In response to widespread interest from consumer device-makers around the world, Microsoft Corp. is announcing a flexible licensing program for its Extended File Allocation Table (exFAT) technology. The latest generation of Microsoft's file system, exFAT delivers a significant leap forward in terms of the size of files that can be stored on a broad range of consumer electronic devices, and the speed with which they can be accessed. The exFAT technology is already being adopted by partners in the industry, and these manufacturers are using the licensing program to deliver a richer and more seamlessly integrated media experience for their customers.

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"There has been an explosion in the use of rich audio and video files," said David Kaefer, general manager of Intellectual Property Licensing at Microsoft. "exFAT is an ideal file system that delivers fast and reliable use of audio and video files. It is an important technology in Windows 7, and now that we are licensing this technology broadly to the industry, we want to encourage and support partners to build products that also contain this technology."

exFAT is the modern version of its predecessor, the FAT system, and greatly expands the size of files that flash memory devices can handle. The exFAT file system not only facilitates large files for use of audiovisual media, it enables seamless data portability and an easy interchange between desktop PCs and consumer electronic devices. In specific terms, the exFAT file system does the following:

• Enables future growth in media capacities, increasing support from 32 GB up to 256 TB
• Handles more than 4,000 RAW images, 100 high-definition (HD) movies, or 60 hours of HD recording in a single directory
• Speeds up file saves of Secure Digital Extended Capacity (SDXC) cards to achieve their full 300MBps speed using modern storage allocation techniques
• Supports interoperability with future desktop operating systems
• Provides an extensible format, including OEM-definable parameters to customize the file system for specific device characteristics

"Consumers want a richer media storage experience, and we chose the exFAT file system for our SDXC memory card specification because of its incredible potential," said James Taylor, president of the SD Association. "The exFAT file system supports large volumes, large files and better contiguous on-disk layout, which supports the SD Association's plans for the SDXC specification to provide consumers with quicker transfer speeds, support for very large files and seamless portability among devices. We look forward to incorporating the technology into our products."

Microsoft's Commitment to IP Collaboration

Microsoft offers flexible intellectual property (IP) licensing programs that give companies access to many of the foundational technologies in its own products, allowing those companies to build devices, applications and services that work seamlessly with each other. Microsoft has entered into exFAT licensing agreements with several leading companies including Sony, Canon and Sanyo. In addition, SanDisk Corp., as a member of the SD Association and the Memory Stick standard, has endorsed the adoption of the exFAT file system for use in the new extra capacity storage media.

More information about Microsoft's exFAT licensing programs is available at http://www.microsoft.com/iplicensing and http://www.microsoft.com/iplicensing/productDetail.aspx?productTitle=exFAT%20File%20System%20Licensing%20Program.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

SOURCE Microsoft Corp.

To change the name of the Recycle Bin desktop icon, click Start then goto Run, write Regedit and press Enter. It opens Registry Editor. Now in Registry Editor go to:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT/CLSID/{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}

On the right pane, locate the registry key of Localized String.

Double click on LocalizedString or right click on LocalizedString and select Modify to modify the registry value.

You should see the default value of “@%SystemRoot%\system32\SHELL32.dll,-8964″. Delete or remove the default value and key in your desired new recycle bin’s name in text, e.g. “Garbage Bin” (without quote).

Refresh your desktop or Windows Explorer by pressing F5. You will see the new ‘recycle bin’ name.

Optionally, you can also modify the text of InfoTip, commonly known as tooltip what display certain help tip, guide or description about Recycle Bin when the mouse is hovering on Recycle Bin icon on desktop. The default text is “Contains files and folders that you have deleted.” Simply double click on InfoTip, or right click on InfoTip and select Modify to change the text of the info tip.

The default value is “@%SystemRoot%\system32\SHELL32.dll,-22915″, simply change it to another description that you want the tooltip to be.

Refresh the desktop to make it effective.

Whenever you shut down your computer, it takes a lot of time in closing all the running applications.And worse, if they stop responding, then you have to click either end task or wait for windows to shut it down. Now you can apply a registry hack that automatically shuts the non-responding annoying applications instantly and without any interruption. Apply the following registry hack to speed up windows xp.

1. Open registry editor from Start -> Run -> type regedit

2. Find HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop

on the left side of the registry editor window.

3. Double click on AutoEndTasks key from the right window and assign the value to be 1. The default value is 0.

Reverting the process is also very simple. Just change the AutoEndTasks value to 0.

Trouble:

Are you among those who are not able to access or see your folder options under File

Menu>>Tools in Windows Explorer on your Windows XP ? This problem of hidden or

disabled folder options occur normally due to malicious virus (w32.rontokbro@mm)

activity.

The virus creates an entry in registry to disable “Folder Options” in Windows explorer.

Let us see how we can fix it.

Fix:

In most of the cases, even if the virus is been already removed by your anti-virus

program, it doesn’t restore the registry back to the original state. Also anti-virus usually

does not delete the registry entry created by the virus.

For restoring the registry settings,follow the steps given below

Enable your folder options in explorer.

1. Go to Start > RUN

2. Type regedit and press enter.

3. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Microsoft > Windows >

CurrentVersion > Policies > Explorer

4.On the right side of the screen, you can see some registry entry names, out of them,

right-click on NoFolderOptions and click Modify option.

5.A new small screen pops up, on this screen, sen the value data field as 0 (zero).Press

OK.

That’s it but it requires reboot. Trouble Fixed.

To convert a FAT partition to NTFS, perform the following steps.

Click Start, click Programs, and then click Command Prompt.

In Windows XP, click Start, click Run, type cmd and then click OK.

At the command prompt, type CONVERT [driveletter]: /FS:NTFS.

Convert.exe will attempt to convert the partition to NTFS.

NOTE: Although the chance of corruption or data loss during the conversion from FAT to NTFS

is minimal, it is best to perform a full backup of the data on the drive that it is to be converted

prior to executing the convert command. It is also recommended to verify the integrity of the

backup before proceeding, as well as to run RDISK and update the emergency repair disk

(ERD).