Windows 7 - Making Search/Finding files Easier

Tried finding a file in Windows 7? How many time have to come across inaccurate search results or felt limited by the search options? Desktop Search is bad and ineffective , in my opinion in Windows 7.

Lol.. Win XP was rather advanced in terms of file search capability.

Feeling frustrated at my efforts to finding a file, I finally found a nifty little tool to help me get a Win XP style search.. rather an advanced version of it.

Try it out
http://download.cnet.com/SearchMyFiles-64-bit/3000-2248_4-75445352.html

This is a 64-bit version of Searchmyfiles that I used for my purpose. I am sure a 32-bit version exists too if you need.

Happy Searching!

Hide Desktop Icon - Windows 7

Do you have a cool new theme or photos on desktop that you like , but the cluttered look taking its sheen away?
Well I have a love hate relationship with those desktop icons. They are handy, but left unmanaged (as it often happens) clutters up your desktop background.. which we selected after so many google searches :)

One way to get around is to mnaully hide/Unhide desktop icons every time.

Tried a few Desktop Icon Hide & Unhide tools. Butmost of them were not working on my x64 based Win 7 system.

However, finally found a working solution and this one seems to be quite good to handle this more gracefully.

Kudos to the developer!

http://www.softwareok.com/?seite=Microsoft/AutoHideDesktopIcons

Remote Sharing - Luckily an easy alternative exists to Netmeeting

Netmeeting - its a hate and love relationship. You love it , because it makes sharing and collaboration so easy - type in a ip address, call the computer and bingo! now you can share, control and even conference! and you hate it.. because apparently for MS this was a useful tool which user might find useful and even gain productivity - so they did what they can do best.. trash the simple and working software and create new versions, give them a new name, trash netmeeting and yes.. here we go MS way..

Since this has not been updated by MS in quitesometime, Netmeeting as of now has serious limitations - most prominent being not being able to connect to user behind routers . For the general user this would mean going into router and playing around with settings.. not a very pretty task for average Joe...

Sunday afternoon, and got a call from Home.. PC almost dead.. need to troubleshoot it. Being some thousand kms away, the only thing that came to mind was netmeeting. Folks being not too tech savvy, other options were ruled out. Somehow I never liked remote desktop and too bad I dont have XP Pro edition.

Googled for simpler alternatives and yes.. they do exist to make life easy ->

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/7-easy-screen-sharing-and-remote-access-tools-all-free/

The link above contains links to some easy to use and simple screen sharing tool. And Crossloop tops the list. Not without a reason. Its simple, no nonese approach.. and the best its free.

So herez a mini how-to on how to use this to connect to your PC remotely (assuming both are running MS OS) and get your taks done.. or maybe help someone out by troubleshooting:

Download Crossloop(Very small, approx 2.5 MB):

http://www.crossloop.com/ipage.htm?id=download

Install it and run it once installation is complete.

You can skip the registration process to create account. Simply click on Skip in the bottom right hand corner of application screen

NOTE : The software needs to be installed on both the machines .

You will see two tabs- Access Share

If you want to access someones PC:

For You:

Ask the person (remote) to send you their access code.

Click on Access Tab

Put the access code (incl space between numbers)

Click Connect

For Person on remote machine:

Click on Connect.

And yes.. you are done!!

after few moments, your status should be connected and you can see the remote desktop. You can use it to perform taks, share files etc.

Easy,simple, short.. I liked it. It saved my day and hopefully you will find it useful too...