Windows 7 - New Tools

1st June 2009

Well the sun has been shining and the British summer is upon us, however at IT for Starters it is work as usual although we have managed to find some time to carry on evaluating Windows 7 (in the Sun!).

You will see there are some new features in Windows 7 as well as some much improved features first found in Vista. Below are a few to look at which we found interesting and useful.

Problem Steps Recorder

One of the most useful new tools in Windows 7 which us at IT for Starters are looking forward to using in anger is the Problem Steps Recorder (PSR, psr.exe). Now any support company like ourselves who provide IT support to Windows users will love this new feature.. We often come across users who have problems describing the problem they have and what they do to get the problem. Remote Assistance can be a godsend in these situations but you can't always connect to the user’s computer due to firewall restrictions/client restirctions etc. It is for these scenarios that PSR will really help to overcome these issues.

 

PSR basically provides screen shots of a users actions along with keystrokes, mouse clicks, etc. This information is saved in an MHTML page that documents every step the user took.

To start PSR you simply enter psr.exe in the Search box (once you have clicked the start menu). The following screen shot is what you will see when PSR is running:

 

You can view the recorded steps in Internet Explorer by opening the saved zipped MHTML file. The results show like this:

Better backup utility

Now many older versions of Windows operating systems included a basic backup utility, it has been somewhat improved in Windows 7 and gives you more granular control over the data you want to back up.

 

"Make sure you backup regularly" are probably the five words most often spoken to our clients and this does not replace good backup software but is great for backing up remote machines or laptops to the network or at home to small Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices or external hard drives.

You can invoke Backup And Restore from either Control Panel or by typing Backup in the Search box on the Start menu. You can back up your files to:

• Local hard disk
• Removable disk
• DVD
• A computer/server on the network.

Once the location of the backup is selected you can choose to back up libraries or individual folders. You can also exclude specified folders from the backup and create a schedule for regular backups.

 

System Repair Disc

Windows 7 RC has a new feature that lets you easily create a system repair disc with a graphical interface for ease of use. Simply click Start and type System Repair in the Search box (as you will see the Search box is much more intuitive and user friendly in Windows 7). Click on Create A System Repair Disc (usually the first on at the top) to open the dialog box shown below:

The disc is then created ready for safe keeping. To use the disc, boot the computer with the disc in the drive (you must have the CD/DVD drive at the top of the list in the boot device list in your BIOS.) If the BIOS is configured correctly the system will boot frolm the disc and a list of system recovery options will be available:

• Startup repair
• System restore
• System image recovery
• Windows memory diagnostic
• Command prompt

ISO image burning

Now for all you MAC users who are reading this, I KNOW this can be done already on a MAC but it is new to a native windows operating system so I am mentioning it here. Up until now Windows users have needed third party software to burn ISO images to disc but not in Windows 7.

 

As it should be (and yes it is just as easy on a MAC), it’s simpleto burn an ISO image to a CD/DVD. Once you have downloaded an .ISO file (Windows 7 RC for example) to your hard drive, just double click the file and Windows 7 will open a Burn Disc Image window, shown below:

 

Conclusion

Now I know we are only just scratching the surface of Windows 7 but the new features and tools are addressing some of the 'wanna haves' many people have been requesting for a while now in a Windows OS.

 

The four we have chosen to put in this Blog are our favourites so far but will post more as we find and test them out.

 

Darren