Networking With Windows 7

If you are required use networking options on a regular basis, Windows 7 is a competent operating system in that regard. It has a set of powerful P2P networking features integrated. These features in Windows 7 help you to share files, folders, or other resources, and diagnose and resolve issues in a network easily. Following are a few of the features.

Why Windows 7

There is a built-in file and printer sharing option in Windows 7, which facilitates sharing of files and printers on your system with users on a P2P network. When you set up a network, the Network Setup Wizard sets the most common configuration settings by default. This precludes the need of working with individual settings and arranging them each time.

There is an Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) feature in Windows 7 that helps in sharing the internet connection to others over a network. This comes with Firewall options to keep your network safe from unauthorized access through the internet connection. There is a separate integrated Firewall to protect your computer from being accessed over the network, when connected to the internet as well.

User account management is simple enough to let you easily create new accounts and assign passwords to these. There is added compatibility for wireless networking in Windows 7, so that you can connect to available wireless networks in the area easily. Apart from that, there are sophisticated tools for network diagnostics and troubleshooting, so that you will be able to diagnose and troubleshoot many common networking problems.

VPN Reconnect provision

If you are a roaming user, it is good to add VPNs (virtual private networks), which allow a secure connection between your computer and the network. If you are somewhere other than you usually are, say a hotel room or at a customer site, this will make sure that the connection you establish remains intact, barring other network problems.

If you use wireless broadband however, a VPN connection could be the cause for connection dropping frequently, and every time you reconnect to a VPN you will need to establish authentication yet again. This is where VPN Reconnect comes in to play. It promptly resets the internet connection when dropped, and resets VPN connection as well. This makes sure that you retain access of network resources as much of the time as possible. Using this feature, even streaming videos can be resumed after a connection reset, even if it changed your IP address.

For more information on networking with Windows 7, check out our other posts, and for Windows 7 help, troubleshooting and related assistance, call out support hotline.

Setting Up The Outlook 2013 Program

You may be using the Microsoft Outlook program to handle your email messages. Outlook is a very good email client program that is very much user friendly and offers a number of features. This guide provides the step-by-step instructions to setup email in Outlook 2013 program for Windows operating system. These steps can be used for other versions of the Outlook program also, but some of the steps may vary slightly.

Steps To Add A New Account

• Turn on your computer, open the Outlook program, choose the File menu, and then select Info. 
• Click on the Add Account button. 
• Select Manual setup or additional server types. 
• Click on the Next button. 
• Select IMAP or POP. 
• Click on the Next button. 

Account Settings

• Type in your Name as you wish it to appear in the email messages that you send. 
• Type in your email address. 
• Type mail.example.com as the Incoming Mail Server. 
• The Outgoing Mail Server is same as the Incoming Mail Server. 
• For the User Name field, type in your email address. 
• Type in your email password. 

More Settings

• Select the More Settings button. 
• Click on the Outgoing Server tab and then select My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication checkbox. 
• Ensure that it is using the same settings as the incoming mail server. 
• Select the Advanced tab. 
• If you are using POP3 with SSL, type in 995 for the port. Otherwise, you may leave the port at 110. 
• If you are making use of POP3, you can choose when the messages are removed from the server. 
• If you are making use of IMAP with SSL, type in 993 for the port. Otherwise, you may leave the port at 143. 
• If you are making use of SMTP with SSL, type in 465 for the port. Otherwise, change the port to 26. 
• After doing the above steps, click on the OK button. 

Finishing The Setup

• In the Email Accounts window, click on the Next button. 
• Select the Finish button. 

These are the steps to setup email in Outlook 2013 program. If you have any doubts or confusions in any of the steps that are discussed above, you can contact the Outlook help and support team for further assistance on finishing the steps.

Microsoft Plans To Buy Out Apple Users

Microsoft is now taking a page out of the playbook by offering the users of Apple’s MacBook Air an in-store credit of up to 650 dollars when they trade in for a Surface Pro 3 tablet. This promotional program is running through the network of Microsoft retail stores in Canada and US through July 31. The offer that is found on the Microsoft support site and official website says that the credit is available for the users of selected MacBook Air products and credits up to 650 dollars. This implies that some trade-ins may not get the full value or may be rejected.

The Surface Pro 3 tablet is the latest in the homegrown Windows based tablet series and became generally available in June 20. So far, Microsoft has positioned the Surface Pro 3 and the typepad cover of the device as a replacement for notebook, specifically going after the lightweight laptop from Apple. During the unveiling ceremony that was held on May 20, Microsoft demonstrated how the Surface Pro tablet is lighter than the iPad Air and MacBook Air combined. Microsoft is clearly trying to take away some of the market dominance of Apple, believing that it can replace two screens of most of the iPad and Mac users into a single consolidated device, the Surface Pro 3.

Firstly, this promotional offer is common with channel conflicts. This program is only valid for the retail stores of Microsoft. In attracting the customers to the corporate owned outlets, Microsoft is cutting out its retail partners like Staples and Best Buy, as well as their authorized device resellers- the select direct market resellers like En Pointe and CDW.

Second, as Channelnomics noted, market share of Apple is not so great that taking appreciable share will help them establish Surface Pro 3 as a market contender. To do this, Microsoft will have to eat away the market share of their longtime computer vendor partners like Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Lenovo, Dell and so on.

Third, Microsoft is not expanding the Surface tablet availability to their channel partners. Microsoft has said repeatedly that they are not ready to support the broader reseller community beyond a handful of the volume based direct market resellers. In offering promotions that apply only to their direct retail outlets, Microsoft shows their will to acquire market share.

More details on this news are posted in the Microsoft support site. You can visit the page to know more on the news.