Windows Tools, Help & Guides

Windows 7 is certainly the best operating system from Microsoft so far, but sometimes you still stumble upon some features in other operating systems (e.g., Linux or Mac) that Windows 7 lacks. For example, all the popular flavors of Linux have a virtual desktop feature which is not present in Windows 7. Luckily, it is easy to integrate virtual desktop feature in Windows 7 using freeware application called mDesktop.

mDesktop is an open source application for Windows and supports Windows XP, Vista and 7. It is available both as an installer and as a portable app. You can download and install it in Windows and it would install a notification area icon. By default, four virtual desktops are available. To switch to a virtual desktop, you can right-click on this notification area icon and choose a virtual desktop from the context-menu. You can also switch to desktops using hotkeys Alt+1, Alt+2, Alt+3 and so on.

Read more…

Just like your smartphone, Windows 7 also checks the internet for the correct date and time and keeps your system updated with the correct time. Windows 7 periodically connects to online time servers to check for the correct time and updates yours system’s time accordingly. While this all works great, the only glitch is that Microsoft supplied time servers are overloaded (owing to the fact that millions of users worldwide use Microsoft Windows) and sometimes do not respond. What you can do is that you can set Windows to use some publicly available better time servers that respond quickly and provide the correct time.

To change the time servers in Windows 7, you will have to open the Date and Time settings. You can open them by right-clicking on the date and time being shown in the bottom-right corner of your screen and selecting Adjust date/time from the context menu. In the Date and Time settings window, select Internet Time tab and then click on the Change Settings button.

Read more…

There’s nothing like a brand new computer or a freshly installed one. It boots quick. It performs well. Windows and programs just pop up – almost before you boot them. But not before long your computer becomes sluggish, boot seems to take forever and programs take forever to load. Your CPU works overtime and you hear that constant nagging from your hard-drive.

Is it time to do another fresh installation, already ??

I hate doing fresh installations, it takes me two or three days getting my computer back up and running as I like it.  So, I keep putting it off, until nothing works, and I have no other choice…

Inevitable? Yes, BUT – there is one thing to try first….

Read more…

I’m sure you already know how to use both MsConfig, AutoRuns and RegEdit to control which applications to run when booting windows. I use MsConfig on a regular basis to stop unwanted programs from running. It’s a great tool on a daily basis, except that the list of deselected items tend to get rather long and annoying. Unchecking items doesn’t delete any entries. So how do you get rid of them completely ?

Here’s how

Read more…

Everybody knows how to start applications in Microsoft Windows through the Start Menu. You can click on the Start Menu button, grapple with the sub-menus until you find the program you wanted to launch and then you can run it. Using the Start Menu in Windows to run an application is not only cumbersome but also a tad slow for most of us. If you have ever wished for a quicker and neater looking method to launch programs, then the open-source program Launchy can make those wishes come true.

Launchy is an open-source cross-platform application that can be used to quickly launch desired programs with only a few keystrokes. It stays inactive in the background until you invoke it using the Alt + Space keyboard combination. This would pop up a tiny Launchy window where you can type in the name of a program or shortcut present in your Start Menu, a program or file in specified folders or a website name present in your Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox bookmarks. Launchy quickly displays possible targets in the drop-down list. When you see the program or website you want to launch, select it using arrow keys on your keyboard and then just hit Enter and it would start that application.

Read more…

The Windows 8 Release Preview is ready for download in ISO format from Microsoft’s servers:

English

• 64-bit (x64) Download (3.3 GB)
• 32-bit (x86) Download (2.5 GB)

Product Key:   TK8TP-9JN6P-7X7WW-RFFTV-B7QPF

Burn Windows 8 Release Preview ISO to a DVD