Saturday, September 26, 2009

LameXP

LameXP is a graphical front-end for the LAME MP3, Ogg Vorbis and Nero AAC audio encoders.
It accepts WAV, MP3, MP2, Vorbis, AAC, AC3, FLAC, WavPack, Musepack, Shorten, Speex, APE, TTA and WMA.
The easy-to-use interface supports multiple languages, including English, German, Spanish and Italian.
Batch processing is implemented and multi-threading will be used, if several processors/cores are available.

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Saturday, September 12, 2009

BitTorrent 6.1.2 Build 13422

BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file sharing/distribution protocol designed for transferring files from multiple locations. Because of the nature of this protocol, large files can be handled more efficiently than the typical client/server method.

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Doom Metal Fonts Pack

Doom Metal Fonts Pack include some nice fonts.

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TuneUp Utilities 2009 v8.0.2000.35

TuneUp Utilities® 2009 optimizes the performance of your computer, corrects problems and helps you to customize your system to suit your needs. It combines important aspects of system configuration, security, cleaning and maintenance under a modern interface.

You can remove unnecessary files from your hard disk(s), clean and optimize the registry, tweak your internet connection settings, recover deleted files, optimize memory and more. In addition, you can analyze your system, receive automatic suggestions for potential performance improvements and view detailed hardware information. TuneUp Utilities also includes an Uninstaller, registry Editor, Task Manager and even an Undelete tool to recover files that have been deleted from the recycle bin. A very nice tool, with many features that will appeal to novice as well as advanced users.

TuneUp Utilities 2008 makes Windows faster, more secure, and comfortable. All important aspects of system configuration, security, cleaning and maintenance are combined under a modern graphical user interface.
Features:
- TuneUp Utilities 2009 – Start Center
- Reliable Protection for Your Data
- Simple Hard Disk Organization
- Simple Windows Customization
- Perfect Error Correction
- Simple 1-Click Maintenance
- Optimum Start Acceleration
- Internet and Windows Acceleration
- Secure Data Rescue and Deletion
- Individual Windows styling

Your TuneUp Utilities advantages:
- NEW! Configures Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 2, Windows Media Player 11 and Office 2007
- NEW! Automatically eliminates errors in the file system
- NEW! Allows for simple clean-up of your disk drives
- NEW! Deletes sensitive data using the secure DoD 5220.22-M and Gutmann methods
- IMPROVED! Gives you intelligent tips to optimize your hardware and software
- IMPROVED! Speeds up your system startup
- IMPROVED! Scans your system for settings that might be slowing it down and corrects them
- Reliably and completely removes unnecessary applications including their registry entries
- Offers optimum Internet and system settings for every type of user
- Defragments the Windows registry
- Restores accidentally deleted files
- Speeds up your Internet connection

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Escape Rosecliff Island

An unexpected storm has left you shipwrecked on a mysterious and remote private island. Seek & find cleverly hidden objects and solve puzzles to find a way off the island. Find over 2100 hidden objects in 25 intriguing and mysterious locations to find items that will help you escape! Play 5 different types mini-game puzzles to collect inventory items from each location that will be needed to help you escape the remote Rosecliff Island. Play 3 different game modes: Escape the Island, Unlimited Seek & Find, and a Mystery Bonus Game.

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USB Disk Security 5.1.0.15

USB Disk Security is the best antivirus software to permanently protect offline computer without the need for signature updates, but other antivirus software should update signature database regularly, and they cannot effectively protect offline computer. This light and easy to use solution is 100% compatible with all software and doesn’t slow down your computer at all.


√ 100% protection against any threats via USB drive
√ The best solution to protect offline computer
√ The world’s fastest and smallest antivirus software
√ Require no signature updates√ 100% compatible with all software
√ Easy to use

Operating Systems: Windows Vista, Windows 95, Windows Me, Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows NT, Windows 98.

System Requirement: 100MHz Processor or more, 16MB RAM or more.

Download

Google Earth 5.0.11337.1968 (Portable)

Google Earth combines the power of Google Search with satellite imagery, maps, terrain and 3D buildings to put the world’s geographic information at your fingertips.

* Fly to your house. Just type in an address, press Search, and you’ll zoom right in.
* Search for schools, parks, restaurants, and hotels. Get driving directions.
* Tilt and rotate the view to see 3D terrain and buildings, or look up to explore the sky
* Save and share your searches and favorites.

Since Google Earth was launched, users have been exploring our world and creating content overlays (KML files) to share their explorations with others.

After download create a folder named “thinstall” in Google Earth folder.
Then run from pendrive…

Download

Adobe Photoshop CS4 Portable

Easily create a single image from a series of shots that have different focal points with the enhanced Auto-Blend Layers command, which smoothly blends color and shading and now extends your depth of field, automatically correcting vignettes and lens distortion.

Create accurate composites with the enhanced Auto-Align Layers command. Move, rotate, or warp layers to align them more accurately than ever before. Or use spherical alignment to create breathtaking panoramas.

Get instant access to Adobe Bridge CS4 with faster start-up, use new workspaces to jump to the right display for every task, easily create web galleries and PDF contact sheets, and more.

Combine a range of images, each with a different exposure, color, and focal point — with options to preserve tones and colors — into a single color-corrected image.

Select multiple photos in Adobe® Photoshop® Lightroom® software (sold separately) and automatically open them in Adobe Photoshop CS4 to merge them into a panorama, a high dynamic range (HDR) photo, or a multilayered Photoshop document. And seamlessly roundtrip back to Lightroom.

Enjoy superior conversion quality as you process raw images with the industry-leading Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw 5 plug-in, which now offers localized corrections, post-crop vignetting, TIFF and JPEG processing, and support for more than 190 camera models.

Enjoy dramatically enhanced color correction with reengineered Dodge, Burn, and Sponge tools that now intelligently preserve color and tone details.

Get outstanding prints with superior color management, tighter integration with leading printer models, and the ability to preview out-of-gamut image areas. Support for 16-bit printing on Mac OS offers increased color depth and clarity.
File display options new

Easily work with multiple open files by using tabbed document display or n-up views.

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Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool

The Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool checks computers running Windows XP, Windows 2000,Windows Vista,Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 for infections by specific, prevalent malicious software including Blaster, Sasser, and Mydoom and helps remove any infection found. When the detection and removal process is complete, the tool displays a report describing the outcome, including which, if any, malicious software was detected and removed.

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Real Desktop Light 1.49 Portable


This software will transform your desktop into a real one, as it was meant to be. As you most probably know, the file queues on your Desktop becomes ever longer, daily coming new files and you lose slowly but surely the overview.

Are you missing the certain order, the fealing of a genuine desk, simply the reality? Real Desktop brings back this experience to you again!

Your icons behave now, thanks to the powerful physics-engine, like real objects that you can touch and move as on a real desk.

Here are some key features of “Real Desktop Light”:

Running behaviour:
· 3D Sound
· Activatable Antialiasing
· No performance losses with resting condition of the symbols
· Very less resources needed
· Very efficient, thanks to the “Reality Engine”

Design:
· Reflecting surface
· Icons are reflecting the environment

Languages:
· German
· English
· French
· Italian
· Spanish
· Croatian
· Hungarian
· Swedish
· Portuguese

Requirements:

· DirectX 9.0c
· Intel Pentium IV 1500 MHz
· 256 MB main memory
· DirectX able graphic card: 64 MB NVIDIA Geforce 3 or better,
· ATI Radeon 8500 or better
· Screen resolution 800×600 at True Color (16 million colours)
· Internet connection

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Orbit 2.8.4

Are you tired of waiting and waiting for completing the download processes? Forget it, now you can speed up your downloads and make them to be faster than ever thanks to Orbit Downloader.

Easy to use and really intuitive, those are the two main adjectives which would define Orbit, the tiny application which will become the best friend of your downloads from now on.

Orbit can be integrated seamlessly into Microsoft Internet Explorer to automatically handle your downloads.

No matter if you download via HTTP, FTP, RTSP or MMS, orbit will handle it and will make them faster.

It accelerates your downloads like no other download manager, and it’s for free. If you want to speed up your downloads and take the most out of your internet connection, try Orbit, it will not let you down.

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Yahoo Multi Messenger 8.0.0 508

If you use Yahoo Messenger, for sure that at any time you have missed the possibility of opening several sessions from the same computer.

Using MSN Messenger, there are a lot of programs which allows you to open those sessions, but in the case of Y! Messenger, its more difficult to find it, and here you have it.

Thanks to Yahoo Multimessenger, also known as Y! Multi, you will have that possibility too. It’s easy to use, just install this program and double click it. From then on, enjoy the multisession experience using all your yahoo accounts.

Yahoo! Multi Messenger is specially recommended for latest versions for Yahoo Messenger, though it can be used with any version after 6.0.0.1922.

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Circle Dock 0.9.2

What Circle Dock 0.9.2 Allows You to Do: * Launch your programs from a circular dock.
* Drag and drop your files, folders, and shortcuts onto a circular dock that you can resize.
* Rotate the dock with either your mouse wheel or the keyboard arrow keys.
* Change the image shown for the icons and change the skins (compatible with icons and skins for Rocket Dock, Object Dock, etc.)
* The dock appears where your mouse is by pressing a hotkey (default is F1) or your middle mouse button.
* Tested on computers with multiple monitors, Windows XP/Vista, 32-bit & 64-bit, and requires only .Net Framework 2.0.
* Automatically works on all Windows Vista computers and most Windows XP computers.
* A new settings panel that allows you to customize many options. It updates your dock as you make changes. See it change in real time! No need to press an OK button.

* Multi-language capable. Just translate the English.ini file to the language of your choice.
* Change the image used for the dock icons with the easiest method out there: Just set the program to “Icon Replacement Mode” in the right-click menu of the centre icon and you can change all the icon images by just dragging and dropping new PNG images onto them! Huge time saver when you are customizing your dock!
* You can now toggle the visibility of the dock by moving your mouse to any edge of your screen. By default, the left and right edges are used for toggling. No need to press a button!
* Rotate the dock with your mouse wheel or arrow keys (customizable).
* Click sensitivity adjustment for tablet users.
* Reorder the dock items by draging and dropping them over each other.
* Organize the dock items using dock folders.
* By default, clicking on the centre button does not open the start menu. You can enable this in the settings panel.
* Uses the default high resolution icons in Windows Vista

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PCWin Speaker Record

PCWin Speaker Record can records everything you hear from your speakers. Save as mp3 or wav files. Records at 128 Kbps CD quality. Now you can enjoy your music and podcast anytime.

Record from Internet radio stations. Grab audio from any web site, podcast, Internet Radio, DVD or CD as it plays.

Easy to use. Select mp3 or wav file format. Click ‘Start Recording’ and when you are ready to stop recording press ‘Stop Recording’ button. Then save your newly created mp3 or wav file and play it anytime.

Play your saved recording with Microsoft media player, Video Lan, WinAmp or any media player! It so easy, no complicated settings, just great CD quality 128 Kbps mp3 or wav files everytime.

Requires : MPEG Layer3 Audio Encoder

It is totally free and a good choice, really fast and reliable. If you have an mp3 player, Switch will become its best partner, because now you will be able to store more songs in your mp3player thanks to its powerful music compression features.

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K-Lite Codec Pack Full 4.6.2

K-Lite Codec Pack is a collection of codecs and related tools. Codec is short for Compressor-Decompressor. Codecs are needed for encoding and decoding (playing) audio and video. This Codec Pack is designed as a user-friendly solution for playing all your movie files. You should be able to play all the popular movie formats and even some rare formats.

The K-Lite Codec Pack has a couple of major advantages compared to other codec packs: It it always very up-to-date with the latest versions of the codecs; It is very user-friendly and the installation is fully customizable, meaning that you can install only those components that you really want;

It has been very well tested, so that the package doesn’t contain any conflicting codecs; It is a very complete package, containing everything you need to play your movies; and has different packages.

Full contains even more codecs. It also has encoding support for various formats. This package is for power users and people who do their own encodings.

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YouTube Downloader+ 1.7

YouTube Downloader+ is a powerful and easy to use application that will help you to download your favorite videos from YouTube. The program offers a unique feature that makes it possible to extract video files names from the YouTube website. Other features are: multiple downloads during one program session, easy to use graphical user interface and html format download report. The application is platform-independent and runs in Windows, Linux and MacOS.

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LinkCollector 3.0.1.0

LinkCollector PC is a tool with a user-friendly, attractive and intuitive interface that helps create a single bookmark collection. This collection can then be kept updated, and any link can be opened in the necessary browser. It is also easy and simple to move internet addresses between different browsers and files.

Features:

* Copying bookmarks between browsers (Internet Explorer Favorites, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Google Chrome)
* Capturing links from adress bar of a browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Mozilla)
* Searching for duplicates
* Verifying internet adresses
* Import/Export bookmarks from/to HTML, XML, URL and LinkCollector file format
* Ten browsers are supported to open links (IE, Firefox, Opera, Netscape, SeaMonkey, Mozilla, Safari, K-Meleon, Maxthon, TheWorld)
* Moving into a program a ‘.url’ files and a links from web page.

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Bangla Dictionary & Vocabulary

Bangla Dictionary and Vocabulary Software. It’s Free to use.


Download


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Avro Keyboard Standard Edition 4.5.1

Avro Keyboard was born in the 26th March, 2003 (The Independence Day of Bangladesh), bringing a new era in Bangla computing. It’s flexible, gorgeous, feature rich, totally customizable, user friendly and already has a lot of typing automation tools that you have never imagined! Avro Keyboard, simply the Best Bangla Typing Software, breaks all old records, wipes out obstacles, rewrites history and recreates tradition!

The aim of this project is to add all popular Bangla typing methods from Bangladesh and India in a single interface. Current release supports English to Bangla Phonetic typing support for home users, mouse based Bangla typing support for newbies and for professionals traditional keyboard layout based Bangla typing support.

Keyboard layouts those are added with the current release are – UniBjoy (99% match with popular Bijoy keyboard layout), Avro Easy (an easy to learn keyboard layout from OmicronLab), Bornona (the easiest Bangla keyboard layout we have found yet! From “The Safeworks”) and National (Jatiya) – Standard Bangla Keyboard Layout in Bangladesh designed by Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC).

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Thursday, September 10, 2009

Windows 7 Upgrade: 1,220 Minutes

According to Microsoft, the maximum amount of time that a Windows Vista Service Pack 1 to Windows 7 upgrade can take is 1,220 minutes.

Yes, Microsoft has identified a scenario in which moving from Vista SP1 to Windows 7 lasts almost an entire day, over 20 hours. Affected by this are what the Redmond-based company referred to as Super Users running Mid Range Hardware.

In its work to assess Windows 7 upgrade performance, Microsoft has put together user and hardware profiles. The software giant considered a Medium User one that has “User Data: 70Gb of data (documents, music, pictures); applications: 20 applications installed; OS Settings modified; Optional Components: 15 optional components installed; Windows Targeted Release: 5 Windows Targeted Release installed (WTR).”

The company’s Heavy User Profile is as follows, “User Data: 125Gb of data (documents, music, pictures); applications: 40 applications installed; OS Settings modified; Optional Components: 15 optional components installed; Windows Targeted Release: 5 Windows Targeted Release installed (WTR).” The Super User Profile involves customers with “User Data: 650Gb of data (documents, music, pictures); applications: 40 applications installed; OS Settings modified; Optional Components: 15 optional components installed; Windows Targeted Release: 5 Windows Targeted Release installed (WTR).”

When it comes down to Hardware Profiles, it considers Low End Hardware computers with 1Gb of RAM, with AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3200+ 2.2 Ghz, a Hard Drive of 320Gb 5400 RPM ATA-6 and running either a 32-bit or 64-bit operating system. For the Mid Range Hardware, the configuration that qualify have 2 to 4 GB of system memory, AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5200+ 2.60 Ghz or Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40 Ghz, and 1TB HDD up to 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s.

High End Hardware are machines with at least 4 GB of RAM, Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40 Ghz, and 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s. Just take a look at the graphic on the left in order to get a more organized view of the data courtesy of Chris Hernandez, from the Windows Deployment team.

A Super User running Mid Range Hardware and performing a 32-bit Vista SP1 to 32-bit Windows 7 upgrade will have to wait a full 1,220 minutes before the process is over. Think this is much? Well, you’ll be happy to know that a Vista SP1 to Vista SP1 upgrade would take even longer, namely 1,305.72 minutes.

A Super User upgrading to 64-bit Windows 7 on Mid Range Hardware will have to wait 610 minutes, compared to just 480 minutes on High End Hardware, Microsoft informed. The same upgrade scenario on High End Hardware, but with 32-bit Windows 7 will take 675 minutes.

The fastest upgrade to Windows 7 Microsoft came across is 26.75 minutes, from a clean install of Vista on High End Hardware.

NTFS Undelete: Recover deleted files

NTFS Undelete

NTFS Undelete: Recover deleted files

NTFS Undelete is free and open source software that allows you to recover deleted files. It recovers files directly from hard drive, and it will work even if you empty Recycle Bin.

Before downloading NTFS Undelete, please consider the following:

When you delete a file, its content physically remains intact on the media, but the occupied space becomes marked as free. Next file saved to the disk may overwrite the contents of the deleted file.

It is very important to make sure that no application writes to the drive or partition where deleted file is located since every new file (even a small one) may overwrite the deleted file.

Tips. What you should do, when you realized that the file you need is deleted:

1. Do not open or close files and applications. Many applications create temporary files which may overwrite and corrupt your deleted files.
2. Depending on your system configuration, you should perform one of the following actions:

A. If deleted files were located on the system disk (usually disk “C:”), or if you have only one logical disk in the system, you should not install any software into the system since it will most likely overwrite your deleted file. You will have to use another computer to burn the ISO image to a CD or DVD. Then just run NTFS Undelete directly from CD.

B. If your deleted files are not located on the system disk, then you can use NTFS Undelete Windows Installer to install the software as usual.

3. Run NTFS Undelete application and locate deleted file you’d like to restore.

4. Always recover files to another disk or partition. Do not recover files to the same partition they were located, otherwise files you are recovering may get corrupted and unrecoverable.

5. That’s it, now you have your files back!

Download

Windows 7 Theme for Windows XP

Enjoy the look and feel now on our Windows XP & Vista system's using the "Windows 7 Desktop Theme", Since not much details about the upcoming OS is available, the theme looks very similar to Windows Vista but provide some nice refreshing changes to the same old look.


To install:

1. Download Windows 7 Theme here >> Download Now
2. Install "UXTheme Multi-Patcher 6.0.exe" from "UX Theme Patcher" folder.
3. Double-click "Windows 7 M1 VS.msstyles" in "Theme\Windows 7 M1 VS" folder to install.

Windows 7, Whats going on

The German computer magazine Winfuture revealed in a recent post that Microsoft will extend Readyboost support in Windows 7. Readyboost was introduced in Windows Vista and was used to add flash drive caches of up to 4 Gigabytes to the system. The main intention of Readyboost was to provide lower end systems running Windows Vista with better performance by utilizing those additional flash caches. The updated Readyboost in Windows 7 will see several advancements. The 4 Gigabyte restriction will be lifted which essentially means that flash drives with larger capacities can then be used as additional cache. The limit to one Readyboost device has also been removed which gives users the possibility to use multiple flash drives as additional caches in Windows 7.


Next Locked Windows 7 Feature Turns Up: Desktop Slideshows

We previously mentioned that Microsoft locked some of the features in the Windows 7 build that they handed out to attendees of the Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles. The reason why that was done has not (obviously) been revealed by Microsoft. Possibilities range from locking incomplete features from over-observant reviewers to releasing news about those new features at a later time. That surely backfired with the workaround to unlock the features in the Windows 7 M3 6801 build.

The newest feature is a desktop wallpaper changer which can be used to rotate wallpapers in Windows 7 in a user defined interval ranging from 10 seconds to 1 day. It is furthermore possible to shuffle the wallpapers which would have the effect that they are randomly chosen and to disable the feature when the computer is running in battery mode. Microsoft did - interestingly enough - add an option to use wallpapers of feeds that point to images. According to Long Zheng that feature was not completely working at the time of discovery which strengthens the argument that the features were locked because of being incomplete at the time of compilation.
Windows 7 Wallpapers

It took only some time until someone decided to provide access to the Windows 7 wallpapers that were supplied with the Windows 7 M3 build that was handed out to attendees of the Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles. Someone uploaded all Windows 7 wallpapers to the Internet and they are now available for download on the file sharing website Deposit Files. The package contains eleven 1960×1440 and seven 1920×1200 wallpapers.


Windows 7 Extends Run As Options

Windows Vista users had the option to run an application as the system administrator instead of the currently logged in user. There was however no option in the context menu to run the application as a different user. The current build of Windows 7 has this feature which should come in handy for several users who need the functionality. The context menu entry “Run As Different User” is only visible when pressing the SHIFT key before right-clicking the file icon.

Microsoft to Launch Windows Azure Cloud Computing Service With Windows 7


Windows Azure

The news is coming in thick and fast from PDC08. Microsoft have just announced that Windows Azure, a new cloud computing service, will be launched at the same time as Windows 7. Windows Azure will allow data and applications to exist online in the ‘Cloud’, rather than locally on a PC.

Moving Microsoft’s cash cows, Windows and Office, onto the internet is a big move for Microsoft and will allow it to enter an arena already occupied by companies like Google. By tying it to the launch of Windows 7, Microsoft clearly intend to use Windows 7 to try and entice customers to use Microsoft’s other products and services, rather than those of their customers.

One of the touted benefits of Azure is zero downtime for applications, as applications can be patched without shutting down other running applications. I hope this will lead to new functionality being added to Windows applications more frequently, rather than the current 2 year product cycle. It will also do away with the need to constantly run Windows Update and reboot local machines, as more updates will be done automatically.

Key components of the Azure Services Platform include the following:
* Windows Azure for service hosting and management, low-level scalable storage, computation and network.
* Microsoft SQL Services for a wide range of database services and reporting
* Microsoft .NET Services which are service-based implementations of familiar .NET Framework concepts such as workflow and access control
* Live Services for a consistent way for users to store, share and synchronize documents, photos, files and information across their PCs, phones, PC applications and Web sites
* Microsoft SharePoint Services and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Services for business content, collaboration and rapid solution development in the cloud
You can watch Ray Ozzie’s speech at PDC 2008 where he introduces Windows Azure below:


Windows 7 Aero Snap For Windows XP Or Windows Vista

Aero Snap was one of the new features of Windows 7 that got quite a bit of coverage lately. It is actually a pretty basic feature that makes it possible to move windows to the left, right or top screen to display them on half the screen (left or right) or maximize (top) them. Several third party software programs are available that can do that on Windows Vista or Windows XP but it is always nice if the exact same feature is provided by an application.

Aero Snap Beta (via Ask VG) is that software program. It is available for Windows XP or Windows Vista and requires the Microsoft .net Framework 2.0. The software developer has created a demonstration video to visualize the concept. The functionality is immediately available after installation. Do you know of other Windows 7 features that are available for previous versions of Windows? Let us know.


Windows 7 Boot Speed Benchmark

Lifehacker tested the boot speed of Windows 7, Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 and Windows XP Professional SP3 on a triple-boot system. All tested operating systems were 32-bit versions. Test 1 measured the boot time from boot choice to a fully loaded desktop while test 2 measured the time from boot choice to user logon screen. No additional software was installed on the operating systems, the autostart folders were empty and all settings were left on their default values.

Windows 7 Ultimate needed 32 seconds in test 1 from boot choice to a fully loaded desktop while Windows Vista Ultimate used 33 seconds and Windows XP SP3 40 seconds. The test from boot choice to login screen saw similar results with Windows 7 Ultimate leading the field with 23 seconds, Windows Vista Ultimate following suite with 24 seconds and Windows XP SP3 in third place and 29 seconds.

The results are interesting: Windows 7 is already leading the field even though the tests were conducted on a pre-beta build of the upcoming operating system. More surprising for some users, especially the die hard faction that does not like Windows Vista, is the excellent result for Windows Vista which was way faster than Windows XP SP3 in both tests.

It would be interesting to see how the operating systems would fare with a basic set of software, like anti-virus scanners, email clients, web browser or a photo editing program, installed. Would the results be similar except that the boot time would surely increase?

The result looks very promising for Windows 7. It is safe to assume that Microsoft will further optimize the operating system. It remains to be seen if this will make a huge difference in the end. Currently it does not for Windows Vista users but surely for Windows XP users.


Unlock Locked Features in Windows 7 M3

Microsoft has locked some of the upcoming features in the Windows 7 release that they distributed among attendees of the Professional Developers Conference 08 in Los Angeles. The build has made its way on various P2P sites shortly thereafter and is now in the hands of thousands of additional users who downloaded it from there. Features came to light shortly after the end of the conference that had been locked by Microsoft. Unlocking those features involved fiddling around with the command line which is not to everyone’s liking.

The Blue Badge tool changes and simplifies the process. Rafael Rivera created the tool over at Within Windows. The 32-bit edition of the software program is already available while the 64-bit edition is expected to be released tomorrow. A total of nine files will be patched by the tool. Please note that the files will not be backed up before applying the patches. Make sure to back them up before applying the patches. Here is the file list:
* \Windows\Explorer.exe
* \Windows\System32\wisptis.exe
* \Windows\System32\ieframe.dll
* \Windows\System32\shell32.dll
* \Windows\System32\stobject.dll
* \Windows\System32\TabletPC.cpl
* \Windows\System32\themecpl.dll
* \Windows\System32\themeui.dll
* \Windows\System32\powercfg.cpl


It should also be noted that the patch is compatible with previously patched versions.


Windows Complete PC Backup

Windows Complete PC Backup is a feature available in Windows Vista Business, Ultimate, and Enterprise editions that allows users to completely restore their PC environment including the operating system, installed programs, user settings, and data files. The feature in Windows Vista was limited to backing up data on a different hard drive or DVDs. Users with network shares but only one hard drive were at a loss here. Backing up the data on 20+ DVDs was surely not the best solution.

Windows 7 users on the other hand will be able to backup the data on a network share as well which was a feature that many users missed dearly. Thanks to Long for finding yet another new feature.


Windows 7 Tech Guarantee Program

Microsoft is planning a Windows 7 Tech Guarantee Program which will make it possible for Windows Vista owners to upgrade their operating system to Windows 7. They have not released many information yet about the program but some have been published at Neowin today.

Not all editions of Windows Vista will be eligible for the upgrade. Only Windows Vista Home Premium, Windows Vista Business or Windows Vista Ultimate owners will have the chance and only if they have bought it in one of the following languages: Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian (Bokmål), Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Traditional Chinese (Hong Kong), Turkish.

Some languages (like Swedish) might be missing and could be included at a later point. It is also very likely that the upgrade will only be eligible for a comparable edition of Windows 7. Windows Vista Home Premium users for example should not have high hopes to be able to upgrade to Windows 7 Ultimate without costs. Microsoft is said to release additional information later this month.


Windows 7 Language Waves

Microsoft has released information about the so called language waves of Windows 7. Windows 7 will be released in a total of eight language waves which basically define when a localized edition of Windows 7 will be released to manufacturing. Please take a look at the table below for information about the eight language waves and any language in particular that you might be interested in. Each language wave is released about 14 days after the previous wave. The time between the first and last release makes up 101 days.


Windows 7 To Be Released For 2009 Holiday Season

Microsoft was very shy about pinpointing the Windows 7 release date in the past. They did provide some clues like that it would be released about three years after the release of Windows Vista, or that Windows 7 would be released before the PDC conference in 2009. There was still lots of speculation about the day, week or even month in that Windows 7 would be released.

According to an article published today on Cnet the guessing is over as Microsoft director Doug How confirmed the Holiday Season release date of Windows 7.

The slides and Howe’s presentation appeared to confirm what has been widely speculated–but something Microsoft has not outright said–namely that Windows 7 is aimed to ship around mid-year, in time to be on machines that ship for the 2009 holiday buying season. After the session, Howe essentially confirmed that Microsoft is aiming Windows 7 for the holidays. “Definitely the holiday focus is going to be on 7,” Howe told me.

While that is not still on paper and subject to change depending on the progress in the Windows 7 development it is fair to assume that customers will be able to buy computers - or standalone software packages - coming preinstalled with Windows 7 during the 2009 Holiday Season. The RTM (Release To Manufacturing) release of Windows 7 is expected for mid 2009.

So, there you got it. If everything works out as planned we will all be able to get our hands on the official Windows 7 release at the end of 2009.


Windows 7 Screen Docking

New Windows 7 features are revealed every day. This one is actually a bit older but has not been mentioned yet here at Windows 7. Screen docking is popular feature that is currently only available by installed third party software to previous versions of the Windows operating system.

The feature basically docks and displays a window in a certain way depending on the side of the screen that it is moved to. A window will be displayed on half of the screen if the user moves it to the left or right side of it. That’s comfortable for viewing two windows that use the same amount of screen estate next to each other and should be a good option for users with large computer monitors. Moving the window to the top will turn it into a full sized window taking up all screen estate. Moving it to the bottom has no effect currently.


Windows 7 PC Safeguard

Windows 7 PC Safeguard is another new Windows 7 feature that recently came to light. The feature can be enabled on Windows 7 standard user accounts and has the effect that changes to the system will only be temporary. Microsoft is offering a similar feature in the form of Windows SteadyState for computers running Windows XP and Windows Vista. It seems that they have taken some time to evaluate Microsoft software programs and made the decision to integrate quite a few into Windows 7.

PC Safeguard does not provide many configuration options yet but it could be that Microsoft has plans to integrate some of the more advanced SteadyState features such as blacklisting applications to the software program before they release Windows 7. The only available option is to provide some disk space for data storage. The restricted user will be reminded after login that the changes that he makes to the operating system will be undone after logging off.

Source: windows7news.com
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