Seven simple steps for setting up Windows 7

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Seven simple steps for setting up Windows 7

By Woody Leonhard

When you’re the designated alpha geek for your family, friends — and maybe the office, too — you know certain duties come with the territory.

One of those duties is setting up new PCs. Here’s my quick-and-easy checklist of tasks to do it right.

It usually starts out with something like this: “Hey, I just got a new PC! You know all about ’em — could you help me set it up?”

If you’re lucky, the invitation comes attached to a satisfying supply of leftover turkey sandwiches, pecan pie, and cold beer; if you aren’t so lucky, it’s take-out pizza and warm soda. But whatever the inducements, you know full well you’re on the hook.

You could easily write a book about setting up Windows 7. (Come to think of it, I have.) But after setting up a hundred or so Windows 7 PCs, under a wide variety of circumstances, I’ve developed some specific steps to make setting up a new Win7 system as painless as possible — a sanity-saving checklist, if you will.

So the next time your Aunt Gertrude invites you to help her — or your boss calls you into her office to fix the mess left behind by the corporate IT guy — take these seven steps to a well–set-up machine.

1 – Get rid of the pre-installed junk software

PCs ship with tons of useless software. If the friend you’re helping has played with her new PC for more than an hour or two, chances are good it has even more garbage installed. Before you try to do anything else, defenestrate (to use my word of the day) the junk.

Begin a thorough cleaning of a new PC by going into Windows 7’s Uninstall or change a program utility. Click Start, Control Panel; then, under Programs, click Uninstall a program. Now sit your friend down next to you and decide whether any of the more questionable programs are absolutely essential to her future happiness. Those that are not — zap ’em.

And while you’re at it, get rid of the trialware; she’s likely to end up paying for apps she doesn’t need.

Next, remove all the space-wasting programs preinstalled on the PC, starting with the devils you know — such as manufacturer-specific utilities, unwanted browser plug-ins, and other digital detritus. Then take a few minutes to download and run PC Decrapifier (download page), a remarkable, free-for-personal-use utility that roots out and destroys the most common offensive programs. PC Decrapifier is particularly good at finding stubbornly attached pieces of unneeded antivirus programs.

2 – Free does not always mean useless

If your cousin Bill’s new PC came with a so-called free antivirus program preinstalled, get rid of it. (The exception to this rule is Microsoft Security Essentials. Fred Langa weighed in on the superiority of MSE in his Sept. 16 column in the paid section of the newsletter.) Antivirus companies pay computer manufacturers big bucks to install trial versions of their software on new PCs. These apps are usually good for a few months, and then you have to pay to keep them current.

Once you’ve removed the trialware AV app, install Microsoft Security Essentials. It’s free for personal use or for use in companies with 10 or fewer Windows machines. MSE is fast, very effective, and unobtrusive; and best of all, it never begs for money.

If your cousin has already paid for a different antivirus program, tell him to wait for the subscription to run out and then replace it with MSE. One final — and extremely important — point: make sure you download the real Microsoft Security Essentials (download site), not one of the cleverly dressed malware fakes Fred discussed in his Dec. 2 column.

3 – Change Windows settings for safety

Windows 7 has a handful of default settings that drive me nuts. Your opinion may differ, but at the very least you should consider these changes:

• Show filename extensions: In all my books, I rail against Microsoft’s decision to hide filename extensions by default. The ‘Softies argue that neophyte users don’t need to see the .txt on a text file or .doc on a Word document or .xlsx on an Excel spreadsheet.

  But in my experience, not showing filename extensions leads to all sorts of confounding behavior: errors such as accidentally naming a file incorrectly — mystuff.txt.doc, for example; running an unsafe or unexpected program — double-clicking on iloveyou.txt.vbs, for instance; or making their files difficult for other people to open — such as sending XL2007sheet.xlsx to someone using Excel 2003.

  To make Windows show filename extensions, click Start and Documents. Next, click Organize in the upper tools bar and choose Folder and search options. Click the View tab and uncheck the box marked Hide extensions for known file types. (While you’re there, consider checking the Show hidden files, folders, and drives box.)

• Create a user account: Most people get a new PC with just one administrator account, typically with a name such as Admin, Owner, or even something silly such as Satisfied Customer. Whatever it’s called, this default admin account usually doesn’t have a set password. You know the dangers of unrestricted system access, but many PC users don’t.

  Give them a leg up on safe computing by first assigning a password to the default admin account (it doesn’t have to be anything fancy). Then, set up a new account — under the user’s name — that is set to the more restrictive Standard user security level. You can add a password for that new account, too, or create additional accounts — whatever the situation dictates. Give your friend the password to the admin account, but emphasize that only the standard account should be used.

• Consider turning off Automatic Updates: I always get a flood of hate mail when I make this recommendation. If your Aunt Gertrude doesn’t understand Windows security and fears that winning a game of solitaire will make her PC blow up — fair enough — she needs to have Windows Automatic Update turned on. If a PC is likely to run unsupervised for a while, it should get automatic updates, too.

  But most moderately alert PC users are capable of regularly checking whether the monthly Black Tuesday, er, Patch Tuesday updates are safe to install. Excellent information on the latest patches can be found in the Patch Watch column of the paid section of Windows Secrets, on my AskWoody site, and in many other sources. Give the recommendation that it’s better to apply patches when the user want to — not when Microsoft first rolls updates out the chute, sometimes to ill effect.

4 – Needed or not, set up a Windows homegroup

If cousin Bill has several PCs on his network, but only one with Windows 7, he can’t use Windows homegroups — Vista and XP don’t support it. But on networks containing more than one Windows 7 PC (even if there’s currently just one) setting up a homegroup now will make it much easier later on to get additional Win7 PCs talking to the network.

I explained homegroups in detail in my October 1, 2009, Woody’s Windows column (paid content). Suffice it to say that, assuming you trust all PCs on your network, setting up a homegroup makes sharing files, printers, and other hardware much simpler.

To set up a homegroup, click Start, Control Panel. Under Network and Internet, click View network status and tasks. Look below the heading View your active networks. If you see a house icon (as shown in Figure 1), you’re connected to a home network. In that case, get a homegroup going by clicking Start, Control Panel; under the Network and Internet heading, click the link to Set up a homegroup.

Figure 1. To set up a homegroup, you must tell Windows that you’re connected to a home network.

If you see an icon that looks like a computer with a shield (work network) or bench (public network), it’s easy to change to a home network. Click the link marked Work network (or Public network), choose Home network, and click Close. As soon as you change to a home network, Windows asks whether you want to join a homegroup. Click Join now, and you’re in.

5 – Get automatic daily backups working

Yeah, yeah — do as I say, not as I do.

Setting up cousin Bill’s new PC for regular backups? In Windows 7, it’s easy. If the machine has Windows 7 Home Premium and a second hard drive, he can use that for backups. With a one-drive system, talk him into running out to the nearest computer shoppe and buying an external hard drive. It’s the best hundred bucks he’ll ever spend.

(If Bill is running Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate, and he’s connected to a network, he can use a network drive for backups.)

When you plug the new external hard drive into a USB port, Windows 7 should automatically ask you whether you want to use it for backups. Follow the easy instructions, and you’re soon good to go for nightly backups.

If you don’t get the prompt to set up backups when you plug in a new external hard drive, click Start, Control Panel; then, under System and Security, click Back up your computer. Click the link marked Set up backup, and follow the wizard. It’ll take two minutes, max, to get daily backups running.

This would also be an excellent time to make an emergency boot disc (see the Fred Langa’s Top Story item, “Build a rock-solid net for Win7”) and a complete image backup of Bill’s machine. Win7 comes with its own image-backup tool: select Control Panel and, under System and Security, click Back up your computer. Select Create system image.

6 – Install the basic helper applications

There are certain base applications that every PC needs. No doubt you have your favorites; permit me to list mine.

I won’t preach about the superiority of Google Chrome for Web browsing — I’ll simply direct you to the Chrome download site. If you prefer the largest selection of browser add-ins, head over to the Firefox site.

Every PC needs a PDF viewer. At this point, I’m thoroughly ambivalent about Foxit Reader (product page) because the company has started infesting its installer with junk. But if you carefully choose the correct check boxes when you install it, Foxit is a much smaller and nimbler alternative to Adobe Reader.

Alas, most PC users still need a Flash player. The Chrome browser has a sandboxed version of Adobe Flash Player built in (info page), but if you use any other Web browser, the only real choice is to dance with the devil and download (page) the standard Flash app.

For keeping your PC completely up-to-date, install Secunia Personal Software Inspector (product page). This free-for-personal-use program periodically scans your PC and tells you whether you need to update common programs to patch security holes. It’s worth its weight in gold.

7 – Add useful but unobtrusive utilities

Beyond the must-have base apps, there’s a whole world of useful Windows add-ins and utilities. A handful I highly recommend include the following:

• 7-Zip: Because we live in a world that still has Apple computers, I always install 7-Zip (download page). (No! Put down that brickbat!) Seriously, people are always sending me .rar files, almost invariably from Apple computers. You need to have a .rar-savvy program to decompress them. If all you ever receive is .zip files, Windows handles those nicely.
• Paint.net: Windows Paint is good enough for very simple tasks, but I generally install Paint.net (download page) on all the PCs I set up. It gives you excellent, compact, fast tools for editing photos and otherwise manipulating image files. IrfanView (info page) is another good choice, particularly if your cousin has to cope with many different file formats or needs scanning tools.
• VLC media player: Windows Media Player has its strong points, but it doesn’t play many kinds of media files. It also won’t work with iPods (and I refuse to struggle with iTunes). VLC media player (site) handles every type of file I’ve ever thrown at it — and it connects to iPods, iPhones, and iPads, too.

Finally, two excellent utilities are ideal for anyone who depends on the Web. (And who doesn’t these days?)

• Dropbox (site) lets you drag and drop files into a special folder on your Windows desktop. The files then magically appear on all PCs, laptops, phones, and iPads that also have Dropbox installed. It has good password-based security and fine file-sharing options.
• LastPass (info page) stores your passwords in the cloud, where they can be retrieved with ease (as long as you’re connected to the Internet) and are protected by strong security. I don’t know how I ever managed without it.

You can probably work through these recommendations in under an hour. Once done, you’re ready to set your friends, relatives, and co-workers free, knowing they can start safely and effectively using their new machines. They can transfer data from another machine, install the other apps they need, and safely work on the Web. (For more on moving data from one PC to another, see Fred Langa’s LangaList Plus column in the paid part of this issue.)

Having been given a solid computing foundation, they might offer a better beer the next time they need help. Being an alpha geek has its privileges.

Woody Leonhard‘s latest books — Windows 7 All-In-One For Dummies and Green Home Computing For Dummies — deliver the straight story in a way that won’t put you to sleep.

An especially busy week for computing oddities

By Tracey Capen

New this week in the Lounge: Excel doesn’t print the numerals 6 or 8, a user’s machine thinks Windows 7 is fake, and some very old calendars show up in Outlook.

Lounge member farscape_fan, an Exchange admin, reports the strange case of many old calendars showing up in some of his users’ Outlook Calendar views.

Fortunately, fellow members are on that case — and many others — helping flummoxed posters think through the possibilities. More»

The following links are this week’s most interesting Lounge threads, including several new questions that you may be able to provide responses to:

☼ starred posts — particularly useful

If you’re not already a Lounge member, use the quick registration form to sign up for free. The ability to post comments and take advantage of other Lounge features is available only to registered members.

If you’re already registered, you can jump right in to today’s discussions in the Lounge.

The Lounge Life column is a digest of the best of the WS Lounge discussion board. Tracey Capen is editor in chief of Windows Secrets.

Why cats are not good at nursery rhymes

By Revia Romberg Most of us remember “Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man,” that ancient and much-loved nursery rhyme that teaches children cooperation and coordination. Its rhythmic hand-clapping brings back sweet memories of childhood. Transform hands into the cats’ paws of two feline dudes with attitude, and you have a most amusing takeoff on “Pat-a-cake” … as if you needed more proof that cats simply won’t cooperate — even with each other. Play the video

Desktop, screen, and video capture made easy

By Fred Langa When you want to grab an image off your screen, Windows’ own built-in image-capture tools will do the trick nicely most of the time. And when the simplest methods don’t work, there’s extra help readily available — no matter what you’re trying to capture.

Capturing desktops, screens, and video frames

Reader Gary Smith is struggling with screen- and video-capture issues.

• “There are more and more screen-grabbers and video-grabbers, and it’s getting bewildering trying to know which to use or whether they conflict with each other or with other apps being used.

  “I’ve looked around but don’t see this area addressed. Please advise.”

For most forms of screen-grab, you may not need any special tools at all.

For example, with common types of Windows video playback, you can simply press the print-screen key. That key normally captures everything visible on your monitor screen (including the video frame displayed at the moment you hit the key) and stores it in the Windows clipboard. You can then paste the saved image to your favorite image-editing app — or even the lowly Paint utility — for cropping or other editing.

Here are three captures of a NASA MP4 video file showing the launch of Expedition 26 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan last December. They were displayed by the current versions of Windows Media Player (Figure 1), QuickTime (Figure 2), and RealPlayer (Figure 3). All the screens were grabbed via the print-screen key (typically labeled PrtScn) and pasted into a common image-editing tool.

Figure 1. Windows Media Player screen-grab using the standard print-screen key. Any app that displays images or videos via the standard, non-overlay method should allow print-screen captures.

Figure 2. The same, simple print-screen capture method works with many non-Microsoft, proprietary video tools, including Apple’s QuickTime (shown).

Figure 3. A RealPlayer video grab using the print-screen key.

The same, simple print-screen capture also works for most YouTube videos, DVDs, streaming Netflix videos, Flash videos, and so on.

For more advanced forms of capture, such as real-time screen recording that outputs to a video file, one or more of Microsoft’s media encoders may do the trick. For more on this, see the Microsoft article, “Getting started with screen capture using Windows Media Encoder.”

Last year, Microsoft retired the name “Windows Media Encoder”; the follow-on version is now called Expression Encoder 4, and it’s available in free and Pro versions. For comparisons and downloads, see the product page.

The simpler, classic Windows Media Encoder is still in wide use and can be downloaded free from sites such as Soft32.com’s Windows Media Encoder 9.0 page.

Naturally, there can be obstacles to easy screen captures. For example, some older, third-party, and specialized video players bypass Windows’ normal video-handling procedures (i.e., they use a video overlay to display their images). With players of this sort, simple screen-grabs produce only an empty black box where the video was playing.

If you run into this problem, first try to replay the video in a native Windows application such as Media Player, Media Center, or Internet Explorer. Because these tools use the Windows-standard method of video display, they almost always work properly with the simpler capture methods.

If that doesn’t do what you want, then you’ll have to resort to one or more of the many third-party tools. I suggest you start with simple, free tools and move up in complexity and price as your needs dictate.

A good place to start is thefreecountry.com’s page of “Free screen video recorders and screen capture software.”

By all means, try the simplest methods first. Windows’ built-in Print Screen function may be all you need!

Microsoft pushing IE for MSE 2.0 updates

Jim McIntosh ran into a snag when updating his new copy of Microsoft Security Essentials 2.0.

• “I upgraded my MSE to version 2.0. I’m peeved at Microsoft. Now when you want to check for an update, it sends you to a website. If you use another browser as your default, you get a snotty note that tells you it can’t use my [preferred] browser and I am directed to turn on automatic updates.

  “If Microsoft wants to do this process through a browser, I don’t have a problem with that. If they want to use their own browser in this process, I don’t have a problem with that, either. But Microsoft shouldn’t start the default browser just so that it can whine! They can explicitly start Internet Explorer and be done with it.

  “I would be willing to use IE for this process if they would supply the URL for MSE2 updates.”

It sounds like you’re trying to manually update MSE via the Windows Update site. WU uses ActiveX controls and thus requires IE.

But you don’t have to use any browser at all to update MSE 2.

If you let it, MSE 2 will update itself automatically. By default, MSE scans your PC once a week and checks for the latest definitions prior to performing the scan. (See the “Check for the latest virus and spyware definitions before running a scheduled scan” check box, shown in Figure 4.) But if you desire more frequent scans, you can set MSE to scan every day — and it will check for new definitions every day, too.

You also can manually check for updates whenever you wish via the Update tab. (See Figure 5.)

Figure 4. MSE normally checks for updates once a week, but you can reduce that interval to daily, if you wish.

Figure 5. You can trigger an update check manually, anytime, by clicking the big, gray Update button.

Either way, MSE goes online, checks for the latest definitions, and downloads them if needed with no use of a browser.

That said, please don’t take this as a reason not to keep IE updated, even if it’s not your browser of choice. For good security, all your software — even if infrequently used — should be kept up-to-date.

Ditch paid-for antivirus for MSE 2?

Robert wonders whether he should dump his $35-per-year commercial AV tool in favor of MSE.

• “I’m currently using Avast AV Pro. Do you recommend I remove it and install Microsoft Security Essentials 2.0 and Secunia Personal Software Inspector 2.0?

There’s no reason to switch if you’re satisfied with your current, paid antivirus tool — in other words, you’re not having any performance issues with it and independent scans by other tools show your PC is always clean.

If I were you, I’d let the subscription run until renewal time and then try MSE (info page) for a few days. Compare its usability and effectiveness with your current tool.

With first-hand knowledge of both antivirus tools, you then can make an informed decision about which works better on your system — and which fits better with your way of working. If the answer’s Avast or another commercial tool, great! You’ll know you’re getting your money’s worth. If the answer’s MSE, then you’ve saved a little money.

Either way, the most important thing is to have an up-to-date antivirus tool.

Secunia PSI (info page) is a completely different kind of tool. It does not directly protect your system, but it does ensure that your other software is fully up-to-date. It’s a valuable addition to any software setup, regardless of the brand or type of antivirus tool in use. So, yes, I suggest you install it.

Lost passwords and moving a system image

John Cuddy seeks a shortcut in moving his copy of XP to a new PC.

• “I have an ancient (vintage 1995) portable and running XP which I use for work trips. It’s heavy, has a poor screen, dodgy hard disk, and keys falling off. But it has all my serious applications, many of which are protected by passwords that I no longer remember. So I would like to clone it exactly onto a new, lightweight netbook I have just purchased (which also uses the XP OS).

  “For my other computers, I use Macrium Reflect to make backups, which I understand are ‘images.’ Would this work for my cloning job? If not, could you suggest a way to do this?”

Any disk-imaging tool should be able to transfer your data and applications. But using an image will most likely present major complications. When your transferred image wakes up on the new machine, it won’t see the old, familiar hardware — it will see the totally different set of hardware that makes up your new system.

Windows is actually pretty good about trying to get itself running when it encounters new hardware. But before your new netbook is useable, you’ll have to wade through a blizzard of error messages and “New Hardware Found …” dialogs. Windows will try to find and install the correct drivers to run with your new laptop.

It may eventually work, but at best, you’ll be left with a messy and non-optimal installation.

If it’s just lost passwords preventing a clean setup, I suggest you first try to recover them — it may be easier than you think.

The NirSoft website offers a collection of free password-recovery tools for a variety of Windows programs, including Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, Microsoft Outlook, dial-up entries for Windows, Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, and more.

(Note: Your AV software might tag some of the NirSoft apps as malware. You can safely ignore the warning. Security programs sometimes flag password-recovery tools as malware because they can be used for illicit purposes. Use only reputable sites to obtain password-recovery tools.)

The Lifehacker.com article, “Recover lost passwords with free tools,” also has some good suggestions and links.

If the above links can’t recover all your passwords, you can do a targeted Web search (in any search engine) with the phrase “recover password” (include the quotes) and the name of the application in question. For example:

“recover password” thunderbird

Once you’ve recovered your lost passwords, you can then install your favorite apps on your new system cleanly, the normal way.

If your password-recovery efforts fail, or you just don’t want to go that route, try migrating your existing setup to the new PC. Migration tries to move your files, software, and settings from one PC to another, leaving the original setting on the new machine as intact as possible.

XP’s basic migration tools are explained in the TechNet article, “Step-by-step guide to migrating files and settings.” A related Technet article, “User state migration in Windows XP,” covers the topic in deeper technical detail. You can also try third-party migration tools such as Laplink’s PCmover Netbook Edition (U.S. $30).

So, with all those free and low-cost options, I suggest you use a system image only as a last resort.

Fred Langa is a senior editor of the Windows Secrets Newsletter. He was formerly editor of Byte Magazine (1987–91), editorial director of CMP Media (1991–97), and editor of the LangaList e-mail newsletter from its origin in 1997 until its merger with Windows Secrets in November 2006.

Get creative with simple, free music editors

By Lincoln Spector Applications such as Windows Media Player and iTunes are great for playing music, but not for changing it to suit your needs. Fortunately, there are free applications that can let you convert, trim, and otherwise modify audio files.

Free music editors have their limitations

If you have a sizable music collection on your PC, chances are good you’ve wished you had some way of editing your tracks. Perhaps, when you burned that recording of your kid’s school concert to an audio CD, it didn’t break up the tracks properly. Or maybe you love Bruce Springsteen’s singing voice but can’t stand his long, spoken introductions. With a music editor, you can delete sections of a track, add fade-ins and fade-outs, split one track into several, and make other creative changes that might suit your fancy.

If you’ve got a collection of LPs or tapes that you want to digitize, a music editor is a must. It’s the only way to reliably split long, continuous recordings into multiple tracks — that homemade tape of the 1973 Grateful Dead Winterland concert, for example. Any worthy music editor can also filter out background noise — important when you’re converting those well-worn LPs and tapes to digital.

Free music editors will, in most cases, provide all the tools you need for simple audio alterations. But free does have a price: these programs don’t offer much handholding — their user interfaces are often opaque and their documentation sparse and confusing.

They also lack a deep level of file support. I could not find a worthwhile free editor that supports .wma or .m4p formats. And creating .mp3 files required downloading a separate library file.

If you plan to convert analog recordings with any music editor, keep these two tips in mind:

• Record the audio initially as uncompressed .wav files. You can convert them to .mp3 (or any other format your editor supports) after you’re satisfied with your edits.
• Be careful when you remove noise. A computer can’t always distinguish between background noise and content. If you crank up the noise-removal tool too high, the loss of audio detail will be worse than the original noise.

The Audacity of free, yet powerful music editing

In terms of power, versatility, features, and format support, no other free music editor beats the open-source Audacity app (download site). You can record up to 16 channels simultaneously, edit an unlimited number of tracks, layer recordings on top of each other, add echo and wah-wah, and change the pitch without altering the tempo (and vice-versa).

But be warned: there are current versions for Windows XP, Linux, OS X, and other operating systems, but not Windows 7. Beta version 1.3 has “provisional support for Windows 7” — it worked fine for me, but beta is beta, so don’t be surprised if it behaves badly.

Whichever version you use, expect a steep learning curve. Either no one put much effort into making Audacity user-friendly, or too many people put in too much conflicting effort. For instance, as with any music editor, you can click at any point on the waveform (the visual graph of the audio) to insert the cursor. But Audacity does not let you drag that cursor to fine-tune its placement.

In order to create .mp3s, Audacity requires its own special version of the LAME encoding library file lame_enc.dll (info site). Yet despite the fact that this file was created for Audacity and has its own installer, Audacity has to be pointed to the LAME file’s location the first time you try to create an .mp3. Why couldn’t the DLL’s installer simply put the file where Audacity expects to find it?

Even a simple task such as splitting a recording into multiple files — one for each song — can seem daunting the first time you try it. There’s no one clear approach, but I found this way the easiest:

• When you’ve figured out where you want the first track to end, click that point to insert the cursor. Click Edit, Select, Start to Cursor.
• Next, click File and either Export Selection As WAV or Export Selection As MP3. (See Figure 1.)

  
  Figure 1. Audacity is flexible and powerful but not always intuitive to use.

• Save the file, naming it with that song’s title. Finally, press Delete to remove the song from the original track.
• Repeat this for every song except the last one. When there’s only one song left, select File and Export As WAV or File or Export As MP3.

Learning Audacity takes some effort, but if you’re really interested in playing with sound, it’s worth it.

Wavosaur: A compact and relatively simple solution

If you’re not really interested in playing with sound but just want to fix a few files or get some old LPs onto your iPod, Wavosaur (download site) is a better choice than Audacity. Wavosaur could be easier to use, but it’s “Chopsticks” to Audacity’s “Goldberg Variations.”

For instance, when finding the right place to split a file into two songs, Wavosaur lets you use the mouse wheel to zoom in for a detailed look at a few seconds’ worth of waveform — or zoom out to find a specific song in a long track. When you think you have the right spot, right-click the cursor and select Create marker. When you’ve marked off all your break spots, select File, Export, Export all regions (see Figure 2); every song gets saved as a separate file.

Figure 2. Wavosaur makes breaking a long, continuous track into individual songs relatively quick and easy.

Unfortunately, they’re all .wav files. To turn them into .mp3s, you have to reload each one separately, then select File, Export, Export As MP3. As I said, it does lack a few user-friendly touches.

You don’t have to install Wavosaur on your machine. Extracting the downloaded .zip file produces just a readme and an .exe program file, which launches the program — not an installer.

It’s not a completely portable program, however. In order to export .mp3 files (the only format it supports besides .wav), Wavosaur must be able to find the LAME encoding library file, lame_enc.dll. As with Audacity, you need to download the .dll — but almost any version will do, such as the version available on the DLL-files.com site. (The .dll file for Audacity works, too.) Store the .dll either in a system folder or in whichever folder holds the Wavosaur program.

While Wavosaur doesn’t have anything like Audacity’s bag of tricks, it can still do plenty. You can fade in and out, cross-fade, and remove vocals (though not always successfully).

Wavosaur also does not support metadata tags. The new files you create lack such details as song title, album, and artist — even if your source file had them. That means you have to enter this information with another program — a real hassle.

Mp3nity: Enter metadata with few hassles

You can enter and change a music file’s metadata using numerous programs, including Windows Media Player and the Vista and Windows 7 versions of Windows Explorer. But if you’ve just altered a lot of songs in Wavosaur and exported them to .mp3, consider installing Mp3nity (info page). It turns a rote and dull job into a quick and easy one.

You can’t edit music with Mp3nity, but you can edit the music’s tags. In fact, you might not even have to. The program analyzes songs without tags, compares them to the ones with, and makes some reasonably accurate guesses. You have to approve these guesses before they’re saved, of course — even the best programs lack the wisdom and judgment of Windows Secrets readers.

If Mp3nity doesn’t find answers — or doesn’t find the right ones — you can select multiple files and edit specific tags all at one time. (See Figure 3.) For example, you can select all the songs from an album and enter the album title and artist together (grabbing names off a pull-down menu if they’re already in one song), then enter the individual titles.

Figure 3. Mp3nity’s strength is batch-updating metadata tags.

The program can search multiple online music databases for lyrics and CD covers, and it can convert audio formats.

Mp3nity comes in two versions: one free and the other a $20 Premium edition with a few extra tricks. It can , for instance, search multiple online music databases for lyrics and CD covers and convert audio formats. These features are also available in the free version for a limited time — 30 days as I write this, but Littlelan.com, the makers of Mp3nity, says it might increase this demo period.

Unfortunately, Littlelan doesn’t make these distinctions clear. It states in an FAQ that the free version “doesn’t expire, it doesn’t contain adware or nagging dialogs, and it still has all the tools that make Mp3nity awesome.”

I guess Littlelan considers those extra features you pay for to be short on awesomeness. Although Littlelan’s marketing seems dubious, I’d call Mp3nity fast, easy, handy, convenient, — and really badly named — but not awesome. The version of “Badlands” on the album “Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band Live/1975-85” — that’s awesome!

Lincoln Spector writes about computers, home theater, and film and maintains two blogs: Answer Line at PCWorld.com and Bayflicks.net. His articles have appeared in CNET, InfoWorld, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other publications.

Getting your system ready for Windows 7 SP1

By Susan Bradley It seems like just yesterday that Microsoft released Windows 7; now we’re gearing up for its first service pack. It seems a little surreal, but Microsoft is releasing an update that will prepare your PC for the really big update to Windows 7 Service Pack 1.

976902
Win7’s first major update should arrive soon

Many of you should see a special Microsoft patch designed to prepare Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 machines for the upcoming release of Service Pack 1. As described in MS Support article 976902, the patch affects Win7’s and Server 2008’s installation software and should make future updates more reliable.

The article states that this preliminary patch is required — future updates will not work without it. The patch should be offered only to systems running Win7 and Server 2008 R2; some of you will see it prechecked in Windows Update — some, unchecked (see Figure 1). In my tests, the update had no adverse impact on my systems.

Figure 1. KB 976902 should make future Win7 and Server 2008 R2 updates more reliable.

► What to do: Install KB 976902 either by downloading it from MS Support or by clicking the check box in Windows or Microsoft Update. And find some time to ensure that your Win7 systems are backed up and ready for SP1. (There are rumors it’s going to be ready any day now.) I’ll have a full review of what the service pack includes after it’s released.

Windows Live Messenger 2009 mandatory update

If you’re still using the 2009 version of Windows Live Messenger, you should have been given a mandatory update before Messenger allowed you to sign in. (See Figure 2.) The update includes security fixes for file and link transfers in the client. It does not require that you install Windows Live Messenger 2011.

Figure 2. This Windows Live Messenger update won’t let you sign in until you’ve accepted the patch.

► What to do: This is a case where you really have no choice: either install the update or stop using Live Messenger 2009.

2412171
Two strikes, and you’re out — for Outlook patch

Back in December, Microsoft released KB 2412171, and it proved to cause problems with Gmail. It was re-released in January with assurances that the Gmail authentication issue was fixed.

I tested the update and, unfortunately, found that Outlook tends to crash even more often. I use the Outlook add-in Xobni, which adds additional features and searchability inside Outlook. An add-in could contribute to this issue but at this time I simply don’t know.

► What to do: I don’t think I’ll give this patch a third chance. I recommend skipping it for now.

2454826
Windows 7 update causes Blue Screen of Death

In the last Patch Watch, I warned you to stay away from KB 2454826. And with good reason — Microsoft just released Support article 2498368, which details the side effects of this update, such as a Blue Screen of Death and problems with Windows Live Mail.

This was a nonsecurity update, and it’s been pulled from the Windows Update system. One of the reported triggers of BSODs is an interaction between the patch and Symantec 10. It appears that certain video drivers may also be triggers as well.

► What to do: Although this update was withdrawn, it may be released again. If so, pass on it until I retest it.

Oracle releases its January patch bundle

For anyone running Open Office, it’s time to ensure that you are up-to-date with the latest version. Oracle’s January patch bundle includes updates to Open Office Version 3.2.1 and Star Office Versions 7 and 8, as noted in its Critical Patch Update Advisory.

Java users should also ensure they’re running Java 6, Update 23 — the latest release, according to a recent Java bulletin.

► What to do: If you’re not sure whether you’re running Java, or what version you have installed, check by taking a test on the Verify Java version page.

2463332
SQL Server databases get Service Pack 4

Microsoft offers free databases and many applications that developers use in their applications. One of the databases, SQL Server 2005, will receive Service Pack 4 this week, and you might see it offered up.

Keep in mind that this service pack is a bug fix, not a security update. So there’s no rush to install it, especially if you don’t know whether your system has SQL installed.

► What to do: Delay installing this service pack until after you back up your system completely. MS Support article 2463332 lists what was fixed. To determine whether you’re running SQL (and what version), Support article 321185 tells you how.

Google offers bounties for found bugs

Here’s a fun new source of income: Google is offering a bounty to anyone finding a bug in its Chrome operating system and browser. As reported in a Chrome Releases blog, Google gave out its first “elite” reward of U.S. $3133.70 for a critical bug found by Sergey Glazunov. And that wasn’t the only bounty he received.

► What to do: Start looking for those Chrome bugs and get a little cash.

Looking for more info on the Opera browser

Windows Secrets reader Martin Hack took us to task for not mentioning the Opera browser in our browser-patching discussions. Opera is now up to version 11, and it will be the default browser in select Sony TVs, as reported in a CNET article.

We forget how many devices have browsers embedded in them these days. (The Wii game console also contains the Opera browser.)

► What to do: I’ll keep a closer eye on Opera (download page) and report back on any security issues I find.

The Patch Watch column reveals problems with patches for Windows and major Windows applications. Susan Bradley has been named an MVP (Most Valuable Professional) by Microsoft for her knowledge in the areas of Small Business Server and network security. She’s also a partner in a California CPA firm.