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Here are some tips I have have found about Windows 7 in these forums and elsewhere...
Feel free to post your own!
Each post should have "a name:" code before it, use this when linking to this post to skip to certain tips!
(eg sample link: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itprogeneral/thread/702d4ffc-cd4a-4fb2-96d3-6d2f75ea95cb#
a name mentioned before tip )
Can't print these tips correctly? Please see the webpage I made up specifically for printing problems with this thread here : (link opens in new window.)
http://cid-7ef032c786c67649.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/Windows%207%20tips.html -------------------------------------------
a name: reboot My computer is acting really weird! It is doing X and Y and Z..... (thx to OldHobo for reminding me of this)
Have you rebooted your comp yet? Windows comes up with weird errors if it has been on for a while...
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a name: quicklaunch How to add back the Quick Launch toolbar (copied from
this thread and
http://hubpages.com/hub/Windows_7_-_Quick_Launch )
First,
follow the link here to add the Quick Launch toolbar. Then follow the instructions below to move the QL toolbar to the left side of the taskbar and not the right side.
Right click the Taskbar and make sure that it is Unlocked.
On the Left Side of the Quick Launch Toolbar you will see 3 vertical rows of Dots. This is the Toolbar Handle. Use the mouse to grab that handle and drag the QL toolbar as far to the left as it will go.
Next, grab the Handle for the Taskbar Icons and drag it as far to the right as it will go.This should switch the toolbars.
Next, drag the QL toolbar to the left as far as it will go. This should place it next to the Start Button. Right click an empty spot on the QL toolbar and remove the check marks from 'Show Text' and 'Show Title'.
Finally, carefully drag the Taskbar Icons to the left until the QL toolbar is the size you prefer.
Right click the Taskbar and select 'Lock the Taskbar'.
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a name: moveapps Can I move around the system tray icons or the taskbar apps? I would really like to organize them! Sure, just drag to tray icons or taskbar apps to their desired spot! (A big taskbar improvement, wouldn't you say?)
Note that moving taskbar apps act like the Vista sidebar (where new gadgets docked in the sidebar at the bottom go up to the top); if dragged to the right they will automatically slide back to the left until the 1st app it encounters (open or pinned) stops it.
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a name: w7systemreq What is the minimum Windows 7 system requirements, or how much less than MS's recommendations can I go? See this thread:
Windows 7 minimum system requirements (link:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itproinstall/thread/9038c21f-5184-468c-bf5b-9f54bca70c5c )
Alternatively, check out Microsoft's
Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor to see if your computer can upgrade to win7.
(link:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/downloads/upgrade-advisor )
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a name: run What happened to the Run dialog box in win7? I can't find it!! Did MS get rid of it? No, they didn't get rid of it.
Follow these instructions to add the Run button back to the Start menu.
Right click on the Start button/orb and select Properties. Click the "Customize" button to customize the Start menu, scroll down the list till you find "Run command" and then check it, and then click OK on each of the dialog boxes.
Also you can press Windows key + R to bring up the Run dialog box.
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a name: keyshortcuts With all the new user interface features of win7, there has to be some new keyboard shortcuts to use these features, you know of any?
(Copied from
thread 1 ,
thread 2 , a post by Andre Da Costa (which I forget the link to),
this blog post , and trial and error)
(Windows key icons copied from above blog post) General shortcuts Win
+F - Find a file with the search utility
Win
+E - Opens Explorer
Win
+R - Run a program
Win
+Pause/Break key - System Properties
Win
+G - Bring gadgets to the top of the Z-order (aka bring gadgets to top)
Win
+L - Log off
Win
+U - Shut down
Ctrl+Shift+N - New folder
Win
+X - Mobility Center (same as Vista, but still handy!)
Alt+Tab Alt+Tab - Shows normal Alt+Tab interface Windows users have come to know and love.
Win
+T - Focus the first taskbar entry. Pressing again will cycle through them, you can also arrow around. Win+Shift+T cycles backwards (Basically equivalent of pressing Win+Tab in XP, kind of turns taskbar into alt+tab interface)
Win
+Tab - Flip3D (the cool representation of alt+tabbing through windows as if looking through files in a folder in a file cabinet)
Ctrl+Win
+Tab - Also launches Flip3D, but you dont have to hold down the Win key to keep it open when using this shortcut.
Windows Taskbar SHIFT+click on taskbar icon – Launches new instance of a program.
SHIFT+CTRL+click on taskbar icon – Launches an elevated new instance.
Middle mouse click on taskbar icon – Launches a new instance of a program.
Middle mouse click on taskbar thumbnail – Close the window.
CTRL+click on a taskbar group – Restores that last active window in the group. Continued clicking will continue restoring the subsequent windows in the group.
Drag up from a taskbar icon, or right-click it – Opens Jump List
Win
+# (# = a number key) - Launches a new instance of the application in the Nth slot on the taskbar. Example: Win+1 launches first pinned app, Win+2 launches second, etc.
Win
+Shift+# - Start a new instance of the program pinned to the taskbar in the position indicated by the number.
Win
+Alt+# - Open Jump List for program in the position indicated by number.
Win
+Ctrl+# - Switch to window indicated by number.
Snap (Window Arrangement) WinKey
+arrow – Cycles through window arrangements for a window.
- Win+Up - Maximize
- Win+Down - Restore / Minimize
- Win+Left - Snap to left
- Win+Right - Snap to right
- SHIFT+WinKey+arrow – Moves the window to other displays.
Win
+Home - Minimize / Restore all other windows
Peek WinKey
+Space (hold keys) – Reveals the desktop
Projection (aka activates Aero Peek without mousing over to the Show Desktop button)
WinKey
+P - External display options (mirror, extend desktop, etc)
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a name: w7editions You know anything about which edition of Windows 7 does what? Also from what XP and Vista editions can I upgrade from?
Check out here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/compare/default.aspx XP users : A clean install of Win7 is required.
Vista users: Check out this chart to see which versions of win7 you can upgrade your Vista install to and which ones require clean installs of win7.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/get/upgrade-considerations.aspx -------------------------------------------
a name: showingtitleoftaskbarapps OK, I don't quite care for the icons only part of the win7 taskbar, any way to change it back to Vista looks?
Well, not quite exactly the looks of Vista, but take a look through the Taskbar and Start menu properties (right-click taskbar and select properties), check "Use small icons" and under Taskbar buttons, choose "Combine when taskbar is full. Now you will have a cross between the Vista and win7 looks, that's about as close as you can get, unlles you can get a 3rd party visual style that mimics Vista.
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a name: win7fps I don't get great framerate out of my game on win7? Any ideas? I suppose you are running gadgets on the Desktop right? We all have seen in game readmes to not have any background programs running while the game is running, and the desktop gadgets is a background program. Right-click the desktop, select View, and deselect the Show Desktop Gadgets option to close the gadgets, re-check it to reverse the process. Hope that helps!
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a name: installingprograms I can't get any programs to install! Installing programs require / always invokes a UAC prompt.
If UAC is disabled, that prompt never gets to you,
which (usually) has the same effect as you pressing Cancel/No at the UAC prompt . This is why none of your programs are installing, you need to turn on UAC.
Edit: But!:
I have UAC turned off (also off in Vista) and have no problem installing programs, on both x86 and x64 machines.
I can verify this fact on my comp, but if you are having trouble getting programs to start installing or can't access advanced system settings,
please turn UAC on! -------------------------------------------
a name: ms09037 There is this very important update MS released recently; the update / bulletin is KB973540 / MS09-037 , it affects Windows Media Player, and I want to install it on my win7 system so I am not affected by this hole, any help? It is amazing to me how many threads I have encountered on this update (KB973540 / MS09-037), all trying to install this update on win7. The bulletin (
link here ,
security bulletin here ) clearly states that the affected WMP versions are
9-11 on
2000, XP, and Vista , and it states that win7 is NOT affected. Win7 has version
12 by default, which is not affected by this hole,
hence win7 is not affected by this hole and does not need this patch!! (I have heard that RC users need the patch,
but that is not verified in the bulletin... )
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a name: buildnum How do I know what build number of win7 I have? Click start, type winver and press Enter.
7100 is the RC.
7600 is the RTM / GA / one you buy in the store.
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a name: liveapps Where did the Mail, Movie Maker, Photo Gallery, or other apps go? They are part of Windows Live Essentials now, go to http://download.live.com/ to get it.
(although if you are on dial-up it isn't fun to get these apps, since each main app is usually around 30 MB)
Movie Maker has been remade, but is missing a lot of features its predecessors from XP and Vista have.
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a name: olddrivers Can I use XP or Vista drivers with win7? You can use Vista drivers just fine, but XP ones may/will be a hassle to get to work.
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a name: oldgfxcards I have a older ATI card or a Intel 8 series chipset (eg 82865G), or a NVIDIA Geforce 4 MX or 5 FX series and want to get WDDM 1.1 (win7) drivers for it, but I can't find them. Help! See here:
Readme: Older ATI, Intel onboard graphics, or NVIDIA graphics cards on Windows 7 (link:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itprohardware/thread/243faae6-75c9-40f9-b946-100befe4b6f3 )
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a name: onboardandgfxcards I have this weird graphics card problem with my dedicated graphics card,.... Have you disabled the onboard graphics card, as onboards cards conflict with a dedicated graphics card.
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a name: wei Note about the Windows Experience Index (WEI): Make sure to not run any programs in the background while running the assessment to ensure a accurate WEI index.
I learned this the hard way by having my graphics card drop .2 points by running the fireworks show of Spider Solitare during a re-run of the assessment because of a update to the graphics driver.
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a name: runautorunsorprocexpelevated I like using Autoruns or Process Explorer from the Run menu, how can I run them with elevated priviliges though? (Copied from this thread)
The File menu in Autoruns has the option to restart the application with full admin rights.
In Process Explorer there is "Show Details for All Processes" in the File menu which does the same thing.
Otherwise you can start the command prompt you use to start Autoruns as Administrator.
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a name: vistauacupgrading Note about upgrading from Vista to win7: Make sure UAC in Vista is turned
ON before upgrading, to avoid problems concerning UAC during and after the upgrade process.
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a name: editbcd I want to edit the boot menu for win7 / BCD! You could try all the command prompt commands, or use EasyBCD to edit the settings. Link to EasyBCD:
http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1 -------------------------------------------
a name: win7recoverydisc Is there a win7 recovery disc I can use to repair startup problems or other things not allowing me to boot into win7? Click Start, type system repair disc in the search box and press Enter. There is a utility that makes a win7 recovery disc, I have used it to recover from BCD problems before...
...Or you can use the win7 install disc if you didn't make the recovery disc...
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a name: bootiniandbcd I liked using the boot.ini switches in XP, but how do I use them with Vista/win7's new BCD stuff? See here:
equivalent of boot.ini switches in win7 (link:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/w7itproperf/thread/a3a948b0-c144-40bc-9af9-c58a92ec44b2 )
It involves using a cmd prompt run as administrator, and the bcdedit commands.
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a name: reinstallwin7rc How may times can I re-install the win7 RC on the same comp? (Copied from this thread) As many times as you like / need to!
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a name: downloadwin7rc I want to download the Windows 7 Release Candidate, but the download is not availiable?!? What gives? (Copied from this thread) MS stopped downloads of the RC on Aug. 20th (as they announced they would a few months ago) and they stopped product keys for the RC Oct. 21st.
However
click here to buy Windows 7 (link:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/get/ )
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a name: fasterpreviews Those taskbar thumbnail previews come up too slow. My cursor waits on the icon for a second or two before it comes up. Any suggestions? The link here (
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/best-windows-7-tips-hacks-part-2/ ) shows you how to speed up the taskbar thumbnail previews when you hover your mouse over the program icon. This involves tweaking a registry key, beware that changing registry keys may make your system unbootable! (although I changed the value below from 400 to 200 just fine)
Copy-and-Paste from the article: ...Make the previews appear faster with this registry tweak:
Go to Start, enter and run regedit. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Mouse. On the right, open the MouseHoverTime key and reduce its value from the default 400 to around 150.
Be careful, as decreasing it further may cause problems.
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a name: psr Win7 includes a new feature called Problem Steps Recorder , it basically is a screen capture program made specifically for troubleshooting.
Excerpt from article :
"When any app starts misbehaving under Windows 7 then all your friends need do is click Start, type PSR and press Enter, then click Start Record. If they then work through whatever they're doing then the Problem Steps Recorder will record every click and keypress, take screen grabs, and package everything up into a single zipped MHTML file when they're finished, ready for emailing to you. It's quick, easy and effective, and will save you hours of troubleshooting time."
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a name: closingremarks There are more win7 tips and tricks at these links:
I found this thread stating some Control Panel and other tweaks, check it out! (requires Registry editing!)
Tweak Control Panel & Desktop Toolbar (link:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itproui/thread/3de61206-90ff-454c-99f2-6ab0386722d2 )
Windows 7 - Tutorial Index (
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/257-windows-7-tutorial-index.html )
Ultimate List of Free Windows 7 Software & Resources from Microsoft (
http://bhandler.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!70F64BC910C9F7F3!4572.entry )
Windows 7: 77 Windows 7 Tips (
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2009.10.77windows.aspx )
Those are all the tips I can find/think of right now, please post your own tips!
Contact me if you have any questions...
- JoelbX
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