these steps:

1. Create a batch file in Notepad by pasting the following text
   

   @echo off
   dir %1 /-p /o:gn > “%temp%\Listing”
   start /w notepad /p “%temp%\Listing”
   del “%temp%\Listing”
   exit

2. Save the file as %windir%\Printdir.bat
   
3. Open Control Panel – Folder Options. Click on the File Types tab. Under the registered file types select the entry for Folder. Click on Advanced.
4. In the Edit File Type box, click on New. In the Action box, type Print Directory Listing. In the Application used to perform action box, type printdir.bat.
5. Click on OK and close all boxes.
6. Right-click on any folder and use the Print Directory Listing command to send the list to the printer.

The above instructions and those for Windows Vista can also be found on the Microsoft Help and Support page.

Software solutions introduce a lot of ease and flexibility to the above process. Here are three freeware apps for the listing job:

Karen’s Power Tool

Karen’s Directory Printer brings with it a GUI and rich features that let you print the name of files on your computer with the file’s size, extension, date and time of last modification, and attributes. Also, the list of files can be sorted by name, size, date created, date last modified, or date of last access. Files can also be selectively listed using a filter. Some limited formatting options and selective highlighting for executable files and macros are available.

Karen’s Directory Printer can be included in the right-click context menu. It also works for networked computers. The file list can be sent to the printer or saved as a text file.

Karen’s Directory Printer (v 5.3.1) is a 1.25MB download compatible with Windows XP and Vista.

Display it with Directory List & Print

Directory List & Print is a simpler and smaller solution to the earlier one. The generated lists can be copied to the clipboard and incorporated in other programs. It can be directly inserted into Word and Excel with a click as the data is separated by tabs allowing error free pasting directly into a program like Excel as a table. Along with the file attributes, the program can control the display of file names with or without file extensions. Sorting of the list and integration into the context menus make this a nice alternative to use.

Directory List & Print (v 1.9) does not need an installation which makes this 603KB software a portable solution. The freeware is compatible with Windows 98/2000/XP/Vista.

More Options with JR Directory Printer

This freeware comes in as an even smaller download of 173KB. Select the folder or directory to list, check the display options and click on start to get the list as a text file. The freeware supports lowercase/DOS style filename, file size in KB/bytes, attributes and custom file length. Though the freeware lacks the data control options of the previous applications, it’s a simple utility for a simple task. The download can be unzipped and used without an installation.

JR Directory Printer (v1.2) is compatible with Windows 95/98/2000/NT/ME/XP.

Windows may not have given us the ability to print out folder contents in a user friendly way. But thanks to the workarounds and the freeware, it’s actually a snap. Do you know any other utility to print the contents of a folder? Let us know your way if it differs from any of the above.

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Think of rules as traffic cops who direct and move (email) traffic and streamline the flow. Rules are specific sets of instructions that are applied to messages under a specific set of conditions. Rules are applicable for messages as well as RSS feeds.

All Outlook rules broadly are of two types – those that deal with organizing your emails by moving it around and those that notify you when some action occurs.

The best things about rules are that they can be selectively applied, applied in combination, automatically run or even run manually. Think about it, in the absence of rules, we would have had to spend considerable time sifting through the emails by hand one at a time.

One of the most often used application for rules are when you want to organize emails in Outlook and move emails to a folders automatically as they land in the inbox. The obvious benefit of shunting emails automatically is cleanliness and organization. The rule is best suited for mails which arrive frequently – like newsletters, email updates or feeds. Such mails are usually kept in ‘storage’ for later reading.

So, creating personal folders for such mails are the first thing, creating a system to automatically organize those emails into these folders is the next.

1. Setup a folder or folders for saving the emails (e.g. Job, Family, Pals, and Newsletters etc).
2. You can create a rule directly from a message. Right-click on the email you want to automatically move to the special folder. Click on Create Rule.
3. In the Create Rule box that opens up, you can select one or more conditions and the follow through actions by checking the boxes. As shown, you can screen the email by sender address (or distribution list), subject and/or recipient. You can also set a sound alert or a desktop New Item Alert for the incoming mail. To move the email to a specific folder, checkmark Move the item to folder. Click on the Select folder button to select the folder or click on New for a new one.
4. Click on OK to confirm the new rule. All emails satisfying the new rule will get moved automatically to the folder from now. If you instantly want to run the rule, check Run this rule now on messages already in the current folder.
5. Further fine-tune the rule if you want by clicking on Advanced Options. The advanced option wizard lets you select other conditions, select a range of actions to perform on them and select exceptions to the rules if any.

   The rules setup concludes at the final screen where you can specify a descriptive name for the rule, turn it on and review it for any changes.

   

   So, thought of interesting plays with the rules? Let’s see… you can move mails with attachments to another folder but with an exception that it’s within a set size range. Another good use is to assign a priority level to incoming mail so you can deal with the more important ones first and leave the rest for later.

Alternatively, instead of selecting a single message to start a new rule, you can also start create a rule from scratch using the wizard by opening it from Tools – Rules and Alerts – New Rule.

In Step 1: Select a template. Under the entries of Stay organized,  select Move messages from someone to a folder.

In Step 2: Edit the rule description – click on the underlined link for people or distribution list to set the From address filter. Next, click on the specified folder link to set the target folder.

The next sequences of steps are the same as in the Advanced Options wizard.

Many interesting automatic actions can be performed on your emails with a combination of different rules. Remember, rules are performed in sequence as shown in the Rules and Alerts box. Rules can always be edited at any step and also their order changed.

Instant tips?

For speedier processing, combine some of your rules with common actions and organize the order in which they are to be triggered. For special cases, you can set the Stop Processing action after a specific rule has run.

Rules are a faster way to better manage your emails and keep some aspects of your inbox on auto-pilot. Outlook 2007 rules are a flexible way to free up a lot of email management chores. Do you use rules to as productivity boosters? What are some of the unique cases you apply them on?

Learn more by watching the Microsoft How-to video here.

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Tagging is commonplace around blogs and websites, MakeUseOf too has its own tagcloud. We all agree that it’s a speedy way to scour out a web resource; nearly single click in its utility. We are so used to it that we perhaps miss it as a feature in Windows.

Windows XP was born much before Web 2.0 came about. So, there’s the easy explanation. Vista of course has file tagging and Vista Quick Search as a feature but with a leaning towards only Office docs and a few limitations for certain file types like TXT, RTF, and PNG etc. Even then with all ifs and buts, Vista’s search is better for it. Windows XP meanwhile lags behind, huffing and puffing in its file search.

To plug the want, there is always one or the other software. You might have tried out the previously mentioned TaggedFrog. Another of its type is Tag2Find.

There was a brief mention of it some time back. So, let’s take a closer look at how Tag2Find saves us XP users (why not Vista’s too?) some grunt work.

Tag2Find (ver. 0.10.2.5) is a 2.23 MB freeware that allows us to tag Windows files and make our search less tedious. According to the site, it’s still in the technical preview stage and the developers are looking to make further improvements.

The First Steps to Tag Windows Files

There are three pre-requisites for installing Tag2Find on your machine –

• Windows XP (Home, Professional) or Vista (32-bit)
• NET Runtime 2.0
• NTFS-formatted file system

For installation, you need administer privileges on your system. The installation runs through a few configuration screens for setting up the location of the internal tag database which stores all the tag info.

Another sequence of steps is for selecting the files/folders and the extensions you want to tag during the initial setup (The Intial Tagging Wizard). That done the installer shows a brief video clip revealing how tag2find should be used. Don’t worry, it’s a cinch.

Tag2find covers all locations that make it easy to tag Windows files – desktop, explorer toolbar, system tray and the right click context menu.

Quickie tagging…

During installation, the Initial Tagging Wizard helps out by letting you select the files, folders and extensions which you want to include in your tags. The wizard can be opened later on too.

You can tag your Windows files by a selection or a drag and drop using three different approaches –

• By a drag and drop on the Tag2Find explorer toolbar icon.
• By right-clicking on the selected file and using the context menu.
• By using the Floating Tag Box manually.

Going for any of these three processes opens up a Tag2Find window. The window displays the entire tag list, some suggested tags and info on the file that is to be tagged. Clicking on Details gives you additional file information and a preview if available.

Tag2Find also makes it simple for new files by actively monitoring selected file locations (watched folders). The New File Monitor pops up like an alert box and gives you a quick way to tag the file.

Find them out using tags

Tags wouldn’t be of much help if we don’t have an equally easy way of using tags to shortlist the files we want. Fill in the tag search term in the Tag2Find field box to display the files labeled by the tag in the Results Preview. Open the files from within the preview window or drag and drop it elsewhere. You can also view related tags by entering a comma after the first one. A plus is the graphical bar which is color coded to indicate the relative usage of the file in terms of the tag.

Get the big picture using the TagBrowser

The TagBrowser is like the centerpiece for all your tags. Browse, sort or filter your tags from the explorer like browser window. TagBrowser is also the tool for mass management of all  tags. Edit tags or set new ones for a bunch of files for rapid organization. One click filters easily set apart documents from other file types like movies and music.

What’s a tag without a tag cloud? The TagBrowser has the option of displaying all your tags either as a tag cloud (with the relative sizes for importance) or as a list.

This is not all there is to it the free software. Some little extras can be found within the settings for TagBrowser. Decide on the color of the tags, set the transparency of the Floating Tag Box, import export tags, auto-play and preview media files in TagBrowser or the tag detail pop-up make it quite a rounded application.

First impressions…

On first install and use, some users might just stop short, just because we are so used to web tags. The initial pause done away with, Tag2Find provides lots of flexible ways to tag all your files. Searching by tag is also snappy. It’s almost like an Explorer replacement… addition of an Explorer-like directory structure might just make it one. The PDF help file provided on the site makes the learning curve less acute. The beginning looks and feels good.

If you are an old XP hand (or even a Vista user), give file tagging with Tag2Find a shot. Who knows it might be the ticket for a better organized computer. Are you familiar with any other tool to tag Windows files? Let us know in comments!

Image Credit: rooneyjohn

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Now, here’s the tricky part. In my home network, we have 2 Macs and one PC running on Windows XP. The UMTS device connects via USB. How do we decide who gets to use it? We put our thinking caps on and finally decided that it would be easier to share the internet connection using one of the Macs. I rolled up my sleeves and got to work.

Internet sharing between Macs is basically very easy but if you add a Windows PC into the mix, things get a little problematic. Sharing the internet connection between Mac and PC turned out to be harder than I thought. I’ll explain why in a minute. But first, let’s just assume that we only needed to share the connection between 2 (or more) Macs via AirPort (WiFi). It’s very simple.

Open System Preferences and click on Sharing.

Before Internet Sharing can be enabled, you first have to configure the proper settings.

In the ‘Share your connection from’ dropdown list, select the port that has internet connectivity. In the screenshot above, I have “Ethernet” selected when it actually should be USB — ignore that. Then select how you would like to share the connectivity. I chose AirPort so that I can share the connection with several other computers. Checking the box next to ‘AirPort’ unbricks the ‘Airport options’ button.

Click on that button and configure your network name and security options.

Alright, here’s where the whole Windows and Mac concoction starts to rear its ugly head. Due to the different methods that the two operating systems deals with Hex encryption, the password you enter here will not be easily accepted by Windows. A Windows PC will be able to detect the wireless network but it will not be able to join.

Here’s the workaround. Select the 128-bit WEP encryption option and enter a 13-character password. Then, rename the network to something really short without spaces. When you’re done, hit OK.

Now you can check the box next to ‘Internet Sharing’. You may get a prompt to start AirPort, click Start. Right, the connection is shared. Macs detect the network automatically (and so will iPhones and iPod touches) and will connect to it as though it’s a regular router.

On the Windows PC, a little bit of manipulation is required. Turn on the wireless adapter and right-click on its taskbar icon to select “View available wireless networks”. In the subsequent window, click on “Change advanced settings”.

Click on the Wireless Networks tab and then click the ‘Add’ button to add our shared network.

Print the network name accurately, then set the network authentication to ‘Shared’, data encryption to ‘WEP’, uncheck the box next to “This key is provided for me automatically” and enter the 13-character password.

Click on the Authentication tab and disable IEEE 802.1x authentication. Next, click on the Connection tab and make sure that it will connect when in range. Click OK and apply the settings.

It should now try to connect to the shared AirPort connection. Cross your fingers. This sort of busts the myth that Macs and Windows won’t work well together, doesn’t it?

I noted a few oddities during the whole procedure: 40-bit WEP encryption didn’t work when trying to share the internet connection between Macs and PC. The password was always incorrect. Then I changed it to 128-bit and everything was well. Also, the network name must not contain any spaces. The Windows PC wouldn’t connect to “Jackson Chung’s MacBook” but it connected with “jxn”.

How would you go about this procedure from a Window’s point of view? I would love to hear it. Tell me how — in the comments!

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With the case of MS Word documents, usually it’s right before we press the save button. Bang! All that unsaved hard work goes down as lost bytes. But for a failsafe device built into MS Word.

AutoRecover is the supposedly goof-proof mechanism that can get back our documents after an accidental closure. By default, MS Word 2007 makes an automatic file save every 10 minutes. I am an average Joe, but there are times when I can get a lot done in 10 minutes. Sometimes, I am an average dunce too because I forget to continuously save the work. That’s why the need to pay closer attention to the AutoRecover setting makes for good foresightedness.

AutoRecover is not a productivity substitute for the normal save operation. Saving our files consistently and continuously is a best practice.

AutoRecover to the rescue

1. Following a crash or an abnormal close of a document, the Document Recovery Task Pane appears with a prompt when Word is restarted.



2. The pane on the left hand side lists the files (usually three of the most recent) that Word managed to recover.



3. The file name is qualified by a status indicator which gives an idea of the stage of recovery. Original indicates that the file is the same as was during the last manual save. Autosaved indicates that the file has managed to recover data between the last manual save and up to the last AutoRecover process.
4. With the Document Recovery Task Pane, you can open and check the files for lost content. Save the most recent version (or all of them) and delete the rest.

Where are the auto-recovered backups stored?

1. By default the files are placed as temporary files here (Windows XP) - C:\Documents and Settings\[User]\Application Data\Microsoft\Word. The files have the extension ASD (Word Automatic Backup).
2. The AutoRecover location can be modified by providing an alternate folder location. Click on the Office button – Word Options – Advanced – Scroll down to the General section on the right hand pane – Click on File Locations – Modify the location for AutoRecover under File Types by assigning a different folder.

Insure your documents by changing the AutoRecover interval

As mentioned before, MS Word normally auto-saves a document every 10 minutes. Is it too much for you or is it too less? A few steps into Word’s settings and you can change the interval to your liking. If you are the forgetful sort, a more frequent auto-save could be the pill.

1. Start with the Office button.
2. Click on Word Options. Go to Save found on the left hand column. For the section Save Documents, come to the entry – Save AutoRecover information every X minutes.



3. Change the time interval to your liking. Every 5 minutes should be just fine.

AutoRecover consumes resources, so too frequent an interval could hit performance.

Microsoft Office Suite has the AutoRecover option enabled for Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Publisher, Visio and Word. In OneNote, a five second auto-save is the default (That’s why it does not have a Save button.)

In a perfect world the practice of save early and save would be followed to the letter. Unfortunately, our world isn’t one. That’s why the AutoRecover option does its best to safeguard our hard work.

Is your auto-recovery set to the default? How often has it brought you back from the brink?

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A small download, Default Programs Editor is portable and doesn’t need any installation. It can be used for doing things like editing context menus for a file type or to set default programs or managing Autoplay handlers. Default Programs Editor works in a wizard-like mode making it super easy to make such changes.

You can edit File Type Settings which include editing the default program used to open a file type, changing the context menu entries for a file type and changing the description and icon. As an example when I used 7-Zip to extract a RAR file for the first time on my computer, the RAR file automatically got an ugly white 7-Zip icon. So how can I change the default icon for RAR files?

You can suggest I use the built in Windows tools and spend the next 15 minutes trying to figure out how to do it or perhaps edit the registry. Here is how it is down with Default Programs Editor:

• I went to IconFinder, searched for a suitable icon and downloaded it.
• Next I clicked on File type settings in Default Programs Editor, then clicked on Icon.
• In the search box I typed .rar, chose RAR file and clicked next.

• Clicked browse and chose the icon file I wanted to use and then clicked Save Icon and it was done already.

Similarly you can change the context menu entries and description easily.

Another important function you can use Default Programs Editor in addition to being able to set default programs is  for managing the AutoPlay Handler. AutoPlay handlers appear on the list when you plus in a USB drive, or insert a Blank CD, or connect your iPod. You can change which options appear when you insert a certain media, as well as create your own AutoPlay Handlers.

• Click on the type of media you want to edit the handlers for
• In the next screen, you can edit the existing handlers, delete the ones you don’t want or add new ones

• Clicking on Add will give you a list of handlers that already exist but may not be used for the type of media you are editing for.

• If you don’t find what you want in here, you can also create your own handlers. Just click on Add a new handler, specify the action name, program and icon and you are done.

Lastly you can change program associations with the minimum of fuss. Choose the third option (Default Programs Settings). You can now see a list of all registered programs and the file types they handle. Click on the one you want to assign to/revoke from a file type, click next and check/uncheck the file type under question. For example if you want iTunes to handle all .mp3 files, click on iTunes, click next and place a check against .mp3.

All these settings are of course stored in the registry. Default Programs Editor allows you to create reg files for the changes you just made so that you can just double click the reg file to apply the settings in future or apply them on another computer (provided the software and/or files are available).

To create a reg file just click on the downward pointing arrow in the final step and choose the appropriate option.

Default Programs Editor is a great, light wieght portable application that you can use for tasks like above without requiring full on tweaking utilities. If you know of other similar programs let us know in the comments.

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Why are we discussing a world body in a tech site? It’s because they lend their name to a well known file format too.

The ISO file (.iso) is just an archive file format of an optical disk. It can be said to be an exact clone of a file system because it’s a byte for byte copy of a disk with all of its data and metadata. It’s a popular format for downloads and transport over the internet. Anyone who has downloaded a game, an OS like a Linux distro, or an OS update would know them by sight. Also, being an open standard format along with another called UDF it’s supported by all optical disc software.

ISO is not the only one of its kind. There are others, each created by a disk manufacturer and his competitor. Some others you may have come across include – img, bin, mdf, mds etc.

So how does one deal with these ISO files? There are several easy ways :

• You can burn them directly to a disk.
• You can open them like an archive (remember they are uncompressed archives) using archive tools like WinRAR.
• You can mount them and treat it like a virtual drive.

Using widely available tools called free virtual drive software or Disk Emulators, it’s easy to mount an ISO file (or a disk for that matter) and use it as one would with a disk loaded in the CD tray.

Let’s load with three simple and free virtual drive tools.

Virtual CloneDrive

Virtual CloneDrive is a light 1.5 MB download which supports all common image formats such as ISO, BIN, IMG, CCD, UDF, DVD etc.

Mounting an image file is as simple as double clicking it or selecting it with a browse from the system tray. Virtual CloneDrive can mount up to 15 virtual drives at the same time.

Virtual CloneDrive is supported by Windows 98/98SE/ME/2000/XP/XP64/Vista/Vista64.

Note: During the installation an alert that Virtual CloneDrive has not passed the Windows Driver Signature Test and the Windows Logo Test crops up. Ignore and continue with the installation.

MagicDisc

MagicDisc is another light free virtual drive tool, downloading at 1.3MB. MagicDisc supports a large number of image formats like –

BIN, IMA/IMG, CIF, NRG, IMG/CCD, MDF/MDS, VCD, VaporCD, P01/MD1/XA, VC4/000, VDI, C2D, BWI/BWT, CDI, TAO/DAO and PDI.

MagicDisc allows for the creation of 15 virtual drives and can also mount images on a networked machine. Mounting images is easy as the program also comes with an automatic image detection engine. MagicDisc can be set to auto-mount images after a reboot.

MagicDisc also comes bundled with a lot of other features like –

• It can make ISO images from a physical disk.
• It has the ability to compress and encrypt ISO files.
• It features an interface that can decompress UIF images to ISO format.

MagicDisc (v2.7.106) is supported by Windows 98/98SE/ME/2000/XP /Vista/7.

DAEMON Tools Lite

DAEMON Tools Lite is the bulkiest of the trio with a 7.3MB download size. It is free for personal use. DAEMON Tools Lite supports a large number of image formats like –

b5t (BlindWrite images)/b6t (BlindWrite images)/bwt (BlindRead images)/ccd (CloneCD images)/cdi (DiscJuggler images)/cue (Cue sheets)/ iso (Standard ISO images)/mds (Media Descriptor Files)/nrg (Nero images)/ pdi (Instant CD/DVD images)/ isz (Compressed ISO images).

DAEMON Tools Lite gives us four virtual drives to work with. The image files can be mounted from the tray icon with a right or a left click. An image catalog saves a record of all image files mounted.

Also, the DAEMON Tools Panel gives a convenient interface to all functions of DAEMON Tools.

The Mount’n'Drive Manager bookmarks all your image files to give one touch access to mount and use them. The manager handles all mounting and un-mounting functions of the image files.

The Disc Imaging utility is a handy for creating image files in MDS or ISO format from physical disks. The data can also be compressed or encrypted with a password.

The program’s settings also lists a host of functions like auto-mounting, blocking un-mounting while image is in use, hot key settings, association settings with image formats and an Advanced Tab which handles copy protection features.

DAEMON Tools Lite (v4.30.4) is supported by Windows 98/98SE/ME/2000/XP /Vista/7.

Any of these three free virtual drive tools can stand up to the task of handling virtual disk jobs.We have previously featured a few other image mounting software’s on these posts…

How To Rip & Mount Multiple ISO Images Easily
Mount Zip Files, CD/DVD Images & Encrypt Folders
Mount CD or DVD Image Files Virtually Using A Portable App

Which one is your pick? Let us know about your favorite tools to mount disks and ISO images.

Image Credit: bobbigmac

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