New to using the command prompt? Check out the Windows Command Prompt Beginner’s Guide

Windows Guides subscriber, Engineer, submitted the following guide and shows us how to change file associations using the command prompt:

Dear colleagues, many of us get problems when your registry gets corrupted or settings get changed and you have mixed up extensions associated with the wrong programs. Well, don’t panic–everything is easy, we are here to raise and offer up solution to make your life easy. I will explain how to disassociate a file that has been wrongly associated with the wrong program:

Read the rest of this entry »

Last week I invited you to share your desktop and have a chance at winning a copy of Start Menu 7 Pro.  Here are the nine contestants. Pick your favorite desktop and vote for whomever you want to win.

You can view the entrants’ submissions and a short description about their desktop setup here.

The voting will close Sunday 11th April 2010, 11:59PM UTC

The winner will be announced shortly afterwards.

Click here to go to the poll and vote for your favourite desktop

Update: You can win one of three signed copies of this book here.

In this article, I interview Joan Lambert, author of Windows 7 Step by Step. At the conclusion of the interview, I share some highlights of her book and invite you to get your own copy.

Interview with Joan

Joan, thank you for taking time to share a little about yourself. Before we talk about your profession and book, I’m sure Windows Guides readers would like to get to know you better; tell us a little about yourself:

Read the rest of this entry »

What Are Jump Lists?

According to Microsoft, a jump list:

take[s] you right to the documents, pictures, songs, or websites you turn to each day

In this guide, I’ll show you how to get the most out of this new Windows 7 feature.

Read the rest of this entry »

Using Windows Explorer, printing a list of files is hard work – in fact, it’s almost impossible. Wouldn’t it be great if we could print out a list of all the files present on any folder or any number of subfolders like when we used to do with MS-DOS? Fortunately there is a fast and efficient utility that fills the gap for Microsoft – YourDir it’s called! That “unsupported-freeware-take-it-as-it-is” software (as described by its creators), is used to print a Windows directory or folder structure and optionally the file listing or even create a Jpeg image file of that structure as shown below:

PROS: The utility is portable (doesn’t need installation), extremely easy to use, can be added at the Windows Explorer commands via the context menu (right click on the main display) and it’s free!!!

Download YourDir

Note: Entries close Tuesday, April 13th, 2010 at 11AM GMT. We have had to close it early as we have reached our limit of 100.

We have previously written a review of LAlarm Laptop Security Software, and James from LAlarm has extremely kindly given us 100 business licenses (worth $5000.00 / about £3234.00) to give out to 100 lucky readers!

How to Enter

All you have to do is:

1. Become a fan of Windows Guides on Facebook
2. Comment on the wall post and answer “Where do you usually use your laptop?”

The first 100 people to comment will be sent, by Facebook mail, a free commercial license for LAlarm (worth $50.00 / about £33). We’d also appreciate it if your comment had a suggestion for the LAlarm Developers.

Good luck!

Please note: If you would like the license to be e-mailed rather than Facebook mailed, then comment, and then send an e-mail to . Please include your name if it’s not obvious on your e-mail address, so that I can confirm that you have commented.