PC Tips Box » Software

Windows User Management Replacement

Jason — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:10:16 +0000

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

Chilly User Management is a free to use utility which allows managing user accounts within the Domain. Apart from managing and providing information about local user accounts, the software also allows the administrator to reset the local user password and enable or disable account status.

This freeware supports administrator in taking complete control of the local useraccounts of their domain users.

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

Key Features

1. A freeware utility to manage local user accounts within Domain
2. Facilitates password resetting
3. Allows enabling and disabling account status
4. Fast and easy installation
5. Saves quality time of administrator

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

Download Chilly User Management

Tags: Active Directory, application, download, Fast, free, freeware, freeware utility, Management, Microsoft Windows, password, passwords, Security, shareware, Software, Support, System administrator, utility, Windows

Google Chrome Eats Away at IE and Firefox

Jason — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:00:13 +0000

While there is more than enough room to grow by simply eroding Internet Explorer’s share on the browser market, the growth of a specific player impacts the others as well. Case in point: Google Chrome’s increase in usage share in January and February 2010. Chrome is managing to hurt not only Microsoft’s IE but also Mozilla’s Firefox. According to statistics from Net Applications, Google Chrome was the only major browser to gain market share in January 2010.

“The Google Chrome browser gained .4% of global usage share in January. All other major browsers showed a month-to-month decline,” the Internet metrics company stated. This is, of course, nothing new for Internet Explorer, as Microsoft has been continuously seeing its browser market share erode. However, it is news for Mozilla, which has become used to a steady pace of growth, especially in the detriment of IE.

What’s even more interesting is that the first two months of 2010 could very well end up being the beginning of a new trend. At the start of the past month, Net Applications revealed that “the Google Chrome browser gained .6% of global usage share in January. Both Firefox and Internet Explorer dropped share during the last month.”

Overall, IE’s share diminished from 62.69% in December 2009 to 62.12% in January 2010 and subsequently to 61.58% at the end of the past month. During the same period, Firefox dropped from 24.61% to 24.43% and to 24.23%. Opera also took a small blow in terms of lost audience, albeit smaller than Microsoft and Mozilla. Throughout the same three months, Opera’s share decreased from 2.40% to 2.38% and to 2.35% in February 2010.

Google Chrome accounts for 5.61% at the end of February 2010, up from 5.22% the previous month and 4.63%in December 2009. At the start of this year, Google offered the first Stable release of Chrome 4.0 and moved onward to produce version 5.0.

As far as browser versions are concerned, Internet Explorer 8 increased its market share, but the growth was offset by the much more consistent share loss of IE7 and IE6. Microsoft is currently working on Internet Explorer 9, with more details on this version of IE planned for mid-March at MIX10.

Early 2010 brought with it the release of Firefox 3.6, the minor update to version 3.5, which has climbed to 5.16% of the market. Meanwhile Firefox 3.5 has suffered a strong decrease of its market share, from 17.08% to 14.54% in the past month, a loss which can be attributed to the release of Firefox 3.6.

Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) RTW is available for download x86 or x64

Firefox 3.6 Final, and Firefox 3.5 for Windows are available for download here.

Google Chrome 4.0 Stable and Chrome 5.0 are available for download here.

The latest release of Opera 10 and Opera 10.50 are available for download here.

Tags: browser market share, Firefox, firefox 3, Firefox 3.5, Firefox 3.6, google, Google Chrome, ie, IE8, Internet, internet explorer, internet explorer 8, Internet Explorer 9, Microsoft, Mozilla, Mozilla Foundation, Net Applications, opera, Software, tips, Web, Windows

Launch your favorite applications faster

Jason — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 20:43:51 +0000

There are several ways to launch apps quickly, using either mouse or keyboard.

Direct method: You can assign keystrokes to launch any shortcut. Right-click the shortcut and choose Properties. On the Shortcut tab, click in the Shortcut key box and then press the keys you want to use to launch the shortcut. Click OK.

A word of warning: Be careful not to reassign other useful keyboard shortcuts you may have already assigned. Also, you can assign keyboard shortcuts only to icon shortcuts — not the actual icon of a document or application.

Search method: In Vista and Win 7, press the Windows key to open the Start menu. Then type a few letters until the search tool finds the program you want to launch; press Enter. The catch — if you have several programs starting with the same characters, you end up taking more time typing than if you simply mouse-clicked the application’s icon.

Menu method: For me, the “classic” Start menu provides a better solution. If you organize shortcuts into a hierarchy of menus, each starting with a unique character, you can navigate the menus quickly and launch most programs with only 3 or 4 keystrokes.

For example, to launch Photoshop (which is on my Start menu’s Images menu), I press the keyboard Windows key and then type I, P (see Figure 1). For Microsoft Excel, I type Win, N, X (Start, Numbers, eXcel). Before long, you’ll know your shortcuts by heart.

To get the classic Start menu in XP or Vista, right-click the Start button and choose Properties. On the Start Menu tab, select Classic Start menu and click OK.

Bonus tip. To avoid having menu items start with the same letter, either rename them or place an ampersand in front of any letter in the name. The character following the ampersand will then act as the shortcut for that item.

Mouse methods: For fast launching using the mouse, put the shortcuts you use most often into the Quick Launch toolbar (or another custom toolbar) on the taskbar. Right-click the taskbar to open its properties; add the Quick Launch toolbar if yours is missing. (Personally, I prefer not to pin shortcuts to the taskbar because it quickly fills with open-program icons.)

If you have Windows 7, you can also “pin” shortcuts to the taskbar. Right-click a running program on the taskbar and choose Pin this program to the task bar to make a launch button stay there.

Open another window (Win 7): To quickly launch another instance of a running program, Shift-click its taskbar button. Not all applications support multiple instances.

Tags: application search, bonus tip, keyboard shortcut, keyboard shortcuts, launch, Microsoft, Microsoft Excel, mouse, Photoshop, Right-click, search tool, Shortcuts-fig, start button, start menu, taskbar, toolbar, win 7, Windows, Windows 7, windows key, windows vista, windows xp

Windows 7 Application Virtualization (App-V) 4.6

Jason — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 17:37:21 +0000

Application Virtualization (App-V) 4.6 is one of the key components of the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack 2010, a release which is tailored specifically to Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 and Office 2010. Microsoft Software Assurance customers can access App-V 4.6 immediately via MDOP 2010. In addition, the Redmond company has made available the solution accelerator to MDOP customers via MDOP 2010 which is available for download via the Microsoft Volume Licensing Site (MVLS). In addition, customers that only want to evaluate MDOP 2010, can grab the bits from MSDN and TechNet.

“App-V will help save money immediately by freeing up administration time from IT and enhance end-user productivity. It is an out-of-the-box platform to enable you to migrate your applications and deploy Windows 7 faster and easier. We offer much tighter integration with more products (Office 2010, SCCM, 3rd Party Distribution Systems) and we support both Windows 32/64-bit applications and x86/x64 platforms on desktops as well as Terminal Servers. App-V client deployment is easy and plugs into your existing deployment workflows,” revealed Karri Alexion-Tiernan, director of Product Management for App-V.

App-V is essentially a solution which delivers support for application streaming. IT admins are able to streamline the process of delivering applications to new desktops. In this regard, employees can have the same Windows experience independent of their actual location or the machine they use, an aspect which can only impact workflow and productivity positively. Of course, in order for this to happen, corporate customers need to be running not only App-v 4.6 but also Windows Server 2008 R2.

“App-V 4.6 is now compatible with 64-bit Windows client and server platforms, enabling IT to take advantage of x64 for client hardware refresh AND also deploy App-V to Windows Server 2008 R2 Terminal Services. The benefits: consolidate terminal server farms, simplify profile management and provide virtual applications via session virtualization for users using App-V with Remote Desktop Web Access and Connections, and Access Gateway,” Alexion-Tiernan added.

With the advent of App-V 4.6, Microsoft delivers full integration with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. It is critical to note that the integration only starts at the user interface level, but goes much deeper under the hood. Applications virtualized with App-V 4.6 can be pinned on the Windows 7 Taskbar, and leverage the JumpList feature. But at the same time, the latest version of Microsoft Application Virtualization comes with support for the BranchCache feature in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, which offers branch offices the possibility to simplify access to corporate resource, and to cut down on bandwidth consumption, but caching files, documents, media, etc. locally.

“Some key benefits [of App-v 4.6] include:

• User settings roam with them, no matter which PC they login from.

• Applications are pulled by the user. Only 20-40% of the application to get up and running, as opposed waiting for the full installation to complete.

• No more reboots during application deployment, upgrades and other maintenance tasks associated with native applications means more user productivity time.

• Fewer machines required supporting down-level application versions, for example Word 2003, Word 2007 and Word 2010 can co-exist on the same machine.

• Applications are available to the user while connected and when offline.

• Fewer helpdesk calls and shorter wait times for support,” Alexion-Tiernan explained.

Tags: download, Microsoft, microsoft application, Microsoft Application Virtualization, Microsoft Software Assurance, Operating system, Terminal Services, virtualization, Windows, Windows 7, windows experience, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2

Windows 7 RTM DirectAccess Connectivity Assistant

Jason — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 20:18:14 +0000

With the advent of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft has worked to allow enterprise customers to leverage an alternative to Virtual Private Networks (VPN). The latest versions of the Windows client and server operating systems introduce DirectAccess, a new feature designed to streamline access to corporate shares, websites and applications in remote worker scenarios. Microsoft is now providing a resource set up to enable business customers to cut deployment and support costs, as well as boost mobile users’ connectivity experience with DirectAccess.

“DCA informs mobile users of their connectivity status at all times; provides tools to help them reconnect on their own if problems arise; and creates diagnostics to help mobile users provide IT staff with key information if necessary all to help organizations operate with more efficiency, and at a lower cost,” revealed Tejinder Singh, from the Windows Optimized Desktop team.

Only Windows 7 Enterprise and Ultimate SKUs in conjunction with Windows Server 2008 R2 offer corporate customers DirectAccess, and as such the two editions of the client are the only ones supported by DirectAccess Connectivity Assistant. The resource is designed to streamline access to troubleshooting information, as well as simplifying the process of putting together and sending log files to support staff.

Singh enumerated some of the benefits of the “DirectAccess Connectivity Assistant:

• Lets mobile users know their connection status: DCA provides an indicator in the notification area that keeps mobile users informed of their connectivity status with an organization’s intranet.

• Reduces the number of support calls: DCA has built-in remediation tools that help mobile users solve connection problems on their own, without calling the help desk.

• Reduces the duration of support calls: If support is needed, DCA helps mobile users provide IT staff with key diagnostics to zero in on the source of a problem, so IT can resolve the issue faster and get users back to work.

• Helps users stay productive: Because DCA helps IT solve connection problems faster, mobile users have more reliable access to network-based resources, and can stay more productive.”

Microsoft DirectAccess Connectivity Assistant is available for download x86 or x64.

Tags: application, diagnostics, DirectAccess, DirectAccess Connectivity Assistant, download, Fast, Intranet, Microsoft, Operating system, Support, Supported, Tejinder, Troubleshoot, Troubleshooting, Virtual, virtual private network, Windows, Windows 7, Windows 7 RTM

Windows 7 DirectX 11 Resources

Jason — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:24:44 +0000

Microsoft has made available for download new resources associated with the underlining graphics technology in its Windows operating system, including the latest version of the operating system. Windows 7 brought to the table DirectX 11, a technology which was also backported to Windows Vista SP2 via the Platform Update for Windows Vista. No less than three downloads were made available at the end of the past week by the Redmond company: the DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer, the DirectX End-User Runtimes (February 2010), and DirectX Software Development Kit.

All three DirectX resources have been updated for the first time in 2010. “The Microsoft DirectX End-User Runtime provides updates to 9.0c and previous versions of DirectX — the core Windows technology that drives high-speed multimedia and games on the PC,” Microsoft stated. DirectX End-User Runtimes (February 2010) is “the DirectX end-user multi-languaged redistributable that developers can include with their product. This package is localized into Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Czech, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Swedish, and English,” the company added.

The core of the DirectX February 2010 update is without a doubt the software development kit Microsoft is offering developers to streamline the building of DirectX compliant applications. The SDK package contains tools, utilities, samples, documentation, as well as the runtime debug files for 64-bit (x64) and (32-bit) x86 Windows.

According to the software giant, the following improvements were introduced to the February 2010 release of the DirectX SDK:

“- PIX has much-improved support for analysis of programs that use Direct3D 11 features, including compute shaders, tessellation, and dynamic shader class linkage. PIX features such as pixel history, the shader debugger, the mesh viewer, frame counters, and screenshots now work for these Direct3D 11 programs.

- The new “Playback Device” control in the Events pane enables the user to force PIX Direct3D playback to use the REF device.

- Mesh viewer data can be exported to a CSV file by right-clicking the data tables displayed in the PreVS, PostVS, or PostGS views.

- The texture viewer now supports the following additional formats: DXGI_FORMAT_D24_UNORM_S8_UINT, DXGI_FORMAT_R24G8_TYPELESS, DXGI_FORMAT_BC1_UNORM_SRGB, DXGI_FORMAT_BC2_UNORM_SRGB, DXGI_FORMAT_BC3_UNORM_SRGB, and XNAMath C++ SIMD Math Library.

- A minor revision to the library (version 2.02), includes a number of customer-reported fixes, optimizations, and improvements. Included are notable fixes to XMStoreColor(), XMQuaternionRotationMatrix(), XMVectorATan2(), and XMVectorATan2Est().

Direct3D 11 Deployment – The Direct3D 11 Deployment for Game Developers article and D3D11InstallHelper Sample have been updated to include guidance for corporate network users in a locally managed Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) environment. For these developers, KB 971644 is not applicable and they should refer to KB 971512 instead.

Enhancements to Voice Reuse Scenarios – Implementation changes to simplify voice reuse were made to IXAudio2SourceVoice::FlushSourceBuffers, IXAudio2SourceVoice::SetSourceSamplingRate, and IXAudio2SourceVoice::Stop. These changes enable titles to minimize the performance cost of creating and destroying multiple voices during the game.

Reverb and Mixing Performance Optimizations – We have optimized the codepaths for several of the less common channel mixing scenarios for mixing within the audio graph.”

DirectX Software Development Kit is available for download here.
DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer is available for download here.
DirectX End-User Runtimes (February 2010) is available for download here.

Tags: Direct, Direct3D 11, directx 11, DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer, DirectX End-User Runtimes, directx sdk, games, Microsoft, microsoft directx, Performance, Software, software development kit, Support, Windows, Windows 7, windows vista

Windows 7’s IE8 and Media Player Configuration

Jason — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 17:10:56 +0000

Some customers that will attempt to view media files using default Windows 7 components such as Internet Explorer 8 and Windows media Player, will find, that in certain scenarios they will be unable to do so. Microsoft explained that the improper configuration of IE8 and Windows Media Player could prevent end users from viewing media via hyperlinks. Microsoft has already resolved the issue via a stability and reliability update for the latest iteration of Windows 7 released earlier this week, however, the company has also documented the problem in a standalone Knowledge Base article.

“Using Internet Explorer 8.0 running on Windows 7, you navigate to a web page that contains a link to a media file. You click on the link to open the media file in Media Player. Instead of seeing the media open and run in Media Player, you are presented with an error message similar to the following: “Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage”, ” Microsoft reported.

According to the Redmond company the issue described above affects only the playback of specific media files in Windows Media Player, although the software giant did not say which ones. At the same time, the playback issue only occurs when Windows Media Player is launched by end users clicking on a link in Internet Explorer 8 in Windows 7. Microsoft explained that all Windows 7 SKUs as well as all Windows Server 2008 R2 editions are affected by the issue. A simple manual workaround to the problem is to make Windows Media Player the default media player for Windows 7.

“To resolve this problem, follow these steps: Open Control Panel. Click Programs. Click Default Programs. Click Set program access and computer defaults. In the resulting dialog box, click to expand the Custom section. Under Choose a default media player, click Windows Media Player, then click OK. Restart Internet Explorer,” Microsoft said.

Tags: Computer, config, configuration, hyperlink, IE8, Internet, internet explorer, internet explorer 8, Media Player, Software, Windows, Windows 7

Office 2010 RC Is Here

Jason — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 11:45:33 +0000

Microsoft is extremely close to wrapping up the successor of Office 2007. The Redmond company has confirmed officially that the next iteration of its productivity suite has reached the final stage before being released to manufacturing. In this regard, Office 2010 graduated from Beta to Release Candidate, which, according to the software giant, will be the first and only RC Build offered ahead of RTM. Members of a select pool of testers have already received the Office 2010 RC bits and have started test driving the release.

There is a reason why Microsoft is not announcing the Release Candidate development milestone of Office 2010 with any fanfare. The Redmond company has planned just limited availability for Office 2010 RC. This means that
only a small group of testers close to Microsoft will receive the actual bits, at least through the company’s official channels.

“Microsoft made a release candidate available to members in the technology adoption program (TAP). This is one of Microsoft’s planned milestones in the engineering process; however they do not have plans to make this new code set available broadly,” a company spokesperson stated.

With Office 2010 RC not generally available, existing Beta testers are pretty much stuck with Build 14.0.4536.1000. Microsoft released Office 2010 Beta Build 14.0.4536.1000 in mid-November 2009, and the release was downloaded in excess of 2 million times as of the start of January 2010.

At the beginning of January 2010, confirming the fact that Microsoft was closing in to the release to manufacturing deadline, Office 2010 Build 14.0.4730.1007, labeled RTM, was leaked in the wild and made available for download through various illegal third-party sources, including torrent trackers. Subsequently, leaked details were offered on Office 2010 RTM Escrow Build 14.0.4734.1000, but no actual bits.

Microsoft is reportedly looking to RTM Office 2010 in April 2010. The company confirmed officially that customers would be able to purchase Office 2010 in June 2010.

Office 2010 Beta 14.0.4536.1000 is available for download list:

x86 : part1 | part2 | part3

x64 : part1 | part2 | part3

Tags: Build 14.0.4734.1000, download, Microsoft, Office, Office 2010, RC, release candidate, rtm, RTM Escrow, Software

Vista SP2 Upgrades on NVIDIA Chipset PCs Result in Crashes

Jason — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 20:25:01 +0000

Customers that have upgraded their Windows Vista Service Pack 1 computers to Service Pack 2 only to subsequently be plagued by frequent crashes can access a solution from Microsoft. The Redmond company notes that it is well aware of the issue. According to the software giant, some customers that made the jump from Vista SP1 to Vista SP2 have experienced repetitive crashes and have also come across the following stop error message “Stop 0×000000FE BUGCODE_USB_DRIVER”. Microsoft also mentions that the same problems affect customers that upgraded from Windows Server 2008 to Windows Server 2008 SP2.

“After you upgrade from Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) to Windows Vista SP2 or from Windows Server 2008 to Windows Server 2008 SP2, your computer crashes frequently and you receive the following stop error message: Stop 0×000000FE (parameter1, parameter2, parameter3, parameter4) BUGCODE_USB_DRIVER,” the company stated.

While an update is not available from Microsoft, nor likely, except with the release of Vista SP3, a hotfix can be grabbed from Microsoft Support. The software giant notes that the hotfix is the same as a resolve designed to take care of another problem impacting Vista and Windows Server 2008. However, in the specific case of Vista SP1 to SP2 upgrades, the issue “usually occurs on computers that have NVIDIA chipsets. Additionally, this problem may occur when you perform very basic operations, such as plugging in a USB keyboard,” Microsoft noted.

The same hotfix is designed as a solution to a problem involving repeated connecting and disconnecting of a USB device to a Vista or Windows Server 2008 computer. Microsoft explains that in this scenario users can be left out without a working USB port and with a device that can no longer be detected.

Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 and Windows Vista Service Pack 2 – Five Language Standalone (KB948465) is available for download x86 or x64.

Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 and Windows Vista Service Pack 2 – Five Language Standalone for x64-based systems (KB948465) is available for download x86 or x64.

Tags: Computer, hotfix, Microsoft, nvidia, service pack 1, service pack 2, Software, usb device, vista service pack 1, vista service pack 2, vista sp3, Windows, Windows Server 2008, windows vista, windows vista service pack, Windows Vista SP2, xperience

VoIP Apps Can Hang on Windows 7

Jason — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 17:40:51 +0000

Microsoft has informed users of the latest iteration of its Windows client that they might come across issues when running VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) applications on their computers. According to the Redmond company, audio playback and capture applications can hang when used in combination with Windows 7. The software giant revealed that applications performing audio playback and audio capture simultaneously were typically VoIP software. Windows 7 customers running VoIP solutions can often experience hands, Microsoft stated.

“WaveOut API on Windows 7 sometimes fails to process audio samples correctly when response of your audio device is slow,” the company explained. “There is a problem on how WaveOut API handles audio playback requests and audio capture requests submitted by your application.”

While the software giant has confirmed the issue and even identified the source of the problem, an update is not yet available to resolve the issue. At the same time, Microsoft is most likely not to release an update, but to allow affected customers to resolve the problems by applying a hotfix, rather than serving a refresh to all Windows 7 users.

For the time being, Windows 7 customers that have recognized the symptoms described in this article and that are impacted by this specific problem can turn to a very simple workaround, albeit the solution is only temporary and will need to be repeated in the eventuality that the Windows 7 VoIP applications hangs again. “Once a hang occurs, the only resolution at this point is to restart the application,” the company stated. “This is a bug. Microsoft is planning to release a hot fix.”

All editions of Windows 7 can potentially be affected by this issue. The Redmond company did not indicate when a hotfix would be offered, but keep your eyes on Pctipsbox, and we’ll provide an update once it happens.

Tags: Computer, fix, hotfix, Internet, internet protocol, Microsoft, protocol, Software, Support, update, voice over internet, voice over internet protocol, voip, voip applications, voip solutions, Windows, Windows 7, xperience

PC Tips Box » Software

Windows User Management Replacement

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