I am Microsoftie 4 ever (18+ years) working in Windows Services and Content team in the UK, my blog is mainly focused on the Windows family of products and trying to provide help pointers and resources for customers on our products.
Just read this useful command line utility built into Windows 7 for viewing a report about how your laptop is using energy.
Swiss IT Professional and TechNet Blog : Windows 7 – Power Management Reports
“Wondering why your battery life of your laptop is not as good as the manufacturers claim? powercfg -ENERGY You need to run this command from the command prompt with administrator privileges (Run as Administrator). This command will perform a 60 second analysis of the computer’s energy consumption and provide you with a report: (by default in the system32 folder): C:\Windows\system32\energy-report.html It lists the devices and drivers that hamper Sleep, or hinder that the full power saving features of your machine can not be utilized. It also lists if your hardware is capable of S1, S2, S3 or S4 sleep modes”
“Wondering why your battery life of your laptop is not as good as the manufacturers claim?
powercfg -ENERGY
You need to run this command from the command prompt with administrator privileges (Run as Administrator). This command will perform a 60 second analysis of the computer’s energy consumption and provide you with a report: (by default in the system32 folder): C:\Windows\system32\energy-report.html
It lists the devices and drivers that hamper Sleep, or hinder that the full power saving features of your machine can not be utilized.
It also lists if your hardware is capable of S1, S2, S3 or S4 sleep modes”
Looks like I have some things that I can look at to improve my battery life.
Update 28/05/2010 - some additional info and screenshots at http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/window-on-windows/
Rob
Do you think your PC has a virus? the download the Microsoft Safety Scanner The Microsoft Safety Scanner is a free downloadable security tool that provides on-demand scanning and helps remove viruses, spyware, and other malicious software. It works with your existing antivirus software. Note: The Microsoft Safety Scanner expires 10 days after being downloaded. To rerun a scan with the latest anti-malware definitions, download and run the Microsoft Safety Scanner again. The Microsoft Safety Scanner is not a replacement for using an antivirus software program that provides ongoing protection. For real-time protection that helps to guard your home or small business PCs against viruses, spyware, and other malicious software, download Microsoft Security Essentials.
Do you think your PC has a virus? the download the Microsoft Safety Scanner
The Microsoft Safety Scanner is a free downloadable security tool that provides on-demand scanning and helps remove viruses, spyware, and other malicious software. It works with your existing antivirus software.
Note: The Microsoft Safety Scanner expires 10 days after being downloaded. To rerun a scan with the latest anti-malware definitions, download and run the Microsoft Safety Scanner again.
The Microsoft Safety Scanner is not a replacement for using an antivirus software program that provides ongoing protection.
For real-time protection that helps to guard your home or small business PCs against viruses, spyware, and other malicious software, download Microsoft Security Essentials.
Read more about Understanding security and safe computing
Updated 13/03/2012 because the official Windows team blog has a much better comprehensive list
Download and learn more about Windows 8 Consumer Preview
Beautiful Birds theme
“Let the grace and gorgeous plumage of swans, flamingoes, peacocks, and other exotic birds brighten your day with this free theme for Windows 7. “
Download beautiful birds theme for Windows 7
Echoes of the Past theme
“Time-travel back to the Age of Steam with a treasure-trove of antique images bathed in a golden Victorian light. A free theme for Windows 7.”
Download Echoes of the Past theme for Windows 7
If you ever wondered where the wonderful pictures where taken for the UK Windows 7 Theme pack?
Oak Tree by Ullswater Lake in the Lake District
http://www.ullswater.co.uk/
With this Microsoft Fixit
Read the full KB article (KB959894) with manual fixit instructions.
Error message: “The necessary service "Automatic Updates" (WUAUSERV) is not started or Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) is disabled. Error 0x8DDD0018” or Error codes 0x80244019 or 0x80070422 when attempting to install updates.
In Windows Live Mail / Hotmail distribution lists (a group of email addresses that can be emailed at the same time) are setup and managed using Categories and once you know that they are very simple to create and manage, here is how:
Windows Live Mail
If you are using Hotmail using a browser then it is a very similar process but differs a little
2. To create a new category choose New category from the Categories menu
Learn more about Windows Live and Hotmail
If you want to make your won own Windows 7 theme pack it is really easy just check out this video tutorial
I got this tip from a colleague (David Weeks) and I thought I would share with you all on how to see your Windows Live SkyDrive storage in Windows Explorer, something I have tried and failed to do in the past.
1. Visit SkyDrive (http://www.skydrive.com) and login with your Live ID.
2. If you have not used SkyDrive before click on the My Documents folder.
3. Now look at the address bar. You should find your unique ID there in the URL (http://cid-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.skydrive.live.com - see the screenshot below; it’s in the greyed out area and is unique to you). Copy this ID to the clipboard, as we’ll need it shortly. Use the back button in IE if you don’t see the ID right away.
4. Now, open your Computer in Windows Explorer (either go Start menu / Computer, or just press WindowsKey +E to go straight there), and you’ll see “Map Network Drive” in the menu. Click that.
5. In the new dialog box that choose your drive letter using the dropdown. I will be choosing S: for mine (Sky Drive). Now in the Folder field (just below the Drive dropdown) type, \\docs.live.net@SSL\your_skydrive_id\^2Documents (replacing “your_skydrive_id” with the ID you copied in Step 1). Press Finish and wait a little while, and you’ll get a logon box… enter your Windows Live ID and press OK. You won’t see all folders in your SkyDrive storage – you could try changing ^2Documents to the name of another folder name which you can see in the web view, if you want to upload to that too.
Hint: it’s also possible to browse straight to your SkyDrive storage without having to map a drive – if you simply paste \\docs.live.net@SSL\your_skydrive_id\^2Documents into the dialog at Start / Run (or WindowsKey+R), you can jump straight to the folder.
6. You’ll now have mapped your Network Drive, and might notice that you have your Unique ID included in the name. So for security, just right mouse click on the name within Windows Explorer, choose rename from the drop down and call it anything you want.
Now that your Skydrive account is configured, you can copy all the documents you wish to upload to your Skydrive account to this newly created network drive. You can also create folders here, too, all of which will be Private by default. To change their sharing option log in to your Windows Live account using your browser and change it from there.
Of course, there are other ways to put stuff on SkyDrive. Windows Live Mesh can sync up to 5Gb of data from elsewhere, it is possible to drag & drop multiple files into the browser view, and it’s possible to save straight from within an Office 2010 app (eg in Word, go to Save & Send on the File menu, and choose Save to Web – see here).
All of which proves, there are many ways to do the same thing. Choose whatever one works for you best…
Found this little tip out after some tweets with @jas who was seeing IE9 beta crash at start up with a message “Internet Explorer has stopped working”.
either type the following into the run box iexplore.exe -extoff
or click all programs in the start menu and then--> accessories-->system tools-->internet explorer (no addons)
I think his problem was to do with conduit toolbar
Hope this tip is useful