Windows 7 Tips and Tricks You Will Love

Ok, you’ve been hearing the buzz about Windows 7, and you want to give it a try. Let’s say you downloaded Windows 7 RC for free , installed it and are now sitting there wondering “Wait, so what’s so cool about this?”.
This is the blog entry for you, I've going to try and sum up every cool tip and trick for Windows 7 that i could find online (and from my own experience) and post it here for quick and easy consumption. So get ready to either memorize everything below, or just print the page out.

Aero Window Management Keyboard Shortcuts
Below is a list of the cooler keyboard shortcuts that you can now use in Windows 7 for quickly managing your windows.

◦Dragging any window against the LEFT, RIGHT or TOP edge of the screen will perform the following operation:
• LEFT: Anchor window against left side of screen, vertically maximize window and fill about half the screen horizontally
• RIGHT: Anchor window against right side of screen, vertically maximize window and fill about half the screen horizontally
• TOP: Maximize the window


◦ WINDOWS-KEY + LEFT/RIGHT: Dock the current focused window against the LEFT or RIGHT side of the screen, maximizing it vertically.

• Add SHIFT to the keystrokes above to send windows across multiple monitors to other desktops.

◦ WINDOWS-KEY + UP/DOWN: Maximize the current focused window to full screen (UP) or restore it’s original size (DOWN) or minimize it to the taskbar (DOWN again)

◦ WINDOWS-KEY + HOME: Hide all windows except the current focused window. Pressing the keystroke again will un-hide all the hidden windows. This is a convenience keystroke for visually decluttering your monitor.

◦ WINDOWS-KEY + SPACE: Momentarily make all windows transparent, allowing you to look at your desktop. Can we helpful if you are trying to double-check the name of something or possibly view a gadget.

◦ Hold CTRL while clicking on a taskbar icon that has multiple instances of the app open will cycle through all the windows of that same kind. For example, having 5 Firefox windows open, I can hold CTRL and keep clicking the Firefox taskbar icon, and each window will popup focused until I see the one I want.

◦ WINDOWS-KEY + T: This will focus the taskbar and allow you to use LEFT and RIGHT to cycle through the apps on the taskbar.

Tips, Tweaks and Launch Apps
Below is a list of some of the cooler tweaks or tips on using Windows 7 that you’ll love.

◦ Hold SHIFT + RIGHT-CLICK on any folder in Windows Explorer to show the advanced items in the context menu such as Open command prompt here:


◦ WINDOWS-KEY + 1/2/3/4/5: Will automatically launch 1-5 of the pinned icons from your Taskbar for you. For example, if Firefox is my first pinned icon on my taskbar, I can launch it with WINDOWS-KEY + 1.

◦ Hold CTRL + SHIFT + LEFT-CLICK to automatically launch an application in Administrative mode. No need to right-click > Run as Administrator anymore.

◦ Hold SHIFT + LEFT-CLICK on any application icon in the taskbar (pinned or unpinned) will start another instance of whatever app you clicked on.

• TIP: You can even just use a single MIDDLE-CLICK on the app to launch a second copy if your mouse has a 3rd middle mouse button.

◦ Adding NAS folders to Windows 7 Libraries. By default Windows 7 doesn’t support adding NAS folder locations to your Libraries, Chris Hunkele tells us that the reason for this limitation is that the remote host serving up the folders must be running the new Indexing Service — which most 3rd party NAS’s (like the ReadyNAS series) won’t be running. You can work around this issue two different ways:

1. If you are just trying to replace your My Music, My Videos, etc. folders with NAS-located folders, bring up the properties for those folders, go to the Locations tab, and “Move” the location from the current hard-drive location to your NAS location:


2. If you are trying to add additional folders to the libraries that are on your NAS, you can use this tip using mklink (sort of like Unix’s symlinks) to link what Windows thought was a local dir, out to a NAS-located dir out from under it, allowing you to get NAS folders into your libraries.

Hidden Cool Apps
“Hidden” in the sense that there are not Start Menu shortcuts for these apps, and the jobs they performance are pretty slick.

◦ Problem Steps Recorder (psr.exe): A
troubleshooting tool that will record mouse movement, keyboard input and screenshot
every changed screen of a workflow and when done (”Stop Recording” is pressed), will
ZIP everything up with screenshots into a nice ZIP file that can be shared with a
technician.

• TIP: For any software companies out there,
you can use this to make capturing
documentation flows a lot easier!

◦ Display Color Calibration (dccw.exe): Used
to tweak the color and display calibration of your monitor. I found this wizard to
be designed in a sub-optimal way, showing you the “target” display examples on one
page, and then asking you to adjust your settings for “optimal viewing” on the next
page — where the example of what you wanted was no longer visible. I can’t say I saw
a huge improvement with this.

◦ ClearType Text Tuner (cctune.exe): Used to
tweak the hinting and way ClearType
text is displayed on your LCD monitor. I didn’t end up needing this, but if you have
a problem with how text is displaying, this can help.

◦ Burn Disc Image (ISO burning support): You
can double-click on any .ISO file now
and be prompted with an application to burn it to a disc:


. Windows Movie Maker: You’ll notice in Windows 7 RC, Windows Movie Maker is
missing. It’s now part of the Windows Life Essentials package and is currently being
reworked inside Microsoft for inclusion in Windows 7 final release. In the mean time
you will have to make due with Windows Movie Maker 2.6:

Top 10 Things to Look Forward to in Windows 7

While the next iteration of the ubiquitous Microsoft desktop operating system, Windows 7, isn't a dramatic overhaul of its predecessor Windows Vista, it does fix several sore spots and add a few welcome features. Rumor has it that Windows 7 will drop in the middle of next year, but last month Microsoft released a "preview" tester build of Windows 7. After living in the Windows 7 Preview for a week now, several features and niceties jumped out at me which promise to make Windows a better place to work come 2009. Let's take a look.

Note: The Windows 7 Preview is a pre-beta release, which means it's not even close to feature-complete. Chances are good that later releases will add or take away features listed below (though most likely later releases will grow these seeds and add a few more goodies).

Second note: Surely Windows 7 includes stability and performance improvements under the hood with highly technical explanations that would make operating system coders very happy. However, this list is purely from my experience as a regular user, living and working with Windows 7 for about five days.

Here are just a few of the things to look forward to in Windows 7.

1. You can do MUCH more from the Windows 7 taskbar
Most people live with the Windows taskbar visible on their desktop at all times, so the more use you can get out of the real estate it hogs, the better. Windows 7's taskbar is greatly improved in two ways. First, you can pin programs to it indefinitely for easy quick launch, similar to RocketDock or the Mac OS X dock. Second, on a crowded desktop covered with windows, using the new "Aero Peek" feature, you can preview individual windows from grouped taskbar apps, and even close documents from the thumbnails themselves. This doesn't sound like a big deal in theory, but in practice when you've got two monitors and a dozen windows open from four apps, Peek comes in way handy. Here's a screencast of Peek in action. (Note: The Windows 7 Preview's version of Peek is yet incomplete; this is just the beginning of what you'll be able to do with it.)



There's also a permanent "Show Desktop" button on the far right of the taskbar which both clears the Desktop of all windows (instant Boss button!) and restores them right to where they were in another click.

As you can see, Windows 7 is a big pile of small improvements over Vista that amount to a lot in aggregate. As such, ordering this list was difficult, since there isn't an obvious, stand-out, "here's why you'd definitely upgrade to Windows 7" feature. It's simply better in many little ways.

2. Windows 7 starts up faster
Scheduling your morning coffee run for the time between the moment you hit the power button on your PC and actually start working sucks. Windows Vista is sloooooow when it comes to starting up and getting you to your desktop; but even the Preview tester release of Windows 7 shows 20% faster boot times than Vista.

3. You can instantly snap your windows to size, and clear the desktop in one motion
As widescreen monitors become more common, easier side-by-side window management is key—and Windows 7 builds that in. While not as configurable as a third-party program like GridMove, Windows 7 offers the ability to snap a window to half your screen size simply by dragging it to the left or right of the screen. Here's what it looks like when you do so—let go of your mouse button and that Lifehacker browser window would snap that half-screen-sized glass overlay you see behind it.


Along similar lines, the new "Aero Shake" feature lets you clear the desktop of all background windows by grabbing the top bar of the active window and moving it back and forth quickly. Here's a screencast of the shake in action.



4. Libraries group similar content; Homegroups to make sharing libraries easier
Windows networking is a pain in the ass, but Windows 7 is out to fix that with two things: content Libraries and Homegroups. Libraries are a way to group similar types of files even if they live in different folders. For instance, your Video library could include your TV folder, Movies folder, DVD Rips folder, and your Home Movies folder. Then, you can create a Homegroup (basically a reworking of Windows' existing Workgroups), that makes sharing those libraries between PCs easier. Since I don't have two Windows 7 boxes available, I wasn't able to test how much easier sharing files was between the machines; however, the whole file-sharing layout and UI looks significantly more intuitive for regular Jolenes who just want to view the photos stored on the office computer in the living room.



5. You get more control of User Account Control
The single biggest complaint about Windows Vista was its User Account Control's incessant, nagging, pop-up dialogs that would ask you if you were ABSOLUTELY SURE you wanted to do the thing you just told the computer to do. In the name of security, Vista would even check if this STRANGE and SCARY program called Notepad was ok to run:


While legions of Vista users would sacrifice the well-intentioned security that User Account Control offered by turning it off completely just to get their sanity back, in Windows 7 you can fine-tune the level of nags, warnings, and confirmation prompts you get.

Click the thumbnail to see the UAC fine-tuner slider built into Windows 7.




6. You can decide what you do and don't want to see in the system tray
No more registry-editing to blanket-disable balloon notifications in your system tray! Windows 7 lets you set what icons and notifications you see in your tray with a detailed dialog box. Just right-click the system tray and choose "Customize..." in the menu.

Click the thumbnail to enlarge:




7. You can switch between Wi-Fi networks in one click from the system tray
File this under "a small change can make a huge difference": Click on the Wi-Fi adapter in your system tray to pop up a menu of available wireless networks. From there you can refresh the list, and choose the one you want to connect to in one click. Another boon for roaming notebook users.



8. Windows 7 will run longer on your notebook's battery power
While I'm running the Windows 7 Preview on a plugged-in desktop computer, notebook owners will be thrilled to know that Windows 7 promises to run more efficiently and thus longer on battery.

9. Calculator, WordPad, and Paint got overhauled
It sucks that Windows 7 is stripping the built-in Photo Gallery and movie-making software that you'll find in Vista (even the Windows Calendar is nowhere to be found in the 7 Preview), but a few of their built-in stalwarts did get some attention. WordPad and Paint both got the Office 2007 ribbon installed, and Calculator now incorporates real world uses into it. At this point only masochists still use Paint and WordPad, but the extension of the ribbon to those inconsequential programs may be a harbinger for more upgrades and ribbon appearances in the future.



10. Ding-dong, the Sidebar is dead
One of the first things I hunted down and killed in Windows Vista was the Sidebar, which loaded by default and docked Vista's Gadgets to the right side of your desktop. In Windows 7, the sidebar is no more, and gadgets, should you want them, can roam free across the desktop. This time around, the gadgets feel less distracting to me—the CPU meter and calendar gadgets are my favorites, though this screenshot shows many more.


If you Like it then post a comment,

Windows 7's Best Underhyped Features

We've run down the top 10 Windows 7 features and the best new features in the RC, but after using Windows 7 exclusively for a week straight, the real goods are in the small stuff.

While you've no doubt seen a few of these features mentioned before, most of the items below have received the least attention from Windows 7 previews. It's these less sexy, but very useful features, that make me think the more I use Windows 7, the less chance I'll ever use Vista or XP again.

Libraries Make File Management Easy

Windows 7's Libraries are a huge leap ahead of file management in previous versions of Windows—rather than dealing solely in files and directories, they are a virtual location that can aggregate the content from multiple places at once.

Like most Lifehacker readers, I'm using Dropbox to sync my files across multiple computers—including a subset of my music collection. Rather than trying to use hacks to sync directories outside my DropBox folder or dropping to the command-line to create some symlinks, it was as simple as adding my Dropbox music collection folder to the Music library.




Once you've added your folders to a library, they will show up anywhere you navigate to that library, including the common file Open/Save dialogs—makes dealing with complicated folders a thing of the past.




Jump Lists Add Quick Access to Common Features

Windows 7 replaces the taskbar context menu with a useful list of frequently used documents, tasks, and even allows you to pin documents or shortcuts to the menu. You can access this by right-clicking on the taskbar button, or you can hold down the left mouse button and "drag" the mouse pointer up—an easy motion for touchscreen displays.

Want to quickly access Internet Explorer's Private browsing mode? Simply right-click on the icon and you can launch a new private window—you can create a shortcut for private browsing in earlier versions of Windows, but it's not quite the same.

Want to access a few websites quickly? Just drag the icon from the address bar down to the taskbar icon to pin it to the top of the Jump List—now you can get to those websites in a flash, whether Firefox is open at the moment or not.



Put the Taskbar Back to Vista/XP Style

If you simply can't get used to the new Windows 7 taskbar, Microsoft was (thankfully) smart enough to let you change everything back to what you were used to in previous versions of Windows.

Just head over to Taskbar and Start Menu properties, choose to use small icons, never combine, and then un-pin the applications from the taskbar—though you may want to try using the "Combine only when taskbar is full" option to get the best of both worlds.

If you're the screenshot tour type of person, You've get a full walk-through tutorial to changing the taskbar to work more like Windows XP or Vista, and to complete the picture you can also add the quick launch bar back to the taskbar in Windows 7.

Run Apps as Another User

If your favorite application doesn't support multiple profiles, you can often mimic this functionality by running the application as another user. In previous versions of Windows this wasn't quite as simple—now you can just right-click on any application while holding down the Shift key and choose to run it as another user.

Hidden Items on the Send To Menu
Most Lifehacker readers probably know how to customize the Send To menu—just type in shell:sendto into the address bar, and add or delete shortcuts from the list. But Windows 7 makes it easier with a bunch of secret items on the Send To menu.

If you hold down the Shift key while right-clicking on a file or folder, you'll see a whole list of extra items that are normally hidden. The extra menu items are simply the list of directories under your user folder, but it's a useful feature that makes you want to start using the shift key every time you right-click just to see what comes up!



Automatic Desktop Wallpaper Shuffling

Let me start by saying that I've never been a big fan of rotating wallpaper—in fact, I use the same background image so often that there are constant requests for the awesome Mario World wallpaper from my screenshots.

Windows 7's simple, easy, and awesome wallpaper shuffling has won me over. I'm officially a convert. Not only does Windows 7 include a ton of absolutely killer wallpaper images, but you can select more than one at a time with the checkboxes (or holding the Ctrl key) and then choose to rotate them every so many minutes.

The fun doesn't stop there, however—you can right-click on the desktop any time you want to skip to the next desktop background image. Since the default Windows 7 theme uses a ton of transparency, your whole desktop theme will appear to change to fit the new color scheme—it's beautiful.



User Account Control is Streamlined, Less Annoying

Without question, the biggest complaint on Windows Vista is the completely annoying UAC prompts that were even ridiculed in Apple commercials—so irritating, in fact, that I've written multiple articles on making UAC less annoying—from disabling it entirely to creating administrator mode shortcuts that bypass the prompts.

That's changed significantly in Windows 7, however—common (geeky) operations like copying system files only require a single prompt, and the whole system has been streamlined a great deal to be less annoying. If you're still getting too many prompts, you can simply type "uac" into the start menu search box, and then drag the slider down (though you should be warned you are decreasing security).


What about you? Has Windows 7's uber-slick interface won you over? What features really stand out for you? Tell us in the comments.

20 things you didn't know about Windows XP

You've read the reviews and digested the key feature enhancements and operational changes. Now it's time to delve a bit deeper and uncover some of Windows XP's secrets.

1. It boasts how long it can stay up. Whereas previous versions of Windows were coy about how long they went between boots, XP is positively proud of its stamina. Go to the Command Prompt in the Accessories menu from the All Programs start button option, and then type 'systeminfo'. The computer will produce a lot of useful info, including the uptime. If you want to keep these, type 'systeminfo > info.txt'. This creates a file called info.txt you can look at later with Notepad. (Professional Edition only).

2. You can delete files immediately, without having them move to the Recycle Bin first. Go to the Start menu, select Run... and type 'gpedit.msc'; then select User Configuration, Administrative Templates, Windows Components, Windows Explorer and find the Do not move deleted files to the Recycle Bin setting. Set it. Poking around in gpedit will reveal a great many interface and system options, but take care -- some may stop your computer behaving as you wish. (Professional Edition only).

3. You can lock your XP workstation with two clicks of the mouse. Create a new shortcut on your desktop using a right mouse click, and enter 'rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation' in the location field. Give the shortcut a name you like. That's it -- just double click on it and your computer will be locked. And if that's not easy enough, Windows key + L will do the same.

4. XP hides some system software you might want to remove, such as Windows Messenger, but you can tickle it and make it disgorge everything. Using Notepad or Edit, edit the text file /windows/inf/sysoc.inf, search for the word 'hide' and remove it. You can then go to the Add or Remove Programs in the Control Panel, select Add/Remove Windows Components and there will be your prey, exposed and vulnerable.

5. For those skilled in the art of DOS batch files, XP has a number of interesting new commands. These include 'eventcreate' and 'eventtriggers' for creating and watching system events, 'typeperf' for monitoring performance of various subsystems, and 'schtasks' for handling scheduled tasks. As usual, typing the command name followed by /? will give a list of options -- they're all far too baroque to go into here.

6. XP has IP version 6 support -- the next generation of IP. Unfortunately this is more than your ISP has, so you can only experiment with this on your LAN. Type 'ipv6 install' into Run... (it's OK, it won't ruin your existing network setup) and then 'ipv6 /?' at the command line to find out more. If you don't know what IPv6 is, don't worry and don't bother.

7. You can at last get rid of tasks on the computer from the command line by using 'taskkill /pid' and the task number, or just 'tskill' and the process number. Find that out by typing 'tasklist', which will also tell you a lot about what's going on in your system.

8. XP will treat Zip files like folders, which is nice if you've got a fast machine. On slower machines, you can make XP leave zip files well alone by typing 'regsvr32 /u zipfldr.dll' at the command line. If you change your mind later, you can put things back as they were by typing 'regsvr32 zipfldr.dll'.

9. XP has ClearType -- Microsoft's anti-aliasing font display technology -- but doesn't have it enabled by default. It's well worth trying, especially if you were there for DOS and all those years of staring at a screen have given you the eyes of an astigmatic bat. To enable ClearType, right click on the desktop, select Properties, Appearance, Effects, select ClearType from the second drop-down menu and enable the selection. Expect best results on laptop displays. If you want to use ClearType on the Welcome login screen as well, set the registry entry HKEY_USERS/.DEFAULT/Control Panel/Desktop/FontSmoothingType to 2.

10. You can use Remote Assistance to help a friend who's using network address translation (NAT) on a home network, but not automatically. Get your pal to email you a Remote Assistance invitation and edit the file. Under the RCTICKET attribute will be a NAT IP address, like 192.168.1.10. Replace this with your chum's real IP address -- they can find this out by going to www.whatismyip.com -- and get them to make sure that they've got port 3389 open on their firewall and forwarded to the errant computer.

11. You can run a program as a different user without logging out and back in again. Right click the icon, select Run As... and enter the user name and password you want to use. This only applies for that run. The trick is particularly useful if you need to have administrative permissions to install a program, which many require. Note that you can have some fun by running programs multiple times on the same system as different users, but this can have unforeseen effects.

12. Windows XP can be very insistent about you checking for auto updates, registering a Passport, using Windows Messenger and so on. After a while, the nagging goes away, but if you feel you might slip the bonds of sanity before that point, run Regedit, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/Explorer/Advanced and create a DWORD value called EnableBalloonTips with a value of 0.

13. You can start up without needing to enter a user name or password. Select Run... from the start menu and type 'control userpasswords2', which will open the user accounts application. On the Users tab, clear the box for Users Must Enter A User Name And Password To Use This Computer, and click on OK. An Automatically Log On dialog box will appear; enter the user name and password for the account you want to use.

14. Internet Explorer 6 will automatically delete temporary files, but only if you tell it to. Start the browser, select Tools / Internet Options... and Advanced, go down to the Security area and check the box to Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when browser is closed.

15. XP comes with a free Network Activity Light, just in case you can't see the LEDs twinkle on your network card. Right click on My Network Places on the desktop, then select Properties. Right click on the description for your LAN or dial-up connection, select Properties, then check the Show icon in notification area when connected box. You'll now see a tiny network icon on the right of your task bar that glimmers nicely during network traffic.

16. The Start Menu can be leisurely when it decides to appear, but you can speed things along by changing the registry entry HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Control Panel/Desktop/MenuShowDelay from the default 400 to something a little snappier. Like 0.

17. You can rename loads of files at once in Windows Explorer. Highlight a set of files in a window, then right click on one and rename it. All the other files will be renamed to that name, with individual numbers in brackets to distinguish them. Also, in a folder you can arrange icons in alphabetised groups by View, Arrange Icon By... Show In Groups.

18. Windows Media Player will display the cover art for albums as it plays the tracks -- if it found the picture on the Internet when you copied the tracks from the CD. If it didn't, or if you have lots of pre-WMP music files, you can put your own copy of the cover art in the same directory as the tracks. Just call it folder.jpg and Windows Media Player will pick it up and display it.

19. Windows key + Break brings up the System Properties dialogue box; Windows key + D brings up the desktop; Windows key + Tab moves through the taskbar buttons.

20. The next release of Windows XP, codenamed Longhorn, is due out late next year or early 2003 and won't be much to write home about. The next big release is codenamed Blackcomb and will be out in 2003/2004.

How Disable/Enable Windows XP Welcome Screen

How to Disable/Enable the Windows XP Welcome Screen
This article allows you to Enable or Disable that classical Windows XP Welcome Screen which welcomes the user with a sky-blue coloured screen, and a number of images, with the respective User Accounts.

Steps

1. Click on Start.

2. Click on Control Panel.

3. Double-click on User Accounts.

4. Click on "Change the way users log on or off".

5. Uncheck "Use the Welcome Screen".

6. Click on Apply Options.

7. Close the User Accounts window and the Control Panel.

8. The next time you reboot your computer, the classic login prompt will be used.

How To Hack XP Without Changing Password

How to Hack or Break Into a Windows XP Computer Without Changing Password

Ever forgotten a windows xp password? Well, now you can have the assurance of being able to access an account and reset the password without previously knowing the password. This works for any account with a windows xp computer that's not booted off a network.

Steps

1.Get physical access to the machine. Remember that it must have a CD or DVD drive.

2.Go to http://ebcd.pcministry.com/ and
download the disc ISO in the pro version.

3.Download the file and then burn the ISO onto a blank disc using an ISO writer or
CD burner such as nero or UltraISO. This creates the EBCD bootable disc. This also
has many other tools. You may do this on the target machine or on another machine.

4.After you have the disk, enter the bios of the target machine and make sure that
the first boot drive is the CD or DVD ROM. Chances are it already is.

5.Boot from the disk. It should automatically load the main screen, but if it asks
you to press any key to boot from the CD, do so.

6.After it has booted, choose option number 5, the password recovery. This will
guide you through a set of steps and instructions, and if you don't know
otherwise, just press enter and it will use the default options, which will work
just fine.

7.When you get to the list of users, choose the user whose password needs to be
reset. Follow the instructions that the program gives you, such as type in the
user name, and put the password in as the * key to just blank the password. This
is much more successful than changing the password through this program.

8.Once this is done, make sure that you write the changes to the hive and SAM files
(an option the program will ask you about upon exiting).

9.Reboot the computer and take the cd out before the computer boots from it again.

10.Log in as that user (it will have no password if you just blanked it).

11.You can now create a password for that user.

Win XP Won’t Completely Shutdown

- Goto Control Panel, then goto Power Options.
- Click on the APM Tab, then check the "Enable Advanced Power Management support."
- Shut down your PC. It should now successfully complete the Shut Down process.