Windows 8's newest competition: Windows 7

With the release today of the Windows 8 Consumer Preview (read "beta version"), and a final release scheduled for late 2012, the stage is now set for Windows 7 to become a competitor of Windows 8. While, on the other hand, millions of users will continue to use Windows XP arguably till their old computers give out, it is most likely they will have two choices when buying a new PC: either Windows 7 or Windows 8. However, if the goal is to get a tablet PC, then Windows 8 is the operating system to choose, if neither an iPad or an Android system will do for them.

Year of the Dragon as your Windows 7 theme

According to the Chinese (and Mongolian) zodiac this is the Year of the Dragon, and to top it off a leap year. So what luckiest could it get? I, for one, declare my inclination to believe in signs, stars, "angels" and the Universe. If you want to wear this sort of amulet in your PC you can download the Year of the Dragon theme, in the Windows 7 themes page. Good Luck. Buona Fortuna. Bonne Chance. Buena Suerte.

Troubleshooting BitLocker: damaged volume

It may happen. You are using a BitLocker-encrypted USB memory stick to create quick backups of your regular work and one day when you try to open it in Windows Explorer, though you are able to see the drive icon with a superimposed padlock and key, it cannot be opened and instead it gives you the option to format it. What happened? Basically, data is corrupted and therefore not accessible. The solution lies in a command-line utility called repair-bde, which is the repair tool for BitLocker Drive Encryption. First of all you must have the BitLocker Encryption Recovery Key of the drive. If you don't, this solution and any other solution will not work for you, and you will have to resort to format the drive and lose all your data. Second, you need an extra USB memory stick with the same size (or may be bigger) than the one you are having trouble with. Now, lets assume your troubled USB corresponds to drive I: and H: is your blank new USB. You are going to transfer all the data from input I: to output H: and the end result, if successful, will be an identical original I: drive copied into H: but your I: will have to be formatted, at any rate, to use it again. The command you have to enter, as an Administrator, is as follows, depending obviously on your settings:

repair-bde I: H: -rp [your BitLocker Encryption Recovery Key]

The -rp switch stands for -RecoveryPassword and your recovery key consists of 48 digits (8 groups of 6 digits each, separated by dashes). The process, for a 8GB USB stick will take about an hour but you will recover your data. Warning: All information in the output drive (H:) will always be overwritten. Finally, after the tool has reached "Decrypting: 100% complete", it is very important that, before you view the decrypted data, you run this command:

chkdsk H: /f

At any rate the system will prompt you to do that under ACTION REQUIRED. I hope this post saved your day.

A standard user can install Google Chrome: is that good?

Normally, in Windows 7, and previous Windows versions, in order to install any application you have to have elevated privileges but, for some reason unbeknownst to me (so far) Google Chrome allows a standard user (that is, as opposed to a user with elevated privileges such as the Administrator) to install this browser without any UAC prompts. How did I find out? Well, I downloaded the setup program called ChromeSetup.exe (717 KB) and then ran it, just by habit, as Administrator and installed Chrome. Then, in that particular session, this browser worked fine but the next time I used my PC I could not make it work and then I discovered that  it was installed in the Administrator folder (this is weird, ain't it?) like this: C:\Users\MyPCAdmin\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\. I tried to uninstall it but it was not listed and then I have to logoff and log back on as Administrator in order to do that. Later, logged in as a standard user, I ran  ChromeSetup.exe again and installed Chrome just like that, no UAC prompts. At any rate, it was installed here: C:\Users\MyStandardUser\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\ and always a folder named with the latest version (here: 17.0.963.46) will be added. My only hope is that I'm not running a hacked copy of the installer. Or maybe this installation follows best practices for Windows 7. Any thoughts?

Windows 7 will be there for the long haul, in spite of Windows 8

The launch of the newest iteration of the Windows Operation System, in the form of Windows 8 Consumer Preview ("beta"), is planned for this coming 29 February 2012, during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona (talk about leap year and Dragon year, if you believe in auspicious events and good fortune). However, Windows 7 will continue to be the target of the enterprise when it comes to upgrading from, most likely, Windows XP. Here's a page featuring 61 case studies of small business success stories with Windows 7 Professional.