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Users who have been struggling to follow our command prompt based install Windows 7 from USB flash drive and make bootable USB guides have a good reason to rejoice. Now you can create Windows 7, Vista, or the old XP bootable USB key with a few clicks. Yup, this is true. Read to know more!
win7 logo

Let’s begin the guide without wasting time. Just make sure that you have a pen drive with 4GB + capacity if you are making a bootable USB flash drive.
Requirements to create bootable Windows USB:

# Windows 7 or Vista ISO

# Pen drive with 4GB+ (2 GB is sufficient for XP)

# 15 Minutes of free time

Procedure:
1. Insert your USB flash/pen drive to your system and backup all the data from the USB as your USB drive will be formatted during the process.
2. Now download WinToFlash tool (free) from this http://wintoflash.com/home/en/
http://wintoflash.com/download/en/

3. Run the tool, and browse to your Windows 7, Vista, or XP DVD files (make sure that your USB drive letter is correct). wintoflash

4. Click Create button to begin the bootable USB process. Wait for few minutes to see the bootable USB.

5. That’s all!

You might also like our how to make portable Windows 7 & install Windows 7 virtual box guides.

Error “Your network connection

must have IPv6 enabled to create or join a homegroup” when trying to join a Homegroup in Windows 7.

This can happen if

IPv6 is disabled on Windows 7 or on the specific LAN/Wireless interfaces

Peer Network Group Service is disabled or not started

PNRP Machine Name Publication Service is disabled or not started

To resolve the problem:

Enable IPv6

For a start, check if IPv6 is enabled on the network interface.

1.Click Start – Control Panel – Network and Internet – Network and Sharing Center
2. In the left panel, click “Change adapter settings“.Right-click the network adapter and right-click and choose “properties” and check if “Internet Protocol Version 6″ is selected. If not selected, select and click Apply and OK.

If this doesn’t help, enable IPv6 from Windos registry as follows:

1. Click Start - Search and type “regedit”. This launches the Windows Registry.
2. In the registry, navigate to the following registry key

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip6\Parameters]

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
\SYSTEM
\CurrentControlSet
\Services
\Tcpip6
\Parameters

3. In the right pane, right-click and select New – DWORD (32-bit value), set its name as “DisabledComponents” and set its value as “0?
4. Restart your PC for changes to take effect.

Enable Services

If the above didn’t help then chances are the required services are not running. Check and enable the following services:

Peer Network Group Service

PNRP Machine Name Publication Service

1. Click Start – type services in the search box. This should launch the services management console.

2.Look for Peer Network Group Service and start the service if not started. Also, make the service to launch automatically at system startup (if not already) by right-click the service and choose properties. Set Startup type to “Automatic”

3. Look for the service “PNRP Machine Name Publication Service” and perform the steps above.

This should help. If it still has a problem. Try disabling your firewall and antivirus software one at a time to check if they are causing the problem.

Windows Server 2003 includes all the functionality customers expect from a mission critical Windows Server operating system, such as security, reliability, availability, and scalability. In addition, Microsoft has improved and extended the Windows server product family to enable organizations to experience the benefits of Microsoft .NET—a set of software for connecting information, people, systems, and devices.

This tutorial will explain how to create a first domain controller(DC) in your network or company includes DNS server setup in windows server 2003 .You have to install DNS server for DC without DNS the client computers wouldn’t know which one is DC.You can host DNS on a different server than DC.

Before Starting the DC installation process you need to make sure the following points

• You have installed Basic windows server 2003 installation

• Make sure you have assigned a static ip address to your server

Now start DC and DNS Setup process

First you need to go to Start–>All Programs–>Administrative Tools–>Manage Your Server

Here you need to select Add or remove a role

Verify the following steps click on Next

Select Server Role as Domain Controller option click on Next

Summary of Your Selections click on Next

Active Directory Installation Wizard click on Next

Click “Next” on the compatibility window

Next window select the default option of “Domain Controller for a new domain” and click “Next”

In this tutorial we will create a domain in a new forest, because it is the first DC, so keep that option selected

Now we have to think of a name for our domain. If you have a domain like windowsreference.com”, you can use it, but it isn’t suggested because computers nside of your domain may not be able to reach the company website. Active directory domains don’t need to be “real” domains like the one above – they can be anything you wish. So i will create “windowsreference.int”.

Now in order to keep things simple, we will use “windowsreferenc”, which is the default selection, as the NetBIOS name of the domain.

The next dialog suggests storing the AD database and log on separate hard disks and you can just leave the default settings.

The SYSVOL folder is a public share, where things like .MSI software packages can be kept when you will distribute packages and you can just leave the default settings or you can change the path.

Next Screen basically says that you will need a DNS server in order for everything to work the way we want it (i.e., our “windowsreference.int” to be reachable).we will install the DNS server on this machine or if you want you can installed else where select “Install and Configure…” and click next.

Here you need to select the permissions for win 2000 or win 2003 server if you have any NT4 select first option otherwise select second option and click next

The restore mode password is the single password that all administrators hope to never use, however they should also never forget it because this is the single password that might save a failed server.click next

Now we will see a summary of what will happen click next

Active directory installation process started this can take several minutes. It’s likely that you will be prompted for your Windows Server 2003 CD (for DNS) so have it handy.

Active directory Installation finish screen click Finish.

Now you need to select “Restart Now” option to reboot your server.

After rebooting you can see new option for logon

After logging in you can see similar to the following screen saying your server is now domain controller.

That’s it now your server is configured as domain controller and DNS server.

If you want Step by step guide how to install windows server 2003 check here

Connecting SmartBro to Linksys WRT54GC

1. Insert the SmartBro UTP (unshielded twisted pair) cable to the WRT54GC’s WAN/Internet port.

2. Connect your PC to one of the LAN ports of the WRT54GC, use the network cable that comes from the package.

Configuring WRT54GC

1. Fire-up your favorite browser and type in the router’s ip address (default is 192.168.1.1) e.g http://192.168.1.1 and hit enter.
2. Enter your username and password when asked. Leave the username blank and the default password is admin.
3. Set connection type to Automatic Configuration - DHCP

4. Enter the router’s hostname and domain.

5. DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) should be enabled (Recommended).

6. Click on Save Settings.

7. Now, Click on the “MAC Address Clone” tab. by default MAC Cloning is disabled so you have to enable it first.

8. Click on the “Clone My PC’s MAC” button. Your PC’s MAC address should now appear on the router’s MAC Address box.

9. Click on “Save Settings” button.

10. Power cycle the router.

That’s it, as soon as the router is completely initialized, you can start connecting the rest of your PCs to the vacant LAN port of the Linksys WRT54GC router.

Keywords: Smart bro to linksys router, configuring smartbro using linksys router, how to configure smart bro, smart bro wireless router

This will only work if you did not delete the content of your old drive, of course.

For instance (my case), I have a Vista on my C Drive and decided to install a Windows7 on my D Drive. Those are the Drive names based on my Vista perspective.

Which OS perspective is important to note because the drive names switch once you've logged into the second OS because it treats the Drive where you installed it as the primary Drive.

After successfully logging into my Windows7 account, I install Skype but could not access my Skype logs from my Vista.

How to get your old Skype logs?

1. Close your Skype application. Hit Exit, and don't just close the window because that's still running on the background.

2. Go to your Old OS primary drive to access your old Skype conversation history. (Let's assume that C is your new primary drive for your new OS and D is your Old OS primary drive because that's the most common scenario):

D:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\SkypePM
D:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Skype

3. Copy these over to your new Skype logs folder (the same path, but with a different drive):

C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\SkypePM
C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Skype

Done!

WARNING:
If you copy over the old Skype log files into the new folder then you're also erasing the existing conversations you have on your new Skype installation.

Unfortunately, there's no way to merge the old and the new conversation history. Best do this on your fresh installation, before you incur any

The instructions below show you how to first install and configure IIS on Windows Vista or Windows 7 followed by instructions for installing Virtual Server 2005 R2.

Installation and Configuration of IIS on Windows Vista to Support Virtual Server 2005 R2
IIS installation on Vista is a straight forward process, but selecting all the required components to support the Virtual Server 2005 R2 administration web site operation is a little tricky. While you could take the simple approach and install all features under IIS that is not a good security practice. Follow the procedures listed below to install only the required features of IIS to support Virtual Server.
Note: If User Access Control is enabled on your system, you will have to approve the launch of the Control Panel application since it requires administrative rights.
Installing IIS on a Windows Vista machine
1. Logon to the Windows Vista machine with an account that has administrative rights
2. Click the Start icon
3. Select Control Panel


4. Click the Programs option; this will present you with a new dialog shown below


5. Under the Programs and Features option, click the Turn Windows Features on or off option and you will be presented with the Windows Features installation dialog.

1. Expand the Internet Information Services node
2. Expand the Web Management Tools node
o Enable IIS Management Console
3. Expand the IIS 6 Management Compatibility node
o Enable IIS Metabase and IIS 6 configuration compatibility
4. Expand the World Wide Web Services node
5. Expand the Application Development Features node
o Enable CGI
6. Expand the Common HTTP Features node and enable the following options:
o Default Document
o Directory Browsing
o HTTP Errors
o Static Content
7. Expand the Health and Diagnostics node and enable the following options:
o HTPP Logging
o Request Monitor
8. Expand the Performance Features node
o Enable Static Content Compression
9. Expand the Security node
o Enable Windows Authentication
After all selections have been made, the options should look like


To close the window, click OK .
Installation of Virtual Server 2005 R2
1. Download Virtual Server 2005 R2 or Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 Beta 2 from the Microsoft Download site (screen shots reflect installation using VS 2005 R2 SP1 Beta 2)
2. Right-Click the Setup.exe and Select Run As Administrator to start the installation
3. Click the button to Install Virtual Server 2005 R2
4. Read the license term and select I accept the terms of this license agreement if you agree, then click Next.
5. On the Customer Information dialog, enter your User Name and Organization, the Product ID should be grayed out and already provided. Click Next
6. You are now on the Setup Type dialog. Since we are doing a single server installation we want to select the default option of a Complete Install.
7. Click Next.
8. Select the port that you want to use for the Virtual Server administration web site or use the default of 80 on Vista.
9. Select the default option of Configure the Administration Website to always run as the authenticated user, then click Next.


10. Accept the default to Enable Virtual Server extensions in Windows Firewall. This will automatically enable firewall exceptions for the Virtual Server Web site and the VMRC protocol in the Windows Firewall.
11. Click Next.
12. You have now selected all the configuration options for Virtual Server 2005 R2. Click Install to complete the installation.
13. You should see the installation proceed, and then you will see a Internet Explorer window display that provides a summary of the installation and the links to the new Virtual Server Administration web site.






















NOTE: You will have to Right-Click the IE Icon and select Run As Administrator, then type http://localhost/VirtualServer/VSWebApp.exe?view=1 to run the admin console and get connected. By default, even if you are an admin in Vista, IE runs at lower privileges.