Some times you may want to deny access to certain files and folders on your which you don’t want other users to access and open. FileSecrets is a free to use software which allows you simple but effective tool for protecting your files from any unauthorized access. This will restrict the specified file or folder from any access, from any user or application. For example, if a user tries to access your file from Windows Explorer, the user will receive the below error

The specific file or folder will remain locked until you remove it from FileSecrets program, when you deny access to a particular file then any user who try to access the locked file will face the following error.

Read Also – Freeware To Lock File and Folders in Vista

Here is how to a file or folder with FileSecrets

You can even set a password to access a file or folder so that the user who enters the right password can access that file or folder you locked with this application.

This application integrates itself in windows explorer, so that you can enable or disable the protection over any file or folder just by right clicking on the file and select disable / enable protection to allow or deny access. In all this is a really nice tool which seems to work with all the versions of windows, including windows 7.

Related – Password Protect Files or Folders | Access Denied To Files On USB Drive | Hide Files and Folder In USB Portable Drive 

Download FileSecrets

MySpace is a free plugin for outlook which allows you to use MySpace in outlook interface, you can connect to with all of your my space friends.

Following are the steps to implement and use MySpace in outlook.

1. Quit Outlook if it’s running.
2. Download and install the Microsoft Outlook Social Connector.
3. Download the MySpace for Outlook Installer.
4. Select Run when prompted (or double-click the EXE file if you downloaded it) and follow the directions to complete the install.
5. Open Outlook again – the Social Network Account Settings dialog should open automatically. If it doesn’t, find this option under the Tools menu.
6. Check the MySpace box, enter your MySpace email and password and then click Connect.

Following are the things you can do with MySpace in Outlook

• Uses Microsoft’s Social Connector to add the "People Pane," which shows a profile picture and other MySpace info for each contact who’s also a friend
• Creates a special MySpace Contact List
• Shows your friends’ status updates and other Stream activities
• Provides one-click access to your friends’ profiles
• Enables you to easily email your friends

Here is how to use it

• To see your MySpace friends, go to Contacts and click on MySpace.
• To see a friend’s activity and status updates, double-click on their name in the contact list.
• To see activity and status updates for a MySpace friend whenever an email from them is open:
  1. Add that friend’s email address to the Contact list entry under E-mail… / E-mail 2. MySpace email addresses are private, so you need to add your friend’s email address yourself.
  2. Your friend’s activities will now appear in the People Pane while viewing an email message from them.
• Click on the links in the People Pane to see more detail for the activity and status updates on MySpace.

Note: It requires Microsoft Outlook 2003 /2007 / 2010

Download MySpace Plugin For Outlook

Google Reader Desktop Notifier alerts you about the number of unread items in google reader among all the feeds you follow, It is a handy tool that will rest in your system tray and notify you about your new Google Reader entries.

As shown in the image above, it will show a small notification which will show the number of unread items and will also tell you about the number of new unread feed items which has been added the last time it notified you.

Similar Tool – Google Service Desktop Notifier

Once installed, it will start running showing a small system tray icon, you can right click on the system tray icon to set preferences and enter your google reader username and password.

As shown in the snapshot above, you can set a audio file which will be played every time it shows the unread items notifications above the system tray in windows taskbar, In short this is a simple and nice utility which allows you to keep a live watch over unread feed items in your google reader.

Download Google Reader Desktop Notifier

If you are using vista or xp and now thinking of upgrading then, we would suggest you to go for it. Windows 7 is much better OS than vista and xp in any way, it is much more performance oriented operating system and if you want to try before you upgrade you can check out Windows 7 Test Drive.

Microsoft has a web application interface which allows you to test and run windows 7 directly from your browser. This website is launched by Microsoft to provide the live preview of windows 7 and to show case all the new features windows 7 has like aero snap, aero peek, libraries, version control, enhanced troubleshooting etc.

As shown in the above interface you can test Windows 7 from your browser, see how does it work through walkthroughs and training videos available and learn more about increasing productivity, enhancing security, and cutting costs with Windows 7.

Note: You Need a Windows Live ID to use Test Drive Windows 7

Check Out – Windows 7 Test Drive

WebWallpaper Downloader is a free to use program which allows you to download images from random wallpaper at Interfacelift.com, Photo of the Day from National Geographic and NASA Image of the Day. It will set the download images as desktop background automatically without any effort from your end, It will automatically download wallpapers as per your desktop resolution which I found very intelligent.

It does not a visual interface, when ever you click the desktop shortcut of this program it will download a new wallpaper and set it as desktop background. It will download all the wallpapers in the folder on the path C:\Program Files\Webwallpaper\wallpapers – you can copy these wallpaper later on. 

Some other free wallpaper downloader we have written about are Wallpaper Juggler, Wallpaper Downloader and NatGeo Wallpaper Downloader and we also featured a cool utility for downloading wallpapers for free on iPhone

Download WebWallpaper Downloader

Have you used Windows XP where the login screen will not come, where you see a welcome screen and your computer will boot without entering a password?

Well that is called Auto-logon in Windows XP and it is by default disabled in most of the computers which is a good thing from security perspective. Especially in Windows Vista And Windows 7, this option is not even visible easily.

In this article I will share a simple and easy to follow method to enable Auto Logon on Windows 7. After enabling this feature, the Windows 7 will not ask for password at the beginning and will directly log in.

To enable auto-logon on Windows 7 Desktop or Laptop Computer, follow the below 3 steps:

1. Press Window Key + R together, this will launch run prompt as seen below. Type “NETPLWIZ” in it without quotes and click OK. This will open a User Accounts Window

2. On the User Account Window as seen below, select the user which you use, and uncheck the option which says “User must enter a use name and password to use this computer”

3. When you click to uncheck this option, it will ask you to confirm the password, enter the password here. After this you are done. It was simple isn’t it?

Important Notes:

1. This is not recommended for business computers / office computers and laptops as its a security flaw if anyone can access your PC without a password. Enable this feature only if you have a home PC without important or confidential data and the PC is physically secure

2. After enabling the Auto Logon in Windows 7 or Windows 2008 Server, you might see that your taskbar settings are set to default after restart. This is a known issue which can be solved by a hotfix, see more information here – Windows 7 Taskbar Settings Lost After Restart When Automatic Logon Is Used

In Windows 7 the default size of the thumbnail preview is quite small, which makes it difficult to get the information about that running program whose icon is being shown in windows 7 taskbar. There are several ways with which you can change the taskbar thumbnail preview size and make it bigger or select the right size of the thumbnail preview as per your preference.

We have previously posted about how can you decrease delay in aero peek and make it faster. Today we will tell you all the ways to make taskbar thumbnail preview bigger and more readable, below are some ways to do it.

Taskbar Thumbnail Tweaker  – It is a freeware tool which allows you to increase or decrease the size of taskbar thumbnail preview by changing its time and width and you can also change the delay time of taskbar thumbnail preview.

Moreover you can change the taskbar thumbnail preview as text only or you can disable the taskbar thumbnail preview.

Download Taskbar Thumbnail Tweaker

Windows 7 Taskbar Thumbnail Customizer – It allows you to customize Windows 7 taskbar thumbnail previews in detail. You can change the size of the thumbnail, its spacing, top, bottom, left, right margins and mouse delay time too.

Download Windows 7 Taskbar Thumbnail Customizer 

The third way to change the thumbnail preview size is to edit the registry to do it, follow the procedure given below.

Registry Editing [ Source – WinHelpOnline ]

1. Open Run prompt and type regedit and press enter key or press ok button to open registry.

2. Navigate to the following path

HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ Taskband

3. Create a DWORD Value named MinThumbSizePx

4. Double click MinThumbSizePx and set its value data, I set it as 300 in my case.

5. Exit registry and log off and then login again to see the change.

In order to change the last modified time or the creation time for a file or folder it takes much time in windows and it is quite difficult and confusing too, in suhc a case here is a free utility called dtouch which lets you add or subtract days to the last modified date or creation date of any file or folder easily.

We had already posted about several free tools like NewFileTime, FileDate Changer, nTouch etc. dtouch is the companion of ntouch to add or remove a specified time span to or from time stamps of files and directories.

Download dtouch

Whenever you save a webpage on your computer, it gets saved in two parts one is the html file and another is the folder with the same name as of the html files which contains the images to be loaded in html page when you open it. Now you might need to take that web page with some information to a different computer which does not have a internet connection so you need to copy the both the html page and its companion folder so that the page loads up properly with images as the html page won’t be able to fetch the images when it loads on a computer without internet connection.  

HTML Page to EXE Converter solves this problem by converting the html page into a self executable which has all embeded in a single file, it is a free software which lets you convert any html file to executable.

In order to convert your executable you just need to locate and browse .htm file and set the software title, set file name of the executable and the output path of the file being created and click Generate Software button on the application interface to generate the executable file of the html file.

Once the html file has been converted to executable, you can open it on any computer and will open in the default browser installed on the computer you open in  separate window. [ as shown in the image below ]

NOTE: This is beta software that may not work on all computers. Also, there is nothing in this software that could possibly harm your computer in any way.

Download HTML To Exe Converter

When it comes to user management in windows, either it is for a domain administrator or local system administrator, they might feel helpless with the default user management interface, as it does not provide options for all user accounts to list their status, enable or disable them in easy way.

Chilly User Management is a free to use utility which allows managing user accounts within the Domain. Apart from managing and providing information about local user accounts, the software also allows the administrator to reset the local user password and enable or disable account status. This freeware supports administrator in taking complete control of the local user accounts of their domain users.

As shown in the application snapshot above, you can easily change the username or password for any user on any PC on your network with this utility. It is a enterprise level software for Active Directory that eliminates the need to manage user accounts locally.

Key Features

• A freeware utility to manage local user accounts within Domain
• Facilitates password resetting
• Allows enabling and disabling account status
• Fast and easy installation
• Saves quality time of administrator

Note: As an administrator, you can use the software remotely to enable, disable the accounts and reset their passwords.

Download Chilly User Management