The Windows Event Viewer logs many system events automatically. This includes installations, hardware errors and events that are important to diagnose a system. Two of those values that get recorded automatically by default are the boot performance and the shutdown performance of the Windows operating system.

The time recorded here is often more accurate than the time recorded by third party software such as Soluto, BootRacer or Boot Timer.

Event Manager

Launch the Event Manager the following way. Bring up the run box with the hotkey Windows-r, type in eventvwr and hit enter.

The program displays a tree structure in the left sidebar, the contents of the selected folder in the middle and actions on the right. I suggest you click on the hide action button in the toolbar to increase the available room.

Microsoft has changed the Event Viewer significantly for Windows Vista which means that Windows XP users will see a different layout than Vista or Windows 7 users.

The events that we want to analyze are event 100 which logs the boot performance, and event 200 which logs the shutdown performance of the Windows system.

Follow the tree structure to the following folder:

Applications and Services Log > Microsoft > Windows > Diagnostics-Performance > Operational

Windows XP users can sort the system events to find all events with the numbers 100 and 200.

The event listing list the date and time of the event, the event number and the task category. If you click on an event you see detailed information about it in the lower half of the interface. Locate the entry Boot Duration for Boot Performance events, or Shutdown Duration for Shutdown Performance events.

Divide the time by 1000 to get the boot or shutdown time in seconds. The value listed is milliseconds.

Now what can you do with the information? You could analyze boot performance optimizations for instance, or analyze the system’s boot time over time. I personally like to use the information to measure the impact of newly installed software on the system boot time.

What’s the boot duration of your computer?

But will Microsoft use that name for their next client operating system? Or will the Redmond company go crazy once again and name it Windows Balahua or something like that. We do not know yet, and will not know for quite some time. There are however indicators that suggest that Windows 8 will indeed be the name of the next Microsoft operating system.

When you look at Microsoft’s wordings you notice that company officials and documents try to avoid calling and naming the next operating system Windows 8. The operating system is usually referred to as The Next Windows which many see as an indication that Microsoft might indeed use a different name for the final product. It could on the other hand be a strategic decision, to avoid that news about Windows 8 break Windows 7′s momentum. The Next Windows is an abstract term, whereas Windows 8 refers directly to the successor of Windows 7.

The recent leaks highlight Microsoft’s dilemma. While it is usually a good thing that people are excited about an operating system, it may at the very same time torpedo Windows 7′s rise to become the most used Microsoft operating system. Not to forget that leaks may reveal features that may be canned at a later point in development.

Back to Windows 8. Lets see if we can eliminate some alternatives. Microsoft could stick with The Next Windows, but that would be shortsighted, considering that they would get naming problems for the Windows version after that. They could also mimic how the server operating systems are named, Windows Client 2012 comes to mind. But that may not be as helpful as it looks on first glance. First, it is easy enough to distinguish client and server operating systems as all server operating systems have server in their name. Second, a switch to Windows Client Year would be a technical name, which could intimidate some customers. In the same group fall descriptive names, e.g. Windows Touch, or Windows Touch 2012 which would reduce the operating system to a single feature. Not very likely either.

The third possibility would be a a Vistaesque name, like Windows Suave. Problem with these kind of names is that they break a naming pattern. Windows XP > Windows Vista > Windows 7 > Windows Suave. It does not feel right and it is very unlikely that Microsoft will opt for such a name.

Now that we have looked at some possibilities, it is time to look at Windows 8, and why it is likely that Microsoft will use that name for the next Windows.

• Windows 8 automatically indicates that it is the successor of Windows 7, which is a good thing considering that Windows 7 is highly successful and that users will associate that success with Windows 8
• The name is already widely used on the Internet. Everyone and their mom know about Windows 8. It would take time and money to make a different name known.
• While Microsoft tries their best to avoid using Windows 8, it has already been used in recent builds, for instance on the Homegroup screen.

If I had to bet, I’d bet on Windows 8 as the name of the next Microsoft operating system. What’s your opinion?

More and more users are buying PCs with Windows 7, or upgrade their old operating systems to the new Microsoft OS. The bulk of features are fairly similar, but there are a few things, additions and changes mainly, that require a slightly different configuration strategy after installation or first start.

This article gives suggestions what you should do first on the system. Lets start.

System Repair Disc, System Image

The first thing that you should do is to make sure that you can restore the system at a later time. System Restore alone is not really enough, as it is for instance not usable if the system fails to boot.

Both the system image and system repair disc creation options are accessible as control panel apples. A click on the start button, selection of Control Panel and Back up your computer under System and Security lists both backup and recovery solutions under the left sidebar.

The main purpose of a system repair disc is the ability to boot the computer if the operating system fails to do so. The disc contains Windows system recovery tools to recover Windows from errors, for instance by restoring the computer from a system image.

A system backup on the other hand creates a full copy of the drive that Windows is installed on with the option to include other drives in the backup as well. Available storage locations are to store the backup on another hard drive, multiple DVDs or a network location.

The hard drives will be completely restored if the computer is restored from a system image. Data that has been saved after the creation of the system image will be lost in the process.

Security

It is important to install security software to protect the PC from malicious software and attacks.

Microsoft has implemented additional security features, Windows Defender and Windows Firewall are two of the applications that are running by default. An antivirus software is missing and should be installed as one of the first tasks.

Viable solutions are Microsoft Security Essentials, AVG Anti-Virus Free or Avast ; All free and popular programs.

It is recommended to run Windows Update right after installation to install all patches and updates that have been released by Microsoft in the meantime. That’s done via Start > All Programs > Windows Update.

While you are at it, upgrade to Internet Explorer 9 as well.

Create A work-account

Sure you can work just fine under the default user account but it is a good security practice to create a limited account and work under that account. This can also be important if multiple users are working with the computer. Setting up different accounts for each gives the administrator options to restrict access to features and programs that would otherwise be all accessible.

New users are created with a click on Start > Control Panel > Add or remove user accounts.

Services

Services are programs that either start with the Windows operating system or run when a specific event occurs. Probably the best information about services and example configurations are offered at Black Viper’s website. The Safe recommendations are a good way to start.

Services can then be configured with the shortcut Windows-r, typing services.msc and the enter key.

Personalization

The personalization options have changed quite a bit under Windows 7. A right-click on the desktop and the selection of Personalize opens the new Personalization menu.

Here it is possible to switch to another installed theme, create a custom theme by making changes to the desktop background, colors or sound scheme, or to configure mouse pointers, account pictures and display settings.

Microsoft is constantly pushing out new themes for the operating system over at the Windows 7 Personalization Gallery.

It also pays off to tune some Windows Explorer settings. Open Windows Explorer, and select Tools > Folder Options from the menubar. Switch to the View tab and disable Hide extensions for known file types and enable Show hidden files, folders and drives.

The Windows 7 Taskbar

It is now possible to drag and drop applications to the taskbar, which is called pinning. Workarounds are available to pin folders and files to the taskbar as well.

A right-click on the taskbar and the selection of properties opens a configuration menu. Here it is possible to switch to small icons, auto-hide the taskbar or unlock the taskbar to move it to another location on the screen.

Recovering Hard Disk Space

Where has all my hard drive space gone? That’s a common expression after installing Windows 7. It is possible to recover at least some of the space.

Locate the Recycle Bin on the desktop and right-click it. Select Properties for options to change the space allocation of the Recycle Bin. It is possible to save hundreds of Megabytes, even Gigabytes depending on the size of the connected hard drives.

It is recommended to pick an appropriate size, experienced users disable the recycle bin for a maximum space gain.

Open the Control Panel again (Start > Control Panel), then on the System and Security setting and finally on the System link there. Click the Advanced system settings link located on the left sidebar and switch to the System Protection tab.

Available options are to turn system restore on or off, and to configure the space utilization of the service if it is active.

It is recommended to select a value between 5 and 10 Gigabytes for each drive.

Missed anything? Let me know about your priorities after installing or running Windows 7 for the first time.

In simple terms: Applications that do not use qualified paths for external dynamic link libraries use Windows default settings to find those dlls on the system, and one of the first locations to be searched is the program directory, which can be a local or remote directory.

The exploit dlls simply have to be placed in those directories to be executed by the applications. Affected are many popular programs, including Firefox, VLC, Opera, Photoshop, uTorrent or PowerPoint.

Microsoft published additional information about the DLL preloading remote attack vector in a blog post at the Security Research and Defense blog.

Among the information is a workaround that requires the creation of Registry keys to change the library loading behavior either on a system wide level, or specific applications.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\
Session Manager\CWDIllegalInDllSearch
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\
Image File Execution Options\binaryname.exe\CWDIllegalInDllSearch

Both keys support the following values, which have different effects depending on the location of the application:

Scenario 1: The application is started from a local folder, such as C:\Program Files
0xffffffff Removes the current working directory from the default DLL search order.
0 Uses the default DLL search path. This is the Windows default, and the least secure setting.
1 Blocks a DLL load from the current working directory if the current working directory is set to a WebDAV folder.
2 Blocks a DLL load from the current working directory if the current working directory is set to a remote folder.

Scenario 2: The application is started from a remote folder, such as \\remote\share
0xffffffff Removes the current working directory from the default DLL search order.
0 Uses the default DLL search path. This is the Windows default, and the least secure setting.
1 Blocks a DLL load from the current working directory if the current working directory is set to a WebDAV folder.
2 Allows DLL load from the current working directory if the current working directory is set to a remote folder. DLL’s that are loaded from a WebDAV share are blocked if the current working directory is set to a WebDAV share.

Scenario 3: The application is started from a WebDAV folder, such as http://remote/share
0xffffffff Removes the current working directory from the default DLL search order.
0 Uses the default DLL search path. This is the Windows default, and the least secure setting.

There are two scenarios where Windows users or admins may want to block updates from being displayed. The first is to block an update’s deployment in a small to middle sized business or organization, the second if an update is either not needed, or known to cause problems in a single computer environment.

We for instance installed the Windows 7 Professional SP1 Beta on our test system a while ago, but decided to remove it after a while. Windows however kept nagging at every system startup that an update was available. Even worse, the update was always automatically selected in Windows Update, next to the other security patches and releases that we wanted to install.

That meant that we had to manually find and uncheck the update to prevent its installation in Windows 7. We first thought it would be enough to uncheck the update once in Windows Update to prevent its installation, but it got reselected automatically whenever Windows Update was started anew.

windows update

Windows Update does have a mechanism to block specific updates. The answer is revealed after right-clicking an update that should not be installed on the system, and that the user does not want to receive notifications about.

A right-click, and the selection of Hide Update, unchecks the update in the updating software, and changes the color of the update’s name to a lighter gray.

The effect can be tested immediately by closing and opening Windows Update again. The frontpage, which lists all available updates for the operating system is no longer listing the blocked update.

Windows Update offers an option to restore hidden updates at anytime. The Restore Hidden Updates link in the left sidebar of the main Windows Update window opens a page listing all updates that haven been blocked on the system.

restore hidden updates

Selecting an update and clicking the Restore button at the bottom of the screen will add it to the update cycle again, so that the update can be installed and deployed.

block windows updates

This method of hiding updates in Windows Update is obviously only practical for single computers or small computer networks. Admins have other tools at their disposable to control the updates that are installed on the client machines that they manage.

Have another tip regarding Windows Update? Let us know in the comments.

Some XP SP2 users may have been puzzled by the lack of support, considering that they were able to download July’s Patch Day patches just fine. What has changed between those two patch releases?

The extended support phase of Windows XP SP2 has ended on July 13. This means that Microsoft will not produce security patches, or other updates, for the operating system from that day on.

The first security patch that SP2 users missed arrived unfortunately less than a month after the support period ended.

Windows XP SP2 users will not receive the upcoming massive amount of security patches of this August’s Patch Day, nor will they receive future patches or updates which leaves the operating system vulnerable to attacks.

Windows XP SP2 users basically have two choices. They can update their system to Service Pack 3, an option that probably has the least consequences of them all, or upgrade to a newer operating system. Windows XP SP3 is available directly from Microsoft.

Staying with Windows XP Service Pack 2 and doing nothing is not really a choice, considering the security implications.

The update is not available via Windows Update, only directly at the Microsoft support website and probably Microsoft Download Center as well.

The explanation of the issue is rather technical. It basically resolves a issue where dynamic link libraries (dll) are run in a Windows 7 context even though they have not been designed to be run in that context.

This usually is the case if the dll does not specify an RT_Manifest or where the dll calls an API that uses the dynamic compatibility context.

An update is available to the backward compatibility feature in Windows 7 and in Windows Server 2008 R2. This update enables a dynamic-link library (DLL) that is designed for earlier versions of Windows to run in a Windows Vista context if the following conditions are true:
The DLL does not specify an RT_MANIFEST resource.
The DLL calls an API that uses the dynamic compatibility context. For example, the DLL calls the GetOverlappedResults API.
The backward compatibility feature in Windows 7 and in Windows Server 2008 R2 detects the manifest in a DLL and sets the dynamic context of a DLL to Windows 7 or to Windows Vista. This enables Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 to provide a Windows Vista context for applications that are designed for earlier versions of Windows.

However, if a DLL is not manifested correctly, the DLL may run in a Windows 7 context unexpectedly. This issue occurs because the Windows 7 compatibility mechanism incorrectly assumes that a DLL is compatible with Windows 7 if the DLL does not specify an RT_MANIFEST resource. This issue occurs especially if all the other DLLs in an application are not manifested or if the other DLLs are manifested with Windows 7 compatible GUIDs. This causes the “faulty” DLL to run in Windows 7 compatible mode. This behavior causes the application that loads the DLL to stop responding. Therefore, customers cannot run an application in Windows 7 context if the application loads at least one DLL in those two conditions.

Windows 7 users who have been experiencing compatibility issues should consider installing the update to see if it resolves the issues they are facing.

There is on the other hand no need to install the update if the programs run fine in the operating system.

The update can be directly downloaded from the Microsoft Help and Support website. Validation is required before the update can be downloaded.

Leaving the product key empty allowed him to continue with the installation but the activation from within the operating system returned another problem:

The following failure occurred while trying to use the product key: Code: 0xC004F061

Description: The Software Licensing Service determined that this specified product key can only be used for upgrading, not clean installations.

The solution was provided in a forum post at the official Microsoft support forum.

Basically install the OS without entering the license key. After full installation, click on [START] [RUN] and type in REGEDIT.

In regedit, browse to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Setup/OOBE/ and double click on “MediaBootInstall” on the right panel. Change the value from 1 to 0. Close regedit.

Select [START] [All Programs] [Accessories] right click on [Command Prompt] and select [run as administrator]

Type the following in the command line window: “slmgr /rearm” and press enter. WAIT for the “Command completed successfully” dialog box to show up.

Now close the command line window and reboot.

Right click on [Computer] and select [Properties]. Select change product key and input your DigitalRiver’s license key. It’ll be activated than.

Hope this helps other Windows 7 users who have bought the student edition from Digital Rivers and encountered the product key error when trying to reinstall the operating system.

The document, which has been released by Microsoft on March 11, 2010, is a “Microsoft Office Excel-based spreadsheet listing software applications and respective Windows 7 compatibility information”. These compatibility information have either been verified by the Windows 7 Logo Program testing requirements or by the software publisher.

All programs in the Windows 7 Application Compatibility List are identified with the Compatible Windows 7 Logo status which indicates that this is not a complete list of all applications that are compatible with Windows 7.

The list contains additional status information about applications that have not met the requirements for the Windows 7 Logo Program.

• Compatible
• Free Update Required
• Paid Update Required
• Future Compatibility
• Not Compatible

The application compatibility list can be helpful in determining if specific programs will run under Windows 7. Companies will most likely still test the programs on a test system before they migrate their inventory to Windows 7.

The Windows 7 Application Compatibility List can be downloaded directly from the Microsoft website.

Those users should note that this is a legit Windows application that has been added to European versions of Windows by Microsoft to comply with European Union regulations. It basically allows European Windows users to select a different web browser than Microsoft Internet Explorer.

The problem with that screen however is that it appears every time the user loads the operating system if no selection is made on the screen (for instance by closing the window after it appears).

It is however very easy to remove the screen from appearing in Windows after startup. Just follow the instructions below to remove it from Windows:

Click on the start button of the Windows operating system, enter msconfig in there and hit enter. This should open the System Configuration tool in Windows.

Switch to the Startup tab in the window to see all the programs that are loaded during system startup. A checkmark indicates programs that are loaded automatically while programs without a checkmark are not loaded. Locate the entry browserchoice in the listing and remove the checkmark from that program to ensure that it will not be loaded on the next system startup.

A click on OK will submit the changes. You can then restart the computer right away to see that the browser choice screen does not appear again.

Cause of the problem is the virtual dos machine (vdm) that was introduced in 1993 to support 16-bit applications. The exploit was uncovered by Tavis Ormandy, a member of Google’s security team. It makes it possible to run code with elevated rights on the computer system. The full technical explanation of the vulnerability and example exploit code are available at Neohapsis.

No patch has been issued by Microsoft until now even though Ormandy mentioned that he had contacted Microsoft about the issue six months ago. There is however a quick fix for most Windows operating systems: Disallowing VDM.

There are two possibilities on how to do that. System administrators and users with access to the Windows Group Policy Editor and an operating system that is Windows 2003 or newer can enable the policy to “Prevent access to 16-bit applications” in Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Application Compatibility”.

This setting has the consequence that 16-bit applications will not execute on the computer system which should not have an effect on most home users.

Users with operating systems prior to Windows 2003, Windows XP comes to mind, can alternatively create a new Windows Registry key to close the security vulnerability in the operating system.

This is done by navigating to the Registry key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\AppCompat

and creating the new DWORD VDMDisallowed and setting the value of the Dword to 1.

• STOP 0×0000007A
• STOP 0×00000077
• STOP 0×000000F4

The cause for those error messages are SATA hard drives that require more than 10 seconds. The timeout of the SATA driver in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 is set to ten seconds and the error message is produced as a result of this timeout.

Only large SATA hard drives are affected according to Microsoft. Large hard drives seem to be those with a capacity of 1 Terabyte or larger.

Consider the following scenario:

* You have a computer that is running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2.
* The computer has a Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) hard disk.
* The size of the SATA hard disk is large. For example, the size of the SATA hard disk is 1 terabyte (TB).
* You put the computer into the Sleep state or into the Hibernate state.
* You try to resume the computer.

In this scenario, you receive one of the following Stop error messages:

*
STOP 0x0000007A
*
STOP 0×00000077
*
STOP 0x000000F4

Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 users who are experiencing these difficulties are asked to install the patch that Microsoft has released on their support website.

Other users do not need to install this patch which will be integrated into Windows 7 Service Pack 1 which Microsoft aims to release in 2010.

The pricing between Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 7 Professional is steep. You can currently get a so called Windows 7 Home Premium Family Pack that contains three licenses for roughly $200 whereas a single Windows 7 Professional license puts you down $299 (some rebates are currently available dropping that figure to $260). Still, users would expect value for that price difference. As outlined yesterday there are only a few additional features in Windows 7 Professional that are not available in Home Premium.

• Backup and Restore Center (backup to networks is the additional feature here)
• Windows Server Domain support.
• Remote Desktop Server support.
• Location aware printing: Automatically changes the default printer based on the location of the user.
• Encrypting the file system
• Presentation mode: Presentation Mode is found in the Mobility Centre (Windows Key + X) and lets you control your machine’s behavior while you are giving presentations
• Windows XP Mode: Windows XP Mode and Windows Virtual PC, available on Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate, allow you to run multiple Windows environments, such as Windows XP Mode, from your Windows 7 desktop

Most of these features have been designed for a business or professional environment while some could be useful for other users as well. Most of these features can be substituted with third party software including software backups, file system encryption, presentation mode, location aware printing or the Windows XP mode. Computer users who know that they need several of these features might want to pick this version whereas everyone else is probably better off with Windows 7 Home Premium or even Windows 7 Ultimate which retails for only $20 more than Windows 7 Professional.

Windows 7 Professional does on the other hand support computer memory of up to 192 Gigabytes whereas Home Premium only supports 16 Gigabytes. This could be a valid reason to use the Pro (or Ultimate) version instead of Home Premium although it is highly unlikely that many end users are using computer systems which exceed 16 Gigabytes of computer memory.

The 2012 release is codenamed Windows 8 and Microsoft does not explicitly state that this will also be the release year of the new operating system although that is generally assumed by everyone.

Windows 8, which is currently only a codename for the new operating system (did not they say so previously when asked about Windows 7 as well?), will be major released opposed to the release updates Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7.

Our thanks to Stephen Chapman for publishing those two Windows roadmap images. Check out the Windows 8 News website for the latest news and rumors about Microsoft’s upcoming operating system Windows 8.

This can be done from within Windows without having to install additional software. To select multiple programs or windows at once press the Ctrl key while selecting the items in the Windows taskbar. You notice that every selected window or program will be shown as selected immediately.

To perform an action a right-click on any of the selected programs or windows is required. This right-click opens a context menu with five options for processing the selected windows.

Available options are cascade, tile horizontally or vertically, minimize or close.Especially the options to tile the windows horizontally or vertically can save lots of time or the need for third party software programs that offer this option.

Microsoft has released two charts that show the severity and exploitable index and the deployment priority. The former interesting for all users while the latter probably only for network administrators.

• Microsoft Security Bulletin MS09-045 – Critical – Vulnerability in JScript Scripting Engine Could Allow Remote Code Execution (971961) – This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in the JScript scripting engine that could allow remote code execution if a user opened a specially crafted file or visited a specially crafted Web site and invoked a malformed script. If a user is logged on with administrative user rights, an attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights. 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.
• Microsoft Security Bulletin MS09-046 – Critical – Vulnerability in DHTML Editing Component ActiveX Control Could Allow Remote Code Execution (956844) – This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in the DHTML Editing Component ActiveX control. An attacker could exploit the vulnerability by constructing a specially crafted Web page. When a user views the Web page, the vulnerability could allow remote code execution. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the logged-on user. 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.
• Microsoft Security Bulletin MS09-047 – Critical – Vulnerabilities in Windows Media Format Could Allow Remote Code Execution (973812) – This security update resolves two privately reported vulnerabilities in Windows Media Format. Either vulnerability could allow remote code execution if a user opened a specially crafted media file. If a user is logged on with administrative user rights, an attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights. 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.
• Microsoft Security Bulletin MS09-048 – Critical – Vulnerabilities in Windows TCP/IP Could Allow Remote Code Execution (967723) – This security update resolves several privately reported vulnerabilities in Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) processing. The vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if an attacker sent specially crafted TCP/IP packets over the network to a computer with a listening service. Firewall best practices and standard default firewall configurations can help protect networks from attacks that originate outside the enterprise perimeter. Best practices recommend that systems that are connected to the Internet have a minimal number of ports exposed.
• Microsoft Security Bulletin MS09-049 – Critical – Vulnerability in Wireless LAN AutoConfig Service Could Allow Remote Code Execution (970710) – This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in Wireless LAN AutoConfig Service. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if a client or server with a wireless network interface enabled receives specially crafted wireless frames. Systems without a wireless card enabled are not at risk from this vulnerability.

The patches can be download and applied by visiting the pages that are linked above or by using any of the update options that are provided by Microsoft operating systems including Windows Update, Automatic Updates or Microsoft Updates. Additional information can be found at the Microsoft Technet page.

The save as file dialog is usually offering a few file formats a document can be saved in. This limitation can be overridden by putting the name and file extension in quotation marks.

It is therefor possible to save information in different data formats even if they are not supported by the software program. It is even possible to select data formats that are not compatible at all with the data. A text document could be saved as an excel document or zip file. This will obviously throw an error when trying to open the file unless the right viewer is selected.

Only portable applications are problematic. A portable software is by default one that can be run from a folder without installation. It works out of the box and will not write data to the Windows Registry. But without changing the file associations it means that the user has to use the Open With dialog or drag and drop to open files on the computer system with a portable application.

The creation of PEM, Pure Enigmatic Magic, changes this. It has been created to fill the gap. The software program acts as a proxy that can be configured to associated certain file extensions with programs on the computer system. It could for example be configured to direct requests to open mp3 with AIMP2 instead of the default iTunes or Windows Media Player.

PEM is a tiny portable software program that runs quietly in the system tray upon execution. It uses about 400 Kilobytes of computer memory while doing so and will direct all requests to open the configured file types to applications that have been added by the user.

The user needs to type in a file extension and a relative path to an application that should open that file extension. PEM will then ensure that the file type will be opened by the program configured in its options instead of the default program that has been associated with the file type in the Windows Registry.

The software program is very helpful for users who work with portable software and makes a perfect fit for any USB software collection.

The five default tabs that are available in the Windows Task Manager are offered by DTaskManager plus the two additional Ports and Kernel Modules section. The program displays extensive information in each section of its interface, something that can only be partially achieved in the Windows Task Manager. The processes tab lists for example the path of the process and the cpu time by default.

The Ports section displays all network connections of the local computer system offering massive amounts of information that include the process name, local IP and port, remote IP and port, the protocol, path and socket status.

DTaskManager offers some advanced functions on how to deal with processes. It can for example kill processes the usual way, force the process to be closed and initiate an override to close the process which will bypass permissions as well. Another interesting feature is the ability to suspend tasks. This is a feature known from the Linux operating system which can temporarily halt tasks. That’s a handy feature in situations where all system resources are needed by a process as the user can suspend processes and resume them once the resources are not needed anymore for the priority process.

A few minor options are the ability to display the cpu and memory usage in the system tray. This can be displayed as a bar or as numerical values. DTaskManager is a solid and lightweight Windows Task Manager replacement. It is compatible with Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Vista.

Today Ina Fried published an article at Cnet that confirmed October 22 as the launch date for the next Microsoft operating system. The source is Microsoft Senior Vice President Bill Veghte who confirmed the release data in an interview. Veghte also confirmed that the RTM release of Windows 7 should be finished in mid to end July 2009.

Users who are interested into buying a new computer system right now should better wait until June 26 as this is the beginning of the free upgrade period which is said to end in the beginning of 2010. Users who purchase Windows Vista PCs participating in the Upgrade Option Program after June 26, 2009 can upgrade to Windows 7 for free at its release.

Windows 7 will be released in six different editions with the emphasize on the two editions Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 7 Professional. Both editions are successors of Windows Vista Home Premium and Windows Vista Business.

Do you have plans to purchase Windows 7 in the near future?