Windows Live Essentials
Windows Live is the brand name for a set of services and applications offered by Microsoft. Broadly speaking, Windows Live is made of two parts: Windows Live Services and Windows Live Essentials. Windows Live Services refers to hosted applications/services that you can use over the Web. A good example of a Windows Live Services application is Hotmail; another example would be MySpace. Windows Live Essentials, on the other hand, refers to a suite of applications that users can download and install on their Windows computers. Examples are Messenger, Mail, and Photo Gallery. This section will focus on Windows Live Essentials.The Windows Live Essentials suite includes the following

Windows 7 Encrypting File System (NTFS Encryption)
As you have seen, BitLocker and BitLocker To Go encrypt the entire drive to protect the integrity of your filesystems. However, sometimes you may need to encrypt just selected files (or folders), not the entire drive. To do this, you can make use of the Encrypting File System, also known as the NTFS Encryption feature of Windows 7.NTFS Encryption is available only in Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate. To encrypt a file (or folder), right-click its icon and select Properties. In the General tab, click the Advanced... button. Check the “Encrypt contents to secure data” checkbox and click OK twice.You will be asked if you want to encrypt the entire fi

Windows 7 BitLocker Drive Encryption
In Windows Vista, you had the BitLocker Drive Encryption feature that allowed you to encrypt the content of entire volumes. In Windows 7, Microsoft has extended this feature to include removable hard disks and thumb drives. This new feature is known as BitLocker To Go.The encryption performed by BitLocker is transparent to the user—you will use the drive normally and Windows 7 will automatically encrypt the data on the fly when you write to the drive. Likewise, Windows will decrypt the data on the fly when you read from the drive.BitLockerThe BitLocker Drive Encryption feature in Windows 7 (also available in Windows Vista) allows you to enc

Windows 7 - The Credential Manager
Windows 7 includes a feature known as the Credential Manager to help users save their credentials to a vault. Although this is not a new feature, in this version it has the ability to back up and restore the vault. In the Credential Manager, all the credentials are stored in a secure location known as the Windows Vault.To use the Credential Manager, go to Control Panel->User Accounts and Family Safety->Credential Manager. There are three types of credentials you can store using Credential Manager:Windows credentialsStores the credentials of resources such as servers, printers, and the like.Certificate-based credentialsStores certificate-based

Windows 7 User Account Control
One of the most fiercely criticized features of Windows Vista is the User Account Control (UAC). Whenever a system-level change is made, Vista’s UAC displays a dialog box prompting the user to continue or stop. This happens regardless of whether it is a program that is making the changes or the user herself (even though she might be logged in as an administrator). And with the frequency that the UAC displays prompts, most users find it a nuisance rather than a useful security alert feature. Moreover, when the user ends up with too many UAC prompts, it actually defeats the purpose, as users simply give their permission without reading the prompts.In Windows Vista, Microsoft onl