Easily Disable Win 7 or Vista’s Aero Before Running an Application (Such as a Video Game)

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You might be concerned with squeezing every last bit of performance out of your machine, or may have compatibility problems between Aero and an application that you are running. Either way you are looking for the simplest way to disable Aero while running that application, and this is it.

You can edit the properties of a shortcut and tell Windows to automatically disable Aero as soon as you start that application, and then re-enable it again once the application is closed.

Simply right-click on the shortcut and choose Properties, and then the Compatibility tab:

Now on the Settings block check the box for “Disable desktop composition” in order to disable Aero the next time you use the shortcut.

Source: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/easily-disable-vistas-aero-before-running-an-application-such-as-a-video-game/

10 Things You Must Do With Your New Windows 7 PC

Friendly Computers found this article very useful for Windows7 users.

If you got a new Windows 7 laptop for Christmas, you are truly in luck. But here are 10 things you need to get the most out of it.

1. Take a Spin Around the New Interface: Still glassy, glossy and damn near glittery, the Windows 7 interface is actually a major progression for Microsoft: It's not just easy to use, it's a whole new paradigm with the revamped taskbar and Aero Peek making multitasking with multiple windows more natural than ever.

2. Turn Off Everything You Don't Need: While Windows 7 is missing some odd things, like a mail application, the flip side is that you can turn off pretty much every major feature you don't want. Internet Exploder 8? Gone. Windows Media Player? Poof. And if you're used to tweaking the crap out of Windows, you still can—a lot of the old tricks, like for manipulating context menus, still work.

3. Move All Your Crap from Your Old Machine: Windows 7 actually has pretty decent built-in powers for moving all your crap from your old and busted PC to your new pride and joy, though you need to download Windows Easy Transfer separately onto XP if you're pulling stuff from that.

4. Master All of the New Keyboard Shortcuts: Why deal with flipping around a mouse or scribbling on a trackpad when you do the same thing in a tenth of a second with a keyboard combo? The Start key (oh sorry, Windows key), which I've always neglected as a useless monotasker, is supremely useful in Windows 7, as the underpinning for a metric ton of keyboard shortcuts.

5. Get It to Play Nice With All of Your Gadgets: The good news about Windows 7 is that, unlike Vista, most of your gear that worked with your computer a couple years ago with Windows should still work. And newer gear interacts with Windows in a fancy new way with a big ol' splash graphic and easy access to all the stuff you'd want to do with it. While even simple things, like adding a second monitor, are more straightforward now, here's a device-by-device breakdown on getting everything to touch Windows 7 appropriately.

6. Share Stuff With Your Other Computers, 'Cause It's Easier Now: The networking UI hasn't just gotten a facelift to make it more accessible, it's actually easier to use with HomeGroups—join a HomeGroup, and all of the stuff you want to share with other computers spreads like herpes to the rest of the HomeGroup, no arduous networking required. Also, network in general—like with Macs—seems to just work better with Windows 7.

7. Stream Your Music and Videos Everywhere: Connecting your PC to a TV sounds so 1999. Well, you might not know this, but your Windows 7 PC is a badass music and video streamer, DVR, photo viewer, video aggregator and everything else you'd want out of a multimedia box, all thanks to Windows Media Center. The living room PC is legit now. Not to mention Play To, which beams music (and video and photos) to any compatible device on your network, no setup required (really!). All it takes it a right-click, and those Sonos speakers on the other side of your house will magically start yelling the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

8. Upgrade Your Netbook to Windows 7 Home Premium: If you got a Windows 7 netbook, there's a good chance you got stuck with the artificially gimped out Starter edition. The cheapest way to fix this is to buy Windows 7 for $30 using a valid .edu email address, then follow our guide to installing Windows 7 on any netbook.

9. Set Up Some Network Storage: A fresh computer is a fresh start—meaning it's a perfect time to start a new life with fully networked storage for backup, especially if you're using your machine as a DVR with Windows Media Center. (But skip on faster drives.) One awesome option? A Windows Home Server machine, which can do backups and stream out media to all of your computers.

10. Remote Control It From Anywhere with VNC: While diving deep into the system and futzing with your network at the same time, you might as well set up a VNC server so you can control your computer from anywhere, whether it's to pull files or schedule downloads.

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5433340/10-things-you-must-do-with-your-new-windows-7-pc

Classic Shell Brings the Old Start Menu Back to Windows 7

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Start menu replacement utility Classic Shell adds back some of the missing features in Windows 7 or Vista that used to exist in XP—like the Classic-style Start Menu.

During the installation process, you can choose to install two optional pieces—the first is the Classic Start Menu, which is a full-featured replacement that includes drag and drop, recent documents, and keyboard navigation. The second is Classic Explorer, a plugin for Windows Explorer that adds a toolbar with buttons for Up, Delete, and Copy/Paste, changes the file copying UI to look like XP, and a number of other changes. You can install one or both of these components, so if you want the start menu but don't want the explorer plugin, it won't waste resources on your system.

Classic Shell is a superior replacement—with 64-bit support, drag/drop organizing, expanding Control Panel, right-click item management, and if that wasn't enough, it even keeps the native Windows 7 start menu around—just Shift+Click on the start button to access it.

Most readers will probably point out that the newer Windows 7 start menu format is well worth getting used to, but for those of you that just prefer the old way of doing things, the free, open-source Classic Shell is definitely for you.

Download Classic Shell

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5432366/classic-shell-brings-the-old-start-menu-back-to-windows-7

Synchronize Your Windows7 Files and Folders Using SyncToy

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Microsoft has provided a new PowerToy application SyncToy 2.1. It is a free application that will synchronize your files and folders among several locations. What kind of synchronization? Typically this will include sharing operations, such as photos or documents, with other computers and creating backup copies of files and folders.

The engine that runs the synchronization operations is available from the Microsoft Sync Framework 2.0.

What is synchronization? Simply put, if you have stored files in one folder, say in you local hard drive, and you have also stored files in a folder on a remote server, you may want to keep the files in those folders the same, especially the same version. You can do it by hand with copy and replace or you can let the synchronization software do it for you.

SyncToy is a highly customizable program that helps users to avoid the heavy lifting involved with the copying, moving, and synchronization of different directories.

Features:

• SyncToy can manage multiple sets of folders at the same time
• it can combine files from two folders in one case
• it can mimic renames and deletes in another case
• it can keeps track of renames to files and will make sure those changes get carried over to the synchronized folder
• It can run on 32 bit and 64 bit systems.

Windows 7

On Launce you will see the Welcome To SyncToy screen. Note the two folders on left and right.

Select the left folder to Synchronize with the right folder

Browsing to select the folder that I want to synchronize

The two folders are selected that will be synchronized.

Now select an operation to perform...The default is Synchronize

Provide a folder pair name

All conditions are now ready. both folders have been identified, the pairing has a name, now you can run the operation

The Synchronization process ... in operation ... as it is being performed.

The operation is now complete 

Both folders on different drives are now in sync.

Download SyncToy.

Source: http://windows7news.com/2009/12/19/synchronize-your-windows7-files-and-folders-using-synctoy/

How To Use Windows 7 Themes On XP And Vista PCs

Friendly Computers would like to help you to use Windows 7 themes on your XP or Vista PCs.

There are several beautiful themes available for Windows 7, both official Windows 7 themes from Microsoft and unofficial Windows 7 themes.  Out of the box these themes don’t work on Windows XP or Windows Vista machines, but with a few tweaks you can get Windows 7 themes to work on Windows XP and Windows Vista machines.

Stage I Install 7-Zip

Windows 7 themes use the .themepack extension which Windows XP and Windows Vista cannot understand.  To extra the files from a downloaded Windows 7 theme just install the free 7-Zip utility that can handle the .themepack extension, and use it to extract your files to a folder on your PC

Stage IIa – Windows Vista Users

If you are running Aero, doubleclick the .theme file in the new folder you just created.  This will change your windows border to the one in the new theme as well as your wallpaper to the default wallpaper in the theme, although this will disappear when you reboot so you will have to:
go to the theme folder
click on the wallpaper you want to use and select ’set as Desktop Background’

Stage IIb – Windows XP Users

XP doesn’t support Aero, so to set your wallpaper:
go to the theme folder
click on the wallpaper you want to use and select ’set as Desktop Background’

Stage III Create Windows 7 Desktop Slideshows

Neither Windows XP or Windows Vista support Windows 7 Desktop Slideshows so to rotate your need to install a tool to rotate your wallpapers.  A good lightweight simple tool is the great Wallpaper Shifter app. The application picks a random wallpaper from a directory selected by the user and sets it as the active Windows wallpaper.

Stage IV – Add Theme Sounds & Icons

Adding sounds is very easy to do:

• Copy the sound files (.wav) to the default media folder C:\Windows\Media
• If you are using Windows Vista the theme file will automatically use these sounds
  

To add any windows 7 theme icons:

Windows Vista:

• Right-click anywhere on the desktop, choose ‘Personalize’ and then ‘Change Desktop Icons’
• Select the items you which to change, click ‘Change Icons’ and browse to the location of the new icons

Windows XP:

• Right-click anywhere on the desktop, select ‘Properties’ and choose ‘Customize Desktop’ under the Desktop tab
• Select the items you wish to change, click ‘Change Icon’ and browse to the location of the new icons

Stage V – Screensavers and Cursors

If your Windows 7 theme includes a screensaver or a new cursor then just do the following:

Screensavers

Copy the screensaver files (.scr) into your Windows system folder usually located at C:\Windows\System32 to be able to access the new screensavers versions of Windows.

Cursors
Copy the Windows 7 cursor files (.cur or .ani) to C:\Windows\Cursors on XP or Vista, and then apply the new set using the mouse settings under Control Panel.

That’s it!  Your sexy new Windows 7 theme should be brightening up your Windows Xp or Windows Vista machine.  Thanks to ghacks and Digital Inspiration for this guide.

Source: http://windows7news.com/2009/11/22/how-to-use-windows-7-themes-on-xp-and-vista-pcs/

Get the Classic Network Activity Indicator Back in Windows 7

Friendly Computers can help you if you want get back the classic network activity indicator in Windows 7.

The classic little two-computer icon that blinks to indicate network activity is missing from Windows 7, replaced by an icon that simply indicates if the computer is or is not connected to a network.

The solution is a tiny application called, appropriately enough, Network Activity Indicator for Windows 7. Download the application and park your standard Windows 7 network indicator in the hidden portion of your system tray, placing the icon for the Network Activity Indicator in the appropriate place in the system tray.

Once you've performed the swap, you'll have the old network activity indicator back and its familiar blinking screens. Network Activity Indicator for Windows 7 is freeware, Windows only.

Download Network Activity Indicator for Windows 7.

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5428229/get-the-classic-network-activity-indicator-back-in-windows-7

How to Change the Appearance of Your Windows7 Logon Screen

Friendly Computers thinks it will be useful for you.

Like most users, you probably don’t think too much about your logon screen. But a nice little utility specifically designed for Windows 7 will let you change the background image on your logon screen.  Logon Screen Rotator from Luke Payne Software for Windows 7, is a program is easy to install, and  the features are straight forward to use. Before you begin, you should have a folder with the images that you will want to use for your logon screen.

Once you download and extract the file, the Windows 7  Rotator screen will appear:

LogonScreenRotator-Images

There are six tabs that you can use, but most users will start with the first tab, where you add your images.

You can select an image by right click on the open area in the image tab.

Select the image from the image folder.

These are fractal images from my library

  You can change images

Adding a Folder to the Folders tab...this allows other images to be available

The next tab locates the folders that you can use to store the images that you will use.

Logon Screen Rotator-Folders

The next tab “All Images” will show all or the images that have been loaded on the application.

The Logon Screen Rotator-AllImages

The History tab will record your entries.

  Logon Screen Rotator-History

The button set tab allows you to select a button for use on logon.

  Logon Screen Rotator - ButtonSet

as

You can change the settings of the application.

You can set how often you want the image to change, at each logon, or each day. This program is quick and easy to work with. If you like your themes or background images, you will like this program.

Download the file from Luke Payne Software.

Source: http://windows7news.com/2009/12/15/how-to-change-the-appearance-of-your-windows7-logon-screen/

How To Slow Down Aero Effects

Friendly Computers found some interesting article about Windows 7.

Microsoft has implemented several so called Aero effects into Windows 7 that can be experienced by users if Aero is enabled and supported by their Windows 7 edition. Aero effects are for instance visible when minimizing or maximizing windows or launching the Flip 3D window manager with the [Windows Tab] shortcut.

Most of these Aero effects happen in real-time which makes it somewhat hard to follow or even notice at all. Users who want to experience slowed down Aero effects can do so by adding two new entries to the Windows Registry. The following steps are necessary to be able to slow down the Aero effects in Windows 7:
Open the Windows Registry editor by pressing [windows R], typing [regedit] and hitting the [enter] key
Navigate to Hkey_Current_User\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM, right-click the key and create two new DWords 32-bit with the names Animations and AnimationsShiftKey
Double-click both entries and assign the value 1 to them
Open an elevated command prompt and issue the commands [net stop uxsms] and [net start uxsms] or restart the computer system Aero effects can now be slowed down by pressing the [Shift] key. There you have it. This is obviously more a nice to have thing that something that would have a practical use to it.

Source: http://windows7news.com/2009/12/08/how-to-slow-down-aero-effects/