• Windows 7 Wallpapers
• Vista Wallpapers
• Windows Wallpapers

System Mechanic v7.1.3

Thanks to matt for inserting the info to our forum. 'System Mechanic' is a tool that checks your computer for errors, security problems, and performance issues. It's designed to keep your system running smoothly. The application is designed for beginners. Its downside is that an advanced user isn't able to customize fully some of the repair jobs it does.
download - comments - 2.2.2007

Dell releases first set of Windows 7 Drivers

Windows 7 drivers for Dell products are often sought after and finally, there’s an answer.
windows - comments - 22.8.2009

How to check software or hardware for Windows 7 compatibility

Microsoft has put up an extremely useful site that will allow you to check your software and hardware for Windows 7 compatibility.
windows - comments - 27.10.2009

Windows 7 RTM Drivers from Microsoft Hardware Available

Microsoft’s “Better Together” slogan apparently applies not only to Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 but also to the latest iteration of the Windows client and the Redmond company’s peripherals.
windows - comments - 30.10.2009

Bypass and Disable Genuine Windows Validation Check

Microsoft has made it harder for illegitimate, or for whatever reason, your copy of Microsoft Windows couldn't be validated, users to retrieve updates via Microsoft Updates or Windows Update, and download programs from Microsoft Download Center.
windows - comments - 19.5.2006

Download everything from Microsoft without Windows Genuine Advantage Check

ghacks.net has found a workaround to bypass the WGA, wonder how long MS will take to fix this.
microsoft - comments - 8.9.2006

Check Out The New Windows Home Server Demo. But Why Is It In Flash?

Microsoft PR sent out a link to this slick new Windows Home Server Demo this afternoon. Nothing really notable about it (although I do want one)…except the demo is in Flash.
windows - comments - 27.10.2007

Microsoft releases (crap) LiveCam drivers for Windows Vista

Activewin reported that Microsoft finaly released Vista drivers for their LiveCams. The download site first asks for Language, OS and LiveCam type, then you can download a 117 MBSurprise file!
windows - comments - 25.1.2007

Check PC Performance Details with WinSAT in Windows 7 or Vista

Since Windows Vista, including in Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows System Assessment Tool (WinSAT) has been added into the operating system. WinSAT is a free benchmarking tool that measures various computer performance ratings, characteristics and capabilities, and display the ratings as Windows Experience Index or WEI score.
windows - comments - 20.4.2009

Digital File Check

Music fans who want be safe and legal on the internet are today offered a new freely-available software programme that will help them stop their computer being used for illegal file-swapping of copyrighted music and movies.


download - comments -

ATI Catalyst 7.9 drivers

ATI/AMD has released a new version of its drivers for Windows XP and Windows Vista. Version 7.9 of the ATI Catalyst drivers bring many bug fixes, speed improvements and new features.
download - comments - 10.9.2007

Check Out the Official Release Notes for Windows XP Service Pack 3

Mind blowing! Simply mind blowing! Shocking! And last, but definitely not least, a true revelation. Microsoft has published the official release notes for Windows XP Service Pack 3, and, boy, are you in for a treat! I bet you didn't see this coming in the least.
windows - comments - 4.12.2007

What's New in Vista - File Select Check Box

Choosing multiple files and folders has been possible in Windows for as long as I can remember. Hold the CTRL key and choose the files and/or folders. Pretty simple, but there has to be an easier way right?
windows - comments - 1.6.2006

Here Are the Drivers That Don't Play Well with Vista SP1 RTM

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 was released to manufacturing on February 4, 2008. But end users had to exercise their patience another month and a half before they could get their hands on Vista SP1 RTM.
windows - comments - 18.3.2008

Vista x64 to require digital signatures for many drivers

With little fanfare, Microsoft just announced that the xX64 version of Windows Vista will require all kernel-mode code to be digitally signed. This is very different than the current WHQL program, where the user ultimately decides how they want to handle unsigned drivers.
windows - comments - 23.1.2006

NVIDIA Releases WHQL Vista RTM Drivers

On January Nvidia finally released the long-awaited final graphics drivers for Windows Vista.
download - comments - 8.1.2007

Driver Magic - Automatically updates your computers drivers

Automatically updates your computers drivers quickly and easily.
common - comments - 4.7.2007

New tool enables loading of unsigned drivers in Vista

A new software tool has been released by Linchpin Labs that allows the loading of unsigned and legacy drivers on Windows XP, 2003, and most importantly Vista.
windows - comments - 31.7.2007

Microsoft pre-paid cards to check software piracy

Check piracy of its software, Microsoft on Wednesday announced that it would launch pre-paid cards in India before this year-end.
microsoft - comments - 17.9.2006

Check for RAM Error or Defect in Windows 7 and Vista with Windows Memory Diagnostic

Memory or RAM is one of the most important electronic hardware component on a computer systems, not only in term of speed or clock frequency and size, but also the reliability of hardware ecosystem of the RAM sticks or memory modules and its subsystem.
common - comments - 1.10.2009

Windows Vista comes with 19,500 drivers on DVD – more on Windows Update

Ever needed to find a driver for a product and wished Windows would either just have the driver in it, or that their Windows Update service could provide it? With Vista, it can – and new features and updates will be forthcoming too. It’s about time!
windows - comments - 20.11.2006

Windows 7 Migration Tool to Move From Windows XP to Windows 7

In past we had covered guide on upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7. Unfortunately there is no direct upgrade path from Windows Xp to Windows 7 and you have to use Windows Easy Transfer utility if you want to move your user and program files from XP to Windows 7.
download - comments - 22.11.2009

Vista SP1, and then Windows 7, Windows 8 and Non-Windows Midori

2008 saw the release of Windows Vista Service Pack 1, Windows XP Service Pack 3 and Windows Server 2008, but Microsoft's journey on the Windows path is far from over.
windows - comments - 5.8.2008

Windows 7 RC Brings Windows XP Mode Beta and Windows Virtual PC Beta

The Release Candidate of Windows 7 will bring with it the first Beta development milestones for Windows XP Mode and Windows Virtual PC.
windows - comments - 29.4.2009

Windows Reactivator 2.0 - Backup & Restore Activation Status of Windows XP with Windows Reactivator

Every time you reinstall your windows XP you need to reactivate it online using your product key & worst if you lost your Windows XP product key.
download - comments - 3.6.2009

Windows Vista SP1 vs. Windows Vista RTM vs. Windows XP SP2

Feb 26th, 2008. Principled Technologies has released two Microsoft commissioned reports on Windows Vista SP1 performance. In these tests, Principled Technologies measured responsiveness of Windows Vista SP1 vs. Windows Vista RTM vs. Windows XP SP2 when performing a set of common business and home tasks.
windows - comments - 28.2.2008

Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 9 – 1 Billion and Counting

Is Windows dead? Or, at least, is this the beginning of the end for Microsoft's proprietary operating system?
windows - comments - 15.9.2008

Week in Microsoft: Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 9

This week in Microsoft, we covered 128-bit support possibly coming to Windows 8 and Windows 9, Windows 7, Windows Mobile 6.5, Bill Gates, Office 2010 Starter, Microsoft MVP status, Windows Live Hotmail, the EU, and Microsoft Security Essentials.
windows - comments - 10.10.2009

Windows Vista Build 5231 and Windows Media Player 11 Leaks!

Windows Vista Build 5231 has leaked to the web. The new build is said to include Windows Media Player 11 included. View the screenshots below! This is a Main branch build that was released on September 12th, 2005 at 8:20PM.
windows - comments -

Windows Vista SP1 and Windows XP SP3: Official Release Dates

A French website, PC Inpact, has posted the official Microsoft product change request forms for Vista SP1 and Windows XP SP3.
windows - comments - 6.2.2008

Windows 7 Driver Compatibility Evidence Seen

A day after someone noticed a "Windows 7 Client" category popping up on Windows Server Update Services, another curious enthusiast on the Neowin forums has also noticed a sudden prevalence of "Windows 7 Client" drivers on Microsoft's Update Catalog - the online library of drivers which Windows uses to automatically install.

A simple search for "Windows 7 Client" reveals more than 1000 drivers already available. These drivers range from the big brands from Nvidia, ATI, Intel and Broadcom to even miscellaneous display drivers. Whilst it is true all drivers approved after June 1 should have been tested on Windows 7, most of these drivers date back to early 2007 suggesting most drivers have just been carried over from the latest WHQL release.


jcxp.net - 23.08.2008

NVIDIA releases graphics drivers for Windows 7 Beta

In a press article today, NVIDIA announced that it has released new graphics drivers for Windows 7 Beta, which it says will be "the start of regular NVIDIA driver updates for the forthcoming operating system". The new drivers, released today, have support for the new Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) v1.1 which is used in Windows 7 Beta. The new WDDM offers improved performance in both 2D and 3D applications. The new GeForce drivers, version 181.71, are currently available from the NVIDIA website.

Read full story.....
neowin.net - 02.03.2009

Windows 7 Beta 1 has problems with XP Display Drivers (XDDM)

I've been enjoying Windows 7 so much over the past week, that I've been evangelizing it to all of my friends. One friend with a Dell Inspiron 710m decided to take the plunge. Windows 7 installation went well, but we can't find any compatible display drivers for the Intel 855gm graphics card. The graphics card in question doesn't support Windows Vista or Window 7's new WDDM driver model, but Windows Vista shipped with XDDM drivers for this card out of the box. I feel that Windows 7 should have all of the same in-box drivers as Vista, and it's a bummer that this one is not included.

Read full story.....
neowin.net - 12.01.2009

Driver Signing changes between Windows XP and Vista...

Chris Taylor: In XP the driver rankings were determined in the following way as discussed in the "Windows Vista Resource Kit":

1. In-box drivers are given first preference.
   
2. Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL) signed drivers next.
   
3. Unsigned drivers are given lowest preference.

In Vista this algorithm was extended to include eight levels of digital signing:

1. Microsoft signed WHQL Certified Drivers.
   
2. Microsoft signed in-box drivers (NT Build Lab Certified).
   
3. Microsoft signed Windows Sustained Engineering Certified drivers.
   
4. Drivers that have been signed using Authenticode (Enterprise CA).
   
5. Drivers that have been signed using Authenticode (Class 3 CA Certified).
   
6. Drivers that have been signed using Authenticode (MAKECERT.EXE Certified).
   
7. Microsoft signed WHQL Certified drivers for a down level Windows Operating system.
   
8. Unsigned Drivers.

This behavior is illustrated in setupapi.dev.log when determining which driver to install for a device.




winbeta.org - 13.03.2008

Why installing Vista SP1 might fail via Windows Update

When you try to install Windows Vista SP1 via Windows Update you can get error: Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is not available for installation from Windows Update and is not offered by Automatic Updates.

To help ensure a positive update experience, Windows Update will temporarily not offer Windows Vista SP1 to systems that have the following device drivers. In some cases, these device drivers are problematic on Windows Vista-based computers when you update to Windows Vista SP1. By installing updated device drivers, you will resolve the issue and enable Windows Update to offer Windows Vista SP1.

Click read more to view a list of drivers that don't work well with Vista SP1:


Read full story.....
neowin.net - 20.03.2008

Dell Now Offering Windows 7 Drivers for Commercial Desktops and Laptops

Dell is jumping in to help business (commercial) customers get ready for Windows 7 by offering Windows 7 drivers for their commercial desktop and laptop PCs. They are posting their Windows 7 drivers here (see Drivers and Downloads on left-hand navigation).



By offering drivers for their commercial desktop and laptop PCs, Dell is helping business customers with Dell PCs in their environments prepare for Windows 7 deployments.



For more information, see this blog post on Dells Inside Enterprise IT Blog.




winbeta.org - 21.08.2009

Get your Windows 7 GPU drivers

If you are going to be playing with the RC of Windows 7 youll need the appropriate GPU driver to get the best from your system.



If you use your PC as an office PC then youll be fine with the built-in GPU drivers, but if youre planning on gaming, these drivers are a must...




winbeta.org - 01.05.2009

Windows Driver Kit Version 7.0.0

The Windows Driver Kit (WDK) Version 7.0.0 contains the tools, code samples, documentation, compilers, headers and libraries with which software developers create drivers for Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Server 2003. This development kit does not contain device drivers for your personal computer. If you are looking for drivers for your personal computer, go to Microsoft Update for downloads, or visit Windows Hardware Help for more information to find device drivers and hardware.



A working knowledge of C programming is necessary to use this kit to develop Windows drivers. For additional information about doing driver development, please go to Windows Developer Hardware Central.




winbeta.org - 07.08.2009

NVIDIA Makes Laptop Graphics Drivers Available Online ... Finally

NVIDIA decided to give notebook users an early Christmas present today. It's a present notebook owners have kept on their wish lists since NVIDIA first started making graphics processing units (GPUs) for notebooks ... downloadable drivers on the NVIDIA website.



For years now the only way laptop owners could find notebook graphics drivers for NVIDIA GPUs was if the notebook manufacturer was kind enough to make the drivers available or to download unofficial "hacked" drivers from various websites (drivers that were often hacked together based on desktop GPU drivers). Consumers need these drivers in order to be able to take full advantage of the latest visual computing applications and games as well as to be able to restore GPU functions after a fresh install of Windows.




winbeta.org - 18.12.2008

AMD releases Catalyst 7.5 graphics drivers

A new set of Catalyst 7.5 drivers is now available for users of AMD's ATI Radeon graphics cards. The drivers are available for The drivers are available for Windows Vista x86, Windows Vista x64, Windows XP, and Windows XP Pro x64. According to AMD, these drivers significantly improve OpenGL performance in Windows Vista:

OpenGL performance in Windows Vista improves on the Radeon X1950 XTX at high resolutions (1920x1200 or greater) with anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering enabled. Doom 3 and Quake 4 improves as much as 13-18% .and Prey improves at least 15.6%. The Radeon X1950 Pro and Radeon X1650 XT also see improvements in Doom 3 and Quake 4 up to 14.1% at higher resolutions with anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering enabled.

The Catalyst 7.5 release also brings DirectX 10 support to users of Radeon HD 2900 XT graphics cards (in either single-GPU or CrossFire configurations) running Windows Vista x86...
winbeta.org - 01.06.2007

Windows Vista comes with 19,500 drivers on DVD

...and more on Windows Update. Oh thats why its more than 2 Gig - Ed

Ever needed to find a driver for a product and wished Windows would either just have the driver in it, or that their Windows Update service could provide it? With Vista, it can - and new features and updates will be forthcoming too. It's about time! At the Windows Vista Team Blog, Jim Allchin, the Chief of Microsoft's Vista development effort and long-time Microsoft employee, soon to retire after having completed Vista at last, has advised readers that Windows Vista has more drivers built-in at launch than any previous version Windows.

While computer users will always want to see if the manufacturer has newer, specific drivers that eke out the best performance from peripherals and hardware add-ons, having as many drivers native in Windows as possible, and thousands of additional new drivers available on Windows Update just has to be a good thing to make life easier for computer users long used to having driver issues with XP and earlier Windows versions.

Allchin tells us that since Vista went RTM, an addition 11,700 drivers are now ready and waiting for you if you add a new peripheral to your computer, although you should naturally always try loading the drivers that came with your new hardware from CD first.


neowin.net - 20.11.2006

Backup and Restore Hardware Drivers the Easy Way with Double Driver

One of the more tedious aspects of reinstalling an operating system is finding all of the drivers for your hardware again. Many times you may not have the CD for a new hardware device, and even if you did the drivers on the disk are likely out of date.



Instead of going through all that hassle, you can simply use a great utility called Double Driver to help restoring drivers the easy way.




winbeta.org - 08.10.2008

Nvidia launches Ion netbook chips, new notebook drivers

Beyond rolling out a new graphics chipset for netbooks this week, Nvidia launched the beta edition of updated drivers for Windows XP and Vista notebook PCs outfitted with its graphics processors...
betanews.com - 19.12.2008

ATI Catalyst 8.10 drivers released

If you're a Radeon user, you may want to check out the newly released Catalyst drivers that AMD has made available today. AMD released the Catalyst series 8.10 drivers for all major platforms, including Windows XP, Windows Vista, Mac OS X, Linux and the 64-bit iterations thereof. That's a significant amount of driver releases, many of which have platform-specific fixes.

Some of the changes include the Catalyst Control Center having the ability to control the GPU fan. They also fixed some minor display detection bugs. The operating system that got the most attention in this release was Windows Vista with at least seven specific fixes. You can download the drivers immediately from AMD's site.


neowin.net - 18.10.2008

Catalyst 7.9 Drivers Available

AMD/ATi has posted brand new Catalyst 7.9 drivers for all of you Radeon owners. Windows Vista 32-bit, Windows Vista 64-bit and Windows XP versions are available now. Linux drivers are œcoming soon.� Grab them if you need them.




winbeta.org - 11.09.2007

Microsoft Offers Manual Fix to 'Stealth' Windows Update Bug

It turned out to be an insignificant problem after all, rather than something on the order of a rootkit: the discovery that Microsoft's Windows Update feature updates itself even when users turn off "automatic updates" - a fact that Microsoft had actually documented quite well, but which few had apparently read. But now, a claim that the self-updating update subsequently unregistered Microsoft's Windows Update drivers in XP-based systems forced its own drivers to become unregistered...
betanews.com - 28.09.2007

Windows 7 vs. Windows Vista Graphics Performance

Recently, ATI announced that its monthly driver updates will include Windows 7 drivers, well ahead of Win7's release. Nvidia just released new, better Win7 drivers this month, and promises more improvements to come. So where exactly are we at today, and how far do these two graphics giants have to go to make Windows 7 a better choice than Vista for gamers?




winbeta.org - 18.03.2009

AMD's First Catalyst Drivers for Vista Will Support HD DVD, Blu-ray

Today, one day ahead of Microsoft's consumer edition Windows Vista rollout, the first ATI Catalyst drivers for Vista are being released. They're officially numbered 7.1 (version 8.31 for XP is already in the field). But for the first time, they're being released by AMD, and this afternoon, AMD is accepting a great deal of the credit...
betanews.com - 30.01.2007

ATI Catalyst 6.12 for Windows

AMD/ATI have released their latest set of video card drivers for the ATI Radeon line of video cards. New 32 and 64-bit drivers are available for both Windows XP and Windows Vista. Note that the .NET framework (1.x or 2.0) is required if you want to run these drivers with the Catalyst Control Center.


neowin.net - 14.12.2006

New tool enables loading of unsigned drivers in Vista

A new software tool has been released by Linchpin Labs that allows the loading of unsigned and legacy drivers on Windows XP, 2003, and most importantly Vista.


One of the system management and control methods that Microsoft implemented with Windows Vista is requiring system drivers to be digitally signed before they will load properly within the system. If a user or administrator wishes to load an unsigned or legacy driver, they will either need to reboot into a limited functionality mode or just do without the functions that the driver would have provided.


As others have pointed out, this step will do nothing to prevent malware authors from being able to load their drivers into the system. Either they will exploit the lax jurisdiction and corporate oversight of various countries to establish a corporate shell and gain legitimate digitally signed driver certification, or they will just exploit weaknesses in already-signed drivers.



winbeta.org - 30.07.2007