Separating and Combining Windows 7 Taskbar Icons

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One of the nicest features about the Windows 7 taskbar is the way it combines all of an application's windows into a single icon. Point to that icon, and up come thumbnails of the various Windows.

But Microsoft gave us the ability to change that display, so that every window shows up as its own taskbar icon.

It appears that you accidentally changed that setting.

To change it back, right-click a blank spot on the taskbar and select Properties. In the Taskbar buttons pull-down menu, select Always combine, hide labels.

You might want to try the other settings to see if you like them.

Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/195865/separating_and_combining_windows_7_taskbar_icons.html

Use Drive Mirroring for Instant Backup in Windows 7

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Even with the best backup solution, a hard drive crash means you’ll lose a few hours of work. By enabling drive mirroring in Windows 7, you’ll always have an up-to-date copy of your data.

Windows 7’s mirroring – which is only available in Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions – is a software implementation of RAID 1, which means that two or more disks are holding the exact same data. The files are constantly kept in sync, so that if one of the disks fails, you won’t lose any data.

Note that mirroring is not technically a backup solution, because if you accidentally delete a file, it’s gone from both hard disks (though you may be able to recover the file). As an additional caveat, having mirrored disks requires changing them to “dynamic disks,” which can only be read within modern versions of Windows (you may have problems working with a dynamic disk in other operating systems or in older versions of Windows). See this Wikipedia page for more information.

You will need at least one empty disk to set up disk mirroring. We’ll show you how to mirror an existing disk (of equal or lesser size) without losing any data on the mirrored drive, and how to set up two empty disks as mirrored copies from the get-go.

Mirroring an Existing Drive

Click on the start button and type partitions in the search box. Click on the Create and format hard disk partitions entry that shows up.

Alternatively, if you’ve disabled the search box, press Win+R to open the Run window and type in:

diskmgmt.msc

The Disk Management window will appear. We’ve got a small disk, labeled OldData, that we want to mirror in a second disk of the same size.

Note: The disk that you will use to mirror the existing disk must be unallocated. If it is not, then right-click on it and select Delete Volume… to mark it as unallocated. This will destroy any data on that drive.

Right-click on the existing disk that you want to mirror. Select Add Mirror….

Select the disk that you want to use to mirror the existing disk’s data and press Add Mirror.

You will be warned that this process will change the existing disk from basic to dynamic. Note that this process will not delete any data on the disk!

The new disk will be marked as a mirror, and it will starting copying data from the existing drive to the new one.

Eventually the drives will be synced up (it can take a while), and any data added to the E:drive will exist on both physical hard drives.

Setting Up Two New Drives as Mirrored

If you have two new equal-sized drives, you can format them to be mirrored copies of each other from the get-go.

Open the Disk Management window as described above. Make sure that the drives are unallocated. If they’re not, and you don’t need the data on either of them, right-click and select Delete volume….

Right-click on one of the unallocated drives and select New Mirrored Volume….

A wizard will pop up. Click Next.

Click on the drives you want to hold the mirrored data and click Add. Note that you can add any number of drives. Click Next.

Assign it a drive letter that makes sense, and then click Next.

You’re limited to using the NTFS file system for mirrored drives, so enter a volume label, enable compression if you want, and then click Next.

Click Finish to start formatting the drives.

You will be warned that the new drives will be converted to dynamic disks.

And that’s it! You now have two mirrored drives. Any files added to E: will reside on both physical disks, in case something happens to one of them.

Conclusion

While the switch from basic to dynamic disks can be a problem for people who dual-boot into another operating system, setting up drive mirroring is an easy way to make sure that your data can be recovered in case of a hard drive crash. Of course, even with drive mirroring, we advocate regular backups to external drives or online backup services.

Source: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/17926/use-drive-mirroring-for-instant-backup-in-windows-7/

The Cleverest Geeky Windows Tricks Everyone Should Know

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Anyone can sit down at a Windows PC and get along fine, but with the right tips and tricks, you can get around much faster. Here's a handful of clever tricks to boost your Windows skills (and show off to friends).

You might recognize a few of these tips (we've covered most of them here before), but chances are good there's something new in the list for just about everybody. And if you know all of them already? Pat yourself on the back for your masterful geek skills.

(Note: This list far from exhausts Windows' full slate of shortcuts and tricks; instead, I aimed for lesser-known tips. To round out your Windows 7 master class, be sure to check out ourcomplete guide to Windows 7, the master list of Windows 7 shortcuts, and the power user's guide to Windows 7.)

Use the Secret Send To Menu Items

When you right-click on any file or folder, you can use the Send To menu to create a zipped version, or send the file to an application, but in Windows 7 there are hidden items on the Send To menu that can't be seen by default.

All you have to do is hold down the Shift key, then right-click on a file and access the Send To folder—you'll see a whole bunch of new items in the list, like special folders, and even an item for each one of your drives. It's a really useful tip for quickly sending a file to the flash drive you just plugged into the PC, without having to do anything else.

Stupid Geek Tricks: Secret Items on the Windows 7 Send To Menu [How-To Geek]

Open a Command Prompt from Any Folder

This is one of those tips that most real geeks already know, but chances are there's somebody reading this that doesn't know about it—if you hold down the Shift key while right-clicking on any folder, including the desktop background, you'll see a new item for "Open command window here", that will open a command prompt with that folder as the default path.

This tip only works in Windows 7 or Vista, for Windows XP you'll need to use a registry hackto accomplish the same thing. We can't mention this tip without telling you how to do the opposite—you can open a file browser from your current command prompt directory as well.

Stupid Geek Tricks: Open a Command Prompt From the Desktop Right-Click Menu [How-To Geek]

Hide Secret Data Inside Any File

There's any number of great ways to hide data from prying eyes—TrueCrypt, anyone? But if you want to simply hide some text data inside a secret "compartment", you can abuse the Alternate Data Streams feature in the underlying NTFS file system. All you have to do is open up a command prompt, and then use a command similar to this:

notepad SomeFile.txt:SecretWordHere.txt

The special filename with the colon and second filename tells NTFS to actually store the data in an alternate stream, instead of the regular file. You can put whatever you want into the file, and nobody will be able to access it unless they know the command to retrieve it.

Stupid Geek Tricks: Hide Data in a Secret Text File Compartment [How-To Geek]

Tile or Cascade Specific Windows

Sure, Windows 7 has the awesome Aero Snap feature that lets you drag windows to the side of the screen to fill one side, but what if you want to cascade them, or tile them stacked on top of each other?

Back in the XP and Vista days this was relatively simple—you could hold down the Ctrl key while selecting multiple windows on the taskbar, and then right-click on any of them to tile or cascade them. For Windows 7, you can do the same thing, but you'll need to open up Task Manager instead, hold Ctrl, select the open windows, and then you can cascade them from there.

Stupid Geek Tricks: Tile or Cascade Multiple Windows in Windows 7 [How-To Geek]

Undo an Accidental File Move or Deletion With the Keyboard

Have you ever tried to select a bunch of files while holding the Ctrl key, and then accidentally copied all of them because you slightly moved your mouse? Maybe you just deleted a file and don't feel like hunting it down in the Recycle bin. In either case, you can use the Ctrl+Z shortcut key to immediately reverse whatever you didn't mean to do.

Readers will probably point out that you can also do this from the context menu in Windows 7, but it's surprising how many people don't realize the keyboard shortcut works.

Stupid Geek Tricks: Undo an Accidental Move or Delete With a Keyboard Shortcut [How-To Geek]

Navigate the Open / Save Dialogs With the Keyboard

Opening or saving files can be so very tedious when your application doesn't start with the right default folder, but instead of clicking and clicking your mouse to get where you're going, you can simply use the keyboard to change the folder.

You can use ".." without the quotes to go up a folder, use shell:desktop to change to the desktop folder, or just start typing in the full path to a file.

Stupid Geek Tricks: Navigate in the File Open/Save Dialog With the Keyboard [How-To Geek]

Use the Secret Trick to Close Windows Explorer

Have you ever wondered how to restart the Start Menu? The more tech-savvy among you probably know that you can just pop open Task Manager and kill the explorer.exe process, but there's actually another way to do it built right into Windows 7 and Vista—it's just a bit of a secret.

Hold down the Ctrl and Shift keys, then open up the start menu, and right-click anywhere on the blank space. You'll see a new menu with an Exit Explorer item on it, which will immediately terminate the desktop shell—keep in mind to reopen it you'll need to use Ctrl+Shift+Esc to open Task Manager, and then File –> Run and type in explorer.exe.
That's not the only right-click menu trick you can do here, however—if you want to open up the Start Menu folder in Windows 7, you can right-click on the All Programs menu item to access the old Start Menu context menu from previous versions of Windows.

Hidden Trick to Close Windows Explorer in Windows 7 or Vista [How-To Geek]

Create a Zip File with the Same Name as a Selected File

If you regularly use the built-in Send To –> Compressed (zipped) folder feature to create zip files in Windows, you might notice that it seems to randomly pick a filename for the generated file. If you want to save the step of renaming the file, you can make sure that you right-click on top of the file that you want to have the same name.
For instance, if we had right-clicked on the Readme.txt file in the screenshot and used the Send To –> Compressed feature, the resulting file would have been called Readme.zip. Since that's not very helpful, it's better to right-click on one of the selected HTGBack.x files, which will give us HTGBack.zip instead.

Stupid Geek Tricks: Make Zipfiles With the Same Name as a Selected File [How-To Geek]

Show the XP Alt-Tab Prompt in Windows 7

This tip isn't so much useful as an interesting trick that you can show your geek friends—you can trigger the old XP Alt-Tab dialog even in Windows 7 with Aero enabled by using a series of shortcut keys. First, hold down one of the Alt keys, press and release the other Alt key, and then press the Tab key. Just like that, the old XP prompt will show up.

Stupid Geek Tricks: Windows 7 Easter Egg Shows the XP Alt-Tab Prompt [How-To Geek]

Pin a Folder to the Start Menu

It's easy to pin any application to the Start Menu by just right-clicking on the icon, but folders aren't quite as easy—or are they? There's a bunch of complicated registry hacks out there that enable the "Pin to Start Menu" item for folders, but it's so much simpler to just drag the folder to the Start button, and then drop the folder wherever you want it in the menu.

Bonus tip: You might notice in the screenshot that there's something different below the Downloads button-and you can easily add My Dropbox to your own Windows 7 Start Menutoo.

Shrink the XP Volume Control

This is one of those tips that's great to show off to your friends that have been using Windows XP for years, because they probably don't know about it yet. You can shrink the Volume Control dialog down to a much smaller size by simply using the Ctrl+S shortcut key with the dialog open.

Sure, it could be useful if you wanted to keep the dialog up on the screen without wasting space, but it's mostly just a fun trick to show off your skills.

Stupid Geek Tricks: Shrink the XP Volume Control [How-To Geek]

Remove Old Drivers by Showing Hidden Devices in Device Manager

Once you've upgraded your PC's hardware, you won't see the old devices sitting around anymore in the Device Manager, but rest assured that they are still there. If you want to clean up all the old drivers, you can use a special trick to enable hidden devices by simply typing the following into a command prompt:

SET DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES=1

Once you've done that, type in devmgmt.msc to open up Device Manager, and then you can use View –> Show hidden devices to show all the devices you couldn't see before.

Remove Old Drivers After Upgrading to New Hardware [How-To Geek]

Find Secret Messages in Web Site Headers

The world of HTTP protocol headers is something that even geeks don't usually have to deal with, much less normal people. But they are out there, and many of them contain hidden messages that you would never know are there. For instance, Slashdot embeds random quotes from Futurama in every page load, and other sites embed many other things.

To see them for yourself, you can install the Live HTTP headers extension for Firefox, or you can use curl –I http://slashdot.org to see them from the command line in Linux or OS X.

Stupid Geek Tricks: Find the Secret Messages in Web Site Headers [How-To Geek]

Watch Movies in Your Linux Terminal Window

This one isn't a Windows tip at all, but you can't have an article about geeky tricks without mentioning how you can watch movies in ASCII text in a Linux terminal window. Make sure you've got MPlayer installed, and then use something similar to the following command to open up a movie right there in the terminal:

mplayer -vo caca MovieName.avi

It's not really suitable for watching movies, but it's a fun tip that you can show off to your friends and spark a conversation about the upcoming return of Futurama.

Stupid Geek Tricks: Watch Movies in Your Linux Terminal Window [How-To Geek]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5543354/the-cleverest-geeky-windows-tricks-everyone-should-know

Set the Windows Explorer Startup Folder in Windows 7

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When you open Windows Explorer from the Taskbar in Windows 7, it defaults to the Libraries view. Today we take a look at changing the target path to allow you to customize which location opens by default.

When you click on the Windows Explorer icon on the Windows 7 Taskbar, it’s set to open to the Libraries view by default. You might not use the Libraries feature, or want to set it to a different location that is more commonly used.

Set Windows Explorer Startup Location

To change the default startup location for the Windows Explorer Taskbar icon, if you have no Explorer screens open, hold down the Shift key, right-click the Explorer icon, and select Properties.

Or if you have Windows open, right-click on the Explorer icon to bring up the Jumplist, then right-click on Windows Explorer and select Properties.

Windows Explorer Properties opens up and you’ll want to click on the Shortcut tab so we can change the Target.

A common place you might want it to default to is your Documents folder. So to do that we need to enter the following into the Target field.

%SystemRoot%\explorer.exe /n,::{450D8FBA-AD25-11D0-98A8-0800361B1103}

Now when you open Windows Explorer from the Taskbar it defaults to My Documents…

If you use the Start Menu to access Windows Explorer, open the Start Menu and go to All Programs \ Accessories and right-click on Windows Explorer then select Properties. Change the target path to where you want it to go.

In this example we want Windows Explorer to open up to My Computer so we entered the following in the Target field.

%SystemRoot%\explorer.exe /E,::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}

When click on the Explorer icon in the Start Menu it defaults to My Computer…

You can set it to open to various locations. For instance if you wanted to mess with someone at work, you could enter the following and Explorer will always open to the Recycle Bin.

%SystemRoot%\explorer.exe /E,::{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}

Conclusion

Here we showed you a couple of commonly used locations that you might want Windows Explorer to open to instead of Libraries. You can set it to other locations if you know the GUID (Globally Unique Identifiers) for the object or location you want it to default to.

Source: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/17415/set-the-windows-explorer-startup-folder-in-windows-7/

Windows 7 Welcome screen pauses for 30 seconds during logon

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Since upgrading one of our test machines, a Dell Adamo laptop, to Windows 7 Ultimate, I’ve been thoroughly annoyed by the machine’s sluggish boot performance. My peers and coworkers rave about how fast their Windows 7 PCs boot, but my machine was stuck in the start-up slow lane–even though the Adamo has better hardware than several of the other computers. After a little digging, I figured out that my desktop’s solid color background was to blame.

It’s a feature not a bug

According to Microsoft Knowledge Base article 977346, set a solid color as your desktop background will cause Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 to displace the Welcome screen for 30 seconds during logon. Why? Apparently, the pause occurs because of a time-out interval that sometimes occurs when Windows switches between sessions. Microsoft Knowledge Base article 940452 discusses this time-out interval in greater detail and explains how it can also cause a 30-second delay if you enable the “Run logon script synchronously” Group Policy.

Solution 1: Apply the Microsoft hotfix

A hotfix is available from Mircosoft to fix this issue. You can download the hotfix using the “View and request hotfix downloads” link on MSKB 977346.

Solution 2: Set an image file as your desktop background

If the hotfix doesn’t work or you just don’t want to install it, using an image file as your background is the easiest way to eliminate the 30-second delay. You can even use an image file that’s a solid color.

Solution 3: Edit the DelayedDesktopSwitchTimeout registry entry

According to MSKB 977346, the value of the DelayedDesktopSwitchTimeout registry entry “determines the time-out interval of a session before Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 switches between sessions.” By default, the value of this entry is set to 30 (for 30 seconds). To reduce the delay, you can reduce this value.

1. Click Start.
2. Enter “regedit” in the Search programs and files box.
3. Navigate to the registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
4. Double-click the DelayedDesktopSwitchTimeout entry.
5. Type 5 in the Value data box, and then click OK.
6. Close the Registry Editor.

Solution 4: Disable the Desktop Window Manager Session Manager service

As a last resort, you can also disable the Desktop Window Manager Session Manager service. This action should eliminate the delay, but it will also disable all the Windows Aero visual effects.

1. Click Start.
2. Type “services” in the Search programs and files box.
3. Select Services from the results and press Enter.
4. Double-click Desktop Windows Manager Session Manager.
5. From the Startup type dropdown list, Select Disabled and click Apply.

Source: http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/itdojo/?p=1735&tag=results;CR1

Customize the Windows Media Center Start Menu with Media Center Studio

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Do you ever wish you could change the WMC start menu? Maybe move some of the tiles and strips around to different locations, add new ones, or eliminate some altogether? Today we look at how to do it using Media Center Studio.

Download and install Media Center Studio. (Download link below) You’ll also want to make sure you have Windows Media Center closed before running Media Center Studio. Many of the actions cannot be performed with Media Center open.

Once installed, you can open Media Center Studio from the Windows Start Menu. When you first open Media Center Studio you’ll be on the Themes tab. Click on the Start Menu tab.

It should be noted that Media Center Studio is a Beta application, and it did crash on us a few times, so it’s a good idea to save your work frequently. You can save your changes by selecting Save on the Home tab, or by clicking the small disk icon at the top left.

We also found that that trying to launch Media Center from the Start Media Center button on the application ribbon typically didn’t work. Opening Windows Media Center from the Windows Start Menu is preferred.

When you’re on the Start Menu tab you will see the Windows Media Center menu strips and tiles. Click the arrows located at the right, left, top, and bottom of the screen to scroll through the various menu strips.

Hiding and Removing Tiles and Menu Strips.

If there is an entire menu strip that you never use and would like to remove from Media Center, simply uncheck the box to the left of the the title above that menu strip.

If you’d like to hide individual tiles, uncheck the box next to the name of the individual tile.

Renaming Tiles and Strips

To rename a tile or menu strip, click on the small notepad icon next to the title.

Note: If you do not see a small notepad icon next to the title, then the title is not editable. This applies to many of the “Promo” tiles.

The title will turn into a text input box so that you can edit the name. Click away from the text box when finished. Here we will change the title of the default Movie strip to “Flicks.”

Change the Default Tile and Menu Strip

The Default menu strip is the strip that is highlighted, or on focus, when you open Media Center.

To change the default strip, simply click once on another strip to highlight it, and then save your work. In our example, I’m going to make our newly renamed “Flicks” strip the default.

Each menu strip has a default tile. This is the tile that is active, or on focus, when you select the menu strip. To change the default tile on a strip, click once on the tile. You will see it outlined in light blue. Now just simply save your changes. In our example below, we’ve changed the default tile on the TV strip to “guide.”

Moving Tiles and Menu Strips

You can move an entire Menu Strip up or down on the screen. When you hover your mouse over the a menu strip, you will see up and down arrows appear to the right and left of the title. Click on the arrows to move the strip up or down.

You will see the menu strip appear in it’s new position.

To move a tile to a new menu strip, click and drag the tile you’d like to move. When you begin to drag the tile, green plus (+) signs will appear in between the tiles. Drag and drop the tile onto to any of these green plus signs to move it to that location.

When you’ve dragged the tile over an acceptable position, you’ll see the  red “Move” label next to your cursor turn to a blue “Move to” label. Now you can drop the tile into position.

You’ll see the tile located in it’s new position.

Adding a New Custom Menu Strip

Click on the Start Menu tab and then select the Menu Strip button.

You will see a new Custom Menu strip appear on your Start Menu with the default name of Custom menu. You can change the name by clicking on the notepad icon just as we did earlier. For our example, we’ll change the name of the new strip to Add-ins.

To add a new tile, click on Entry Points at the lower left of the application window.

This will reveal all of your available Entry Points that can be added to the Media Center Menu. You should see the built-in Media Center Games and any Media Center Plug-ins you have added to your system.

You can then drag and drop any of the Entry Points onto any of the Menu Strips. Below we’ve added Media Browser to our custom Add-ins menu strip.

You can also add additional applications to launch directly from Media Center. Click on the Application button on the Start Menu tab.

Note: Many applications may not work with your remote, but with keyboard and mouse only.

Type in a title which will appear under the tile in Media Center, and then type the path to the application. In our example, we will add Internet Explorer 8.

Note: Be sure to add the actual path to the application and not just a link on the desktop.

Click any of the check boxes to select any options under Required Capabilities. You can also browse to choose an image if you don’t care for the image that appears automatically.

Next, you can select keyboard strokes to press to exit the application and return to Media Center. Click the green plus (+) button.

When prompted, press a key you’ll use to close the program. Repeat the process if you’d also like to select a keystroke to kill the program.

You’ll see your button programs listed below. When you’re finished, save your work and close out of Media Center Studio.

Now your new program entry point will appear in the Entry Points section. Drag the icon to the desired position on the Start Menu and save again before exiting Media Center Studio.

When you open Media Center you will see your new application on the start menu. Click the tile to open the application just as you would any other tile.

The application will open and minimize Media Center.

When you press the key you choose to close the program, Windows Media Center will automatically be restored.

Note: You can also exit the application through normal methods by clicking the red “X” or File > Exit.

Conclusion

Media Center Studio is a Beta application which the developer freely admits still has some bugs. Despite it’s flaws Media Center Studio is a powerful tool, and when it comes to customizing your Media Center start menu, it’s pretty much the only game in town. It works with both Vista and Windows 7, and according to the developer, has not been officially tested with extenders.

Media Center Studio can also be used to add custom themes to Windows 7 Media Center and we’ll be covering that in a future article.

Looking for more ways to customize your Media Center experience? Be sure to check out our earlier posts on Media Browser, as well as how to add Hulu, Boxee, and weather conditions your Windows 7 Media Center.

Download Media Center Studio

Source: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/16973/customize-the-windows-media-center-start-menu-with-media-center-studio/