XP Quick Fix Plus is a tiny portable application that provides fixes to 40 common Windows XP problems. Its Portable, small and fast, and is a must have on every computer.

The essential thing to be noted here is that the application is all about registry fixes since on Windows majority of the problems arise in the registry. However I suggest you create a system restore point before you proceed with any of the fixes.

What if there is no way for you to run XP Quick Fix Plus from Windows or if you need to run the fix from a batch file or script? There’s a small (~38KB) batch script that provides some of the most common fixes like :

• QFC /t – quick enable the Task Manager
• QFC /r – quick enable the Rgistry Editor
• QFC /f – quick enable the Folder Options
• QFC /e – quick restore the Run Dialog
• QFC /p – quick restore My Computer Properties
• QFC /x – Quick fix Windows can’t run exe files

So essentially XP Quick Fix Plus is a tiny and portable application that does its job perfectly well. A must have for any Windows XP user.

Download XP Quick Fix Plus | Via Download Squad | Image Credit : gui.tavares

There seem to be guides all over the internet, that allow you to create your own Bootable Windows7 Installation on a Pen Drive. Whilst not overly complicated, these methods have enough of nonsense to scare the beginners away.

So read on to find out how you can install Windows7 on your computer using a USB Pen Drive, without all the pain of burning DVD’s etc…

Lets get started then, here are the requirements before we proceed :

• A Windows7 ISO Image (Any Version will do)
• UltraISO (It isn’t free, but the trial version is sufficient for this guide)
• A 4+ GB Pen Drive

Let’s begin then..

1. Download and Install UltraISO (Free Trial)
2. Plug in the pen drive into your PC, and backup everything that you need from the Pen Drive, because all the existing data will be wiped off the pen drive.
3. Start UltraISO, navigate to File->Open and locate the ISO image of Windows 7 and open it.
4. In the local tab located at the bottom left, select your USB Drive. (Double check to make sure this is the drive you want to make bootable)
5. Now click Bootable->Write Disk Image from the Menu
6. In the dialog box that appears, click Write to write the image onto the USB pen drive. (Optionally you can also check Verify, this will check the data written for any errors)
7. Wait it for it to complete, and congratulations you’ve just created a bootable Windows7 Installation using USB Pen Drive.
8. Restart your computer and press F2/F9 while booting up, to boot from the Pen Drive and proceed to install Windows7 just like you’d do otherwise using a DVD.

[Bonus]

Want an even easier solution to install Windows7 using your USB Pen Drive. Go ahead and grab a copy of WinToFlash. Extract the contents of the Zip Archive and open WinToFlash.exe. You should now see a screen as shown..

Click the “Huge” Windows Setup Transfer Wizard and you should now see something like this. Enter the appropriate details and bang you can create the bootable disk in less than a couple of simple steps.

Yes it really was that simple to create your own Windows7 Installation Pen Drive! Drop in your comments and let us know if this Hack Attack worked for you

Photo Credit : Molotalk & bfishadow | Downloads :  WinToFlash & UltraISO

Via DotNetWizard & Raymond CC

Though it borrows some cues from OS X, am a big fan of the new taskbar, and feel that Microsoft finally has the best solution to managing multiple windows on a clutter free taskbar.

However there are people who wish to tweak this taskbar according to their own wish and desires.. If you are one of those, then 7 Taskbar Tweaker is worth a look.

7 Taskbar Tweaker, allows you to tweak the various aspects of the Windows7 Taskbar, in a simple and effective way. Some of the features of this small and useful tool is :

• Show standard window menu on right click instead of jump list.
• Close or focus a window on middle click instead of running a new instance.
• Disable grouping of windows by file path or application id.
• Cycle through windows of a grouped button on left click instead of showing a thumbnails preview.
• Open with while dropping a file on a taskbar button instead of pinning.
• Disable thumbnail previews.

Go ahead, and download 7 Taskbar Tweaker if you wish to tweak the tiny details of your Windows7 Taskbar.

Photo Credit : Steve Punter | Download 7 Taskbar Tweaker

Reading through my RSS feeds today, I stumbled upon an interesting post over at Neowin entitled “Vista’s Security Rendered Completely Useless by New Exploit” which reports on a new technique that can “bypass all memory protection safeguards that Microsoft built into Windows Vista.”

Mark Dowd of IBM Internet Security Systems (ISS) and Alexander Sotirov, of VMware Inc. have discovered a technique that can be used to bypass all memory protection schemes that have been built into Windows Vista by Microsoft.  These new methods are basically used to get around Vista’s Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR), Data Execution Prevention (DEP) and other protections by loading malicious content through a web browser.

In a nutshell, this hack is something that many of us weren’t expecting.

While this may seem like any standard security hole, other researchers say that the work is a major breakthrough and there is very little that Microsoft can do to fix the problems. These attacks work differently than other security exploits, as they aren’t based on any new Windows vulnerabilities, but instead take advantage of the way Microsoft chose to guard Vista’s fundamental architecture. According to Dino Dai Zovi, a popular security researcher told, "the genius of this is that it’s completely reusable. They have attacks that let them load chosen content to a chosen location with chosen permissions. That’s completely game over."

Microsoft has yet to post a statement officially, but they are apparently aware of the security issue and are waiting for the exploit to be made public. We can only wait and watch as to what comes up now…

If successful this could be a mess as good as the DNS exploit in the wild these days. This can potentially change the whole view of how the industry thinks about hacks in my opinion. Microsoft will have a quite a lot of work on hands in the coming days, I’m sure. We’ll know more about this in the near future and there even lies possibility of being faced with the prospect of your "secure" server being stripped completely naked of all its protection.

You think its game over for the already struggling Vista?

The Mojave Experiment has been the center of the latest round of controversy surrounding Microsoft and its flagship operating system Windows Vista. Initially I thought Mojave was a brilliant marketing ploy and it would work wonders to clear the bad air on Windows Vista..

Well it is not really the best marketing ploy ever! If I were to choose my words, I’d call it the lamest marketing exercise of the year. The Mojave Experiment means Microsoft has stooped to an all time low, trying to do every single thing it can to clear the air about Vista. But trust me Microsoft its not as easy creating a beautiful new OS codenamed Mojave only to reveal that its nothing but Windows Vista.

Here’s how Microsoft describes the Mojave Experiment :

What do people think of Windows Vista® when they don’t know it’s Windows Vista? We disguised Windows Vista as codename "Mojave," the "next Microsoft OS," so regular people who’ve never used Windows Vista could see what it can do – and decide for themselves. Now decide for yourself.

Oh well, here are my top 5 reasons why the Mojave Experiment is Epic fail…

• Microsoft treats its customers as though they are stupid

  One of the chief reasons, why many people dislike Windows, is plainly because of the number of steps it takes to do a simple thing. Microsoft makes sure that the user has to go through an endless sequence of steps to get a simple job done. It’s always click, click, click, click, click, click, click, where one or two clicks should suffice.

  Microsoft treats its customers as though they are kids. They feel that the user should be shown around the system, and be told what’s right and what’s not.. These way of holding users hands just like a parent holding a child’s hands is not the way Microsoft should be working.

  It should instead focus on giving the power back to the user, in his own hands. Let him do as he pleases, after all its his PC. What MS feels is that by giving the power in users hands, it is going to make Windows more vulnerable. But in real life that isn’t the case, take for example Linux where the user is supreme and the number of attacks just pale in comparison to those on Windows.

  Come on Microsoft its high time you gave your users some respect, and treated them as smart humans!

• Microsoft tries to seduce its customers

  Microsoft’s initial campaign on Vista, was all about the new interface and the WOW! features. Somehow the we never heard people saying Wow while looking at Vista. Now Microsoft was downright frustrated and it wanted those Wow’s somehow, and that’s why Mojave began in first place.

  Here’s what MS told the participants of the Mojave experiment, “Hey! Listen, I’m going to show you a peek into the latest operating system from Microsoft. You’re really lucky and special, and I hope you like it”.

  Now when a tester hears that he’s all excited, and when he sees the demo later only to find that it was Vista he’s embarrassed. Of course he’s going to like it!There’s no one way he’s going to tell he didn’t like Mojave or Vista or whatever its called.

  Now this is something that’s human nature. When we are shown something that’s top secret we’re almost always going to like it, and that’s what Microsoft’s been targeting. I believe they have a good psychologist on the Mojave team.

• Microsoft completely controls the test environment

  The chief complaint of millions of users when Vista came out was it didn’t work well with their existing hardware. It ran terribly slow and many of there hardware didn’t work properly.

  Now with Mojave, Microsoft set up the hardware. Microsoft brought the accessories. Microsoft picked the software. Microsoft sat people down with Vista experts driving the mouse, and walked people through Vista.

  In such an environment, people liked Vista. What Microsoft fails to understand is that these guys want to be able to run Vista smoothly on their computers back home, and not have to run to the nearest computer store to buy a computer that can run Vista smoothly even though their existing computer is less than a year old.

  Windows users have always wanted to set up their own hardware, and they would expect Vista to work properly with the hardware they have, and not use the hardware that Vista is comfortable with.

• Mojave Experiment blames the customers for all the problems, rather than Vista

  What do you think is the problem? Why is it that thousands of people are downgrading from Vista to XP? Why is that many OEM manufacturers are still selling PC’s with both XP and Vista?

  What Microsoft feels is that all the negative perception behind Vista are because of the bloggers, forum posters, reviewers and hell even the Apple’s marketing campaign. Microsoft’s attitude has been more like, we’ve solved many problems with SP1, and we’ll solve many more with SP2. Until then just hang on tight alright!

  The first step in fixing a problem is admitting that you have one and this is something which Microsoft fails to do. The only way I read this experiment is that Microsoft considers Vista’s failure to be due to customer ignorance rather than failings of the product itself.

  Way to go Microsoft!!

• Mojave is Microsoft’s Arrogance at its best

  Microsoft’s attitude with Mojave is something on these lines, “We’re smart. You’re stupid”. Microsoft’s methods of choosing testers, specifically on the basis that they had strong negative attitudes about Vista isn’t right.

  What Microsoft feels is that by tricking people and making them feel that Vista is way better than they thought its just another way to reinforce its new corporate mantra “Customers are Stupid!”

  The problems that Vista has become famous for are not the kinds of problems you encounter in a few minutes of playing with it in a controlled environment that Microsoft setup with Mojave.

If Mojave is what Microsoft spends $300 Million to promote Vista, then am afraid that the bad is only going to get worser. What are your thoughts on the Mojave Experiment?

Atleast for me Mojave is Epic Fail!

Which do you feel is the better? Is the Mac dude better than the Uncool PC Guy? Sound off your opinions..

Let the war of the fanboi’s begin

cartoon credit: ageekstoty

Share more videos and cartoons in the comments. I will update the post with more of them in the future.

Meanwhile my personal favorite is the Mac. Doesn’t mean I’m Gay Alright!!

Windows Vista came bundled with one of the most irritating security features to date that is the UAC. There are many apps that I use that require to be run in elevated mode everytime I run them.

I’ve already told you guys how to disable UAC for specific apps permanently but that hack requires a bit of work, instead using a free software called Elevate Me you can take the pain out of running apps that require elevated mode.

Just install the software, and you should find an option the right click context menu to run a software or a program in elevated mode. Really easy isn’t it? Installation is a breeze, but the irony is that the installation needs to be run in the elevated mode. Nevertheless here is how you can install Elevate Me.

• Download and extract the archive to a suitable location.
• Run the install.cmd, when UAC prompts for elevation allow it.
• Once that is done, you should see the elevate me option in the context menu.

I hope that Microsoft comes up with an exclusion list for UAC, which would make disabling UAC for specific apps as easy drag and drop. Right clicking to avoid the annoyance of the UAC just doesn’t cut it.

Download Elevate Me

Consider this as a rant, but with today’s announcement of Live Search Cashback program Microsoft has stooped itself to new lows. I cannot believe  that Microsoft is actually trying to be the number one search engine ahead of Google, Yahoo by actually by paying the users in return for visiting their advertisers. Doesn’t sound like a good idea to me though.

More like the proverbial, “If you can’t get users to your site, buy them!!“.

If you are wondering how this scheme actually works, head over to the detailed explanation by Microsoft. Basically you search for deals using Live Search; when you find deals with a special coin shaped icon like above, it means you’ll receive a small amount of money after you’ve bought something. When your balance reaches $5, you can claim your cash.

I know you feel this is some kind of cool idea, but let me take some time and explain why this program simply doesn’t cut it, why it’s a chock-full of failure…

According to the FAQ, to be eligible for the program you have to be U.S. citizen or legal resident, and at least 18 years of age. Everyone else, forget about it. Moreover, Microsoft does not guarantee you’ll receive cashback bonuses if you use an alternative payment method when purchasing items, such as PayPal or Google Checkout. Seriously Microsoft are you kidding me?

I personally feel that Microsoft is running out of ideas on how to improve the effectiveness of its advertising system in comparison to Google Adwords that continues to grow steadily. By changing from a Cost Per Click model to Cost Per Acquisition model, Microsoft is giving out higher returns to the advertisers for sure, but it doesn’t show good faith in its advertising platform.

Another point is that the payouts are set to a pretty low amount and are pegged at 5$. I know what I’m going to say next might sound like crazy talk but try thinking this way. Why on earth would Microsoft keep the payouts so low, if they have faith their initiative and they think there is quite a bit of money to be made by shoppers. I know you could say that are trying to attract more users, but another way of attracting them would be stating something like earn atleast 1$ for every complete transaction.

I’m skeptical if this program will work or not, but I’m sure paying the users in pennies isn’t going to help much when they are purchasing products worth tens or hundreds of dollars.

Google has a superior product search engine and way ahead of Microsoft at the moment. I’m sure Microsoft will be able to attract buyers who enjoy saving a buck here and there but these are not the kind of people that are advertisers are looking for. Advertisers are looking for people who are high spenders not the kind who save pennies.

Throwing away goodies at both searchers and advertisers isn’t a good long term strategy if you ask me. This initiative of Microsoft is no way going to help it beat Google or Yahoo in the search game. Come on Microsoft show some real stuff, not all this throwaway goodies. It ain’t going to help much.

Do you feel that Live Search Cashback program is chock-full of failure, or it has the potential to be a big success?

I normally use Snagit for all my needs of taking screenshots, but today thanks to Amit Agarwal I found a cool new plugin written by a Microsoft employee Joe Cheng that allows me to take screenshots more easily than ever.

Here’s how to get started with this tiny plugin that will surely make life easy for all bloggers alike. To give your Windows Live Writer the power of a  screen capture tool, download this file (22kb, ScreenCapture.dll) and copy it to the following location on your PC :

C:\Program Files\Windows Live\Writer\Plugins

Now when you open Windows Live Writer you will see the option to take the screenshot. All you need to do now is click it and select the region you want to capture and you are done. Simple isn’t it?

This plugin is still in infant stages so taking screenshots of other windows isn’t all that easy at the moment. But I’d expect Joe to add new features in the coming days.

The plugin looks very promising, and is something I plan to use regularly. What do you guys use for taking screenshots? let us know in the comments.

Thanks Amit Agarwal | Download the Plugin

I keep trying variety of registry tricks everyday, and install and uninstall numerous applications that demand a restart whenever I install them. To get away with boring restart process I normally kill Explorer.exe from the task manager and wait for it to restart automagically. But the problem is that the Task Manager method is like forcibly killing the process instead of terminating it cleanly.

Luckily there is a hidden option in both Windows XP and Windows Vista Start Menu that will allow you to terminate and restart Explorer.exe cleanly. As you can see in the screenshot above there’s a hidden option in the start menu to cleanly terminate Explorer.exe. Follow these steps to get that option visible and cleanly terminated Explorer.exe.

Click the Start button. Press and hold the CTRL and SHIFT keys, and right-click on an empty area in the Start menu. You’ll see a Popup menu containing the two options namely Exit Explorer and Properties. Alternatively you could get the above Popup menu by holding the CTRL and SHIFT keys and then right-clicking on the Start menu power button itself.

After selecting the Exit Explorer command, the shell (Start menu, Taskbar and the Desktop) will exit and the other applications will continue to run normally. You need to manually start a new Explorer.exe process by launching Task Manager. Use the CTRL+SHIFT+ESC key sequence to launch Task Manager. From the File menu of Task Manager, choose New Task (Run…), type Explorer.exe and press ENTER.

And you should now be looking at a clean shiny new Explorer process running at full speed. This way of restarting Explorer is a much safer process and has been recommended by Microsoft itself. Please let us know how this works for you in the comments.

If you are a Windows XP user there is a similar hack described by Microsoft employee Jeff. Have a look at that as well.

Credit : Aaron Margosis