nLite is a GUI for permanent Windows component removal by your choice. After removal there is an option to make bootable image ready for burning on cd or testing in virtual machines. So that means that with nLite you will be able to have Windows installation cd which on installation doesn't install, or even contain on cd, unwanted components.

Maybe you won't believe it at first but it's not easy to not install what you don't want when it comes to Windows. It involves many setup files to be edited carefully without interfering with basic Windows components.

Download: nLite 1.4.8

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AutoCollage 2008 is a project developed by Microsoft Research Cambridge and made available for download as of September 4, 2008.

The tool is no longer just a research prototype, as it has been made available for purchase via the Microsoft Store (UK) and the Windows Marketplace (US).

At the same time, Microsoft Research Cambridge is offering end users a taste of AutoCollage 2008 via a 30-day downloadable trial version. Designed to enable end users to put together collages of digital photo collections, AutoCollage 2008 is in fact the first example of an incubation project offered to the general public by Microsoft Research Cambridge.

"The most significant feature that differentiates AutoCollage is that it offers exceptionally sophisticated blending technology for photographs, powered by state-of-the-art computer vision techniques," explained Alisson Sol, development manager at Microsoft Research Cambridge. "It’s great that we can give everyone the opportunity to play with and use this compelling technology, and we’re looking forward to seeing what collages they come up with."

According to Microsoft, AutoCollage 2008 does much more than simply blending images into a collage. The tool builds a seamless canvas using the photographs made available while avoiding duplicates and ensuring that no one image comes into focus all by itself. The Redmond company indicated that AutoCollage started along back in 2005 in Microsoft Research Cambridge, UK, in 2005, after which it was moved to the Cambridge Incubation team. Microsoft researchers from China and Redmond collaborated with the Cambridge team on the development process. AutoCollage 2008 is designed to integrate seamlessly with Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and Windows XP Service Pack 3.

Download: Microsoft Research AutoCollage 2008 1.0

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Microsoft has made available for download a free synchronization tool tailored to Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and to Windows XP Service Pack 3, but also to earlier versions of the two clients such as Vista RTM and XP SP2.

SyncToy 2.0 has been taken out of Beta stage, and the gold version of the code is live as of the end of the past week. Essentially a file management tool, SyncToy 2.0 is designed to permit users to "copy, move, rename, and delete" items between both folders and computers. Liam Cavanagh, senior program manager, Data Replication and Synchronization, revealed that SyncToy 2.0 has as its basis the Microsoft Sync Framework.

The Redmond company is presenting the PowerToy as the right tool to do all the heavy lifting for users when it comes to file synchronization. However, SyncToy is intended only as an enhancement of the Windows operating system and is not supported by the company. In this context, SyncToy has only been tested on a few operating systems, with the focus on Vista and XP, although it is possible that the tool will also integrate with additional platforms including Windows Home Server with Power Pack 1.

Dynamic Drive Letter Assignment, True Folder Sync, Exclusion Filtering Based on Name, Filtering Based on File Attributes, and Unattended Folder Pair Execution are just some of the new additions introduced in version 2.0. Cavanagh revealed that "based on the feedback from the SyncToy Forum and Windows XP Professional Photography web site, the following features were added to this release of SyncToy: Drive letter reassignment will now be detected and updated in the folder pair definition. Folder creates, renames and deletes are now synchronized for all SyncToy actions. File exclusion based on name with exact or fuzzy matching. The ability to exclude files based on one or more file attributes (Read-Only, System, Hidden). Addressed issues related to running scheduled folder pairs while logged off."

But at the same time, SyncToy 2.0 final will offer users the possibility to share end-point folder pairs (Folder Pairs With Shared Endpoints), improved management via the command line interface, a rearchitected synchronization engine, increased reliability, support for encrypted files and for - 64-bit Windows operating systems.

In addition, the tool offers "Sub-folder Exclusion Enhancements: Descendents created under excluded sub-folders are automatically excluded. Usability improvements for the sub-folder exclusion dialog. Folder Pair Metadata Moved: Folder pair metadata removed from MyDocuments to resolve any issues with server-based folder pair re-direction setup. Setup Improvements: Integrated setup with single self-extracting archive file and no extra downloads if you already have .NET Framework 2.0 installed. Enabled silent install for the SyncToy Installer file. And removed combine and subscribe actions," stated Cavanagh.

SyncToy is an easy to use, customizable utility that will help you move, copy, rename and delete files between computers and folders.

There are new sources of files coming from every direction: digital cameras, e-mail, cell phones, portable media players, camcorders, PDAs, and laptops. Increasingly, computer users are using different folders, drives, and even different computers (such as a laptop and a desktop) to store and retrieve files. Yet managing hundreds or thousands of files is still largely a manual operation.

Download:
SyncToy 2.0 (x32)
SyncToy 2.0 (x64)

Source: softpedia.com

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It's a freeware utility to defrag registry. Quicksys RegDefrag is small, clear and easy. Registry data is constantly being written to and removed during a normal Windows operation. Over time this data becomes fragmented.

What does this software do?
Quicksys RegDefrag optimizes your registry by removing gaps, fragments and wasted space in Windows registry files. The program does not modify any registry entries.

Benefits?
Of course! The defragmentation improves performance and boosts access to the registry.

System Requeriments
* - Pentium 233 MHz
* - 128 MB RAM
* - 1,6 MB of available space
* - Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/2008

What's new in this version?
Version 2.0
* - Improved new algorithm to defrag registry.
* - Improved HTML report with defrag information.
* - Improved alert about necessary free space to defrag registry.
* - Improved ascending sorting of column at Registry Information.
* - Improved new multi-language system with separate language files.
* - Improved perfomance in Windows x64.
* - Fixed text in Defrag Analysis. Example: changed "/REGISTRY/MACHINE" to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE".
* - Fixed bug in backups. The backups files are stored at default registry folder.
* - Added new option to remove backups at Uninstall.
* - Memory usage optimizations.
* - Added new languages: Italian and Spanish.
* - GUI improvements.
* - Minor bug fixed.

Download : Regdefrag 2.0

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Elive team proudly announced last evening yet another development release of their GNU/Linux Live CD, Elive 1.9.18, which brings a new and improved kernel, better network configurator and many other updates. "This version includes a greatly improved new kernel and a lot of upgraded packages." - said the Elive developers in the official release announcement.

As mentioned, the kernel package has been updated (to version 2.6.26.8), and includes the following improvements:

• Wireless improvements: The kernel now contains all the available wireless drivers, including ath9k from Atheros;
• Apple MacBooks improvements: With the introduction of the ath9k wireless driver, the WEP encryption bug in MacBooks has been solved.

The Net-Connector tool introduced in the 1.9.10 release has finally been finished and it is now working at full capacity. The Net-Connector will help Elive users easily configure their networks (wireless and wired).

Last but not least, the Elive team added new and useful bookmarks for the Mozilla Firefox web browser. For example, you will now find a good list with links and tutorials for The Gimp, and some bookmarks with articles about Elive and the EFL development.

Elive is an operating system created using Debian GNU/Linux as its basis. It offers a lot of eye-candy while keeping the resources consumption very low with the help of the Enlightenment window manager.

Elive Linux sports a large number of applications, ranging from office and Internet related applications, to games and entertainment. With Elive, you can watch movies, listen to your favorite songs or chat with friends. E17, the development version of the Enlightenment window manager that comes with Elive Unstable, is brought to you from CVS, and is updated on a regular basis through Elive's testing repository.

If you want to use Elive, it is recommended you use a computer with minimum 128 of RAM and a 300 MHz CPU. Remember that this is an unstable release and it should not be installed on production machines. It is intended to be used for testing purposes only! You can report bugs to Elive's Bug Tracker.
Download Elive 1.9.18 right now from Here.

Source: http://linuxarticle.blogspot.com/

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Windows 7 Direct3D 11 Features - A taste of DirectX 11 is already available for download. As of November 2008, Microsoft is delivering the first taste of DirectX 11 for Windows 7 for download. A release aimed at developers, The November 2008 DirectX Software Development Kit, brings to the table the successor of Direct3D 10.1, namely Direct3D 11. In the SDK package, the Redmond company is offering a technical preview of Direct3D 11, but also the adjacent components and tools. Backwards compatible, content developed for Direct3D 11 hardware will also be compatible with earlier products supporting Direct3D 10 and 10.1 (in Vista SP1). Via the Windows 7 Developer Guide, Microsoft provides an insight into the new features made available by Direct3D 11.

“Geometry and high-order surfaces can now be tessellated to support scalable, dynamic content in patch and subdivision surface representations. To make good use of the parallel processing power available from multiple CPU cores, multithreading increases the number of potential rendering calls per frame by distributing the application, runtime, and driver calls across multiple cores. In addition, resource creation and management has been optimized for multithreaded use, enabling more efficient dynamic texture management for streaming,” Microsoft revealed.

According to the Redmond company, version 11 is designed to deliver an evolution of the functionality of the Direct3D 10 pipeline for Windows 7. In this regard, Microsoft has positioned Windows 7 to take advantage of the next generation of GPUs and multi-core processors when it comes down to the way the operating system will handle games and 3D applications. The software giant has indicated that Direct3D 11 in Windows 7 will support: Tessellation; Compute Shaders; Multithreaded Rendering; Dynamic Shader Linkage; Windows Advanced Rasterizer (WARP); Direct3D 10 and Direct3D 11 on Direct3D 9 Hardware (D3D10 Level 9); Runtime Binaries; D3DX11; Completely Updated HLSL and Direct3D Compiler; D3D11 Reference Rasterizer and D3D11 SDK Layers.

“New general-purpose compute shaders have been created for Direct3D 11. Unlike existing shaders, these are extensions to the programmable pipeline that enable your application to do more work completely on the GPU, independent of the CPU. DrawAuto, which was introduced in Direct3D 10, has been extended to interact with a compute shader. Several improvements have been made to the high-level shading language (HLSL), such as a limited form of dynamic linkage in shaders to improve specialization complexity, and object-oriented programming constructs like classes and interfaces,” the company added.

The November 2008 DirectX Software Development Kit is available for download here.
The November 2008 DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer can be downloaded via this link.
DirectX End-User Runtimes (November 2008) is up for grabs here.
Source: http://akupunyasitus.blogspot.com/

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