Windows Tools, Help & Guides

HomeGroup is a great new feature in Windows 7.  Unless you have multiple Windows 7 computers on your network however, HomeGroup is pretty useless.

Disabling it will remove the HomeGroup link in the left hand pane of any Explorer window and stop the HomeGroup services.

If you’re not part of a HomeGroup already, skip to Step 2.

Step 1.

Start by clicking the Start Orb and hitting Control Panel

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This is an excerpt from the Windows Guides PC Security Handbook. To learn more or find out other security-related tips, download the PC Security Handbook now.

Data backup is essential. If you’d like to explore local backup options, download my Windows pocket guides. I strongly recommend using online (off-site) backups. Backing up your data online prevents data loss if your computer is damaged or stolen—or if your data is wiped by malware.

Online Data Backup

By far my favorite solution for online backup is Mozy. Mozy offers free online storage (up to 2GB with paid options too.) I’ve had Mozy installed on my laptop for over two years and it has saved me on more than a handful of occasions.

Setup is simple and after downloading Mozy, you can specify what you want to back up and when. Mozy will automate your backups and let you decide when it backs up (specific times), what causes it to back up (low CPU usage), and how often (one, two, three etc. times a day.)

I just let Mozy run and it alerts me after a successful backup:

You can specify what types of files to backup or specify folders— it’s up to you:

Mozy even integrates into My Computer so you can browse and restore your backed up files (even ones you’ve deleted from your computer):

MozyHome Features

• Open/locked file support: Mozy will back up your documents whether they’re open or closed.
• 128-bit SSL encryption: The same technology used by banks secures your data during the backup process.
• 448-bit Blowfish encryption: Secures your files while in storage, providing peace of mind that your private data is safe from hackers.
• Automatic: Schedule the times to back up and MozyHome does the rest.
• New and changed file detection: MozyHome finds and saves the smallest changes.
• Backs up Outlook files: Disaster-proof email protection.
• Block-level incremental backup: After the initial backup, MozyHome only backs up files that have been added or changed, making subsequent backups lightning fast.

Download Mozy for Free

Download MozyHome Free

In previous guides, I showed you how to encrypt your files in Windows (XP) (Vista/7) In this guide, I’ll show you how to decrypt these files. You may need to decrypt your files in the following circumstances:

• Moving files to a new computer
• Reformatting your current machine and using your encrypted files on the new installation of Windows

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System restore can quickly swallow up a large portion of your hard drive.

System restore in Windows 7 is more customisable than before.  You can specify how much space is taken by system restore, and how it backs you up.

To get started, click on the Start Orb and go to Computer Properties.

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• Download this 4-part series as a PDF (Parts 1-4 +Extras)
• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4

How do you like the look of this Media Center?

I knew it…..read on!

Before we start I’d like to warn everyone that this guide involves a lot of downloads. It’s also quite extensive, you may wish to make this a weekend project. Some of this guide is aimed at experienced users of Windows & W7MC, it includes modifying system protected files and should be approached cautiously.

I’m using .avi movie files. You may have different file types and might have to adjust some of the settings shown in this guide accordingly. With that said lets crack on!

We’re going to need some tools to begin, so we need to start a few downloads before we can go anywhere.

1. Media Browser
2. Restorator 2007
3. XML Notepad 2007
4. meta<browser/>
5. WMCCC
6. Hide Strips
7. OABSoftware Email
8. Mencoder
9. This batch file

Install all but the last two.

1. Organise Your Movies

First things first, let’s organise our movies. You’re going to need to have your movie collection regimented if this guide is to succeed. You can either do it manually or use Rich’s batch file. Each movie must be in it’s own folder.

So, Get Smart (2008) for example would look like (eg.) H:\DVD\Comedy\Get Smart (2008)\Get Smart (2008).avi

I’ve found through trial and error that stating the year in brackets after the movie title helps metadata grabbers do the job efficiently.

You’ll need to do this with every single movie you want included in Media Browser (MB). If you have a large movie collection, it’s also worth putting the movies into genre categories.

1a. Join Two-Part Movies.

If you have two part movies that you want converting into one. Grab the copy of Mencoder you downloaded earlier, and copy mencoder.exe into the folder with the movies you wish to ‘join’. Make sure that each part is correctly labelled “1” & “2”. Open a command prompt window in that folder (Shift & Right Click on folder) and type this command;

mencoder -oac copy -ovc copy -noodml -o “joined.avi” “1.avi” “2.avi”

Press enter. When it’s finished doing it’s thing, be sure to check the ‘joined’ movie thoroughly for breaks or inaccuracies. If all is well, delete “1” & “2” leaving just ‘joined’. You can rename ‘joined’ to whatever you like. (Always make a backup copy of your movie folder just incase something goes wrong with the originals!)

2. Getting MetaData For Your Movies.

There are a lot of tools out there for grabbing MetaData for movies. My favourite is meta<browser/>. Using meta<browser/> can take some getting used to and you’ll probably have to practice with it. The results are most definitely worth it though. Meta<browser/> will download multiple DVD covers, backdrops, banners, episode thumbs, ratings, synopsis and actor images, you name it, meta<browser/> has it covered.

To get started, open up meta<browser/> and go to Options at the bottom of the window.

Click on Add a new location, choose your movie folder and be sure to press enter after choosing. Click Save.

At the bottom of the main windows click Refresh List and you’re movies will show in the left hand pane.

Click on a movie you want to process and click on Fetch Movie MetaData. meta<browser/> will then begin to download all the information you need. You can choose from multiple backdrops, banners & DVD covers.

Be sure to click Save when your happy with the MetaData. Your film folder should look something similar to this once you’ve downloaded and saved the MetaData;

I advise starting with small folders or individual movies. If you find you’ve messed up, don’t panic! Go to the movie folder on your HDD and delete everything apart from the actual movie. There are several ways to process your movies. I’m giving the simplest example. You may want to experiment by copying a folder of movies to a different location and running through meta<browser/> to practice it’s different functions and find which way suits you best.

*= After installing Media Browser you’ll have an ImagesByName folder for all of the actor thumbs. Your folder will be considerably different to mine so please do not copy the address. Yours will likely be C:\ProgramData\MediaBrowser\ImagesByName

3. Configuring Media Browser.

Start the Media Browser Configuration Wizard. Click advanced to open all of the extra option tabs. Click Add to start adding your media. After you’ve added your first folder, you’ll see that you can specify more than one location for that particular media. eg. I’ve chosen my DVD collection which is on H:\ i may have another folder on C:\ that i also want to add to ‘DVD’ in MB. Treat this as you would the new library function in Windows 7.

Once you have all of your folders added, you’ll probably want to apply images to them. Go here for an excellent collection of Movie Genre icons. Click on the folder you wish to change, click on Change Image and navigate to the image of your choice. MB will automatically save any changes made to the configuration wizard.

Media Browser supports podcasts, multiple plug-ins, the ability to play a movie from a mounted ISO, and additions of media types for external players. Have a play around with the ‘display’ in particular. The settings in the display tab in fig. enables the views you see at the top of this page. Feel free to mess around with them to suit your taste.

By default Media Browser doesn’t add a folder for the actor images meta<browser/> downloads. ProgramData is hidden by default, you’ll need to make sure that the radio button for ‘Show hidden Files & Folders’ is checked on in Folder options (in any explorer window).

Navigate to C:\ProgramData\MediaBrowser and create a new folder called ‘ImagesByName’. Be sure to add this location to the options menu in meta<browser/>

4. Add Media Browser Strip To W7MC Start Menu

The latest version of Media Browser doesn’t automatically add a ‘Media Browser Strip’ to W7MC, you’re going to need to create a custom strip.

To do this, open up the WMCCC program you downloaded earlier and click on Create a new start menu strip > Next.

Name your custom strip, you won’t be able to name it Movies as Windows uses that name. Click Next

Select media browser from the list of available programs.

If you add more than one program to the strip, set the program order and click Next.

If you have more than one strip already installed, choose the start menu strip order and hit Next.

Click Finish to erm…..finish.

Now when you open up W7MC you’ll see a Media Browser strip, click it to access your new movie library and start having fun!

• Download this 4-part series as a PDF (Parts 1-4 +Extras)
• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4

If you want to give Windows Enterprise 7 RTM a try, you can take a 90 day trial now (32 and 64-bit versions available.)

Download Windows 7 Enterprise RTM

The Windows Disk Cleanup Wizard will delete your temporary files, but only if they are over a week old. To create a simple batch script that will clean up your temporary directories, do the following (Vista instructions):

Creating the Batch File to Clean Temporary Files

1. Open Notepad and type the following:
   

   cd C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local
   rmdir /S /Q Temp

2. Save the file as cleantemp.bat
   
3. Now double click on the file to remove your temporary files and free up space on your computer

If this doesn’t work and gives an access error, try replacing %username% with you windows login username.

Automating the Process of Deleting Temporary Files

To automate this process, so you do not need to remember to run it, do the following:

1. Right click on the batch file and select create shortcut
2. Place the shortcut in your startup folder in the start menu

Now when you log in to Windows 7, your temporary files will be deleted.

I previously showed you how to block ads when browsing; however, InPrivate browsing in IE8 takes some time to learn which content needs blocking. Windows Forums moderator rsvr85 has written a guide, which shows you how to update InPrivate’s block list with AdBlock’s list, which will cut out ~80% of ads instantly.

AdBlocking in IE8

Windows Forums moderator rsvr85 has written a guide, which shows you how to create a virtual machine, in Windows 7, without additional software.

Before you create a virtual machine, you’ll need to check your processor can handle virtualization. Use SecurAble to check whether your processor is compatible.

How to Create a Virtual Machine

Windows Forums moderator rsvr85 has written a guide, which shows you how to upload directly to Windows SkyDrive from your desktop. To achieve this, you’ll need a Windows Live account.

Upload to Windows SkyDrive from Desktop