Tip 61: More Power To You !!!

Microsoft has re-released PowerToys on April 24, 2002. Microsoft didn’t add any new tools. On the contrary, it removed a few, such as the Super-Fast Users Switcher and the ISO Recorder.
Fortunately ISO Recorder is being made available by the genius behind the program, Alex Feinman.

The MS supplied PowerToys now consists of:

  • Open Command Window Here - a context menu option to start a command window (cmd.exe) from a selected directory within Windows Explorer
  • Alt-Tab Replacement - really neat replacement for the standard Alt-Tab functionality with a graphical view of each selectable application
  • Tweak UI - lets you adjust system settings that aren’t exposed in the XP interface
  • Power Calculator - provides an enhanced calculator with graph and evaluate functions
  • Image Resizer - adds a context menu option to resize individual or multiple images
  • CD Slide Show Generator - lets you view images on a CD-ROM as a slide show
  • Virtual Desktop Manager - lets you manage up to four virtual desktops from the taskbar
  • Taskbar Magnifier - magnifies part of the screen from the taskbar
  • HTML Slide Show Wizard - helps you create an HTML slide show of your pictures
  • Webcam Timershot - takes pictures from a Webcam at a specified time and saves the images to a designated location
Each PowerToy is now a separate download (ranging in size from 500KB to 800KB) that you can add to your system using an installation wizard. To install each PowerToy, simply execute the downloaded file. You can download the PowerToys from the Microsoft Web site.

ISO Recorder Power Toy is a UI component that allows to use CD-Recording capabilities of Windows XP® to record ISO images and copy CD to CD ? a piece of functionality missing in Windows XP®
The ISO Recorder itself does not record CDs but instead uses existing OS features. Some of the interfaces it uses are not fully documented by Microsoft and as such are subject to change in the future.
This software yyworks on Windows XP only. It was tested with retail build of Windows XP (Home and Professional)

Does this software copy protected disks?
The answer is ? no. It won’t make an exact copy of the protected disk, nor will it copy Audio or Video CDs yet.
Audio, Video and Multi-session CD support is planned. Check Alexs’ site from time to time. In the meantime you could use something like CloneCD from Elaborate Bytes ? it’s a great program with a lot of features.