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175 Windows 7 Tweaks, Tips, and How-To Articles

Chris Wallack — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:54:07 +0000

Just Get windows 7? Here are some Tweaks, Tips, and Tricks!

175 Windows 7 Tweaks, Tips, and How-To Articles

via the How-To Geek by The Geek on 10/21/09

Windows 7 is being officially released on October 22nd, which also happens to be today. The team here has been furiously writing Windows 7 articles, and updating old articles for Windows 7—and we now have more than 175 articles covering Windows 7.

First: Get Your Copy Yet?

If you haven’t already gotten your copy of Windows 7, you can buy it now on Amazon… although if you are impatient you could also head down to the local tech store and grab it. We recommend Home Premium for almost anybody, though you can grab Ultimate or Professional if you wanted to spend more.

Get Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade for $119 @ Amazon

Note: If you are currently running the Release Candidate version, we’ve got a guide on how to Upgrade the Windows 7 RC to RTM (Final Release). You should also keep in mind that you can’t upgrade from an Ultimate to a Home edition– there’s an upgrade chart if it’s too confusing.

The How-To Geek Windows 7 Category

We’ve written just loads of articles, and so we’ve decided to do a roundup of most of them here in a single post. If that’s too much for you, you can check out our roundup of the the 20 Best Windows Tweaks that Still Work in Windows 7.

And don’t forget to look through our Windows 7 category, bookmark it, and share it with anybody who hates gigantic lists of links:

Awesome Articles About New Windows 7 Stuff

Windows 7 is still very similar to Vista in many ways, so there’s not quite as many articles about completely new Windows 7 features. Here’s the quick list of articles that touch on the new features:

Articles About Shortcuts & Hotkeys

We love our keyboard shortcuts and special shortcut icons that do all sorts of great things. Here’s a list of all the ones that we’ve tested with Windows 7.

Context Menu Modding

Need to add a little more power to your right-click menu options? We’ve got you covered with a bunch of tweaks.

Disabling Stuff You Don’t Want

It never fails, no matter what version of Windows you are using, there are still things you are going to want to disable. Here’s the quick list of the ones that we’ve covered:

Stupid Geek Tricks

Yeah, most of these are just silly, geeky tricks. Which perhaps makes them more fun than anything else.

Misc Windows Configuration Tweaks and Such

There’s always lots of other tweaks you’ll need to do—from changing your computer name to logging on automatically. We’ve covered quite a few of those as well.

Conclusion

Yes, this was one long list of articles. Be sure to share it with your friends, relatives, enemies, or random people on the street. We recommend printing it off, creating paper airplanes, and seeing how far they fly.

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Windows 7 Officially Released Today

Steve Peck — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:25:26 +0000

WOW! I wonder how this will all shake out. My standard advice, lets wait awhile to make sure this isn’t the latest “Vista”.

Steve

Windows 7 Officially Released Today

via Mashable! by Stan Schroeder on 10/22/09

It’s been an eventful day: among all the breaking news about Microsoft signing a search deal with Facebook and Twitter, Google doing the same with Twitter and later announcing social search, one can easily forget that today is the day that Vista gets replaced by something better: Windows 7.

As we wrote earlier, the interest for the new OS from Microsoft has been huge, making Windows 7 the biggest pre-order item in the history of Amazon UK and a perpetual trending topic on Twitter. The reactions from users and reviewers have been mostly positive, but after the lukewarm it’s-ok-but-why-should-I-switch-from-WinXP attempt that was Vista, the fact that people can’t wait to get their hands on Windows 7 is hardly a surprise.

And, for the most part, it’s true. Annoying security features such as UAC have been fixed in Windows 7 (you can now manually set its annoyance level), the system feels speedier and more responsive (although it really isn’t that much faster when you actually measure it (for example, boot time on both systems is pretty much the same on my computer), but it feels that way, and that’s all that matters, compatibility issues have been fixed. In short, it’s more of a really, really good service pack for Vista than a new OS, but it’s definitely enough to switch from the eight year old Windows XP.

If you’re interested in making the switch, the price is $319 for Windows 7 Ultimate, and $299 for the Professional version ($219 and $199 for the upgrade, respectively). Windows 7 Home Premium will set you back $199, and an upgrade from either Vista or XP will cost you $119.

Tags: microsoft, Windows 7

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The 20 Best Windows Tweaks that Still Work in Windows 7

Chris Wallack — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:42:37 +0000

Great Tweaks For People Upgrading to Windows 7 on 10/22

The 20 Best Windows Tweaks that Still Work in Windows 7

via the How-To Geek by The Geek on 10/19/09

Windows 7 is going to be released this week, and it’s a huge upgrade from previous versions of Windows. The big question for us geeks, however, is “Will all of my favorite tweaks still work?”

This list is not comprehensive by any means—if you have a favorite tweak that you like to use, leave us a comment and we’ll see about adding it to the list.

Add Defrag to the Right-Click Menu

Want to be able to quickly defrag a drive whenever you want? You can use a little hack to add the Defragment option to the context menu for each drive. It’ll open up the command prompt, and start the defrag process.

Add Defragment to the Right-Click Menu for a Drive

Create Shortcuts to Lock the Screen, Shutdown, Restart

It doesn’t matter where Microsoft puts the shutdown buttons, people seem to still want to have another way to do it. The good news is that all the same shortcuts that worked in previous versions of Windows will still work in Windows 7.

Create a Shortcut for Locking Your Computer Screen in Windows 7 or Vista

Create Shutdown / Restart / Lock Icons in Windows 7 or Vista

Create a Shortcut to Toggle the Desktop Icons

Sure, you can easily head into the desktop context menu to toggle the icons on or off, but it’s a lot simpler to use a hotkey, or stick an icon into the Quick Launch (which you can get back on Windows 7 with a little trick). This how-to teaches you how to use a little utility that toggles the icons for you.

Create a Shortcut or Hotkey to Turn the Desktop Icons On or Off

Disable Aero (to Speed Up Video Games)

If all you do is use your computer for gaming, you might not even care about using Aero. Personally, I don’t know why you’d want to run Windows 7 or Vista without Aero—but if that’s what you want, it’s easy enough to do.

Disable Aero on Windows 7 or Vista

Mount an ISO

So this one isn’t so much a tweak as an additional piece of software—but if you do a lot of geeky stuff on your PC, you’re going to need to be able to mount an ISO image. My favorite tool, by far, is VirtualCloneDrive—it’s just the simplest possible utility that you can get. All you need to do is double-click on an ISO to mount it.

Mount an ISO image in Windows 7 or Vista

Disable those Stupid Gadgets

Windows 7 moves the gadgets onto the desktop, instead of having them on a sidebar like Vista did—but the net effect is the same: it’s all pointless! You can easily disable them in Windows 7, just like you could in Windows Vista.

Disable Sidebar / Desktop Gadgets on Windows 7

Enable Mapping to Hidden Shares

If you did much networking on previous versions of Windows, you probably know about the C$ share that gives you access to the whole drive. Sadly, those shares don’t work since Vista, at least by default. There’s a simple tweak that you can do that will re-enable them for business, however.

Enable Mapping to \\Hostname\C$ Share on Windows 7 or Vista

Make Windows Log On Automatically

If you are the only one that is using your machine at your house, logging on can really be a drag. Thankfully every version of Windows since forever has let you do a simple tweak to make it automatically log on for you. Just make sure your door is locked.

Make Windows 7 or Vista Log On Automatically

Use Compatibility Mode

Does your favorite XP application have problems working in Windows 7? You can often make them work anyway by using Compatibility mode to trick the application into thinking it’s running on a previous version of Windows. Tip: This really helps when you’re trying to get a video game working.

Using Windows 7 or Vista Compatibility Mode

Add Any Folder To Your Taskbar

This tweak has worked on every version of Windows for a very long time, and even with the new taskbar in Windows 7, it still works perfectly. Just right-click on the taskbar, choose Toolbars –> New Toolbar, and pick the folder you’d like to add. You can make them icon-only, remove the label, or make them use large icons. You can even use this trick to add the Quick Launch folder back to Windows 7.

Add “My Computer” to Your Windows 7 / Vista Taskbar

Add “Take Ownership” to the Context Menu

If you were rocking an administrator account on Windows XP, you pretty much had access to do anything you wanted, but since Vista, Windows made it extremely difficult to change files and folders in any of the system directories. To easily solve this problem, there’s a simple little registry hack that will add a “Take Ownership” item to the context menu, after which you can rename, delete, or do whatever you’d like.

Add “Take Ownership” to Explorer Right-Click Menu in Win 7 or Vista

Add Copy/Move to the Context Menu

Sure, there are loads of ways to copy or move files around in Windows, but there’s one simple little registry hack that will add a “Copy To folder” and “Move To folder” option to the context menu. Once you’ve added them to the menu, you can pop up a dialog box that lets you easily choose a folder to move or copy the items to—it’s one of those great little hacks that’s been around forever, and still works in Windows 7.

Add Copy To / Move To on Windows 7 or Vista Right-Click Menu

Disable Shortcut Icon Arrows

This is one of those little annoyances that doesn’t really affect functionality at all, but if you are worried about making your system look just right, you might want to get rid of the unseemly arrows that show up on any shortcut. There’s loads of different methods to get rid of these icons—back in XP you could just use Tweak UI, but starting with Windows Vista you needed another application. The Vista Shortcut Overlay Remover still works in Windows 7, and is just about the simplest way to get rid of the arrows. Why this setting isn’t built into Windows, I just don’t know.

Disable Shortcut Icon Arrow Overlay in Windows 7 or Vista

Disable the Caps Lock Key

The Caps Lock key is by far my least favorite key on the keyboard—at least the scroll lock key doesn’t interfere with my typing when I hit it by accident. Thankfully it’s easy enough to get rid of with a simple registry hack, or you can map any key to any key using an easy freeware utility. If you’d rather not disable it, you can instead use Caps Lock as a keyboard-friendly navigation tool or turn it into a dedicated minimize button.

Disable Caps Lock Key in Windows 7 or Vista

Stop Windows Update from Automatically Restarting Your PC

This is my personal pet peeve with Windows—you are right in the middle of a few dozen things, with a ton of applications open on your screen, and you come back to your computer only to find that your PC has restarted because of Windows Update decided that rebooting that instant was more important than all that work you had on your screen. If you are sitting in front of your PC, you can always temporarily disable the automatic reboot, but there’s another registry hack that will prevent it from happening in the first place.

Prevent Windows Update from Forcibly Rebooting Your Computer

Stop Losing the Sleep/Shutdown Button to Windows Update

So you’re rushing to finish up that TPS report so you can duck out early and avoid Lumberg asking you to work on the weekend, only to realize that Windows hijacked your Sleep/Shutdown button and is now slowly installing updates for the next twenty minutes or so. Thankfully there’s another simple registry hack that will prevent Windows from changing out your regular shutdown button with the install updates variety.

Stop Windows Update from Hijacking the Sleep Button

Enable Remote Desktop

Remote Desktop doesn’t come with all the flavors of Windows–you can only use it if you are running the Ultimate, Pro, or Business editions. If you are using one of those versions and want an excellent way to control the PC in the other room, Remote Desktop is where it’s at—in Windows 7 or Vista it will even enable Aero through the Remote Desktop session. To enable for yourself, simply head into System properties, choose Remote Settings, and then change the radio button to enable it.

Turn on Remote Desktop in Windows 7 or Vista

Disable Sticky / Filter Keys Dialogs

Have you ever been playing a game, or doing something else that required pressing the Shift or Ctrl keys a bunch of times, and then had the “Do you want to turn on Sticky Keys?” question pop up on your screen? It might be a great feature for some people, but it’s not useful for the rest of it. Thankfully you can disable the keyboard shortcuts entirely by heading into the Control Panel’s Ease of Access center and looking under the keyboard section.

Disable the Irritating Sticky / Filter Keys Popup Dialogs

Disable Windows Explorer Click Sounds

Have you ever noticed that every time you click on anything in Windows Explorer, it makes an annoying clicking sound? If you do a lot of file management, this sound can quickly drive you batty. Thankfully there’s a really simple way to disable it—just head into the Sounds panel and find the item called “Start Navigation” in the list. Once you’ve disabled that sound, you should be finally free of the irritation.

Turn Off Windows Explorer Click Sounds in Windows 7 or Vista

Disable User Account Control’s Annoying Prompts

This is the one area where Windows 7 makes it so much easier to get rid of those annoying prompts—you can simply head into Control Panel, find the UAC settings panel, and then drag the slider to fit the level of annoyance you feel like dealing with. If you’d rather keep UAC enabled but want to prevent the prompts for a particular application, you can always create shortcuts that bypass the UAC prompts with a simple task scheduler trick.

Disable User Account Control (UAC) the Easy Way on Win 7 or Vista

So what are your favorite Windows tweaks? You can leave your comments here, or join in the discussion over at Lifehacker.

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Web Browser Faceoff: Mozilla Firefox vs. Google Chrome

Steve Peck — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 10:52:00 +0000

Seems like everyone has a favorite browser. Mine is Chrome, but I must admit that sometimes I’m forced to use IE or Firefox to get full functionality from a site. But for the majority of sites, I find Chrome fast and easy.
Steve

Web Browser Faceoff: Mozilla Firefox vs. Google Chrome

via Mashable! by Barb Dybwad on 9/21/09

We’ve had some pretty close races lately in our Lunchtime Poll feature, which got us thinking of the obvious question: which one of these contestants would win in a fantasy fight?

So we decided to pit some of these services and software head-to-head in a knock-down, drag-out cage match. There may even be jello involved. We’re asking you, dear readers, to cast your vote for the ultimate winner in this 1 v. 1 battle each week, for as long as we can keep the worthy contestants coming. Read on to vote in this week’s match!

No poll was closer than the Favorite Web Browser question earlier this month. The two victors far out ahead of the long tail were incumbent favorite Mozilla Firefox and relatively new challenger Google Chrome. This week’s Faceoff pits these two browsers against each other for ultimate fame and glory.

Firefox is armed with an unmatched extension architecture for power users to tweak and modify to their heart’s content. But all those add-ons tend to slow things down — will Chrome’s relative speed give it the edge? Or is the lack of an official Chrome for Mac going to hold that browser back in the 10th round?

Cast your vote below until noon EST on Friday September 25th, and be sure to let us know your reasoning in the comments. We’ll recap the results later this week and start a new Faceoff next week.

Who would win in a fight: Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome?(poll)

Reviews: Chrome, Firefox, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox

Tags: chrome, Firefox, Google, mozilla, web browsers, web faceoff

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