We all remember all the different versions of Windows Vista that were available on launch and how confusing it was, and I thought that was set to improve with 7. Only partially so. In Europe we get not only the regular Windows 7 flavers, but also some with a N suffix. What does this N mean?

Well, in 2004 Microsoft was fined almost €500m by the European Commission declaring that because Microsoft were so huge, that bundling Windows Media Player (WMP) in Windows was anti-competitive and thus forced to offer a version that didn’t include it. They could still sell the bundled version so long as the sold the unbundled version too. This resulted in a version of XP being retro-fitted with the N moniker, and subsequently versions of Vista accordingly. Now Windows 7 has hit the shelves and it seems that this is set to continue.

The really ridiculous thing about it is, they cost the exact same price at most retailers. Buy a copy of Windows 7 Home Premium Full and it’ll set up back about 80 quid for the upgrade of 150 for the full package. Decide to by Windows 7 Home Premium N, thats without WMP included, and its 80 for the upgrade and yes, you guessed it, 150 for the full package.

So why would you ever bother buying a copy of 7N then? Well, you wouldn’t. Unless it was confusing and you didn’t realise when you bought it, which some people clearly have done. To add insult to injury it seems that you can’t even install WMP onto an N edition Windows 7, that is at least you couldn’t initially.

Fortunately, and I don’t know how well publicised this MS article is, but now you can, with a specific MS download that allows you to do just that. I can only assume that there was uproar and they decided to turn the steamboat around by releasing the Media Feature Pack for Windows 7 N.

So, if you’re trying to install WMP on a Windows 7 N edition you might like to wander over to the following link.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=31017ed3-166a-4c75-b90c-a6cef9b414c4

Anyone who has forgotten the admin password for a Windows system will tell you that its a pain to get back into. Unless you have a bit of know-how, some might say impossible.

One way of doing it for example would be to use the free program NTFS4DOS, which allows you to access the files and folders of NTFS partitions from a DOS boot disk (without loading up Windows itself). This means you can access the SAM file without logging in, copy it to another working system and use a brute-force attempt to crack the local admin password. This can take a long time however, typically at least an hour or two, and depending on the strength of the password may take considerably longer.

Perhaps a much better way to do this would be to edit to the password directly in the SAM file and change it to one you know. That way you avoid the brute-force attack. Let me share with you a very clever program that somebody has written called the Offline NT Password & Registry Editor which can do just that.

Simply go to the website below, download the CD ISO image and burn to a blank CD. Boot up your Windows PC with this CD in the drive and you’ll get into a Linux OS with the required bits and pieces included to read in the SAM from your Windows partition, and through a number of questions that you’ll be hand-held through, you can reset the local admin password in a matter of a couple of minutes (less once you are familiar with the procedure).

This has saved me a lot of work plenty of times, and in fact I now carry the ISO around with me on the USB flash stick on my key ring.

One thing to note is that you must shut down the PC cleanly before you use this utility, otherwise it can’t write back to the SAM file succefully. If you get an error saying it failed to do this, simply reboot into windows and then click the shutdown option on the login screen before trying again.

Here’s the link… enjoy.

http://home.eunet.no/%7Epnordahl/ntpasswd/

Something that I have often wondered why it hasn’t been included in Windows is the ability to rearrange the buttons on the taskbar. Want to move Outlook to the far left of your taskbar? Want to ensure all buttons relating to Word are together to the far right? Well, there is no built-in way to do this in Windows except to close every application down and reopen them in the correct order. Step forward Taskbar Shuffle.

This is a very simple but extraordinarily useful application that allows you to do just that. It works with all versions of 32-bit Windows and a 64-bit version is in development as of the time of writing.

Theres not much I can say about it as it really is such a simple concept. The installation is quick and fuss free, and once completed you can simply drag and drop the taskbar buttons to rearrange them on your taskbar.

You can even do the same with the systray icons, although you have to hold down CTRL while you do this. It’s a nice simple little app, and best of all, it’s free! (donations accepted by the author at http://www.freewebs.com/nerdcave/taskbarshuffle.htm).