How Do I Know if I’m Running 32-bit or 64-bit Windows? [Answers]

Friends and family members seem to ask me all the time whether they are running 32-bit or 64-bit Windows, and I’ve finally realized that it would make more sense to show everybody how to figure it out for themselves. Here’s the two-step process to find out for yourself.
Checking on Windows 7 or Vista
If you’re using Windows 7 or Windows Vista, all you have to do is pop open your start menu, right-click on the Computer item, and then choose Properties.

 

Now you’ll see the System information screen—which you might note that you can also get to from Control Panel if you prefer—and down in the system section you’ll see “System type”, which will say 32-bit Operating System or 64-bit Operating System depending on which version you have installed.

Checking on Windows XP
There’s almost no point in checking on Windows XP, because you’re almost positively running a 32-bit version. If you insist, however, you can right-click on My Computer, choose Properties…

 And then you’ll see the System Properties window—if you are running a 32-bit version of Windows it won’t say anything here other than Microsoft Windows XP, but if you were running a 64-bit version, it would say that on this window.

What’s the primary difference between the two? You’ll notice that my Windows 7 laptop has 8GB of memory—you’ll need a 64-bit operating system to take advantage of the full amount of memory, since 32-bit Windows can only handle about 4GB.

Internet Explorer 9 Released: Here’s What You Need To Know

Microsoft has released the final version of Internet Explorer 9, and there’s just one question you should be asking yourself: Should I bother installing it? Here’s everything you need to know about the latest release of Microsoft’s infamous browser.
Spoiler alert: If you are running Windows 7 or Vista, you should absolutely install IE9 on your PC—even if you prefer Chrome or Firefox, it’s better to have a secure, updated version of Internet Explorer.

What’s New in Internet Explorer 9?

If you want to see the full list of changes with all the original marketing detail, you can read Microsoft’s Beauty of the Web page, but here’s the highlights that you might be interested in.

• Completely New Interface – as you can see in the screenshot above, there’s a completely new interface, designed from the ground up to save space on the screen—in fact, it uses even less pixels than Google Chrome.
• Hardware Acceleration – IE9 is the first browser that taps into the power of your video card to make everything faster, by default. This browser is blazing fast, all around.
• Pinned Sites – While Google Chrome might have started out with their web applications concept, IE9 takes it to another level by allowing site owners to customize the menus for sites pinned to the Windows 7 taskbar.
• HTML5 Support – Microsoft has finally learned from their past mistakes, and focused on getting IE to the point of compliance with internet standards. There’s a lot of whiners out there that say Microsoft didn’t make it work well enough, but I think it’s a good first step.
• Combined Search / Address Bar – IE9 integrates the two boxes together into one, and even adds search suggestions that work quite well, similar to Google Chrome’s combined omnibox.

There’s a ton of other, smaller, features below the hood, but these are the most interesting features. We’ve also highlighted some of them in screenshots below.

Questions You Might Have

You probably want to get to the screenshots, but first, here’s a couple of answers to questions you haven’t asked yet.

• No, Internet Explorer 9 does not work on Windows XP.
• Yes, you can install IE9 over top of the beta version if you had that installed.
• Yes, If you have 32-bit Windows, you should install the 32-bit version.
• Yes, If you have 64-bit Windows, you should install the 64-bit version (which includes the 32-bit version). Not sure? Here’s how to see what version of Windows you have.
• Yes, you should upgrade to this version.
• Yes, if you click this link it will take you to the download page.

Again, even if you don’t use IE as your primary browser, it’s better to have this new, more secure browser than smelly old IE8.

Where Can You Download It?

We’ll have to assume that eventually Microsoft will offer IE9 through Windows Update, but for the moment, you’ll need to click the following link to download IE9. Remember to pick the right version for your operating system.
http://www.beautyoftheweb.com/#/download

Screenshot Tour: Shiny New Stuff!

Alright, so, if you’ve been reading How-To Geek for a while, there’s nothing really changed between this version and the release candidate that we previously covered—but for the rest of you, here’s some pretty screenshots to show what it’s all about.
Want to see just how great the performance is? Head over to the FishIE Tank experiment page, where you can see full hardware acceleration in action. It’s pretty impressive.

The new combined search/address bar is smart, and it’ll provide interesting suggestions right there in the browser itself. One of my favorites is the weather checker, which actually shows an image based on what’s going on outside. You know, cause looking out the window isn’t very geeky.

 f you don’t like the combined Address Bar and Tabs on the same row, you can right-click on any of the tabs and choose “Show tabs on a separate row”. Note that you can also drag the divider between the address bar and the tabs to resize the address bar.

 

I totally stole this screenshot from Microsoft’s marketing page, since it does a great job of showing how the pinned sites feature works. Just drag the tab for any site to the taskbar, and voila! New pinned tab with a fun icon! Right-click on that tab, and you’ve got a custom jump list… at least, if that site has implemented the IE-specific features.

IE9 has what could essentially be considered “FlashBlock” built right in—just head to Safety-> ActiveX Filtering, and turn it on from there…

 

From now on, whenever you go to a site that tries to use an ActiveX control like Flash, you’ll have to click the little icon in the address bar to enable it. Awesome!

There’s a lot more features, but we’re not going to bother with screenshots. Why? Because you should install it and see for yourself!
For the record, I’m a Google Chrome user, and while I do really like the new IE9, I’m sticking with Chrome… but I still recommend that you install IE9 on your PC if you possibly can. There’s just no need to have an insecure IE8 sitting around, and even if you turn off Internet Explorer, there’s still a ton of applications that utilize the underlying components, and you should consider installing it the same as patching your PC for the latest security holes.
And who knows… you might just like it.

Download Internet Explorer 9 from beautyoftheweb.com

What’s the Difference Between the Windows 7 HomeGroups and XP-style Networking?

Windows 7 rocks a new method of file and print sharing that’s a departure from the frustrating file and print sharing found in earlier versions of Windows. What is it and how can you benefit from it? Read on as we explain.
HomeGroups are a new edition to the Windows ecosystem as of Windows 7. They’re intended to (and succeed at) greatly reducing the frustration experienced by users who want to easily share files between computers as well as share printers with the entire network. Let’s take a look at the state of home networking and how it has evolved.

 

Windows 7 marked a pretty radical from a variety of outdated methods, including how network file and print sharing is handled. If you ever had the displeasure of setting up file and print sharing on an Windows XP network you were essentially building a sharing scheme built atop the same—albeit modified and updated—framework that had existed for the task since the 1980s.
NetBIOS, a local area network communication API, was introduced in 1983 by IBM and an implementation of it was created by Microsoft in 1985. Although time-tested the API wasn’t without some frustrating shortcomings, including a tendency for computers on the network to get out of sync (one machine might see all four computers and the printer on the network, another might see three computers and no printer) and the sort of obtuseness in practical application that made it much better suited for a commercial environment with an IT staff than for a fluid home environment maintained by users which may have no particular computer expertise. From 1985 until the introduction of Windows 7 the Windows file sharing methodology was built upon this decades old framework.
The new method of sharing doesn’t abandon everything about the old Windows networking methods, however. The NetBIOS underpinnings have been removed and replaced with a new peer-to-peer style networking tool called Peer-to-Peer Graphing. This new Peer-to-Peer method makes it easy for all the computers in the HomeGroup to stay in sync with each other. The mechanism for actually sharing files has stayed the same just with some revisions and polishing; Server Message Block (SMB) file sharing runs much smoother on the new Peer-to-Peer system.
In addition to restructuring the underpinnings of the sharing system the shift to Windows 7 HomeGroups also ditches the frustrating aspects of managing your network. Unlike in Windows XP, where the choices for file sharing were limited to simple sharing (easy to set up but insecure) or permissions-based sharing (a pain to configure and manage but secure), Windows 7 HomeGroups allows you to easily link computers together with nothing more than a share password. What do you need to make it work and what does it mean for you? Let’s take a look.

The Windows HomeGroup system is designed to make it easy for you to nearly instantly add a computer to your network and start sharing files and printers without having to muck around with extensive permissions or otherwise moonlight as a sys admin in your own house. You no longer need matching workgroups, extensive permission configuration, or any of the other things that made configuring a home network a hassle under earlier versions of Windows. Here the requirements of the HomeGroup system:

• At least one computer running Windows 7 Premium of above—lower versions of Windows 7 can join HomeGroups they just can’t create them.
• Your home network needs to be set as “Home” in the Network and Sharing Center.

That’s it! One computer starts the HomeGroup, the others join it, and boom, you’re networked. It’s so simple that if a friend visits your house and wants to join your HomeGroup to temporarily share files with you all he has to do is flag your local network as a home network and join with the password you give him. No swapping of workgroups, no tinkering with folder and file permissions, just nearly-instant sharing. The screenshot below was taken just moments after I added a netbook to my HomeGroup; it took little more than 20 seconds, most of which was spent double checking the password to save the hassle of retyping it.

 

So what are the limitations of the HomeGroup? If you’re running and all Windows 7 household they’re not too severe. If you’re not, you’ll end up with a patch work of sharing methods.

• The HomeGroup system is Windows 7 only. Earlier versions of Windows are completely locked out from participating in it because of it’s radical departure from the previous structure of Windows files sharing. This, unfortunately, includes Windows Home Server (WHS 2011 will resolve the incompatibility).
• It’s an all-or-nothing system. Folders are either accessible to the whole HomeGroup or not accessible. You can’t specify that a folder is accessible only to your wife’s computer but not your son’s.
• You can only have one HomeGroup per network. You can’t overcome the permission issue by making, for example, a Grownups and Kids HomeGroup or sub-group for house guests.

Although those are fairly significant limitations if you’re trying to privately share a folder within your home, the limits only apply to the HomeGroup. They didn’t rip the other networking tools right out of Windows. You can, if you need to, set up a regular SMB share with the old permissions system in parallel to the HomeGroup. Thus you could have a HomeGroup that shares nearly everything in the open except for content you only want to share with a specific computer or person in the house—that content could be kept in a folder shared with traditional Windows networking methods. In contrast with the huge hassle that maintaining a home network was prior to the arrival of HomeGroup it’s a very small concession to make.

Getting Started with Windows 7 HomeGroup

Windows 7 HomeGroup is an excellent choice for users who want speedy and flexible simple file and printer sharing without having to dabble about with the arcane aspects of configuring folder and user permissions (but without taking away more advanced tricks for those times you need them). HomeGroups are an excellent networking solution for people who are uninterested in learning the nuances of configuring traditional user-oriented permission-based systems or who simply need a nearly instant network for simple and secure file sharing.

RetinaPad Enables Retina Display for iPhone Apps on the iPad

RetinaPad is an iPad application that actives the Retina Display resolution on iPhone applications to increase the clarity on the iPad. It’s a feature that should be built-in but is currently only available for jailbroken iPads.
The premise is simple. Currently iPads lack support for the Retina Display level resolution that iPhone apps are capable of if displaying. RetinaPad allows you to stop using the ugly and blocky simple doubling available on the iPad and start accessing the higher resolution Retina Display mode for iPhone applications on the iPad.
It’s such a trivial thing that it’s outright shameful Apple doesn’t include it by default. You should have to jailbreak your device to unlock functionality that should be there right from the factory. Check out the demo video below to see it in action:

Fire up your jailbroken iPad, launch Cydia and search for RetinaPad. Retina Pad is $2.99, iPad only.

Pre-installation Prep Work Makes Service Pack Upgrades Smoother

Last month Microsoft rolled out Windows 7 Service Pack 1 and, like many SP releases, quite a few people are hanging back to see what happens. If you want to update but still error on the side of caution, reader Ron Troy  offers a step-by-step guide.
Ron’s cautious approach does an excellent job minimizing the number of issues that could crop up in a Service Pack upgrade by doing a thorough job updating your driver sets and clearing out old junk before you roll out the update. Read on to see how he does it:
Just wanted to pass on a suggestion for people worried about installing Service Packs.  I came up with a ‘method’ a couple years back that seems to work well.

• Run Windows / Microsoft Update to get all updates EXCEPT the Service Pack.
• Use Secunia PSI to find any other updates you need.
• Use CCleaner or the Windows disk cleanup tools to get rid of all the old garbage out there.  Make sure that you include old system updates.
• Obviously, back up anything you really care about.  An image backup can be real nice to have if things go wrong.
• Download the correct SP version from Microsoft.com; do not use Windows / Microsoft Update to get it.  Make sure you have the 64 bit version if that’s what you have installed on your PC.
• Make sure that EVERYTHING that affects the OS is up to date.  That includes all sorts of drivers, starting with video and audio.  And if you have an Intel chipset, use the Intel Driver Utility to update those drivers.  It’s very quick and easy.  For the video and audio drivers, some can be updated by Intel, some by utilities on the vendor web sites, and some you just have to figure out yourself.  But don’t be lazy here; old drivers and Windows Service Packs are a poor mix.
• If you have 3rd party software, check to see if they have any updates for you.  They might not say that they are for the Service Pack but you cut your risk of things not working if you do this.
• Shut off the Antivirus software (especially if 3rd party).
• Reboot, hitting F8 to get the SafeMode menu.  Choose SafeMode with Networking.
• Log into the Administrator account to ensure that you have the right to install the SP.
• Run the SP.  It won’t be very fancy this way.  Maybe 45 minutes later it will reboot and then finish configuring itself, finally letting you log in. Total installation time on most of my PC’s was about 1 hour but that followed hours of preparation on each.

On a separate note, I recently got on the Nvidia web site and their utility told me I had a new driver available for my GeForce 8600M GS.  This laptop had come with Vista, now has Win 7 SP1.  I had a big surprise from this driver update; the Windows Experience Score on the graphics side went way up.  Kudo’s to Nvidia for doing a driver update that actually helps day to day usage.  And unlike ATI’s updates (which I need for my AGP based system), this update was fairly quick and very easy.  Also, Nvidia drivers have never, as I can recall, given me BSOD’s, many of which I’ve gotten from ATI (TDR errors).

Install Windows 7/Vista on Hard Disk W/ot DVD or USB Drive

How about installing Windows 7 or Windows Vista without using any DVD or Pen drive / USB drive? Yes this is possible. Users who don’t want to burn the Windows 7/ Vista ISO image to a DVD or those who don’t have a windows start-up disc can now install Windows 7 on their PC. Installing Windows from the Hard Drive is much faster than installing from DVD/CD.This tutorial is made on the assumption that the new Windows 7 or Windows Vista is going to be installed and replace the current one. The instructions can be slightly modified if you want a dual boot system.

1. On your existing Operating System install a virtual DVD/CD drive first. Magic Disc virtual DVD/CD rom can do this and is free. If you can get winrar then you can directly extract the iso files and there by skipping steps (1-3).
2. Now mount the ISO image of Windows 7 or Windows Vista.
3. Then copy all the files from this Virtual drive you mounted now to a drive in which you don’t want to install Windows. for example if you want to install Windows on C drive copy them to E:Windows7 or so.
   
4. Now copy the bootfolders and bootmgr seen inside the copied folder (here E:windows7) to your main booting drive probably C:.
5. Vista users must follow this step ie. you need to copy the bootmgr folder from (E:windows7) to C: root directory. Copy E:Windows7bootboot.sdi and bootsect.exe from E:Windows7boot folder to C:boot folder and C: drive respectively.
6. The boot folder is hidden by default check the option to show hidden files and folder and also show protected system files from “Folder Options“.
7. Now under C: root folder create a new folder named sources.
8. Copy the boot.wim file from E:Windows7sources to the sources folder created in the above step (7).
9. Now right click the Command Prompt in the start menu and select “Run as Administrator“.
10. Type the following command C:bootbootsect.exe /nt60 C: for vista users who did the step 5 should type the command as C:bootsect.exe /nt60 C: .
11. Now change the name of the boot system partion to any name you prefer (in command prompt use label command). for eg. type C: label mycdrive. Remember the name you have given.
    
12. Now restart the System.
13. After that Windows will automatically run the setup process. On continuing with the installation steps when you see the option to Install Windows do not click it instead click the option to Repair my Computer (seen at the bottom left).
14. Now in the WinRE System Recovery Options window open the Command Prompt.
15. Now type the following command format c: /q .
    
16. /q switch is used to do a quick format option it is optional.
17. If you want to convert the drive to NTFS system type the command as c: /q /fs:ntfs.
18. Just before the formatting begins you may be asked to enter the name of the partition as mycdrive enter it accordingly.
19. After the formatting completes Start the Windows setup from the copied folder ie E:Windows7sourcessetup.exe.
20. Now continue with the process as usual.