Mike Southby

According to the system requirements, the x64 version of Windows 7 is not supported in CS3 but as always, there is a work around!

1. Run cmd.exe with administrator privileges (Start > type ‘cmd’ then right click on cmd.exe and select Run as Administrator, then click Continue when prompted by the elevation consent dialogue box).  This will open a command prompt in c:windowssystem32
2. Type cd..SysWOW64
3. Type regsvr32 jscript.dll
4. Type regsvr32 vbscript.dll

That should work; you can now run the installer.

The problem is that the Photoshop installer is a 32-bit program, which means that it needs access to all 32-bit DLL’s and COM registrations.  Strangely, the 64-bit DLLs on x64 Windows are in the system32 directory and the 32-bit DLLs are in the SysWOW64 directory.

WoW64 means ‘Windows on 64-bit Windows’ and it contains all the 32-bit binary files required for compatibility.

Let me know if this helps anybody.

I’ve had a few emails asking where you can get hold of a product key for Windows 7 RC, well, Microsoft are still freely giving away product keys for testing purposes of the final RC.  To obtain your product key head over to Microsoft’s dedicated site here.

With the imminent release of the final, public product next month however, I doubt this link will be available for much longer, Microsoft are hardly going to make a ‘free’ version of it’s flagship OS available when it hits the stores; get your product keys quick.

Caveat: Remember that whilst the RC is essentially the final product and is very stable, it is only designed for testing and not for use in a production environment.  You should only install the RC if you fully understand this.

The Release Candidate (RC) of Windows 7 is now widely used by many. The RC is of course fully functional and is in essence, the same version as the full release which is due to hit the shops next month on October 22nd. The RC will expire on June 1st, 2010 but on March 1st, it will start coercing you to upgrade to the full product by shutting down every two hours (but remain fully functional, you’ll just have to turn it back on). Still, that gives us around 7 months grace before we have to bite the bullet and uninstall the RC before installation the public release.

So just how much time does it take to backup all of your data and system settings and reinstate everything back after a fresh install? I know personally I always seem to forget at least a couple of things so try and avoid it as long as possible. Experience tells me that when it’s time for me to do it, I’d best not make any plans for the rest of the day; at least. Let’s be honest, it’s a real pain.

So, establishing that we are likely to keep the RC on our machines for some time before upgrading, I wanted to make the experience as nice as possible and one thing that has annoyed for ever since the install is the watermark which Microsoft place above the system tray. You know the one, the annoying ‘For Testing Purposes Only’ (yeah right…) which sits just in the wrong place and ruins my nice clutter free desktop.

Now, wanting to remove the watermark isn’t something new and not wanting to ‘reinvent the wheel’ I thought I’d research some of the ways others have achieved this. Firstly, let me say there is more than one correct way of doing this, the theory behind what needs to be done is simple enough and it doesn’t really matter which way you decide to go. I have a bit of time on my hands this week as I am away on holiday (but obviously, couldn’t contemplate leaving my laptop at home..) so went about it the long way by manipulating a .mui file in the windowssystems32en-us folder, but, there is a much simpler way which I thought I’d share with you all.

Download this file to somewhere you’ll easily remember, I find the desktop is usually the easiest. Unzip the file and choose either the 32bit or 64bit version depending on which you have installed then right click the file as select run as administrator. The script will then go through the process of removing the watermark without you having to edit any of the core files yourself, the entire process is pretty quick and should not take any more than a minute or so.

That’s it!

One thing to mention here, the file is only tested with Build 7100 (the latest RC), it will not work with earlier builds, such as the earlier betas.

Whilst I prefered the manual way of doing things, most I’m sure will opt for the easier, automatic way.  Credit goes to deepxw for coding the file to automatically remove the watermark.

With Windows 7 RC now firmly under our belts and the public release of Windows 7 taking place next month, I thought I’d put together a few thoughts relating to the antivirus solutions that are currently available for the new OS.  After all, for many it will be the first piece of software installed after completing the initial installation.  Generally speaking, software that has been designed to run on Vista should work fine with Windows 7, as always there are exceptions to this, the most noticable being antivirus and firewall solutions.

When you first boot into the new OS after the initial install, you’ll be greeted in the typical Microsoft fashion by a popup balloon in the system tray telling you that you need to install an antivirus solution.  Tip – it’s worth noting the symbol of a spanner that appears in this balloon, clicking it will allow you to turn off this nag.  The same is true of other pop up balloons that appear in Windows 7…

So which antivirus solution should you choose?

The following list is not exhaustive by any means, there will be more and more vendors adding support for Windows 7 as they frantically try and ensure compatibility before the October release date.  But it’s worth noting 2 main omissions.  Windows own product, Windows Live OneCare and McAfee; neither are compatible with Windows 7 (although McAfee are soon to resolve this issue I believe).  So, in no particular order:

- Avira [Link]

I have to be honest, I have not really come across Avira much before, however it fully supports Windows 7 and is a free solution so has to be applauded.  It also scores very well in benchmarking tests.

“The ninth generation of Avira’s security tools protect the new Microsoft Windows 7 operating system”

- Grisoft AVG Free Edition [Link]

Tried and tested by many people worldwide this is a recognised vendor with a well established product.  A toned down version of their fully-fledged product, the free edition provides good basic protection but with some restrictions, like limiting the frequency of definition updates.  One thing to mention, if you read the EULA, technically you should not be using it in a commercial environment.

“AVG Free provides you with basic antivirus and antispyware protection for Windows and is available to download for free.  Compatible with Windows 7, Windows XP and Windows Vista”

- Avast! [Link]

Another vendor who should be recognised for offering their product in a free version for home users.  Avast! antivirus Home Edition is free to use but it is necessary to register before the end of the initial 60 day trial period.  Following the registration you will receive by email a license key valid for a period of one year.

“Avast! antivirus software has earned the “Compatible with Windows 7″ logo.  Avast! 4.8 successfully completed Microsoft Corporations testing regime to prove it can be readily installed and run reliably on Windows 7″

- Norton (Symantec) [Link]

Not a huge amount to say about Norton, it works, it’s one of the market leaders but personally, I would never recommend it owing to the amount of system resources which it grabs.  Previous incarnations have also been near impossible to uninstall if you decide you want to remove it.  They have made sure it is compatible with Windows 7 however so worthy of a look.

- Kaspersky [Link]

I’ve used Kaspersky in the past and have really liked their products, however as with a lot of vendors they have really jumped on the bandwagon of late and have become quite ‘commercialised’ with fancy admin interfaces and options that in reality, I doubt you’ll ever need.  They do have and I’m sure will continue to have a very good following however and the protection is up there with the very best.  One thing also to mention is that this is not the finished product, but a fully working, and free, Release Candidate.  Definitely worth a look though, I have used this myself on one of my Windows 7 builds and it worked absolutely fine, not a single error.

“Kaspersky Lab  makes the next step in supporting Windows.  Release Candidate of Kaspersky Anti-Virus for Windows Workstations 6.0 Maintenance Pack 4 with Windows 7 support is now available”

- ESET [Link]

ESET, or ESET NOD32 as a lot of people will be able to recognise it better by is another of the established vendors who until recently, have been taking a back seat in terms of public awareness compared to Norton, McAfee et all.  It’s actually a very good product.  I haven’t tried the new Windows 7 compatible version myself, in fact I have not used an ESET product since Windows 2000 days.  One important point to consider though is that whilst the standalone antivirus product is fully compatible with Windows 7, issues have been identified with the ESET Smart Security Suite.

“ Microsoft has notified software developers that some of the technologies used by security, backup, disk utility and network management programs are incompatible with the Windows Vista to Windows 7 upgrade process.  this is a direct result of Microsoft’s design decisions and impacts most antivirus solutions that scan network data.

ESET has verified that the personal firewall module in both versions 3 and 4 of ESET Smart Security is affected.  The problem only affects computers being upgraded to Windows 7 from Windows Vista SP1 and SP2.  Customers working with new installations of Windows 7 will not experience these problems, nor will customers upgrading from Windows XP (which performs a clean install).

ESET NOD32 Antivirus is not affected

ESET is working closely with Microsoft as we approach the official launch of Windows 7 to address any potential compatibility issues and promptly communicate issues like this to our valued partners.”

- Bitdefender [Link]

I have not used a Bitdefender client product before but have been using their scanning engines for many years now in a variety of server products, especially Exchange security solutions.  I have never found a problem and the definition update files have always contained the very latest virus signatures.  Could be worth a look.

According to Microsoft, the following vendors are also compatible with Windows 7 although I have not had any experience with any either personally, or through recommendation:

• Rising [Link]
• Trend Micro [Link]
• Sunbelt [Link]
• Ahn Lab [Link]
• F-Secure [Link]
• GData [Link]
• Panda [Link]
• Webroot [Link]
• Bullguard [Link]

I’ve tried where possible to give you links to the specific antivirus only product for comparison, most if not all of the vendors also offer complete solutions usually branded ‘Internet Security’ of something very similar.  I personally stay well away from these products as they are far too resource hungry on the average system and can cause your machine to almost grind to a halt.  Also, a lot of the features they offer are simply not required as they are already part of Windows 7 by way of UAC, Windows Defender and Windows Firewall.  However, as with so many things in life ‘you pays you money you makes your choice’.

Here in the UK, some of the ISPs are now also bundling a customised antivirus solution with their connectivity packages, Virgin Media’s for example has been tested to ensure compatibility with Windows 7.

So is there a particular product I recommend?

The simple answer is no, I have tried a few of the Windows 7 offerings and all of them worked very well at catching threats, however they also all had their own share of issues or annoyances, mostly relating to the performance impact on the machine.

I’d welcome any feedback if anyone knows of any other antivirus products that are known to work under Windows 7, or any comments relating to any of the products above.  Please do use the comments box below and share your thoughts and experiences, the more information we can get together in one space the better the resource for everyone.

Discuss.

With Windows 7 well on the way now with official public release due on October 22^nd, I’m sure a lot of people will want to dual boot the new OS with an existing installation of Vista.  In this post, I’ll show you how to achieve this.

Firstly, and very importantly, make sure that you have applied the latest updates from Windows Update and made sure that you have the latest drivers installed for your specific hardware.  It’s important to remember that Windows 7 is still currently in beta release.  The version of Windows that I am using in this post is Windows 7 Ultimate Edition, build 6.1.7000.  When the final version is available, although unlikely, this information may need updating.

I am going to perform this installation on a virtual machine.  If it were a production machine you would simply create a restore point and back up any data on the system before continuing.

Things to note before attempting a dual-boot configuration:

• You need a hard disk in the system that has a separate partition for each operating system that you want to install
• If the single disk does not have multiple partitions already configured you may need to reformat and / or repartition your hard disk
• Alternatively, you could install an additional hard drive in the system
• The partition should formatted with the NTFS file system.
• To avoid major configuration problems, especially between older boot managers and newer boot managers, you should always install operating systems from oldest release to newest i.e. Vista should be installed first.

Notes – When you install multiple operating systems to a single system in a multi-boot configuration you should do so in the order of their release. Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 released in that order so if you’re trying to install one or more on a system you should do them in that order.

- The Installation

Before starting this post I already have a virtual machine configured with Windows Vista Ultimate Edition service pack 1 and have an available primary partition to use for Windows 7.  I am going to launch setup from within the running Vista operating system; I could have just as easily booted from the DVD at startup and kicked off the installation routine following most of the upcoming steps.

Once the Windows 7 media is in the DVD drive autorun should execute on its own. It may not based on your default settings in which case you’d have to launch the installation routine manually.  Setup will begin copying some of the needed temporary files and then present you with the “Get important updates for installation” options.

You can choose one option or the other; unless you have some specific reason to do otherwise, it is almost always the best bet to go ahead and get the latest updates for installation (as recommended by the setup wizard).

If you do not want to take part in the Windows improvement program (I’d recommend you don’t, I like to know what my machine is doing and do not like the idea of information being passed out without my knowing!) you’ll need to clear the “I want to help make Windows installation better” check box as it is selected by default.  I am going to choose the “Get important updates for installation” option for this post.

Setup will search online for installation updates (if any) and will reboot the system when this part of the installation is complete

If this system should restart at this point or a little later on in the installation routine you need to make sure you are not doing anything with the keyboard if your system is set to check the DVD drive for a boot device; otherwise you’ll hit a key and then begin booting from the DVD which starts the setup process all over.  If you should accidentally do this you can fix it by power cycling the system and letting the routine restart from where it left off which it will do if you do not hit the keys on the keyboard on the next cycle.

- After the reboot

Once the system gets back up from rebooting you’ll reach the “Please read the license terms” screen; you’ll need to accept the license terms to proceed to the next phase.

The next screen is where you have the option to chose which type of installation you want to perform.

You would select Custom (advanced) to perform a clean installation or to set up the system in a dual or multi-boot configurations. As we are going ahead with a dual boot installation this is the option we would select.

When the routine continues from here you’ll be presented the “Where do you want to install Windows” options which will show you the available partitions where Windows can be installed.

Notes – if you are expecting to see another partition and it is not available you can try refreshing the screen but it is more likely that setup needs to load a driver for that device and it is not present.  To load a driver for a missing controller or other device you would choose the Load Driver option shown at the bottom left of the window.  In order for you to successfully install Windows 7 alongside the existing Windows Vista installation you should choose the other available partition, in this case E: on Disk 0 Partition 2

Once the setup routine continues, it will copy the Windows files and then begin expanding them.  At some point in the ‘Expanding Files’ sequence the routine will stop and the system will reboot before continuing, don’t worry this is normal.  During this reboot cycle you’ll notice the first Windows 7 splash screens.

Once setup comes back online it will finish expanding all of the files (and it’ll reboot again) and install all of the files needed before it restarts one final time for the final configuration (after setup) of the Windows 7 OS.

What you should also notice during this startup sequence (and all that follow) is that you are now presented with the Windows Boot Manager [image 6] at start up which allows you to choose which operating system you want to boot the system into.  When you install Windows 7 in a multi-boot environment it becomes the default operating system in the Windows Boot Manager.  Setup always designates the last operating system to be installed the default to start after a 30 second delay; this can of course be changed later on.

- After Installation

Now that Windows 7 is running you can start the final stage of setting up the system.  On the first screen you are prompted to choose a country or region setting, the time and currency settings and keyboard layout you’re using.  Obviously this will vary according to where you are but for me, I’ve chosen the United Kingdom settings.

Next, you’ll need to type in a user name to use on the system and that entry will give you a computer name suggestion based on what you entered.  You can choose to keep that name or change it (I recommend changing it to something more appropriate, such a $name-laptop or $name-desktop etc for easier identification later on) and click NEXT.

The next screen is ‘Set a password for your user account’ where you enter your password information and a hint in case you need help remembering what your password is.  Please do remember to take setting your password seriously, don’t type something so obvious it can be hacked!

The step of entering in a product key and for activation of the operating system is going to be dependent on which type of installation media you have, I am using standard media that requires this for install and this would be the screen where you’d provide this information.  You can just choose NEXT and bypass entering a key; you;ll be able to run the operating system for 30 days.  At the end of that time you will be required to enter a key and activate the product.  After the key is entered and you choose NEXT you’ll land on the ‘Help protect you computer and improve Windows automatically’ page which is where you’ll initially configure the Windows Update settings.

The next screen is the ‘Review your time and date settings’ page which allows you to change time zone settings.  You are also able to change the time and date as well if you need to.  Additionally, the ‘automatically adjust clock for Daylight Saving Time’ checkbox is selected by default so if you’re in an area where it is not observed you’ll need to clear this option.

On the next screen you are presented with the ‘Select your computer’s current location’ page where you choose to identify the network settings as Home, Work or Public which will automatically configure the network resource settings, firewall settings, network discovery settings and other parameters based on the profile you choose.

After you make this selection, Windows 7 will finalise your settings and the operating system will show the user desktop and you will be good to go!  Enjoy…