Freebies From The Big Dogs Registry Tip Of The Month Getting tired of Windows 7’s sky blue logon screen? You can customize it in a few simple steps involving a Registry tweak plus some file creation. In Regedit, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\Authentication\ LogonUI\Background. Double-click the value OEMBackground and change it from 0 to 1. Now, find or create a JPEG that is smaller than 256KB and has an aspect ratio matching your display. (Windows will stretch the image to fit.) Navigate to the Windows\ System32\oobe folder on the Windows drive. Create a new folder named “info.” Open this folder and create a new folder named “backgrounds.” In this sub-folder, copy in the JPEG you want to serve as the logon background and rename the file “backgroundDefault”. Reboot, and this will be your new logon background.
Windows Tip Of The Month Speaking of free programs, there are a host of freebies for Microsoft Office available at the Office Downloads Marketplace (office.microsoft.com/en-us /downloads/). ToneCheck for Outlook, for example, will review the emotional tone of the sentences in your messages to ensure they don’t sound inflammatory. Outlook Social Connector integrates updates from Facebook, LinkedIn, Viadeo, and Windows Live Messenger into Outlook. Free and paid tools for PowerPoint and Excel are here, too.
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/ www.computerpoweruser.com
he strategy at major digital providers such as Microsoft, Google, Yahoo!, and AOL is straightforward: Keep users using. Anything that keeps customers immersed in their products is good for business. And so, part of the culture of software development has been the freebie. These companies all have deep benches of free services and tools designed to keep
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have kept your older Office programs fresh with the latest service packs and updates, then you can install the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007. The Compatibility Pack not only lets you view and edit files made in the newer formats but also lets you save them in the new formats for distribution back to your friends with Office
Microsoft brings its much-bemoaned Help mascot “Clippy” out of retirement to host a new downloadable game that helps users of major Office programs discover its new features: Ribbon Hero 2: Clippy’s Second Chance.
you with their brands. Of course, not all of them are widely known or used. This month, as cash-strapped students especially make their way back to school, we take a look at some of the best free bargains you may not have heard (or forgot) about from the big online powerhouses.
Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack If you’re still saddled with Office 2000/XP/2003, then you no doubt have received files created in the new formats— .DOCX, .XLSX, and .PPTX— that are the standard of Microsoft Office 2007 and 2010. Although older versions of Office can’t open these formats by default, if you
2007/2010. Complete details are available at support.microsoft.com/kb/924074. Quick Tip: Microsoft continues to offer Viewer programs that let you view and print (but not edit) Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files on computers that do not have those programs installed. Just go to Microsoft’s home page and search for “Excel/Word/PowerPoint Viewer” to find the programs.
The Return Of Clippy Remember that unctuous animated paper clip that popped up in old versions of Office? Well, “Clippy” is back, this time in an educational game from Microsoft designed to acquaint users of Office 2007/2010 with the new features in the Ribbon interface. The muchloathed cartoon is now the protagonist in