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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.
@david roper:
I found this little gem over at the site Zain mentioned. You maybe aware of it but just in case someone else like myself had no idea that it existed in Win7, I will share. I thought it existed only in 3rd party SW.
Inbuilt Screen Recorder
Windows 7 comes with a in-built diagnostic tools – Problem Steps Recorder, that can be used internally to send feedback for a particular problem to someone to troubleshoot it. The Problem Steps Recorder provides a simple screen capture tool that enables you to record a series of actions.
Open Start menu, and find “Problem Steps Recorder” to find the application.
@Zain
Only found out about GM by trolling the net and came across it on a site I trusted.
Heck we need a section somewhere just on HIDDEN Win 7 features.
@william:
I’m using Win 7. $99 upgrade from Vista. It’s remarkable. NOW, and I don’t know how I did it, I have two “buttons” with “>>” in them, one labled LINKS and one labeled DESKTOP, together they hold a shortcut to each one of my icons and links on my desktop. i can get rid of all the icons on my desktop and have a clean desktop where I can see my picture/desktop now. Amazing.
Windows 7 in a box as the name implies is a neat little program which has all the useful windows 7 tools in a box for instant access.
DOWNLOAD HERE
http://www.thehackerslounge.com/windows7inabox.htm
@zaid:
Good Grief, ZAID, that little program has everything you could ever want to run in it. Thanks. Of course i had to convert the RAR to ZIP first. I knew how to do that. Thanks bunches. Everybody who reads this needs to download it and look at it one day when you have time. Now, do it, dotTechies.
@david roper:
I found out how i did it. Right click in the TRAY and select TOOLBARS at top, then select LINKS and DESKTOP to start.
Remember: ALWAYS back up your PC before doing ANY changes as
I am NOT responsible if you *fudge* your computer up! ;)
How to Increase USB Devices Maximum Transfer Size on Windows 7
Microsoft released an interesting hotfix for Windows 7 and Windows 2008 able to increase the maximum transfer size/speed/rate on USB devices (such as external USB hard drives, USB flash drives, USB dongles, etc). For some USB storage devices, performance can be improved if the maximum transfer size is increased from the default 64 KB.
This update supports this change when the hardware vendor provides a device information file (INF) to set this value for the USB storage devices. Note: This also applies to Windows Server 2008 R2.
Go to this Microsoft Support page: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2581464
Click: View and request hotfix downloads: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2581464 – located at the beginning of the page.
Click the “I accept” button.
Select the hotfix for your operating system and type your email address in the email field. This is mandatory.
The download link will be sent to your email account. Download and install the patch. This is the first part of the process. You will now have to apply some change to your Windows registry.
After you install this update, to increase the maximum transfer size of USB storage devices, follow these steps:
Click Starts button, type regedit in the Start Search box, and then press Enter.
Locate and then click the following registry subkey:
HKLMSYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlusbstorVVVVPPPP
Click Edit, point to New, and then click DWORDValue.
Type MaximumTransferLength, and then press Enter.
Click Edit, and then click Modify.
In the Value data box, type a value to specify the maximum transfer size between 64KB and 2MB. For example, you select Decimal and type a value between 65535 (64K) and 2097120 (2M).
Exit Registry Editor.
Notes:
VVVV represents device descriptor idVendor in hexadecimal.
PPPP represents device descriptor idProduct in hexadecimal.
If you’re still using Windows Vista ( blech! ) you can do the following:
To Fix Slow USB 2.0 file transfer on Windows Vista
1) First, click Start then double click Computer and when the Computer window is open, right click on the icon
for the USB drive you have plugged into the computer, and then in the drop down menu click Properties, and
then click the Hardware tab.
2) Now, under All Disk Drives, click to highlight your USB drive and then click to select Properties.
3) Next, click on the Policies tab and then select the Optimize for Performance and then click Ok to exit.
You should now notice an improvement in the transfer speed of the USB hard drive or storage device.
To Fix Slow USB 2.0 file transfer on Windows XP:
In Windows XP USB storage devices can be optimized for either quick removal or performance.
If optimized for quick removal, data transfer can potentially be reduced to a crawl.
To optimize your USB drive for performance:
Right click on the USB drive and select properties
Select the Hardware tab
Under All Disk Drives, highlight your USB drive and select Properties
Select the Policies tab and select Optimize for performance.
Press OK twice, and your transfer speeds should increase dramatically
Note: When your drive is optimized for performance you’ll need to use the Safely Remove Hardware icon in the taskbar to
eject the drive – otherwise you risk corrupting your data by just removing the drive from the port.
@ashraff:
This idea of posting our tips is great! The problem I see is that there are already so many that it will be hard to keep track as new tips are added. How about separate urls for Windows 7 tips, XP tips, Browser / browsing tips, utilities, etc., with cross-links near the top of the page?
Keep up the good work!
@albert otojunk: Excellent idea. This just goes to show you how smart dot techies are.
I am still trying to figure out to capture and com all this info without doing a cut paste cut paste cut paste, whew, I am tired already just thinking about it.
@GeorgeIbiza:
There is a Firefox plugin called DownthemAll. You can filter the type of file you want to download, then use Ctrl+A to select everything on the page, check the files you want to download and choose Download Selection
Some programs I love and that are a little hidden:
- Work Menu in Word see
http://word.mvps.org/faqs/general/WorkMenu.htm
I find this the fastest way to access documents I use regularly
- Lastpass in all my browsers : couldn’t live without it anymore
- Snipping tool in Windows Vista : I also use this a lot to upload images in forums. You don’t need to resize;
Been using quicklaunch since win95 R2 and I really love that toolbar to access shortcuts. I have actually googled how to returned it back in Win7 but throw away the idea since the entire taskbar is already a quicklaunh area. I have just created another toolbar just for all of my shortcuts.
However, for a clean desktop i prefer to use 3rd party apps. I like Stardock Fence until I found out Iconoid which is more customizable. It hides desktop clutter instead of removing all of your icons from the desktop in a pre-defined/customizable settings.
I love to remove all icons from the desktop but there are times that desktop is still a better way to access shortcuts. You have a quick glance of all those shortcuts and have a quicker way of accessing it by typing the first letters of the particular item you want to open.
Apparently Microsoft only allows us re-activate Windows 7 a limited number of times (10?). This applies to both ‘full’ and ‘repair installs’.
However, there is a portable (no installation) app. called “Advanced Tokens Manager” which extracts, saves and after a re-install, restores the Windows 7 activation.
To my mind it’s a no-brainer, it works with Vista as well.
Available from: http://forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/27341-Advanced-Tokens-Manager-The-Activation-Backup-Solution
@Ashraf: Why not make this thread an option on the sub menu under “Tips ‘n Tricks”?
@Bouteille:
Which version of Word? I checked the link, it does not indicate the version.
Here’s a little trick I do not think has been posted yet. Have you ever tried to update windows and the updates failed. Try this. Click start-in the search box type cmd-right click cmd to run as admin.-at the prompt type (fsutil resource setautoreset true c:\ ) of course without the parenthesis. restart computer and updates should work. I am on a windows 7 64 and it works for me.
these may not be useful for for everyone, and I am still on Windows XP, but I use these quite often :-)
ALT + SHIFT + TAB (reverse cycle through open programs/windows)
Most people will know that you can switch between Windows open/running programs/windows with SHIFT + TAB, with the order being the most recent program/window you’ve looked. By adding the ALT key as well you switch to the last program on the list.
It may not make much of a difference if you only have 2-3 programs/window open, but if you are like me (open browser, open folder, open email, open 5-7 other things) you end up with quite a few thing open. By using ALT + TAB + SHIFT I can cycle through everything (one at a time) and look/check on them and see if they really need to be open.
ALT + PRT SCR (takes a screen shot of only the active program/window)
while there are many good screen capture programs out there, all I need (and use) is the Print Screen feature (button). By using ALT + Prt Scr I can take a screen shot of *only* the active window. I find this handy for things like an error message or a program’s popup message that I want to get a picture of.
and not so much a tip as advice (that is good for any software that has an automatic update feature – or needs to be updated for security purposes *cough*flash/shockwave*cough*),
every so often (say, the 2nd Wednesday of each month ;-), run Windows updates MANUALLY.
Automatic updates are nice, but on more than one occasion I’ve gone to help someone with their computer and there are Windows (security) Updates that have been automatically downloaded but not automatically installed.
Although, in the worst case I’ve encountered, that wasn’t Windows fault – the computer had been bought 3 years earlier with a trial anti-virus and the computer had been without AV protection for most of that time (inexperience users) – I wish I had kept a screen shot of the number things Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware found on it’s first run *shudder*
@Peter Stern:
Peter Stern JUST THE JOB!!
DownloadThemAll FirefoxAddon for
batch downloading embedded email images in firefox
Ashraf ‘The Boss’ was also interested in this…and it’s FREE,
fairly easy to use and more features for me to explore
THANKS A MILLION
GeorgeIbiza
In Firefox, to close all tabs except your current tab, right click on your current tab, pull down the menu, and select “close other tabs”.
@DCTECHGUY: Good tip, did not know this. ^5s
@alalata:
I tried this at no reserve amount and my chat client trillian kept disconnecting. I turned it back to 10% reserve and seems to have solved the problem.
@david roper: You made the toolbar Desktop visible on the taskbar. You can do this by right-clicking the taskbar and select Toolbar.
@Peeze:
Thanks, I have enjoyed using the LINKS select more than DESKTOP selection. I was hoping somehow to use the Desktop selection menu to get rid of (clean up) my Desktop icons, but I cannot. In other words, if i delete my desktop icon, my same selection disappears in the list. The same cannot be said for the LINKS, ie I can create a d link on my desktop, move it to the links list and then delete the same desktop icon without hurting the link in the taskbar “>>” links.
@david roper:
That’s correct because all it is is a replication of what is on the Desktop. Perhaps if you hide the Desktop Icons they would still show up in your Toolbar. Another way to tackle this would be to make a Folder on your Desktop to hold all these icons and then make that Folder a Toolbar. You can’t of course delete that on the Desktop otherwise your Toolbar Folder will be gone also. I have all my Major Folders as Toolbars as find it so convenient. I can access any file in seconds. I also have one that just holds all my Program Shortcuts so only need to click on the Chevron for a Fly out Menu to access every program shortcut.
My Win7 Taskbar is two tier. On the lower level I have set up the old style Quick Launch Bar holding icons of my most used programs and all my drives along with major folder Toolbars like My Docs, My Pics etc.. On the top layer it is the newer style Win7 Icons that can be pinned to the toolbar, like CP, Browser, Email and normal working programs. This system works really well for me. I do have a 24 inch monitor so that helps.
@Patara:
You KNOW that MicroSoft could make all this easier for us than all this trickery. What a company!!!
Oh, thanks for explaining for me. I knew there was a good reason at hand.
There are very good tips and tricks mentioned here… kudos to everyone!
This may not be anything great but I have had 3 or maybe 4 computer issues in the past where I went to Microsoft’s Fix-It center and had the problem resolved. For instance, I uninstalled iTunes and suddenly my computer could not recognize my cd drive. I went to Fix-It and was able to narrow down my problem, download a fix tool and it worked. Another time my MS Word 2007 was unable to open an older Word document. Fix-It was successful in this situation as well.
http://support.microsoft.com/fixit/