James E. O'Brien

Typical problems that affect hard drives, such as corrupt files, bad sectors, can be detected and often resolved by using a built-in windows utility called CHKDSK (for check Disk). CHKDSK scans a hard drive for errors and attempts to repair them, or move any data in a bad sector to a safer location, and then flags the bad sectors to prevent future data from being stored there.

To run CHKDSK, do the following:

1. Go to Start>> Computer
2. Right click the hard disk that you would like to test.
3. Select Properties
4. Select the Tools tab
5. Click the Check Now button under Error-Checking. (You may be prompted for an administrators password or confirmation at this point.)
6. Select the option: “Automatically fix file system errors”
7. Select the option: “Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors”.
8. Click Start

Microsoft Press is giving away ten free e-books on SQL Server 2008 and 2012, MS Office 365 and 2010, Deploying Windows 7, Visual Studio 2010, Programming Windows Phone 7, and Virtualization Solutions. Get ‘em while they’re hot!

Introducing Microsoft Server 2012   (Download in PDF Format – 288 pages; 10.8 MB)  The final and complete version of Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2012, by Ross Mistry  and Stacia Misner. 10 Chapters covering Introduction, Disaster-Recovery Enhancements, SQL Server 2012 Editions and Engine Enhancements, Data Administration, Performance and Scalability, , Security Enhancements, Programmability and Beyond-Relational Enhancements,  Integration Services,  Data Quality Services,  Master Data Services, Analysis Services and PowerPivot, and Reporting Services.

Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2  (Download in PDF Format (216 pages; 7.74 MB) or XPS Format) Ten Chapters covering SQL Server 2008 R2 Editions and Enhancement, Multi-Server Administration, Data-Tier Applications, High Availability and Virtualization Enhancements, Consolidation and Monitoring, Business Intelligence Development, Scalable Data Warehousing, Master Data Services, Complex Event Processing with StreamInsight, Reporting Services Enhancements, and Self-Service Analysis with PowerPivot.

Introducing Windows Server 2008 R2 (Download in PDF Format (11 MB) or XPS Format (28 MB)) – Nine chapters covering What’s New in Windows Server R2, Installation and Configuration: Adding R2 to Your World, Hyper-V: Scaling and Migrating Virtual Machines, Remote Desktop Services and VDI: Centralizing Desktop and Application Management, Active Directory: Improving and Automating Identity and Access, The File Services Role, IIS 7.5: Improving the Web Application Platform, DirectAccess and Network Policy Server, and other Features and Enhancements.

Understanding Microsoft Virtualization Solutions – Second Edition (Download in PDF Format (10.5 MB) or XPS Format (27.2 MB)) Six chapters covering Why Virtualization, Server Virtualization, Local Desktop Virtualization, Remote Desktop Virtualization, Virtualization Management, and Cloud Computing.

Microsoft Office 365: Connect and Collaborate Virtually Anywhere, Anytime (Download in PDF Format (21 MB) .ePub Format (21.7 MB) or .mobi Format (8.1 MB))   13 Chapters including Introduction to Cloud Computing, Introduction to Office 365,  Collaborating in the Cloud, Versions of Office 365, and Working  Across Multiple Devices.

First Look Microsoft Office 2010 (Download in PDF Format (10.5 MB) or XPS Format (28 MB)) 14 Chapters covering Introduction to Office 2010, Collaborating with other Office users, Creating and Sharing Documents, Using  Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, OneNote, SharePoint Workspace, Publisher, and Access. Part Three includes Security and Training, and Putting it all Together.

Security and Privacy for Microsoft Office Users (Download in PDF Format (7.2 MB) or .mobi Format (3.6 MB)  or ePub Format (8.9 MB)) Four Chapters covering end-user security considerations and responsibilities, working with protected documents, understanding document properties, encrypting documents and restricting editing.

Deploying Windows 7, Essential Guidance (Download in PDF Format (6.5 MB)) Twelve Chapters covering Deployment Platform, Planning Deployment, Testing Application Compatibility, Developing Disk Images, Migrating User State Data, Deploying Applications, Preparing Windows PE, Configuring Windows Deployment Services, Using Volume Activation, Deploying with Microsoft Deployment Toolkit, plus six articles from Technet Magazine: Migrate Already! Why You Should Migrate to Windows 7 If You’re Still Waffling, 8 Common Issues in Windows 7 Migrations, 9 Things You Should Know About Windows 7, Can’t We All Just Get Along? Running Windows 7 in Mixed Environments, Integrating Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2, and The Good Computing Seal of Approval: Windows 7 Certification.

Moving to Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 (Download in PDF Format (18.2 MB)) This book is divided into three sections covering migrating from Visual Studio 2003, 2005, and 2008, consecutively. Each section covers business logic and data, designing look and feel, debugging applications, and deployment.

Programming Windows Phone 7 (Download in PDF Format (38.6 MB) Twenty-four chapters covering the Windows Phone 7, an Introduction to Touch, Sensors and Services, Issues in Application Architecture, Silverlight, XAML Power and Limitations, Elements and Properties, The Intricacies of Layout, the Apps Bar and Controls, Dependency Properties and Data Binding, Graphics and animations, and many more topics. About a thousands pages!

Source: I have linked the free eBooks from Microsoft Press on this one page for your convenience. If you would like more detailed information on these books, and don’t mind clicking through a few pages for some of them, please check out the Microsoft Press entry page for these books at blogs.msdn.com. 

This will set Windows 7 up to synchronize the system clock with a selected Time Server.

1. Right-click the time/date entry in the notification area.
2. Choose “Adjust date/time”
3. Click the tab “Internet Time”
4. Click the button “Change settings”
5. The Internet Time Settings window will open.
6. In the line “Server” enter the desired server or choose one from the drop-down menu.
7. The server time.nist.gov is one of the choices in the drop-down menu and is a good general choice for those in the US. For other parts of the world, servers are listed in the reference below.
8. Click “OK’ and again “OK”

If you notice that the font on your monitor isn’t exactly smooth or clear and easy to read on your laptop or LCD monitor, you can adjust the clarity of the font by using the Windows Clear Type Tuner.

Run  “cttune.exe” (without quote marks) from the Start Menu search box, or go to the Control Panel Display applet, and select Adjust ClearType Text from the left.

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Windows 7 and Windows Vista do not have the Run command listed in the Start menu. Instead, Microsoft wants you to use the search bar by typing in the name of the program you want to run. For example. to open Microsoft Word, you type the word “word” in the search box, and hit the Enter key; to open a command box, you use the command “cmd”, and so forth.

As an alternative, you could hold down the Windows logo key (if your keyboard has this), and press the R key. This will bring up the run command box.

For folks that prefer to have a Run command in the Start menu, you can add it by following these steps:

1. Right click an open area of the Task bar

2. Select Properties

3. Select the Start Menu tab

4. Tick the Start menu entry and click the “Customize” button to the right.

5. Scroll down the list until you find the “Run command” entry.

6. Place a check-mark in the “Run command” check box.

7. Click OK.

The Run command should now appear in the Start Menu.

Awhile back I discovered that I could no longer pin programs to my task bar. I am always experimenting with new settings, so I assumed this issue was something I caused, but i couldn’t figure out what I did. Yesterday, I discovered that I was right. The reason I could no longer pin programs to the task bar was because I changed the way shortcuts appeared on my desktop by removing the stupid little arrow from the icon. That is something I have never had a problem doing in Windows XP, so why would this be a problem in Windows 7?

Anyway, I found the solution to recovering my ability to pin programs to the task bar, and it requires a little modification to the registry.

Back up the Registry Settings

You must be logged in an Administrator to perform these steps

First and foremost, back up your registry before you try this. Better to be safe than sorry, I like to say.  Two easy ways to back up the registry. One, you can simply create a system restore point:

1. Open System by clicking the Start button Picture of the Start button, right-clicking Computer, and then clicking Properties.

2. In the left pane, click System protection. Administrator permission required If you’re prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

3. Click the System Protection tab, and then click Create.

4. In the System Protection dialog box, type a description, and then click Create.

The second option is to open the registry Editor and export a copy of your Windows 7 registry

1.  Click the Windows Orb on the task bar, in the Search box, type “regedit” (without quotes)

2. In the Registry Editor, click File, and click Export.

3) ave the exported file somewhere save, like the root of the C: drive. This will make it convenient to restore in case something goes wrong.

Edit the Registry

1. In the Registy Editor, navigate to the following registry key: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\lnkfile (don’t confuse the small “L” for a capital “I”)

You should see the following files:

(Default)

EditFlags

FriendlyTypeName

NeverShowExt

2. Add a new string value to the registry key,

Value name: IsShortcut

Value data: .lnk

(You might see IsShortcut is already present. If so, you should also see IsNotShortcut. If so, change the value of IsNotShortCut to “0“)

3. Exit from Registry Editor.

4. Logout and login again or restart Explorer for the change to take effect.

Before I demonstrate how to defragment a hard drive, I think it’s important to give a brief explanation about why data on a hard drive becomes fragmented and why you should defragment your hard drive from time to time.

Hard drives are structured to store data on tracks which are divided into sectors. Depending on the format and technology of the hard drive, each sector can hold from 512 bytes to 4 kilobytes of data, depending on the technology of the drive. Hard drives also have a reserved section called the header, which contains information used by the drive and controller, and a usable area where the operating system, programs, and data is stored.

Data is stored on the hard drive in the first available sector. When that sector is full, the hard drive moves onto the next sector, and so on. On a fresh or defragment hard drive, data storage is consecutive from one sector to the next. Over time however, when files are modified, moved, or deleted, they can become fragmented across different sectors and tracks on the hard drive. In this state, the hard drive has to work harder and take more time to locate all of the segments of data in a file. Over time, drives can become so fragmented, it can take a considerable amount of time to boot a computer, and open programs and files.

Revision: As a friend and peer of mine pointed out to me on Facebook, If you are using a Solid State Drive, then you really do not have to worry about defragmenting, because SSD’s can access data from any address on the drive almost instantaneously. Defragmenting an SSD does little more than add wear to the SSD, and doesn’t really provide any performance benefit. (Thanks William George, from  PugetSystems.com)

Defragmenting a Hard drive

There are various programs you can use to defragment your hard drive in Windows, but for the sake of this article, we are going to use the Windows 7 built in Disk Defragmenter. If you have another version of Windows, don’t worry, Disk Defragmenter is included with all desktop versions of the Windows operating system, although the steps involved will be slightly different.

In Windows 7, click on the windows logo orb on the Windows Task bar. In the Search box, type the work “defrag” (without the quotes). you should see disk Defragmenter in the search results. click on Disk Defragmenter to launch the program.

Now, if you are using Windows XP or another version of Windows, an easy way to launch the disk Defragmenter is to open My computer, right-click on the C drive, or the drive you want to defragment, and select Tools. From there, you can select the Disk Defragmenter. The rest of the steps in this guide should suffice to demonstrate howe to run disk Defragmenter.

Another way to access the Windows Disk Defragmenter on any earlier version of the Windows desktop operating system, is to click on Start / All Programs / Accessories / System Tools /  and then select Disk Defragmenter. This also works for Windows 7 in principal, but the path is slightly different. For Windows 7, the path is Windows Orb / All Programs / Accessories / System Tools / Disk Defragmenter.

Disk Defragmenter provides you with various options and will also display when the last time the Disk Defragmenter was run and if it is scheduled to run again in the near future. We’ll cover the scheduling options later in this article, but for right now, we will focus on analyzing and defragmenting a hard disk.

The first thing we’ll do is select the drive that we want to work with. to do that, just click once on the drive until it is highlighted. We can test the selected drive to see if it even needs to be fragmented by selecting the Analyze disk option. Or if we know that the drive needs to defragmented, we can start the defragmenting process by selecting the Defragment Disk option.

The time that it takes to defragment a hard disk depends on the size of the drive, how much data is on the drive, and how fragmented the drive is. It’s not unusual for a defragmenting to take anywhere from 20 minutes to over an hour.

Scheduling a disk Defragment

As I mentioned earlier, the Windows Disk Defragmenter utility provides the option to schedule automatic disc defragmenting. This could be useful you prefer to run Disk Defragmenter regularly on a daily or weekly or monthly basis , when Windows Starts up, or at a specified time. The scheduler is pretty much self explanatory. You simply select the frequency that you want to run Disk Defragmenter, what day of the week, and at what time you want to run the defragmenter. That’s all there is to it.

Alternative Disk Defragmenting utilities

Defragler – Use Defraggler to defrag your entire hard drive, or individual files – unique in the industry. This compact and portable Windows application supports NTFS and FAT32 file systems.

Auslogics Disk Defrag - Defragments and re-arranges files to ensure the most efficient file placement.

MyDefragGUI – MyDefrag*² defragments very fast, has several optimization strategies, offers highest possible data security and can also defragment external storage media. However you can input options only by a script grammar.

Windows to Go is a feature of Windows 8 that allows users to run Windows 8 from a USB 2.0 or 3.0 thumb drive. Windows to Go is essentially targeted to enterprise customers or people who work from a shared computer, or a home or computers in remote locations.

IT professionals may find Windows To Go valuable as it will allow them to boot a copy of Windows 8 extremely fast and diagnostic any existing problems on the local PC installation.

Bootable Operating systems aren’t new and neither is a bootable Windows stick, but these will be legal and supported. It’s not yet clear if Windows To Go will be available with all versions of Windows 8, or what kind of licensing policy will be required for it.

In this video you will see Steve Silverberg, Principal Lead Program Manager of Microsoft Corporation, demonstrate Windows To Go, technology that was created by him, his team and in collaboration with many others.

[mediaplayer src='http://video.ch9.ms/build/2011/mp4/245.mp4' width=550 height=350 ]

I just read through an article posted on ZDNet by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes about what he feels are design flaws in the Windows 8 operating system. While some of the points he makes are more like personal preferences, albeit good ones, he points out 4 items that I think could be serious flaws against Windows 8 in a desktop environment

Those flaws include:

Users are limited to two applications running side-by-side in Metro Apps on Windows 8. This may be OK for a tablet, but not for a desktop. Especially for power users who typically have numerous screens and apps running at the same time.

Continually switching between the Metro User Interface (UI) and the Aero UI.  This basically means that the Metro interface that Microsoft is so proud of is nothing more than a user interface that sits on top of Windows. In my opinion, that’s just another layer of something I don’t need, and it’s another drain on system resources.

Metro is OK for touch-screen tablets, but not for desktop or notebook environments. I rarely ever see touch screen monitors in home environments, and seldom in the business environments. Besides that, touch-screen monitors don’t always work very well and are prone to breaking. However, there are circumstances where a touch-screen monitor is a good solution, so this may not be so bad in those circumstances.

No ALT+Tab screen switching. On a tablet system with a touch-screen, you can swipe from one application to the next, but on a desktop computer, that’s not an option unless you have a touch-screen. For myself, this could be a deal breaker if I was considering upgrading to Windows 8. I need to have my ALT+Tab ability.

These might not be serious issues in a tablet, or as Adrian points out, for casual users who may typically have one or two applications running at a time. But for the those of us who use our computers to get serious work done, Windows 8 on a desktop might not be a good move. If you are considering Windows 8, you might want to read the article and add it to your consideration.

You can read the whole article here:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/windows-8-design-flaws-microsoft-must-address/14917

In closing, I use Windows 7, Windows XP, and Ubunto. I love them all, and I am not thinking about upgrading. If I was thinking about upgrading to Windows 8, I’d need a hell of a lot more incentive before I moved to Windows 8!

It is nearly impossible to recover a lost Windows 7 password. If, for whatever reason, you have forgotten your windows 7 password, you are going to be in pretty big trouble. Without that password, you are not going to be able to log into your profile and access your files or data.

Fortunately, Windows 7 provides a simple tool to help you recover your password by way of a password reset disk. The catch is that you must create the password recovery disk BEFORE you need it.

Creating the Password Recovery disk

You can use a floppy disk, if your computer has a floppy drive, or if it does not, you can use a USB flash drive. To start, insert the floppy disk or USB flash drive into your computer, and then follow the steps below:

1) Click on the windows button on your task bar, and type “reset” (without quotes) into the Search box. Select “Create a password reset disk”

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2) When the Forgotten Password Wizard appears, click “Next.”

3) Select your USB flash drive or your floppy drive, and click “Next.”

4) When the wizard finishes creating the reset disk, click “Next” and then “Finish.”

Using the Reset Password Disk

1)  Insert the password reset disk into your computer.

2)  At the Windows 7 Welcome screen, click on the link labeled, “Reset password.” It will appear just below the password field after a failed log-on attempt.

3)  Click “Next” when the Password Reset Wizard appears.

4)  Select the drive where the password reset disk is located.

5)  Type in your new password and password hint then click “Next.”

6)  If successful, you’ll receive a confirmation window saying, “You’ve successfully reset the password for this user account.”

Note:

Store your password recovery disk or flash drive in a safe location, preferably with your Windows 7 Operating System DVD, and hardware drivers.

I just finished reading engadget’s new article “Windows 8 for tablets hands-on preview (video).  If you are considering a tablet PC, or if you are interested in learning more about the up-coming windows 8, you should read this article.

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Click here to read the whole article on Engadget.com