The other day we looked at sharing a printer between Windows 7 machines, but you may only have one Windows 7 machine and the printer is connected to a Vista or XP computer. Today we show you how to share a printer from either Vista or XP to Windows 7.

We previously showed you how to share files and printers between Windows 7 and XP. But what if you have a printer connected to an XP or Vista machine in another room, and you want to print to it from Windows 7? This guide will walk you through the process.

Note: In these examples we’re using 32-bit versions of Windows 7, Vista, and XP on a basic home network. We are using an HP PSC 1500 printer, but keep in mind every printer is different so finding and installing the correct drivers will vary.

Share a Printer from Vista

To share the printer on a Vista machine click on Start and enter printers into the search box and hit Enter.

Right-click on the printer you want to share and select Sharing from the context menu.

Now in Printer Properties, select the Sharing tab, mark the box next to Share this printer, and give the printer a name. Make sure the name is something simple with no spaces then click Ok.

Share a Printer from XP

To share a printer from XP click on Start then select Printers and Faxes.

In the Printers and Faxes window right-click on the printer to share and select Sharing.

In the Printer Properties window select the Sharing tab and the radio button next to Share this printer and give it a short name with no spaces then click Ok.

Add Printer to Windows 7

Now that we have the printer on Vista or XP set up to be shared, it’s time to add it to Windows 7. Open the Start Menu and click on Devices and Printers.

In Devices and Printers click on Add a printer.

Next click on Add a network, wireless or Bluetooth printer.

Windows 7 will search for the printer on your network and once its been found click Next.

The printer has been successfully added…click Next.

Now you can set it as the default printer and send a test page to verify everything works. If everything is successful, close out of the add printer screens and you should be good to go.

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Alternate Method

If the method above doesn’t work, you’ll can try the following for either XP or Vista. In our example, when trying to add the printer connected to our XP machine, it wasn’t recognized automatically.

If you’re search pulls up nothing then click on The printer that I want isn’t listed.

In the Add Printer window under Find a printer by name or TCP/IP address click the radio button next to Select a shared printer by name. You can either type in the path to the printer or click on Browse to find it.

In this instance we decided to browse to it and notice we have 5 computers found on the network. We want to be able to print to the XPMCE computer so we double-click on that.

Type in the username and password for that computer…

Now we see the printer and can select it.

The path to the printer is put into the Select a shared printer by name field.

Wait while Windows connects to the printer and installs it…

It’s successfully added…click Next.

Now you can set it as the default printer or not and print a test page to make sure everything works successfully.

Now when we go back to Devices and Printers under Printers and Faxes, we see the HP printer on XPMCE.

Conclusion

Sharing a printer from one machine to another can sometimes be tricky, but the method we used here in our setup worked well. Since the printer we used is fairly new, there wasn’t a problem with locating any drivers for it. Windows 7 includes a lot of device drivers already so you may be surprised on what it’s able to install. Your results may vary depending on your type of printer, Windows version, and network setup. This should get you started configuring the machines on your network—hopefully with good results.?

If you you have two Windows 7 computers, then sharing a printer or files is easy through the Homegroup feature. You can also share a printer between Windows 7 machines on the same network but not Homegroup.

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If your mouse is set to wake the computer from Sleep Mode, even the slightest bump of your desk can wake it back up. Here we’ll show you how to avoid this annoyance by disabling it from waking up your machine.

I have seen this happen a lot at home and in the office. A Vista or Windows 7 computer is supposed to be in Sleep Mode and when you come back to your machine after a few hours you see it up and running. If you have the mouse set to wake it up from Sleep Mode, sometimes the slightest movement can wake it up. To disable the annoyance type mouse into the search box in the Start Menu and hit Enter.

Under the Hardware tab click on the Properties button.

Under the Power Management tab uncheck the box next to Allow this device to wake the computer then click Ok and close out of the Mouse Properties window.

This comes in very handy if you have a cat who messes around with your stuff at night. You can do the same thing for your keyboard if you want.

Now when you put your Windows 7 or Vista machine in Sleep Mode, the mouse can’t be used to wake it up.

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When you open Explorer in Windows 7 you’ll see a list of Favorites in the Navigation Pane. Microsoft has already put some there, but today we show you how to remove them and add your own favorite folders including Search Connectors.

Remove Favorites

By default Microsoft has included some favorite locations for you that you may not want. The default locations are Desktop, Downloads, Recent Places, and Recorded TV if you’ve set up Live TV in Windows Media Center.

To delete the locations from Favorites, simply right-click on the location and select Remove from the context menu.

Add Favorites

Adding you favorite locations that you visit often is easy. While your in the folder you want to add, right-click on Favorites and select Add current location to Favorites.

You can also drag a folder over to Favorites to link it there as well.

In this example we removed all of the default locations and added four locations…a FLAC folder from a home server, My Documents, My Videos, and our Dropbox folder.

If you want to get the default locations back just right-click Favorites and select Restore favorite links. It won’t delete the locations you added, but will just restore the originals.

Search Connectors

You can’t add Internet Explorer Favorites or files to your favorites in Windows Explorer. However, you can add Search Connectors which allow you to search a favorite website and view it in Windows Explorer. This is a neat trick we covered in a previous article.

This should help make navigating through your favorite locations a bit easier and allow you to add Search Connectors as well. Make sure to check out our links below that will help better understand Search Connectors and why they might come in handy.

Search Websites from Your Desktop in Windows 7 with Search Connectors

Download the How-To Geek Search Connector

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Do you need a quick and easy way to access Wikipedia while browsing throughout the day? If so then you will want to take a look at the Wiki Lookup extension for Google Chrome.

Installation & Setup

While adding the extension to Chrome you will need to confirm the installation. Click on “Install” to finish the process.

As soon as you have finished installing the extension you will see your new “Wiki Lookup Toolbar Button” and a brief extension management message.

You can access the options by right clicking on the “Toolbar Button”, using the “Chrome Extensions Page”, or clicking on the “Options Button” in the drop-down window.

A close look at the “pre-search” drop-down window and the two “Command Buttons”.

Choose the language that you would like to have Wikipedia display in (or use “Auto Detect” if preferred) in the options.

Wiki Lookup in Action

For our example we decided to search for “Flash Cookies”. Highlight and copy/paste (or type) the term that you would like to search for in the drop-down window text field. You can hit “Enter” or click on the “Magnifying Glass Icon” to start your search.

Multiple possibilities were displayed for our search term allowing us to choose the most appropriate entry. The “Local Shared Object” listing was just what we were looking for. Click on the “link” of the entry you choose to view more information.

We really found a nice offering of information on “Local Shared Objects”…notice that we can further narrow the search. Very nice…

Note: The “extra features” mentioned in the tip window will open the Wikipedia homepage or display a random Wikipedia page.

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If your search will take a bit longer and you would prefer to have more space to work with then you can transfer your search to a new tab. Just click on the “Open in new tab Button” and your drop-down window listings will open in a focused tab.

Note: You will need to conduct the initial search before transferring to a new tab.

Here is our initial list of results open in a new tab ready to choose from.

And our chosen entry. Being able to perform searches using either the drop-down window and/or new tabs make this a versatile extension.

And just for fun we did a search on “Firefox”.

Conclusion

If you access Wikipedia throughout the day while browsing then the Wiki Lookup extension will make a very nice addition to your browser.

Links

Download the Wiki Lookup extension (Google Chrome Extensions)

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You have just received a new computer with Windows 7 pre-installed on it, but you might still be fond of Vista and want to create a dual boot system. Today we take you through the process of creating a Windows 7 / Vista dual boot system without using any third party software.

Assign Drive Letters

If you have extra drives like media card and optical disc drives, you might want to do a bit of renaming to keep them straight. Type Disk Management into the search box in the Start menu.

Then right-click on the drive you want to change and select Change Drive Letter and Paths.

In this example we’re renaming the DVD drive to (E:) this way we can keep our main 2 partitions as (C:) for Windows 7 and (D:) for Vista.?

Create a New Partition

Now with Disk Management still open we need to right-click on the C: drive and select Shrink Volume.

A window pops up showing the drive is being queried for available space.

After it finishes, you want to enter the amount of space to shrink the volume by. Remember that the size you select is in MB so, like in this example. 40,000MB is equal to 40GB. The minimum to go with on a Vista install should be 20GB. Before choosing a size, you’ll want to plan ahead and think about how much data you’ll be adding to the Vista partition. You’ll also want to plan for how much space you want on the Windows 7 partition as well. Here we know we’re not going to be putting a whole lot of data on the Vista partition so it’s sized accordingly. When you have the amount of space entered in, click the Shrink button.

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It will take a moment for the process to complete when it does you’ll see the new Unallocated space. Right-click on the Unallocated space select New Simple Volume.

That starts up the New Simple Volume Wizard that is a straight forward process. When you get to the following window the drive letter D will be selected by default if you changed the drive letters in the steps above.

Then in the Format Partition screen you can leave the default settings how they are. One thing you might want to change though, is the Volume label. In this example we renamed it Vista Volume so it’s easier to identify when we start the Vista installation.

After its complete you’ll see the volume listed in Disk Management and if AutoPlay is enabled, it will pop up too.

You will also see it listed in My Computer. Now everything looks good to go. The Windows 7 disk is label as (C:), The new Vista Volume as (D:), and the DVD drive as (E:).

Install Vista on the New Partition

Now that we have our new partition it’s time to install Vista on it. You want to boot from the Vista disc that you have. Most computers will let you choose the boot option by hitting the F8 or F12 key during startup. Each computer varies so you might want to refer to the computer manual or watch the boot screen (it usually says which key to press to get the boot option). You can also go into the computer BIOS setting and select your CD/DVD drive as the first boot device.

And kick off the installation as if you were doing a clean install of Vista.

When you come to the screen to select where you want to install Vista, select the partition we created earlier.

After the first time Vista reboots during the install process you’ll notice both Vista and Windows 7 in the Windows Boot Manager screen. It will still be there after the Vista installation is complete so you can chose either one at startup.

If you want to set up one or the other as the default OS, go into Advanced System Settings as explained in The Geek’s Article.

Conclusion

Creating a Windows 7 / Vista dual boot system is a bit easier than Windows 7 / XP because Vista won’t overwrite the bootloader so you save a couple of steps. Of course you might want to use a third party utility to create your partitions, but with Windows 7, the functionality is already included and works well. If you want to create a Windows 7 / XP dual boot system we have a guide for that too.

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One of the biggest annoyances for those going straight from XP to Windows 7 is that the backspace key no longer moves you Up a folder like it used to—now it moves you Back in the folder browsing history.

If you’ve used the key a couple of times, you might think I’m wrong—but you can easily test it out by going into one subfolder, then hitting Back, then going into another subfolder and hitting Back, then going into a third subfolder and hitting Back twice. You’ll end up in the previous subfolder.

If you want to go Up a folder in either Windows 7 or Vista, you can use the Alt+Up shortcut key, which will always go to the parent folder.

The Awesome AutoHotkey Fix

Now that we know the shortcut key that actually works in Windows 7, we can use a small script to make it work the way we really want it to. With AutoHotkey installed, create a new script with New –> AutoHotkey Script, and then paste in the following:

#IfWinActive, ahk_class CabinetWClass
Backspace::
?? ControlGet renamestatus,Visible,,Edit1,A
?? ControlGetFocus focussed, A
?? if(renamestatus!=1&&(focussed=”DirectUIHWND3″||focussed=SysTreeView321))
?? {
??? SendInput {Alt Down}{Up}{Alt Up}
? }else{
????? Send {Backspace}
? }
#IfWinActive

Thanks for finding this method goes to joeshmoo from the Productive Geek Forums, who tracked it down buried in an AutoHotkey forum thread. We modified the script slightly to make it work for Windows 7.

How Does This Work?

Ordinarily you can simply re-map the key with a Backspace::!{Up} type of deal, but since the backspace key is useful in the search box, location bar, and when you’re renaming files, you can’t just do a simple mapping—instead you have to check to see which control is active before sending the alternate Alt+Up key combination.

The first line with the #IfWinActive tells AHK to only activate this shortcut key override if Windows Explorer is the active window, which helps fix any possible conflicts in other applications.

The ControlGet and ControlGetFocus lines do the actual work of checking the status of the controls, and then depending on whether they are focused or you are in the process of renaming a file, it either sends the alternate Alt+Up or just sends the regular Backspace key.

Download a Pre-Made Application to Make Backspace Work like XP

Since the majority of you probably aren’t familiar with AutoHotkey, and don’t have any interest in how the scripts work, I’ve put together a customized version of the script as a tiny little executable that will run in the background.

It doesn’t take a ton of memory, as you can see in the screenshot.

To install HTGBack, just download, extract, and then create a shortcut in the shell:startup folder:

Double-click on the executable, and your Backspace key should start working like it used to in XP. Note that we only tested this on Windows 7, but assume it will work for Vista as well.

Download HTGBack XP-Style Backspace Key

This utility is licensed under the don’t-be-stupid license, which says that you can use it, distribute it, and pretty much do whatever you feel like with it—just give us credit by linking back to this post.

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If you have a shared or public computer that several people use, you might want to restrict access to it’s drives to prevent users from deleting important data. Today we look at restricting access to some or all drives on the machine using Local Group Policy.

Note: This method uses Local Group Policy Editor which is not available on home versions of Windows 7 or Vista

First type gpedit.msc in the search box of the Start Menu and hit Enter.

Now navigate to User Configuration Administrative Templates Windows Components Windows Explorer. Then on the right side under Setting, double click on Prevent access to drives from My Computer.

Select Enable then under Options from the drop down menu you can restrict a certain drive, a combination of drives, or restrict them all. The main drive you would probably want to restrict is the C: drive or which ever lettered drive Windows is installed on. Restricting all drives means they can’t access the CD or DVD drive, and cannot use a flash drive if they need to get files from it.

Note: This setting won’t prevent users from using programs that access the local drives.

The restrictions take effect immediately, no restart is required. When a user opens up My Computer they’ll be able to see which drives are listed, but when they try to access a restricted drive, they’ll get the following error message.

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For the screenshots in this tutorial we used Windows 7 Ultimate, but this process also works with XP Professional and Vista (not in Home versions) the screens just look different.

Local Group Policy allows you to customize several settings for how you want to administer your machine. Restricting access to certain drives in addition to other security and access measures, can help? keep a shared computer stable and secure.

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The Windows Live SkyDrive service is nice for storage and for sharing documents, but it can be annoying to always have a browser open to access it. Today we take a look at a free utility that let’s you access your SkyDrive from Windows Explorer.

SkyDrive Explorer

After installing SkyDrive Explorer…go into My Computer you’ll see the drive listed.

To access the drive you’ll need to sign into your Windows Live account.

Now you should see all of the folders and files you have created and stored in your SkyDrive.

You aren’t able to open files directly from SkyDrive Explorer, but you can copy, delete, and rename them. Before deleting an item, you’ll get a confirmation dialog box making sure you want to permanently delete it from the SkyDrive.

Creating a new folder in your SkyDrive.

Another handy feature is being able to copy the URL to a shared document on your SkyDrive so you can easily point other users to it.

It allows you to simply drag and drop documents from your computer into the SkyDrive…

And you can drag files from your SkyDrive to your desktop.

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From the toolbar you can sign out of your SkyDrive.

It’s available in several different languages.

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Conclusion

SkyDrive Explorer let’s you easily access your SkyDrive as you would any other drive connected to your PC. Unfortunately Microsoft still? limits an individual file size of 50MB per upload. If you are looking for something to store media files, SkyDrive isn’t the best choice. For smaller files and documents, SkyDrive Explorer works great for storage, access, and collaborations. It will work on XP, Vista, 2003, 2008, and Windows 7. If you use your Windows Live SkyDrive to store and share documents, this handy Windows Explorer extension will make the process much easier.

Download SkyDrive Explorer

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Windows Vista introduced us to the Reliability and Performance Monitor utility to help keep track of hardware and software crashes. It’s now a stand alone utility in Windows 7 and we will take a look at how to access and use it.

Reliability and Performance Monitor in Vista

In Vista the Reliability Monitor was part of the Reliability and Performance Monitor utility. Now it’s a separate utility in Windows 7 and located in a different spot in the OS.

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Reliability Monitor in Windows 7

To access the Reliability Monitor in Windows 7, open Action Center from the icon in the Notification Area or from Control Panel.

Under the Maintenance options click on View reliability history.

Alternately you can enter Reliability Monitor into the search box in the Start menu.

The Reliability Monitor opens and you can start checking out where and when hardware or software errors have occurred.

On the chart you’ll see icons for warnings and failures based on a scale from 1 to 10 (1 being least stable and 10 the most stable). Click on the date where errors have occurred so you can view the details.

You can choose between Days or Weeks View.

In the details section you can click on any of the errors and get the technical details.

The Problem Details section tells you what the problem is, date and time it happened, and a description of the problem. You can copy the details to the clipboard in case you need to email it to tech support.

It also allows you to View all problem reports that will show only computer errors. It doesn’t show other events like software installations.

It provides a list of problems on the computer, luckily in this example there is only one issue.

Double click on any error in the list to get detailed results.

You can also click on Check for solutions to all problems.

When a solution is found, the information is presented in Action Center under the Maintenance section. In this example there is a wireless network adapter that’s missing a driver. It provides a link to the driver and gives directions on how to download and install it.

If you are experiencing problems with your Windows 7 machine such as devices not working or are getting different error messages, the Reliability Monitor is a good place to start looking for a solution.

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If you’re still using Internet Explorer and Windows XP, you might have encountered a problem where you unchecked the box for “Always ask before opening this type of file”, and now you can’t get it back anymore.

Luckily it’s an easy fix. If you aren’t sure what we mean, we’re referring to this dialog:

If you want to do the same thing in Windows Vista, we’ve also got you covered there with a registry hack.

Reset Open/Save Dialog Choice in Windows XP

Open up a file explorer dialog and head towards Tools –> Folder Options.

Then use the File Types tab page to figure out the type of the file that you are trying to reset this for. The person’s PC I was fixing was having issues with zip files, so I went for that extension, but it should work for Excel, Word, etc.

Click the Advanced button, and then check the box for “Confirm open after download”. If it’s already checked, then uncheck it and re-check it again.

At this point your downloads should start prompting you again, and you can finally figure out where you downloaded Firefox to.

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