Tech Pedia » Windows

Windows 7 goes a Notch Above Windows Vista

Abhinav Kaiser — Tue, 04 May 2010 17:24:36 +0000

A quarter has ended a month back and results have started to pour in. For Microsoft, it’s good news all the way. Their latest operating system Windows 7 has exceeded its predecessor, Windows Vista. When a child passes another child, the parent is the most happiest, she has nothing to lose, Microsoft is in this position.

A paid research by Janco Assocoiates, a management consulting firm has published that Windows 7 holds a share of 14.8% in the market while Vista is hovering at around 6%. Remember, Windows 7 was launched just seven months back. It was announced on the back Microsoft’s biggest disappointment – Vista. And, for this product to rise so quickly speaks volumes of the work that has gone in.

Janco CEO Victor Janulaitis said in a press statement – “There are now more users of Windows 7 than Vista. That is a major factor in their improved record earnings. The last OS that was accepted as quickly in the market was XP. Vista’s market share has peaked and is in the process of being decommissioned in most enterprises.”

“The last six months have been a mixed bag for Microsoft. While they have good news on the OS front, their browser market share has fallen to the level that it was in 1998.”

Meanwhile, the browser market is giving the headaches to Microsoft. Internet Explorer continues to slide and has lost 3.7% of its market share. Mozilla Firefox is steadily climbing and is at 17.8%, although the rate of increase is a disappointment of sorts for open source supporters such as me. Google (Chrome and Google Desktop) has stolen some of the market from Firefox and sits pretty at a 5.4% of the share.

Here are the top 5 players in the browser market :

- Microsoft IE : 67.73%
- Mozilla Firefox : 17.88%
- Google (Desktop & Chrome) : 5.40%
- Mozilla Browser : 1.36%
- Safari : 0.98%

It is surprising to see that other browsers that had previously made a name for itself, Opera and Flock, are quite extinct.

90 percent of Windows 7 flaws fixed by removing admin rights

Anuroop Kaiser — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 13:08:40 +0000

After tabulating all the vulnerabilities published in Microsoft’s 2009 Security Bulletins, it turns out 90 percent of the vulnerabilities can be mitigated by configuring users to operate without administrator rights, according to a report by BeyondTrust. As for the published Windows 7 vulnerabilities through March 2010, 57 percent are no longer applicable after removing administrator rights. By comparison, Windows 2000 is at 53 percent, Windows XP is at 62 percent, Windows Server 2003 is at 55 percent, Windows Vista is at 54 percent, and Windows Server 2008 is at 53 percent. The two biggest exploited Microsoft applications also fare well: 100 percent of Microsoft Office flaws and 94 percent of Internet Explorer flaws (and 100 percent of IE8 flaws) no longer work.

This is good news for IT departments because it means they can significantly reduce the risk of a security breach by configuring the operating system for standard users rather than administrator. Despite unpredictable and evolving attacks, companies can very easily protect themselves or at least reduce the effects of a newly discovered threat, as long as they’re ok with their users not installing software or using many applications that require elevated privileges.

In total, 64 percent of all Microsoft vulnerabilities reported last year are mitigated by removing administrator rights. That number increases to 81 percent if you only consider security issues marked Critical, the highest rating Redmond gives out, and goes even higher to 87 percent if you look at just Remote Code Execution flaws. Microsoft published 74 Security Bulletins in 2009, spanning around 160 vulnerabilities (133 of those were for Microsoft operating systems). The report, linked below, has a list of all of them, which software they affect, and which ones are mitigated by removing admin rights.

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Microsoft Morro Antivirus vs Premium Anti-Virus Packages

Om — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 21:56:45 +0000

Microsoft Corporation has started providing a new consumer security solution in form of Microsoft Morro antivirus that is focused on the protection of core anti-malware for addressing the necessity of a solution for the security of PCs, in accordance with the demands of the emerging markets, fast increase of the everyday increasing malware & Trojans, and the smaller PC form factors.

Microsoft Morro Antivirus

Microsoft Morro Antivirus vs Other Premium Anti-Virus Solutions
Free and Microsoft? Sounds too good to be true, right? Well, Microsoft Morro Antivirus is the codename given to this antivirus from the house of Microsoft Corporation that matches the capabilities of Avira, Norton, MacAfee, and the likes of them. Comprehensive protection is offered by Microsoft Morro from malware, Trojans, root kits, spyware and viruses.

The users are being protected from the online world that is full of malicious stuff. It is the best solution for the less powerful PCs, making such PCs ideal for the scenarios involving low bandwidth and it’s designed for the smaller footprint PCs. No charge has been taken from the customers for this recent solution offered by Microsoft.

The design of this antivirus was done by the concern of the customers of Microsoft across the world to have an ongoing and comprehensive protection from the latest viruses, Trojans and also already existing malwares.

The free antivirus, Morro has brought a good number of customers to Microsoft mainly from the areas where people had stopped buying PCs because of the malware’s growth. Morro was built on the engine of an award winning malware protection. Morro takes the advantage of the same technology of the core anti-malware.

It had been awarded with the Checkmark Certification from west Coast labs , Award of VB100 from Virus Bulletin, and also got a certification from International Computer Security Association Labs. Same kind of very effective protection against the malware by the new solution as it was provided by the solutions of Microsoft enterprise.

The first software with all kinds of packages launched in the market of technology was Windows Live one care. It has many other features like the automated PC tune-up and printer sharing that are of no security. Morro has the capability of providing the important features according to the need of the users without the systems resources overuse. Better protection from the online threats is the advantage of Morro antivirus.

Where to Find Microsoft Morro Antivirus?

Standalone download of MS Morro is available online, and it provides the protection from malware & Trojans to all the current operating systems including Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP.

When MS Morro is used, it connects to the primary enhancements and the ongoing security of Windows as well as the Internet Explorer. A free and robust security solution was recently offered to the customers that helped in protecting the PCs from numerous threats online.

When Morro was being made available in the market the direct sales of Windows Live One care were phased out. Internal testing was done on this free antivirus service of Microsoft, and there is still a large scope of improvement in the current version of Microsoft Morro, nevertheless it provides excellent PC protection that too without spending even a penny!

How to Run Windows Movie Maker in Windows 7?

Om — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:28:40 +0000

Microsoft’s Windows Movie Maker in Windows 7 isn’t too easy to run in Windows 7, due to lack of its availability on the Windows 7 Operating System, unlike Windows XP, and Windows Vista; here’s a guide to run Microsoft’s Windows Movie Maker on Windows 7

Windows Movie Maker for Windows 7

Microsoft recommends downloading the latest Windows Live Suite, which includes Windows Live Movie Maker (WLMM) for Windows 7.

Microsoft Windows Movie Maker

Experienced users will want to continue with what they’ve become accustomed to, but Microsoft has turned deaf regarding requests for integrating Windows Movie Maker in Windows 7.

Windows Movie Maker in Windows 7

However, it is noteworthy that special Vista edition MM2.6 is found to download, install, and work perfectly fine for Windows 7 Operating System as well.

Importing Videos With Windows Movie Maker in Windows 7

Apart from latest version of Windows Movie Maker, the Windows Live Suite also presents you with a video import wizard for connecting Digital Camcorder or mini-DV via firewire.

More so, MM1 and MM2.1 can also capture video in Windows 7 from my mini-DV camcorder via firewire.

Imported video clips can be found in Windows Live Photo Gallery or inserted into collections of the classic versions of the Windows Movie Maker.

Running Multiple Versions of Windows Movie Maker in Windows 7 or Windows Vista

Basically installing Windows Movie Maker in Windows Vista is pretty much straightforward, and we’ve seen what it takes to actually run Windows Movie Maker on Windows 7 Operating System.

However, it is even possible to run multiple versions of Windows Movie Maker in Windows 7 too.

Making Video Clips from Still Pictures in Windows Movie Maker

For creating neat Ken Burns style video clips from still pictures, Photo Story 3 is probably one of the best bets. Initially, it was developed for XP, and then the trend continued for Windows Vista and finally Windows 7.

Video clips created from these pictures can be even used in Windows Live Movie Maker or classic Movie Maker projects.

Note: You may have problems in installing Photo Story 3 on the final Windows 7 release copy. However, Microsoft has tweaked around to fix this issue.

In a Nutshell

Windows Movie Maker has been one of the hot favorites amongst the digital video editing apps. Running Microsoft Windows Movie Maker in Windows 7 may not be pretty easy, and there are a number of other software available for the advanced level users.

But, if you still wish to get a copy of Windows Movie Maker for Windows 7, you can download WLMM here

Tweaks to Speed up Windows 7

Om — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 12:04:13 +0000

By default, the performance of Windows 7 Operating System isn’t really optimized. A lot can be done to speed up Windows 7 with the help of just few simple tweaks. So, let us take a look at some of them.

Windows 7 Tweaks

Tweak 1 – Disabling the User Account Control in Windows 7:

Steps to be followed are stated below -

- Open Control Panel. Then go to ‘User accounts and family safety’ option. Thereby user account
- Then click on the link of user account control settings
- Select the option ‘never notify’
- Click on OK and restart the PC

Tweak 2: Ready Boost Service

- For configuring the ready boost service a flash drive is required.
- After the USB is loaded open Computer, then right click on the USB Drive, then select the tab ready boost and check the box beside the option ‘use this device’
- USB of any size can be used for this service and that total size will used as RAM to the PC.
- This feature of ready boost in windows helps in using the USB drive as a RAM.

Tweak 3: Disabling the ‘Gadgets Bar’ in Windows 7

- Right click on the gadgets bar, and then select properties.
- After the properties window opens then uncheck the box ‘start sidebar when windows starts’
- Thereby the gadgets bar won’t be seen when Windows 7 start-up next time.

Tweak 4: Defragment the Registry Entries of Windows 7

Defragmentation of the registry of Windows 7 can increase the speed and performance of Windows 7 to a great extent. Similar to the need of defragmentation for hard disk, even the registry-defrag is extremely resourceful.

‘Registry defrag’ is a standard option in Windows 7 Operating System to remove the fragmentations thereby speeding up the access to registry and the response of the program. There are also many free software available for the defragmentation of the registry, which safely perform the registry defragmentation operation.

Most Unusual Error during Windows XP Installation

Weston Campbell — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 01:53:49 +0000

After sifting through a few error messages, we nominated this gem for the most unusual error message:

“Error Message: An unexpected error has occurred. (536821760) occurred at line 1768 in D:\xpclient \base\boot\setup\arcdisp.c”

This error message gives us absolutely no clue as to what is causing the problem. Fortunately, the Microsoft Knowledge Base does have an answer:

What’s triggering this error message is a problem with our computer’s memory, specifically a damaged memory module or a damaged memory slot (the physical area in the motherboard where memory modules are inserted.

We can’t understand why Microsoft’s Windows developers can’t simply say that a problem exists with one of your memory modules. That approach would at least point you in the right troubleshooting direction.

Step-by-Step Guide to Network XP to Vista Printer

Om — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 18:35:50 +0000

If you’re facing problems to network XP PC to a Windows Vista powered machine, connected with a network printer, here’s a quick guide explaining all the steps to be followed. Learn how to network XP to Vista printer on-the-fly in 10 easy steps!

Before You Start

The following steps are listed assuming that you’ve a new laptop with Windows Vista installed, connected to an 802.11g wireless network with other PC’s running on XP SP2.

Note: Before you try to proceed, you should ping to/from all PC’s to others so as to ensure that the network connectivity is fine.

10 Easy Steps to Network XP to Vista Printer

Here are the 10 simple steps to be followed -

1. Unplug your USB cable from the Windows XP powered PC

2. Plug-in USB cable of printer into your Windows Vista PC

3. Plug-in the printer to power supply and wait for the printer driver installation to get triggered on the Vista machine.

Note: Vista machine can automatically download the latest driver, but same is not the case with Windows XP systems. As such, you may have to explicitly download the latest driver on XP system(s) if you try to use these instructions when dealing with XP systems.

- Ideally your printer will be installed on your Windows Vista PC.

In case, there are any problems encountered during this step, you can download the Windows Vista printer driver for your printer from manufacturer’s website. Next, you will have to install the driver on your Windows Vista PC. During installation, when you’re prompted to connect the printer to your PC, you must choose the option to “Proceed with installation without connecting the printer”.

4. This should do the trick and now you’re ready to click on the Printers icon, which can be found on the Control Panel of your system.

5. Right-click on the printer you’ve recently installed

6. Click on Properties and navigate to Ports tab.

7. Click Add Port >Local Port>click New Port.

8. Now, you should see slots to enter Port Name, share name and network path of your printer – fill these carefully and Click OK.

For instance – \\HOMEPC\MyPrinter

Note: You must ensure that this new port has a check ticket against its name in the corresponding checkbox.

9. Now simply Click Apply > OK > Close

You’re now all set to print from your Windows Vista PC and shared printer.

Note: When sharing printers or even simple files, you need different user names, and both PC’s CAN NOT work with same user ID and password set.

You may need to follow this last step, in few cases, so it has been listed out separately.

Ensuring that Both Systems are Using the Same TCP/IPv Version

If you have problems to make Vista to network with XP, you may have to follow this additional step to ensure that both systems are using same TCP/IPv version to establish connectivity.

Click Start > Network > Network and Sharing Center > Manage Network Connections

Right-click on the connection you are using (which is LAN in most cases) > TCP/IPv4 > Advanced button > WINS tab > Enable NetBIOS Over TCP/IP button > OK

Note: By default Vista uses TCP/IPv6, while XP uses TCP/IPv4

Microsoft Word Not Responding: Here’s Some Help!

Om — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:26:00 +0000

Are you sick of looking at the “Microsoft word not responding” error? Well, there may be several reasons behind the same – so here’s an insight to the problem and its possible remedies.

The frequent MS Word users must have come across the disgusting error message Microsoft Word not responding, and seen the hour glass several times, as MS Word gets hanged and when you try to click close button, it crashes off.

Sure thing, MS Word (All versions after 2000) is extremely stable, but many a times, the third party applications may be the culprit behind unexpected crashing of MS word.

Therefore, the very first thing that you should do is to identify any add-on third party app that you might be using in sync with MS Word. To do so, you can start Word in safe mode and then turn off these third party add-ons, and reboot your system to check the outcome.

Here’s how you can start MS Office suite in user-initiated safe mode –

Click Start >> point to All Programs >> Microsoft Office >> Press and hold the CTRL key >> click on MS Word (or any Microsoft Office program that you want to run).

Once you’re done with disabling the third party add-ons, you can exit the program to stop User-Initiated Safe mode, and you’re good to proceed normally.

Windows 7 Installation Problems – During Expanding Files

Abhinav Kaiser — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:05:02 +0000

I have received numerous mails over the past few days regarding Windows 7 installation problems people face, mainly on laptops. I decided to try it out for myself and guess what, my installation got stuck at 69% during the expanding files process. I have an Acer Aspire 5738, 4 GB RAM and Core 2 Duo T6600.

I tried a few permutations and combinations to make it work by burning the image on a different DVD at a different speed and unplugging my external hard drive, internet amongst others. None worked!

There was no DVD drive activity nor there was any from my hard drive when the installation froze. It occurred to me that if I eliminate one of the two media, things might just work. And, yes it did, logically eliminating the optical media :). Here’s how I did it and it works:

1. Before you decide to start the installation process, copy the contents of your Windows 7 disk onto your C drive, say C:\Windows7

2. You will need a console to run the setup file manually. So, if you have Vista installation disc, it would come in handy, else, you could download one from the Microsoft website. Windows PE 2.0, acts as a booting interface through which you can run programs through the Command Prompt. Using the repair option in Vista recovery console, you can run the setup file alternatively as well.

3. Boot to you PE 2.0 disc -> Command Prompt or the Vista disc -> Repair -> Command Prompt. Browse to C:\Windows7\Sources\setup.exe. This should fire your installation and in all probability should complete smoothly.

Let me know if you face issues while carrying out any of the activities that I recommend here.

A Look at Windows 7 Versions

Weston Campbell — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:11:53 +0000

When you begin to delve into details about how Windows 7 works, the discussion can quickly become complicated The primary reason for confusion is because the operating system is actually distributed and sold in multiple editions. Compared to Windows Vista, the lineup of available editions is less complicated, but you can still get tripped up if you read about an advanced feature and don’t realize that it’s missing from your edition How can you tell which Windows 7 edition is installed on your PC? The easiest way is to look at the top of the System applet in Control Panel—click System in Control Panel; right-click the Computer icon on the Start menu and then click Properties; or use the keyboard shortcut Windows logo key+Break Under the Windows Edition heading, you will see the current installed edition.

Let’s take a look at the three Windows 7 editions you are most likely to encounter on a mainstream home or business PC:

● Windows 7 Home Premium : This is the edition you are most likely to find installed on a new PC in the computer section at your local warehouse store or consumer electronics specialist It includes roughly the same mix of features as its predecessor, Windows Vista Home Premium
● Windows 7 Professional – This edition is the successor to Windows Vista Business and incorporates the same features as that operating system, notably advanced networking features that work with networks based on the Windows Server family In a noteworthy change, however, Windows 7 Professional is a superset of Home Premium and thus includes all features (including Windows Media Center) found in the lesser edition
● Windows 7 Ultimate and Windows 7 Enterprise – These editions are essentially identical, with the names refecting the sales channel of each: Ultimate is available on retail and original equipment manufacturer (OEM) editions; Enterprise is distributed only to large customers who buy volume licenses of Windows This edition contains all features found in the Home Premium and Professional editions plus some advanced networking features, BitLocker encryption, and support for multiple languages

All of these editions are available in x86 (32-bit) and x64 (64-bit) options. The 64-bit Windows is still a fairly exotic choice for most Windows users. Within just a few years, thanks in no small measure to the plummeting price of memory chips, that balance will shift gradually. People are now trying out and getting comfortable with the idea of running a 64 bit operating system, especially on systems with 4 GB or more of RAM.