Windows 7 tricks: 20 top tips and tweaks
Here are 20 ways to get around the Windows 7 interface and make it act the way you want.
Just got your hands on Windows 7 and want to bend it to your will? No problem. We've got plenty of tips, hacks and secrets to keep you busy for a long time, including automatically opening Windows Explorer to a folder of your choice, speeding up taskbar thumbnails, finding hidden desktop themes, forcing User Account Control to act the way you'd like, keeping your Explorer searches secret from others, and more.
So check out these tips. If you like them, we'll keep more coming.
General tips
We'll start with a few nifty tips that can make your desktop more interesting, make it easier to get around and increase your computer's power efficiency.Use hidden international wallpapers and themes
When you first install Windows 7, it asks for your language, time and currency. Based on your responses, it installs a set of wallpapers and themes. If you choose English (United States) for your time and currency format, for example, the available desktop backgrounds and themes will include a United States section with scenery from locations such as Maine, the Southwest and so on.Hidden, 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 you can install and use them:
1. In the search box in the Start menu, type
C:\Windows\Globalization\MCT and press Enter. (Note: If Windows 7 is installed in a drive other than C:, use that letter instead.)
2. Windows Explorer will launch and show you a list of subfolders under
C:\Windows\Globalization\MCT:
MCT-AU, MCT-CA, MCT-GB, MCT-US, and MCT-ZA. Each subfolder has
wallpapers for a specific country: AU for Australia, CA for Canada, GB
for Great Britain, US for the United States, and ZA for South Africa.For any of the countries whose wallpaper and themes you want to use, go into its Theme folder, for example,
C:\Windows\Globalization\MCT\MCT-ZA\Theme. Double-click the theme you see there (for example ZA).
3. That will install a shortcut to the theme and wallpapers in the Personalization section of Control Panel.
You can now use them as you would any other theme or background, by right-clicking the desktop, choosing Personalize, and choosing a background or theme. They will be listed in their own section.
Shake your desktop free of clutter
If you frequently run multiple programs simultaneously, your desktop can get extremely cluttered. This can get annoying if you're working on one program and want to minimize all the other windows -- in previous versions of Windows you had to minimize them individually.With Windows 7's "shake" feature, though, you can minimize every window except the one in which you're currently working -- in a single step. Click and hold the title bar of the window you want to keep on the desktop; while still holding the title bar, shake it quickly back and forth until all of the other windows minimize to the taskbar. Then let go. To make them return, shake the title bar again.
You can accomplish the same thing by pressing the Window key-Home key combination -- although doing that is not nearly as much fun.
Get a power efficiency report
Have a laptop and want to get more battery life out of it? Windows 7 includes a hidden built-in tool that will examine your laptop's energy use and make recommendations on how to improve it. To use it:1. Run a command prompt as an administrator. To do this, type
cmd in the search box, and when the cmd icon appears, right-click it and choose "Run as administrator."SanDisk today showcased its upcoming 1TB SDXC card prototype at a European trade show for photo and video professionals.
"There is no definitive timing for availability as of now," a company spokesperson said in an email to Computerworld. "Western Digital plans to monitor industry trends and demands, and introduce the card in retail accordingly. Price would depend on market conditions at the time it’s released."
The Western Digital subsidiary, which just two years ago debuted the first 512GB SD card, said doubling the capacity of its Extreme PRO SDXC UHS-I Memory Card was necessary to address the increasing demand for high-resolution content, such as 4K and 8K videos, virtual reality and 360-degree videography.
SanDisk's 512GB SD card sells for $345.77 on online retail sites.
"Sixteen years ago we introduced the first SanDisk 64MB SD card and today we are enabling capacities of 1TB. Over the years our goal has remained the same: continue to innovate and set the pace for the imaging industry," SanDisk stated in its news release.
The new 1TB SD card represents more than 16,000 times the capacity of SanDisk's first 64MB SD card.
To express your thoughts on Computerworld content, visit
This is dummy text. It is not meant to be read. Accordingly, it is difficult to figure out when to end it. But then, this is dummy text. It is not meant to be read. Period.
ConversionConversion EmoticonEmoticon