Make Tech Easier » windows 7

Become A Technical Guru With Problem Steps Recorder

Damien — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:19:42 +0000

How many times have you tried to teach your mum or old granny a simple task on the PC, but you never seem to be able to get the message across?

Firefox? What is that? Browser? Browse what? …

In MakeTechEasier, we understand how you feel, because we have been teaching people to do simple stuffs on their computers day in and out and we know how frustrating it can be. Apparently, what appears simple to us is actually an arduous task for many.

In Windows 7, there is this small and simple application that could make your life much easier. Problem Steps Recorder is an useful tool that allows you to record down your steps to troubleshoot the issue. It is almost like a screencast application, except that it saves in the MHTML format.

Using Problem Steps Recorder

In your Windows 7, click on the Windows Orb (also known as the Start menu) and type in psr in the search field.

Select and run the psr.exe application.

Click on the Start Record button

Do the required action.

At any point of time, you can Add Comment button to add comments to your recording.

Once you are done, click Stop Record. You can also click Pause Record to stop recording temporary.

PSR will then prompt you to save the recording. The saved file is in zip format. When you unzip it, you will get a MHTML file where you can double click to open it in browser.

Viewing the recording

In the file, you will see the actual steps (with screenshot) recorded by the psr. For example, I recorded the way to uninstall an application in Windows 7. The following screenshots are the result generated from PSR.

1st step: Click on the Start button.

2nd step: Click on the Control Panel

3rd step: Click uninstall program

5th step: Uninstall the application

As can be seen, every single step that I did was recorded.

Uses of PSR

Here are some ways that you can make use of the Problem Steps Recorder:

be a technical guru and provide visual technical support, especially for your old granny.
If you are facing a problem in Windows and are seeking support, you can use PSR to record down the problem and email to the support officer. It enables them to has a better understanding of what went wrong.
Documentation: You may have discovered a hack to solve something and you want to record it down and store it somewhere so that you can refer to it in the future.

Have you tried PSR? What do you mainly use it for?

Note: Problem Steps Recorder is only available in Windows 7.

Become A Technical Guru With Problem Steps Recorder originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

VistaUACMaker Makes Your XP Apps Compatible With Windows Vista & 7

Soumen Halder — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:20:17 +0000

Windows Vista and 7 come with User Account Control (UAC) that controls the permissions the users have for running each application. Due to this restriction, many program in Win XP that require administrators privilege will not be able to run smoothly in Vista or Win 7. In such cases, you can use the VistaUACMaker to change the permission in the application and make it compatible with Vista and Windows 7.

To achieve the goal that we have in mind, we need to alter the Manifest File of the app which contains the useful information that provides the privileges needed by the app concerned & its UI Interaction of the app.

Those are the three types of privileges that can be stored in the Manifest File.

requireAdministrator – Run the app as administrator.
asInvoker – Run with same privilege as that of the parent process.
highestAvailable – Run with highest possible privilege available to user.

Ok that is enough with the geeky talk, let us proceed to the HOW TO section which tells us how to perform the task.

1. Download Vista UAC Maker.

2. Run the Utility. Now using the Select… button browse & locate the app or program executable file.

3. Add some words in the Project Description field for future reference.

4. In the Required Privilege Level drop-down list select the privilege. The default is [requireAdministrator], but you can change it to whichever is suitable for the application.

5. In the last step where you are asked “Does your application interacts with high privilege windows on desktop?”, check the Yes box only if your app interacts with high privilege apps on UI level in Vista else leave it as No.

That’s it.

Now the configured app is compatible with Windows Vista as well as Windows 7 too. This works great in cases where you need to use a particular app meant for XP to be sound & working in Vista & Windows 7. Hope that helps. Share your experiences by putting in your valuable comments.

VistaUACMaker Makes Your XP Apps Compatible With Windows Vista & 7 originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How To Boot And Install Windows 7 From USB Flash Drive (Updated)

Damien — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 12:39:08 +0000

Previously, I have discussed the way to create a Windows 7 USB installer drive using the command prompt. Even though I have make it easy to follow, there are still some of you having some difficulty in the process. Recently, I have come across this little cool portable application that is able to do all the things covered in the previous tutorial in a breeze and without the command prompt.

The application that I am talking about is WinToFlash. This is a small application (only 2.1MB) that allows you to convert your Windows installer CD/DVD to a bootable USB drive. Not only is it easy to use (nearly idiot-proof and does not require you to have any technical knowledge), it is also fully portable – No installation is required and you can bring it wherever you are.

Preparation

Before you start, here are some stuffs that you need to take note of:

1) You need to have a USB drive of at least 3GB space in order to create a Windows 7 bootable USB drive.

2) The process will format and wipe off all your files in the USB drive. Remember to backup before you proceed.

3) You need to have a Windows 7 installer DVD and an optical drive to read the DVD. If you have only the ISO file (downloaded directly from Microsoft), you can use Virtual Clone Drive to mount the ISO in your computer.

Installation

Download WinToFlash

Put in your Windows 7 installer DVD and plug in your USB drive.

Unzip the folder to your desktop and run the WinToFlash.exe file

Some of you might see the “WinToFlash DLP_NotFound” error message. You can safely ignore this error message.

On the main screen, click on the Window Setup Transfer Wizard. This will bring you to the wizard mode where it automates (almost) the whole process for you.

On the next screen, there is an option for you to go into the Advanced mode and tweak some of the settings. You can ignore that (if you are not into tweaking) and click Next to proceed.

Point the Windows file path to the Windows Installer DVD directory.

Point the USB drive to the USB directory.

Click Next.

Accept the agreement.

Preparing your USB drive. Make sure you have backup all the important files before you proceed. This will erase all your data.

Transferring in progress. This might take a while. Go for your coffee break.

Once you see the following message, the whole process is done. You can now boot Windows 7 from the USB drive.

Some computers require you to change the bootup setting in the BIOS before you can boot from USB. Look into your motherboard/computer manual for more instruction.

How To Boot And Install Windows 7 From USB Flash Drive (Updated) originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How to Upgrade Windows XP to Windows 7 Without Losing All Your Settings

Sharninder — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 12:36:46 +0000

Windows 7 is the latest incarnation of the Microsoft Windows family of operating systems. It is also the latest darling of the blogosphere and is being widely regarded as the only true successor to Windows XP. While Microsoft did release Vista after Windows XP, it was a disaster and most people, including yours truly, resisted migrating to Vista completely because of various reasons.

It is nice to know that Microsoft has been listening all this while and promises that Windows 7 will be much better than Vista both in terms of resource utilization and general useability. That and the fact that Microsoft has decided to withdraw support for Windows XP, will see a lot of people migrating to Windows XP from Windows 7.

The only problem is that Microsoft has not provided a direct upgrade path from Windows XP to Windows 7, so there are only two options for people who want to migrate up from Windows XP.

The first one is to upgrade to Vista and then upgrade to Windows 7 but that’s not really recommended for obvious reasons. The other solution is to do a clean installation of Windows 7 (which would wipe out your Windows XP). This option is the one that Microsoft recommends.

If you have a lot of data in Windows XP, now is the time to make a backup of it while we hand-hold you through the recommended upgrade procedure from Windows XP.

Make sure that you have the Windows 7 installation disk, either the retail version (when it comes out) or a disk burned from the ISOs that Microsoft made available for download.

Backing up your data

Insert the disk in the CD/DVD drive and when windows autorun prompts you to run the Windows 7 installer, don’t run it and instead select the option to browse/open the DVD.

In the DVD, under the support folder, there will be a folder named migwiz.

Run the program named, migsetup.exe. This is the Windows Easy Transfer tool. Microsoft wrote Windows Easy Transfer to help you transfer all your data and settings to a new machine when upgrading to a newer operating system.

As you can see, with this tool, you will be able to migrate all user accounts, email, user data and pretty much everything else from Windows XP to Windows 7.

The only thing that the Easy Transfer tool cannot take care of are the third party programs that you have installed, so you’ll need to reinstall them again. This is a limitation imposed by Microsoft and it is, currently, not possible to upgrade from XP to Windows 7 and while keeping all the third party programs as it is.

Click Next at the welcome screen and you’ll be asked to chose one of three choices for the location where you want to store all the data that the tool will save.

I chose the “External Hard disk or USB flash drive” option and I recommend that you do the same since it sounds the easiest one. If your XP machine is connected to a network and you have a network share that you can use, feel free to select that option, and click on the Next button.

The next option is pretty self explanatory and is actually the only option on the screen so select “This is my old computer” and move on.

The easy transfer tool will then scan the various user accounts for all the data that it can migrate.

Click Next and select a password for the archive. This password will be later used on Windows 7 to complete the migrartion of your settings and data. And the last step of the process is to chose the location where the Easy transfer file will be saved. Connect an external hard disc to the machine, if you haven’t done so already, and select it.

That’s it.

Now, run the Windows 7 installation program and install Windows 7 normally.

Since Windows XP cannot be upgraded to Windows 7 directly, you’ll have to choose the “Custom Option” to install Windows 7.

Proceed with the installation as you normally would.

Once Windows 7 is installed and running on your machine, attach the external hard disc that you used to take the backup, to the machine, browse over to it and double click on the backup file that you’d created earlier.

The Windows Easy Transfer utility will then start, ask for the password that you’d set earlier and migrate all your XP settings and data to Windows 7.

How to Upgrade Windows XP to Windows 7 Without Losing All Your Settings originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Transform Kubuntu Jaunty to Windows 7 In 3 Simple Steps

Damien — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 12:19:08 +0000

One thing that I love about Linux (and Ubuntu) is that it is fully customizable and I can configure it to the way that I want it. Previously, I have already illustrated its flexibility by showing how you can transform Ubuntu Hardy and Intrepid into Mac OS X. Today, let’s bring a step further and see how we can transform Kubuntu Jaunty to Windows 7 in 3 simple steps.

In this tutorial, we will make use of the Vistar7 – Windows 7 transformation pack to perform the transformation. This transformation pack has a nice collection of Windows 7 themes and comes with an installation script to make the whole transformation a breeze.

Before we start, please note that:

1) The purpose of this tutorial is to illustrate the flexibility and customizability of the Linux desktop. We are not advocate of Microsoft (or Windows 7).

2) If you are not comfortable with your computer looking like any other OS (especially the one that you hate most), do not read further.

3) The transformation pack only change the look and feel of your Kubuntu Jaunty. It does not give you the functionality of Windows 7. If you want to use Windows 7, download the RC1 and install it in your computer instead.

4) This transformation pack will create a new user profile in your system and install itself in the new profile. Your personal profile will be left untouched.

Step 1: Download the transformation pack

First, download the Windows 7 transformation pack torrent file. Then with your bit torrent client (such as KTorrent), download the transformation pack folder to your home directory.

Step 2: Make the installation script executable

Open the Konsole and type in:

cd /path-to-windows7-transformation-pack-folder
sudo chmod +x install.sh

Step3: Install the transformation pack

(Before you run the installation script, make sure you are connected to the Internet.)

Run the installation script by running the following command in the Konsole:

sudo ./install.sh

The installation script will do the following:

1. Add new software package to your existing software repository.

2. Install several plasma related software.

3. create a new user – vistar7.

4. prompt you to set password for the new user.

4. Extract the required files to the corresponding theme directory.

5. Change the configuration path.

When the installation is done, you have to switch to the new user profile – vistar7 to see the Windows 7 interface in action.

Screenshots:

Kubuntu’s menu bar.

Dolphin and Konqueror passing off as Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer 8.

List of Windows 7 wallpapers that come with the transformation pack

Install the theme in your personal profile

For those who want to bring it further and install the transformation pack in your personal profile instead of the new user – Vistar 7, here is the steps:

(This is not recommended as the transformation is not fully supported by the creator. Do this at your own risk.)

In the Windows 7 transformation pack folder, open the install.sh file in Kate.

At the third line, change the NEWUSERNAME to your own username

3	NEWUSERNAME="your own username"

Scroll down to line 30, put a # in front of the statement from line 30-33

#echo "Creating user."
#useradd -m $NEWUSERNAME -s /bin/bash && \
#echo "User created. Enter password for new user."
#passwd $NEWUSERNAME

Save the file.

Run the script in Konsole:

cd /path-to-Windows-7-transformation-pack
sudo ./install.sh

Log out and login again. You should be able to see the Windows 7 theme in action now.

Transform Kubuntu Jaunty to Windows 7 In 3 Simple Steps originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How to Easily Encrypt Your USB Drive in Windows 7

Damien — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:24:56 +0000

USB drive is a great tool for you to bring your data anywhere you go without having to lull the whole computer along. The bad thing is, it is small in size and can easily be misplaced or stolen by others. When such incident occurs, the last thing that you want to happen is to let others view your confidential data, and probably do something bad with them.

In Windows 7, there is this new Bitlocker To-Go function that allows you to encrypt your USB drive. In the event that your drive is stolen, there is no way that others can access your data, unless he/she has your password.

If you have not installed Windows 7 on your computer, we do have a great tutorial that teaches you how to do so.

In your computer (the one running Windows 7), plug in your USB drive.

Go to Control Panel -> System and Security -> Bitlocker Drive Encryption. Click Turn On Bitlocker for the removable drive option

You will be asked the method you want to use to unlock the drive (after encryption). There are two methods available: Password or Smart Card. Password is the easier one, but less powerful. In this case, I picked Password.

It will then prompt you to save/print your recovery key. This will come in useful if you have forgotten the password in the future.

Once you are done with the setting, click Next to start encrypting your USB drive. The whole process will take quite some time, depending on the size of your device.

You should see the following message when the encryption is done.

To check if your USB drive is really encrypted, unmount and remount the the USB drive. If the encryption is intact, it will prompt you to enter your password.

Note: If you are using a Windows version other than Windows 7 Ultimate, the Bitlocker To-Go encryption only allows you to read and copy files from the USB drive. You won’t be able to edit or add new files to the drive.

To decrypt the USB drive, simply follow the same procedure as above, but select Turn Off Bitlocker in the control panel.

How to Easily Encrypt Your USB Drive in Windows 7 originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Tweak Your Windows With Ultimate Windows Tweaker

Damien — Thu, 14 May 2009 21:46:42 +0000

Think you know your Windows well? Wait till you have tried out Ultimate Windows Tweaker, then you will know how much more things that you never know exist can now be tweaked and configured.

Ultimate Windows Tweaker is a freeware Tweak UI Utility for tweaking and optimizing Windows Vista and 7, 32-bit & 64-bit. There is no installation required and it can simply be downloaded and used as a portable application. With a few mouse clicks, you will be able to tweak your system and make it runs more faster, stable and more secure.

Once you have downloaded (and extracted) the application, simply double click to launch the UWT.

The tweaks are classified under seven categories, namely Personalization, User Accounts and UAC, System Performance, Security Settings, Network Tweaks, Internet Explorer and Additional Tweaks.

Personalization

This is where you tweak the looks and feels of the Windows Explorer, Start menu and taskbar. You can get it to show/hide menu bar, drive letter, open folders in separate process, disable context menu in Start menu, remove Volume icon from taskbar and many more tweaks.

User Accounts and UAC

Configure the settings for user accounts and UAC.

System Performance

If you are always wondering why is your computer so slow and how you can make it run faster, the System Performance section gives you plenty of options to tweak the performance setting of your computer.

Security Settings

This page doesn’t really deal with the back end security of the system other than giving you the option to disable a number of applications. From the Administrative panel to the applications and Windows update, you can choose which applications you don’t need and disable them here.

Network Tweaks

Internet Explorer

The UWT is able to detect which version of IE you are using and provide the relevant options for you to tweak. Most of the options are available in the IE option page, but this provides a centralised place for you to control all the IE settings.

Overall, the Ultimate Windows Tweaker is a simple, small and powerful tool for you to control the settings of your Windows Vista/7 in a centralised place. For those who are not accustomed to tweaking the registry and accessing the command prompt, this will provide a good tool for you to power up your Windows experience.

Ubuntu users can use the UbuntuTweak to tweak your system.

Tweak Your Windows With Ultimate Windows Tweaker originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How to Upgrade Windows 7 Beta To Windows 7 RC1 Without Formatting Your Hard Disk

Damien — Fri, 08 May 2009 01:47:07 +0000

Microsoft released the Windows 7 Release Candidate for public testing early this week. If you have not grab your copy, you can download it at the Microsoft download site.

This time round, Microsoft is offering the download at least through July 2009, so there is no need to rush for it.

If you are currently Vista on your computer, you can easily upgrade to Windows 7 RC 1 without reformatting the hard disk. However, if you have already converted fully to Windows 7 since beta release, you are out of luck, because Microsoft does not allow you to to perform a direct upgrade from the Beta.

We’ve also learned that many of you (millions) are running Windows 7 Beta full time. You’re anxious for a refresh. You’ve installed all your applications. You’ve configured and customized the system. You would love to get the RC and quickly upgrade to it from Beta. The RC, however, is about getting breadth coverage to validate the product in real-world scenarios. As a result, we want to encourage you to revert to a Vista image and upgrade or to do a clean install, rather than upgrade the existing Beta. We know that means reinstalling, recustomizing, reconfiguring, and so on. That is a real pain. The reality is that upgrading from one pre-release build to another is not a scenario we want to focus on because it is not something real-world customers will experience.

Excerpted from MSDN blog

If you decide to follow Microsoft’s advice and do a clean installation, you can use the Windows Easy Transfer application to back up/restore your data easily. However if you are looking for a quick fix to upgrade to Windows 7 RC 1 directly from Beta, here’s the hack:

1. Download the Windows 7 RC1 iso file.

2. Download and install Virtual CloneDrive in your Windows 7 beta. You should see a new virtual drive in your Windows Explorer.

3. Right click on the virtual drive and select VirtualCloneDrive -> Mount. Navigate to the location where you save the RC1 iso file and select the file. This will mount the iso in your system.

4. Open the virtual drive (right click and select Open, do not double click). Copy all the files to a new folder in your hard disk (or a flash drive).

5. In the new folder where you have saved all the files, browse to the sources directory. Open the file cversion.ini with Notepad.

6. Change the MinClient build number to 7000

7. Save the file in place with the same name.

8. Go up one folder and double click the Setup file to start the RC1 installation.

That’s it.

Note: You might experience some oddity with this method of upgrading. For best user experience, it is advisable to do a clean installation.

How to Upgrade Windows 7 Beta To Windows 7 RC1 Without Formatting Your Hard Disk originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How To Uninstall Windows 7 And Return The Partition To Vista

Damien — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 13:21:37 +0000

If you have previously dualboot your Windows 7 and Vista and now you wanted to remove it, either because you don’t like it or you are running out of hard disk space, here is the way to do it:

Remove the Windows 7 boot entry

Previously when you install Windows 7, it modifies the bootloader and makes it the default OS to boot up. If you are going to uninstall Windows 7, you will have to remove the entry from the bootloader so that you don’t have any conflicts when booting up later.

Download and install EasyBCD.

Run EasyBCD. On the left pane, click on the Add/Remove Entries.

On the right pane, highlight the Windows 7 entry and click Delete.

Close EasyBCD.

Download GParted iso file and burn the image to a CD.

Boot up your computer with the Gparted live CD. On the main screen, you should see your Windows Vista and Windows 7 partitions.

There are two ways that you can deal with your Windows 7 partition:

1) reformat it and use it as an additional partition to your Vista partition

2) remove the partition and return the extra space back to the Vista partition

Reformat Windows 7 partition

Highlight and right click on the Windows 7 partition. Select Format to -> ntfs.

Click Apply.

Remove Win 7 partition and return it to Vista partition

Highlight the Windows 7 partition and click the Delete button.

Next, highlight the Windows Vista partition and click Resize/Move. Increase the New Size to the maximum. Make sure that the Free Space Preceding and Free Space Following is zero.

Click Apply.

Once all the operations are completed, exit GParted and restart your computer. You should now boot into your Vista. Depending on the option you choose, you will have either a new blank partition that you can use to store data or a bigger Vista partition.

That’s it. Enjoy!

How To Uninstall Windows 7 And Return The Partition To Vista originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How To Boot And Install Windows 7 From USB Flash Drive

Damien — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 13:13:00 +0000

Updated: An updated version of this tutorial can be found here, featuring an easier and faster way to create a Windows 7 USB installer drive.

The Windows 7 beta has been released for quite a while now. If you want to follow the crowd and test it in your system, but do not want to burn into a DVD, here is how you can create a bootable USB drive to install Windows 7 on your system.

Format USB flash drive to NTFS format

(For Win XP only. Vista users can directly format the USB drive to NTFS format) In your Windows, go to Control panel -> system -> hardware -> Device manager.

Under the disk drives section, right click on the USB storage drive and select Properties.

Go to the Policies tab, select optimize for performance. Click OK.

Open your Windows Explorer, you should see the USB storage drive in the inventory. Right click and select Format. Select NTFS from the drop down bar. Click Start.

For Windows XP,

Download MBRWizard. Extract the zipped files to your desktop.

Open a command prompt (Start –> Program –> Accessories –> Command Prompt).

cd Desktop/MBRWiz2.0/
MBRWiz /list

Record the USB flash drive disk number

Make the USB drive active.

mbrwiz /disk=X /active=1

For Windows Vista,

On the Start menu, navigate to the command prompt entry. Right-click and select Run as administrator.

Type

diskpart
list disk

Record the disk number of your USB flash drive.

Select the USB disk.

select disk X (X is the drive number of the USB flash drive)

List the current partition. Record the partition number.

list partition

Select the current partition and make it active.

select partition Y (Y is the partition number of the USB flash drive)
active

Creating bootable USB flash drive

Download ~~Windows 7 iso~~ (32-bit) file to your desktop (The download link is no longer valid).

Download and install WinRAR.

Right-click on the Windows 7 iso file and select Extract files. Extract the files to a folder (you can name the folder any name you want, but for illustration purpose, I name it win-7) in your desktop.

In your command prompt, cd to the windows 7 folder.

cd Desktop/win-7 (Change the destination to the folder that you have extracted)
cd boot
bootsect /nt60 X: (X is the drive latter of your USB drive )

Now, copy all the files from the Windows 7 folder to the USB flash drive.

Reboot the computer. Remember to change the first boot device to your USB drive in the BIOS.

You should be able to install Windows 7 from your USB flash drive now.

How To Boot And Install Windows 7 From USB Flash Drive originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Make Your Windows XP/Vista Functions Like Windows 7

Damien — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 10:26:13 +0000

If you have downloaded and try out Windows 7 beta on your computer, you will know that it comes with plenty of useful features and an improved usability over its previous version. If you like the features very much and would like to implement them to your existing version of Windows (XP or Vista), here are some applications that you can use to make your Windows XP/Vista functions the same as Windows 7.

Taskbar

In Windows 7, the new taskbar features big icons for you to access your favorite application easily. In Windows XP/Vista, this can be easily achieved with Windows 7 Taskbar Iconizer. This is a simple program that you can use to switch the taskbar interface. There is no installation required and you can easily switch back to the original looks.

Download Windows 7 Taskbar Iconizer.

Double click the application to run.

Click on the image to the right to “iconized” your taskbar. Restart your computer for it to take effect.

AeroPeek for Windows XP/Vista

Windows 7 comes with this AeroPeek feature that allows you to view thumbnails of opened windows, take a peek of the desktop when mouse hover on the right-bottom corner and also highlight the active window and make the other windows transparent.

To achieve these effects, we will use a combination of AeroPeek utility and Visual Task Tips.

Download and install AeroPeek and Visual Task Tips. The AeroPeek application requires .NET framework 3.5 to run. If you have not installed, download it here.

Restart your computer. Run the AeroPeek and Visual Task tips via the Start menu. You should be able to achieve the transparent windows and thumbnails effects.

AeroSnap for Windows XP/Vista

The AeroSnap feature automatically resize the window to half the screen size and snap itself to the side when you drag the window to the side (either left or right). When you drag the window to the top of the screen, the Window maximize to full screen.

In Windows XP/Vista, this can be achieved using AeroSnap.

Download and install AeroSnap.

Run AeroSnap via the Start menu. Now drag your window to the side and release and see it miraculously resize and snap itself to the side. You can also drag the window to the top of the screen to maximize it.

It is difficult to show the full effect of the AeroSnap in screenshot. You should try it out yourself.

AeroShake for Windows XP/Vista

AeroShake is another feature in Windows 7 that allows you to minimize all windows, except for the active one by shaking the window with your mouse. In Windows XP/Vista, an AeroShake application was developed using AutoHotKeys scripts.

Download Aeroshake. There is no installation required. Simply double click the downloaded application to run. Drag your active window with the mouse and give it a few big shake. You should see all other windows minimize to the taskbar.

That’s it!

Note: If you are looking to transform your XP/Vista to Windows 7, AskVG has written a very good guide to transform your Windows to Windows 7 without using transformation pack.

Transform Windows XP into Windows 7 without using Customization Pack

Transform Windows Vista into Windows 7 without using Customization Pack

Make Your Windows XP/Vista Functions Like Windows 7 originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How to Dual Boot Windows Vista And Windows 7

Damien — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 13:05:05 +0000

For those of you who have waited long for the beta release of Windows 7, Micosoft has finally released the link for you to download a copy to test. In case you have not downloaded, here is the link:

Windows 7 beta 32-bit version
Windows 7 beta 64-bit version (the download is no longer available)

The file size is about 2.4GB in size, so make sure you are on a broadband connection and have several hours to spare. You will have to burn it into a DVD to use it.

Once you have downloaded it, you will have to install it on a working machine in order to access the full functionality. As this is still a beta release and not suitable for daily production use, it is not wise to erase or upgrade your existing Vista to Windows 7. A good way is to create a dual boot system where you can choose to boot into Vista or Win 7. Here’s how it’s done:

Shrink your Vista and create new partition

In your Vista, go to Start -> Control Panel. Click on the System and Maintenance.

Scroll down all the way to find the Administrative Tools. Create on the Create and format hard disk partitions. You should see information about your current hard drive partitioning.

Right click on the chart diagram and select Shrink volume.

A window will pop up to ask you to enter the amount of space to shrink. This is the size that you want your new partition to have. For Win 7, you will need at least 10GB of hard disk space. Click Shrink after you have confirmed the shrinking size.

Back to the Disk Management window, you should see two partition now: one is the C drive and a new unallocated partition. Right-click on the Unallocated partition and select New Simple Volume

Set the volume size of the new partition and click Next.

Next, it will ask you to specify the drive letter of the new partition. To avoid confusion with the drive letter of the CD-ROM, I decided to go with G:. You can set your own drive letter though.

In the next screen, you can specify the file format and Volume label. It is recommended to change the Volume Label to something that is easy to identify, such as Windows 7.

The partitioning will now start. Once it is done, you should see something like this.

Close everything. Place in the Windows 7 DVD and restart the computer.

Installing Windows 7

Boot up your computer using the Windows 7 installer DVD (you might have to configure the BIOS to get the computer to boot from CD-ROM). Let’s the installer run and follow the instruction until you reach the point where it asks you to select the installation partition.Make sure you select the partition that you have just created (not the Vista partition).

Finish up the installation. It should be done in about 30 minutes time.

When it’s done, it will auto-restart. On the boot up screen, you should be able to choose between Windows Vista or Windows 7.

To dual boot windows XP and windows 7

The procedure is the same as the dual-boot between windows XP and Vista.

Accessing Windows Vista partition from Windows 7

When you boot into Windows 7, you will find that you won’t be able to access Vista partition. This is because in Windows 7, both the partitions are registered as Drive C:, thus it only displays the partition that the system boots up with. To solve this issue, simply go to Disk Management and change the drive letter of the Vista partition.

In your Windows 7, go to Disk Management.

Right-click on the Vista partition (the one with the blank entry) and select Change Drive letter and Paths

Click Add to assign a drive letter to the Vista partition.

Save and close all windows. The Vista partition should appear in your Explorer now.

How to Dual Boot Windows Vista And Windows 7 originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)