How To: Install Windows 7/Vista From USB Drive

This guide works 100% for Vista & Windows 7 unlike most of the guides out there. I have seen many sites/blogs that have “Install Vista from USB guide” but either with incomplete steps or not working guide. I have also seen some guides that don’t’ use proper commands in this guide.

The method is very simple and you can use without any hassles. Needless to say that your motherboard should support USB Boot feature to make use of the bootable USB drive.

Requirements:

• USB Flash Drive (Minimum 4GB)
• Windows 7 or Vista installation files.

1. Plug-in your USB flash drive to USB port and move all the contents from USB drive to a safe location on your system.

2. Open Command Prompt with admin rights. Use any of the below methods to open Command Prompt with admin rights. To do so, go to Start menu > All programs > Accessories, right click on Command Prompt and select Run as administrator.

3. You need to know about the USB drive a little bit. Type in the following commands in the command prompt:

1. First type DISKPART and hit enter to see the below message.
   
2. Next type LIST DISK command and note down the Disk number (ex: Disk 1) of your USB flash drive. In the below screenshot my Flash Drive Disk no is Disk 1.

4. Next type all the below commands one by one. Here I assume that your disk drive no is “Disk 1”.If you have Disk 2 as your USB flash drive then use Disk 2.Refer the above step to confirm it.

So below are the commands you need to type and execute one by one:

• SELECT DISK 1
• CLEAN
• CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
• SELECT PARTITION 1
• ACTIVE
• FORMAT FS=NTFS (Format process may take few minutes)
• ASSIGN
• EXIT

Don’t close the command prompt as we need to execute one more command at the next step. Just minimize it.

5. Next insert your Windows7/Vista DVD into the optical drive and check the drive letter of the DVD drive. In this guide I will assume that your DVD drive letter is “F” and USB drive letter is “G” (open my computer to know about it).

6. Maximize the minimized Command Prompt in the 4th step.Type  the following command now:

F:CD BOOT and hit enter.Where “F” is your DVD drive letter.

CD BOOT and hit enter to see the below message.

7. Type another command given below to update the USB drive with BOOTMGR compatible code.

BOOTSECT.EXE/NT60 G:

Where “G” is your USB drive letter. Once you enter the above command you will see the below message.

8. Copy your Windows 7/Vista DVD contents to the USB flash drive.

9. Your USB drive is ready to boot and install Windows 7/Vista. Only thing you need to change the boot priority at the BIOS to USB from the HDD or CD ROM drive. I won’t explain it as it’s just the matter the changing the boot priority or enabling the USB boot option in the BIOS.

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How To: Stop Advertisement Calls & SMS on Airtel, Vodafone, Idea, Reliance, Tata & BSNL Mobiles

Today it was too much when I received 12 advertisement sms about “Finding Romance in Life ”. One of the most annoying stuff is the promotional calls and hello tune calls you receive daily in your mobile from your service providers. Here is the way to stop these promotional/offers and advertisement sms calls from Airtel and Vodafone.

How to Stop Advertisement Ads SMS & Calls to your Airtel & Vodafone Mobile

Both Airtel and Vodafone users can sms START DND to 1909 (toll free) to stop these unwanted calls.

Stopping Advertisement Ads SMS & Calls using Airtel and Vodafone websites

• Go to Do not Disturb Page to Stop unwanted calls for Vodafone users. Add your name, email and mobile number to this page and stop all unwanted promotional/offer calls.
• Airtel prepaid and postpaid customers Do not Disturb Page
• Airtel landline Customers use this Page. You need to put in your Airtel land line number, account number and email.

How to Stop Advertisement Calls & SMS on Other Mobiles

• BPL Mobile - Do Not call sign up page
• BSNL Do not Call registration - you need to be registered to use this service.
• Idea Cellular - Post paid users need to be registered to use this service. Prepaid users just need to enter their number to stop unwanted calls.
• MTNL Delhi - A bit lengthy registration form
• MTNL Mumbai - this page speaks for itself.
• Reliance Mobile - Do not call me, I will call you
• Spice Karnataka - Sms START DND to 1909 or call 9844098440 and place a request.
• Spice Punjab
• Aircel Chennai
• Aircel Tamilnadu
• Tata Indicom - sms START DND to 1909, or you can use the My account(for registered users) page for the same to stop promotional calls in your tata indicom mobile.

Finally you can do your work in Peace… after stopping Advertisement Calls & SMS.

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How To: Download & Install Windows XP Mode Beta & Virtual PC Beta

If you are not aware of Windows XP Mode, Windows XP Mode is a new feature of Windows 7 that lets you run Windows XP compatible applications in Windows 7.

After the release of Windows 7 RC to public this morning, Microsoft now announced the availability of Windows XP Mode beta and Virtual PC beta for Windows 7 RC users.

Windows Virtual PC is a new optional component that you can use to evaluate and migrate to the Windows 7 operating system while maintaining compatibility with applications that run on older versions of Windows. This component is available as a downloadable update package for Windows 7.

If you run Windows XP and want to maintain compatibility with applications that run on that operating system, Windows Virtual PC provides an easy way for you to do this. You can use Windows XP mode to access a virtualized instance of Windows XP that is ready for you to customize with your own applications.

You can even use Windows XP mode and Windows 7 to run applications seamlessly in Windows 7 when the applications are actually installed in Windows XP. Windows XP mode is available for the 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Enterprise, and Windows 7 Ultimate.

Note: Before downloading these features, make sure that your PC supports Windows XP Mode. Your processor has to have hardware virtualization technology to run Windows XP Mode for Windows 7. If you are not sure, please check our post Which Intel CPUs Support Virtual XP Mode?

How to install & run Windows XP Mode in Windows 7:

1. Download the Virtual PC beta from Microsoft Virtual PC page and also Windows XP Mode beta from here.
2. Install the Windows virtual PC beta by following the simple on screen procedure and reboot your machine to see Virtual Windows XP entry in your Start menu.
3. Now, Double-click on VirtualWindowsXP.msi package to start Virtual Windows XP wizard and click Next to continue.
4. Select the installation destination for the XP mode. By default it will select the right one. So, simply click Next button.
5. You will see the XP mode installation process. It may take few minutes to complete the installation.
6. Once you complete the installation, Virtual Windows XP starts for the first time. Here you will see Virtual Windows XP license agreement. Accept the license agreement and click Next to continue.
7. In the following window, you need to enter a password for the account. You cannot leave the password field blank. In case, if you don’t like to enter the password each time, you can check the option Remember credentials to store the password.
8. Next you need to configure Windows XP for automatic updates.
9. Once you are done with the configuration, Windows XP mode is ready to use.

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How To: Find / Compare Duplicate Files

How many files do you have on your computer? You probably have too many, and you probably have a lot of duplicate files. Finding those duplicate files can be a challenge without the right software. What if you need to compare files? Again, this can be a challenge. Thankfully, a couple of pieces of software are available to tell you about - one for Windows, and one for OS X.

WinMerge is an Open Source differencing and merging tool for Windows. WinMerge can compare both folders and files, presenting differences in a visual text format that is easy to understand and handle. You might need to see the difference between one revision of a document and another one. Using something like WinMerge makes this much easier on you.

Then, if you want to detect duplicate files on your Windows system, you might want to check out this donation-ware called CloneSpy. You might want to scan for duplicates to get rid of ones that you don’t need.

For those of you on OS X, you can check out Araxix. They have two utilities that can help you out with your files. Araxis Merge allows you to compare text, images and binary files. Then you have Araxis Find Duplicate Files, which helps you find, view and manage files that have duplicate content, regardless of name.

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How To: Display All Active Windows Hotkeys

There is not an option in the Microsoft Windows operating system to display the list of active Windows hotkeys. Windows hotkeys in this regard are all global hotkeys that are registered in the operating system either by the operating system itself or a third party application. This can be problematic if you want to assign new global hotkeys but want to make sure that these do not interfere with already existing ones.


Active Hotkeys is a lightweight computer software program for the Windows operating system that can display all active hotkeys of a computer system. It does so by testing all possible combinations. The main interface offers two selectors on the left side. The first is called modifiers and is a selection of Alt, Windows, Ctrl and Shift combinations that can be selected. It is possible to test all combinations or only selected ones. Selecting only the Windows modifier will only check the selected keys in combination with the Windows key but not Alt, Ctrl or Shift.

The second group are key groups. This ranges from alphabetical over numbers to functional keys and punctuation. It is again possible to select some or all of these key groups. A user selecting all modifiers and all key groups would test all possible Windows hotkey combinations on his computer system. A right click on one of the two selection groups displays quick selection possibilities, e.g. checking all items, or only two-key modifiers.
The program will then test the selected combinations and display all results in the main window.

The results list can be sorted by various parameters including modifier, key, active state and others. The program cannot tell which application registered the key as Windows does not provide these information. Active Hotkeys is a portable software for the Windows operating system that has been published at the Donation Coder forum.

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How To: Monitor Computer CPU Temperatures

Humans can easily check for the current weather and temperatures using thermometers and weather websites, in a similar fashion your computer too heats up and you should take care that the CPU temperatures do not go beyond a certain point. Core Temp is a compact, no fuss, small footprint program to monitor CPU temperature. The uniqueness of it is that it shows the temperature of each individual core in each processor in your system! You can see in real time how the CPU temperature varies when you load your CPU. It's also completely motherboard independent. Core Temp also has a logging feature, allowing a user to easily record the temperature of his processor(s) over any period of time, then the data can be easily transferred into an excel datasheet for easy graphing.

This feature is supported on all Intel Core and Core 2 based processors as well as the whole AMD's Athlon64 line of CPUs. For a full list of supported CPUs see the CPU Support List.

Note: AMD Phenom is supported, but it does not report absolute temperature. More on this in How does it work?

Download Core Temp

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