Start Menu 7 is a freeware tool which allows you to access and find all programs in windows 7 start menu easily by tweaking it and making it feel like old classic start menu for windows 7 as shown in the image below.

This classic style start menu for windows 7 provides many good features like all programs view which can be accessed with keyboard shortcuts, alphabetical sorting of programs, add commands in start menu, access all control panel items. It also offers 4 different skins to tweak the look and feel of Start Menu 7.

Moreover it also have a power control option in the middle which allows you the several power options including lock or switch user, log off, restart, sleep, shut down and hibernate.

Following are some other key features of this free start menu for windows 7

1. The list of menu items is alphabetically sorted, you can easily find anything with its name.
2. Open any location on your PC with a single click.
3. There is a special Run button to access seldom used locations without adding them into menu.
4. Start Menu 7 has a customizable Power Buttons panel.
5. With Power Timer feature you can delay any of power management operations.

Download Start Menu 7 [ Free ] | Similar Program – Windows 7 Classic Start Menu [ Demo ]

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This problem is not faced by all Windows 7 or Windows 2008 server users but some of them. This problem occurs because of some race condition between two windows executable files explorer.exe and taskhost.exe . Microsoft has recently released a hotfix to fix this issue.

The hotfix is not recommended for the users who do not face this issue. As per Microsoft, this hotfix needs more testing and is not recommended for you if you are not facing this problem.

You can download the hotfix number 979155 from Microsoft from the link below:

Download Microsoft Hotfix 979155

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In this article I will share two tools which allow you to download Windows Updates on a PC which is connected to the Internet and save those updates and re-use these updates to Install on the Windows 7 desktop / laptop computers which are not connected to Internet or otherwise.

We have already reviewed similar tools to Save and Re-Use Downloaded Windows Update Files but they are not Windows 7 Compatible. In this article I will review two tools which support Windows 7 32bit and 68 bit versions.

Download Windows 7 Updates With AutoPatcher 1.3 Onwards

AutoPatcher is a very renowned and long existing tool, its 1.3 version onwards are Windows 7 Compatible. The AutoPatcher tool is very Simple to use and is very effective. When you run it for the first time, it will show you the available updates to Install and will then download these updates to your computer which is connected to Internet. You can use these updates to Install Windows 7 Updates on computers which are not connected to the Internet or other Windows 7 Computers.

To start with, download the AutoPatcher Installer, extract the downloaded file and run the downloader file named – apup.exe , this file will download the required components. You can also download AutoPatcher User guide if you need any detailed description.

I have tested it on my Windows 7 Desktop PC and it works like a charm without any hassles. It downloads the updates and will show you the progress of the updates while downloading.

After the download is completed, you need to go back to the same folder where you stared apup.exe, there you will find a file called autopatcher.exe, run this file and it will install the AutoPatcher 1.3 update install engine on your computer.

You can copy the entire apup folder to any computer and run the autopatcher.exe on the PC on which you want to install updates offline.

Downloading updates on one PC connected to Internet and then installing on all the Windows 7 PCs that you have will save a lots of download and time. You can copy these downloaded updates in a pen drive, on LAN or on a DVD and use them on all the Windows 7 PCs you have.

Download Windows 7 Updates Using WSUS Offline Update Tool

The WSUS Offline Update tool is another very simple tool to download offline updates for Windows 7. Apart from Windows 7 32bit and 64 bit version, you can also download updates for Windows XP 32bit and 64 bit, Windows Server 2003 32 bit and 64 bit, Windows Vista 32bit and 64 bit editions.

It also allows you to download offline updates for Microsoft Office XP, Office 2003 and Office 2007 in multiple languages.

It allows you to directly copy the updates to a USB pen drive using which you can Install it on multiple computers without any problem.

Download WSUS Offline Update Generator

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Follow the procedures given below to fix this problem of desktop icon text unreadable

Method 1

1. Right click on Desktop, and select Personalize.
2. Switch back to default Windows 7 Aero Theme. The desktop background will be reset to default wallpaper.
3. Set the video clip as DreamScene motion desktop background again. The desktop icons’ text will remain visible in white color font.

Method 2

1. Right click on Desktop, and select Personalize.
2. Go to Desktop Background section at the bottom.
3. Under Picture Position drop down menu, select Fill.
4. Click on Save changes button. The desktop background will be reset to default wallpaper.
5. Set the video clip as DreamScene motion desktop background again. The desktop icons’ text will remain visible in white color font.

[ Source – My Digital Life ]

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Have you recently purchased a new Desktop or Laptop PC equipped with a Blue Ray drive ? Is your PC running latest version of Windows 7?

If your answer is yes, this article is very useful for you. Some of the computers running latest version of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 have this bug that when a Blue ray disk is inserted in the disk drive, computer hangs and stops responding.

This problem starts after updating the universal drive format (UDF) file system driver (Udfs.sys) update (975617) which was released somewhere close to mid December 2009. There is some know bug with this driver.

In this article I will share how you can fix this issue of Explorer not responding on inserting a blue ray drive.

Fix:

Microsoft has released a hotfix to patch this problem. It is recommended that you use this hotfix only if you are facing this problem. Users who do not have Blue Ray disk installed in their computer need not use this hotfix.

Hotfix To Fix Windows 7 Hang When Blue Ray Disk Is Inserted

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The reason behind slow aero peek could be the low graphic hardware too or you may find it slow as per the default value, but still there is solution to fix the aero peek by modifying the registry. Aero Peek is also called the Desktop Preview feature in windows 7 which is used to give a glance about the position of the windows opened already.

Aero Peek looks like as shown in the image below, you can preview desktop by pressing window key + spacebar or move your mouse to the extreme right side of the taskbar, you will see a vertical rectangular portion. Moving your cursor to this area will make the open windows transparent and let you preview your desktop. [ as shown in the image below ]

In order to speed up aero peek or desktop preview you can try this freeware utility released at The Windows Club. This small program is called Desktop Peek Tweak which allows you to adjust Desktop Peek delay time, when you hover the mouse over the Desktop Preview button.

You can shorten this time to make the aero peek desktop preview to appear faster. The default value is 1 second or 1000 milli seconds. Shorten this to instant to make the preview more faster.  

Download Desktop Aero Peek Tweak

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Windows 7 RC version is going to expire soon. On 1 March 2010, it will start a bi-hourly shutdown and will finally expire on 1 June 2010.

If you have already got Windows 7 RTM and trying to upgrade to that version, the Windows Setup does not allow to upgrade from Windows RC version to Windows RTM version. It gives an error saying

You can’t upgrade this prerelease version of Windows 7. Go online to see how to Install Windows 7 and keep your files and settings

In this article we will share a trick using which you can upgrade from RC to RTM version of Windows 7.

Fix:

Before I tell you the fix, lets talk of the reason for this issue. There is a file in the Windows 7 Install DVD which checks for the installed version on Windows 7, if it finds the version lower than a particular version number, it will deny the upgrade. This has been designed this way to prevent the direct upgrade from Windows RC to RTM version. This version number is written in a file called cversion.ini on Windows 7 Installer DVD.

To fix the issue, you can copy all files from the DVD to a folder on your hard disk. Inside the folder named “sources” you will find a file named “cversion.ini” . Open this file with notepad.

It will have 3 lines something like seen below:

[HostBuild]

MinClinent=7233.0

MinServer=7100.0

You need to modify the second line in this file and make the number as 7000 like:

[HostBuild]

MinClinent=7000.0

MinServer=7100.0

Save this file and run the setup.exe file. The modifications done in the file above will trick the windows setup into believing that you are upgrading from a non RC version. This will upgrade your Windows 7 RC to Windows 7 RTM version.

In case you are using Windows 7 ISO instead of Windows 7 DVD, you can use 7-zip freeware tool to extract the contents of ISO file on your hard disk.

[ Thanks To – How To Geek ]

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May a times, we use tools and softwares which mess up with the Windows settings. Sometimes some games or applications tend to change Windows Settings.

Such blunders also happen because of viruses etc. Even after you clean the virus with anti-virus softwares, there might still be some settings of Windows which remain messed up.

One such problem is missing Recycle Bin Icon from the Windows Desktop. In this post, I will share a quick tip in Windows 7 to show or hide Recycle Bin icon on the Desktop screen. If the icon is missing and you are wondering what happened to the Recycle Bin, you will get your answer.

Fix:

The missing Recycle Bin icon in Windows 7 is mostly about a wrong setting of Windows. To fix it, follow the below steps :

1. Right Click On Desktop and click “Personalize”

2. On the personalize screen, click on the “Change desktop icons” link in the left pane.

3. On Desktop icons settings, check the “Recycle Bin” Options and press OK.

That is it, simple, isn’t it.

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Windows 7 start menu search has some problems with displaying search results properly in some cases. It displays the the search category and does not display the search items properly under those categories.

The above picture shows the correct way of results, but in case your copy of Windows 7 has this problem, then you will see categories like Programs, Control Panel and the items under these headings will be missing. I will tell you how you can fix this issue through Windows registry change / hotfix installation.

Fix:

Fix Windows 7 Search By Installing Hotfix

There is a windows 7 update hotfix for the search issue which can fix this issue, you need to download and Install this Hotfix from Microsoft. Restart your computer and this problem will be fixed.

Fix Windows 7 Search By Registry Changes

You can also fix it by registry change if you can not download the hotfix for some reason.

1. Press “Windows Key + R” together to launch run prompt. Type “regedit” and press ok.

2. If this displays a UAC notification like one below, press OK

3. Navigate to the key :

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FolderTypes\{ef87b4cb-f2ce-4785-8658-4ca6c63e38c6}

4. Right click and delete the above sub-key:

5. Restart the computer.

Check out more solutions related to Windows 7 Problems

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Yesterday I installed FeedDemon on my Windows 7 computer and when I tried to Synchronize Feed Daemon I got error message saying:

FeedDemon was unable to make a secure connection to your Google account. If you have an active internet connection, verify that your firewall permits FeedDemon to connect.

On analyzing it closely I realized that this is because of Windows 7 Firewall preventing the FeedDemon to access Internet connection.

In this article I will share with you how you can add any program or application as an exception to Windows 7 Firewall to allow the application to use Internet Connection.

Fix:

You need to add certain programs to Windows 7 Firewall exception list if that program is not working correctly because of Internet connection access problem. To know what programs / applications are using internet connection at present, you can read our tutorial – How To Check Which Application Is Using Internet Connection

To add any program to exception list you need to follow the below steps:

1. Go to Start > Control Panel > Windows Firewall

2. On Windows Firewall page, click on the options “Allow a program or feature through Windows Firewall ”. This will open Allowed Programs Window

3. Click on the “Change settings” button on the Allowed Programs Windows

4. When you press Change settings button, the button on the bottom of the screen which says “Allow another program” will become enabled. Click this button.

5. Browser through the list of programs to locate the program that you want to add in the exception list. In example below, I have added FeedDemon in the window below. Click Add button and press OK on the Allowed Programs Window.

Note: If the program you want to add is not in this list, click the browse button on below window and locate the program on the installed location and it will be added.

6. Now run the application you were facing problems with, In my case, I ran FeedDemon again and this time it worked perfectly fine.

Hope you find this tutorial simple and useful.

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