Snow Transformation Pack Makes Your Windows Desktop Look Like Mac OS X

Friendly Computers found this article useful to make your Windows desktop look like Mac OS X.

Windows: If you like the look and feel of Mac OS X but prefer to stick with Windows (whether it be for gaming, or because you just don't like Apple), freeware Snow Transformation Pack will make Windows looks like OS X.

Snow Transformation Pack will change the appearance of your whole system, including the login screen, icons, wallpapers, sounds, dock, dialog boxes, and other UI elements. You'll need to disable User Account Control to install it, so you may have to run the installer twice—once to disable UAC and then again (after restarting) to install the package. On installing, you'll get a few choices as to whether you want to install a few extra background apps that add extra graphics, which is nice if your computer isn't necessarily a powerhouse (so you can turn them off to keep performance up).

It looks surprisingly like OS X, with a few exceptions in usability. There are a few manual tweaks you can make to make even look more Mac-like (such right clicking on the Taskbar, hitting Properties, and checking "Use Small Icons" in the Taskbar tab), but overall it looks pretty good. If you're tired of the usual Windows GUI and want to get a Mac-like experience for a while, it's a neat and easy tool to help you do so.

Snow Transformation Pack is a free download, Windows Vista/7 only.

Snow Transformation Pack [via Life Rocks 2.0]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5613494/snow-transformation-pack-makes-your-windows-desktop-look-like-mac-os-x

How to Rename Libraries, Computer, and Favorites in Windows 7 Explorer’s Navigation Pane

Friendly Computers would like to share this article with Windows 7 users.

Today in this tutorial, we'll tell you how to rename these items present in Navigation pane. By default, Windows only allows you to rename "Computer" item. You can right-click on it and select "Rename" and type whatever name you want to give.

But what about other items? You can rename them too using a simple registry trick which is mentioned in the coming steps.

We'll modify the same registry keys which we modified in the above mentioned tutorials to remove the items. We'll just edit a String value "LocalizedString" for each Navigation pane item and give it our desired name.

So without wasting any time, lets start the tutorial:

1. Type regedit in RUN or startmenu search box and press Enter. It'll open Registry Editor.

2. Now go to any of following keys according to your requirements:

Favorites - HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{323CA680-C24D-4099-B94D-446DD2D7249E}
Libraries - HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{031E4825-7B94-4dc3-B131-E946B44C8DD5}
Homegroup - HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{B4FB3F98-C1EA-428d-A78A-D1F5659CBA93}
Network - HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{F02C1A0D-BE21-4350-88B0-7367FC96EF3C}

3. Now you'll need to change value of "LocalizedString" String value present in the right-side section. But Windows will not allow you to change its value as you won't have proper permissions.

You can use following simple steps to take permission:

Right-click on the key mentioned in Step 2 and select "Permissions...".

It'll open a dialog box, Click on "Advanced" button.

It'll open another dialog box, Go to "Owner" tab.

Select your Username from the list and click on "Apply" button and then OK.

Again click on OK button in the first dialog box.

Now again right-click on the same key and select "Permissions...".

Select your Username in the list and check the "Allow" option for "Full Control".

Click on Apply button and then OK.

4. Now double-click on "LocalizedString" String value given in right-side section and change its value to any desired name like "PC Favorites", "My Libraries", "Home Network", etc.

5. That's it. Now open My Computer and you'll see the new names for each item.

NOTE: If you want to restore the default names, you can use following default values of "LocalizedString" String value:

Favorites - @%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-21796
Libraries - @%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-50691
Homegroup - @%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-50688
Network - @%systemroot%\system32\NetworkExplorer.dll,-1

Source: http://www.askvg.com/how-to-rename-favorites-libraries-homegroup-computer-and-network-items-in-windows-7-explorer’s-navigation-pane/

Find Out What Windows Error Codes Mean

Friendly Computers want to help you to find out what Windows error codes mean.

That’s one option, but there’s another little program as well, a bit more advanced but does pretty much the same job. WELT (Windows Error Lookup Tool) will also allow you to lookup those error codes, but it also allows you to add notes so next time you get that error code you can keep track of what applications are causing it.

It offers 3 categories of error codes which are Win32/HRESULTS, NTSTATUS and STOP Errors. You have to enter the error code and then select the category and hit enter. This option is probably more for advanced users as most users wont know what the different categories are.

You can download WELT here

Source: http://www.windows7news.com/2010/08/09/find-windows-error-codes/

Checklist Guide for Reinstalling Windows

Friendly Computers found this checklist guide for reinstalling Windows very useful and would like to share it with you.

Do you need to reinstall Windows on your computer?  Here’s a checklist of the things you should do before you make the leap and reinstall.

Whether you’re replacing a dying hard drive in your computer or want to upgrade from XP to Windows 7, there are many reasons you may want to reinstall Windows.  Vista and Windows 7 are much less prone to major OS issues that require you to reinstall Windows, but there are many things that can make a reinstall needed.  Many people are worried about losing data when reinstalling Windows.  However, if you make sure you cover all the things in this list, you should be certain to have your new install of Windows running great with all of your data and programs running as before.

Back up Your Files

As more and more of our lives and memories are stored on computers, losing your files is not an option.  We strongly urge everyone to always have complete backups of their data, but even still, you may have many files you need to move when installing Windows.  You’ll want to have a copy of your documents, music, videos, pictures, and more copied to another hard drive or disk before you reinstall.  If you’ve never changed the default storage locations, most of your files should be stored in your User folder, which you can access by entering%UserProfile% in the address bar in Explorer.

You can copy the files to an external hard drive, flash drive, DVD, Cloud Storage, or even another partition on your primary hard drive; just make sure not to delete the files during the upgrade.

Backup Email

Many programs such as Outlook save data on your computer as well, and if you forget to backup Outlook data you can lose years of work.  Here’s how you can copy your PST files from Outlook to your backup drive so you can easily add them to Outlook again once you reinstall Windows.

Find Your Programs to Reinstall

Windows without programs doesn’t let you do much with your computer, so you’ll want to make sure you can easily install all of your programs again once you’ve reinstalled.  You could make a list of all your installed programs from your All Programs menu in the Start menu, or you could look through your Program files folders to see what you currently have installed.  Then, you’ll need to locate product keys for commercial programs.

This can be difficult and time consuming, so thankfully there’s easier tools to help you find all your programs.  System Information for Windows is free for personal use and a great tool that will list the programs you have installed on your computer, as well as the product keys you’ve used to activate them.  It will also list all of your hardware, so you can download drivers if Windows doesn’t automatically find them with Windows update.

Check out our article on how to get detailed information about your PC.

If you have lost the installer disks for your programs, a quick web search can often turn up trial downloads that you can activate with your existing product keys that you may have found with SIW.  Or, you could try out some alternates to the programs you’ve been using for years.

Great Free Alternatives to Popular Programs

If you’ve been using your computer for many years, you may have a variety of old for-pay and shareware programs installed on your computer.  When you look through your list of applications, you might want to consider trying out some newer, free alternatives to other programs.  Here’s some we like:

• Antivirus – Microsoft Security Essentials is a great, free antivirus and antimalware application, which you can use instead of Norton, MacAfee, or other expensive antivirus solutions.  Check our overview of the new MSE 2.0 beta, too.
• Archiving Files – Were you using an older version of WinZip or WinRAR before?  Try out 7-zip; it’s an excellent free alternative that works with most file archival formats such as zip, rar, cab, and more.
• CD/DVD Burning – Windows 7 can burn ISO files to disks without extra software, but if you need extra features, try out the free ImgBurn instead of reinstalling the copy of Roxio or Nero that came with your computer.
• Windows Live Essentials includes Mail, Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, Messenger, and Writer, all of which are great tools that can replace many other for-pay programs.  The new Beta edition includes even more features, including advanced photo merge and touchup tools in Photo Gallery that previously were only available in tools like Photoshop Elements.  For more photo tools, try out Paint.NET or Picasa.
• Music and Video Tools – Most of us don’t pay for media player programs, but while you’re reinstalling, why not try out new programs such as Zune for Windows or the fully customizable Foobar2000 music player.
• If you’re looking for replacements for other applications, check out the Alternatives website.  This site lists for-pay and free alternatives to many popular programs, and you might even discover some you’ve never heard of.

Cloud Applications

This could also be a good opportunity to try out more online applications.  From Google Apps and the new Office Web Apps to Mint.com and Picnik, there are web apps that can replace many standard desktop applications today.  If you have broadband internet connection, web apps can often be a great way to use newer applications for free.

You may still want to keep Microsoft Office installed for the times you need to work offline, the service goes down, or you lose your web connection. Even if you use an older version of Office, you might want to keep it incase you’re not comfortable putting all your documents online.

Installing Windows

When you’ve got all your data and programs backed up, you’re ready to install Windows.  You can install it from a DVD as normal, or if you have USB flash drive you could install Windows directly from it.  We’ve recently installed Windows 7 on a new hard drive in only 15 minutes from a flash drive; it’s amazingly quick. 

Once you’ve got Windows installed again, you’ve got 30 days to activate it.  But, if you’d like more time to make sure everything’s working properly, here’s yow you can extend the trial to 120 days so you can use it for nearly 4 months without activating.  That should be more than enough time to make sure everything’s working perfectly!

Quickly and Automatically Reinstall Apps

You can now copy your files back from your backups and get your programs reinstalled.  No one likes clicking through dozens of installers, so we recommend you try out Ninite, a great tool that makes it a snap to install a lot of free and trial programs in a couple clicks.  Check out our review of Ninite for more info.

Conclusion

Don’t forget to keep your clean install of Windows up to date with Microsoft Update and protected with Security Essentials!  Also, make sure to setup a good backup solution such as Windows Backup and Restore to make sure you don’t lose any of your data if your new hard drive suddenly dies.

Source: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/23890/checklist-guide-for-reinstalling-windows/

Your Windows 7 Reliability Monitor

Friendly Computers found this article useful to keep your PC on the right track and would like to share it with you.

One of the cool little features that arose from the ashes of the disaster known as Windows Vista was the Reliability Monitor. A little-known tool which is almost hidden within the action center, the Reliability tool is great for tracking your computers reliability.

I remember using it when I was running Vista and nearly forgot about it until I was reminded by a weekly podcast to which I subscribe. I did my best to see if we have ever covered the Reliability Monitor here on Windows7News and as far as I can tell, we haven’t.

“Reliability Monitor is an advanced tool that measures hardware and software problems and other changes to your computer. It provides a stability index that ranges from 1 (the least stable) to 10 (the most stable). You can use the index to help evaluate the reliability of your computer. Any change you make to your computer or problem that occurs on your computer affects the stability index.”

Per Microsoft, the Reliability Monitor is intended for advanced computer users, such as software developers and network administrators, but it is easy to use, so even moderate users will have no problem using the tool to track their system over time.

There are two ways to find your PC’s Reliability history:

You can use Windows Search and begin typing the word ‘Reliability’ until the option shows.

Or

Right-click on the white flag in your taskbar to open Action Center.

Click Maintenance. Then, under Check for solutions to problem reports, clickView reliability history.

In Reliability Monitor, you can:

• Click any event on the graph to view its details.

• Click Days, or Weeks, to view the stability index over a specific period of time.

• Click items in the Action column to view more information about it.

• Click View all problem reports to view only the problems that have occurred on your computer. This view does not include the other computer events that show up in Reliability Monitor, such as events about software installation.

The layout of the program is pretty self-explanatory and very basic.

You can click on specific unreliable instances to view the details.

The Reliability Monitor is a very basic program with a very basic use. It’s one of the many useful tools provided natively in Windows 7 which can help you keep your PC on the right track.

Source: http://www.windows7news.com/2010/07/28/reliability-monitor/

How to Run the System File Checker (Sfc.exe) Offline in Windows 7 and Vista

Friendly Computers found this article useful and would like to share it with you.

The System File Checker (sfc.exe) is an useful tool that lets you scan the integrity of Windows system files, and repair corrupt or missing system files. Numerous cases have been resolved thus far by running Sfc.exe with the "scannow" parameter. However, there are situations where in a corrupt or missing system file prevents Windows from booting normally, and running Sfc.exe from Windows isn’t possible. In such cases, Sfc.exe can be run offline using two additional parameters, via the Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) in Windows 7 and Windows Vista.

Booting into Windows RE

Configure the boot order in the BIOS such that the first boot device is your CD/DVD drive.

Insert the Windows 7/Vista Setup DVD and restart the computer.

Alternately, you may use the Windows 7/Vista System Repair Disc if you have one.

When prompted, press a key to boot from the DVD. In the "Install Windows" screen, clickRepair your computer

Select your Windows installation, and click Next

Editor’s Note: Make a note of the drive-letter of your Windows 7 installation, as seen from Windows RE. This is the drive-letter you want to reference when running Sfc.exe offline.

Click Command Prompt

To scan the integrity (and repair) a specific file, use this command:

sfc /scanfile=d:\windows\system32\zipfldr.dll /offbootdir=d:\ /offwindir=d:\windows

The above command scans the file zipfldr.dll and replaces it if required.

To scan the integrity of all system files and repair them, run this command:

sfc /scannow /offbootdir=d:\  /offwindir=d:\windows

This process takes some time (<5 min in my case) to complete, and there weren’t any integrity violations.

Source: http://www.winhelponline.com/blog/run-sfc-offline-windows-7-vista/

Add Some Visual Flair to the Task Manager Display in Windows 7

Friendly Computers would like to help you to customize Task Manager Display in Windows 7.

If you love to customize your system as much as possible, then we have a fun way for you to change the color scheme for the Task Manager Window. Those Performance and Networking tabs will have a fresh new look in only a few minutes.

Before

The default color scheme for the Performance and Networking tabs is not bad, but if you love customizing your system then even this can be changed.

Getting Started with Task Manager Modder

Task Manager Modder comes in .7z zip file and has a single file inside (Task Manager Modder.exe). All you will need to do is place it in an appropriate Program Files folder and create a shortcut. When you start Task Manager Modder for the first time you will have to agree to the EULA in order to use the program.

You will see an embedded Task Manager Window inside the program window for viewing color modifications and the color controls at the bottom.

Here is a closer look at the color adjustments toolbar. You can select from the set of included colors for each option or enter your own custom color codes if desired. During our tests we chose the colors included with the program.

Here are three examples that we set up on our system. You can have a lot of fun experimenting with the color schemes to get that “just perfect look��. When you have everything fixed just the way that you like click on Modify Taskmgr. Keep in mind that if you have the Task Manager Window open it will temporarily close while the colors are changed then restart. Click Exit when you are finished modifying the color scheme.

After

Our Task Manager Window definitely had a different look and feel to it afterwards.

If you need or want to change back to the default color scheme just click on Restore Taskmgr. As discussed above, if you have the Task Manager Window open it will temporarily close while the colors are reset then restart.

Conclusion

By changing the colors in Task Manager, it could actually help you identify performance issues easier. So if you love to customize as much of your system as possible, then you can definitely have fun with Task Manager Modder.

Links

Download Task Manager Modder

Source: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/22470/add-some-visual-flair-to-the-task-manager-display-in-windows-7/

Beginners Guide for Setting Up Windows 7 Media Center

Friendly Computers would like to share this article with new Windows 7 users. Media Center is one of the new features you might be interested.

If you’re moving from XP to Windows 7, one of the new features you might be interested in is Media Center. In this tutorial we’ll walk through the process of configuring it for the first time and look at some of its default features.

Unless you happened to be using XP Media Center Edition or Vista and are new to Windows 7, Media Center is probably completely new to you. Let’s take a look at setting it up for the first time and getting important basic features working.

Note: Windows Media Center is only available in Windows Home Premium and above.

Windows 7 Media Center Setup

Click on the Start Menu and click on Windows Media Center.

Windows Media Center will launch…click on the Continue button.

On the Get Started screen you can select Learn More, Custom setup, or Express. The quickest way to get rolling is to click Express. You can start with Custom setup, but it will take longer, and you want to get started right away. Also, you can change customizations at any time after you have it up and running.

Now you have access to all of the default features in WMC…Pretty simple right? In this example we have a home network with Windows Home Server and we get a message asking if we want to use the Media Center Connector which we’ve previously covered.

Another message that will pop up is for adding a Desktop Gadget if you want.

The gadget will transition between different Internet TV programs that are available to watch. Click on the Wrench icon to change its settings. You don’t have to install the gadget at all, but if you do this is what you can expect.

Setup Internet TV

You’ll probably be interested in watching TV and videos right away so on the menu screen go to TV and click on Internet TV.

The Free streaming Internet TV window will come up, agree to the Terms of Service and click Install. After installation you can start watching the available streaming TV programs.

For more on this head over to our article on how to watch TV programs without a TV tuner card in Windows 7 Media Center.

Setup Live TV

If you do have a TV tuner card, another thing you’ll want to setup right away is live TV. Make sure you’re antenna, cable, or satellite cable is connected to the card.From the main menu under TV scroll over to Live TV Setup.

Verify the Region for your local TV service is correct.

Enter in your zip code to get the Program Guide for your area.

Agree to the Program Guide Terms of Service…

Then you’ll need to agree to the EULA for Microsoft PlayReady.

Wait while the Program Guide is downloaded and PlayReady is installed.

After everything is setup you’ll be able to navigate through the Guide to view you’re favorite shows. If you like to use WMC to mainly watch Live TV, a cool trick is automatically starting Media Center in Live TV mode.

If you’re hard of hearing, or just want to mute the volume on a show, Close Captioning is available as well.

Use Media Center as a DVR

Another cool feature you’ll want to get started with is using it as a DVR to record, pause, and rewind live TV. The process is simple, while watching Live TV simply click the Record button.

You’ll know it’s recording by a small message popping upon the left side of the screen with the red record button.

Click the Record button again to stop it and you’ll see the Record button is no longer there.

Then you can watch the recorded TV by going to the main menu and under TV select Recorded TV.

This will pull up a list of the different shows you’ve recorded.

Your recorded live TV files will be in the Recorded TV Library Folder as “.wtv” file format. Keep in mind the Recorded TV  files are lossless and will be quite large, so make sure you have the appropriate disk space. If you want to convert the files and remove commercials, check out our article on MCEBuddy.

You can also convert the files to “.dvr-ms” format by right-clicking the file and selecting that option from the Context Menu.

Watch Netflix

If you have a Netflix account, by default you can watch instant streams through WMC. In the main menu navigate to Movies and select Netflix.

Agree to the Terms of Service and click Install.

Now sign into your account or if you don’t have an account you can start a free trial.

After signing in you can go through your Queue and browse for movies and programs that are available to watch instantly.

You have the ability to manage your Netflix DVD and Instant Queue directly within WMC.

For best viewing results you can watch your videos in full screen.

This should get you started with Windows 7 Media Center. Setting it up and getting the basic features working is relatively easy following the wizard driven user interface.

Source: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/22353/beginners-guide-for-setting-up-windows-7-media-center/