Following are the simple steps to resolve the error.
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Following are the simple steps to resolve the error.
Internet Explorer 8 has some nice improvements over Internet Explorer 7, but that said many users have been through crashes and more over time, and may want to uninstall Internet Explorer 8 and continue using the older stable version, as with our tutorial about uninstalling Windows Media Player and Internet Explorer 7 in the past, we would like to continue the trend and show our readers how to uninstall IE8 in Windows XP and Windows Vista.
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IE8 is finally out and while looking at the new browser, we can definitely say that it is much more faster than IE7, a full review and feature list will be posted shortly.
However just wanted to point our on a feature we saw in IE8, where each tab is created as a individual process, just like Google Chrome does.
This is definitely a really nice feature, and will allow you to quickly eliminate tabs which taking to long to load, or slowing down the browser itself, though this may not be a new discovery, this is something that will make us like Internet Explorer 8 a little bit more.
However just wanted to point our on a feature we saw in IE8, where each tab is created as a individual process, just like Google Chrome does.
This is definitely a really nice feature, and will allow you to quickly eliminate tabs which taking to long to load, or slowing down the browser itself, though this may not be a new discovery, this is something that will make us like Internet Explorer 8 a little bit more.
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Windows Task Manager is definitely not one of the best things to manage tasks and processes on your computer, it lacks a lot of features which we desire to have a better control over running applications and processes.
In the past we had discussed about Process Explorer, a software utility that allowed you to manage tasks efficiently, along with the ability to suspend memory and CPU hogging tasks instead of terminating them forcefully.
Related: Kill Applications at a Scheduled Time with Process Assassin
Kill Process is another Freeware software utility, that will allow you to kill tasks just like a the task manager.
To kill any running tasks or processes, simply click on the task and click on the Terminal button to kill the process. You can also terminate multiple running processes with a single click along with the ability to kill running services, which are different from processes, since they run in the background.
Download Kill Process
In the past we had discussed about Process Explorer, a software utility that allowed you to manage tasks efficiently, along with the ability to suspend memory and CPU hogging tasks instead of terminating them forcefully.
Related: Kill Applications at a Scheduled Time with Process Assassin
Kill Process is another Freeware software utility, that will allow you to kill tasks just like a the task manager.
To kill any running tasks or processes, simply click on the task and click on the Terminal button to kill the process. You can also terminate multiple running processes with a single click along with the ability to kill running services, which are different from processes, since they run in the background.
Download Kill Process
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If you type about:config in address bar of firefox, it will open its configuration page, that allows to change a lot of settings.
Here I'm presenting some settings, that can be configured. These tweaks have been tested on high speed networks and cable, they might need to be tweaked for slower connections.
You can follow any of these two steps to config your browser:
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Get this Mozilla Optimizer, it keeps the connection alive....
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/Browser...Optimizer.shtml
Mozilla Optimizer improves the browsing speed in all browsers based on the
Gecko Rendering Engine (GRE) like Mozilla, Phoenix, Mozilla Firebird and
Mozilla Firefox as well as Netscape 6 and Netscape 7. All optimizations can be applied manually, this tool simply automates this procedure!
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- Trick to Reveal More Tab/Window Options :
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This neat trick will change the mouse pointer when you hover it over links that will open a new window. Add the following code to your
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If you type about:config in address bar of firefox, it will open its configuration page, that allows to change a lot of settings.
Here I'm presenting some settings, that can be configured. These tweaks have been tested on high speed networks and cable, they might need to be tweaked for slower connections.
You can follow any of these two steps to config your browser:
- Use the about:config screen which lets you add, modify or reset values or
- Manually add all of these hacks to the prefs.js.
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It is usually unexpected, right in the middle of an important assignment, and right after that you start searching the web for a quick solution for that problem. Keep reading this review - you'll find an elegant (and easy) way to fix this problem.Read More →
But look under the hood, and there are a bunch of hidden (and some not-so-secret) tips and tricks available that will crank Firefox up and pimp your browser. Make it faster, cooler, more efficient. Get to be a Jedi master with the following cool Firefox tricks.
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This video show users how they could download and install Windows Live Essentials, a suite of freeware applications by Microsoft that offers integrated and bundled email, instant messaging, photo-sharing, and blog publishing capabilities to any of Window’s web-based services.
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To check whether Windows has found solutions, follow these steps:
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There are a lot of possible causes for blue screen errors, but most of them relate to the computer hardware. The cause of a BSOD error can be a temperature problem, a timing error, a resource conflict, hardware failure, a corrupt registry, a virus or simply a device incompatibility or driver error.Read More →
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previously I was able to fix the Hard disk drivers problem but now i get this STOP 0x0000008e when trying to do a system restore
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I was surprised that my most reliable friend Avast, for the first time failed me in this war against viruses but then again avg and bitdiffender also failed against it. This virus is know popularly as regsvr.exe virus, or as new folder.exe virus and most people identify this one by seeing autorun.inf file on their pen drives, But trend micro identified it as WORM_DELF.FKZ. It is spreading mostly using pen drives as the medium.
Well, so here is the story of how i was able to kill the monster and reclaim my hard disk space.
Manual Process of removal
I prefer manual process simply because it gives me option to learn new things in the process.
So let’s start the process off reclaiming the turf that virus took over from us.
- Cut The Supply Line
- Search for autorun.inf file. It is a read only file so you will have to change it to normal by right clicking the file , selecting the properties and un-check the read only option
- Open the file in notepad and delete everything and save the file.
- Now change the file status back to read only mode so that the virus could not get access again.
- Click start->run and type msconfig and click ok
- Go to startup tab look for regsvr and uncheck the option click OK.
- Click on Exit without Restart, cause there are still few things we need to do before we can restart the PC.
- Now go to control panel -> scheduled tasks, and delete the At1 task listed their.
- Open The Gates Of Castle
- Click on start -> run and type gpedit.msc and click Ok.
- If you are Windows XP Home Edition user you might not have gpedit.msc in that case download and install it from Windows XP Home Edition: gpedit.msc and then follow these steps.
- Go to users configuration->Administrative templates->system
- Find “prevent access to registry editing tools” and change the option to disable.
- Once you do this you have registry access back.
- Launch The Attack At Heart Of Castle
- Click on start->run and type regedit and click ok
- Go to edit->find and start the search for regsvr.exe,
- Delete all the occurrence of regsvr.exe; remember to take a backup before deleting. KEEP IN MIND regsvr32.exe is not to be deleted. Delete regsvr.exe occurrences only.
- At one ore two places you will find it after explorer.exe in theses cases only delete the regsvr.exe part and not the whole part. E.g. Shell = “Explorer.exe regsvr.exe” the just delete the regsvr.exe and leave the explorer.exe
- Seek And Destroy the enemy soldiers, no one should be left behind
- Click on start->search->for files and folders.
- Their click all files and folders
- Type “*.exe” as filename to search for
- Click on ‘when was it modified ‘ option and select the specify date option
- Type from date as 1/31/2008 and also type To date as 1/31/2008
- Now hit search and wait for all the exe’s to show up.
- Once search is over select all the exe files and shift+delete the files, caution must be taken so that you don’t delete the legitimate exe file that you have installed on 31st January.
- Also selecting lot of files together might make your computer unresponsive so delete them in small bunches.
- Also find and delete regsvr.exe, svchost .exe( notice an extra space between the svchost and .exe)
- Time For Celebrations
- Now do a cold reboot (ie press the reboot button instead) and you are done.
As a side note i have found a little back dog( winpatrol ) that used to work perfectly on my old system. It was not their in my new PC, I have installed it again , as I want to stay ahead by forever closing the supply line of these virus. You can download it form Winpatrol website.
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Note that you can’t force Googlebot to visit you more often – what you can do is to invite it to come. Possible measures to take to increase the crawl rate may include:
- Update your content often and regularly (and ping Google once you do) – well, an obvious one, so not much to describe here; in a word, try to add new unique content as often as you can afford and do it regularly (3 times a week can be the best solution if you can’t update your site daily and are looking for the optimal update rate).
- Make sure your server works correctly: mind the uptime and Google Webmaster tools reports of the unreached pages. Two tools I can recommend here are Pingdom and Mon.itor.us.
- Mind your page load time: note that the crawl works on a budget – if it spends too much time crawling your huge images or PDFs, there will be no time left to visit your other pages.
- Check the site internal link structure: make sure there is no duplicate content returned via different URLs: again, the more time the crawler spends figuring your duplicate content, the fewer useful and unique pages it will manage to visit.
- Get more back links from regularly crawled sites.
- Adjust the crawl speed via Google Webmaster tools.
- Add a sitemap (though it’s up for a debate whether the sitemap can help with crawling and indexing issues, many webmasters report they have seen increased crawl rate after adding it).
- Make sure your server returns the correct header response. Does it handle your error pages properly? Don’t make the bot figure out what has happened: explain it clearly.
- Make sure you have unique title and meta tags for each of your pages.
- Monitor Google crawl rate for your site and see what works and what not:
- access crawl stats via Google Webmaster tools:
Take advantage of this great WordPress Plugin that tracks crawl rate for Google, Yahoo and MSN:
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zip's, rar's, mp3's etc.....then do the following
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-- Bit Torrent is aimed at broadband users (or any connection better than dialup).
-- Sharing is highly appreciated, and sharing is what keeps bit torrent alive.
-- A bit torrent file (*.torrent) contains information about the piece structure of the download (more on this later)
-- The method of downloading is not your conventional type of download. Since downloads do not come in as one
big chunk, you are able to download from many people at once, increasing your download speeds. There may be
100 "pieces" to a file, or 20,000+ pieces, all depending on what you're downloading. Pieces are usually small (under 200kb)
-- The speeds are based upon people sharing as they download, and seeders. Seeders are people who constantly
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BandWidth Explained
Most hosting companies offer a variety of bandwidth options in their plans. So exactly what is bandwidth as it relates to web hosting? Put simply, bandwidth is the amount of traffic that is allowed to occur between your web site and the rest of the internet. The amount of bandwidth a hosting company can provide is determined by their network connections, both internal to their data center and external to the public internet.
Network Connectivity
The internet, in the most simplest of terms, is a group of millions of computers connected by networks. These connections within the internet can be large or small depending upon the cabling and equipment that is used at a particular internet location. It is the size of each network connection that determines how much bandwidth is available. For example, if you use a DSL connection to connect to the internet, you have 1.54 Mega bits (Mb) of bandwidth. Bandwidth therefore is measured in bits (a single 0 or 1). Bits are grouped in bytes which form words, text, and other information that is transferred between your computer and the internet.
If you have a DSL connection to the internet, you have dedicated bandwidth between your computer and your internet provider. But your internet provider may have thousands of DSL connections to their location. All of these connection aggregate at your internet provider who then has their own dedicated connection to the internet (or multiple connections) which is much larger than your single connection. They must have enough bandwidth to serve your computing needs as well as all of their other customers. So while you have a 1.54Mb connection to your internet provider, your internet provider may have a 255Mb connection to the internet so it can accommodate your needs and up to 166 other users (255/1.54).
Traffic
A very simple analogy to use to understand bandwidth and traffic is to think of highways and cars. Bandwidth is the number of lanes on the highway and traffic is the number of cars on the highway. If you are the only car on a highway, you can travel very quickly. If you are stuck in the middle of rush hour, you may travel very slowly since all of the lanes are being used up.
Traffic is simply the number of bits that are transferred on network connections. It is easiest to understand traffic using examples. One Gigabyte is 2 to the 30th power (1,073,741,824) bytes. One gigabyte is equal to 1,024 megabytes. To put this in perspective, it takes one byte to store one character. Imagine 100 file cabinets in a building, each of these cabinets holds 1000 folders. Each folder has 100 papers. Each paper contains 100 characters - A GB is all the characters in the building. An MP3 song is about 4MB, the same song in wav format is about 40MB, a full length movie can be 800MB to 1000MB (1000MB = 1GB).
If you were to transfer this MP3 song from a web site to your computer, you would create 4MB of traffic between the web site you are downloading from and your computer. Depending upon the network connection between the web site and the internet, the transfer may occur very quickly, or it could take time if other people are also downloading files at the same time. If, for example, the web site you download from has a 10MB connection to the internet, and you are the only person accessing that web site to download your MP3, your 4MB file will be the only traffic on that web site. However, if three people are all downloading that same MP at the same time, 12MB (3 x 4MB) of traffic has been created. Because in this example, the host only has 10MB of bandwidth, someone will have to wait. The network equipment at the hosting company will cycle through each person downloading the file and transfer a small portion at a time so each person's file transfer can take place, but the transfer for everyone downloading the file will be slower. If 100 people all came to the site and downloaded the MP3 at the same time, the transfers would be extremely slow. If the host wanted to decrease the time it took to download files simultaneously, it could increase the bandwidth of their internet connection (at a cost due to upgrading equipment).
Hosting Bandwidth
In the example above, we discussed traffic in terms of downloading an MP3 file. However, each time you visit a web site, you are creating traffic, because in order to view that web page on your computer, the web page is first downloaded to your computer (between the web site and you) which is then displayed using your browser software (Internet Explorer, Netscape, etc.) . The page itself is simply a file that creates traffic just like the MP3 file in the example above (however, a web page is usually much smaller than a music file).
A web page may be very small or large depending upon the amount of text and the number and quality of images integrated within the web page. For example, the home page for CNN.com is about 200KB (200 Kilobytes = 200,000 bytes = 1,600,000 bits). This is typically large for a web page. In comparison, Yahoo's home page is about 70KB.
How Much Bandwidth Is Enough?
It depends (don't you hate that answer). But in truth, it does. Since bandwidth is a significant determinant of hosting plan prices, you should take time to determine just how much is right for you. Almost all hosting plans have bandwidth requirements measured in months, so you need to estimate the amount of bandwidth that will be required by your site on a monthly basis
If you do not intend to provide file download capability from your site, the formula for calculating bandwidth is fairly straightforward:
Average Daily Visitors x Average Page Views x Average Page Size x 31 x Fudge Factor
If you intend to allow people to download files from your site, your bandwidth calculation should be:
[(Average Daily Visitors x Average Page Views x Average Page Size) +
(Average Daily File Downloads x Average File Size)] x 31 x Fudge Factor
Let us examine each item in the formula:
Average Daily Visitors - The number of people you expect to visit your site, on average, each day. Depending upon how you market your site, this number could be from 1 to 1,000,000.
Average Page Views - On average, the number of web pages you expect a person to view. If you have 50 web pages in your web site, an average person may only view 5 of those pages each time they visit.
Average Page Size - The average size of your web pages, in Kilobytes (KB). If you have already designed your site, you can calculate this directly.
Average Daily File Downloads - The number of downloads you expect to occur on your site. This is a function of the numbers of visitors and how many times a visitor downloads a file, on average, each day.
Average File Size - Average file size of files that are downloadable from your site. Similar to your web pages, if you already know which files can be downloaded, you can calculate this directly.
Fudge Factor - A number greater than 1. Using 1.5 would be safe, which assumes that your estimate is off by 50%. However, if you were very unsure, you could use 2 or 3 to ensure that your bandwidth requirements are more than met.
Usually, hosting plans offer bandwidth in terms of Gigabytes (GB) per month. This is why our formula takes daily averages and multiplies them by 31.
Summary
Most personal or small business sites will not need more than 1GB of bandwidth per month. If you have a web site that is composed of static web pages and you expect little traffic to your site on a daily basis, go with a low bandwidth plan. If you go over the amount of bandwidth allocated in your plan, your hosting company could charge you over usage fees, so if you think the traffic to your site will be significant, you may want to go through the calculations above to estimate the amount of bandwidth required in a hosting plan.
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/ Recalls the previous command entered in the current window.
/! Recalls the last command typed in any window.
/action {action text} Sends the specifed action to the active channel or query window.
/add [-apuce] {filename.ini} Loads aliases, popups, users, commands, and events.
/ame {action text} Sends the specifed action to all channels which you are currently on.
/amsg {text} Sends the specifed message to all channels which you are currently on.
/auser {level} {nick|address} Adds a user with the specified access level to the remote users
list.
/auto [on|off|nickname|address] Toggles auto-opping of a nick or address or sets it on or off
totally.
/away {away message} Sets you away leave a message explaining that you are not currently paying
attention to IRC.
/away Sets you being back.
/ban [#channel] {nickname} [type] Bans the specified nick from the curent or given channel.
/beep {number} {delay} Locally beeps 'number' times with 'delay' in between the beeps. /channel
Pops up the channel central window (only works in a channel).
/clear Clears the entire scrollback buffer of the current window.
/ctcp {nickname} {ping|finger|version|time|userinfo|clientinfo} Does the given ctcp request on
nickname.
/closemsg {nickname} Closes the query window you have open to the specified nick.
/creq [ask | auto | ignore] Sets your DCC 'On Chat request' settings in DCC/Options.
/dcc send {nickname} {file1} {file2} {file3} ... {fileN} Sends the specified files to nick.
/dcc chat {nickname} Opens a dcc window and sends a dcc chat request to nickname.
/describe {#channel} {action text} Sends the specifed action to the specified channel window.
/dde [-r] {service} {topic} {item} [data] Allows DDE control between mIRC and other
applications.
/ddeserver [on [service name] | off] To turn on the DDE server mode, eventually with a given
service name.
/disable {#groupname} De-activates a group of commands or events.
/disconnect Forces a hard and immediate disconnect from your IRC server. Use it with care.
/dlevel {level} Changes the default user level in the remote section.
/dns {nickname | IP address | IP name} Uses your providers DNS to resolve an IP address.
/echo [nickname|#channel|status] {text} Displays the given text only to YOU on the given place
in color N.
/enable {#groupname} Activates a group of commands or events.
/events [on|off] Shows the remote events status or sets it to listening or not.
/exit Forces mIRC to closedown and exit.
/finger Does a finger on a users address.
/flood [{numberoflines} {seconds} {pausetime}] Sets a crude flood control method.
/fsend [on|off] Shows fsends status and allows you to turn dcc fast send on or off.
/fserve {nickname} {maxgets} {homedirectory} [welcome text file] Opens a fileserver.
/guser {level} {nick} [type] Adds the user to the user list with the specified level and
address type.
/help {keyword} Brings up the Basic IRC Commands section in the mIRC help file.
/ignore [on|off|nickname|address] Toggles ignoring of a nick or address or sets it on or off
totally.
/invite {nickname} {#channel} Invites another user to a channel.
/join {#channel} Makes you join the specified channel.
/kick {#channel} {nickname} Kicks nickname off a given channel.
/list [#string] [-min #] [-max #] Lists all currently available channels, evt. filtering for
parameters.
/log [on|off] Shows the logging status or sets it on or off for the current window.
/me {action text} Sends the specifed action to the active channel or query window.
/mode {#channel|nickname} [[+|-]modechars [parameters]] Sets channel or user modes.
/msg {nickname} {message} Send a private message to this user without opening a query window.
/names {#channel} Shows the nicks of all people on the given channel.
/nick {new nickname} Changes your nickname to whatever you like.
/notice {nick} {message} Send the specified notice message to the nick.
/notify [on|off|nickname] Toggles notifying you of a nick on IRC or sets it on or off totally.
/onotice [#channel] {message} Send the specified notice message to all channel ops.
/omsg [#channel] {message} Send the specified message to all ops on a channel.
/part {#channel} Makes you leave the specified channel.
/partall Makes you leave all channels you are on.
/ping {server address} Pings the given server. NOT a nickname.
/play [-c] {filename} [delay] Allows you to send text files to a window.
/pop {delay} [#channel] {nickname} Performs a randomly delayed +o on a not already opped nick.
/protect [on|off|nickname|address] Toggles protection of a nick or address or sets it on or off
totally.
/query {nickname} {message} Open a query window to this user and send them the private message.
/quit [reason] Disconnect you from IRC with the optional byebye message.
/raw {raw command} Sends any raw command you supply directly to the server. Use it with care!!
/remote [on|off] Shows the remote commands status or sets it to listening or not.
/rlevel {access level} Removes all users from the remote users list with the specified access
level.
/run {c:\path\program.exe} [parameters] Runs the specified program, evt. with parameters.
/ruser {nick[!]|address} [type] Removes the user from the remote users list.
/save {filename.ini} Saves remote sections into a specified INI file.
/say {text} Says whatever you want to the active window.
/server [server address [port] [password]] Reconnects to the previous server or a newly
specified one.
/sound [nickname|#channel] {filename.wav} {action text} Sends an action and a fitting sound.
/speak {text} Uses the external text to speech program Monologue to speak up the text.
/sreq [ask | auto | ignore] Sets your DCC 'On Send request' settings in DCC/Options.
/time Tells you the time on the server you use.
/timer[N] {repetitions} {interval in seconds} {command} [| {more commands}] Activates a timer.
/topic {#channel} {newtopic} Changes the topic for the specified channel.
/ulist [{|}]{level} Lists all users in the remote list with the specified access levels.
/url [-d] Opens the URL windows that allows you to surf the www parallel to IRC.
/uwho [nick] Pops up the user central with information about the specified user.
/who {#channel} Shows the nicks of all people on the given channel.
/who {*address.string*} Shows all people on IRC with a matching address.
/whois {nickname} Shows information about someone in the status window.
/whowas {nickname} Shows information about someone who -just- left IRC.
/wavplay {c:\path\sound.wav} Locally plays the specified wave file.
/write [-cidl] {filename} [text] To write the specified text to a .txt file.
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This paper assumes a working knowledge of basic shellcoding techniques, and x86 assembly, I will not rehash these in this paper. I hope to teach you some of the lesser known shellcoding techniques that I have picked up, which will allow you to write smaller and better shellcodes. I do not claim to have invented any of these techniques, except for the one that uses the div instruction.
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A web standards checklist
The term web standards can mean different things to different people. For some, it is 'table-free sites', for others it is 'using valid code'. However, web standards are much broader than that. A site built to web standards should adhere to standards (HTML, XHTML, XML, CSS, XSLT, DOM, MathML, SVG etc) and pursue best practices (valid code, accessible code, semantically correct code, user-friendly URLs etc).
In other words, a site built to web standards should ideally be lean, clean, CSS-based, accessible, usable and search engine friendly.
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10 minute guide to lotus notes mail 4.5
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Maya, Photoshop, Macromedia, Bryce, Digital Photography, & more....
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But most people don't use it to its best advantage. Do you just plug in a keyword or two and hope for the best? That may be the quickest way to search, but with more than 3 billion pages in Google's index, it's still a struggle to pare results to a manageable number.
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That's it for the navigation as I am not going to do the other due to they're everywhere else and I wanted to be different and show everyone this method.
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- Sample dynamic flash template from TM website
- Sothink SWF Decompiler
- Macromedia Flash
- Yourself
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- Find Bottlenecks
- Keyboard Shortcuts
- Disable Hibernation
- Create folder favourites and
51. Find bottlenecks
From what we've seen so far Windows 7 is already performing better than Vista, but if your PC seems sluggish then it's now much easier to uncover the bottleneck. Click Start, type RESMON and press Enter to launch the Resource Monitor, then click the CPU, Memory, Disk or Network tabs. Windows 7 will immediately show which processes are hogging the most system resources.
The CPU view is particularly useful, and provides something like a more powerful version of Task Manager. If a program has locked up, for example, then right-click its name in the list and select Analyze Process. Windows will then try to tell you why it's hanging - the program might be waiting for another process, perhaps - which could give you the information you need to fix the problem.
FIND BOTTLENECKS: Resource monitor keeps a careful eye on exactly how your PC is being used
52. Keyboard shortcuts
Windows 7 supports several useful new keyboard shortcuts.
Alt+P
Display/ hide the Explorer preview pane
Windows Logo+G
Display gadgets in front of other windows
Windows Logo++ (plus key)
Zoom in, where appropriate
Windows Logo+- (minus key)
Zoom out, where appropriate
Windows Logo+Up
Maximise the current window
Windows Logo+Down
Minimise the current window
Windows Logo+Left
Snap to the left hand side of the screen
Windows Logo+Right
Snap to the right hand side of the screen
Windows Logo+Home
Minimise/ restore everything except the current window
53. Drag and drop to the command line
When working at the command line you'll often need to access files, which usually means typing lengthy paths and hoping you've got them right. But Windows 7 offers an easier way. Simply drag and drop the file onto your command window and the full path will appear, complete with quotes and ready to be used.
This feature isn't entirely new: you could do this in Windows XP, too, but drag and drop support disappeared in Vista. There does seem to be a new Windows 7 complication, though, in that it only seems to work when you open the command prompt as a regular user. Run cmd.exe as an administrator and, while it accepts dropped files, the path doesn't appear.
54. Customise your jumplists
Right-click an icon on your taskbar, perhaps Notepad, and you'll see a jumplist menu that provides easy access to the documents you've been working on recently. But maybe there's another document that you'd like to be always available? Then drag and drop it onto the taskbar icon, and it'll be pinned to the top of the jumplist for easier access. Click the pin to the right of the file name, or right-click it and select "Unpin from this list" when you need to remove it.
55. Faster program launches
If you've launched one instance of a program but want to start another, then don't work your way back through the Start menu. It's much quicker to just hold down Shift and click on the program's icon (or middle-click it), and Windows 7 will start a new instance for you.
56. Speedy video access
Want faster access to your Videos folder? Windows 7 now lets you add it to the Start menu. Just right-click the Start orb, click Properties > Start Menu > Customize, and set the Videos option to "Display as a link". If you've a TV tuner that works with Windows 7 then you'll appreciate the new option to display the Recorded TV folder on the Start menu, too.
57. Run web searches
The Windows 7 search tool can now be easily extended to search online resources, just as long as someone creates an appropriate search connector. To add Flickr support, say, visit I Started Something, click Download the Connector, choose the Open option and watch as it's downloaded (the file is tiny, it'll only take a moment). A "Flickr Search" option will be added to your Searches folder, and you'll be able to search images from your desktop.
A multitude of other ready-made searches, such as Google and YouTube, can be downloaded from the windowsclub.com website.
58. Schedule Media Centre downloads
You can now tell Windows Media Centre to download data at a specific time, perhaps overnight, a useful way to prevent it sapping your bandwidth for the rest of the day. Launch Media Centre, go to Tasks > Settings > General > Automatic Download Options, and set the download start and stop times that you'd like it to use.
59. Multi-threaded Robocopies
Anyone who's ever used the excellent command-line robocopy tool will appreciate the new switches introduced with Windows 7. Our favourite, /MT, can improve speed by carrying out multi-threaded copies with the number of threads you specify (you can have up to 128, though that might be going a little too far). Enter robocopy /? at a command line for the full details.
60. Load IE faster
Some Internet Explorer add-ons can take a while to start, dragging down the browser's performance, but at least IE8 can now point a finger at the worst resource hogs. Click Tools > Manage Add-ons, check the Load Time in the right-hand column, and you'll immediately see which browser extensions are slowing you down.
61. An Alt+Tab alternative
You want to access one of the five Explorer windows you have open, but there are so many other programs running that Alt+Tab makes it hard to pick out what you need. The solution? Hold down the Ctrl key while you click on the Explorer icon. Windows 7 will then cycle through the Explorer windows only, a much quicker way to locate the right one. And of course this works with any application that has multiple windows open.
62. Block annoying alerts
Just like Vista, Windows 7 will display a suitably stern warning if it thinks your antivirus, firewall or other security settings are incorrect.
But unlike Vista, if you disagree then you can now turn off alerts on individual topics. If you no longer want to see warnings just because you've dared to turn off the Windows firewall, say, then click Control Panel > System and Security > Action Centre > Change Action Centre settings, clear the Network Firewall box and click OK.
63. Parallel defrags
The standard Windows 7 defragger offers a little more control than we saw in Vista, and the command line version also has some interesting new features. The /r switch will defrag multiple drives in parallel, for instance (they'll obviously need to be physically separate drives for this to be useful). The /h switch runs the defrag at a higher than normal priority, and the /u switch provides regular progress reports so you can see exactly what's going on. Enter the command
defrag /c /h /u /r
in a command window to speedily defrag a system with multiple drives, or enter defrag /? to view the new options for yourself.
64. Fix Explorer
The Windows 7 Explorer has a couple of potential annoyances. Launching Computer will no longer display system folders like Control Panel or Recycle Bin, for instance. And if you're drilling down through a complicated folder structure in the right-hand pane of Explorer, the left-hand tree won't always expand to follow what you're doing, which can make it more difficult to see exactly where you are. Fortunately there's a quick fix: click Organize > Folder and Search Options, check "Show all folders" and "Automatically expand to current folder", and click OK.
65. Faster file handing
If you hold down Shift while right-clicking a file in Explorer, then you'll find the Send To file now includes all your main user folders: Contacts, Documents, Downloads, Music and more. Choose any of these and your file will be moved there immediately.
66. Create folder favourites
If you're regularly working on the same folder in Explorer then select it in the right-hand page, right-click Favourites on the left-hand menu, and select Add to Favourites. It'll then appear at the bottom of the favourites list for easy one-click access later.
67. Disable hibernation
By default Windows 7 will permanently consume a chunk of your hard drive with its hibernation file, but if you never use sleep, and always turn your PC off, then this will never actually be used. To disable hibernation and recover a little hard drive space, launch REGEDIT, browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power, then set both HibernateEnabled and HiberFileSizePerfect to zero.
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- Explore God Mode
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- Desktop slideshow
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- Customise login screen and much more
17. 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: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.
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.
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.
19. 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.
20. 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
21. 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 a theme that always displays the latest BBC news and weather on your desktop. And MakeUseOf have a quick and easy tutorial showing how RSS can get you those gorgeous Bing photographs as your wallpaper. Or you can watch our custom theme video tutorial.
22. 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\CurrentVersion\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.
23. 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.
24. 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.
25. 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.
26. 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\Internet 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.
27. 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.
28. 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.
29. 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.
30. Browse your 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 of every window.
31. 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'.
32. 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.
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