windows 7

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Automating Windows 7 Installation : Using Windows System Image Manager (part 3) - Creating an Unattended Answer File

The following steps show how to create an unattended answer file on a technician's computer that can be used to boot a system into the Sysprep Audit mode without user invention.

Automating Windows 7 Installation : Using Windows System Image Manager (part 2) - Exploring the Components of an Answer File

Pass 1 includes many of the basic Windows preinstallation options as well as some basic setup options. Figure 3 shows the Setup section expanded to show many of the available options that can be added to the answer file

Automating Windows 7 Installation : Using Windows System Image Manager (part 1) - An Overview of WSIM, Understanding Catalog Files

When you first open WSIM, it has almost nothing in it. However, once you start creating an answer file, the different panes of WSIM start displaying some important information.

Personalizing and Configuring Windows 7 : Performance Tweaks (part 4) - Improving Windows 7's Memory

A long time ago PCs of a bygone era had woefully inadequate amounts of RAM, and the versions of Windows used back then had to regularly swap large chunks of RAM back to slower, disk-based storage called virtual memory

Personalizing and Configuring Windows 7 : Performance Tweaks (part 3) - Monitoring Performance and Reliability

Windows has had a Performance Monitor since the earliest days of NT, but with Windows Vista, Microsoft debuted an amazing new utility, the Reliability Monitor, which tracks the overall reliability of your PC over time, ever since the first day you booted.

Personalizing and Configuring Windows 7 : Performance Tweaks (part 2) - Using Windows 7's Performance Options

While all the performance tools are available individually throughout the system, Windows 7 introduces a nice list of available tools, if you can find it.

Personalizing and Configuring Windows 7 : Performance Tweaks (part 1) - Making It Boot Faster

While we do recommend buying a new PC with Windows 7 preinstalled to get the best experience, the truth is that many PC makers seem to go out of their way to screw up what should be a happy experience.

Personalizing and Configuring Windows 7 : The Windows 7 User Interface (part 3) - Branding Windows 7 like a PC Maker

We happen to believe that Windows 7's user interface is a tremendous improvement over those of both its predecessors, Windows XP and Windows Vista, and various competing operating systems such as Mac OS X

Personalizing and Configuring Windows 7 : The Windows 7 User Interface (part 2) - Configuring Folder Options

Although the version of Windows Explorer found in Windows 7 is quite a bit different from that found in Windows XP and Windows Vista, some things haven't changed much at all.

Personalizing and Configuring Windows 7 : The Windows 7 User Interface (part 1) - Customizing the Start Menu

The Windows 7 Start menu is an evolution of the Start menu that debuted in Windows XP, and it offers a much smarter interface for interacting with the applications, documents, and other content on your PC than did the Start menus from previous Windows versions.

Games and Windows 7 : Games for Windows - LIVE (part 2) - Accessing Games for Windows - LIVE from within Compatible Games

You're really only participating in the best of what Games for Windows - LIVE offers when you're playing a compatible game, which still amounts to a pretty small selection of titles.

Games and Windows 7 : Games for Windows - LIVE (part 1) - Using the Games for Windows - LIVE Marketplace

The standalone Games for Windows - LIVE client is single-handedly devoted to the new Games for Windows – LIVE Marketplace, which is an online service and store that provides free and paid game-related content.

Using the Windows 7 Libraries : USING THE EXPLORER BROWSER CONTROL (part 2)

The Explorer Browser example doesn't contain a lot of code, yet you can do quite a bit with it because the ExplorerBrowser control provides a lot of functionality by itself.

Using the Windows 7 Libraries : USING THE EXPLORER BROWSER CONTROL (part 1) - Adding the Explorer Browser to Your Toolbox , Configuring the Explorer Browser Example

Explorer Browser is another in a long line of controls that Microsoft has provided for making it easier to create interesting applications using less code.

Using the Windows 7 Libraries : CONSIDERING USER-DEFINED COLLECTIONS

Placing projects, files, pictures, sounds, and other items in this folder means that the user can find them with ease, organize them, search within them, and generally access the things needed to conduct business, without having to consider where the resource is actually located.

Using the Windows 7 Libraries : USING NON-FILESYSTEM CONTAINERS

A number of non-filesystem containers are provided with the KnownFolders class. For example, the KnownFolders.Connections property is a non-filesystem container.

Using the Windows 7 Libraries : WORKING WITH KNOWN FOLDERS

Known folders are essentially those folders that the system already knows about — they're the folders that the system is designed to provide. The KnownFolders class contains a host of these folder listings as individual properties.

Games and Windows 7 : Installing and Playing Third-Party Games

Some games, especially older games, will require a bit of prodding. In some cases, Windows 7 includes compatibility information about certain problematic game titles, and in others you'll need to manually set up the game's shortcut to run in Windows XP or Windows Vista compatibility mode before it will run.

Games and Windows 7 : Using the Games Explorer (part 4) - Managing Your Game Controllers and Other Game-Related Hardware

This is also a handy place for accessing the Windows Device Manager, which can tell you whether you need updated drivers for any of your hardware devices. You'll see Device Manager in the list of options in the Hardware and Sound Control Panel, under Devices and Printers.

Games and Windows 7 : Using the Games Explorer (part 3) - Rating Your System's Performance

In Windows Vista, you could access the Performance Information and Tools directly from the Games Explorer, but this is no longer possible in Windows 7. To access this tool, open the Start menu and type performance in the Search box. You'll see Performance Information and Tools in the search results list that appears.

Games and Windows 7 : Using the Games Explorer (part 2) - Customizing Games Explorer

In addition to the Set up game updates and options window, which is accessible from the Games toolbar menu item, there are a number of ways in which you can configure the Games Explorer in Windows 7.

Games and Windows 7 : Using the Games Explorer (part 1)

Actually, if this is the first time you've opened the Games Explorer, you'll see a slightly different display: Microsoft provides a window with which you can configure various options related to the Games Explorer and the built-in Windows 7 games.

Automating Windows 7 Installation : Customizing Images Using Deployment Image Servicing and Management (part 3) - Servicing the Operating System in an Image , Committing an Image

You can add and remove features and packages from an image. Packages come as cabinet (.cab) files or Microsoft Windows Update Standalone Installer (.msu) files. Table 3 shows common commands you can use to work on packages and features with an offline image.

Automating Windows 7 Installation : Customizing Images Using Deployment Image Servicing and Management (part 2) - Mounting an Image , Servicing Drivers in an Image

DISM includes several commands you can use to view, add, and remove drivers within an image. These drivers must use the INF file format. Unfortunately, drivers that are installed as executable files are not supported using these methods.

Automating Windows 7 Installation : Customizing Images Using Deployment Image Servicing and Management (part 1) - Viewing Information about an Image with DISM

This output is a lot easier to digest than the ImageX XML output shown earlier. It's interesting to note that the queried install.wim file is about 2.2 GB when stored on a disk. However, it holds the contents of these five installation images, and each of the images will expand to about 8 GB.

Automating Windows 7 Installation : Applying an Image Using ImageX

You can use your bootable media with ImageX to apply a captured image to a stand-alone system. The image can be stored and applied from several different locations.

Automating Windows 7 Installation : Capturing an Image Using ImageX

The drive you'll image is almost always the C: drive. However, in some instances where you have dual-boot systems, you may be imaging another drive. The folder where the image will be stored can be on any available system drive that has adequate space, including the drive that you're imaging.

Advanced Windows 7 Programming : Working in the Background - DEVELOPING TRIGGER-START SERVICES (part 7)

Open the Services console in the Administrative Tools folder of the Control Panel. Right-click the Telnet entry and choose Start from the Context menu. The Telnet service will start. Starting the Telnet service opens Port 23.

Advanced Windows 7 Programming : Working in the Background - DEVELOPING TRIGGER-START SERVICES (part 6)

After you build the service, you need to install it before you can use it. Because this is a trigger-start service, you also need to verify that the service installed correctly. You want to be sure that the service installed as you intended it to install, rather than as a standard service.

Advanced Windows 7 Programming : Working in the Background - DEVELOPING TRIGGER-START SERVICES (part 5)

At this point, you have a trigger-start service you can use to monitor Telnet utility Port 23. Of course, before you can use Telnet, you need a Telnet server and the proper system setup.

Advanced Windows 7 Programming : Working in the Background - DEVELOPING TRIGGER-START SERVICES (part 4)

The emphasis of this example is on creating a trigger-start service, so the service code isn't much to look at. In this case, the service code outputs one of two messages to the event log to describe the state of Port 23.

Advanced Windows 7 Programming : Working in the Background - DEVELOPING TRIGGER-START SERVICES (part 3)

The trigger code appears as part of the TriggerStartServiceInstaller.CS file. To add this code, right-click the TriggerStartServiceInstaller.CS file in Solution Explorer and choose View Code from the Context menu.

Advanced Windows 7 Programming : Working in the Background - DEVELOPING TRIGGER-START SERVICES (part 2)

The TriggerStartService example begins with a Windows service, so you'll select the Windows Service template in the Windows folder of your favorite language, as shown in Figure 1.

Advanced Windows 7 Programming : Working in the Background - DEVELOPING TRIGGER-START SERVICES (part 1)

A trigger-start service isn't anything too strange. Don't think of it as an entirely new technology. Rather, it's simply a new way to start the service when needed.

Advanced Windows 7 Programming : Working in the Background - ADVANTAGES OF WORKING IN THE BACKGROUND

Most systems spend the majority of their time working in the background. If you look at the Task Manager display, you'll see that there are more than 60 processes running on any Windows 7 machine, most of them not even started by the user.

Managing Digital Movies (part 1) - Managing Digital Movies with the Windows 7 Shell

In Windows 7, finally, the Videos shell location has become a first-class citizen alongside your other commonly accessed user folders, though Microsoft continues to confuse with its folder names.

Managing Windows 7 : Helping Each Other - Start the Session, Solve The Problem

Using the Remote Assistance feature, you can contact someone on your network or over the Internet for help. Your friend or coworker can view your computer Desktop, review your system information, and even chat with you to help you figure out what's wrong.

Managing Windows 7 : Troubleshooting Problems - Find a Troubleshooter, Run a Troubleshooter

Windows 7 is filled with troubleshooters—little wizards that analyze a situation and try to provide guidance to help solve problems. If you run into a problem, Windows will often suggest a particular troubleshooter. However, you can choose a troubleshooter and can run it whenever you want.

Managing Windows 7 : Maintaining Your Hard Disk

With time and use, your computer's contents can become a bit disorganized. As the information stored in the computer gets used, moved, copied, added to, or deleted, the computer's hard disk, or drive, can become cluttered with useless or inefficiently organized files.

Managing Windows 7 : Checking the Performance Status of Windows

In order for Windows 7 to be able to use all its features, it demands a lot from your computer. If your computer just isn't performing the way you want it to, try checking to see how the different parts of your computer perform with Windows 7.

Managing Windows 7 : Managing Touch Settings

If your computer has touch capabilities, you can customize the way the computer responds to your touch, and the way windows and programs respond when you pan to scroll the window with your finger.

Evaluating Applications for Windows 7 Compatibility : Deploying XP Mode

Sometimes you just can't get an application to work on Windows 7 no matter what you do. You've found no upgrades, there is no vendor or third-party fix, you can't rewrite it, and all your efforts with ACT have failed. You have come to the conclusion that the only thing you can do is run the application on Windows XP.

Managing Windows 7 : Managing Navigational and Editing Flicks

On a computer that has pen or touch input, you can use flicks to accomplish specific actions. A flick is a short gesture that you make with a pen or a finger, in a specific direction, to accomplish a certain action. You can also customize flicks to perform many different actions.

Managing Windows 7 : Configuring a Pen or Touch Computer, Managing Pen Settings

If you have a Tablet PC or another system that uses pen or touch input, you can configure the computer so that it works best for you and the way you use it. Unless you want to change the way things are working, you'll need to configure most of these settings only once.

Windows 7 Mobility Features : Using Windows 7 with a Netbook

When Microsoft shipped Windows Vista in late 2006, it ushered in an era of next-generation computing that brought with it heady new hardware requirements, rendering certain older PCs immediately obsolete.

Windows 7 Mobility Features : Other Mobile Features

In addition to the major new mobility-related features mentioned previously, Windows 7 ships with a host of other technologies that benefit mobile workers. This section highlights some of these features and explains how you can take advantage of them.

Windows 7 Mobility Features : Presentations A-Go-Go

An obscure but useful feature, Presentation Settings enables you to temporarily disable your normal power management settings, ensuring that your system stays awake, with no screen dimming, no hard drive disabling, no screen saver activation, and no system notifications to interrupt you.

Windows 7 Mobility Features : Windows Mobility Center

In Windows 7, the software giant continued the work it started in Windows Vista toward creating a centralized management console called Windows Mobility Center for all of this functionality, and it has preloaded this dashboard with all of the utilities a mobile user could want. Best of all, PC makers are free to extend Mobility Center with their own machine-specific mobile utilities.

Evaluating Applications for Windows 7 Compatibility : The Application Compatibility Toolkit (part 4) - Resolving Application Compatibility Issues with Shims

Many legacy applications require administrative access to run. This is a problem with most business networks. That's because we like to restrict users to standard users so that we can control security, configuration, and compliance systems. Typical of IT security, we need to find a bottom ground between security and the business operations.

Evaluating Applications for Windows 7 Compatibility : The Application Compatibility Toolkit (part 3) - Using the Application Compatibility Manager

The detail pane illustrates what you need to do to use ACM. You need to create a DCP to collect data for ACM to use. From this, you can analyze the data and generate reports. Then you can use the other ACT tools to test any applications with issues and create shims to make them work on Windows 7.