Channel 9 - Entries tagged with Vista

Chirp: A Twitter Client for Vista/7 Users

Sarah Perez — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 02:42:00 GMT

Chirp is a beautiful Twitter application for those running Windows Vista (or, presumably Windows 7, too) which takes advantage of the OS’s built in graphical subsystem, WPF. With *chirp, you can see unlimited tweets – just keep scrolling down and older tweets will load and display automatically. That’s just one of the features that sets it apart from most other Twitter desktop clients out there.

Another excellent feature is *chirp’s ability to see the full conversation. To do so, you just have to click on the arrow before the username and your tweet flips in place to reveal the first part of the conversation. Again, a unique feature.

Chirp also lets you follow your favorite Twitterers by adding them to a list of “favs.”

And of course, updating your own Twitter status is easy, too – just click the update icon from the bottom menu or click the reply icon to respond to another tweet.

Chirp is a free download available from http://www.thirteen23.com/experiences/desktop/chirp/. You can also follow them on Twitter at http://twitter.com/chirpapp.

Snooze UAC With A New App

Sarah Perez — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 20:16:00 GMT

We’ve heard that Windows 7 will bring us a kinder, gentler version of Vista’s User Account Control (UAC), a security service which pops up windows asking for permission when you try run .exe files, make system changes, access restricted files, or perform other actions that could impact your computer’s safety and stability. However, until we have Windows 7, Vista users can take advantage of a new utility for temporarily disabling UAC – without a reboot!

The new app UAC Snooze lets you temporarily shut off UAC prompts by clicking on the icon it installs in your system tray. The app is available as a free trial for 30 days, then, to continue using it, a one-time fee of $5 is required.

UAC Snooze provides the following features:

Temporarily turn off UAC prompts by clicking on the UAC Snooze icon in the system tray
Can be configured to start automatically with Windows and not require a UAC prompt
Clicking on the icon can turn off UAC prompts or snooze for 1, 5, 10, 30 or 60 minutes (or user-defined time)
10 user-defined snooze intervals can be defined
Right-click on icon to bring up menu to select action other than the default
When prompts are off, click on icon again to turn prompts back on
Options to modify prompt action when program opens and closes
Tooltip shows time remaining until prompts will be turned back on
Icon changes based on state (Prompts On: UAC Shield , Snooze: Shield with a Z , Off: Shield with an X)

UAC Snooze works on both 32 and 64 bit systems and can be downloaded from here.

(via AskVG)

More DreamScenes For Vista Users

Sarah Perez — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 22:29:00 GMT

If you’re running Windows Vista Ultimate, then you know about Windows DreamScene, the feature in Vista which lets you set an animated background as your desktop wallpaper. I ran DreamScenes at first because they were something new to try, but after a while I returned to plain old wallpaper. The problem wasn’t that there was anything wrong with the DreamScenese themselves… it’s just that I get bored with my desktop and like to change the background frequently. After going through all the included Dreamscenes a few times, I switched back to wallpaper to keep it interesting.

However, during a recent visit to the deviantART website it occurred to me to search for DreamScenes there. I don’t know why I didn’t think to do this before! As it turned out, there were several new DreamScenes available for me to try, including this nifty glowing white Windows logo on a black background, which I’m running right now:

I also found a colorful variation on that theme here:

Some glowing cosmic lights:

A blue and yellow lit-up design:

And even a Leopard-esque light show:

These should keep me busy for at least a few more months!

Filter Pack For Windows Search

Sarah Perez — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 22:28:00 GMT

I had been using the latest and greatest search tool for my XP PC, Windows Search 4.0, but somehow I had missed this: the Filter Pack for searching in Office documents. With the the Microsoft Filter Pack installed, Windows Search 4.0 is able to search within Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other Office 2007 documents based on the text they contain. It also works for Vista too, adding new search capabilities which can be accessed right from Vista’s search bar. Now when you do a search, the Windows indexing service doesn’t just search for file names but also knows what’s in the files themselves, and that makes finding the right file so much easier.

IT admins will want to read further instructions found on the download page about how the new Filter pack can be installed into Exchange, SharePoint, SQL Server, and other Server products. The Filter Pack also works on Windows Server 2003, Vista, and XP. You can download it from here.

New Vista Sidebar Gadgets Let Your Track The Elections

Sarah Perez — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 14:48:00 GMT

Are you a political junkie? Here in the U.S. it's hard not to be when it's election season. With so much going on - rallies, debates, and economic crises - it seems that the poll numbers change every day. Now you don't have to wait on the news to give you the latest info from the presidential polls - you can just look at your desktop. The new Gallup Poll Vista gadget lets you obsessively watch the Gallup daily election polling numbers to see who's ahead on a day-to-day basis. And the new Election Countdown gadget will count down to the next important political event in the presidential election calendar, including all three Presidential debates, the Vice Presidential debate (which is tonight) as well as Elections day and Inauguration Day. The gadgets are non-partisan and include links to both Obama and McCain's web sites. The countdown gadget can be themed with either Obama or McCain skins, too. What great finds!

A Simple Tool To Change Your Icons

Sarah Perez — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 10:20:00 GMT

Although changing an icon is something that’s built into the Windows OS, avid desktop customizers are always on the lookout for better ways to make changes on the fly. A new tool that helps you quickly update your drive icons is Drive Icon Changer. All it does is update icons, nothing else, but sometimes a simple tool is just what you need.

To use the tool, you simply select the drive from the top drop-down box and then browse for the icon in the second box. Click “Save” and you’re done! This app was built by Taimur Asad in C# using Visual Studio 2008. He’s tested it on Vista only, but it may work on older versions of Windows, too. You can download the software for free from here (zip file).

geekSpeak recording - Virtualization for Developers with Step

Brian Johnson — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 16:00:00 GMT

In this geekSpeak, Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Stephen Rose discusses why developers should look at using virtual environments for developing and the benefits of doing so. He addresses everything from the creation of a complete development environment's domain in a box to how to move these environments back and forth from virtual to physical and back again.

Your hosts for this geekSpeak are Mithun Dhar and Danilo Diaz.

Original Broadcast Date: Wednesday, September 24, 2008

To ask a question in advance of a live webcast, or for post-show resources, be sure to visit the geekSpeak blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/geekSpeak.

Microsoft's Holiday Preview - Windows Vista Powered PC's and Accessories

Laura Foy — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 14:36:00 GMT

This Holiday season is certain to be merry considering all the great new products being offered to you from Microsoft Hardware, Vista powered machines and Games for Windows. Check out some of the sexy new Dell laptops, BlueTrack mice and of course...some great games for Windows like Fallout 3 and Lego Batman.

Also-make sure to check out what you can expect from Windows Mobile and Xbox 360.

How To Speed Up Vista Boot Time on Dual-Core PCs

Sarah Perez — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 13:04:00 GMT

Peter Provost posted a handy tip on his blog the other day that will be useful for anyone with a Vista computer that has a dual-core CPU. In Windows Vista, there’s a setting that lets you configure your PC to use both cores upon booting up (by default, it only uses one). You can change this setting in the System Configuration menu to get your PC to boot faster. Here’s how:

Go to Start, type msconfig and hit [Enter]
In the System Configuration Window, select the Boot tab
Click on Advanced Options
In the BOOT Advanced Options dialog, check the "Number of processors" check box, and choose 2 (or 4 if you have quad core) for the number of processors.
Click OK twice

That’s it! Now your Vista PC will boot up using both CPUs!

Create Custom Themes With Vista Style Builder

Sarah Perez — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 07:32:00 GMT

Have you always wanted to build your own theme for Vista? You can with a new application called Vista Style Builder and the How-To-Geek has a great walkthrough to get you started with doing so. The Vista Style Builder application lets you modify the visual style of your Vista theme or even import styles from XP to be used on Vista. Also, if you’ve found a style you liked on the web, like on devianART, for example, you can also open that file up in the program and use it as a starting point. From there, you can completely customize every aspect of the UI and theme, using the software’s easy-to-use built-in tools. The program is not available just yet, so bookmark this download page and check back soon. The program will not be free and pricing info is not available yet, but the How-To-Geek promises it will be reasonable.

Make Your PC Wake From Sleep Automatically

Sarah Perez — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 07:46:00 GMT

A lot of people these days are becoming more aware of the energy savings to be had by shutting down unused equipment when it’s not in use. And while it’s no problem to shut off the TV and the end of the evening a lot of people have trouble doing the same for the PC. This is mainly because it’s nice to have all your work on your computer right there where you left it when you return in the morning. Of course, this is what “sleep” mode is for – you can save energy without losing your place.

But wouldn’t it be nice if your computer knew when to wake up for you? Well, it can! Using the Task Scheduler (In Vista: Control Panel\System and Maintenance\Administrative Tools\Task Scheduler), you can make your PC wake up at the designated time you want just by having it run a simple task – like say, launching then closing the command prompt window.

For example:

Schedule a task that executes the command cmd.exe with command line arguments [/c “exit”] (without the []) and make sure to set the ‘Wake computer up to execute this task’ in the power options. Schedule the task for when you want your computer to wake up and you will never have to wait on it again.

(Thanks to Thomas Delrue for this tip!)

Coming Soon: Get Facebook on Media Center

Sarah Perez — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 13:50:00 GMT

It seems that lately I’ve just been finding more and more Windows Media Center plugins. The latest one I stumbled across (Thanks Ian!) is a way to get Facebook on Media Center. This is thanks to a soon-to-be-released application called Photato, which will be available in beta later this month. It looks like the Photato app will focus on bringing Facebook photos to your Vista Media Center – both those belonging to you as well as the photos that your friends are sharing. At the moment, the website for the application hasn’t launched yet, but for those interested in beta testing the application, you can email photato.beta@armchairware.com. (image thanks to Ian Dixon’s Blog)

TV Manager Beta for WHS

Sarah Perez — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 05:42:00 GMT

There’s a new plugin for Windows Home Server users called TV Manager which copies your recordings from a Vista Media Center PC over to your Windows Home Server for storage and management. The plugin, still in beta, actually has 2 parts to it – one part for the WHS and one for Media Center. After the plugin copies the recording to the WHS, the original is removed from the Vista PC, freeing up valuable disk space on your machine. However, the plugin allows you to still watch the recordings just like you would normally watch “Recorded TV” in Media Center. The part of this program that runs on the Home Server displays a console for managing the recordings and deleting the ones you don’t want to keep. This plugin was created by Brent Friedman of We Got Served, where you can read in more detail about the features, requirements, and updates in the latest version of this beta software. (Image courtesy of WGS)

UltraExplorer, An Awesome Alternative to Windows Explorer

Sarah Perez — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 09:51:00 GMT

This weekend, I decided to look for an alternative to Windows Explorer. Although Windows Explorer gets the job done, there’s just a lot that it doesn’t do that I wish it would, and frankly, I miss XP’s version. Well, now, I have it back and then some! That’s one of the great things about Windows actually – you don’t have to be stuck with the way things come out of the box. If you don’t like something, you have the power to change it. Tweak, customize, download new software, whatever – you can really make Windows your own.

I decided to go on the hunt for a new version of Explorer. I heard a rumor someone out there is creating an XP version of Windows Explorer for Vista users, but I couldn’t find it. (If you know, please leave a comment! The closest I found was Explorer XP, which is similar, but not the same.)

Instead, I found something nearly as good, if not better: UltraExplorer. This alternative Windows Explorer program has it all: a completely customizable interface, tons of configurable toolbars, lots of different views, favorites, a temporary holding area for moving files around called “Drop Stack,” and, of course, the long-lost “up” button. (Don’t tell me about Alt+Up, I know - I want a button!).

Overall, I’m pretty satisfied with the program except that I would like to customize the defaults for the views depending on the folder I’m accessing, and it seems that you can only set defaults for the whole program. However, the app does remember your most recent settings, so this hasn’t been a huge problem.

If you want to try this alternate version of Window Explorer, you can visit the app’s homepage here or download it from Download.com here.

Discovering Great XP and Vista Themes

Sarah Perez — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:57:00 GMT

I was recently stumbled across a link to this XP Zune theme when searching for ways to jazz up my older laptop. I had forgotten, but I used to really love this theme! The theme was sort of a take off on the also awesome “lost” XP theme - Royale Noir, but with a few tweaks. It’s sort of funny to look at this today, nearly two years later, as I’m running Vista. I still have a very similar color scheme going on now – a dark taskbar and Start Menu and a simple background that shows off my widgets and icons (I guess I’m not much for desktop cleanliness after all). The only variation is that I have blue/greenish windows now. Of course, this led me down the path of looking for a way to customize Vista's themes even more. I know Stardock has professional software to do so, but what about a simple free theme? I ended up here where I discovered a whole slew of themes, skins, and wallpapers for Vista, including the sleek and simple Chocolate Theme (pictured). Nice!

Mars Gadget for Vista

Sarah Perez — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 16:48:00 GMT

Sweet! Brandon just posted about the coolest little gadget I’ve seen in a while –the Mars weather gadget for Vista. Thanks to the Phoenix Mars Lander, this gadget displays the maximum and minimum daily temps on Mars as well as the Mars weather. Hint: It’s sunny a lot there. And for even more Mars fun, the Lander is also on Twitter so you can get quick and humorous updates from the mission throughout the day, like this:

Windows Search 4.0 Final Version

Sarah Perez — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 04:13:00 GMT

Only a few months ago, Microsoft released the Technical Preview of Windows Search 4.0, a new standalone search tool for Windows XP, Vista, and Server 2003. Now, the final version of Windows Search has arrived. It this version, there have been several improvements, including support for indexing encrypted files, reduced effect on Exchange, better performance, per-user Group Policy settings, as well as support for several new Enterprise Group Policy objects that I.T. admins can use when customizing their deployments of Windows Search 4.0 on their company’s computers. To learn more or download the software, go here and choose the right version for your OS.

Read RSS Feeds on Your Media Center TV

Sarah Perez — Wed, 21 May 2008 14:40:00 GMT

The Media Center RSS Reader application lets you read RSS news items on your Media Center TV as well as watch and/or listen to podcasts and watch video blogs. Originally developed for XP Media Center, there is now also a version for Vista Ultimate. The application adds a new option to Media Center's Start page called "Accessories." From there, you'll have access to a section called "RSS News & Casts" where you'll be able to view your feeds. If you run into any formatting issues or unsupported codecs, the site suggests you try downloading the content to your PC instead via IE's built-in RSS reader, instead. Since I use my Xbox 360 to watch Media Center content on my living room TV, I'm excited to have a way to access not just feeds, but podcasts too, without the addition of another set-top box to do so. (thanks to scribkin for the tip!)

Ultimate Video Relay Contest

Laura Foy — Thu, 15 May 2008 16:55:00 GMT

The Windows Vista Ultimate team has partnered up with TriggerStreet to create one seriously awesome challenge. Their team of pro's (directed by Kyle Newman) has created a 5 minute video and now it's up to YOU to create the next five minutes. Right now, all you have to do is write a killer script- and if you're one of the winners you'll get all the tools you need to actually shoot it. You can see the first couple minutes of Kyle's movie here, and then head to their site to get started on your own.

ShareMaster Gadget for WHS

Sarah Perez — Fri, 02 May 2008 03:45:00 GMT

The Home Server Hacks blog has just announced a new Windows Vista Sidebar gadget just for Windows Home Server users. This gadget, called "ShareMaster for Home Server," gives you quick access to the Windows Home Server's standard shared folders (Music, Photos, Public, Software, Users and Videos). The gadget has six icons on it that correspond to those six shared folders on the server. Clicking an icon on the gadget will open up that network shared folder. What's even cooler, though, is that you can drag and drop files onto the icons themselves to automatically move them from your PC to your Home Server. That's handy! This is definitely a must-have tool for any Windows Home Server owners. You can download the gadget from here. (image via Home Server Hacks)

Favorite Sidebar Gadgets

Sarah Perez — Fri, 02 May 2008 03:31:00 GMT

Ed Bott put up a post about his favorite Vista sidebar gadgets the other day, which I thought was worth sharing. His favs included the clock and the notes gadget (both standard gadgets), as well as iWeather, a tweaked version of the standard weather gadget, Remote Desktop Gadget 2.0, App Launcher v3, a customizable collection of icons to launch favorite programs, and the Windows Search Indexer Gadget, which we covered here. He asked what others favorites are, so I'm going to revisit this topic and respond with some of the gadgets I'm running now:

Of course, I love the Channel 10 gadget, but did you know there are gadgets for Channel 9, Mix Online, and TechNet Edge, too? As a blogger, I also love the Feedburner Readers gadget, so I can obsessively check my subscriber numbers, and since I collect Coke Rewards point, I was happy to find a gadget just for that. I've also added the System Control gadget, which is definitely one of the better shutdown gadgets out there, offering you the ability to do more than just the normal Shutdown, Restart, Lock, and Sleep / Hibernate. It also lets you Switch User, Log Off, Run Task Manager, open the Run Window, and run the Command Prompt.

We've covered a lot of cool gadgets in the past, if you're looking for more cool ones to try. Laura even posted a video about our favs back in December. If you love gadgets, you can also stay updated on the latest arrivals by subscribing to the Windows Live Gallery feed. (img via frankarr)

MSN Video/Soapbox Vista Sidebar Gadget now available

Tina — Thu, 01 May 2008 16:17:00 GMT

David Cronshaw and I chat about the new MSN Video/Soapbox Vista Sidebar Gadget which is now available for download.

The official MSN Video/Soapbox Vista Sidebar Gadget is now available for downloading and installing:

http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=b4ea67a2-5cb6-4a15-8ae1-048cccaf8ffc&bt=1

Some of the Highlights of the MSN Video Vista Sidebar Gadget:

Display Localized MSN Videos with links to MSN Video Destination Site
Display Soapbox Videos and play natively Inline
Localized for over 30 countries and languages
Top-Level market Navigation
Numerous Sort-by options
Display Search terms
Display Related Videos
Customize number of thumbs and pages to show
Auto-scroll Pages at defined intervals
And much more……

The art of the demo: Part 2

Laura Foy — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 21:48:00 GMT

Introducing people to new and exciting ways to use Microsoft products is one of the perks of working for this company- but it's also a challenge. You have to be pretty creative in order to catch peoples attention. That's why we created the "World Cup Demo Competition". Microsoft employees from all over the world were asked to perform a demonstration of Windows Vista applications and really WOW their audiences. The best demo'er wins ten grand! This video is the second of the three finalists, take a look and give your feedback. Click here to see the first finalist.

The art of the Demo : Part 1

Laura Foy — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 11:09:00 GMT

Introducing people to new and exciting ways to use Microsoft products is one of the perks of working for this company- but it's also a challenge. You have to be pretty creative in order to catch peoples attention. That's why we created the "World Cup Demo Competition". Microsoft employees from all over the world were asked to perform a demonstration of Windows Vista applications and really WOW their audiences. The best demo'er wins ten grand! This video is the first of the three finalists, take a look and give your feedback. I'll post all three and then announce the winner on Wednesday.

Group Your Taskbar Windows with Reg Hack

Sarah Perez — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 14:55:00 GMT

The Lifehacker blog offers up a great little registry hack for grouping similar items on your taskbar. You may have noticed that the taskbar only groups items when you have launched enough windows to fill the taskbar. However, if you want to group similar programs all the time, a simple registry hack does the trick. Go to:

HKEY_CURRRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ Advanced

Create a new DWORD (32-bit) value named TaskbarGroupSize at that location, setting the value to 2 or higher to set the number of programs to activate the grouping.