Windows 7 How To

Remove Taskbar Buttons

One problem with the previous tip is the buttons will gobble up valuable taskbar real estate, but you can reduce the impact of this by removing their text captions. Launch REGEDIT, browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics, add a string called MinWidth, set it to 54, and reboot to see the results.

Custom Power Switch

By default, Windows 7 displays a plain text ‘Shut down’ button on the Start menu, but it only takes a moment to change this action to something else. If you reboot your PC a few times every day then that might make more sense as a default action: right-click the Start orb, select Properties and set the ‘Power boot action’ to ‘Restart’ to make it happen.

Disable Smart Window Arrangement

Windows 7 features interesting new ways to intelligently arrange your windows, so that (for example) if you drag a window to the top of the screen then it will maximise. We like the new system, but if you find it distracting then it’s easily disabled. Run REGEDIT, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop, set WindowArrangementActive to 0, reboot, and your windows will behave just as they always did.

Check out our Windows 7 Tips and Tricks category for more!

Desktop Slideshow

Windows 7 comes with some very attractive new wallpapers, and it’s not always easy to decide which one you like the best. So why not let choose a few, and let Windows display them all in a desktop slideshow? Right-click an empty part of the desktop, select Personalise > Desktop Background, then hold down Ctrl as you click on the images you like. Choose how often you’d like the images to be changed (anything from daily to once every 10 seconds), select Shuffle if you’d like the backgrounds to appear in a random order, then click Save Changes and enjoy the show.

Recover Screen Space

The new Windows 7 taskbar acts as one big quick launch toolbar that can hold whatever program shortcuts you like (just right-click one and select Pin To Taskbar). And that’s fine, except it does consume a little more screen real estate than we’d like. Shrink it to a more manageable size by right-clicking the Start orb, then Properties > Taskbar > Use small icons > OK.

Enjoy a Retro Taskbar

Windows 7 now combines taskbar buttons in a way that saves space, but also makes it more difficult to tell at a glance whether an icon represents a running application or a shortcut. If you prefer a more traditional approach, then right-click the taskbar, select Properties, and set Taskbar Buttons to “Combine when taskbar is full”. You’ll now get a clear and separate button for each running application, making them much easier to identify.

Check out our Windows 7 Tips and Tricks category for more!

Live Essentials

Installing Windows Live Essentials will get you the new versions of Mail, Movie Maker, Photo Gallery and others – great. Unfortunately it also includes other components that may be unnecessary, but if you like to keep a clean system then these can be quickly removed.

If you left the default “Set your search provider” option selected during installation, for instance, Windows Live will install Choice Guard, a tool to set your browser home page and search engine, and prevent other programs from changing them. If this causes problems later, or you just decide you don’t need it, then Choice Guard may be removed by clicking Start, typing msiexec /x and pressing [Enter].

Windows Live Essentials also adds an ActiveX Control to help upload your files to Windows Live SkyDrive, as well as the Windows Live Sign-in Assistant, which makes it easier to manage and switch between multiple Windows Live accounts. If you’re sure you’ll never need either then remove them with the Control Panel “Uninstall a Program” applet.

Network Support

By default Windows Live MovieMaker won’t let you import files over a network, but a quick Registry tweak will change this. Run REGEDIT, browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows Live\Movie Maker, add a DWORD value called AllowNetworkFiles and set it to 1 to add network support.

Right-click everything

At first glance Windows 7 bears a striking resemblance to Vista, but there’s an easy way to begin spotting the differences – just right-click things.

Right-click an empty part of the desktop, for instance, and you’ll find a menu entry to set your screen resolution. No need to go browsing through the display settings any more.

Right-click the Explorer icon on the taskbar for speedy access to common system folders: Documents, Pictures, the Windows folder, and more.

And if you don’t plan on using Internet Explorer then you probably won’t want its icon permanently displayed on the taskbar. Right-click the icon, select ‘Unpin this program from the taskbar’, then go install Firefox, instead.

Check out our Windows 7 Tips and Tricks category for more!

System Restore

Using System Restore in previous versions of Windows has been something of a gamble. There’s no way of telling which applications or drivers it might affect – you just have to try it and see.

Windows 7 is different. Right-click Computer, select Properties > System Protection > System Restore > Next, and choose the restore point you’d like to use. Click the new button to ‘Scan for affected programs’ and Windows will tell you which (if any) programs and drivers will be deleted or recovered by selecting this restore point.

Time Zone

System administrators will appreciate the new command line tzutil.exe utility, which lets you set a PC’s time zone from scripts. If you wanted to set a PC to Greenwich Mean Time, for instance, you’d use the command

tzutil /s “gmt standard time”

The command “tzutil /g” displays the current time zone, “tzutil /l” lists all possible time zones, and “tzutil /?” displays details on how the command works.

Calibrate your screen

The colours you see on your screen will vary depending on your monitor, graphics cards settings, lighting and more, yet most people use the same default Windows colour profile. And that means a digital photo you think looks perfect might appear very poor to everybody else. Fortunately Windows 7 now provides a Display Colour Calibration Wizard that helps you properly set up your brightness, contrast and colour settings, and a ClearType tuner to ensure text is crisp and sharp. Click Start, type DCCW and press Enter to give it a try.

Check out our Windows 7 Tips and Tricks category for more!

Check out one of the latest windows 7 ads. Clear and clean ad if you ask me. Microsoft is trying to make this OS more personal than other versions. It is all about the view of the customer, less clicks and a better speed.

Burn Images

Windows 7 finally introduces a feature that other operating systems have had for years – the ability to burn ISO images to CDs or DVDs. And it couldn’t be much easier to use. Just double-click the ISO image, choose the drive with the blank disc, click Burn and watch as your disc is created.

Startup Repair

If you’ve downloaded Windows 7 (and even if you haven’t) it’s a good idea to create a system repair disc straight away in case you run into problems booting the OS later on. Click Start > Maintenance > Create a System Repair Disc, and let Windows 7 build a bootable emergency disc. If the worst does happen then it could be the only way to get your PC running again.

Power Efficiency Report

If you have a laptop, you can use the efficiency calculator to get Windows 7 to generate loads of useful information about its power consumption. Used in the right way, this can help you make huge gains in terms of battery life and performance. To do this you must open a command prompt as an administrator by typing ‘cmd’ in Start Search, and when the cmd icon appears, right-click it and choose Run as administrator.

Then at the command line, just type in ‘powercfg -energy’ (without quotes) and hit Return, and Windows 7 will scan your system looking for ways to improve power efficiency. It will then publish the results in an HTML file, usually in the System32 folder. Just follow the path it gives you to find your report.

More Windows 7 Tips and Tricks are on the way.