Showing posts with label windows7. Show all posts

Windows 7's taskbar lets you pin any running program to the taskbar for easy future access, but it treats folders like second-class sub-items of the Explorer icon. Create a fake "program" to pin individual folder shortcuts to your taskbar.

To get around Windows 7's shortcut shield, you can create a new pseudo-app linked to your destination by creating a dummy text file and giving it a recognizable icon. It's the kind of old-school Explorer and desktop hack Windows users have been relying on for years, and it's almost nostalgia-inducing to see it do something good on Windows 7—not that we wouldn't have like to seen some smarter taskbar behavior, instead.

Microsoft announced yesterday that it is offering Windows 7 to college students for $30, one-quarter the price that everyone else will pay.

This got me thinking about a couple things:

First: Those damn college kids. It's all keg parties, classes that don't start until 11 am, copious vacation time, hope in the future, and more keg parties. Now they get Windows 7 for the cost of a large pizza and a case of Bud Light. Youth is wasted on the young.

Second, the discount for scholars magnifies how overpriced Windows 7 is for the rest of us. In its necessary effort to appeal to the young and try to curb the momentum of Apple's strong-selling $29 Snow Leopard, Microsoft also shined a glaring light on Windows 7's hefty price tag of $120 for the Home Premium version.

To start the Local Group Policy Editor, follow these steps:

1. Click Start.
2. Type gpedit.msc.
3. Press Enter.

1: Locking in delete confirmations

When you delete a file or folder in Windows 7, the system asks you to confirm the deletion. If this extra step bugs you, you can turn it off by right-clicking the desktop’s Recycle Bin icon, clicking Properties, and then deactivating the Display Delete Confirmation Dialog check box.

Now let’s consider this from the opposite point of view. The reason Windows displays the delete confirmation dialog box by default is to prevent you from accidentally deleting a file. You and I are savvy, knowledgeable users, so we know when we want to delete something, but not everyone falls into this boat. If you have young kids or old parents who use Windows, you know that the delete confirmation dialog box is an excellent safeguard for these and other inexperienced users.

In that case, you might be wondering if there’s a way to ensure that a novice user can’t turn off the delete confirmation dialog box. Yes, there is. In fact, are two ways to prevent a user from turning off delete confirmations:

• Disable the Display Delete Confirmation Dialog check box that appears in the Recycle Bin’s property sheet.
• Disable the Recycle Bin’s Properties command so that the user can’t display the Recycle Bin’s property sheet.

Follow these steps to implement one of these policies:

1. In the Local Group Policy Editor, open the User Configuration branch.
2. Open the Administrative Templates branch.
3. Display the property sheet of the policy you want to use, as follows:

• If you want to disable the Display Delete Confirmation Dialog check box, open the Windows Components branch and then click Windows Explorer. Double-click the policy named Display Confirmation Dialog When Deleting Files. If you don’t have access to the Group Policy Editor, open the Registry Editor and create a DWORD setting named ConfirmFileDelete with the value 1 in the following key:

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

• If you want to disable the Recycle Bin’s Properties command, click Desktop and then double-click the Remove Properties From The Recycle Bin Context Menu policy. If you don’t have access to the Group Policy Editor, open the Registry Editor and create a DWORD setting named NoPropertiesRecycleBin with the value 1 in the following key:

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

1. Click the Enabled option.
2. Click OK to put the policy into effect.

2: Disabling the notification area

If you have zero use for the taskbar’s notification area, you can disable it entirely by following these steps:

1. In the Local Group Policy Editor, open the User Configuration branch.
2. Open the Administrative Templates branch.
3. Click the Start Menu And Taskbar branch.
4. Double-click the Hide The Notification Area policy, click Enabled, and then click OK.
5. Double-click the Remove Clock From The System Notification Area policy, click Enabled, and then click OK.
6. Log off and then log back on to put the policy into effect.

If you prefer (or need) to implement this policy via the Registry, first open the Registry Editor (click Start, type regedit, press Enter, and enter your UAC credentials). Then, navigate to the following key:

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

(If you don’t see the Explorer key, click the Policies key, select Edit | New | Key, type Explorer, and press Enter.)

Now follow these steps:

1. Select Edit | New | DWORD (32-bit) Value.
2. Type NoTrayItemsDisplay and press Enter.
3. Press Enter to open the NoTrayItemsDisplay setting, type 1, and then click OK.
4. Select Edit | New | DWORD (32-bit) Value.
5. Type HideClock and press Enter.
6. Press Enter to open the HideClock setting, type 1, and then click OK.
7. Log off and then log back on to put the policies into effect.

3: Removing an icon from Control Panel

You can gain a bit more control over the Control Panel by configuring it not to display icons that you don’t ever use or that aren’t applicable to your system.

1. In the Local Group Policy Editor, select the User Configuration | Administrative Templates | Control Panel branch.
2. Double-click the Hide Specified Control Panel Items policy.
3. Click the Enabled option.
4. Click the Show button to open the Show Contents dialog box.
5. For each Control Panel icon you want to hide, type the icon name and press Enter.
6. Click OK to return to the Hide Specified Control Panel Items dialog box.
7. Click OK. Windows 7 puts the policy into effect.

To perform the same tweak in the Registry, open the following key:

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

Add a DWORD value named DisallowCpl and set it equal to 1. Also create a new key named DisallowCpl, and within that key create a new String value for each Control Panel icon you want to disable. Give the settings the names 1, 2, 3, and so on, and for each one set the value to the name of the Control Panel icon you want to disable.

4: Showing only specified Control Panel icons

Disabling a few Control Panel icons is useful because it reduces a bit of the clutter in the All Control Panel Items window. However, what if you want to set up a computer for a novice user and you’d like that person to have access to just a few relatively harmless icons, such as Personalization and Getting Started? In that case, it’s way too much work to disable most of the icons one at a time. A much easier approach is to specify just those few Control Panel icons you want the user to see. Here’s how:

1. In the Local Group Policy Editor, select the User Configuration | Administrative Templates | Control Panel branch.
2. Double-click the Show Only Specified Control Panel Items policy.
3. Click the Enabled Option.
4. Click the Show button to open the Show Contents dialog box.
5. For each Control Panel icon you want to show, type the icon name and press Enter.
6. Click OK to return to the Show Only Specified Control Panel Items dialog box.
7. Click OK. Windows 7 puts the policy into effect.

To perform the same tweak in the Registry, open the following key:

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

Add a DWORD value named RestrictCpl and set it equal to 1. Also create a new key named RestrictCpl, and within that key create a new String value for each Control Panel icon you want to show. Give the settings the names 1, 2, 3, and so on, and for each one set the value to the name of the Control Panel icon you want to show.

5: Preventing other folks from messing with the Registry

Do you share your computer with other people? How brave! In that case, there’s a pretty good chance that you don’t want them to have access to the Registry Editor. In Windows 7, User Account Control automatically blocks Standard users unless they know an administrator’s password. For other administrators, you can prevent any user from using the Registry Editor by setting a group policy:

1. In the Local Group Policy Editor, open the User Configuration | Administrative Templates | System branch.
2. Double-click the Prevent Access To Registry Editing Tools policy.
3. Click Enabled.
4. In the Disable Regedit From Running Silently? list, click Yes.
5. Click OK.

Once you set this policy, you won’t be able to use the Registry Editor, either. However, you can overcome that by temporarily disabling the policy prior to running the Registry Editor.

Yes, you could perform this tweak in Windows 7 Home and Home Premium using the Registry Editor, but then you wouldn’t be able to reverse it because the Registry Editor would be disabled! In my book Windows 7 Unleashed, I provide a script that toggles the corresponding Registry setting on and off; see that book for more info.

6: Disabling Internet Explorer’s Security and Privacy tabs

If you want to prevent a novice user from mucking around in Security and Privacy tabs in the Internet Options dialog box, you can hide them:

1. In the Local Group Policy Editor, select the User Configuration | Administrative Templates | Windows Components | Internet Explorer | Internet Control Panel branch.
2. Double-click the Disable The Privacy Page policy.
3. Click Enabled and then click OK.
4. Double-click the Disable The Security Page policy.
5. Click Enabled and then click OK.

Note that the Security Page sub-branch also enables you to set policies for the settings in each zone.

To configure these policies via the Registry Editor, first display the following branch:

HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Control Panel

Add a DWORD setting named PrivacyTab and set it to 1; add another DWORD setting named SecurityTab and set it to 1.

7: Customizing the Windows Security window

When you press Ctrl+Alt+Delete while logged on to Windows 7, you see the Windows Security window, which contains the following buttons: Lock This Computer, Switch User, Log Off, Change A Password, and Start Task Manager. Of these five commands, all but Switch User are customizable using group policies. So if you find that you never use one or more of those commands, or (more likely) if you want to prevent a user from accessing one or more of the commands, you can use group policies to remove them from the Windows Security window. Here are the steps to follow:

1. In the Local Group Policy Editor, open the User Configuration | Administrative Templates | System | Ctrl+Alt+Del Options branch.
2. Double-click one of the following policies:

• Remove Change Password — You can use this policy to disable the Change A Password button in the Windows Security window.
• Remove Lock This Computer — You can use this policy to disable the Lock Computer button in the Windows Security window.
• Remove Task Manager — You can use this policy to disable the Start Task Manager button in the Windows Security window.
• Remove Logoff — You can use this policy to disable the Log Off button in the Windows Security window.

1. In the policy dialog box that appears, click Enabled and then click OK.
2. Repeat steps 2 and 3 to disable all the buttons you don’t need.

You can use group policies to customize the Windows Security window.

To perform the same tweak using the Registry , open the Registry Editor and open the following key:

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System

Change the value of one or more of the following settings to 1:

DisableChangePassword

DisableLockWorkstation

DisableTaskMgr

To remove the Log Off button via the Registry, open the following key:

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

Change the value of the NoLogoff setting to 1.

8: Customizing the Places bar

The left side of the old-style Save As and Open dialog boxes in Windows 7 include icons for several common locations: Recent Places, Desktop, Libraries, Computer, and Network.

The area that contains these icons is called the Places bar. If you have two or more folders that you use regularly (for example, you might have several folders for various projects that you have on the go), switching between them can be a hassle. To make this chore easier, you can customize the Places bar to include icons for each of these folders. That way, no matter which location you have displayed in the Save As or Open dialog box, you can switch to one of these regular folders with a single click of the mouse.

The easiest way to do this is via the Local Group Policy Editor, as shown in the following steps:

1. In the Local Group Policy Editor, open the following branch: User Configuration | Administrative Templates | Windows Components | Windows Explorer | Common Open File Dialog.
2. Double-click the Items Displayed In Places Bar policy.
3. Click Enabled.
4. Use the Item 1 through Item 5 text boxes to type the paths for the folders you want to display. These can be local folders or network folders.
5. Click OK to put the policy into effect.

If you don’t have access to the Local Group Policy Editor, you can use the Registry Editor to perform the same tweak. Open the Registry Editor and navigate to the following key:

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\

Now follow these steps:

1. Select Edit | New | Key, type comdlg32, and press Enter.
2. Select Edit | New | Key, type Placesbar, and press Enter.
3. Select Edit | New | String Value, type Place0, and press Enter.
4. Press Enter to open the new setting, type the folder path, and then click OK.
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 to add other places (named Place1 through Place4).

9: Increasing the size of the Recent Documents list

To customize the size of the Start menu’s Recent Items list, follow these steps:

1. In the Local Group Policy Editor, navigate to the User Configuration | Administrative Templates | Windows Components | Windows Explorer branch.
2. Double-click the Maximum Number Of Recent Documents policy.
3. Click Enabled.
4. Use the Maximum Number Of Recent Documents spin box to specify the number of documents you want Windows 7 to display.
5. Click OK.

For the Registry equivalent, open the Registry Editor and display the following key:

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

Create a DWORD setting named MaxRecentDocs and set its value to the number of recent documents you want to display.

10: Enabling the Shutdown Event Tracker

When you select Start | Shut Down, Windows 7 proceeds to shut down without any more input from you (unless any running programs have documents with unsaved changes). That’s usually a good thing, but you might want to keep track of why you shut down or restart Windows 7, or why the system itself initiates a shutdown or restart. To do that, you can enable a feature called Shutdown Event Tracker. With this feature, you can document the shutdown event by specifying whether it is planned or unplanned, selecting a reason for the shutdown, and adding a comment that describes the shutdown.

To use a group policy to enable the Shutdown Event Tracker feature, follow these steps:

1. In the Local Group Policy Editor, navigate to the Computer Configuration | Administrative Templates | System branch.
2. Double-click the Display Shutdown Event Tracker policy.
3. Click Enabled.
4. In the Shutdown Event Tracker Should Be Displayed list, select Always.
5. Click OK.

To enable the Shutdown Event Tracker on systems without the Local Group Policy Editor, open the Registry Editor and dig down to the following key:

HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\Reliability

Change the value of the following two settings to 1:

ShutdownReasonOn

ShutdownReasonUI

Pirates have cracked Windows 7's product activation just a week after the operating system made RTM and a week before it's slated to reach users, Microsoft confirmed today.

The product key posted on the Web purportedly comes from Lenovo, one of Microsoft's major OEM partners, and allows users to activate downloaded copies of Windows 7 Ultimate RTM .

Microsoft on Tuesday confirmed that it does plan to offer a "family pack" for Windows 7 that can be used on up to three PCs.

The software maker acknowledged the move as part of a blog entry Tuesday afternoon. However, it still isn't saying how much it will charge for the family pack, which allows three installations of the home premium version of Windows 7.

The move was hardly a surprise, after Microsoft included references to the family pack as part of licensing terms in a test version of Windows 7 that leaked onto the Internet.

Windows users have been calling for a family pack since before Windows Vista, and Apple has offered a family pack for Mac OS X since 2002. With Vista, Microsoft had a promotion for a time that allowed those who bought a copy of the Ultimate edition to buy up to three copies of Home Premium at a discount. Apple's family pack covers up to five machines.

Need the Download? Product Key? Start here

Welcome to Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) testing. We're on our way to Windows 7, and if you like trying out pre-release software, now's your chance. You get to see what's coming, and we get to see if our changes and fixes from the Beta testing are working correctly.

How do you test the software? You put it on your PC, and then do what you'd normally do. Your PC will automatically and anonymously send our engineers the information they need to verify the fixes and changes they made based on the Windows 7 Beta tests.

Read more instruction

Windows only: The final RTM release of Windows 7 should be released later this month, and blogger and developer Long Zheng has created a small application designed to verify that your download is the real thing.

The idea behind this simple app: Sometimes folks download their Windows images from unofficial sources, and sometimes that means users end up downloading files with nefarious intent instead of the actual disk image they were looking for. This application determines whether or not your download is legit before you try to run it.

To verify your own Windows ISO image files, just drag the disc image over to the Windows 7 ISO Verifier executable, or launch the application and choose the image from the browse dialog. You'll have to wait while the verifier does its thing, and when it's complete you'll either be told that the ISO is valid, and exactly which version it is, or you'll find out that you just wasted many hours downloading something that isn't legit—but at least you can avoid infecting your system with whatever virus some joker attached to the bad image file.

Windows 7 ISO Verifier is a free download for Windows only, and since the verification hashes are requested over the internet you won't have to download it again when the final version comes out.

Download

With Windows 7 pre-orders on sale today, CNET is reportingthat Microsoft is considering selling Windows 7 on flash drivesto help make installation on netbooks easier, and it's reportedly one of several incentives the company may offer to users without CD/DVD drives. While no official announcement has been made, we're wondering if you'd take a pre-loaded, presumably protected USB stick over a disc for your next upgrade. Share your reasons or rejections in the comments. [via Gizmodo; photo via bfishadow]

If you’re one of those Windows 7 testers still running the Beta — and not the Release Candidate — of Microsoft’s next-generation client, it’s time to get the lead out.

Bi-hourly shutdowns of the Windows 7 Beta (which Microsoft released officially in January of this year) are set to begin next week, on July 1. On August 1, the Windows 7 Beta will be marked as “non-Genuine” software, with those running it becoming subject t the punishments that Microsoft has earmarked for pirates.

Testers have until August 15 to download the Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) build, which Microsoft made available for download starting in May 2009. The RC is set to begin its own bi-hourly shutdowns in March 2010 and to be designated “non-Genuine” in June 2010.

Windows 7 is expected to be released to manufacturing in July and will be generally available starting October 22, 2009.

Windows 7 will ship without Internet Explorer in Europe, in an effort by Microsoft to offer the product on time

Windows 7  over takes SnowLeopard on hardware support as SnowLeopard works only on new intel based cpu's The minimum specifications listed on the Windows 7 RC download page are a 1 GHz Processor, 1 GB RAM, and 16GB of free hard disk space.

Attention Windows 7 Beta and Release Candidate (RC) testers! To avoid interruption, you’ll need to start planning now to rebuild your test machines using a valid version of Windows before the software expires. 

Windows will notify you that the expiration process is beginning and two weeks later your PC will begin shutting down every two hours. 

The Beta expires on August 1, 2009, and bi-hourly shutdowns will begin July 1, 2009. The RC will expire June 1, 2010, and the bi-hourly shutdowns will begin on March 1, 2010. In both cases, you’ll need to rebuild your test PCs with another valid version of the OS, and reinstall your programs and data. 

The Windows 7 RC is available now to TechNet and MSDN subscribers and on www.microsoft.com/springboard starting May 5th.