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:

Set the destination to USB Device

Find the USB drive you want to write it to:

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

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

Windows 7, and Vista have a cool feature. Press shift while right clicking on any folder, and some new menu options are shown:

One of them allows you to open a command prompt that is rooted right in that folder. This is a convenient option, since you don’t have to launch a command line, and then work your way back to that folder.

Unfortunately it does not exist in 2000, 2003, or XP – But I found an easy way to add it.

Create a new file on your desktop and call it “Command.reg”. Right click on it and edit it with notepad.

Add the following lines:

REGEDIT4
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\cmd]
@="Open Command Line Here"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\cmd\command]
@="cmd /k \"cd %L\""


Save it, and then double click on it to add it to the registry. When it asks you to confirm.

Just say yes.

And now, when you right click on a folder in XP/2000/2003 (No shift needed) you get the same option:

Windows 7 Sticky Notes is very useful for me. You can write down your notes and change the fonts or colors of the note, but how to print sticky notes in windows 7. When Right-click on a note, I con’t find out printing function in the menu.
It’s necessary to copy the note text into MS Office Word or WordPad to print for me. But it’s an extra step. MS will add that feature in sticky notes.

To get printing function in notes, you can use Microsoft Office OneNote 2003. You can print a page of notes by clicking Print on the Standard toolbar in OneNote.

For years now I have been able to share my Verizon wireless connection with friends and family using my Apple running OSX. Linux can do this too.

It has not been possible with Windows until now. Microsoft has added some features to 7 that allow a wireless card to be put into promiscuous mode and turned into a true wireless AP.

From my testing I can see that it does not work for all wireless cards. I would imagine the driver and hardware needs to support it. You will have to experiment and see if it works for you.

There are two ways to do this. First, you can go the easy route and use a free tool called Connectify. It makes this process very simple.

Just visit http://www.connectify.me/ and download the latest version of their software.

Once you install it, you can pick the wireless card you are going to use, the SSID, and the password:

Hit the “Start hotspot” button and you are ready to go. Best of all this software is free….this is right from their website:

The alternative to using Connectify is to make some calls to netsh from the command line. Open a command line as an administrator (Right click and pick ‘run as administrator’).

Type this:

netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=[ssid] key=[key]

Replace the [ssid] with the ssid of your choice, and [key] with the WPA2 key that you want to use.

Next you will need to turn on internet connection sharing. You will need to go to the properties of the network card that is providing internet access. This is kind of buried in Windows 7, so I will walk you through.

First go to the control panel, and click on “Network and Internet”:

When the next window shows, click on “Network and Sharing Center”:

A new window will show. Look to the left, and click on the text that says “Change Adapter Settings”:

Now you can simply right click and go to the properties of the network card that provides internet access:

Go to the sharing tab and enable internet connecting sharing:

Click OK, and now you are set. You can start using your Windows 7 machine as an access point

Just one detail for both methods – you are forced to use WPA2 encryption for the connection, so you may have trouble with older devices, and operating systems that do not support it.

How to print a list of files in a Windows 7 directory.

There is very easy to print a list of files in directory on Windows xp. You just need to dropdown file, hit print director, and it provided a basic listing of files in the director.

I wonder if there is a simpler way to do in Windows 7.

1. Click Start button --> All Programs--> Accessories --> Command Prompt.
2. Use "cd directoryname" command to go to the directory from which you want to print a file list.
3. Type "dir > filelist.txt".
4. Double-click on the filelist.txt file and press "Ctrl-P" to print list of files in a folder on windows 7.

Or you need to instll firefox on Windows 7. And drop the folder on the Firefox icon, then firefox will open with a printable file list. It's the easier way.

From time to time I will have a folder that I need to clean out. Usually with a large number of files. The problem is that I want to select only specific files or folders:

This is easy to do by holding down the CTRL key, but I always find that halfway through my selection process I fat finger it and then I have to start over again.

I found a new feature in Windows 7 that allows you to select in a totally different way. Using checkboxes. You can simply check the files or folders you want to select by checking them off – no CTRL key needed.

To turn it on, open any folder in explorer, and hold down ALT, then T to get the menu to show up. Go to tools then options. Go to the view tab and find the option that says:

“Use check boxes to select items”

When you want to select an item, you can hover over it and a checkbox will show up. Simply check the ones you want to select:

Now there is no need to worry about pressing the wrong button and losing your entire selection.