FRAG THE PLANET » Windows 7

Windows 7 Beta Will Start Dying Soon

Mega Shark — Wed, 27 May 2009 00:40:25 +0000

I hope everyone had a nice little vacation, I know I did, and I took an extra day off to make it a nice 4 day weekend.

Now onto the bad news. I got an email from Microsoft stating that the Windows 7 Beta will start to break in June 2009. Here is a rip from the email I received.

IMPORTANT REMINDER ABOUT BETA EXPIRATION DATE
Thanks again for your help in testing the Windows 7 Beta.

We’re sending this mail to remind you that Windows 7 Release candidate is available and to make sure you plan ahead for when the Beta expires on August 1, 2009. On June 1, 2009, the PC you’re using to test the Beta will begin shutting down every two hours. Windows will send you a notice a couple of weeks in advance, and that’d be the ideal time to rebuild your test PC with a non-expired version of Windows, such as the RC or Windows Vista. This will be a clean installation, so be ready to reinstall your programs and data. (Learn more about installing Windows.)

I really wasn’t expecting to have to update till the Full Release came out this holiday season, but it looks like I’ll be updating to the RC within the month… not really looking forward to it. I had tried just doing the update from my Beta to the RC, but ran into a few problems. This time around I’ll be doing a format and fresh install of the RC. Hopefully the included Windows Easy Transfer app will work and migrate all my applications and profile settings over.

Does Your CPU Support Hardware Virtualization?

Mega Shark — Wed, 06 May 2009 11:12:57 +0000

Windows 7 supports hardware virtualization. Basically what that means is you will be able to run multiple virtual computers each having exclusive control of your pc hardware on your host computer. If you’d like to learn more about virtualization, there is some great info over at Wikipedia. Unfortunately not all processors support hardware virtualization, but there is a way to check and see if yours does.

A program called Securable will check and see if your processor can handle virtualization. It is my understanding that all 64bit processors can do it, but don’t hold me to that.

Windows 7 RC Download

Mega Shark — Tue, 05 May 2009 01:55:45 +0000

Windows 7 Release Candidate looks like it has been released a few hours early. I actually made it to the download page already and am currently downloading the 32bit version, if you get an Access Denied page, or the Java client fails, turn off java and try again. Microsoft also informed me that you will not be limited the the number of times you can download the RC and get keys to activate it. Check out some other important info MS included in the email.

Quote – Windows 7 Release Candidate Announcement

Thank you very much for your help in testing the Windows 7 Beta. Your feedback is invaluable in helping make Windows 7 a high quality operating system. With your help, we have reached the next major milestone on the journey to Windows 7: the Release Candidate (RC).

-	On April 30th, the RC became available to MSDN subscribers and TechNet Plus subscribers.
-	On Tuesday, May 5 (PST), the RC will be available to everyone via our Customer Preview Program. As with the Beta, the Windows 7 RC Customer Preview Program is a broad public program that offers the RC free to anyone who wants to download it. It will be available at least through June 30, 2009, with no limits on the number of downloads or product keys available.

Microsoft suggests that you do a clean install instead of upgrading to help them fix bugs present in the Release Candidate. Here is the Windows 7 RC Install Instructions page with all sorts of helpful links to get you started.

Windows 7100 to 7068 Downgrade

Mega Shark — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 21:11:33 +0000

I upgraded my Windows 7 version from build 7068 to build 7100 yesterday and after coming to terms with a few problems I decided to just revert back to 7068. I originally thought I had imaged the wrong drive before I did the 7100 upgrade but luckily it was the 7068 build from a few weeks ago.

I just finished ghosting the image back on and set my weekly backups to the correct drive, and am happy once more. Build 7100 just had too many glitches for me right off the bat. I think I will keep 7068 on here for as long as possible, no sense upgrading if I’m not having issues at this time.

I will say that the upgrade went pretty smooth though, I didn’t really have any issues except for windows telling me that my ATI Catalyst drivers were not compatible and had to be removed. Also the whole Punkbuster/Call of Duty 4 issues had me worried. So take that for what its worth. If you plan on upgrading your build to 7100 I highly suggest you make a backup image before hand.

Personally I use Acronis True Image Home for backing up data, but it is not free, if you need backup software on the free, try Paragon Drive Backup Express. I’ve had good luck with Paragon software in the past.

My Windows 7068 to 7100 Upgrade Experience

Mega Shark — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 01:32:06 +0000

I went ahead and upgraded my windows 7 x64 build 7068 to x64 build 7100 today and I now wish I hadn’t. Call of Duty 4 broke, ATI Catalyst driver broke, and alot of my programs registry settings are missing.

I had a feeling I should just leave my 7068 alone because it was working fine. I did however decide to make a image of my drive ahead of time just in case I wanted to revert back to 7068, unfortunately I made a backup of the wrong drive letter… so that was smart.

After fighting with COD4 and punkbuster for the last hour or so I’m really thinking of just reformatting and reinstalling 7068. After doing some research online it appears that punkbuster has some serious issues with Windows 7.

In conclusion I will advise that if you are happy with how your build is running now, just leave it alone until the final version is available.

Like the old saying goes, if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.

Windows 7 Release Candidate

Mega Shark — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 01:46:27 +0000

Microsoft is set to release the first Windows 7 Release Candidate on May 5th. Of course nothing is set in stone with MS and their release dates, but I’d put my money on this being a valid date. I still haven’t decided if I’ll upgrade my x64 7068 build or not, we’ll have to see if there are any important updates or fixes included.

So far the 64bit 7068 build has been running great on my AMD Phenom II 4X 920, I really haven’t had any issues with it besides finding 64 bit software.

Vista’s Snipping Tool Could Be Good

Mega Shark — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 22:28:13 +0000

The Snipping Tool is included in Vista and Windows 7 and it allows you to take quick and easy screenshots on your pc. It’s much nicer then having to do the print screen, open paint, and paste trick, but there’s one downside. You can’t change the quality settings to allow for higher quality JPEG or PNG files. The PNG files come out looking great, but the JPG files are saving at something like 50 percent quality. They look like garbage. Some online services aren’t set up to accept PNG yet so If you need a high quality JPG file the Snipping Tool is pretty much useless, until now.

I found a program called IMG2JPG on WindowsForums.org, and it’s made by a guy called Disk4Mat. It basically adds a shell extension, when you right click a PNG file, to change convert the PNG to a JPG, and you can set the quality setting to whatever you want. It a run once program that doesn’t run as a background service and eat up resources. Just make sure that after you install it, run the Options setup as an Administrator, so the options save properly.

So now you can use your Snipping Tool to take a nice high quality PNG file and then later on convert it to a JPG.

Allow More Connections in Windows 7

Mega Shark — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 00:14:11 +0000

Windows 7 comes configured to only allow for 10 connections by default. This is supposedly a move by Microsoft to cut down on malicious software inundating the web and killing bandwidth. For the everyday user 10 connections is probably ok, but for us, we need more power.

This tool will patch your tcpip.sys file and allow as many connections as you want, 100 should be more then enough though. Grab a copy of Half-Open and give it a try.

Zune Audiobook to Podcast Tool

Mega Shark — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 02:14:41 +0000

I am a noob. This is my tool ever created. It’s a weird feeling. Anyway, I made this little program using Visual Basic 2008 Express Edition. I made this tool because the Zune sucks for listening to Audio books. It won’t bookmark the place you were last listening to like it does for Podcasts. I found that if you change the Genre Tag of your audiobook mp3 files to Podcast it will treat your audio files as a podcast and bookmarking will work. The next problem is that, on the zune, Podcasts do not get sorted by Track number, they get sorted by their Date created. So usually all your audio book files would be all out of whack in the zune podcast section. This tool automatically decrements the creation date of a group of selected files, therefore sorting your files correctly.

More info on Zune Audio book Bookmarking here.

Please give it a try and leave me a comment if you like. It is my first program ever in VB, but I do plan on improving the tool and also adding a feature to automatically change the mp3 files genre from audio book to podcast. As of now you have to use a program like tag and rename to change the genre to podcast.

-Version History .2-
Changed program to work on 32bit systems.

-Version History .1-
Added Auto genre change of mp3 ID3V2 tags to “Podcast”.
Added Message box showing number of files processed.
Added Only allowed to edit *.mp3 files.

Download Tool – audiobook2podcast

Oh PS it was made on a Windows 7 x64 machine.

Disclaimer – Use this software at your own risk, I can not be held resposible if you accidently change the dates your porn was downloaded.

Upgrading Windows 7 Beta to Windows 7 Release Candidate

Mega Shark — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 01:16:06 +0000

Microsoft has put up some instructions in preparation for their Windows 7 RC release (build 7100?). Technically you won’t be able to upgrade from a pre 7100 build to the RC. MS really wants you to upgrade from Vista or do a clean install so they can collect real world data on their install procedures. They did however offer some advice if you Really Really Really Need to upgrade from a pre 7100 build version to the RC. They list a way to backup all your current user settings using Windows Easy Transfer and also hacking one of their install ini files to allow a pre 7100 build to RC upgrade.

Definitely bookmark this post if your upgrading for a pre 7100 build as you will need it no doubt.