How To Restore Windows 7 from a System Image.......

If a major disaster occurs and you find you’re no longer able to boot into Windows 7, you may need to do a recovery. Today we take a look at restoring your Windows 7 machine using a System Repair Disc and a backed up system image.
Note: This article assumes you have already created a System Repair Disc and have created a system image in Windows 7.
If you can’t boot into Windows because of a hard drive failure or corrupt OS, you might want to restore your system using the most recent image versus a clean install. In this scenario we are assuming that we’ve exhausted every other option, and the only way to save our system is to restore it from an image.
Boot from System Repair Disc
First we need to boot from the System Repair Disc. Pop it in your CD drive and if the BIOS is already set to boot from CD-ROM first, then you will see the following screen. If you don’t see the Press any key to boot from CD or DVD message, then you’ll need to hit the correct key when booting to pull up the boot options screen and choose your CD / DVD Drive. Usually it’s F12 but each system varies, for instance on my IBM Thinkpad it’s a separate Access IBM button.

While the System Repair Disc starts up you will see the message Windows is loading files…

After that the System Recovery Options screen comes up. Here you want to choose the correct keyboard input and click Next.

System Recovery searches for the Windows installation(s) you have on the hard drive.

Assuming we’ve already tried all of the other recovery tools, we want to select Restore your computer using a system image you created earlier and click Next.

At this screen you can see that it found the last system image which is saved on an external hard drive. If you want to use an older system image, click Select a system image then browse through older images until you find the correct one. Because we want everything to be as close to how it was before it crashed, we select Use the latest available system image (recommended) then click Next.

In the next screen just click on Next…there are no other partitions in this instance so we don’t need to worry about excluding disks.

Finally you’re given an quick overview of the selected image and if everything looks right, click Finish.

Click Yes to the warning message that comes up making sure you want to restore the computer with the selected image.

The restore process will begin. It might take a few hours to restore everything depending on the size of the image and how much data there is. Provided there are no errors and the process completes successfully, your system will restart and the system should be restored.

Conclusion
There are a few things to keep in mind when you restore using a system image. An image is an exact copy the hard drive when it was created, so if your last backup was 3 months ago…that will be the drive you’re getting back. All of your programs, system settings, and files are replaced to how they were on the latest system image. It doesn’t allow you to choose individual items to restore, it’s an all or nothing process. This is why it’s a good idea to have your important documents and files saved to a separate drive or network location. The system image will restore your programs, settings, and files as they were when the image was created, but everything else from that point on will be gone. Depending on the date of the system image, allow enough time to run Windows Update, update drivers, patch other software, and tweak everything as necessary. The option to create a system image is available in all versions of Windows 7, and is a great insurance policy to have in case disaster strikes.

How To Manage Partitions on Windows Without Downloading Any Other Software...............

There are tons of third-party partition managers for Windows, but did you know that Windows includes its own partition manager? Microsoft did a good job of hiding the built-in partition manager, but it’s there.
You can use the Disk Management tool to resize, create, delete and format partitions and change their drive letters — all without downloading or paying for any other software.

Accessing Disk Management

The quickest way to launch the Disk Management tool is by typing “Partition” into the search box in the Control Panel or Start menu. Just click the “Create and Format Hard Disk Partitions” option that comes up.

You’ll see a window divided into two panes. The top pane shows you a list of your partitions, referred to as volumes, and the bottom one shows you a graphical representation of your storage devices.

Resizing a Partition

Right-click a partition in either pane and select Extend Volume or Shrink Volume to resize it. Other options for manipulating partitions are also located in the right-click menu.

Extending and shrinking have some basic limitations. You can only shrink a partition if it has enough free space, and you can only extend a partition if it has unallocated space to the right of it on the same drive. You’ll see empty, unallocated space to the right of a partition if you can extend it. Windows can’t extend a basic partition to its left; you’ll need third-party software for that.

We’ve covered resizing partitions in more detail in the past.

Creating a Partition

Once you’ve shrunk a partition, you can use the free space to create another one. Just right-click inside the unallocated space and select New Simple Volume

You’ll see the New Simple Volume wizard, which guides you through setting a size for the partition, assigning a drive letter and formatting it with a file system.

Deleting a Partition

You can also right-click a partition and select Delete Volume to delete a partition and free up space. This option deletes every single file on the partition; be careful when using it!

Changing Drive Letters

Right-click a partition and select Change Drive Letter and Paths to change its drive letter. Click the Change button to select a new drive letter.

You can use this dialog to assign a permanent drive letter to a removable drive or remove a partition’s drive letter and hide it.

Formatting a Partition

Use the Format option in a partition’s right-click menu to format it with a new file system and erase its contents. You’ll lose all files on the partition if you do this!

You can also format partitions by right-clicking them in Windows Explorer and selecting the Format option.

The Disk Management tool isn’t as flashy as many third-party partition managers — in fact, it still looks like something from Windows 2000 — but it gets the job done. Many other partition managers include bootable discs; try the free GParted Live CD if you’re looking for that.

How to Get Nero’s Best Features with Free Alternatives .........

Tired of waiting for your bloated OEM copy of Nero to open and ask you to upgrade to the latest version just to burn a CD? You can get almost all of Nero’s features with free alternatives, and here’s how.
There are numerous programs available for burning media of all types to CDs and DVDs, and many tools you need are built right into Windows—for instance, Windows 7 can burn ISO files to a disk directly or help you create a fairly stylish DVD video quickly and easily.  Keep reading for the rest.

Burn Individual Files to a Disk

It’s very easy to just burn some documents, pictures, and other files to a disk with ImgBurn. Just select “Write Files/Folders to Disk” on the front screen, then drag the files you need to the source box or browse to find them.  You can then burn your files directly to a disk, or even save it as an ISO file to burn to disk later.

You can also burn files to a disk directly from Windows Explorer, but it doesn’t always work the best so we recommend using ImgBurn whenever you can.

Rip and Burn a Disk ISO

As you might expect from a program named ImgBurn, you can easily rip an image of a disk and then burn image files to a new disk with ImgBurn.  You can create an image of your favorite CDs so you’ll be sure to never lose them, or quickly burn that Ubuntu image you just downloaded to a disk.

Alternately, as we mentioned before, you can burn an ISO file to disk in Windows 7 without any extra tools.  Just double-click on the file and you’ll see a basic disk burning tool.  This is a simple way to burn a Windows or Ubuntu image to disk without installing an extra program.

Audio CDs

ImgBurn only burns files directly to disks, which works great for making a CD of MP3 songs but won’t work good if you need a traditional audio CD for your car stereo.  However, for most purposes, Windows Media Player works great for burning audio CDs.  It’s preinstalled in all modern versions of Windows (assuming you’re not using an N edition from Europe), and gets the job done.  There’s not many options, but you can add volume leveling to your tracks.

If you aren’t a Windows Media Player user, you can use iTunes and other popular music apps to burn Audio CDs for free, too.

Video DVDs

If you’re creating movies longer than YouTube will let you upload, or want to share a video with Grandma on a real disk, you’ll need to burn it as a Video DVD.  Most geeks would prefer to get the video files on a disk, but the menus do make your video easier to use on a TV.  Windows DVD Maker, preinstalled in Windows Vista and 7, works great for this. 

You can’t tweak every aspect of the menus, but actually the premade themes often look nicer than the included ones in Nero.  Plus, it’s the video that really counts, right?

Disk Labels

Want to make your disks look professional?  You don’t have to settle for labeling your disks with a Sharpie market.  Microsoft Office’s online templates include dozens of nice CD/DVD label and jewel case templates.  You could even open these in Office Web Apps or a competing Office suite if you don’t have Office.

You’ll probably note that Microsoft Word isn’t free, but we figured that so many people have it already, that it’s free for most people.

Extra Multimedia Features

Current versions of Nero also include a variety of other features, including file searching and home theatre tools.  Windows 7 already includes great options for these: the built in Windows Search is fast and relatively thorough, and Media Center is a best in class home theatre solution. 

You can easily record TV and play back the DVDs you’ve burned without leaving your TV.  Plus, if you need to edit videos, Windows Live Movie Maker is a great tool to make photo slideshows and videos.  All of these are free tools that you likely already have on your PC, so you’ll have no reason to need Nero.

But Wait … Do You Really Still Need Disks?

Netbooks have been selling great for several years now, and the latest Macbook Air has been getting rave reviews. Only thing is, neither these nor an increasing number of computer include a CD/DVD drive. You can always use an external drive, but likely you can get by without even needing to use disks today. 
Services like Dropbox make it easy to send and share files with anyone, and most of us upload videos and pictures to YouTube, Flickr, and Facebook already.  You can even install Windows 7 and Ubuntu from a flash drive, bypassing disks for installing your OS.
For the times you really need a disk, the tools above are great, but often it’s even easier and cheaper to use cloud services instead.  In fact, aside from watching DVD movies, we rarely use disks in our computers anymore.  Do you still use CDs or DVDs regularly?  Do you have another favorite free disk burning tool?  Let us know in the comments below!
Download ImgBurn

How To Embed Files Inside Other Files Using Steganography in Windows.....

Do you have documents or pictures that you don’t want anyone else to find? Read on to find out how you can embed your important files inside of other files so that nobody will ever know that they existed, except you of course.

Hiding Data

Head over to the EmbeddedSW website and grab yourself a copy of OpenPuff.

Once it has downloaded, extract and launch it, then hit the hide button.

The first thing you will need to do is enter 3 unique passwords.

Now you can select the file you want to hide.

Finally you will need to add one or more Carriers, these are the files that you want to hide your file inside of.

Then go ahead and click the Hide Data button, you will be prompted for where you would like to save the new file.

Extracting Your Files

Once your files are hidden, you will probably want to get them back at some point, to do this, again launch OpenPuff this time click unhide.

Then put in the passwords you used to hide the file.

Now you will need to specify your Carrier, if you used more than one make sure that you add all of them in the correct order.

Then click the unhide button and select a location to save your hidden file.

Once completed you will be given a report which will tell you the name of the file that was hidden.

That’s all there is to it.

How to Forward Local Drives to Remote Machines Using Remote Desktop.....

Have you ever had a file on a flash drive that you needed to use on a machine that is situated in another building or even halfway across the world? You can do that by plugging it into your local machine and then forwarding the drive through your remote session to that machine. Here’s how to do it.
Press the Windows Key and R to bring up a run box, and type mstsc to launch the Remote Desktop Connection Dialog, or you can just search for Remote Desktop in the Start Menu.

Click on the arrow next to options to see some of the more advanced options.

Once the interface has extended, switch to the Local Resources tab.

Now click on the more button, to see a more extensive list of things that you can forward to the remote machine.

Once you have clicked  and expanded the drives, you will see a list of all the devices in your PC, you can forward anything from your CD/DVD drive to a USB drive that you have connected. Check the box next to any of the drive that you want to forward.

Now you can connect to the remote machine as you normally would.

Now if you open explorer on the remote machine you will see you drive, it will appear as if it has been mapped.

How To Enable Macbook-Style Two Finger Scrolling on Windows Laptops ......

After using my new Macbook Air for the last week, it’s almost painful to switch back to my PC laptop—using two finger scrolling has become second nature. Here’s how to get the same feature on (most) Windows laptops.
This technique only works for laptops using Synaptics trackpads—if your laptop is using an Alps or something else, you’re probably out of luck, since we’ve not been able to find a solution for those.

How to Tell What Type of Trackpad You Have

Figuring out what type of hardware you’re using is extremely simple—just type mouse into the Start Menu search box, or head into the Mouse section of Control Panel. Once you’re there, head to the Hardware tab, and you’ll be able to see what type of pointing device you’re using.

You can probably also see an icon in your system tray for the pointing device you’re using—thankfully that’s easy enough to remove.

Enable Two-Finger Scrolling with Synaptics Drivers

Your laptop probably has the default drivers from Microsoft or the drivers for your laptop vendor—for instance, if you’ve got a Dell laptop like the one I’m typing on, it has Dell-branded versions of the Synaptics drivers, which may not support two-finger scrolling. It’s worth taking a trip into the Mouse settings to see if there’s an option, but otherwise you’ll need a different solution.
The actual Synaptics drivers from their site support two-finger scrolling gestures natively, so what you can do is simply install those instead of the drivers from your laptop’s manufacturer. Head to the the driver downloads page, install them, and reboot your PC.
Now when you head into the Mouse Properties window in Control Panel, you’ll see a Device Settings tab, where you can click the Settings button to get into the advanced settings page.

Head to Scrolling –> Two-Finger Scrolling on the left-hand side, where you can enable vertical or horizontal scrolling with two fingers—you’ll probably want to enable the EdgeMotion setting as well, which keeps scrolling when your fingers hit the edge of your touchpad.

You’ll probably want to also check out the Pointing –> Sensitivity settings and do some tweaking there—if you’ve got the PalmCheck feature or the Touch Sensitivity cranked up too far, the scrolling won’t work well.

It’ll require some testing, but you should have two-finger scrolling.
You’ll probably also notice that the drivers enable Pinch Zooming, and they even let you do three-finger gestures. Sadly they work better in theory than in practice, but you’re encourage to experiment to see if you like them.

Enable Two-Finger Scrolling with a Freeware Add-on

If you’d rather not mess with your drivers, there’s another add-on that works, though it only works for Synaptics touchpads. After doing a lot of testing, we’ve actually found that this is a preferable solution that works really well.
You’ll need to download TwoFingerScroll, extract the zip file somewhere safe that won’t be deleted by accident, and then just launch the utility. Once you’ve done that, you’ll see a new icon in your tray, where you can quickly enable or disable the scrolling, and more importantly, head into the Settings.

The Settings panel’s Scrolling tab has a couple of options that you’ll want to tweak—set Scroll type to Linear, and Scroll mode to Smart. This will enable significantly better scrolling than the Compatible mode.

If you click the Help link you’ll see a popup dialog that explains how each one works—the important one is Smart mode, which actually does smooth scrolling mode most of the time, until you hold down Shift+Ctrl+Alt while scrolling, and then it switches into Compatible mode for that single application.
This is a great way to get the most of both worlds—if the regular mode doesn’t work, like for older applications, you can use the hotkey sequence to enable compatible mode, which should work.

You’ll probably want to head to the General tab and make sure that it’s also set to start up with Windows.

We tested both of these techniques on a Dell Studio 1555 laptop, with great luck—the TwoFingerScroll utility worked a lot better than the Synaptics driver method, but your mileage may vary, or it might not work for you at all.