How to pause download of Windows Update

Since many years, I have set Windows 7 to automatically download and install any available updates. This way I know I run the most recent version of the OS and its security patches. Today, while being connected to the internet via my cell phone, Windows started a huge download bringing my already slow connection to a virtual halt.

It turns out that there is not direct way to pause an already started Windows Update download. However, if you have admin rights you can force the Windows Update service to stop. Simply launch a command prompt (cmd.exe) with admin rights and run

net stop wuauserv

REFERENCES:
[1] 'Start or stop Windows update service', Windows Command Line on 2010-08-21.

Calibre: Mirroring settings via Dropbox

Calibre is a free and open source e-book library management software that can sync to various e-book readers, including the Amazon Kindle. It also provides automatic and scheduled fetching of RSS feeds from various blogs and news sources, which is then instantly sent/emailed to your e-book reader.  I've been using it for the latter the last six months - it's much more pleasant to read blogs and news on a Kindle than on a computer screen.  Calibre is available on Windows, OSX and Linux.

I run Calibre on a computer at home, but when I travel I turn this off and run Calibre on my notebook.  Unfortunately, this means that I also have to keep update the settings and which news feed I follow on both machines.  However, it turns out it is rather simple to synchronize these settings across machines via a cloud drive.  Below is how you do it on Windows 7 using Dropbox.  Since this setup is not specific to a particular users, it can be applied to all of your machines running Calibre.

1. Make sure you have a Dropbox account and the Dropbox client up and running.
2. In your Dropbox folder (e.g. C:/Users/Joe/Dropbox/), create the following subdirectory  mirror/AppData/Roaming/calibre/.
3. [Optional] If you already have Calibre setup locally, you may wanna copy your current Calibre setting in  C:/Users/Joe/AppData/Roaming/calibre/ to this subdirectory.
4. Create a Windows shortcut of calibre.exe (e.g. type 'calibre' in the Start menu box), but drag'n'drop it to the desktop.
5. Right-click on the calibre shortcut icon and select Properties...
6. Only if 'Start in' is empty, then copy the value in 'Target' to 'Start in' and drop the last part contain 'calibre.exe', e.g. afterward is should be something like "C:\Program Files (x86)\Calibre2\".
7. In 'Target' paste the following as is (including the double quotes) as one line of text:
   cmd.exe /C "set CALIBRE_CONFIG_DIRECTORY=%USERPROFILE%\Dropbox\private\mirror\AppData\Roaming\calibre && calibre.exe"
8. [Optional] To have Calibre start in tray, add '--start-in-tray' after calibre.exe in Step 7, cf. Calibre User Manual.
9. [Optional] Set 'Run' to 'Minimized'.
10. [Optional] In the 'General' tab, rename the program to 'Calibre (mirrored)'.
11. [Optional] Click 'Change icon' and set the icon back to calibre.exe, e.g.  "C:\Program Files (x86)\Calibre2\calibre.exe" (the same as the original value of Target).
12. Click OK.

Now you can start Calibre by clicking on the 'Calibre (mirrored)' shortcut icon.  The first time you start it, you'll be asked a few setup questions, unless you copied your old settings in Step 2.

Thinkpad Access Connections Freezes [SOLVED]

Problem:
Every since I've got my new Thinkpad X61 with Windows Vista (Business 32-bit), the ThinkVantage Access Connections (AC) application has been freezing frequently. The Access Connections is used supposed to be a utility to make it easier to connect to different wireless and LAN networks, but all this freezing has been rather frustrating.

I finally decided to track down the problem and found out that the problem with AC has been reported by many (Thinkpads.com, FlyerTalk, m3rLinEz, ...). It seems that it occurred on both XP and Vista and various types of Thinkpads.

Solution: Download and install the new AC 5.12 for Windows Vista (released 2009-01-13) from Lenovo website. Make sure to read the installation notes, saying that the Lenovo System Interface Driver, ThinkPad Power Management Driver, and the Hotkey Driver must be up to date before updating the AC (I had to install two of these). Note also that the files downloaded will only extract the setup files - you then have to launch these manually.

Results:
I used to have AC 4.42 for Windows Vista (Build 7RCN38WW). After installing AC 5.12 (on January 15, 2009) for Windows Vista (Build 7VCV85WW), I haven't experienced any problem.

Converting any media format to any other

The MediaCoder for Windows (Vista, XP, 2000, 2003, Linux w/ Wine) is a standalone, open source (MPL 1.1), and free application that convert between various video and/or audio formats, e.g. MOV (Quicktime), AVI, XviD, MPEG, H.264, Flash, WMV, RealVideo, DVD, and many more formats including most audio formats.

Turn off auto-restart in Windows (XP Pro and Vista Business only)

To avoid having Windows restart itself after automatic updates, do:

1. In the Start Menu click 'Run...', type 'gpedit.msc' and ENTER to open the 'Group Policy Editor'.
2. Go to 'Local Computer Policy' -> 'Computer Configuration' -> 'Administrative Templates' -> 'Windows Components' -> 'Windows Update'.
3. Double click on Entry to open up a list of settings.
4. Double click on Item 'No auto-restart logged on users for scheduled automatic updates' to open up a property dialog and change the setting to 'Enabled' (sic!).

Note, this only works with Windows XP Pro or Windows Vista Business or higher. It will not work with home editions. In that case, see the below source for more details.

Source: Comments at http://lifehacker.com/5087042/shutdownguard-stops-automatic-windows-shutdown-restart

How to delay startup of application when login on to Windows

In the 'All Programs' menu of Windows XP, there is the 'Startup' submenu/folder where you can put (drag'n'drop) programs that you wish to start automatically when you log on to Windows. However, if you have a lot of programs there, it will substantially slow down your computer when you log on forcing you to wait for several minutes before you can do anything useful. To avoid this, you can set the different programs to start after a certain number of seconds so that the least frequently used programs can be started last, say, after 5 minutes.

How to do it

There are a few applications out there that allows you to control the startup process (including the startup of applications not in the Startup folder).

The one I've been using for a few weeks now is freeware 'Startup Delayer' by Australian r2 Studios (screenshot to the right). It allows you to set the delay for each of the applications started with Windows. It also has a panel displaying the time line of the startup process.

Other "no-cost" solutions I bumped into but haven't tried are: Startup Delayer by Jockersoft.com, R4U Soft Start.UP Organizer by R4U Soft, Ss Startup Manager by Ss-Tools, and Startup Optimizer by Cyberlion Solutions.