Tag: aero

Make Windows 7 faster – Part 2

October 09, 2009 by Jason

The purchase of a record-breaking windows 7 operating system to make it faster, better one day before the start of the second series I share with you.

21. Presentation Nirvana. Press Windows+P to access the new Presentation mode, and easily turn on your projector and laptop screen at the same time. No more messing with vendor-specific utilities and arcane keystrokes. (Windows+X accesses the Mobility Center, with additional presentation options.)

22. Cut the Clutter. Press Windows+Home to minimize all but the current window, removing background clutter and letting you focus on that report your boss has been bugging you about.

23. Be a Mouse-Click Administrator. Windows 7 makes it easy to gain admin rights with a keyboard shortcut. Click on Ctrl+Shift on a taskbar-locked icon, and voila! You’ve launched it with appropriate admin rights.

24. Faster Installations. If your computer is capable of booting from USB, try this: XCopy the Windows 7 installation DVD to a sufficiently large USB drive, boot from that drive, and install Windows from there. It’s faster than a spinning platter.

25. Burn Discs with a Click. Or two; double-click an ISO file to burn it to your CD or DVD writer. Read More»

Apply a shade of Windows 7 to XP

October 04, 2009 by Jason

Following the same behavioral pattern as with the release of Windows Vista, software developers have striven to offer the masses the possibility to disguise Windows XP as Windows 7. There are plenty of freeware products on the market ready to emulate various features of the yet to be officially released operating system from Microsoft.

Seven Transformation Pack is the most prominent piece of software in the bunch, which has a tradition in making XP emulate the looks of ulterior operating systems launched by Microsoft. Vista Transformation Pack was created by the same developers and raked up positive attention. Also, there are various pieces of software dedicated to imitate different features in Windows 7, such as the new taskbar and system tray layout, Start Menu and even the font and icons, as well as the glass effect given by Aero theme.

SevenMizer is not a superset of all of the above, but comes with an extremely easy installation at the end of which you’re going to receive a makeover of the old, dusty XP look, turning it into a very close resemblance to the interface in Windows 7. The best part is yet to come: you don’t have to make any sort of configuration and what you see is all there is to know about the application. Read More»

Seven Tips and Tricks For Windows 7 – Part 3

May 30, 2009 by Jason

Change the Scenery.
Windows 7 allows you to personalize your desktop background to suit your many moods with a new shuffle feature for your desktop. You can program your desktop background to shuffle through your favorite images and get a change of scenery as often as you like. To enable the shuffle feature, rightclick on your Desktop and select “Personalize,” then “Desktop Background.” Choose the folder where your favorite images or photos are stored and select as many as you like. Make sure you check the “Shuffle” box, and choose how often you’d like your images to shuffle. It’s a simple way to keep your desktop looking fresh and fun.

Crunch The Numbers.
The new Windows 7 calculator is a number cruncher’s dream. New functionality allows the user to not only calculate in the Standard and Scientific modes, but also in Programmer and Statistics modes. And that’s not all! Ever need conversion formulas for temperature, weight, area, or time? Finding the unit conversion option makes it a snap and takes all the work out of the user’s hands. There are even templates for gas mileage, lease estimations, and mortgage estimations. Read More»

Seven Tips and Tricks For Windows 7

May 28, 2009 by Jason

Shuffling Through Program Windows.
If you’re running a number of files from the same program, such as multiple documents in Microsoft Word, Windows 7 allows you to switch through these windows with ease. Simply press down on the Ctrl key while clicking the icon from the taskbar. Each click will change the window to the next in the sequence, in the order that you opened them.

Managing Your Windows.
Windows 7 simplifies document and program management by allowing you to “dock” a window or manipulate its size with one mouse maneuver or a simple keystroke. To dock your window on one half of the screen, drag it to the left or right and it will change its size to fit that half of the screen. To manipulate the vertical size of a window, drag the window to the top to maximize it, or double-click the window’s top or bottom border to maximize it vertically while keeping the same width.

You can also perform all of these functions with keystrokes: Read More»

Windows 7 Aero

April 01, 2009 by Jason

Microsoft has made a range of resources available for download in an effort to streamline the process of leveraging the Windows 7 evolution, focusing, among other aspects of the operating system, on the Aero graphical user interface advances. An illustrative example in this context is what the Redmond company referred to as an intermediate solution addressing managed code developers specifically. The Taskbar Sample .NET Interop Library is a new managed code wrapper that Microsoft hopes will make the lives of managed code developers easier.

“The Taskbar Sample .NET Interop Library allows developers to: create and manipulate JumpLists including tasks and items; display Dynamic Overlay Icons, Thumbnail Toolbars; use the Taskbar progress bar; control Custom Thumbnail Preview, and custom Preview also known as AeroPeek,” revealed Yochay Kiriaty, Windows 7 technical evangelist on the Client Platform Evangelist Group. Read More»

Tweak for Windows 7

January 25, 2009 by Jason

Windows 7 beta has been released recently, we had already written some articles on Ten Tips for Windows 7 , How to Dual Boot Windows Vista And Windows 7 , Questions and Answers about Windows 7 and Windows 7 Beta Download and Install Guide, Today we are going tell you how can you tweak windows 7.

SetteMaxer is the first windows 7 tweaking tool which lets you tweak windows 7 through various registry tweaks very easily and safely without touching windows 7 registry.

Let’s see what all you can tweak in windows 7 with SetteMaxer

Windows 7 Tweaks you can apply with SetteMaxer

Optimize Menu Show Delay: Check this option to enable faster navigation in windows 7

Optimize Wait to Kill Services Timeout: Check this option to Speed up windows 7 shutdown / restart faster set the value to 1000.

Optimize Wait to Kill Applications Timeout: Check this option to Speed up windows 7 shutdown / restart faster set the value to 1000. Read More»

Windows 7 – 20 Features to Make Users Forget Vista SP1/SP2 and XP SP3

November 17, 2008 by Jason

Microsoft is currently moving onward with the development of Windows 7, having passed Milestone 3 with the operating system. According to Steven Sinofsky, senior vice president, Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group, the Redmond company is now cooking the Beta 1 release of Windows 7. But even as early as Windows 7 Milestone 3 pre-Beta Build 6801 and 6801+, discernible details, components and features across the next iteration of the Windows client come with the promise of making users forget all about Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and even SP2, or even Windows XP Service Pack 3.

“We’ve had a pretty incredible couple of weeks at the PDC and WinHEC. Based on what we talked about you can imagine we are all rather busy as we transition from milestone 3 to beta. We trust many of you are enjoying 6801 (or perhaps we should say 6801+),” revealed Sinofsky earlier this week.

With Windows 7 pre-Beta Build 6801 changes stretch from the surface to under-the-hood optimizations, with the client evolving from both the perspective of the graphical user interface, user experience and interaction model but also in regard to the actual architecture of the operating system, with repercussions on performance, new capabilities and features, as well as compatibility and support. Read More»

The definitive guide to upgrading from Windows XP

October 06, 2008 by Jason

If you’re upgrading a computer running Windows XP, you can save money by opting for an upgrade rather than the full version of Windows Vista.

However, you can’t necessarily perform an ‘in-place’ or ‘over-the-top’ upgrade; sometimes you have to perform a clean installation of Windows Vista, which means backing up and reinstalling all your current programs, folders and files. The table shows where an over-the-top upgrade is possible.

In practice, a clean install means a fresh start; anything short of this can carry over problems from your old, cluttered version of Windows XP. Strictly speaking, when Windows Vista installs itself over Windows XP, it actually does perform a clean install and then imports all the old settings.

This should help prevent problems and can even, in principle, carry through hardware drivers that can’t be installed under Windows Vista itself, thereby preserving the working life of older devices. However, we’d recommend a truly clean install whenever possible. Read More»

TOP10 – September 2008 Popular Tips

October 04, 2008 by Jason
  1. 19 essential get-started tips for Windows Vista
  2. XP SP3 and Vista SP1 Share New Critical Vulnerabilities
  3. Vista and IE8 Application Compatibility Toolkit
  4. Windows Laptop Selector Guide
  5. 12 Reasons to Test Drive Internet Explorer 8
  6. Fix Available for IE7 Memory Leaks on XP SP3
  7. TOP10 – August 2008 Popular Tips
  8. Troubleshoot problems with Windows Aero
  9. Windows won’t let you delete a file?
  10. All 25 language versions of Internet Explorer 8

Read More»

Troubleshoot problems with Windows Aero

September 10, 2008 by Jason

Windows Aero is the premium visual experience of Windows Vista. It features a transparent glass design with subtle window animations and new window colors.

Here are some solutions to common problem with running Windows Aero.

Which editions of Windows Vista include Aero?

The following editions include Aero:

Windows Vista Business, Windows Vista Enterprise, Windows Vista Home Premium, and Windows Vista Ultimate. Aero is not included in Windows XP or earlier versions of Windows.

To find out which edition of Windows Vista you have on your computer, do the following:

Open Welcome Center by clicking the Start button, clicking Control Panel, clicking System and Maintenance, and then clicking Welcome Center.

The edition of Windows Vista you’re running is displayed with your computer details near the top of the window. Read More»