BlogHASH » Windows

Download over 34 free Windows 7 themes

Raj — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:15:07 +0000

Have you recently got Windows 7 onto your computer and looking for Windows 7 themes? Here are 34 themes for your new Windows 7 system and all of them are from Microsoft. There are 14 featured themes and 20 International themes each representing a country that are currently available for immediate download.

So, what are you waiting for? Go ahead and download the themes you like for your Windows 7 from Microsoft’s personalization gallery.

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Disable autorun in Windows to prevent new USB boot virus infection

Raj — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 10:33:28 +0000

PC World recently published an article titled ‘How Windows Autorun Can Autoinfect’ that talked about the new USB based malware which is the new boot virus spreading from USB devices to Windows systems such as XP. The article stresses on the need for the IT admins to disable autorun in Windows to prevent such USB based viruses from infecting the systems on their network.

The problem is not just with the USB flashdisk drives but also those numerous USB based devices such as memory cards, USB hard drives and portable devices that Windows’ autorun features can detect and autoplay. To add more to the problem, when a user connects his/her device, the program contained on the disk is automatically run by the operating system. This is a big problem as IT admins have no control over their users as they can connect any device whenever they want to. To solve this problem, IT admins must disable autorun in Windows.

How to disable autorun in Windows?

The steps to disable autorun feature in Windows operating systems such as Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows 2003 are mentioned below.

Click Start, click Run, type regedit in the Open box, and then click OK.
Locate and then click the following entry in the registry:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies\Explorer\NoDriveTypeAutorun
Right-click NoDriveTypeAutoRun, and then click Modify.
In the Value data box, type 0xFF to disable all types of drives. Or, to selectively disable specific drives, use a different value as described in the “How to selectively disable specific Autorun features” section.
Click OK, and then exit Registry Editor.
Restart the computer.

Further information on how to disable autorun in Windows

Image credit: gsmobil.cz

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How To: Restore hijacked Internet explorer homepage [windows]

Raj — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 10:00:26 +0000

Did you know that 9 out of every 10 computer user had their browser’s home page hijacked at least once? Internet explorer has been like a playground that easily lets itself exploited and a malicious code could change the default home page of the browser to anything you want.

Anyway, if you currently have this problem and are searching for a solution to fix it, keep reading this post.

What is hijacking of Internet explorer homepage?

A security hole in browser could allow malicious code to directly make changes to the registry of the Windows operating system such that the home page settings in the registry could be altered to reset the default home page to some other website. This causes the Internet explorer to show some other website when its open.

Why am I unable to reset the home page in Internet explorer settings window?

You try to reset the home page in Internet explorer settings window but it reverts to the old homepage. This happens because there could be a piece of executable code that is getting loaded as soon as you start the system and that code watches the Internet explorer’s home page settings and keeps resetting it every time you boot the system.

How to fix the hijacked Internet explorer homepage?

It’s very easy to fix this problem and restore your Internet explorer’s homepage to the default or a website of your choice. Follow these steps to solve this problem.

Download Spybot-S&D program to examines vulnerable parts of your system. The software is free and works very well. Install it and run a scan.
Click Start > Run and type %TEMP% in the run prompt. Hit Enter. This will open up the folder that stores temporary files often left behind by application installer. Delete all the files. You may not be able to delete some of them as they might be used at the moment. Delete as many as you can.
After you are done with the above steps, and if the problem still persists, this is what you should now be doing. Open registry editor, Start > Run > regedit, and navigate to the following keys in the registry, one by one, and look for Default_Page_URL key on the right. That’s what should be changed to whatever you want. Also check the Start Page key and Default_Page_URL key matches.
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftInternet ExplorerMain]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftInternet ExplorerMain]

Now that you know what to do to resolve the Windows Internet explorer homepage problem, read the steps to keep spywares and adwares away from your system to avoid such problems in future.

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Windows XP Service Pack 3 has been released

Raj — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 11:03:08 +0000

Microsoft has released Service Pack 3 for its Windows XP family of operating system. This release does not affect the end user’s experience with the operating system but mostly contains the previously released fixes and updates.

However, this release contains many smaller but newer functionalities that might be of some help to IT Administrators and people in IT department in-charge of end user computing.

The new and enhanced functionality that, are worth mentioning, comes along with SP3 is as follows:

Black Hole Router Detection – Windows XP SP3 includes improvements to black hole router detection (detecting routers that are silently discarding packets), turning it on by default.
Network Access Protection (NAP) – NAP is a policy enforcement platform built into Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, and Windows XP SP3 with which you can better protect network assets by enforcing compliance with system health requirements. Using NAP, you can create customized health policies to validate computer health before allowing access or communication.
Enhanced security for Administrator and Service policy entries – In System Center Essentials for Windows XP SP3, Administrator and Service entries will be present by default on any new instance of policy. Additionally, the user interface for the Impersonate Client After Authentication user right will not be able to remove these settings.
Windows Product Activation – As in Windows Server 2003 SP2 and Windows Vista, users can now complete operating system installation without providing a product key during a full, integrated installation of Windows XP SP3. The operating system will prompt the user for a product key later as part of Genuine Advantage.

Additional things to note about XP SP3:

Users can install SP3 on top of Windows XP SP1 or SP2
Tools and guidance for system administrators have not fundamentally changed from Windows XP SP2.
Windows XP SP3 is for x86 editions of Windows XP only.

The XP SP 3 is for the following versions of XP: Windows XP; Windows XP Home Edition ; Windows XP Home Edition N; Windows XP Media Center Edition; Windows XP Professional Edition ; Windows XP Professional N; Windows XP Service Pack 1; Windows XP Service Pack 2; Windows XP Starter Edition and Windows XP Tablet PC Edition.

As an end user, SP3 is not of much importance that will require you to install it as it doesn’t impact how you use your system.

» More info on XP SP3 [here]

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Fix: Browser closes while opening certain websites and pages

Raj — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 15:42:27 +0000

Since last few weeks my browsers, both IE and Firefox, started behaving strangely. Whenever I tried to open certain websites or if I tried to navigate directly to internal pages of certain websites, my browser window would close leaving me with no information on what made them close. I thought it would be worthwhile to make a post about it for those who are facing similar issues with their browsers and looking everywhere for a possible fix.

Problem: Browser windows, both Firefox and IE, would close when opening certain websites and pages.

Investigation: I initially thought that it could be due to some malware or a problem with Internet explorer itself. But when I tried to open a problem giving website in Firefox which was closing IE window, I realized it was something else. After doing lot of research on Internet, I came to a conclusion that this behavior was due to either a corrupt installation of Java or an outdated version of Java being the sole responsible piece of software on my system causing my browsers to crash.

Fix: All you need to do is to install the latest version of Java client from Sun Microsystem‘s website and restart your browsers. I verified this fix to work on both my laptop and desktop. Here is the direct link to Java client for your systems.

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Hard Drive Data Recovery Made Easy with Unstoppable Copier Software

Raj — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 16:06:04 +0000

Recovering files from disks of your laptops, servers and personal computers with bad sectors, badly damaged disk, scratches and boot sector failures has become easy with a free tool called Unstoppable Copier. The tool does its great job of recovering files and folders from bad disks by ignoring all the error messages that one would have otherwise encountered while using standard ways and tools to retrieve data from damaged disks. The advantage of using this approach is that some types of files can still be used even if some parts at the end of it could not be retrieved due to extensive damage of sectors on the disk. You may no longer have to look for a data recovery service.

This free data recovery tool has some great features which are not even found in some professional tools.

You can change the level of data recovery, from extensive to skipping damaged files completely.
The data recovery process can be paused and resumed.
Logging can be enabled to record details on transfered files, their integrity and offsets of any errors.
Multiple directories structures or single files can be dragged and dropped onto unstoppable copier for transfer.
Support for multiple foreign languages such as English,German, Italian,French, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, Hungarian and Polish. However, the Linux version of this data recovery tool does not support these many languages.

» Download Unstoppable Copier for Windows or Linux | Visit the website

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5 Free and Powerful Tools for Network Troubleshooting

Raj — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 12:00:31 +0000

Having tough time with command line utilities on your Windows system to troubleshoot network issues? Here are 5 very powerful tools from Axence for network troubleshooting available for free.

Ping – Instead of using a command line ping utility, use this graphical tool that also has 5 minutes of ping history.

Fast Traceroute – Now you don’t have to wait till the command line tracert utility that takes its own sweet time in tracing the route for you. Use Fast Traceroute that does the job in just few seconds. It also gives you information about every host on the route, its response time and packets lost.

Lookup – Similar in function to that of nslookup but provides information in one go.

Local info – Quickly displays information about your local computer’s network statistics for TCP/UDP and ICMP, IP address table, ARP table, IP routing table and network adapter info.

Bandwidth Measuring – Quick way to determine how fast your network is, without overloading the network or affecting the network performance.

» Download your copy of Axence NetTools 3.0 that comes with Free Axence NetTools (full version), 30-day trial of Professional version features and 30-day trial of Axence nVision.

Also see: If you are interested in finding your public IP address, use what is my ip address website.

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Troubleshooting Broken Software Installations on 95/98/XP/Vista/2000/2003 and NT

Raj — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 19:03:15 +0000

Do you have a situation where you can no longer uninstall a software due to either a problem with the Windows registry or corrupt software installation? Also, you might come across a situation when you want to reinstall or upgrade your existing software to the latest version but since the older version is not behaving properly, you may not be able to do so.

Windows Installer CleanUp Utility is what you should look forward for dealing with such situations. It’s a nice little utility to help resolve installation problems for programs that use Microsoft Windows Installer. It will remove all the traces of your installed software from the Windows registry and you may then safely delete the installation directory, related files and other references of the installed software.

Using Windows Installer CleanUp Utility – After you install the tool, just run it and you will see a dialog box. Select one or more program entries that were installed by Windows Installer. When you remove the entry, the tool will remove files and registry settings that are part of the Installer configuration which are related to the selected programs. That’s it! But be aware, once the software entry is removed, you will not be able to revert your action. So, use it with caution and as a last resort only.

This tool works on 95/98/XP/Vista/2000/2003/Millennium and NT 4.0

» Download Windows Installer CleanUp Utility. Refer to this KB article for more information.

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Manage Multiple Windows Systems Easily with BGInfo

Raj — Fri, 11 May 2007 23:30:38 +0000

How many times you have found yourself running through multiple commands to find critical system information such as its IP address, Hostname, CPU Information, Service Pack information and User Name? This is very annoying specially when you are in charge of system administration and work on multiple Windows systems to troubleshoot various problems such as slow PC performance related issues.

BGInfo is a small utility to help you find important information about a system within no time. As soon as it’s run, it prints the IP address, Hostname, CPU Information, Service Pack information and User Name on the desktop screen and exits. BGInfo also lets you create a configuration file that you can export and import on other systems that you can use to print the required information on the screen.

Other important settings that you can enable in the configuration file to display on the screen includes MAC Address, Memory, OS Version, Default Gateway, DHCP server, Free Space, Boot Time and there are many more options to choose from. BGInfo works on Windows 95+ and NT 4.0 onwards.

» Download BGInfo | More Info on BGInfo

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History of Windows Icons

Raj — Fri, 04 May 2007 15:00:06 +0000

Below is a screen shot that shows how icon have gone through an evolution over the last decade. Thanks to Windows XP that brought in high resolution icons and also because of many icon tools that are now available in the market for any one to produce quality icons with minimal efforts.

Any guesses as to how the icons might look after another few years?

Source » [WindowsIcon.com]

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ObjectDock: A Better Way to Organize Your Shortcuts, Programs and Running Tasks

Raj — Thu, 03 May 2007 15:00:16 +0000

ObjectDock is a desktop management program that offers you better control over how you organize your shortcuts, programs and running tasks by putting them in a dock that can even replace your entire start bar. The dock can be further customized to your preferences with various interaction modes that are available right within the program.

ObjectDock is available in two versions, basics free version and a plus version that packs in more useful features. Free version uses the standard dock and the plus version has a tabbed dock. ObjectDock also features something called ‘dockets’, small applications written by third parties, that can enhance your desktop experience by showing you variety of things right on your desktop such as email status, network traffic, CPU usage, clock, Wi-Fi connection strength, calendar, and much more. Once installed, you can add dockets to your desktop based on your choice and what you like to. Here are some screen shots to show you how your desktop will look like when you install this program (of course, subject to customization).

For a feature comparison between free and plus version, check out this page.

» [ObjectDock Homepage] | [Download ObjectDock Free Version]

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NetPing: A Ping Utility that Does More than Just Pinging

Raj — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 16:30:50 +0000

NetPing is a free utility that is many steps ahead of the standard command line ping utility, found in Windows family of operating systems, in terms of features and functionality that it offers. The tool lets you perform custom actions on the computers that it shows. It also shows you the response time, uptime of computers and their operating systems. The functionality increases with more add-ins that you download and install.

You will have to provide the tool with a range of IPs to scan, it then displays all the systems found within the range specified and you can then perform custom action on them depending on the installed add-ons.

» [Download NetPing] | [Download NetPing AddIns]

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108 Commands You can Execute from the Run Command Prompt in XP

Raj — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 02:24:29 +0000

Mentioned below is a list of 108 commands that you can execute from the ‘Run’ command prompt in XP. All you have to do is click on Start » Click Run and type the below commands to run the respective application/tool.

COMMAND	-	Will run the following app/tool
access.cpl	-	Accessibility Controls
hdwwiz.cpl	-	Add Hardware Wizard
appwiz.cpl	-	Add/Remove Programs
certmgr.msc	-	Administrative Tools
charmap	-	Character Map
chkdsk	-	Check Disk Utility
clipbrd	-	Clipboard Viewer
cmd	-	Command Prompt
dcomcnfg	-	Component Services
compmgmt.msc	-	Computer Management
timedate.cpl	-	Date and Time Properties
ddeshare	-	DDE Shares
devmgmt.msc	-	Device Manager
directx.cpl	-	Direct X Control Panel (If Installed)
dxdiag	-	Direct X Troubleshooter
cleanmgr	-	Disk Cleanup Utility
dfrg.msc	-	Disk Defragment
diskmgmt.msc	-	Disk Management
diskpart	-	Disk Partition Manager
control desktop	-	Display Properties
desk.cpl	-	Display Properties
control color	-	Display Properties (w/Appearance Tab Preselected)
drwtsn32	-	Dr. Watson System Troubleshooting Utility
verifier	-	Driver Verifier Utility
eventvwr.msc	-	Event Viewer
sigverif	-	File Signature Verification Tool
findfast.cpl	-	Findfast
control folders	-	Folders Properties
control fonts	-	Fonts
fonts	-	Fonts Folder
freecell	-	Free Cell Card Game
joy.cpl	-	Game Controllers
gpedit.msc	-	Group Policy Editor (XP Prof)
mshearts	-	Hearts Card Game
iexpress	-	Iexpress Wizard
ciadv.msc	-	Indexing Service
inetcpl.cpl	-	Internet Properties
ipconfig /all	-	IP Configuration (Display Connection Configuration)
ipconfig /displaydns	-	IP Configuration (Display DNS Cache Contents)
ipconfig /flushdns	-	IP Configuration (Delete DNS Cache Contents)
ipconfig /release	-	IP Configuration (Release All Connections)
ipconfig /renew	-	IP Configuration (Renew All Connections)
ipconfig /registerdns	-	IP Configuration (Refreshes DHCP & Re-Registers DNS)
ipconfig /showclassid	-	IP Configuration (Display DHCP Class ID)
ipconfig /setclassid	-	IP Configuration (Modifies DHCP Class ID)
javaws	-	Java Control Panel (If Installed)
control keyboard	-	Keyboard Properties
secpol.msc	-	Local Security Settings
lusrmgr.msc	-	Local Users and Groups
logoff	-	Logs You Out Of Windows
winchat	-	Microsoft Chat
winmine	-	Minesweeper Game
control mouse	-	Mouse Properties
main.cpl	-	Mouse Properties
netstat	-	Netstat
control netconnections	-	Network Connections
ncpa.cpl	-	Network Connections
netsetup.cpl	-	Network Setup Wizard
notepad	-	Notepad
nvtuicpl.cpl	-	Nview Desktop Manager (If Installed)
packager	-	Object Packager
odbccp32.cpl	-	ODBC Data Source Administrator
osk	-	On Screen Keyboard
password.cpl	-	Password Properties
perfmon.msc	-	Performance Monitor
perfmon	-	Performance Monitor
telephon.cpl	-	Phone and Modem Options
powercfg.cpl	-	Power Configuration
control printers	-	Printers and Faxes
printers	-	Printers Folder
eudcedit	-	Private Character Editor
QuickTime.cpl	-	Quicktime (If Installed)
intl.cpl	-	Regional Settings
regedit	-	Registry Editor
mstsc	-	Remote Desktop
ntmsmgr.msc	-	Removable Storage
ntmsoprq.msc	-	Removable Storage Operator Requests
rsop.msc	-	Resultant Set of Policy (XP Prof)
sticpl.cpl	-	Scanners and Cameras
control schedtasks	-	Scheduled Tasks
wscui.cpl	-	Security Center
services.msc	-	Services
fsmgmt.msc	-	Shared Folders
shutdown	-	Shuts Down Windows
mmsys.cpl	-	Sounds and Audio
spider	-	Spider Solitare Card Game
cliconfg	-	SQL Client Configuration
sysedit	-	System Configuration Editor
msconfig	-	System Configuration Utility
sfc /scannow	-	System File Checker Utility (Scan Immediately)
sfc /scanonce	-	System File Checker Utility (Scan Once At Next Boot)
sfc /scanboot	-	System File Checker Utility (Scan On Every Boot)
sfc /revert	-	System File Checker Utility (Return to Default Setting)
sfc /purgecache	-	System File Checker Utility (Purge File Cache)
sfc /cachesize=x	-	System File Checker Utility (Set Cache Size to size x)
sysdm.cpl	-	System Properties
taskmgr	-	Task Manager
telnet	-	Telnet Client
tracert	-	Traceroute to hostname or IP
nusrmgr.cpl	-	User Account Management
utilman	-	Utility Manager
firewall.cpl	-	Windows Firewall
magnify	-	Windows Magnifier
wmimgmt.msc	-	Windows Management Infrastructure
syskey	-	Windows System Security Tool
wupdmgr	-	Windows Update Launches
tourstart	-	Windows XP Tour Wizard
write	-	Wordpad

Do you know of any command that you would like to share with our readers? Suggestions? Comments? Please post your comments below.

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Fix Your Window XP Network Settings with WinSock XP Fix Utility

Raj — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 22:15:59 +0000

Did you recently uninstall any program that you thought was a spyware and lost your system’s network settings? Is your registry corrupt and you can no longer connect to any network resources? Are you able to connect to the network but find it timing out and sometimes ridiculously slow for no apparent reason? WinSock XP Fix can fix the network settings for you in one step.

WinSock XP Fix is a small freeware utility [1.4MB in size] that can fix your network settings by restoring the Winsock and other network stack related settings to their defaults. The utility is safe to use since it can also create a back up of your network settings before it attempts to fix the problem. All you have to do is run the utility, let it fix the problem and reboot the system. That’s it!

Note: The software is no longer supported by its author but is freely available on Internet.

» [Download] WinSock XP Fix Utility

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8 Free Tools to Get the Most Out of Your Apple iPod

Raj — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 21:23:28 +0000

1. iPod Plug-in for Winamp » The Winamp ipod plugin is a plugin for Winamp that allows you to manage your iPod from within the Winamp media library. It supports all kinds of iPods, from the classic first generation iPods, to the iPod mini, photo, nano and shuffle and everything in between. The current release has the following features – gapless playback for iPod Nano 2G and for transcoded files, automatically eject on Winamp close, sort playlists by clicking on column headers, recover dead iPod even without archive, autofill from chosen playlist, save/restore to/from archive etc. Although Winamp version 5.2 onwards has built-in support for iPod, this software can offer you the features that are missing in Winamp.

2. iPod Audio Converter » It is a universal iPod Audio file converter, which supports popular audio formats : WAV, MP3, Ogg ,9721, Which convert it to iPod Audio format. Some of its features are – Batch Conversion, One click conversion and Conversion of different types of audio files to iPod Audio format.

3. Floola » Floola is a freeware application to efficiently manage your iPod or your Motorola mobile phone (any model supporting iTunes). It can be run directly from your iPod and needs no installation under Linux, Mac OS X and Windows 98/2000/XP/Vista. Floola supports all the most common used features including podcasts! Some of its features are – Put the application on iPod and launch it on any PC, add and extract songs to and from iPod, Easily manage, import and export (m3u, pls) playlists, support for Podcasts, Lyric support even on older iPods (3G and above), Search for duplicate songs on iPod, support for artwork and videos, export a list of your iPod files to HTML etc.

4. iPod shuffle Manager » If you are a Windows user tired of having to use iTunes to move tracks to your iPod shuffle, try out this small piece of software. It allows you to use your iPod shuffle like a regular memory stick. You can simply copy your tracks to the iPod shuffle as-is using Windows Explorer (or any other file manager). You may copy files from any computer. Simply run this little utility, which will update the internal database of the iPod shuffle to allow playing the tracks placed on it. Note: This software works only with iPod Shuffle. Also, when you use iPod shuffle Manager with your iPod shuffle, you cannot use iTunes to update its contents.

5. LocalTube » LocalTube is a YouTube downloader that supports video conversion based on the ffmpeg encoder and produces videos playable on video iPods or iRiver h300 series. It also supports iRiver. Simply point to the location of the YouTube video on the Internet and it does the rest. Note: After the conversion is complete, you will have to manually put the video on iPod.

6. TuneSleeve » TuneSleeve software automatically downloads album art from the internet (amazon) and saves it to the iTunes library. It lets you choose which artwork to use from the available results to use in your iTunes library.

7. wmPod » This software lets you manager your iPod from your Windows Media Player. Some of its features are – Manage unlimited playlists and videolists, Queue up Songs and Playlists directly to Windows Media Player, Import/Export MP3 formatted songs, Support for Virtual iPods (vPod) and connect multiple iPods. It supports all the models of iPod including old and latest.

8. iDump » This program will allow you transfer your songs off your iPod to a PC, iDump does come wrapped in installer but you can simply drop the .exe in the root directory on your iPod and run it from there. Connect you iPod and run iDump and you’ll have access to all your songs, select the songs you want to transfer then pick a destination directory and how you would like your songs to be named. Its features are – Output formatting, Unattended Transfer, Search and option to Export Playlists.

Do you use any free iPod software that’s not mentioned here? Please share it with our readers, post your comments. We will be glad to add it to our list in this post.

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