The Winhelponline Blog - Windows 7/Vista/XP Tips, Fixes and Troubleshooting

Microsoft Standalone System Sweeper Offline Virus Scanner

Microsoft Standalone System Sweeper, a tool which was only available as part of Microsoft Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset (MSDaRT) is now available for separate download. Microsoft Standalone System Sweeper Beta (MSSS), a recovery tool that can help you start an infected PC and perform an offline scan to help identify and remove rootkits and other advanced malware. MSSS uses the same definitions as Microsoft Security Essentials.

You can download MSSS from Microsoft Connect and create a bootable media using CD/DVD or your USB drive. The bootable media starts the Windows Preinstallation Environment and launches the Microsoft Standalone System Sweeper application for scanning and removal of virus and malware. MSSS runs in Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

MSSS is currently in Beta, so all the usual caveats apply. Read the rest of this entry »

How to Fix Broken .ISO and .IMG File Associations in Windows 7

If your .ISO and .IMG files are showing up as unknown files, you can reset their file type associations using Default Programs. Windows 7 includes the Windows Disc Image Burner, the default handler for .ISO/.IMG files allows you to burn a CD or DVD from an ISO disc image file.

.ISO file showing up as elby.VCDMount.1 file (occurred after uninstalling Virtual CloneDrive in a PC.)

Resetting Windows Disk Image Burner as the Default

1. Click Start, Default Programs

2. Click Set your default programs

3. Select Windows Disk Image Burner

4. Click Set this program as default, and click OK.

How to Find Which Application Is Making Sounds in the Background?

Every now and then my PC located in the bedroom emanated a sound at random intervals, probably caused by an application playing a short media file. And I noticed it twice when entering the bedroom which I thought was a mere coincidence. But it wasn’t actually! Guess what’s the relevance here?

Control Panels – Sounds was the first place where I checked. It was not the Sound Scheme as it was already set to "No Sounds".

With almost a dozen applications running and I didn’t want to disturb them, I fired up the excellent Process Monitor right away, configured the filters so that any entry with ".wav" in the Path is captured. It may not necessarily be a .wav file, but I had a suspicion that it could be, in this case. So I included ".wav", to start with. Read the rest of this entry »

How to Open Pinned Site Shortcuts Using Your Default Browser (Registry Hacks)

With the Pinned Sites feature introduced in Internet Explorer 9, you can add your favorite websites to the Taskbar and/or the Start menu. We’ve seen that in article IE9 Lets You Pin Website Shortcuts to the Windows 7 Taskbar. Clicking the Pinned site shortcut opens the website using Internet Explorer, regardless of which browser you’ve chosen as the default. In this post, we introduce a registry hack that lets you open Pinned site shortcuts in your default web browser ¹.

Registry Hack

Download pinned-site-browser.zip, unzip and run the enclosed REG file.

Click the Pinned site shortcut on your Taskbar. The site should now launch in your default web browser.

¹Additional Information

The Pinned Sites shortcuts are although similar to normal internet shortcuts (.URL file), the former can also include additional meta information such as the navigation button color, window size, Jumplist Tasks/Categories etc. These additional meta data are ignored and do not work when you use a third-party browser to open the Pinned site shortcuts, after employing the registry hack mentioned previously.

Fig 1: Contents of a normal internet shortcut (.URL file)

Fig 2: Contents of a Pinned site shortcut (.Website)

To learn more about the meta elements supported by Pinned site shortcut, see article Pinned Sites: Windows 7 Desktop Integration with Internet Explorer 9 at the MSDN website.

Fix Windows 7 Backup and Restore Not Launching After Uninstalling Acronis True Image

Recently one of our readers faced a problem with Windows 7 Backup and Restore after installing and then uninstalling Acronis True Image. When the user double-clicked the Backup and Restore item in the Control Panel, nothing happened except for a brief hour glass.

Supposedly, the user had enabled the Windows integration feature in Acronis True Image software, which in turn replaced the Windows 7 Backup utility by modifying the Backup and Restore shell folder registry keys. And uninstalling Acronis True Image did not revert back the original shell folder values for Backup and Restore, causing it inoperable. Running the file "C:\Windows\System32\sdclt.exe" manually did not launch the Backup utility either.

(Screenshot from Acronis sources.)

Fixing the Backup and Restore Registry Keys

1. Click Start, type Regedit.exe and press ENTER:

2. Go to the following branch:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT \ CLSID \ {B98A2BEA-7D42-4558-8BD1-832F41BAC6FD}

3. Right-click on the key and choose Permissions…

(The above registry key and sub keys are owned by TrustedInstaller by default, and you may have to take ownership of the keys in order to restore the default values. ResourceDLL and ResourceID seems to be the two values that Acronis True Image modifies in order to integrate with the shell.)

4. Click Advanced, and select the Owner tab.

5. Look at the Current owner information. If TrustedInstaller is currently the owner of the key, select Administrators from the list below, select Replace owner on subcontainers and objects, and then click OK.

6. Select Administrators, allow Full Control permission and click OK.

7. Run the Windows 7 Backup Restore – Shell Folder Registry Fix. Download Fix-W7BackupKeys.zip, unzip and run the REG file.

You’ve fixed the Windows 7 Backup shell folder key. Next, restore TrustedInstaller back as the owner of the above registry key, and revoke Full Control permission for the Administrators group.

Reinstate TrustedInstaller as the Owner

8. Right-click on the {B98A2BEA-7D42-4558-8BD1-832F41BAC6FD} key and choose Permissions…Click Advanced, and select the Owner tab.

9. Click Advanced, and select the Owner tab.

10. Click Other users or groups… button

11. Type NT Service\TrustedInstaller in the text box, and click OK. This adds TrustedInstaller group to the listing.

12. With TrustedInstaller selected, select Replace owner on subcontainers and objects, and then click OK.

13. Select Administrators, uncheck Full Control and click OK.

Editor’s note: The Windows 7 Backup issue discussed in this article is not to be confused with another similar sounding Windows 7 Backup problem ("Set up backup" or click "Change settings" links within the Backup and Restore applet non-functional, which is a third-party shell extension saga.)