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Useful Window 7 tips

At long last Microsoft has released a worthy successor to Windows XP. Vista was more or less a public relations disaster for them, so they listened to the criticisms and improved the new OS in many significant ways.

However, for XP users, accustomed to doing things a certain way, some things have changed; locations for certain things have been moved, arbitrarily sometimes, it seems, and users new to Windows 7 will need to get used to accessing certain things differently.

Here at Rose City Software we went through our own learning curve with Windows 7. We're pleased to report that Windows 7 is mostly a success... it's faster, smoother and more 'intelligent' than XP... that is to say it can do a number of things automatically, that XP couldn't do without third party software, or a lot of finagling within the millions of hidden dialogs in Windows.

Since we had a number of systems to upgrade, we documented these differences and the various tweaks and adjustments we needed to make. We have created this webpage to share them with our customers.

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How to eliminate multi OS boot menu (changed to 0 seconds:
Open the Control Panel (All Items view) and click on the System icon.
1. In the left blue pane, click on the Advanced system settings link.)
2. On the System window > Advanced tab, click on the Settings button under Startup and Recovery.
3. Under System Startup, select an operating system from the drop down menu to be the new default operating system, then click on OK.

RUN is no longer on start menu: use Win key + R to open the Run dialog
To run as Administrator, instead of hitting the Enter key, use Ctrl+Shift + Enter. You will be prompted with the obnoxious User Account Control dialog... but it will then open up a command prompt in Administrator mode.

You can modify Windows START MENU here:
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\
You can rightclick delete or rename in the menu itself but you cannot add/rename folders except in the location above:-)

To enable Autologon and bypass the password:

  • Press the Windows key + R on your keyboard to launch the "Run dialog box.
  • Type in control userpasswords2
  • Press Enter. The User Accounts window will display.
  • Uncheck the option "Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer"

Windows Live Messenger: To remove the confusing double image from icon in Windows Aero mode:
1.Exit Windows Live Messenger or MSN Messenger completely (Right click on WLM button/icon on Taskbar and select Exit).
2.Go to Start Menu, locate the Windows Live Messenger shortcut.
3.Right click on the Windows Live Messenger shortcut select Properties.
4.Go to Compatibility tab.
5.Tick the check box for Run this program in compatibility mode for under "Compatibility Mode", and then select Windows Vista from the drop down list.

To disable the extremely annoying momentary mouseover "show desktop" feature when the mouse is moved to the lower right corner of the screen or taskbar, rightclick on the stupid "show desktop" button and uncheck "peek at desktop". Now it will only "show desktop" when clicked rather than on a mouseover.

To uninstall software, 'add/remove programs' is now in Control Panel / Programs and Features

File types associations are now in Control Panel / Default Programs

To Create a System Restore point: rtclick 'Computer' > Properties > System Protection > 'Create' button at bottom
or
type "SystemPropertiesProtection.exe" in the search box
when it comes up you can rightclick and choose "pin to Start menu" - You can then rename it to "System Restore"
or simply
create shortcut to: C:\Windows\System32\SystemPropertiesProtection.exe

To create Image Backups (different than system restore): use Backup and Restore in Control Panel (we actually prefer Acronis True Image Family, which does a much better job than the Windows utility (like so many anemic Windows utilities). This is not a Rose City Software product but we use it regularly ourselves.

To defragment your harddrive type 'defrag' into the search box on the start menu to bring up Windows Disk Defragmenter. Here again, we prefer our own DiskMagik which is much faster, much more thorough, and has capabilities not offered by Windows including pro-active mode where your disk is maintained automatically in defragmented condition in the background. If you decide to try DiskMagik, you will want to turn off the scheduling for Windows disk defragmenter, enabled by default, by opening it and clicking on the "Configure schedule" button. Then simply uncheck the box to 'run on a schedule' at the top

CD and DVD burning - see this special set of instructions if you have no special CD/DVD software installed. A nice freeware option for burning and copying CD's is ImgBurn and its sister program DVD Decrypter for DVD's.

Open Device Manager in Windows 7 directly from the Control Panel (or use the "Computer" desktop icon, rightclick>properties) and choose Devide Manager from the left menu.

Network and Sharing center - to enable/disable network adapters (ethernet, wireless) open "Network and Sharing Center" from Control Panel and click on "change adapter stttings" at the left then right click on adapter and choose enable/disable

Personalization tips: You can now make all those changes to your desktop, screensaver and general appearance by rightclicking on your open desktop and choose "personalize":

  • Manage desktop images from desktop background (or choose solid color from "Picture location" drop down)
  • Display (bottom left menu): Change DPI: Smaller, Medium Larger - (also Set custom text size from bottom of list on left)
  • Window Color: modify color and color intensity or Open "advanced appearance settings" for more color options and WinXP style classic appearance properties
  • Sounds: change windows sound files
  • Screensaver: change screensavers (scr files located in Windows Dir) and use "change power settings" at the bottom to modify how your machine goes into standby, shuts down, etc.
  • Disable the Windows "snap to" function where open windows automatically snap to half screen or full screen: Copy/paste this in start search: Ease of Access Center - Next click "make it easier to focus on tasks" then scroll down & tick "Prevent windows .... " - that's it!
To enable AERO transparency... type "aero" into start>search and click on fix transparency issues
Create custom Toolbars from the taskbar:
Rtclick Taskbar > Toolbar > New
Create folder first and navigate to the new folder... drop icons in there. I created
C:\Users\[USERNAME]\Toolbars

to find Sendto
C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\SendTo

If you're having trouble on the networking your computers, try creating a shortcut for the other computer:
Rtclick desktop > New > Shortcut Type in an IP address like this: \\192.168.1.101 (laptop)
Name it as shortcut and it appears on desktop... this will take you straight into the shared folders on the networked PC

To Disable UAC (not recommended by Microsoft)
Go to Start Menu -> Control Panel -> User Accounts and Family Safety -> User Account.
Click on Change User Account Control settings at bottom of list

Windows SNAP feature - drag window extreme left or right, then use winkey + arrow left right to move it around.

To determine hardware models not listed as such in Device Manager use System Information:
Start > Programs > Accessores > System Tools > System Information

Windows has a new free Windows AntiVirus available from Microsoft called Security Essentials. You can give this a try or use one of the excellent free antivirus options available these days. Highly recommended is Avast which is top rated here or see a lot of other options compared.

If computer will not hold standby and keeps popping out spontaneously, Rightclick on adapter or Network connection under Network Adapters in Device Manager, choose properties and on the "power management" tab uncheck "Allow this device to bring the computer out of standby".

Windows 7 is easier to connect to the home network than previous Windows versions. However it is not fool proof. We do not offer networking support at Rose City Software, but you can try it yourself following these basic instructions:
To connect new W7 PC's to network, for full share:

  • rightclick Computer > Properties > Change Settings (on right) > Change
    and assign to WKGP and give "Full computer name"
  • rightclick Computer > Manage > Local users & Groups > Users
    and be sure users are listed to match existing computer setup like HQ7 with same password
  • rightclick on the drive to be shared and click
    Share with > advanced sharing and allow "full control"
Connecting to Wireless: (rightclick on Network icon in systray).. See here for video instructions. To view available wireless networks, left click on "Network Internet Access" icon in systray or click on Network and Sharing Center in Windows Control Panel:
View active networks > connect or disconnect

If you hate the way Windows displays zipfiles as folders in your folder tree rather than as files, you can change that behavior. Go here to turn off Zip folders in Win7 (make them show as files in a folder instead of separate folders):

To restore traditional menus in Windows Explorer
Go to Organize -> Folder and Search Options
and enable "Show preview and filters" option.
Apply it and it should restore explorer menus and re-enable the option to show/hide Details Pane and Preview Pane.

To modify automatic updates behavior of Windows 7, click on Windows Update in Control Panel and at the left choose "change settings" to modify it for how and when you wish Microsoft to check for updates

It is sometimes useful to run check disk on your primary or backup drives to remove bad sectors which can develop over time. To perform chkdsk on external disc G (for example) use this command in the Run dialog
chkdsk G: /r/x
(/f = fix /x is dismount first which may not be needed for a backup drive)
To run check disk on your primary or C drive you will need to type "Y" to schedule it when you reboot next time

You can eliminate shortcut arrows on your desktop icons using Remove_Restore_Shortcut_Arrow.zip

If you like to sometimes retrieve files (like WMV, SWF, and so on) from Cache in IE8, there are two methods:
1) Access through IE8 in
Tools > Options > General Tab > Browsing history > Settings > "View Files"

2) View in Windows Explorer or My Computer
First of all you cannot view these unless you go to
Tools > Folder Options > View and scroll down and uncheck "Hide protected Operating System Files" - Ignore the Windows warning and disable this. Also change the default selection to "Show hidden files folders and drives". Also worth disabling is "Hide extensions for known file types". IE Cache is stored in "Temporary Internet Files" and the default location is here:
C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\
And within that folder you have to go deeper to \Low\Content.IE5\
So in the location bar, it should look like this:
C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Low\Content.IE5

Cache for Firefox is here:
C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default\Cache
Firefox, for some unknown reason assigns a different random folder name on each and every computer you install it on.

A worthwhile exercise is to move the location where IE 8 and Firefox store these cache files. This is particularly important if you use a tool like DiskMagik to achieve maximum performance from your harddrive. DiskMagik automatically looks for fragmented files and continually defragments them. If you do a lot of web browsing, this is a lot of wasted effort and disk activity. You can partition your drive easily to create a small partition where you put these "Temporary Internet Files" and then you can exclude it from defragmentation in DiskMagik's Configuration options. See the special set of instructions here

Also included on the above web page are complete instructions for partitioning a drive in Windows 7. It is no longer necessary to purchase special third party software in many cases.

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We hope you have enjoyed this special selection of tips and tricks for Windows 7. If you want to learn whole lot more about Windows 7, visit the Free Windows Tutorials website.


 
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