Revealing Hidden Secret Tool in Windows 7 = Problem Steps Recorder (PSR)

Did you know Windows 7 contains a hidden secret troubleshooting tool which is called “Problem Steps Recorder” (PSR)? This tool is not available from any general location like Start menu, Control Panel or Explorer.

To launch this tool, you just need to provide “psr” command in RUN or Start menu Search box.

It’ll launch the program which looks like following:

This tool is basically a simple screen capturing tool which can be used to record screenshots of various steps performed by a user. Just click on “Start Record” button and it’ll start saving all the steps which you perform onwards. To stop recording, click on “Stop Record” button.

It prompts you to tell the location where you want to save the file. It creates a ZIP file containing an MHTML file which stores screenshots of all steps performed by you along with a brief description of each.

You can also add your own comments using “Add Comment” button during recording.

You can also set a default location to save the file so that you don’t need to tell the location each time you record something. To do this, click on the little arrow near Help button and select “Settings“.

You can also disable recording of screenshots by settings “Enable screen capture” option to No. In this case, it’ll only record a description of your steps not images.

If you want to send the recorded file to someone, you can do this by using “Send to E-mail recipient” option.

You can also increase number of screenshots to be saved in the file using Settings.

Its a great tool available for Windows 7 users and IMO each OS should contain something like this.

List of All Kinds of Restrictions for Windows 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, Server 2008 and 7

Many times people access our system and change our customized settings here and there. Wouldn’t it be great if we can restrict them to change the settings and other things like restrict from changing Folder Options, Taskbar settings, Desktop settings, etc.

Today in this tutorial, we’ll share a list of some important and useful restrictions, which can be put in Windows 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, Server 2008 and 7.

STEP 1: Open Registry Editor

All restrictions are based on Registry editing. So you’ll need to open Registry Editor by providing regedit command in RUN or Start menu Search box and press Enter. After that go to the registry key mentioned in step 2.

STEP 2: Create Registry Key

Once you are in Registry Editor. Go to following keys and create or modify required DWORD value as mentioned below:

1. Restricting Desktop Properties

Go to following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\System

Create new DWORD NoDispCPL and set its value to 1

2. Restricting Taskbar Properties

Go to following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorer

Create new DWORD NoSetTaskbar and set its value to 1

3. Restricting System Properties

Go to following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorer

Create new DWORD NoPropertiesMyComputer and set its value to 1

4. Restricting Folder Options

Go to following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorer

Create new DWORD NoFolderOptions and set its value to 1

5. Restricting Registry Editor

Go to following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\System

Create new DWORD DisableRegistryTools and set its value to 1

6. Restricting Task Manager

Go to following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\System

Create new DWORD DisableTaskMgr and set its value to 1

7. Restricting Control Panel

Go to following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorer

Create new DWORD NoControlPanel and set its value to 1

8. Restricting Command Prompt

Go to following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\System

Create new DWORD DisableCMD and set its value to 2

9. Restricting Locking/Unlocking of Taskbar

Go to following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorer

Create new DWORD LockTaskbar and set its value to 1

10. Restricting right-click on Taskbar

Go to following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorer

Create new DWORD NoTrayContextMenu and set its value to 1

11. Restricting Toolbars in Taskbar

Go to following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorer

Create new DWORD NoToolbarsOnTaskbar and set its value to 1

12. Restricting drag-and-drop and right-click in Start Menu

Go to following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorer

Create new DWORD NoChangeStartMenu and set its value to 1

13. Restricting RUN in Start Menu

Go to following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorer

Create new DWORD NoRun and set its value to 1

14. Restricting Shut Down, Restart, Sleep and Hibernate commands

Go to following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorer

Create new DWORD NoClose and set its value to 1

15. Restricting Log off in Start Menu

Go to following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorer

Create new DWORD StartMenuLogOff and set its value to 1

16. Restricting Active Desktop Feature

Go to following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorer

Create new DWORD NoActiveDesktop and set its value to 1

17. Restricting adding/removing items to/from Toolbars

Go to following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorer

Create new DWORD NoToolbarCustomize and set its value to 1

18. Restricting adding/removing Toolbars

Go to following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorer

Create new DWORD NoBandCustomize and set its value to 1

19. Restricting notification at low disk space

Go to following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorer

Create new DWORD NoLowDiskSpaceChecks and set its value to 1

20. Restricting Writing to USB Drives

Go to following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Current Control Set\Control\StorageDevicePolicies

Create new DWORD WriteProtect and set its value to 1

21. Restricting “New” option in context menu

Go to following key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shellex\ContextMenu Handlers\New

And delete the value of Default, e.g., empty it.

22. Restricting “Send To” option in context menu

Go to following key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenu Handlers\Send To

And delete the value of Default, e.g., empty it.

23. Restricting any desired application

Go to following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorer\DisallowRun

Create new String value with any name, like 1 and set its value to the desired program’s EXE file.

e.g., If you want to restrict msconfig, then create a String value 1 and set its value to msconfig.exe. If you want to restrict more programs, simply create more String values with names 2, 3 and so on and set their values to the program’s exe file.

24. Restricting Drives in My Computer

Go to following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorer

In right-side pane, create new DWORD NoViewOnDrive and change its value as following:

3 : To Restrict A and B drives only.
4 : To Restrict C drive only.
7 : To Restrict A, B, and C drives only.
8 : To Restrict D drive only.
F : To Restrict A, B, C, and D drives only.
03FFFFFF : To Restrict all drives.

If you want more specific restrictions, like you want to restrict a combination of drives, you can use decimal no. instead of hexadecimal no. Following is a list for all drives decimal no.:

A: 1
B: 2
C: 4
D: 8
E: 16
F: 32
G: 64
H: 128
I: 256
J: 512
K: 1024
L: 2048
M: 4096
N: 8192
O: 16384
P: 32768
Q: 65536
R: 131072
S: 262144
T: 524288
U: 1048576
V: 2097152
W: 4194304
X: 8388608
Y: 16777216
Z: 33554432
ALL: 67108863

So if you want to disable a combination of drives, just sum their numbers and give the same value to NoViewOnDrive. e.g., for restricting C, D, E and F drives, give the value: 4+8+16+32 = 60

NOTE: You can also hide the drives using NoDrives DWORD value. The location and its value remain same as the above trick.

That’s all. Above are some common restrictions, if you want to know about any specific restriction, please let us know.

NOTE: If you want to remove the restriction, simply delete the DWORD or set its value to 0

Get Web Browser Like Tabs Feature in Microsoft Word 2007 and 2010

If you use Microsoft Office 2007 or 2010, here is something interesting for you.

By default Microsoft Word doesn’t provide Tab feature and if you open multiple document files, it opens them in multiple windows. Wouldn’t it be great if you can get web browser like Tab feature in Microsoft Word? So that you can open all document files in a single Word window and can navigate between them easily and quickly using tabs.

Today we are sharing a free add-in for Microsoft Word 2007 and 2010 which brings the Tab feature to Word.

“Microsoft Word Addin Tabs” is an add-in for Word which enables Tab function in Word 2007 and 2010.

You can download it using following link:

Download Link

Homepage

Quickly Remove Hyperlinks from a Word Document

From time-to-time you may wish to remove the hyperlinks from your Word documents. Those blue underlines are helpful on your computer, but you may not want them showing up on your printouts. Here is a method for removing all hyperlinks from a Word document in no time flat:

1. Select the entire document by holding CTRL and pressing A.
2. While holding down CTRL and Shift, press F9.

Firefox 3.5 at a glance!

Top 10 Firefox Features

Mozilla Firefox 3.5 has been released and downloaded my mass of the users. But what are the features that makes it stand among the crowd. Lets take a look

10. Undo closed window

If you accidentally close a tab you’d meant to keep open, Firefox 3, at least through extensions like Tab Mix Plus, can bring it back. Update: To clarify, Firefox can resurrect closed tabs without Tab Mix Plus (just hit Ctrl+Shift+T, for example); the extension simply adds more fine-grained control. If you accidentally kill a separate window full of tabs, though, you’ve been pretty much out of luck. Firefox 3.5 implements a restore feature for both tabs and windows from the History menu, which would (hopefully) also restore any text you’ve typed into them.

9. Forget this site

Tools like Private Browsing Modes and history wipers are good for what they do, but sometimes it would be great to have just one site wiped off your history—either because it’s hogging your quick address bar results, or because you’d rather your coworker be unaware of your workday LOLcat browsing. Firefox 3.5′s history browser offers a convenient “Forget this site” option, erasing your browser’s memory of particular domains. It doesn’t cover subdomains, and your network traffic and Flash memory would still hold some details, but it’s a handy tweak however you cut it.

8. Tab tearing

Google Chrome (Update: And Safari, as our readers note) somewhat stole the thunder out from under this feature, but it’s still a nice one: Grab a tab and drag it out a bit to create a new browser window from it. Drag windows into tabs again, and open any tab in a new window from the right-click menu, if clicking and dragging isn’t your style.

7. Keyword AwesomeBar filters

Firefox 3′s AwesomeBar/address bar offers a speedy list of suggestions to complete whatever you’re typing. That’s great, but that list comes from your page history, bookmarks, and tags, and can be matched by URL or name, leaving some results almost uselessly cluttered. This gets fixed with special character filters in the next Firefox. Restrict a search by typing “life *” for just your bookmarks with the words “life” in them, or just your tagged “lh” items with “lh +”. Anything that really makes getting back to importantly web destinations quickly is a welcome upgrade.

6. Smarter session restore

What good is it to bring back all the tabs you just lost to a crash if the tab that brought everything down comes back too? Firefox’s developers took a cue from the users and turned the session restore feature into more of a crash recovery tool, allowing users to select which tabs should come back. If you don’t know who’s the culprit, here’s a hint: It’s probably the one with Flash on it.

5. Private browsing mode

The snarky types (i.e. my editor) can call it “Porn Mode,” but this feature, already in a number of competing browsers, has uses beyond the prurient. Beyond obvious situations, like gift buying and sensitive research, logging onto a friend’s browser for a quick email check or bill pay is made a lot more secure if you can get to the private mode. Likewise, anonymizing some of your searches and cookie collection on your own machine isn’t a bad idea, and a private mode can do that too. You don’t need it all the time, but you might be glad it’s available.

4. Color profiles that pop

Different cameras, monitors, and capture devices grab and set colors in different ways. On the web, most colors look the same, though, because they’re filtered and optimized for quick viewing in every browser. Firefox 3.5 introduces dynamic color profiles for each picture, meaning that whatever the graphic designer or photographer saw when they were doing their work, you’ll see it on their web page.

3. TraceMonkey JavaScript engine

Months ago, Mozilla said its still-in-development JavaScript engine, TraceMonkey, was “20 to 40 times” faster than the SpiderMonkey engine installed in Firefox 3. That hasn’t shown up in our speed tests, which themselves rely on a Mozilla-assembled testing suite, but JavaScript testing suites are often like drag races—they don’t really tell you what a browser runs like in a real daily sense, just pure timings. Even if TraceMonkey is ultimately outpaced by Chrome and/or Safari, its innovations push the whole browser market forward and give us all a bit less load time to complain about.

2. Geo-location

If you type post office into a maps site, you probably don’t want the headquarters of the U.S. Post Office, or post office listings from two towns over. Integrated geo-location, powered by Google’s Wi-Fi triangulation and simple IP address information, looks to know roughly where you are and help you when you’re looking for something local. You can disable it if you’d like, but, realistically, signing on from any IP address reveals a bit about where you are anyways. If a good number of sites pick it up, geo-location could bring to the browser what a lot of people are already enjoying on their phone.

1. Video superpowers with HTML 5

If you’re viewing a page coded in HTML 5 with video in an open-source format like Ogg Vorbis or Theora, Firefox 3.5 treats that video like it’s just part of the page, not a separate little island of Flash content. That means instant commenting on videos. It could also mean offering links from inside a tutorial video that offer more details on what’s being shown—soldering tips on an iPhone repair guide would be keen. In general, it’s just a promising step forward into a seamless melding of video and text on a future web.

Increase Hard Disk Space in Windows

If you like to increase/optimize your Hard Disk I/O – read/write speed without buying expensive software utilities to do that job or changing the HD, just follow next steps. With doing these steps you will increase Hard disk speed (depends of manufacture and specification, but its worth to try). The most speed improvement is visible with IDE drives; however there are reports that this tweak also does good for SCSI disks.

In any case, it won’t harm your system, so try it yourself and let me know what you find!

Steps:

1. Run SYSEDIT.EXE from the start & then Run command.
2. Expand the system.ini file window.
3. Scroll down almost to the end of the file untill you find a line called [386enh].
4. Press Enter to make one blank line, and in that line type
5. Irq14=4096 (note: This line IS CASE SENSITIVE)
6. Click on the File menu, then choose Save.
7. Close SYSEDIT and reboot your computer.
8. Restart windows!

The speed improvement will be noticed just after the system reboots, any system info. software can be used to check the improvement.

3 Firefox Tips You May Not Know About

The thing I like best about Firefox is that just when you think you know everything there is to know about the browser, something new comes along and surprises you.
I discovered five new Firefox tips today. Maybe these are old hat and you know them already. Or maybe like me, you had no idea these could be done.

1. Delete visited URL’s

When you drop down the box underneath the address bar, you can see your recent browsing history. But what if you want to remove one URL from that list? Maybe you’ve been looking at a naughty site and you don’t want your girfriend to know? Or maybe you’ve been shopping for your loved one online and you want to keep it a secret?
Just drop down the URL box, highlight the URL you want to zap then press the “delete” button on your keyboard. The URL will then be removed from the list.

2. Navigate to browser tabs using the keyboard

Instead of using the mouse to click on a tab, why not use the keyboard instead? Pressing CTRL + TAB together will bounce you from tab to tab, starting from the one in the far left and working its way along. Or if you want to go to a specifc tab straight away, you can do that too. CTRL + 2 will take you directly to the second tab from the left. CTRL + 5 will take you to the fifth tab from the left.

3. Grab files off webpages, even protected webpages

Have you ever wanted a picture, file or video off a webpage but you can’t, because it’s been protected? Just right-click on the page, choose “View Page Info” then the “media” tab. Find the file you’re looking for from the list and click on “save”. (note : this doesn’t work for everything but I have still had a pretty high success rate nonetheless).

Adjust Taskbar Preview Hover Delay in Win7

Taskbar previews in Windows 7 have been updated and include new functionality. Users can close windows right from the preview window and even view full size previews with Aero Peek. The changes are very useful but all are depending on the amount of time you hover over the taskbar icon with your mouse. After a set period, 400 milliseconds, the taskbar preview is shown. For some, the required hover time is way too long.

Here is how you can customize the hover time just for the taskbar:

1. Click on the Start Button and type in Regedit and hit Enter.
2. Navigate through HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced.
3. Right click on Advanced and select New DWORD and name the new value “ExtendedUIHoverTime”.
4. Right click on ExtendedUIHoverTime and select Modify.
5. Switch to Decimal base and enter in your new number.  The default is 400 milliseconds. I like to set mine to 100 for a 100 millisecond delay.
6. Once changed click OK and restart the explorer process or restart your computer.

Alternatively you can customize the global system hover time that will adjust the hover delay for everything on your system including taskbar icons, start menu shortcuts, etc:

1. Click on the Start Button and type in regedit and hit Enter.
2. Navigate through HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Mouse.
3. Right click on MouseHoverTime and select Modify.
4. Set the new value. The default value is 400 milliseconds.
5. Once changed, click OK and restart your computer.

Thanks to Drazen M. and c.kolbicz for the suggestions!

Create a Flip3D Taskbar Icon in Windows 7

Flip3D was a fun and cool looking feature in Windows Vista that can be very useful for switching between windows. With the improved Windows 7 taskbar, Flip3D was replaced with improved thumbnails and Aero Peek. Those are both good alternatives but I like the speed of viewing all my open windows at once and switching with just two clicks.

This article will show you how to create a Flip3D icon on the Windows 7 taskbar:

1. Right click on the Desktop and select New and then Shortcut.
2. Type in RunDll32 DwmApi #105 in the location box and click Next.

   

3. Type in Flip3D as the Name and click Finish.
4. You will now have an shortcut on the desktop that will launch Flip3D but it has the wrong icon. Right click on the Flip3D shortcut and select Properties.

   

5. On the Shortcut tab click the Change Icon button.
6. Change the Look for icons in this file text box to C:\windows\explorer.exe and it Enter.  The Flip3D icon will now be available. Select it and click OK.

   

7. Click OK to close out the shortcut properties window.
8. Finally, just drag and drop the new shortcut on the Windows 7 taskbar to pin it.

How-to Remove Internet Explorer from Windows 7?

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For the first time since 1997 it is possible to uninstall Internet Explorer from Windows. Now full time Firefox, Chrome and Opera users can remove Internet Explorer for good. Best of all, removing IE will not break any of the thousands of applications that depend on the Internet Explorer rendering engine. Over the years many applications including AOL Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger, Windows Media Player, Google Talk, LimeWire, MS Office and more use components of the IE rendering engine. When Internet Explorer is removed the shared rendering engine components will remain to make sure the thousands of applications that depend on the IE rendering engine continue to run.

While the rendering engine will remain for compatibility reasons the IE executables, shortcuts and settings will be removed. To uninstall IE on your computer, follow these steps:

Click on the Start Button and type in Turn Windows features on or off and hit Enter.

Then, scroll through the list and remove the check from Internet Explorer 8.

Click OK and IE will be removed.