How to repair Windows 7 not booting after motherboard replacement with different chipset

Computers need upgrades, and upgrades involve motherboards, and motherboards have chipsets, and chipsets require drivers, which drivers are chipset dependent. And computers also fail, requiring replacing parts. Upgrading or replacing a motherboard with different chipset in Windows Xp used to be both complicated and simple at the same time, requiring the well known repair install. But then Vista and later 7 were released and the repair install was no more.

Fortunately, there is still a way to keep your Windows 7 (and probably Vista, 8, 8.1 and perhaps even the upcoming 10) after switching to a motherboard with different chipset (and driver).

Bluetooth peripheral device no driver installed/available

One may randomly encounter a Windows installation where some bluetooth devices don’t get their drivers installed despite having installed all of the manufacturer’s drivers.

In such cases, one may end up with one or several non-functioning “Bluetooth Peripheral Device”. To solve this, start by downloading and installing Windows Mobile Device Center 6.1…

Connect to a VPN server in Windows and Android

A VPN connection is still mostly regarded as “business solution”, only useful to connecting employees to the company network. But this is no longer true nowadays.

VPNs can be very useful in protecting the integrity and security of data transfers, no matter who the two communicating parties are. To learn how to set up a connection and connect to a VPN server…

Gaining ownership of protected files in Windows 7

Since Vista, Microsoft implemented a more serious protection system concerning core operating system files.

Because of this, replacing, editing, deleting or making any changes to protected files is a tedious task, requiring the additional step of obtaining the appropriate rights and permissions on the files first.

Low framerate with Aero/Flash on ATI/AMD Radeon in Windows 7

At random times, especially after a long computer uptime (over 2 weeks), all windows animations and especially any Flash-based video player would become sluggish and render at about 10-15FPS.

This happens independent of where using the computer or letting it idle while it is running. The solution…

“Now playing” Windows 7 gadget mod

One of the gadgets I started using recently is the “Now Playing” gadget.

One issue I noticed though is its inability to display the trackname for tracks which lack the ID3 tag. The widget would just switch to its “Play a file in Winamp” message. So after a bit of tinkering, I managed to get it to use the track filename and display that instead…