How to change the logon wallpaper image in Windows 7

Posted on by Shifty

I have been using Windows 7 since RTM and I have to say that I am impressed. It seems quite solid and there have been many “that’s nice” moments.

data-8 One default that I have disliked is the logon wallpaper image. It is a bit, how do you say, ghey. I tried out a few methods of changing it involving manual resizing of images and registry editing and it all seemed a bit too hard for such a minor thing. Then I found Tweaks.com Logon Changer for Windows 7 and my life changed for the better. Within 2 minutes I had a beautiful background from my wallpaper folder and am already impressing everyone around me.

The process couldn’t be easier. You download the file, unzip it, and run the single executable file contained within. You press Change Logon Screen, choose your image, click Test, and voilà, you have a lovely new logon screen. If you ever change your mind, you can always run Logon Chnager and click the “Revert to Default Logon Screen” button and return to the factory setting.

imageWell done, Tweaks.com. 4½ stars.

Tweaks.com Logon Changer for Windows 7

Download here

Foldershare to users: please enjoy our competitors

Posted on by Shifty

I just got an email from FolderShare the other day, here it is, emphasis mine:

Dear FolderShare user,

We’re contacting you to let you know what’s next for FolderShare, and to make you aware of some important changes.

In December, we plan to announce a product called Windows Live Sync. You can think of it as FolderShare 2.0. It’s going to look familiar and offer the same great features, plus:

  • More folders and files—sync up to 20 folders with 20,000 files each.
  • Integration with Windows Live ID—no more extra sign-in stuff to remember.
  • Integration with the Recycle Bin—no more separate Trash folder to fiddle with.
  • Unicode support—sync files in other languages.

A huge part of Sync’s success story depends on FolderShare users like you. When Sync releases, FolderShare goes into retirement. That means your FolderShare software will stop working and will ask you to upgrade to Sync. Once you do, Sync will automatically rebuild your personal folders. We expect a lot of new users when Sync is released, so if you can’t sign in right away, please give it a little time.

Here’s the part you need to pay attention to: Sync will not be able to rebuild your shared libraries. If you have a lot of shared libraries, you should hop over to the FolderShare website while it’s still available and copy all that information. You’ll need it to rebuild your shared libraries in Sync.

Thanks for being a FolderShare user! We’re excited about delivering an even better file-synchronization experience to customers like you. We hope you’ll come along as we move forward with Windows Live Sync.

Sincerely,

The Windows Live Sync (formerly FolderShare) team

Don’t they have at least one spare developer who could have worked on the migration script? Imagine if, when they went from Hotmail to Live Mail, they had advised that everyone print out their emails because they won’t be migrated?

M$

morans

Posted on by Shifty

We get a lot of attempted comment spam, as I am sure all bloggers do. I just had a look at an item in the moderation queue and had a bit of a laugh. The idiot spammer actually included rel="nofollow" in the links that he was trying to insert onto Pinkjoint. This is a tag that tells search engines to ignore the link, which is exactly contrary to the spammer’s purpose. Morans.

Windows Live Messenger feature request

Posted on by Shifty

I love Messenger, it is an important part of my life and has been for over seven years. There are a few things that I dislike about it, but the one that keeps coming back is this: if I don’t close each conversation window individually then that conversation doesn’t get added to the History. If I restart my computer and have 8 conversation windows open, then none of those conversations will be saved. Whenever Messenger crashes, as it does from time-to-time, I lose all of my precious conversation history.

Microsoft / MSN / Windows Live / Whoever: please change Messenger so that the conversation history is updated in realtime. While you are there, please make the history browser better – make it look more like the conversation window.

My main request, the thing I want the most, is to not lose my data all the time.