One of the great Windows 7 features is called Homegroup; it allows you to easily share files with other computers running Windows 7. Homegroup makes sharing your music, pictures, documents, files and USB-connected printers a breeze. As soon as you network your computers, you will be prompted to set Network location, once you select Home Network, the Homegroup wizard will let you create your Homegroup in a matter of minutes.

The Homegroups are password protected for better security and you can select which ones of your libraries to share: Pictures, Music, Videos, or Documents; you can share USB printers as well. Simply make your selections, finish the Wizard and that’s that.

Joining already created Homegroup is also pretty straightforward – you just have to type in the Homegroup password and select the files that you wish to share.

After you have joined the Homegroup, you can add any file to the shared libraries and share them with other users; you can also make some or all of your files read-only, so other users can view them, but can’t make any changes. The Homegroup will also appear in your Windows Explorer left pane, so you can access all the shared items with a few mouse clicks.

However, the Homegroup feature works only if all the networked computers run Windows 7; if any of your machines is running Windows XP or Vista, you can still network them and share your files and documents, but the process isn’t as easy and requires more effort to set up.

Windows 7 is packing some new and exciting features, which will make your life easier and save you a lot of time and effort and below are listed the top five Windows 7 features that are available in all editions:

1. Windows 7 taskbar – the new Windows taskbar is all about convenience. Many of us are so used to working with multiple windows that right up to now we had to close a dozen of them in order to find the one that we want to use. Well, not any more. The new Windows 7 taskbar lets you navigate through all your open windows just by hovering your mouse over their taskbar icons; and that is not all: if you have multiple tabs open in a program such as Internet Explorer, you can get a quick preview of all the open tubs – hover your mouse over the IE icon and you will see thumbnails of each one of them.

Aero peek: hover over the thumbnail and the full-size window will come to the foreground, click on the thumbnail if you want to start working with that window.

Jump lists: right clicking on one of the active taskbar icons will present you with more options, specific to the particular application; right clicking on the Word icon will give you a quick access to your most recently edited documents, right clicking on the IE icon will give you quick access to your frequently visited sites, etc.

2. Windows 7 libraries – the libraries let you organize similar files and the new part is that you don’t have to move your files to the same folder, the files in a library can reside in different folders on your hard drive, but they are conveniently grouped in a library for an easy access. You can create new libraries or delete old ones, add and remove folders, and share your libraries with other users in your Windows 7 Home Group.

3. Start button search functionality – this feature has been designed to save you a lot of time, no matter what you search for, try typing it in the start button search and you are likely to find it. This is an excellent way to access some not-so-easy-to-find Control Panel features; type “set time” in the search button field and you will get quick access to all the tasks that you might want to perform.

4. Aero snap – another great feature that allows you to work with open windows easily. This is extremely useful when you want to compare or work with two documents side by side. Drag the one window to the left side of your screen, drag the second window to the right side of your screen and they will get automatically aligned next to each other, giving you perfect view of both windows.

5. Windows 7 homegroup – extremely useful feature, providing that you have computers that run Windows 7; then you can easily create or join a homegroup and instantly share your documents, pictures, files and printers. Homegroups are password protected for better security and just like with the previous operating systems from Microsoft, you can make some or all of your shared files read-only so they don’t get accidentally deleted or edited by other member of your homegroup.

It might come as a surprise to many, but there is no bundled email program in Windows 7, which leaves you quite a few options: you can use web-base email such as yahoo, g-mail, or hotmail, or you can download one of the many free email clients available. In fact, Microsoft provides an excellent e-mail client, Windows Live mail, which allows you to access all your different e-mails accounts from a single program.

Windows Live is available for download for free: simply click on the start button of your Windows desktop and type “essentials,” then click on the “Go online to get Windows Live essentials” link. Once the web page opens in your browser, click the Download button and save the setup file in a folder of your choice. Launch the installation file and choose which of the available free programs you wish to install on your computer; you can install Windows Live Mail, Messenger, Movie Maker, and a few other utilities and tools. The installation is pretty straightforward and once you have Windows Live Mail on your PC, you can import your Outlook Express account settings, and configure the program to access your Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo accounts as well.

Instead of using Windows Live Mail, you can download and install any of the full-featured and free email programs that work with Windows 7 such as Mozilla Thunderbird, Eudora, IncediMail, or Opera Mial. All these programs come with features and security settings that will help you stay in touch with your friends and colleagues, get less spam in your inbox, read, delete, archive, and sort your messages and perform any other operation that you can expect from similar e-mail programs.

System Restore allows you to change your computer configuration to a previous state and can be extremely useful in case your system becomes unstable. On a computer running Window 7 rolling back is extremely easy: simply click the Start button, type rstrui in the search box and press the Enter key on your keyboard.

On the System restore Window click the Next button and you should see the restore points that have been automatically created by Windows 7 (they are created every time significant changes such as updates and installing or uninstalling of applications have been made).

Confirm your choice and finish the process

In order to manually create a restore point in Windows 7 right click on the Computer icon on your desktop and select Properties.

Click the Advanced System settings link

open the System protection tab and click the Create button

type a description for your restore point and finish the process.

It seems that Windows 7 is a really stable operating system and you might never have to use the system repair disk, but it is always good to have one in case you are unable to boot-up your computer; the system repair disk contains Windows Recovery Environment, which has all the necessary tools that will allow you to successfully boot-up.

Creating the disk is pretty easy and straightforward:

Click the Start button, type recdisc.exe in the search box and press Enter. Select the drive, where you have inserted the blank CD or DVD from the drop-down menu and click Create disk.

Once created, you can use the Windows 7 repair disk in case your system malfunctions and you cannot boot-up; simply select your CD or DVD drive as the first boot device in your BIOS, insert the recovery disk, and restart your computer. You will be presented with the following recovery options: Startup Repair, System Restore, System Image recovery, Windows memory diagnostic and Command prompt.

If you have Panda Cloud Antivirus and wish to uninstall it from your computer, you might discover that the Add/Remove program won’t actually remove it. In order to do a very easy and clean uninstalation, you should download the Panda Cloud Antivirus Uninstaller and run it.

Just like Windows XP and Vista, Windows 7 lets you create different user accounts on the same computer; this is extremely useful not only when you share your computer with another member of your family, but even if you want to keep and use two different configurations on your computer and want to be able to switch between them real quick.

How to create a new user account in Windows 7

Click the Start button and then Control Panel; under User Accounts and Family Safety click Add or remove user accounts.

On the next window click Create a new account

Choose a name for your user account, select the account type and click the Create Account button. There are three types of user accounts on Windows 7: Administrator, Standard and Guest. It is generally a good practice to have only one administrator on a single computer; the administrator has full access to all settings and programs, he can make any changes that he desires, including deleting and creating user accounts. The standard user account cannot delete system files, install new software, but can use most of the programs on the computer and access all files and folders. The guest account has very limited access permissions, which is why it is usually created when you want to give someone a temporary access to the computer.

Once the account has been created and you are logged in as the administrator, you can set a password in order to protect it, change the account type, set up Parental controls, change the account picture or delete the account altogether.

If you were hoping to do a quick and easy in-place upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7, then you will be somewhat disappointed – if you want to install Windows 7 on your computer and you are currently running XP, your only options are purchasing the Full version pack or purchasing Windows 7 Upgrade pack and doing a custom install. In both cases, you will have to re-install all your programs after the transitions.

If you have just purchased a new computer with no Operating System installed or you have formatted your hard drive, then you will have to purchase one of the Windows 7 editions’ Full versions (which is more expensive than the upgrade) and do a clean installation.

If you have a genuine copy of Windows XP running on your computer, you can do custom installation: you can make the transition easier with the help of Microsoft’s Windows Easy Transfer utility, which you can download for free. Before going any further though, make sure that your computer meets the minimum requirements; it is also highly advisable to download and run the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor (freeware), which will inspect your computer configuration and inform you of any potential issues. Once you are certain that your PC is Windows 7 compatible, you are ready to make the migration.

What you need to remember when doing a Custom installation:

1. You need to back up all your data – for most users the Custom installation is easy to perform, but you should back up all your important files and documents in case something go wrong. You can also make an image of your entire hard drive, using software such as Acronis True Image, Norton Ghost, Paragon Drive Backup, or other similar tools.

2. Download the Windows Easy Transfer (freeware) from Microsoft’s web site and run it: you will need a second hard drive, an external hard drive, or another partition on your hard drive with enough free space. The Wizard will let you choose which settings you want to keep such as: programs and user account settings, files, folder and documents.

3. Perform Custom Install of Windows 7 from the Windows 7 DVD

4. Use the Windows Easy Transfer to import all your files and settings that you saved in step 2.

5. Re-install all your programs.

After Windows 7 is installed and running and your programs re-installed, you can download the Windows 7 Product Guide from Microsoft’s web site and familiarize yourself with Windows 7 new features.

As with previous versions of Windows you can use one license per computer only, regardless of the edition that you purchase. There is one exception and that is the Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade Family Pack. There are a few things you should know though: the Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade Family Pack is not available for download and is only available in certain locations.

The Windows 7 Home Premium Family Pack allows you to install Windows 7 on three computers in your household, providing that they are running genuine copies of Windows XP or Windows Vista; the pack costs approximately $149.00.

1. Right click on your desktop and select New -> Shortcut

2. Type taskkill /im explorer.exe under Type the location of the item and click the Next button

3. Choose a name for the shortcut and click the Finish button.

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If you want to change the icon of your newly created shortcut:

4. Locate the shortcut on your desktop and right-click no it, then select Properties and click the Change Icon button.

5.Select one of the icons and click OK and the OK once more

6.Double-click on the shortcut and you will see the Shutdown dialog box

Now you can drag and drop your shortcut to your taskbar or your quick launch bar if you want to.

If you want to start Windows 7 in safe mode do the following:

1. Reboot your computer
2. Right before the Windows 7 splash screen start tapping the F8 key on your keyboard
3. Once you see the advanced boot options screen use the arrow keys to get to Safe mode and press Enter

If you do not see the advanced boot options and Windows 7 continues to load normally, then simply restart and try again.

If tapping the F8 key doesn’t work disable the no GUI boot up option:
. Click the start button
. Type msconfig in the search box
. Press Enter
. Open the Boot tab
. Disable the no GUI boot option

Now you can try one more time rebooting your computer and tapping the F8 key.

Another way to start Windows 7 in safe mode is to:
. Type msconfig in the search box
. Press Enter
. Open the Boot tab
. Choose Safe mode and select one of the four different options: Minimal, Alternate Shell, Active directory repair, Network, press the OK button and restart your computer.

How to speed up Windows 7 in 10 easy steps

Windows 7 is quite fast and even after you have installed and uninstalled a few programs, have cluttered your system and polluted your hard drive with countless useless files and leftovers, you shouldn’t see a dramatic decrease in your computer’s performance. However, if you want to make Windows 7 even faster, then follow these easy steps.

1. Configure Windows 7 for best performance

If you want to see instant increase in your computer’s speed, then you have to optimize it for best performance. Simply right-click on the Computer icon on your desktop and select Properties:

On the next window click the Advanced system settings link

Click the Settings button under Performance

On the Performance options windows select Adjust for best performance.

Now your Windows 7 will be much faster, but you will disable some of its great features; in order to prevent that simply choose Custom in the previous step and only disable the features that you don’t need.

2. Disable some of the start-up programs

Click the Start button on your taskbar, type msconfig in the search box and press Enter. Once the System Configuration window opens, click the Startup tab and deselect the programs that you don’t want to start with every boot-up.

3. Defragment your hard drive regularly

Make sure that disk fragmentation scheduling is turned on: Click the Start button, then All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Defragmenter. See that the Scheduled defragmentation is turned on. Keep in mind that while the disk is defragmenting it might slow down your system, which is why you should choose time of the day that you aren’t likely to be using your computer.

4. Run Disk Cleanup regularly

Click the Start button, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Cleanup.

Select the drive from the drop-down menu and click the OK button. Wait for the tool to inspect your drive and then select some of the items such as Temporary Internet Files, Recycle Bin, Downloaded Programs, etc.

5. Change your computer power plan for better performance

Open Control Panel, click on System and Security, click on Power Options. Expand the Show additional plans and select High Performance.

6. Enable write-caching

Write-caching is a useful feature since it saves your data and I would advise you to disable it only if you have an UPS or aren’t concerned about losing your data in the case of power failure or computer malfunction. In order to disable write-caching open the Device Manager and click on Disk Drives to expand it:

Right click on the drive and select Properties, on the Device Properties Window open the Policies tab and make sure that Enable write-caching on the device is ticked.

7. Disable thumbnail preview in Windows 7

In most cases the thumbnail preview isn’t useful, so you might want to disable it. Double click on the Computer icon on your desktop, click Organize and then Folder and search options:

Open the View tab in the Folder Options window and select Always chow icons, never thumbnails, click OK to confirm your choice

8. Turn off the System Sounds

Click the Start button and in the Search box type mmsys.cpl and press Enter. Open the Sounds tab, click Windows Default and choose No Sounds from the drop-down menu if you wish to disable all sounds.

9. Disable some of the Windows features

Open Control Panel, then click Programs, Programs and Features and then click the Turn Windows features on or off link

In the next Window deselect the features that you wish to turn off:

10. Enable ReadyBoost

In order to use ReadyBoost you need a flash drive. Just plug it in and if Auto Play starts, choose Speed up my system; if it doesn’t open Windows Explorer, click Computer, right click on the flash drive and select Properties.

Open the ReadyBoost tab and select Use this device. Click OK to confirm.

Missing Computer icon in Windows 7
Missing Recycle Bin icon in Windows 7

If you can’t find your Computer, Recycle Bin, or any other icon on your Windows 7 desktop try the following:
Right click on your Desktop and select Personalize, click the Change desktop icons link, then tick the checkbox of your missing icon.

If this doesn’t fix your problem or if the icon checkbox is grayed out, then in order to restore your missing desktop icons, you can try the following:
Click the Start button and in the search box type gpedit.msc and press the Enter key on your keyboard.

The Local Group Policy editor window comes up: under User Configuration expand Administrative Templates and click Desktop. Now in the right pane of the Window click on the respective icon settings. If your Computer icon is missing, then click on the Remove Computer Icon on the desktop, then click the edit policy settings link.

Here you can make the necessary changes.

If you are unsure what graphics card you have on your computer you can easily find out just by following these simple steps:

Hold down the Windows key and press R.
In the Run dialog box type devmgmt.msc and press Enter.

This should bring up the Device Manager window, expand Display Adapters and you will see your graphics card listed. You can right click and select properties in order to see more details about your graphics card or its drivers and perform additional tasks.

If you have just upgraded to Windows 7, you will discover that quite a few applications that were present in previous Windows versions are missing, and Windows Movie Maker is one of them. However, if you want to get the Movie Maker on your Windows 7 running machine all you have to do is follow a few easy steps.

Click the Start button and type: essentials and then click the Go to Windows Live Essentials link.

This will take you to the http://download.live.com/ where you should scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the link next to “upgrading to Windows 7.” The programs that you can download are:
* Messenger
* Mail
* Writer
* Photo Gallery
* Movie Maker
* Family Safety
* Toolbar
* Microsoft Office Outlook® Connector
* Office Live Add-in
* Microsoft Silverlight

Click the download button and save the installation file on your hard drive. Once you run it, you can choose which applications you want to install. If Windows Movie Maker is the only one that you need, then deselect all the others and finish the installation.

The Windows Live Movie Maker is slightly different from the previous versions and it seems that it has been created with the novice user in mind – it is extremely easy to use and you can create a movie from your pictures and videos in a matter of minutes, but if you need a serious editing program, you might have to look for other alternatives.

How do you enable or disable System Restore in Windows 7?

System Restore helps you restore the files on your computer to an earlier point in time and it is generally a good idea to have it enabled. However, if you really need that extra space on your hard drive you might want to disable it.

This is how you access System Restore in Windows 7:

Click the Start button -> Control Panel -> System and Security -> System and then click System Protection in the left pane.

Click the System Restore button to restore your system to previous state, click the Create button to create a System Restore point, or click the Configure button to change some of the System Protection options.

Windows 7 comes with three different options that allow you to burn your files, music and pictures on a CD or DVD.

1.

The first option is the DVD maker. In order to launch the DVD maker in Windows 7 just type DVD maker in the search box and then click the link.

Use the Add Items button to add your files or simply drag and drop them.

The DVD maker allows you to make a new DVD from your own video and image files, if you need to change the default settings click the Options link: you can change the DVD playback settings, the DVD aspect ratio and the video format.

2.

The second way to burn files on a blank DVD is to insert the DVD in your DVD ROM tray: the autoplay window will prompt you to choose from a few options and then you can select Burn files to disk or Burn a DVD video disk using Windows DVD maker.

Once you choose the first option (Burn files to disk) you can burn the disk in two ways:
using the disc like a USB flash drive
with a CD/DVD player

What is the difference between the two options?
The first option (live file system) lets you copy files any time and you should choose the second option only if you intend to copy all your files at once. Please note that disks burnet with the first option might not be compatible with all your DVD players or machines running older operating systems.

3.

Burn a CD or DVD from Windows Explorer
Navigate to the folder, which contains the files that you want to copy and click the “Burn” button, and then follow the wizard.

There are a few ways to find the device manager in Windows 7.

1. Click the Start button -> Control Panel -> System and Security -> click System and the Device Manager link appears in the left pane:

2. Click the start button and in the search box type devmgmt.msc and click Enter

3. Type “device manager” in the search box and the link will appear under “control panel” right above the search box, then all you have to do is click that link and the device manager will appear.

First of all how do you find out what your computer’s Windows Experience Index is?
Click on the Start button – then Control Panel -> System and Security -> System and in the next window you will see your Windows Experience Index.

If you click on the link you will see how the different hardware on your computer has been rated – your processor your graphics card, etc.

The Windows Experience Index gives your computer a “base score” that measures the capability of your computer hardware – the same “base score” is used in PCs that run Windows Vista, but for the XP users who have upgraded to Windows 7 this is something new.

The base score ranges from 1.0 to 5.9 and can serve as a guide for purchasing and adding new hardware to your computer.

In Windows 7 Windows Explorer the Favorites are in the left pane

and in order to add a location to your Favorites, simply navigate to the location, then right click on the star and choose the Add Current Location to the Favorites option