The beta of Windows 7 has been released. If you have not already downloaded a disc image of Window 7, you can download both the 32-bit and 64-bit editions at: http://www.downloadsquad.com/2009/01/09/direct-download-links-for-windows-7-beta-iso-surface/

Note: VirtualBox supports 64-bit guests on 32-bit hosts, but does not support 64-bit guests on 64-bit machines. If you are running a 64-bit operating system, you must download and install the 32-bit edition of Windows 7.

Preparation

Open VirtualBox and start the virtual machine wizard by clicking the "New" button.

Give your virtual machine a name and select "Windows Vista" from the OS Type list.

Windows 7 has been somewhat optimized compared to Vista. 512 MB of RAM is enough for testing. Feel free to give it more if you want.

When prompted to select a hard disk image, press "New…". The default disk image type of "Dynamically expanding image" is fine. Use the recommended size of 20 GB unless you want more space. I suggest that you do not go any lower than 20 GB. When you have configured the disk to your liking, press "Finish" to create the disk image.

Once that is complete, double check all the settings to make sure everything is how you want it. Press "Finish" to create the Virtual Machine.

Now you need to mount the Windows 7 disc image. Select the Virtual Machine you just created and click the "Settings" button. Select CD/DVD-ROM from the menu at the left. Check the box labeled "Mount CD/DVD Drive". If you have already burned Windows 7 to a disc, click "Host CD/DVD Drive" and point it to the CD/DVD drive that the physical disc is in. Otherwise, click "ISO Image File" and then the folder icon with the green arrow at the right.

Click the "Add" button, and select the Windows 7 disc image that you downloaded. It should be named something like this: 7000.0.081212-1400_client_en-us_Ultimate-GB1CULFRE_EN_DVD.iso. When you have selected the correct image, press "OK" in the settings window to confirm the selection.

Installation

Select the Windows 7 Virtual Machine you just created and press the "Start" button. If you properly mounted the disc, the Windows installation will start loading and you will be greeted with a shiny blue installation window. Select your language and click "Next" to start the installation.

Since this is a new installation, click "Install Now". Agree to the terms of the licensing agreement and click "Next". When the installer asks "Which type of installation do you want?", press "Custom".

You should see the disk that you created earlier. Select it and continue with the installation.

Windows 7 will start installing. This may take a while. You can minimise VirtualBox while it is installing.

When the initial installation finishes, the Virtual Machine will reboot and Windows will prepare to boot for the first time.

When the installation is complete, Windows will ask you for some information. Enter your name, give your computer a name, and enter a password if you would like to use one.

Then it will ask for a product key. If you do not have a valid Windows 7 beta key, uncheck "Automatically activate Windows when I'm online" and press next without entering a key. You can test Windows 7 for 30 days without a key.

Choose "Use recommended settings" if you want Windows to install updates when you go online, or "Ask me later" if you want Windows to bug you about it. Select your time zone and click "Next".

Once all of that is done, you will be greeted by a blue fish. This is the default Windows 7 Beta desktop. Almost done!

Configuration

As you may have expected, not everything is compatible with Windows 7 yet. To make your life a little easier, you will want to install the VirtualBox Guest Additions package to enable certain features and improve the performance of the Virtual Machine.

While you are using the Virtual Machine, click "Devices" from the toolbar at the top and choose "Install Guest Additions…". This is a standard CD image that contains an installer. It behaves just like the Windows 7 disc image you mounted before.

When the Guest Additions image is mounted, an autoplay window will appear in Windows. Close it. By default, the guest additions installer will not work because it cannot recognise the operating system that it is running in. You will need to use the program compatibility feature of Windows to trick the installer into thinking Windows Vista is running.

Browse the contents of the VirtualBox Guest Additions CD with explorer, right click on "VBoxWindowsAdditions-x84″ and select "Properties". Click the "Compatibility" tab and check the "Run this program in compatibility mode for" box. Select "Windows Vista" from the drop-down menu. Press "OK" and start the guest additions installer by running "VBoxWindowsAdditions-x84″. Install it with the default settings.

Conclusion

You now have an installation of Windows 7 that is suitable for testing. Enjoy.

The following error message is displayed after running Notepad++:

This ANSI plugin is not compatible with your Unicode Notepad++.

This plugin is not compatible with current version of Notepad++.

Do you want to remove this plugin from plugins directory to prevent this
message from the next launch time?

Solution

This error occurs when you update from the older (ansi) version of Notepad++ to the newer (unicode) version. Some plugins only work with the ansi version, so the error is displayed.

Download the latest version of Notepad++ from http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=95717&package_id=102072.

Download the zip archive, not the installer. The filename will look similar to this: npp.5.x.x.bin.zip.

Open the zip file you just downloaded and drag the "ansi" folder to the desktop.  This is a complete, working copy of Notepad++. (You just don't have to run an installer to use it.) You do not need to do anything with the "unicode" folder.

The Notepad++ that is in the "ansi" folder is the version you want to use from now on. If you want to continue using the ansi plugins, you must use the ansi Notepad++.

Copy any plugins that are causing the error from the "plugins" folder of the version of Notepad++ you had before downloading this version into the "plugins" folder inside the "ansi" folder you just copied out of the zip file. For example, if you had Notepad++ installed to "C:\Program Files\Notepad++", you want to copy the plugins from "C:\Program Files\Notepad++\plugins" to "ansi\plugins".

Open Notepad++ by running "notepad++.exe". The plugins should now be working properly, and the error should not appear.

This guide will attempt to help you solve common but sometimes hard to diagnose problems you may have when listening to audio and video online on sites such as Last.fm and YouTube.

Symptoms

• Choppy audio/video
• Constant buffering
• Audio/video does not load

Possible causes

Whenever you are downloading or uploading something, you are using bandwidth. Even loading this website used a small portion of your available bandwidth. You are allocated a certain amount of bandwidth that you can use at one time. How much you are able to use at one time depends on what service plan you have with your ISP.

In simpler terms, just as animals in an environment compete for limited resources such as food and water, all of the running programs that are using the Internet compete for bandwidth. Whether it be your web browser, video games, or media player; they all use these resources when transferring data.

If you are trying to watch a video on YouTube, but you are also downloading something that is using all of your bandwidth, there will not be any left to download the YouTube video. The video will pause and the download progress bar will slowly increase, but not enough so that you are able to continue watching the video for more than a few seconds.

Possible solutions

Note: The suggestions below apply to all of the computers in your house

If the problem is being caused by a lack of available bandwidth, then the easiest way to solve it is to pause or stop any file transfers. For example, if you are currently downloading any files, you might want to try again when they have finished downloading. The web browser Mozilla Firefox supports the pausing of downloads, although some websites do not support this.

Peer-to-peer applications such as LimeWire and BitTorrent are designed to quickly download and upload files. When their settings are configured incorrectly, they may try use as much bandwidth as possible. In some cases, you may not even be able to browse the Internet. Try closing these kinds of programs and see if it solves the problem.

Instant messaging programs such as Yahoo, MSN, and AIM use an insignificant amount of bandwidth when you are chatting, so you do not have to worry about them.

Keep in mind that the website that the video or audio is on may be having problems. There is nothing you can do to solve this unless you can find the content on another website. If this is the case you will have to wait until the problems are resolved before trying again.

Shareaza is a P2P (peer to peer) application that supports the Gnutella2, Gnutella, eDonkey2000, and BitTorrent protocols. This guide will familiarize you with some of the settings of this program. It will also help fix common problems such as slow download speeds, slow searches, and network connection issues.

You will need to download Shareaza if you do not already have it:
http://shareaza.sourceforge.net/?id=download

Install Shareaza with the default settings, but do not run it at this time. Users of Windows XP Service Pack 2 will need to modify some system settings before continuing. Users of Service Pack 1 and other versions of Windows may continue to the next step.

Service Pack 2 Only

While Service Pack 2 includes many enhancements such as a Security Center, it also changes some settings that affect the performance of P2P clients.
The first setting we must change is the amount of half-open connections that are allowed at one time. This can be done with a patcher located here:
http://www.lvllord.de/?lang=en&url=downloads

Extract and run EvID4226Patch.exe. You will hear a beep, and then it will prompt you to change the limit. Press the 'C' key. If you are confident in your antivirus software to protect against fast spreading worms, enter 16777214. If not, just enter 100. Ensure you have entered the amount you wanted and press the 'Y' key. Press 'Y' again to move to the next step.

You will now be prompted to reinstall the system files that got replaced. Press Cancel as we need these files to stay at our custom amount.

Choose "Yes" when prompted to keep the unrecognized version of the file.

Service Pack 1 and 2

Open up network connections via the control panel. Look at the "Status" column and see if any connections are firewalled.

If one or more are, right click on the connection and choose properties. Click the advanced tab, and then the first settings button. Click the exceptions tab and add an exception for Shareaza if it is not already present. By default, it is located at C:\Program Files\Shareaza.

The last setting we must change before actually doing anything with Shareaza is forwarding ports on our router. This is important as connections cannot be made to other peers without having the port open. If you don't have a router, feel free to move on to the next step.

Shareaza's default port is 6346. A great website about port forwarding can be found here:
http://portforward.com/english/routers/port_forwarding/routerindex.htm

Find your model of router and follow the instructions until you know how to add port 6346.

Settings

These are the settings that work the best for me, but you may find that you get better performance with other values. Try to experiment with each setting and see what works the best for your connection and computer.

Open Shareaza. Click "Tools", then "Shareaza Settings…"

Rather than typing out every setting, I took screenshots of each section.

General:
General:

Library:

Internet:
Connection:

Fill in your preferred port and make sure that your download and upload speeds match that of your internet connection. My maximum upload rate is about 47 KB/s, and I set it between 30-39 KB/s.I would recommend using 80% of your total available bandwidth for the upload setting. You may test your upload rate here: http://www.dslreports.com/stest?flash=1 KB/s and kb/s are not the same. Use this tool to convert between kilobits and kilobytes: http://www.matisse.net/bitcalc/

Downloads:

Networks:
eDonkey2000:

I would not suggest connecting to the eDonkey network using Shareaza. Use eMule if you want to use the eDonkey network.

Advanced:

Change the values of these settings:

Gnutella.ConnectFactor – 5 (The optimal value of this setting depends on your internet connection. Dial-up users should set it to either 2 or 3. If you notice poor performance after modifying this value, play around with it and see what works best.)
Downloads.ConnectThrottle – 100
Downloads.MaxFileSearches – 4
Downloads.MaxConnectingSources – 50

The rest of the settings are a matter of personal preference.

The last step will help you get connected to the Gnutella network. Close the settings dialog and press the "F9″ key. This opens the Discovery Services tab. Go to this website: http://gcachescan.jonatkins.com/

Copy at least five of the URLs under the "Cache URL" list and add them to your list in Shareaza. This can be done by right clicking anywhere in the window and clicking "Add Service." Once you have added some healthy caches, double click them in Shareaza to query them. This will greatly improve the speed at which you connect to the Gnutella network by giving your client a way to find peers to connect to.

Searching is an important part of any P2P network. Without it, no one would be able to find anything to download. Gnutella has been the target of many spammers who try to spread viruses and worms using the network. Shareaza includes a feature that allows you to filter out bad results. Download this file which blocks bad files and peers: Magnet Link

When it finishes, press the "F7″ key and right click anywhere in the window. Click import and select "All-In-One AntiSpam Filter [Jun-10-2009] {By Cyko}.xml" located in your downloads folder. ('C:/Program Files/Shareaza/Downloads" by default)

This configuration will suit most users that have either Cable or DSL. If you are forced to use dial-up, I feel bad for you.

The hlds updater tool can be downloaded here:
http://storefront.steampowered.com/download/hldsupdatetool.exe

Download and install hldsupdatetool.exe with the default settings. This article assumes you have chosen to install it to c:\srcds. If you have chosen a different directory make sure to keep it handy because you will need it throughout the guide.

Preparation

If you are running Windows Vista with User Account Control, right click c:\srcds\hldsupdatetool.exe and choose properties. Click the compatibility tab and check "Run this program as administrator". If it is grayed out then you already have UAC disabled and can safely skip to the next step.

Installation

Now that hlds is at its latest version you will install the server files for Garry's Mod.

Click start and choose run.

Enter "cmd" and press OK. Type in the command "cd c:\srcds"
You will now see a window similar to this:

The command prompt is where you will give commands to the updater, which will be used to download the server files. Before you do that, let's go over some of the commands you are going to use.

HldsUpdateTool.exe -command update -game garrysmod -dir games

1. HldsUpdateTool.exe is the program that downloads the server files for Source based games. Running this without any commands will make it update itself to the latest version.
2. -command is a parameter that allows you to issue commands to the tool via arguments such as "update"
3. The parameter -game is used to choose which server software you want to run. You are using the argument "garrysmod" but "cstrike" can be used if you want to download the files for a Counterstrike Source server.
4. The parameter -dir selects the directory that the files will be downloaded to.

Create a folder "games" at c:\srcds\ and issue the command above to the command prompt. The server files will start downloading to c:\srcds\games\orangebox\garrysmod. This amount of time this process takes will depend on the speed of your internet connection. Be patient as there are about 2.5 Gigabytes of files to download.

Before you run the server you must make sure people can connect to it. Follow the guide that pertains to your router model and forward the required ports:
http://portforward.com/english/applications/port_forwarding/Counter_Strike/Counter_Strikeindex.htm

This guide only covers Counter-Strike, but the ports for CS and Gmod are the same.

Configuration

There are hundreds of settings that can be used to fine tune your server. Some people want a build-only server. Others may want a deathmatch server. Server convars are used to configure certain aspects of your server such as the default gamemode, name of the server, or whether players take damage. This is all done through the magic that is config files. Configuration files, or cfgs for short, are text files that can be used to run multiple commands at once.

The garrysmod config files are stored in the cfg folder, located at "c:\srcds\games\orangebox\garrysmod\cfg". The autoexec.cfg is a configuration file that is automatically loaded when you start the server. This is where you will be putting the convars.
Here is a sample autoexec.cfg: autoexec.cfg Place it in the cfg folder.

The next time you run the server the convars you set in autoexec.cfg will be applied.

Running the server

Once that is complete, open c:\srcds\games\orangebox\ and run "srcds.exe". A configuration dialog will open. Any convars you set in autoexec.cfg will be applied instead of what is shown here. Any convars you have not manually defined will be set to their default values.

Press "Start Server" to start the server. The server console will appear.

Congratulations, you now have the files required to run your own Source based game server.

Troubleshooting

• My friends can't join my server!
  Other people can only see your server if their computers can access the port that it is running on. If you have a firewall, make sure that you have added an exception for srcds.exe. If you have a router, make sure that you have forwarded all of the required ports. Follow the guide at PortForward.com for more information on forwarding the ports.