Your Windows 7 News and tips

Windows 7 Guides: Using ‘Play To’ in WMP 12

Posted by Vincent in Friday, October 30, 2009

Back in September, I wrote an article entitled Windows 7 Guides: Windows Media Player 12 which covered the basics of the new interface and a few player options. This time around I wanted to overview, in my opinion, the best feature in the new media player, Play To. Basically, Play To provides the user the ability to send media from one pc to any device that is Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) compatible. In short, this means that you could send a picture located on your pc, in your bedroom, to a digital picture frame located in your living room as long as it was networked. This is also true for music and video, which brings me to Windows Media Player 12. If you do have DNLA compatible devices, you can use WMP 12 to stream your files to those devices.

(Note: You will need to set up the computer to receive streamed media by changing the Media Streaming Options under the Network and Sharing Center.)

Before using Play To, you will first need to turn on Streaming. To do this, with media player open, click Stream and then click Turn on media streaming. You will then be given some options for sharing media and which devices you wish to allow.

Once the streaming has been turned on, there are two different ways to send Play To items to the desired device:

You can right-click the item that you wish to play and move your cursor to the Play To option and select the device you want to receive that media file.

Another way to send items, is to drag and drop the desired items into the task pane on the right-hand side of the player, then click on the Play To button at the top of the task pane window and select the device to receive the media.

Once the media is sent, you can use the playback controls to perform normal playback functions on the streamed media.

(Note: Play To is also available outside of Windows Media Player, which can be activated by right-clicking on the file to be sent and selecting the Play To option.)

The Play To feature in Windows 7 is one of the best media features that I use pretty consistently. If you have a DLNA device or multiple devices on a network, there is no better way to take advantage of this great feature. It’s ease of use and simple setup make a great idea even better.

Windows 7 In 7000 Dominoes!

Posted by Vincent in Thursday, October 29, 2009

Just though you guys might find this interesting, I just came across this video which features the Windows 7 logo, made out of 7000 dominoes.
22 Microsoft employees at Microsoft’s Hyderabad Center in India, must have spent hours putting it together, but it only took 3 minutes to bring it down.

It’s quite impressive, complete with a fireworks finale ( with dominoes ), the Windows slogan ” Windows, life without walls” and a balloon release, again in the shape of the Windows logo.

What do you guys think about it? Let us know in the comments

Windows 7 ISO Edition Switcher

Posted by Vincent

If you want to install a specific edition of Windows 7, say Windows 7 Professional, you need a Windows 7 Professional setup disk or iso image. If you only got another edition of Windows 7 you are out of luck. The Windows 7 ISO Edition Switcher provides users with a solution to patch a Windows 7 ISO so that it will install a different version of the operating system during setup. It is for instance possible to turn a Windows 7 Ultimate edition into Windows 7 Professional. The user installing the operating system still needs a valid product key for the Windows 7 edition that gets installed afterwards but the need to re-download or create an ISO image is no longer delaying the installation.

The portable software programs comes with patch files which need to be loaded after execution. Users simply need to pick the target version that they want to install and then the iso image on the computer’s hard drive. The program will then patch the ISO image so that the selected edition of Windows 7 can be installed.

The very same website contains another patch that will turn a Windows 7 iso into an universal disk which can be used to install all different editions of Windows 7. Visit Win7Utils for downloads and additional information. (via Download Squad)

Windows 7 in an HTPC, Part One

Posted by Vincent in Tuesday, October 27, 2009

The home theater PC, or “HTPC” as it is often called, has never really gained a lot of traction – it seems doomed to forever remain a niche product, especially as home video game consoles like Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s Playstation step up and become high-definition media devices.

Still, with streaming video Web sites like Hulu confined to PCs, the HTPC can still have a place under many TVs, and the low cost of decent computing equipment these days makes it more affordable than ever to put one together.

In this, the first post in a two part series, I’ll cover why Windows 7 is an ideal operating system to use in an HTPC – in the next post, I’ll show you what I used to put together my own HTPC and why.

The first question to ask when considering any HTPC: What kind of a computer does it need to be? The ideal HTPC should fit in a small amount of space, usually in one’s home entertainment center under one’s television, and it should be quiet – nothing will ruin a movie or TV show like the whir of one or more loud fans.

So, small and quiet. To keep things suitably inaudible, most people will need to use a slower processor that generates less heat – less heat means less fans means less noise. Unfortunately, this means the computer isn’t going to be breaking a lot of speed records.

This is where Windows 7 comes in – Windows XP will run well on low-end and low-power hardware, but it takes more time to setup. Installing Windows XP on a new PC nowadays involves hunting down a lot of drivers, downloading a lot of updates and doing a lot of fiddling with its rapidly-aging user interface. You’ll also need to find DVD codecs and, unless you happen to have the Media Center edition of the OS, some good third-party HTPC software. Also, let’s face it, XP is rapidly nearing the end of its useful life.

Windows Vista improves the situation somewhat – the Windows Media Center application is built-in to the Home Premium and Ultimate editions, DVD codecs are included, and it looks better on a wider variety of screens. Still, depending on your configuration, Vista might be too slow for your taste even after a couple of service packs and dozens of patches. Intel’s Atom processor is a great choice for an HTPC – it is generally fast enough for most applications, and it doesn’t generate a lot of heat. Vista just isn’t going to be happy on such a processor, however.

Windows 7 is great on an HTPC because it marries the look and functionality of Vista to the hardware requirements of XP (it gets pretty close, anyway). The Media Center application, which we’ve written about before, makes organizing, watching and listening to audio and video convenient, and Windows 7 handles larger fonts and icons better than the aging XP.

So, using Windows 7 as a base, I’ve put together a cheap, low-power, reasonably functional HTPC that wouldn’t have been nearly as good if I had built it before October 22. Tune in tomorrow, when I’ll let you know the particulars of the components I’ve picked. In the meantime, check out the Windows 7 Media Center PC Everton built for less than $300.

How To Extend a Partition in Windows 7

Posted by Vincent

Managing the size of your partitions is always challenging. Using third party partition software has been standard for several years now. But with Windows 7 you can make some modifications to the partition without using an external third party source.

In a previous post we showed how to shrink a volume. Here we do the opposite, how to extend a volume.
We Begin with Start Control Panel

Click Start and then Select Control Panel

Next select System and Security

System And Security

The next step in the process is to select Administrative Tools

Administrative Tools

Select Computer Management

Computer Management

Next select the drive or partition that you want to extend or resize.

Working with the Simple Drive

On the Simple drive the New Volume (J) has 200 mb available. In order to extend drive (I) to contain the additional space, one must first delete the volume

Delete The Volume with the space that you will use

Select Yes

Do You Want To Delete

The Volume gets deleted and the volume has an unallocated amount of disk space. You are now ready to extend the volume.

The Disk1 with a primary partition and an unallocated volume

Now select the volume to extend. In this case it is the Simple Drive. Right Click and from the Options Available follow the steps.

Follow the Wizard

The window will show what available space you can use. In this case, it is the 200 mb that was taken from the deleted volume.

Disk Space available to extend: 200mb

Completing the operation follows

Results: The entire primary partition has additional space.

This completes the change. It is easy and it can allow you some modification to the partition.

One other note. If you have upgraded from XP or Vista to Windows 7 there will be a Windows.old folder that you can remove to recover additional hard drive space. It is recommended that you do this before you shrink or extend your volume partition.

Where’s The Windows 7 Ballot Screen?

Posted by Vincent in Monday, October 26, 2009

In the lead up to the Windows 7 release, we heard all about proposed Windows 7 “E” editions for people in Europe because of the European Commissions objection for the inclusion of IE8 in the OS. This “E” edition of Windows 7 would be shipped without a browser to keep the E.U happy, however this “E” Edition was cancelled and replaced with a browser ballot screen. This ballot screen will appear once you install Windows 7 and will give you an option to select a browser of your choice to install.

However since Windows 7 was released on the 22nd October, multiple reports have come in from users in Europe who say they were never shown this ballot screen. It turns out this ballot screen is still open for industry feedback and has not yet been passed by the European Commission as a legally binding agreement.

Browser makers and everyone else has until November to oppose this proposal, and after this the European Commission may decide to make it an article 9 decision which would make it a legally binding commitment.

Assuming the industry and the E.U agree to this, Microsoft will have 8 weeks to distribute the ballot screen to Windows 7 users in the E.U who are using IE8 as their default browser. This browser ballot screen is also set to go out to Windows XP and Windows Vista users as well. The ballot screen will be applied via a Windows Update.

So depending on the reaction of the industry, this browser ballot screen may never come to light. Opera have already expressed their dissatisfaction because the browser ballot is listed in alphabetical order so as a result they are last in the ballot screen.

We recently posted an article asking which browser you would choose if every Windows 7 edition came with a ballot screen. It also tells you a bit about each browser to help you make a decision, see it here.

How to upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7 Video

Posted by Vincent

Microsoft have embraced video like never before with the launch of Windows 7. One of the most useful of these videos is a quick tutorial on how to upgrade your PC from Windows XP.

You can’t do an in-place upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7. This is because the two operating systems are so completely different in structure. The only way to install Windows 7 if you are still using XP is to format your hard disk and start again with a clean install.

You can watch the video on how to make the upgrade process from XP as painless as possible here.

Your Windows 7 News and tips

Categories

Windows 7 Guides: Using ‘Play To’ in WMP 12

Windows 7 In 7000 Dominoes!

Windows 7 ISO Edition Switcher

Windows 7 in an HTPC, Part One

How To Extend a Partition in Windows 7

Where’s The Windows 7 Ballot Screen?

How to upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7 Video

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