Dual Boot Your Pre-Installed Windows 7 Computer with Vista
Jan/100
You have just received a new computer with Windows 7 pre-installed on it, but you might still be fond of Vista and want to create a dual boot system. Today we take you through the process of creating a Windows 7 / Vista dual boot system without using any third party software.
Assign Drive Letters
If you have extra drives like media card and optical disc drives, you might want to do a bit of renaming to keep them straight. Type Disk Management into the search box in the Start menu.
Then right-click on the drive you want to change and select Change Drive Letter and Paths.
In this example we’re renaming the DVD drive to (E:) this way we can keep our main 2 partitions as (C:) for Windows 7 and (D:) for Vista.?
Create a New Partition
Now with Disk Management still open we need to right-click on the C: drive and select Shrink Volume.
A window pops up showing the drive is being queried for available space.
After it finishes, you want to enter the amount of space to shrink the volume by. Remember that the size you select is in MB so, like in this example. 40,000MB is equal to 40GB. The minimum to go with on a Vista install should be 20GB. Before choosing a size, you’ll want to plan ahead and think about how much data you’ll be adding to the Vista partition. You’ll also want to plan for how much space you want on the Windows 7 partition as well. Here we know we’re not going to be putting a whole lot of data on the Vista partition so it’s sized accordingly. When you have the amount of space entered in, click the Shrink button.
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It will take a moment for the process to complete when it does you’ll see the new Unallocated space. Right-click on the Unallocated space select New Simple Volume.
That starts up the New Simple Volume Wizard that is a straight forward process. When you get to the following window the drive letter D will be selected by default if you changed the drive letters in the steps above.
Then in the Format Partition screen you can leave the default settings how they are. One thing you might want to change though, is the Volume label. In this example we renamed it Vista Volume so it’s easier to identify when we start the Vista installation.
After its complete you’ll see the volume listed in Disk Management and if AutoPlay is enabled, it will pop up too.
You will also see it listed in My Computer. Now everything looks good to go. The Windows 7 disk is label as (C:), The new Vista Volume as (D:), and the DVD drive as (E:).
Install Vista on the New Partition
Now that we have our new partition it’s time to install Vista on it. You want to boot from the Vista disc that you have. Most computers will let you choose the boot option by hitting the F8 or F12 key during startup. Each computer varies so you might want to refer to the computer manual or watch the boot screen (it usually says which key to press to get the boot option). You can also go into the computer BIOS setting and select your CD/DVD drive as the first boot device.
And kick off the installation as if you were doing a clean install of Vista.
When you come to the screen to select where you want to install Vista, select the partition we created earlier.
After the first time Vista reboots during the install process you’ll notice both Vista and Windows 7 in the Windows Boot Manager screen. It will still be there after the Vista installation is complete so you can chose either one at startup.
If you want to set up one or the other as the default OS, go into Advanced System Settings as explained in The Geek’s Article.
Conclusion
Creating a Windows 7 / Vista dual boot system is a bit easier than Windows 7 / XP because Vista won’t overwrite the bootloader so you save a couple of steps. Of course you might want to use a third party utility to create your partitions, but with Windows 7, the functionality is already included and works well. If you want to create a Windows 7 / XP dual boot system we have a guide for that too.
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Original post:
Dual Boot Your Pre-Installed Windows 7 Computer with Vista
Make Backspace in Windows 7 or Vista Explorer Go Up like XP Did
Jan/100
One of the biggest annoyances for those going straight from XP to Windows 7 is that the backspace key no longer moves you Up a folder like it used to—now it moves you Back in the folder browsing history.
If you’ve used the key a couple of times, you might think I’m wrong—but you can easily test it out by going into one subfolder, then hitting Back, then going into another subfolder and hitting Back, then going into a third subfolder and hitting Back twice. You’ll end up in the previous subfolder.
If you want to go Up a folder in either Windows 7 or Vista, you can use the Alt+Up shortcut key, which will always go to the parent folder.
The Awesome AutoHotkey Fix
Now that we know the shortcut key that actually works in Windows 7, we can use a small script to make it work the way we really want it to. With AutoHotkey installed, create a new script with New –> AutoHotkey Script, and then paste in the following:
#IfWinActive, ahk_class CabinetWClass
Backspace::
?? ControlGet renamestatus,Visible,,Edit1,A
?? ControlGetFocus focussed, A
?? if(renamestatus!=1&&(focussed=”DirectUIHWND3″||focussed=SysTreeView321))
?? {
??? SendInput {Alt Down}{Up}{Alt Up}
? }else{
????? Send {Backspace}
? }
#IfWinActive
Thanks for finding this method goes to joeshmoo from the Productive Geek Forums, who tracked it down buried in an AutoHotkey forum thread. We modified the script slightly to make it work for Windows 7.
How Does This Work?
Ordinarily you can simply re-map the key with a Backspace::!{Up} type of deal, but since the backspace key is useful in the search box, location bar, and when you’re renaming files, you can’t just do a simple mapping—instead you have to check to see which control is active before sending the alternate Alt+Up key combination.
The first line with the #IfWinActive tells AHK to only activate this shortcut key override if Windows Explorer is the active window, which helps fix any possible conflicts in other applications.
The ControlGet and ControlGetFocus lines do the actual work of checking the status of the controls, and then depending on whether they are focused or you are in the process of renaming a file, it either sends the alternate Alt+Up or just sends the regular Backspace key.
Download a Pre-Made Application to Make Backspace Work like XP
Since the majority of you probably aren’t familiar with AutoHotkey, and don’t have any interest in how the scripts work, I’ve put together a customized version of the script as a tiny little executable that will run in the background.
It doesn’t take a ton of memory, as you can see in the screenshot.
To install HTGBack, just download, extract, and then create a shortcut in the shell:startup folder:
Double-click on the executable, and your Backspace key should start working like it used to in XP. Note that we only tested this on Windows 7, but assume it will work for Vista as well.
Download HTGBack XP-Style Backspace Key
This utility is licensed under the don’t-be-stupid license, which says that you can use it, distribute it, and pretty much do whatever you feel like with it—just give us credit by linking back to this post.
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View post:
Make Backspace in Windows 7 or Vista Explorer Go Up like XP Did
Possible laboratory origin of swine flu
Nov/090
A newly released peer-reviewed scientific paper has put forward the theory that the swine flu outbreak may have originated in a lab that stores vi…
Originally posted here:
Possible laboratory origin of swine flu
Swine Flu: First Confirmed Case of Pet Cat Contracting H1N1
Nov/090
Officials from Iowa and United States Department of Agriculture have confirmed a pet cat in the United States has tested positive for the H1N1 virus. This is the first confirmed case a feline has contracted the H1N1 virus in the United States, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association (AMVA).
See the original post:
Swine Flu: First Confirmed Case of Pet Cat Contracting H1N1
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