I just got a Seagate FreeAgent Theater+ last week. It’s a great device that can play a lot of different media formats at 1080p. The latest firmware also lets you stream Netflix movies. One problem I have is that it does not have a wireless network card. The FreeAgent Theater+ is placed by the TV in the living room, and it’s far away from the router. Before I get a WIFI USB dongle for it, I want to test the network functionality first. I have used my Macbook to act as a wireless bridge for my PS2 to connect to my wireless network at home. This time, I want to use my Windows 7 based laptop and see if it’s possible to do so. To my surprise, Windows 7 has made it easy to bridge the Ethernet connection with a wireless network.

Before we begin, you need to have a Windows 7 laptop with a working wireless connection. Here are the steps:

1. On the Windows 7 laptop, click on the Windows icon. Type view network connections and press Enter.
2. Identify your Ethernet connection and your wireless connection. In this example, the Ethernet connection is called Local Area Connection and the wireless connection is called Wireless Network Connection.
3. Click on Local Area Connection to select it. Press and hold the Ctrl key and click on Wireless Network Connection to select it. Now you should have both connections selected.
4. Right click on the selection and select Bridge Connections.
   
5. Now use an Ethernet cable to connect the Ethernet port on the FreeAgent Theater+ and the Ethernet port on the Windows 7 laptop.

That’s it. The FreeAgent Theater+ is now connected to the network using the Ethernet connection. This technique applies to other appliances with just Ethernet connection like Xbox 360, Blu-Ray player and Network enabled TV.

Note that when your laptop is acting as a wireless bridge, you might not be able to use it to browse the Internet at the same time. When you are done, follow the step 1 and step 2 to network connections in control panel. Right click on the bridged connections and select Remove from Bridge.

One of my blog’s popular posts  is a tutorial about how to create an Ad Hoc network on Windows 7. A lot of readers are asking how you can share an internet connection with Ad Hoc network. I spent some time over the weekend and wrote up this tutorial.

Let me explain the scenario a bit. Suppose we have two computers (computer A and computer B) and one wired internet connection. Both computer have wireless cards, but you do not have a wireless router. You want both computers to access the internet through the single wired connection.  I connected the wired internet connection to computer A and created an Ad Hoc network on it. I then configured computer B to join the Ad Hoc network.

Here are the steps on computer A:

1. Connect the wired internet connection to computer A.
2. Click on the Windows icon and type View network connections and press enter.
3. Identify the wired internet connection and the wireless card. On computer A, the wired internet connection is called Local Area Connection 2 and the wireless card is called Wireless Network Connection 2. Note that these connections are different on your computer.
4. Locate the wired internet connection and right click on it. Select Properties.
5. Click on the Sharing tab and check the box. Select the correct wireless connection in the Home networking connection drop down.
   
6. Create an Ad Hoc networking following the instructions in this post. Here is a screenshot of the Ad Hoc network named kombitz I created for this tutorial. Note that if you check the box to save the network, you do not have to do this step again next time.
   
7. Click on the network icon in the lower right corner of the system tray and make sure it’s connected to the Ad Hoc network you just created. If not, click on the network and click on Connect. Here is a screenshot of the network icon in the system tray.
   

Now computer A is set up to allow connections from other computers. Here are the steps on computer B to join the Ad Hoc network.

1. Click on the network icon in the lower right corner. You should see the Ad Hoc network. In this example, it’s called kombitz.
   
2. Select the network kombitz and click on Connect. Enter the network key if you had one set up when creating the Ad Hoc network.
   

When you are done sharing, you will have to turn internet sharing off on computer A. Otherwise, the wireless connection will not work on computer A. To disable internet sharing, follow the steps 1 through 5 for computer A except you un-check the box Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s Internet connection.

I tried to use the default backup utility in Windows 7 to move my data from one hard drive to another. After the files were restored, I found that my Firefox settings and Thunderbird emails were not saved by the backup utility. This behavior is the same as the Easy Transfer Wizard. The non-MS application settings are left out by default.

If you wish to save everything in your profile, you’ll need to configure the backup utility properly. Here are the steps:

1. Invoke Backup and follow the wizard.
2. When you are prompted for “What do you want to backup?“, click on “Let me choose”
   
3. In the next dialog, expand the C drive and Users. Click on your profile to select it.
   
4. Follow the rest of the on screen instructions to finish the wizard.

Everything in your profile will be included in the next backup.

I have a Creative Lab WebCam Instant that I bought several years ago. I didn’t try it in Windows 7 until last week. When it was connected to a Windows 7 laptop, the installation failed because there was no driver available. I had some good experience with using Vista driver in Windows 7, so I searched for a Vista driver for the WebCam Instant. The only driver I could find was for XP; there was no Vista driver.

My final resort was to install the XP driver, and it worked. Here is what I did.

1. Download the driver from this site. Both 32bit and 64bit are offered. I have only tested the 32bit driver. The name of the downloaded 32bit driver is WCIS_PCDrv_US_1_01_02_0729.EXE.
2. Right click on the driver file and select Properties.
3. Click on the Compatibility tab, and check Run this program in compatibility mode for: . Make sure Windows XP (Service Pack 2) is selected. Click on OK to close the dialog.
   
4. Right click on the driver file and select Run as administrator.
5. Follow the instructions to finish the installation.

I had a problem during installation, and the installation seemed hang toward the end. The WebCam Instant worked after I rebooted the machine. This was the first time I used a XP driver in Windows 7. Let us know your experience with installing a XP driver in Windows 7.

The recent items (recent documents in XP) is not enabled in Windows 7 by default. Here are the steps to enable it.

1. Right click on the Windows button and select Properties.
2. Click on the Start Menu tab and make sure the Store and display recently opened items in the Start menu and the taskbar box is checked.
   
3. Click on the Customize… button to bring up the Customize Start Menu dialog.
4. Scroll down and make sure the Recent Items box is checked.
   
5. Click on OK buttons to close both dialogs. The Recent Items is now enabled.
   

With the school year coming to a close, parents often start looking for a new PC to give to their children when they start college in the fall. The next step, after choosing your ideal computer, is to make sure that you are using the right edition of Windows 7. If you use your PC for everyday tasks and want the best entertainment experience, you will want Windows 7 Home Premium. If you work with it, you’ll want Windows 7 Professional, with all the features of Windows 7 Home Premium, only made more convenient. If the PC doesn’t come pre-installed with the version you desire, then use Windows Anytime Upgrade.

Netbooks often come with Windows 7 Starter, which is easy to upgrade to Windows 7 Home Premium using Windows Anytime Upgrade. It will allow the user to personalize their PCs with Windows 7 themes, create a desktop background slideshow consisting of their own photos, switch between open programs with ease (using Taskbar previews), and enjoy remote media streaming.

Many retailer partners are taking advantage of this upgrade with a new offer that will start on April 4th, ending on July 3rd. People who buy a new PC will be able to add Windows Anytime Upgrade to their purchase at a special low price.

Windows 7 Starter to Windows 7 Home Premium: $49.99 (currently $79.99)

Windows 7 Home Premium to Windows 7 Professional: $79.99 (currently $89.99)

Details vary according to retailer and geography. Check with local retailers for more details about offers.

[via Window Team Blog]

A lot of people are looking for the Sigmatel audio driver for Windows 7. The short answer to this quesstion is that there is NO Sigmatel audio driver for Windows 7. The company’s PC audio solution was bought by IDT, and the support for it has been discontinued.

Fortunately, there is a way to work around the problem. There are Vista drivers available for Sigmatel audio, which you can try to install on Windows 7. Here are links to the Vista drivers:

Sigmatel 92XX:

• Dell
• Gateway

If you have a Sigmatel 975X sound card, there is no Vista driver for it, and I doubt that the XP driver would work on Windows 7.

Let us know if this works for you, and please tell us the make and model of your computer. Thanks.

I usually do not have preview pane activated in Windows Explorer, so I did not notice the Acrobat preview under Windows 7 64bit is broken. Further investigation shows that not only the preview doesn’t work, the thumbnails do not work either. The issue is actually over 2 years old. It happened ever since Microsoft introduced 64bit OS.

pretentiousname.com has documented the problems extensively, they also offer free solutions. It’s surprising that neither Microsoft or Adobe cares to offer patches to fix the problems. The preview problem is only a simple registry fix. The thumbnails problem is harder, you need a software “bridge” to get the thumbnails to work. You can find out the registry fix and the software bridge from the site.

Boot Camp 3.1 Update is available for both 32 bit and 64 bit Windows. This is a must-have update if you use Boot Camp 3.0 on Windows 7. This is from the download page:

This update adds support for Microsoft Windows 7 (Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate), addresses issues with the Apple trackpad, turns off the red digital audio port LED on laptop computers when it is not being used, and supports the Apple wireless keyboard and Apple Magic mouse.

Ever since I installed Boot Camp 3.0 on my MacBook, I have been struggling with the trackpad. I can’t put my palm anywhere near the trackpad when I type, because the cursor would go crazy if I do. This update finally fixes the problem. Here are the links for download.

Boot Camp 3.1 (32 bit)

Boot Camp 3.1 (64 bit)

When I installed a new battery of my digital camera, I input a wrong date into the clock. I did not notice the problem until I found that the date taken of the EXIF is wrong. In search for a way to edit the date back to the correct date, I found a program called FastStone Image Viewer. With the program, you can do a lot more than editing the EXIF date. It is actually a very good program to manage your pictures. However, it is still an external program to download and the steps to edit the date are not very straight forward.

I found an easier way on Windows 7 and you do not need to download any program. It’s also very easy. All you need to use is the Windows Explorer. Here are the steps:

1. Open up Windows Explorer and browse to your picture.
2. Make sure the details pane(the bottom pane) is turned on. If it’s not on, click on Organize ->Layout->Details pane.
3. Select a picture to edit the date. Click on the Date taken date.
   
4. The date is now editable, you can enter a new date. Click on Save to save the changes.
   

Note that you can edit the date for multiple pictures. Just select multiple pictures in the step 3.