Microsoft SharedView lets you collaborate with up to 15 people and share the desktop or individual application windows in the host computer with other users. Let’s assume you have a detailed action plan for your company stored in a word document, and you need to share the document with your fellow staffs so that they can do their modifications to the original document simultaneously, SharedView should suffice your needs. Further, if you have Track Changes feature enabled in Microsoft Word, each change made to the content of the Word document by a participant can be identified with the participant’s name with the timestamp when the change was made. The host can then review the modified document, and accept or reject each change.

All you need is a Windows Live ID to start or join a session in SharedView. (more…)

The Microsoft Download Manager enables you to download files from the Internet in a more reliable and faster way than using a browser alone. Using the Download Manager makes it easier to download large files such as an application or multimedia files. Also, it has resume support so that you can continue downloading files from where it left off the last time.

(more…)

When I tried to open the Microsoft Fix it Center report in one of my test systems, I across this little annoyance.

Microsoft Fix it Center stores the diagnostic results that you run, in a file named ResultReport.xml and displays results in its own window when you click the View report details link. Instead, the File Download window pops up and prompts to open or save the XML file. Selecting Open opens the file using Internet Explorer.

This means that the XML registration in that system is broken. And the fix is simple! (more…)

Microsoft Desktop Player is a Silverlight application that lets you find Webcasts, Podcasts and White Papers from the Microsoft site, matching your search query. And, of course, it can play Webcasts and Podcasts and also download the content locally if you need. You just need to select the appropriate radio button (IT Pro, or Developer), select a topic from the dropdown and click Search. You’ll see the list of resources available for the particular topic area.

Open the Microsoft Desktop Player page at Microsoft site.

(more…)

Piriform, the creators of the useful CCleaner tool, have released a light-weight system information utility named Speccy. Ever wondered what type of memory is installed in your computer (size, specification and speed)? The System Information Tool in Windows (msinfo32) doesn’t give you that much details.

Speccy gives details about the Operating System installed, specifications of the Processor, Memory, Motherboard, Audio, Video, Optical Drives etc, installed in your PC. It also shows the CPU and Hard disk temperature. (more…)

Not so long ago we covered MOSDAL, a data collection and diagnostic utility from Microsoft. There is another data collection utility available and that one is from Microsoft as well. The Microsoft Product Support Reporting Tool (MPS-Reports) facilitates the gathering of critical system and logging information used in troubleshooting support issues. The tool offers the ability to select the particular scenarios for which system configuration data will be collected: General, Internet and Networking, Business Networks, Server Components, Windows Update Services, Exchange Servers and SQL and other Data Stores (MDAC) . (more…)