First off: thank you for your interest in beta testing Windows 7! As we near January 24th, we wanted to update everyone again on the next steps for the Windows 7 Beta. The amount of feedback we have received has been amazing and continues to pour in. We are at a point where we have more than enough beta testers and feedback coming in to meet our engineering needs, so we are beginning to plan the end of general availability for Windows 7 Beta.

Because enthusiasm continues to be so high for the Windows 7 Beta and we don’t want anyone to miss out we will keep the Beta downloads open through February 10th. Customers who have started but not completed the download process  will be able to do so through February 12th.

The shutdown of general availability for the Windows 7 Beta will occur in 3 phases over the course of the next few weeks:

• Starting January 27th, the Windows 7 page will be updated with a warning that time is running out on downloading the Windows 7 Beta and that we will be limiting downloads shortly. People will be encouraged to register and start the download of the Windows 7 Beta sooner rather than later.
• February 10th, new downloads of the Windows 7 Beta will no longer be available. People who have already started their Windows 7 Beta download and have not yet finished will still be able to finish their download and are encouraged to do so.
• February 12th, people will no longer be able to complete their download of the Windows 7 Beta. Anyone who hasn’t finished downloading the Windows 7 Beta will be unable to do so.

Product keys for the Windows 7 Beta will continue to be available. So if you have the Windows 7 Beta but didn’t get a product key you will be able to do so even after February 12th.

MSDN and TechNet Subscribers will continue to have access to the Windows 7 Beta bits throughout the Windows 7 Beta phase. The above dates do not apply to MSDN and TechNet Subscribers.

• Open up My Computer by clicking the desktop icon or on the icon in the Start panel.
• When you have My Computer displayed on your screen,click the Tools menu bar item and select Folder Options.
• Once the Folder Options window appears,click the File Types tab.
• Navigate through the list of file extensions until you find the extension of the file for which you want to change the default app.Because I want to change my MP3 player default launch app,I am going to select the MP3 file extension.When you find the file extension that you want to change,select it by clicking it.
• Click the Change button once you have your extension selected.
  

  The Open With properties window will load,asking you what program to load it with.It will show a list of common programs that you can choose from,but you are not limited to just those programs.Click the Browse button to navigate to any executable file on your computer to specify exactly what program you want to use if it is not on the list.

• Once you have the application selected that you want to use,just click the OK button to save your changes.You are now finished with changing the launch application

Not sure how many of you are familiar wtih TechNet Radio, but I did a piece for them the other day that I encourage you to go check out. It's a quick interview on BitLocker Drive Encryption. In it, I get asked about BitLocker not only in Windows Vista, but also around some of the changes we have made in Windows 7. Take a listen to the interview below and trust me, we will have more on the new Windows 7 security features coming shortly...

TechNet Radio - BitLocker Drive Encryption

• WMA Format
• MP3 - Hi Bandwidth
• MP3 - Low Bandwidth

Here is another of the many graphic cards being released in the market. The Quadro NVS 420 Graphics Card is said to be able to support up to four monitors with a resolution of 2,560 by 1,600 pixels each.

The Quadro NVS 420 is designed for smaller desktop systems that require multidisplay support. The graphic card has a total of 16 processor cores on two GPUs and a total of 512 MB of memory with a bandwidth of 11.2 GB per second per processor.

What makes this new graphics card from Nvidia is that it only consumes 40 watts of power. The card supports either Intel’s or Advanced Micro Devices’ microarchitectures as well as Microsoft Windows or Linux operating systems. The NVS 420 is expected to be available next month with a suggested retail price of $499.

Nvidia has customarily been strong in the high end of the graphics market but has recently announced plans to release products in the middle of the year that would fit in low-cost mini-laptops, a fast-growing segment of the PC market.

That bit of news is surely something many PC geeks are sure to love.

Source

Small-form factor PCs are coming out these days and the Stinger 553 desktop is a clear example of how these things look. Obviously meant to save on space from the traditional CPU ATX tower casings, the Stinger is something that anyone would want in place of them.

As far as internal components are concerned, the stinger has a list of features that many may find familiar. This includes:

• 1x 1GE-LAN
• 8x USB 2.0 ports
• 4x SATA
• DIO
• 2x RS-232 Serial Ports
• VGA Video
• Keyboard
• Mouse
• PCI Express and USB interfaces

No word on price, but mil spec anything is rarely cheap, there is an SSD and an aluminum alloy chassis to make matters even more expensive. However, for your money you are getting a tiny computer that will work under almost any conditions that can be thrust upon it without making a sound as there are no moving parts. I want one, badly, this has XP Ninja Mk II written all over it.

Certainly this type of small-form factor PC cases provide us a glimpse of the future. This is certainly something many would really find worthy to have soon.

Source

Description of Privacy Components and consequences of its residing on your PC

Privacy Components or PrivacyComponents removal is harder that the installation and this is a common peculiarity of rogue programs. The way Privacy Components has been downloaded and installed predetermines the way to remove Privacy Components. If there has been a case of conscious installation by users, Privacy Components trialware is installed in its most extended version. All other cases of installation arranged, as a rule, by trojan or spam, lead to the installation of a short-cut version. However, the short-cut version is likely to be accompanied with trojan.
Privacy Components pretends to expose infections and privacy threats at the hosting computer. This revealing  activity is just the extracting and random displaying of names of threats actually not being present at  the computer concerned.
Hesitating to remove Privacy Components for rather long time, a user faces the risk of system endamaging and even its crush, both in case of shadowed and manual installation. Click here to start free examining of your PC for presence of malware and remove Privacy Components and other rogues discovered.

Privacy Components Technical Details

• Full name: Privacy Components, Privacy Components
• Version: 2009
• Type: Rogue anti-spyware
• Origin: Russian Federation

Privacy Components Screenshots (click to enlarge):

Signs of being infected with Privacy Components:

Privacy Components’ installation is usually performed through one of its websites e.g. hxxp:// Privacy Components.net. This is a typical malware dedicated website that brags about wonderful advantages of purchasing some unique program but misses full and verified contact details and secure payment system. To be redirected to website like this you likely have to:
-    open spam
-    have trojan
-    click misleading ad banner or link
The first two cases imply you have already been infected with trojans. They may be treated as signs of future infection. Remove Privacy Components related trojan to avoid the malware installation.
Once installed, malware of Privacy Components is easy to distinguish among other programs. It usually prevails over any other set to start automatically. Program window of Privacy Components usually covers all others after the beginning of each Windows session. Until you click to close it, sometimes twice or thrice, the window does not disappear.
Click here to start free scan in order to reveal the corresponding trojan and malware, as well as infection you are not expecting to be present at your computer, and remove Privacy Components malware and trojan and other rogues, if any.

Automatic Removal of Privacy Components from your PC:

The complex system cleanup is rather necessary in case of Privacy Components infection, as one may conclude from the above; therefore, it is evidently preferable to remove Privacy Components automatically for that Privacy Components removal in automatic mode includes the detection and elimination of other rogues. Follow the link below to start free scan and get rid of Privacy Components.

Download Privacy Components Removal Tool

Manual Removal of Privacy Components:

Manual Privacy Components removal would be better started after following the link above in order to make sure a single Privacy Components removal delivers your PC from evil programs in full. Otherwise, there are two options; the former is automatic removal of  Privacy Components that covers destruction of all other threats found, the latter is to find relevant manual guides at this website or in the Internet through the web search engines like Google.
Please, print the malware (trojan, virus) removal instructions out as it is not recommend to run any program during the process of malware, virus, trojan etc. removal.

Remove Privacy Components files and dll’s

agent.exe
pc.exe
softjopa[1].exe
sp.dll
swapdm.dll

Unregister Privacy Components registry values:

Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Browser Helper Objects\{D032570A-5F63-4812-A094-87D007C23012}
Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Privacy components
Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\agent.exe
Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MenuOrder\Start Menu2\Programs\
Privacy components

Privacy Components Remover with free scan