How to Configure Mobility Options in Windows 7

Windows Mobility Center: 

Windows Mobility Center is a component that centralizes important information to mobile computing. Mobility center enables you to access various settings like speaker volume, wireless network connection status, and display brightness in a quick and efficient manner. The Windows Mobility Center feature is available on laptops, notebooks, and tablet PCs by default. It is not available on desktop computers unless you enable it manually. But this feature is not available in the Windows 7 Starter edition. Presentation settings in Windows Mobility Center are not available in Windows 7 Home Premium edition and are only available in Windows 7 Ultimate, Professional, and Enterprise editions. 





Configuring Windows Mobility Center Options:

1. Click Start, and then click Control Panel.
2. Click Windows Mobility Center, and if you cannot locate this link in Control panel, then type Windows Mobility Centerin the search box of control panel. Then click the link Windows Mobility Center.

Windows Mobility Center displays the commonly used settings, such as brightness, volume, battery status, and wireless network status. Different tiles containing these settings are displayed depending on your system, and your laptop manufacturer. If a setting doesn't appear, the possible reason may be that the required hardware, such as a wireless network adapter, or driver is missing or turned off. For example, if the Turn wireless on button is not available, you might have to use the hardware switch on your computer to first turn on the wireless adapter. 

Following are some settings that you find in Mobility Center but all the settings might not be available on all laptops:

• Brightness - You can move the slider to temporarily adjust the brightness of your display. To adjust the display brightness settings for your power plan, you need to click the icon to open Power Options.
• Volume - You can move the slider to adjust the speaker volume of your laptop, or select Mute check box to turn off the volume temporarily.
• Battery Status - This displays how much charge remains on your battery or you can also change or select a power plan from the list for your computer.
• Wireless Network - This displays the status of your wireless network connection or it can be used to turn your wireless network adapter on or off.
• Screen Rotation - This changes the orientation of your PC screen from portrait to landscape, or vice versa.
• External Display - This can be used when you want to connect an external monitor to your laptop, or customize the display settings.
• Sync Center - It displays the status of an in-progress file sync, you can start a new sync, setup a sync partnership, or can also change your settings in Sync Center.
• Presentation Settings - With this setting you can connect your laptop to a projector. Click Turn on to display a presentation from your computer. With this option laptop stays awake, and system notifications are turned off.

Offline Files: 

Using offline files, provides access to files stored in shared network folders even when the network copies are unavailable. This can be done by choosing the network files you want to make available offline, which automatically creates a copy of the network files on your computer. These copies of network files that are stored on your computer are called offline files. Windows will automatically sync your offline files when connected to the network, and open the local copies of the files whenever the network versions are unavailable. In a nutshell, offline files provide access to files on a network share when they are unavailable, provide faster access when you have a slow network connection, and allow you to work with files when away from the network. 

By default, offline files are enabled on the following versions of Windows 7: Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Enterprise, and Windows 7 Ultimate. 

Syncing Offline Files: 

This process is automated, however, below is more information about the process:

• If you are working offline and make changes to offline files from a network folder, Windows will automatically sync any changes you made to the files the next time you connect to that network folder.
• If you are working offline while someone else changes files in a shared network folder, Windows will sync those changes with the offline files on your computer the next time you connect to that network folder. If you have also changed the files since you last connected to the network folder, a sync conflict will occur and Windows will ask you which version you want to keep. You can resolve these and other sync conflicts by using Sync Center.
• If Windows encounters a problem when trying to sync offline files between your computer and a network folder (for example, if the network folder you are trying to sync with is unavailable), a sync error will occur.

You can manually sync files - more on this below. 

Configuring Offline Files: 

To turn offline files off and on, as well as configure other options, follow these steps:

1. Click Start and enter Offline Files into the search box.
2. Click Manage Offline Files and you will see the window shown below. 

1. The following describes the various tabs and options available.
   • General - Turn offline files on and off, open the Sync Center, and view offline files.
   • Disk Usage - Allows you to view and configure the amount of disk space used by offline files, as well as delete them.
   • Encryption - This encrypts your files with EFS. This can help safeguard your files in case your computer is ever lost or stolen.
   • Network - This tab allows allows you to use offline files if a slow connection is discovered and the amount of time between checks. Enabled by default.

A user can make a file available offline by right-clicking the file and then clicking the Always Available Offline option. 

Configuring Offline Files With Group Policy: 

You configure Offline Files through Offline Files policies, located in the Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Network\Offline Files node of a Group Policy Object. There are 28 policies that can be configured here. 

The following tables explains the group policy settings available for offline files. Note: the bolded titles are the ones you will most likely need to know for the exam. 

The following tables explains the group policy settings available for offline files. Note: the bolded titles are the ones you will most likely need to know for the exam. 

Group Policy Setting	Description
Subfolders always available offline	Makes subfolders available offline whenever their parent folder is made available offline.
Administratively assigned offline files	Allows the administrator to specify files and folders available offline to users of the computer. To assign a file or folder, click Show and then click Add. In the Type the name of the item to be added box, type the fully qualified UNC path.
Configure Background Sync	This machine-specific policy is in effect when a network folder is determined to be in “slow-link” mode. For network folders in "slow-link" mode, a sync will be initiated in the background on a regular basis, according to the sync interval and variance settings configured here.
Limit disk space used by offline files	This policy limits the amount of the computer's disk space that can be used to store offline files.
Nondefault server disconnect actions	Determines how computers respond when they are disconnected from particular Offline Files servers. Administrators can enter the name of each server and specify whether users can work offline when disconnected from that server.
Default cache size	Limits percentage of a computer’s disk space that can be used to store automatically cached offline files. Does not affect disk space available for manually cached offline files.
Allow or Disallow use of the Offline Files feature	Determines whether Offline Files is enabled. Offline Files is enabled by default on Windows XP Professional–based client computers and is disabled by default on servers.
Encrypt the Offline Files cache	Determines whether offline files are encrypted in the cache on the local computer. Encrypting the offline cache enhances security on the local computer.
Event logging level	Determines which events the Offline Files feature records in the Event Log.
Exclude files from being cached	This policy enables administrators to exclude certain file types (by file extension) from being made available offline.
Files not cached	Allows you to exclude certain types of files from automatic and manual caching for offline use.
Action on server disconnect	Determines whether network files remain available if the computer is suddenly disconnected from the server hosting the files.
Prevent use of Offline Files folder	Disables the View Files button on the Offline Files tab. As a result, users cannot use the Offline Files folder to view or open copies of network files stored on their computer. Does not prevent users from working offline or from saving local copies of files available offline. Does not prevent them from using other programs, such as Windows Explorer, to view their offline files.
Prohibit user configuration of Offline Files	Prevents users from enabling, disabling, or changing the configuration of Offline Files. Administrators can configure other settings as they require, and then enable this setting to prevent users from making any changes, thus locking in a standard configuration.
Remove Make Available Offline	Prevents users from making network files and folders available offline. Removes the Make Available Offline option from the File menu and from all shortcut menus in Windows Explorer. Does not prevent the system from saving local copies of files that reside on network shares designated for automatic caching.
Prohibit “Make Available Offline” for these files and folders	Allows the administrator to specify files or folders that you do not want available offline. To assign a file or folder, click Show and then click Add. In the Type the name of the item to be added box, type the fully qualified UNC path.
Turn off reminder balloons	Reminder balloons appear above the Offline Files icon in the notification area to notify users when they have lost the connection to a networked file and are working on a local copy of the file. This setting hides or displays reminder balloons.
Enable transparent caching	Transparent Caching optimizes bandwidth consumption on WAN links and provides near local read response times for mobile users and branch office workers that are accessing network files and folders that are not explicitly made available offline. The greatest benefits of Transparent Caching are realized when BranchCache is deployed.
At logoff, delete local copy of user’s offline files	Deletes local copies of the user’s offline files when the user logs off. Caution: Files are not synchronized before they are deleted. Any changes to local files since the last synchronization are lost.
Turn on economical application of administratively assigned offline files	If you enable or do not configure this policy setting, only new files and folders in administratively assigned folders are synchronized at logon. Files and folders that are already available offline are skipped and are synchronized later. If you disable this policy setting, all administratively assigned folders are synchronized at logon.
Reminder balloon frequency	Determines how often reminder balloon updates appear (in minutes).
Initial reminder balloon lifetime	Determines how long the first reminder balloon for a network status change is displayed (in seconds).
Reminder balloon lifetime	Determines how long updated reminder balloons are displayed.
Configure slow link mode	This policy setting enables computers to use the slow-link mode of Offline Files (it is enabled by default for computers running Windows 7. This policy also controls when client computers running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 transition to the slow-link mode.
Configure slow link speed	Configures the threshold value at which the Offline Files component considers a network connection to be slow, to prevent excessive synchronization traffic.
Synchronize all offline files before logging off	Determines whether offline files are fully synchronized when users log off.
Synchronize all offline files when logging on	Determines whether offline files are fully synchronized when users log on.
Synchronize all offline files before a suspend	Determines whether offline files are fully synchronized before a4:17 PM 6/26/2011 computer (such as a portable computer) enters suspend mode.

Resolving Sync Conflicts: 

Sync conflicts can occur when changes are made to a file available offline both on the file server and within the local cache. For example, Bob makes a file called sales.doc available offline. Bob then makes changes to the file on his laptop while at home (offline file). Meanwhile, Joe works on sales.doc at the office. When Bob reconnects his laptop to the network, Sync Center notifies him that there is a sync conflict. 

Windows 7 offers the Sync Center control panel for resolving these conflicts. To do this, click on View Sync Conflicts in the left pane of the Sync Center. This will display a list of files that have experienced a conflict. Click on Resolve and you will be presented with the following options:

• Keep the local version The version of the file that is stored on the local computer will be kept. This version overwrites the changed version of the file on the file share.
• Keep the server version The version of the file that is stored on the file share is kept, and the changes made to the local version are lost.
• Keep both versions The version on the local computer is renamed and then saved to the file share. The version of the file on the file share keeps the original name.

Power Management: 

A power plan (formerly known as a power scheme in earlier versions of Windows) is a collection of hardware and system settings that manages how your computer uses and conserves power. You can use power plans to save energy, maximize system performance, or balance energy conservation with performance. 

Windows 7 includes three default power plans as follows:

• Balanced - Offers full performance when you need it and saves power during periods of inactivity.
• Power saver - Saves power by reducing system performance. This plan can help mobile PC users get the most from a single battery charge.
• High performance - Maximizes system performance and responsiveness. Mobile PC users might notice that their battery doesn’t last as long when using this plan.

To modify one of the existing plans follow the steps below:

1. Click the Start button, then Control Panel, and then System and Security. Next click Power Options.
2. Click Change plan settings next to the plan that you want to change. 

Choose the display and sleep settings that you want to use when your computer is running on battery and when it’s plugged in. 

To change additional power settings, click Change advanced power settings. This will allow you to change settings for specific hardware. 

You can also create a new plan following these steps:

1. Click the Start button, then Control Panel, and then System and Security. Next click Power Options.
2. Click Create a plan in the left pane.
3. Select the plan that is the closest to the type of plan that you want to create. Type a name for the plan and then click Next.
4. Choose the display and sleep settings that you want to use when your computer is running on battery and when it’s plugged in and then click Create.

To further configure your new plan, follow the steps above for modifying an existing plan. 

Sleep and Hibernate: 

Sleep is a power-saving state that allows a computer to quickly resume full-power operation (typically within several seconds) when you want to start working again. Putting your computer into the sleep state is like pausing a DVD player: The computer immediately stops what it’s doing and is ready to start again when you want to resume working. 

Hibernation is a power-saving state designed primarily for laptops. While sleep puts your work and settings in memory and draws a small amount of power, hibernation puts your open documents and programs on your hard disk, and then turns off your computer. Of all the power-saving states in Windows, hibernation uses the least amount of power. On a laptop, use hibernation when you know that you won’t use your laptop for an extended period and won’t have an opportunity to charge the battery during that time. 

Hybrid sleep is designed primarily for desktop computers. Hybrid sleep is a combination of sleep and hibernate—it puts any open documents and programs in memory and on your hard disk, and then puts your computer into a low-power state so that you can quickly resume your work. That way, if a power failure occurs, Windows can restore your work from your hard disk. When hybrid sleep is turned on, putting your computer into sleep automatically puts your computer into hybrid sleep. Hybrid sleep is typically turned on by default. 

These settings can also be configured from the Power Options control panel. 

Exporting Power Plans: 

Powercfg.exe is a command line utility that can perform most of the power configuration tasks covered above. It can also do a couple of things that can't be done through the GUI such as exporting a power plan to be migrated to another computer. To do this, follow these steps:

1. At an elevated command prompt, type powercfg.exe –list. Record the GUID assigned to the plan you wish to export as you will need it later. 

1. Create a directory to save the exported configuration. In this example, we are using C:\power. Change into this directory by typing cd C:\power.
2. Enter the command powercfg.exe –export [filename].pow [GUID], where [filename] is the name of the exported file to be saved and [GUID] is the GUID of the power plan you are trying to export. 

1. In this case, the file power.pow was saved to our C:\power folder. This file can be migrated to another computer and imported using the following command: powercfg.exe -import [path to file]\power.pow.

How to Configure Software Restriction Policies in Windows 7

Software Restriction Policies: 

Software restriction policies can help organizations protect themselves because they provide another layer of defense against viruses, Trojan horses, and other types of malicious software. You can configure the Software Restriction Policies settings in the following location within the Group Policy Management Console: 

Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Software Restriction Policies 




Software restriction policies do not prevent restricted processes that run under the System account. For example, if a malicious program has set up a malicious service that starts under the Local System account, it starts successfully even if there is a software restriction policy configured to restrict it. A flawed software restriction policy implementation can disable necessary applications or allow malicious software to run. 

A policy consists of a default rule that specifies whether programs are allowed to run and exceptions to that rule. The default rule can be set to Unrestricted (the program is allowed to run) or Disallowed (the program is not allowed to run). Setting the default rule to Unrestricted allows an administrator to define exceptions (programs that are not allowed to run). A more secure approach is to set the default rule to Disallowed, and specify only the programs that are known and trusted to run. 

There are two ways to use software restriction policies:

• If an administrator knows all of the programs that should run, then a software restriction policy can be applied to allow only this list of trusted applications.
• If all the applications that users might run are not known, then administrators can disallow undesired applications or file types as needed.

Software Restriction Policies has four rules with which to identify software. The purpose of a rule is to identify one or more software applications, and specify whether or not they are allowed to run. Creating rules largely consists of identifying software that is an exception to the default rule. Each rule can include descriptive text to help communicate why the rule was created. 

A software restriction policy supports the following four ways to identify software:

• Hash: A cryptographic fingerprint of the file.
• Certificate: A software publisher certificate that is used to digitally sign a file.
• Path: The local or universal naming convention (UNC) path of where the file is stored.
• Zone: The Internet zone as specified through Internet Explorer.

Applocker: 

You can configure application restrictions in Windows 7 by using a tool called Applocker. With it you can configure Application Control Policies, which allow you to block the execution of a program by file name or hash calculation. Applocker helps you to allow the applications you want, and block the rest. But AppLocker is present only in the Enterprise and Ultimate editions of Windows 7. Applocker provides the following functionalities:

• Prevent unlicensed software from running in the desktop environment if the software is not on the allowed list
• Prevent vulnerable, unauthorized applications from running in the desktop environment, including malware
• Stop users from running applications that needlessly consume network bandwidth or otherwise affect the enterprise computing environment
• Prevent users from running applications that destabilize their desktop environment and increase help desk support costs
 
• Provide more options for effective desktop configuration management
• Allow users to run approved applications and software updates based upon policies while preserving the requirement that only users with administrative credentials can install or run applications and software updates
• Help to ensure that the desktop environment is in compliance with corporate policies and industry regulations
• AppLocker introduces publisher rules that are based upon application digital signatures. Publisher rules make it possible to build rules that survive application updates by being able to specify attributes such as the version of an application.

To access Applocker and block applications with it, follow these steps:

1. Click Start and type gpedit.msc into the search box.
2. In Local Computer Policy go to Computer Configuration \ Windows Settings \ Security Settings \ Application Control Policies \ AppLocker. Here you can see overall controls for the applications. 

1. In the Configure Rule Enforcement window, click the Configure rule enforcement link.
2. In Applocker properties Window, click the checkbox for Executable Rules, Windows Installer Rules, or Script Rulesdepending on which type of application you are trying to control (in this example, we selected Executable Rules). Click OK. 

1. In the Overview window, click the Executable Rules.
2. Right-click and select Create New Rule. This opens up the Create Executable Rules wizard and you can select not to show the introduction screen at start up for the next time you access it by clicking the checkbox skip this page by default. 

Select Permissions under Action, select Deny. Add the user name for whom you want to block the application. 

In Conditions you can select from Publisher, Path or File hash, whichever you want to block. For example, if you want to block games, for example, select Path. Click Next. 

1. Click Browse Folders and select the Microsoft Games folder. If you wanted to block a specific game(s) only, you would click on Browse Files and select the games in you wanted blocked.
2. On the next screen you can add Exceptions like allowing certain applications. 

1. Add a description to the rule, and click Create and then click Yes.
2. After creating the rule, start Application Identification and set it to automatically, otherwise the rules won’t work. By default this service is not started so you need to enable it.

Both SRP and AppLocker use Group Policy for domain management. However, when both SRP policies and AppLocker policies exist in the same Group Policy object (GPO), AppLocker policies will take precedence over SRP policies. 

Administering AppLocker
Understanding AppLocker Rules and Enforcement Setting Inheritance in Group Policy 

Windows 7 Application Compatibility

Program Compatibility Mode: 

Program compatibility is a mode in Windows that lets you run programs written for earlier versions of Windows. Most programs written for Windows Vista also work in Windows 7, but some older programs might run poorly or not run at all. 

If an older program doesn't run or install correctly, the first, and easiest, thing to try is the Program Compatibility troubleshooter. It can automatically detect and fix common problems that prevent older programs from installing or running correctly. 

Open the Program Compatibility troubleshooter by doing the following:

1. Click the Start button, then Control Panel.
2. In the search box, type troubleshooter, and then click Troubleshooting.
3. Under Programs, click Run programs made for previous versions of Windows. As an alternative to these first 3 steps, you can right click on the program's icon or shortcut and select Troubleshoot Compatibility.
4. If you click on Advanced, you can opt to run as administrator which may find more issues, and you can choose to have Windows automatically fix problems.
5. Click Next and Windows searches for issues.
6. You will be presented with a list of applications. Choose the one you are having problems with and click Next
7. You can now choose to try running the program using Microsoft's changes and see if the problem is solved. If the problem is solved, you can elect to apply the changed. If it does not solve your problem, you may choose troubleshoot program which will begin a troubleshooting wizard.

Don't use the Program Compatibility troubleshooter on older antivirus programs, disk utilities, or other system programs, because using outdated programs of this type might cause data loss or create a security risk. 

Instead of using the wizard above, you can manually set the compatibility mode as follows:

1. Right click on the program's icon or setup file (typically setup.exe) and select Properties.
2. In the window that appears, click the Compatibility tab as shown below.

1. If you want to run the application in a particular operating system mode, click the Run this program in compatibility mode for: checkbox and then select the operating system from the drop-down menu below.
2. On this screen, you can also troubleshoot issues by trying 1 or more of the checkboxes that affect display properties.

Internet Explorer Compatibility: 

Typically when Microsoft releases a new version of IE, some web pages no longer display properly. If Internet Explorer recognizes a webpage that is not compatible, the Compatibility View icon will appear on the Address bar as shown below. 

 

Clicking on this button will switch IE to compatibility view for this page. Clicking the button again, will turn it off. The same goal can be accomplished by clicking on Compatibility View from the tools menu. If the option is grayed out, it means that IE has not detected any compatibility issues with the web page. 

There are a few IE compatibility settings that can be modified by clicking on the Tools menu and selecting Compatibility View Settings. 

Shims: 

As the Windows operating system evolves from version to version—changing to support new technology, incorporate bug fixes, and implement a modification in strategy—changes to the implementation of some functions may affect applications that depend on them. Because of the nature of software, modifying the function again to resolve this compatibility issue could break additional applications or require Windows to remain the same regardless of the improvement that the alternative implementation could offer. We can circumvent this possibility by placing branches directly in the source code for Windows, but doing so presents a long-term challenge for the serviceability and reliability of the Windows operating system. Using the Shim Infrastructure, however, you can target a specific application fix but only for a particular application (and typically, for particular versions of that application), with these fixes housed outside the core Windows functions and maintained separately. 

Deploying a custom shim database to users requires the following two actions:

• Placing the custom shim database (*.sdb file) in a location to which the user’s computer has access (either locally or on the network).
• Calling the sdbinst.exe command-line utility to install the custom shim database locally.

Custom Shim Database Deployment 

How to Mount ISO files in Windows 7 for dummies

Why you should care about ISO files and how to mount them in Windows 7 using freely available tools.

Introduction

As a Windows Admin, you must know how to work with ISO files and how to gain access to them. In this article, I will cover why you should care about ISO files and how to mount them in Windows 7 using freely available tools. Want to install any major software application, operating system, or access any virtual CD/DVD disk? If so, you need to know what an ISO file is and how to access it.

What is an ISO File and why do I need to access it?

An ISO file is a disk image file format defined by the International Standards Organization (ISO). Thus, the file format is named after the organization that created it. Likely, any time that a CD or DVD image is stored on a hard drive (instead of an optical disk), it is stored as an "ISO file". These files end in the extension of ".iso".

For example, if you download Windows 7, Windows 2008 R2, or Microsoft Office, all of those will be in the .ISO file format. Also, desktop and server virtualization software is able to mount these .ISO files in the virtual DVD drive of the virtual machine. If you are using VMware Workstation or Microsoft Virtual PC, both of these mount .ISO files to install the operating system or applications. Still, there are times when you just need a single file out of an ISO image. Or, there are times when you want to mount an ISO image on your local computer (without a virtualization solution) to install an application.

In Windows 7, if you double-click on an .ISO file, you will be prompted to burn it to a CD/DVD disk, like this:

Figure 1

Besides the built-in Windows 7 software, 3rd party CD/DVD burning/authoring applications will all burn these images to a CD or DVD and create physical media for you. Sure, this is no problem. However, Windows cannot show you what is in that file and you cannot retrieve files out of that .ISO file. And, while those CD/DVD authoring tools will burn the image to an optical disk, they would not allow you to retrieve files out of the .ISO file. Thus, all you could do is to burn the optical disk, stick it in your drive, then explore it to get a file out of it.

What you need is an application to mount .ISO files on your local computer and you should not have to pay for it.

(My personal opinion is that this application should be included in Windows just like ZIP/UNZIP file archives are today but we will save that for another article)

Free Tools you can download to mount ISO files

Fortunately, there are a number of free tools out there to mount .ISO files in Windows. However, not all of them are compatible with Windows 7 so BE CAREFUL. In fact, I have even heard that if you perform an upgrade with some of those tools installed, they would not work after the upgrade and an upgrade for the tool would not install. So, make sure that the tool you are using with Windows 7 is Windows 7 compatible.

I have always relied on one particular tool for mounting .ISO images and that is Daemon Tools (which I will cover in the next section). In doing research for this article, I have found that there are a number of other ISO tools that are Windows 7 compatible. One of the applications I like that acts like a compression tool (like a ZIP program) and doesn't mount ISO files as virtual disks is the free and open-source 7-Zip. I tried it on Windows 7 and it works fine:

Figure 2

Here is a list of some other ISO mounting applications that say that they are Windows 7 compatible:

• Magic ISO
• Virtual CloneDrive
• PowerISO (can read ISOs for free but free version has limitations on creating and editing ISO files)

Finally, keep in mind that the "Microsoft Virtual CD-ROM" tool you might find on the web is not compatible with Vista or Windows 7.

How to Install the Free Daemon Tools Lite in Windows 7

As I said above, my favorite ISO tool is "Daemon Tools" and it has been for a long time. Today, the version with the feature-set I am used to using is called the "Lite" version and there is a commercial version with more features. Still, even the Lite version allows you to emulate 4 CD, DVD-ROM, HD-DVD, or Blu-Ray drives. With this, you can mount ISO images and access the files inside. Daemon Tools also allows you to create ISO images and even create passwords on those ISO image files.

You may find on the web that "daemon tools is not compatible with Windows 7" but that is not true if you use version 4.35.5 or later.

Daemon Tools Lite works by installing software (reboot required) that allows you to mount ISO files as a drive letter. From there, you can get started mounting ISO files or creating ISO files using a daemon-tools tool that will appear in your taskbar.

Installing Daemon Tools Lite is easy. Download the 8MB file from here (make sure that you download it from that site on the web, not some site who copied it and posted an old version on their site).

I ran the installer and took the default of English as the language.

Figure 3

I clicked Next and then accepted the license agreement. From here, I chose to install the Free Version instead of the paid license.

You can choose to install whatever components you choose (the minimal required components will do the job) but I chose to install the start menu shortcuts, the Windows sidebar gadget, and the integration with Windows Explorer.

Figure 4

I opted not to change my browsers start page and the installation started. I had to accept the security warning on the sidebar gadget.

When done, I rebooted my PC.

After reboot, I had my new Windows 7 desktop gadget and I could run daemon-tools from the start menu (I could have used the desktop gadget but I am just used to running daemon tools from the start menu).

Figure 5

Figure 7

I specified the path to my ISO file from there and, the ISO file was mounted as virtual CD/DVD drive "drive E:".

From here, I could go into My Computer, to Drive E:, and browse this DVD image.

Figure 8

By the way, Daemon Tools Lite supports a lot more image types than just ISO. As you see in Figure 9, below.

Figure 9

Summary

Being able to mount ISO images is a critical skill for any Windows Admin. Surprisingly, the Windows OS does nothing to help you do this. Fortunately, there are a number of free tools available that make this easy with daemon-tools Lite being one of my favorites. Plus, I really like that it is Windows 7 compatible and the new desktop gadget is a great new feature!

Windows-7-User-Interface

What you need to know about the new features in Windows 7’s user interface.

Introduction

Windows 7 is finally upon us, and with it comes Microsoft’s latest user interface. While this interface is designed to boost productivity, it may initially result in increased helpdesk calls. This article teaches you what you need to know about these new features.

Those of you who are familiar with the books and articles that I have written know that I normally like to focus on topics related to enterprise networking. In this article though, I want to take a break from the norm and talk about some of the new features in the Windows 7 user interface. The reason why I am doing this is because many of the organizations that chose not to upgrade from Windows XP to Vista are expected to upgrade to Windows 7 relatively soon. The Windows 7 user interface is different enough from the Windows XP interface that your help desk is bound to get calls from some confused users. That being the case, I wanted to give you a crash course in some of the new user interface features.

Aero Snap

The Aero Snap feature is a welcome addition for anyone who typically works with multiple windows at the same time, but who is not running a multiple monitor configuration. The basic idea behind this feature is that it makes it easy for you to divide your screen in half so that you can view one window on one side of the screen and another window on the other side of the screen. Yes, you can do that with both Windows XP and with Vista, but not quite as easily.

In previous versions of Windows, if you wanted to look at multiple windows simultaneously, you had to drag the windows into position, and then manually resize them. It was tough to get two windows to be exactly the same size.

In Windows 7 the Aero Snap feature does all of the work for you. All you have to do is to grab a window and then drag it to either the left or the right side of the screen. Once your mouse nears the edge of the screen, you will notice that the Windows desktop darkens. This is a signal that Aero Snap has engaged. If you let go of your mouse button, the color of your desktop will return, and the window will snap to either the left or the right side of the screen and size itself to occupy exactly half of the desktop. If you look at Figure A, you can see an example of two windows that I have put into position using Aero Snap.

Figure A: Aero Snap allows you to automatically size windows to take up exactly half of the screen

Aero Snap allows you to do more than just splitting the screen though. If you drag a window to the top of the screen, the window will maximize automatically. Likewise, dragging a window to the bottom of the screen will cause the window to minimize.

Aero Shake

One of my favorite new desktop features is something called Aero Shake. The reason why I like this feature so much is because it helps you to cut through the desktop clutter. The computer that I do all of my writing on has three monitors, but I still tend to get bogged down with too many open windows. For example, right now I’ve got ten windows open, and that is actually less than normal for me.

Aero shake is designed to quickly minimize all of the windows except for the one that you are currently using. To use this feature, simply grab an application with your mouse and shake the application a few times. When you do, all of the other applications will minimize. If you shake the application again, all of your windows will go back to their previous positions.

I am betting that this feature is going to confuse more than a few users who accidentally shake an application only to have their other windows disappear.

Aero Peek

Another handy feature is something called Aero Peek. In Vista, if you held your mouse pointer over an open application on the task bar you were treated to a live preview of the application. This worked really well unless you had multiple instances of the application open, in which case the previews were stacked. This meant that if you had ten browser windows open, you would only see a preview of one of them.

Aero Peek does things a bit differently. If you have multiple instances of an application open, then hovering your mouse over the listing for the application on the task bar will cause Windows to display a thumbnail preview of each of the instances. Furthermore, you can click on a preview to go directly to that window. This feature is going to be a huge time saver for people like me who always have an excessive number of windows open.

The Task bar

The taskbar has also changed in Windows 7. If you look at Figure B, you will notice that the Windows 7 taskbar is a little bit thicker than the one that Vista uses. You will also notice that it includes icons for Internet Explorer, Windows Explorer, and Windows Media Player. These applications are said to be pinned to the task bar.

Figure B: Windows 7 allows you to pin applications to the task bar

Pinning an application to the task bar allows you to launch the application without having to use the Start menu or a desktop shortcut. If you want to pin an application to the task bar, simply drag the application from the Start menu to the task bar. To unpin the application, right click on its task bar icon, and choose the Unpin This Program From Taskbar option from the shortcut menu.

Jump list

The last feature that I want to tell you about is something called jump lists. In Windows Vista, the Start menu contained a Recent Items container that you could use to access all of your recently used documents. The problem with this container is that it did not care which application the files were associated with. You might have MP3 files right alongside PDF files.

Jump lists make recent item lists application aware. Hovering over any application on the Start menu or on the task bar will reveal a list of documents that were recently opened with that application. In the case of Internet Explorer, the jump list contains a list of recently viewed Web pages. This means that it is possible to just hover over the icon for Internet Explorer on the task bar and pick a recently viewed Web page, and go to that page without having to open Internet Explorer first. This feature saves you from having to fumble with your list of recently viewed Web pages once Internet Explorer has been opened.

Conclusion

As you can see, Windows 7 user interface is quite a bit different from the interfaces used by Windows XP and Vista. My personal opinion is that Microsoft has done a really good job creating an interface that will make using Windows more efficient after the initial learning curve. Having said that, I also think that a few of the features (Aero Shake and Aero Snap specifically) may end up confusing some users who initiate them accidentally, which may lead to help desk calls.