Microsoft Windows 7 Upgrade Chart

Microsoft seems to have sent an official Windows 7 upgrade card to Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal. The diagram tells a rather confusing story: upgrading to Windows 7 will be very complex.

Windows 7

First, it contains an entire line dedicated to a product that does not exist : Windows Vista Starter 64-bit version (Vista Starter is only available in 32-bit version).

Secondly, of the 66 options listed, many are completely ridiculous. Will anyone upgrade from Vista Business 64-bit to Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit? read more

Disable recent search suggestions in Windows 7

Windows Explorer displays default pop-up windows when users type in the search box. These suggestions are based on your previous entries in the search field. But if you wish, you can disable the suggestion of the last queries for the search field and prevent entries in the search field for future references from being saved in the registry.

Enter gpedit.msc in the start search and press Enter to open the Group Policy Editor.

Navigate from left pane to next directory :

User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Explorer read more

The Tray Explorer Jump List icon does not work on Windows 7

Right-click the Explorer icon in the Windows 7 taskbar gives you the commands Recent Visit, Basic in the Jump List. However, if you don’t see anything in your jump list now, you can perform the following troubleshooting steps:

First right-click the taskbar > Properties > Start Menu tab.

Here you ensure that open items are saved and displayed in the start menu and taskbar. Click Apply/Exit.

Create a new jump list

If it does not help, it is quite possible that the memory file with the lists has been corrupted.

So you may need to rebuild it. read more

Enabling the Troubleshooting Volume Windows Error Codes and Error Messages

If you are trying to activate your copy of Windows with Multiple Activation Key (MAK) or Key Management Service (KMS) to perform volume activation on one or more computers running Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista, but you get an error code and an error message, this article may help you.

The following is the list of error codes and error messages you might get when trying to activate Windows :

0xC004C003 The activation server has detected that the specified product key is locked.

0xC004B100 The activation server detected that the computer could not be activated. read more

Physical memory limits in crash dump files for Windows 10/8/7

This article quickly reviews Physical Memory Limits in Crash Dump files for Windows 10/8/7 and the Sysinternals RamMap tool, with which the number of physical memory areas on a system can be determined.

Physical memory limits in crash dump files

All Windows operating systems are configured to collect information about their status in the event of a system crash or shutdown error and save it as crash dump.dmp files. There are three types of discharges that can be detected during a system crash: Full dump, kernel dump, and small dump.

The crash dump format has a limit of 42 (64 bits) and 86 (32 bits) physical address ranges. On some systems, the BIOS memory card may contain more than this number of non-contiguous regions. When a dump file is created on this machine, only the first 42 (64 bit) or 86 (32 bit) memory areas are stored in the file. The kernel and the complete memory dump of a Windows system may not contain all of the system memory. read more

Troubleshooting error: Windows 7 SP1 installation was not successful

Microsoft should release Windows 7 SP1 in July 2010. If you receive an error message Installation failed when installing Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2, you should check these troubleshooting steps.

The most frequent causes of this problem are:

  • An inconsistency in the Windows Servicing Store. The Windows Service Store is a necessary feature to successfully install Service Packs.
  • A program on your computer, such as an antivirus or antispyware program, interferes with the installation of the Service Pack.

To solve this problem, first download the System Update Readiness Tool. The system update preparation tool can help you resolve problems that may prevent the installation of Windows updates and Service Packs.

After running the system update preparation tool, try installing the Service Pack again. read more

Windows slideshow function for desktop background does not work

If you notice that your Windows desktop slideshow under Windows 10/8/7, which was working well, no longer works, you should read this article.

The Windows slideshow function does not work

First make sure that no software installed prevents background images from being modified. Also make sure your version of Windows 7 has this feature.

Windows Starter and Windows Home Basic do not allow to change the desktop background image and therefore the slideshow function, so you must confirm it ! But there is surely also the possibility to change your wallpaper in Windows Starter and Basic Edition ! read more

Hard disk space requirements for Windows 7 Service Pack 1

There are a few precautions to take before installing Windows 7 SP1. One of them is that you have enough storage space on your computer.

Microsoft has created a disk space requirements table for Windows 7 Service Pack 1.

Make sure you have enough free space to install SP1, although much of this space will be recovered after installation.

If you need to delete space, this message can help you.

VDS Basic Provider Error code 490@01010004 in Event Viewer under Windows 7

You have a Hyper-V guest operating system running Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows 7 with a hard disk connected to a SCSI controller. Well, if you get the error Unexpected Error. Error code: 490@01010004, then this article can help you.

Error code 490@01010004

This error message can be displayed in the Event Viewer.

There is a KB979391 explaining ONLY why this happens, but no real correction in this article. Some forums have reported that this problem can be solved by reinstalling your Virtual Drive software such as Alcohol 120%, DAEMON Tools Lite etc. read more

A file extension cannot be associated with an application under Windows 7/8/10

If you cannot assign a file extension to an application under Windows 7/8/10, you should try this :

Unable to assign a file extension

and navigate to:

ComputerHKEY_CLASSES_ROOTApplications

Here you will find the command. . exe name that causes problems

Expand and navigate to :

Shell > Open > Command.

double-click it and make sure that the application location points to the actual location of the executable file in the value data field.

Exit the registry editor.

Now link the file type for this special extension and see if it helps!

Our Freeware File Association Fixer for Windows should also interest some of you. This article shows you how to reset all file associations in Windows 10 to default settings.
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