April 2009

XP not dead yet – The XP Mode in Windows 7 RC

April 27, 2009 11:48 am by Jal

Well, out came the Windows 7 RC (build 7100) and XP is back to life from the ashes. The Release Candidate version superbly boasts about its virtualization technology by introducing the XP Mode in Windows 7 RC. [What is virtualization technology?]

According to Rivera, in order to use XP mode on Windows 7 requires processor-based virtualization support (in Intel and AMD processors) to be present and enabled on the PC. This feature is available free of cost as of now with the RC version. The final version of Windows 7 will not provide this feature out of the box. One will have to download it from the Microsoft website. Needless to say, now users can run applications in XP mode along with Windows 7.

XP Mode in action

A pretty smart move by Microsoft by introducing the aging Windows XP in a new avatar. They have seen the criticism when Vista rolled out. Vista never looked good against its predecessor even though it was. I think Microsoft is in a huge mission to wipe off Vista from its timeline by introducing the XP Mode in Windows 7.

Technorati Tags: microsoft,virtualization,windows 7,xp mode,windows 7 RC

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Go Green with Microsoft

April 24, 2009 1:36 am by Jal

Recently visited Microsoft website and was greeted with a huge banner asking me “How green is your PC?”. I clicked the banner and found out that Microsoft has taken some really good strides to make the tech world aware of the increasing pollution and the methods to curb it down. On the event of Earth Day, Microsoft tells about how they’ll innovate to improve the warming planet. “Our goals are to reduce the impact of our operations and products and to be a leader in environmental responsibility.” says the home page.

With Windows 7 just around the corner, there is no way Microsoft won’t make it a point to describe how ‘environment friendly’ Windows 7 is! As a matter of fact it truly is! With superbly awesome Power Management methods incorporated within Windows 7, the users will indirectly help the environment by efficiently consuming power by using Windows 7. Learn how Windows 7 is environment friendly.

One more thing that attracted my attention was that a link was provided on the Microsoft website redirecting to the Verdiem.com where one can download a small energy-monitoring application called ‘Edison’ which will analyze your PC and tell you how environment friendly your PC is. That’s some innovation right there! Download Edison.

Apart from this, in order to make a wider impact, Microsoft has promoted its campaign on its Blog, Twitter and YouTube. Project 2 degrees is also an innovative approach whereby one can accurately monitor, compare and reduce greenhouse gas emissions of different cities. Learn more about Project 2 degrees.

Technorati Tags: go green,microsoft,environment friendly,windows 7,edison

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Windows 7: Fix BSOD crash after latest Windows update

April 18, 2009 19:37 pm by Jal

Lot of users have been facing this including me. If you have turned on automatic updates on Windows 7 then recently you might have gone through a head-aching BSOD problem which occur right after start up. Possibilities are that you also must be using Kaspersky Antivirus on Windows 7 which is a reason of conflict with the latest Windows 7 update. The solution is simple.

1) Start your computer and tap F8 key until you get the menu from where you can select boot options. Select ‘Safe Mode’.

2) Once booted, click ‘Start’ button and start typing ‘msconfig’ and hit ‘Enter’. A utility will open up.

3) Click the ‘Startup’ tab and disable all entries that correspond to Kaspersky Antivirus. Close the ‘msconfig’ utility. Restart normally.

4) To avoid conflicts, de-install Kaspersky and install any other antivirus. Alternatively, you can set Kaspersky not to launch at start-up.

Technorati Tags: fix bsod in windows 7,bsod in windows 7,windows update crash,windows 7

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Add ‘Turn off monitor’ option in desktop context menu

April 2, 2009 23:09 pm by Jal

Say you have started a process which you are sure will continue for couple of hours on your computer like converting a movie file, uploading/downloading a large file, a scheduled task etc. Now if you are using a desktop computer then you would just turn off the monitor to save power. What if you own a laptop? There are options in the battery settings when to turn off your monitor automatically. But then, what if you want to turn it off manually when you wish and get it back on with slightly moving your mouse. The easiest option available is to make an entry like “Turn OFF Monitor” in your desktop context menu. Well, there is one really small utility that does precisely that. WinFlog eXtreme. Download it. It is just an executable so you don’t even have to install it. Just run WinFlog.exe and you are ready to customize the options.

Click on the tick-mark against the ‘Turn OFF Monitor’ option in the Desktop/Explorer Right Click Menu tab. This will put a new entry named ‘Turn OFF Monitor’ in your desktop context menu. Something like this:

That’s it. Now whenever you need to turn off the monitor of your computer, just right click on desktop and click the ‘Turn OFF Monitor’. As you can see, in WinFlog eXtreme, there are other options available too. Tweak them according to your preferences.

Technorati Tags: tweaks,turn off monitor,desktop context menu

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