Windows 7 interface tweaks

Page 2 of 4 - Windows 7 interface tweaks

20. Explore God Mode
Windows 7 has changed Control Panel a little, but it's still too difficult to locate all the
applets and options that you might need. God Mode, however, while not being particularly
godlike, does offer an easier way to access everything you could want from a single folder.
To try this out, create a new folder and rename it to:

The first part, "Everything" will be the folder name, and can be whatever you want: "Super
Control Panel", "Advanced", "God Mode" if you prefer.
The extension, ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C, must be entered exactly as it
is here, though, including the curly brackets. When you press [Enter] this part of the name
will disappear, and double-clicking the new folder will display shortcuts to functions in the
Action Centre, the Network and Sharing Centre, Power options, troubleshooting tools, user
accounts and others - more than 260 options in total.

21. 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.

22. Display the old taskbar button context menu
Right-click a taskbar button, though, and you'll now see its jumplist menu. That's a useful
new feature, but not much help if you want to access the minimize, maximize, or move
options that used to be available. Fortunately there's an easy way to get the old context menu
back - just hold down Ctrl and Shift as you right-click the taskbar button.

23. 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.


DESKTOP SLIDESHOW:Select multiple background images and Windows will cycle through them

24. RSS-powered wallpaper
And if a slideshow based on your standard wallpaper isn't enough, then you can always create
a theme that extracts images from an RSS feed. For example, Long Zheng has created a few sample themes
to illustrate how it works. Jamie Thompson takes this even further, with atheme that always displays the latest BBC news
and weather
on your desktop. AndMakeUseOf have a quick and easy tutorial showing how RSS can get you those gorgeous
Bing photographs as your wallpaper. Or you can watch this custom theme video tutorial.

25. Customise the log-on screen
Changing the Windows log-on screen used to involve some complicated and potentially
dangerous hacks, but not any more - Windows 7 makes it easy. First, browse to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Authentication\LogonUI\Background
in REGEDIT, double-click the DWORD key called OEMBackground (not there? Create it)
and set its value to 1.
Now find a background image you'd like to use. Make sure it's less than 256KB in size, and
matches the aspect ratio of your screen as it'll be stretched to fit.
Next, copy that image into the %windir%\system32\oobe\info\backgrounds folder (create the
info\backgrounds folders if they don't exist). Rename the image to backgroundDefault.jpg,
reboot, and you should now have a custom log-on image.
Alternatively, use a free tweaking tool to handle everything for you. Logon Changer displays
a preview so you can see how the log-on screen will look without rebooting, while the
Logon Screen Rotator accepts multiple images and will display a different one every time you log on.

26. 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.

27. 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.

28. 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.

29. Restore the Quick Launch Toolbar
If you're unhappy with the new taskbar, even after shrinking it, then it only takes a moment to
restore the old Quick Launch Toolbar.
Right-click the taskbar, choose Toolbars > New Toolbar, type
"%UserProfile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Inter net Explorer\Quick Launch"
(less the quotes) into the Folder box and click Select Folder.
Now right-click the taskbar, clear 'Lock the taskbar', and you should see the Quick Launch
toolbar, probably to the right. Right-click its divider, clear Show Text and Show Title to
minimise the space it takes up. Complete the job by right-clicking the bar and selecting
View > Small Icons for the true retro look.

30. 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.

31. Auto arrange your desktop
If your Windows 7 desktop has icons scattered everywhere then you could right-click it and
select View > Auto arrange, just as in Vista. But a simpler solution is just to press and hold
down F5, and Windows will automatically arrange its icons for you.

32. 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.

33. Browseyour tasks
If you prefer the keyboard over the mouse, you will love browsing the taskbar using this nifty
shortcut. Press Windows and T, and you move the focus to the left-most icon on the taskbar.
Then use your arrow keys to change the focus to other icons, and you get a live preview ofevery window.

34. Display your drives
Click Computer in Windows 7 and you might see a strange lack of drives, but don't panic, it's
just Microsoft trying to be helpful: drives like memory card readers are no longer displayed if
they're empty. We think it's an improvement, but if you disagree then it's easy to get your
empty drives back. Launch Explorer, click Tools > Folder Options > View and clear 'Hide
empty drives in the computer folder'.

35. See more detail
The new and improved Windows 7 magnifier offers a much easier way to zoom in on any
area of the screen. Launch it and you can now define a scale factor and docking position, and
once activated it can track your keyboard focus around the screen. Press Tab as you move
around a dialog box, say, and it'll automatically zoom in on the currently active control.

36. Extend your jumplists
By default a jumplist will display up to 10 items, but it can often be useful to extend this and
add a few more. Right-click Start, select Properties > Customize and set "Number of recent
items to display in Jump Lists" to the figure you need.

37. Disable Aero Peek
Hover your mouse cursor over the bottom right hand corner of the screen and Windows 7 will
hide open windows, showing you the desktop. Seems like a good idea to us, but if the feature
gets in your way then it's easy to turn off. Simply right-click the Start orb, select
Properties > Taskbar and clear the "Use Aero Peek to preview the desktop" box.

38. Pin a drive to the taskbar
The taskbar isn't just for apps and documents. With just a few seconds work you can pin
drive icons there, too.
Right-click an empty part of the desktop, select New > Text File, and rename the file to
drive.exe. Drag and drop this onto your taskbar, then delete the original file.
Right-click your new "drive.exe" taskbar button, then right-click its file name and select
Properties. Change the contents of both the Target and Start In boxes to point at the drive or
folder of your choice, perhaps click Change Icon to choose an appropriate drive icon, and
you're done - that drive or folder is now available at a click.



39. Expand your taskbar previews
Move your mouse cursor over a Windows 7 taskbar button and you'll see a small preview of
the application window. To make this larger, launch REGEDIT, browse to
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Explorer\Taskband,
right-click in the right hand pane and create a new DWORD value called MinThumbSizePx.
Double-click this, choose the Decimal option, set the value to 350 and reboot to see the
results. Tweak the value again to fine-tune the results, or delete it to return to the default
thumbnail size.