Here I am going to discuss 19 tricks to tweak Windows 7 into the interface that works best for you.
Undoubtedly, this is the best version of Windows ever released by Microsoft and what’s more – with each Operating System, Redmond guys have improved upon the solid foundation of Windows Vista without loosing the stability of Windows XP. Also each new release of Windows strives to improve upon the last, to make its users’ work faster, easier and more enjoyable.
I have been running Windows 7 RC and recently moved on to final version of Windows 7. I have tried various tricks to make my work more enjoyable and fun. I think that these tips would be helpful to you to make your work more enjoyable. These secrets will keep you busy for a long time including automatically opening Windows Explorer to a folder of your choice, speeding up the taskbar thumbnails, finding hidden desktop themes, forcing User Account Control to act the way you’d like, keeping your Windows explorer searches secret from others and much-much more.
General Tips:
Get Hidden Themes back:
Remembered one thing ?? When you first installed Windows 7, during the final setup phase, the interactive setup asked for your langauge, time and currency. Then based on your response, it installed wallpaper set and the corresponding themes based on your location. For example, if you choose, English (United Kingdom) for your time and currency format, then the available themes and backgrounds will include a United Kingdom section and it’s various wallpapers.
Now, the hidden themes, though, are background scenery and themes from other English-speaking countries – Australia, Canada, Great Britain and South Africa. Normally you can’t access those backgrounds or themes, but there is a simple way by which you can install and use them:
1. Press Windows key 
+ R to bring forward the Run dialog box. TypeC:\Windows\Globalization\MCT and press Enter (Note: If your Windows is installed on drive other than C:, use that alphabet instead.)
2. Now, Windows Explorer will launch and will show you the list of sub-folders under C:\Windows\Globalization\MCT viz. MCT-AU, MCT-CA, MCT-GB, MCT-US and MCT-ZA. These sub-folders have the wallpapers for a specific country: i.e. AU for Austrialia, CA for Canada, GB for Grait Britain, US for United States and ZA for South Africa.
3. Now, in the search box which is located on the extreme right side of window, type *.theme . After this you would get all the hidden themes with the similar interface as shown:
4. Now, just select all the themes by pressing Control (CTRL) + A and then copy the selected themes to folder C:\Windows\Resources\Themes. After that when you would open personalization gallery, there under the installed themes section, you would see all the hidden themes as shown below:
Now, you can use these newly installed themes as per your liking, by right clicking the desktop, choosing personalize, and then choosing a background or theme. They would be listed in the section ‘Installed Themes’.
Shake Your Desktop Free of Clutter:
If you run multiple programs simultaneously, your desktop can get extremely cluttered. This can get annoying if you are working on one program and want to minimize all other open windows – In previous version of Windows, you have to minimize them individually thus taking your precious time, but Windows 7 have a built in feature – called Aero Shake, you can minimize all other open windows except the one in focus – that too all in a single step. Click and hold the title bar of the window you want to keep on the desktop and while still holding that window, shake it quickly back and forth until all other windows minimize to the taskbar. To make them return, shake the title bar again.
Tip: You can also perform the above step by holding the Windows key + Home key combination but that would not include much fun.
Get a Power Efficiency Report:
This is a must if you are using your laptop and you are puzzled that why your laptop’s battery drains so fast.
Windows 7 includes a built in hidden tool that will examine your laptop’s energy use and then make recommendations on how to improve it. To use it follw these steps:
1. Run the command Prompt as an Administrator. To do this , press Start button
appears, just right click on it and choose “Run as Administrator” as shown below:
2. Provide the confirmation and then in the command prompt type powercfg –energy –output \Energy\energy_report.html
Note: Here there is a space between powercfg and –energy and similar space exists between –energy and output and also with –output and \Energy\energy_report.html. Here ‘Energy’ is the name of the folder which is present at C: drive and Energy_report.html is the name of the file that would be generated after windows check the power settings.
Make sure that you don’t type the complete path, like if you are making a folder ‘ABC’ at root of C: drive, then make sure to mention the name of the output folder as \ABC and not as C:\ABC, otherwise Windows would interpret the output folder as C:\C:\ABC and not C:\ABC. For further reference see the figure:
After the efficiency report is generated, the Command Prompt will notify you to see the energy report at the pre-set location. From this energy report, you can follow the recommendations for ways to improve the power performance of your computer.
Modify UAC (User Account Control):
The User Account Control security feature was one of the most reviled additions to Windows Vista, with good reason – its constant warning messages asking for permission to continue many operations drove the users around the bend. UAC has been improved upon a lot in Windows 7 so that it’s not as intrusive as in Windows Vista, but you can still tweak it if you like.
Here’s is how to turn UAC on or off, and make it less or more intrusive than the default:
1. Go to the Control Panel –> User Accounts and Family Safety.
2. Click User Accounts , then click Change User Account Control Settings.
3. If confirmation password is asked provide it and then move to change the UAC settings. From the screen (as shown below) use the slider to select the level of protection you want. I would now describe all the four levels and what they mean:
Always Notify Me:
This behavior is same like that of Windows Vista – asking user for each and every sytem related tasks which are performed by user or program.
Default – Notify me only when programs try to make changes to my computer:
This is the default Windows 7 behavior, if the user makes a change to UAC, then it leaves you alone, but when a program makes a change to system then UAC prompts for action by you and your desktop goes dark, just like it does in Windows Vista. otherwise, UAC sits there silently.
Notify me only when programs try to make changes to my computer (do not dim my desktop):
This setting is identical to the above setting but with one difference – When UAC prompts you, it will not dim your desktop. Instead it will ask you for permission in normal mode. But this presents a slightly elevated security risk over the default setting, because a program could allow a malicious program to interfere with UAC prompt.
Never Notify me:
In this mode the UAC is turned off completely. This of course is not recommended for most users as it is an insecure option.
After you make the selection, you need to restart your computer for the new settings to take effect.
Search the Internet from Start Menu:
The start menu search box is convenient way to search through PC – but you can also use this search box to perform double duty by making to search the internet from well within the Start menu search. To enable this log on with an administrator account and perform this:
1. In the Start menu
2. Go to User Configuration –> Administrative Templates –> Start Menu and Taskbar.
3. Double click “Add search internet link to Start Menu”, and then from the screen that appears, select Enabled. Then click OK and close the Group Policy Editor. See the figure for details":
4. From now on as soon as you type the item in the search box, a ‘Search the Internet’ link will appear. Just click on the link to launch the search in your web browser with the default search engine as shown in figure:
Add a Video Link to your Start Menu:
The Windows 7 start menu includes links to your Pictures and Music Folder, but not to your Videos folder. if you watch a lot of videos and want to link to them in your start menu, here’s what you can do:
1. Right click on the Start Button
2. On the screen that appears, go to the start menu tab and click Customize.
3. In the dialog box that appears, scroll to the bottom, look for the Videos section, select ‘Display as a link’ or ‘Display as a menu’ (as shown in figure) and then click OK twice:
Windows Explorer Tips:
Windows Explorer is the heart and soul of Windows interface ad overall it works quite well but you can make it much better.
Use Check boxes to select multiple files:
In order to select multiple files for tasks such as copying, moving, deleting, in Windows Explorer, you generally use the keyboard and mouse, CTRL-clicking every file you want to select. But if you are a mouse centric, there is a way to select multiple files in Windows 7 using only your mouse, via check boxes. To do it:
1. In Windows Explorer, click organize, and then select ‘Folder and Search Options.’
2. Click the View Tab.
3. In Advanced Settings, scroll down and then check the box next to ‘Use check box to select items’ and click OK.
4. From now on, when you would hover your mouse over a file in windows explorer, a checkbox will appear next to i; click it to select the file. Once the file is selected, the checkbox remains next to it. If you uncheck it, the box will disappear when you move your mouse away. For details look at the screenshot below:
Open a Command Prompt at any Folder:
Command prompt fans will welcome this handy tip. With it, you can open command prompt at any folder when you are in Windows Explorer. Remember – Powertoys for Windows XP ?? One tool in this PowerToy was ‘Open Command Window Here’.
Now, you can get exactly the same interface by this simple unknown trick: Before right clicking any folder, hold down the Shift key and then you would see the ‘Open Command Prompt Here’ in the context menu on clicking on which you can start a command prompt session from that folder as shown below:
Build your own internet Search Connector:
Windows 7 has a very useful new feature called a search Connector that lets you search through a Web site from right inside Windows Explorer. With it, you type in a search term and select the search Connector for the site you want to search, Windows Explorer searches the website without having to open the Internet Explorer and the result appear right inside Windows Explorer. Click any of the result to head there using your default Web Browser.
Normally, you’ll need to get each search connector from the Web site through which you want to search, and very few connectors are available, but you can create your own by this simple trick. Sites normally stick to OpenSearch standards in order for their connectors to work.
The search connector uses Windows Live search as a kind of go-between. You Don’t need to know any code for this, Just follow these steps:
1. Copy the following text and paste it into notepad. The text you will need to change is in bold:
2. Save the file in notepad, choose UTF-8 from the Encoding drop down list near the bottom of the Save As screen and give it an .osdx extension.
3. A sample search connector (searching Wikipedia) has the above modified code as:
4. In Windows Explorer, right click the .osdx file and select Create Search Connector. The Search Connector will be created.
5. You can now use your Search Connector. To use it go to Your_User_Name –> Searches –> Connector.
Protect the Privacy of your Explorer searches:
When you search through your PC from Windows Explorer, you can see the most recent searches that have been performed on a particular user account. If you share your user account and don’t want others to see what you’ve searched for you can turn off that recent searches feature:
1. Click on the Start Button
2. Provide Administrator password or user consent to open Group Policy Editor.
3. Go to User Configuration –> Administrative Templates –> Windows Components –> Windows Explorer.
4. Search for the entry ‘Turn off display of recent search entries in the Windows Explorer search box’ and select Enabled from the screen that appears. Then click OK.
5. Now, the recent searches feature would be turned off.
Set a New Windows Explorer launch Folder:
When you open Windows Explorer, it always opens to the Libraries folder showing you the default libraries. That is absolutely perfect if you are using Microsoft’s default file organization, which designates Libraries as the overall container of your folders. But if you don’t want Windows Explorer to open your Libraries you can make Windows Explorer to open different folder of your choice. Here is how:
1. Right click Windows Explorer icon
in the taskbar and then right click Windows explorer icon from the list as shown below:
2. Choose properties from the list and move to target field as shown below:
3. Change the value of the target field to folder of your choice as if I want to open a specific folder say C:\softwares, then change the value in the target field as%windir%\explorer.exe C:\Softwares.
4. Change the value as per your liking but make sure that you leave the space between %windir%\explorer.exe and C:\Softwares.
5. Now, if you want Windows Explorer to open special, pre-set system folders then you want to enter special syntax in the target field.
- Computer: %windir%\explorer.exe ::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}
- My Documents: %windir%\explorer.exe ::{450D8FBA-AD25-11D0-98A8-0800361B1103}
- Network: %windir%\explorer.exe ::{208D2C60-3AEA-1069-A2D7-08002B30309D}
6. After you have changed the target field, click OK. Next time you launch Windows Explorer, it will open the folder of your choice.
Show all of your Drives in Windows Explorer:
Depending on your system settings, when you go to computer in Windows Explorer, you might be in for a shock –> you may not see all your drives such as memory card readers if those drives are empty. If this disconcerts you, there’s a simple way for you to see them even if there’s nothing there:
1. Launch Windows Explorer and move below back-forward button and click onorganize –> Folder and Search Options and move to View tab.
2. Under ‘Advanced settings’, uncheck box next to ‘Hide empty drives in Computer folder’. Click OK.
3. The empty drives would now be visible.
Taskbar Bar Tips:
One of the most significant changes to Windows 7 interface is its new taskbar, which acts more like the MAC OS X dock than the Windows taskbar of old. Here are a few quick tips for using the new taskbar and tweaks for taking charge of it.
Speed up Display of Thumbnails on the taskbar:
One of the nicest things about the taskbar is that when you hover your mouse over the icons in it, you can see thumbnail previews of all open windows for each of those applications. When you do so, there is a slight delay before the thumbnails appears. But you can make the thumbnails display more quickly by using a registry hack.
1. Launch the registry editor by typing regedit in the start menu
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ControlPanel\Mouse
3. Double click MouseHoverTime. The default value you’ll see is 400 –> which means 400 milliseconds. Type in a new , smaller value –> let’s say 100 is good bet. Then click OK and exit the registry editor. You’ll have to log off or restart your computer for the changes to take effect.
Rearrange Taskbar Icons:
It’s easy to rearrange the icons across the bottom of the screen –> simply drag an icon to where you want it to live. You can also add icons to the taskbar by dragging them from an application, and delete the icons by highlighting them and pressing the Delete key.
Take Control of the Taskbar Notification Area
The Notification Area, at the far right of the taskbar, shows system messages and alerts and displays the icons of programs and services that typically run in the background, such as Windows 7’s wireless service. But what determines when, how and which icons show up there seems one of Windows’ greatest mysteries.
There is a simple way to find out, and better yet, to customize it.
1. Go the extreme right of the taskbar and click the ‘up’ arrow as shown in figure and then click customize:
2. For each application, select from the drop down box whether you want an icon and notifications to be always displayed, to never be displayed or to have an icon appear only when there’s is a notification of some kind. Click OK when you are done.
3. You can also customize the system icons and services that appear there, including the clock, volume, network, power and Action center icons. At the bottom of the same screen, click ‘Turn system icons on or off,’ and from the screen that appears, choose whether to turn on or off the icon and notifications. Click OK twice when you are done.
See Taskbar Thumbnails without a Mouse:
If you area fan of using a keyboard rather than your mouse whenever possible, you can move your mouse whenever possible, you can move your cursor from icon to icon in the taskbar without a mouse –> and still see thumbnail previews. Press Windows key + T, and you will move focus to the left most icon on the taskbar. Then, while still pressing the Windows key, press T key again to change the focus to the next icon to the right. You can keep doing this as long as you like.
Launch Taskbar Apps without a Mouse:
Likewise, you can launch any program on the taskbar without a mouse. Press the Windows key and the number that corresponds to the position of the application on the taskbar from the left. For example, Windows key + 1 to launch the left most application on the taskbar, Windows key +2 key to launch the second left-most application and so on.
For comprehensive list of the Windows shortcuts open Help and Support and type Windows Shortcuts and press enter to get the list.
Run Multiple Copies of Applications from the Taskbar:
The Windows 7 taskbar serves a dual purpose, which can get confusing at times. It’s used to launch programs, also to switch between programs by clicking its icon, and also switch to that program after it’s is running by clicking its icon.
But, what if you want to launch a second instance of the program ?? There is a no way out to do this because when you click on its icon, you only switch to the running instance.
There is a simple fix: If a program is already running and you want to launch a second instance from the taskbar, hold down the Shift Key and click the icon. A second instance will launch. Another way out is to right click the running program icon in the taskbar and then again click the program name. You can keep launching new instances this way.
Get the Quick Launch Bar:
Windows 7’s new taskbar functions as a program launcher as well as taskbar switcher. As a result, the old Quick Launch bar, the area on the left side of the taskbar that contained the shortcuts for frequently used programs has been removed. However, if you really miss that little applet, you can add it back. Here’s how to do it:
1. Right-click the taskbar and choose Toolbars –> New Toolbar.
2. You’ll be asked to select the folder. A link for the Quick Launch bar will be added to the taskbar. It’ll be on the right of the taskbar, just to the left of the notification area as shown below:
It’s not particularly useful that the Quick Launch is docked all the way to the right with no applications showing, so we’re going to have to do a bit of work on it to make it useful. Right-click the taskbar and, in the pop-up menu, remove the check next to ‘Lock the Taskbar’. Now, right click Quick Launch and remove the checks next to Show Text and Show Title as shown below:
Once you have done that, drag the vertical triple dotted line next to Quick Launch bar to the left until you expose more than one of its icons. To prevent further changes, right-click the taskbar and check ‘Lock the Taskbar’. You can now use the Quick Launch bar as you could in Windows XP or Windows Vista, including adding icons and deleting them as shown below:
Source: http://clubhouse.microsoft.com/public/post/261c40ef-ed74-4113-a8a7-5d26c9792228
