 |
Set the time zone |
| System administrators will appreciate the new command line tzutil.exe utility, which lets you set a PC’s time zone from scripts. If you wanted to set a PC to Greenwich Mean Time, for instance, you’d use the commandtzutil /s “gmt standard time”The command “tzutil /g” displays the current time zone, “tzutil /l” lists all possible time zones, and “tzutil /?” displays details on how the command works. | |
|
Calibrate your screen |
| The colours you see on your screen will vary depending on your monitor, graphics cards settings, lighting and more, yet most people use the same default Windows colour profile. And that means a digital photo you think looks perfect might appear very poor to everybody else. Fortunately Windows 7 now provides a Display Colour Calibration Wizard that helps you properly set up your brightness, contrast and colour settings, and a ClearType tuner to ensure text is crisp and sharp. Click Start, type DCCW and press [Enter] to give it a try. | |
|
Right-click everything |
| At first glance Windows 7 bears a striking resemblance to Vista, but there’s an easy way to begin spotting the differences – just right-click things.Right-click an empty part of the desktop, for instance, and you’ll find a menu entry to set your screen resolution. No need to go browsing through the display settings any more.Right-click the Explorer icon on the taskbar for speedy access to common system folders: Documents, Pictures, the Windows folder, and more.And if you don’t plan on using Internet Explorer then you probably won’t want its icon permanently displayed on the taskbar.Right-click the icon, select ‘Unpin this program from the taskbar’, then go install Firefox, instead. | |
|
Desktop slideshow |
| Windows 7 comes with some very attractive new wallpapers, and it’s not always easy to decide which one you like the best. So why not let choose a few, and let Windows display them all in a desktop slideshow? Right-click an empty part of the desktop, select Personalise > Desktop Background, then hold down Ctrl as you click on the images you like. Choose how often you’d like the images to be changed (anything from daily to once every 10 seconds), select Shuffle if you’d like the backgrounds to appear in a random order, then click Save Changes and enjoy the show. | |
|
RSS-powered wallpaper |
| And if a slideshow based on your standard wallpaper isn’t enough, then you can always create a theme that extracts images from an RSS feed. This isn’t fully implemented in the beta yet, but Long Zheng has created a few sample themes to illustrate how it works. And Jamie Thompson takes this even further, with a theme that always displays the latest BBC news and weather on your desktop. | |
|
Recover screen space |
| The new Windows 7 taskbar acts as one big quick launch toolbar that can hold whatever program shortcuts you like (just right-click one and select Pin To Taskbar). And that’s fine, except it does consume a little more screen real estate than we’d like. Shrink it to a more manageable size by right-clicking the Start orb, then Properties > Taskbar > Use small icons > OK. | |
|
Restore the Quick Launch Toolbar |
| If you’re unhappy with the new taskbar, even after shrinking it, then it only takes a moment to restore the old Quick Launch Toolbar.Right-click the taskbar, choose Toolbars > New Toolbar, type “%UserProfile%AppDataRoamingMicrosoftInternet ExplorerQuick Launch” (less the quotes) into the Folder box and click Select Folder.Now right-click the taskbar, clear ‘Lock the taskbar’, and you should see the Quick Launch toolbar, probably to the right.Right-click its divider, clear Show Text and Show Title to minimise the space it takes up. Complete the job by right-clicking the bar and selecting View > Small Icons for the true retro look. | |
|
Custom power switch |
| By default, Windows 7 displays a plain text ‘Shut down’ button on the Start menu, but it only takes a moment to change this action to something else. If you reboot your PC a few times every day then that might make more sense as a default action: right-click the Start orb, select Properties and set the ‘Power boot action’ to ‘Restart’ to make it happen. | |
|
Auto arrange your desktop |
| If your Windows 7 desktop has icons scattered everywhere then you could right-click it and select View > Auto arrange, just as in Vista. But a simpler solution is just to press and hold down [F5], and Windows will automatically arrange its icons for you. | |
|
Disable smart window arrangement |
| Windows 7 features interesting new ways to intelligently arrange your windows, so that (for example) if you drag a window to the top of the screen then it will maximise. We like the new system, but if you find it distracting then it’s easily disabled. Run REGEDIT, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl PanelDesktop, set WindowArrangementActive to 0, reboot, and your windows will behave just as they always did. | |
|
Remove ‘Send Feedback’ |
| Microsoft has released Windows 7 to get feedback from the public, so it’s important to take advantage of that. If you don’t like something, or have a good idea, then click Send Feedback and tell them what’s on your mind. You really could make a difference. But once you’ve done all that then you might want to get rid of the Send Feedback links on your windows, and this is very easy to do. Just launch REGEDIT, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl PanelDesktop, set the FeedbackToolEnabled value to zero and restart your PC. (Set it to 3 if you’d like the Send Feedback links back again.) | |
|
Display your drives |
| Click Computer in Windows 7 and you might see a strange lack of drives, but don’t panic, it’s just Microsoft trying to be helpful: drives like memory card readers are no longer displayed if they’re empty. We think it’s an improvement, but if you disagree then it’s easy to get your empty drives back. Launch Explorer, click Tools > Folder Options > View and clear ‘Hide empty drives in the computer folder’. |
|
|
See more detail |
| The new and improved Windows 7 magnifier offers a much easier way to zoom in on any area of the screen. Launch it and you can now define a scale factor and docking position, and once activated it can track your keyboard focus around the screen. Press [Tab] as you move around a dialog box, say, and it’ll automatically zoom in on the currently active control. |
|
|
Protect your MP3 files |
| Along with many good new features, the Windows 7 beta also includes a nasty bug. Its version of Windows Media Player 12 will automatically add missing metadata, including album art, and this can overwrite the first few seconds of the file. Oops. Installing an update may fix this (see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961367) but it would probably be a very good idea to back up your MP3 files, too. | |
|
Customise UAC |
| Windows Vista’s User Account Control was a good idea in practice, but poor implementation put many people off – it raised far too many alerts.Fortunately Windows 7 displays less warnings by default, and lets you further fine-tune UAC to suit your preferred balance between security and a pop-up free life (Start > Control Panel > Change User Account Control Settings). | |
|
Use Sticky Notes |
| The Sticky Notes app is both simpler and more useful in Windows 7. Launch StikyNot.exe and you can type notes at the keyboard; right-click a note to change its colour; click the + sign on the note title bar to add another note; and click a note and press [Alt]+[4] to close the note windows (your notes will automatically be saved). | |
|
Open folder in new process |
| By default Windows 7 opens folders in the same process. This saves system resources, but means one folder crash can bring down the entire shell. If your system seems unstable, or you’re doing something in Explorer that regularly seems to causes crashes, then open Computer, hold down shift, right-click on your drive and select Open in New Process. The folder will now be launched in a separate process, and so a crash is less likely to affect anything else. | |
|
Watch more videos |
| Windows Media Player 12 is a powerful program, but it still won’t play all the audio and video files you’ll find online. Fortunately the first freeware Windows 7 Codecs package [shark007.net/win7codecs.html] has just been released, and installing it could get your troublesome multimedia files playing again. | |
|
Preview fonts |
| Open the Fonts window in Windows XP and Vista and you’ll see the font names, probably with icons to tell you whether they’re TrueType or OpenType, but that’s about it. Feeble, really, but Windows 7 sees some useful font-related improvement.Open the new fonts window and you’ll find a little preview for every font, giving you a quick idea of how they’re going to look.The tedium of scrolling through multiple entries for each family, like Times New Roman, Times New Roman Bold, Times New Roman Bold Italic and so on, has finally ended.There’s now just a single entry for each font (though you can still see all other members of the family).And there’s a new OpenType font, Gabriola, added to the mix.
It’s an attractive script font, well worth a try the next time you need a stylish document that stands out from the |
|
|
Restore your gadgets |
| Windows 7 has tightened up its security by refusing to run gadgets if UAC has been turned off, so limiting the damage malicious unsigned gadgets can do to your system. If you’ve disabled UAC, miss your gadgets and are happy to accept the security risk, though, there’s an easy Registry way to get everything back to normal. Run REGEDIT, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWARE MicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionSidebarSettings, create a new DWORD value called AllowElevatedProcess and set it to 1. Your gadgets should start working again right away. | |
Other Windows 7 tip resources
- Tim Sneath : The Bumper List of Windows 7 Secrets
- 50 seriously useful Windows 7 tips, tricks and secrets | News …
- 20 Windows 7 Tweaks & Tips Every Secret Uncovered to Date …
- Windows 7 try these features
- Windows 7 Tips and Tricks
- Gizmodo – Windows 7: The Complete Guide (Now With RC1!) – Windows …
- The Top Windows 7 Tips and Tricks List | Chris Pirillo
- 70 Windows tips
- Top 7 Windows 7 tips and tricks
- Windows 7 tips and tricks
Subscribe
to our Windows Newsletter. You'll receive the most comprehensive news
and updates about Microsoft's Windows 8 sent to your email inbox. In addition, I'll
send you my eBook "The Case for Windows 8 - Volume 1".
Sign up here
