UAC has annoyed many users since it was introduced in Vista. It has definitely been improved in Windows 7, but some of you may want to further modify the settings. Doing this is very easy.

Modify UAC settings in Windows 7:

• Click “Start”
• Click “Control Panel”
• Click “User Accounts”
• Click “Change User Account Control settings”
• Adjust the slider accordingly

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If you are a Skype user, then you aren’t going to like this news, because Skype will be doubling its connection fees to landlines and mobiles in many countries.

This is a bit of a bummer and not too many Skype users are pleased about this news. I guess this will push more of us to just try and do Skype to Skype calling instead.  By the time you add up all these new rates, it wouldn’t be any cheaper than using your regular landline.

If you are interested to see the new rates, just follow the link below:

New Skype Connection Fees

Nokia, the leaders in the mobile phone industry have made a big announcement with their new Nokia Booklet 3G notebook.

This is more like a netbook than a notebook and it has some very nice specs. The Booklet is 10″ and is only 0.79″ in thickness.   It weighs under 3lbs, tipping the scale at 2.75lb.

Of course it will have all the connectivity you would expect from a Nokia product. WiFi, Bluetooth, 3G and HSPA. This will be a Windows powered device with an Intel Atom processor.

The release date for the Booklet 3G is sometime in September. Keep an eye out for these, because based on Nokia’s reputation, we are expecting big things (in small packages).

You should probably know by now how to change your Internet Explorer home page through the browser (tools > internet options > general), but I’d thought I would show you today how to do it through your registry.

This may seem a slower option (it is), but the more you become used to using your regedit the more tweaks and improvements you can make;

• Open regedit
• Navigate to this location
  • HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main

• Now double click on the string: Start Page
• Now change the value data box to your desired homepage
• Done

With the release of Windows 7 RTM just around the corner, Microsoft is also getting the related resources ready for release too. One very important aspect of Windows is the drivers, and the Windows 7 driver kit is now available.

The updated version of the Windows Driver Kit (v7.0.0) is tailored to the gold version of Windows 7.   This latest kit will offer developers all the resources required to update their drivers to Windows 7 build 7600.

With the latest Driver Kit, developers can also build drivers for earlier versions of Windows. The latest kit will include libraries, compilers, sample code, documentation, tools and everything else needed to create drivers Windows 7 and also Windows Vista, XP, Server and so on.

To download the Windows Driver Kit, just follow the link below:

Windows Driver Kit

Google has recently opened their next generation of search engine for testing.  Well you wouldn’t really know it, because it looks exactly like their current search engine. It also seems to behave exactly the same too. By the way, Google is calling this engine “caffeine”.

So what are the differences? Well Google isn’t revealing much detail on this at the moment. They generally don’t like to say much about what is really going on. This could also be due to competitors taking a look at what they are up to.

After a quick test I couldn’t really see any difference and personally I don’t have time for proper testing. Have you noticed any significant differences or performance gains? If so, let us know. Until then we will update you when we hear from the big G.

Want to test it out? Just follow the link below:

Google’s Next Search Engine

Downloads of Windows 7 RTM have been made available to certain groups.

If you are a member of the MSDN Academic Alliance, you were given access to downloads of the Windows 7 RTM from August 8th. If you are part of the MSDN AA, can you let us know? We are interested to hear from anyone that has downloaded the RTM.

As of August 10, Windows 7 will also be distributed via ELMS for students. 

Windows 7 Client Retail Professional Edition (English) is included for student distribution in both the x86 and x64 variety. For lab installs, Windows 7 (x86 and x64) Enterprise Edition (English) is included with the volume license keys.

We have recently started a new Windows 7 articles section on our main site and we recommend that you all take a look.

With Windows 7 due to be released in just over 2 months, it is a good time for everyone to start learning about all the great new features and tweaks.  We will try and cover everything from the basic features right through to some advanced performance hacks.  Many of you already have the RC version installed, so if you want to learn more about Windows 7, then take a look.

The Windows 7 RC download has been extremely popular and tons of users now have this installed as their primary operating system or as a virtual operating system in something like VMware.

Now the big question is: “Can you upgrade Windows 7 RC to Windows 7 Final”.

Well, you can but its not quite as easy as it should be. For those of us that have Windows 7 installed as the primary operating system, this will get a little tricky. There is an upgrade option that will be available to RC users, but this will require a clean install of Windows 7 final. All the existing data will supposedly be placed into a temp folder of some sort. We would recommend a proper backup of your data before performing any upgrade.

This is a bit of a bummer because it’s always annoying performing a clean install and re-installing all the apps and data. This will also discourage users from downloading and installing the Windows 7 RC, especially when Windows 7 is being released in October. If you want to test it out, at this stage I would recommend installing Windows 7 RC into VMware server, or any other similar virtualization software.

Here is a benefit of installing the Windows 7 RC:

If you do install Windows 7 RC and activate it, you will then be able to upgrade to Windows 7 via the Windows 7 upgrade disk. You will not need any previous version of Windows. If you don’t follow this path, you would need to have a licensed version of either XP or Vista in order to perform the upgrade.

So if you don’t have any version of Windows at the moment, then installing the RC could be advantageous.

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If you are having troubles with Windows Live Messenger signing in, or any of the other slew of problems in the latest version, then you might want to try this.

There is a registry fix floating around that will fix the signing in problem for most people. But some unlucky users (myself included) can not get Windows Live Messenger working at all.

So one solution is to install an older version, but the problem here is that it tries to force you to upgrade. In fact, you must upgrade as it won’t let you use the older version. So this brings you back to square one. A version of Live Messenger that doesn’t work.

Anyway, there is an excellent solution at the link below. It provides a link to an older version of Live Messenger that won’t have the upgrade prompt. Try it out if you are stuck, because it worked for me.

Finally a solution to Live Messenger problems