Restore your personal files after performing custom installation of Windows 7 using Micrsoft Fixit

In some case, you may be unable to perform an upgrade from an earlier version of Windows. If you cannot upgrade, you may be required to perform a custom installation.

In such a case, you may want to recover your personal files from the Windows.old folder, and move them to the custom installation of Windows.

   While one could always follow the steps mentioned in KB932912 to restore it manually, Microsoft has now released a Fix It solution to carry out this task easily. You can use this Fix It to restore your personal files after you perform a custom installation of Windows Vista or of Windows 7.

Simply download Microsoft Fix it 50582 and run it. It will restore your personal files for you!

Now clean Cycobot(svchost.exe) infections With Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool

You may have noticed Microsoft's Malicious Software Removal Tool in your list of available Windows Updates. Heck, you may even have seen it in your Add/Remove Programs and wondered where it came from. The MSRT can actually be quite useful, and it's a fast, simple way to remove a number of common malware infections.

In an update pushed yesterday, Microsoft added Cycobot to the list of malware that MSRT can remove. It's a nasty little backdoor Trojan, and one I've seen on plenty of the systems I spend my days repairing. The full list of malware (more than 120 types) which the tool can remove is available on this page.

MSRT is a good little tool to add to your security arsenal, but a multi-app attack is always best.

Download Microsoft's Malicious Software Removal Tool 

Internet Explorer 9 Pinned site actions now available on Chrome extension

One of the ways Internet Explorer 9 seeks to "bring the Web to your desktop" is by allowing sites to be pinned to your taskbar, and use jump lists to quickly and directly access specific parts of a website. A handful of big-name sites already offer Windows 7 integration, including Facebook, Twitter, CNN, Flixster, and IMDb.

Microsoft has also shared how this works (and Scott Hanselman has posted an excellent how-to article), so it's possible for other browser makers to implement, too. If you're a Google Chrome user, in fact, you can install an extension (developed by an independent programmer) which adds jump list actions to a drop-down menu on the Omnibar!

Unsurprisingly called IE9 Jump List Tasks, the extension adds a green arrow to the Omnibar whenever you visit a supported site. If jump list actions are detected, clicking the arrow will display a menu like the one you see above. It's not quite as cool as being able to poke your taskbar icons, but it is a neat display of how the feature can be utilized in non-IE browsers. The extension also didn't work for me on all the sites I tried -- Twitter and Facebook lists weren't detected -- but it was still cool to see it pop up elsewhere, like on IMDb and Flixster.