Disable Windows “Unused Icons” Balloon

unusedicons.png If you’re sick of Windows taskbar popup balloons prompting you about unused icons on your desktop, fear not—you can shut those down easily. The How To Geek explains that when you uncheck the “Run Desktop cleanup wizard every 60 days” box in your desktop items dialog, you’re good to go with one less irritating popup stealing your attention. Remember, using the free TweakUI you can disable all taskbar balloon popups indefinitely.

Skip Commercials in Windows Media Center with DVRMSToolbox

comskip.pngWindows only: Freeware application DVRMSToolbox analyzes Media Center-recorded files and marks the start and end point of commercials so you can quickly skip over commercials and go straight to the content. Similar to previously mentioned Lifextender in its commercial skipping capabilities, DVRMSToolbox keeps your files in tact and marks the commercials instead of deleting them entirely (like Lifextender does) so there’s less chance of an inadvertant cut. In addition, DVRMSToolbox can convert DVR-MS files (the default recording type of Media Center) to MPEG or WMV files for portability to other devices and other useful features. For a simple guide to getting started with DVRMSToolbox’s commercial detection, check out CyberNet’s introduction. This Media Center favorite is freeware, Windows only.

First shots of Windows 7 leaked? And by 7, we mean Vista.

There’s no telling how legitimate these shots might be, and it’s quite clear that these screens won’t be giving us any juicy details about Windows 7 anytime soon, but we couldn’t pass on images that purport to be the first from a super-secret test build of Windows 7 seeded to “key partners.” So, anything to see here? Not that we can tell, from the looks of things we’re looking at a copy of Vista with the name “Windows 7 Ultimate” tacked on, but there’s no telling what’s happening under the hood. We know we can’t wait to pay another few hundred dollars for a barely noticeable upgrade to Vista that will re-break all driver support, how about you?

[Via Engadget]

I am wondering if the rumor isn’t true that Microsoft will dump Vista for a new operating system. Any thoughts? It sure looks that way right now.

Faster Shutdowns Using the Run Dialog

Run.pngReader Eric writes in with a tip to eliminate hangs and speed up the shutdown process in Windows without installing any extra software.

Whenever I tried to shutdown my work laptop it would take almost five minutes. Five minutes! Since I work in a completely locked-down environment I couldn’t look to any third party applications for help. Entering the following shutdown command in the run dialog speeds up my shutdown time dramatically.
shutdown -f -t 0

The command Eric uses immediately forces any open applications to close without warning prior to Windows shutting down. Here’s another way to quickly shutdown your Windows computer. Thanks, Eric!
[Via Lifehacker]

I’ll have to try this little tip out on my system. Vista takes forever to shut down. Maybe I can make a shutdown icon for it!!

Vista named #1 biggest tech disappointment of 2007 — by PC World

First PC World gets all up on the soapbox that (until a certain date) the MacBook Pro is the fastest PC the mag had tested, but consider the next step taken: PC World has boldly declared Vista #1 with a bullet in in their Biggest Tech Disappointments of 2007. Ok, sure, we get that it’s “disappointments” and not “crappy products” — the two imply very different things, and it’s hard not to be somewhat disappointed by any product that took the better part of a decade to come out — but if PC World harshing on Vista this bad doesn’t smack at all of linkbait, well, we don’t know what does. Oh, and here’s that link.

I’ve had a lot of troubles with Vista but seriously who doesn’t have trouble with a OS!! Come on, They must only want a Macintosh!