Petri Recommends: Install Windows 7 Drivers Automatically

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Automate the update process with Driver Genius Professional.

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[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – You can leverage some of the new features of Internet Explorer 8 on your Windows XP system as well as Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 by leveraging the Microsoft download site.

Windows Internet Explorer 8 for Windows XP is available for Windows XP Service Pack 2; Windows XP Service Pack 3 and it is available for Windows Internet Explorer 8 for Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008 (all service pack levels).

Most of the features and functionality have been back ported to the legacy operating systems but in order to get all of the features and functionality you need to be running it under Windows 7

Overview of Internet Explorer 8 Accelerators

One of the new features of Internet Explorer 8 are Accelerators. In order to use them you simply highlight any section of text from the website you are on and then click on the blue Accelerator icon that appears above your selection to get options available to you through the function.

These may be Blog with Windows Live, Email with Windows Live, Map with Bing and so forth. Some of the options may not be relative; in the screen shot below I've highlighted a segment of an article and to choose the Map with Bing option basically faults out because the highlighted text doesn't correspond with something that could be mapped.

When you choose a more relative option such as Translate with Bing (in our example) your results will be shown in the display window that pops up.

Managing Internet Explorer 8 Accelerators from the All Accelerators Submenu

When you run Internet Explorer 8 for the first time on your system you are prompted to accept a selection of default Accelerators, or you can choose your own from an online list of Accelerators that are provided.

You can manage your accelerators by choosing the Manage Accelerators option from the All Accelerators submenu.

This will bring up the Manage Add-ons window for Internet Explorer 8 titled View and manage your Internet Explorer add-ons where you can choose to work with not only the Accelerators but also Toolbars and Extensions, Search Providers and InPrivate Filtering.

To work with any one of the existing accelerators or to get additional information on it you'd need only to highlight it and the tool will provide you with additional information on it such as its Status, where it is Available on its installation point and some other additional information.

If you decide that you want to find more accelerators there is a link on the bottom left hand corner of the View and manage your Internet Explorer add-ons window.

When you select that link you are brought to http:/www.ieaddons.com/en/accelerators by default where you can choose from many additional available accelerators that may fit your needs.

They are available on the left hand side of the page and grouped in categories:

• Blog
• Bookmark
• Define
• Email
• Find
• Find news
• Find people
• Find product
• Map
• Share
• Translate
• Other

Manage Your IE8 Accelerators from the Manage Add-ons Option

The alternate way of getting to the manage your Internet Explorer add-ons options is to go through the following steps once you have opened Internet Explorer:

Click the Tools button and then select the Manage Add-ons option.

In Manage Add-ons section under Add-on Types you would click Accelerators to display a list of your current Accelerators.

As before, you would go to the bottom left of the of the open window and select the Find More Accelerators link which will bring the Internet Explorer Gallery webpage.

From here you would be able to click the Accelerator you want to install and then click Install Accelerator.

Once you have done this you would go to the Add Accelerator dialog box, do one of the following:

If you're adding a new Accelerator, click Add. When you add an Accelerator you have the option to Make this my default provider for this Accelerator Category by choosing it in the check box.

If you already have an existing accelerator and want to use the new option instead you would click Replace.

There are other management actions that you can take from this console as well.

If you need to change the status of an Accelerator you can do this simply by clicking the Enable, Disable, Set as default, or Remove as default buttons.

If you want to you can also change the category of an Accelerator by choosing CHANGE next to the Category field in the status area at the bottom of Manage Add-ons.

To remove an Accelerator you would simply click the Remove button.

In Summary...

In this article, we took an overview look at Internet Explorer 8 Accelerators. We also reviewed how to manage the Internet Explorer 8 Accelerators from the All Accelerators submenu and how to manage the IE8 Accelerators from the Manage Add-ons option.

Thanks for reading my article covering Internet Explorer 8 Accelerators in Windows 7.

I always welcome your feedback on this article or suggestions of other article topics you would like to see!

Thanks for reading.

Although hardware independence is fundamental to many of the advantages of virtualization it also creates a problem when you need to connect a specific hardware device to a virtual machine. Although SCSI passthrough has been available in ESX for some time accessing other types of device, especially USB, has always required alternative solutions such as USB over IP hubs. With the release of vSphere4 VMware have introduced a new feature called VMDirectPath I/O which allows up to two PCI(e) devices on the host server to be connected to a Virtual Machine. Officially this is provided to reduce the latency and hence improve the performance of devices such as 10Gb NICs and Host Bus Adapters, in fact only a handful of such devices are supported by VMware. However in fact pretty much any PCI(e) device can be connected, just bear in mind that VMware will not help with any problems you may encounter.

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So far, so good, but there are a number of things to consider before you can go ahead and connect a device, first of all the system requirements. VMDirectPath requires a host server which supports Intel's VT-d or AMD's IOMMU technology, which means the latest generation of chipsets so if your server is over a year old you're probably out of luck. The second significant issue is that because you are directly connecting your virtual machine to physical hardware several key features will no longer be available on that VM, namely:

• vMotion and Storage vMotion
• Fault Tolerance
• Snapshots and VM suspend
• Device Hot Add

Provided that hasn't put you off we'll now look at how to do it, in this example mapping the USB2 root hub on an HP DL380 G6 server so an external USB drive can be connected to an XP VM.

Setting Up VMDirectPath

Configure the Host Server

Although you have already checked that your host server supports VT-d or IOMMU you should still check in the BIOS that the technology is enabled, if its not obvious where this setting is then consult the manufacturer's documentation. Also make sure that the device you are planning to connect is installed in the server, in this example we will be using the USB2 root hub which is embedded in the chipset so that's not an issue. However if you are connecting extra storage to the server check the boot controller order - I wasted 30 minutes wondering why ESXi wouldn't load until I realized it was trying to boot off the external USB hard drive I'd connected for this test :)

From now on we will be doing all the configuration via the vSphere client so boot your server up into ESXi4 (the procedure is the same for ESX) and connect the vSphere client to it. Select the server in the left pane and click the Configuration tab, then click Advanced Settings :

Now click Configure Passthrough... and you will be presented with a list of the PCI(e) devices available in the host server:

Hopefully the device you wish to connect will be quite obvious, otherwise some experimentation will be necessary as you can only connect a maximum of two devices to a virtual machine. On first inspection we have a bit of a problem when selecting our USB device in the example here, as there are five similar USB Controllers listed. On closer inspection though it can be seen that only one controller is marked as USB2, and it also says "EHCI" - I know that the external USB ports on the server are USB2 so I figure this has to be the one.

Check the box next to the device you wish to connect, then click Ok to apply the changes. The window will close and after a few moments you should see a "Update host configuration" task run successfully in the Task Pane, then the screen will list the device you have connected and a message saying you have to reboot the host server.

To reboot the host server simply right-click its entry in the left pane and from the drop-down menu select Reboot. Once it has completing restarting you should then see the PCI(e) device now has a green tag to show it is active and available for connection.

Adding the PCI(e) Device to a Virtual Machine

The virtual machine must be powered off in order to add a hardware device so if it is running shut it down and then select the Summary tab and click Edit Settings. The Virtual Machine Properties window should open on the Hardware tab so click Add and then select PCI Device and click Next.

You are now prompted to select the PCI(e) device to connect and the drop-down box should show those devices which you added when configuring the host server previously. If you connected more than one device then you will have to select the correct one, otherwise just click Next and then check the settings are correct on the next page and click Finish. This time you should see an "Updating virtual machine configuration" task running and when that has completed you will be able to start your VM.

Assuming the VM is running a variant of Windows it should detect the new hardware automatically, just as if it was a physical machine that you had added the device to. Provided the driver is already available in Windows it will get installed automatically, otherwise you will be prompted to supply the driver files in the usual way. In this example I have connected the USB2 Controller to a Windows XP SP3 VM which recognizes it automatically, and also detects and installs the external hard drive connected to the server, as you can seen in this screenshot of the Windows Device Manager.

Conclusion

Since the new VT-d/IOMMU technology allows a direct mapping between the PCI(e) device and the virtual machine in theory you should be able to use any device which is compatible with your operating system. However as mentioned at the start of this article VMware have only certified it for use with a handful of devices and reports from users testing other hardware are scarce still. The Unofficial HCL over at vm-help.com does include a section on VMDirectPath tested components but at the time of writing only three were listed, hopefully this will improve with time. This certainly doesn't mean that your device won't work though, just be sure to test it thoroughly before using in a production environment.

Petri Recommended: Update to the Latest Vista Drivers

Vista's performance can be improved dramatically by installing the latest Vista-Certified hardware drivers. PC hardware manufacturers release new, improved Vista drivers continually: New versions are probably available for your PC right now.

Petri IT Knowledgebase Team

>> Download Driver Genius Pro: Our recommended Vista driver update scanner (5.1Mb)

Despite the inroads Windows Vista may have made into some homes and businesses, Windows XP is still the most widely used operating system so these changes are going to be a bit more of a change for most people.

This article will take a brief look the Windows 7 Start Menu and some of the changes in the basic functions of it and how you can perform some customizations for personalization and ease of use.

How is the Windows 7 Start Menu Different from Vista and XP

The Start Menu has a bit of a different look from what the average Windows XP user is used to working with.

Accessing it is still done pretty much the same ways as it was in the past - you'd either hit the Windows "pearl" (the replacement name for START - sometimes referred to as the Windows Logo) or the Windows Logo key on the keyboard to bring it up.

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – The Start Menu is normally at the bottom of the screen; I always move it from that default location to the top of the screen on all my systems.

This is just a personal preference of mine and I've done this as far back as Windows 95. To me it just seems more logical - all of the menus I use in software, in web browsers, etc are across the top and the Windows Taskbar and Toolbars are all at the bottom by default.

Before getting into some of the things you can do with Windows 7 Start Menu I thought I'd walk through what you see in the default view of the Start Menu and some of the ways you can customize what you see in there.

What’s new with Recently Opened Programs?

There are a number of different areas in the Start Menu to get to know.

There is the Recently Opened Programs area as shown below.

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – If you take a look back at Image 1 you'll notice the Creative Audio Control Panel is a peach color rather than white in the Recently Opened Programs area.

This color difference is due to the fact that this is a newly installed program; once you access the program it will turn to white like the rest of the listed programs as shown below.

You can change the number of programs you see in the Recently Opened Programs area by either right clicking the Windows pearl and selecting PROPERTIES or by opening the Start Menu up and right clicking an open space and choosing PROPERTIES.

Once the Taskbar and properties page is open you'll see that you are already on the Start Menu tab by default.

Right from here if you needed to, you could make changes to the default power button action from the drop down menu if you wanted the action to be something other than "Shut Down."

The additional available options for this system I am working from include Switch User, Log off, Lock, Restart, and Sleep as shown below.

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – What you have for available options here may differ depending on your system settings, whether your machine has the Sleep option enabled, which version of the operating system you are running (I am running Ultimate Edition), whether or not your system is a domain member and so on.

The default page of the Start Menu tab also allows you to make adjustments to the privacy settings with respect to the recently opened programs that are shown in the Start Menu and the Taskbar.

In order to actually change what we see in the Recently Opened Programs area we'd need to select CUSTOMIZE to continue.

Tweaking the Recently Opening Programs for your use

You’ll notice there are many settings that you can make changes to from the Customize Start Menu window once it is open.

In order to accomplish what we've set out to do we'll just focus on those customizable options.

We can adjust both the number of recent programs to display as well as the number of recent items to display in the Jump Lists by changing the numbers in the Start Menu size section.

This will directly change the number of Recently Opened Programs shown to whatever we set it to.

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – What you have for available viewing space as set by your monitor resolution is going to directly affect what you can see in the Recently Opened Programs view.

If you set the number higher than what can actually be view the system will let you know that all items may not be displayed.

I could not set this limit higher than 30 on my system.

By changing the setting from 10 to 20 you can see that there is now additional white space for new programs that I launch to fill in the area

Once enough programs have been opened the list area would be fully populated and older programs would cycle off.

In Summary...

In this article, we learned about how the Windows 7 Start Menu is different from Vista and XP and we took a look at what’s new with Recently Opened Programs as well as learning how to Tweak the Recently Opening Programs for your use

Thanks for reading my article covering Getting started with Windows 7 Start Menu! I always welcome your feedback on this article or suggestions of other article topics you would like to see!

Thanks for reading!

In this article I will be reviewing one of the security and privacy features called InPrivate Browsing.

Petri Recommended: Update to the Latest Vista Drivers

Vista's performance can be improved dramatically by installing the latest Vista-Certified hardware drivers. PC hardware manufacturers release new, improved Vista drivers continually: New versions are probably available for your PC right now.

Petri IT Knowledgebase Team

>> Download Driver Genius Pro: Our recommended Vista driver update scanner (5.1Mb)

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – You can leverage some of the new features of Internet Explorer 8 on your Windows XP system as well as Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 by leveraging the Microsoft download site.

Windows Internet Explorer 8 for Windows XP is available for Windows XP Service Pack 2; Windows XP Service Pack 3 and it is available for Windows Internet Explorer 8 for Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008 (all service pack levels).

Most of the features and functionality have been back ported to the legacy operating systems but in order to get all of the features and functionality you need to be running it under Windows 7

Overview of Internet Explorer 8 InPrivate Browsing

The new InPrivate Browsing feature allows you to surf the web using IE8 without effectively leaving a track to where you've been and what your activities were with respect to the details that are often left behind in the browser itself.

This new privacy option is useful when you would like to minimize what anyone else might see when they are using your computer.

You can start an InPrivate Browsing session from the New Tab page or the Safety button.

Opening the InPrivate Browsing session in a new browser window

When you choose the option to start an InPrivate Browsing session. Internet Explorer will open a new browser window.

For the time you are using the InPrivate Browsing session you are able to open as many tabs as you want and they will all be protected by the InPrivate Browsing privacy functionality.

If you open another browser window from the Internet Explorer short cut that window will not be protected by InPrivate Browsing unless you activate it.

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – If you right click a link in the InPrivate Browsing session and choose the Open in new window option, the new window will open as another InPrivate Browsing session and would extend the privacy features into that new window as well.

When you are leveraging the InPrivate Browsing functionality within your active session, Internet Explorer will store required information such as cookies and temporary Internet files that are required for proper session functionality so that sites your visit will work correctly where a certain amount of data caching is expected and so forth. The privacy features kick in when you end your InPrivate Browsing session and all of the active data and information is discarded.

The following information below outlines which information InPrivate Browsing discards when you close the browser and how it is affected during your browsing session:

· Cookies - Kept in memory so pages work correctly, but cleared when you close the browser.

· Temporary Internet Files - Stored on disk so pages work correctly, but deleted when you close the browser.

· Webpage history - This information is not stored.

· Form data and passwords -This information is not stored.

· Anti-phishing cache - Temporary information is encrypted and stored so pages work correctly.

· Address bar and search AutoComplete - This information is not stored.

· Automatic Crash Restore (ACR) - ACR can restore a tab when it crashes in a session, but if the whole window crashes, data is deleted and the window cannot be restored.

· Document Object Model (DOM) storage - The DOM storage is a kind of "super cookie" web developers can use to retain information. Like regular cookies, they are not kept after the window is closed.

What the InPrivate Browsing session doesn't protect

There are a few things that the InPrivate Browsing session does not handle or manage for you.

As one example, InPrivate Browsing keeps other people who might be using your computer from seeing what you visited on the web when they later log on to the system and take a look around at the history or if they should decide to look at the cache directly. It wouldn't stop someone on your network that is actively scanning network traffic from seeing the data coming and going to your system. Basically the InPrivate Browsing privacy features do not specifically encrypt your network traffic.

Also InPrivate Browsing privacy does not necessarily provide you with anonymity on the Internet. Websites that purposefully track user access might be able to identify you through your IP address or other network designation and anything you do or enter on that website can be recorded if they do that level of usage monitoring and record keeping.

Any favorites or feeds that you add while using InPrivate Browsing will be maintained changes as if they occurred in any regular browsing session. This is true as well for any changes to Internet Explorer settings that you make manually or allow as a function from a website call (e.g. make this site your homepage - click here). These types of additions and changes will be kept when you close out your InPrivate Browsing session.

In Summary...

In this article, we took an overview look at Internet Explorer 8 InPrivate Browsing. We also reviewed how to open the InPrivate Browsing session in a new browser window and reviewed what the InPrivate Browsing session doesn't protect

Thanks for reading my article covering Internet Explorer 8 on Windows 7 - Internet Explorer 8 InPrivate Browsing.

I always welcome your feedback on this article or suggestions of other article topics you would like to see!

Thanks for reading.

Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 7 are a package of administration tools add-ons that allow IT administrators to manage roles and features that are installed on computers that are running Windows Server 2008/2008 R2, and Windows Server 2003, from a remote computer that is running Windows 7.

Petri Recommends: Install Windows 7 Drivers Automatically

After installing Windows 7, it's important to install the correct hardware drivers to get your video, sound, network, and other components working properly.

Automate the update process with Driver Genius Professional.

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Note: RSAT is similar in concept, although not in function and method of installation, to what was known as the "Adminpak" in Windows Server 2003/XP days, which could be found in the %systemroot%\system32 folder of the server (or downloaded separately - see links below).

Another important note: This version is NOT compatible with Windows Vista. To install and use RSAT on Windows Vista (if you're one of the few that actually have Vista... LOL), you'll need to use Vista's specific version.

Download details: Microsoft Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows Vista:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=9FF6E897-23CE-4A36-B7FC-D52065DE9960&displaylang=en

RSAT for Windows 7 includes support for remote management of computers that are running either the Server Core or full installation options of Windows Server 2008 R2, and for some roles and features, Windows Server 2008. See download links below.

Note that some roles and features on Windows Server 2003 can be managed remotely by using Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 7, meaning you can use tools such as Active directory Users and Computers, DNS or DHCP management tools and so on, but not all tools will work against Windows Server 2003, and even if the tool works, there might be specific functions that will not function. Therefore, in order to manage a Windows Server 2003 network, use either a Windows XP-based workstation, or use RDP to connect to the remote servers and manage them directly, if possible. Read these articles for more information:

• Download Windows 2003 SP2 Adminpak
• Download Windows 2003 R2 Adminpak
• Extract Specific Tools from Adminpak.msi

Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 7 can be installed on computers that are running the Enterprise, Professional, or Ultimate editions of Windows 7, and they run on both x86- and x64-based editions of Windows 7. they can them be used to manage roles and features that are running on either the Server Core or full installation options of the x64-based Windows Server 2008 or 2008 R2 operating system.

Some of the tools included are Server Manager, Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS) Tools, Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) Tools, Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS) Tools, DHCP Server Tools, DNS Server Tools, File Services Tools, Hyper-V Tools, Terminal Services Tools, BitLocker Password Recovery Viewer, Failover Clustering Tools, Group Policy Management Tools, Network Load Balancing Tools, SMTP Server Tools, Storage Explorer Tools, Storage Manager for SANs Tools, Windows System Resource Manager Tools.

Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 7 should not be installed on a computer that is running the Windows Server 2003 Administration Tools Pack or Windows 2000 Server Administration Tools Pack. Prior to installing the RSAT package, please make sure that you first remove all versions of Administration Tools Pack or Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows Vista SP1 from the computer before you install Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 7. Furthermore, only one copy at a time of Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 7 can be installed on a computer. Before you install a new package, remove any existing copies of Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 7. This includes any copies that are in different languages.

How to Install Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) on Windows 7

After downloading either the 64-bit or 32-bit version, based upon your needs, you will then install it on any Windows 7 system that will be used to remotely manage your servers.

Note: In order to use RDP to manage your servers you do not need to install anything! The RSAT package will allow you to connect to the servers on your network as though you were using one of the tools on one of your servers, and allow you to perform all the management tasks on your network.

Another very important note: The RSAT package uses local network connections and, in most cases, the RPC protocol, but NOT just RPC, also a large bunch pf protocols and Firewall settings. This protocol is not easily passed through a Firewall (although it can be passed, it's all a question of configuration). Therefore, if the Windows 7 workstation used to manage the servers is INSIDE the SAME physical LAN, you will probably not have any issues connecting to the servers and managing them. However, if the Windows 7 workstation used to manage the servers is OUTSIDE the physical LAN, and connecting to the servers through some sort of WAN connection AND through a Firewall, you will probably not be able to connect to the servers. In this case, what most administrators will do is either use RDP to connect to these servers, or, when possible, use some sort of VPN or SSL-VPN connection to the network.

Getting back to the topic of this article, here are the complete instructions:

You must be either a member of the Administrators group on the computer on which you want to install the Administration Tools pack, or you must be logged on to the computer by using the built-in Administrator account.

1. Double-click the downloaded file to start the Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 7 Setup Wizard. Follow all the steps through the installation (basically it's "Next" all the way to the "Finish" button...)

2. Next, click Start, click Control Panel, and then click Programs. In the Programs and Features area, click Turn Windows features on or off.

If you are prompted by User Account Control to enable the Windows Features dialog box to open, click Continue.

3. In the Windows Features dialog box, expand Remote Server Administration Tools. Select the remote management tools that you want to install. Click OK.

If the Start menu does not display the Administration Tools shortcut you will need to configure it:

• Right-click Start, and then click Properties.
• On the Start Menu tab, click Customize.
• In the Customize Start Menu dialog box, scroll down to System Administrative Tools, and then select Display on the All Programs menu and the Start menu. Click OK. Shortcuts for snap-ins installed by Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 7 are added to the Administrative Tools list on the Start menu.

Reinstalling or removing individual Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 7

If a remote administration tool was removed from a computer that is running Windows 7, you can install it again by performing the following steps.

To reinstall individual remote administration tools:

1. Click Start, click Control Panel, and then click Programs. In the Programs and Features area, click Turn Windows features on or off.

2. In the Windows Features dialog box, expand Remote Server Administration Tools.

3. Select the remote management tools that you want to install, or clear the check boxes for any tools that you want to remove. Click OK.

Removing the complete Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 7 pack

Again, you must be either a member of the Administrators group on the computer from which you want to remove the Administration Tools pack, or you must be logged on to the computer by using the built-in Administrator account.

You can remove the complete Administration Tools pack from a computer by using the Uninstall a program utility in Control Panel.

1. Click Start, click Control Panel, and then click Uninstall a program in the Programs area.

2. Click View installed updates.

3. Select Update for Microsoft Windows (958830).

4. Click Uninstall.

ObserveIT Xpress is free software, without any time limits, that provides full video playback of all on-screen user activities during Remote Desktop, VM Viewer, Citrix or any other remote access software sessions, both in real-time and recorded user sessions.

In this webinar, we will be discussing the following:

• A quick product walkthrough demo of ObserveIT Xpress and ease of installation
• The differences between ObserveIT and Citrix Smart Auditor feature.
• The differences between ObserveIT Xpress free edition and the Professional edition
• How ObserveIT integrates with Windows Server 2008 R2 Remote Desktop Service

For those of you who can't wait…
You can download ObserveIT Xpress from the following URL
http://www.observeit-sys.com/ObserveIT-Express.asp?OITRer=PetriWebinar

Webinar information

Register: http://www.dabcc.com/article.aspx?id=12186

Title: ObserveIT Xpress Session Recording Demonstration and Technical Overview

Date: Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Time: 2:00 PM

Petri Recommends: Install Windows 7 Drivers Automatically

After installing Windows 7, it's important to install the correct hardware drivers to get your video, sound, network, and other components working properly.

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There is a logic behind this behavior. If, for example, you're using a removable USB disk drive, which has once been plugged in, Windows will install the appropriate driver for it. When you eject that drive, Windows retains the drivers so that they will be ready the next time you connect the drive.

But what about replacing a video adapter? A network interface card? A printer that has been thrown away? What about working with a laptop that you once used to connect to an external device, and has not used that device since? What happens to that driver if you never connect that device to your computer again?

With time, your computer will gather an increasing number of unused drivers that not only take space on your hard disk, having been still installed, they might cause problems if they are somehow enabled. In some cases they can also cause hardware conflicts. And to make things worse, when you do want to use the same device after a long period of inactivity, even if you re-install an updated version of the driver, Windows might still use the older version of it.

So how do you remove these old and un-used drivers? Let me show you.

By default, Device Manager will only show you the devices it's currently using.

What you need to do is to configure Device Manager to show all those non-present device drivers, sometimes known as "phantom devices".

Warning!

This document contains instructions for editing the registry. If you make any error while editing the registry, you can potentially cause Windows to fail or be unable to boot, requiring you to reinstall Windows. Edit the registry at your own risk. Always back up the registry before making any changes. If you do not feel comfortable editing the registry, do not attempt these instructions. Instead, seek the help of a trained computer specialist.

Method #1:

1. Go to Control Panel and double click on System. You can also right-click "Computer" on the Start menu (or on the desktop if it's shown there) and choose Properties.

Note: A faster way for opening up the System applet is to press the Windows logo key on your keyboard and then press Pause/Break at the same time.

2. Click on "Advance System Settings" link, and then click on the "Environment Variables" button.

3. In the System Variables section click on the "New" button.

4. In the New System Variable dialog box, under the Variable Name value enter devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices (just copy the value from here and paste it there) and give it a variable value of 1.

Click Ok.

5. In the Environment Variables window notice how the new variable appeared in the System Variables section. Click Ok.

6. In the System Properties window click Ok.

7. Log off and log on.

8. Open Device Manager (Control Panel > System > Hardware > Device Manager).

9. From the View menu click Show Hidden Devices and notice the change.

Method #2:

You can perform the same task by using the registry (or even create a logon script that will add the following key to the registry):

1. Open Registry Editor.

2. In Registry Editor, navigate to the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment

3. Create the following value (DWORD):

devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices

and give it a value of 1.

4. Close Registry Editor and reboot.

Important Note: Before removing the old drivers for devices you still use, it's a good idea to find and download the driver updates to a folder on your drive - especially if they're for your networking devices. If you know specifically which drivers need updating you can search for new drivers manually, but if you don't, a driver updater tool can perform an automated search and help you locate the correct downloads.

If you're specifically looking for updates for Windows 7, Device Doctor also has a handy list of the top-requested Windows 7 driver updates to get you started.

Links

• Device Manager Does Not Display Devices Not Currently Present in Windows 2000

An error occurred while attempting to export the virtual machine.

Failed to create export directory.

Failed to create export directory with the name 'D:\Backup\OIT2003DEV2 (73) \Virtual Hard Disks' with error 'The system cannot find the path specified.'(0x80070003): OIT2003DEV2 (73)  (FC56A6B8-2046-4670-9DAA-D72203098CFB)

Note: I have not tested this on an SP2 machine, so it may very well be that this error is fixed in SP2 or even in R2.

Luckily, I have also managed to work around this issue. Read below.

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Steps to reproduce the problem:

In Hyper-V Manager, I right-clicked the virtual machine. Note that the VM was in shut-down state, and currently it did not have any snapshots associated with it.

I chose "Export", and then browsed for a location for the exported VM. I have made sure that there was plenty of disk space available for the eport operation. File path wasn't complex, and it even did not have spaces in it.

I then clicked on the "Export" button, and behold, the error appeared.

The Solution:

I have searched the Internet for a documented solution, but have yet to find one. Because the VM has worked well and without an error, I was confident that there wasn't an issue with the VM's hard disks. So I was just about to grab the VHD files of the VM, and create a new one using the old VHDs of the "bad" VM.

However, since there were other VMs waiting to be exported on the host, I figured that I should somehow mark the "bad" VM and flag it for action after I was done with the other VMs. So, I clicked on the VM's name, and I simply added a few characters to the VM's name. In this instance, I added "---" to the name.

After finishing the exporting of the other VMs, I returned to the "bad" VM. Just out of curiosity I tried to export the VM again.

Behold, somehow the addition of the "---" to the VM's name has somehow "fixed" the export issue.

I do not know why the VM was "bad" in the first place and what has caused it to fail the export operation. I do not know why it got fixed, but it did. I just tried it with 2 more similarly troubled VMs, and it works.

Hope this helps someone.

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Note: This article is directly related to the default Windows XP virtual machine used by Windows XP Mode (or XPM). When you create additional virtual hard disks, and when you use your own virtual machines, you can configure them to store the VHD files anywhere you want.

First, if you haven't done so yet, install Virtual PC and then install the default Virtual Windows XP machine. You can use my "Installing Virtual PC on Windows 7" and "Installing Windows XP Mode (XPM) on Windows 7" articles for more information on that.

Now lets take a look at the way it uses virtual disks.

Note: All screenshots and procedures are based on the RC version of Windows 7, and the beta version of Virtual PC.

By default, the Virtual Windows XP machine uses one (1) virtual disk that is configured as a dynamically expanding differencing disk. This is the parent disk:

C:\Program Files\Virtual Windows XP\Virtual Windows XP.vhd

Note: In the RC version, this path was changed to C:\Program Files\Windows XP Mode\Windows XP Mode base.vhd.

Now, unlike a regular differencing disk, a dynamically expanding differencing disk uses 2 VHD files. One is the parent disk (the Virtual Windows XP.vhd file), and another VHD file that stores all the changes, in a bit level, made since the parent disk has been created. In my case, this is the location of the differencing disk:

D:\XPM\Virtual Windows XP.vhd

Note: In the RC version, this file name was changed to Windows XP Mode.vhd.

This is the parent disk:

As you can see, the file is 1.04 GB in size, and the installation automatically configures it as a read only file.

And this is the differencing disk, which can be smaller, but usually is bigger than what you see here:

What makes the differencing disk bigger is the amount of changes, compared to the parent virtual hard disk. Whenever there's a bit that's different, it will be written in the differencing disk. So the more you work with it, the more programs you install, whenever you update the virtual machine from Windows Update, whenever you install IE 7 or IE 8 (the default Virtual Windows XP machine comes with IE 6), then you will make the differencing disk bigger and bigger. The interesting stuff is that even if you delete a lot of information from it, it'll still grow, as from a bit to bit perspective, it has changed when compared to the parent disk.

Note that you can compact this disk, and you can even merge it into the parent disk or into a new VHD file. More on that in a future article.

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So I investigated this issue, and came up with a solution.

Note: You might want to also implement the setting that prevents the last user from being displayed on the logon screen.

Warning!

This document contains instructions for editing the registry. If you make any error while editing the registry, you can potentially cause Windows to fail or be unable to boot, requiring you to reinstall Windows. Edit the registry at your own risk. Always back up the registry before making any changes. If you do not feel comfortable editing the registry, do not attempt these instructions. Instead, seek the help of a trained computer specialist.

To hide the user name for the user that has locked the computer, follow the next steps:

1. Start Registry Editor.

2. Locate the following key in the registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System

3. If it doesn't exist, on the Edit menu, point to New, click DWORD Value, and then add the following registry values:

Value name: DontDisplayLockedUserId

Value data: 1, 2 or 3 (see below)

Base: Decimal

The following values can be set:

• 1 = Show the locked user display name and the user ID
• 2 = Show the locked user display name only
• 3 = Do not display the locked user information

4. Exit Registry Editor.

Note: To prevent the last logged on user to be displayed in the Windows logon screen, also set the dontdisplaylastusername value and set it to 1.

This is how it looks like on a Windows Server 2008 machine.

Before:

After: