Windows Tools, Help & Guides

This guide is part of the Windows Desktop Theme Customization Series. If you want to learn how to install Themes in your version of Windows or want to locate some new themes, head here. If you’d like to keep up with this series and other articles from this site, subscribe here.

Note: Please create a create a restore point before patching system files. Many themes only work on a specific operating system, architeture, and service pack. i.e. Vista SP2 x86. Please read the instructions for each theme very carefully.

Installing desktop themes on your Vista or Windows Server 2008 machine takes just a few minutes . Learn, in this guide, how to patch system files and install themes.

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Windows Guides reader, Angie, has created 16 mintywhite wallpapers and shares some of her favorite wallpapers from National Geographic.

Angie’s mintywhite Wallpapers

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If you like to customize you Windows installation, you may have considered adding a theme. In this series, you’ll learn how to install a theme and then I’ll share the very best themes with you; this, if you already know how to install a theme, you’ll find greater benefit at the end of the week when I link to the themes. If you’re new to this, take your time, and be sure to seek help in the forums.

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Update: I’m giving away my copy of this book, completely free to one lucky comment author. See below for more details.

The winner of the book is announced.

Andy Rathbone started geeking around with computers in 1985 when he bought a 26-pound portable CP/M Kaypro 2X. Like other nerds of the day, he soon began playing with null-modem adapters, dialing computer bulletin boards, and working part-time at Radio Shack.

He wrote articles for various techie publications before moving to computer books in 1992. He’s written the Windows for Dummies series, Upgrading and Fixing PCs for Dummies, TiVo for Dummies, PCs: The Missing Manual, and many other computer books.

Today, he has more than 15 million copies of his books in print, and they’ve been translated into more than 30 languages. You can reach Andy at his Web site, www.andyrathbone.com.

In this article, I interview Andy and find out about his new book Windows 7 for Dummies and share my thoughts on it after reading it myself.

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If you are making a PowerPoint presentation, poster, graphic, or anything that requires typography, you may find some of these fonts useful. There many free fonts out there but it is often hard to find good ones as there is so much choice and so many fonts are not very high quality. In these collections, I attempt to find the best free fonts out there and provide direct download links to them so you can start using them straight away. If you are unsure of how to install a font, learn here.

Check out more font collections on Mintywhite.com

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Every month we take a look around some of the most interesting windows-related web sites. We collect the best free stuff and write tips to help you get more out of Windows. Below you’ll find wallpapers, icon packs, fonts, screensavers, and freeware we’ve found over the last 30 days. We’ve also put together our most popular windows guides.

Enjoy the overview of stuff you shouldn’t have missed in September 2009

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A collection of desktop wallpapers for Windows, OS X, and Linux. If you have wallpapers you’ve made yourself or if you have any suggestions, leave them in the comments or contact me.

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A round up of the best icon packs on the web. Full credit goes to the image authors. Let us know about any others you really like!

Want More Icons?

Check out more icon collections on Mintywhite.com or learn how to use these on a dock in Windows.

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I wish I could say that this is free, but none of the free options were high enough quality for me to recommend. That being said, it is by far the best solution for remoting into your Windows machine. Whether you are a gadget lover who likes having the coolest toys, the productivity geek who needs to have multiple solutions to every problem, or even the Windows SYS Admin who wants to be prepared…. just in case; if you need the best solution to remote in, I recommend Jaadu. It’s 25 bucks, which for an iPhone app isn’t cheap, but if you need remote desktop access it’s 25 dollars well-spent.

I’d write up a step-by-step of how to install it on Windows, but Jaadu already beat me to it with great Vista & XP guides already written up.

From the website:

Jaadu RDP gives you full control of your PC’s mouse and keyboard while providing a rich visual display of your computer screen on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

Jaadu RDP’s patent pending TouchPad interface lets you use applications running on your PC easily and efficiently.

Jaadu RDP lets you stream audio directly from your PC to your iPhone or iPod Touch.

Jaadu RDP is secure, using data encryption for all communication with your PC.

Jaadu RDP uses Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Protocol to communicate directlywith your Windows machine. This means better performance and no additional software downloads to access your PC. Just configure your system and go!

International keyboard support.

Your PC in your Pocket. Anywhere, anytime.

Detailed Features List

• Intuitive Touchpad mode makes it a breeze to efficiently control PC applications using your iPhone: watch the video.
• Mouse support: left click, right click, double click, drag-drop and scroll wheel.
• Smart gestures: 3-tap quick zoom in/out, 2-finger vertical scroll, 2-finger horizontal swipe for task switching.
• Keyboard: modifier Ctrl, Alt, Tab, Win, cursor, short cut keys, CTRL+ALT+DEL and much more.
• Support for international keyboards and characters.
• Touchscreen mode for touch-screen friendly PC applications.
• Built-in RDP 128 bit encryption.
• Fully compatible with built-in iPhone VPN for corporate networks.
• Support for SSH proxies.
• Three audio quality control settings for optimal bandwidth usage over 3G/EDGE connections.
• Option to leave audio on PC or to turn audio off completely.
• Very high screen resolution support: 3000×1500 tested and works perfectly.
• 15-bit color and 256 color support
• Performance settings to increase responsiveness on slow internet connections.

For Administrators:

• Manage your servers from anywhere using your iPhone/iPod Touch
• Full support for Windows Server products (Windows 2000 onwards)
• Connect to unlimited number of servers using Jaadu’s server manager
• Console session option

Installation instructions for Vista

Installation instructions for XP

P.S. If you really want to go crazy with remote desktop with the iPhone you can go in reverse & login to your iPhone from your PC. You might wonder “Why would I want to login to my tiny iPhone screen when I have my PC?” but it can come in handy if you like keeping your notes all on your iPhone (and you’re not a fan of Evernote), for example. Click here for details on Veency.

Windows Guides reader, TheManRetired, offers two guides to help users who are new to Windows. The first guide covers installation of Ashampoo Burning Studio 6 Free. This second guide covers setting up your first backup to CD or DVD. If you’d like to provide help (simple, advanced etc., let me know.)

Hopefully you have the program installed but if you don’t I have written up an installation document that shows how to install it and where to get the program with a link to site that I know has it, so here we are going to start using the program. The screen shot here are made using the FastStone Capture program. With Burning Studio you can backup just about anything that is on your hard drive but I suggest only backing up what you have created as you can never get all the files and registry setting for programs and it is safer and better to reinstall the programs anyway so they set right and work and you don’t have to try and find out why they are not working like before. Here I am backing some music files that I ripped from my cd’s but the principles apply to all your files, you will just have to change the location of where you get the files to places on your hard drive and sorry this document will not go into all the places on your hard drive that the files are, most of them on a windows system will be in my documents(or just documents depending on your version) and most of them are located under your user account in either Documents and Settings or under Users depending on your version of windows, I am not going into any Linux or Mac systems as I don’t have them but if you want to give me one I would be happy to write up a document like this for those systems.

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