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A Fistful of Windows 7 Tips
We've been highlighting Windows 7 tips each week in
our Tips section but we thought we would devote our feature to an entire
list of useful Win 7 tips.
General Tips
Let's start with a few nifty tips that can make your
desktop more interesting, make it easier to get around and increase your
computer's power efficiency.
Use Hidden International
Wallpapers and Themes
When you first install Windows 7, it asks for your language, time and
currency. Based on your responses, it installs a set of wallpapers and
themes. If you choose English for your time and currency format,
for example, the available
desktop backgrounds and themes will include a US section with
scenery from familiar locations around the country.
Hidden, though, are
background scenery and themes from other English-speaking countries -
Australia, Canada, the UK and South Africa. Normally, you can't access
those backgrounds or themes, but there is a simple way you can install
and us them. In the search box in the Start menu, type
C:\Windows\Globalization\MCT and press Enter. (Note: If Windows 7 is
installed in a drive other than C:, use that letter instead). Windows
Explorer will launch and show you a list of subfolders under
C:\Windows\Globalization\MCT: MCT-AU, MCT-CA, MCT-GB, MCT-US, and MCT-ZA.
Each subfolder has wallpapers for a specific country: AU for Australia,
CA for Canada, GB for Great Britain, US for the United States, and ZA
for South Africa. For any of the countries whose wallpaper and themes
you want to use, go into its Theme folder, for example,
C:\Windows \Globalization\MCT\MCT-ZA\Theme. Double-click the theme you
see there. That will install a shortcut to the theme and wallpapers in
the Personalization section of Control Panel. You can now use them as
you would any other theme or background, by right-clicking the desktop,
choosing Personalize, and choosing a background or theme. They will be
listed in their own section.
Shake Your Desktop Free of
Clutter
If you frequently run multiple programs
simultaneously, your desktop can get extremely cluttered. With Windows
7's 'shake' feature, though, you can minimize every window except the
one in which you're currently working - in a single step. Click
and hold the title bar of the window you want to keep on the desktop;
while still holding the title bar, shake it quickly back and forth until
all of the other windows minimize to the taskbar. Then let go. To make
them return, shake the title bar again. You can accomplish the same
thing by pressing the Window key-Home key combination - although doing
that is not nearly as much fun.
Get a Power Efficiency Report
Have a laptop and want to get more battery life out
of it? Windows 7 includes a hidden built-in tool that will examine your
laptop's energy use and make recommendations on how to improve it. To
use it run a command prompt as an administrator.
-
To do this, type cmd in the
search box,
and when the cmd icon appears, right-click it and
choose Run as administrator.
-
At the command line, type in the following:
powercfg -energy -output \Folder\Energy_Report.html ( \Folder
should represents the folder where you want the report to be
placed).
-
For about a minute, Windows 7 will examine the
behavior of your laptop. It will then analyze it and create a report
in HTML format in the folder you specify.
-
Double-click the file, and you'll get a report -
follow its recommendations for ways to improve power performance.
Modify UAC
The User Account Control
security feature was one of the most reviled
additions to Windows Vista, with good reason - its constant warning
messages asking for permission to continue many operations drove users
around the bend. UAC has been significantly improved in
Windows 7 so that it's not as intrusive as in Vista, but you can
still tweak it if you like. Here's how to turn UAC on or off, and make
it less or more intrusive than the default:
-
Go to the Control Panel >
User Accounts and Family Safety.
-
Click User Accounts, then
click Change User Account Control settings.
-
From the screen that
appears, use the slider to select the level of
protection you want.
Here are the four levels and what they mean:
Always
Notify Me -Think of
this as UAC Classic. It works
like Vista's UAC: When you make
changes to your system, when
software is installed or
when a program tries to make a
change to your system, an
annoying prompt appears.
Default
- Notify me only when programs
try to make changes to my
computer This is, obviously, the
default; make a change yourself
and UAC leaves you alone.
Notify
Me Only When Programs try to
make changes to my computer (do
not dim my desktop)
This setting is identical to the
default setting, with one
difference. It won't dim your
desktop so that you only see the
UAC prompt asking you to take
action. This presents a slightly
elevated security risk over the
default setting, because
theoretically a program could
allow a malicious program to
interfere with the UAC prompt.
Never Notify
Me When
In this one,
UAC is
completely
turned off.
This is, of
course, an
insecure
option and
not
recommended
for most
users.
After you
make the
selection,
click OK.
Depending on
the
selection
you made,
you may need
to restart
your system
for it to
take effect.
Start Menu
Tips
Many people
overlook the
Start Menu,
rarely using
it except as
a jumping
off point to
run an
application
or get to
the Control
Panel. But
there's
actually
plenty you
can do with
it.
Search the
Internet
From the
Start Menu
The
Start Menu's
search box
is a
convenient
way to
search
through your
PC - but you
can also
have it do
double-duty
and perform
internet
searches as
well. To
enable this
feature:
-
In the
Start
Menu
search
box,
type
GPEDIT.MSC
and
press
Enter
to run
the
Group
Policy
Editor.
-
Go to
User
Configuration
>
Administrative
Templates
> Start
Menu
and
Taskbar.
-
Double-click
Add
search
internet
link to
Start
Menu
and from
the
screen
that
appears,
select
Enabled.
Then
click
OK
and
close
the
Group
Policy
Editor.
From now on, when you type a search term in the Search box on the Start Menu, a Search the internet link will appear. Click the link to launch the search in your default browser with your default search engine.
Customize the Shut Down Button
The default action of the Start Menu's Shut down button is to turn off your PC. If you want to use the button for another action, such as restarting your PC, you click the arrow to the right of the Shut down button and select an action from the drop-down menu. What if you rarely shut your PC down completely but frequently restart it? You can change the Shut down button's default action to be Restart. Switch user, Log off, Lock, Sleep or Hibernate.
To change your default, right-click the Start button and select Properties. On the Start Menu tab, click the Power button action drop-down menu and select which action you want to be the default. Then click OK, and OK again.
Add a Videos Link to the Start Menu
The Windows 7 Start Menu includes links to your Pictures and Music folders, but not to your Videos folder. If you watch a lot of videos and want a link to them on your Start Menu, here's what you can do.
- Right-click the Start button and select Properties.
- On the screen that appears, go to the Start Menu tab and click Customize.
-
In the dialog box that appears, scroll to the bottom, look for the Videos section, select Display as a link, and click OK and then OK. If you'd prefer that Videos display as a menu, with links to files and submenus, instead select Display as a Menu.
Windows Explorer Tips Use Check Boxes to Select Multiple Files
In order to select multiple files for an operation such as copying, moving or deleting in Windows Explorer, you generally use the keyboard and the mouse, Ctrl-clicking every file you want to select. But if you're mouse-centric, there's a way to select multiple files in Windows 7 using only your mouse, via check boxes. To do it
- In Windows Explorer, click Organize, and then select Folder and search options.
- Click the View tab.
- In Advanced Settings, scroll down and check the box next to Use check boxes to select items. Click OK.
-
From now on, when you hover your mouse over a file in Windows Explorer, a check box will appear next to it; click it to select the file. Once a file is selected, the checked box remains next to it; if you uncheck it, the box will disappear when you move your mouse away.
Protect the Privacy of Your Explorer Searches
When you search through your PC from Windows Explorer, you can see the most recent searches that have been performed. If you share a PC and don't want others to see what you've searched for, you can turn off the recent searches feature:
- In the Start menu's Search box, type GPEDIT.MSC and press Enter to launch the Group Policy Editor.
- Go to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Explorer.
- Double-click Turn off display of recent search entries in the Windows Explorer search box and select Enabled from the screen that appears.
- Then click OK. The recent searches feature will now be turned off.
Set a New Windows Explorer Launch Folder
When you run Windows Explorer, it always opens to the Libraries folder. That's fine if you use Microsoft's default file organization, which designates Libraries as the overall container for your folders. But what if you don't? You might prefer to have Windows Explorer open to Computer or any other folder you choose. Here's how to do it:
- Right-click the Windows Explorer icon on the taskbar (it's the one that looks like a folder), and then right-click the Windows Explorer icon from the context menu that appears and select Properties. The Windows Explorer Properties dialog box appears.
- You'll have to edit the Target field on the Shortcut tab of this dialog box in order to change the default location at which Explorer opens.
-
If you want Explorer to open to a specific folder, simply enter the name of the folder, substituting your folder name for Folder, below, like this:
%windir%\explorer.exe c:\Folder
So to open Explorer to the folder named Budget, you would type this in the Target field: %windir%\explorer.exe c:\Budget
Rearrange Taskbar Icons
It's easy to rearrange the icons across the bottom of the screen - simply drag an icon to where you want it to live.You can also add icons to the taskbar by dragging them from an application, and delete the icons by highlighting them and pressing the Delete key.
These are but a few of the changes you can make to Windows 7 to enhance you computer experience. Look for tips each week as we explore this new operating system.
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