Day: July 26, 2010

Setting up time to shutdown your computer using at command

Ever wondered if you could use timer to turnoff the computer? Yes you can. Though there are many software?s to do that work you can do the shutdown using few lines of command at the command prompt itself. At command is very helpful at scheduling the different task that can be executed by the help of it.

I find the at command very helpful at night when I am watching movie on the computer and fell asleep. You can play songs on your media player and set a clock to shutdown after one hour when you are asleep. Also you can set time when you are downloading file which will take, say 30 minutes to download, then you can set the computer to shutdown at 40 minutes.

Here?s what you need to do to shutdown your computer at your desired time.

at hh:mm shutdown -s -f

You need to enter the time in 24 hours format. The /f uses the force shutdown. You can set the time before shutdown by adding /t xxx to the shutdown command. Enter the value in seconds instead of xxx. For 10 seconds delay use /t 10

eg:

To? force shutdown you computer at 11PM type

at 23:00 shutdown -s -f

To? force shutdown you computer at 11PM? with 10 seconds delay before shutdown type

at 23:00 shutdown -s -f -t 10

If you like to hibernate instead of shutdown you can try

at hh:mm shutdown -h

If you have problem executing the cmd in vista or windows 7 run the command prompt with administrative privileges. Right click the cmd prompt and click run as administrator.

You can get more help about the at command from the Microsoft support site.

You can tweak the command to do other tasks as well. Have fun experimenting with it.Winking smile

Customize your startup application

Ever noticed how fast your computer loaded when you recent formatted your computer and then it slowly began to take time to load as you install more and more programs. Well that?s because your computer needs to startup more and more application and services at the startup due to installation of more and more programs. This can be really irritating because you have to keep waiting until your computer loads fully.

There are many application that can help you reduce or customize the startup applications. But why use other applications when you can customize it within the windows. Keeping startup application to minimum helps you to startup your computer much much faster. You can disable the unwanted programs that unnecessarily starts at system boot.

This is how you customize the startup application.

1. In the search box type msconfig

OR

press windows+r and type msconfig

2. In system configuration window select startup tab

3. Uncheck all the programs that you don?t need at the startup like messenger etc..

3. Apply the setting

The good thing is you can always enable the programs later if you like it to run at the startup. Customizing the startup really helps to save load time of the windows try it.Smile

Hiding system reserved disk partition in windows 7

When you install windows 7 in freshly formatted disk drive the windows by default creates the extra partition named system reserved partition for the better performance. By default the partition is hidden and does not show in my computer window. But in case if you have that partition showing in your my computer windows you can hide it anyways using disk management.

Here is what you do to hide the system reserved partition in windows 7.

  1. Type diskmgmt.msc
  2. Right click system reserved partition
  3. Click change drive letters and paths..
  4. Remove the drive letter
  5. Ignore the warning and Accept

This should help you to get rid of the system reserved partition that has been bothering you.Smile

Running old programs that worked in XP or Vista, in windows 7

Many of us who used to run some programs in windows xp which worked fine but didn?t work on the latest version of windows. I am involved in designing and have the need to run the old programs like pagemaker. Windows 7  can be troublesome when you have that old software bundled with your device and its program does not work and you don?t have the newer release of the program or other old but helpful programs. Well this can be solved at some extent.

In windows 7 you can use the compatibility mode to run your old games or software that is giving you trouble and wont open. There are two ways, either you can use troubleshoot compatibility let windows decide to make the program run or you can do it manually. Here?s how you do it.

Using Troubleshoot compatibility wizard

  1. Right click the program
  2. Click troubleshoot compatibility

Follow the instructions and try running the programs in different compatibility modes.

Configure manually

  1. Right click the program
  2. Click properties
  3. Click the compatibility tab
  4. Click run this program compatibility mode for and select the version of windows on which the program worked fine.
  5. Apply the settings

You may want to change the configuration in settings section also, if the above does not work.

You can also apply the compatibility mode for the setup files as well to install the old programs.

This helped me run some old programs like pagemaker, fontgrapher, the font thing run fine.Smile

Hope this was helpful.

Best programs for Creating mounting or burning iso files in windows 7

In windows 7 the older version of nero does not work. I was very fond of nero cause it was all in one package when I had XP installed. But since I switched to windows 7 I had problem. I didn?t have the newer release of nero so that when I realized that I should get another program that was free and helped.

I would like to share some of the programs that I use in windows 7 .

1. For Data burning

Nero

Nero is the best tool for data burning on cd and dvd. Nero has been generous enough to provide the free version of it since the version 9. It has very less features to that of the full paid version but should be handy burning or copying cd. It is also able to create the image file but it only gives the freedom of creating the .nrg extension image.

2. Creating ISO images

Free DVD ISO Maker 1.2

This is simple easy to easy software from minidvdsoft that I used to create iso images and best of all it is free. There are other cool software’s that are provided which are handy. I haven?t got to use all of them because I didn?t needed it. Here are the list of other free software from minidvdsoft.

  • 3. Mounting Image files

    Virtual Clone Drive

    The last thing I needed was a program to mount the image files. I came of with virtual clone drive when the alcohol didn?t work in windows 7. This to is a small simple program that allows you to create multiple virtual cd/dvd drive. I also found that it was able to mount the other format image files like .nrg. Though its doesn?t show at the mount options you can select show all files and can even mount the .nrg files.

    And there you have it all the necessary software to mount, burn, rip or create images files. And all are free Smile.