Archive for Free

Install Windows 7 from a flash drive – Free Tool

Posted by Steve Wiseman on March 12, 2010 with 0 Comments

Last year I wrote an article about how to install Windows 7 from a USB flash drive. This can come in handy when you want to reload a netbook that has no built in CD / DVD Drive

My friend Matt showed me an easier way to do this. If you have your install disk in ISO format, you can use a free tool from Microsoft. It formats, prepares, and copies the install files to your USB drive – It works for Windows 7 and 2008 install disks.

You can download it from here:

Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool

It will run on XP, 2003, Vista, Windows 7 and 2008. Simply download and install.

Pick your install ISO file:

Pick ISO

Set the destination to USB Device

Pick ISO

Find the USB drive you want to write it to:

Pick ISO

And bam…it builds a bootable Windows 7 install disk (Works for 2008 too)

Pick ISO

Much easier than a bunch of commands at the prompt. Four simple steps and you have a bootable install disk.

Filed Under: Free, ISO, Microsoft, Tips, Tools, Utility, Windows, Windows 2008, Windows 2008 R2, Windows 7

Free file sync tool from Microsoft

Posted by Steve Wiseman on July 22, 2009 with 2 Comments

I had lunch last week with my good friend Brett. We were talking about synchronizing, and backing up files. I went on a long rant about how much I liked robocopy.

After I finished talking about robocopy, he told me about SyncToy from Microsoft. SyncToy? I had never heard of it.

The one drawback with robocopy is that it is command line only. Sometimes it is nice to just point and click. I never seem to be able to find a simple, but free file sync tool that has a nice GUI interface. From his description, it seemed to fit what I was looking for.

Finally, I took it for a spin today. It has the balance I was looking for between simplicity, and functionality. Best of all it is free.

Let me walk you through it.

Start out by downloading it from Microsoft’s website

When you run it for the first time, you are asked to create a new folder pair. A folder pair is the set of folders you want to sync.

SyncToy Main Screen

In my case it is a local folder, and a folder on a company file server. If you plan to do a one way copy keep in mind that the folder on your left is your source, and the one on the right is the destination.

Select Folders

Once you pick your folders, you can decided what to do with them.

SyncToy has these options:

Synchronize – New and updated files are copied both ways. Renames and deletes on either side are repeated on the other.

Echo – New and updated files are copied left to right. Renames and deletes on the left are repeated on the right.

Contribute – New and updated files are copied left to right. Renames on the left are repeated on the right. No deletions.

In my case, I want to have a backup of my code so I use “echo”. It will copy everything from my local drive to the server.

Sync Toy Action Selection

Click next, give it a name, and click finish. Now you have a new sync job waiting to be run:

SyncToy Waiting

Click run, and the synchronization begins.

SyncToy Finished

That is all there is too it! A little simpler than remembering to type all of the command line options into robocopy.

Is there a free utility that makes your life easier? Send me an email at support@intelliadmin.com so I can tell everyone else.

And if you missed it before, here is the download link from microsoft to get your free copy of SyncToy:

Download SyncToy 2.0

Filed Under: Backups, Free, Microsoft, Tools, Utility, Windows

Change the Windows 7 Logon Background – Free Utility

Posted by Steve Wiseman on July 16, 2009 with 6 Comments

I have been playing with Windows 7 again. While reading through a few Windows 7 blogs, I came across an article that described how to change the Logon background in Windows 7.

If you have not had a chance to see Windows 7, this is what the default logon background looks like:

Very similar to the layout in Vista, but, in Windows 7 you can change it.

Microsoft has added this feature for OEMs…so in the future I would imagine the logon screen will be filled with Dell, HP, ASUS, etc.

Before I talk about our free utility, let me explain what needs to be done if you want to do this yourself without our free program.

To make the change you need to first open regedit, and create this key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI\Background

Then once you have created that key, add a new DWORD Value named OEMBackground and set it to 1

Now, you need to place the image file (It must be a jpeg) in the following folder (You may need to create some of these folders along the path)

%windir%\oobe\info\backgrounds

The file must be named backgroundDefault.jpg – and very important – it must be under 256KB in size, or windows will ignore it.

Sound like too much trouble to change the background pic? Then you can use our free utility:

The program will take care of the registry changes…and better yet it will reduce the image size to fit into 256 KB. It makes it very easy to change the background.

Here is the download link:

W7BackgroundUpdate.exe

As always – no spyware, adware – only freeware goodness

Filed Under: Free, Registry, Tools, Utility, Windows, Windows 2008 R2, Windows 7

Redirect Favorites – Part 2

Posted by Steve Wiseman on November 25, 2008 with 1 Comments

It has been a busy week for email. Received another good question yesterday:

Saw an article you wrote on IntelliAdmin and wanted to ask a follow-up. I have a set of 12 local Windows XP machines and I’d like them all to use the same set of Favorites (without users being able to add or subtract sites). I have a small server running Windows 2000 and (ideally) I’d like for each machine to have to reach out to that server IP to obtain the current IE favorites…. Not only would that give me some static control over the current Favorites, but it would also allow me to update that list in one location (without having to go in and log-in as an admin to each machine and import that folder each time I have to make a change).

From your article, it would almost seem possible to do this, but… Or am I making things too difficult? Is there an easier way for this newbie to do it?

Thanks in advance for any advice or guidance you could give…

-Storms

I actually have a similar situation at home…and while I could go through the registry and update each of my computers…well that is too much of a pain…so I decided to throw an app together that will do it for me.

I will call it “Redirect Favorites 1.0″. (I know, I know, what an original name) Its operation is simple. Launch the application, and set the folder you would like your favorites to be pulled from. In this case it would be a network share:

Make your change, and click apply. Now simply close all open windows of IE. When you re-open Internet Explorer it will be pointing to your new folder.

One thing I have not tested – what will happen if many different users are using the same favorites folder. You will need to experiment and see if IE complains. Either way, if you do run into problems you can simply run the program and reset it back to the default setting.

But for now I can easily throw this app on my USB flash drive and set all my computers at home to point to the same spot. That way I can get to my good list of bookmarks

Download it from here – as always no spyware, adware – only freeware goodness.

Filed Under: Free, Tools
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