Windows 7 Tips and Tricks
Windows
7 will be released to the world on October 22, 2009!
Building on top of the Windows Vista foundation, Windows 7
adds a great deal of polish and refinement to both the user
interface and the underlying architecture.
It also introduces many new features and improvements that support new hardware, give power users and casual users alike better tools to manage their digital lives and enable new classes of application experience.
Right now, though, we will be focusing on compiling the best
tips and tricks used to manipulate Windows 7.
These are the things that are too small to appear in any
marketing document as “features”, but that you quickly miss
when you switch to an older version of Windows.
Some would argue that Windows 7 abstracts functionality to
make Windows easy for casual users, but a great deal of
effort has been put into this release to satisfy power
users.
This list has been compiled from a plethora of resources on
the web.
If you’ve downloaded and installed Windows 7, you’ll enjoy
this list.
Enjoy!
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PC Safeguard |
| The
PC Safeguard doesn’t let anyone mess your PC
settings, because after the user logs off, the
configurations are reset back to normal.
Of course it will
not restore the configurations changed by you,
but only the ones done by other users you
define. Then you can stay relaxed when others use your computer, because you won’t find anything changed, including configurations, downloaded software, installed programs. |
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Screen Calibration |
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Fortunately, Windows 7 comes with a display
calibration wizard that lets you set up the
screen brightness properly, so you won’t have
any problems viewing photos or text.
The problem was that on one PC a photo could look sharp and bright and on another it looks awful. Now the problem can be fixed by pressing the Win key and then typing “DCCW”. |
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AppLocker |
| If
you are usually sharing your computer with
someone else, then you might want to restrict
their access to your applications, files or
documents. Using the AppLocker tool, you have a few options to do this by blocking other users to access Executables, Windows Installers, Scripts, a specific publisher or path. You can simply do this by pressing the Windows key then typing Gpedit.msc. Then go to Computer Navigation -> Windows Settings -> Security Settings -> Application Control Policies -> AppLocker. Right click on one of the options ( Executables, Installers, or Script ) and create a new rule. That should save you from a lot of headaches. |
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Burn Images |
| We
all had trouble with image burning in Windows,
because it couldn’t do it itself, a standalone
software being needed.
With Windows 7 this will not be a problem anymore. All you have to do is double-click the ISO image and burn it on the CD or DVD that’s inserted in the drive. |
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Display Empty Removable Drives |
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Windows 7 will not show empty drives by default,
so if you connect an empty drive to your PC,
don’t worry, just go to Tools -> Folder Options
-> View and uncheck “Hide empty drives in the
computer folder”. This doesn’t seem like a good idea and it should not be default setting, because it will be hard for inexperienced users to figure it out. I bet a lot of users will return their newly bought drive thinking it’s broken. |
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Dock The Current Windows To The Left Side Of The Screen |
| This
new feature seems useful because sometimes it’s
disturbing that windows seems to float like
crazy on the screen and it’s hard to attach them
to one side of it. Now this can easily be done using a keyboard shortcut. Press the Windows key + Left key to dock it to the left side of the screen. |
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Dock The Current Windows To The Right Side Of The Screen |
| Press the Windows key + Right key to dock it to the right side of the screen. | |
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Display Or Hide The Explorer Preview Panel |
| Press ALT + P to hide it then once again to display it. | |
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Display Gadgets On Top Of Other Windows |
| Press ALT + G | |
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Background Photo Slideshow |
| You
will want to change the background from time to
time, wasting a lot of time.
Now you don’t have to do this anymore, because you can set up a slideshow. Right click on the desktop then go to Personalize -> Desktop Background and hold the CTRL key while choosing the images. Then you can choose the time intervals between images and opt to display them randomly or in a row. |
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Make The Taskbar Smaller |
| If
you feel like the taskbar is using too much of
your screen space, you can choose to make the
icons smaller.
To do this, right-click on the Start button, then go to Properties-> Taskbar and set it to “Use small icons” |
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Combine Taskbar Icons |
| When
you have more windows or applications opened,
the taskbar’s space might not be enough for them
all, so you need to combine them, just like you
would in Windows XP or Vista.
To do this, right-click the Start button, then go to Properties -> Taskbar and check “Combine when taskbar is full”. |
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Multi-threaded File Copy |
| If
you are a more advanced user, you’ve heard
already about Robocopy. Now it’s included in
Windows 7 and lets you perform multi-threaded
copies from the command line.
You can choose the number of threads like this “/MT[:n], which can be from 1 to 128. |
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Maximize Or Restore The Foreground Window |
| Press Windows Key + Up Key. | |
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Minimize The Active Window |
| Press Windows Key + Down Key | |
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Activate The Quick Launch Toolbar |
| The
Quick Launch Toolbar in Windows XP in Vista
seems a very good idea that you might miss when
using Windows 7. Fortunately though, you can get
it back in a quick few steps.
Right click the taskbar, go to Toolbar -> New Toolbar and type “%UserProfile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch” into the folder box, then click Select Folder. To make it look like it would in Windows Vista, right click the taskbar, uncheck “Lock the Taskbar”, then right click the divider and uncheck “Show Title” and “Show Text”. Then right click the taskbar and check “Show Small Icons” and you should be done. |
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Preview Photos In Windows Explorer |
| While in Windows Explorer, Press ALT + P and a preview should appear on the right. | |
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Desktop Magnifier |
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Press the Windows Key and the Plus Key to zoom
in or Windows Key and the Minus Key to zoom out.
You can zoom anywhere on the desktop and you can
even configure your magnifier.
You can choose to invert colors, follow the mouse pointer, follow the keyboard focus, or the text insertion point. |
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Minimize Everything Except The Current Window |
| Press the Windows Key + Home Key. | |
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Troubleshoot Power Management |
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Windows 7 can tell you how much power your
system uses or provide detailed information
about the power usage and issues caused by each
application and device.
This way you can optimize the way your battery is used, making It last longer. Press the Windows Key and type “POWERCFG –ENERGY –OUTPUT <path\filename>”, and it will create a file called energy-report.html in the folder specified by you, after observing your PC for 60 seconds. |
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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