Xcopy command was missing in Windows Vista , but it is now back in Windows 7 and even a switch is added to the extension list

INSTALLATION

After downloading the Windows Vista IP Configuration Tool package, simply copy its three files to a folder :

• XCopy Tool.hta
• FileCab.ico
• XCopy Tool-ReadMe.doc

USING THE TOOL

1. To launch the tool, Just double click on the HTA file

2. The shown screen is displayed and one can move the pointer over a switch to see the function of the switch.

3. Click the Select Source and Select Destination buttons and make your folder/ drive selections.

4. After confirming the source and destination folders , you can begin selecting options.

5. You can then choose from any of the 30 available XCopy command options. But you must know about Xcopy command and know how the combinations of different options work.

6. After you click ‘OK’, you’ll be prompted to confirm the operation before you proceed.

7. After you click ‘OK’, a Command Prompt window will open and display the result.

1. XML Notepad 2007

It is a basic, small yet powerful XMl editor. it hosts a tree view pane with colored view of classes, tags and values. You can customise and choose fonts as per your liking. Some of the other features are drag and drop, find and replace, incremental search, instant XML schema validation, a built-in XML Diff tool, and much more. A great free XML editor option for all users.

2. Virtual PC 2007

It is a extremely useful program which allows you to run multiple operating systems at the same time on the same physical computer. Virtual PC 2007 is easy to install and easy to use. It is supported by Windows 7 as well as Vista and XP. Microsoft also has a number of preconfigured VHDs  containing sample copies of Windows XP and Windows Vista which you may download  and install for testing purpose.

3. World Wide Telescope

This tool from Microsoft Research provides you with a virtual telescope. this brings to you amazing imagery from Hubble Space Telescope and approximately 10  earthbound telescopes. One can view unthinkable views of outer space. Also you may zoom into a area as much as data available may allow. You may focus on the bodies that interest you. A great offering by Microsoft.

4 Visual Web Developer 2008 Express  Edition

If you are one who is on lookout for a light , easy to use tool for Web development, this is a must for you. Moreover it is free. It is aimed at amateur or intermediate level users. It has capabilities to allow you to develop variety of web sites from basic html based sites to advanced ASP.net or based on SQL Server. You also have been provided by a video which shows you some of the basic features and how to productively use them.

5. Paint.NET

Developed from a college project into a full fledged Microsoft application, Paint.Net provides you with simple, easy to use interface with vast capabilities for image editing with plus layers, special effects, and support for a wide range of image formats. It has huge number of tutorials, videos etc on net. It is also supported on Windows 7.

Here is how Windows System Restore works and how to prevent it using up your a lot of space of your hard disk using a command line tool.

Windows Vista System Restore is designed to take snapshots of system state before you initiate certain kinds of operations as updates etc. These checkpoints or restore points can be used by the users to revert back to system state before installation in case something goes wrong after the installation.The snapshots or restore points are created by Volume Shadow Copy Service in Windows Vista.

In Windows XP you could you can vary the amount of hard disk space used by System Restore utility but in Vista there is no GUI option to alter the amount of space occupied by System Restore. But you can use VSSAdmin command-line tool to manage the Volume Shadow Copy Service and by extension System Restore.

1. Right Click on Command Prompt and run it as administrator.

2. Command :

• vssadmin list shadows : Gives list of all restore points currently saved
• vssadmin list volumes : Gives volumes that are available for shadow copies
• vssadmin list shadowstorage : Shows amount of space is allocated and how much is currently being used for shadow copies

3. Usually Vista automatically allocates 15 percent of a drive’s total space or 30 percent of a drive’s available space (whichever is less) for Shadow Copy storage but in certain cases it might be set to unbound resulting in System Restore occupying tremendously large amounts of space. You can reset the maximum value with the VSSAdmin tool with the following command :

vssadmin resize shadowstorage

You need to follow this command by a number of switches :

• /for= followed by a drive letter (this specifies the volume for which the maximum amount of storage space is to be resized)
• /on= again followed by a drive letter (this specifies the storage volume)
• /maxsize= followed by a value (this specifies the maximum amount of space that can be used for storing shadow copies).The size is to be entered as value as a digit or series of digits followed by a unit indicator.

For example if YOu wish to limit Shadow storage in C: drive to 10 GB ,

vssadmin resize shadowstorage /for=c: /on=c: /maxsize=10GB

4. Restart you computer and see the changes come into effect as the freed space available for your own use.

[via : techrepublic]

If you are new to windows 7 , then gadgets are small applications that can be added on to your desktop for fun or utility. They can be accessed via the desktop context menu.

To disable them follow the following steps.

Go to the Control Panel, then type “features” in the search box, you will see various options on the screen as shown below. Now click on the link  “turn windows feature on or off”.

In the next window UNCHECK the box next to Windows Gadget Platform.

Finally restart your computer and your job is done. Now you need not be bothered about gadgets.

]]> http://techreviews.in/disable-gadgets-in-windows-7/feed/ 3 http://techreviews.in/my-top-3-gadgets-fo-windows-7/ http://techreviews.in/my-top-3-gadgets-fo-windows-7/#comments Tue, 22 Sep 2009 17:48:49 +0000 Vivek http://techreviews.in/?p=1118 Gadgets are small applications that can be used to put information and entertainment content right on your desktop. In Windows Vista the gadgets were arranged on the sidebar, but now in Windows 7 you are allowed to put them anywhere on the desktop. Gadgets are a fun way of jazzing up your desktop and can also be used as a means of providing important right on the desktop.

Here is a collection of three gadgets which I personally like a lot:

Xirrus Wi-Fi Monitor

Xirrus Wi-Fi Monitor is certainly not like the other average WI-Fi monitors , it is certainly in a league above the rest. It not only can search for wireless connections , but also verifies wireless coverage and also provides you with details about your current wireless connection like SSID , channel,  IP address , Mac ID and loads of other things. Another thing to note is that your wireless adapter and connection can also be managed via this tool right from your desktop.

Margu-NotebookInfo2

Margu-NotebookInfo2 is a multifunction system utility gadget that can be used to effectively measure the system’s performance. One of the strengths of this gadget is that it is highly customizable. This gadget can be used to measure several aspects of your Windows PC in a very effective manner. Another feature of this gadget is that it can display CPU usage for up to 2 cores. In all its a handy gadget to have on your desktop

DriveInfo

DriveInfo is a very simple and easy to use Windows gadget. Its major function is that it lists the remaining disk space both in percentage and GB format. It also has a progress bar type icon that graphically displays the remaining disc space. It can also be used as a shortcut to access My computer. Overall this gadget might look overtly simple but its pretty useful when you  constantly need to manage your disk space.

All these gadgets are available for download on the Windows live gallery.

Click here to download these gadgets and much more.

Editing registry values is not a task you would want to do without any prior knowledge or guidance. If you alter any other values by mistake, it might lead to catastrophic situations. It is better to back up your registry.

You can disable AutoRun through Group Policy, but this method doesn’t work on Windows Vista Home or XP Home. So registry editing option is the easiest means.

Lets now come to the registry tweaking part,

1. Go to ‘run’ and type ‘regedit’ to open the registry editor.

2. Navigate to the key :

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer.

3. Create a DWORD (32-bit) value named NoDriveTypeAutoRun., if it doesn’t already exist.

4. Right click on the new value and click modify.Set the hexadecimal value to 000000FF(the decimal equivalent of 255). Now you can type all preceding zeros, or you can just type FF.

This will disable AutoRun on all types of drives, but you can be a bit more selective in which drives you choose. There are several options in which you can type in specific values to disable autorun only on specific drives.

[via:techrepublic.com]

Find and Run Robot (FARR) is a program for keyboard maniacs — it uses an adaptive “live search” function to rapidly find programs and documents on your computer as you type.

And if you thought, it’s nothing special and is just another launcher, well try it to be surprisingly disappointment in a good way.

FARR also lets you quickly run web searches, send email, manipulate files, control on-screen windows, and much more. Build and share custom commands or install plugins to add tons of new features, like live search features for your clipboard history and your internet bookmarks; a pop-up a calculator with history tape and persistant variables; and many more..

Following will give you an idea of difference between Windows 7 “Search programs and files” and the search functionality of Find and Run Robot.

Amazing difference is what I see and that means Find and Run Robot is much more advance and versatile.

Home Page

http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Mouser/findrun/

Features

• Ready to run, right out-of-the-box with no configuration needed.
• The most customizable application of its kind, for those who love to tweak settings.
• Caches programs you launch for instantaneous repeat searches and adaptive scoring.
• Comes with dozens of built-in special alias commands that allow you to perform tons of different web searches and other operations.
• Create and share (xml) alias packs with your friends or download them from our site to add custom commands and menus.
• Install (open source) plugins to add advanced functionality.
• A dozen plugins are available at launch time, including a powerful clipboard monitor and searcher; a live calculator with history tape and persistant variables; a bookmark searcher plugin that supports firefox, internet explorer, and opera; plugins to manage running processes, uninstall programs, change the default printer, control external applications, and more.
• Low system overhead, fully portable and runnable from a USB thumbdrive, and doesn’t mess with your registry.
• Drag+Drop results from the result view; quick right click to access file system properties or advanced functions.
• No file indices are used, so results are always up to date with minimal memory use.
• Choose from dozens of skins and customize the fonts sizes of all graphical elements of the user interface, or turn off skins completely and revert to default Windows user interface. Choose between a compact small-icon mode, or an easy-to-read large icon mode.
• Full directory browsing function with live search filtering — manually browse and locate the files you are looking for.
• Customizable toolbar for common functions and operations (optional; with drag+drop support).
• Automatic updating for main program and plugins (optional).
• Customize hotkey triggers to launch and perform specific searches, or copy selected text to the clipboard at launch .
• Fully documented and actively developed with new features being added regularly based on user requests on our forum.
• Completely free; signup requested and donation recommended — your donations fund continued development!

Holy crap! I am over joyed with the plugin support it has. It even has twitter updater. I am going to try good number of plugins and will write another post on the best one available. Untill then feel free to try and use FARR.

Download FARR v2.45.01

1. Go to device management by entering “devicemgmt.msc” at the Run prompt.

2. In the disk management window you’ll notice that your Windows Vista partition has not drive letter assigned to it.

3. Right click on the Vista partition and click “Change Drive Letters and Paths…“

4. In the subsequent window click Add and assign a drive letter to your Windows partition. (In my case I assigned G)

5. This should now create a drive for your vista partition and will make it accessible from your Windows 7 explorer.

If you have other missing partition or CD/DVD drives which are not recognized by Windows 7 just follow the steps above to make them accessible.

Let me explain, my sound card which is from realtek was not installing on Windows 7 as it’s a build for Vista. Wasn’t actually much of a deal to install it in first place, but then I spent 3 grands to get some real big altec lansing speaker system and without the driver my laptop was not able to output music to the boxes. All, I did was right clicked the driver installation file and set the compatibility to Vista and eureka it worked.

If I were to take a much concrete example, it’s be Adobe Dreamweaver, that’s right folks, Dreamweaver won’t install properly on Windows 7 unless you set the compatibility to Windows 7. Here’s what I got, when I started installing Dreamweaver in Windows 7.

Quite funny isn’t it. But being a non-artificially intelligent, I continued with the installation only to find at the end of it all that it was not successful. So I put on my geek cap and right clicked the setup file and set the compatibility to Windows Vista. Clicked the setup file again and was treated with the same message, only this time the application was installed successfully. Following is the steps I followed.

Installing Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 in Windows 7 (resolved compatibility issue)

1. Right click the setup file and click Properties.

2. Click on the compatibility tab and choose from the drop down Windows Vista for the checkbox that reads “Run this program in compatibility for:“

3. Start the installation again.

I am sure you can use this trick to install most of the Windows Vista or for that Windows XP compatible applications on Windows 7. Have fun with the new baby!

However, there are also choices available which are a little more advanced and free of cost. This small but powerful utility is called as Defraggler and comes from the house of CCleaner developers. You can defrag selected files and thus save on time instead of defragmenting the whole drive at one go.

Also just like any other defragmenter you can schedule your defragmenting tasks.

Homepage

http://www.defraggler.com/

Description

It differs from other defrag tools on the market, by enabling you to quickly and simply defrag the files you want to, without having to process the whole drive. Simply run it, select the file and defragment in seconds. No more struggling with the Windows defragmentation tool!

Features

1. Small, compact and portable
2. Runs on Vista
3. Capabilities to defrag individual files.
4. In advance mose you can also defrag free space
5. It’s also a wonderful file locater
6. Defraggler is free for both corporates and individuals.

Download Defraggler