Windows 8 RTM Leaked Online [Screenshots]

Just a day after Microsoft announced that it had finished the development cycle for the new operating system, a copy of the RTM build 9200 has found its way to a number of torrent sites. The version leaked is an "N" edition of Windows 8 and does not include a bundled copy of Windows Media Player. N editions of Windows are released in Europe after the European Commission ruled in 2004 that it needed to provide a copy of Windows without Windows Media Player built in.

Although numerous builds of Windows 8 has leaked before, this is the first build – after a long gap – that has been leaked publicly. It’s not long from now before users can officially get hold of Windows 8. MSDN and TechNet customers will receive access to Windows 8 on August 15th, while customers will be able to buy it on stores or with their new PCs starting on October 26th.
Below are some screenshots from the RTM Build. Screenshot courtesy: Neowin forum.

Remove Obsolete Notification Area Icons in Windows 7

Windows 7 lets you customize the behaviour of the icons that appear on your system tray, also called the notification area. You can configure the icons to remain hidden unless there is notification to display. This reduces the visual clutter on the system tray. The trouble is, Explorer keeps a cache of the icons and over time this cache can grow to hundreds of items. If you right click on the Taskbar and choose “Customize Notification Icon” you can see many obsolete items on the list. Some of these programs you might not even have on your computer anymore.

Here is how you can clean up this list.

Open registry editor by typing regedit in the Run box and navigate to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\
Windows\CurrentVersion\TrayNotify

Select IconStreams and PastIconsStream and delete them both.

Now you will need to restart explorer, or logoff and login again or restart the computer for the changes to take effect.

This will remove all obsolete icons from the list except the ones already present on the Notification Area. Be aware that any customization you have done will be lost and reset to the default values.

Alternatively, you can use the Notification Area Cleaner for Windows 7 – a simple tool that automates the cleaning process including stopping and restarting Explorer. So you don’t have to reboot the computer or logoff from Windows.

How to Download Windows Updates for Offline Install

If you have several Windows computers at home or office, either connected in a network or running standalone, it makes little sense to enable Windows Updates on all of them. All that is required is one computer to download the updates and the same can be installed on all the machines. This saves bandwidth cost. Having the updates in hand also makes it possible to integrate them with Windows installation source using popular tools such as nLite, or automating their installation using scripts.

Here are three ways to download Windows and Microsoft Office updates.

AutoPatcher

Does AutoPatcher ring any bells to you? It was a very popular alternative to Microsoft Update that allowed users to install software patches, service packs and other updates for certain Microsoft Windows systems. Then in 2007 Microsoft shutdown the project over concerns that the update files could be tampered with since the program stores them in their own server rather than download them from Microsoft’s servers. Following this AutoPatcher was updated. The new AutoPatcher now downloads updates directly from Microsoft.

First download the AutoPatcher from the developer's website, extract the contents and run apup.exe. Select, AutoPatcher Engine – the core component – and the operating system or MS Office package for which you want to download the updates. Click Next and allow the program to download the chosen components from Microsoft’s servers.

The tool downloads and store all the updates required in the same file structure used in previous AutoPatcher release. Once the download is completed, run AutoPatcher.exe. After this everything remains as before.

AutoPatcher currently exists for Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7 and some server equivalents (Windows 2003 and 2008), Office XP, Office 2003 and Office 2007.

Windows Updates Downloader

Windows Updates Downloader allows you to download all of the current Windows Updates using a simple interface. Unlike AutoPatcher, it will only download the updates. You’re still left with the task of installing them individually.

Before you can run Windows Updates Downloader, you have to download an update list from this page. The Update Lists (ULs) contain the necessary list of updates for each of the versions of Windows. You will also find ULs for other software such as Office and Exchange. Download the UL file and save it in the same folder as the Windows Updates Downloader program. Double click on the downloaded UL to install it.

After this, run Windows Updates Downloader and choose from the list the updates you wish to download. It is possible to download and install multiple Update Lists for multiple version of Windows. The correct version of Windows or Office software can then be selected from a drop down menu.

Supported versions are: Windows XP, Vista, 7, 2000 Professional, 2003 Server, Office 2003 and Exchange Server 2003. 64-bit updates are available for Windows XP, Vista, and 7.

WSUS Offline Update

This is our third and last offline updates installer. Download the archived package and extract the contents. Run UpdateGenerator.exe and you will presented with this interface.

Now you can choose which version of Windows or Microsoft Office you want updates of. Supported versions include Windows XP, Vista, 7, 2003 server, 2008 server and 2008 RC2. Both 32 bit and 64 bit versions are supported. WSUS Offline Update can also download Microsoft Security Essential, and Widnows Defender definition files.

Once WSUS Offline Update has downloaded all updates, on the target computer, start UpdateInstaller.exe and select update installation options. The program can optionally prepare an ISO image of the downloaded updates for archival and easy transfer from one computer to another.

Know any other offline installation method?

How to Show Detailed (Verbose) Information During Windows Shutdown and Startup

If you ever had your computer stuck at startup or shutdown, or take unusually long time, you know how frustrating it is because you don’t know what is causing the delay. Unlike in Linux, Windows doesn’t display detailed information during startup and shutdown. However, there is a verbose message switch in Windows. If you flick it on, Windows will start displaying a little more details about what is happening behind the blue screen. For example, if verbose message is not enabled you only see the message “Shutting down” at shutdown or “Welcome” at startup. If verbose logging is enabled, you will receive additional information, such as "RPCSS is starting" or "Waiting for machine group policies to finish...”.

This article will show you how to enable verbose message in Windows.

Enable verbose status messages using Group Policy Editor

1. Open the Run dialog box by pressing Win+R. In the Open box, type gpedit.msc, and then click OK.
2. On Group Policy Editor, expand Computer Configuration, expand Administrative Templates, and then click System.
3. In the right pane, double-click Verbose vs normal status messages.
4. 
5. Click Enabled, and then click OK.

Enable verbose status messages using Registry Editor

1. Open the Run dialog box by pressing Win+R. In the Open box, type regedit, and then click OK.
2. Locate and then click the following registry key:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
3. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
4. Type verbosestatus, and then press ENTER.
5. Double-click the new key that you created, type 1 in the Value data box, and then click OK.
6. Quit Registry Editor.

Enable verbose status messages using Startup Shutdown Tracer

The easiest way to enable verbose messages is to use the automated tool Startup Shutdown Tracer. Simply download the program and run the executable file. Click the button “Display information” to enable verbose status messages and the button “Disable messages” to disable it.

Get Windows 8’s WinX Menu in Windows XP, Vista and 7

In Windows 8 when you right-click on the lower-left corner of the screen, you open the WinX menu. The WinX menu is so called because it can be also launched by the keyboard shortcut Win+X. The WinX menu has shortcuts to some advanced system functions that are slightly out of reach, for instance, the Control Panel, the Task Manager, Device Manager, Command Prompt, Registry Editor, Computer Management etc. WinPlusX is free program that adds the WinX menu to previous versions of the OS – Windows XP, Vista and 7.

The program consist of a single portable EXE file. Once this program is up and running, you can access the WinX menu by pressing the keyboard hotkey Win+K, just like in Windows 8.

You can also right-click on the start button to launch this menu, but this actually launches two menus – the WinX menu added by WinPlusX and the default context menu of the start button having two options (Properties and Windows Explorer). These two menus are superimposed with the latter hiding the last two entries on the WinX menu. Using the Win+X shortcut doesn’t have this problem though.

You can use this menu as an application launcher because you can customize this menu to add or xremove your own shortcuts to it. These shortcuts are saved as a simple list in an INI file in the same directory as WinPlusX. To remove entries from WinPlusX click the ‘Remove Shortcut’ checkbox and then click on the menu shortcut you wish to remove. Be sure to uncheck the ‘Remove Shortcut’ checkbox once you are done, otherwise you will inadvertently remove shortcust from the menu when you try the launch it.

[via AskVG]

12 Totally New and Modern Windows XP Themes

I know most of you have long left Windows XP, but the OS is far from dead. As of last month, Windows XP’s market share is at a healthy 30% and there are still plenty of interest around Windows XP themes. I recently paid a visit to the Windows XP section at DeviantArt, a community of designers and GUI artist where most of the themes arises from, and was pleasantly surprised to find it very active. Several decent themes have been released over the past few months. Here are 12 most attractive new themes that I could find.

8 Skin Pack 6.0-XP

Ambiance2 for XP

GizdomBlack SuperBar

Gnome Dark Style

Google+ VS for WindowsXP

Lion Skin Pack 4.0

Metro Inspirat 2.0

OxygenBlack VS

OxygenXP VS

Ubuntu Skin Pack 5.0

Vera

Windows 8 Metro GXP

Also see:

• 20 (most) beautiful themes for Windows XP
• Another 25 beautiful Windows XP themes

Microsoft FixIt Can Now Solve USB Ejection Problems

Microsoft Fix It is a relatively new service from Microsoft that offers small downloadable programs which can diagnose and fix many problems with Windows PCs. Windows 7 is already capable of fixing many common problems by itself. The Fix It tools enhances the operating system's built-in diagnostics and also brings this feature to a wider audience.

Recently, Microsoft added a new ‘Fix It’ which can solve problems relating to USB drives such as USB devices that do not eject using the Safely Remove Hardware dialog, and other issues relating to USB Audio, storage, and print devices.

Download the tool from this page and run it. The program will download some additional files and once that is done, it will offer you two options. Detect problems and apply recommended fix automatically or choose the fixes to apply. Obviously, we are going to take the second option.

From the next screen, select the fixes you wish to apply and click the Next button to apply them.

Another way to solve USB nuisances is to use a program called Dev Eject, that I wrote about earlier. The program allows you to see all processes that are using a USB drive and hence preventing its safe removal. Once you get the list of processes you can easily close the offending programs and safely eject your drive.

Also see: Add ‘Safely Remove Hardware’ to Desktop Context Menu - Instant Fundas