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How to Change Wallpapers Periodically in Windows 7

vbb — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 18:26:07 +0000

Wallpaper (Desktop Backgrounds) provide a life to the otherwise boring desktop.Some people change their wallpapers daily,while some like to change it every hour.There are many third party utilities to randomize wallpapers at scheduled interval but in Windows 7 you don’t need any as it natively supports automatic changing of wallpapers.

Here is the procedure to change your wallpapers automatically at scheduled intervals in Windows 7.

Automatic shuffling of wallpapers in Windows 7

To setup and randomize wallpapers ,right click on empty part of the home screen and select “personalize”.A window will open to “change the visuals and sounds on your computer” as shown in the figure.Select desktop background.

In the next windows select “Windows Desktop Backgrounds” from the drop down menu.(or any other library listed where wallpapers are stored)
Now you can select the timing for the automatic wallpaper changing in between 10seconds to one day.Select “Change wallpaper” in desired time. You can also set to shuffle wallpapers if you want them to not appear in a particular order.

Then save all changes.And now you should be able to see desktop backgrounds changing automatic at set intervals.

As it is obvious that it will pick wallpapers from the selected directory,you can make different folders to represent different themes and hence can get wallpapers depending on your mood.

Create a Bootable USB Drive for Installing Windows 7 or Vista

vbb — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 10:52:26 +0000

Suppose you have a Netbook and want to install Windows 7 on it then you will surely miss your DVD drive.And other people who somehow do not have a DVD drive will have a tough time installing Windows 7.

Thankfully here is a Free Utility that can create a Bootable Windows 7 USB drive for you from either your Windows 7 ISO image or from the actual DVD drive. All you need is a good USB drive with at least 4GB capacity.

Create a Bootable USB Drive for installing Windows 7

You may have a Window 7 ISO image or its actual DVD.From both of these you can create a Bootable USB drive for installing Windows 7 on a computer/laptop which does not have a DVD drive.

This Utility created by “ARIS”-a reader of blog ASK Vishal Gupta and is released at askvg.com.This is a portable utility and using it it very simple.Just run it,accept the terms and you are ready to go.You get a windows as shown in screenshot.As you can see you can tell this utility to check for a DVD or and ISO Image for making a bootable copy on to the USB drive.

Here I was having an ISO image of Windows 7 RC mounted on a virtual DVD ROM.Hence it checked for a DVD and detected the disc as Build 7100 of Windows 7.

This is a must have application for every tech enthusiastic as it will not bound them to install via DVD.

There were several tools available for creating bootable USBs for Windows XP but for Vista, Window 7,and server 2008 — there are very few.

Please note that this utility will not run in Windows XP and Windows Vista without SP1.

You can download and read more about it at AskVG.com here.

Download Official Windows 7 Themes,Wallpapers and Gadgets

vbb — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 02:33:00 +0000

Windows 7 supports Aero Features just like Windows Vista which adds some eye candy to the visualization.Windows 7 is about to release in October this year,but people are already using the freely available Release Candidate of the OS.

If you are using Windows 7 ,here are some themes directly from the Microsoft repository.These themes include views from Crater Lake,Hena highway,Isle of Lewis and so on and belong to different countries.

Windows 7 Themes,desktop backgrounds and Gadgets

Microsoft has released many themes,gadgets and desktop backgrounds so that you can personalize your Windows 7.The personalization page on the Windows 7 section on Microsoft’s websites lists options to enhance your system.

These include Windows 7 themes,Desktop wallpapers,desktop gadgets and sideshow gadgets.

Themes and wallpapers offer you a wide range of selection from natural themes to some city themes,national park to Grasmere Village and so on.

The quality of images-no doubts are great and will surely look great on your widescreen TFT monitor.So download them now and enjoy Windows 7.

Download Windows 7 Themes,Wallpapers and Gadgets.

Ultimate Windows Tweaker v2 :A Tiny Utility to Tweak Many Settings of Windows 7 and Vista

vbb — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:53:43 +0000

You don’t have to fiddle with your Windows Registry or download any utility to tweak any individual settings.Here is a Freeware Utility which offers almost all types of Tweaks you can apply to your Windows Vista or Windows 7 Operating system.The releaser,TheWindowsClub has just released version 2.0 of this software.

The software offers tweak in the areas of Personalization,System Performance,Internet Explorer,Network Tweaks, Security and so on.

Simplest tool to tweak Windows 7 and Vista

Windows Operating System always had options ,some open and some hidden ones,which you could configure for boosting the performance ,visual options or security of the system.The same goes for the coming Windows 7.However it’s not easy for everyone to tweak these settings.And hence there are numerous programs to help you tweak them.

The Windows Club has released Ultimate Windows Tweaker V2 which offers tweaks for Windows 7 ,apart from Windows Vista in an easy to use interface.

Main Features of Ultimate Windows Tweaker

Auto detection of Windows 7 or Windows Vista and offers only version dependent settings.
No installation required.You can carry it in your USB pen drive.
Easy to access System Restore Button ,so that you can restore your settings if anything goes wrong.
Offers configuration settings in the categories of Personalization,User Accounts & UAC,System Performance,Network Tweaks ,Security Settings,IE, and some additional settings.

Download Ultimate Windows Tweaker Version 2.0

Verify Your Downloaded Windows 7 ISO File

vbb — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:18:48 +0000

Microsoft legitimately allowed people to download Windows 7 beta and RC ISO file from their site with the help of their own download manager.But there are people who downloaded it via other sources such as P2P network(torrent) due to large file size and slow connection.It is also likely that they downloaded it that way because of various leaked version of Windows 7 coming every month.

Unknowingly they are at risk of getting infected ISO which contain malicious codes in it.So here is a utility to verify that the ISO file you downloaded is original and from the correct source.

Windows 7 ISO verifier

This small utility made by Long Zheng and Sven Groot actually compares the hash of the ISO file you have to the known hashes from the correct sources.Based on the comparison results it will notify whether your ISO is legitimate or not as shown in the figure.

Download the utility and read more from the link below.

Windows 7 ISO verifier

How to Install Windows 7 Virtually using Virtual Box

vbb — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 15:15:48 +0000

It’s been quite a long time since Microsoft released Release Candidate of Windows 7,successor to Vista.I didn’t want to install along with my Windows XP (by creating a dual boot machine) but just try by installing it virtually on top of my Windows XP.

So here is a step by step guide to Windows 7 installation using Virtual Box.If you do not have any idea about what I am talking then kindly look at What is Virtualization and How to Use Virtual Box

Step by Step Guide to Installing Windows 7 virtually

What you will need

Virtual Box (Free virtualization software)-Download now
Windows7 RC ISO file (Release Candidate of Windows 7) Download now

(You will get Windows 7 as an ISO file.If you don’t know what to do with an ISO file then have a look at-How to open an ISO,BIN,CIF or cue file?)

Step 1

Download Virtual Box and install it.Initial steps are outlined here.Once you run the program and get the first screen.Click on New to open New Virtual Machine Wizard.Click Next to get the screen where you have to enter the information about the OS you have to install.Name it anything you like and select Windows and Windows 7 from the dropdown menu as shown in the figure.

Step 2:

When you click next after putting OS information,you get option to define memory for the virtual OS.If you have 2 GB of RAM then it’s okay to allocate 800MB to 1GB of system RAM to the guest operating system-Windows 7 here.After clicking next.there is option to choose the boot hard disk,choose ‘create new hard disk’ as shown in the figure.In this way a new virtual Hard Disk will be created for the installation of the guest operating system.

Step 3

This will open “Virtual Media Manager”.Click one ‘New’ to open “Create New Virtual Disc Wizard” as shown in the figure.

It will ask for “Hard disk storage type”

Click “Fixed Size Storage” and next. In the next window you have to choose the size of the hard disk.Make it at least 10 to 12GB for Windows 7.

This virtual hard disk is by default created in the primary users “Documents and Settings” folder in in drive C:/ .You can change the location as shown in the following figure.

You should now get a summary of what are you going to create as shown in the figure.It will begin creating a new virtual hard disk as soon as you click finish.

Now you get the main screen outlining the properties of the virtual machine as shown in figure.

This way you have created a new system complete with a hard disk,RAM and all necessary things.Now it’s time to install Windows 7 on this system.

Installing Windows 7 to Virtual Machine

On the above screen select ‘My Windows 7’ as click settings.Navigate to CD/DVD ROM to get the following screen.Tick ‘Mount CD/DVD drive’ and select ISO image file and click on the folder icon to select the ISO file as shown in figure.

Clicking on folder icon will show you virtual media manager.Select the CD/DVD tab

and click ’Add’.

Now navigate to the place where you have kept Windows 7 RC ISO file .Select the file and click select again at the bottom of Virtual Media manager window.You will be taken back to the settings window where you have to click OK.

You should get the final window now with Windows RC image file showing in the CD/DVD ROM.

If you have reached this screen you have everything correct and are ready to explore the world of Windows 7.Just select ‘My Windows 7’ and click start.Your virtual machine will start and Windows 7 will boot from the ISO file to begin installation.The installation will go as normally as it goes on a new computer.It can take 30-45 minutes depending on you computer configuration.

How to use Windows 7 virtually.

Once the installation is finished,you can start Windows 7 by clicking start.To shutdown select shutdown from the start menu as you do in Windows normally.Your keyboard will be automatically mapped to this virtual system.Mouse function is special.When you click ‘inside’ the Windows 7 window it will be trapped inside with a warning message.To bring it outside Windows 7 press the default ‘Right control’ button on your keyboard.

This way you can enjoy Windows 7 without touching your existing operating system.

Leave a comment if you find any step confusing or need any clarification regarding installation.

Windows 7: System Hardware Requirements

vbb — Tue, 26 May 2009 14:32:49 +0000

Microsoft has released the Release Candidate of its new operating system –Windows 7.The release is available here for public download.Mostly OS have their own minimum hardware requirements so that the OS can run efficiently.

If you want to test Windows 7 on your computer then make sure that your computer confirms to the hardware requirements specified by Microsoft.However you can easily see form the requirements that any computer not older than 2 years will mostly meet the hardware norms.

Hardware Required to Test Windows 7

As specified by Microsoft on their Windows 7 RC download page your computer should meet the following hardware standards-

1 GHz or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
1 GB RAM (32-bit) / 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
16 GB available disk space (32-bit) / 20 GB (64-bit)
DirectX 9 graphics processor with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

Microsoft says that the requirements may change during the final release but as reported by ZDNet ,these specs seem to be final one.

Windows 7 Update Advisor-Check if your PC is Ready for Windows 7

In order to check whether your PC is ready for Windows 7 or not you can also use Microsoft’s Update Advisor.This application is still in beta [Download].Once you download and install it, it gathers details about your hardware and checks whether your computer is ready for Windows 7 or not.

Apart from system requirements it also checks whether the attached devices,such as graphics card,network interface and programs are compatible with Windows 7 or not.However note that this update advisor does not check your system for special requirements such as hardware virtualization enabled processor for virtual Windows XP mode.You can also save an HTML report.

When I checked with Windows 7 Update Advisor, i was advised to first backup the system and keep at least 16 GB free for Windows 7 installation.No issues were detected with my devices and programs.So my system is now ready to have Windows 7 soon.

So what are you waiting for ,just check your system and Download Windows 7 RC.You can enjoy this Release Candidate up to next mid year.