Windows SteadyState (formerly Shared Computer Toolkit) is a set of software tools to help effectively manage shared computers running Windows.

Users sometimes go places and do things they shouldn’t on shared machines. Now you can help protect sensitive locations and restrict user access to features such as Control Panel.

Windows SteadyState can return your computer and hard disk to its exact condition before the user touched it, simply by rebooting.

Windows SteadyState is free and has great options for securing and maintaining your shared or public computers from an easy to use main console. You can read more about usage scenarios here.

After you finish configuring everything you want, it only needs one reboot to bring a particular computer to a previous state, just how you set it before.

The new version has many new features and it supports Windows Vista. For a complete description and more information including product demos, go to Windows SteadyState website.

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For a long time, Microsoft has been releasing DirectX 9 updates every two months. This releases include updates for new games, bug fixes and new features.

Here is the June 2008 release. The installer will update your current version of DirectX.

If you have Vista, you can update your DirectX 9 files with this release too.

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As i posted before, you can enable visual styles in the recently released Windows XP SP3 by just copying already patched files to System32 folder or by using SP3 UxTheme Patcher.

If you choose to use the latter, there is a new version that fixes some problems with users that are running limited accounts in Windows XP. Download it and apply the patch.

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About two months ago i made a post about a Preview version of the upcoming Windows Search 4.0. Microsoft just released the final version.

I’ve been using the earlier Preview and it works very well. There aren’t visual changes but the searches are more responsive and the results are displayed faster than before.

It is available for Windows XP as well but i haven’t try it in it because i just reformatted my laptop to install Vista again after making tests with SP3 and Unattended installations.

This final release will update previous installations.

Dowload XP | Vista

Microsoft has released a new version of Windows Installer. It is responsible for managing application installation and configuration.

There are many changes implemented in this new version. However, most of them are targeted for software developers or IT management. All users will need to install it to take advantage of the new features.

This versions does not configure the Windows Installer service to run in safe mode. I don’t know why Microsoft does this as it is needed to uninstall programs that use Windows Installer in safe mode. You can enable it in safe mode using VistaTweaker.

You can install it over any version you have because it will update it to 4.5 automatically. Just be sure to download the correct version for your Windows installation.

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Windows Vista bootloader can only be modified using bcdedit.exe or for short, BCD (Boot Configuration Data) along with commands and parameters. Microsoft made this changes to allow more possibilities of configuration and to be prepared for future technologies.

This is challenging for average users that just want to add an entry for another operative system or to choose which of them to boot first.

EasyBCD is a great application that lets you manage the bootloader entries with easy to understand options. It has entries for Windows XP or earlier versions, Mac OS X and Linux.

It has a backup feature in case you want to restore the default values. Also, it can look for errors and enable debug mode, a feature that lets you see what is actually happening at boot time.

If you have more than one operative system (this is known as Dual-boot or Multi-boot), or want to install another one along with your current installation of Vista, EasyBCD can help you add or manage this entries with ease.

Here is a FAQ from Microsoft about BCD.

Website EasyBCD Documentation

Microsoft has published a demo of the Multi-touch feature of Windows 7.

It looks great but i think that it will be best suited for kiosks or PDA’s. I can’t imagine myself or other home users using this everyday.

However, it is interesting because this can be added to new Windows Mobile releases or products such as Tablet PC’s or cellphones.

Video: Multi-Touch in Windows 7

Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 SP1 now supports Windows Vista SP1, Windows XP SP3, among other new features. You can use it to run other operating systems without modifying your hard disks or current installation of Windows.

I use Virtual PC to test my unattended dvd’s of Vista and XP. Also, i have tried many Live CD’s and Linux distros using Parallels Workstation virtual machines, but there is no support for linux in Virtual PC 2007 yet. Hopefully Microsoft will add it in the future.

Here’s a description from Microsoft:

Virtual PC lets you create separate virtual machines on your Windows desktop, each of which virtualizes the hardware of a complete physical computer. Use virtual machines to run operating systems such as MS-DOS, Windows, and OS/2. You can run multiple operating systems at once on a single physical computer and switch between them as easily as switching applications—instantly, with a mouse click. Virtual PC is perfect for any scenario in which you need to support multiple operating systems, whether you use it for tech support, legacy application support, training, or just for consolidating physical computers.

You can even download virtual hard disks (VHD) from Microsoft to try them on Virtual PC 2007. As far as i remember, there are Windows Vista VHD, Office 2007 and Visual Studio 2008.

So, if you are among the people who haven’t tried Vista yet, now is the time to do so.

Check the system requirements to make sure you can run it.

Website Download

Unattended usage:
Grab the MSI installer from the temp folder and use
/qb /norestart