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Lately I have been posting a few articles here and there on short tips and/or tricks, such as opening links in new tabs with the scroll wheel. A dotTechie, Damon, came up with a great idea: Why not have dotTechies share their favorite tips or tricks, allowing the rest of us to learn new things and potentially brainstorm some ideas for more articles.
So, let it rip — please share your favorite tips or tricks in the comments below. These tips and/or tricks can be as simple as a keyboard shortcut to get something done or as complex as modifying the settings of some program. Really this thread is for sharing whatever you want to share. (Note: Your favorites need not be something dotTech has posted about in the past — you can post about any tips and/or tricks you learned from any source.) Don’t be embarrassed to share your tip(s) or trick(s) thinking they are too simply and everybody must know them; many people, including myself, don’t know many seemingly simple tips and tricks and would appreciate anyone that educates us.
Let’s see what dotTechies can think of.
About the author: Ashraf View all posts by Ashraf
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@Patara:
VERY slick …. thank you!!
Holding Ctrl while dragging files will copy the items instead of moving them. Holding shift will move them (if you’re moving the files to another drive the default action is copy) and alt will create shortcuts.
I find the Desktop Icons too large in Win7, even when set to Small, but I can easily resize to what I like by clicking on Desktop and using Ctrl+Mouse Wheel Scroll. This way they can be custom sized rather than use the normal choices of Large , Medium and Small
@dadante: You can check this site that explains how to tweak for 100% bandwidth on xp:
Increase bandwidth by tweaking QoS
http://www.speedguide.net/articles/windows-2kxp—more-tweaks-158
@tejas: Click this link, it show you what to do in windows 7 home premium: http://www.thewindowsclub.com/unravel-tweaks-hacks-buried-inside-windows-7-group-policy-editor
To select a large contiguous list of folders/filenames (to either move, copy, or delete):
1. Select the top (first) item
2. Hold down the ‘shift’ key
3. Select the last item
=> the entire list is now selected, and can be moved, copied, or deleted
I have worried ASHRAF for months about cleaning up clutter on my desktop. Here’s how I finally did it.
Look at your tray at the bottom of your screen. See the icons at the right side? At the left side of the group is a 1/4 inch X 1/2 inch vertical separator that has two arrow tips on it. Well, here’s the secret: Move your desktop icons to that tiny space and let go. It looks like nothing happened. Now click on the separator and you will see your shortcuts displayed. I have thirty of them on mine – all hidden inside the 1/4 inch X 1/2 inch square (>>) separator, Now, Delete them from your desktop and, yet, they are still living inside your secret space – ready for you at any time. This trick has enabled me to clean my desktop and still have my shortcuts too at the click of a >> . This is my greatest trick for cleaning off your desktop.
@david roper:
…And you can rearrange them afterwards by dragging and dropping them.
Running XP? Want to clean out your invisible startup programs? Install Microsoft Windows Defender, select “tools” then “software explorer”. You can see all the junk that starts up. Select each stupid program (adobe, real player, quicktime, etc etc etc, and then select “remove”. Reboot, voila!
I use Chrome as my default browser but I find it’s easier to print pages or parts of pages when I use the IE emulator on Chrome.
To help with situations that require a lot of dragging on a laptop, such as painting, cloning or selecting large areas in graphics applications, I wrote a small application that traps the left mouse button. It sits in the system tray and uses virtually no resources. Briefly holding down F8 captures the left mouse button, so dragging can be done simply by moving your finger along the touchpad. It is not necessary to hold any button down. It should also work with a mouse, although I do not have one to test. Hitting ALT releases the button. The capture button can be changed if desired to any combination of SHIFT and CONTROL. If anyone is interested in trying it, reply to this message and I will see if it can be arranged to send the application to you.
The one I find most useful is for uninstalling unused (in particular security) drivers which I find the need to do pretty frequently on any machine I maintain.
How to show Hidden Devices in Device Manager (Proper Version)
1. Go to environment Variables…..
To get there hold the Windows Key + press Pause/Break. If your in Vista, then go to advanced system settings and click on Environemnt variables. If in XP click on the advanced tab. Then choose Environment Variables.
2. Press New in the System/User variables, depending on whether you want it to be a system wide change or a just a user change.
3. In Variable name box: devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices
4. In the value box, type 1.
5. Click Okay in that box.
6. Click Okay again. If your in XP, you need to restart the machine. If in Vista continue to step 7.
7. Then launch device manager and use the View>show hidden devices.
Now if you scroll down to non plug and play which would have appeared now, you can open it up and see all these unused drivers (lightly shaded ones). Google any unused ones, then right click and uninstall them if you no longer need them. This tip is the one I find prevents most blue screens and so forth from ever happening.
All of these are excellent tip and tricks, however, can we identify which OS version that the trick works with or does not work with.
To make instructions easier to read and copy for later reference, can we list EACH instruction on a separate line.
I am learning a lot here and watching this like a hawk.
@lol768:
yes home edition … bummer , thx tho
@meldasue:
occasionally (firefox) windows get off screen and the only part you can see is the icon on the start bar. If you click the icon on the start bar so that the program is activated then press alt-spacebar, you will get the system menu, that contains move. use the arrow keys to highlight move then press enter and press an arrow key. This will lock the mouse to the window and you can drag it back to the desktop proper. Click the mouse when done.
this is a good idea to learn from readers. I’ve been following dottech from a very long time and learned so many things from here. I had been collecting windows 7′s tricks and hidden features since it’s release, and would love to share some here:
1. Press shift key and any click any of the windows (default) programs which is running and click its icon in the taskbar, this will open second instance of the same program. Remember it doesn’t work on all programs but works on most of them, notepad, calculator, explorer, web browser etc etc.
2. Open any window, browser or explorer, press Win key + right/left/up/down key with the combination and see the window being moved without using your mouse. win+down key will simply minimize the window.
There are so many of these hidden features, and amazingly so many of windows 7 users are still not aware of them.
Here is a list of all those tricks: http://www.tipsotricks.com/2010/03/10-windows-7-tips-and-hidden-features.html
OK guys, WE ARE ALL BEING WATCHED!!
Big brother is everywhere and getting worse (similar to more ads, more ads, more ads).
So…as you know, the search engines keep records. And google is one of the worst (even though I have
an email account there). Now google wants our phone numbers! I haven’t given it yet.
So what to do? For those of you who would like to follow:
1. Download Hotspot Shield. It assigns you a phony # so everywhere you go you have a new address.
2. Make your default search engine Startpage at startpage.com They don’t keep ANY records of your
surfing.
Now I don’t do anything illegal, but I do detest big brother following us everywhere.
So the first thing I do when I boot up is turn on hotspot shield. When the little shield at the bottom
turns green, you are protected. You have a new address. If you would like to know what part of the
country your new identity is, go to mail.com and it will give you the weather report for your new
city and or country.
Hotspot shield has lots of ads (since it is free) but admuncher takes care of most of them (after the
shield turns green, I don’t use them anymore.)
I live in Southern California, but my new address lately has been in Louisiana! (Hate their weather!)
So…if you don’t like big brother either, do it! You won’t be sorry! Matter of fact you’ll be happy!
Startpage.com is my startup home page (and search engine) and I activate hotspot shield first thing.
BTW: I have been an Ashraff follower for several years now, but have never mentioned anything.
This is my first post.
Thanks to Ashraff and this site, I have gleaned lots of info and now do everything. I now call myself
a dottechie!
Happy New Year!!
@ david roper (comment #32)
Which version of windows are you using? Are you talking about the quicklaunch part of the taskbar that is part of windows 98 to XP? I just can’t see anything like that in windows 7.
@Frank
In addition to your comments, as an alternative, right-click-hold and drag will give you that three options without having to click on the keyboard.
Here is a challenge I would like to throw out there to the group — when using Firefox and looking at an eBay description page, and you print it, why is the image of the product missing? It prints fine in IE. Two other friends using different operating systems are having the same problem. As an eBay seller it is most frustrating as I print the first page of my listing and attach it to the product before I file in my inventory.
Add programs to the Send To folder (Windows 7)
Open windows Explorer
Paste the following into the address bar
%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\SendTo
Once the Send To folder opens, drag the icon for the folder into the Send To folder.
Rename the shortcut Add Programs to Send To Menu
From then on, you can add any program to the Send To options by right clicking on its shortcut and clicking on Send To, Add Programs to Send To Menu.
@Zain:
Thanks for this link. Found a lot that I had no idea about.
Here is a question for MS, why are there so many HIDDEN features in Win 7. I like the OS but why HIDE features?
Just saying. Wish I knew the proper place to pose that question.
Ebony, you are not alone. I use WIn7 as well for over a year now and while I was good with DOS, I have no idea what features are in WIN7. I leave that up to ASHRAF and my dotTECH friends to tell me what I need.
@ebony: Agreed. still there are so many features and utilities in Windows 7 that are yet to be discovered. none of the (official) guide/tutorial from MS shows these programs and useful features, like the ‘GOD MODE’ of Windows 7, this is something that people would love to know and use, but still very few are aware of this: http://goo.gl/YtDT3
@william: To get the Quick Launch bar in Win 7 follow the instructions found here
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-7/add-the-quick-launch-bar-to-the-taskbar-in-windows-7/
@david roper: Further to the Quick Launch bar, one can add folders and organize your shortcuts within the folders. To find out how to do this check out the instructions at the link below and they also provide a link for instructions on how to get the quick launch in Win 7
http://helpdeskgeek.com/windows-7/turn-quick-launch-bar-into-application-launcher/
@lol768:
I have 7 ultimate and Increase bandwidth by tweaking QoS is there
Mine already showed Zero so had nothing to change.
Like the trick ctrl plus scroll wheel to change size if text in browser