How to Install Windows 7 From a USB Drive

Installing Windows from a USB flash drive has several advantages – First of all, the overall speed of the installation process will increase significantly, carrying a USB stick is much more convenient than a DVD, and finally it becomes possible to install the OS even on those systems that do not have a DVD drive, such as a netbook.

In this post, I will show you how to load the Windows installation on to your USB flash drive and make it bootable just like the DVD.

Tools Required:

1. USB flash drive with a minimum capacity of 4 GB.

2. Windows 7 set-up DVD.

Step-1: Plug-in your USB flash drive and backup all the existing data in it.

Step-2: Open the command prompt. If you are using Windows 7/Vista then open it with administrator rights*.

* Goto Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Right-click on “Command Prompt” and select “Run as Administrator”.

Step 3: In the command prompt, type in the following command:

DISKPART

This will start the Microsoft DiskPart utility as shown below:

 Now issue the following command:

LIST DISK

This will show you a list of  available disks on your system. Disk 0 is usually the hard disk. In my case, Disk 5 is the USB drive (this can be a different one in your case). Now issue the command as shown below:

SELECT DISK 5

NOTE: In the above command, 5 is the USB drive number on my system. If you have a different number on  your system, then you need to replace 5 with that number.

Step-4: Now issue the following list of commands one by one as shown below:

CLEAN

CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY

SELECT PARTITION 1

ACTIVE

FORMAT FS=NTFS QUICK

ASSIGN

EXIT

Minimize the command prompt and proceed to the next step.

Step 5: Insert the Windows 7/Vista installation disc and note down the “drive letter” of your DVD drive. In my case, it is “H:”. Now type the following list of commands as shown below:

H: CD BOOT
CD BOOT
BOOTSECT.EXE /NT60 M:(NOTE: M: is your USB drive letter)
EXIT

Step-6: Copy the contents of your Windows 7/Vista installation disk into the USB flash drive.

That’s it! Your USB stick is now ready to boot and install the OS for you. Don’t forget to enable the “USB Boot” option and change the “boot priority to USB device from hard disk” in your BIOS settings.

I hope you like this post. Pass your comments to express your opinion. 

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How to Create Your Own Customized Run Commands?

The Run command on Microsoft Windows operating system allows you to directly open an application or document with just a single command instead of navigating to it’s location and double-clicking the executable icon. However, it only works for some of the inbuilt Windows programs such as Command prompt (cmd), Calculator (calc) etc. So, have you ever wondered how to create your own customized Run commands for accessing your favorite programs, files and folders? Well, read on to find out the answer.

Creating the Customized Run Command

Let me take up an example of how to create a customized run command for opening the Internet explorer. Once you create this command, you should be able to open the Internet explorer just by typing “ie” (without quotes) in the Run dialog box. Here is how you can do that.

1. Right click on your Desktop and select New -> Shortcut.

2. You will see a “Create Shortcut” Dialog box as shown below

3. Click on “Browse”, navigate to: Program Files -> Internet Explorer from your Root drive (usually C:\) and select “iexplore” as shown in the above figure and click on “OK”.

4. Now click on “Next” and type any name for your shortcut. You can choose any name as per your choice; this will be your customized “Run command”. In this case I name my shortcut as “ie”. Click on “Finish”.

5. You will see a shortcut named “ie” on your desktop. All you need to do is just copy this shortcut and paste  it in your Windows folder (usually “C:/Windows”). Once you have copied the shortcut onto your Windows folder, you can delete the one on your Desktop.

6. That’s it! From now on, just open the Run dialog box, type ie and hit Enter to open the Internet Explorer.

In this way you can create customized Run commands for any program of your choice. Say “ff” for Firefox, “ym” for Yahoo messenger, “wmp” for Windows media player and so on.

To do this, when you click on “Browse” in the Step-3, just select the target program’s main executable (.exe) file which will usually be located in the C:\Program Files folder. Give a simple and short name for this shortcut as per your choice and copy the shortcut file onto the Windows folder as usual. Now just type this short name in the Run dialog box to open the program.

I hope you like this post! Pass your comments.

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How to Enable or Disable Hibernation in Windows 7?

Enabling or Disabling the “Hibernate” option in Windows 7 or Vista is not as simple as it used to be in Windows XP. For Windows 7 a different approach has to be followed to accomplish the same job. In this post you will find how to enable or disable the Hibernate option in Windows 7.

Hibernation is a power saving option which was designed primarily for laptops. Unlike “sleep mode” which puts the open documents and files into the memory, hibernation puts all the open files and documents on to the hard disk and shuts down the computer without drawing even a small amount of power. Thus hibernation becomes an excellent way to save power and resume Windows back to the state where it was left off. If you really want to use this feature on Windows 7 then you need to enable this option. This can be done as follows.

1. Open the Command Prompt with “Administrator rights”. To do so, type cmd in Start menu and then hit Ctrl+Shift+Enter.

2. Now type the following command in the command prompt and hit Enter.

powercfg /hibernate on

3. Type exit and hit Enter to close the Command Prompt. Now you should see the “Hibernate” option in the  Start menu. If not then perform the following steps.

A. Type Power Options in the Start menu and hit Enter.

B. In the left pane, open the link labeled “Change when the computer sleeps” and then open the link “Change advanced power settings”.

Now a small window will pop-up as shown below:

C. Now expand the Sleep tree and turn off Allow Hybrid Sleep as shown in the above screenshot.

D. Now you should see the Hibernate option in the Start menu.

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How to Use Windows 7 Without Activation?

Most of you might be aware of the fact that it is possible to use Windows 7 and Vista for 120 days without activation. This is actually possible using the slmgr -rearm command which will extend the grace period from 30 days to 120 days. However in this post I will show you a small trick using which it is possible to use Windows 7 without activation for approximately an year! Here is a way to do that.

1. Goto “Start Menu -> All Programs -> Accessories” . Right click on “Command Prompt” and select “Run as Administrator“. If you are not the administrator then you are prompted to enter the password, or else you can proceed to step-2.

2. Now type the following command and hit enter

slmgr -rearm

3. You will be prompted to restart the computer. Once restarted the trial period will be once again reset to 30  days. You can use the above command for up to 3 times by which you can extend the trial period to 120 days without activation.

4. Now comes the actual trick by which you can extend the trial period for another 240 days. Open Registry Editor (type regedit in “Run” and hit Enter) and navigate to the following location

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SoftwareProtectionPlatform

5. In right-side pane, change value of SkipRearm to 1.

6. Now you will be able to use the slmgr -rearm command for another 8 times so that you can skip activation process for another 240 days. So you will get 120 + 240 = 360 days of free Windows 7 usage.

120 days using “slmgr -rearm” command before registry edit +                                                                                                                                                                 

240 days using “slmgr -rearm” command after registry edit

 =      360 Days

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How to Customize Start Menu Button in Windows 7

Have you ever wondered how to customize the start menu button in Windows 7? Well it is possible to spice up your copy of Windows 7 by giving a new look to the start menu button. Here is a detailed tutorial on how to do it. The following images shows a preview of how your start menu would look like before and after the customization process is done.

Default Start Menu Button

Customized Start Menu Button

Tools That You Need:

1. Resource Hacker

2. Custom Start Menu icons (images). It mush be of the size 54×162 with a .bmp extension. which looks something as follows

They must be in the following order:

1st Image - When the button is not in use

2nd Image - When the mouse pointer is over the button

3rd Image - When the button is clicked

I have created a few customized buttons which are ready to use. You can download them from the following link.

Start Menu Buttons Download

Once you have all those resources ready, you can start the customization process as follows…

1. Take the ownership of the file “explorer.exe“ which is located in the Windows Folder (Most likely in C:\Windows).

2. Open the Resource Hacker Tool.

3. Go to File menu and click on Open. Now load the file “explorer.exe” into the Resource Hacker.

4. Expand Bitmap branch in the left pane.

5. Now expand 6801 option, right-click on 1033 and select Replace Resource option.

6. A new window appears. Click on Open file with new bitmap button.

7. Navigate to the customized (.bmp) image, open it and click on Replace button.

8.  Repeat steps 4 to 7 above for the options 6805 and 6809 as well.

9. Now click on Save option (File->Save). Resource Hacker will automatically create a backup file called explorer_original.exe so that you can restore it in the future if needed.

10. Log Off and Log On to see the changes in effect.

NOTE: If you are running 64-bit edition of Windows 7, then you need to use Resource Hacker version 3.5.2 beta which is 64-bit compatible. It is available from the same link provided above.

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Take Ownership of Files and Folders in Windows 7 – An Easy Way

If you are a Windows 7 user, then you are most likely be aware of the fact that you need to TAKE OWNERSHIP of files and folders before you can make any changes to them. This feature was introduced in order to prevent any unauthorized changes from being made to the system files. However it can be little annoying to follow a long list of procedure every time you want to take ownership of a certain file or folder. So to make this job simpler, I have found a nice tool called Take Ownership Shell Extension which adds the “Take Ownership” option to the Windows context menu. This makes taking ownership too simple and requires no more than a click.

Just run the portable tool kit and click on the “Install” button. This will add the “Take Ownership” option onto the context menu. To take ownership all you need to do is, just right-click on any of the desired file or folder and click the option “Take Ownership“.

In case if you wish to uninstall this tool at any time, you can just run the tool again and click on the ”Uninstall” button. I hope you like this tool. This works on both Windows 7 and Windows Vista. You can download it from the following link.

Download Take Ownership Shell Extention

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How to Change the Logon Screen Background in Windows 7

How would you like to change the logon screen background in Windows 7 so as to give your Windows a customized look and feel? With a small tweak it is possible to customize the Windows 7 logon screen and set your own picture/wallpaper as the background. Changing logon screen background in Windows 7 is as simple as changing your desktop wallpaper. Well here is a step by step instruction to customize the logon screen background.

1. The image you need to set as the background should be a .jpg file and it’s size should not exceed 245KB.

2. The image resolution can be anything of your choice. However I prefer 1440 x 900 or 1024 x 768. You can use any of the photo editing software such as Photoshop to compress and set the resolution for your image. Once you’re done, save this image as backgroundDefault.jpg.

3. You will need to copy this image to

C:\Windows\system32\oobe\info\backgrounds

You will need to create that path if it does not already exist on your computer.

4. Now open the Registry Editor (Start -> Run -> Type regedit) and navigate to the following key

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\
LogonUI\Background

If Background does not exist rightclick LogonUI, select New and then Key, and then name it Background. Now locate OEMBackground (listed on the right side). If it does not exist, right-click Background and select New and then DWORD and name it OEMBackground.

5. Double-click on OEMBackground and set the Value Data to 1.

6. Now log-off to see the new logon screen background. If you would like to revert back to the default background, just set the Value Data back to 0.

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