Investigate Internet TV in Windows 7 Media Center

Over the holidays, one of the old television sets in my home suffered a catastrophic failure. To maintain the entertainment equilibrium in our household, my wife and I decided to shuffle the remaining sets around and add a big screen HDTV to the mix. While configuring and setting up the new TV, I connected my laptop running Windows 7 to the TV set and began experimenting with Windows Media Center’s Internet TV component.

I discovered that it was a really neat feature and provided a very nice way to access all sorts of streaming media from the Internet. As I began espousing the features of Internet TV component to my friends and family, I also discovered that not many people were familiar with this feature of Windows Media Center. In fact, most folks that I talked to assumed that in order to take advantage of Windows Media Center you must have a TV tuner card installed in your system. However that’s not the case.

In the Windows 7 (Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate) version of Windows Media Center, the enhanced Internet TV lets you watch videos from a variety of providers via the Internet right in Windows Media Center. This new version of Internet TV features enhancements to the UI and now provides more content from a variety of content providers, such as CBS, MSNBC, MSN, Zune, and more. Read more.

Peek behind the GodMode curtains to reveal useful canonical names and GUIDs

In last week’s blog post, “Exert Your Control with GodMode Folders in Windows 7,” I discussed a few of the so-called “GodMode” folders in Windows 7. As I mentioned in that post, Windows 7’s GodMode folders are simply special folders that are hidden until you enter a special, secret code.

Well, it turns out that the latter part of that sentence is only half true. The special folders are indeed hidden until you enter a special code, but the codes aren’t really secret.

Apparently all Windows 7 and Windows Vista Control Panel items have what is called a canonical name and an associated GUID (the infamous “special codes”). In this context, Microsoft describes a canonical name as being a nonlocalized string that the Control Panel item declares in the registry. A GUID, or Globally Unique Identifier, is a special type of identifier that is unique in any context, which Microsoft uses to provide an internal access point to Control Panel items.

In this edition of the Windows Vista and Windows 7 Report, I’ll discuss the Control Panel canonical names in more detail and show you how to use them to create shortcuts to your favorite Control Panel items. I’ll then present the text file and script and show you how to use them. That way you can instantly create these canonical name shortcuts on your Windows 7 system and be able to easily conduct your own investigation to discern which of these shortcuts will be helpful to you and delete those that won’t. What could be easier

Exert your control with GodMode folders in Windows 7

Over the past week or so, I have read a lot about the so-called “GodMode” folders in Windows 7. Chances are that you have too. While the term originated in video games, such as Doom from id Software, where entering a special code makes a player’s character invincible, it has been applied to certain special, undocumented folders in Windows 7.

When playing a video game in GodMode, you are guaranteed to win because no matter how powerful the nemesis, you cannot be killed. So, you might wonder, does that mean that when working in a “GodMode” folder in Windows 7 you can do whatever you want without fear of crashing or locking up the operating system? Unfortunately, no, it does not.

All kidding aside, Windows 7’s GodMode folders are simply special folders that are hidden until you enter a special, secret code. The fact that you have to enter a secret code is more likely the source of these folders being called “GodMode” folders. Read more.

Explore new desktop backgrounds and themes in Windows 7

No matter how serious of a Microsoft Windows user you consider yourself to be, you’ve got to admit that you’ve played around with wallpapering your desktop, In fact, it’s probably a safe bet to say that ever since Windows 95 came out and provided us with the ability to easily change and create desktop wallpaper, we’ve all been enamored with this feature. Chances are also good that when Microsoft Plus! came out for Windows 95 and provided us with an the Desktop Themes feature, most of us were happily entertained by the fact that not only could we change the desktop wallpaper, but now we could coordinate our entire user interface according to our favorite categorical themes.

My interest in Desktop Backgrounds and Themes has recently been rekindled by several posts on Microsoft’s The Windows Blog site that revolve around this topic. Read more..

How do I make Windows 7 HomeGroup content accessible to Vista and XP?

As I explained in “How Do I Create and Configure a Network with Windows 7 HomeGroup?” the HomeGroup feature in Microsoft Windows 7 is an enhanced version of a peer-to-peer workgroup designed to make sharing files and folder easier on a home or small business network. I then showed you how to create and join a HomeGroup with Windows 7.

In “Extend Default Folder Sharing Capabilities in Windows 7 HomeGroup,” I explained how Libraries are used to share folders and files and also described other built-in features that you can use to extend folder sharing capabilities in a Windows 7 HomeGroup. Read more.

Simplify file management with the XCopy Tool

If you needed to copy hundreds of files from one local hard disk to another or from one system to another across a network, would you perform the operation from Windows Explorer? Possibly. However, if you wanted to do something fancy, such as copy only those files that have changed on or after a certain date or maybe copy only those files that have the archive bit set, performing the operation in Windows Explorer would be time consuming and difficult. So you’d probably shell out to a Command Prompt window and use the good old DOS-based XCopy command, along with its detailed set of switches.

Since XCopy is still a viable file management tool, I updated the XCopy Tool, an HTML application I created back in 2002. This updated version, which you can download for free, works in Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. Read more.

The Flashlight - An IT Pro's Best Friend!

IT Professionals employ all sorts of specialized tools in their jobs. While most of these tools are software based or involve computerized hardware, many of them are pretty traditional tools like a pliers or a screwdriver. Among these types of traditional tools is the flashlight. When it comes to investigating dark corners in a server room, pulling cables through the ceiling, or just connecting cables to the back of a computer under a desk in a cubicle, flashlights are an IT professional’s best friend.

In this gallery, I’ll present a collection of very interesting flashlights and flashlight accessories that you might find useful in your day-to-day work as an IT professional. Check it out!