Windows Things…

 

cc attribution: "4 Windows" on Flickr by gmahender

Odds-n-ends for Windows things.

• Enable the secret ‘GodMode’ in Windows 7 –ithinkdifferent.  Spotted in Tweakfest! Enable God Mode in Windows 7  - TechBlog. This pretty cool for admins and heavy system tweakers.  I’ve been using the free utility Windows Access Panel for quick-jumps to commonly-used Windows 7 elements, but this looks mongo-cool.  I set my view to “small icons” after checking out the different views and it is grouped by type (to some degree).  Still, there’s a lot to sort out.  While Vista and Win7 share many of the same feature and setting locations, I’m still learning them after all these years with Vista.  Anything that helps round them up into a more browse-able format is a plus in my book.  Update: See Ed Bott’s take on the tweak and what is really going on.  That "God mode" Explorer trick does less than you think .  I still think its a useful way to find control items as I haven’t mastered the type-search-n-find method quite yet…

• Folder Sharing between Windows 7 and VM – Windows Virtual PC blog – sharing folders isn’t as intuitive under Virtual PC now as it was under Virtual PC 2007.  This post lists two tricks you can easily follow to set up a simple folder sharing connection between your VM and Windows 7 host system.

• Elevation PowerToys for Windows - blog.  There is some really, really cool and powerful stuff in this new-to-me blog.  Elevation PowerToys allow focused rights elevations for specific scenarios and contexts that just don’t quite work smoothly using normal techniques.  For some coolness applications see these links:
  • Explore as Administrator PowerToy  - tool plus tips to set up an elevated file-explorer browser alternative.
  • Free Elevation PowerToys for working with User Account Control – CMD prompt here as System.  Wow.
  • Utility Spotlight: Script Elevation PowerToys for Windows Vista – CMD prompt here as Administrator 

• Virus scanning recommendations for computers that are running Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7 – Microsoft Help and Support Article ID: 822158.  Long title but gist is that by configuring your anti-virus app to exclude these files and locations from scanning you can speed up the scan and possibly avoid corruption as your AV app and the OS fight out over control to these locations/files.  Which means that virus writers now have targeted locations to try to drop their apps into.

• Win7 Library Tool – freeware - Zorn Software. Windows Libraries are like smart folders.  They contain references to other folders and display the content as if it existed in the library folder.  But it’s really not there, it’s still in the original location.  However, you can’t add network locations to a library folder.  This tool makes it possible.  Spotted via Lifehacker post.

• Customize Windows 7 Screensavers with the Help from System Screensavers Tweaker  - freeware - Windows 7 hacker.  Maybe you don’t need a third-party screen saver but you are finding the options for the Windows screen savers a bit lacking.  This free utility allows you to fine-tune the existing Microsoft screen savers for Windows 7 a lot more than the native options allow.  More bubbly anyone?

• How To Sync Your iTunes Library With Your Music Folders – Make Use Of blog clearly sorts out a new iTunes 9 feature of allowing iTunes to manage all your music folders.  Its easier than it looks and this guide makes it pretty clear with great screen shots.

• The (Near) Final Word on Multi-Monitor Taskbars for Windows 7 - Ultramon vs. DisplayFusion – Scott Hanselman’s Computer Zen – Scott does a real-world comparison by a hard-core mulit-monitor user.  I’m running the mentioned 3.0.8 Ultramon beta on my dual-monitor desktop system at home and finding it very smooth and compatible with Windows 7.  Since I already own a license for it, it’s a no-brainer for me. However if I did want a freeware solution, DisplayFusion has much going for it.  As Scott shows, however, neither is perfect.

• Celebrate the Arrival of 2010 with a New Windows 7 Theme! - Windows Experience Blog.

• Desktop Wallpaper Calendar: January 2010 - Smashing Magazine.

• win7utils - Windows 7 ISO Disc Image Utilities. From the developer’s page…   (as spotted via Lifehacker)

The Windows 7 ISO Image Edition Switcher is a set of small binary patches (and a tool to apply these patches) that will convert an official Windows 7 ISO disc image into an official Windows 7 ISO disc image of another edition. The resulting ISO images are bit-for-bit identical with those posted on MSDN or TechNet, and their SHA-1 hashes should match the official hashes posted by Microsoft.

The ei.cfg Removal Utility is a simple tool that will remove the ei.cfg from any Windows 7 ISO disc image, thereby converting the image into a "universal disc" that will prompt the user to select an edition during setup. This tool works by toggling the deletion bit in the UDF file table, eliminating the need for unpacking and rebuilding the ISO, which means that this is extremely fast (the process of patching the ISO to remove ei.cfg takes only a fraction of a second), and the process is easily reversible (running the utility on a disc image patched by this utility will restore the disc image to its original state).

Please note that these won’t allow your Windows Home Premium key to suddenly activate a Windows Ultimate install that you converted your install disk to offer…  Right key for right product version is still required….

• Notepad2 Modifications - Kai Liu (developer of the W7 ISO disk image utility above, also offers a modded version of notepad2.  Not only that, he also has a tool that allows you to swap out the Microsoft Notepad with notepad2 automagically.  It can be done manually but is a royal pain.  This tool offers to make that process a lot easier.

• Open Command Prompt Shell Extension – also offered by Kai Liu.  Like the Elevation PowerToys mentioned above, this autoconfig tool adds the ability to add the “open CMD here” and “open as Admin CMD here” to the right-click menu.  That reminded me of these native tricks as well; Windows 7 Trick: How to Open Command Prompt in Your Current Directory by a Single KeyStroke and Copy Path of a File to the Clipboard in Windows 7 or Vista.  The secret to get these to open on demand?  No, no “Alohomora” required.  Just hold down the “Shift” key when right-clicking and these options appear.

• Microsoft prepares Windows 7 for external SP1 testing - Within Windows – Rafael Rivera uncovers evidence that Win7 systems are being seeded for qualification testing of the Win7 SP1 beta.  Per the post:

Similar to previous external beta service pack rollouts, Microsoft has enabled – via updates you already installed – a beta ‘candidacy check’ within its Windows Update software. Just like Windows Vista, a registry key and value pair need to be added prior to being authorized to download the new software.

Lots of coolness here.  Just be careful how you apply the power!

--Claus V.