GOD MODE God Mode Windows 7 has changed Control Panel a little, but its 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: 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... Everything.{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. Right-click everything At first glance Windows 7 bears a striking resemblance to Vista, but theres an easy way to begin spotting the differences - just right-click things. Right-click an empty part of the desktop, for instance, and youll 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 dont plan on using Internet Explorer then you probably wont want its icon permanently displayed on the taskbar. Right-click the icon, select Unpin this program from the taskbar, then go install Firefox, instead. 22. Display the old taskbar button context menu Right-click a taskbar button, though, and youll now see its jumplist menu. Thats 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 theres an easy way to get the old context menu back - just hold down Ctrl and Shift as you right-click the taskbar button. 23. Desktop slideshow Windows 7 comes with some very attractive new wallpapers, and its 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 youd like the images to be changed (anything from daily to once every 10 seconds), select Shuffle if youd like the backgrounds to appear in a random order, then click Save Changes and enjoy the show. 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 youd like to use. Make sure its less than 256KB in size, and matches the aspect ratio of your screen as itll be stretched to fit. Next, copy that image into the %windir%\system32\oobe\info\backgrounds folder (create the info\backgrounds folders if they dont 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. 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 thats fine, except it does consume a little more screen real estate than wed like. Shrink it to a more manageable size by right-clicking the Start orb, then Properties > Taskbar > Use small icons > OK. 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. Youll now get a clear and separate button for each running application, making them much easier to identify. 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. Restore the Quick Launch Toolbar If youre 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. 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. 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 its 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. Display your drives Click Computer in Windows 7 and you might see a strange lack of drives, but dont panic, its just Microsoft trying to be helpful: drives like memory card readers are no longer displayed if theyre empty. We think its an improvement, but if you disagree then its easy to get your empty drives back. Launch Explorer, click Tools > Folder Options > View and clear Hide empty drives in the computer folder. 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 itll automatically zoom in on the currently active control. Extend your jumplists By default a jumplist will display up to 10 items, but it can often be useful to extend this and add a few more. Right-click Start, select Properties > Customize and set Number of recent items to display in Jump Lists to the figure you need. Pin a drive to the taskbar The taskbar isnt just for apps and documents. With just a few seconds work you can pin drive icons there, too. Right-click an empty part of the desktop, select New > Text File, and rename the file to drive.exe. Drag and drop this onto your taskbar, then delete the original file. Right-click your new drive.exe taskbar button, then right-click its file name and select Properties. Change the contents of both the Target and Start In boxes to point at the drive or folder of your choice, perhaps click Change Icon to choose an appropriate drive icon, and youre done - that drive or folder is now available at a click. Expand your taskbar previews Move your mouse cursor over a Windows 7 taskbar button and youll see a small preview of the application window. To make this larger, launch REGEDIT, browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Taskband, right-click in the right hand pane and create a new DWORD value called MinThumbSizePx. Double-click this, choose the Decimal option, set the value to 350 and reboot to see the results. Tweak the value again to fine-tune the results, or delete it to return to the default thumbnail size.
Posted on: Wed, 02 Apr 2014 01:03:05 +0000
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