Sometimes even after you’ve uninstalled a program, its entry still remains listed in the Add or Remove Programs list under currently installed programs.

As time goes on, it’s easy for you to forget what programs you’ve uninstalled, so when you see the entries in Add/Remove, you’ll assume the programs are still on your hard disk, but when you try to uninstall them you’ll receive an error message – because the program has already been uninstalled.

Having experienced this problem with many computers, it’s just crazy to maintain if not cleaned early.

There’s an easy way to remove those entries “lost” or stuck entries in Add/Remove. Open the Registry Editor (type in regedit into the search box) and navigate to the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

Look for the entry of the uninstalled program (it will be the program name) and delete it. In some instances, instead of the program name, you’ll see an entry like this: {1451DE6B-ABE1-4F62-BE9A-B363A17588A2}. In that case, look at the DisplayName and Contact subkeys under that entry.

It has the name of the program and the company that created the program, Broadcom Controller in the example above. When you find the proper entry, delete it. To delete, just right click the entry, then click Delete.

If you scroll lower you will see the entries with user friendly names.

I hope this tip helps you clean up those unwanted uninstall entries in your Add/Remove programs list.

If a major disaster occurs and you find you’re no longer able to boot into Windows 7, you may need to do a recovery. Today we take a look at restoring your Windows 7 machine using a System Repair Disc and a backed up system image.

Note: This article assumes you have already created a System Repair Disc and have created a system image in Windows 7.

If you can’t boot into Windows because of a hard drive failure or corrupt OS, you might want to restore your system using the most recent image versus a clean install. In this scenario we are assuming that we’ve exhausted every other option, and the only way to save our system is to restore it from an image.

Boot from System Repair Disc

First we need to boot from the System Repair Disc. Pop it in your CD drive and if the BIOS is already set to boot from CD-ROM first, then you will see the following screen. If you don’t see the Press any key to boot from CD or DVD message, then you’ll need to hit the correct key when booting to pull up the boot options screen and choose your CD / DVD Drive. Usually it’s F12 but each system varies, for instance on my IBM Thinkpad it’s a separate Access IBM button.

While the System Repair Disc starts up you will see the message Windows is loading files…

After that the System Recovery Options screen comes up. Here you want to choose the correct keyboard input and click Next.

System Recovery searches for the Windows installation(s) you have on the hard drive.

Assuming we’ve already tried all of the other recovery tools, we want to select Restore your computer using a system image you created earlier and click Next.

At this screen you can see that it found the last system image which is saved on an external hard drive. If you want to use an older system image, click Select a system image then browse through older images until you find the correct one. Because we want everything to be as close to how it was before it crashed, we select Use the latest available system image (recommended) then click Next.

In the next screen just click on Next…there are no other partitions in this instance so we don’t need to worry about excluding disks.

 .

Finally you’re given an quick overview of the selected image and if everything looks right, click Finish.

Click Yes to the warning message that comes up making sure you want to restore the computer with the selected image.

The restore process will begin. It might take a few hours to restore everything depending on the size of the image and how much data there is. Provided there are no errors and the process completes successfully, your system will restart and the system should be restored.

Conclusion

There are a few things to keep in mind when you restore using a system image. An image is an exact copy the hard drive when it was created, so if your last backup was 3 months ago…that will be the drive you’re getting back. All of your programs, system settings, and files are replaced to how they were on the latest system image. It doesn’t allow you to choose individual items to restore, it’s an all or nothing process. This is why it’s a good idea to have your important documents and files saved to a separate drive or network location. The system image will restore your programs, settings, and files as they were when the image was created, but everything else from that point on will be gone. Depending on the date of the system image, allow enough time to run Windows Update, update drivers, patch other software, and tweak everything as necessary. The option to create a system image is available in all versions of Windows 7, and is a great insurance policy to have in case disaster strikes.

If you just can’t see the point of the desktop Gadgets included in Windows 7, or even the Sidebar gadgets in Windows Vista, you’ll be happy to know that you can easily disable them with a simple configuration change.

If you are really, really new to Windows 7, the gadgets are accessible via the desktop context menu, and can be dropped anywhere on the desktop you’d like.

To disable them, simply open up Control Panel and type “features” into the search box. Find the link for “Turn Windows features on or off” and open it.

Remove the checkbox from Windows Gadget Platform, click the OK button and restart your computer when it’s all done.

Now the item should be gone from the menu…

And there won’t be any more gadgets laying around on your desktop.

The new version of Windows seems to be a lot for stable than previous releases, however you never know when a malfunction might occur. Today we take a look at an option in Windows 7 that lets you create a System Repair disc in case you need to boot from it to recover your OS.

Create System Repair Disc

Type system repair disc into the search box in the Start menu.

The dialog box opens where you select the right drive and click Create disc. A CD will be fine as it only takes up 142MB of space.

Using the Disc

If you are having problems with your machine just pop in the recovery disc and boot from it and enter into Windows Setup [EMS Enabled].

After it boots up you can access recovery tools or restore the computer back to a system image

Now you can choose from different recovery options to help you get your machine back up and running.

You never know when an Operating System disaster might occur, but having a System Recovery Disc to boot from should be part of your backup and recovery toolbox in case it does.

From Windows 95 to Windows Vista, every version of the operating system has incorporated some kind of function to increase or decrease the size of the Start Menu to accommodate the number of program and application shortcuts on the menu.

However, starting with Windows 7, Microsoft changed the Start Menu to be more static. When you click on All Programs, the part of the Start Menu that displays all of your program shortcuts stays the same size as the size of the Start Menu when you first click on it.

If you have more program or folder shortcuts than the current size of the Start Menu can hold, you have to use a scrollbar or the scroll wheel on your mouse to access some of the shortcuts.

If you don’t have a lot of shortcuts on your All Programs menu because you don’t have many programs installed on your computer, you may not even have realized that Microsoft moved to a scrollbar rather than expanding menu system to access program shortcuts.

You do have the option of typing in the name of the program you want to run but it is inconvenient to click on the Start orb with your mouse and then have to relocate your hand to the keyboard just to open a program. This kind of defeats the purpose of having quick access to the Start Menu in the first place.

Short of making your Windows 7 Start Menu function like Windows XP, there is a somewhat clunky fix to help you access you program shortcuts more quickly by removing the scrollbar. Read on to learn how.
Remove the Scrollbar from the Windows 7 Start Menu

When you first click on the Start Menu, Windows 7 lists several shortcuts depending on your settings. It may display shortcuts to recently-used files or it may list shortcut to often-used programs. Whatever the case, the size of the Start Menu changes to accommodate the number of these shortcuts.

You can use this to your advantage by forcing the Start Menu to be bigger than it normally would be. You do this by permanently pinning shortcuts directly to the Start Menu.

To pin a shortcut to the Start Menu, begin by clicking on Start>All Programs and locating a program you use often. For our purposes, we will pin the Windows calculator to the Start Menu. Click on Accessories and right click on Calculator and choose Pin To Start Menu from the menu that pops up.

Notice that when you now click on the Start Menu, there is a shortcut to the calculator right on the Start Menu. Keep doing this for various programs until you have about ten or so shortcuts pinned to the Start Menu.

You’ll see that each time you add a shortcut to the Start Menu in this way, it grows in size, You can stop when you click on Start>All Programs and a scroll bar is no longer needed to see all of your program and folder shortcuts.

Granted, this is not an elegant solution to the problem of having a scrollbar appear on the All Programs menu. However, it does remove the need for a scrollbar to be there in the first place.

If you often use removable USB devices like a flash drive, you are probably already familiar with the “Safely Remove Hardware” icon that sits in the system tray. The problem for many people is that the icon is tiny, and clicking it just right to bring up the menu is a pain. Can’t we just make a shortcut to bring up the dialog?

Of course you can, and it’s really quite easy. Easier than trying to click the tiny icon in the tray, at least…

Update: This has been successfully tested on Windows 7 as well.

Create a Shortcut to the Safely Remove Hardware Dialog

Right-click anywhere on the desktop and choose New \ Shortcut:

Then paste in the following into the location box:

RunDll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll

Give it a name, and you’ll have a shortcut icon…

…that will pull up the Safely Remove Hardware dialog.

Assign a Shortcut Key

If you want to assign a shortcut key to this dialog, you can right-click the icon and open the properties dialog, then go to the Shortcut tab.

Add in the shortcut key and close the dialog. As long as the shortcut is on your desktop you shouldn’t have to restart anything for the hotkey to work. You can also move the shortcut to another folder, for instance your quick launch bar.

Even though Windows 7 has all kinds of new features, the basic Run command from Windows XP is not available by default. It has been replaced with the Windows 7 Search bar.

If you are used to the Run command, there is a way to get it back in Windows 7.

Right-click on the Windows 7 Taskbar and select Properties.

The Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box displays. Click the Start Menu tab and click the Customize button.

The Customize Start Menu dialog box displays. Scroll down to the Run command option and select the check box. The options are listed in alphabetical order. Click OK.

Click Apply on the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box and then click OK.

The Run command is now available on the Start menu.

Selecting the Run command opens the standard Windows XP Run dialog box.

Now you can use the Run dialog box to run Control Panel tools and Windows utilities and applications.

Windows 7 not going into sleep mode is most likely an issue with your power settings, drivers, or files from a previous install. However, you should be able to troubleshoot and find a solution to your problem in a couple of easy steps.

Let’s start by troubleshooting why Windows 7 will not go to sleep.

Common sleep problems:

- Windows 7 will not stay in sleep, awakes within seconds of when you put it in sleep mode.

- Windows 7 wakes from sleep at random.

- Windows 7 does not even go into sleep mode.

Possible Solutions:
Check and reset Windows 7 Power Options

1. Open up the control panel by using the path Start > Control Panel.

2. Change the Control Panel view to Large icons.

3. Click the Power Options icon.

4. Adjust the Windows 7 Power Plan settings. Select the option Balanced (recommended), and click the Change plan settings link.

5. Configure the settings for both On battery and Plugged in to your own preferences by selecting your time intervals from the drop down menus. After you are done, click the Change advanced power settings link.

6. From the Power Options pop up window, adjust all settings to your own preferences. When you are done, click the OK button.

7. Click the Save changes button in the Control Panel edit plan settings window and restart your computer.

*Sleep still not working? Try resetting options to default.*

1. Navigate the path Start > Control Panel. Click the Power Options icon.

2. Click the link that says Change plan settings under the Balanced option

3. Click the Restore default settings for this plan link. Click Yes when the power options prompt window pops up.

4. Exit out of the Control Panel.

5. Restart your computer.
Update Windows 7 Drivers

From time to time, Microsoft will release new updates for Windows 7. Because sleep mode problems could be a compatibility issue with your computer’s hardware, make sure that you are always staying up to date with updates.

1. Navigate the path Start > Control Panel.

2. Click the Windows Update icon.

3. Make sure your computer is up to date and configure the rest of your Windows 7 update settings.

Adjust which devices can wake the computer from sleep

1. Run a command prompt by using the path Start > All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt.

2. Right click on the Command Prompt listing and select Run as administrator.

3. Type the following into the Command Prompt window:

Powercfg -devicequery wake_armed

This should give you a list of all devices that are capable of waking the computer from sleep.

4. If you think that a certain device is preventing the computer sleep mode from working properly, you can disable it. To do so, enter the following into the Command Prompt window:

Powercfg -devicedisablewake “TYPE YOUR DEVICE NAME HERE”

5. If the problem persists, keep disabling one device at a time until you find the one that may be messing up your computer’s sleep function.

6. Enable devices by using the following:

Powercfg -devicenablewake “devicename”
Adjust devices using the Device Manager

If you do not want to use the Command Prompt to configure devices, you can also use the Windows 7 Device Manager.

1. Navigate the path Start > Control Panel. Click the Device Manager icon.

2. Scroll through your devices. Double click a device to open up the preferences box for that particular device.

3. Click the Power Management tab within the preferences box.

4. Toggle on/off Allow this device to wake the computer.

Update your computer’s hardware drivers

Often times, sleep and power problems with Windows 7 occur in self-built computers. Make sure that you are using the latest firmware and drivers for all of your computer’s hardware, particularly the motherboard.

Very often, when you buy new hardware you usually obtain a CD with drivers for that device. In case, if you lose the CD you can always download drivers from the manufacturer' official web-site. But this approach will not work if you do not know the exact manufacturer of the hardware or the exact device model. This article is intended to show you how to figure out with this problem.

Each device has a Vendor and Device ID associated with it. If you can find this ID, then you can easily find appropriate drivers for this device in Windows environment.

Following steps are required to be done to get the device ID:

1. Open Device Manager. Go to Start > right click on My Computer and choose Manage option. In the opened window on the left pane find Device Manager item. Click on it. All the connected devices are listed on the right pane of the window.

Note: all the devices that haven't been recognized by Windows or Windows has not found needed drivers for the unknown device is marked with the yellow question mark.

2. Choose the Unknown device (usually it appears with such name) and then right lick on it. Choose Properties.

3. Go to Details tab and select Device Instance ID or Hardware ID.

4. On the screen above Hardware ID is: PCI\VEN_1186&DEV_1300&SUBSYS_13031186&REV_10.

 Vendor ID: 1186.

 Device ID: 1300.

5. After you've got these IDs, go to PCI Database. Enter proper Vendor or Device ID to identify the device. Continue with the drivers download from the manufacturer' site.

Have you ever needed to clean out a folder with a lot of files in Windows Explorer in Windows 7 but you only want to delete selected files? Well, instead of using the cumbersome Ctrl-Select method, which is prone to errors that cause you to start over, there is an easier way.

Windows 7 allows you to select files in Windows Explorer using check boxes. Simply select the files you want by selecting a check box next to each file. You do not need to use the Ctrl key.

Start by navigating to the folder containing the files you want to select. Then, select Folder Options from the Tools menu.

The Folder Options dialog box displays. Click on the View tab and scroll down under Advanced settings until you find the Use check boxes to select items option. Select the check box next to that item to turn it on. Click Apply and then click OK.

Now when you put your mouse over a filename, a check box displays to the left of the filename. To select that file, select the check box.

Now you don’t have to worry about accidentally letting up on the Ctrl key while selecting your files and having to start selecting them all over. Any files you select using a check box stay selected unless you click the check box to unselect the file.