15 things to do after installing Windows 7 RC

Another very good article I found while looking through some support docs for Windows 7 RC. I have tried some of the optimizations suggested in this article and it does really work and make a very big difference (I can say that because I am running Windows 7 on 1 Gig RAM, 1.73 GHz processor).

Original Article : Click here

1. Download Free Windows 7 Guides and Videos from Microsoft

Microsoft is offering a few free guides and videos which can help you in understanding Windows 7 better. So don't forget to take a look at these goodies:

Learn More About Windows 7 Using Free Guides from Microsoft

2. Make Windows 7 Faster

Although Windows 7 is already very fast but we can make it a bit more fast by disabling unnecessary services, startup items and animations. You should take a look at following tutorial:

Master Tutorial to Make Your Windows 7 Super Fast

3. Customize Windows 7 Login Screen

Windows 7 allows you to easily change the Login Screen (or Welcome Screen) using Windows registry. You even don't need any 3rd party software for it. So change the login screen background with your favorite picture:

Windows 7 Supports Login Screen Customization Without 3rd Party Software

4. Remove Unwanted Windows Components

You can completely remove Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, Windows Search and many other Windows components in Windows 7 which was not possible in previous Windows versions:

Windows 7 Allows to Remove IE, WMP and Many Other Windows Components

5. Organize Taskbar Buttons

Did you know you can move Taskbar buttons to change their positions? Windows 7 allows you to re-arrange taskbar buttons:

Did You Know You can Move Taskbar Buttons in Windows 7?

6. Link your Windows User Account with your Windows Live ID

If you have a Windows Live ID, you can link your Windows 7 user account with your Windows Live ID to start communication between various computers:

How to Link Your Windows 7 User Account with Windows Live ID

7. Search AskVG within Windows 7 Explorer

You can add AskVG link in Windows 7 Explorer and can start searching for AskVG articles within your Explorer:

Download AskVG Search Connector for Windows 7 Federated Search

8. Show Titlebar Text in Windows 7 Explorer

Windows 7 doesn't show Titlebar text in Explorer. If you want to enable it, you can use a small utility mentioned in following article:

How to Show Titlebar Text in Windows 7 Explorer?

9. Change Startmenu Power Button Action

By default, Windows 7 Startmenu power button is set to "Hibernate". If you want to change it to Shutdown or anything else, you can follow this tutorial:

How to Customize Power Button Action in Windows 7 Start Menu?

10. Become Familiar with Windows 7 Keyboard Shortcuts

Learn all useful keyboard shortcuts which can make your Windows 7 experience better and easier:

Some Useful Keyboard Shortcuts for Windows 7

11. Customize System Tray Clock

Windows 7 shows both date and time in system tray clock. You can customize it to show Day and Month names as well.

How to Show Day and Month Names in System Tray Date in Windows 7

How to Show AM / PM Symbols in System Tray Clock in Windows 7

12. Get Classic Thin Taskbar Back

If you don't like the new Superbar, you can get the classic thin Taskbar back:

How to Get the Old Thin Taskbar Buttons with Text in Windows 7?

13. Get Windows Media Player Taskbar Toolbar Back

Windows Media Player in Windows 7 doesn't contain the mini Taskbar toolbar. If you are missing it, you can get it back using following tutorial:

How to Get Windows Media Player (WMP) Taskbar Toolbar Back in Windows 7?

14. Get Classic Wordpad and Paint Back

Windows 7 contains new redesigned Wordpad and Paint applications which provide Ribbon interface. If you are not used to this new interface, you can get classic Wordpad and Paint back using following tutorials:

How to Get the Good Old Wordpad (without Ribbons) Working in Windows 7?

How to Get the Good Old MS Paint (without Ribbons) Working in Windows 7?

15. Get "Quick Launch" Toolbar and "Show Desktop" button Back

Microsoft has removed the "Quick Launch" toolbar from Taskbar. That's why you can't even access the "Show Desktop" button. You can get both things back using following tutorials:

How to Get the Good Old “Quick Launch” Toolbar Back in Windows 7?

How to Get the Good Old “Show Desktop” Feature Back in Windows 7?

How to remove windows.old folder after Windows 7 installation ?

So, like millions and millions of Microsoft fans I decided to download and install Windows 7 RC1 (Build 7100) on my laptop this past week. Although, it took a little longer than I expected, the initial signs from what I see look really really really good. But more about my experiments and findings of Windows 7 later. This post is all about this issue I saw after installing Windows 7 on my laptop running Windows XP.

As suggested on the site I did do a clean install of Windows RC1, but was surprised to see a windows.old folder lingering around on my C:\ along with the routine Windows folder I expected to see. Now this wouldn't be so much an issue if I had more disk space to spare, but since I am running an almost 4 year old laptop (bought this one Oct 05) with 1 GB RAM and 60 Gig hard disk space, having a supposedly useless windows.old folder with 16 GB of hard space on it lying around seemed too much of a loss to me.

So, like most others who installed Windows 7 did, I started looking up info about this online and found some really interesting advice.

So this is how I went about deleting my windows.old folder and getting back a good 16 Gigs of hard disk space.

Go to start menu. Left click on All Programs.


Go to accessories --> System Tools


From System tools folder, go to Disk Cleanup.


Select the root drive where the windows.old folder is located as the drive to be cleaned up from the Disk Cleanup start dialog box. I chose C:\ since that was the drive that had the windows.old folder in it.

From the disk cleanup box, which is very similar to what Microsoft had in XP and as far as I remember Vista, click on "Clean Up System files". Doing this should list "Clean up older installation of Windows" as a cleanup option in the files list in the top windows.



Hit OK, and you should be good to go.


After I was done with the disk cleanup process, Volla, I had an extra 16 Gigs of hard drive space.

What does "Batch Build" in Visual Studio IDE do ?

This is another menu option I recently found very useful as I work on large solutions with multiple projects in them, which makes it really difficult to switch between configurations. So, I decided to setup a batch build config for building selective projects without having to switch between Debug and Release and the other custom configurations that I have created for my solution.



Basically, "Batch Build" allows you to build a solution in a specific 'Configuration' . You may find yourself needing to do this when you're needing to build and rebuild setup projects while testing.

You could of course run a command line compile, but a simple way to stay in the IDE and Debug configuration whilst running a Release build is the Batch Build facility.

Just go to Build --> Batch Build, then select all the Release versions of the projects you want to build (or whatever you want to build), and then click Build and you should be good to go with your configuration.

How to fix the "The Windows Installer Service Could Not Be Accessed" error in Windows XP

When you try to install a program, such as Microsoft Office or even try to remove an installed program for Windows XP, you may receive the following error message:

"The Windows Installer Service could not be accessed.This can occur if you are running Windows in safemode, or if the Windows Installer is not correctlyinstalled. Contact your support personnel for assistance."

To resolve this issue, follow these steps:
1. Log on to your computer as an administrator.
2. Click Start, and then click Run.
3. In the Open box, type cmd, and then click OK.
4. At the command prompt, typemsiexec.exe /unregister, and then press ENTER.
5. Type msiexec /regserver, and then press ENTER.
6. Verify that the SYSTEM account has full control access permissions to the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT hive in the Windows registry. In some cases, you may also have to add Administrator accounts. To do so:Important This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
322756 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/322756/ ) How to back up and restore the registry in Windows
a. Click Start, click Run, type regedit in the Open box, and then click OK.
b. Click the following registry hive:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
c. On the Edit menu, click Permissions.
d. If SYSTEM is not listed in the Group or user names list, click Add, make sure that the local computer name appears in the From this location box, type system in the Enter the object names to select box, click Check Names, and then click OK.
e. Click SYSTEM in the Group or user names list, and then select the Full Control check box under Allow in the Permissions for SYSTEM box.
f. Click Apply, click OK, and then quit Registry Editor.

7. Restart the computer. If the problem is not resolved, repair Windows XP. For more information about how to repair Windows XP, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
315341 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315341/ ) How to perform an in-place upgrade (reinstallation) of Windows XP.

Grasshopper !!!

May 4, 2009............
So, after more than 20+ months of hard work, planning and really really long hours the past few months, my company finally launched its new generation of products under a new brand name "Grasshopper". This was my first major product launch in my very new career in the real world and the experience has been nothing short of entertaining and fulfilling.

It was just great to see team members both on-site and off-site come together to deliver a new suite of products that are destined to take the company to the new level of excellence. What was even more heartening to see was how a group of motivated individuals came together and put in more than 80 hours/week over the past month or so to make sure the new generation of products gets delivered in time. I feel fortunate to be a part of this great achievement and hope for great success for my company with all its new products.

Here's something to inspire you...