Windows + + and Windows + -
Pressing the Windows button
with either the plus or minus key activates the Magnifier, letting you zoom in
on the entire desktop or open a rectangular magnifying lens to zoom in on (and
out of) parts of your screen. You can also customize the Magnifier to follow
your mouse pointer or keyboard cursor.
Windows + Left and Windows + Right
These two shortcuts will make your active window fill up exactly one half of
your screen-depending on which arrow key you use. And once a window is fixed to
one side of the screen, you can repeat the shortcut with the same arrow key to
flip it to the other side.
Windows + Home
This shortcut minimizes every open window on your desktop except the active
window. Pressing this shortcut again restores all the minimized windows.Windows + T
Like
Alt + Tab (still our all-time-favorite Windows shortcut), Windows + T cycles
through thumbnails of your open programs via the Taskbar's peek menu.
Windows + E
Automatically opens up a new Explorer window to show your Libraries folder.
Windows + P
Manage your
multiple-monitor setup more efficiently with this handy shortcut. Windows + P
opens a small overlay that lets you configure a second display or projector.
You can switch from a single monitor to dual-display in either mirror or
extend-desktop mode.
Windows + Shift + Left and Windows +
Shift + Right
If you're using two or more displays-and you are, aren't you?-memorize this
shortcut to easily move a window from one screen to the other. The window
retains its size and relative position on the new screen, which is useful when
working with multiple documents.
Windows + [Number]
Programs (and new instances) pinned to your Taskbar can be launched by hitting
Windows and the appropriate number key. Windows + 1, for example, launches the
first application in the taskbar, while Windows + 4 will launch the fourth.
Windows + Space: This
combo performs the same function as moving your mouse to the bottom right of
the Taskbar: It makes every active
window transparent (save faint outlines) so you can view the desktop
underneath.
Track Your Actions with Problem
Step Recorder
To
aid their development of Windows 7 beta versions, the Microsoft engineers built
in a diagnostic tool called Problem Steps Recorder that combines screen
captures with mouse tracking to record your actions. You can launch this
program from the Start Menu by typing psr.exe in the search field. Hit the
Record button and the applet tracks your mouse and keyboard input while taking
screenshots that correspond with each new action. When you stop recording, your
session is saved to an HTML slide show recreating your steps, to which you can
add comments and annotations. This tool is insanely useful if you need to
create a tutorial for a computer-illiterate relative. Hi Mom, hi Dad!
Master Your New Font Manager
Font
management is much improved in Windows 7. The Add Fonts dialog is history, and
in its place is new functionality within the Fonts folder itself. First, the
folder now shows font previews via each font file's icon (visible with Large or
Extra Large icon views). Second, fonts from a single set will no longer show up
as different fonts; they're now combined as a single family, which can be expanded
by double-clicking the icon. Third, you can now toggle fonts on and off by
right-clicking a font icon and selecting the Hide option. This prevents
applications from loading the font (thus saving memory), but still keeps the
file retained in the Font folder. Finally, Windows 7 includes a new fancy,
free-flowing font called Gabriola that shows off the advanced antialiasing,
text rendering, and "stylistic alternate" font flourishes afforded by
directwrite (Microsoft's API for 2D text rendering) and opentype.
Launch Games with Keystrokes
One
of our biggest annoyances with Windows Vista was the Games Folder, aka the
Gaming Grotto, aka the Gaming Ghetto. In Vista, Games for Windows titles and
other game shortcuts automatically install to this directory, which you can
only access with a Start Menu shortcut. This scheme prevents you from starting
a game from the Start Menu search bar (aka the power user, keyboard-only
method). Indeed, while you can launch any other application by mashing the
Windows key, and typing its name in the Start Menu field, this isn't the case
for games installed to Vista's Games Folder. Well, this oversight is fixed in
Windows 7, and the universe is now home to slightly less evil.
Burn a Spittin' Image
You
can quit messing around with ostensibly free, malware-infected burning
software, because Windows 7 comes loaded with a DVD and CD ISO burning
application. Just double-click your image file and Windows will start a tiny
program window to help burn your disc. It's a bare-bones app, but it works!
Become More Wordly with Hidden
Wallpapers
Besides
its default desktop wallpaper, Win7 includes desktop backgrounds catered to
your region (which is identified when you first install the OS). We Americans,
for example, get six 1900x1200 images showing off National Parks and beaches.
However, if your tastes run more international-don't worry, we won't hold that
against you-you can grab wallpapers for other regions from a hidden folder.
Type globalization in a search of your C: drive. The only result should be a
folder located in the main Windows directory, and you should only be able to
see ELS and Sorting folders nested here. Now search for MCT in the top-right
search bar. This will display five new unindexed folders, each corresponding to
a different global region. Browse these folders for some extra themes and
wallpapers specific to Australia, United Kingdom, South Africa, and Canada.
Take Control of UAC
Despite
good intentions, User Account Control pop-ups were one of the most annoying
aspects of Vista, and thus UAC became a feature that most of us immediately
disabled after a clean install. UAC in Windows 7 displays fewer warnings, but
you can also fine-tune its notification habits by launching the UAC Settings
dialog from the Start Menu. Just type UAC in the Start Menu search field and
click the result. We find that setting the bar to just one tick above
"Never notify" provides a comfortable balance between mindful
security and incessant, Alice Kramden–caliber nagging.
Calculate Your Mortgage and Other Math Tricks
The
reliable Calculator applet has been beefed up to do more than just basic
arithmetic. You can now toggle between Standard, Scientific, Programmer, and
even Statistics modes. In addition, the Options menu lets you pull out many new
automated conversation tools, such as Unit Conversion (e.g., Angles,
Temperature, Velocity, and Volume) and Date Calculation (e.g., calculate the
difference between two dates). More templates give you the ability to crunch
gas mileage, lease tipping points, and even mortgage estimates (yeah, right!) Based
on any variables you input.
Reveal All of Your
Drives
If
you use built-in memory-card readers in a 3.5-inch drive bay or on your desktop
display, empty memory card slots will not show up as drives in My Computer. But
that doesn't mean they're not still there. To reveal hidden memory card slots,
open My Computer. Press Alt to show the toolbar at the top of the screen, and
go to Folder Options under Tools. Hit the View tab and uncheck the "Hide
empty drives in the Computer folder" option.
Use Devices and Printers to Quickly Dig into Hardware
Tired
of switching between Device Manager, Properties menus for your devices, and the
Start Menu to manage and use printers, digital cameras, mice, and other
peripherals? Windows 7 comes to your rescue with its Devices and Printers
dialog. Open Control Panel and select View Devices and Printers from the
Hardware and Sound category. Right-click a device icon in Devices and Printers
to configure the hardware, create shortcuts, troubleshoot, view properties, and
run programs. Devices and Printers can save you a lot of effort. For example,
when you use it to manage your computer, you have one-touch access to 12
different Control Panel and Explorer interfaces. And when you use a Windows
7–specific driver that supports Device Stage, Devices and Printers uses
thumbnail art of the actual device, as shown.
Calibrate Your Notebook's Text
and Color After
doing a clean install of Windows 7 on a notebook, the first thing you should do
is tune and calibrate cleartype text and Display Color. Windows 7 includes two
built-in wizards that run you through the entire process, pain-free. Launch cleartype
Text Tuning by typing cttune in the Start Menu search field and opening the
search result. You'll go through a brief series of steps that ask you to
identify the best-looking text-rendering method. For Display Color
Calibration-useful if you're using Windows 7 with a projector or large-screen
LCD-search and launch dccw from the Start Menu. It'll run you through a series
of pages where you can adjust the gamma, brightness, contrast, and color of the
screen to make images look their best.
Control auto-play Settings Like a Megalomaniacal Tyrant
Windows
7's version of autoplay, like its predecessors', lets you specify what to do
with media types when you connect an external drive or insert a disc. Sure, you
may have hated autoplay in Windows XP, but Win7 provides you with reasons to
take a fresh look. As in Vista, Win7 lets you configure autoplay settings by
media type, but you should poke around for more tweaking options. Open Control
Panel, select Hardware and Sound, and then select autoplay. By default, Win7
uses autoplay for all media and devices; this can be unchecked, and from there
you can personalize autoplay actions like a madman. Note that each type of
media-music cds, dvds, software and games, media files, blank media, and video
discs-offers you choices based on Windows utilities as well as third-party
programs. Choose your favorite app as an autoplay default, or to keep the
traditional pop-up autoplay menu, select Ask Me Every Time.
Solve External Hard Drive Hassles with Convert.exe
Windows
7 prefers hard disk drives that use the NTFS file system: Its integrated backup
program cannot back up files from or to drives that use the older FAT32 file
system. So, if you select a drive that uses FAT32 as the backup location,
Windows 7 displays an error message. FAT32, a leftover from the days of Windows
98, works with both macos and Windows (which is why most external hard disks
use this file system by default), but it lacks the features needed to fully
support Windows 7 backup. Use Convert.exe to solve this problem. Open a
command-prompt session and use the following command to change your external
hard disk's file system: convert x:
/fs:ntfs (replace x with the actual drive letter of your external hard
disk). Convert.exe will check your external hard disk for errors, verify
there's enough space for conversion, and then convert with abandon. While this
theoretically will not destroy your data, we recommend you back up your files
first.
Convert WMC Recordings for Use with Vista and XP
Windows Media Center (WMC) improved in
the jump from Vista to Windows 7-you'll find better integration of cable,
broadcast, and Internet TV in the program guide, better support for widescreen
displays, and a refined user interface, among other changes. But if you want to
share your recordings with Windows XP or Vista users, or use the dozens of
recording and file-conversion utilities made for those versions of WMC, you're
sort of screwed, as Windows 7 no longer uses the DVR-MS file format for
recording. Instead, it uses WTV (Windows TV), and WTV files can't be used by
older versions of WMC or Windows Media Player.
You can, however, convert a TV recording from WTV to DVR-MS by using the
conversion utility provided in Win7.
TV recordings are stored by default in the Public Recorded TV library. Open the
library, right-click the recording, and select Convert to DVR-MS Format. At the
end of the conversion process, the Recorded TV library contains both your
original .wtv file as well the .dvr-ms conversion. The .dvr-ms file can be used
with programs designed for Windows XP and Windows Vista Windows Media Center,
and can be played on Windows Media Center and Windows Media Player in Windows
XP and Windows Vista.
Command Windows 7 to Generate an Energy Report
As a
power user, you may be concerned with power consumption, making the
command-line utility powercfg.exe a must-see. To create a report on your PC's
energy appetite, press the Windows key and type cmd in the search box.
Right-click cmd and select Run as Administrator. Now, select the box and type
powercfg –energy at the command-line prompt, and hit Enter. Powercfg will run
for about 60 seconds, then generate a report called energy-report.html in
C:\Windows\system32. This report will notify you of anything in your computer
that is keeping the CPU cycling, thus burning power and sucking notebook
batteries dry. After you run the report, you'll likely find that USB devices
never entered Suspend state. While you might think the power consumption of a
USB key is pretty insignificant, if it prevents the CPU from cycling off, that
device can really hit where it hurts-in your battery's nards.
Cling (Desperately) to Vista's
Taskbar
Let's
start with the bad news: Windows 7 eliminates the option to use the classic
grey Windows 2000–style Taskbar. You're also committed to the modern version of
the Start Menu. But the good news is that you can still tweak the Taskbar to
make it run like it did in Windows Vista, replacing the program icons with the
names of each open app. Right-click the Taskbar and hit Properties. Check the
"Use small icons" box and select "Combine when Taskbar is
full" from the drop-down menu under Taskbar buttons. You still get the
peek-view thumbnail feature of the Taskbar, and inactive programs remain as
single icons, but open programs will display their full names.
Exile Programs to the System Tray
All
active programs show up as icons on the Taskbar, whether you want them to or
not. While this is useful for web browsing or word processing, your taskbar can
get cluttered with icons you would normally expect to be hidden away, like
those for Steam or a chat client. You can, however, keep active instances of
these programs hidden away in the System Tray/Notification Area by
right-clicking their shortcuts, navigating to the Compatibility tab, and
selecting Windows Vista under the Compatibility Mode drop-down menu. Just be
aware that this only works for programs that would previously hide away from
the Taskbar in Vista.
Manage Your Jump Lists
The
Jump List, a list of shortcuts to files or tasks for a particular Start Menu or
Taskbar item, is one of the most significant improvements in Windows 7. Each
time you open a file or website, or run a task with a program that supports
Jump Lists, Windows 7 stores the shortcut to the file, website, or task for
reuse. Unlike Windows XP, however, Windows 7 doesn't group these shortcuts into
a single location. Instead, it stores shortcuts for each program's files,
websites, or tasks in a separate shortcut list-aka the Jump List. To see the
Jump List for a program in the Start Menu, simply click the right-arrow icon.
To see the Jump List for a program icon on the Taskbar, right-click the icon. Windows eventually removes items
from the Jump List when it runs out of space, but you can override this. To
make any Jump List item a permanent entry, highlight it and click the pushpin
icon (reverse this process to unpin it). And if the idea of leaving an icon
trail of all your recent history disturbs you, you can disable Jump Lists
entirely: Right-click the Start Menu,
choose Properties, and uncheck the two boxes under Privacy.
Organize Your Taskbar and System Tray
The
programs that you pin to your Taskbar can be moved around to any order you
want, whether they're just shortcut icons or currently active applications. The
Taskbar, if unlocked, can also be dragged to latch to the left, right, or even
top of your desktop. As shown below, Windows 7 improves side-docked Taskbar
support with better gradient rendering and shortcut support. It really works
well if you're using a widescreen monitor. Just as the Taskbar icons can be
rearranged at will, the icons in the System Tray (actually called the
Notification Area) can be dragged and set to any order, as well. Hidden Icons
can be dragged back into view, and you can hide icons by dragging them over the
white triangle, and dropping them into the Hidden Icon well-much easier than
working through the Notification Area Customization menu.
Accelerate Your Start Menu
The
Start Menu hasn't changed much from Vista, but there are some notable
improvements. The behavior of the power button has been changed to Shut Down,
as opposed to Hibernate, which was the asinine default in Vista. But you can
also change the button default to do other actions. Right-click the Start Menu,
and choose Properties. From the Power Button Action drop-down, you can choose a
new default button behavior. If you hit the Customize button, you'll enter a
world of opportunities that help you control what the Start Menu displays. Most
options are turned off, but you may want some on, like the option to display
recorded TV files, a feature that's new in Windows 7. Also be aware that Start
Menu items should be set to "Display as a link" if you want them to
open up Jump Lists.
Arrange Files by Type, Month,
Artist, and Other Options
Windows
Vista introduced the concept of using the Details folder view to group files by
criteria such as name, date modified, type, size, and other options. These
choices are still available in any folder by right-clicking inside the folder
and selecting them from the options menu. But Window 7 does Vista one better
with its new Libraries scheme, which enables you to view the contents of
multiple file locations in a single logical folder. And as you'd expect, each
Library comes correct with contextual file-arrangement options that vary
according to what's being viewed. For example, in the Pictures library, you can
choose from Day, Rating, Tag, and Month. For videos, maybe arranging by Length,
as in our screenshot, is most relevant. You get the point.
Pin Folders to Favorites and Start Menu
Explorer's
Jump List shows your seven most frequently visited folders, but you can
manually bookmark some favorites to the top of the list by pinning folder
locations. Just right-click any folder-either on your desktop or from an open
instance of Explorer-and drag that folder icon to the Explorer shortcut on the
Taskbar. You'll see a message that reads "Pin to Windows Explorer"
before you release the mouse button. The folder will appear under a Pinned
section of the Jump List, and you can remove it by clicking the "Unpin
from this list" icon on the right side of the panel. You can also
right-click and drag a folder directly to the Start button to pin that folder to
the general Start list.
Put an OS in Your Pocket
How to load Windows 7
onto a bootable USB key
To complete your Windows 7
power-user experience, you may consider dropping the whole darn OS onto a USB
drive. Whether you carry it around in your pocket or toss it in a desk drawer,
it's a perfect boot disk for emergency installs-including those times when
you're working with a netbook or some other computer that lacks an optical
drive. Even better, your install times will be significantly reduced, thanks to
your key's flash memory-we shaved off minutes from our total install time.
Here's how to create a schmancy-fancy boot key for either Windows 7 or
Vista-but not for other oses, so please don't try! We've run a truncated
version of this article in the magazine before, but because it was so
incredibly popular-and so germane to this feature story-we've decided to share
it again, this time with more detail and screens.
1. Format Your USB Key
Plug in your USB key and
back up any existing data stored on it. You'll need to format the key (thus
erasing existing data) before you can make it a bootable device. We used an 8GB
key, but a 4GB key will also work.
2. Partition that Key in CMD
Open up a command prompt as
an Administrator. You can do this by searching for cmd.exe in your
Windows/System32 folder, right-clicking the executable, and selecting "Run
as administrator." Alternatively, type CMD in the Start Menu search field and
activate the command prompt using Ctrl +
Shift + Enter
You should now be under
C:\Windows\system32 (assuming your Windows partition is the C drive). Type
diskpart in the command line to enter the Disk Partition command-line tool,
which lets you format and create partitions on active disks. Now type list disk
to reveal a list of all your active disks, each of which is associated with a
number. Make a note of which one is your USB key, based on the capacity. In
this screenshot, our USB drive is Disk 2.
3. Format Away (Command-Prompt Style)
It's now time to enter a load of commands to properly partition the key, and
format for the NTFS (did you know this stands for "New Technology File
System"?). In succession, enter the following-and type carefully, Jimbo!
Select Disk # (where # is the
number of your USB disk. We typed Select Disk 2 for this job)
Clean (this removes any existing partitions from the USB disk, including
any hidden sectors)
Create Partition Primary (creates a new primary partition with default
parameters)
Select Partition 1 (focuses operation on the newly created partition)
Active (sets the partition to active, informing the disk firmware that
this is a valid system partition)Format FS=NTFS (formats the
partition with the NTFS file system. This may take several minutes to complete,
depending on the size of your USB key)
Assign (this gives the USB drive a Windows volume and next available drive
letter, which you should write down. In our case, drive "L" was
assigned)
Exit (quits the diskpart tool)
4. Copy Windows DVD to a Desktop Folder
Insert the Windows 7
installation DVD into your drive, and view the files that it contains. Copy all
of the files to a folder on your Desktop. We put the disc contents in a folder
named Windows 7.
5. Turn Your Key into a Bootable Device
Now, go back to your
command prompt, running it as an Administrator. Using the CD command, navigate
your way to the folder where you placed the Windows disk ISO files. Your
command line path should look something like C:\Users\USERNAMEHERE\Desktop\Windows
7\ if you followed our lead on folder placement. Now type the following
commands:
CD Boot (this gets you into the boot directory)
Bootsect.exe /nt60 L: (this assumes L is the drive letter assigned to your
USB key from the previous step)
In case you're wondering, Bootsect infuses boot manager–compatible code into
your USB key to make it a bootable device. Also be aware that if you're
currently running 32-bit Windows Vista or 7, Bootsect will only work if you use
the files from the 32-bit Windows 7 install disc. The Bootsect executable from the 64-bit version will not run in 32-bit
Vista. Don't forget it!
6. Load the USB Key with Your Install
Files
Copy all of the extracted
ISO files into the USB drive. You don't need to do this from the command
prompt. Just drag and drop the files from the Windows 7 folder into the USB
drive using Windows Explorer. We also recommend copying your hardware drivers
onto the same key so the installation wizard can find them.
Your USB key is now all ready to go! Plug it into your target system and make
sure you enter the BIOS (typically by hitting F2 or F12) to temporarily change
the boot order to allow booting from the USB key before your primary hard drive
or optical drive. Now, when you plug the key into a machine, your system should
automatically begin speedily downloading setup files off of the USB key and
entering Windows 7 installation
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