computer news

IN Media windows 7 tablet Unveiled (video review )

2010-12-22T14:35:00.000-08:00

IN Media Corp. announced the release of the "Windows 7 Tablet computer." The Windows 7 Tablet computer tries to run the full Windows 7 OS. The product is underpowered by the 1.66GHZ Intel Atom processor and comes with a 160 GB hard drive because its developers do not understand how people are using their iPads.

The Windows 7 Tablet computer comes with an HDMI port, a forward facing camera and what the company's video claims is a "10-inch" screen, despite their press release stating that it's 11.25 x 6 inches (12.75" diagonal).

“We desired to launch a tablet that did everything, not a media player or eReader or net book but all those things and far more,” said IN Media C.E.O. Nick Karnik in the sloppily-written, somewhat incomprehensible, English-as-a-third-langage press release. “The touch screen the Windows 7 Tablet computer had all the full functionality of a computer in an elegant and efficient tablet format and because of the operating process users aren't limited to what type of video formats we can view as all are supported including the most popular, Flash."

Samsung Gloria Tablet 10-inch With Win-7 OS

2010-12-11T14:46:00.000-08:00

Gloria might not be the name of the Tablet, but it may be the title of a new brand Samsung Mobile Units. there is no estimation either by Samsung or any other company, on any other features regarding their memory or storage capacity, processor and design. Sources also said that Samsung may come up with its own touch-friendly program.

Samsung’s Marketing Team is now in a job of communicating to the Market, that only know about the iPads and iPods. Because selling of the Tablet at the same screen size of iPad is little difficult also a virtually unusable keyboard appears to be a hard task. Samsung Gloria Tab is expected to be launched on March or April 2011.

Samsung Gloria Tablet: A rumor that, Samsung Gloria Tablet comes up with 10-inch display with slide down QWERTY keyboard and preinstalled Windows 7 Operating technique. The first tab of Samsung, Samsung Q1U was an instrumental in Microsoft’s UMPC product.

Quicken and Windows 7 compatibility

2010-12-08T13:56:00.000-08:00

HELPROOM ANSWER there's several feasible causes for this problem, Edward. Most likely is that your copy of Quicken isn't compatible with Windows 7.

query I'm still using Quicken for my home stock. Unfortunately, a necessary refresh of Windows 7 has left me with issues reinstalling Quicken. I get the error message: 'The program cannot load because MFC70.DLL is missing from your computer'. I'm a novice user & would be grateful for any advice you can offer me. Edward Powell

Another possibility is that the file in query is missing or corrupted. Go to Start, type sfc /scannow in the search bar & press Enter. Windows will check & repair any corrupt or missing process files.

you ought to also run Windows Update & make positive that all updates are applied, those relating to Microsoft's .Net framework.

If this is the case, try setting up a Windows XP virtual machine using the free VirtualBox platform. Note that you will require to have a Windows XP installation disc to hand also a valid licence key.

you can fix any hard-drive errors you uncover using another device built in to Windows. Press Start, computer, right-click your hard drive & choose Properties, Tools, Error-checking, Check now. make positive the box for 'Automatically fix file process errors' is chosen. Now click Start, 'Schedule disk check', & reboot the computer.

Apple Ipad vs Windows 7 tablet

2010-12-05T15:17:00.001-08:00

Apple Ipad vs Windows 7 tablet: "Computer maker Acer has laid out its first tablet computers. This lineup will include a windows 7 tablet and 2 android devices."

MacBook Air 2010 Vs Windows 7

2010-12-04T11:41:00.000-08:00

I have been reading through an editorial on pcworld.com’s net site and they historicallyin the past did a comparison between theMacBook Air and some Netbooks. Unsurprisingly the MacBook Air came out on top, I guess that is what happens when you compare a tiny laptop computer with a dual core processor against single core low powered laptops. I mean you have to have a look at the cost difference between them to know which the better laptop computer is. If there is a difference of $500-700 difference, you know the more expensive one is going to come out on top.

Following on from this, they are now doing a comparison between the new MacBook Air and laptops that are of a similar cost. This will be a better comparison as generally the laptops jogging Windows 7 will be of a much higher standard than a Netbook. Generally i have found over the years that when it comes to computing you get what you pay for.

So what do the results show? Funnily exactly what I thought, the MacBook Air would do ok but there will be some laptops that out perform it. you can see all of the results for graphics, battery life amongst other things by heading over to pcworld.com.

If i am honest, I still think it is a pointless study as all of the machines that they looked at have different target audiences. That’s my opinion but let me know yours in the comments below.

Taken From http://www.onlinesocialmedia.net

What Will Windows 7 Major Upgrade 2011 Bring

2010-12-02T07:01:00.000-08:00

These are definitely some signs that can’t be ignored, can they? In fact Microsoft ought to better pull a rabbit out of the hat actual shortly since these numbers, even if unofficial right now, will be unveiled later down the road. The company is readying a major program update for very early 2011, and although this upgrade will bring you multitasking or Copy and Paste features, will that be to significantly bump up sales?

Symbian 3

Recently, for example, Nokia have rebuilt Symbian and launched Symbian^3 on the N8, whilst Microsoft released Windows telephone 7 in a high profile campaign across a range of high-end devices. historicallyin the past, both Symbian and Windows Mobile have come under criticism (from some quarters) for providing a user experience that does not match the high standards set by competitors and for offering limited services and content. This is reflected in the comparatively lower loyalty scores their respective ecosystems generate; Symbian (24%) and Windows Mobile (29%). In contrast, Apple, who have arguably led the way in the smartphone market in terms of user experience and service / content provision have very high levels (59%) of said loyalty to the Apple Ecosystem. Nevertheless, despite this lead even Apple and Android users would consider other mobile ecosystems when it comes to upgrading their telephone.

iPhone

Apple iPhone owners were a bit different though, as 59% of those surveyed planned to stick with Apple’s smartphone for their next purchase. Microsoft received the lowest loyalty score with 21% but it’s not clear if this survey was for Windows telephone 7, which was only released a month ago.

Acer

Acer made its name building inexpensive netbooks and laptops, and has parlayed that electronic expertise in to the smartphone realm. (“What they need to be is a worldwide provider of mobile solutions–smartphone, tablet, netbook, notebook–any kind of mobile, going from content creation to content consumption,” Lanci said.) The company primarily offers its smartphone wares in Europe, but company executives have expressed a desire to expand in to the U.S. smartphone market.

How to fix BIOS problems ?

2010-11-28T06:11:00.000-08:00

When viewing externally, a laptop would usually be a simple rectangular box. However, when you try to take off the sides of the laptop, you would find that there are a lot of different parts which make up the computer. Therefore, you should be careful when you use the computer because if there is any problem with the computer, you could hardly find the source of the problem.

Among all the parts of the computer, one of the most important parts would be the laptop motherboard. The motherboard has a lot of dedicate capacitors and circuits which enable the computer to work. All of the parts of the computer have to be connected to the motherboard in order to function. Therefore, many people would say that motherboard is the soul of the computer and when the motherboard has problem, people have to work hard to solve the problem and conduct laptop motherboard repair. Otherwise, they would have to replace the motherboard with a new one.

In fact, one of the common problems about the motherboard would be the BIOS setting. Sometimes, some virus or bad programs may try to change the BIOS settings of the computer so that the computer would not be able to function. The corresponding laptop motherboard repair work is simple. In order to fix this problem, people could try to remove the battery on the motherboard. This type of laptop motherboard repair would work in most of the time because the silver battery provides the electricity for the motherboard to keep the BIOS setting and when the battery is taken away, the settings would be restored as the original default settings.

However, people should not try to take the battery out of the penal for a long time because it would make the settings of date and time change.

from http://techknowbits.com

10 Windows 7 Registry tweaks

2010-11-08T14:38:00.000-08:00

10 Windows 7 Registry hacks and tweaks

Windows 7 needs far less of the sleeves-up shuffling about that its predecessors demanded for smooth operation.

It works, and it works well. But that doesn't mean you can't use the Registry to add nifty features or change the settings to your liking.

Here are ten things you can do with the Windows 7 Registry. Just type regedit in the usual search box and hit [Enter], then follow our tips.

1. Personalise IE8

Bought your PC from an overzealous manufacturer that's gratuitously branded Internet Explorer with its own na

me? Just want to add your own custom touch in place of the default 'Windows Internet Explorer'? It's easy.

In the registry editor, navigate to 'HKEY_CURRENT_ USER\Software\Microsoft\ Internet Explorer\Main' and create a new string value. Name it 'Window Title', with the space. Then just double-click it and enter your desired window title in the field.

2. Stop Snap

Aero Snap is arguably a very useful feature – we say arguably because, as we're sure you've noticed, it often decides to kick in and glue your windows to screen edges when you don't want it to.

If you're not finding the Snap feature useful, then you might as well turn it off . First, navigate to 'HKEY_CURRENT_ USER\Control Panel\Desktop'. There are a number of settings you could customise here, but the one that you're looking for in this case is called 'WindowArrangementActive'. The value should be 1 – change it to 0 to make this feature inactive.

Alternatively, just make sure you never venture too close to the edge.

3. Change stacking behaviour

This particular tweak is perhaps of questionable usefulness, but we thought you'd like the option to try it anyway. If you don't like the thumbnail display when clicking on taskbar buttons, then you can change the action and force Windows to open the last opened window of the stack instead.

To do this, open 'HKEY_ CURRENT_USER\Software\ Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Explorer\Advanced' and create a new DWORD value. Rename it LastActiveClick and set its value to 1 to switch this mode on.

Should you change your mind, you can always go back and delete the key or set it to 0 to revert back later on.

4. Quicker taskbar previews

Are you bored of waiting the couple of seconds it takes for the graphical previews to pop up when you hover over icons on the taskbar? Or would you rather they took longer to appear?

The choice is yours. Go to 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ Software\Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced' and create a DWORD named 'ExtendedUIHoverTime'. Now double-click to open it, click the 'Decimal' radio button, and then change its value to the number of milliseconds you'd like the process to take. The default is 400ms.

5. Change other delays

Stay in the same key (Explorer\Advanced) and you can tweak a couple of other timings.

Add a 32-bit DWORD into the mix named 'DesktopLivePreviewHoverTime'. Switch this to decimal in the same manner as before, then change the value data field to alter the number of milliseconds it takes for the Aero Peek function (minimise all windows) to kick in when you hover over the icon on the right of the taskbar.

Alternatively, do the same with a DWORD called 'ThumbnailLivePreview HoverTime' to alter how long it takes for the windows that are associated with taskbar thumbnails to come to the front.

6. Speed up menus

Make menu items automatically drop down a lot faster with this tweak. Go to 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ Control Panel\Desktop', right-click 'MenuShowDelay' and click 'Modify'.

Now change the current string value to something like 100 – hey presto, near-instant menu appearance.

7. Stop space checking

Free up a tiny shred of system resources. Go to 'HKEY_ CURRENT_USER\Software\ Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorer', create a new DWORD called 'NoLowDisk SpaceChecks' and set its value to 1 to switch off disk space checking.

8. Move the kernel

If the Windows Kernel is in memory, it will run slightly faster than it would if it were on your hard drive. Hunt out 'DisablePagingExecutive' within 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management'. Change its value to 1.

9. Change the name

Bought a second-hand machine? Then you might want to alter the name of the registered owner. Go to 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\ CurrentVersion\', double-click on the 'RegisteredOwner' key and then change it.

10. Boost speed

There's one tweak that will make every hover action much faster, from tooltips to the Start menu. Navigate to 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ Control Panel\Mouse' and tweak the 'MouseHoverTime' value. A word of warning, though: never choose 0 – it's completely unworkable.

By PC Plus

Forget XP and Vista, Windows 7 is your new OS

2010-11-04T04:16:00.000-07:00

Consumers and business customers are moving past Windows XP and Windows Vista, with Microsoft noting that Windows 7’s adoption rate is through the roof.

The Redmond company even has the numbers to prove it, with Rich Reynolds, general manager of Windows Commercial Product Marketing at Microsoft underpinning the fact that 240 million Windows 7 licenses have already been sold to date.

But there are additional statistics coming from third-party sources, all illustrative of a consensus, the most successful operating system in history continues to sell like hot cake.

Net Applications is crediting Windows 7 with a market share of 18.33% at the end of October 2010, with XP having dropped under the 60% mark to 58.92%, and Vista down to 12.93%.

It is clear that end users are dumping XP and Vista and upgrading to Windows 7. And Microsoft expects this trend to continue in 2011, especially considering the increase in the number of PC units for next year.

“There are 1.2 billion PCs in the worldwide ecosystem and PC sales have rebounded with Windows 7 as a key driver. According to IDC, there was 4.15% global PC unit growth in 2009, with nearly 17% growth expected for 2010, and sustained growth continuing at a rate of nearly 13% in 2011,” Reynolds noted.

In 2011, hundreds of millions of PCs will all come preinstalled with Windows 7, more than doubling the number of licenses that the software giant will sell in2010.

Microsoft is currently building Service Pack 1 and there’s already some talk of the company’s next moves in the client and server space as far as Windows is concerned, but with little effect on customers, and especially businesses.

83% more IT managers will deploy Windows 7 within a year, according to Forrester. “IDC shows that nearly all enterprise companies (89%) surveyed are moving forward with their Windows 7 plans within the next 24 months. And 64% of them are already deploying Windows 7 or have plans to migrate in the next six months,” Reynolds added.

“SMB growth has also been notable - the number of desktops and laptops running Windows 7 has increased nearly 500% since the beginning of the year.”

Most important, customers are happy with the move they made. The Redmond company underlined the fact that Windows 7 has a 94% customer satisfaction rating, and this percentage pretty much speaks for itself.

Contributing to a high level of satisfaction is also a drop in costs. For businesses this is extremely important as they continue to pay for any new technology. But the Total Cost of Ownership for Windows 7 is down compared to previous versions of Windows, and even with rival operating systems.

“We’ve done extensive internal studies with several companies to get a better idea of actual TCO, including British Airport Authority (BAA), National Instruments (NI), City of Stockholm, Baker Tilly, City of Miami and Getronics,” Reynolds stated.

“The average savings is $140 per PC per year and the average ROI is 131% in just over 12 months. We’ve also seen very specific TCO data related to deployment with an average savings of $12-61 per desktop.”

In addition to low TCO, enterprise customers will also benefit as far as Return on Investment is concerned. “BAA business value analysis expects an ROI of 102%, an IRR of 65%, and a payback period within 15 months. Anticipated benefits include IT cost savings of $268 per PC per year and user productivity increases to 14 hours per user per year,” Reynolds explained.

Windows 7 SP1 is expected in the first quarter of 2011, but there’s really no reason to wait, and as the numbers above clearly indicate, customers aren’t waiting at all.

BY : http://news.softpedia.com

Windows 7 Printing Performance Compared to Vista – Fix Available

2010-10-21T15:24:00.000-07:00

Microsoft is offering help to customers that upgraded from Windows Vista to Windows 7 and then came across poor performance when printing documents from the new platform.

The Redmond company has acknowledged the existence of the issue, revealing that it also affects Windows Server 2008 R2, and not just Windows 7.
While overall, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 deliver superior performance compared to their predecessors, Vista and Windows Server 2008, printing is one scenario in which customers can run into problems.

“On a computer that is running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2, the printing performance may be poor compared to the performance on a computer that is running Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008,” Microsoft explained.

“Additionally, a computer that is running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 consumes more CPU resources when you print a document.”

One way for users to see whether they are affected by this specific problem is to check what the load on the processor is when they’re printing documents in Windows 7, especially if they feel like the speed has deteriorated after upgrading from Vista.

Vista.

For example, CPU usage remains at 100 percent for a long time in Task Manager when you print a document on a computer that is running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2,” the software giant explained.

Microsoft has identified the source of the problem, and noted that it is most likely for customers with single-CPU machines to come across it.

“This issue occurs because of a performance regression in spooler behavior on single-processor systems that are running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2,” the company said.

For the time being, Microsoft is offering a hotfix designed to help affected customers deal with the problem. However, the company stressed that the fix is only intended for this specific issue and that users not experiencing any problems should not deploy it. .

If you are a student get Windows 7 Os for free

2010-10-18T01:08:00.000-07:00

In case you are a student then you might be eligible to get a free copy of the Windows 7 Operating System from Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) . The only requirement for the offer is that you should be having a valid email address with an accredited educational institute located in select countries.

You will then need to enroll in the MSDN Academic Alliance Program. Usually the enrollment has to be done by the academic institute so you will need to ask them to register you on MSDNAA. Note that some of the academic organizations might be enrolled in the MSDN programme but not aware of it, so you will need to check yourself if your educational institute is on the MSDN list or not.

But enrolling into the MSDNAA does not only give you access to just Windows 7. You will also be able to download other software that are available from Microsoft including Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows Vista, Visual Studio and many other office applications that you will end up saving tons of money.

The best 10 free softwares for Windows 7

2010-06-17T12:09:00.000-07:00

1_AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 9.0

Anti-Virus is still one of the most important applications you can add to your shiny new Windows 7 installation, and is the very first thing you should do. AVG makes it simple, with a quick, free download and support for both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 7. So, why not throw in a free anti-virus for your customers, you can always up-sell them to a full featured internet security suite later, when they want more protection than a basic anti-virus can offer.

2_Comodo Firewall

Sure, Windows 7 comes with a built in firewall and it is pretty good. However, the Comodo firewall is a lot better. Comodo’s free firewall has undergone a bit of a transformation recently and now sports integrated anti-virus, perhaps pushing AVG off the list of must have freeware applications. Comodo Firewall + Antivirus comes in versions for both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 7 and adds some nifty security capabilities to Windows 7, such as intrusion prevention, port blocking and application behavior monitoring.

3_CCleaner

Affectionately called "Crap Cleaner", CCleaner is one of those utilities that purges all of the crap out of your system. CCleaner is basically a registry scanning tool that looks for registry problems, such as abandoned entries, orphaned keys, malware entries and a host of other things you don’t want in your registry. Once identified, you can selectively delete those nasty entries and restore performance to your Windows 7 PC (both 32bit and 64 bit). CCleaner also handles a few other maintenance chores, such as clearing browser history and purging cookies, as well as removing temporary files to free up space.

4_Driveimage-XML (private edition)

Windows 7 comes with some rudimentary backup tools under the "Backup and Restore" banner, but if you want to have a little more control over your backup files and the ability to quickly create image files of drives and partitions, it’s pretty hard to beat Driveimage-XML, which works with all editions of Windows and offers a private edition for free.

5_Microsoft SyncToy 2.1

Let’s face it, most power users have more than one PC and many mobile workers often spend a great deal of time moving files back and forth from their office desktop to their mobile PC. Microsoft offers SyncToy 2.1 to deal with those issues. SyncToy is a small simple application that is part of Microsoft’s free family of "powertoys" and enables users to synchronize files between directories. The product is surprisingly powerful, allowing users to create all sorts of Boolean logic arguments to decide when and what to synchronize.

6_FoxIt Reader 3.2

Need a quick and easy way to read PDF files without using Adobe Acrobat? FoxIt Reader may be the answer you are looking for. Foxit Reader integrates with all the popular browsers, displays PDFs fast, takes up little space and doesn’t add any bloat. Additional features include the ability to copy and paste text from PDFs, annotate PDFs and print.

7_PrimoPDF

Occasionally, users want to create their own PDFs, however the tools to build PDFs can be both complex and expensive. That is where PrimoPDF comes in. The product allows you to make a PDF out of anything you can print. PrimoPDF installs as a printer on the desktop and then functions in much the same manner, except output is turning into a PDF file and not ink on a page.
8_Pidgin

One of the first things a new user does on a PC is to setup their various communications tools, ranging from AIM to Facebook to Google Talk. Pidgin is an open source piece of software that acts like an IM client for some 18 different services. With Pidgin, you only have to install a single client to use IM, regardless of the service — that cuts down on bloat and helps to keep a user better connected to their various contacts.
9_Evernote

PCs are all about ideas and Windows 7’s claim to fame is the enablement of ideas. Extending the idea of ideas is just another way to add value to a Windows 7 desktop and that is where Evernote comes in. Evernote is a software product/service that allows users to create quick notes, capture screen images, annotate web pages, store links and so on — simply put, if you can see it on the screen, you can grab it an annotate it and then share it with others, across multiple PCs.
10_Advanced SystemCare Free V3

Version 3 of Advanced SystemCare Free is all about clutter reduction, it is a utility that cleans registries, defrags hard drives, fixes system errors and optimizes performance — all at a price that anyone can stomach, free. The product is designed for Windows 7, Vista, XP and 2000 (32bit or 64 bit), is simple to install, works automatically and helps to keep that new Windows 7 PC running like it is still new, reducing support calls and keeping users happy.

Download Windows 7 Codec Pack a collection 2.6.0 Free

2010-06-11T03:10:00.000-07:00

Windows 7 Codec Pack is a collection of codecs designed to help you watch videos and listen audio files with Windows 7 OS.

This package of codecs will provide you with the exact filters, splitter and codecs so that you will be able to play whatever multimedia file you desire, besides these components you will also find various encoding codes that you can use to encode files to DivX, X264, Xvid etc.

Windows 7 Codec Pack installer will use low amount of your resources, so you don’t have to worry about how much space will take of your HDD and also it doesn’t create lots of registry entries and it is very stable as you shouldn’t experience any crashes or other conflicts between codecs. It is develope to work solely with Windows 7 systems.

The installer of this codec pack offers you the possibility to install it with easy or you can choose the Expert Installation were you can customize more options. Also, you should that the installer is marked as ad-supported because it tries to change your browser’s homepage and its default search engine, but you can uncheck those boxes and it won’t change anything in your system.

After you install Windows 7 Codec Pack you will be able to play any type of video and audio file formats.

Windows 7 Codec Pack

Download here

Windows 7 SP1 means end of XP downgrade rights

2010-05-08T13:30:00.000-07:00

Last year, Microsoft said that customers could downgrade new machines purchased with Windows 7 Professional to the older Windows XP Professional for a limited period. The deal ends 18 months after the introduction of Windows 7 -- in other words, in late April 2011 -- or when Microsoft launches Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1), whichever comes first.

Nearly two months ago, Microsoft acknowledged it's working on Windows 7 SP1. It has not yet set a release timetable, however.

"So the clock is ticking down on that offer, after which time the only option for non-Software Assurance customers to deploy Windows XP is to use Windows XP Mode," said Al Gillen, an analyst with IDC, referring to Windows 7 Professional's built-in virtualized version of Windows XP.

W
Corporations that subscribe to Software Assurance (SA) -- MIcrosoft's annuity-like upgrade guarantee program -- or purchase Windows through volume licensing plans have downgrade rights from any edition, including Windows 7, to any previous version going as far back as Windows 95.

Calling SP1 an "important milestone for customers" because of the impending end of downgrade-to-XP rights, Gillen noted that the service pack will have relatively little impact on enterprise plans to deploy the new operating system.

"Historically, classic customer deployment behavior for new Windows client operating systems was to wait for the first service pack to arrive," Gillen said in a research note published yesterday.

That's no longer the case, he said, echoing opinions expressed earlier by other analysts, including Michael Cherry of Directions on Microsoft and Diane Hagglund of Dimensional Research.

"The Windows patching process ... has changed the rules of the game for many customers," Gillen argued. "The continuous stream of patches, over time, delivers a significant portion of service pack content."

Recent surveys conducted by IDC with IT professionals and end users showed that budget limitations and application compatibility were the biggest concerns about migrating to Windows 7, not the lack of a service pack.

Although Microsoft originally wanted to limit Windows 7-to-Windows XP downgrade rights to just six months after the release of the former, it quickly backtracked last June after another analyst, Michael Silver of Gartner Research, called the plan a "real mess." Instead, said Microsoft, it would allow downgrades to Windows XP until 18 months went by, or until it released Windows 7 SP1.

Although consumers may have little reason to want to downgrade Windows 7 -- the operating system has received favorable reviews and by all accounts has been a huge success -- businesses often want to standardize on a single operating system edition to simplify machine management.

Several major computer makers continue to sell new PCs with a factory-installed downgrade to Windows XP from Windows 7. Dell, for example, offers downgrades on some Latitude notebooks as well as its Vostro line of business desktops.

Once Microsoft releases Windows 7 SP1, customers will be able to downgrade only to Vista Business.

Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news for Computerworld. Follow Gregg on Twitter at @gkeizer or subscribe to Gregg's RSS feed . His e-mail address isgkeizer@ix.netcom.com.

Ensure 90% of Windows 7 security by Eliminating admin rights

2010-04-03T10:04:00.000-07:00

According to BeyondTrust, a provider of Privileged Access Lifecycle Management solutions. The removal of administrator rights from Windows users is a mitigating factor for 90 per cent of Critical Windows 7 Vulnerabilities,

Companies migrating to Windows 7 will have to implement a desktop Privileged Identity Management solution in order to lower the risks from un-patched Microsoft vulnerabilities without affecting their users' ability to operate smoothly.

BeyondTrust aids in the elimination of the risk of intentional, accidental and indirect misuse of privileges on desktops and servers. The company offers globally proven solutions that can enhance security and compliance without impacting productivityProtection from exploitation

BeyondTrust research clearly indicates that companies removing administrator rights can protect against the exploitation of 90 per cent of critical Windows 7 vulnerabilities reported to date; 100 per cent of Microsoft Office vulnerabilities reported in 2009; 94 per cent of Internet Explorer and 100 per cent of Internet Explorer 8 vulnerabilities reported in 2009; and about 64 per cent of all Microsoft vulnerabilities reported in 2009.

Steve Kelley, EVP of corporate development, noted the increasing danger faced by enterprises with respect to zero-day attacks. Cyber criminal are always trying to exploit new vulnerabilities and don't give much chance to companies for developing and deploying the patches.

Adequate protection

The report indicates the importance of restricting administrator rights in protecting against all these types of threats. Kelley added that all those companies looking to migrate to Windows 7 should know that despite enhanced security features on the new operating systems, better controls for administrative rights are required to provide adequate protection.

Readers of BeyondTrust 2009 Microsoft Vulnerability Analysis report will get useful insight about all the published vulnerabilities of Microsoft in 2009 and Windows 7 to date.

The report quantifies the effectiveness of removing administrator rights for mitigating Microsoft vulnerabilities and indicates that the vast majority of these share the same best practice advice in the "Mitigating Factors" portion of Microsoft's security bulletins.

According to Microsoft, users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.

5 Free Utilities to Get the best of windows 7

2010-03-01T13:08:00.000-08:00

DOWLOAD These five free utilities will give your Windows XP or Vista machine some Windows 7 pizzazz.

AeroSnap: Maximizing a window on today's large monitors is often a waste of screen space. In Windows 7, a feature called Aero Snap lets you automatically resize a window to fill half of your display when you drag the window to the screen's edge. Kick a space out of the feature's name, and you have AeroSnap, an app that brings the same feature to XP and Vista.

Seven Remix XP: Windows 7's visual appeal definitely sets it apart from its aging sibling Windows XP. But this transformation pack makes XP's buttons, boxes, icons, and Start menu look remarkably like the new OS's versions.

Taskbar Shuffle: The new supercharged Windows 7 taskbar allows you to reorder any of your taskbar items with a drag and drop. XP and Vista users can enjoy the same functionality with this lightweight system-tray utility (also available in a 64-bit version).

Windows 7 Shortcuts: Windows 7 introduces gobs of time-saving keyboard shortcuts for moving windows around your desktop, focusing on specific windows, or taking a quick peek at the desktop. This download installs a tiny system-tray utility that adds them to your XP or Vista machine.

WinShake: Windows 7's Aero Peek feature turns windows transparent, giving you X-ray vision for determining what lies beneath. Its Aero Shake function lets you minimize every window but the active one via a simple shortcut. This application brings similar capabilities--and then some--to most of Win 7's precursors.

source

Run Windows 7 on you iPad NOW

2010-01-30T14:22:00.000-08:00

most Apple users wanted to do was run Microsoft software. Well, maybe Office, but certainly not Windows. That changed as the Mac switched to an Intel architecture and solutions came along from companies like Parallels, VMware and others that let business users and other run Windows on Mac hardware. There's even been some remote "tunneling" solutions that bring access to Windows apps on the iPhone.

Now Citrix is first out of the gate to declare it's ready to bring Windows 7 to the iPad, which is set to ship later in March.

The Citrix Receiver software is free and already available for Citrix customers with an iPhone, since a Citrix Xen virtualization back-end is required to make this all work. Essentially the iPad becomes a thin client displaying Windows 7 running on a server. Citrix said it has more than 200,000 customers that already use Citrix XenDesktop or Citrix XenApp.

"We've been working on this since the iPhone SDK became available and gone through a number of revs to produce a good user experience," he added. "We think it's going to be even better on the iPad because screen size won't be an impediment."IT managers will be able to control who can access the Windows 7 desktop or even specific applications. "It's up to them, a lot of companies don't give the full Windows experience, they can just identify individual applications like Excel or SAP or Oracle, their employees need," Chris Fleck, vice president of Community Solutions Development at Citrix, toldInternetNews.com.

Go ahead and multitask

Because Windows runs from the server, users will also be able to multitask Windows apps as they would normally on a PC or notebook. The iPad software will not offer multitasking at launch for native software, which has been one of the loudest complaints heard since the iPad announcement earlier this week.

Citrix seems to have a ready market for the product based on user comments at the blog post where the Connector for iPad was announced.

"This would be great for our C-level Executives and our Field Agents. We are in the Insurance business and this would be great when our agents go out and sell insurance using our Windows Only Application!" wrote Scott Cochran."The iPhone is great, and I have one now, but this would be in another league. The ability to run the iPad as a thin client for XenApp/XenDesktop would make me consider purchasing the iPad.

An anonymous poster added: "This would be a great solution for my home theatre PC... it's running windows 7 right now... and I use media center to play all my videos in my database.... so what I see on the screen of the ipad... would also be shown on my 108" HD projector screen... This would in turn become the BEST remote.... I'll b coming back for an update."

Aaron Parker, the first user to comment to the blog, was less enthusiastic because like others, he isn't sure why he'd want to get an iPad:

"No mouse support may limit its use as a complete desktop replacement; it would be more usable than the iPhone but less portable. So where exactly does it fit?"

David Needle is the West Coast bureau chief at InternetNews.com, the news service of Internet.com, the network for technology professionals.

Gaming Community using Windows 7 Massively

2010-01-26T04:09:00.000-08:00

Gaming Community using Windows 7 Massively

steam, the world’s largest PC gaming platform, has reported in its December 2009 report that the latest iteration of its operating system by Microsoft, Windows 7, has become immensely popular with the PC gaming community.
The report, which was released as a part of Steam’s December 2009 hardware survey, revealed that almost 23 percent of Steam users are now running the Windows 7 operating system.
It also revealed that 30 per cent of users were on Windows Vista whereas around 45 per cent users were hooked on to Windows XP.
However, considering the fact that Windows 7 was launched only in October 2009, it is quite impressive that the software has managed to garner a respectable market share in the operating systems market.
Since its launch in October, Windows 7 has seen meteoric sales figures with Amazon.com reporting that the software ha become the website’s highest-grossing pre-order product of all time.
The software is still forging ahead even after a quarter since it was launched and it has now surpassed the combined market share of all the versions of Mac OS X operating systems from Apple.
Many analysts believe that the real challenge before Windows 7 is to wean away customers from its hugely popular predecessor Windows XP than from any other rival OS.
Our Comments
Windows 7 64-bit rather than Windows 7 32-bit is the most popular Windows 7 version. Even more impressive is the fact that Windows 7 64-bit grew by a staggering 2.45 percent while Windows XP 32-bit decreased by 3.20 percent. This means that Windows XP users are upgrading their system to 64-bit Windows 7.

25 January, 2010, by Desire Athow

Windows 7 Service Pack 1 first look

2010-01-18T11:11:00.000-08:00

Looks like Microsoft is planning for a rollout of Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) a few months into the official release of the best ever operating system from MS.

Both Softpedia and Neowin have confirmed that the SP1 for Windows 7 is scheduled for somewhere in July. A set of leaked screenshots is doing the rounds of the internet, courtesy Muy Windows (translated to English). Here are few of the screenshots from a non-English version of the SP1.

Apparently the Windows 7 SP1 is less than 150MB in size, which is good considering that service packs for Windows Vista have been much larger than this.

The build numbers for the SP1 is rumored to be somewhere between 7600.20500 and .20700. A beta release is expected in July 2010, so you can except a lot of changes to happen in between now and then.

Apparently this build fixes over 150 issues. However, users should not be troubled about the late release of the SP1, since Microsoft usually releases regular patches through Windows update. The SP1 contains most of the released patches and new ones in a single bundle.

Download Google Chrome 4.0.295.0 with Windows 7 Fixes

2010-01-15T13:25:00.000-08:00

Google has refreshed the bits available to developers. At the start of this week, users were able to download and start test-driving Chrome Beta 4.0.249.64 for Windows. As of January 14th, 2010, the Dev channel release of Google Chrome was updated to Build 4.0.295.0. But unlike the Beta flavor of the open source browser, Build 4.0.295.0 is also available for users of Linux and Mac OS X.

“The Dev channel has been updated to 4.0.295.0 for all platforms,” said Orit Mazor, from the Google Chrome team, noting changes specific for Chrome running on the latest iteration of the Windows client, namely Windows 7. “Win7 - Add profile info to app id associated with shortcuts and window; append profile info to win7 app id; "Don't show "Did you mean" infobars on single-word searches for users whose ISP or DNS provider displays custom error pages for nonexistent hostnames".”

There are additional fixes introduced for the Chrome versions designed for Linux and Mac OS X. At the same time there are a number of issues that have survived past this release and that Google made public. Most affected will be users running Mac OS X, which are bound to stumble across problems involving the Bookmark manager for Mac, the close button and crashes within the Inspector. “You can find out about getting on the Dev channel here,” Mazor added.

In tandem with boosting the Dev channel release of Chrome to 4.0.295.0, the mountain View based search giant also refreshed the Google Chrome Frame. “Google Chrome Frame has been updated to version 4.0.295.0. All users should be updated automatically. This release fixes several of the most common crashes and (…) issues,” Mazor said.

The latest release of Google Chrome is available for download here.

Form Softpedia

How to Activate Windows 7?

2010-01-07T14:13:00.001-08:00

How to Activate Windows 7?

To activate your Windows 7 copy, use the following steps:

1. In Windows 7 Product Activation, choose the ‘Activate Now’ link and you’ll be offered two options – namely, activating over the phone or online. The simplest way is by activating online. (It’s also preferred by Microsoft.)

2. When asked, type in the unique 25-character key that’s shown on the Windows 7 CD case. If you choose to activate by phone (if your unique situation requires some jawboning or you don’t have Internet connection), you should punch the installation ID by phone. During online activation, after you type the activation key, Windows 7 will do the following:

a. Windows 7 scans all serial numbers inside the computer – the processor, disk drives, and network card, among others. Using a secret algorithm the numbers are mixed, producing another unique 25-character key that identifies your computer. Both keys (50 characters, in all) are taken together to form an installation ID.

b. Your machine sends Microsoft its 50-character installation ID.

c. Microsoft verifies if the installation ID is valid.

If the first 25-character code (activation key) has never been used before or if similar installation ID is received by Microsoft (which means that you have activated this Windows 7 copy in the same computer twice), Microsoft gives a confirmation ID (42 characters). Both the confirmation ID and the installation ID are stored on your machine.

However, if the 25-character code has been used in other PC, though, a polite notification informs you that your Windows 7 copy cannot be activated. You are asked to enter another valid key. You are given further information for contacting Microsoft, in case you need it. Microsoft reps are often understanding, fair, and courteous. If you have a valid reason for reactivating your Windows 7 – for example, after your hard drive or motherboard died – don’t hesitate to contact a Microsoft rep by phone.

Chrome Overtakes Safari, and Becomes Number 3 Browser

2010-01-03T09:18:00.000-08:00

NetApplications has released its latest browser market share figures, and these figures show that Chrome has overtaken Safari as the number three browser worldwide, behind Internet Explorer and Firefox. IE, by the way, continues to lose popularity rather fast.
Chrome was introduced almost 18 months ago, but yet it has already become the third most popular browser in the world. NetApplications' figures cover the entire month of December 2009, and they show that Google Chrome has gained 0.7 of a percentage point, putting it at 4.63%, ahead of Safari's 4.46%. Internet Explorer lost almost a full percentage point, dropping to 62.69%. Firefox remained more or less flat at 24.61%, while both Safari and Opera gained slightly.

Chrome's steep rise in December can probably be attributed to the release of the betas for Linux and Mac OS X, so we may see a slight decline again in January, as some people will most certainly fall back upon their established choice of browser.

As for operating systems, Windows 7 is, unsurprisingly, doing rather well. Microsoft's latest baby already broke the 5% mark, and in December its share amounted to 5.17%, up from November's 4%. Windows 7's popularity seems to have little effect on Mac and Linux users, as both platforms remained more or less flat at 5.11% and 1.02% respectively. Since both Windows XP and Vista lost share, the logical conclusion is that Windows 7 is competing with previous versions of Windows. That really shouldn't surprise anyone.

Of course, the usual disclaimers apply. These are statistics, and therefore, are troublesome. However, even though you shouldn't take them at face value, they can be used to indicate trends. In this case, the two important trends are that Windows 7 is eating away quite well at the base of previous Windows versions, and that Chrome's star continues to rise.

How to Speed Up Windows 7 ?

2009-12-28T15:39:00.000-08:00

Do you want to speed up your new Windows operating system? Check out our tips on how to speed up Windows 7.

Microsoft’s new operating system (OS) has been getting rave reviews since the infancy of its beta form. If you’re loving your new Windows 7 OS but wish it was just a little bit speedier, then you’re in luck. There are a couple of ways to make Windows 7 a little quicker for you. Whether you’re booting up, shutting down, or just cruising on your PC, here are some tips to speed up this already light and speedy new OS.

Meet the Minimum

First things first, make sure you’re meeting the minimum hardware requirements to run Windows 7. You should have at least 1GHz processor (32 or 64-bit), 1GB of main memory, 16GB available disk space, support for the Aero interface (DX9 graphics support with 128MB of memory), and a DVD-R/W drive.

Cut Unwanted Programs

Cutting down on the amount of programs running is always a good idea. To figure out and cut down on programs running in the background you can use msconfig or just install software that will identify those programs secretly running. Some programs will open automatically, so try this:

Go to Start and enter ‘msconfig’
Click on the startup tab and uncheck anything you don’t need

Disable Min-Max Animation

By disabling the Minimize-Maximize animation you’ll speed up your window switching and make your Windows 7 PC run faster. To disable:

Go to Start and type in ‘SystemPropertiesPerformance‘
Go the Visual Effects tab
Uncheck ‘Animate windows when minimizing and maximizing‘ and click OK

Forget the Fonts

Removing unwanted fonts—especially TrueType fonts—will also speed up Windows 7. Keep the ones you need and use, and then remove the rest—but put those unwanted fonts in a temporary directory just in case you want them some day. To do this:

Open Control Panel
Open Fonts folder
Move fonts temporary space

Turn Off System Sounds

This is a basic for speeding things up—and it will definitely free up some resources. To do this:

Go To Start and type in mmsys.cpl
Click on the Sounds tab and choose ‘No Sounds‘ in the sound scheme drop down

Disable Aero

If you really need the extra speed then yes, you can disable Windows 7 Aero. To do this:

Right-click on your desktop and select ‘Personalize‘ and click the ‘Window Color‘ tab
Uncheck the ‘Enable Transparency’ box
Click on ‘Open classic appearance properties for more color options’
Choose a Standard or Basic theme from the popup that appears

can older programs work on Windows 7?

2009-12-25T12:27:00.000-08:00

IF an older program will not run automatically in Windows 7, you can try adjusting its compatibility settings. This feature sometimes allows software written for previous systems to work with the current version of Windows.
In Windows 7, right-click on the icon of the older program and choose “Troubleshoot compatibility” from the menu. When you click on the “Troubleshoot program” option, a wizard walks you through a few screens and asks for basic information, including what version of Windows the program used to work with.
Based on your answers, the troubleshooter adjusts your system settings and tries to run the older program. You can also try the troubleshooter on the setup files on the installation discs from older programs if they won’t install properly.
The Windows 7 compatibility settings can be adjusted manually as well. To do so, right-click on the older program’s icon and select Properties from the menu.
In the Properties box, click the Compatibility tab. In this box, you can select the version of Windows the program was intended for and make other changes to settings like screen resolution.
Microsoft has full instructions and a video demonstrating how to use the Windows 7 compatibility mode at bit.ly/4MFF05. The company also advises against changing the settings for security and utility programs that were meant to work with a specific version of Windows.
The Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate editions can use the Windows XP Mode software to run programs written for Windows XP right in Windows 7. Microsoft has the details on Windows XP Mode at bit.ly/p6Zy.
Adjusting the compatibility settings is not always a sure fix. If you can’t get the software to work, buying a new Windows 7-friendly version of the program may be the last resort.

Tip of the week
Windows, Mac OS X and Ubuntu Linux all include a free Calculator program with the operating system. At first glance, the Calculator may seem like just a simple tool for basic math chores, but take a look in the program’s View menu. Here, you can switch between a simple adding machine to a version that does scientific calculations or even one that can handle programmer math in hexadecimal, binary and octal numbers. Each system has its own little variations as well. For example, the Calculator in Windows 7 includes worksheets for calculating a mortgage and the Calculator in recent versions of Mac OS X has a printable Paper Tape option under the Window menu that displays a history of all the calculations made. – New York Times

Can Windows 7 Kill XP ?

2009-12-20T10:24:00.000-08:00

It will be Windows 7 to do the job Windows Vista failed at, namely to kill Windows XP. However, killing XP is a process rather than a single moment in time. Windows 7 will first erode XP’s market share and convert its audience. As XP’s usage rate will drop, less and less hardware manufacturers and software developers will offer support and compatibility of the latest versions of their products for the operating system Microsoft released in 2001. It will be Microsoft to hammer down the last nail in the XP coffin in 2014, when it will cut extended support for the platform entirely. At that time, users still running XP will be left to fend for themselves with no more updates, no more security patches, no more support.

A recent study from Gartner predicts that no less than 75% of corporate PCs will be running a 64-bit version of Windows by 2014 (via DailyTech). Such a scenario automatically implies that enterprises are now ready, and increasingly so, to discard Windows XP and 32-bit machines, for Windows 7 running on new 64-bit architectures which can take advantage of in excess of 4 GB of RAM.

"On the surface, it would appear that the most obvious time to perform a move from 32-bit to 64-bit would be during an operating system migration (such as from Windows XP to Windows 7). Many companies feel that, if they don't make the move now, they may have to wait until Windows 8 or potentially Windows 9 before another opportunity arises. They point to the complexity involved in supporting an additional set of images as a reason to make an all-or-nothing move,” Gartner noted.

With Windows 7, as with Windows Vista, Microsoft is offering both x86 and x64 versions of the operating system. However, the Redmond company is unlikely to continue doing so with future versions of Windows. Whether Microsoft will cut support for 32-bit processor starting with Windows 8 or not, it still remains to be seen. However, there’s little room for doubt that 64-bit is the future. In this context, having available x64 Vista and x64 Windows 7 side by side, it is clear that customers will opt for the latter to replace Windows 7.

Corporate IT environments are traditionally lagging home users in terms of adopting new technologies, including Windows. If by 2014, 75% of corporate computers will be running 64-bit Windows, most probably x64 Windows 7, it is possible a higher percentage of home users would have already upgraded from Windows XP. At the end of November 2009, XP accounted for a market share of 69.05% and dropping, Vista just 18.55%, also dropping, and Windows 7 4%, at just a single month after release.

"Corporate buyers need to establish a position on moving to 64-bit as part of their Windows 7 planning. For many users, moving to 64-bit with Windows 7 may be the right solution with respect to performance and support for new applications. However, others may find significant compatibility issues coupled with little to no benefit from making the shift at this time. Either way, all organizations must take steps to provide a basic level of support for 64-bit Windows 7, particularly for consumer-facing applications,” Gartner added.

With XP end of life in 2014, Windows 7 offers the best alternative for upgrade to customers, especially enterprises, that need to upgrade from XP. Businesses that will run XP until Windows 8 drops, in approximately three years, risk to have little time available to perform the transition, and to have to run XP even after Microsoft has completely cut support.