This morning on the Windows 7 Team Blog, Microsoft announced retailers would be offering discounts starting next week for those who upgrade their copy of Windows 7 through the Windows Anytime Upgrade process. Upgrade Details Windows 7 Starter Edition can be upgraded to Windows 7 Home Premium for $49.99 which is a 38% discount over standard pricing.Windows 7 Home Premium users can upgrade to Windows 7 Professional for $79.99 which is an 11% discount over standard pricing....

Are you setting up an exchange mail server, running into errors, or just curious about what’s going on behind the scenes with email transmission? Whatever the case, Outlook has a feature that allows you to view detailed message information including the transmissions headers and source of the email. By default only some of the source information is displayed, but with a quick registry fix we can make Outlook display every bit of information that it retrieves....

The rest of this article focuses on the current AirPlay protocol, which, as you’ll see, works but needed an update. We’ll revisit this once AirPlay 2 hits the streets. I’ll tell you upfront why I chose AirPlay: price. I’ve heard some pretty glowing reviews of Sonos—Steve has had Sonos for years and absolutely swears by it. He loves it (and takes every opportunity to tell me about it.) Sonos is the “it just works” solution, and I’ve heard almost no complaints about it....

Steve Jobs, 56, died Wednesday after a battle with a rare pancreatic cancer. A bit of trivia. At Apple, Jobs is recorded as employee No. 1. Wozniak, in a joke, dubbed himself employee No. 0. Expect a global event featuring tech luminaries sharing inside stories like that one at Apple’s event honoring Jobs next week. Invitations to the so-called “celebration” arrived via CEO Tim Cook, according to Reuters, whose reporters broke this story earlier today....

Microsoft issued the following press release explaining the situation. This was definitely a surprise to me when I found out. Of course there are plenty of rumors already circulating about the exact reason for Steven’s departure. The timing seems odd considering the recent release of Windows 8, Surface RT tablet. What do you guys think of the situation? These changes are effective immediately. “I am grateful for the many years of work that Steven has contributed to the company,” Ballmer said....

Have you ever wanted to take a look at the history of a document, spreadsheet, or presentation you are working on? Recently we took at look at tracking changes in Word 2010. Google Docs has a similar tool, and they’ve just updated it and increased usability ten-fold. This feature is especially useful on collaboration projects so that you can see exactly what each author has put into it. The Old Google Docs Revision History Google Docs has always had a decent revision tool for looking at the history of changes in your document....

Microsoft decided that the new Kinect motion-sensing camera peripheral will be a pack-in with every Xbox One. In fact, it’s a requirement for anyone who wants to play. The camera will be a major part of gameplay and much of the UI navigation will happen through the motion sensors. That’s somewhat like Kinect does with the current Xbox 360, but will be mandatory rather than an option, at least that’s the message we’re getting from Microsoft....

Windows 10 Timeline and Sets Features The Timeline feature was shown off during the Build conference earlier this year, and was rumored to be included in the Fall Creators Update but was inevitably kept out. It is a more robust version of using Alt + Tab and is a visual timeline that is directly integrated into Task View so you can move back into files and apps. The Sets feature is like having tabs in your apps so you can group your work together more easily....

Log into your Google+ account and click one of your circles under Stream on the left side. Then click OK, I got it. You’ll need to click this for each circle in your stream. Then move the slider to adjust the amount of posts you see. You can turn it completely off, all the way up or somewhere in the middle. This is a nice feature if some of your circles are posting so much it’s getting annoying....

You can check out the new themes on the Windows Experience Blog. This is an example of the Alaskan Landscapes theme. If you want your desktop items to change with themes, make sure to check “Allow themes to change desktop icons” in desktop settings. Can’t get enough themes? Check out how to find the hidden International Themes in Windows 7. Comment Name * Email * Δ Save my name and email and send me emails as new comments are made to this post....

First, you need to download Send to Kindle on your windows computer. Installation is a one-click process. Launch the Sent to Kindle executable file and click Install. Send to Kindle is actually a shell extension for Windows. To send a document to your Kindle right click on it and select Send to Kindle from the context menu. The Send to Kindle screen comes up. Enter the Title and Author fields, select to deliver over Wi-Fi or Whispernet....

Commandr for Android Google Now doesn’t offer an API for developers, so Commandr uses the “note to self” feature to get its commands across. That doesn’t mean it’s complicated to use; quite the contrary. You’ll just need to use a couple more words than you normally would. Start by installing Commandr; it’s a free app, which you can get from the Google Play Store, here. After the installation is finished, start the app....

Old Original Article… Starting with Windows 10 Creators Update, Microsoft added the ability to view EPUB files in Microsoft Edge. The company even added a new book section in the Microsoft Store to browse, preview, and purchase eBooks. Now with the Fall Creators Update (Version 1709), an annotation feature has been added. It allows you to highlight and make notes on sections of text in the eBooks you’re reading. Here is a look at how to use the feature....

Microsoft Office PowerPoint Viewer is Microsoft’s solution for people who want to view PowerPoint presentations but are borrowing a computer, using a kiosk (airport?) or haven’t installed PowerPoint yet. You could think of it as a management install since it can only view presentations, it doesn’t let you edit them. Installation of PowerPoint viewer is simple, Click Accept, snap your fingers – installed. Once you get the viewer installed, you can run it automatically or use the Start Menu to launch it....

This is not a final version, so you can expect a few glitches and crashes here and there. You shouldn’t expect it to work flawlessly. Even the developers tell you that – every time you launch it. You’ll get the following warning screen — which is quite humorous. You can get the VLC for Android Beta in the Play Store, here. After launching VLC, it scans the media files on your device, which will take a while if you have a lot of media....

For me, VirtualBox is a better alternative to Virtual PC. Although, VMware Player also gives Microsoft run for their money. VirtualBox doesn’t require you to register an account to download, and runs smoothly with no compatibility issues (yet). Another plus, is that VirtualBox will run just about any operating system (OS) you can think; for the full list read this. To make use of VirtualBox you’ll need: A bootable drive for installing the operating system your virtual machine (VM) will run....

Now, this is all Fine and Dandy UNTIL…you go on vacation for a few days, those email size warnings come and go, and then bam! Your mailbox is full, and you can no longer send/receive the email from your mobile or even OWA (Outlook Web Access) for that matter. I’ve received the call a million times. My iPhone can’t send emails, help! So, what to do?Is there a solution to these insufficiently sized mailboxes?...

Jumping right to the end — everything is fine; it is not a virus. If you have Windows 10 and the latest updates, you don’t need to worry about fontdrvhost.exe. The Usermode Font Driver Host (fontdrvhost.exe) is an executable created by Microsoft and built into the core OS. What is fontdrvhost.exe? Fontdrvhost.exe is a Windows system process. Also known as Usermode Font Driver Host, the fontdrvhost.exe process is responsible for managing fonts on your Windows system....

The Blob folder functions as a separate location that stores the data for apps shared between each backup. For example perhaps you have three backups that have 20-30 apps in each. Each backup has a certain number of apps that are also found in the other backup. Clockwork Mod will take the duplicate apps and data to pool everything into the Blob folder. The result is that each individual backup will be much smaller in size, and the blob folder handles the heavy load....

The Windows process dwm.exe is the Desktop Windows Manager. Windows uses it to control themes, window effects, taskbar icons, and pretty much anything visually pleasing in the Windows user interface. There isn’t anything wrong with this process, so don’t worry, it is supposed to be there. You’ll find though that many people will recommend disabling it to increase performance, is this true? The Desktop Windows Manager uses a nominal amount of memory so I wouldn’t recommend any drastic action against the process just to save a few K of memory especially considering there are several other things you can do like disabling themes support and going back to the windows classic theme....