WindowsAdminGuru BLOG

What are the major changes? Several enhancements to improve performance have been made to the NTFS file system. The following changes are available in Windows® 7 and Windows Server® 2008 R2: Delete notification for solid state devices (SSDs) that support T10 Trim New opportunistic locks (oplocks) semantics and introduction of oplock keys Support for file system metadata defragmenting Improvements in Volume Shrink Ability to disable short names on a per-volume basis Improved concurrency of read requests while flushing Native VHD support Chkdsk performance improvements Robocopy performance enhancement Local file copy improvements For more info, refer this link

The Remote Computer Disconnected the session because of an error in the Licensing protocol This is been annoying every server administrator in all the big environments when the local laptops / machines upgraded to Windows 7 from XP or lower versions. Follow the below solution to resolve your issue - Note: Please make sure you take backup the registry (full or required keys) before you start doing below steps - 1. Run regedit. 2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\MSLicensing. 3. Take a backup of the hardwareID and Store keys under MSLicensing. 4. Delete the hardwareID and Store keys. 5. Reboot the PC. This creates new hardwareID and Store keys. 6. For Vista and Windows 7 to create the new keys you need to run remote desktop as the administrator after rebooting the computer.

We have earlier written many articles on how to install Windows 7 through USB & how to install Windows XP through USB all of which are bit lengthy options. While in this article we will be giving you a new tool by Microsoft which helps you in installing the OS on a netbook without CD/DVD Drive within a few minutes. System Requirements : Windows XP SP2, Windows Vista, or Windows 7 (32-bit or 64-bit) Pentium 233-megahertz (MHz) processor or faster (300 MHz is recommended 50MB of free space on your hard drive DVD-R drive or 4GB removable USB flash drive First of all you need to Download Windows 7 onto your computer and have the ISO File ready. Next download the tool from Microsoft website here and install it on your computer. Once its installed you need to run the USB Tool and you will get the option to Choose ISO File from your computer or the Optical Drive. Once you have selected the right ISO file based on the correct OS version ie 32bit or 64bit you will have...

Mass-license versions of Windows have long offered companies and large organizations the possibility to customize their log-in and welcome screens. It’s a small thing, but it imposes a sense of professionalism. Other Windows 7 versions have been left out to dry, although something like this should really be a feature by default. We resort to third-party applications to customize our welcome screen. There are many alternatives, ranging from terribly amazing to just terrible, and we’ve listed the best three below. Logon Screen For Windows 7 Logon Screen is one of the simplest, most down to earth application to change your log-on and welcome screens. Or rather, to customize your log-on and welcome screens’ background. Simply use the Logon Screen application to select the desired image, and off you go. Images will be automatically resized to fit your welcome screen. The most peculiar thing about Logon Screen is how well it integrates with Windows 7 itself. Most of these ...

If you’ve been working in the computer world for a while then you’re probably pretty familiar with batch jobs. IT professionals around the world utilized them to run all sorts of automated computer processing jobs and personal tasks. In fact Paul recently covered how to write such a file. The problem with batch jobs is that they were very limited. The command set was somewhat short and didn’t allow for very much functionality when it came to structured logic using if-then, for, next and while loops. Later, Windows Scripting Host came along. The MS Windows Scripting Host is a multi-language script utility that Microsoft started installing as standard on all PCs from Windows 98 onward. By the second generation of the tool, it was renamed to Microsoft Script Host (MSH). A Microsoft Scripting Host Tutorial Here at MUO, we love computer automation. For example, Varun covered Sikuli, a tool to write automation scripts, and Guy showed you how to use AutoIt to automate tasks....

  You have upgraded to Windows 7, love the new taskbar, and enjoy the power of using the cool Libraries feature. But now you want more. You want the cool tips and tricks that make Windows 7 fun! So here are the best ones to help you get the most out of your new OS. In this article, we will focus on the Windows 7 interface to get you started on the road to becoming a Windows 7 Power User. In Part 2, we will be looking at advanced tips for usability, performance, and security. 1. Use Keyboard Shortcuts Using the mouse, you can drag-‘n-dock windows to either side of the screen, or drag it to the top to maximize it. These keyboard shortcuts are even faster: Win+Left Arrow and Win+Right Arrow dock the window to the left and right side of the screen Win+Up Arrow and Win+Down Arrow maximize and restore/minimize Win+M minimizes everything Alt+Up , Alt+Left Arrow , Alt+Right Arrow navigate to parent folder, or browse Back and Forward through folders in Explorer Win+Home...

This error can occur if you have installed incorrect driver. You can check the solutions in the following threads: "Windows is unable to install to the selected location.   Technorati Tags: Windows 7 Error: 0x80300001 Error: 0x80300001" Can anyone elaborate? http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itproinstall/thread/3021b3aa-ce05-4cfa-8119-a531ed2e4d63 Windows 7 RC Installation Does Nothing at 'Completing Installation...' http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-CA/w7itproinstall/thread/86dc5fc5-d256-4e53-825f-042e6c78951c Error 0x8030001 http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itproinstall/thread/07eb39ed-884d-44fa-bcb4-bd109f2d8524/ Install Failure: Windows cannot be installed to disk 0 partition 1. http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itproinstall/thread/b8fbf1de-0d93-47ae-8ea8-70534f1816ba Source : Microsoft TechNet

When taking backup on external drives you may come across this error. Here are the two probable solutions: 1.remove and reconnect all drives 2.For every user on your machine, - Login as the user - Run -> regedit.exe - Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Sofware\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell  Folders - Observe the value of Appdata and LocalAppdata . If it has an empty value or a value of the type %Appdata% , this is the culprit. Can you verify that this is the case with your machine? If so, the workaround is the following:     a. Open a command prompt     b. Type set Appdata / LocalAppdata depending on which registry entry has the  wrong value. If Appdata is wrong, type set Appdata and if Local Appdata is wrong, type set LocalAppdata .     c. Copy the value after the = sign. Example if the output is: APPDATA=C:\Users\John\Appdata\Roaming, copy the value C:\Users\John\Appdata\Roaming  ...

This error usually comes when there is some issue in hard disk or disk controller. People are reporting other factors as well..go to this TechNet page for more details.

When you try to install windows 7 on a fresh machine you get this pop up which says “Windows cannot install required files.  Make sure all files required for installation are available and restart in the installation. Error code: 0x8007045D” and installation get failed. This is usually indicate that the installation media is corrupt . You ca try these things to resolve the issue: - Create / re-burn a new media at a very slow rate - use the best media that you can find - avoid ISO mounting utilities that mount the image as a removable drive (to avoid CRC errors) - replace the DVD drive ( rare)

When you use the Windows Update Web site or the Microsoft Update Web site to check for and install updates, you may receive one of the following error messages: 0x80070008, 0x800705B4, 0x8007000E, 0x80072EE2, 0x80072EFD, 0x80072EE7, 0x80072EEF, 0x80072EFE, 0x8024400E, 0x80072F76, 0x80244016, 0x80072F78, 0x80244022, 0x80090305, 0x8024402F, 0x8009033F, 0xC80003FA, 0x80244008, 0xC800042D, 0x8024400A, 0x80071A90, 0x8024400D This TechNet KB article describes the cause and cure about the issue: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/836941/en-us

This error comes up while installing Windows 7 on a SATA RAID drive. Set up doesn’t recognize the SATA controller. You can try this: 1. Load the RAID driver from CD. (Vista driver will work) 2. Install the driver and create partitions. 3. Remove the driver CD and insert the Windows 7 DVD. 4. Click on Refresh and the error should disappear. Source : MS TechNet Post

If you tried to log on to Windows and received an error message telling you that your user profile might be corrupted, you can try to repair it. You will need to create a new profile, and then copy the files from the existing profile to the new one. To create a new user profile To create a new profile, you must first create a new user account. When the account is created, a profile will also be created. Open User Accounts by clicking the Start button , clicking Control Panel, clicking User Accounts and Family Safety (or clicking User Accounts, if you are connected to a network domain), and then clicking User Accounts. Click Manage another account. If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation. Click Create a new account. Type the name you want to give the user account, click an account type, and then click Create Account. To copy files to the new user profile After you create the profile, you ca...

Error message when you log on to a Windows Vista-based or Windows 7-based computer by using a temporary profile: " The User Profile Service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded" Possible causes: This issue may occur if the user profile was manually deleted by using the command prompt or Windows Explorer by a user or by some program. A profile that is manually deleted does not remove the security identifier (SID) from the user profile list in the registry. Since the SID is still present, Vista will still try to load the profile by using the ProfileImagePath that points to a nonexistent path. Therefore, the profile cannot be loaded. This can also be a issue with the user profile entering into a backup state. Manually renaming the C:\Users\(User Name) folder. To resolve this problem yourself, follow these steps: Delete the profile by using the Computer Properties dialog box. To do this, follow these steps: Click Start , right-click Computer , and...

Many time I come across the issue with users where they are not able to log in to their original profile in Windows 7. They see an message after login which says: “Your user profile was not loaded correctly! You have been logged on with a temporary profile. Changes you make to this profile will be lost when you log off. Please see the event log for details or contact your administrator.” Event viewer shows this application log: Log Name: Application Source: Microsoft-Windows-User Profiles Service Date: Date Event ID: 1511 Task Category: None Level: Warning Keywords: Classic User: User Computer: Computer Description: Windows cannot find the local profile and is logging you on with a temporary profile. Changes you make to this profile will be lost when you log off. Resolution: To resolve this problem, follow these steps: Log on to the system by using an administrative user account other than the user account that is experiencing the problem. Back up all ...

This issue may arise when you access a remote PC through RDP from various computers with different different screen resolutions. To resolve the issue: Delete the “Default.rdp” file from My Documents ( XP) or Documets( Win7) folder. Default.rdp is a hidden file hence make sure you select the proper view in folder options.

When we upgrade Windows 7 from a 32 bit version to 64 bit version, there is a folder called Windows.old get created the drive which may take up  a huge disk space. Here is how we can get rid of that: Click on Start -->All Programs-->Accessories-->System Tools-->Disc Cleanup. When the dialog box comes up, select the drive that has the .old files on it and  click OK. The system then scans for the files to be cleaned up and another dialog box opens with the selection.  Click on the button labeled Clean up system files at the bottom of that dialog box. Another dialog box will come up, select the drive again that has the .old files on it.  The system will perform another scan for the system files that need to be cleaned up. After scanning, another dialog box opens up and there you will find a list of check boxes.  Scroll through and check on the box labeled Older versions of Windows and click OK . This can also help: Click Start--...

How to configure Branch Cache in Hosted mode for SharePoint Optimization on WAN links with WIndows Server 2008R2 and Windows7? Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 introduce a new feature (BranchCache) that can reduce wide area network (WAN) utilization and enhance Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies responsiveness when users access content in a central office from branch office locations. When you enable BranchCache, a copy of the content that is retrieved from the Web server is cached within the branch office. If another client in the branch requests the same content, the client can download it directly from the local branch network without needing to retrieve the content by using the Wide Area Network (WAN). Configuring BranchCache with Microsoft SharePoint : Configuring Web Servers The configuration of Web Servers in preparation for BranchCache requires only installing the BranchCache role on the server machine through the Server Manager or optionally...

The other day I was trying to see the size of the all folders in Windows explorer but that option is not available in Windows XP and Windows 7, although that works for files only. Then after some google search I came across Folder Size for Windows utility on www.Sourceforge.net   which is an excellent add-on to Windows explorer and work with Windows XP only. Download for Folder Size for Windows XP : http://sourceforge.net/projects/foldersize/files/foldersize/2.5/FolderSize-2.5-x86.msi/download Folder Size tool for Windows 7: This tool work differently than above one but still comes handy when you want to know the size of folder in a local or network folder . Here is the link : http://foldersize.codeplex.com/releases/view/41473

Windows 7 Error: “These files can't be opened. Your Internet security settings prevented one or more files from being opened” Today when I was trying to open a exe file that error came up showing the warning: Here is the simple solution worked for me: - Right click on the file for which warning is coming and open properties - Click on Unblock button and click Apply - Now open the file, you will not see the warning In my opinion  this is very feature of Windows 7 which prevent us accidently opening harmful files and programs.