Technodorm » Windows 7

Stop and Resume Any Windows Process

Saad — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:50:50 +0000

Did you come across a situation where you know that a particular program or process on your computer is taking too much memory, and slowing down your computer immensely? Ever wanted to suspend this process for a little bit to increase the efficiency of computer? Well, Now you can.

Polaris Software has come up with an application that lets you suspend any process you want. The beauty of this application is that it does not terminate the process and therefore, does not result in any loss of data. When you need the process running again, you can do so just with a single mouse click. Download “Free Process Freezer” now.

How to Play MKV Files in Windows 7

Fahad — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 06:26:19 +0000

If you download a lot of video files then you will probably encounter MKV files at sometime. MKV stands for Matroska Video and has been increasing in popularity in recent times. The MKV container format is seen as being a pioneering development of open source in multimedia. Many encoders are beginning to shift to MKV files due to the ongoing development of the MKV format. It is able to support high quality video and audio at low file sizes which saves a considerable amount of money, in terms of bandwidth, for companies all over the world.

To play MKV files, your favorite media player will essentially need to have the required media codec. By default, Windows Media Player does not contain the necessary codec required to play mkv files in Windows 7. Thus, you will not be able to play your downloaded mkv file without installing additional media codecs or a new media player.

How to Play MKV Files in Windows 7

To Play MKV Files in Windows 7, I would suggest using K-Lite Codec which will not only let you play MKV files but many other multimedia formats such as MKV, MP4, MOV, HDMOV, TS, FLV, OGM, MPEG, M2TS, and OGG files. I have been using this codec pack for the last 4 years and being an avid downloader, I have come across many(and I mean many!) multimedia formats but every one of them worked flawlessly. You could also download the Mega Codec Pack(the one I use), which supports RealMedia (rm, rmvb) format as well and includes Media Player Classic.

An MKV file being played in Media Player Classic

To download the K-Lite Codec pack, head over to their website by clicking here. To Play MKV files in Windows 7, you could download any of the codec packs (from Basic to Mega) and be able to play MKV files flawlessly. The K-Lite Codec pack can be used with Windows XP and Windows Vista as well to achieve the same results and be able to play MKV files.

Check Windows 7 Startup Programs

Fahad — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 21:57:42 +0000

Here is another great little utility program which allows you to check all the different Windows 7 startup programs. What this means is that you can get a list of all the different processes and programs which are loaded upon Windows 7 Startup. This can be a very useful utility which can help you to identify unneeded programs that are loaded with Windows 7. You will have to remove those Windows 7 startup programs yourself though. You could also uninstall any programs that you do not use anymore but which are still loaded upon startup. You could also identify which program causes an error upon loading by identifying all of your Windows 7 startup programs. There are many uses for this application and I have only pointed out a couple of possible scenarios where this program may be used.

How to Check Windows 7 Startup Programs

Startup Discoverer allows you to easily view all of your windows startup programs.

Download the Startup Discoverer program by clicking here.
Extract and run the application by opening the exe file.
The following image shows you the interface of this program.

You can list all the different startup programs as categorized by the different buttons. You may want to click on the “Show All Runs” button at the bottom left to view all of your Windows 7 startup programs at once.

So thats it. Now you can pinpoint any programs which may be lagging your Windows at startup. You can remove these programs from Windows 7 startup by checking the specific program settings or checking your Windows 7 startup folder on your hard drive.

So download Startup Discoverer now to check Windows 7 startup programs. This application works with all versions of Windows including XP and Vista. The homepage of this useful application can be found at Leelu Soft.

How to Change Windows 7 Owner Name

Fahad — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 21:12:16 +0000

Wondering how to change Windows 7 Owner Name and Organization? If you bought a new computer with Windows 7 pre-installed or bought a second hand computer with Windows 7, you will surely want to change the original Windows 7 owner name and organization. Maybe you want to change the owner name for your home computer to your businesses name to use at the office? There are many reasons why you would want to change your Windows 7 owner name and information, as I pointed out. Windows 7 does not have any built in functions that allows you to change Windows 7 owner name but with a small freeware utility you can change your Windows 7 owner name and information in a matter of seconds.

How to Change Windows 7 Owner Name and Organization Information

Set Owner 1.0 easily allows you to change Windows 7 Owner name and organization with a click of a button.

Download the Set Owner 1.0 application by clicking here.
Extract the Set Owner executable file from within the downloaded zip file.
Run the application and you will see the application open up. You should see the following window.

Fill in both fields by giving the appropriate Owner name and organization name that you want.
Hit the “Apply” button and your Windows 7 Owner name should be changed! As simple as that.

So download Set Owner now to change Windows 7 owner name and organization information. The homepage of this little useful application can be found at Leelu Soft.

Spice up your Windows 7 Taskbar with Taskbar Meters

Fahad — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 06:59:03 +0000

Here is a nice little application that I stumbled across when browsing CodePlex today, Taskbar meters. Taskbar Meters adds two(soon to be three) meters into your Windows7 taskbar that keep you informed of your CPU and memory usage. A third meter for hard drive usage may soon be added as well. The main advantage that I see is that you dont need to open windows task manager or any other 3rd part software to see your system usage data. You can easily identify the usage by glancing over the windows taskbar and visually seeing the level of usage of each CPU and memory.

According to a reply from the applications author, to a suggestion made at the applications message board, we may soon see a third meter for hard drive usage as well. This would be a great addition as whenever you are doing a hard drive intensive task, your cpu and memory wont be used much, but your computer will feel sluggish if you try to multitask. The average user may not know that it is the hard drive which is causing the slowdown. If a user has taskbar meters installed however, they can quickly identify which program, upon being loaded, or upon being used, causes their system to crawl at a snails pace. I find this tool has many uses that may not seem useful right now but can be realized after using this app for some time. Download Taskbar Meters by going to its home page by clicking here.

Windows 7 Review: My thoughts after using for 7 months

Fahad — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 07:13:47 +0000

Things haven’t been going too well in Microsoft’s OS department. The software giant has in recent years faced steep competition from Apple. And although Cupertino has failed to make a serious dent in Microsoft’s market dominance, they have been more then able to tarnish the crown of Redmond.

With the release of Windows 7 later this week, Microsoft hopes to dispel some of the doubts that have been placed on its OS. So how does it stack up? Is Windows 7 a memory hog like Vista, and more importantly can systems older then three years run the 7^th installment of Windows?

DESIGN:

Windows 7 has seen one of Microsoft’s more radical changes to the UI of its operating system. While it’s still easy to tell that this is 100% Windows, things have changed since Windows 3.0 and Microsoft has taken note of that. One of the best examples of this is the redesign of the start menu as well as task bar. In older versions of Windows (even Vista), grouping programs were a lot more complicated. For instance more then 5 windows had to be opened before similar windows were grouped. That has changed in 7. Not only does the taskbar group programs, but programs, documents, videos, music, pictures etc. can be pinned to the taskbar (kind of like the same way on the Mac OS). If you rather the past, this can always be reverted to the regular taskbar setup.

Another change in design has been the omission of the sidebar that was introduced three years ago in Vista. Widgets are back but the sidebar has been removed completely so widgets can be floated anywhere on the desktop.

Other additions to the UI include the ability to “peek” at the desktop by dragging the mouse to the far right of the taskbar. The whole UI has gotten a but more transparent and desktop backgrounds can be changed at user defined time intervals.

Overall the redesign of the UI is not one that is meant to reinvent the wheel but rather refine it. Has Microsoft succeeded at this task? Yes they have.

PERFORMANCE:

This is probably going to be the make or break for many people, especially those interested in upgrading older systems. While I have never had any major problems with Vista, I do have to confess that it was a memory hog and if you wanted anything to run decent, 2GB of RAM was the least that was needed. That said, many of those who upgraded were not aware of the memory or processor requirements and got burned by the “Vista Compatible” sticker.

Using Windows 7 for the past 7 months (ironic I know ), I have had enough time to test it out in many different environments. One of the major flaws of Vista was the fact that graphics rendering was (in simple terms) an overlay and not an entire redesign.

This caused the system to require more processing power (RAM and CPU) in order to deal with the extra graphical elements. Although Windows 7 is even more graphical intense then Vista, Microsoft has re written the code behind the OS to free up more memory. But even more importantly they have also taken note of the netbook crowd and built in a few features so that those in the Intel Atom arena can have a piece of the pie also.

Overall, load times have been decreased and processing power has been increased. Boot time is significantly faster on Windows 7 then Vista. On average I’ve been able to boot to the login screen in just under 15 seconds from a cold restart. More impressive is the fact that the system becomes fully functional in about 30-45 seconds.

Microsoft has also taken out the annoying warning messages that made their first appearances in Vista, namely the dreaded UAC. While the ones in Vista could be shut down at will, Microsoft has taken special attention to only warn users on important changes to their system such as the installation of new programs, downloads or requests to access registry files.

Another big improvement is the search function which, from my firsthand experience, has been greatly improved since Vista. Searching for anything on the computer is a lot faster thanks to better indexing algorithms implemented in Windows 7.

Support for older drivers and software has also been retained. I have been able to get drivers and software well over 5 years old to install without a hitch on Windows 7. Another great feature is that Windows 7 can automatically check for updated drivers to help the device run better on the new OS.

In Windows 7, Internet Explorer has entered version 8. The latest version promises to be the most secure yet, while also promising better support for HTML 5, JavaScript and other web languages (something IE6 was notorious for paying no attention to).

CONCLUSION:

All in all, the changes in Windows 7 have been huge. Yes it might seem like a service pack to many, but playing around with the OS for a few minutes can easily dispel those thoughts, and its clear to see Microsoft has put a large amount of time and resources into the development of this, the latest version of Windows!

When it launches on October 22 to the mass public, it will be available in various versions including Home, Premium, Professional, Ultimate and Starter edition (licensed for netbooks and nettops only).

Is it worth the upgrade? Seeing that Vista has finally become a stable OS, it all depends. If you have the money to spend, there is no reason why you shouldn’t upgrade. You will not regret it. If you have an older system you might want to check before. While I have heard of people being able to run Windows 7 on Pentium 4 and 3 systems, I would not advise you to try it unless you’re prepared for whatever troubles arise later on. If you ask me though, I would recommend an update to Windows 7 if your system is capable of handling it.

Buying a new Windows laptop? It’s a no brainer, Windows 7 is one of the best OS to be released by Redmond and after a few hours with a Windows 7 machine, you’ll see what all the hype is about!

Microsoft to Release Windows 7 before the end of January 2010

Fahad — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 07:30:22 +0000

Microsoft has announced that Windows 7 will be released no later than January 2010, although it is expected that it may be out well before that. The eagerly awaited OS is awaited by many after a very successful beta launch conducted in January of this year. ITPro were the ones who confirmed this news from Microsoft. According to the article at ITPro, Laurence Painell, Windows OEM and WGA marketing manager stated the following to ITPro:

“We made a promise that we would release Windows 7 no later than three years after Vista. This gives us until January 2010 and we are confident it will be released by then, if not earlier.”

Windows 7 Release Candidate version is rumored to be out by next month which would mean that we would be getting closer to the final Windows 7 release and if that is the case than Windows 7 should be out before the end of the year.

Download Windows 7 Drivers

Fahad — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 19:44:40 +0000

Windows 7 Beta has been downloaded by thousands of enthusiastic users since its launch and has received great reviews from users from around the world. Windows 7 adds many new features and fixes over the current Windows Vista. One thing which many people will have trouble with, is finding Windows 7 compatible drivers for their devices. Although not many people know that Windows 7 structure is very similar to that of Windows Vista so in essence, drivers for most devices for Windows Vista should work in Windows 7.

So if you just installed Windows 7 or just installed a new device, head on over to the manufacturer’s website and download the latest drivers for Windows Vista. In most cases, your drivers should install no problem and you shouldn’t have any problems with your device. If however, you are displayed an error regarding compatibility, then you will need to force the installer to work with Windows 7. I have mentioned the steps to do this below:

Right click on the driver .exe file and click “Troubleshoot Compatibility”.
A program compatibility windows will open and ask you a questioned related to your problem. You have to choose “The program worked in earlier versions of Windows but won’t install or run now”.
You will then see a list of operating systems. Choose Windows Vista and click next.
Windows 7 will associate the program compatibility with Windows 7 and you will be able to open the installer now.

The drivers should now install flawlessly.

Even though Windows Vista drivers will work in most cases, there may be a device which will refuse to work. This means that the device requires Windows 7 specific drivers to work. Head on over to the manufacturer site to see if they have released drivers for Windows 7. NVIDIA has a page about Windows 7 here. ATI also has beta drivers for some of its graphics cards. Installing drivers for Intel hardware(including Realtek audio drivers) should work if you apply the compatibility trick mentioned above. You may also look at drivers for Windows 7 at Microsoft Hardware Support site. You can expect companies to release drivers for Windows 7 as it inches closer to its release.

Download Windows 7 Codecs

Fahad — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 18:22:37 +0000

Windows 7 has seen an improvement in the media side as it adds support for H.264, Xvid, and DivX. This support was added by Microsoft so that most of the media files downloaded from the internet could be easily played using Windows Media Player without the user having the need to install additional codecs or another media player. Although this addition seems to cover support for the most downloaded media from internet, there are still many more formats which are not natively supported by Windows 7. You may choose to install a new media player like VLC Media Player or Media Player Classic to give you support for even more media formats or install a codec package so that you wil never have to worry if Windows Media Player will be able to play the file or not.

Although popular codec packages like K-Lite still appear to work in Windows 7, you would want to install a codec package that was intended for Windows 7 so that you do not encounter any problems later on. The release of Windows 7 Codecs Package, from the author of Windows Vista Codec Package, gives you the peace of mind to install Windows 7 codecs without having to worry about compatibility issues. You can download Windows 7 Codecs from here.

The Windows 7 Codecs Package will not install any media player or change associations for any file types whatsoever. The installer will automatically remove any existing popular codec package to avoid any problems. You can remove the codecs package or part of the codecs package at anytime you want. Have fun with Windows 7!

Transform Windows XP into Windows 7 using Seven Remix XP

Fahad — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 18:39:00 +0000

It has been more then a month since Windows 7 beta was relased to the public and unfortunately you cannot download the beta legally anymore. If you missed the chance to download windows 7 but still want to experience it than transforming your Windows XP into Windows 7 will give you a good visual feel to it. Seven Remix XP is a free software which enables you to transform Windows XP to Windows 7. The GUI for Windows XP will be improved and will be given a feel just like that of Windows 7. The program will replace your system files and graphic resources files for icons, etc so use the program with caution.

The above screenshot shows you how your Windows XP desktop will look like after you transform it to Windows 7.

Requirements to use Seven Remix:

Windows XP (Home, Pro, Corporate, RTM, SP1, SP2, SP3)
Windows XP Tablet PC Edition
Windows Media Center Edition (2003-2005)
Windows 2003 (Datacenter, Web, RTM, SP1, Standard, Enterprise)
Any language version of the above Operating Systems
Seven Remix will not work with 64 bit versions of Windows!

Seven Remix will replace your existing system files and will make a backup of them as well. You can uninstall the program to revert back to Windows XP style anytime you want. You can go to the author page by clicking here or you an download the program from here directly.

[Via Nirmaltv]

Tweak Windows 7 with Ultimate Windows Tweaker

Fahad — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 17:55:15 +0000

Windows 7 is in the making of being a big hit when it is released and even though many people liked the Windows 7 beta, some like to personalize the UI and many other smaller things to their liking. This is where Ultimate Windows Tweaker can help you. With Ultimate Windows Tweaker, you can tweak Windows 7 settings for the user interface, start menu, network tweaks, internet explorer tweaks, windows explorer and many more. There are hundreds of things that you can change with this handy tool and tweak windows 7 to your liking. It is also quite safe to use, as it creates a system restore point before any tweaking that you do so if you happen to mess something up, you can easily go back to the old settings.

Ultimate Windows Tweaker was initially designed for Windows 7 but they have ported it to work with Windows 7 just fine. When you run the program, it is able to recognize your version of windows and offer you tweaks according to that. The file size for this program is only 380KB. As Windows 7 progresses further, you can expect to see even more tweaks added to this program. You can download Ultimate Windows Tweaker by going to their download page. The download page also lists the available tweaks that you can perform. Stay tuned for more tips and tricks for Windows 7.

[Via Windows 7 Center]

How to Remove Watermarks from Windows 7

Fahad — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 17:47:02 +0000

Windows 7 is the hot topic around the blogosphere right now and new tips and tricks are being talked about everywhere. I will be writing about one such trick in this article which will allow you to remove watermarks from windows 7. One annoyance with Windows 7 is that there are watermarks at a lot of places, mainly the one on the desktop though. I will tell you how to remove watermarks from windows 7 using a small patcher. You can see the watermark that is displayed on the Windows 7 desktop in the screenshot below:

RemoveWatermark is a freeware universal patcher that lets you remove watermarks from not only Windows 7 but also Windows Vista RTM, Windows Vista SP1, Windows Vista SP2, Windows Server 2008 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 SP2. RemoveWatermark supports both 32 bit and 64 bit operating systems so you can use with either version of your Windows 7. All languages are supported. The zip file that you will download contains two executable files, RemoveWatermarkX86.exe is to be used on 32-bit systems and RemoveWatermarkX64.exe is to be used on 64-bit systems. You can download the zip file for RemoveWatermark from rapidshare or mediafire.

How to Remove Watermarks from Windows 7

Firstly, you will need to have administrators rights to run this program. You do not need to boot in Safe Mode to run this program. The program will work just fine in normal mode.
Open the exe file that corresponds to your system(either RemoveWatermarkX86.exe or RemoveWatermarkX64.exe)
Read the instructions listed and type ‘Y’ and hit enter to patch.
Restart your computer so that changes will take affect.

The file that you patched is “user32.dll” located in \windows\system32\user32.dll. A backup copy of the original file will also be created by this patch at \windows\system32\user32.dll.backup.

This method works perfectly and removes watermarks from windows 7. If you have any problems, ask for help through the comments below and I will be of as much help as I can.

Get your Windows 7 Key to Activate your Windows 7 Beta

Fahad — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 19:06:04 +0000

Windows 7 is creating a lot of buzz around the blogging scene right now. Virtually every tech blog is covering the latest news regarding Windows 7 and technodorm is no different. We will be covering and posting the latest news right here as it surfaces. This time around, we are posting in relation to Windows 7 Key. As you may know, direct download links for windows 7 have been surfacing on the net all day long but they also need a windows 7 key to work genuinely. This is where this post will help you.

How to get your Windows 7 Key:

1. Go to Microsoft Technet website and sign in using your Microsoft Live Hotmail account.

2. Copy and Paste the following link into your address bar where you have your microsoft technet website open.
http://tinyurl.com/technodorm-win7-key

3. Your Windows 7 Key will be shown. Save it to a safe location and use it activate your Windows 7 installation.

This method works as I have used it myself. If you have any questions regarding this method, feel free leave me a comment below.

Update: I have just found out that the keys you get using this method are not unique. You will only get 5 unique keys for 32-bit version of Windows 7 and 5 unique for 64-bit version. Following are the keys that you will get using this method. They will work fine so just use them!

Windows 7 Keys for 32-Bit version:

6JKV2-QPB8H-RQ893-FW7TM-PBJ73
QXV7B-K78W2-QGPR6-9FWH9-KGMM7
GG4MQ-MGK72-HVXFW-KHCRF-KW6KY
4HJRK-X6Q28-HWRFY-WDYHJ-K8HDH
TQ32R-WFBDM-GFHD2-QGVMH-3P9GC

Windows 7 Keys for 64-bit version:

482XP-6J9WR-4JXT3-VBPP6-FQF4M
7XRCQ-RPY28-YY9P8-R6HD8-84GH3
D9RHV-JG8XC-C77H2-3YF6D-RYRJ9
JYDV8-H8VXG-74RPT-6BJPB-X42V4
RFFTV-J6K7W-MHBQJ-XYMMJ-Q8DCH

Windows 7 Beta Direct Download links Available

Fahad — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 10:00:59 +0000

Windows 7 is a hot topic these days especially after we had various windows 7 beta leaks on torrents. The official Windows 7 Beta version was to be released on January 8th to MSDN and Technet subscribers whereas it was planned for public release on January 9th. Only 2.5 million copies were to be distributed but as it turned out, microsoft servers could not handle the large and enthusiastic amount of users trying to get their copy of Windows 7 Beta. The downloads for Windows 7 beta have been taken down. Microsoft is now looking to add “additional infrastructure support” to support the huge amount of downloaders. The Windows 7 beta download page states the following message:

Thanks for your interest in the Windows 7 Beta. The volume has been phenomenal — we’re in the process of adding more servers to handle the demand. We’re sorry for the delay and we’ll re-post the Beta as soon as we can ensure a quality download experience.

Not to worry though, Windows 7 beta direct download links have surfaced on the internet through various blogs which seem to work just fine. You can download the official Windows 7 Beta through the following links from the Microsoft site itself.

The following Direct download links are for Microsoft Windows 7 beta (build 7000.0.081212) 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

Windows 7 Beta 32-bit Direct Download Link

Windows 7 Beta 64-bit Direct Download Link

I am currently downloading the 32-bit version of Windows 7 Beta at maximum speed possible on my 1mbps connection, so download speeds seem to be fine. These are the direct download links for the ISO of Windows 7 Beta version which you can use to install and use for 30 day trial period. You will need to get the key from the Windows 7 Beta download page to verify your installation.

Update: You can now get your Windows 7 Key as well.

[Via Sizzled Core]