Fortunately though there is an alternative and it’s in every version of the operating system (XP, Vista and Windows 7).  This is called “Safe Boot” and you can find it in the MSConfig panel.  To open this type msconfig into the Start Menu search box in Vista or Windows 7, or run msconfig from the run option in XP.

Under the Boot tab in the MSConfig window you’ll see the Safe Boot option as a tick box.  Turning this on will make Windows use the Safe Boot option every time thereafter.  When you want to stop using Safe Boot and return to starting Windows normally you’ll need to return to the MSConfig panel and untick this option.  There are also several other options here including Minimal Boot, which will take you into the full Safe Mode, but the standard option will normally be enough for most people.

The Safe Boot screen, as you can see here is a half-way house between the full Windows desktop and Safe Mode.  What you will find though is that most of your hardware drivers will be installed and working though your startup software will still be disabled.

So when might you want to use Safe Boot?  Occasionally you will encounter a problem in Windows that you will need to go into Safe Mode to repair.  As I mentioned earlier however Safe Mode won’t allow you to perform some Windows tasks, and this is where the Safe Boot mode is useful.  You may also suspect that your problems aren’t being caused by a hardware driver, but by software instead.  This diagnostic mode enables you to have a full Windows desktop where nothing loads at startup and where you can run and check programs individually to see what effect they are having on your system.

As I have already mentioned Safe Mode is extremely limiting, not just in the very low screen resolution that it gives you.  If you need to run full diagnostics on your copy of Windows, to see what’s going on under the hood, or if you need to test individual software packages in a safe environment where they will be able to run properly then Windows Safe Boot is the way to do it.

Remember though that you will need to turn off Safe Boot when you are done, or else Windows will start permanently in this mode.  I have found this to be a very useful diagnostic tool in Windows and it’s extremely underused because, frankly, many people simply do not know that it exists.  Hopefully you will find it useful too.

As the author of “Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out” from Microsoft Press one of the most popular webcast requests I have received is for how you can diagnose and repair these complex and difficult problems, so on January 12th 2012 this is exactly what I’m going to do.

The webcast is completely free, live and starts at 10AM PT - San Francisco | 6pm – London | 1pm – New York | Fri, Jan 13th at 5am – Sydney | Fri, Jan 13th at 3am – Tokyo | Fri, Jan 13th at 2am – Beijing | 11:30pm – Mumbai

It can be difficult enough finding out what’s gone wrong with windows 7 or a program, but some problems can be a nightmare to diagnose. In this webcast, Mike Halsey, the author of Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out talks you through how to diagnose really stubborn and hidden problems in Windows 7, and explains how you can go about fixing them.

In this webcast I’ll cover the tools and skills you’ll need to diagnose problems, and I’ll show you the extensive diagnostic tools that already exist inside Windows 7 to help you with the job.  In fact it’s possible to diagnose complex Windows 7 problems using nothing more than Windows 7 itself.

If you’re not able to make the webcast when it’s broadcast live, just register in advance and you’ll be given free access to watch it afterwards online through the O’Reilly website.  It will last for approximately 60 minutes and is part of a series of regular webcasts that, from February, will return to their regular first Thursday slot.

You can register for this free webcast here.

So with all these problems in mind I’ve written a short 25 page eBook which I’m giving away for free.  “Setting up and Configuring a New PC” helps you to do just that.  It’s a PDF and has been specifically designed to be easy to print so that you can refer to it later (and not so large and full or images that it destroys your printer ink in the process, though you might want to keep a spare blue cartridge handy just in case).

The book deals just with the most important aspects of setting up your computer so that you and your files and documents are safe and protected in the long-term.  It’s split into four parts.

In part 1 I show you how you can split your computer’s hard disk into two or three partitions.  This means you can keep your files and documents safe and away from Windows just in case a disaster means the OS needs to be completely reinstalled, and that if you have space on your hard disk you can also keep a backup image copy of your Windows installation itself.  This section also shows you how to create system backup and rescue discs that use can use to restore your computer in the event of a catastrophe.

Part 2 details the inevitable problems that come with trial-versions of anti0virus software being installed on your computer, and part 3 follows this up with information on how to remove the excess bloatware and crapware that is commonly bundled with new computers and that can not only be set to run at startup, slowing your computer down, but that also just takes up space and is completely unnecessary most of the time.

In the last part I show you how you can move your files and documents away from your Windows 7 partition or disk to keep them safe.  This is moving them to the partition you created in part 1.  The reasons for doing all this are that if Windows 7 does need to be completely reinstalled somewhere down the line, which is fairly likely, keeping your files and documents on the same hard disk partition as the operating system itself will mean they will be inevitably wiped during the restore.

The other reason for creating your own backup too is that because modern computers come with a restore partition, this will restore all the crap software that came with the machine in the first place.  It really will perform a factory reset.

You can download the eBook here though I do recommend that you follow all the instructions very carefully indeed.  While the partitioning tool in Windows 7 is fairly simple and foolproof, this process is never without its risks.  Take care and try and have a tech-savvy friend about when you do this.

Tis the holiday season bringing gifts of new computers for young and old. In this webcast, Mike Halsey the author of Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out cuts through the mess of pre-installed bloatware and shows you how to set up your computer system so that it will give you a trouble free, and performance-boosted life. This webcast comes with free downloadable easy guides you can print and keep.

The webcast takes place at 10AM PT, San Francisco | 6pm – London | 1pm – New York | Wed, Dec 14th at 5am – Sydney | Wed, Dec 14th at 3am – Tokyo | Wed, Dec 14th at 2am – Beijing | 11:30pm – Mumbai.

My monthly O’Reilly webcasts are now booked for the first half of 2012.  You can get more information at OReilly.com/webcasts and each one will take place at exactly the same times listed above.  Put these in your diary and join me for these great live events.

January 12^th 2012 – Diagnosing and Repairing Difficult Problems in Windows 7

It can be difficult enough finding out what’s gone wrong with windows 7 or a program, but some problems can be a nightmare to diagnose.  In this webcast, Mike Halsey, the author of Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out talks you through how to diagnose really stubborn and hidden problems in Windows 7, and explains how you can go about fixing them.

February 2^nd 2012 – Using Virtualisation in Windows 7

Despite Microsoft’s best efforts, Windows 7 won’t run every piece of software and some of it you might really want or need.  In this webcast, Mike Halsey, the author of Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out explains how you can use free virtualisation tools in any edition of Windows 7 to keep valuable and useful older software working in a safe and secure way.

March 1^st 2012 – Building a Bomb-Proof Backup Strategy

Backup, Backup, Backup is a common mantra, but often it’s easier said than done maintaining a good backup strategy due to the time and effort involved long-term.  In this webcast,
Mike Halsey, the author of Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out talks you through how you can build a simple, hands-free backup strategy that is quite literally bombproof.

April 5^th 2012 – Manually Removing Viruses and Malware from Windows 7

Getting a virus on your computer is a pain and they’re becoming ever more difficult to remove.  In this webcast, Mike Halsey, the author of Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out talks you through the process of manually and safely removing viruses and malware from your computer without damaging your files or Windows itself.

May 3^rd 2012 – Building and Upgrading a PC

With computers now more powerful than ever before, and with wallets being squeezed, there are more and more reasons to hang on to your existing equipment.  But how can you breathe new life into an ageing PC on a tight budget?  In this webcast, Mike Halsey, the author of Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out shows you how to quickly and simply get extra life and performance out of your PC, fix common hardware faults and what to look for to build a fantastic new PC from scratch.

June 7^th 2012 – Managing Family Safety in Windows 7

The Internet is a dangerous place and every parent worries about what their children might be doing, and what they might be exposed to online.  In this webcast, Mike Halsey, the author of Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out walks you through the process of keeping your children and your family safe online from viruses, criminals and inappropriate content with simple to use free tools.

Sometimes though you want a more natural way to work with search in Windows and you might be surprised that it does actually exist, but it’s hidden away.

Natural Language Search is an option hidden in the file options.  From a Windows Explorer window click the Organize button and then Folder and Search Options from the menu that appears.

At the next screen, under the Search tab, you can tell Windows 7 to Use Natural Language Search.   This system isn’t perfect but it can a decent fist of commands such as “files created by Mike” or “tiny music files”.

This is an excellent, albeit slightly flawed way to interact with search in Windows 7.  Since this system was designed by Microsoft we have seen great advances in search with Microsoft’s Bing search engine and we can sure that some, if not many of these advances will find their way into the next version of Windows.

It’s a shame really that natural language search, which Google has been tremendously successful with for a decade now, isn’t something we can yet properly use with our computers.  This is especially galling given the ever growing volume of files of different types we are accumulating.  It will be great to see not just improvements to this in Windows 8, but also the feature brought more to the foreground.

Battery life is obviously a core reason for optimizing operating systems in this regard. Another factor is the cost of energy. Users and organizations save money running energy efficient systems, especially in times where energy costs reach new heights every year.

Microsoft reveals details about their testing procedure in the blog post. More interesting from a user perspective are software based changes that have an impact on a computer’s energy consumption. One example is provided.

If you have played around with the developer preview of Windows 8, you may have noticed that Metro UI applications get suspended instead of killed when you open the Task Manager. In fact, there was not even a way to kill Metro UI applications right away in the Metro user interface. Microsoft calls this method Background Tasks which gives applications the ability to “run app code even when the app is suspended”.

Suspending apps is beneficial to a system’s power consumption in cases where users would not close them otherwise.

Related to this are improvements in application idle durations on Windows 8. The idle state is essential from a power saving point of view. A longer idle period duration is beneficial to a system’s overall power consumption. Microsoft has managed to increase the idle period duration significantly under Windows 8. Take a look at the following chart.

It is interesting to note that Microsoft is not providing a direct comparison of power consumption under Windows 7 and Windows 8. While this may have something to do with the fact that the operating system is still in development, that’s what users want to see. Will Windows 8 be more power efficient than Windows 7? Will battery life last longer on the same hardware? It will be interesting to see how the beta fares in term of power consumption.

Hiding an Individual Library

Open the Libraries window or open Windows Explorer and select Libraries. In the Navigation pane, right-click the library that you want to hide and a popup menu will be displayed. Out of the options, select “Don’t show in navigation pane”.

The library you selected will now be absent from the Navigation pane, but it will still be in the right pane of the Libraries window. In order to add it back to the Navigation Pane, right-click on the library in the right pane and a similar popup window will open as before. Select the option “Show in navigation pane”.

You may also delete a library if you want to. This is not the same thing as hiding a library. To delete a library, follow the same steps as you would for hiding a library but select “Delete” instead. If you do this either by accident or purposely, it is simple to get it back if you right-click on Libraries in the Navigation pane and click “Restore default libraries” from the menu.

Another option is to collapse the list if you would rather not hide or delete the library from the Navigation pane. This will collapse the list entirely, getting the libraries list out of the way. Right-click the Libraries link and, as usual, a popup menu will open. From the list, select “Collapse”. Once the list is collapsed, it is only temporary. If you click the arrow next to the Libraries link, the list will expand. You can collapse it again by clicking the same arrow.

If, for some reason, you are displeased with the Windows 7 Libraries feature, it is possible to completely remove the link from the Navigation pane. Included below is a registry hack that will accomplish this. This is not a manual registry hack but two .reg files that will save all the trouble of the multiple steps it will take to do this manually. This will not only remove the Libraries link from the pane, it will disable the shell extension in the registry and you will no longer be able to access any of the libraries. Fortunately, another hack is included to enable the Libraries feature again.

DisableLibariesFeature (via How To Geek)

To disable the Libraries feature, double-click DisableLibrariesFeature.reg. Now close all Explorer windows and logoff then logon again. The feature will now be disabled. A reversal is included to enable the Libraries feature. To re-enable the Libraries feature, double-click EnableLibrariesFeature.reg. then logoff and logon as you did in the step to disable the feature.

Windows users who want better manageability of the library feature can use tools like the Windows 7 Library Tool or Librarian for that.

In Windows Vista and Windows 7 the new Resource Monitor is able to give you real-time information about just about everything going on inside your copy of Windows.  You can access it by typing the word resource into the Start Menu search box.

The Resource Monitor itself is split into different tabs and panels.  The tabs along the top will give you an Overview of your PC’s and Windows operations, but there are also tabs to give you detailed and in-depth information on your CPU, Memory, Disk and Network.

Each tab is split into collapsible panels that give you detailed information.  Where it comes in especially useful is in the following scenarios.

Scenario A – Your PC suddenly slows down at random moments and you can’t check why.  You have a look in the Task Manager but can’t see what it is that is chewing your processor cycles or memory.  Leaving the Resource Monitor open will give you much more detailed information than you will find the Task manager, including real-time graphs of exactly what’s going on.

Scenario B – Your network connection is slow and you don’t know why?  Using the Resource Manager you can see exactly what is using your network connection and how much bandwidth it’s using, not just overall, but split across your different connections and separating out Internet and local network traffic.

Overall I can’t recommend the Resource Monitor highly enough for helping diagnose and repair problems with slowdowns and bottlenecks on Windows PCs.  The Resource Monitor is very easy to use and understand and give you details of exactly what program or process is eating away at your valuable computer resources.

Each week will see different prizes with a grand prize in the final week. The prize breakdown and dates for the competition are as follows.

Week 1

Monday 17th October to Sunday 23rd October 2011 – Prizes 1 copy of “Windows 7 Plain & Simple” and 1 signed copy of “Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out” as a bundle for one winner.

Week 2

Monday 24th October to Sunday 30th October 2011 – Prizes 1 copy of “Windows 7 Step by Step” and 1 signed copy of “Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out” as a bundle for one winner.

Week 3

Monday 31st October to Sunday 6th November 2011 – Prizes 1 copy of “HTML5 Step by Step” and 1 signed copy of “Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out” as a bundle for one winner.

Week 4

Monday 7th November to Sunday 13th November 2011 – Prizes 1 signed copy of “The Windows 7 Power Users Guide” and 1 signed copy of “Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out” as a bundle for one winner.

Week 5

Monday 14th November to Sunday 20th November 2011 – Prizes 1 copy of “The Windows 7 Resource Kit“, 1 copy of “Windows 7 Inside Out Deluxe Edition” and 1 signed copy of “Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out” as a bundle for one winner.

Week 6

Monday 21st November to Sunday 27th November 2011 – Prizes 1 Acer Iconia Tab W500 Windows 7 Tablet with a 10.1 inch multi-touch screen, 2GB memory, 32Gb SSD, 2 in 1 card reader, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 3, 1.3MP built-in webcam, Windows 7 Home Premiun 32-bit and Office 2010 Starter Edition preloaded. 1 copy of “Windows 7 Inside Out Deluxe Edition” and 1 signed copy of “Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out” as a bundle for one winner.

Entry Rules

• People following Mike Halsey MVP on Facebook may enter this competiton a maximum amount of once per week, duplicate entries will not be counted.
• Competiton questions will be posted once on the wall of Mike Halsey MVP each Monday throughout weeks 1 to 5.
• Entries can be accepted from people worldwide.
• All entries MUST contain the full name, postal address and contact telephone number (required by some couriers) of the participant. Entries submitted without this information will not be counted. This information will be deleted at the end of the competition and will not be shared with third-parties.
• All participants must be 16 years or older to comply with competition rules in some countries.
• All participants must be able to receive packages via standard postal mail or by courier.
• People may only win one of the weekly prizes (weeks 1 to 5) and the grand prize maximum. People cannot win two weekly prizes.
• People who have won a weekly prize may still enter following weeks to increase their chances of winning the grand prize, though their entry will not be counted in the week they enter.
• Each week’s competition will be slightly different to reflect the prizes on offer and may include open and multiple-choice questions and tip suggestions
• Each person must submit a tie-break tip each week on the subject provided, this subject will change each week.
• Entries must be emailed to mike@MVPs.org with the subject Competition during the weeky period of the competition, as stated above. NOTE: If this email address repeatedly fails (which it does sometimes) try mike_dot_halsey_at_live_dot_co_dot_uk
• Lost, late or undelivered entries cannot be counted.
• The winner of the grand prize will be selected from the best tie-break tip over the full course of the competition. There will be no separate way to enter during week 6.
• Winners will be notified by email within 6 days of the end of each week’s competition and will be required to accept their win within a calendar week. Any person who is non-contactable by email, or who does not accept their prize within the time permitted will forfeit their prize, which will be reallocated to a new winner.
• Prizes will be sent by a variety of methods including regular mail. No replacement prizes can be sent for any items lost or damaged in transit and no cash alternative will be available.
• Delivery of prizes can take 6 to 8 weeks depending on the location of the winner and the delivery method used.
• The winner will be chosen by Mike Halsey and judged on the quality of the answers given and their tie-break suggestion. Mike Halsey’s decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.
• Entry to this competition constitutes acceptance of these terms and conditions.

If you look at the statistics you will notice that Windows 7 has surpassed Windows XP in one already (W3Schools) and that the operating system is about to surpass XP in another in the coming month (Statcounter) if current trends continue.

Only Net Market Share sees Windows XP still in the lead by a large margin.

One of the interesting things here is that Windows 7 managed to surpass Vista’s market share in less than a year in all three statistics. If you project the rates at which Windows 7 grows in market share you will come to the conclusion that the operating system may gain another 15% to 20% of market share in the coming 12 months. Why is that period important? Because after that time Windows 8 will be released. An earlier release of Windows 8 may slow down the rise of Windows 7, but it won’t halt the market share drops of Windows XP and Vista.

There will still be plenty of users working on Windows XP and at least some that use Windows Vista. When you look at global operating system brands and their market share, you will notice that Microsoft with Windows is still the big fish in the pond. Depending on the statistics service used the company has a worldwide market share between 85% and 93%.

Can Windows 7 be called a success because of this? I’d say yes it can, especially when compared to Windows Vista. The biggest feat in my opinion is that Windows 7 turned around the perception of Windows from a bloated slow operating system to something that people love to work with.

It will be interesting to see how the public perceives Windows 8 once it comes out. Will Microsoft be able to break the good OS bad OS cycle (Windows 98 good, Windows ME bad, Windows XP good, Windows Vista bad, Windows 7 good) and deliver two great operating systems in a row, or will the new operating system fail to impress with its new Metro start page and design changes.

What’s your take on this?

You will need to download the Windows 8 Developer ISO disk image and burn it to a DVD or put it on a USB device. Here is the link for the ISO: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/home/. You can save it in the Downloads folder until later in the tutorial where we will demonstrate how to create the disk image and boot it.

Create a hard drive partition of at least 20GB. Open the disk management console in Windows 7 by going to the start menu and typing in “run” and press Enter. Type “diskmgmt.msc” in the Open field and click OK.

This opens the console. To create a new partition, right-click on a Healthy Logical Drive and select Shrink Volume. Enter the amount of space for the partition in MB. So, enter 20000. This will actually give you 19.53 GB and therefore you may want to allocate 21-30GB for the partition to ensure functionality. On the PC used in this demonstration, entering 20000MB worked out fine in the end. It is your call.

You can see from the screenshot below that a new partition exists for the Windows 8 Developer Preview. Now it must be formatted and given a name.

Right-click the empty partition and choose “New Simple Volume”. The Wizard will launch and you will be prompted to enter the amount of unallocated space to use. Use the original default to avoid wasting any space. You will be asked to assign a drive letter. Do so and click Next. The following window will present and the only thing you have to do is enter the Volume label, or name of the partition. Click Next.

This will format the partition and you are now ready to install Windows 8 Developer Preview.

You should have downloaded the copy of the Windows 8 Preview by now. You will have to burn the ISO disk image to a DVD or USB device. Right-click the ISO disk image and select “Burn to Disk” and choose the disk for burning. Restart your computer and configure to boot from the appropriate source as the primary boot option in the BIOS. When booting from a DVD, you should see “press any key to boot from CD or DVD”. Press any key immediately. It will take just a moment, but the installation will begin.

Simply follow all of the steps to install. Accept the license agreement and choose custom installation. Select the appropriate partition created earlier or you will erase all data on other hard drives and partitions. It may take some time for the installation to complete. This is normal. Wait patiently. It is worth it.
The installation will commence and you will be asked to name the PC. After this, you will be prompted to choose express settings or custom settings. You can log into the computer using a Windows Live ID or create a local account.
Restart the computer after logging on so that the default returns to Windows 7. Reconfigure the BIOS and the next time you log on, you have the option between the two operating systems.

There it is! Now you are ready to preview Windows 8 without virtualization. Explore and have fun.

Aero Tile

To add the glassy aeroful tiles to your PC desktop, the portable utility Aero Tile delivers this distinctive glamour. It offers you several options and choices for My Computer, My Documents, Control Panel, Fonts and other such Windows dimensions. Aero Tile is simple to use. There is no need for extensive technical knowledge or added code.

Download Aero Tile from the following link and get started. It will arrive in a .zip file. Extract the application from the zipped file and launch. The options window opens immediately. Check the boxes next to the tiles you want to display. You have to arrange the tiles by dragging them and placing them in the appropriate area of the desktop.

Omnimo 4

This is an application based on Rainmeter. It is a multi-function desktop center. It is interactive and versatile once you get a feel for it. The tiles are easily customized and any information is accessible from an aesthetically pleasing layout. You will need to install Rainmeter 2.0 or higher, as Omnimo 4 requires Rainmeter. Download here. Now you can install and start using Omnimo 4.

It will open from a .zip file. The installation is simple. When complete, Omnimo starts right up and you can begin configuration.

Zetro

Another Windows 8 metro UI theme for Windows 7 is Zetro. It yields the stylish tiles of 8 to Windows 7. You will have to go through several steps to prepare the proper format to work in Windows 7 and produce tiles that are active and functional. The instructions can be found in the Readme file located in the extracted .zip folder for Zetro. The interesting thing about this tweak is that it is a theme pack that enables you to alternate between tiles and Aeros easily. This versatility is well worth the setup procedure and will produce a genuine Windows 8 format for the Windows 7 desktop. Download Zetro from this link.

The screenshot above shows the Zetro theme files after being transferred to the Windows Themes file, as described in the instructional Readme file. After this is done, choose the theme you want. Try all of them to see which suites you. You can switch back to Aeros by returning to the Windows Themes folder (C:/Windows/Resources/Themes) and selecting Aeros. This will set things back to Windows 7 appearance.

Each of these different tweaks offers a different appearance and functionality. Experiment with it and see which works best for you. After all, you can always uninstall it if you don’t like it.

As you can see from the screenshot below they’ve also been given a very prominent position, listed third in the list of sixteen help and support subject areas.  Personally I’m delighted with what Microsoft have done to showcase them.  Microsoft do occasionally showcase help and support content from MVPs but this will be the first video content on the Microsoft help and support site.  I will also in the future be providing more content for the site covering products including Windows 7, Windows 8 and Microsoft Office.

Screenshot only, no playable video in this image

You may also remember that a little while ago Microsoft Press released for free on YouTube a series of videos I had made accompany their Windows 7 and Word 2010 Step by Step books.  The videos are full tutorials to the products and run to more than 10 hours.  I can also announce that discussions are in an advanced stage for Microsoft to also host these videos on their support website.  IN addition to these I also made tutorial video series for PowerPoint 2010 and HTML5.  I can certainly see the latter being popular, while any tutorials that can help teach people how not to bore their co-workers to death with PowerPoint has got to be welcomed  :)

In other news!  I can also now announce that my next eBook will be released by US publisher Fair Trade Digital Exchange (FTDX) in November (if I ever finish writing it!).  Need2Know Office 365 Security for Small Business will look at all aspects of running a safe and secure business environment using Microsoft’s new cloud-based server and productivity package.  As well as looking at Office 365 itself, the book will also look holistically at every aspect of your business computing security from your domain hosting and broadband connection, to your storage solutions, PCs, laptops and smartphones and also your attitudes to mobile working and workers using their own IT hardware.

Finally the big announcement!  As if all this wasn’t enough for one day there is one final announcement, but I can’t officially say anything for another month or so.  All I can officially do is make a statement and show you a picture.  Though it shouldn’t be at all difficult to piece together the clues.

The statement… “I will definitely NOT be writing a Windows 8 Power Users Guide as a follow on to my similar guide to Windows 7”
And the image…

…have you guessed yet?  ;)

General Shortcut Keys

Dialog Box Keyboard Shortcuts

Windows Explorer Keyboard Shortcuts

Ease of Access Keyboard Shortcuts

Windows Help Shortcut Keys

Microsoft Natural Keyboard Shortcuts

Text Navigation and Editing Shortcuts

Windows Character Map Shortcut Keys

Microsoft Internet Explorer Shortcuts

So how do you back up the drivers in your Windows installation and how can you use these?  In all versions of Windows the drivers are stored in the C:\Windows\System32 folder in the sub-folders Drivers, DriverStore and if your installation has one, DRVSTORE.  These folders contain all the hardware drivers for your operating system.  In the folder location, C represents the drive on which you have Windows installed, this may be a different letter on your system.

You can simply copy these folders out to seperate storage (DO NOT MOVE THEM) such as an external USB drive or Pen Drive.  When time comes to reinstall the drivers you can copy the folders back.

Now there are a couple of ways to reinstall the drivers.  The easiest way is to simply restart the PC when the driver folders have been copied back to see if Windows automatically detects drivers for uninstalled hardware.  This is possible, but won’t be the case for all your hardware.

To install drivers for the missing hardware you need to open the Device Manager.  You can do this by typing Device Manager into the search box in the Start Menu.  You will see all your uninstalled drivers highlighted with a small yellow warning triangle icon.  You need to Right-Click on each one and select Update Driver.  Because the correct drivers are already in the drivers folders on your computer, telling Windows to find the drivers automatically should always install the correct one.  You may however, in some cases, have to tell the Device Manager which folder to look for.  You can either point it directly to one of the two drivers folders, or just at the System32 folder; making sure you tick the box “include subfolders”.

There is an important caveat with this.  The drivers for 64 bit (x64) and 32 bit (x86) versions of Windows are usually different.  This means that if you copy x86 drivers into an x64 copy of Windows; or vice-versa, they will not install.  Windows will recognise them as being incorrect.  You cannot use this method therefore when migrating your system from the 32-bit version of Windows to the 64-bit version when, for example, adding more memory to your PC.

You CAN use this method to migrate drivers between Windows Vista and Windows 7 (and back again) as both operating system share the same driver model, but again not between x86 and x64 builds.  You CAN’T use this to migrate Windows XP drivers to Vista or Windows 7 however as Windows XP uses an older driver model and the hardware drivers for XP are not compatible with the newer versions of Windows.

Sam is an IT Project Manager who has purchased a large batch of Windows 7 Enterprise licenses without consulting her bosses. They don’t want to move from XP and now her job’s at threat! She needs your help as an IT Professional to convince the board that Windows 7 is worth deploying.

To enter you need to create a video, or series of videos across the whole competition justifying Sam’s Windows 7 purchase on a series of different criteria.  Fir the first entry period it’s productivity.

The prizes in this competition are really excellent and include…

Acer Aspire ICONIA TAB W500 Windows 7 Tablet
Sony 32″ LCT TV with Samsung BluRay Player
Lenovo IdeaCentre B320 21.5″ Multi-Touch All-in-One Desktop PC
Seagate 4Tb NAS drive with Sonos Play:5 and Sonos Bridge
Dell Inspiron Q15R Laptop
HTC Titan Windows Phone

In addition, the first 250 entrants will receive a limited edition mug.  Then there are two final prizes for the most watched videos over the whole period.

Samsung 32″ 3D TV
Panasonic SD90 HD 3D Ready Camcorder with 3D conversion lens

The entry periods for the competiton are…

- Entry Period 1 (19 September 2011 – 03 October 2011)
- Entry Period 2 (03 October 2011 – 17 October 2011)
- Entry Period 3 (17 October 2011 – 31 October 2011)
- Entry Period 4 (31 October 2011 – 14 November 2011)
- Entry Period 5 (14 November 2011 – 28 November 2011)
- Entry Period 6 (28 November 2011 – 12 December 2011)

You can enter in each of the six entry periods but only once each time and, if you have a webcam and can record a video, up to three minutes long direct to YouTube, or if you have more professional video editing kit these prizes will make entering well worthwhile.  It’s important to note here that professionalism isn’t necessarily a guarantee to success.  What you say in your video is just as important, but don’t forget the already Excellent Windows Live Movie Maker can be downloaded completely free as part of Microsoft’s Windows Live Essentials Suite 2011.  This software contains some great and simple to use tools for snazzing up your entries.  As for your entries for the very first entry period, Microsoft say…

All you have to do is share your tips on the features of Windows 7 that make it easy to use. Sam says the board are worried that users will have trouble adapting to Windows 7 and that they’ll see a drop in productivity. She needs to know, what features and improvements are included in Windows 7 that will help the business’ users to be more productive?

The competition is only open to UK residents and full terms and conditions and links of where you can enter can be found HERE.  You can see my first entry on this link with the promise that if this wins the first round, I’ll be giving away the prize, an Acer Windows 7 Tablet PC worth around £600, in a free prize-draw to a lucky follower.

There’s a lot of software out there that can be used to backup files to an external hard drive, or even to the cloud. But did you know that Windows 7 actually has some pretty sophisticated backup software built in? It can be used to make a single backup, or to regularly backup your files to keep your archive up to date.

You can backup to either a portable hard drive, to USB flash drives or to CDs or DVDs. The most popular method is to backup to a portable hard drive, as these are very cheap and can be easily connected and carried around. Portable drives are also very useful if you want to keep an off-site backup of your data.

You can find the options to backup your computer’s files from the control panel. Simply click on “start”, and then “control panel” and then find the option to backup your computer under the heading of “system and security”. You’ll be taken to a screen where you can set up a new backup or restore files if you already have an archive. You’ll need to be a computer administrator to do this, as you’ll see by the shield icon next to the link called “set up backup”. Clicking on this will start a wizard where you can set the parameters of your backup job.

You’ll need to select the device you want to use to hold your backups. Plug in a portable hard drive of suitable size to hold all the files you want to archive. The wizard will tell you the size of your drive, and the amount of free space you have on it.

On the next screen you can choose whether to manually select the files you want to backup, or let Windows 7 decide for you. If you have specific files and folders you want to backup, then do it manually but in most cases the automatic selection will work best. Click on next, and now you can see a summary of your selections. You also have the option here to set up a schedule for backups. A weekly backup is usually good enough, but if you are a heavy computer user then maybe select a daily backup.

You should now save your settings by clicking on the button to end the wizard. Congratulations, you’ve set up a backup job on your computer. All you need to do now is wait until the time you selected on your schedule, or you can click on the button “back up now” to start immediately.

If you have a laptop computer with a TPM chip then using BitLocker to encrypt the content of your hard disk is a very worthwhile activity, especially for work computers where you may be carrying sensitive personal data on staff or customers, or where any data you are carrying will be subject to local data protection regulations anyway.

Bitlocker is easy to use too, you just go into the BitLocker option in the Windows Control Panel, select your hard disk(s) you want to encrypt and, if your computer has  TPM chip, turn it on.  But what atre the problems and pitfalls of using BitLocker?

Bitlocker will work very effectively and silently in the background and you won’t even realise it’s there.  This can cause problems should something go wrong with Windows and you need to either restore it from a backup, or reinstall it completely.

When you encrypt your disk with BitLocker, Windows will prompt you to store a copy of your encryption key on a USB pen Drive.  There are good reasons for this and it’s wise to keep a copy of the encryption key on that Pen Drive and keep the drive itself somewhere safe but handy.  Obviously if you’re taking a laptop out and about you shouldn’t keep the Pen Drive with you at all times where it could be stolen with the laptop, this is almost as bad as having no encryption at all.

If you need to restore Windows from a backup image however Complete System Restore in Windows will ask you for a copy of the encryption key before it can work with your hard disk(s).  It will happily look on Pen Drives and find the appropriate keys.  Without these keys the restore process simply won’t work at all, neither will any the startup repair options in Windows 7.

When you come to reinstall Windows the problems will be worse.  Before you can do this it is extremely wise to completely decrypt your BitLocker-protected drives; a process that’s probably best left running over-night.  You can create yourself all types of security problems if you try to reinstall Windows 7 over a partition that’s already encrypted, or if you wipe the original partition and recreate it and have a second partition or disk for files.

A BitLocker encrypted disk is tied to the boot loader of a Windows installation, and it is this that it looks for to check it’s not been modified before the TPM chip releases the decryption key.  It would be too easy to reinstall Windows and then find you no longer have any access to your files and data because they’re encryped and not backed up in an unencrypted form somewhere safe.

Backups are essential when you are dealing with any form of file or disk encryption, even Windows EFS (Encrypted File System) which I personally hate as it strips useful metadata out of files when it compresses them for reasons that make no sense.  You should always make sure there is at least one fully unencrypted backup copy of your files stored in a secure location.

I would also recommended keeping a copy of your encryption key in a safe location, perhaps Microsoft’s SkyDrive service.  It wouldn’t even matter here if hackers gained access to your account and downloaded the keys, as without physical access to the computer they relate to, the keys are completely useless to them.

So while BitLocker is a fantastic idea and one that I use on my own laptop paired with a fingerprint scanner, you need to be very careful when putting it into implementation.

This is where System Restore comes in handy. As most of us know, it’s where we can roll back system settings to a predetermined point. It was available on XP and Vista, and you’ll also find it on Windows 7.

But now lets assume that for some reason Windows 7 won’t allow us to boot into Windows or run system restore in the usual way. What do we do now? Well, you can run system restore from your Windows 7 disk. Before you do this, make sure you have exhausted all other options first. One wrong move when running system restore from your Windows disk, and you could find yourself reformatting your drive – and that’s not what we want to do.

So begin by inserting your Windows 7 disk, and boot up your computer. We’ll assume that you already have your BIOS set up boot from CD first. If not you’ll have to enter the BIOS (usually by pressing F2 or DEL at start-up), and change the boot up priorities.

You should see a prompt to boot from DVD, and after you press any key the Windows 7 setup will begin. At this stage, no changes are being made to your computer so don’t worry, you’ll be given options later to choose what you want to do. The first screen you’ll see is where you’re prompted to choose your language and keyboard layouts. Again, we’re not changing anything on your Windows installation at this stage, we’re only choosing this for the benefit of the setup program, so go ahead and choose your keyboard layout and click next.

The next screen is the one we need to be careful about. We don’t want to click “Install Now”, because that will start a new installation of Windows 7. We want to click on the link further down that says, “Repair your computer”.

Clicking on this will prompt the computer to search for installed operating systems. It will find our Windows 7 install, and you’ll be taken through a wizard. Click next, and choose “System Restore” from the menu. What you see now should be the same kind of dialogue boxes as you’d see if you ran system restore from your Windows desktop, except in this case, we haven’t booted into Windows so no nasty viruses or bugs can stop us from carrying out the maintenance. Follow the instructions to choose a system restore point from a day you know your computer was working correctly, and when you reboot you should hopefully find you have a working system again. If not, repeat these instructions and maybe choose a restore point that was further back in time.

Windows Task Scheduler is a useful tool to manage automation of various tasks that need to be periodically performed on a Windows PC. It is a hands-off method to schedule tasks so that you do not have to concern yourself with them. Cleaning the hard drive, defragmenting the hard drive and running chkdsk.exe are just a few of the maintenance tasks that the Windows user needs to perform to keep their computers running smoothly. This article focuses on creating an automatic schedule for chkdsk.exe to run. You will need to create a Task Scheduler job to run chkdsk.exe automatically.

Keep in mind that chkdsk.exe will not be able to run if the drive is being used.

Open the Task Scheduler by typing “Task Scheduler” or “Scheduler” in the search box in the Start Menu. Select Task Scheduler from the menu and press Enter.

Select “Create a Task” and name the task along with a description in the appropriate fields. In this case, it is not necessary to specify a location for the task. It is necessary to “Configure for” the version of Windows being used.

Click the Actions tab. The following screen will be presented.

Click New.

When you enter the Program/script, go ahead and enter the argument /R after chkdsk.exe. This will ensure that the computer restarts and performs the disk check on the appropriate drive. Otherwise, your computer will simply shutdown and you will have to manually turn it on for the disk check to start. Remember to indicate the disk to be checked. In this example, the drive is / C:

Click OK and you will be asked if you wish to include the arguments. Click Yes. Notice that the action is completed along with the arguments in the proper order. Now click the General tab. Be sure to configure for the operating system that you are using. In this case, it is Windows 7.

Now click the Triggers tab to set the frequency of the automatic disk check. Monthly is probably sufficient. You can select just a few months or all months. Next you will have to specify the day of the month. You also need to specify when you want this trigger to start. By default, it begins immediately. Set the time of day for an hour when the computer will be on but you will not be using it.

Click OK. The next screen shows that the task is scheduled and enabled. Click OK. When you are finished, you see the main Task Scheduler window again. You will see the task listed in the Task Scheduler Library if everything was done correctly.