Make your PC run like new Tired of your unstable and crashing PC? Looking for a permanent solution for your dysfunctional XP? Don't compromise — get our new, state-of-the-art technology. Reimage requires no setup and causes no loss of data or applications. This is the ultimate professional repair tool, which works like "magic," according to eWeek. Get a free Reimage PC booster with every scan. Try it now! Reimage

Try Snagit for screen capture free If you see it, you can Snagit. Capture any size image your PC can handle in a snap, and share it just as fast. From something small to an entire page that scrolls, Snagit has you covered. Grab exactly what you want, when you want it, every time. Try it for free! Snagit

Save up to 76% on quality inkjet ink We offer the sharpest prices on the Web for quality ink and laser toner. Bonus: save an extra 10% by using coupon code DPL7349X. Free shipping to contiguous U.S. locations for all orders over $50. Offer expires 9/30/2009 and excludes OEM items. 4InkJets

See your ad here

• Step 1: Click Start, All Programs, Accessories. Right-click Command Prompt and choose Run As Administrator. Enter your administrator password.
  
  
• Step 2: Type the following command and press Enter:
  
  slmgr -rearm
  
  Note the space after slmgr and the hyphen in front of rearm.
  
  
• Step 3: Restart Windows 7.
  

Once the OS restarts, the Properties dialog described above will indicate that Windows 7's activation grace period has been reset to a full 30 days.

You can run the -rearm trick a total of three times. If you perform a -rearm at the end of each 30-day period, you end up with 120 days of full, unfettered Windows 7 use without having to supply an activation key in the interim.

How to install Win7 Ultimate now, pay less later

When the activation grace period runs out — whether it's in 30 or 120 days or somewhere in between — you need to feed Windows 7 an activation key. That's when many Windows 7 customers will find themselves in trouble.

Let me clarify up front that the 32-bit and the 64-bit versions of Windows take the same keys. A key that works for 32-bit Windows 7 Home Premium also works for 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium. However, different keys are required for Ultimate vs. Pro vs. Home Premium.

(I assume you won't want to install the exceedingly limited Windows Home Basic, which is intended primarily for developing countries. And you won't be installing Windows Home Starter, because you can't buy a key for it. The Starter version is available only when preinstalled on a new netbook.)

Say, for example, you install a free trial of Windows 7 Ultimate. However, when the time comes to pay the piper, you want to shell out your shekels only for Win7 Home Premium. (That's the version most individual users will choose, and it's considerably cheaper than Win7 Ultimate — which isn't worth spending more for, as I see it.)

If you installed a trial of Win7 Ultimate without knowing the secret, you're stuck. The Home Premium key won't activate an Ultimate PC. Your only option is a complete reinstall of Windows using the version that matches your bought-and-paid-for key — Home Premium, in this case.

The best solution is to install in the first place the version you probably want to end up with. If you expect to pay for Windows 7 Home Premium, you should install Windows 7 Home Premium. The same goes for Windows 7 Professional, which is for use in corporate domains.

Fortunately, there's an easy way to install either Windows 7 Home Premium or Pro from a Windows 7 Ultimate CD: simply delete a single file. Hard to believe, but true.

Convert Win7 Ultimate to Pro or Home Premium

Here's the crux of the matter: If you put a DVD containing Win7 Ultimate in your PC and run the installer — either by booting from the disc or running the setup program from inside Windows — you end up with Win7 Ultimate. No surprises there.

However, if you first delete a tiny file named ei.cfg before making the installation DVD, the Win7 installer will give you the choices shown in Figure 1.


Figure 1. Delete or rename ei.cfg before burning a Windows 7 installation DVD, and a menu then allows you to select which version to install.

In fact, no matter which Win7 installation DVD you have — Ultimate, Pro, or Premium — if you delete the ei.cfg file from the disc, you'll be offered the same choices and can install any version of Windows 7.

At the moment, only a small number of people have received a physical DVD containing Windows 7 Ultimate. Instead, most current Win7 users downloaded an .iso file, which includes everything on the Windows 7 Ultimate DVD: boot settings, file-structure details, etc. You burn the .iso file to a DVD. Then you either boot your PC from the DVD or run the setup program within an older version of Windows to kick the Win7 installer into gear.

If you have a Windows 7 Ultimate .iso file, it's easy to delete ei.cfg. First, get a 30-day trial version of the gBurner utility, which is available from the program's download page at CNET's Download.com. Then install and run gBurner, open the Windows 7 .iso file, and delete (or rename) \sources\ei.cfg. Piece o' cake, although it can take 20 minutes to save the altered .iso file.

You can then use either gBurner or Alex Feinman's ISO Recorder program (available from Alex's site) to burn a version of the .iso file without ei.cfg to DVD.

What if you do have a physical Windows 7 installation DVD, but you don't have an .iso file? In that case, use either gBurner or ISO Recorder to rip the DVD into an .iso file. Then follow the instructions above to delete the ei.cfg file and burn a new DVD.

Get the right version of Windows 7 going now and you won't have to reinstall it — or pay an exorbitant price — later.

(My thanks to all-around good guy Seth Bareiss for his help in researching this topic.)

Table of contents

Learn to use MS Office like a pro Frustrated by MS Word? Excel just doesn't seem to add up? Feel powerless using PowerPoint and MS Outlook? Carol will explain it all for you in a clear and concise manner. Visit Carol's Corner Office, home of the Word Bytes Newsletter today, and subscribe! As an added bonus, when you become a member, you receive deep discounts on her top-selling books explaining the intricacies of MS Office. Carol's Word Bytes Newsletter

Free trial — automate your computer Macro Scheduler is a full featured Windows automation solution for automating all your applications and interfaces. With easy-to-use code builder, macro recorder, screen text capture, image recognition, user simulation, and over 300 actions, any Windows or Web task can be automated to save your company time and money. Download a free trial and join thousands of satisfied customers today. Macro Scheduler

Get Windows and tech news daily Replenish your mind with tech excellence! Visit the Infopackets site right now and get your daily fix of Windows news, reviews, tech tips, plus freeware goodies daily. Bonus: join our mailing list today and you'll also receive our highly coveted Top 10 Tech Reports, including PC Security Essentials, Windows Optimization Secrets, Top Freeware Antivirus Reviewed, MS Office Alternatives, and more. Infopackets Windows Newsletter

See your ad here

• "While not as egregious an offense as Sun's promotion of Carbonite, Adobe certainly deserves to be in the Installers Hall of Shame.
  
  "First, the initial installation of Flash Player and Adobe Reader both default to installing the Google Toolbar. While not a for-pay commercial offering, Google Toolbar is completely unrelated to the core function of Flash Player and Adobe Reader — just as Carbonite is completely unrelated to Java. At a minimum, the default should be to not install this toolbar. Adobe doubles down on this offense by also defaulting to install the Google Toolbar when the Flash Player is updated.
  
  "Second, Adobe all but forces the installation of the Adobe Download Manager (Adobe DLM) ActiveX control in order to install or update the Flash Player. At less than 2MB, the Flash Player doesn't require a download manager to ensure successful downloads. This apparently unneeded complication raises questions about the true purpose of Adobe DLM.
  
  "In addition, when I'm updating software to fix a security hole, I do not want to install another potentially unsafe piece of software from that vendor, especially software that's of a class (ActiveX control) that is a frequent vector for malware."
  

• "In reference to Mr. O'Reilly's piece on the Gmail activity log, I would like to report that the feature was recently very helpful to us in identifying the source of unauthorized accesses to one of our user's accounts. (Our e-mail is hosted by Google.)
  
  "When one of our users discovered one morning that all the mail in his Sent folder had been deleted from the Gmail server, he contacted me and I immediately went to his location to examine his account, which he left open until I arrived. Even though the log lists only the last five IP addresses from which access had been made, it so happened that two of those were from IPs other than our own.
  
  "A 'who-is' on both addresses revealed their ownership, including one that was owned by the same ISP we use. Our provider was more than happy to identify the organization to which the IP was assigned, which happened to be that of another academic institution which, in turn, happened to be the current employer of one of our past employees. While with us, the former employee was working in a tech-support position and had — in a convoluted way — been given access to numerous e-mail passwords.
  
  "In addition, I found that forwarding had been enabled in the victim's account settings and that an e-mail account had been inserted there, to which copies of all incoming mail were being forwarded. Naturally, the victim had no knowledge of the forwarding account and didn't even know how to set up the forwarding feature to begin with.
  
  "The manner in which those passwords were obtained is another good lesson to us all. The passwords were actually provided to him by employees for the purpose of setting up accounts for use with a student information system. When setting up their accounts for the program, our friend would ask them to provide a password.
  
  "As you know, most people will use the same password over and over again, so when providing him a password, they would commonly give him the same password they used for everything else, including their e-mail accounts. Armed with a list of passwords, all he had to do was experiment with them to see if he could access their e-mail accounts with them. I'm sure most of them were successful.
  
  "It was pure, dumb luck that I got into the activity log before the owner accessed his mail a couple more times, as each new access bumps the oldest one off the list. It should be noted, however, that Google will provide a 30-day history but that a release must be completed by the account holder granting permission to do so.
  
  "Hope you enjoyed this story of espionage and intrigue. Keep up the good work, guys!"
  

Table of contents

Your old drivers are slowing down your PC Driver Detective provides the most up-to-date drivers specific to your computer, including all major-brand OEMs (Dell, HP, Compaq, Toshiba, etc.) and generic brands. We access a database of over 9.2 million device-associated drivers — the largest driver update database on the Internet. Driver Detective saves you endless hours of work and aggravation normally associated with updating drivers. Driver Detective

Get your message seen by 400,000 readers Does your company offer a product or service? Now you can place an ad in the Windows Secrets Newsletter and be seen by more than 400,000 active buyers of PC hardware and software. Bid as much or as little as you like to get the ideal ad placement. Take advantage of our all-new design interface, allowing larger images and longer text, and get updated stats in real time! Windows Secrets Newsletter

See your ad here

By Stephanie Small We all know them: Twitter addicts who constantly update their status with such breaking news as "I'm bored" or "I'm soooo glad it's sunny out!" What makes these people think anyone cares? Well, annoying tweeters — beware! The rest of us can just tweet tweetlejuice three times to our most-aggravating Twitter friends, and the "ghost with the most" will eat their irritating little Twitter souls. At least then someone might actually be interested in knowing "what are you doing?" (Warning: gross behavior depicted.) Play the video

Table of contents

TOP STORY By Woody Leonhard Use any version of Windows 7 free for 120 days How to extend Win7's trial to a full four months How to install Win7 Ultimate now, pay less later Convert Win7 Ultimate to Pro or Home Premium KNOWN ISSUES By Dennis O'Reilly Add Adobe to the list of update opportunists Gmail activity log defeats a hack attack Most recent Java update may not be offered WACKY WEB WEEK By Stephanie Small Annoying tweeters meet their zombie demise

	LANGALIST PLUS By Fred Langa Delete files that Windows labels "undeletable" There's no such thing as a file you can't delete Fix "unknown device" errors in Device Manager Identify an external drive's format type Use the best tool to convert WMA/MP3 audio files
	BEST SOFTWARE By Ian "Gizmo" Richards New browser combines best of three worlds It's what's beneath the hood that counts Browser lets you switch among three engines Looks aside, what's the browser like to use? The three types of users who'll love this app
	INSIDER TRICKS By Erik Larkin Bolster your security with top-notch free tools Give your antivirus software a torture test Little-known options help you stay patch-perfect Double-checking gives you better protection

	There's no fixed fee! Contribute whatever it's worth to you Readers who make a financial contribution of any amount by Sept. 9, 2009, will immediately receive the latest issue of our full, paid newsletter and 12 months of new paid content. Pay as much or as little as you like — we want as many people as possible to have this information.
	A portion of your support helps children in developing countries Each month, we send a full year of sponsorship to a different child. Your contributions in August are helping us to sponsor Maria, a 3-year-old girl from Ecuador. Children International channels development aid from donors to Maria and her community. We also sponsor kids through Plan USA and other respected agencies. More info

More info on how to upgrade

Table of contents

• Visit our Unsubscribe page.
  

Table of contents