How to Create a Clean BCD file to fix Windows 7 Boot problem

So your Windows 7 PC System no longer boots and you are getting the "...An error occurred while attempting to read the boot configuration data." system error. You have reached the point that all suggestions on startup repair have failed and you may now have to re-create a clean boot configuration data (BCD) file. The following information on creating a clean, fresh BCD file maybe helpful to you.

We are going to use a system command called BCDedit to re-create the BCD file.

Introduction
BCDedit is a really powerful tool that Windows 7 and Windows Vista uses to manage the boot loader entries.

BCDEDIT needs a boot loader file to boot your system.

A boot loader is a file that contains necessary information that instruct the system how to boot/start an operating system.
• Windows 7 and Vista bootloader file is \bootmgr
• Windows XP bootloader file is \ntldr

Bcdedit edits a file called BCD, which is located in Windows 7's hidden partition under C:\boot\BCD.

NOTE: Before performing any changes to your system, please make sure you have a backup of system and personal data files. A backup is essential if things go wrong, when you are making changes to your system.

How to Create a Clean BCD file:
Put your Windows 7 DVD in the drive and restart your PC. Assuming you've properly configured your BIOS to boot from CDs/DVDs before hard drives, you should get a prompt asking you to "Press any key to boot from the CD/DVD..."
Go ahead and press any key.
In the next window, select "Repair your computer" to continue.
On the next window, choose the Windows 7 installation that you'd like to perform the repair on.
Click the Next button.
Proceed with the process by choosing "Command Prompt" from this list [Image below]. We could select the "Startup Repair" to fix the boot problem, but we are assuming that you already tried this option and it did not work.
In the Command Prompt window we shall perform a number of commands to create the new BCD file.

Note: We're assuming that the boot drive is drive C: below. If your computer is configured differently, be sure to use the appropriate drive letter here instead. Each command shown below is separated by a newline for display purposes only. So, command and its switches must be on the same line.

Enter the following commands:

bootrec.exe /fixmbr
X:\boot\bootsect.exe /nt60 all /force

Replace X in the command line above with the device letter to the CD/DVD drive that is running your Windows 7 Recovery Disk.

Now remove the old BCD registry, and create a new one instead.

del C:\boot\bcd

bcdedit /createstore c:\boot\bcd.tmp

bcdedit.exe /store c:\boot\bcd.tmp /create {bootmgr} /d "Windows Boot Manager"

bcdedit.exe /import c:\boot\bcd.tmp

bcdedit.exe /set {bootmgr} device partition=C:

bcdedit.exe /timeout 12

del c:\boot\bcd.tmp

Now we have a clean, working Win 7 bootloader. But we need to add a Win 7 entry to it:

bcdedit.exe /create /d "Windows 7" /application osloader

bcdedit.exe should return a message with a GUID for the newly-created entry. It will look something like this:

The entry {fc8bcc18-8a93-11df-baf9-806e6f6e6963} was successfully created.

You'll need to use the value that bcdedit.exe returned for you below, along with the drive letter for the drive that Windows 7 is installed to:

bcdedit.exe /set {fc8bcc18-8a93-11df-baf9-806e6f6e6963} device partition=C:

bcdedit.exe /set {fc8bcc18-8a93-11df-baf9-806e6f6e6963} osdevice partition=C:

bcdedit.exe /set {fc8bcc18-8a93-11df-baf9-806e6f6e6963} path \Windows\system32\winload.exe

bcdedit.exe /set {fc8bcc18-8a93-11df-baf9-806e6f6e6963} systemroot \Windows

And, last of all, tell the Windows 7 bootloader to boot the new entry by default:

bcdedit.exe /displayorder {fc8bcc18-8a93-11df-baf9-806e6f6e6963}

bcdedit.exe /default {fc8bcc18-8a93-11df-baf9-806e6f6e6963}

Now the Windows 7 bootloader has been removed and rebuilt from scratch.

At this point, you have a clean and hopefully a fully-working bootloader with one entry for Windows 7.

Reboot your PC system to get back into Windows 7.

Enjoy!!!

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Disable or Change Keys of your keyboard

Unless you are one of the few people that make use of every key on your keyboard and are completely happy with your keyboard layout, there is probably something you would like to change on your keyboard. Maybe you have an IBM Thinkpad and you really miss having a Windows Logo key. Maybe you are used to using a different keyboard and you keep hitting the wrong key. Maybe you know that you are going to be doing a lot of numerical data entry and would like to change your Num Pad + key into a Tab key for a little while. How about changing Scroll Lock into a Mute button? There are lots of reasons for why you might remap your keyboard.

One of my friend has an old Dell laptop and some of the keys like 8, I, K and comma do not work. I remapped 8 to F8, I to Right-Alt, K to Right-Ctrl, and comma to F9. Tada, a semi-working keyboard again. Good enough to use while traveling anyway. 

Sure you could remap your keys the hard way by wading through scan codes and reversing the hex notation. But why do that when there’s a simple app that can do it for you?

KeyTweak is a simple utility that allows users to redefine their keyboard input signals. It is a simple front-end interface for editing a particular registrykey.

Features : 

-Simple interface

-Enable/disable annoying keys

-Ability to Teach remapping by pressing the keys to be remapped

-Easy-to-read lists of all current and pending re-mappings

-Implementation of Specialty Keys support for certain keyboards

-Remove all re-mappings with a single button

-Displays what exactly is written to the “Scancode Map” registry value and how to interpret its binary data

-User warnings help ensure Ctrl-Alt-Delete sequence is maintained

Download Keytweak application from here.
Keytweak manual here.

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Create Windows 7 bootable USB Flash Drive

You might have come across a situation where your CD-ROM is non-functional or DVD-drive is inaccessible, but you want to install Windows 7. Obviously you will need a USB bootable disk which can be used to install Windows on your PC or laptop even without your DVD drive. 

Installing an operating system from a USB drive bring several advantages: USB drivers are small, USB drives transfer data quicker than CDs, and they are generally more convenient. 

In this post, you’ll learn how to install Windows 7 from a USB flash drive. There are several utilities to make this work done. I will here discuss a software released by Microsoft itself. It is a free tool called Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool to help you install Windows 7 from USB flash drive. 

For this process you need a USB flash drive with minimum of 4 GB capacity. 

1. Download Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool and install it.

2. Run the program, browse to your Windows 7 ISO image.

3. Select your media type. Simply click on USB device button.

4. Select your USB flash drive and click on Begin copying button.

5. It will take a few minutes to complete the procedure.

6. You are done. You can now start installing windows 7 from thumb drive.

Download Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool from here.

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Speed up Your Windows Vista or Windows 7 with ReadyBoost

Memory (RAM) is the main consideration for most systems and operating system. Especially for Windows Vista, since it uses more graphics features. Windows vista runs really slow, even on new computers. Memory upgrade is probably the most common solution for these slow responsive computers. Microsoft, with its release of Windows Vista and 7, introduced a new concept of expanding memory space without having to physically add a memory to your computer. It’s called ReadyBoost. The ReadyBoost speeds up computer using memory like USB flash drive or SD card to improve performance. This additional flash memory is regarded as an additional memory cache that will be accessed faster than a hard drive.

If you have already used ReadyBoost on newer PCs, you might say “It’s useless”. What many people failed to realize is that newer PCs, with quick hard drives don't necessarily see the same impact from ReadyBoost. But for older computers, which have been upgraded to Microsoft Windows Vista or Windows 7, but barely meet the minimum operating system requirements, will definitely be benefited from ReadyBoost.

It is simple to configure your removable disks or USB flash drives for ReadyBoost. Just stick the flash drive, SD card, or whatever flash device you want into your computer. You’ll see this dialog pop up:

Click the Speed up my system to get this:  

Just select Use this device, and set the amount of space you want to use. Windows will create what is essentially a paging file on the disk, and will use it for faster access.

Points to be considered for ReadyBoost

In Windows Vista it is limited to 4 GB while in Windows 7 it is upto 256 GB of additional memory by connecting maximum 8 different USB memories. Windows OS older than Vista don't support ReadyBoost technology. Currently Windows Server 2008 is also not supporting ReadyBoost technology. 

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Downgrade Windows 7 64bit to 32bit (x64 to x86)

By reading the above topic, you all must be thinking that "Can i really downgrade my 64bit windows into 32bit without formatting it?". The easy answer for this question will be "NO". You need to format your 64bit windows and install 32bit on it. If you are having 64bit windows 7 and are planning to install 32bit windows by removing the 64bit then this article will help you transfer the Genuine windows activation key so that you can run Genuine windows 32bit using that key.

Nowadays all the laptops comes with Genuine 64bit windows. 64bit takes the full use of your RAM´s capabillities i.e. it can support more than 3Gb of RAM. But it can’t run the same programs as the 32-bit. Also different hardwares nowadays are still not compatible with 64bit windows i.e Wireless USB Modem. For that you may want to install 32bit windows 7 on it. If you do so, you'll lose the Genuine windows and will be left with pirated copy of windows. To sill use the Genuine version of windows, there is a working technique of downgrading from 64bit of windows 7 to 32bit which is pretty straight forward but the process can be a little long.

First you need to have the exact same edition of Windows 7 32bit installation disk. After that backup the existing Windows 7 license to a USB flash drive. Reinstall Windows 7 32-bit and restore the OEM license.

Backup of license key can be done using a software called ABR (Activation Backup and Restore). The important rule is to make sure you restore the Windows 7 OEM activated license on the same edition of Windows 7. For example, if your laptop comes with Windows 7 Home Premium, you can only restore it back on Windows 7 Home Premium. If you try to restore a Home Premium license on a Windows 7 Ultimate operating system, the Status and Product ID will show “Not Available” in System. At desktop bottom right corner will also show the message “This copy of Windows is not genuine”.

Here is the exact steps of using ABR to backup and restore Windows 7 OEM license:
1. Download ABR Beta
2. Run ABRbeta.exe and it will extract the files to a new ABR folder.
3. Run activation_backup.exe from the ABR folder and it will create two new files backup-cert.xrm-ms and backup-key.txt in the ABR folder. Hit Enter to close ABR.

4. Backup the ABR folder by copying it to a USB flash drive.

5. Reinstall a clean version of Windows 7. During installation, leave the product key blank when asked to enter product key and uncheck the option where it will auto activate when your computer is online.

6. When Windows 7 has finished installing, plug in USB flash drive and run activation_restore.exe from the ABR folder.

7. Simultaneously press WIN+Pause/Break key to launch the System window. Scroll down and you should see “Windows is activated” with an OEM product ID.

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Uninstall Programs Packaged with Windows Installer in Safe Mode

Whenever you install a software in Windows, most of the time it will come with an uninstaller that allows you to safely remove the program from your computer. If you’ve installed a software and suddenly Windows has stopped working, the logical way is to boot Windows in Safe Mode and then try to uninstall. Safe mode is a troubleshooting option for Windows that starts your computer in a limited state. Only the basic files and drivers necessary to run Windows are started. Unfortunately by default you can’t uninstall a software that is packaged with Windows Installer in Safe Mode. If you try to uninstall, you will get the error
“The Windows Installer service is not accessible in Safe Mode. Please try again when your computer is not in Safe Mode or you can use System Restore to return your machine to a previous good state.”

There is a Windows Installer (msiserver) service in Services and if you attempt to manually start it in Safe Mode, you should get an error that says 

“Windows could not start the Windows Installer service on Local Computer. Error 1084: This service cannot be started in Safe Mode.”

To start the Windows Installer service in Safe Mode so that you can uninstall programs, all you need to do is add a new MSIServer registry key. Simply follow the step-by-step instructions below:

1. Hit Win+R, type regedit and click OK.

2. Navigate to the following location in registry editor:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SafeBoot\Minimal\

3. Right click at Minimal and select New > Key and name it as MSIServer

4. The (Default) data for MSIServer should show (value not set). Double click on (Default) and type Service in the value data. Close the Registry Editor.

5. Again hit Win+R, type services.msc and click OK.

6. Look for Windows Installer on the list, double click on it and click Start.

You can now uninstall programs that is packed using Windows Installer in Safe Mode. 

Alternatively, you can also do all the steps above by typing two command lines below in command prompt or at the Run window.

REG ADD "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SafeBoot\Minimal\MSIServer" /VE /T REG_SZ /F /D "Service"

net start msiserver

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FacebookDiscovery : Facebook Chat Client from Desktop

Facebook…. The most visited website in the world today probably even beating Google. If you want to find an old friend, the first place you should attempt to look first is Facebook. I noticed that whenever i see anyone using the internet, most of the time they are on Facebook, going through their news feed seeing what’s the latest message posted by their friends, reading comments or viewing photos or albums and chatting with friends.

Nowadays different offices restrict their employee to use Facebook in the Office. For people who want to use Facebook for facebook chat, the only solution I can think of is to use a desktop chat client for Facebook.

FacebookDiscovery is a desktop application that makes it easy and natural for you to talk with your Facebook friends. It is made to look like a normal instant messenger such as Yahoo Messenger or Windows Live Messenger except without all that bloat and it only works on Facebook.

After installation, run FacebookDiscovery and login. After you login, you can click on your status to update what’s on your mind right insideFacebookDiscovery without opening your web browser and logging in to Facebook.

FacebookDiscovery is fast and lightweight with only 700KB in size. It supports emotion icons and most important it is free. Works on Windows XP, 2003, Vista and 7 both 32 and 64 bit with different versions of installer.

To download :
click here

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