Though Microsoft has not yet revealed anything on these initiatives, but to compete with existing Apple and Android app store, Microsoft has to come up with one great USP. In fact, when we talk about being different from other app store (Apple and Android), we should not forget that Microsoft has already achieved platform unity across all devices. While on the other hand Apple and Android devices are struggling between those typical version races.

A user who goes through their day switching between the latest generation of Apple and Android devices will go crazy while Windows users will enjoy an experience that will be unified throughout.

All we can do right now, is wait and watch where these three giants gonna take this app world.

This article Windows 8 app store to allow open source apps was originally published on Techonzo

The idea of an app store was initiated by Apple who launched an online application market place for apple products. Apple’s online app store has been a hit since its launch and is used by millions of Apple customers across the globe on routine basis.

The same was then followed by Google for android phones, the app store for android phones is known as Market. Much similar to Apple’s app store, Market also has a varied and huge number of apps for android devices. And you must be aware that recently Android Market just crossed the milestone of 10 billion apps download, and to celebrate that Google offered users to download many premium Android apps and games at just $0.1 for a period of ten days.

And Now comes Microsoft, one of the biggest industry rivals of Apple, has also decided to launch its own marketplace for Windows 8. The price of paid applications will range from $1.49 to $999. In Microsoft’s app Windows 8 app store, developers will be able to offer potential clients free trials of their apps with an option to convert them to full version. Microsoft has announced that the app store will be released once Windows 8 beta is released i.e. Feb 2012.

One of the biggest issues with Apple’s app store is transparency. Microsoft vows to do better than Apple and has promised to bring an app store where developers will be asked to go through a standard validation process before their apps are accepted. They will be able to track the app submission process through an online tracker.

This article Windows 8 app store all geared up to launch soon was originally published on Techonzo

Now its so easy to upgrade your Windows phone 7 to new Windows Mango. A user ‘cyberdel‘ from XDA developer forum first revealed this new update saying

install on htc trophy is finished: at first i see on the bootscreen there is no mark anymore like “Not for
resale” an Version is…. tada…. 7.10.7720.68 i am very happy now, good night.

The new update [7.10.7720.68] major features-

• Create and use Custom ringtones for your phone
• Visual voicemail
• Multitasking
• Speech commands
• Threading of messages from multiple platforms, conversation view and linking various inboxes
• More social networking

Lets see how to update in very simple steps.

• Get the latest version of Zune software on your PC. If you already have it installed on your PC, check whether its latest or not by navigating to Settings ->Software -> General ->Software Updates ->Check for Update. If that shows a new version update that.
• After updating your Zune software, connect your phone to PC.
• Open Microsoft Zune software, and it will start searching for the update available for your phone.
• Once you see that the update is available, select the update and you would see the process going on with the various steps, your phone would also get restarted once.

Stay tuned if you want to hear more about Windows Phone updates.

This article How to upgrade Windows Phone 7 to Windows Mango was originally published on Techonzo

Before actually installing Windows 8, make sure you have a software to setup a virtual machine. I have used VMware Workstation, for me its the best tool to create Virtual machine. There are other alternatives also in the market, you can give them a shot too if you want.

Here is how you can do it in 20 mins

• Download either the 32-bit version or the 64-bit versionof Windows 8 Developer Preview from link mentioned above.
• Create a new virtual machine and select the Windows 8 Developer Preview .iso image you downloaded as the installation path.
• Add the settings for your virtual machine, finish making it and then turn it on.
• Once the setup is loaded, Press “install now”
• Accept the license terms and press “Next”
• Choose Custom (advanced), select whichever disk it gives you (it will most likely gonna name your disk as “Disk 0 Unallocated Space”) and press “Next”
• Once it’s done installing, go through the typical customization/setup process.
• And you are done!!

This article How to install Windows 8 in just 20 minutes was originally published on Techonzo

Don’t have a apple macbook? And still want to experience recently released Mac OS X Lion? Yes, now you can make your Windows 7 looks like Mac OS X Lion. You can actually do that with no hassle and fuss free. A user from devaintart.com, hameddanger has developed a styling theme which can transform your Windows 7 into Mac OS X Lion. See the image how it will look like-

Isn’t it cool? I liked it much. Follow these simple steps to use this theme

• Create a Restore point in your Windows 7 PC.
• Create a backup of highly critical data in your primary drive.
• Download the theme from deviantart link. 
• Double click on the downloaded file and complete the process.
• Reboot and you will login to MAC OS X Lion theme next time.

This theme is also available for Windows XP users, but I personally don’t recommend that. It will slow down your PC, as it did for one of my friend. My experience to this theme was great. I used it for around 4-5 days and then back to normal. Please share your experience too.

You can download more Windows 7 themes here

This article Make your Windows 7 looks like Mac OS X Lion was originally published on Techonzo

Extending desktop is must for multitasking. It enhances the speed and productivity both. You must be aware that in Windows by-default we get option to extend your desktop up to 2 screens. But for designers and multi-taskers like me, I always wanted more than 2 screens. And here I got a solution to it.

GiMeSpace Desktop extender is wonderful tool to manage virtual desktops. It is a small and very simple program for Windows XP or later versions that will allow you to expand your desktop without any limits. When you move your mouse to the edge of your screen you will notice that your desktop extends beyond the borders of your normal desktop. It provides a cheap alternative for adding more monitors to your computer.

Some graphic cards offer the option of hardware panning when the physical screen is smaller then the hardware buffer. This program is offering a similar function, but the size of your desktop is much bigger (no limits!). And now since version 2 you can also make the size of your windows bigger then your physical screen resolution! You can save and restore your window positions and sizes. And you can also limit your virtual desktop size to the space used by your application windows. Great for people with small screens like netbooks, etc.

Download GiMeSpace Desktop Extender

This article Extend your desktop screen to infinity was originally published on Techonzo

Office 365 includes the Microsoft Office suite of desktop applications and hosted versions of Microsoft’s Server products (including Exchange Server, SharePoint Server, and Lync Server), delivered and accessed over the Internet, in effect, the next version of Business Productivity Online Services.

Features of Microsoft Office 365

Microsoft Exchange Online

Microsoft Exchange Online is a messaging/personal information management service hosted in the cloud. The service is based on Microsoft Exchange server and offers 25 GB of email storage per licensed product. In addition, Exchange online offers users personalized calendars and contacts with sharing capability and 99.9% reliability in online secure back-up. Exchange ActiveSync provides mobile connectivity to Exchange services and mobile email applications.

Microsoft SharePoint Online

Microsoft SharePoint Online is a collaboration, sharing, and document editing service using internal and external sites. It can also be used to create public-facing Web sites.

Microsoft Lync Online

Microsoft Lync Online provides communications features including presence information, instant messaging, PC-to-PC audio/video calling and online meetings that can include PC audio, video and web conferencing with application sharing, whiteboards, and other collaboration tools.

Office Professional Plus

Microsoft Office Professional Plus in Office 365 provides the same client software as the Office Professional Plus product available through Microsoft Volume Licensing. Office Professional Plus in Office 365 has month-to-month, per-user licensing. It can be installed by users from Microsoft Online Services.

Office Web Apps

Office Web Apps are browser-based versions of Microsoft Excel, Word, and PowerPoint that enable viewing and lightweight editing of Office documents in Web browsers while preserving the formatting of the original documents.

Microsoft Office 365 Plans

Microsoft Office 365 for professionals and small businesses

This service plan is designed for up to 25 employees who want:

• A solution without dedicated IT staff
• Essential email, calendar, and website services
• Free online community support
• Month-to-month subscription

Microsoft Office 365 for midsize businesses and enterprises

This service plan is great for any size organization that wants:

• Advanced IT configuration and control
• Office Professional Plus, Active Directory or advanced archiving
• 24×7 IT Administrator support
• Choice between monthly and annual contracts

Microsoft Office 365 for education

Plans for academic and education institutions are also available.

Watch out these videos too

This article All about Microsoft Office 365 was originally published on Techonzo

The most fuzzy rumor about Microsoft as of now is ‘Microsoft buying Nokia‘. There are ‘n’ number of sources which indicate a high probability of this deal. This rumor was originated by a Russian blogger back in 2010, who was even sued by Nokia. But today as I said this rumor is coming from many sources.

If at all Microsoft buys Nokia, this will gonna be the biggest deal of the year, as the numbers expected for this deal is more than $35 billion. And if we look at this deal from Nokia’s point of view, its gonna be a tremendous deal for them. Nokia anyways loosing its market share from 41 percent (last year) to 29 percent (March/April 2011). They also revealed that they are going to discontinue the OVI branding.

Lets wait and watch how this whole picture turns up. Stay tuned with us..

This article Microsoft to buy Nokia – A rumor or truth? was originally published on Techonzo

People have been asking this question that “Has Microsoft taken a set back in emerging Tablet market?” And the answer to this question is partially ‘Yes’ and ‘No’.

Lets take both side of the coin one by one.

First we will talk about ‘Yes’ part of the answer.

Most of the companies who were in hardware manufacturing like Apple, Samsung, Lenovo, Blackberry, Acer jumped into tablet market and have created a great buzz about it across the world. Most of the tablets either have their own operating systems or may be an open source one. Like apple has iOS, Samsung has Android, Blackberry and Lenovo also have their own OS.

So if we see the greater picture, the use of tablets is increasing day by day; which in-turn decreases the overall growth of Microsoft operating system as Windows series. It has been like a year or so of this tablet buzz and there is no news from Microsoft on this chapter. What I see here is may be Microsoft is waiting for that right time to launch its new product. May be they are not gonna launch any tablet, but they can give an excellent OS to all the tablet manufacturers.

Now here comes the ‘No’ part of the answer.

Having said that we have got no news from Microsoft officially on this tablet buzz, there are some rumors going around about Windows 8. Rumors also infer that Windows 8 will be very light OS, it can be used in tablets also. It is also expected that Windows 8 will have a application store and online synchronization. To know more about Windows 8 features, click here.

So these rumors says a lot about Microsoft getting their socks up for the coming tablet world. And can give a good competition to others in the market.

If you have any views on the above topic, we would love to hear from you as comments.

This article Has Microsoft taken a set back in emerging Tablet market? was originally published on Techonzo

The event is scheduled on 24th May 2011 and the new Windows Phone 7 update is codenamed as ‘Mango‘. It is also predicted that  features like Private Marketplace Application Access, Windows Live Messenger Integration, Bing Video and Audio Search will be coming to the Mango update.

Get ready for 24th May 2011,  the event will start from 3PM onwards.

This article New Windows Phone 7 coming soon was originally published on Techonzo

Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer and Kirill Tatarinov, corporate vice president for Microsoft Business Solutions, today opened a sold-out Convergence 2011 to more than 9,000 attendees, demonstrating how companies can use Microsoft Dynamics to maximize the value of their existing technology investments, remain agile as market conditions change and ultimately become dynamic businesses that can win in any environment.

“You can be up and running in less than 30 days with this new ERP Cloud Quick Start”

“The opportunities to make a good business economically are wonderful,” said Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer in a telephone interview. “We’re pretty pumped up.”

Research firm IDC predicts that companies will spend $118 billion a year worldwide on “enterprise applications” by 2014, referring to the software they use to automate accounting, human resources, sales, supply chains and other operations.

Building on the success of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, the company revealed a path for its ERP customers to move to the cloud with the next major releases of Microsoft Dynamics ERP solutions, which will run on the Windows Azure platform. Customers will be able to move to the cloud on their own terms. The Microsoft Dynamics ERP solutions will bring the same benefits in the cloud as they do on-premises.

Also at Convergence 2011, customers get a first look at Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, an innovative new ERP solution that empowers people to anticipate and embrace change, with agility made possible by a unified business process repository, model-driven architecture, and simplicity that comes from a familiar user experience and built-in collaboration tools.

This article Microsoft Unveiling Cloud ERP was originally published on Techonzo

There are many reasons for which your Internet Explorer is working so weird and crashing all the time. Lets handle them one by one.

1. Reset all settings in Internet Explorer to default.

Close your IE, head to ‘Control panel’ -> ‘Internet Options’
Go to ‘Advanced’ tab -> click on ‘Reset’ -> click ‘OK’
Now start your IE again.

2. Other Microsoft services troubling your Internet Explorer.

Close your IE, head to ‘Start’ -> ‘Run’
Type ‘msconfig’ -> click ‘OK’ -> click ‘continue or allow’ on User Account Control popup
Click ‘Selective startup’ -> Uncheck Load startup items
Click ‘Services tab’ -> Check ‘Hide all Microsoft services box’
Click ‘Disable all’ -> Click ‘OK’
And Restart your PC now.

3. Disable Protection Mode in Internet Explorer.

Open your IE, head to ‘Tools’ -> ‘Internet Options’
Go to ‘Security’ tab -> and at the bottom Uncheck ‘Enable Protection Mode’
And Restart your IE now.

4. Remove third party Add-ons manually.

Third party add-ons can also be the reason by which your IE is not working properly or has stopped working, so its better to remove such add-ons and proceed. The most incompatible add-on with IE is Skype, so if you have Skype installed on your PC please see that you remove the Skype Add-on for IE.

5. Use Internet Explorer (No Add-ons).

Microsoft has provided a feature to use IE disabling all the add-ons attached to it. This will be faster and more stable for browsing purpose.

Close your IE, head to ‘Start’ -> Click ‘All Programs’
Go to ‘Accessories’ –> ‘Systems Tools’
Click ‘Internet Explorer (No add-ons)’

6. Remove unnecessary Toolbars.

If you have downloaded some flashy or cosmetic toolbars, please remove them. There are some toolbars that automatically gets downloaded from few websites and all. Please remove them.

7. Reinstall your Internet Explorer.

It is recommended that if all the above mentioned ways to solve the crashing problem of Internet Explorer are not working in your case, please reinstall your Internet Explorer. If any new updated version is available in market please download and install the latest one.

We wish your search for ‘internet explorer crash’, ‘IE crashing’, ‘internet explorer not responding’, ‘internet explorer stopped working’ and fixing solutions to all these issues must have stopped now. If not, please let us know.

If you know any other way to solve this issue “Internet Explorer has stopped working“, please share it across. Sharing is Caring..

This article Internet Explorer has stopped working? Fix it easily was originally published on Techonzo

Microsoft recently released Service Pack 1 or SP1 for Windows 7, and they say Windows 7 SP1 is an important update that includes previously released security, performance, and stability updates for Windows 7. Installing SP1 helps keep Windows 7 up to date.

But frankly speaking if your computer automatically downloads all updates from default ‘Windows Update’ feature, downloading SP1 will not effect much to your computer. Windows 7 SP1 does not bring any special new features to Windows 7, but rather fixes a few issues, these issues are not very important but should not be ignored.

What’s included in Windows 7 SP1 ?

The major changes made by Microsoft are-

Third-party federation services enhancements
Windows 7 SP1 offers additional support for communication with third-party federation services. The document does not give more details.

HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) fix
This is not really a new feature but a bug fix. In some cases HDMI audio devices can be lost after system reboots. Windows 7 SP1 should fix this problem.

Printing mixed-orientation XPS documents fix
Windows 7 RTM appears to have problems with printing XPS documents that have both portrait and landscape orientation. Windows 7 SP1 is supposed to solve this problem.

How to install Windows 7 SP1?

There are two ways by which you can install windows 7 SP1-

1. By default ‘Windows Update’ feature
To install Windows 7 SP1 via Windows Update,
Simply open Control Panel -> Windows Update and click on the link “Important updates”
Check ‘Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (KB976932)’ and click ‘install updates’.

2. Offline Update
Download Windows 7 SP1 for 32-bit
Download Windows 7 SP1 for 64-bit

Tricks for increasing disk space after installing Windows 7 SP1

Windows 7 SP1 installation will eat up around 4GB of space from your hard disk, if you are running short of disk space, even a GB space matters a lot. So here are few ways by which you can increase the disk space after installation

1. Run Disk Cleanup.
This tool removes temporary files, empties the Recycle Bin, and removes a variety of system files and other items that you no longer need. For more information, click here.

2. Uninstall old programs.
In addition to deleting old files you no longer want, you can do the same for programs that you no longer use. For more information, click here.

3. Delete all but the most recent restore point.
System Restore uses restore points to return your system files to the state they were in at an earlier point in time. If your computer is running normally, you can save disk space by deleting the earlier restore points. For more information, click here.

4. Archive old files to CD or DVD.
If you have old photos that you want to keep but don’t necessarily want on your computer, consider archiving them to removable media, such as a DVD or CD. That way, you’ll be able to view them whenever you’d like, but they won’t take up space on your computer. For more information, click here.

5. Add another hard disk drive.
Adding an external hard disk drive is an easy way to create plenty of extra space to store digital photos, videos, music, and other files and to clear some space on your primary hard disk.

Looking for some great Windows 7 themes? click here

Click here for most useful Windows 7 Utilities

This article Windows 7 Service Pack 1 Installation Guide and tricks was originally published on Techonzo

Recently Nokia, the struggling world leader in mobile phones, said on Friday 11 Feb 2011 that it would discard its own cellphone operating system (Symbian) in favor of software made by Microsoft i.e. Windows Phone 7. So after getting a new Nokia phone with Windows 7 what you will need is to look for some of the best apps available in the Marketplace.

Apart from major Social Networking apps like Facebook, Twitter, Orkut, Linkedin and office apps; here is a list of Best Apps for Windows Phone 7 (WP7), that i am sure will help getting your phone more friendly

Poynt	Photobucket	Yelp
Adobe Reader	Fandango	Skyfire Mobile
AP	Weather Bug	NetFlix
Shazam	Voxofon	Oinc
Kindle	FourSquare	Seesmic
Media Control	Robo Print	Parcel Genie

You can get some more apps here

If you know any more applications for Windows Phone please share and help everybody here..

This article Best Windows Phone 7 apps was originally published on Techonzo

I get very annoyed when i see this error on Windows 7  “Bla Bla Software has stopped working”, this occurs mostly with the programs i used to run on Windows XP. Now they dont work in Windows 7,  so i started finding a solution for this and see what i found :

Windows 7 has several built-in tools to help with program compatibility and Windows XP programs should be installed directly on Windows 7. Windows XP Mode runs some older productivity programs that might not run on Windows 7. Visit the Windows 7 Compatibility Center to find software that works with Windows 7.

To remove such errors, you just need a Virtual XP running on your Windows 7. Just click here to complete three steps process provided from Microsoft itself :

.

This article Run Virtual Windows XP on Windows 7 was originally published on Techonzo

Recently lot of my friends are suffering from this dilemma that how to open Microsoft Office 2007 files (with formats like .xlsx, .docx, .pptx etc) and we use to convert files from Microsoft 2007 formats to Microsoft Older Versions, and this way of doing was little boring and time consuming, So i searched for a way to open, edit, modify and save Microsoft 2007 in Microsoft Office 2003, 2000.

See how simple now it is..

Just download this below linked Compatibility Pack from Microsoft itself, run it and thats all..

By installing the Compatibility Pack in addition to Microsoft Office 2000, Office XP, or Office 2003, you will be able to open, edit, and save files using the file formats in newer versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint . The Compatibility Pack can also be used in conjunction with the Microsoft Office Word Viewer 2003, Excel Viewer 2003, and PowerPoint Viewer 2003 to view files saved in these new formats. For more information about the Compatibility Pack, see 924074.

This article Open MS Office 2007 files in Older Versions was originally published on Techonzo

Windows Phone 7 series is a dramatic change from previous generations of the software that used to be called Windows Mobile. The new OS is a drastic overhaul of the aging Windows Mobile platform.

———————————————————————————————————————————————————-

The new OS uses a ‘live tile’ metaphor, showing dynamically updated information. Users can have tiles for e-mail, calendar, pictures and individual people, playlists and other applications and information types.

The OS arranges information in six sections: People, Pictures, Games, Music and Video, Marketplace and Office. The People section is actually contacts option. However, it is not your typical contacts list. The contact list is connected with the contact’s social networking accounts and users can see their updates right within the contact screen.

The operating system is designed to have three hardware buttons: start, search — with a direct link to Bing — and back.

Hardware supporters include Dell, Garmin-Asus, HTC, Hewlett-Packard, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba and Qualcomm

————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Microsoft is imposing a set of required features for Windows phones. Manufacturers must include permanent buttons on the phone for “home,” “search” and “back”; a high-resolution screen with the same touch-sensing technology as the iPhone; and a camera with at least 5 megapixels of resolution and a flash. Hardware QWERTY keyboards will be optional.

The iPhone’s success has spurred lots of look-alike phones with screenfuls of tiny square icons representing each programme. Just as it did with the Zune, Microsoft has tried to avoid an icon-intensive copy of that setup. Instead, it relies more on clickable words and images pulled from the content itself.

For example, if you put a weather program on the device’s home page, it shows a constantly updated snapshot of conditions where you are, rather than a static icon that you have to click in order to see the weather.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————–

Windows Phone 7 Series borrows the clean look of the Zune software, departing from the more “computer screen” look of earlier Microsoft efforts. These were also reliant on the user pulling out a stylus for more precise maneuvering, while the software is designed to be used with the fingers. It’s not clear how older third-party applications designed for the stylus will work on the new phones.

Microsoft said that manufacturing partners have started building devices based on the phones; the first devices based on Win Phone 7 should ship in late 2010. HTC said that the company has already started working on the new OS.

This article Amazing Features of Windows Mobile 7 was originally published on Techonzo

.

• Change Login Screen PowerToy Click on “Change Logon Screen”, select (and verify) your new Login Screen image.

• CoreInfo – 64-bit command-line utility showing the mapping between logical processors and the physical processor, NUMA node, and socket on which they reside, as well as the cache’s assigned to each logical processor.

• Fishbowl brings Facebook to your desktop. Experience your Facebook content in new ways with a trial desktop client application that lets you personalize how you read your newsfeed, update status, comment, like, browse and upload photos.

• GmailNotifier CodePlex application, with full Windows 7 integration, notifing when you receive email from Google Gmail.

• InkSeine offers file searching directly from ink without transcribing queries to a search box or a separate search application. With InkSeine, you circle a handwritten phrase within your notes to create a query. The query persists in place as an icon that gets saved in perpetuity, just like any other part of your notes.

• Insomnia keeps your computer from temporarily going to sleep.

• IPsecPing command-line IPsec endpoint testing and debugging tool. It uses the winsock secure socket extensions, and supports IPv4, IPv6, IKEv1, and AuthIP.

• Desktop Time Tracker keeps track of time spent on your projects from the system tray.

• .NET Version Detector 2009 displays installed .NET versions.

• AdblockIE – ad blocker for Internet Explorer 8; inspired by Firefox’s Adblock & Noscript. AdblockIE blocks offsite JavaScript and filters images, Flash, and frames.

• Autoruns - See what programs are configured to startup automatically when your system boots and you login. Autoruns also shows you the full list of Registry and file locations where applications can configure auto-start settings.

• BitLocker To Go Reader provides users read-only access to BitLocker-protected FAT-formatted drives on non-Windows 7 computers.

• Desktops organizes applications up to 4 virtual desktops.

• Disk2vhd simplifies the migration of physical systems into virtual machines (p2v). Run Disk2vhd on the system you want to migrate and specify the volumes for which you want data included, and Disk2vhd creates a consistent point-in-time volume snapshot followed by an export of the selected volumes into one or more VHDs that you can add to a new or existing Hyper-V or Virtual PC virtual machine.

• Elevation PowerToy for managing User Account Control

• Explore as Administrator PowerToy overcomes the limitations of Windows Explorer inability to throw up a UAC prompt when creating a folder within or copying a file into a protected folder such a Program Files or Windows.

• ISO Recorder PowerToy makes images of CDs & DVDs to create ISO images.

• LogParser – Parses many types of textual content, it’s a mature tool with well upgraded functionality.

• LUA Buglight identifies admin-permissions issues “LUA bugs” (Least-privilege User Account) in desktop applications.

• NetMon 3.3 – Network Monitoring utility to capture and observe network traffic patterns and problems.

• OffVis displays OLESS-based binary files in two ways: a hex view of the raw file contents on the left side - and the tree of objects built up from parsing those raw file contents on the right side.

• Patch Registration Cleanup Tool – Repairs Windows Installer errors caused due to incorrect patch registration may be corrected using this tool.

• ProcDump – command-line utility whose primary purpose is monitoring an application for CPU spikes and generating crash dumps during a spike that an administrator or developer can use to determine the cause of the spike.

• Process Monitor - advanced monitoring tool that shows real-time file system, Registry and process/thread activity.

• PsLoglist - command-line event log display utility that accepts wildcard matching for event sources.

• Remote Server Administration Tools enables IT administrators to manage roles and features that are installed on computers that are running Windows Server 2003 / 2008, from a remote computer.

• Power Plan Assistant smart power plan management application.

• PowerShell Pack – 10 modules to supercharge your PowerShell scripting: manage RSS feeds, schedule operating system tasks and more.

• pptPlex - zoom in & out of slide sections and move directly between slides that are not sequential in your PowerPoint presentation (updated for multi-touch devices).

• SyncToy synchronizes files and folders between locations (example: sharing files, such as photos, with other computers and creating backup copies of files & folders. )

• Synergy - easily share a single mouse & keyboard between multiple computers with different operating systems, each with its own display, without special hardware.

• System State Analyzer compares two snapshots of a computer.

• Taskbar Meters – three apps live on the Windows 7′s task bar: CPU Utilization, Memory, & Disk IO (along with quick access to Windows 7′s Task Manager & Resource Monitor)

• Terminals – Tabbed Remote Desktop Client

• Virtual PC allows you to run many applications on a virtual Windows environment

• Virtual Router turns a computer into a Wifi Hotspot using Windows 7′s Wireless Hosted Network (Virtual Wifi) technology

• WhoCrashed shows the drivers which have been crashing your computer

• Time Zone Change Gadget - easily swap time zones when travelling.

• TweetCraft in-game Twitter client for World of Warcraft allowing you to send/receive Tweets in-game, upload in-game screenshots and AutoTweet achievements.

• Windows Mobile Device Center 6.1 (x64-bit version) syncs content between mobile phone and computer.

• WinHlp32.exe required to display 32-bit Help files with the “.hlp” file name extension.

• Windows Speech Recognition Profile Tool – backup & restore their speech profiles

• Windows XP Mode - run many of your Windows XP applications directly from Virutal PC.

• Ultimate Windows Tweaker utility for tweaking & optimizing Windows 7 ”promises” to make your system faster, more stable, and more secure.

• VHD Tool – create & modify the VHD properties and size.

• Windows Access Panel minimizes the trouble in accessing the buried settings & “hidden” system utilities within the Control Panel.

• Windows Image to Virtual Hard Disk Converter (WIM2VHD) command-line tool to create sysprepped VHD images from any Windows 7 installation source. VHDs created by WIM2VHD will boot directly to the Out Of Box Experience, ready for your first-use customizations.

• Windows Installer CleanUp Utility can remove a program’s configuration information if experiencing installation (Setup) problems.

• Windows Live ID Sign-in Assistant 6.5 (Beta) installs the Windows Live ID online provider to link a Windows Live ID to a Windows 7 user account.

.

If you know any other, which you like sharing with others.. Please Add as a comment..

This article Most Useful Windows 7 Utility Softwares was originally published on Techonzo

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI\Background

2nd Step :- Right click on the right hand side and then add a new DWORD Value named OEMBackground

3rd Step :- Double click on OEMBackground and set it to 1.

4th Step :- Name the file as backgroundDefault.jpg and make sure that the file size is less than 256KB. Put the image file (in ‘jpeg’ format) in the following folder (You may need to create some of these folders along the path)

%windir%\oobe\info\backgrounds

Now Simply Reboot your computer and Enjoy the changes.

Click to Download Best Free Wallpaper Sites ever

This article Change Windows 7 Logon Screen in 4 Steps was originally published on Techonzo

• Several Users Work on the Same Workbook Together!

If you have several users who need to work from the same workbook at the same time, familiarize yourself with Excel’s Shared Workbook feature. This feature can be a lifesaver when workbooks must be updated by multiple users.

You can set options that control when changes are updated and how to handle conflicting edits by different users. You can also choose to save updates when a user clicks Save, or you can specify a time interval for Excel to automatically save user updates.

To use this feature:

• • From the Tools menu, click Share Workbook.
  • From the Share Workbook dialog box displayed, in the Editing tab, check Allow changes by more than one user at the same time option.
  • Click the Advanced tab and do the necessary settings.

You can decide how changes should be logged by the Track Changes feature, which integrates with workbook sharing. That way, you can see exactly what changes were made to cells, when sheets were added or deleted, how conflicting edits were resolved, etc. Users can also see the names of all the other users who have the workbook open for editing.

• Transpose data from a row to a column, or vice-versa

Suppose you’ve entered your data with three column headings running across Row 1 and three row headings running down Column A.

After working with the data for a while, you decide you’d rather have the current set of row labels (months) running across the columns. If its a short data its easy to retype, but think of large data..

You’ll find the best solution under the Paste Special menu. Start by selecting and copying your entire data range. Click on a new location in your sheet, then go to Edit | Paste Special and select the Transpose check box. Click OK, and Excel will transpose the column and row labels and data.

• [Ctrl] key Features
  • Fast navigation. When you press [Ctrl] and any arrow key (north, east, south, or west), you jump to the last populated cell in that direction. Think of using the [Ctrl]-arrow key shortcut as an alternative to pressing [Page Down] to find the bottom row of a data set or pressing [Tab] to find the last column.
  • You can make noncontiguous selections. That’s a fancy way of saying you can select any cells you want, regardless of whether they’re contiguous–next to each other in a row or column. Hold down the [Ctrl] key while you click on a cell or click and drag through a range of cells. As long as you hold down the [Ctrl] key, you can click and select to your heart’s content.
  • Fast data entry. Suppose you want to put the same string, number, or formula into two or more cells. Using the old-fashioned approach, you’d type the string, number, or formula into the first cell and then copy and paste that entry into the destination cells. But there’s a little-known time-saving tip that makes short work of placing the same entry in multiple cells. First, select all the cells you want to populate. Type the entry, but don’t press [Enter]. Instead, press [Ctrl][Enter]. When you do, Excel will copy what you typed into all of the selected cells.
• Double Click Features
  • Double Click on the Office Button / Logo to Close Excel

  

  • Adjust column widths by selecting multiple columns and double clicking on the separators

  

  • Double-click in the corner, just above scroll-bar to include a split

  

  • Double click on ribbon menu names to collapse ribbon to get more space

  

  • Auto-fill a series of cells with data or formulas by just double clicking

  

  • Jump to last row / column in table with double-click

  

  • Lock a particular feature and reuse them with double-click

  

  You can lock any repeatable feature (like format painter, drawing connectors, shapes etc.) by just double clicking on the icon (in Excel 2007 this works for format painter, but for drawing shapes you need to right click and select lock drawing mode).

If you know any more features, feel free to add in the comments and if you liked this article, please spread it…

This article Secret Features of Microsoft Excel was originally published on Techonzo