1. Open a Command Prompt (Click Start, type cmd, and click cmd.exe.)
2. Type sfc /scannow and press Enter

What Does the sfc /scannow Command Do?

System File Checker (SFC) verifies all protected system files are current and complete. If they’re not, it replaces them to bring them into currency.

Here’s what Microsoft say (applies to Windows XP):

System File Checker gives an administrator the ability to scan all protected files to verify their versions. If System File Checker discovers that a protected file has been overwritten, it retrieves the correct version of the file from the cache folder* (%Systemroot%\System32\Dllcache) or the Windows installation source files, and then replaces the incorrect file. System File Checker also checks and repopulates the cache folder. You must be logged on as an administrator or as a member of the Administrators group to run System File Checker. [1]

*The DLL cache folder is replaced in Windows Vista and 7 with Windows File Protection (files are kept in C:\Windows\winsxs\Backup.) Thank you Marc Liron, Microsoft MVP, for this information.

This is a good thing. If something doesn’t seem right on your PC, run this command to give you peace of mind and a good start.

More information:

• SFC Usage Windows 7/Vista
• SFC Usage Windows XP

1 Description of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 System File Checker (Sfc.exe)

Microsoft have responded to a recent Windows 7 Service Pack 1 Release Candidate (or SP1 RC) leak by actually releasing it.

SP1 for Microsoft’s most popular Operating System brings plenty of bug fixes and enhancements.

Notable additions are Remote FX and incremental security updates and hot fixes.

Windows 7 SP1 RC can be downloaded via the Microsoft Website.  If you are already participating in the Beta go to Windows update and install the RC.
The x86 iteration of the SP is a heavy 514.7MB with x64 weighing in at a staggering 865.4MB.

A DVD ISO disk image can also be obtained which contains the standalone update packages for the public RC.

Expect the servers to be hit hard so some  links may appear broken but rest assured your itchy F5 finger will eventually lead to a download.

Make sure to uninstall the Beta before installing the RC.

Windows 7 SP1 RC

Update:

Windows 7 SP1 RC x86 Direct Download Link

Windows 7 SP1 RC x64 Direct Download Link

The same application is now available for Windows 7.  Combining a clock, date and weather service, all in one application. What makes this stand out from all the other gadgets it that  the HTC Home Gadget makes heavy use of animations making your entire desktop into a professional weather and news (upcoming widget support) station.

Windows Guides’ Rating	User Rating	Compatible with	System
4 out of 5	Note: There is a rating embedded within this post, please visit this post to rate it.

Being a fan of the HTC phones (yes I have one, the Windows Phone version) I immediately downloaded this to my laptop. I love the weather and clock application on my phone and loved the idea of also having the same functionality on my PC. And my expectations were met.

Version 2.0 ALPHA

The current release is version 1.9 which support 32-bit and 64-bit architecture,  Aero, change of wallpapers, and different weather providers via plug-ins. There is also an upcoming version 2 (which is still in Alpha mode) which promise to support News (RSS ??) and some (yet to be disclosed) other new features.

Read More and Download from here

This 90-day trial of Windows 7 Enterprise can be downloaded absolutely free until the end of the year (December 31, 2010). It will not require a product key; it is embedded with the download. Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions are available and five languages are supported: English, French, German, Japanese, and Spanish. After the 90-day Trial expires, if you wish to continue to use the Windows 7 Enterprise, you will be required to purchase and perform a clean installation of Windows 7, including drivers and applications; Windows 7 Enterprise is not available through retail channels.

Official Guidelines by Microsoft:

Protect your PC by backing up your data first.

Don’t test Windows 7 on your primary home or business PC.

You have 10 days to activate the product. If not activated within 10 days, the system will shut down once every hour until activated.

The 90-day Trial will shut down once every hour when you have reached the end of the 90-day evaluation period.

Minimum System Requirements:

1 GHz or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor

1 GB of RAM (32-bit) / 2 GB RAM (64-bit)

16 GB available disk space (32-bit) / 20 GB (64-bit)

DirectX 9 graphics processor with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

DVD-compatible drive

Internet access

Download here (bottom of the page)

It’s time to upgrade from the Windows 7 Release Candidate

While most people who tested Windows 7 have now moved to the final version, some are still running the Release Candidate. If you haven’t moved yet, it’s time to replace the RC.

Starting on March 1, 2010 your PC will begin shutting down every two hours. Your work will not be saved during the shutdown.

Looking for more information or a temporary workaround? Go here.

Check the first of this two-part series.

Installing Basic Programs

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

12:00 PM:

Sitting at my work computer is killing me. My laptop is sitting in my bag next to me, sleeping, with nothing installed on it. I can’t wait until I can play around with it.

3:15 PM:

Finally. It’s time to get some virus protection on this computer. I emailed myself the product key for my antivirus, so I need email first. I download the Windows Live Essentials suite, including Messenger, Mail, Movie Maker Beta, and Photo Gallery. This is no longer packaged with the OS, as Microsoft is trying to avoid any appearance of breaking antitrust laws. Basically, lawmakers say that if Microsoft packages video and picture editing, communication tools, and web browsers with the operating system, everyone will go out of business and the world will explode. I disagree, but it helps lean down the install. Anyways…The installation goes perfectly.
I get the product key and go to the Avast Antivirus website and download my antivirus program. No problem! Avast is 100% compatible with Windows 7. To check if your antivirus is compatible with Windows 7, search “antivirus compatible windows 7” on any search engine. I have only heard of 2 that are not, namely McAfee and Windows Live One Care (Microsoft isn’t stupid; they’re just discontinuing it in 2009 to offer a free alternative) After that I install CCleaner and it works fine, except that the “Open CCleaner” option does not appear on the Recycle Bin menu when you right click. I take the opportunity to do some maintenance, scanning for malware and viruses (just in case). As a side note, Disk Defragmenter is not enabled by default because of Windows 7’s compatibility with Solid State Drives (SSDs), which have different properties than the drives we are used to.

4:00 PM:

After fiddling with maintenance, I pull out my Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate DVD and install the software. It installs perfectly, as would be expected. I also download and install Apple Safari, which works like a charm but does not have support to have all the tabs previewed on the taskbar when the icon is hovered over, like IE8. So I uninstall it.

Devices

First of all, with regards to drivers, I would suggest that you connect your computer to the internet and let it find its own drivers for your hardware. In fear of surfing the net antivirus-less, I had my wireless turned off when I first booted 7 and then installed an incompatible sound driver by accident. Three days later I noticed my audio was crackly (my laptop is usually muted-classes), uninstalled the driver, rebooted, and 7 found the compatible driver right away.

4:30 PM:

Now it’s about time to get out my new toy and sync it. Recently I bought an HTC Touch Pro smartphone and I absolutely love it. It connects to my laptop through Windows Mobile Device Center and syncs outlook calendar, contacts, notes, OneNote notes, and Windows Live Mail. Mobile Device Center downloads and installs fine, and then I hook up my phone. Here I hit a little hiccup. My phone was still set to sync on my Vista setup, with the default setting to delete information from the phone if it conflicts with the laptop. So after I hook up my phone and delete its sync relationship with Vista, it deleted a couple appointments from my Outlook. No big deal. After that it puts everything from my phone into Outlook. There is a new program in Windows 7 called Device Stage (shown at right) that manages sync relationships with compatible devices more easily than with extra software, but my HTC is not supported yet. Later on I had a ton of trouble getting this to work the way it was supposed to (it took me about 2 days), fiddling with settings on the phone AND the computer, until it finally recognized my device again. Note: 7 only supports Windows Mobile Device Center and Device Stage. Microsoft will NOT ALLOW you to install ActiveSync on Windows 7.

6:00 PM:

While typing up a part of this article during class, I find out a few things. First of all, Windows Media Player 12 (the default media player in 7) has built-in support for both DivX and XVid file extensions. No more codec packs! Also in class, while closing IE8, I get a disheartening message: “explorer.exe has stopped responding”. This doesn’t make me happy, but after it closes 7 automatically starts it back up (In Vista I would have to reboot it manually from the task manager “Run” function). It’s working fine now. Bullet dodged. So is life working with Beta software. I have had IE8 stop responding numerous times since this, but 7 is very good at either keeping it open and recovering from the error or restarting IE8 and recovering all of your open tabs, so it doesn’t test my patience that much. If you are using the Beta, try to send the error information to Microsoft so they can fix the problem. I think this is one of the reasons they did not limit the Beta to a certain number of people. They need this information!

After this day I lost track of when I used 7, what I found, and basically what I was doing. From here on out I’ll just cover some other basics of 7 that I came to know and love…

Mobility

Because Windows 7 was designed primarily for notebooks, and branching out to netbooks and tablet PCs, Windows 7 is much nicer to your battery. Like Vista, power options are available from the battery tray icon. On the power saver mode when the PC is on battery power Windows Aero is automatically disabled, a feature that is included in Vista Battery Saver, a program that has been featured on Mintywhite. Also, an adaptive display feature has been added, dimming your computer screen much like a cell phone when unused for a specific period of time. The battery life has been documented online to beat Vista by quite a bit. There is also a chart on Microsoft’s windowsteamblog.com website that shows their decision to focus on sleep instead of hibernate or shut-down, basically because shutting down programs, saving the computer state, and then restoring all of this takes WAY more time and power than leaving your computer in a higher-power state for a short period. If you are anything like me, you may put your computer to sleep only to wake it up 5 minutes later in a different building.

Windows Programs

Along with the new user interface, Microsoft has taken the opportunity to revamp a couple of their old programs. As seen in an earlier review on Mintywhite, Paint and Notepad have the familiar Office 2007 ribbon, making them a bit easier to use and a bit prettier in my opinion. Calculator has also gotten a bit of an overhaul, making it the seemingly all-knowing calculator I always wanted it to be. “Quick calculator, how many fathoms are in one nautical mile?” It never ceases to amaze me. Built in programs for networking, managing devices, and the Windows Action Center (which processes error reports, shows information for antivirus and spyware programs, maintenance, etc.) make this the easiest Windows yet. The User Account Control is back in 7, but a little easier to deal with. There is a slider bar that you can adjust its sensitivity with, and although I have it at the default setting, it is far less prevalent than in Vista. Windows Media Player also has a fresh twist. Not only does it play DivX and XVid file extensions, but it has a new mini-now playing mode, and FINALLY you have the ability to pause it from the taskbar thumbnail preview. Stay minimized WMP!

Gaming

I’m not too much of a gamer, nor can my laptop handle the types of games I would like to play (I did manage to get all the way through Half-Life 2 on the lowest settings without chucking it out a window though), but just to let you know more modern games will play on 7. I was able to install a couple older games from their .iso files and play them fine, including Warcraft III (including the expansion) and SimCity 4. I don’t know if I had a video problem at the time, but Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield did not work. I may try it again now that I have the 7 driver for my chipset.

Overall Impressions

At the time of writing the conclusion of this article I have been using ONLY Windows 7 Beta 1 for 2 whole weeks, no using Vista allowed. Windows 7 is a beautiful thing, not to mention something that “I’m a PC” people have been waiting for (at release time we may be able to rub this in Apple’s face). It looks great, works great for a Beta, is much easier to use than Vista, and arguably fixed all of Vista’s problems. I love it!

Should I upgrade?

When it’s released in late 2009-early 2010, YES! It will especially be great if you have a tablet PC, other touch PC, a PC that supports multi-touch, or a netbook. If you don’t like buggy software, don’t try using the Beta 24-7. I had a lot of crashes, especially when IE8 had its “daily freeze” as I have come to call it. Some of these crashes were embarrassing, for example yesterday in class when a professor gave me a CD with Jeopardy Music to play during a review game and Media Player crashed, forcing a restart. When the release is final, all of these problems will be solved (mainly because of the endless error reports I have sent) and 7 should be a clean install with smooth sailing afterwards. If you haven’t tried it yet, make sure you do before the February 10th cutoff for the Beta download.
It’s been my pleasure testing Windows 7 so that I can tell all of you great Mintywhite readers about it. If you have any question, don’t hesitate to get on the forums and chat me up. Enjoy!

Monday, January 12, 2009

10: 15 AM:

I finally got my license key for Windows 7 Beta! I had a little trouble getting the key on my home PC… probably because I used Safari to navigate to the page.

5:00 PM:

My university class starts in an hour; I’m taking this opportunity to download the genuine .iso file. I’m bummed that I don’t have a 64-bit processor. Maybe I will for Windows 8…

9: 15 PM:

I’m finally at home, I’ve burned the .iso to a Windows 7 Boot Disk, all my files are backed up, my hard drive is formatted, and I have no partitions. I’m a little scared, but here goes. The installation goes fairly quickly, Windows automatically creates a secondary partition because I have no others (only 200 MB), and it’s time to startup.

9: 45 PM:

That was a really quick installation, only half an hour. 7 prompts me to create a Username and password (with a password hint! Windows has a new trick already!) After that I set up time and date settings, enter the serial and set up Windows Update settings, etc. and get to the networking. I choose our home wireless network and enter the password on the same page and it connects just fine. I choose “Home” for this networks location and Windows spits out a password at me to join the “Homegroup”. I’m the only one on the network using 7, so this isn’t important to me. I choose what I want to share on the network (pictures, videos, etc.) and Windows boots up. Later on I find out that this the “Homegroup” is actually to my disadvantage, as I can no longer connect to our home network’s printer, which is being shared on a machine running XP. When I used Vista this was no problem.

10: 00 PM:

I love the desktop! So clean, so uncluttered. I wonder if Microsoft will let manufacturers infect the clean desktop with all their bloatware links. There a few features that I find especially pleasing.

Full Screen Previews

The first feature is the full-screen previews (see picture). Like Vista, hovering over a taskbar item reveals a screenshot of the program. However, in 7, hovering over the screenshot brings up that window and makes the others transparent. How cool is that!? This is especially useful if you use Internet Explorer, as hovering over the IE icon shows thumbnails for all open tabs. As of right now there is no support for this feature in other browsers. Windows Media Player 12 also has a thumbnail preview that includes play controls so you no longer have to restore the window to pause music.

Window Management

Open windows are much more easily managed now. Two new features are Windows Aero Snap and Aero Shake, which have been talked about on Mintywhite before. When a window is dragged to the top of the desktop it is automatically resized to full-screen, while dragging it away shrinks it to its original size. The second Snap feature occurs when you drag a window all the way to the right or left, causing it to take up that half of the screen. This is especially useful with two instances of Windows Explorer open, when there is a lot of click-and-drag action. Windows Shake is fun to play with. When multiple windows are open, grab one by the title bar, shake it slightly, and the other windows will minimize. Do it once more and all the windows are restored.

Improve Notification Area

The next thing I notice is the right side of the taskbar. It looks much more organized (although I would like to see color icons), mainly due to the fact that tray icons are now organized in a drop-down menu (or drop-up menu?). It is much easier to connect to networks now, as the network icon, when clicked on, shows a menu of available networks right on the desktop (not in a separate window) where a password can be entered. There is also a small space at the very end that makes all windows transparent when the cursor hovers over it, making the desktop visible (known as Windows Peek). Helpful if you use Windows Gadgets or the new Sticky Notes application. And finally… the calendar is in view by default, right under the clock! So for those of you who forgot what the date is…

The Task Bar and Start Menu

Lastly, most people already know about the taskbar. Only icons for running programs are visible, and they are rather large. I attribute this to the fact that Windows 7 is being designed to be tablet-PC touch-friendly. Try touching just one tray icon in Vista when the screen resolution is 1900×1200. Good luck. These options can all be changed so 7 can look like Vista (but why do that?). Also, pinning programs to the Start Menu and Taskbar is incredibly easy thanks to the links on the right-click menu. Another new feature is that the taskbar stays transparent when a program is maximized, unlike Vista, which is a nice touch. Jump lists are new features that are also helpful. Hovering over a program on the Start Menu or right-clicking its taskbar icon brings up a list of recently opened documents or web pages and different options for the program, depending on what type of program it is. For example, simply hovering over the Windows Live Messenger icon on the Start Menu brings up a list giving you options to visit the MSN Home Page, change your status, log off, and even opening your e-mail inbox. As you can tell from all the bold text, the initial look and feel of 7 is the most changed part of Windows since Vista. Overall, these small changes and the newer Aero GUI (Graphical User Interface) that 7 uses make the operating system that much better than its predecessor.

It’s almost midnight now, and time to sleep.

This guide covers the following:

• What is the Group Policy Editor?
• Accessing the Group Policy Editor
• Enabling Options

What is the Group Policy Editor?

Group Policy is a feature of Microsoft Windows that provides centralized management and configuration of computers.

Please Note: The Group Policy Editor is not included with Vista Home Premium/Basic or Windows XP Home. When possbile, a workaround using the registry editor is included in my guides. Please follow these workarounds if you use any of the above operating systems.

Accessing the Group Policy Editor

In Windows XP, press Start > Run and type gpedit.msc and press Enter.
In Windows Vista, press the start button, type gpedit.msc, and press Enter.
In Windows 7, press the start button, type gpedit.msc, and press Enter.

When the Group Policy Editor loads, you will be presented with a screen that looks like Figure 1.

Figure 1: Screenshot of the Windows Group Policy Editor

Enabling Options

To enable any options (as directed in any of the guides), simply double-click on the option in the right pane and change the setting to Enabled (see Figure 2.)

Figure 2: Enabling Options in Windows Group Policy Editor

Now you know what the Group Policy Editor is, why not learn what you can do with it?