Windows 7: Tips and Tricks - Page 6

New WordPad formats

Protect your data

Fortunately Windows 7 has the solution: encrypt your documents with an extension of Microsoft's BitLocker technology, and only someone with the password will be able to access it.

Right-click your USB flash drive, select Turn on BitLocker and follow the instructions to protect your private files.

Search everything

The problem? Searches can be much, much slower.

If you'd like to try it anyway, then launch Explorer, click Tools > Folder Options > View and check "Try to search the content of unknown file types".

Configure your favorite music

If this doesn't work then you can tweak how Media Centre decides what a
"favorite" tune is- click Tasks > Settings > Music > Favorite Music and configure the program to suit your needs.

Customize System Restore

Windows 7 won't back up your Registry, which means you'll squeeze more restore points and file backups into the available disk space.

System Restore is much less likely to get an unbootable PC working again, though, so use this trick at your own risk.

Run As

This isn't really a new feature - Windows XP had a Run As option that did the same thing - but Microsoft stripped it out of Vista, so it's good to see they've had a change of heart.

Search privacy

If you're sharing a PC and don't want everyone to see your searches, then launch GPEDIT.MSC, go to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Explorer, double-click "Turn off
display of recent search entries..." and click Enabled > OK.

Tweak PC volume

If this proves annoying (or maybe you'd like it to turn off other sounds altogether) then you can easily change the settings accordingly.

Just right-click the speaker icon in your taskbar, select Sounds > Communications, and tell Windows what you'd like it to do.

Find bottlenecks

Click Start, type RESMON and press [Enter] to launch the Resource Monitor, then click the CPU, Memory, Disk or Network tabs. Windows 7 will immediately show which processes are hogging the
most system resources.

The CPU view is particularly useful, and provides something like a more powerful version of Task Manager. If a program has locked up, for example, then right-click its name in the list and select Analyze Process.

Windows will then try to tell you why it's hanging - the program might be waiting for another process, perhaps - which could give you the information you need to fix the problem.

Faster program launches

It's much quicker to just hold down Shift and click on the program's icon (or middle-click it), and Windows 7 will start a new instance for you.

Speedy video access

Just right-click the Start orb, click Properties > Start Menu > Customize, and set the Videos option to "Display as a link".

If you've a TV tuner that works with Windows 7 then you'll appreciate the new option to display the Recorded TV folder on the Start menu, too.

Run web searches

To add Flickr support, say, visit I Started Something, click Download the Connector, choose the Open option and watch as it's downloaded (the file is tiny, it'll only take a moment).

A "Flickr Search" option will be added to your Searches folder, and you'll be able to search images from your desktop.

Schedule Media Centre downloads

Launch Media Centre, go to Tasks > Settings > General > Automatic Download Options, and set the download start and stop times that you'd like it to use.

Multi-threaded Robocopies

Our favourite, /MT, can improve speed by carrying out multi-threaded copies with the number of threads you specify (you can have up to 128, though that might be going a little too far).

Enter robocopy /? at a command line for the full details.

Really remove the sidebar

If you don't plan on ever using gadgets then you could delete the Sidebar Registry entry at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft
\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run, and recover a small amount of RAM.

That might be a little risky, though, as we're not quite sure what else the sidebar process does in Windows 7.

The safest approach is to disable it temporarily by launching MSCONFIG.EXE, clicking the Startup tab and clearing the box next to the Startup entry.

Now reboot and test Windows 7 for a day or two to confirm everything is still working, before finally deleting the sidebar Registry entry.

Load IE faster

Click Tools > Manage Add-ons, check the Load Time in the right-hand column, and you'll immediately see which browser extensions are slowing you down.

An Alt+Tab alternative

The solution? Hold down the Ctrl key while you click on the Explorer icon. Windows 7 will then cycle through the Explorer windows only, a much quicker way to locate the right one.

(And of course this works with any application that has multiple windows open.)

Block annoying alerts

If you no longer want to see warnings just because you've dared to turn off the Windows firewall, say, then click Control Panel > System and Security > Action Centre > Change Action Centre settings, clear the Network Firewall box and click OK.

Parallel defrags

The /h switch runs the defrag at a higher than normal priority, and the /u switch provides regular progress reports so you can see exactly what's going on. Enter the command

defrag /c /h /u /r

in a command window to speedily defrag a system with multiple drives, or enter defrag /? to view the new options for yourself.

Cut Out The Clutter

Simply hit Win+Home to minimize all the non-active background windows, keeping the window you’re using in its current position.

When you’re ready, simply press Win+Home again to restore the background windows to their original locations.

More Windows 7 Tips>>