Stu's Archive
Use Problem Steps Recorder to Report Issues in Windows 7 [How To]
Windows 7 comes with a great new tool called Problem Steps Recorder (PSR). Thus far unfortunately, it’s greatly underutilized.
Once PSR is set to record it will monitor your mouse clicks, keyboard strokes and take screenshots at each stage for troubleshooting.
This tool is a god send for anyone trying to establish what problems someone is having if that person cannot explain in ‘technical terms’ what is wrong.
Once the recording has finished, Windows will zip up the file ready to distribute to the legions of online helpers.
Here’s how to use it;
TorrentFetcher Does Exactly What it Says on the Tin
Windows Guides’ Rating | Compatible with |
5 out of 5 |
PROS: This download is freeware, all features of this program are available for all to use freely. Very light on resources. Good & bad torrents easily distinguishable. Automatically move downloaded torrents to a specified output directory (good for bittorrent clients that monitor a specific folder, like uTorrent). CONS: No customisable options. No help documentation. Dull GUI. No system tray context menu. VERDICT: An excellent tool to save you trawling through different torrent websites to find the right torrent, this application uses btjunkie.org as its search engine and indexer. Torrents are easily distinguishable by green/red coloured search results based on positive/negative votes and available seeders. TorrentFetcher is no burden on the system, 5MB RAM and minimal CPU usage is all that is needed. The ability to save torrents to a specified output directory or automatically open with your bittorrent client makes this a very tidy application. Highly recommended and extremely easy to use. PRICE: Free. VERSION REVIEWED: 1.03 DOWNLOAD LINK: TorrentFetcher |
Note: This guide is part of the Windows Guides’ Legal File Sharing Series. If you want to find out more about file sharing, check the topics covered here.
Add Advanced User Account Options to the Control Panel [How To]
As the title implies, this guide is going to show you how to add Advanced Users Account options to the Control Panel.
The little hack will give you access to options otherwise hidden or awkward to get to.
Glass CMD is an Aero-Style Command Prompt for Windows Vista and 7
komalo over at deviantart has shared a tool that will give you an Aero look to your command prompt.
How Reliable is Your Windows 7 PC? Learn How to Find out
There’s no denying it, Windows 7 is a very stable and reliable operating system.
Personally I’ve never experienced a BSOD with Windows 7 (even during Beta testing!) and nearly all crashes or reliability problems occur by 3rd party software.
Nestled away in the Action Centre is the Reliability History (RH) available to view.
The RH will show you Critical Events such as Explorer stopped working; Warnings such as unsuccessful application updates and Informational Events such as successful driver installations.
Not only does the RH show errors and events, it’ll show solutions (if available) to these issues and provide technical details about them so you can help prevent them occurring in the future, thus, improving reliability in Windows 7.
Save themes for sharing in Windows 7 [How To]
A theme is a combination of pictures, colors, and sounds on your computer. It includes a desktop background, a screen saver, a window border color, and a sound scheme. Some themes might also include desktop icons and mouse pointers.
Here’s a quick guide on saving themes for sharing in Windows 7.
Note: You have to apply the theme to your system before you have the context menu option to save for sharing. Also, these themes will not work in Vista or XP.