Some of you may have noticed the UVNC SC working slow between windows 7 machines. To fix this, you simply need to recompile your HelpDesk.exe and download the latest version of UVNC client.
Rudi De Vos over in the UltraVNC forums posted a fix for this problem.
Also, here is the link for the newest version of UVNC.
I have tested Rudi’s fix in test environment and we are now using this in production environment within Windows 7 environment and it is working great. Thanks Rudi!
UVNC Listener
If you are like me then you have already been or just recently moved to Windows 7 operating system. The other day I went on ABC’s website to stream a TV show I had missed. I noticed that it didn’t work at all under Windows 7. This is a short guide on how to watch/stream TV shows on ABC.com when you are running Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system. Hope this helps 
This works for both Mozilla Firefox 3+ and Internet Explorer 8. Does not work for Opera.
ABC.com Logo
You will need to download the Move Network’s “Move Player” which is what ABC.com uses to stream their online TV shows. (Download Here) Visit the link and click on the red “Download” button.
ABC Move Network Player
It is going to ask you to save or run it. Either will work. Once it finishes downloading double click on it to install it. The install should take less than a minute.
Once it is installed you should see the screen I have included saying the player is installed.
Move Network Player Installed
Now head over to ABC.com and enjoy your favorite TV shows.
This is a short guide on how to install Windows 7 onto a computer from a USB Flash Drive / USB Stick or Portable Hard Drive. Since read speeds are faster from USB drive than your CD-ROM drive, this actually decreases the install time for Windows 7.
OCZ Flash Drive - Install Windows 7
The first thing you will need to do is format your USB Flash Drive or Portable Hard Drive so that your computer will read it as a bootable drive. So plug your flash drive into a workstation.
Open up Command Prompt / CMD (located in Program Files->Accessories) and type the following commands:
DiskPart
List Disk (this will list the disks currently plugged into your computer. Most likely, the C: drive on that computer will be listed as disk 0, and you will have to look down the list to see which disk your flash drive is. Look at the corresponding disk sizes to easily figure it out.)
Select Disk 3 (I am using 3 as example for assigned flash drive)
Clean
Create Partition Primary
Select Partition 1
Active
Format FS=NTFS Quick
Assign (you can assign a particular drive letter if you want, example: assign=E:)
Exit (this will exit DiskPart)
Exit (this will exit CMD)
Next you will need to either insert your Windows 7 CD and browse to the CD or open up your Windows 7 ISO and browse to the folders within it. (If you are using ISO, I would suggest extracting the contents to a new folder)
Next you will need to spoof your flash stick so that the computer will think it is an install CD. From within the root of the Windows 7 CD or ISO contents, right click while holding shift key and select “Open Command Windows Here”. This will open up a Command Prompt window within that directory. Then input the following commands:
cd Boot
bootsect /nt60 E: (I am using drive letter E: as my flash drive)
exit (exits command prompt)
Next simply copy over the entire contents of your windows 7 CD or ISO to your flash drive.
Reboot the computer your are wanting to install Windows 7 on with the flash drive plugged in, hit the boot key (normally F12, DEL, or ESC) to select the boot device, boot to your flash drive, and it will go immediately to the Windows 7 Setup screen.
Are you having trouble with download speeds using the FTP Client Filezilla? It is most likely due to simply not having some configurations options set. By default, the FTP client will be set at minimal connections, but if you change a few things you can increase your download speed by over 2Mb/s.
FileZilla FTP Logo
Download and install the FileZilla FTP client from their website at http://filezilla-project.org/.
At the top left of the application, go to File-> Site Manager. In site manager you are going to setup a new connection with the host your are connecting with.
FileZilla FTP Site Manager
Go over to the “Transfer Settings” tab and select Limit Simultaneous connections. Then input 10 for the Maximum Number of Connections. This will optimize your connection speeds with most servers to get the highest download speeds; and without them disconnecting. (My download speeds jumped from 900KB down to 2500KB down just from changing this one option.
FileZilla FTP - Transfer Settings
There is a great piece of freeware called MKVToolNix which lets you merge and convert MKV files. Do you have two or more .MKV files you want to merge? This is perfect for that. Do you have a .AVI file you want to convert to a .MKV file? This is also perfect for that. As the world of entertainment moves into HD and x264 this little application will be very handy. It works under all major windows operating systems, Windows XP x32, Windows Vista x32, Windows Vista x64, Windows 7 x32, and Windows 7 x64.
MKVToolNix
If you are like me then you probably have a lot of websites you visit on a regular basis. I hate typing in web addresses or browsing through my bookmark folders. I love using my BookMarks Toolbar for quick and easy access to all of my websites. The problem is that I soon ran into having too many bookmarks. The Multirow Bookmarks Toolbar Add-on for Mozilla Firefox works great. It easily stacks your bookmarks toolbar depending upon how many bookmarks you have. Works great in Mozilla Firefox 3.5.1.
Mozilla Firefox Bookmarks Toolbar
I have been using K-lite mega codec pack with Media Player Classic for the past 2 years or so. With the release of VLC 1.0 I thought I would give it another shot. For the most part, the memory usage was a lot better than it used to be. Playing a TV episode of “The Office”, memory usage with VLC 1.0 was only about 15MB more than MPC. Playing the movie “Transformers” in 1080p the memory usage with VLC 1.0 was only about 30MB more than MPC.
There are two things you need to enable to make the media in VLC render more smoothly.
One thing I like about VLC is that it is easy to download, distribute, and use. With Media Player Classic, you have to make sure you have a codec pack for media to play. For me that is not an issue, but for the standard user, codec packs and knowing how to use them, can sometimes be confusing. If you haven’t tried VLC 1.0 yet, you might want to take a second look.
VLC Player
I recently compiled a new library of commands since the upgrade from WinPE 2.0 to WinPE 3.0. With Windows 7 coming along they released a new way to create bootable USB sticks using Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM.exe). You might be asking yourself, what could I use this for? We are using it at my work to re-image computers, capture backup images, mount images, etc. There are many other uses for it but I will not get into that here. I have literally done this procedure a couple hundred times. In a future article I will show you how to write a simple batch script to automate this process. But it helps to understand what is going on with each command in case you have trouble. Batch scripts never work 100% of the time.
You will need the following to proceed:
Windows® Automated Installation Kit (AIK) for Windows® 7 RC (Download from Microsoft) : 05.01.09
Once you have installed WAIK then you will need to browse to your start menu and click on “Deployment Tools Command Prompt”. I have provided a picture below.
DISM
Once you have launched DTCP you will need to follow through the commands I have compiled below. The first one I have provided a screenshot.
DISM /Cleanup-Wim
The DISM cleanup command simply cleans up any previous wims/mounts you have been working with. If you do this a lot, you will need to use this command otherwise you will start receiving errors from previous wims possibly still left on the system.
DISM Step #1
copype.cmd x86 c:\winpe_x86
copy c:\winpe_x86\winpe.wim c:\winpe_x86\ISO\sources\boot.wim
This creates a winpe_x86 folder on your C: drive and then copies the contents of the WinPE folder from the WAIK installation to your folder.
Dism /Mount-Wim /WimFile:C:\winpe_x86\winpe.wim /index:1 /MountDir:C:\winpe_x86\mount
This command mounts the wim file that was copied over in step #2 so that you can browse the system32 folder and insert your custom scripts, etc.
Dism /image:C:\winpe_x86\mount /Add-Package /PackagePath:”C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools\x86\WinPE_FPs\winpe-wmi.cab”
Dism /image:C:\winpe_x86\mount /Add-Package /PackagePath:”C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools\x86\WinPE_FPs\en-us\winpe-wmi_en-us.cab”
There are many packages you can add to your WINPE boot environment, these are two I always add to mine.
DISM /image:c:\winpe_x86\mount /Add-Driver /driver:C:\YOUR_FOLDER_OF_INF_DRIVERS\ /recurse
A nice addition to DISM over the previous peimg command in WINPE 2.0 is the ability to add drivers with the /recurse command. The /recurse command now allows us to simply have all of our drivers in their own directory and tell DISM to scan the root folder and everything beneath it. The number of sub directories won’t matter. I have a huge library of drivers, for example, you will want to have the network and vga drivers for anything that you boot up to in the WinPE environment. By adding the network driver to your WinPE boot environment, it allows you to access network shares for capturing and deploying .wim images.
xcopy /e /y “C:\YOUR_FOLDER_OF_SCRIPTS” C:\winpe_x86\mount\Windows\System32\
Without adding anything to your WinPE boot environment you will simply be left with a command prompt window when booting to it on a computer. I have added over 15 different batch scripts with different functions. Click here to download my WinPE discs. One thing I highly suggest adding is GImageX. GImageX is a very small GUI program that you can add to be able to capture, deploy, and mount images within the WinPE boot environment. I have provided a picture of GImageX GUI below.
For WinPE 3.0 Boot Environment - Mount, Deploy, Capture Images
Dism /Unmount-Wim /MountDir:C:\winpe_x86\mount\ /Commit
This commits the final changes to your .WIM file and anything you added to it. It is very important to unmount your .WIM file when you have finished.
copy c:\winpe_x86\winpe.wim c:\winpe_x86\ISO\sources\boot.wim /Y
oscdimg -n -bc:\winpe_x86\etfsboot.com c:\winpe_x86\ISO c:\winpe_x86\winpe_x86.iso
Now, if you are wanting to use a flash stick you will need to format a flash stick in a certain way, and then simply copy the contents of the c:\winpe_x86\ISO\ to your flash drive. And thats it! Stick it in a computer, restart, and boot to it. The .ISO made in step #9 can simply be burned to a CD with Nero or other program capable of making bootable CD and then you can boot to it in the same way.
xcopy /e /y “C:\winpe_x86″ E:\BACKUP_FOLDER_FOR_LATEST_BOOT_BUILD\
This step is optional, but I always like to keep a backup for the future. Also, if you ever need to create another bootable flash stick or CD you can simply go to your backup and grab the files.
The line below needs to be added to the unattended section in the sysprep.inf file. The Unattended section should look like the following below.
[Unattended]
InstallFilesPath=C:\sysprep\i386
UpdateServerProfileDirectory=1
This will make sure the administrator profile is copied over to the default profile for ever user.
Windows XP Logo
I use Twitter and Facebook just about everyday. Instead of going to each site I like to be able to post one status update and have it go to each. I am using TweetDeck which is available for both MAC OS X and Windows. This is a small client to have running on your workstation to post update statuses. Then if you want your Facebook to pull in your twitter status then simply “allow” it on Facebook here -> http://apps.facebook.com/twitter/.
TweetDeck Mac OS X Client
Facebook Twitter App
