If you’ve ever wondered how to customize your Windows 7 taskbar like some of the beautiful screenshots in our featured desktop series, here’s the quick and simple instructions on exactly how to do it. It’s easier than you think. More »
Blog Archives
How to Create a Completely Customized Taskbar in Windows 7 [Windows 7]
Posted on September 16, 2010
Create Your Own One Goal Taskbar Reminder [Windows]
Posted on July 1, 2010
Unitasking is all the rage these days, and sometimes all you need to stay on task is an always-visible reminder of that one thing you should be doing. Here’s how to create a single-goal taskbar reminder with the Windows scripting application, AutoHotkey. More »
Microsoft Windows – Windows – Windows 7 – Utilities – Shareware
Lose the Taskbar Thumbnail Delay in Windows 7 with a Registry Hack [Windows Tip]
Posted on June 24, 2010
Windows 7′s useful taskbar is great, but if you don’t like waiting for the thumbnails to show up when you hover your mouse over it a taskbar item, a simple registry hack will speed things up. More »
Windows 7 – Microsoft Windows – Windows – Operating system – Utilities
Speed Up Windows 7 Taskbar Navigation with a Registry Hack [Annoyances]
Posted on March 19, 2010
Windows 7′s taskbar is undoubtedly a great addition to Windows, but if you’ve got more than one application window open, you’ve got to either click twice or patiently hover to navigate to an open window. Reader Richard details how he fixed this: More »
Classic Shell Brings the Old Start Menu Back to Windows 7 [Downloads]
Posted on December 22, 2009
Windows only: Start menu replacement utility Classic Shell adds back some of the missing features in Windows 7 or Vista that used to exist in XP—like the Classic-style Start Menu.
During the installation process, you can choose to install two optional pieces—the first is the Classic Start Menu, which is a full-featured replacement that includes drag and drop, recent documents, and keyboard navigation. The second is Classic Explorer, a plugin for Windows Explorer that adds a toolbar with buttons for Up, Delete, and Copy/Paste, changes the file copying UI to look like XP, and a number of other changes. You can install one or both of these components, so if you want the start menu but don't want the explorer plugin, it won't waste resources on your system.
If this sounds familiar, it’s because we’ve previously mentioned a similar utility, but this one is a superior replacement—with 64-bit support, drag/drop organizing, expanding Control Panel, right-click item management, and if that wasn't enough, it even keeps the native Windows 7 start menu around—just Shift+Click on the start button to access it.
Most readers will probably point out that the newer Windows 7 start menu format is well worth getting used to, but for those of you that just prefer the old way of doing things, the free, open-source Classic Shell is definitely for you.
Classic Shell [SourceForge via How-To Geek]
Best of the Best: Hive Five Winners, October through December 2009 [Hive Five]
Posted on December 16, 2009
Our Hive Five asks readers to identify five of the best tools for any job, then vote for the absolute best. Here’s a look back at the winners from each week in the fourth quarter of 2009.
Every week we pose a question to you, the computer savvy readers of Lifehacker. Tirelessly we search for the next “Which is best?” question and through the hive mind we distill down your thousands of nominations into a list of the top five candidates. You vote on the best of the best and we return the next week to declare a champion.
The following list showcases the winners in each of the categories we covered in the fourth quarter of 2009. If a particular category catches your eye and you’d like to see the other contenders, click on the name of the category to jump to the original Hive Five post, clicking on the name of the winner will take you directly to the winner’s web site.
Best Twitter Client: TweetDeck
TweetDeck boasts the ability to monitor multiple social-networking services, in this case Twitter, Facebook, and Myspace. You can fight Twitter spam with a built-in spam monitor, follow topics with saved searches, and preview shortened URLs from within TweetDeck. You can use TweetDeck to manage multiple Twitter accounts from one interface and thanks to web-based TweetDeck accounts you can back up and sync your TweetDeck profile across multiple machines.
Best Weight-Management Tool: SparkPeople
SparkPeople is a comprehensive weight-loss web site. A free membership gives you access to a variety of nutritional information and calorie-tracking tools, weight-tracking tools, and the enormous SparkPeople community. Personal pages, like mini-blogs within the SparkPeople site, help you publish your progress and connect with other users who have similar goals. You’ll find no shortage of ways to track and analyze everything from the types of food you eat to the amount of weight you lift-and lose!-in the reports section of the site. SparkPeople is available in a scaled-down mobile version for use on your web-enabled phone or as an iPhone/iPod touch application.
Best Windows Task Manager Alternative: Process Explorer
Process Explorer is the free and portable offering from Microsoft. Process Explorer is like the standard task manager on steroids. You still get a list of processes, you still see charts of your usage, but both give you significantly more information and control over the information. Unlike the default manager, Process Explorer makes it easy to track down which file is being held by which program and get to the bottom of computer mysteries like why a certain DLL or DOC file simply cannot be deleted. It also shows which service is performing which function so you’ll never look at a long and repetitive list of Windows system executables that are indistinguishable from each other-every one will be associated with its function.
Best Software Update Tool: Synaptic/APT
The Advanced Packaging Tool, a.k.a. APT, is a free tool built into most Linux distributions and many variants that handles the installation, removal, and updating of software packages. APT is a tool that went a long way toward making Linux a bit friendlier to the masses who aren't comfortable installing or compiling software packages on Linux, but it runs from the command line, so it's still not all that friendly to folks joining Linux from the Windows or Mac worlds. That's where Synaptic comes in. Synaptic is a graphical front end to APT that makes the tool wildly more user-friendly, and—yes—it handles checking for and updating software with aplomb. (Folks using Ubuntu, <a href="the most popular Linux distribution among Lifehacker readers, take note: Synaptic will be replaced by the Ubuntu Software Center—another APT-powered update tool—in April of 2010.)
Best Portable Apps Suite: PortableApps Suite
PortableApps is the Grand Daddy of portable application sites. Between John Haller—the founder of the site—and the dozens of developers, packagers, translators, and the hundreds of people that participate in the forums, the sheer number of people working to polish the PortableApps suite has resulted in a very comprehensive package. The PortableApps suite includes basics like Firefox for browsing and Pidgin for instant messaging but also includes—in the full package—Open Office. You could download all the individual portable components separately of course, but what really ties everything together is the PortableApps menu system. Seen in the screenshot above, the menu system is clean, includes a backup utility, and makes organizing your portable apps and documents simple.
Best Application Dock: Windows 7 Taskbar
A long time coming, Windows finally enhanced the standard taskbar, creating a swanky dock system to call its own. Windows users trying out Windows 7 for the first time are in for an extra big treat-the change from the old taskbar system to the new dock is huge. You can drag and drop to pin shortcuts to the taskbar, Win+# (where the # is the numerical position of the pinned icon) launches the application, and icons also have jump lists associated with them—quick access to routine features and commands for that particular application. Hovering over the icon of a running application gives you a quick peek and the ability to jump to the application or close it. Microsoft was late to the dock party, but at least when they finally rolled it out, they remembered to decorate with streamers and bring a cake.
Best Antivirus Application: AVG
The free offering from AVG is one of the lightest, feature-wise, among the nominations in the anti-virus Hive Five. That said, if you’re looking for a basic antivirus application that will scan your computer, keep an eye out for spyware, and keep you from visiting malware and virus laden websites (via their LinkScanner protection), AVG is a solid free offering.
Best Online Backup Tool: Dropbox
Once you install Dropbox, a folder, appropriately called "My Dropbox", is placed in the Documents area of your computer. Anything you put into this folder will be synced with your Dropbox account. You can sync files, share files by making the folder they are in public, and restore a previous version of your file—Dropbox keeps a change log going back 30 days. All your files are also accessible via the Dropbox web site, which is great for those times you're at a computer where you don't have Dropbox installed, but you still want to access a document. If you want to sync a folder without putting it directly inside the main My Dropbox folder, you can do that with a little elbow grease, too. Dropbox doesn’t have an unlimited option like the rest, but if all you want to back up is your most important documents, it certainly works as off-site backup, and it provides data redundancy on every computer you install it on.
Best Screencasting Tool: CamStudio
CamStudio is a free and open-source offering for the screencasting market. You can record all or part of your screen, customize cursors and text annotations, adjust the quality of the video output, and save screencasts as AVI or SWF files. The interface is easy to understand, and you won’t be overwhelmed with extensive options. In a nutshell, it’s a free and effective tool for creating screencasts without a lot of bulk or expense.
Best Wishlist Tool: Amazon.com Universal Wishlist
Amazon's wishlist system used to only support items that Amazon or affiliates carried—which, while limited, still gave you access to a large stable of items. When they rolled out the Universal Wishlist and its accompanying Wishlist Button, however, you got the ease of use of the Amazon wishlist system plus the ability to add items to your list that Amazon.com doesn’t carry. Anything from any web site can now be added to your Amazon wishlists, both private and public, using the Wishlist Button. Creating and managing your Amazon wishlist is free.
Best Outlining Tool: Microsoft OneNote
OneNote is a note-taking and organization tool that many Lifehacker readers have called Microsoft's best product. It's versatile—it's made appearances here, in the best note-taking tools and journaling Hive Fives—and the outlining functionality is well integrated and easy to use. One of the strong points of outlining in OneNote is the way outlines support the same drag and drop rearranging found throughout OneNote. Almost every single element in a OneNote page can be dragged, dropped, or easily manipulated with a context menu—the screenshot above shows an element in the outline right before being dragged into a new slot. Note: If you’re curious about the GTD context in the screenshot, read our guide to getting things done with Microsoft OneNote.
Best Startup Management Tool: CCleaner
CCleaner isn't strictly a startup management tool. Most people use it to clean out cookies and other undesirable elements and to tidy up the registry. A secondary but helpful tool in CCleaner: it also allows you to delete entries from the startup file—hence its inclusion here. It's a bit of a one trick pony, though; you can't alter, tweak, or insert entries. You can only delete them. Still, it gets the job done if the task you want isn't advanced tweaking, but just to get that annoying program to stop popping up every time you reboot.
The last quarter of 2009 was filled with all sorts of useful tools and software to help you get things done. If reading over the list gave you an idea for the next great Hive Five topic, drop us a line at tips at lifehacker.com. Make sure to include Hive Five Idea in the subject so your idea gets forwarded to gnomes at mission control.
Top 10 Windows 7 Booster Apps [Lifehacker Top 10]
Posted on October 24, 2009
Windows 7 is a big improvement over Vista, and a pretty convenient OS in general—but it's by no means perfect. These 10 downloads improve Windows 7's looks, functions, and make it easier, safer, and more convenient to upgrade to.
10. Bring back the “classic” Start menu
Windows 7′s Start menu is a powerful thing, offering program and file launching as you type and allowing for smart pinning of whatever you frequently access. If you’re really attached to the Windows 2000/XP-style Start system, though, CSMenu restores a “classic” look to Windows 7 by installing a companion Start menu on your taskbar. Want to eliminate that new-fangled Start menu and use only your classic model? Grab StartKiller and wipe away all signs of progress—er, change. We meant change. (Original post)
9. Logon changer customizes password screens
You can customize a lot of your system’s look in Windows 7, but the login/password screen remains fairly opaque and unchangeable. Tweaks.com offers a Logon Changer for Windows 7 that simply takes a JPG file (256K or less, so be sure to re-size and compress) and applies it to your logon background. If you don’t mind doing a little registry hacking, there’s a manual work-around for logon changing, but the Logon Changer is worth the install/uninstall if you know what you want to keep as your logon screen. (Original post)
8. Create recovery discs for pre-installed Windows 7
If you moved up to Windows 7 by way of a new computer purchase, you may have found that getting a full Windows 7 disc, or even a system recovery disc, was an “option” that cost a good bit of extra cash. If you’d like to ensure you can save your system from common boot-up and system errors in the future, NeoSmart offers its own Windows 7 System Recovery Discs that can repair damaged files, restore System Restore points, and even pull in full backups for restoration. If you upgraded to 7 from a student discount package that only delivered a single .exe file, Download Squad explains how to make a DVD upgrade disc from student discount files. (Original post)
7. Pull up incoming Gmail from the taskbar
If Gmail is your primary inbox, Gmail Notifier Plus not only subtly informs of you of new mail by changing its taskbar icon, but provides a subject line preview of new messages when you hover over its icon. You also get shortcuts to compose a new message, pop open your inbox in your browser, or head to any of your messages individually. Neat stuff, especially if you'd rather have a more firm control over when your inbox can have your attention—just close down Gmail Notifier Plus when it's time to get cranking. (Original post)
6. Winfox makes Firefox work with Jump Lists
Support for Windows 7′s helpful jump lists won’t show up in Firefox until version 3.7. In the meantime, those who want to access their current tabs and most frequently visited sites can do so with Winfox, a helpful little add-on that you pin to your taskbar to access Firefox from. Copy Winfox to your Firefox program directory, install it, and pin the “Winfox” application to your taskbar. Now you can pin favorite pages to your jump list by dragging their tabs down, see the favicons of the sites you’ve got open, and get a read on how many tabs you’re running in the Firefox icon. (Original post)
5. Hulu Desktop Integration adds streaming TV to Windows Media Center
Windows 7′s Media Center was impressive enough for Adam to bust out his Buster Poindexter headline, and the only thing you might say it’s missing is better access to streaming television. Since Media Center just added CBS streaming, the one big hold-out is Hulu—which would deliver streaming shows from the likes of Fox, ABC, and NBC. Hulu Desktop Integration brings Hulu to Media Center with a clever little app. Launch the Hulu app from Media Center, and Media Center shuts down, opens the full-screen Hulu Desktop app, and then switches back to Media Center when you’re done in Hulu. That’s a nice thing, since because it uses the official channel to get at Hulu, the chances of it being locked out by Hulu are slim. (Original post)
4. Add stacks to your desktop
Windows 7's taskbar is getting a lot of notice, and some say it's more useful than Mac OS X's Dock—except it's missing the very neat "Stacks" feature. Missing, that is, until you grab StandaloneStack or 7stacks, which both do a great job of creating blow-up menus of folders and apps from single icons on your taskbar. Add a storage folder or custom collection of shortcuts to your taskbar, and you’ll never have to hunt down that “Computer” link in the Start menu again just to get to the right file. (Original posts: StandaloneStack, 7Stacks)
3. Tweak hard-to-find settings
It’s always a good idea to see what kind of settings you can change from your new OS’ Control Panel, but Microsoft only lets you play with so many check boxes and sliders. Apps like Ultimate Windows Tweaker, along with XdN Tweaker, have been digging deep into the guts of Windows since Vista first arrived (and sometimes before XP showed up), and they let you seriously fine-tune your system. Want only certain Aero 3D effects on your desktop? Need to change Windows 7′s window-snapping behavior? These apps have you covered. The hardest part is knowing when to say when on a settings-changing binge. (Original post)
2. Make Alt+Tab switching more intuitive
The familiar Alt+Tab keyboard shortcut gained a little visual overhaul in Windows 7, but it still offers just basic window switching. VistaSwitcher, a more powerful app and window switcher, improves on it in just the right ways. Besides an intriguingly different look, the app supports keyboard shortcuts that let you minimize or tile windows from your Alt+Tab screen, close down programs or file windows in bulk, and, with a Ctrl+Alt+Tab press, switch only between the open windows of the particular program you’re using, like a browser or image editor. Despite the name, VistaSwitcher works perfectly well on Windows 7. (Original post)
1. Install all your necessary apps at once
The first few times you re-installed an operating system, it probably felt like an adventure, something fun, a test of your tech prowess. At this point, though, you might just want to skip the part where you spend an hour grabbing Firefox, Picasa, an anti-virus app, WinAmp, uTorrent, and other must-have apps from the net. Ninite is your ticket out of redundant installations. Head to the web site, check off the apps you need from a huge range of good, free software, and download the resulting customized installer app. Double-click, hit start, and do something constructive while Ninite installs everything you asked for in the background, with very few, if any, questions or prompts. (Original post)
What app or utility has made Windows 7 feel a bit more like a desktop home on your system? Which apps from previous versions of Windows do you miss most? Share the wealth, and the links, in the comments.
Lifehacker’s Complete Guide to Windows 7 [Windows 7]
Posted on October 22, 2009
Windows 7 officially launches today, but we’ve been testing, tweaking, customizing, fixing, and writing about this OS for a year now. We present here a guide to everything we’ve learned about the OS, from first install to final settings change.
Whether you’ve played around with Windows 7 during its beta or release candidate versions, launch day is finally here, and Windows 7 is finally ready for widespread, public consumption. This guide will take you straight through from system requirements and upgrading your PC to highlighting Windows 7′s best new features to helping you hit the ground running with all of the awesome tweaks Windows 7 has in store for you.
System Requirements
- 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
- 1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
- 16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
- DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver
Buying, installing, and upgrading
Figure Out Which Windows 7 Edition Has the Features You Need: Not everybody needs Windows 7 Ultimate, but what if there’s a certain feature you must have when you grab your upgrade this Thursday? CNET breaks down each Windows 7 edition feature by feature in a handy chart.- Prep Your PC for Windows 7: When Windows 7 drops this Thursday, you can either spend many, many hours watching a progress bar, or you can boot into a clean, speedy system with that new-OS smell. Let’s get your system set up for a proper Windows 7 upgrade.
- Get Windows 7 Home Premium for $30 With a College Email Address: If you’re a U.S. college student, or at least having a working .edu email address, you don’t have to pay $120 to upgrade Vista to Windows 7. You can get the Home Premium upgrade for just $30.
- Run Windows 7 for 120 Days Without Activation: The command line code (
slmgr -rearm) that could be entered at the end of three different 30-day periods to give Vista 120 days without activation works just the same in Windows 7.
Our take on Windows 7
- Top 10 Things to Look Forward to in Windows 7: Windows 7 isn’t a dramatic overhaul of its predecessor Windows Vista, but it does fix several sore spots and add a few welcome features.
- Windows 7′s Best Underhyped Features: It’s these less sexy, but very useful features, that make me think the more I use Windows 7, the less chance I’ll ever use Vista or XP again.
- Windows 7 Versus Mac OS X Leopard: The Feature-by-Feature Showdown: Oh, I know: the Mac versus PC debate is so played out. Perhaps, but dumb commercials aside, if you’re deciding between buying a Mac or a PC in the coming months, it helps to know what you’re getting from one or the other.
New features
- Windows 7 Tells You Why You Can’t Touch That File: Windows 7 doesn’t just give you a wagging finger (and pretend-useful “Try Again” button) when you want to move or delete a file that’s in use. It actually tells you which application is using the file.
- Windows 7 Lets You Customize Your Logon Background: Expert Windows hacker Rafael Rivera finds a change in the latest build of Windows 7—you can finally customize the log-on screen natively.
Windows 7 Transfers Your Wireless Settings Easily: To transfer the settings for yourself, head into the Network and Sharing Center, click on Manage Wireless Networks, and then in the properties for your wireless network you’ll find the link to open the wizard that will copy all your settings onto a flash drive.- How to Burn ISOs in Windows 7: Burning that ISO to a disc is as simple as: 1. Double-click the ISO file (or right-click and select Burn disc image); 2. Click Burn.
- Play Your iPod Through Your Windows 7 PC’s Speakers: You can play an external audio device through your computer’s speakers without any extra software using a simple configuration setting.
- Windows 7 Makes UAC Less Annoying Than Vista: The biggest change in Windows 7 is the new User Account Control "slider" setting, where you can choose your own balance between annoyance and security—but behind the scenes, Microsoft reduced the amount of actions that will prompt you.
- Netflix Update Comes to Windows 7 Media Center, Looks Excellent: Starting this week, Microsoft is rolling out an upgraded Watch Instantly interface to Windows 7 Media Center for users looking to get their streaming TV and movie fix on their upgraded PCs.
Setup File and Printer Sharing From XP to Windows 7: This guide walks you through the process of enabling network discovery, sharing your folders and printers, and accessing your shared resources from either Windows 7 or XP.- IE8 Can Proactively Close Crashing Tabs in Windows 7: The copy of IE8 found only in (Windows 7) has a “timer” that monitors new tabs as they open. If they aren’t responsive within a relatively short amount of time, the browser will pop up and tell you this, possibly with a reason why, and ask whether you want to wait or kill the tab before it causes further problems.
- Windows 7 Lets You Finally Uninstall Internet Explorer (Kinda): … It won't completely uninstall—only the executable is actually removed. Still, being able to finally banish IE proper from your system is a pretty good start for folks who really don't like IE.
- Windows 7 Will Let You Uninstall Most Built-In Apps: You can turn almost every built-in application on or off, including Windows Search, Gadgets, and even Media Player.
The Taskbar
- Aero Peek: Peek supercharges Windows’ taskbar thumbnail previews, and lets you view, close, and switch between multiple windows by just hovering over the taskbar thumbnail, as well as pin programs to the taskbar permanently.
- Pin Individual Folders to the Windows 7 Taskbar: Windows 7′s taskbar lets you pin any running program to the taskbar for easy future access, but it treats folders like second-class sub-items of the Explorer icon. Create a fake “program” to pin individual folder shortcuts to your taskbar.
- Middle-Click to Close Applications from Windows 7′s Taskbar: In Windows 7, middle-clicking a taskbar button opens a new program instance. The easy solution for closing an app? Middle-click its preview window.
- Hold Shift While Dragging to Windows 7 Taskbar to Open Files: All you have to do is hold down the Shift key while dragging a file to an icon on the taskbar, and the tooltip will change to say “Open with” instead of pinning to the taskbar.
Pin Any Item to the Windows 7 Taskbar: We already showed you how to pin specific folders, and this is just a slightly tweaked application of that method.- Put a Recycle Bin Shortcut on the Windows 7 Taskbar: Once you are finished, you'll have a separate recycle icon on the taskbar—useful for quick access to deleted files without having to hunt down an icon on your desktop.
- Get a Functional Recycle Bin on Windows 7′s Taskbar: TechSpot's solution—creating a Quick Launch taskbar, removing its text and title, then bringing the desktop Recycle Bin icon into it—covers all the bases, and lets you place your Recycle Bin pretty much wherever you'd like on the taskbar.
Jump lists
- Master Windows 7 Jump Lists to Boost Your Win7 Productivity: For those of you that haven’t yet tried out Windows 7, when you right-click on a taskbar button in Windows 7, a menu slides out with recent documents and application tasks. Here’s a rundown of our favorite Jump List boosters.
- Winfox Adds Jump Lists to Firefox on Windows 7: Jump Lists are one of the best new features in Windows 7, and since Firefox still doesn’t take advantage of them, a small utility called Winfox adds the feature for you.
- Win7shell Adds Windows 7 Jump List Support to Winamp: Once you’ve downloaded, installed the plugin, and pinned Winamp to the taskbar, the Jump List should immediately start tracking your recently played media files.
Built-in Applications
- Set Up and Use XP Mode in Windows 7: Windows 7's new XP Mode lets you seamlessly run virtualized applications alongside your regular Windows 7 applications—so your outdated software will continue to work.
- Calculator: While mathletes, scientists, coders, and statisticians will appreciate Windows 7′s built-in calculator’s programmer, statistics, and scientific modes, everyday people will love figuring out things like hourly wages and mortgage payments without a spreadsheet.
- PowerShell: (A) souped-up command line and scripting GUI that frees you, finally, from the limits of DOS batch scripts.
- Windows 7 Media Center’s Music Player Is Hot Hot Hot: Good news for music lovers excited for Windows 7: The new and improved music interface in Windows 7 Media Center is overflowing with eye candy and usability.
- Windows 7′s WordPad Opens Word 2007 DOCX Files: … The ribbon-style WordPad in Windows 2007 opens Word 2007 files, the .docx kind, pretty handily, albeit with some formatting loss.
- Backup and Restore Center: For the average user with both media and crucial file needs, Windows 7′s default backup features look promising.
- Windows 7 Guest Mode Creates Bomb-Proof Accounts: In the simplest terms, Guest Mode takes a snapshot of how a PC was working before the kid, friend, coffeeshop customer, or whoever else is using the Guest Mode account logs on. That user can’t do much to alter the system, and whatever they can do, like dropping files on the desktop, is discarded when they log off.
- Windows 7 Calibration and ClearType Tools Fine-Tune Your Displays: Windows 7′s color calibration and ClearType tools might be good enough for non-graphic-designers to stick with.
Themes, wallpapers, and login screens
Windows 7 Beta’s Many Free and Legit Themes: Microsoft is offering 20 fresh themes (in Windows 7). Here’s a closer look.- Grab Every Region’s Windows 7 Wallpapers in One Download: Microsoft allowed Windows Vista Magazine to bundle up every wallpaper from Windows 7′s regional releases and, boy, we’re glad they did. One file brings a lot of new looks to any desktop, Windows 7 or otherwise.
- Secret Registry Hack Customizes Windows 7 Logon “Button Set”: Rafael Rivera, the same expert Windows hacker that figured out how to customize your Windows 7 logon background, finds another hack that changes the UI to look better with darker background images.
- Microsoft Releases More Free Windows 7 Theme Downloads: The full-fledged themes are specific downloads for Windows 7 users, but anyone can grab the wallpapers from Windows 7′s Personalization Gallery for their system.
Mouse and Keyboard Shortcuts
- The Best New Windows 7 Keyboard Shortcuts: Windows 7 has more cool new shortcuts than you can shake a stick at.
- Aero Shake: When you want to focus on the task at hand on a desktop cluttered with windows, just grab the window bar of the app you want to work in and shake it back and forth to clear away the rest. Another shake will restore the background apps to their former state. You can also drag and drop a window to the edge of the screen to maximize it, and click on its top bar again to restore its previous size.
- Snap windows to half screen size: … Dragging a window to the top of the screen maximizes it. Following that, if you drag a window all the way to the left or the right of the screen, Windows 7 will display a glass overlay on the desktop. Let go of the mouse button and it will snap the window onto that overlay, which is half the screen's size—a handy helper for widescreen monitor owners.
- Maximize Windows Vertically with a Double-Click in Windows 7: Reader John points out that you can simply move your mouse to the top of a window until the pointer switches to the resize icon, and then double-click your mouse to instantly maximize the window to fill all the available vertical space.
- Shift and Right-Click to Expand Windows 7′s Send To Menu: Just as with Vista, holding down the Shift key while right-clicking in Windows 7 gives you a fuller range of options.
- Activate Windows 7 Jumplists with the Left Mouse Button: You don't have to right-click on the taskbar buttons to activate Windows 7's Jumplists—you can hold the left mouse button and drag upwards.
- Windows 7 Creates New Folders With a Hotkey: To create a new folder, simply press Ctrl+Shift+N with an explorer window open and the folder will instantly show up, ready to be renamed to something more useful.
Tweaks, fixes, and customizations
- The Best Windows Tweaks that Still Work in Windows 7: The final version of Windows 7 is being released this week to the general public, and after you get your hands on it the first thing you’ll need to know is: Do all my tweaks still work?
- Customize or Disable Windows 7′s Action Center: Windows 7′s Action Center does a great job of compressing all of Windows’ update/alert/whatever notifications into one icon, but it takes some tweaking to make it show what you want, or disable it entirely.
- Add text to the Windows 7 taskbar buttons: Just right-click the taskbar, select Properties, then change the Taskbar buttons drop-down from “Always combine, hide labels” to “Never combine.”
- Set Default Printers Based on Network in Windows 7: Windows 7 sports a great new feature that allows you to set default printers based on what network your computer is connected to, perfect for folks who carry laptops from network to network.
- Get Quick Access to Windows 7′s Jump Lists From the Keyboard: When we showed you how to master Windows 7′s new Jump Lists feature, there was one extremely useful tip that we left out: you can also access them from your keyboard.
Create and Share Custom Themes in Windows 7: Microsoft’s Engineering Windows 7 weblog details how to create, save, and share your own custom Windows 7 themes, complete with wallpaper, window color, and sounds.- Get the Old "Show Desktop" Back in Windows 7—Kinda: The short version: Create a folder, place a “Show Desktop.scf” file in there (either your standard Google-found kind or the script available at the bottom link), then right-click your taskbar to create a “New Toolbar” that points to that folder. Turn off the text and titles on that new toolbar, change the icons to large size, and then put your new one-button toolbar where you’d like.
- Hidden Windows 7 Tool Troubleshoots Sleep Mode Problems: The report lists all of the devices that are causing problems with sleep mode, explains the different power saving modes your computer supports, and even gives you detailed information on your battery—invaluable information when your system takes forever to go in and out of sleep mode.
- Disable the New Libraries Feature on Windows 7: Simply download, extract, and double-click on the provided registry hack file, then restart your computer and you’ll see that the Libraries are completely gone. There’s also an uninstall registry script provided just in case.
Third-party helpers
Logon Changer Customizes the Windows 7 Login Screen: Tiny system customizing utility Logon Changer for Windows 7 swaps out the logon screen wallpaper easily. Using the utility is simple—just select a new wallpaper, test it, and you are done.- Xdn Tweaker Updates to Tweak Windows 7: If you want your system to remember or not remember how you sort certain folders, edit what’s accessible through the right-click menu, or de-hook Windows Media Player from all the files it tries to glom onto, Xdn does those things for Windows 7.
- Glass CMD Enables Aero Transparency for the Command Prompt: Glass CMD for Vista forces command prompt windows to use Aero’s glass transparency effect.
- Gmail Notifier Plus Adds Email Alerts to the Windows 7 Taskbar: Gmail Notifier Plus displays your unread email count right in the Windows 7 taskbar, including popup message previews and Jump Lists integration.
- Switch Power Management Plans With a Hotkey: Once you've created the shortcut, you can assign a hotkey in the properties dialog—even better, put the shortcut in a location to be indexed by Launchy or the Vista start menu search, or even add it to your AutoHotkey automation script.
- CSMenu Brings the Classic Start Menu Back to Windows 7: Application launcher CSMenu makes up for the lack of a classic start menu option in Windows 7 by creating a menu that looks and works just like the ancient Windows 2000 menu did.
- Ultimate Windows Tweaker Updates, Improves Windows 7 Support: Ultimate Windows Tweaker adds new features to an already excellent tool for tweaking all of the hidden Windows settings you normally can’t access.
VistaSwitcher is an Absolutely Awesome Alt-Tab Replacement: It’s a little difficult to showcase how well this thing works with just a screenshot, but you can see the partially transparent Alt-Tab switcher window, complete with a massive preview window and the window titles easily readable.- Windows 7 Recovery Discs Gets Your System Out of Tight Spots: Boot your system from NeoSmart’s CD, and you’ll get a stripped-down Windows system with a window offering startup file repair, Restore Point returns, recovery from a whole-cloth image, memory testing, and a command prompt for those dire moments when only frantically Google-d terminal instructions can save you.
- Hulu Desktop Integration Brings Hulu to Windows 7 Media Center: Free application Hulu Desktop Integration brings Hulu’s remote-friendly desktop app to your Windows Media Center.
We hope you found at least one link in that rather large list that helps you get settled into your new OS. Did we miss anything? Got a favorite tip or link you feel Windows 7 newcomers should consider? Share it in the comments.
Get Quick Access to Windows 7′s Jump Lists From the Keyboard [Windows 7]
Posted on October 1, 2009
When we showed you how to master Windows 7′s new Jump Lists feature, there was one extremely useful tip that we left out: you can also access them from your keyboard.
The Into Windows blog points out a built-in shortcut key in Windows 7 that opens up the Jump Lists for the first 9 taskbar icons—just like you can use Win+1, Win+2, etc to cycle between open windows on the taskbar or launch an application, you can use the Win+Alt+1 shortcut key combination to open up the Jump List for the icon in that position in the taskbar.
In the example screenshot, using Win+Alt+4 opened the Jump List menu for Microsoft Outlook, since it's sitting at the fourth position on the taskbar—or you could have used Win+Alt+1 to open up the Jump List for Windows Explorer. It's an excellent way to more quickly access one of the best underhyped features in Windows 7 and access recently used items more easily.
Keyboard Shortcut To Quickly Open A Jump List In Windows 7 [Into Windows]
Master Windows 7 Jump Lists to Boost Your Win7 Productivity [Windows 7]
Posted on September 21, 2009
We’ve already mentioned the new Jump Lists feature in Windows 7 as one of our favorite features of the burgeoning operating system, and today we’re taking a closer look at how you can use them to save time.
For those of you that haven’t yet tried out Windows 7, when you right-click on a taskbar button in Windows 7, a menu slides out with recent documents and application tasks. You can even access it with the left mouse button if you choose. Here’s a rundown of our favorite Jump List boosters.
Display More Items on Jump Lists
Before we even dive into all the great things you can do with Jump Lists, you'll probably want to increase the number of recent items that show up on the list. You can easily do so by heading into the Taskbar properties, choosing the Start Menu tab, and then clicking the Customize button. At the bottom of this window you should be able to choose the amount of items you want to show up in the Jump Lists—though you might want to play with the setting a bit to see what works best for you.
Quick Access to Media
Having quick access to your music is essential for a productive work environment, and the Jump Lists feature lets you access your frequently used media, hit the next button, or pause whatever is playing when the boss walks in—right from the taskbar button. Windows Media Player users have this functionality built in, as does anybody using iTunes 9, but foobar2000 or Winamp users aren’t left in the cold either, with the same functionality available through plugins.
Open Private Browsing or Bookmarks Easily
When you want to quickly open up a new Private Browsing window, you really don't want to have to open up the browser, find the button for private browsing, and then switch the browser to private mode—you want an instant way to open it up, and Jump Lists give you exactly that. Internet Explorer has this feature baked in, Google Chrome added this functionality recently as well, and while Firefox users are currently left out, you can use an add-on application called Winfox to at least add Jump List support under Windows 7, though private browsing isn’t currently an option.
Pin Document Templates to the Taskbar
Reader Stephen showed us how to pin Outlook templates to the taskbar for quick access when emailing the same thing over and over, but the same technique works for just about any application—you can create a template document in your favorite application, and then simply drag it to the taskbar button to pin it to the Jump List. Then, the next time you need to use the template you can simply right-click on the taskbar button to open it up. It's a huge time-saver, especially if your job involves a lot of repetitive tasks.
Pin Applications To the JumpList
You can't, by default, pin applications to a Jump List—that's what the start menu is designed for—but with an add-on application called JumpList Launcher, you can do just that. Simply pin the launcher to your taskbar, and then use the settings to add all of your favorite applications. You can create separate groups, and consolidate many of your taskbar launcher buttons to save space when you want quick access to an application, but don’t necessarily want it taking up space on your taskbar. If the JumpList Launcher doesn’t do it for you, you should take a look at how StandaloneStack can do application launching and file browsing right from your taskbar.
Pin Folders and Searches To the Taskbar
Perhaps the biggest time-saver for me is the ability to pin your most frequently used folders to the taskbar, but most people don't realize you can actually pin a search as well. Simply open up the Windows 7 search, put in your search criteria, and then drag the icon from the location bar down to the Windows Explorer taskbar button to pin the search there. I've got a habit of losing that file I was just working on, so I've created a search that finds recently modified files and pinned it to the start menu—this way I never completely lose that document again.
Have you also taken a shine to the Jump List feature? Tell us how you’ve put it to good use in the comments.
The How-To Geek is wearing out the right mouse button ever since he switched to Windows 7. His geeky articles can be found daily here on Lifehacker, How-To Geek, and Twitter.