Windows 7

How To Create A System Repair Disc In Windows 7 & Vista

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Windows logo

Creating a System Repair disc in windows vista and Windows 7 is very simple and straight forward process.System repair disc would be very much useful when in situations like your Windows encounters a serious problem and unable to start properly.

A system repair disc can be used to boot your computer.It also contains Windows system recovery tools that can help you recover Windows from a serious error or restore your computer from a system image

Let’s see how to create a Windows System repair disc in simple steps.

Steps:

1. Go to Control panel> System And Security> Backup and Restore, click “Create a system repair disc”

backup or restore

2. Now it’ll ask you to select the CD/DVD drive and insert the blank CD into it. Select the drive and click “Create disc’ once you have inserted the blank disc into the drive.

create system repair disc

3. Let the DVD/CD (we need a DVD for Windows 7 backup) burn.

4. Now you have successfully created a system repair disc.

Using the system repair disc:

1. Insert the system repair disc into your CD/DVD drive.

2. Restart the computer

3. Windows will automatically discover the system  recovery disc.You will be prompted “press any key to start the computer from the system repair disc”

4. If your computer primary boot device isn’t set to “CD/DVD" drive”, go to BIOS settings and change the boot order to configure your computer to start from a CD or DVD.

5. Choose your language settings and click “Next”.

6. Select a recovery option from the following:

# Startup Repaid

# System Restore

# System Image Recovery

# Windows Memory Diagnostic

# Command Prompt

System_recovery _options

You may also refer to our earlier Windows 7 guides like Install Windows 7 using Microsoft USB/DVD tool, Install Windows 7 using bootable USB

You can also our exclusive posts about Windows 7

Delete Hiberfil.sys from Windows 7, Vista & XP By Disabling Hiberation

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hibernate

Running out of space in C Drive?

If you are running out of space in C drive and if you don’t want to delete or move any data from it, you can probably try these two things:

1. Disable System restore or delete the restore points.

2. Delete hiberfil.sys file from your hard disk.

HIBERFIL.SYS is a Windows system file managed by Windows for the purpose of Hibernating the system. Hibernation mode of Windows allows you to completely save the current process and power off your computer where the system will not require any power. During Hibernation the system will write the complete status and process of your computer and save it in the hard disk which is the hiberfil.sys.

While you start your computer, the system loads the status from the hard disk which was written in hiberfil.sys file.

HIBERFIL.SYS reserves around 2.5 GB in Windows 7 and Vista. And it takes 512 MB in Windows XP.

Important Note: You can delete hiberfil.sys only if you do not want to use the hibernation feature. Even if you delete the file you can still use the sleep mode. If you want to see the hiberfil.sys file in your C drive then you need to show system hidden files.

hiberfil_sys

How to delete HIBERFIl.SYS file from the your drive?

As hiberfile.sys is a system file we cannot delete it directly. So in order to delete it we need to disable the Hibernate feature in Windows.

Disable hibernation mode in Windows 7 and Vista:

Open Command Prompt. Press Start + R. Type CMD and press Enter.

Type the following commands and Press Enter after each command:

cd/
cd Windows
cd System32
powercfg -h off

It will look like:

cmd_disable_hibernate

To turn on the Hibernate feature Type:

powercfg –h on

Disable hibernation mode in Windows XP:

In Windows XP it is easy. Follow the instruction below:

Open Start menu, Go to Control Panel. In control Panel, go to Performance and maintenance. Then Click Power Options

In power options windows, go to Hibernate Tab. Uncheck Enable hibernation and press OK.

disable_hibernate_xp

If you want to re enable hibernation, then check the check box and press OK.

Now after performing the steps, if you check your C drive, you will find that the hiberfil.sys file is gone.

Hope you have got some free space at least for now 🙂

Think Before Using USB Flash Drives To Run Applications or OS: Advisory

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I am writing this post on an advisory note. With the extensive use of USB flash driven in our day to day activities, now we have been aiming to make even our Operating System(OS) portable by installing it in a USB Flash Drive and carrying around in our pocket. Moreover we can run applications such as Mozilla, Anti Viruses etc. from a USB pen drives. Here I am going to explain, why you need to think twice before using your USB Flash Drive to run an Operating System from it.

Why you should think twice before using a USB Flash Drive to run an OS or applications for prolonged period?

All flash memory devices can sustain only a limited number of write and erase cycles before failure. While running a normal OS or an Application from a Flash drive, the system will write and erase a huge number of files and data in the flash drive. With prolonged use, the write/erase cycles of your flash drive may come to an end and may eventually fail.

The write/erase cycle performed while running an Operating System(OS) such as Windows XP or 7 will be very much more than what we can perform manually, by copying and deleting data. So this should be a consideration as it may make your flash drive run out of Write/erase cycles much faster than expected.

a failed usb flash drive

Another usage of USB is Windows ReadyBoost. Windows 7 and Vista can make use of a USB flash drive as a cache memory to improve the performance.  In this case also the cycles are be used a high rate.

Points to be Noted:

  • Flash memory devices have a limited number of write and erase cycles before failure
  • Running an OS or an Application from a Flash drive will write and erase a huge number of files or data in the flash drive per second.
  • Running an Operating System(OS) will perform these cycles much more than what we can perform manually
  • Prolonged use will make your flash drive run out of write/erase cycles and may eventually fail much before expected

How to address this issue?

To address this, as well as space limitations, some developers have produced special versions of operating systems such as Linux in Live USB or portable applications such as Mozilla Firefox designed to run from flash drives. These are typically optimized for size and configured to place temporary or intermediate files in the computer RAM rather than store them temporarily on the flash drive.

Compared to other portable storage devices such as external hard drives, USB flash drives still have a high price per unit of storage. But Hard drives have a higher minimum price.

Alternatives:

  • Run applications or OS which are configured  for Flash Drive use only
  • For Prolonged usage, try buying an external Hard Drive
  • If you are using your USB Drive as a Cache device to improve performance, why not upgrade your RAM size?

Notes:

1. Manual usage of your USB Drive will take years to use up the Write/erase cycles available, so no need to worry.

2. Most Failures in USB Memory Devices are due to wear and tear

Display Your Custom Text On Windows Desktop

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Windows logo

Few days ago we have written a brief tutorial about how to display Windows 7 current version and build number on your desktop (right above the system task tray).The natural question that comes to our mind after performing this trick successfully is :”Can we customize this text so as to display our name for instance?”.

Well, if you have been thinking that way, just stop thinking and read this tutorial and implement it to display your own name on desktop instead of Windows 7 watermark.Follow these steps carefully.

Requirements:

1. You need to know how to take ownership of a file in Windows 7 and Windows Vista.

2. You need to download a small software called “Resource Hacker”.

Download

Steps:

1. Refer to display Windows 7 current version and build number set the settings to display Windows 7 version and build number on your desktop.This is the first step that you need to do.You need to restart your system after this step.

windows 7 build info

2. Once you have completed the above, the remaining task is to change or customise this text.To do this we need to edit the system file called “user32.dll.mui” in  Resource Hacker.
Open windows explorer and copy and paste this in your address bar.

%windir%\System32\en-US

3. If you are using Windows 7 & Vista, the above command will open

“C:\Windows\System32\en-US”

folder for you.

Find the system file called “user32.dll.mui” and take ownership of the files.

user32.dll.mui windows 7

4. Now that you have the ownership of the file with you, you can go ahead and open and edit it in Resource Hacker.Just drag this file into the Resource Hacker window.

5. In the resource hacker, navigate to “String Table>45>1033”.In the right side of the window, you can see all the values running from 705 to 719.We don’t need to worry about the rest of the values, we just need to edit the values “715” and “716”.As you can see 715 (“%wsWindows %ws”) is responsible for displaying Windows version and 716 (“%ws Build %ws”) is responsible for displaying the build number if your Windows 7.

resource hacker user32.dll.mui edit

6.Now replace the text inside the quotes(“) in 715 and 716 with whatever text that you want to display on your desktop.

change string table values of user32.dll.miu in resource hacker

Once you have edited it, click “Compile Script” and then save the file (If you don’t have ownership of the file, here you will not be able to save it).

7. You are done, just restart the computer and you can see your own text being displayed instead of Windows version info.

MyWebSearch Adware: Instruction to Completely Remove My Web Search Toolbar

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my_web_search_uninstaller

MyWay Searchbar commonly known as MyWay Speedbar, MyWay Search Assistant, MyWebSearch, and MyWeb Searchbar is toolbar allows us to query Google, Ask.com, and Yahoo! search engines. The program were classed as adware by some websites and anti-malware applications, although they claimed not to have the adware function. The MyWay Searchbar is currently described by Sunbelt Labs as a Potentially Unwanted Program. [Source: wikipedia.org]

MyWebSearch installed on my system without permission:

How I got MyWebSearch installed on my computer without actually installing it? This happened when I was chatting with a friend in Gtalk. I received a chat as:

You just received a smiley! Go to http://buddies.smileycentral.com/ to see it!

I was curious and clicked it. Then I later found out that it had installed MyWebSearch without my consent. This is only one way of getting infected. There are lots of others also.

Why MyWebSearch is potentially unwanted?

  • My Web Search installs its own programs without any permit.
  • It is difficult to completely remove this program.
  • Even if it is removed from the Add/Remove program, the registry values still remain and tries to run.

How to find out MyWebSearch installed or not?

  • Add ons appear in Browsers like Mozilla/Internet explorer
  • Add ons can also be found in Messengers like Gtalk
  • Unwanted pop ups may come up during internet usage.

How to Remove MyWebSearch Completely from your Computer?

Step 1: Remove the program from Add/Remove programs:

Go to Start Menu –> Control Panel –> Add/remove Programs or Uninstall a program

Search for MyWebSearch and uninstall all the programs shown.

control_panel_remove_mywebsearch

my_web_search_uninstaller

After removing the program, restart the your system.

Step 2: Use HiJackThis to remove the unwanted registry entries and running programs of My Web Search:

HiJackThis is a freeware which can scan your registry for unwanted entries. It is a stand alone program and  doesn’t require installation.

Download HiJackThis v 2.0 : http://www.techrena.net/downloads/HiJackThis_v2.exe

Size: 1.2 MB

Scan your System with the program. Remove the following entries if present:

Click Here to Open The text file containing the entries.

See the image below to see hot to remove the entries: (Click to Enlarge)

fix_registry_hijackthis

Step 3: Remove the My Web Search registry Entries present in the windows registry:

Download the BAT file from the link below:

http://www.techrena.net/downloads/remove_my_web_search.bat

Double click on remove_my_web_search.bat. It will open Command Prompt. While running the commands the command prompt will ask for confirmation to delete the entries. Press Y and enter every time it asks.

confirm_delete_cmd

Ignore if it tells cannot find the value in the path. It is because the values are already been removed.

Now you have successfully completed removing My Web Search bar components from your system.

Note:

1. In order to perform all these actions and  commands you need to have Administrator privilege.

2. If your registry editor is disabled, you cannot perform theses actions. You can refer: How to enable Registry Editor (REGEDIT) to enable it.

Download Microsoft Touch Pack For Windows 7

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Windows 7 Logo

It was in the mid 2009 that Microsoft had first released The Microsoft Touch Pack for Windows 7 only for OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer).So it was only available to the manufacturers of the Windows Touch capable devices and there was no way you could download add this Touch Pack, if your PC hadn’t already equipped wit it.

But in the last week, Microsoft has this major announcement saying that the new Microsoft Touch Pack for Windows 7 would be publicly available for download making it easier for anyone having a PC with Windows Touch capable devices/ multitouch monitor.

The Microsoft Touch Pack for Windows 7 consists of collection of games and apps (6 free apps) that are exclusively made available to the computers with multi-touch enabled displays and running Windows 7 already.

The Touch Pack Includes:

Microsoft Blackboard,
Microsoft Garden Pond,

Microsoft Rebound,

Microsoft Surface Globe,

Microsoft Surface Collage,
Microsoft Surface Lagoon

Supported OS: Windows 7 Home Premium; Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit; Windows 7 Home Premium E 64-bit; Windows 7 Home Premium N; Windows 7 Home Premium N 64-bit; Windows 7 Professional; Windows 7 Professional 64-bit; Windows 7 Professional E 64-bit; Windows 7 Professional N; Windows 7 Professional N 64-bit; Windows 7 Ultimate; Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit; Windows 7 Ultimate E 64-bit; Windows 7 Ultimate N; Windows 7 Ultimate N 64-bit

Direct Download Link (touch-pack-web.exe – 239.2 MB)

Display Windows 7 Build And Version Number On Desktop

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Windows logo

Users who have earlier used Windows 7 beta test versions, might have observed a watermark on the right extreme of their desktop showing the current Windows 7 version and build number.However this has been removed in the Windows 7 final releases that we have been using right now.

However, to display this sort of watermark on the desktop would actually help the network administrators in troubleshooting the windows errors.This is particularly true if the client is located at a farhter place from the administrator and the administrator wants to know the which version and build of the Windows that the client is using.

There’s a simple registry tweak that makes this display watermark to appear on the Windows 7 desktop right above the task tray.Just follow the simple steps briefed below to apply this trick.

This trick applies to Windows 7, Windows Vista & Windows XP based computers.

Note: Please be cautious that you are going to work on the registry editor, any errant changes to the registry editor would result in a complete mess.Do make a backup of registry editor before starting this.

Steps:

1. Open run dialog box by pressing Windows key + R and type “regedit”, click “OK”.

regedit run command

2. In the registry editor, navigate to the following path:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop

paintDesktopVersion regedit Windows 7

Point to "the key “PaintDesktopVersion” , right click on it and select “Modify” (or alternatively double click on it)

3. Change its DWORD (32-bit) value to “1” instead of “0” and click OK.

paintDesktopVersion regedit Windows 7 change value

4. You may need to restart your system to see the Windows 7 version & build number watermark on your desktop.

windows 7 build info

HP Pavilion DM3-1005AX Entertainment Notebook PC Review Price and Specifications

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hp_logo

The HP Pavilion dm3-1005AX Entertainment Notebook PC is a thin and light laptop featuring AMD Athlon Neo X2 Dual Core Mobile processor with a 13.3 inch High-Definition LED display and weighing only 1.91kg.

HP-Pavilion-dm3-1005ax

Belonging to the ULV(ultra-low voltage processor) computers category, HP Pavilion dm3 has a rich and slim design with fingerprint resistant brushed aluminum screen lid.

hp_dm3_1005ax_light

You can check out the full features and specifications of dm3-1005AX as follows:

Features Description
Operating system Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 32-bit
Processor AMD Turion™ Neo X2 Dual-Core Mobile Processor for Ultrathin Notebooks L625
1.60 GHz, 1 MB L2 Cache, Up to1600 MT/s system bus running at AC/DC mode 18 watt
Memory (RAM) 4096 MB (2 x 2048 MB) DDR2 533 MHz
Hard Disk 500 GB SATA Hard Disk Drive 7200 rpm
Display 13.3” High-Definition HP LED BrightView Widescreen Display
1366 x 768 Screen Resolution
Graphics card ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 4330 Graphics With 512 MB dedicated memory
Ports 4 USB 2.0, 1 HDMI, 1 VGA port, 1 RJ-45, 1 headphone-out, 1 Microphone in
Card Reader 5-in-1 integrated Digital Media Reader for Secure Digital cards, MultiMedia cards, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, or xD Picture cards
Web Cam HP Webcam with Integrated digital Microphone
Speakers Altec Lansing speakers
Touchpad Touch Pad with On/Off button and dedicated vertical Scroll Up/Down pad
Keyboard Full size chicklet keyboard
Connectivity and Networking LAN: Integrated 10/100BASE-T Ethernet LAN
WiFi:    802.11b/g WLAN
Bluetooth® wireless networking
Weight 1.91 kg (Will vary by configuration)
Dimension 32.6 cm (L) x 23.0 cm (W) x 2.43 cm (min H) / 3.13 cm (max H)
Warranty 1 year, parts and labor
Power Supply 65 Watts AC Power Adapter
Battery 6-cell Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion) battery
Color Available Brushed Aluminum

* No internal DVD Drive

hp_dm3_1005ax

But now a days, what we also consider the most other than performance and design is the battery life. The included 6-cell Lithium-Ion battery will have a life of around 1 hour 30 minutes at high performance settings and under high usage. It may last  up to 2.5 hours in power optimized mode and when the usage is low.

Pros:

  • Good performance
  • Thin and light
  • Stylish
  • Value for money

Cons:

  • Low Battery Life
  • Tacky Touchpad

The price of the laptop is $ 1,499 in the US and Rs 44,990(INR) in India. For a slim, good performance, and a stylish design laptop, the ULV HP Pavilion dm3-1005AX can be a right choice at the right price.

How to Remove Alureon rootkit To avoid BSOD Crashes in Windows

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Windows Update

This is a very important note for all the Windows users especially 32-bit, that before installing the security updates that Microsoft Windows had released last week, you check if the malware known as Alureon Rootkit is present or not and remove it using the Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool.  If the malware is present in your system and if you happen to install the security update (KB977165) then there is a high possibility that Windows may crash and it may show only a blue screen during startup (Blue Screen Of Death BSOD).

Alureon Rootkit or Win32/Alureon.gen causes problems with the way Microsoft’s patches interact with the kernel, which has led the company to include a package detection logic that prevents the installation of the security update if the rootkit is present on 32-bit systems.

Windows Crash Reported after installing Security updates:

Windows systems crashed during the latest Microsoft security update last week. According to Microsoft this happened because the systems were infected with a rootkit program that made changes to the operating system kernel and it was not due to the update patches.

“The restarts are the result of modifications the Alureon rootkit makes to Windows Kernel binaries, which places these systems in an unstable state,” Mike Reavey, director of the Microsoft Security Response Center, wrote in a blog post. “In every investigated incident, we have not found quality issues with security update MS10-015.”

Download:

Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool

Remove Alureon rootkit To avoid BSOD Crashes in Windows

Install Portable Antivirus on a USB Flash Drive or an iPod

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clamwin_portable

What will happen if your System is infected with viruses and the Antivirus you had installed failed to protect? In several cases, the virus may also disable any anti virus programs that you may try to run to disinfect.

Can we use a portable anti virus program which is installed in a USB Flash drive to scan our computer? The answer is a definite Yes! This is an easy way to disinfect an infected computer using a USB disk or your iPod.

ClamWin has come up with such an anti virus application. ClamWin Portable is a popular ClamWin antivirus packaged as a portable app, so you can take your antivirus with you to scan files on the go. You can place it on your USB flash drive, iPod, portable hard drive or a CD and use it on any computer, without leaving any personal information behind.

See the details below to install the free anti-virus in your portable USB device.

Requirements:

Windows XP, Vista or 7 Operating System

USB Flash Drive, Disk with Minimum 30MB free space

Step 1: Download ClamWin Portable from the link below:

Size: 6MB

Link: Click here to Download ClamWin Portable 0.95.3

Step 2: Connect your USB device. Then go to the downloaded file. Double click on the exe file.

Step 3: Start the installation process. Select the correct location where the application is to be installed. Then click on Install.

choose_location_clamwin]

Step 4: Now after successfully installing the application, go to the location where you have installed it. Double click on ClamWinPortable.exe to start the application.

start_clamwinportable

Step 5: On first startup it will ask you to download the Virus Definition database. Click on yes.

download_virus_definition_database

Step 6: Now it will download the update. It may take a few minutes. Note that without downloading the database update the anti-virus is useless.

Downloading_update

Step 7: Now you can select the drive to scan.

ClamWin_free_antivirus

Now you can easily disinfect any computer. But make sure that the virus definition database is up to date.