LOS ANGELES--In a technical session on Thursday afternoon, Microsoft provided the clearest public indication that it is planning on getting Windows 7 completed in time to run on PCs that ship for next year's holiday buying season.

In a presentation on its somewhat secretive Velocity program to improve PC quality, Microsoft director Doug Howe showed a slide saying that the Vista Velocity program would continue through next spring as Microsoft worked to improve Vista machines that ship in next year's back-to-school time frame. He went on to say that Microsoft would continue the Velocity effort with Windows 7.

Read more at http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-10084486-75.html

Only for newbie’s. Geeks stay apart.
Just follow these simple steps to know your OS install date and time.

1. Open Command Prompt by typing “CMD” from Run Command

Windows Tools, Help & Guides and Windows Forums is running a competition to find ‘The Best Windows Customization website’. A few months ago, Winvistaclub held a competition to find the best Windows Vista site. This was a great opportunity to bring some good websites out of obscurity; this competition aims to do the same.

More Info: http://mintywhite.com/tech/announcements/best-windows-customization-website-competition-over-100-in-prizes/

From: lyricsplugin.com -

Lyrics Plugin is a piece of software tailored for music fans. To put it simply - it is an add-on to view lyrics in WinAmp or Windows Media Player. No more searching for lyrics. Just start listening to your favourite songs and lyrics will be displayed automatically. Oh, and if lyrics is not found, you can add it yourself :)

Download: www.lyricsplugin.com

“The Disk Management snap-in is an administrative tool for managing hard disks and the volumes or partitions that they contain.”

Following this tutorial, you will be able to assign, change or remove drive letters on a drive, a partition, or a volume.

1. Run diskmgmt.msc
2. Now, Right-click a partition, logical drive, or volume, and then click Change Drive Letter and Paths
3. Do one of the following:
a. To assign a drive letter, click Add, click the drive letter you want to use, and then click OK.
b. To modify a drive letter, click it, click Change, click the drive letter you want to use, and then click OK.
c. To remove a drive letter, click it, and then click Remove. ( This Option also works as a Security Measure. On using this, you won’t be able to view that drive in Win Explorer)

Bonus Tut: Forcing Win to assign a specific Drive letter to an External Hard Drive when attached.

“Every time I attach a drive in Windows, it assigns drive letter G:. No matter how many times, I disconnect or reboot, it always assigns drive letter G.”

Now, in order to get the drive to use a different drive letter, follow the following tutorial.

1. Connect the External Drive
2. Note down the assigned name of this drive (Say it as G:\)
3. Run diskmgmt.msc
4. Now, Right click on G: and click on Change drive letter and paths.
5. Change and assign the new Drive letter.

Now each time you connect an external drive, it will be given the drive you have chosen.

Note Bana

• You must be logged on as an administrator or a member of the Administrators group in order to complete this procedure.
• A computer can use up to 26 drive letters. Drive letters A and B are reserved for floppy disk drives, but you can assign these letters to removable drives if the computer does not have a floppy disk drive.
• You cannot change the drive letter of the system volume or boot volume.

After following this tutorial, you will be able to save a copy of the files, to a specific folder on your computer.

To add a new item(folder) to the Send To menu:

Following is a 100% safe and easy method to block a website in your system:

1. Type the following command in Run:

Windows Vista\XP:
Notepad %windir%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
Windows 2000:
Notepad C:\WINNT\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
Windows 98/ME:
Notepad %windir%\hosts

2. Under "127.0.0.1 localhost" just add the site you want to block

Eg:
127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.0.1 google.com
127.0.0.1 http://www.google.com/
127.0.0.1 quest.com
127.0.0.1 http://www.quest.com/
127.0.0.1 free-ebooks.net
127.0.0.1 http://www.free-ebooks.net/

3. Save the file and exit notepad.
4. Restart the browser and PC(Optional).

Now, you won’t be able to access those websites at all.……

Please Note:

In most cases, if your HOSTs file is too large, the DNS Client(a system service), will slow down the machine. To resolve this issue do the following:

• Run Services Editor(services.msc)
• Navigate to DNS Client and right click it ; Select: Properties,
• Now, Under Start-Up Type.
• Select: Manual, or Disabled (recommended)
• Click Apply/Ok and restart your PC.