Fifa 2010 theme for Windows 7

Its Football fever so why not have a theme for your Windows 7 with all Fifa stuff. EA Sports has come up with a Windows 7 theme for Fifa 2010.

Click here to download the theme.

Multi-User login in Windows 7/Vista/XP using Remote Desktop

Multi user login commonly know as Concurrent sessions gives you the advantage to allow multiple users to login to the same computer using a remote computer without disturbing other users using it.

Concurrent sessions is a feature in server editions of Windows that lets more than one user to log on remotely and use the server at the same time. By default in Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP when you connect to a computer using Remote Desktop it forces the person physically using the machine to loose his session.

If you have concurrent session enabled on your Windows machine everyone can access the machine using Remote Desktop without hampering other users work.

How to enable Concurrent Sessions on Windows machine

1. Download the Universal Termsrv.dll Patch by DeepXW and unzip it.

2. I would prefer you manually back up Termsrv.dll from C:\Windows\System32 folder

3. Right click and Run as Administrator the appropriate patcher exe depending on your OS version

    For 32bit (x86) select UniversalTermsrvPatch-x86.exe
    For 64bit (x64) select UniversalTermsrvPatch-x64.exe

4. Click the patch button to patch the DLL and click OK on the success window

5. You would have to restart your machine for changes to take effect

I have personally tested this and it works all fine without affecting your Windows OS or any other application. Everything works fine and multiple users are able to access the machine using Remote Desktop.

Unlock locked files in Windows 7 using LockHunter an alternative for Unlocker

I was having hard time with files being locked in Windows 7 as Unlocker does not work with Windows 7. My colleague Shwet came to my rescue showing me an alternative to Unlocker named LockHunter. Thanks Shwet . I thought sharing this will help others who are stuck with the same problem.

Most of us know what Unlocker is and what it does. In case you don't know it, Unlocker is a software which rescues you from annoying error messages given by Windows, like:

Cannot delete file: Access is denied. 

There has been a sharing violation. 

The source or destination file may be in use or the file is in use by another program or user. 

Make sure the disk is not full or write-protected and that the file is not currently in use. 

The above error messages happens when you try to delete, move or rename a file which is being used by some other process running on your machine. Unlocker helps you unlock the processes which use the file to let you continue with your work.

Unfortunately Unlocker does not work on Windows 7. LockHunter is a cool alternative for Unlocker if you work on a Windows 7 PC. LockHunter is a free to use software for personal purposes.

Key Features of LockHunter

• Shows processes locking a file or folder
• Allows to unlock, delete, copy or rename a locked file
• Allows to kill locking process
• Allows to remove locking processes from hard drive
• Integrates in to Explorer menu
• It deletes files into the recycle bin, so you may restore them if deleted by mistake
• Supports both 32 and 64bit Windows 

How to use LockHunter 

Download LockHunter 32-bit or 64 bit depending on your machines configuration and install it. You can use LockHunter to unlock a file or folder from the Main Window or from the Explorer's context menu.

To unlock a file from using LockHunter Main Window, specify the file you want to unlock and click the button next to the text box.

After selecting the file to be unlocked the window shows you the processes locking the file. You can choose Unlock It! or Delete It! depending on your requirement.

To unlock the file from Windows Explorer using right click context menu, simply right click the file you want to unlock and click "What is locking this file?"

The main window of LockHunter would be opened displaying the processes locking the file for you to select an action.

LockHunter in all is a nice application and can be used as an alternative to Unlocker not only for Windows 7 but also for other Windows versions.

Change Windows 7 Start Button

A 12 year young TWC forum member Kishan Bagaria has developed a tiny and user friendly utility neatly named as "Windows 7 Start Button Changer" using which one can change the Start Menu Button's Image in Windows 7.

Windows 7 was very refreshing at its launch. But as time passes by human gets bored of things we use everyday and need them changed. Similarly if you are bored of the same Windows 7 Start Button icon use Windows 7 Start Button Changer to get a new feel.

Steps to change Start Button

• Download Windows 7 Start Button Changer
• Extract the contents of the Zip file to a location on your hard drive
• Prefer creating a System Restore point so that you can revert back to original settings incase something goes wrong. I never had to revert back but precaution is better. Run "Windows 7 Start Button Changer.exe" from the location you unzipped the downloaded file

•  The downloaded Zip file contains 10 sample ORB's. Click the Windows logo next to "Select & Change Start Button"

• Select the image file you like and click Open and the button gets changed

• If you want to again change the button image prefer restoring to original explorer settings and then performing the above steps to get a new image

Well if you need more Windows 7 start button images you can Google for Windows 7 Start ORB and download them.

Note: The program has been tested on Windows 7 Ultimate 32 bit and 64 bit editions.

If the program does not start for you try right clicking the exe file and selecting "Run as Administrator".

If in x64 version, you receive an ‘unhandled exception’ error, please click on Continue or try running it again ‘As an Admin’.

Turn your Windows 7 / 2008 R2 in WiFi Hotspot

Suddenly a friend enters your computer room with his laptop and wants to connect to your machine and get it on network for file sharing, gaming, internet sharing etc. What would you do? What would be the simplest solution? The simplest solution would be turning on the WiFi Router and connecting using WiFi. But what in case you do not have a WiFi Router?

Well, using Virtual Router Manager you can turn your Windows 7 / 2008 R2 running machine into a WiFi hotspot to which other machines can connect easily.

Virtual Router Manager is a easy to setup and easy to use software. It is developed truly in C# and free to use.

Steps for setting up WiFi HotSpot

• Once the installation is complete, run Virtual Router Manager
• Specify the Network Name for yout Hot Spot. Virtual Router Manager gives you the ability to provide any name to your network.
• Specify the password which should be used by other machines trying to connect to your network. The password should be minimum 8 characters.
• If you want to share Internet connection then specify the connection's name under Shared Connection.
• Click Start Virtual Router to start your network.
• If you want to stop the networking, simply click on Stop Virtual Router.

The Wireless Network created/shared with Virtual Router uses WPA2 Encryption, and there is no way to turn off the encryption. This is actually a feature of the Wireless Hosted Network API's built into Windows 7 and 2008 R2 to ensure the best security possible.

Virtual Router Manager smartly displays the peers which connect to your Wireless Network. You can connect any WiFi device to the network right from other Computers to your Mobiles or Media Players.

Additionally you can see the information of the peer (Host Name, MAC address, IP Address) connected or change the icon for specific peer by double clicking specific peer.

Download Virtual Router Manager for free.

Copy To and Move To on Right Click Context Menu in Windows 7

When you select a file/folder in Windows Explorer and click Edit on Menu bar you find options for Copy To and Move To which is a great way to move or copy files to a destination folder. But selecting a file/folder, clicking Edit and then Copy To and Move To takes too many clicks (atleast for people like me who want to save on their clicks).

How easy it will be if I can get these options when I right click any file and folder. Just a single click and you are there.

Well, there is a registry tweak to add Copy To and Move To links to Right Click Menu Context as Windows 7 was designed to have it only in Explorer Menu Bar. Just follow the simple steps below to get the links in Right Click Context Menu:

Click Start, type regedit and press Enter

In the Regedit window traverse to

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT \ Allfilesystemobjects \ shellex \ ContextMenuHandlers

Click on Edit Menu and create a new Key name Copy To

Select the newly created key from the tree list

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT \ Allfilesystemobjects \ shellex \ ContextMenuHandlers \ CopyTo

Double-click Default and set its Value data to: {C2FBB630-2971-11d1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}

Similarly, create a new key named MoveTo, in the following branch:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT \ Allfilesystemobjects \ shellex \ ContextMenuHandlers

Select the following branch:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT \ Allfilesystemobjects \ shellex \ ContextMenuHandlers \ Move To

Double-click Default and set its Value data to: {C2FBB631-2971-11d1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}

Exit the Registry Editor

Thats It!!! Now whenever you right click any File or Folder you will find Copy To Folder and Move To Folder options on the Right Context Menu.

Just select the folder where you want to Copy or Move the files and click Copy/Move depending on what option you clicked.

DreamScene for Windows 7 - Set Video as Wallpaper

Using DreamScene you can set video files as your wallpaper in Windows 7. DreamScene was built in feature for Windows Vista but was removed from Windows 7. One of the drawbacks of having DreamScene is its heavy resource usage, but who cares if you have a powerful machine running Windows 7.

Installing DreamScene on 32 bit machine

• Download DreamScene for 32 bit Windows 7 machine by clicking here
• Right click the exe downloaded and click Run as Administrator

Installing DreamScene on 64 bit machine

• Download DreamScene for 64 bit Windows 7 machine by clicking here
• Extract the contents of dreamscene64.rar file to some location on you machine
• Copy DreamScene.dll to %windir%\System32
• Copy DreamScene.dll.mui to %windir%\System32\en-US
• Double click Dscene.reg to install the registry value for DreamScene
• Reboot you machine

Setting Video as a wallpaper
Once you have DreamScene installed on your machine and successfully rebooted the system. Right click the Video file you want to make your wallpaper and select "Set as Desktop Background"

The only drawback of using DreamScene is the Desktop icons text becomes invisible. But who cares!!! But yes, if you care for it you can just switch back to normal wallpaper or uninstall DreamScene.

Uninstalling DreamScene

• Download DreamScene uninstall reg file by clicking here
• Delete DreamScene.dll from %windir%\System32 folder
• Delete DreamScene.dll.mui from %windir%\System32\en-US folder
  

Windows 7 God Mode

Windows 7 God Mode is nothing else but a trick to have all Windows settings in a single folder. You can change almost all windows settings right from changing mouse cursor to partitioning your hard disk from this folder. To enable God Mode follow the steps below:

1. Create a folder named God Mode (or any other name you like) 
2. Rename the folder and suffix .{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C} Your folder name should be God Mode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}
3. The folder icon will change and will look like Control Panel icon.

Double click the folder to show the GodMode window.

Windows Aero v/s Ubuntu Beryl

Windows Aero has been quite popular since it was launched in Windows Vista. Even Windows 7 uses Windows Aero and has improved greatly. To compete Linux community has come up with Beryl for Ubuntu. Beryl has almost all features of Aero like Windows transparency, Alt Tab switcher etc. Beryl contains additional features like Cubical view of windows, animated effects for minimizing and maximizing windows, burn effect when closing the windows.

Windows Aero gives Flip 3D feature using which you can see all windows in 3D environment. Taskbar preview of applications when you hover your mouse over it.

Beryl offers you more features than Aero like giving blur effects to background windows, zoom effects, windows decorators, etc.

Windows Aero comes with Windows Vista and Windows 7 which are paid products where as Linux comes for free so does Beryl.

Beryl is definitely better than Aero but the market share is more with Windows than Linux. For existing Windows users it would be difficult to get the advantages of additional features of Beryl. But for new learners it would be easy if they start learning Linux :)

Check out the video below to see the Beryl Magic

Windows 7 - Delete File/Folder Confirmation Window

Deleting files from your system is one of the common activity. Whenever we delete any file or folder Windows pops up a confirmation window which is good as it gives you 1 chance to think about deletion but sometimes it is very annoying.

In Windows 7 you can do the following with the Delete Confirmation Window:

• Turn On/Off Delete Confirmation Window
• Prevent Users from Turning Off Delete Confirmation Window

Lets take a look on how to achieve this.

Turn On/Off Delete Confirmation Window
By default Delete Confirmation Window is always enabled in Windows 7. To turn off Delete Confirmation Window simply right click Recycle Bin and Click Properties.

In Recycle Bin Properties Window uncheck "Display Delete Confirmation Dialog".

That's it. Now when you delete any file/folder from your system Windows 7 will not ask you for a Confirmation message.

Prevent Users from Turning Off Delete Confirmation Window
It is good that the Admin has the capability to disable the Confirmation Window but in some cases Admin would want to make sure that the Window is always displayed and no other user can turn off the delete confirmation window. A setting can be made in Local Group Policy Editor to make sure that no one can turn off the Delete Confirmation Window.

• Start gpedit.msc from Start -> Search Box or Start -> Run
• Expand the folders  User Configuration \ Administrative Templates \ Windows Components \ Windows Explorer
• Double Click or Right click and select Edit for Setting "Display confirmation dialog when deleting files"

 

• Select Enabled and Click OK.

Once this is done go back to Recycle Bin properties and you will see that the Display Delete confirmation dialog checkbox is selected and grayed out.

Windows 7 - Snipping Tool

Windows 7 has come out with lots of features one of which includes Snipping Tool. Using Snipping Tool you can capture your desktop, whole window, rectangular section of a screen or use free hand.

Its a good utility if you do not want to purchase any software to meet the purpose.

There are tools like SnagIt which I prefer for screen captures but it is a paid software. Snipping Tool is not that great in editing the captured images but great if you only wanna capture the images and do a little editing.

Reduce the Start Menu in Windows 7

Windows 7 Start Menu is initially flooded with 10 recent programs. For me most of them we useless and such a big and flooded Start Menu does not look good. This is how my Start Menu looks after installation of Windows 7.

I reduced the number of recent programs from 10 to 7 using the following steps:

1. Right click on Start button and select Properties

2. This will start the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties. Click the Customize Button.

3. Clicking Customize button will open up the Customize Start Menu button. Now change the Number of recent programs to display to whatever value you want.

This is it   Now Windows 7 Start Menu looks clean and neat with as many recent programs you need.

Windows 7 Snap Feature – Resize and Compare windows on Desktop

Windows 7 has come out with lots of new features like Peek, Shake, Snap.

Snap is a new way to resize the open windows  simply by dragging them to the edges of the screen. Expanding it vertically, appear side by side with another window totally depends on where you drag the window.

Remember how pain it was to compare two windows in Windows XP? But with Snap in Windows 7 its just a matter of seconds. The only thing you need to know is where to drag the windows

Take a quick look at the video which shows the use of Snap.