In this post, I will show you how to load the Windows installation on to your USB flash drive and make it bootable just like the DVD.

Tools Required:

1. USB flash drive with a minimum capacity of 4 GB.

2. Windows 7 set-up DVD.

Step-1: Plug-in your USB flash drive and backup all the existing data in it.

Step-2: Open the command prompt. If you are using Windows 7/Vista then open it with administrator rights*.

* Goto Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Right-click on “Command Prompt” and select “Run as Administrator”.

Step 3: In the command prompt, type in the following command:

DISKPART

Now issue the following command:

LIST DISK

SELECT DISK 5

NOTE: In the above command, 5 is the USB drive number on my system. If you have a different number on your system, then you need to replace 5 with that number.

Step-4: Now issue the following list of commands one by one as shown below:

CLEAN

CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY

SELECT PARTITION 1

ACTIVE

FORMAT FS=NTFS QUICK

ASSIGN

EXIT

Minimize the command prompt and proceed to the next step.

Step 5: Insert the Windows 7/Vista installation disc and note down the “drive letter” of your DVD drive. In my case, it is “H:”. Now type the following list of commands as shown below:

H: CD BOOT
CD BOOT
BOOTSECT.EXE /NT60 M:(NOTE: M: is your USB drive letter)
EXIT

Step-6: Copy the contents of your Windows 7/Vista installation disk into the USB flash drive.

That’s it! Your USB stick is now ready to boot and install the OS for you. Don’t forget to enable the “USB Boot” option and change the “boot priority to USB device from hard disk” in your BIOS settings.

I hope you like this post. Pass your comments to express your opinion.

Creating the Customized Run Command

Let me take up an example of how to create a customized run command for opening the Internet explorer. Once you create this command, you should be able to open the Internet explorer just by typing “ie” (without quotes) in the Run dialog box. Here is how you can do that.

1. Right click on your Desktop and select New -> Shortcut.

2. You will see a “Create Shortcut” Dialog box as shown below

3. Click on “Browse”, navigate to: Program Files -> Internet Explorer from your Root drive (usually C:\) and select “iexplore” as shown in the above figure and click on “OK”.

4. Now click on “Next” and type any name for your shortcut. You can choose any name as per your choice; this will be your customized “Run command”. In this case I name my shortcut as “ie”. Click on “Finish”.

5. You will see a shortcut named “ie” on your desktop. All you need to do is just copy this shortcut and paste it in your Windows folder (usually “C:/Windows”). Once you have copied the shortcut onto your Windows folder, you can delete the one on your Desktop.

6. That’s it! From now on, just open the Run dialog box, type ie and hit Enter to open the Internet Explorer.

In this way you can create customized Run commands for any program of your choice. Say “ff” for Firefox, “ym” for Yahoo messenger, “wmp” for Windows media player and so on.

To do this, when you click on “Browse” in the Step-3, just select the target program’s main executable (.exe) file which will usually be located in the C:\Program Files folder. Give a simple and short name for this shortcut as per your choice and copy the shortcut file onto the Windows folder as usual. Now just type this short name in the Run dialog box to open the program.

I hope you like this post! Pass your comments.

Hibernation is a power saving option which was designed primarily for laptops. Unlike “sleep mode” which puts the open documents and files into the memory, hibernation puts all the open files and documents on to the hard disk and shuts down the computer without drawing even a small amount of power. Thus hibernation becomes an excellent way to save power and resume Windows back to the state where it was left off. If you really want to use this feature on Windows 7 then you need to enable this option. This can be done as follows.

1. Open the Command Prompt with “Administrator rights”. To do so, type cmd in Start menu and then hit Ctrl+Shift+Enter.

2. Now type the following command in the command prompt and hit Enter.

3. Type exit and hit Enter to close the Command Prompt. Now you should see the “Hibernate” option in the Start menu. If not then perform the following steps.

A. Type Power Options in the Start menu and hit Enter.

B. In the left pane, open the link labeled “Change when the computer sleeps” and then open the link “Change advanced power settings”.

Now a small window will pop-up as shown below:

C. Now expand the Sleep tree and turn off Allow Hybrid Sleep as shown in the above screenshot.

D. Now you should see the Hibernate option in the Start menu.

1. Goto “Start Menu -> All Programs -> Accessories” . Right click on “Command Prompt” and select “Run as Administrator“. If you are not the administrator then you are prompted to enter the password, or else you can proceed to step-2.

2. Now type the following command and hit enter

3. You will be prompted to restart the computer. Once restarted the trial period will be once again reset to 30 days. You can use the above command for up to 3 times by which you can extend the trial period to 120 days without activation.

4. Now comes the actual trick by which you can extend the trial period for another 240 days. Open Registry Editor (type regedit in “Run” and hit Enter) and navigate to the following location

6. Now you will be able to use the slmgr -rearm command for another 8 times so that you can skip activation process for another 240 days. So you will get 120 + 240 = 360 days of free Windows 7 usage.

Default Start Menu Button

Customized Start Menu Button

Tools That You Need:

1. Resource Hacker

2. Custom Start Menu icons (images). It mush be of the size 54×162 with a .bmp extension. which looks something as follows

They must be in the following order:

1st Image - When the button is not in use
2nd Image - When the mouse pointer is over the button
3rd Image - When the button is clicked

I have created a few customized buttons which are ready to use. You can download them from the following link.

Start Menu Buttons Download

Once you have all those resources ready, you can start the customization process as follows…

1. Take the ownership of the file “explorer.exe“ which is located in the Windows Folder (Most likely in C:\Windows).

2. Open the Resource Hacker Tool.

3. Go to File menu and click on Open. Now load the file “explorer.exe” into the Resource Hacker.

4. Expand Bitmap branch in the left pane.

5. Now expand 6801 option, right-click on 1033 and select Replace Resource option.

6. A new window appears. Click on Open file with new bitmap button.

7. Navigate to the customized (.bmp) image, open it and click on Replace button.

8.  Repeat steps 4 to 7 above for the options 6805 and 6809 as well.

9. Now click on Save option (File->Save). Resource Hacker will automatically create a backup file called explorer_original.exe so that you can restore it in the future if needed.

10. Log Off and Log On to see the changes in effect.

I hope you enjoy this trick. Pass your comments and share your experience.

Just run the portable tool kit and click on the “Install” button. This will add the “Take Ownership” option onto the context menu. To take ownership all you need to do is, just right-click on any of the desired file or folder and click the option “Take Ownership“.

In case if you wish to uninstall this tool at any time, you can just run the tool again and click on the ”Uninstall” button. I hope you like this tool. This works on both Windows 7 and Windows Vista. You can download it from the following link.

Download Take Ownership Shell Extention

1. The image you need to set as the background should be a .jpg file and it’s size should not exceed 245KB.

2. The image resolution can be anything of your choice. However I prefer 1440 x 900 or 1024 x 768. You can use any of the photo editing software such as Photoshop to compress and set the resolution for your image. Once you’re done, save this image as backgroundDefault.jpg.

3. You will need to copy this image to

You will need to create that path if it does not already exist on your computer.

4. Now open the Registry Editor (Start -> Run -> Type regedit) and navigate to the following key

If Background does not exist rightclick LogonUI, select New and then Key, and then name it Background. Now locate OEMBackground (listed on the right side). If it does not exist, right-click Background and select New and then DWORD and name it OEMBackground.

5. Double-click on OEMBackground and set the Value Data to 1.

6. Now log-off to see the new logon screen background. If you would like to revert back to the default background, just set the Value Data back to 0.

I hope you like this trick. Just try out and give your feedback!

Ever wondered how to alter the Windows Product ID?

It is possible to alter the Windows Product ID and change it to what ever you like. For example, you can change the Product ID and put your nickname in place of the formal Product ID displayed by the Operating System. This hack is too easy and can be done within minutes. The screenshot showing the altered Product ID is given below

Win 7 PC showing Original PID

Windows 7 PC showing Altered PID

As you can see from the above screenshot it is simple and easy to make your Windows display what ever you want in the place of the real Product ID. Here is a step-by-step procedure to alter your Windows Product ID.

1. Goto Start->Run and type the following in the Run dialog box

2. After you open the Registry Editor, navigate to the following key

3. On the right hand side, you can see an entry by name ProductID listed under the heading Name.

4. Double-Click on ProductID, a dialog box will pop-up showing your Windows PID. Now you can delete the original PID and enter anything of your choice.

5. Once you are done, just click on OK and close the Registry Editor. Now you can see the altered Product ID in the Windows Properties window.

I hope you like this trick. Pass your comments. Cheers!