Normally if you want to watch digital TV in more than one room, you need to pay for multiple set-top boxes or build multiple media center PCs each with their own separate TV cards.

More hardware is usually needed if you want to stream live TV to another location or to your phone.  With DVBlink you can not only add these capabilities and more, but better still, it only costs 40 Euros.

With DVBlink, one Windows 7 media center PC can act as a server and any TV tuners in this machine can be shared with other Windows 7 PCs either via Windows 7 Media Center or Windows Media player, and the live TV stream can also be  viewed by any web browser, including mobile phone browsers.  The diagram below best shows how DVBlogic works:

In my DVBlogic setup, I have my main W7MC (depicted on the left) connected to my main TV.  Inside I have 4 DVB S2 cards (Hauppauge WinTV-Nova-HD-S2) cards, that allow me to watch and record up to four channels at a time (in the latest version of DVBlogic, W7MC’s limit of 4 tv cards is removed and up to 8 cards can be utilised by one machine).

DVBlogic allows me to share these cards with the devices on the right i.e. other PCs, mobiles, tablets, UPNP enabled devices like Playstation 3s – whatever.   Virtual tuners are also created for other PCs, so they can schedule their own recordings. The software uses smart tuner sharing, so if two or more devices are watching say the Discovery HD channel, then only one tuner is used rather than two or more.

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Adding DVBlink has allowed me to significantly reduce my satellite TV costs.  In my home I have 4 media center PCs and using DVBlink has allowed me to do away with 3 additional set-top boxs and also the additional Sky multi-room fee – that’s nearly £600 for the extra 3 set-top boxes and £125/pa for the multiroom service.  For just over £300 I have 4 TV cards and the ability to watch TV wherever I want at anytime.

If you’re a Windows Phone 7  user, yopu can also download TW TeeVee that allows you to watch live TV on your handset.

More: DVblogic, TW TeeVee

DVBLink: Share Your TV Cards Between PCs and Online is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

My main codec solution for Windows 7 for around the last 6-12 months has been centered around the Shark007 codec pack.  However, I’m now using TMT5 to play my mkv files because it now includes full subtitle support, so my need for a ‘bloated’ codec windows 7 codec pack has been diminished.

After reviewing my codec needs I realised that the only codec support I was missing was FLAC; Windows 7 supports its own lossless WMA format but not other loseless audio formats.   Read below how I added FLAC support to Windows 7 and Windows 7 Media Center.

Stage I – Install Additional Software

1. Install the madFlac decoder: Windows 32bit users need to install just the 32 bit codecs.  Windows 64bit users need to install the 32bit version AND the 64bit codecs.  This is needed to play flac files
2. Install Softpointer tag plugin: This plugin adds tag support to M4a/Flac/Ogg/Ape/Mpc files.  Without it you won’t see any track information or artwork when your files play

Windows 7 X86 Madflac Decoders

Download Windows 7 X64 Madflac Decoders

Download  Flac Tag Support Plugin

Download

Stage II – Prepare Windows Media Player and Windows 7 Media Center

How To Play Flac Files In Windows 7 is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Windows 7 improved the out of the box media codec situation over Windows Vista, but things aren’t quite perfect with average support for MKV files and no Blu-ray support.  To get the perfect Windows 7 Media Center codec support required a bit of fiddling and crossing fingers, particularly when it came to supporting MKV files.

Although codec packs like Shark007 improve W7MC MKV support, they still leave a bit of a blackhole when it comes to providing an easy way to change language or subtitle streams when playing MKV file, relying on buggy 3rd party addons like the Media Control plugin which works sporadically.  Skipping and fast-forwarding MKV files within W7MC is also difficult using these apps – fast-forwarding and rewinding doesn’t work, and skip forward or backwards too quickly and W7MC will crash.

Last week W7MC Arcsoft upgraded their TotalMedia Theatre 5 suite with the 5.0.1.133 patch which improved its MKV capabilities to include support for multiple audio tracks, and support for standard and VobSub subtitles in MKV.  This is brilliant news as finally there’s a way to easily play MKV files in W7MC, that also passes the WAF test.

Now, unfortunately TMT5 is quite pricey at $99.99 but it is the best media player and in tandem with My Movies 4, it will provide the ultimate W7MC experience without having to spend hours if not weeks configuring codecs:

• Play any media file smoothly
• Full HD and 3D support – including full MKV support
• Play blu-ray discs (and with My Movies play blu-ray rips on hard drives)
• Play any 2D Video or Photo in 3D
• Upscale SD content with SimHD

ArcSoft TMT5 Improves Windows 7 Media Center MKV Support is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

One not very well promoted tool within Windows 7 is the System File Checker (SFC).  This tool will scan your PC and if any system files are corrupt or have changed, it retrieves the correct version of the file i.e. the tool can be used to repair damaged, corrupt and unusable system files.

Your PC can appear to be running correctly but still have damaged files e.g. my main Windows 7 Media Center was running fine, but I did notice it was taking longer than usual to start.  Running the System File Checker quickly identified that a number of files were damaged, and these were fixed at the next boot.  Running the System File Checker as part of a regular maintainance routine will keep your Windows 7 machine running at optimum levels.

How To Run SFC In Windows 7

1. Go to your Start Menu and type in ‘cmd’.  Right-click on the link that appears and select ‘Run as Administrator’ to start an elevated command prompt
2. In the command prompt window type in ‘sfc /scannow‘ and click enter.

if you want to view what changes have been made, then you might need to take ownership of the log file in order to open it.

How To Repair Windows 7 System Files With System File Checker is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Have you ever noticed how your PC never has the correct time?  Are you always late for meetings, or does your Windows 7 Media Center always miss the start or end of recordings?

This is because the Windows 7 Clock out of the box uses the Microsoft time server, which is rarely correct, and also because the inbuilt Windows task runs in a very silly way.

Fixing your Windows Clock is simple.  Just follow the instructions in these two posts:

1. Change your time server
2. Create a new windows time scheduled task to synchronize time daily

Make Windows Time More Accurate is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Regular readers will have noticed that many changes were made to the site in June.  The key focus was on improving the speed and usability of the site, and we think we’ve made significant progress there with pages no longer taking an eternity to load.

Other changes made include better integration of social network sharing buttons.  Since adding the buttons it’s made us realise how poor a job we’ve done in the past of making it easy for readers to share our site with friends, given our low our Facebook like number, Google+1 and Twitter metrics are.  Not surprising though when we didn’t have any buttons on our site, even though literally millions of users have visited this site since its creation!

To make it easier for readers to connect with the Windows 7 Team, we’d like to point out the best ways to follow our updates.

Subscribe

To receive updates when a new post is submitted, you can subscribe via RSS, Twitter or join or Facebook Fan page.

Show Your Appreciation

Let your friends know that you’re a fan of Windows 7 by clicking on the Facebook Like or Google+1 button at the top of the right sidebar.

Join Our Forums

We now have two forums where you can talk to other Windows 7 readers – very useful if you want to get Windows 7 Help or Windows 8 Help once the Windows 8 testing program starts.

Contacting The Team

To talk to any member of the team, then visit this page.

How To Follow Windows 7 News & Tips is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Microsoft have just released an Age of Empires Online Windows 7 Theme and Wallpapers, to support the launch of of the next installment in the popular game series on Aug 16th.

The Windows 7 Theme consists of 14 high res Windows 7 Wallpapers and other theme customisations.

You can check out the wallpapers in the theme in our gallery below.  Full res versions of the wallpapers can be download in our Download Center, as well as the full Age of Empires Online Windows 7 Theme.

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Age of Empires Online Windows 7 Theme

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Age of Empires Online Windows 7 Wallpapers

Download

This theme release brought back some happy memories for me, as the last computer game that I played seriously was Age of Empires II, and I spent far too many hours playing online against other players around the globe on the Microsoft Zone service.

Some of my old zone names were Knight38_Binson, Vulture_Foster, Digital_Toomuch and SIN_XenJi  - anybody remember me?

Age of Empires Online Windows 7 Theme & Wallpapers is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Want to get Windows 8 on your Windows 7 PC now?  You’ve got to wait at least another year for Windows 8 to be released before you can buy Windows 8.

But if you want to make your machine look like it’s running Windows 8, you can install a Windows 8 skin. Over on our sister site Windows 8 News, we’ve just reviewed three free applications that will give you a Windows 8 look on your Windows 7 desktop.

Read more here.

Download Windows 8 Skins is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Windows 7 News & Tips has a very talented team of writers, but we’re still interested in supporting other writers and we’re now opening up the site to guest writers.  If you’e interested in writing the occasional post then read on!

To become a guest writer you preferably need to have some previous writing experience, or your own blog.  This isn’t essential, and maybe you just want to write a one-off post about a topic close to your heart or based on your personal experiences of using Windows 7.

If you are a blogger then writing guest posts is a good way to reach out to new readers, and to potentially get experience of writing for sites with a big audience like this one.

Want to give it a try?  Then please read our Guest Post Guidelines.

Want To Be A Guest Writer? Apply Now! is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Tidy up your Windows 7 Start Menu by pinning folders.  This isn’t supported by default in Windows 7, but you add pin folders support to Windows 7 in just two clicks.

This tweak also works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7:

• Click Start, Run and type regedit.exe
• Go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT \ Folder \ shellex \ ContextMenuHandlers and Create a new key (copy everything inside the quotes) ’{a2a9545d-a0c2-42b4-9708-a0b2badd77c8}’ with no value
• To disable, go back and delete this key

If you’re too lazy to do this, then download this file which will add or remove the reghack in two clicks.

Now, to pin a folder just hold down the Shift key and then right-click on the desired folder.

How To Pin Folders To Windows 7 Start Menu is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

We’ve just received some screenshots from a reader of Windows 8 Build 7989 running on a tablet pc, along with the new Metro UI.

To check out the latest screenshots of Windows 8, head on over to Windows 8 News now.

Windows 8 Build 7989 Screenshots +Metro UI is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

The team behind Remote Potato have pushed out a major update this month.  For those of you unfamiliar with Remote Potato, the original version allowed Windows 7 Media Center users to stream recorded tv over the internet.

Now, Remote Potato v1.0 has added a number of features, including the ability to stream music, photos and videos over the internet.

New features in Remote Potato V1.0 include:

• Fully seekable video streaming in new, ultra-high quality H264.
• Stream your pictures / videos / music – all major formats supported.
• Remote Control, Slideshow, Music, Series Record Options – and more.
• Server now runs on Windows XP / Vista / Windows 7 : stream your stuff from any PC!*
• Mobile Apps available for iPhone / Android / Windows Phone 7

Below is a video of Remote Potato in action in a web browser:

I’ve just tried out the new version and I was particularly impressed with the music and video streaming on my iPhone.  I particularly liked that the music track that was currently playing continued to play whilst I browsed the rest of my library, and added more tracks to the playlist.  The photo browsing is ultrafast; faster than any other photo server service I’ve tried on my iPhone.

One feature that is missing is the ability to add custom media folders to the Remote Potato library; the app automatically adds only folders that are within the Windows 7 Media Center database.  So, if you have any other folders with content you’d like to stream then these won’t work.

To read more about Remote Potato V1.0, click here.

Remote Potato V1.0 Launched: Stream Pictures, Videos and Music From Your Home PC is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

We’re obviously big fans of Windows 7 on this site, but that doesn’t mean that we are anti anything not from Microsoft.  In fact, I own both an iPhone 4 and an iPad – shock, horror!

In honour of other great products out there, we’d like to bring to your attention a great Windows 7 Theme based on Android from Google.  This theme consists of over 25 Android based wallpapers, and also includes custom android icons and sounds.

You are here: Unofficial Wallpapers & Themes | Windows 7 Android Theme

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Android Windows 7 Theme

Download

Windows 7 Android Wallpapers

Download

Source: Vikitech

Android Theme For Windows 7 is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

I imagine that many readers of this blog are the unofficial network administrators in their household, taking on responsibility for making sure that all machines are functioning correctly. If like me this applies to you, then this tweak is an essential one.

Window 7′s default behaviour is to only allow one user to actively use a computer at once; as soon as another user wants to use the machine or connects via Remote Desktop, the first user is booted off.  Enabling Concurrent Sessions allows multiple users to use the same PC at the same time, or the same user to be logged on more than once i.e. this allows a second user to log into a machine via Remote Desktop without the person sitting at the machine being booted off or even noticing, or allows the same user account to be logged in multiple times. For example, I use this tweak to remotely connect to the other PCs and Windows 7 Media Centers in my home to make changes, tweaks and updates without interrupting the current user of the machine e.g. this could be someone watching a TV show who would be very annoyed if it were replaced with the Windows login screen….

Enabling Concurrent Sessions in Windows 7 is easy thanks to a patch that has been created, which has been updated to work with Windows 7 SP1.

Installation Instructions For Concurrent Sessions

1. First, Download this file
2. Once downloaded, extract the files into a directory (for the purposes of this guide, it will be assumed that the files have been extracted to the folder C:\Win7RDP )
3. Open Windows Explorer to the above folder
4. Right Click on “install.cmd” and select “Run as Administrator”
5. Wait for the script to run entirely. At the end, you should see something similar to the image below…

Installation Instructions For Multiple Concurrent Sessions

1. Launch a Command Prompt with Administrator priveleges (Start > CMD > Right Click > Run as Administrator)
2. At the C:\Windows\System32 prompt type “cd\Win7RDP”
3. You should now be at the prompt C:\Win7RDP>
4. At the prompt, type: install multi

Thanks to Missing Remote for creating the patch.

Enable Concurrent Sessions On Windows 7 is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Windows 7 Media Center is one of the hidden gems within Windows 7.  With a few tweaks this program can do everything you need and can replace every other piece of AV connected to your PC e.g. set-top boxes, DVDs, Blu-ray players etc.

Every bedroom in my apartment and my living room has a Windows 7 Media Center machine – here are 12 Essential Windows 7 Media Center Addons that get the most out of W7MC.

1 – DVBLogic TVSource & Network Pack

Allows you to share or ‘pool’ TV cards installed in one W7MC machine not only with other W7MC machines, so that you can watch live tv on every Windows 7 machine within your home.  As a bonus, live tv from your W7MC can also be streamed online via a browser and can be watched on iPhones and iPads.  Read a full review here.

More: DVBlogic

2 – My Movies

Probably one of the most advanced W7MC addons.  My Movies contains collection management tools for both movies and now also TV shows, that pulls in rich metadata about the films and tv shows in your collection.  This metadata is then presented within MediaCenter in a fantastic interface that allows the easy selection of content to watch.

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• Read our review of My Movies here
• Download My Movies 4 here

More: My Movies

3 – Recorded TV Manager 3

Manages your recorded TV collection through a convenient series-centric interface.  Powerful AutoMove tools that allows recordings to be moved to another location, such as another PC or to a network share so that it can be accessed by other PCs.

• Download Recorded TV Manager 3 here

More: Recorded TV Manager 3

4 – Shark007 Codecs

The only codec pack you will ever need.  Out of the box this codec pack will cover 90% of usage scenarios, and the easy config tool will allow users to easily accommodate the other 10%.  Windows X64 users need to install both the X86 AND X64 packages

• Download X86 Windows 7 codecs
• Downlaod X64 Windows 7 codecs

More: Shark007

5 – MediaControl

Media Control is a plugin for Microsoft Media Center that adds lacking features such as : fast forward/rewind for any video format, resume video, switch between audio/subtitles streams, sets brightness/contrast, improves picture quality

This plugin is essential if you watch mkv files within media center and need to switch audio streams.

• Download X86 version here
• Download X64 version here

More: MediaControl

6 – My Channel Logos

This great app now not only adds channel logos to Windows 7 Media Center’s TV guide, but the latest version can also increase the number of rows in the guide and mini-guide.

More: My Channel Logos

12 Essential Windows 7 Media Center Addons & Tweaks is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Touch has been all the rage since Apple launched the iPhone and the next 12 months will see a number of new touch PCs and devices hit the market, including several running Windows 7.  HP have launched a serious touch PC contender in the HP TouchSmart 600, which has a slim form factor and is a convertible tablet PC.

The HP TouchSmart 600 promises accurate fingertip responses thanks to ‘capacitive touch’ technology, up to eight hours standby time and comes with a whopping 23″ 1080P Full HD display so don’t expect to put this on your lap or to rival an Apple iPad.  Prices for the HP TouchSmart 600 start at £1,000, placing it squarely against PC users rather than laptop users.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GL8EGFT6SRA]

From the video you can see that the HP TouchSmart 600 supports multi-touch, with zoom in/out, rotate, scroll, move with a pinch, twist, flick ad drag gesturs all suported.  For when a finger won’t suffice, a digital pen is also included allowing handwritten notes, diagrams and annotations.

“HP has been developing touch expertise over four generations of tablet PCs and our touch technology has already transformed the way users interact with their notebooks. This is our most sophisticated and versatile machine to date and continues to build on our heritage of innovation in touch technology.”  Charl Snyman, vice president and general manager for HP Personal Systems Group  (EMEA).

Would you replace your family PC with a Touch PC?

More: HP TouchSmart 600

HP Launch Multi-Touch Windows 7 Tablet TouchSmart 600 PC is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Some Microsoft Windows 8 documents have been leaked online that seem to hint that some of the areas of focus for Windows 8 will be further improvements in speed, and greater empowerment of users allowing them to easily tweak and optimise their machines without calling a support desk or a more knowledgeable friend.

Two Windows 8 features that are touted in the leaked documents is a ‘Startup Performance Center’ that will quickly show users ways to improve their boot times, as well as proximity sensors that will switch your pc on when you 9and only you thanks to biometrics) sit at your desk, and off when you leave.

To read more, visit Windows 8 News.

Windows 8 News: Focus On Speed And Empowering Users? is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

As most regular readers will know, I’m a big fan of Windows 7 Media Center.  Previously I’d only used my media centers to watch downloaded tv shows, listen to music and to view photos but I’ve recently moved to Sky after 11 years with Telewest/Virgin Media and after lots and lots of tweaking and testing I now have access to all of my sky channels, including the HD and encrypted channels to DVBLink which acts as a TV server and allows me to share the TV cards installed in my Windows Home Server, both in and out of the home.

In a future post I will explain how I setup DVBlink on my Windows Home Server and on my Windows 7 Media Centers, but I wanted to share some of the other tweaks I’ve made to my media centers.  One of the simpliest, but most effective Windows 7 Media Center tweaks I’ve made is to increase the number of channels shown in the EPG.  By default, Windows Media Center only displays EPG listings for 7 channels, but this can be increased to 10 channels via a very simple tweak.

To Increase the number of channels in Windows 7 Media Center’s EPG:

1. Close Windows Media Center
2. Install the Take Ownership registry file
3. Open Windows Explorer and navigate to C:Windowsehome and find Microsoft.MediaCenter.Shell.dll,  Right-click on the file and click ‘Take Ownership’
4. Copy Microsoft.MediaCenter.Shell.dll to a temp directory and put this patch in the same directory
5. Run the patch (you may need to take ownership of the Microsoft.MediaCenter.Shell.dll in the temp directory)
6. copy the new version of Microsoft.MediaCenter.Shell.dll created by the patch to C:Windowsehome

You now should have extra rows displaying in W7MC.

Source: hack7mc

Add More Rows To Windows 7 Media Center EPG is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

To coincide with the launch of Windows 7, Microsoft released several free international Windows 7 Themes.

More countries have since been included, with themes now available for New Zealand, Poland, Taiwan and Latvia.

New International Official Windows 7 Themes

Bicycle Ride - Taiwan Windows 7 Theme

9 Photos

Syue Mountain - Taiwan Windows 7 Theme

6 Photos

Green Island - Taiwan Windows 7 Theme

6 Photos

Greg Straight - New Zealand Windows 7 Theme

4 Photos

Nature - Latvia Windows 7 Theme

6 Photos

Landscapes - Latvia Windows 7 Theme

5 Photos

Baltic Beaches - Poland Windows 7 Theme

6 Photos

Landscapes - Poland Windows 7 Theme

6 Photos

Nature - Poland Windows 7 Theme

6 Photos

Nine More Windows 7 International Themes is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Microsoft have added a number of free new Windows 7 featured themes to their theme lineup.

The new themes might not be to everyone’s taste, but if you’re a pet lover then they will be right down your alley.

Wallpaper images and download links are below.  More Windows 7 Themes and Windows 7 Wallpapers are available if these don’t quit hit the spot.

Cats Anytime Windows 7 Theme

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Cats Anytime Official Windows 7 Theme

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Cats Anytime Windows 7 Wallpapers

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Dogs In Winter Windows 7 Theme

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Dogs In Winter Windows 7 Theme

Download

Dogs In Winter Windows 7 Wallpapers

Download

Summit on the Summit Windows 7 Theme

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Summit on the Summit Windows 7 Theme

Download

Summit on the Summit Windows 7 Wallpapers

Download

Three New Windows 7 Featured Themes is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

My main PC stopped working today.  No matter what I do the network adaptor on my Abit IP35-Pro motherboard won’t work.  I’ve been toying with building a new high-end Windows 7 rig for a while and given that my PC is my livelihood I want to build a new Windows 7 machine fast.  If I can salvage any of the parts from my current system, I will use them to upgrade other PCs in my household.

My current spec is below:

• Q6600 LGA775
• Abit IP35Pro Motherboard
• 4GB Ram
• ATI HD 4650
• X-Fi soundcard
• Swiftech CPU&GPU watercooling
• 600w Seasonic S12-600 PSU
• 400GB HDD
• Gigabyte case

I’m planning  on keeping the PSU, GPU, HDD and soundcard so I need:

• A new fast HDD to run the OS – should I get a SSD?  Which one?
• A new CPU and motherboard.  I’m hoping to keep my LGA775 watercooling block, but getting a different size isn’t a problem -it just adds $50 to the cost (hassle removing as well, but I can handle)
• Lots of new RAM – how much should I get?  I don’t play games but I do a lot of encoding/decoding, multitasking etc
• Will I need a more powerful PSU?

My total budget is £1000/$1600 so this should buy me a very good spec machine.  Suggestions on what I should buy and why below please!  Also suggestions for a cheap LGA775 motherboard please just in case I can’t salvage the Abit IP35Pro.

Update 20/12: I’ve ordered my parts and they should arrive on Tuesday – thanks to everyone who made suggestions. Here’s the spec for the new machine (new parts in bold):

• Case: Gigabyte Aurora
• PSU: Corsair TX 650W
• CPU: Intel Core i7 920 2.66Ghz pre-overclocked to 4.00GHz
• Motherboard: Gigabyte EX58-UD5
• RAM: Corsair XMS3 6GB (3x2GB)
• GPU: HD4650
• Soundcard: X-fi Xtreme Music
• OS HDD: 80GB Intel X25-M SSD
• 2nd HDD: 400GB SATA II
• Cooler: Noctua NH-U12P SE1366 (ditching my Swiftech watercooling as the pumps are about to go/it’s getting very noisy)
• Monitors: Samsung T220 22-inch x2

I can’t wait to put this baby together!

My old Abit IP35 Pro motherboard completely died last night, so I ordered a Gigabyte GA-EG41MF-US2H motherboard to build a new machine for my wife (she has a very,very old laptop at the moment) from what was left of my old PC:

• CPU: Q6600
• PSU: Seasonic S12-600
• Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EG41MF-US2H to go in an old Foxcon microATX case
• RAM: 4GB Ram
• HDD: 400GB SATA II(canibalised from my WHS)
• Cooler: stock
• Monitor: Samsung T220 22-inch

Help Me Build A High-End Windows 7 PC is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

On Day 9 of our $9k Christmas Giveaway we are giving away one of our best prizes.  Today the lucky winner of our main reverse auction over will win $300 of free computer memory of their choice from Crucial Technology!  If you’re looking to give your Windows 7 PC a performance boost then adding good quality fast memory will do the trick.  To play all you have to do is visit our Christmas Giveaway auction site and start bidding in our reverse auction- all bids are free!

To read more and how to play click here.

If that wasn’t enough we are also giving away today:

• Uniblue PowerSute Worth $100
• WinX DVD Ripper Worth $29.99

Over on sister site ghacks we are also giving away hundreds of dollars of software away everyday – click here to visit their Christmas Giveway.

Win $300 Of Free Crucial Memory

Win $300 of high quality PC memory courtesy of Crucial Memory. Winner gets to choose their own memory up to a value of $300. Get bidding now! The lowest bid wins!

Crucial is a key brand in the Lexar Media family of products. As Memory Experts Crucial are the only DRAM supplier that’s part of a major memory manufacturer.

Crucial are one of the leading suppliers of high-quality memory that has been qualified and approved by most major original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). On their website you can find innovative tools that will make it easy to choose compatible memory and recommended upgrades.

Visit Crucial Memory now for your next memory upgrade.

Day 9 Christmas Giveaway – Win $300 Of Crucial Memory! is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

The Windows 7 Family Pack offer from Microsoft represented great value for users who needed more than one copy of Windows 7  - for $149.99 you got 3 copies of Windows 7 Home Premium.  After noticing over the weekend that Windows 7 Family Pack copies were becoming hard to find, Microsoft have formally pulled the offer and visitors to the US Microsoft Family Pack website are presented with the message “The Windows 7 Family Pack Offer has ended”.

The situation seems to be different in the UK, where sites are still advertising the Windows 7 Family Pack.  It’s still being promoted on the UK Microsoft site:

and is still available for sale at Amazon UK:

That’s not to say that the Windows 7 Family Pack offer won’t be pulled in the UK soon, if you are planning on buying Windows 7 I’d do so now to save money.

Microsoft’s decision to pull the offer could be because Windows 7 sales are naturally strong and further incentives are not needed.  Although pulling the offer before Christmas could be seen as Grinchism, the Christmas peak buying season has already been and gone in November, so if that were Microsoft’s intention they would have pulled the offer last month.

What this does indicate is that Microsoft won’t be doing any Windows 7 promotions anytime soon.

No More Windows 7 Family Pack Deal In The US, But Available In The UK is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Despite Microsoft attempts at reducing Windows 7 piracy, hacked copies of Windows 7 already exist. Not only have Windows 7 Activation Hacks been created using RemoveWAT and Chew-WGA, but some software pirates are even selling hacked copies of Windows 7 on USB Drives.  If you brought a copy of Windows 7 from some guy on the street or off ebay, how can you be certain whether it’s a genuine copy of Windows 7?  There are two easy ways to check if Windows 7 is genuine.

Check On Your PC If Windows 7 Is Genuine

To check if your copy of Windows 7 is Genuine open Windows 7 Control Panel and go to System and Security and then click on System.  If at the bottom:

• “Windows is activated”
• and you have the Windows genuine logo

Then your copy of Windows 7 is Genuine.

A similar method is to type ‘activate windows’ into the search box in Windows 7 and click on ‘Activate Windows’. The following popup will appear which will tell you if you copy of Windows 7 is genuine:

Check Online If Windows 7 Is Genuine

An easy way to see if your Windows 7 software passes the genuine test is to use the Genuine Microsoft Software service.  It’s best to use IE to run this test, otherwise you have to download a small program:

If your copy of Windows 7 fails one of the above validation tests, don’t worry as Microsoft will happily sell you a Windows 7 product key.

How To Check If Windows 7 Is Genuine is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

If you want a simple way to tweak  the Windows 7 Taskbar then AeroWorks could be for you.  AeroWorks is a new Windows 7 skinning tool that comes with seven skins pre-loaded which allows you to make changes to these skins, but only while AeroWorks is running in the free version.   The app makes changes to the  taskbar background and allows users to add their own images and special effect.

This app works only under Windows Vista and Windows 7.

More: AeroWorks

Source: Download Squad

Skin Windows 7 Taskbar with AeroWorks is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

We’ve hit the 7th day of our $9K Christmas Giveway and today we’ve got some hot prizes.  Our main prize today is a Belkin N+ Wireless Router and a Belkin N+ USB Adaptor worth $200 in total.  Don’t worry if you don’t win this one – we have another set to give away later in the month!  If that’s not enough for you, we’re also giving away today:

• a copy of Uniblue PowerSuite worth $100
• a copy of MediaMonkey Gold worth $40
• a copy of Tidysongs worth $40

That’s $380 in total in prizes!  To win all you need to do is guess the lowest number that nobody else guesses.  All bids are free - click here to play now!

Win $200 of wireless home networking hardware courtesy of Belkin

The Winner will receive a Belkin N+ Wireless Router and a Belkin N+ USB Adaptor donated by Belkin.

Belkin N+ Wireless Router

Belkin’s N+ Wireless Router features a USB Storage port on the back of the router for connecting USB storage devices such as an external hard drive or thumb drive to the network. Now you can centrally store and share media content and files from the USB hard drive to every computer on the network.

This router also features gigabit Ethernet ports for a wired connection that can handle applications that take up a large amount of bandwidth. The N+ router is based on the draft 802.11n 2.0 technology which provides the wireless range to easily cover any-size home or office. The N+ Router has the bandwidth and speed for handling media intensive applications that take up large amounts of your bandwidth.

Belkin N+ USB Adaptor

The N+ Wireless USB Adapter connects your desktop or notebook computer to a wireless network. It Provides optimal wireless range and speeds when paired with an N or N+ Router. roviding greater range and faster speeds, N offers an excellent solution for transferring large files such as video, music, photos, and documents among the networked computers in your home.

Based on the 802.11n draft, N Wireless enables multiple receivers and transmitters to send and receive data using Intelligent MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) spatial multiplexing techniques which greatly increases speed, coverage, and the reliability of the wireless network.

Christmas Giveway Day 7: Win Belkin Router & USB Key is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

We’re 1/5 of the way through our Christmas Giveaway where in total we are giving away over $9000 in prizes.  On day 4 we gave away several prizes:

• Uniblue RegistryBooster 2010 Worth $30!!
• Uniblue PowerSuite Bundle Worth $100!!
• Free Copy Of WinRAR Worth $45!!
• Recover My Files Professional Worth $100!!
• TidySongs Worth $39!!!
• Bulk Image Downloader Worth $24.95!

Congratulations to the winners!!

Christmas Giveaway Day 5

Today we’ve got a special prize courtesy of the generous team at linksys: The winner of this auction will win a cutting edge Linksys WRT610 Dual-N Band Wireless Router Worth $200! We’ve also got the following available to win today (auctions close at 8pm PST):

• Acronis Disk Director Suite 10+Acronis True Image Worth $100!
• A-squared Anti-Malware worth $40!!
• Media Monkey Gold worth $40!!

To win all you need to do is guess the lowest number that nobody else guesses.

Win Linksys WRT610 Dual-N Band Wireless Router Worth $200!

This top of the range router is built to last. Expect to have it in your household for many years. we’d like to say a big thank you to Linksys for making such a generous donation. If you want to learn more about the Linksys WRT610 then check out the Linksys blog, facebook and also twitter for the latest Linksys offers.

We’ve actually got two of these to give away later on in the giveaway.  Not only does this amazing router support 802.11n giving you the fastest possible transfer speeds and range, it also has two band of Wireless-N. Both bands are available at the same time:

• You can use the more congested 2.4Ghz 802.11n band for surfing and general net usage.
• And you can use the 5Ghz 802.11n band for applications that need the best connection e.g. streaming music, gaming or HD (even 1080p over wireless!) video

The WT610 router incorporates MIMO technology – so smart that it adjusts your signal in realtime based on the router AND card location to ensure you get the best range and coverage.

Key Features:

• Internet-sharing Router and 4-port Gigabit Switch, with a built-in, dual-band, speed and range enhanced Wireless Access Point
• Works simultaneously in the 2.4 and 5 gigahertz radio bands, doubling your network capacity
• Use the less-crowded 5GHz band for time-sensitive music, video streaming or gaming
• Use the 2.4GHz band for non-critical traffic, and your legacy Wireless-G and -B devices
• Both bands use Wireless-N technology for robust speed and range, and more complete coverage throughout your home
• Also works with Wireless-G, -B, and -A devices
• 4-port Gigabit switch delivers wired speeds that are 10 times faster than 10/100 “Fast Ethernet” connections
• Storage Link lets you connect a hard drive or flash-based USB storage device to allow access to your music, video, or data files from within your network, or through the Internet
• Built-in Media Server, streams music, video, and photos to any UPnP compatible media adapter
• Wi-Fi Protected Setup helps make wireless configuration secure and push button easy
• Wireless signals are protected by industrial-strength WPA2 encryption, and your network is protected from most known Internet attacks by a powerful SPI firewall
• Easy to install on a Windows PC or Mac with Cisco Setup Wizard
• Included Network Magic software helps manage and optimize your network
• Includes 30-Day Free Trial of Trend Micro Internet Security software to help protect against viruses, spyware, and identity theft
• All ports support Gigabit speed and Auto-Crossover (MDI/MDI-X) — no need for crossover cables
• Complies with the IEEE 802.11a, 802.11 b, 802.11g, and 802.11n draft 2 standards

Win Acronis Disk Director Suite 10 + Acronis True Image 2010 – Worth $100!!

The lowest unique bid in this auction will win not one, but two great applications – Acronis Disk Director Suite 10 + Acronis True Image 2010 – Worth $100!!

Acronis Disk Director 10

Looking to secure your PC at the same time as making it quicker? The n this classic app is for you. Acronis Disk Director Suite 10.0 is the easiest and most convenient partition manager and hard disk toolkit. It brings together the most popular disk management functions, partition recovery tools, and boot disk manager for Windows XP and Vista desktop systems.

Key Features:

• Acronis Disk Director Suite 10.0 combines a number of previous Acronis disk management tools into one solution:
• Partition Manager allows you to resize, move, copy, split, and merge partitions without losing your data
• Boot Manager is a multi-boot software utility that allows you to install multiple operating systems on your PC
• Partition Recovery allows you to recover accidentally lost or deleted partitions
• Disk Editor is a disk drive repair tool that allows you to perform advanced operations on your hard disk drive, such as restoration of boot records and hexadecimal editing.
• Don’t worry if you don’t win the auction, you can try this app for free.

Acronis True Image Home 2010

Acronis True Image is one of the best known PC applications. Now supporting Windows 7, with Acronis True Image Home 2010, rest assured that all your important data including images, music, documents and applications are well protected and can easily be recovered in the event of any disaster.

• Easy and Fast Backup and Recovery: Acronis True Image Home 2010 provides home users reliable and timeless backup and recovery of their operating system, applications, settings and personal files.
• Friendly, Windows®-style User Interface: From an intuitive graphical interface, you can easily define where, locally or online, and how often to backup a PC based on your needs.
• Acronis Online Backupâ„¢ to a secure location: Optional Acronis online storage services are available to automatically backup valuable data or files over the internet to a secure location.
• Continuous data protection: In addition, Acronis Nonstop Backupâ„¢ provides continuous system and data protection, preventing data loss

To try Acronis True Image Home 2010 free, click here.

$9K Christmas Giveaway Day 5: Win a Linksys Router Worth $200!! is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Since 2004 after being fined a record 497m euros in an antitrust ruling, Microsoft when  has only been allowed by the European Commission, who decided that bundling Windows Media Player with Windows was anticompetitive, to release versions of its operating systems in Europe with media players on the condition that versions without media players were available for users to buy and OEMs to bundle.  This left Europeans faced with Windows XP N, Windows Vista N and now Windows 7 N and Windows 7 KN versions.  The ‘N’ and ‘KN’ suffix indicates that the versions don’t have bundled media players.

Now to further confuse users, Microsoft have made available a Windows Media Feature Pack for Windows 7 N and Windows KN versions. which will install Windows Media Player, Windows Media Center and Windows DVD Maker and other windows 7 media features.  The download is free (validation required).

More: Media Feature Pack for Windows 7 N and Windows 7 KN

Download Windows Media Feature Pack For Windows 7 N And Windows 7 KN is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

The experience of upgrading to Windows Vista has probably put many users off upgrading to Windows 7.  Microsoft have tried hard to reassure users that Windows 7 is ‘not’ Vista, by conducting a very public beta program and working hard to disseminate the good news about Windows 7. To further aid Windows 7 upgrades, Microsoft have released the Windows 7 Application Compatibility List for IT Professionals.

This download comes in a free Microsoft Office Excel-based spreadsheet that lists all the software applications which have met Windows 7 Logo Program testing requirements for compatibility with both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows 7, and have thus earned the right to display the Windows 7 Logo Program logo with the application. These products are identified with the compatibility status “Compatible – Windows 7 Logo.”

For completeness the Windows 7 Application Compatibility list also lists the applications that are “Not Compatible” with Windows 7 or will have “Future Compatibility”.  In total there are 6645 software applications listed in the current Windows 7 software compatibility list :

Download: Windows 7 Application Compatibility List

Download Windows 7 Application Compatibility List is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

In a further attempt to woo Windows 7 Ttesters, Microsoft is running a photo competition for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Beta testers where five lucky winners will win ‘Windows 7 Swag’.  To enter, Microsoft Connect users need to send in a photo of themselves in their testing environment, be at the most insane desktop in the world, or in an interesting location:

A potential Winner....

If you weren’t a Windows 7 tester then you can console yourself by entering our $9000 Christmas Giveaway!!

Windows 7 Photo Contest

Dear xxxxx,

As we get settled with our new team and in our new building we’d like to take the opportunity and ask for your help in introducing YOU to the new team! We have lots of empty wall space surrounding our offices and we’d like to devote a large chunk to honoring our awesome Windows 7 beta participants!

We have already hung a series of computer generated push pin maps (courtesy of MapPoint) of participant locations and would like to supplement this with large collages of photos.

If you are interested in submitting a photo for us to use, please ensure you follow the guidelines listed below.

Photo Requirements – Your submission must comply with the following criteria in order to be accepted and qualify for the drawing:

1. Your photo must be submitted in JPEG format
2. You must use the following naming convention: <(Connect handle)> EX: John Smith (scrappydog90).jpg
3. You must email the picture to [removed] by COB on January 15, 2010.
4. The subject line of your email must be “Windows 7 Photo Contest”
5. Your photo must be of a high-resolution such that you could print at least a good quality 3″ x 5″ from it. (e.g. no driver license or passport photos)
6. Your photo should reflect you as a unique individual (e.g. no driver license, passport photos or mug shots)
7. You may submit more than one photo, however you will only be entered once in the drawing

Suggestions – Be Creative and Have Fun!

• Photos of you and your beta test environment
• Photos of you that reflect your specific locale e.g. well-known landmarks
• Photos that show your passion and enthusiasm for technology

By submitting your photo to us you agree to the following terms and conditions:

I hereby grant Microsoft Corporation the irrevocable right to use and reproduce for internal promotion purposes related to the Windows 7 operating system or other related Microsoft products and/or services, in the United States or elsewhere at any time, my name and my photograph or likeness. I specifically release Microsoft and its agents from any and all claims, of any and every nature, based on any use or uses of the above. I certify that I am over eighteen years of age and am under no legal or contractual disability to grant the rights and license above.

All successful entries will be put into a drawing and five random winners chosen to receive some great Windows 7 SWAG!

We look forward to your submissions!!!

Regards,

The Windows Beta Team

Jura, Paul, Wendy

Microsoft Running Windows 7 Tester Photo Competition is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Our Christmas Giveaway is picking up momentum now with lots of users having fun bidding for free to win a share of over $9000 in prizes.  On day 3 we saw some very frantic bidding in our reverse auctions, with one of our prizes going for a record amount:

• $300 In Amazon Vouchers – Lowest Unique bid $16.99 (!!), won by vamtastic
• Copy of a-squared Anti-Malware 4.5 – Lowest Unique bid $1.08, won by vjnag81

Congratulations to our winners.

Day 4 Christmas Giveaway

Now that everyone seems to be getting the hang of the free reverse auctions, I thought we’d have our largest prize day so far. Today we are giving away:

• Uniblue RegistryBooster 2010 Worth $30!!
• Uniblue PowerSuite Bundle Worth $100!!
• Free Copy Of WinRAR Worth $45!!
• Recover My Files Professional Worth $100!!
• TidySongs Worth $39!!!
• Bulk Image Downloader Worth $24.95!

Power Suite From Uniblue – Worth $100!!

The lowest bid in this auction wins THREE great applications worth $100!!

This Power Bundle from Uniblue includes:

• RegistryBooster 2010 Worth $29.99
• DriverScanner 2009 Worth $29.99
• SpeedUpMyPC Worth $29.99

RegistryBooster 2010

RegistryBooster is the easy answer to all your Windows registry problems. This award winning software starts by conducting a deep scan of your registry, checking for file extension errors and other registry conflicts. RegistryBooster will then repair or remove unused, corrupted and harmful files so optimizing your PC’s performance. You can then use regular scans to keep your registry structured and your PC speeding along at peak efficiency. With RegistryBooster you’ll see immediate increases in performance and decreases in system conflicts.

Click here to run a Free Registry scan

DriverScanner 2009

With so many drivers installed on your system you cannot reasonably keep track of which drivers have been updated, which is why you need driver update management software to help out. Driver Scanner is the perfect solution for automatically updating drivers, saving you the hassle of having to identifying all your system’s drivers, then find updates for them using, before then downloading them from the manufacturer’s website. Driver Scanner scans your PC’s drivers and checks them against our comprehensive library of the latest drivers, to give you a full list of all those that need to be updated. With single click simplicity Driver Scanner will then install each update on your PC. But what’s more, Driver Scanner will also backup all your drivers to an external device, meaning that the next time you reinstall your system you can load up all your latest drivers, from one place

Click here to run a Free driver update scan

SpeedUpMyPC 2009

SpeedUpMyPC 2009, Uniblue’s award-winning speed up computer solution, lets you monitor and control all your PC resources with easy, one click instructions. System settings, internet usage, disk clutter, RAM and CPU are all automatically scanned, cleaned and optimized for peak performance. You can also selectively disable or remove unnecessary background and auto-start processes to cut valuable seconds off your startup time.

Click here to run a Free Performance scan

Free Copy of WinRAR – Worth $45!!

WinRAR can backup your data and reduce the size of email attachments, decompress RAR, ZIP and other files downloaded from Internet and create new archives in RAR and ZIP file format.

WinRar Benefits

• Using WinRAR puts you ahead of the crowd when it comes to compression by consistently making smaller archives than the competition, saving disk space and transmission costs
• WinRAR provides complete support for RAR and ZIP archives and is able to unpack CAB, ARJ, LZH, TAR, GZ, ACE, UUE, BZ2, JAR, ISO, 7Z, Z archives
• WinRAR offers a graphic interactive interface utilizing mouse and menus as well as the command line interface
• When you purchase WinRAR license you are buying a license to the complete technology, no need to purchase add-ons to create self-extracting files, it’s all included
• WinRAR is easier to use than many other archivers with the inclusion of a special “Wizard” mode which allows instant access to the basic archiving functions through a simple question and answer procedure. This avoids confusion in the early stages of use
• WinRAR offers you the benefit of industry strength archive encryption using AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) with a key of 128 bits
• WinRAR supports files and archives up to 8,589 billion gigabytes in size. The number of archived files is, for all practical purposes, unlimited
• WinRAR offers the ability to create selfextracting and multivolume archives
• Recovery record and recovery volumes allow to reconstruct even physically damaged archives
• WinRAR features are constantly being developed to keep WinRAR ahead of the pack

Free copy of RecoverMyFiles - Worth $100!!

Need file recovery? Or hard drive data recovery software?

Recover deleted files Quickly and Easily!

Recover My Files data recovery software will easily recover deleted files emptied from the Windows Recycle Bin, or lost due to the format or corruption of a hard drive, virus or Trojan infection, unexpected system shutdown or software failure.

“Recover My Files combines simplicity of use with the most powerful file recovery software engine, together with a unique capability of “on-the-fly” data preview while the search is being conducted.”

Recover My Files is fast and easy. No technical or data recovery software skills are required to undelete files. Use Recover My Files to perform hard drive data recovery, or if you are trying to unformat and recover data from floppy disk, zip drive, smart media, compact flash or other removable media. It is easy disk recovery software to undelete files and get data back.

Do not waste time and money on other software wondering if you can recover deleted files.Download and try Recover My Files undelete software free. Scan your drive and view your deleted files. If you can see your deleted files then data recovery is quick and easy.

Try Recover My Files

Free Copy of TidySongs

The winner with the lowest unique bid in this auction will win a FREE copy of Tidysongs worth $39!!

TidySongs is an easy and powerful program that will fix any missing or misspelled song details, add album artwork, remove duplicate songs and organize your music. Try Tidysongs free for your first 50 songs.

Try Now!

Remove Duplicate Songs

TidySongs features a smart duplicate song remover that searches your song library to find duplicates – even duplicates that are spelled differently. Use the options to choose to keep the songs with the higher bitrate or longer length. Simulation mode allows you to test things without accidentally removing songs you want to keep.

Fix Misspelled Song Details

Misspelled and missing song details makes your music ugly and impossible to browse on an iPod. TidySongs fixes misspelled and missing artist, album, name, track, year and genre details and renames artists and albums with their correct format (i.e. “Dave Matthews Band” not “Dave Matthews”).This is done automatically – you don’t have to type anything.

Fill In Missing Artists, Years and Genres

Make your song library easier to browse by letting TidySongs automatically fill in the artist, album release year and genre for each song. When fixing songs, you can choose to use information from the original album the song was released on or a compilation or greatest hits. TidySongs keeps your music organized.

Add Missing Album Artwork

Make your music look good. TidySongs automatically downloads high resolution album artwork for each of your songs so that it displays on your computer, in iTunes and on your iPod, iPhone, TV or other music player.

Other programs and websites make you manually find and add each image – TidySongs is automatic.

Automatic! No Typing Necessary!

How long would it take you to fix all of your songs by hand? What if you had more than 1,000 songs? TidySongs uses a smart online music database with information on more than 4 million songs to automatically download the correct details for each of your songs so you don’t have to type it in.

Bulk Image Downloader Worth $24.95!

In this auction we are giving away a full version of the brilliant Bulk Image Downloader, the best way to download multiple images from the web worth $24.95!

Not just for images; BID also supports VIDEO downloading from YouTube, Google Video, DailyMotion, MetaCafe, MegaVideo, YouPorn, PornHub, RedTube, Tube8, MegaPorn as well as directly linked video files (.avi, .wmv, .mpeg, .mov, .flv, etc)

Bulk Image Downloader is a powerful, yet very easy to use web gallery downloader.  Download the FREE 30 day trial and start downloading those images and videos now!

• Downloads entire image galleries automatically (no more endless right clicking to “save image as…”)
• Integrates with IE, FireFox and Opera. Just right click on a gallery page or gallery link and select “Download with Bulk Image Downloader”
• Download from video sites like YouTube, Google Video, DailyMotion, MetaCafe, MegaVideo, YouPorn, PornHub, RedTube, Tube8, MegaPorn
• Downloads thumbnailed video files (.mpg, .avi. .mov, etc)
• No complicated configuration or project files needed – it just works
• Works on sites that the other image downloaders don’t
• Automatically locates and downloads images that have had their true locations hidden by redirection “services” such as usercash, linkbucks, etc.
• Saves time – galleries are downloaded as fast as your connection will allow
• Saves bandwidth – adverts and popups are not downloaded, just the images
• Validates and automatically retries partial or corrupt images, resuming downloads where possible
• Automatically detects and downloads from most multi page forum threads and galleries
• Downloads vbulletin forum attached images
• Multiple gallery download jobs can be queued and downloaded at a later time via the integrated Queue Manager

$9k Christmas Giveaway – Day 4 is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

We had some teething problems with the auction site yesterday that are now resolved and day 2 winners of our $9K Christmas Giveaway have now been notified.  Yesterday we gave away:

• Free utilities and performance software from UNIBLUE - Worth $100!!
• Free Unlimited Online Backup Account from Mozy - Worth $55!!
• More software from UNIBLUE - Worth $30!!
• Free Copy of MediaMonkey Gold - Worth $40!!
• Free copy of RecoverMyFiles - Worth $100!!

Day 3 Christmas Giveaway – $300 in Amazon Vouchers!!

Today in our Christmas Giveaway we are giving away $300 in Amazon vouchers in addition to another copy of  A-Squared Anti-Malware 4.5 worth $40!! To play all you have to do is visit our Christmas Giveaway auction site and start bidding in our reverse auction- all bids are free!  To read more and how to play click here.

Auctions will run from 24 hours each day starting at 8PM PST- keep checking the site each day for details of the new prizes you can win!

Start bidding now!!

Also visit ghacks where Martin is also giving away thousands of dollars in prizes!!

a-Squared Anti-Malware 4.5  - Worth $40!!

a-squared Anti-Malware 4.5 provides comprehensive PC protection against trojans, viruses, spyware, adware, worms, bots, keyloggers, rootkits and dialers.

2 cleaning scanners in 1: Anti-Virus + Anti-Spyware

• Not just any scanners, but a combination of two world class products – the a-squared Anti-Spyware, and the Ikarus Anti-Virus engine. Latest tests approve that both are cutting edge in Malware detection
• No doubling of the scan duration as would be the case with two separate scanning programs. Considerable performance improvement is possible thanks to the integration of the two engines on the lowest level
• No double price – two top security products for the price of one.

2 guards against new infections: signature scan + behavior analysis

• When a Malware infection is detected, the scanner puts the found objects under quarantine or deletes them finally
• Anti-Malware holds plenty of advanced options for experts to detect and delete Malware manually. For this purpose the integrated system analysis tool HiJackFree is included, and helps you to have all processes, services, auto-runs, open ports, browser plug-ins, LSPs and host entries under your control
• For tough problems our helpful Malware experts are at your disposal for free. With their help, any infection, no matter how resistant it is, can be purged – guaranteed

Protect your PC and start bidding now! If you don’t win then you can still try a-squared Anti-Malware 4.5 free for 30 days!

$9k Christmas Giveaway – Day 3 is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Microsoft have just added a seasonal Windows 7 theme to their featured Windows 7 Themes.

The Twinkle Wish Windows 7 Theme includes six cute Christmas Windows 7 Wallpapers, as well as other theme customisations.  I like the choice of imagery and I hope that Microsoft continue to produce great Windows 7 themes in 2010.


You are here: Official Wallpapers & Themes | Featured | Twinkle Wish

[Start slideshow]

Twinkle Wish Windows 7 Theme

Download

Twinkle Wish Windows 7 Wallpapers

Download

If you’re looking for a more traditional Windows 7 theme, then check out our Windows 7 Winter Themepack that we released yesterday.

New Microsoft Window 7 Theme: Twinkle Wish is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Stats from NetApplications who track internet usage seems to suggest that only a month after its launch, Windows 7′s market share has reached 5%.  Over the course of November 09 Windows 7 based machines accounted for 4% of overall monitored web traffic, however by the end of the month Windows 7 share was 5% on a daily basis.  In comparison, Mac OS X’s share fell from 5.27% to 5.12%.

courtesy of register.co.uk

The share of other Windows OSs may show that many Windows XP users are upgrading to Windows 7.  Over the same period:

• Windows XP share fell 1.43%
• Windows Vista fell 0.28%

A probable explanation is that XP users who have the most to gain from upgrading to Windows 7 have been driving the recent spike in PC sales.  Whatever the explanation, the early numbers for Windows 7 adoption back up the theory that Microsoft have a winner in Windows 7 and not a lemon like Windows Vista

Source: Register

Windows 7 Market Share Hits 5% is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Our Christmas Giveaway is now in full swing!  Martin secured some more prizes yesterday and we now have more than $9000 IN PRIZES TO GIVE AWAY! To play all you have to do is visit our Christmas Giveaway auction site and start bidding in our reverse auction- all bids are free!  To read more and how to play click here.

Day 1 Christmas Giveaway Winners

On the first day of the Giveaway we had 3 great prizes totalling $385 available:

• 1 Year Giganews Platinum Account Worth $300: winner ‘marclofs’
• Free Copy of WinRAR Worth $45: winner ‘infrablack’
• Copy of a-squared Anti-Malware 4.5: winner ‘vinods’

We had thousands of entries so it was surprising that the winning bids were all under 25 cents!  I don’t think this will happen again.  Well done to the winners!

Day 2 Christmas Giveaway Prizes

Auctions will run from 24 hours each day starting at 8PM PST

• Free utilities and performance software from UNIBLUE - Worth $100!!
• Free Unlimited Online Backup Account from Mozy - Worth $55!!
• More software from UNIBLUE - Worth $30!!
• Free Copy of MediaMonkey Gold - Worth $40!!
• Free copy of RecoverMyFiles - Worth $100!!

Start bidding now!!

Power Suite From Uniblue – Worth $100!!

The lowest bid in this auction wins THREE great applications worth $100!!

This Power Bundle from Uniblue includes:

• RegistryBooster 2010 Worth $29.99
• DriverScanner 2009 Worth $29.99
• SpeedUpMyPC Worth $29.99

RegistryBooster 2010

RegistryBooster is the easy answer to all your Windows registry problems. This award winning software starts by conducting a deep scan of your registry, checking for file extension errors and other registry conflicts. RegistryBooster will then repair or remove unused, corrupted and harmful files so optimizing your PC’s performance. You can then use regular scans to keep your registry structured and your PC speeding along at peak efficiency. With RegistryBooster you’ll see immediate increases in performance and decreases in system conflicts.

Click here to run a Free Registry scan

DriverScanner 2009

With so many drivers installed on your system you cannot reasonably keep track of which drivers have been updated, which is why you need driver update management software to help out. Driver Scanner is the perfect solution for automatically updating drivers, saving you the hassle of having to identifying all your system’s drivers, then find updates for them using, before then downloading them from the manufacturer’s website. Driver Scanner scans your PC’s drivers and checks them against our comprehensive library of the latest drivers, to give you a full list of all those that need to be updated. With single click simplicity Driver Scanner will then install each update on your PC. But what’s more, Driver Scanner will also backup all your drivers to an external device, meaning that the next time you reinstall your system you can load up all your latest drivers, from one place

Click here to run a Free driver update scan

SpeedUpMyPC 2009

SpeedUpMyPC 2009, Uniblue’s award-winning speed up computer solution, lets you monitor and control all your PC resources with easy, one click instructions. System settings, internet usage, disk clutter, RAM and CPU are all automatically scanned, cleaned and optimized for peak performance. You can also selectively disable or remove unnecessary background and auto-start processes to cut valuable seconds off your startup time.

Click here to run a Free Performance scan

Free Unlimited Online Backup Account from Mozy - Worth $55!!

The winner with the lowest unique bid in this auction will win a FREE Mozy Home Unlimited Backup Account worth $55!

Protect your files now with Mozy who have made online backup possible for everyone with an affordable, secure solution that’s easy to use.

Download and install Mozy to ensure your photos, music, Outlook files and other important documents are safely backed up at a secure, remote location.

Alternatives to MozyHome:

• Burn a new CD or DVD every Sunday night and store it at your brother-in-law’s office.
• Pay $200/year for an online backup service that uses old, mediocre software.
• Buy a $200 external hard drive and hope your office doesn’t burn down.
• Do nothing and don’t worry about backup. (We suggest closing your eyes, plugging your ears and repeating “I’m in my happy place, I’m in my happy place.”)
• Run a cron job of rsync, gzip and mcrypt piped over ssh to your friend’s server over his DSL line.
• Of course, we think MozyHome is the best and easiest solution to the backup problem!

Get MozyHome!

Free Copy of MediaMonkey Gold - Worth $40!!

The winner who has the lowest unique bid in this auction will win a FREE copy of MediaMonkey Gold worth $40!!

MediaMonkey is the best mp3 player on the market and the premium Gold service is even better:

• Organize music and edit tags in your audio library with a powerful, intuitive interface.
• Automatically lookup and tag Album Art and other metadata.
• Manage 50,000+ files in your music collection without bogging down.
• Manage all genres of audio: Rock, Classical, Audiobooks, Comedy, Podcasts, etc.
• Play MP3s and other audio formats, and never again worry about varying volume.
• Record CDs and convert MP3s, M4A, OGG, FLAC and WMA files etc. into other formats.
• Create playlists and let Auto-DJ & Party Mode take care of your party.
• Sync iPhones, iPods, & MP3 players, converting & leveling tracks on-the-fly.

If you want to give MediaMonkey a try, the free version is also excellent.

Try MediaMonkey now!

Free copy of RecoverMyFiles - Worth $100!!

Need file recovery? Or hard drive data recovery software?

Recover deleted files Quickly and Easily!

Recover My Files data recovery software will easily recover deleted files emptied from the Windows Recycle Bin, or lost due to the format or corruption of a hard drive, virus or Trojan infection, unexpected system shutdown or software failure.

“Recover My Files combines simplicity of use with the most powerful file recovery software engine, together with a unique capability of “on-the-fly” data preview while the search is being conducted.”

Recover My Files is fast and easy. No technical or data recovery software skills are required to undelete files. Use Recover My Files to perform hard drive data recovery, or if you are trying to unformat and recover data from floppy disk, zip drive, smart media, compact flash or other removable media. It is easy disk recovery software to undelete files and get data back.

Do not waste time and money on other software wondering if you can recover deleted files.Download and try Recover My Files undelete software free. Scan your drive and view your deleted files. If you can see your deleted files then data recovery is quick and easy.

Try Recover My Files

$9k Christmas Giveaway – Day 2 is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Update: The fix I posted earlier to the Windows 7 Black Screen Of Death caused by the latest Microsoft security update definitely works as I’ve had a few readers contact me to say thank you.  A reminder of the fix for the Windows 7 Black Screen of Death:

1. Restart your PC
2. Logon and wait for the black screen to appear
3. Make sure your PC should be able to connect to the internet (black screen does not appear to affect this)
4. Press the CTRL, ALT and DEL keys simultaneously
5. When prompted, Click Start Task Manager
6. In Task Manager Click on the Application Tab
7. Next Click New Task
8. Now enter the command: ”C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe” “http://info.prevx.com/download.asp?GRAB=BLACKSCREENFIX”

Note this command assumes that you are using internet explorer as your browser, if not substitute your browser path and file details for those of iexplore.exe or use the Browser option of Task manager to locate it.

9. Click OK and your browser should start up and begin the download process
10. When prompted for the download Click run, the black screen fix program will download and run to automatically fix the issue.
11. Now restart your PC and the black screen problem will hopefully be gone.

If the fix above for the windows 7 BSOD doesn’t work for you then you can get moreKSOD  Windows 7 Help here.

Windows 7 Black Screen Of Death (BSOD): Fix Update is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Many windows users are familiar with the Blue Screen Of Death, but now we appear to have a new BSOD or even KSOD.  There are several reports that the latest Microsoft security updates released on November 25th, have caused problems for some Windows 7 users creating a ‘Black Screen Of Death’ where nothing happens on their PC apart from seeing a black desktop after logging on.  Microsoft say they are investigating the Black Screen Of Death Issue:

“Microsoft is investigating reports that its latest release of security updates is resulting in system issues for some customers,” the software maker said in a statement. “Once we complete our investigation, we will provide detailed guidance on how to prevent or address these issues. “

The issue is also reported to be affecting other Microsoft OSs, including Vista and XP.  British Security firm Prevx have published a fix for the BSOD / KSOD , although they state that it won’t work in all situations.  According to Prevx, the root cause of the Black Screens of Death is a  modification in the Windows Operating Systems lock down of registry keys with the November Microsoft update causing certain registry keys to be invalidated.

To fix the Black Screen of Death Windows 7 issue:

1. Restart your PC
2. Logon and wait for the black screen to appear
3. Make sure your PC should be able to connect to the internet (black screen does not appear to affect this)
4. Press the CTRL, ALT and DEL keys simultaneously
5. When prompted, Click Start Task Manager
6. In Task Manager Click on the Application Tab
7. Next Click New Task
8. Now enter the command: ”C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe” “http://info.prevx.com/download.asp?GRAB=BLACKSCREENFIX”

Note this command assumes that you are using internet explorer as your browser, if not substitute your browser path and file details for those of iexplore.exe or use the Browser option of Task manager to locate it.

1. Click OK and your browser should start up and begin the download process
2. When prompted for the download Click run, the black screen fix program will download and run to automatically fix the issue.
3. Now restart your PC and the black screen problem will hopefully be gone.

Have you been affected by the Windows 7 Black Screen Of Death?  If the KSOD fix above doesn’t work for you then you can get more Windows 7 Help here.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…

Windows 7 BSOD: ‘Black Screen Of Death’ Freeze And Potential Fix is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Day 1 of our Christmas Giveaway has begun we’re we are giving away $8000 in prizes in December!! Everyday between Dec 1st and Dec 24th we will be giving away a minimum of $300 in prizes to lucky readers.  Entry is free and you can enter as many times as you want.  All you have to do is visit our Christmas Giveaway and start bidding for free on the prizes you want to win.  It’s a reverse auction so the lowest unique bid wins.

Auctions will run from 24 hours each day starting at 8PM PST – keep checking the site for details of the new prizes added daily that you can win!

Start bidding now!!

Also visit ghacks where Martin is also giving away thousands of dollars in prizes!!

Day 1 Christmas Giveaway Prizes – Auctions end 8PM PST 1/12/09

On the first day of the Giveaway we have 3 great prizes totalling $385 available:

• 1 Year Giganews Platinum Account – Worth $300!!
• Free Copy of WinRAR – Worth $45!!
• Copy of a-squared Anti-Malware 4.5 - Worth $40!!

Day 2 Christmas Giveaway Prizes PREVIEW- Auctions end 8PM PST 2/12/09

On the second day of the Giveaway we have 3 great prizes totalling $325 available:

• Free utilities and performance software from UNIBLUE – Worth $100!!
• Free Unlimited Online Backup Account from Mozy – Worth $55!!
• More software from UNIBLUE – Worth $30!!
• Free Copy of MediaMonkey Gold – Worth $40!!
• Free copy of RecoverMyFiles – Worth $100!!

To see all prizes click here

1 Year Giganews Platinum Account – Worth $300!!

The winner with the lowest unique bid will win a FREE Giganews Platinum account worth $300! With a Giganews Platinum account from the leading Usenet Provider you get Unlimited Monthly Bandwidth Allowance, 478 days retention and much more:

• 109,000 Uncensored Newsgroups
• 256-bit SSL Encryption and 50 connections
• 24hr Member Support
• 99%+ Completion rate
• Broadband Download Speeds

Don’t worry if you don’t win as Giganews currently have an amazing 50% off the first two months offer!

Free Copy of WinRAR – Worth $45!!

WinRAR can backup your data and reduce the size of email attachments, decompress RAR, ZIP and other files downloaded from Internet and create new archives in RAR and ZIP file format.

WinRar Benefits

• Using WinRAR puts you ahead of the crowd when it comes to compression by consistently making smaller archives than the competition, saving disk space and transmission costs
• WinRAR provides complete support for RAR and ZIP archives and is able to unpack CAB, ARJ, LZH, TAR, GZ, ACE, UUE, BZ2, JAR, ISO, 7Z, Z archives
• WinRAR offers a graphic interactive interface utilizing mouse and menus as well as the command line interface
• When you purchase WinRAR license you are buying a license to the complete technology, no need to purchase add-ons to create self-extracting files, it’s all included
• WinRAR is easier to use than many other archivers with the inclusion of a special “Wizard” mode which allows instant access to the basic archiving functions through a simple question and answer procedure. This avoids confusion in the early stages of use
• WinRAR offers you the benefit of industry strength archive encryption using AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) with a key of 128 bits
• WinRAR supports files and archives up to 8,589 billion gigabytes in size. The number of archived files is, for all practical purposes, unlimited
• WinRAR offers the ability to create selfextracting and multivolume archives
• Recovery record and recovery volumes allow to reconstruct even physically damaged archives
• WinRAR features are constantly being developed to keep WinRAR ahead of the pack

a-Squared Anti-Malware 4.5  - Worth $40!!

a-squared Anti-Malware 4.5 provides comprehensive PC protection against trojans, viruses, spyware, adware, worms, bots, keyloggers, rootkits and dialers.

2 cleaning scanners in 1: Anti-Virus + Anti-Spyware

• Not just any scanners, but a combination of two world class products – the a-squared Anti-Spyware, and the Ikarus Anti-Virus engine. Latest tests approve that both are cutting edge in Malware detection
• No doubling of the scan duration as would be the case with two separate scanning programs. Considerable performance improvement is possible thanks to the integration of the two engines on the lowest level
• No double price – two top security products for the price of one.

2 guards against new infections: signature scan + behavior analysis

• When a Malware infection is detected, the scanner puts the found objects under quarantine or deletes them finally
• Anti-Malware holds plenty of advanced options for experts to detect and delete Malware manually. For this purpose the integrated system analysis tool HiJackFree is included, and helps you to have all processes, services, auto-runs, open ports, browser plug-ins, LSPs and host entries under your control
• For tough problems our helpful Malware experts are at your disposal for free. With their help, any infection, no matter how resistant it is, can be purged – guaranteed

Protect your PC and start bidding now! If you don’t win then you can still try a-squared Anti-Malware 4.5 free for 30 days!

Windows 7 News Christmas Giveway Started – Over $8000 In Prizes To Be Won!!! is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Although there is some disagreement over whether laptop battery life has got better or worse in Windows 7 (on my laptops it has), the battery  information that Windows 7 provides is limited so it can be hard to ascertain how well your battery is performing.  A great application to install to give more Windows 7 battery information is BatteryBar, which comes in both a free and Pro version.

BatteryBar is a simple, straight-forward, battery meter that monitors the status of your battery and displays your battery’s status in the taskbar.  All data is captured so that historical performance data on your battery can be accessed so that a more accurate battery life remaining estimate can be produced – hopefully your laptop will no longer die when it’s claiming it has 1o mins of power left..

The free version of BatteryBar provides the following features:

• Statistical Time Prediction
• Always-on battery icon showing current battery status
• Create a discharge/recharge profile of your battery
• Determine “time remaining” based on historical usage profile of your battery
• Display popup window with detailed battery information
• Automatic upgrade notification popup for the latest stable release

Which is good enough for most users, although BatteryBar pro adds the following features:

• Automatic upgrade notification popup for the latest beta release
• Show low and critical battery notification warnings
• Change the current Windows power scheme
• Customize the look of BatteryBar with custom themes
• Customize when the battery is reported as at low or critical level
• Show low and critical battery warnings based on time remaining or percent remaining

More: BatteryBar

Source:

BatteryBar: Improve Windows 7 Battery Management is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Two things have bugged me with Windows Live Messenger in Windows 7:

1. I don’t like the way the Windows Live Messenger icon stays permanently in the Windows 7 Taskbar
2. I don’t get sound notifications when I get a new message

I have a solution to the first problem, but if anyone has a fix for the 2nd then please let me know. To move the Windows Live Messenger icon from the windows 7 notification area:

• right-click on your windows live messenger icon shortcut and click ‘Properties’
• Go to the Compatibility tab and choose to run it in ‘Windows Vista (Service Pack 2)’ mode

Your Live Messenger icon will now be back in its usual place in your system tray.  If you can’t see it then you might need to customise your notification area settings to ‘show icon and notifications’ for Windows Live Messenger.

I’m not sure if this tweak will work for other programs, but it’s a worth a try.  If it does work then please let me know in a comment.  Thanks to How To Geek for the tweak.

How To Move The Live Messenger Icon To The System Tray In Windows 7 is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

I’ve been using Windows Media Center ever since the initial XP version, and I currently have 3 machines running the Windows 7 Media Center.  If you’re a serious W7MC user like me then one site you should subscribe to is Hacking Windows 7 Media Center, which has almost daily tips on getting the most out of W7MC.  One example post is a list of W7MC switches you can add to customise the way W7MC behaves.  My favourites are:

• /mediamode – start in “media only mode” with no minimize/close buttons, which is great if you are using a dedicated media center PC like me
• /playfavmusic – Play favorite music at startup, which gives you something to listen to while you decide what to watch

Other Windows 7 Media Center Switches include:

• /nostartupanimation – disables the startup animation
• /noshutdownui – removes the shutdown item from Tasks
• /widescreen – force widescreen mode
• /nochrome – launch windowed mode without the containing window
• /playallmusic – Play all music at startup
• /playfavslideshow – Play favorite slideshow at startup
• /playfavslideshowwithmusic – Same as above with music
• /playslideshow – Play all slideshows
• /playslideshowwithmusic – Same as above with music
• /screensaver – Start media center in screensaver mode
• /configuress – Start media center at configuring screen saver menu

To activate any of these switches just add the chosen argument to the end of the ‘target’ field for your Media Center shortcut and add a space between each option:

Hidden Windows 7 Media Center Options is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Yesterday I announced our Christmas Giveaway where we have prizes worth over $7k available for readers to win.  Everyday between Dec 1st and Dec 24th we will be giving away a minimum of $300 of hardware and/or software to lucky readers.  To be in with a chance of winning all you have to do is visit our Christmas Giveaway site and bid on the prizes you’d like to win.  It’s a reverse auction so the lowest unique bid wins – you can enter as many times as you like for free!

Auctions will run from 24 hours each day starting at 8PM PST – keep checking the site for details of the new prizes you can win!  Start bidding now!!

Day 1 Christmas Giveaway Prizes

On the first day of the Giveaway we have 3 great prizes totalling $385 available:

• 1 Year Giganews Platinum Account – Worth $300!!
• Free Copy of WinRAR – Worth $45!!
• Copy of a-squared Anti-Malware 4.5 - Worth $40!!

1 Year Giganews Platinum Account – Worth $300!!

The winner with the lowest unique bid will win a FREE Giganews Platinum account worth $300! With a Giganews Platinum account from the leading Usenet Provider you get Unlimited Monthly Bandwidth Allowance, 478 days retention and much more:

• 109,000 Uncensored Newsgroups
• 256-bit SSL Encryption and 50 connections
• 24hr Member Support
• 99%+ Completion rate
• Broadband Download Speeds

Don’t worry if you don’t win as Giganews currently have an amazing 50% off the first two months offer!

Free Copy of WinRAR – Worth $45!!

WinRAR can backup your data and reduce the size of email attachments, decompress RAR, ZIP and other files downloaded from Internet and create new archives in RAR and ZIP file format.

WinRar Benefits

• Using WinRAR puts you ahead of the crowd when it comes to compression by consistently making smaller archives than the competition, saving disk space and transmission costs
• WinRAR provides complete support for RAR and ZIP archives and is able to unpack CAB, ARJ, LZH, TAR, GZ, ACE, UUE, BZ2, JAR, ISO, 7Z, Z archives
• WinRAR offers a graphic interactive interface utilizing mouse and menus as well as the command line interface
• When you purchase WinRAR license you are buying a license to the complete technology, no need to purchase add-ons to create self-extracting files, it’s all included
• WinRAR is easier to use than many other archivers with the inclusion of a special “Wizard” mode which allows instant access to the basic archiving functions through a simple question and answer procedure. This avoids confusion in the early stages of use
• WinRAR offers you the benefit of industry strength archive encryption using AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) with a key of 128 bits
• WinRAR supports files and archives up to 8,589 billion gigabytes in size. The number of archived files is, for all practical purposes, unlimited
• WinRAR offers the ability to create selfextracting and multivolume archives
• Recovery record and recovery volumes allow to reconstruct even physically damaged archives
• WinRAR features are constantly being developed to keep WinRAR ahead of the pack

a-Squared Anti-Malware 4.5  - Worth $40!!

a-squared Anti-Malware 4.5 provides comprehensive PC protection against trojans, viruses, spyware, adware, worms, bots, keyloggers, rootkits and dialers.

2 cleaning scanners in 1: Anti-Virus + Anti-Spyware

• Not just any scanners, but a combination of two world class products – the a-squared Anti-Spyware, and the Ikarus Anti-Virus engine. Latest tests approve that both are cutting edge in Malware detection
• No doubling of the scan duration as would be the case with two separate scanning programs. Considerable performance improvement is possible thanks to the integration of the two engines on the lowest level
• No double price – two top security products for the price of one.

2 guards against new infections: signature scan + behavior analysis

• When a Malware infection is detected, the scanner puts the found objects under quarantine or deletes them finally
• Anti-Malware holds plenty of advanced options for experts to detect and delete Malware manually. For this purpose the integrated system analysis tool HiJackFree is included, and helps you to have all processes, services, auto-runs, open ports, browser plug-ins, LSPs and host entries under your control
• For tough problems our helpful Malware experts are at your disposal for free. With their help, any infection, no matter how resistant it is, can be purged – guaranteed

Protect your PC and start bidding now! If you don’t win then you can still try a-squared Anti-Malware 4.5 free for 30 days!

$7K Christmas Giveaway – Day 1 is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Win Over $9K In Free Prizes In Our Christmas Giveaway!!

Update: Our Prize Pot is now over $9k!!

This year we have an amazing Christmas treat for our readers.  Over the last couple of weeks we’ve been working with a select number of partners to create an amazing list of prizes that we will be giving away for free everyday starting Dec 1st and ending on Dec 24th.  In total we will be aiming to give away over $300 each day in prizes – that’s over $8000K total in prizes!

Some of the great offers we already have confirmed are:

• $300 of Free PC Memory from Crucial Memory
• $300 of Software from Uniblue
• 2 x N+ Router and N+ Wireless Adapters from Belkin
• 6 Unlimited Online Backup Accounts From Mozy
• $300 of software from Acronis
• $300 in Amazon vouchers
• $300 in international pre-pay SIMs from MobilityPass
• And many more great offers!!!

How To Play

Everyday we will be giving away one or more prizes worth $300 or more. For each of the prizes there will be a daily reverse auction.   Never heard of a reverse auction?  Well, unlike a normal auction where the highest bid wins in a reverse auction the lowest unique bid wins the given prize!  This makes the competition a lot more fun.

Worked Example of a Reverse Auction:

• four people bid ’1′
• two people bid ’2′
• five people bid ’3′
• two people bid ’4′
• one person bids ’5′
• five people bid ’6′
• one person bids ’7′

In this auction there are two unique bids, 5 & 7, but the person who bid 5 wins because their bid was the lowest unique bid.

It’s free to enter and you can bid as many times as you like each day.   To play all you have to do is go to http://www.windows7news.com/auction and register -it’s that simple!  Register now so that you are ready to start playing in the first auction starting on Tuesday.  Remember to keep checking back to see what prizes are coming up to win.

Also visit ghacks where Martin is also giving away thousands of dollars in prizes!!

Day 1 Christmas Giveaway Prizes – Auctions end 8PM PST 1/12/09

On the first day of the Giveaway we have 3 great prizes totalling $385 available:

• 1 Year Giganews Platinum Account – Worth $300!!
• Free Copy of WinRAR – Worth $45!!
• Copy of a-squared Anti-Malware 4.5 - Worth $40!!

Day 2 Christmas Giveaway Prizes – Auctions end 8PM PST 2/12/09

On the second day of the Giveaway we have 3 great prizes totalling $325 available:

• Free utilities and performance software from UNIBLUE - Worth $100!!
• Free Unlimited Online Backup Account from Mozy - Worth $55!!
• More software from UNIBLUE - Worth $30!!
• Free Copy of MediaMonkey Gold - Worth $40!!
• Free copy of RecoverMyFiles - Worth $100!!

Read more about the Christmas Giveaway Day 1 prizes.

If you would like to see your products featured in the giveaway then drop me a line at everton@windows7news.com as we have a couple of days left to fill, and I’ll explain the benefits of taking part.

$9K Christmas Giveaway! is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Making a claim like ‘…make the complete novice seem like a pro in just seconds’ is a very bold claim for any application, but Windows 7 In a Box may be able to genuinely claim this.  The application brings together many Windows 7 settings into one place in an attempt to make it easier for users to find Windows 7 settings:

After a quick glance around Windows 7 In A Box, it does seem to have most Windows 7 Settings covered, but I’m not sure whether having so many long lists makes it easier for users to find the setting that they want.

If you’re looking for specifically to tweak Windows 7 then maybe one of these Windows 7 tweakers may suit you better.

Access All Windows 7 Settings In One Place is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

If you purchased a new PC that came bundled with Windows 7, then there’s an easy way to customise the OEM logo and details on your PC.  Rather than having an ugly Dell or Toshiba logo, you can easily change this to your own personalised image or logo using the OEM Info Tool:

The OEM Info Tool works with both Windows 7 and Windows Vista.

Source: One Tip A Day

How To Change OEM Info In Windows 7 is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

We realised last night that our comments system isn’t working and hasn’t been working for a few days….  Our tech support team is trying to work out what the problem is – we know it the problem was created last week when we did some site optimisation work .  Hopefully everything will be up and working again later today – apologies for any inconvenience caused.

If you spot any other problems with the site then send an email to theteam@windows7news.com.

Apologies For Comments Not Working is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Remember Nokia? Tech sites spend so much time talking about the latest google android phones, the latest iPhone apps and rumour and the next ‘iPhone beater’ that everyone forgets that Nokia are still the largest mobile handset manufacturer globally.  I used to be a big Nokia fan and nearly every mobile phone I’ve owned since my first in 1995 has been a Nokia, although I haven’t owned a Nokia handset since 2008.

If you are one of the millions of users who own a Nokia phone and it happens to be a Nokia N97 or a Nokia 5800 then you can now download a Windows 7 theme for your Nokia phone.  The theme provides:

• Real Aero Effect
• Real Microsoft Icons
• Real Batter/Signal Indicators

Download here.

Windows 7 Theme For Nokia N97 And Nokia 5800 is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Over the years WindowsBlinds has been a popular tool for creating custom windows themes.  With WindowBlinds users can very quickly create their own skins or download ready mad ones. The latest version, WindowsBlinds 7, which has just been released now includes native support for Windows 7 as well as several other new features including 64-bit support.

New in WindowBlinds 7:

1. Native support for Windows 7
2. Native Aero skinning for Windows Vista and Windows 7 users
3. Native 64-bit support for Windows Vista and Windows 7 users
4. Auto-conversion of Windows XP era skins to Windows Vista or Windows 7
5. Ability to apply textures to skins
6. A new, easy to use configuration program
7. Native Clear-Type support for better font handling
8. New Skin format called UIS0 for skinning Aero (takes hours instead of days to create a new skin).
9. New WindowBlinds 7 skins included such as Submline, Aero Metals, Corporate, Aero Woods, Aero Clay, Sabertooth along with new WindowBlinds 7 skins being released soon after to the public such as Altitude.
10. Option to have a random skin applied each logon
11. Much better customization of fonts
12. Massive performance improvements in applying of skins.
13. Optimization of Windows Vista and Windows 7 DWM drawing to improve battery life on laptops.

WindowsBlinds is free to try and $19.95 to register, but in return you get lots of themes to choose from.

More: WindowsBlinds

WindowsBlinds 7 Now Supports Windows 7 is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

I was never any good at art at school.  In fact, I used to take extra maths and sciences lessons when my teachers let me rather than paint with the other children…So, I’m very envious of the designers who created the amazing Windows 7 wallpapers below.  Just check out these 22 amazing Windows 7 Wallpapers!

[Start slideshow]

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22 Amazing Windows 7 Wallpapers

Download

Thanks to Blaberize for pulling together such a beautiful collection of Windows 7 Wallpapers.  For more wallpapers, check out our collection here.

22 Amazing Windows 7 Wallpapers is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

There are several beautiful and sexy themes available for Windows 7, both official Windows 7 themes from Microsoft and unofficial Windows 7 themes.  Out of the box these themes don’t work on Windows XP or Windows Vista machines, but with a few tweaks you can get Windows 7 themes to work on Windows XP and Windows Vista machines.

Stage I Install 7-Zip

Windows 7 themes use the .themepack extension which Windows XP and Windows Vista cannot understand.  To extra the files from a downloaded Windows 7 theme just install the free 7-Zip utility that can handle the .themepack extension, and use it to extract your files to a folder on your PC

Stage IIa – Windows Vista Users

If you are running Aero, doubleclick the .theme file in the new folder you just created.  This will change your windows border to the one in the new theme as well as your wallpaper to the default wallpaper in the theme, although this will disappear when you reboot so you will have to:

• go to the theme folder
• click on the wallpaper you want to use and select ‘set as Desktop Background’

Stage IIb – Windows XP Users

XP doesn’t support Aero, so to set your wallpaper:

• go to the theme folder
• click on the wallpaper you want to use and select ‘set as Desktop Background’

Stage III Create Windows 7 Desktop Slideshows

Neither Windows XP or Windows Vista support Windows 7 Desktop Slideshows so to rotate your need to install a tool to rotate your wallpapers.  A good lightweight simple tool is the great Wallpaper Shifter app. he application picks a random wallpaper from a directory selected by the user and sets it as the active Windows wallpaper.

Stage IV – Add Theme Sounds & Icons

Adding sounds is very easy to do:

• Copy the sound files (.wav) to the default media folder C:WindowsMedia
• If you are using Windows Vista the theme file will automatically use these sounds

To add any windows 7 theme icons:

Windows Vista:

• Right-click anywhere on the desktop, choose ‘Personalize’ and then ‘Change Desktop Icons’
• Select the items you which to change, click ‘Change Icons’ and browse to the location of the new icons

Windows XP:

• Right-click anywhere on the desktop, select ‘Properties’ and choose ‘Customize Desktop’ under the Desktop tab
• Select the items you wish to change, click ‘Change Icon’ and browse to the location of the new icons

Stage V – Screensavers and Cursors

If your Windows 7 theme includes a screensaver or a new cursor then just do the following:

Screensavers

Copy the screensaver files (.scr) into your Windows system folder usually located at C:WindowsSystem32 to be able to access the new screensavers versions of Windows.

Cursors

• Copy the Windows 7 cursor files (.cur or .ani) to C:WindowsCursors on XP or Vista, and then apply the new set using the mouse settings under Control Panel.

That’s it!  Your sexy new Windows 7 theme should be brightening up your Windows Xp or Windows Vista machine.  Thanks to ghacks and Digital Inspiration for this guide.

How To Use Windows 7 Themes On XP And Vista PCs is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.