In the days of old when the O/S of choice for most day to day stuff was XP the only real challenge (for me at least) was twofold.  How to reduce the initial install size and how to automate as much of the mundane tasks as possible.

Then nlite appeared on the market and this allowed for taking an original XP install CD and integrating service packs, security patches, tweaks, etc and effectively automated the process of (re)installing XP. And as most know, this was a semi-regular event in the owner of a windows based PC.

Whilst nlite went on to release vlite for Vista this tool doesn’t work flawlessly with Windows 7 and there are only vague rumours of a proper Win7, it still leaves a gap in the market. That gap has now been, ably so it would appear, taken up by RTSe7enLite.

In their words:

You can add wallpapers, Icons, themes, integrate updates, drivers, remove components, unattended installation settings, tweaks, bootable ISO creator, etc.

I can see a usage – maybe you can too?

One of the most annoying aspects of Windows 7 (I find) is that lots of software doesn’t autostart or autorun properly. Let me explain with an example … do you use Piriform’s excellent ccleaner?

Do you use it the same way as I do – by right-clicking on my recycle bin?

If so, are you fed up with Windows 7 asking you for permission to run it?

This is the UAC in action.

Then the answer is that you need to run the item as an administrator and Windows 7 gives us have five options to do that – though not all would necessarily work for all situations and some will still ask you to confirm you are the admin or want to run as admin. Read the rest of this entry »

I love this … “God Mode” in Windows 7.

This tip has appeared in a number of places including here and here. The basic idea being that this gives you access to many (but not all) of Windows 7 tools, utilities, etc in one ‘global’ control panel.

Simply create a new folder anywhere you want, then rename that folder to:

GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

As soon as you do that you will see the folder icon disappear to be replaced with the following icon:

And that’s it … browse the contents to your hearts desire.

Welcome to the third edition of my sporadic Windows 7 tips …

This one covers backups and some more stuff to make life simpler.

One of the ways I’ve read over the years that folks should backup their system is by ‘imaging’ it. Why, well in short it allows you to setup your system the way you want and then you can take an exact ‘bit by bit’ replica of it and store elsewhere.

It’s been this store elsewhere that has caused problems over the years. But with Win7 you get a clean and elegant process. As with previous versions the backup icon is in your Control Panel. Once there click the “Create a System Image” in the top left corner and then Windows runs off and identifies where it can backup too (see image).

After selecting your appropriate image destination (I recommend not using a had disk built into your system) simply click next and follow the prompts. Note the hyperlink that takes you to a help page that tells you how to restore your image.

- Talking of images, did you know that Win7 is the first Microsoft O/S that allows you to burn ISO’s direct instead of having to use a third party application? Simply double click the ISO in question, pick the drive with your blank CD / DVD and burn. However, I still by far prefer to use ImgBurn.

-  To round up this set of tips here’s one for any who have ever struggled to work out what key combination works with external screens / projectors. Well fret no more as Win7 provides a ‘standard’ (I hesitate to call it this) way to access them. Simply press “Win+P” and all is revealed. There’s also a command line of “displayswitch.exe” that will do the same job.

This is the second post in what I see as being a long running series on Windows 7 tips and hints and ones that I hope prove useful to you or your users.

• One of the beauties of XP was that you could do a “clean install” using upgrade media. This wasn’t meant as a means to cirumvent paying full price but to deal with the need to occasionally wipe clean and do a fresh install of XP. Well now that facility is also available for Windows 7. However, rather than repeat the article I’ll simply point you at Paul Thurrot’s fabulous site. Read the rest of this entry »

I feel certain there will be many more of these as my playing with Windows 7 turns to serious usage.

For my first tip I want to talk about the run box. It’s no longer the run box you love and used daily – well I did. One thing you can’t obviously do anymore is run a command in “administrator mode” – well, yes you can.

As an example type “cmd” (without the quotes) into your Win7 run box but instead of automatically hitting enter resist and instead use Ctrl+Shift+Enter. This will throw up the User Account Control (aka UAC) box – simply accept and you now have a cmd session with administrator privileges.

As Aleksandr, chief meerkat says: “Simples“.

Whilst we’re in the cmd session, how about a command line tool to convert any PNG you have to an icon? then look no further than png2ico.

More anon.