In this article I am going to show you a handful of Windows 7 tools, some of which can be useful to even the most novice users.
The Display Color Calibration Tool
The image quality of what is displayed on your LCD monitor is one of the most overlooked aspects of one’s personal computing experience. Most people just leave their monitors and operating system’s display settings at their default levels, assuming that they are ‘correct’. The combination of optimized brightness, contrast, gamma, and color settings can lead to much better image quality and level of detail. This tool will also help you match the color and contrast that is displayed on your screen to that which comes out of your printer.
Using Windows 7’s Display Color Calibration tool, one can tweak these settings with a few easy steps. This tool can be accessed in the control panel, or by typing “dccw.exe” into the start box.
The Display Color Calibration tool will guide you through step by step to calibrate your monitors gamma, color, contrast, and brightness.
Cleartype Text Tuner
The cleartype text tuner is used to smooth screen fonts on LCD monitors and make text look much better. You can run this utility to ensure that fonts look as good as possible on your monitor. It can be accessed in the control panel, or by typing “cttune.exe” into the start box.
The Cleartype Text Tuner fine tunes the way your monitor displays text.
Problem Steps Recorder
Do you ever get questions from friends or family members about issues with their computers? If so, than I’m sure you know how aggravating it can be understanding what the real problem is when they try to explain it to you. Average computer users don’t know a lot of the common terms and have a really hard time describing issues. That’s where PSR comes into play. It records screenshots, mouseclicks, and keyboard strokes while the user is going through the steps to recreate the issue. It then zips everything up nice and neatly into a MHTML report page which the user can then send to you for review.
The PSR is a great tool that can save you hours of time doing remote troubleshooting. It can be accessed by typing “psr” into the Start box or command line.
System Repair Disc
Most of us have been in a bad situation where we can’t boot into Windows and retrieve our important files. Having a repair disc handy can help you avoid a potentially disastrous situation such as this. To create a system repair disc, click Start, All Programs, Maintenance, and Create a System Repair Disc or “recdisc.exe” from the Start box/command line. Insert a CD or DVD into the drive and press Create disc.
In the case of an emergency, where you cannot boot into Windows, you can boot off of this disc in the hopes of repairing your Windows install. You will be supplied with the following options.
- Startup Repair
- System Restore
- System Image Recovery
- Windows Memory Diagnostic
- Command Prompt
I have had a lot of luck in the past using startup repair and system restore to fix hosed OS installs. I would try the startup repair first and then move on to the system restore if that doesn’t work. You can also restore an image of your system using the system image recovery, that is if you were smart enough to create one in the first place. More info here.
Windows Disc Image Burner
Windows 7 has introduced native support for burning .iso images. No more searching for freeware 3rd party programs to burn your iso images to disc. In my opinion, this utility should have been included with Windows a long time ago. Better late than never, I suppose. To access this utility, simply right click on an iso image and choose “Burn disc image”.
Windows Memory Diagnostics
Experiencing intermittent lock ups or reboots? Then you may have a bad stick of ram. Luckily for you, Windows 7 includes built in memory diagnostics. The memory diagnostics can be accessed in the control panel or by typing “mdsched” into the Start box/command line.
Windows Memory Diagnostics will then scan your memory and notify you if any errors are found.
Windows Powershell
Windows powershell is a scritping/shell engine that shipped with Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2. This tool is definitely for the more advanced user, but it is a wonderful way to automate anything that can be done with the GUI. More information from Microsoft here.
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