Windows Bulletin

Microsoft has finally made Windows 7 Professional Pack for Small Business Server 2011 available for download. This download is an add-on for Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials and simplifies many aspects of client computer management.

It is easy to install and configure using an easy-to-understand wizard. The add-in simplifies the following areas:

1. Enable and configure security settings
2. Real-time user data backup
3. Offline access to user files stored on the server.

Security settings and real-time user data backup are performed with the following Windows functions :

• For security settings: Windows Update, Network Firewall, Windows Defender.
• For real-time backup of user data: Offline folder and file forwarding.

Download and save the installation package for Windows 7 Professional Pack for Small Business Server 2011 (.wssx) from Microsoft. The easy-to-understand wizard guides you through the installation process. read more

Yesterday, we saw how we could schedule Windows to shutdown or restart with the task scheduler. Although you can still use the Shutdown /s /t command and create a shortcut on the desktop to delay shutdown of your Windows computer and turn it off after a while, if you really need time to shutdown or restart frequently, you should try these free applications.

Automatic shutdown, restart of Windows

This free software allows you to stop, restart, disconnect, put your Windows 10/8/7 in standby mode at certain times.

Simple Shutdown Timer is a nice application I found on the Internet last night when my Internet downloads were supposed to take an hour or two and I felt tired. read more

Some of you may not know that Firefox offers a special version of its Firefox browser for students. This edition, called Back to School Edition, includes useful additions for students.

These additions are designed to prepare students and parents for school and help you research, share and even take notes.

The four pre-installed add-on modules are :

Windows does not have the ability to resize different application windows to certain sizes. However, with the availability of Sizer this question can be answered(2)(2)

Sizer is a free program that allows you to resize each open window on your computer screen to an exact and predefined size. The utility is therefore useful when taking screenshots for documentation or web page design.

The Sizer application can be downloaded 2 formats namely :

Zip packaging : This is a file 16 KB containing the configured program without shortcuts. read more

Spicebird is a messaging and collaboration application based on several other open source programs, mainly the Mozilla and Thunderbird platform. The first stable version of Spicebird is now available for download.

It has all the new features of Thunderbird plus and includes indexed search, theme support and more. It provides easy, integrated access to various Web services while allowing users to retain all the benefits of a desktop application.

This feature-rich software has a dashboard that provides a customizable home screen with mini-calendar, Newsfeed applet and multi-zone clocks. An e-mail folder preview with an imported calendar list is also available. read more

Web Pinner is a free application that can quickly and easily add links to the website to your Windows 7 desktop context menu.

Do you visit one or more specific websites very frequently? If so, there is another way to access it quickly.

Just download this portable application and start the.exe file as administrator. Enter details such as the website name, website URL and icon path. You can also open it with Internet Explorer or Firefox from the Open With drop-down menu. Click Apply.

You will see the website links in your desktop context menu. read more

A message on the TWC forum asking if it is safe to delete empty folders, made me look for a good empty folder to delete a freeware. Although you wouldn’t really save space since they occupy 0 bytes, it can be a good idea if it’s just good housekeeping you’re looking for. Read the forum message before continuing.

Delete empty folders and directories

There are several free programs to delete empty folders. Here are four I’ve met:

Empty Folder Finder

Remove empty directories

Remove Empty Directories allows you to find and delete empty folders and directories from the context menu. I think it’s very practical. You must open its settings and click the Integrate button to integrate the program entry into the context menu of the Explorer. Download it here. read more

Uploading and storing each attachment in the right place becomes a difficult task. It’s also not a good idea to leave it in your email account – and if you want to access it quickly when you’re offline?

Mail Attachment Downloader is a free and innovative program for Windows OS that automatically finds your attachments from online accounts, downloads them and stores them on your computer.

You can set filters to limit file uploads to a certain type or size. Advanced filtering options also allow you to filter messages by sender, subject or message content and by date range. read more

Visual BCD Editor is an extended graphical interface for the BCDEdit utility in the Windows operating system. In fact, it appears to be the first GUI utility to implement full BCD memory processing.

Visual BCD editor

With Visual BCD Editor you can create a new Windows 10/8.1/7/Vista/XP/VHD Loader in a few clicks and a few keystrokes.

You can create a boot sector loader (Linux, Ubuntu, Mac OS X) in one click plus extract MBR or PBR with the DD utility for Windows.

The latest version now comes with automatic creation of missing entries from Windows 10/8.1/7/7/Vista/XP/VHD Loader. read more

Sometimes a user must take an image of what is on their screen and insert it into a document, e-mail or other file to demonstrate a specific program or problem, or upload it to a website for image sharing. Among the many screen capture tools available for Windows OS, Screenshot Captor is one. It offers very useful features that the average user expects in an easy-to-use interface.

The user interface makes it easy to manage multiple screenshots at once and allows the user to save an image of an active window, full screen or rectangular area as a graphic file. It supports some basic editing functions such as cropping, highlighting and resizing. In a way, Screenshot Captor helps you take screenshots with minimal effort. read more