Randy Cooper | 
Feb 28th, 2010| 
When using your new Windows 7 machine there might be times when something goes wrong with a driver or an app and Windows becomes unstable. Today we’ll show a complete System Restore process on a Windows 7 computer where the Office 2010 Uninstall went awry.
We recently had one of our computers in the lab take a turn for the worse after trying to do a complete uninstall of Office 2010 beta. It didn’t go the way we had hoped and experienced a hard time getting 2010 or 2007 reinstalled. It also caused some other apps that are associated with Office to error out and act unstable. Rather than spend hours researching Knowledgebase articles and tinkering with the Registry, we turned to restoring the system back to an earlier state with System Restore. In this article we thought we’d remind you about the importance of System Restore, and walk you through the restore process in Windows 7.
Recover from a Restore Point
First type system restore into the search box in the Start menu and hit Enter.
That opens the System Restore wizard and from here you can choose the recommended restore point,which is the most recent one…Or you can choose a different restore point, which for our situation we need to do. Select the radio button next to Choose a different restore point then click Next.
READ MORE >> Using System Restore to Recover your Windows 7 Computer – the How-To Geek
Let’s create a bootable Windows 7 USB flash drive for the purpose of installing this latest operating system. Here we are assuming that you own a PC with already Vista installed on it.
Requirements:
- A USB flash drive more than 4GB capacity
- Microsoft Windows 7 installation disk
- A computer running Microsoft Vista
Format the Drive
Follow these steps to use the command prompt to format the disk completely using the diskpart utility:
Warning: This will remove everything on your hard drive.
STEP 1. Insert your USB flash drive.
STEP 2. Open CMD prompt as an administrator. To do this, right click on Start-> All Programs->Accessories-> Command Prompt and select “Run as administrator”.
STEP 3. Locate the drive number of your USB drive by typing the following in the Command Prompt window: diskpart, list disk.
STEP 4. Next, you’ll be presented with USB drives connected to your computer. Choose the one you want to format.
STEP 5. Format the drive by typing the given instructions inside the command prompt window:
Windows 7 is the latest window launched by Microsoft Corporation. Its performance will surely beat all the other operating system available in the market. But it is necessary to keep a check on the maintenance issue of the windows. In order to maintain the registry integrity of Windows 7, you must install a registry cleaner. We have tested various registry cleaners available in the market, and tried to figure out which one is best for Windows 7.
There are many registry cleaners available in the market. All of them are designed to clean the “Registry” area of the operating system. Windows 7 consists of a massive database, whose function is to sort all the settings and options for the computer. This database is a vital part of the operating system as it controls all the functions of the system. This part was first introduced in Windows’ 98, and still it is a vital organ of the Windows 7.
READ MORE >> The Best Registry Cleaner For Windows 7 – Take Care Of Your Windows 7 | Organic Earth
Q:
Can the magicJack Internet phone device you reviewed last week be used for faxing?
A:
The company says: “We do not officially support using faxing with magicJack.” It says it “sometimes” works with fax machines and suggests a number of steps to try this, including turning off error correction on the fax machine and setting the fax speed to the lowest possible, then gradually increasing the speed, testing at each level. However, I would advise thinking of the $40 device, which allows free unlimited domestic calls over the Internet, as a voice-calling product and nothing else.
READ MORE >> Faxing and Voice Mail With magicJack; Reusing a Windows 7 CD | Walt Mossberg | Mossberg’s Mailbox | AllThingsD
I’ve had so many emails hit my inbox overnight about a story over on ComputerWorld citing data collected by Devil Mountain Software’s community-based XPnet claiming that some 86% of Windows 7 machines being monitored are regularly consuming 90-95% of the system RAM that I’m forced from silence to comment.
OK, let me begin by telling you why I wasn’t going to cover this story. Well, I’ll be honest with you, it’s because XPnet’s data isn’t a data source that’s on my trusted list. Collecting and correlating data is a tricky business, and there are too many mysteries surrounding how XPnet data is collected and what data is collected for me to get a clear picture of what’s going on. Those are my thoughts and feelings on the issue, but I encourage you to come to your own conclusions.
OK, but with that out of the way, let’s take a look at the claim.
86% of Windows 7 machines in the XPnet pool are regularly consuming 90%-95% of their available RAM
OK, first off, these figures seem way off to me. A quick look at the Windows 7 systems I’ve running here (which range in RAM from 1GB to 24GB) now shows the highest consumption to be in the region of 42%, and that system has two browser running, a remote desktop session active and a word processor running. This system is a notebook and has 2GB of RAM.
READ MORE >> UPDATED: 86% of Windows 7 PCs maxing out memory … really? | Hardware 2.0 | ZDNet.com
No matter which version of Windows you use, you will find your PC slowing down after a few months of regular use. This holds true for the latest incarnation as well – Windows 7. There are several third-party utilities that optimize Windows, but it is not safe to run system programs from unknown developers.
In this guide, we will cover speeding up windows 7 and how to optimize your Windows 7 PC or Laptop in a safe manner. These steps do not involve any “hacks”, so you can safely use them without harming your system in any way.
#1: Remove Unused Programs & Windows Features
When you buy a PC or laptop, it usually comes pre-installed with a lot of demo-ware, trial-ware, try-before-you-buy kind of software. If you like to play with new applications all the time, you might have yourself installed software downloaded from the Internet. Each program installed on your computer uses system resources that you are wasting if you don’t really need the software. Remove and uninstall all software that you no longer need from Control Panel –> Programs –> Uninstall a program. Also see How to Uninstall Applications Efficiently and Remove Obsolete Files.
Also, from Control Panel > Programs –> Turn Windows features on or off, uncheck any Windows features you don’t need.
#2: Review Startup Programs
The most common cause of slowdown are programs that automatically run when Windows starts and keep running in the background consuming precious system memory.
The simplest way to detect which programs are running when you start Windows is to check the notification area on the taskbar. Click the up arrow to show hidden icons. Uninstall any programs you don’t need, or disable the option within that program to start it automatically.
A better way to review startup programs is to use the System Configuration utility. From the Start menu, enter msconfig in the search box and start it from the search result. In this utility, click the Startup tab and review each entry. If you see entries of programs you don’t need, uncheck the box to disable that application from running at startup. Note : this does not uninstall applications from your system, it only disables them from automatically running at startup.
Advanced users should use the free Autoruns for Windows utility from the Microsoft website. This is the most comprehensive monitor of all kinds of startup programs and services you will ever need.
#3: Adjust Visual Effects
A pretty Windows is not the fastest Windows. You can adjust visual effects to get better performance from your system. In Control Panel, search for Performance and select Adjust the appearance and performance of Windows from the System category in the results.
In the popup window, you can choose the Adjust for best performance option or make a custom selection of which visual effects you need.
#4: Adjust Indexing Options
Windows continuously indexes drives and locations where it thinks you search for your files, including all folders in Libraries. You should tweak these settings so that Windows only indexes those locations where you actually search frequently. In Control Panel, search for Indexing and select Indexing Options. Click Modify.
In the popup dialog, click Show all locations if enabled. Now, clear the check box for those locations where you rarely search, and click OK.
#5: Adjust Power Settings
The default power management setting in Windows 7 is Balanced, conserving power at the cost of performance. If you are not concerned with battery usage and power consumption and more concerned with speeding up Windows 7, you can change the setting for maximum performance. In Control Panel, go to Power Options.
Click the down arrow to Show additional plans, and select the High performance power plan.
#6: Disable Sounds
You can disable unwanted Windows sounds to squeeze more performance. Go to Control Panel –> Hardware and Sound –> Change system sounds. In the Sound Scheme drop down, choose No Sounds, uncheck Play Windows Startup sound and click OK.
#7: Tweak Windows Services
This step is for advanced users. Windows Services run in the background and provide critical Operating System functions for your computer. However, most users don’t need all the Services that run by default. Since each running Service consumes system resources, tweaking the default settings for which Services run automatically at startup helps with speeding up windows 7. You can view and modify these settings by entering services.msc in the Start –> Search box.
Each Service can be set to Automatic (auto-start at boot), Manual (start when needed), or Disabled (cannot start). Which Service settings should you change? An excellent trustworthy reference guide is provided by “Black Viper”. Use the Safe configuration in which settings for 19 services have been changed from their default state. If you know what you’re doing, you can use settings from the Tweaked configuration for maximum benefit.
#8: Other Tips To Improve Performance
Apart from the above, the following tips also help improve Windows 7 performance:
- Use ReadyBoost as explained in #7 of 12 More Windows 7 Tips & Hacks.
- Use CCleaner as described in Freeware to Speedup Your Computer.
- Use a good Anti-Virus program like Microsoft Security Essentials.
- Restart Windows 7 at least once a week.
- Do not change the default disk defragmentation auto-run schedule.
These tips cover all the essentials you need to know to speed up Windows 7. There is no need to install any third-party utilities that tweak Windows 7, especially as most of them are not officially supported by Microsoft. Do you have other tips to speed up Windows 7? Share them with us in the comments!
The latest figures from the Steam hardware survey reveal that there is a hell of a lot of 64-bit Windows 7 software out there.
This will be news for those who actually use it because although Windows 7 has some nice bit of 32-bit software backup you can’t get some things, like Flash to run.
Yet according to the figures the 64-bit version of Windows 7 is now second most popular operating system, ran by 19.50 per cent of all Steam Users
Steam has about 25 million users and these are gamers so it is a bit unbalanced when it comes to gamer and home orientated systems.
Obviously XP was the overall winner. But out of 25 million, 4.88 million run 64-bit Win7, almost four percent up from December.
32-bit Vista came in third spot, with 19.09 per cent and the 32-bit version of Windows 7 took the fourth spot, with 9.03 per cent.
The figures show that Windows 7 is gaining ground on Windows XP which is losing market share to the new comer at a rate of two to three percent a month.
Microsoft is a step closer to delivering the final version of the Windows 7-based version of its Embedded Standard 2011 product that is codenamed “Quebec.”
On February 15, Microsoft made available to testers the Release Candidate (RC) version of Windows Embedded Standard 2011 — a product the company has decided to renamed Windows Embedded Standard 7. The RC is available to select testers via the Microsoft Connect site, according to an email sent to those testers on February 15.
Windows Embedded Standard is targeted at OEMs and specialized device makers who want to build platforms and applications that use various Windows components. In other words, it is the componentized version of Windows 7.
Microsoft delivered a first test build of the product in September 2009. At that time, company officials said to expect the final release in the second half of 2010 (in spite of the name, at that point, being Embedded Standard 2011).
READ MORE >> Microsoft ‘Quebec’ Windows 7 embedded product nears the finish line | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com
Windows 7 has been heralded as a genuine success for Microsoft. It’s apparently been selling like cupcakes and has received a much more positive response than its predecessor, Windows Vista.
It’s also been able to generate public interest in a way Vista was never able to do. Compare the two and Windows 7 comes out on top with a bruised and battered Windows Vista laying at its feet, whimpering.
Just look at the below search volume graph from Google, which shows the search volume for Windows 7 compared with that of Windows Vista. Windows 7 raced past Windows Vista in no time, and quickly passed the all-time high of Vista.
It looks like Microsoft finally really does have a big hit on its hands. They have claimed it’s the fastest-selling OS in history, and that may very well be right.
Here is how fast it’s growing. After being available for just three months, Windows 7 has reached a 10% market share. That’s almost double that of Mac OS X, and more than half of that of Windows Vista. Those numbers include computers that come with pre-installed versions of Windows 7, which does of course help tremendously, but it’s still very impressive.
Now the only question is how long it will take Windows 7 to overtake Windows Vista in actual market share. How soon do you think it will happen?
