Repairing or Reinstalling Windows 7: The Precaution Approach

It is always recommended to be prepared before it happened, especially when it comes to the mysterious corruption of your Windows 7 PC. It becomes even worse when the manufacturer of your PC never ships the Windows 7 installation disc along with your shipment.

So before it happens, make a Windows 7 installation disc yourself:

1. First, locate your Windows 7 product key. It is normally printed on a sticker affixed to your PC. If you can't find it, use Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder to pull your product key from the Registry.
2. Download the ISO file for the version of Windows 7 you own:
   • Home Premium SP1 (English, 64-bit)
   • Professional SP1 (English, 64-bit)
   • Ultimate SP1 (English, 64-bit)
   • Home Premium SP1 (English, 32-bit)
   • Professional SP1 (English, 32-bit)
   • Ultimate SP1 (English, 32-bit)
3. Use Windows 7 USB/DVD download tool to copy your Windows 7 ISO file to a USB flash drive.

You can now use the Windows 7 flash drive to repair or reinstall your OS.

Safe Mode: Frequently Forgotten Tool

I ran into a failed-to-boot Windows 7 system. It gave me a "recently hardware change" error on startup and as usual, I booted it into my USB Windows 7 and hit the "Repair" button.

Most of the time this would just fix the error but this time, it failed.

I tried so many diagnostic tools, I even booted it into my live USB Ubuntu and look for problems and solutions, but with no luck.

Just when things went all into darkness, a long forgotten idea popped up in my mind: the amazing Safe Mode. So I booted the system into Safe Mode, let it run, and rebooted the system. Bingo.

Sometimes, the simplest way to resolve an issue may just be standing right next to you and you never realize it.

Remember to remember the amazing Safe Mode.

Ubuntu 12.04 - LXDE Installation

LXDE, which stands for Light X11 Desktop Environment, is a very light weight desktop environment for Linux.

The installation process is rather easy for LXDE because it is already included in Ubuntu Software Repository.

There are two versions of LXDE available: LXDE Core and LXDE Full. You can find both versions in Ubuntu Software Center.

LXDE Core installs only the core modules for running LXDE, whereas LXDE Desktop installs all the applications bundled with it. Click here for the list of applications included in the Full version.

To install LXDE Core using command line:

sudo apt-get install lxde-core

To install LXDE Full:

sudo apt-get install lxde

Restart Ubuntu and you can choose to log in to LXDE at login-screen.