Windows 7 Tips & Tricks

1. Use Keyboard Shortcuts

Using the mouse, you can drag-‘n-dock windows to either side of the screen, or drag it to the top to maximize it. These keyboard shortcuts are even faster:
  • Win+Left Arrow and Win+Right Arrow dock the window to the left and right side of the screen
  • Win+Up Arrow and Win+Down Arrow maximize and restore/minimize
  • Win+M minimizes everything
  • Alt+Up, Alt+Left Arrow, Alt+Right Arrow navigate to parent folder, or browse Back and Forward through folders in Explorer
  • Win+Home minimizes/restores all open windows except the active window
  • Alt+Win+# accesses the Jump List of program number ‘#’ on the taskbar

2.Rearrange System Tray Icons

SystemTray
You can rearrange icons on the taskbar as you wish and start new (or switch to running) instances of the first ten taskbar programs using Win+1, Win+2, and so on. The cool thing is you can also rearrange system tray icons. Reorder them on the tray or move them outside or back in the tray. Take control of what you want to always keep an eye on, and from which apps you’ll require notifications.

3. Access Jump Lists with the Left Mouse Button

Jump Lists usually show up when you right-click on a taskbar icon. However, they can also be accessed by holding the left mouse button and dragging upwards. If you’re using a laptop touchpad or a touch screen, this is convenient because you do not have to click any button to access a context menu.

4. Add Any Folder to Favorites

AddToFavorites
You can add any library or folder to the Favorites section in Windows Explorer. To add a folder, navigate to it in Explorer, right-click Favorites in the left navigation pane, and select Add current location to Favorites. Now you get quick access to your favorite folders in all File->Save As dialogs!

5. Pin Frequently Used Folders to the Taskbar

Right-click, drag, and pin your favorite folders to Windows Explorer on the taskbar. They will now show up in the Jump List when you right click on Explorer giving you quick access to your favorite folders.

6. Pin Control Panel to the Taskbar

PinControlPanel
You cannot pin the Control Panel to the taskbar via the Start Menu or by drag and drop. Open the Control Panel and right-click its taskbar icon to pin it to the taskbar. An advantage of this is that Control Panel’s Jump List allows quick access to recently used functions.

7. Create Keyboard Shortcuts for Programs

You can create keyboard shortcuts for any program in Windows 7. Right-click the program icon and select Properties. Select the Shortcut tab, click in Shortcut key, to set the keyboard shortcut for that program.
ProgramShortcutKey

8. Open Command Prompt in Any Folder

Like the command prompt? Miss the ‘Open Command Window Here’ Windows XP power toy? Press ‘Shift’ when right-clicking on a folder to get that option in the context menu. This also works on the desktop. No power toy required!
ExpandedContextMenu

9. View Expanded ‘Send To’ Menu

Press Shift when right-clicking on a folder to get an expanded Send To menu.

10. Adjust Screen Text with Clear Type

Use Clear Type Tuner for the best look on your LCD monitor or laptop screen. Run ‘cttune.exe’ from the Start Menu search box, or go to the Control Panel Display applet, and select Adjust ClearType Text from the left.
ClearType Tuner

11. Get Exact Colors On Your Screen

If you are an artist or you work with colors, use the Calibrate Color option in the Control Panel Display applet or run dccw.exe from the Start Menu search box. You can adjust gamma, brightness, contrast, and color balance, ensuring that colors are displayed correctly on your screen.

12. Customize the Power Button

If you restart your computer more often than you shut it down, change the default Shutdown power button to Restart. Right-click on Start, select Properties, and choose the Power button action that you use the most.
StartMenuProperties

13. Customize Number of Items in Jump Lists & Start Menu

Right-click Start, select Properties, click Customize and choose the number of recent programs to be shown in the Start Menu and the number of items displayed in Jump Lists from the Start Menu Size section below.

14. Search Internet from the Start Menu

SearchInternetStartMenu
Enable Internet search from the Start Menu using your default browser. Run GPEDIT.MSC from the Start Menu search box to start the Group Policy Editor. In the left pane, go to User Configuration->Administrative Templates->Start Menu and Taskbar. In the right pane, right-click to Edit and Enable Add Search Internet link to Start Menu.
SearchInternet

15. Add Videos to Start Menu

Windows 7 does not place a link to your videos on the Start Menu by default. To add a link to your videos on the Start Menu, right-click Start, select Properties, click on Customize. In the Videos section at the bottom, choose Display as a link.
Add Videos
Did you like these tips? Tell us or share your tricks with us in the comments! Don’t forget to watch out for Part 2!

Task manager and regedit disable by administrator

Let’s face it. All of us have been infected by virus before. Even if you have anti-virus installed, you can still be infected by a new or custom virus that is not recognized by your anti-virus. Sometimes after removing the virus completely from our system, you’ll face new problems such as you can no longer bring up Windows Task Manager from CTRL+ALT+DEL. You get the error message saying “Task Manager has been disabled by your administrator”.

You think that it’s easy to fix this problem by going to Registry Editor but you can’t! You get the error message “Registry editing has been disabled by your administrator“.
Image
This problem is most commonly caused by a virus called “Brontok“. Brontok virus will make some changes to the system restrictions in order to hide itself from easy detection and also from easy cleaning.

Here’s a free tool called Remove Restrictions Tool (RRT) which is able to re-enables all what the virus had previously disabled, and gives you back the control over your own computer.
Image
Remove Restrictions Tool is able to re-enable:
- Registry Tools (regedit)
- Ctrl+Alt+Del
- Folder Options
- Show Hidden Files

Small and easy to use. Make sure you boot in to Safe Mode to use Remove Restrictions Tool (RRT). Just click on the buttons and it’ll do it’s job.

Slow Windows 7 - How To Speed ​​Up Windows 7 Quickly And Easily


Is this your slow Windows 7? Wondering how to speed up Windows 7 without breaking the bank? Well I may be able to help. But first you need to make sure you meet the minimum hardware requirements to run Windows 7 on your system. Here they are:

1GHz processor o (32 - or 64-bit)

O 1 GB main memory

O 16GB of free disk space

O Support for DX9 graphics with 128 MB of memory (for the Aero interface)

o A DVD-R / W

Remember, though, that if he can actually run Windows XP or Vista, there should be little reason that you can not even Windows 7's new Windows operating system is designed to be much lighter and faster disk without large amounts of RAM GHz or No Most people who have problems they are trying to migrate to Windows 2000 and Windows 7

If you meet or get close to these requirements, and Windows 7 is still slow, then the problem lies elsewhere. To start, reduce the amount of programs running in the background. You can use msconfig to do this or install simple software that will identify programs secretly running in the background and eats lots of virtual memory.

The other option is to clean the Windows registry. That may be the most effective way to speed up Windows 7 There is no internal cleaning tool for dealing with errors and corrupt files from the registry. This contributes to significant congestion which will brake labeled Windows 7.

Despite these adjustments can be difficult to achieve alone, you can scan your system with software that will solve these problems automatically. It only takes a few minutes and will quickly realize a Windows 7 now. Do not worry about compatibility issues, if the program can run on Windows Vista, can run on Windows 7.

Tired of a slow computer? Want has proven itself as a rabbit, and less of a turtle? Did you know that you can gain control of the computer as a new free and easy to navigate? Speed ​​up your PC the best registry cleaners on the market.

10 Reasons Why Computer Crash

Fatal error: the system has become unstable or is busy,” it says. “Enter to return to Windows or press Control-Alt-Delete to restart your computer. If you do this you will lose any unsaved information in all open applications.”

You have just been struck by the Blue Screen of Death. Anyone who uses Mcft Windows will be familiar with this. What can you do? More importantly, how can you prevent it happening?

1 Hardware conflict

The number one reason why Windows crashes is hardware conflict. Each hardware device communicates to other devices through an interrupt request channel (IRQ). These are supposed to be unique for each device.

For example, a printer usually connects internally on IRQ 7. The keyboard usually uses IRQ 1 and the floppy disk drive IRQ 6. Each device will try to hog a single IRQ for itself.

If there are a lot of devices, or if they are not installed properly, two of them may end up sharing the same IRQ number. When the user tries to use both devices at the same time, a crash can happen. The way to check if your computer has a hardware conflict is through the following route:

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-System-Device Manager.

Often if a device has a problem a yellow ‘!’ appears next to its description in the Device Manager. Highlight Computer (in the Device Manager) and press Properties to see the IRQ numbers used by your computer. If the IRQ number appears twice, two devices may be using it.

Sometimes a device might share an IRQ with something described as ‘IRQ holder for PCI steering’. This can be ignored. The best way to fix this problem is to remove the problem device and reinstall it.

Sometimes you may have to find more recent drivers on the internet to make the device function properly.If the device is a soundcard, or a modem, it can often be fixed by moving it to a different slot on the motherboard (be careful about opening your computer, as you may void the warranty).

When working inside a computer you should switch it off, unplug the mains lead and touch an unpainted metal surface to discharge any static electricity.

To be fair to Mcft, the problem with IRQ numbers is not of its making. It is a legacy problem going back to the first PC designs using the IBM 8086 chip. Initially there were only eight IRQs. Today there are 16 IRQs in a PC. It is easy to run out of them. There are plans to increase the number of IRQs in future designs.

2 Bad Ram

Ram (random-access memory) problems might bring on the blue screen of death with a message saying Fatal Exception Error. A fatal error indicates a serious hardware problem. Sometimes it may mean a part is damaged and will need replacing.

But a fatal error caused by Ram might be caused by a mismatch of chips. For example, mixing 70-nanosecond (70ns) Ram with 60ns Ram will usually force the computer to run all the Ram at the slower speed. This will often crash the machine if the Ram is overworked.

One way around this problem is to enter the BIOS settings and increase the wait state of the Ram. This can make it more stable. Another way to troubleshoot a suspected Ram problem is to rearrange the Ram chips on the motherboard, or take some of them out. Then try to repeat the circumstances that caused the crash. When handling Ram try not to touch the gold connections, as they can be easily damaged.

Parity error messages also refer to Ram. Modern Ram chips are either parity (ECC) or non parity (non-ECC). It is best not to mix the two types, as this can be a cause of trouble.

EMM386 error messages refer to memory problems but may not be connected to bad Ram. This may be due to free memory problems often linked to old Dos-based programmes.

3 BIOS settings

Every motherboard is supplied with a range of chipset settings that are decided in the factory. A common way to access these settings is to press the F2 or delete button during the first few seconds of a boot-up.

Once inside the BIOS, great care should be taken. It is a good idea to write down on a piece of paper all the settings that appear on the screen. That way, if you change something and the computer becomes more unstable, you will know what settings to revert to.

A common BIOS error concerns the CAS latency. This refers to the Ram. Older EDO (extended data out) Ram has a CAS latency of 3. Newer SDRam has a CAS latency of 2. Setting the wrong figure can cause the Ram to lock up and freeze the computer’s display.

Mcft Windows is better at allocating IRQ numbers than any BIOS. If possible set the IRQ numbers to Auto in the BIOS. This will allow Windows to allocate the IRQ numbers (make sure the BIOS setting for Plug and Play OS is switched to ‘yes’ to allow Windows to do this.).

4 Hard disk drives

After a few weeks, the information on a hard disk drive starts to become piecemeal or fragmented. It is a good idea to defragment the hard disk every week or so, to prevent the disk from causing a screen freeze. Go to

* Start-Programs-Accessories-System Tools-Disk Defragmenter

This will start the procedure. You will be unable to write data to the hard drive (to save it) while the disk is defragmenting, so it is a good idea to schedule the procedure for a period of inactivity using the Task Scheduler.

The Task Scheduler should be one of the small icons on the bottom right of the Windows opening page (the desktop).

Some lockups and screen freezes caused by hard disk problems can be solved by reducing the read-ahead optimisation. This can be adjusted by going to

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-System Icon-Performance-File System-Hard Disk.

Hard disks will slow down and crash if they are too full. Do some housekeeping on your hard drive every few months and free some space on it. Open the Windows folder on the C drive and find the Temporary Internet Files folder. Deleting the contents (not the folder) can free a lot of space.

Empty the Recycle Bin every week to free more space. Hard disk drives should be scanned every week for errors or bad sectors. Go to

* Start-Programs-Accessories-System Tools-ScanDisk

Otherwise assign the Task Scheduler to perform this operation at night when the computer is not in use.

5 Fatal OE exceptions and VXD errors

Fatal OE exception errors and VXD errors are often caused by video card problems.

These can often be resolved easily by reducing the resolution of the video display. Go to

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-Display-Settings

Here you should slide the screen area bar to the left. Take a look at the colour settings on the left of that window. For most desktops, high colour 16-bit depth is adequate.

If the screen freezes or you experience system lockups it might be due to the video card. Make sure it does not have a hardware conflict. Go to

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-System-Device Manager

Here, select the + beside Display Adapter. A line of text describing your video card should appear. Select it (make it blue) and press properties. Then select Resources and select each line in the window. Look for a message that says No Conflicts.

If you have video card hardware conflict, you will see it here. Be careful at this point and make a note of everything you do in case you make things worse.

The way to resolve a hardware conflict is to uncheck the Use Automatic Settings box and hit the Change Settings button. You are searching for a setting that will display a No Conflicts message.

Another useful way to resolve video problems is to go to

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-System-Performance-Graphics

Here you should move the Hardware Acceleration slider to the left. As ever, the most common cause of problems relating to graphics cards is old or faulty drivers (a driver is a small piece of software used by a computer to communicate with a device).

Look up your video card’s manufacturer on the internet and search for the most recent drivers for it.

6 Viruses

Often the first sign of a virus infection is instability. Some viruses erase the boot sector of a hard drive, making it impossible to start. This is why it is a good idea to create a Windows start-up disk. Go to

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-Add/Remove Programs

Here, look for the Start Up Disk tab. Virus protection requires constant vigilance.

A virus scanner requires a list of virus signatures in order to be able to identify viruses. These signatures are stored in a DAT file. DAT files should be updated weekly from the website of your antivirus software manufacturer.

An excellent antivirus programme is McAfee VirusScan by Network Associates . Another is Norton AntiVirus 2000, made by Symantec.

7 Printers

The action of sending a document to print creates a bigger file, often called a postscript file.

Printers have only a small amount of memory, called a buffer. This can be easily overloaded. Printing a document also uses a considerable amount of CPU power. This will also slow down the computer’s performance.

If the printer is trying to print unusual characters, these might not be recognized, and can crash the computer. Sometimes printers will not recover from a crash because of confusion in the buffer. A good way to clear the buffer is to unplug the printer for ten seconds. Booting up from a powerless state, also called a cold boot, will restore the printer’s default settings and you may be able to carry on.

8 Software

A common cause of computer crash is faulty or badly-installed software. Often the problem can be cured by uninstalling the software and then reinstalling it. Use Norton Uninstall or Uninstall Shield to remove an application from your system properly. This will also remove references to the programmer in the System Registry and leaves the way clear for a completely fresh copy.

The System Registry can be corrupted by old references to obsolete software that you thought was uninstalled. Use Reg Cleaner by Jouni Vuorio to clean up the System Registry and remove obsolete entries. It works on Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 98 SE (Second Edition), Windows Millennium Edition (ME), NT4 and Windows 2000.

Read the instructions and use it carefully so you don’t do permanent damage to the Registry. If the Registry is damaged you will have to reinstall your operating system.

Often a Windows problem can be resolved by entering Safe Mode. This can be done during start-up. When you see the message “Starting Windows” press F4. This should take you into Safe Mode.

Safe Mode loads a minimum of drivers. It allows you to find and fix problems that prevent Windows from loading properly.

Sometimes installing Windows is difficult because of unsuitable BIOS settings. If you keep getting SUWIN error messages (Windows setup) during the Windows installation, then try entering the BIOS and disabling the CPU internal cache. Try to disable the Level 2 (L2) cache if that doesn’t work.

Remember to restore all the BIOS settings back to their former settings following installation.

9 Overheating

Central processing units (CPUs) are usually equipped with fans to keep them cool. If the fan fails or if the CPU gets old it may start to overheat and generate a particular kind of error called a kernel error. This is a common problem in chips that have been overclocked to operate at higher speeds than they are supposed to.

One remedy is to get a bigger better fan and install it on top of the CPU.CPU problems can often be fixed by disabling the CPU internal cache in the BIOS. This will make the machine run more slowly, but it should also be more stable.

10 Power supply problems

With all the new construction going on around the country the steady supply of electricity has become disrupted. A power surge or spike can crash a computer as easily as a power cut.

If this has become a nuisance for you then consider buying a uninterrupted power supply (UPS). This will give you a clean power supply when there is electricity, and it will give you a few minutes to perform a controlled shutdown in case of a power cut.

It is a good investment if your data are critical, because a power cut will cause any unsaved data to be lost.

Speeding Up Internet Explorer 8

Several users have reported significantly slower performance under Internet Explorer 8, particularly when the browser is first launched or when navigating to new pages. Delays of up to 30 seconds or more have been reported.

ie_logo

The problem, in most cases, is the presence of IE restricted sites and enhanced security configuration zones, which are generally created automatically by spyware removal software, such as Spybot and IESpyAd. Traditionally, the presence of these entries has been hugely beneficial, offering protection against malicious software. However, Internet Explorer 8 includes new security measures that may obviate the need for these entries, and the browser can suffer a tremendous speed hit in their presence.

The fastest and easiest way to remove these entries and dramatically increase Internet Explorer 8’s speed is to use the DelDomains package. Right click on this link and save the file to your desktop. Next, right-click on the downloaded file (DelDomains.inf) and select “Install.” The package will remove all Internet Explorer restricted sites, enhanced security configuration zones and trusted sites.

Alternatively, or in addition to the above fix, you can try registering actxprxy.dll, a process that has improved Internet Explorer 8’s performance for a handful of users.

Click the Start button then search for “CMD.” Right-click cmd.exe and select “Run as Administrator,” then type regsvr32 actxprxy.dll and press return. Quit then re-launch Internet Explorer 8 and check for improved performance.