10 replies to this topic

[Brito]

I've found a good blog page detailing some of the new things that were introduced with 7 that might miss the casual eye.

I hadn't noticed but 7 already comes with a default .ISO file burner, it can create WinPE boot disks when typing "system repair disc" on the console and support for .ODF (OpenOffice) documents from wordpad.

More tips:
http://blogs.msdn.co...-7-secrets.aspx

btw: forgot mentioning that the fish on the desktop has double meaning, it's a siamese fighting fish that is also called "betta"

[MedEvil]

btw: forgot mentioning that the fish on the desktop has double meaning, it's a siamese fighting fish that is also called "betta"

Never would have made that connection on my own. Thanks.

[paraglider]

Also this one:

http://blog.tiensivu...categories/72-7

[paraglider]

Finally got VMWare networking working following the instructions in the link I posted.

[JonF]

Windows 7 beta testers find critical Windows Installer Bug:

Mary Jo reports that a number of Windows 7 Beta testers have come across a bug that crashes the system randomly whenever they try to start a Windows Update or install anything using Microsoft's MSI installer. Enthusiast Chris Holmes claims that many users have started experiencing random crashing of explorer and msiexec.exe when trying to start Windows Update or install anything that uses an MSI based installer. Some have gone to the extent of reinstalling the beta.

Includes several workarounds.

Windows 7 magnifier impractical for vision impaired people:

Hollier says "The bug occurs when a user tries to use the full screen Magnifier in combination with a high contrast colour scheme. The Magnifier appears to be largely dependent on the Aero graphics engine, meaning that it works well when Aero colour themes are used. However, when a user switches to a high contrast colour scheme such as High Contrast Black, the OS dumps the user back into the old Magnifier feature which, by default, shows a small magnification bar at the top of the screen."

According to Hollier the "majority of people that need the full screen magnifier will also need a high contrast colour scheme" so this could be a huge issue for the thousands of visually impaired people. We have contacted Microsoft for a response and are awaiting a company spokesperson to provide further feedback to this issue.

[Dave7]

Actually, I am looking for a tip :-)

It looks like that "dockable" toolbars are completely gone now?

In XP. You could drag the quicklaunch bar from the task bar to any edge of the desktop.

In Vista this was disabled, but there was a work around. You just had to create a folder on the desktop and drag it to any edge ... and your toolbar were back.

http://www.lockergno...to-set-them-up/
http://www.askvg.com...-windows-vista/

But how do you enable toolbars in Windows 7?

Any ideas?

Dave

[dog]

Cheers Nuno, I just learned a win2000 tip from that win7 blog

it makes the old Windows way of shift-clicking on two items in the taskbar and then using the context menu to arrange them feel really painful.

[paraglider]

Also look at this long list:

http://www.askvg.com.../windows-seven/

Also if you switch off the shortcut indicator on desktop icons by renaming the registry value IsShortcut to AriochIsShortcut in [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\lnkfile] you may find that you can no longer pin programs to the taskbar. It does not affect existing pinned programs though.

[wendy]

Here's what i did with my laptop.

Windows XP is installed on partition 1 (its c).

I resized this to make room for vista, and created a second partition (say, d:)

Then i booted from c:, and did this

1. bootsect /nt52 d: /f
2. set the partition active using diskpart.

I then copied ntldr and ntdetect.com, and made a suitable boot.ini for it.

It successfully booted off d: and straight into c:

The next step is to install windows 7, which sees d: as the active partition, and installs into a selected partition (also d:). It calls this partition C: and xp's home D:.

Having done this, it is straight forward to deactivate and remove windows 7, by simply setting xp's partition as active, and rebooting straight into the original xp boot block. XP, with its horrid boot partition stuff, is then removed with a reformat of dL under xp, and nothing of vista lives on c:, except what is scavanged (bitmaps, useful utilities, &c).

[allanf]

...

Then i booted from c:, and did this

1. bootsect /nt52 d: /f
2. set the partition active using diskpart.

I then copied ntldr and ntdetect.com, and made a suitable boot.ini for it.

It successfully booted off d: and straight into c:

The next step is to install windows 7, which sees d: as the active partition, and installs into a selected partition (also d:). It calls this partition C: and xp's home D:.

...

Great stuff. ... ...

Does Win7 automatically add the existing XP boot info to it's BCD so you can Dual Boot?

Thanks

[wendy]

Yes, it's rather like booting Windows XP off the D: drive, and Win7 off the C: drive. Because there is a ntldr on both drives (including the active drive), win7 sees the one in the active drive, and absorbs that one.

If you activate the xp drive (which still contains the inactive ntldr), then it will load, but not win7. This is what one wants, because removal of the win7 partition will not upset the winxp partition.