Windows 7 Tips, Tweaks, and Secrets (21 - 30)

Unhide hidden non-U.S. Windows 7 wallpapers

When you install Windows 7 (or buy a PC based on it), you’ll find a set of wallpapers installed that correspond to the country that was specified at install time. Assuming you’re in the United States, you’ll get the U.S. great-outdoors treatment, replete with national-park eye candy and other scenic shots. All well and good, but you can uncover some international wallpapers in Windows, if you feel like dressing up your Windows with foreign flair.
The wallpaper files reside in a directory you can’t see unless you know where to look, however. Look in C:\Windows\Globalization\MCT, if the folder is visible in Windows Explorer. (It may not be; if not, skip ahead to the end of this tip to learn how to uncover it.) There, you should see several folders. On our install, the folders were labeled AU, CA, GB, US, and ZA, containing image sets for Australia, Canada, Great Britain, the United States, and South Africa. Inside each of these folders is a folder called “Theme”; to import one of these national theme sets, open the theme folder and double-click on the file inside ending in a “.theme” extension.

Doing so will make the theme available in the Personalization dialog box. To access it, right-click on an empty area of the Windows Desktop, and select Personalize from the pop-up menu; you should see the new theme under My Themes. Double-click on a theme to make it live. Note: You can right-click on the Windows Desktop and choose Next desktop background to cycle through different wallpapers in the theme set.
It’s possible, though, that you couldn’t see the MCT folder where we specified. If so, hit the Windows key + R key combination, which will bring up the Run box. In the box, type (or paste in) the following text, and then hit Enter:
%systemroot%/Globalization/MCT
This should launch the hidden folders in a new Explorer window. If still nothing appears, though, you need to, in the resulting window, hit the Organize button, select Folder and search options, and click on the View tab. In the ensuing list, you’ll need to do two things: uncheck the box next to Hide protected operating system files and click the radio button next to Show hidden files, folders, and drives. Hit Apply, then OK, and the folders should show up.
Incidentally, you can also download other themes at Microsoft’s Personalization Gallery. It was a bit scanty when we looked at it (just before Windows 7’s official release date), but the company says that it should offer more themes with the full release of the operating system.
And a bonus! You can go to the Microsoft Musings blog (not affiliated with Microsoft itself) to download a huge ZIP file of lots of other official Windows wallpapers, compiled by this blogger. A lot of genuinely striking sample backgrounds have come and gone through the various Windows 7 builds and release candidates, including some psychedelic ones and many, many more international themes.

Use Windows 7’s Compatibility mode to run a troublesome older app

It happens every time a new OS debuts—a few of your favorite programs get left behind in the shuffle, no longer compatible with the new OS. Windows 7 will likely be no different in that regard, but you may not need to abandon your apps or wait for a new, compatible version of the software to emerge. Microsoft claims that most Vista-compatible software should work without a hitch on Windows 7, but it remains to be seen how true that is.
If you didn’t use Vista, you may not be aware of Windows Compatibility mode, introduced with that OS. It’s back in Windows 7, and we suspect that it will get more attention in this release. A tool for dealing with balky older software, it lets you run a given app as if it were running under an earlier version of Windows.
To activate Compatibility mode, right-click on the affected program’s icon, then click on the Properties item in the menu that pops up. In the Properties window, you’ll see a set of tabs across the top; choose Compatibility. In the resulting dialog box, you’ll want to check off the box Run this program in compatibility mode, then select the latest version of Windows with which your app worked properly:

You can also try out several additional settings here that can eliminate problems, such as running at 256 colors or 640x480 resolution (unlikely to help unless your app is really old) or disabling themes (which can help with troubles displaying menus or buttons properly). Experimentation is the order of the day here, though Microsoft warns that you don’t want to use Compatibility mode with crucial system-level apps such as antivirus software or disk utilities. For obvious reasons, that can lead to bigger problems.

Easy external-monitor or projector setup for laptops

If you’re a businessperson who gives lots of presentations from your laptop, this one is for you. We bet that you have probably encountered more than your fair share of frustration with configuring external displays or projectors to work with your laptop in unfamiliar environments. Between negotiating HDMI, DVI, and VGA outputs (each with its own quirks), and figuring out a resolution amenable to both pieces of hardware, you likely wish there was an easier way.
Here’s a bit of help. If you’re running Windows 7 on a laptop, memorize this shortcut: Windows key + P.
 

Tap it with a monitor or projector attached to the laptop’s video output, and you’ll get a new selector box that helps you configure the external display device:

You’ll see four options, from left to right. Computer only lets you revert your video settings to using just the laptop’s LCD. Duplicate, predictably, lets you display the same image on your laptop’s screen and the external display. (That’s the one you’ll most likely use for presentations.) Extend lets you stretch your Windows Desktop across the laptop display and the external display (much like in a multiple-monitor desktop-PC arrangement). And Projector only shifts the video output strictly to the external display device, blanking the laptop screen.
You can still make these adjustments the old-fashioned way, through the Control Panel (check out the Display subcategory there), but this method makes at least the initial setup snap-simple.

Restore the main menu bar in Internet Explorer 8, Windows Live Mail

This malady is not new with Windows 7 (it first reared its head in places in Windows Vista), but in a few major Windows apps, the familiar old top menu bar has disappeared. (That is, the one containing the File, View, and such crucial menus.) This was especially noticeable in Internet Explorer 7; now we’re seeing it in Internet Explorer 8 and Windows Live Mail.
It’s no big deal if you’ve dealt with it before—you hit the Alt key, and the menu bar pops up temporarily—but we still find it disconcerting and prefer to revert to the old, always-visible menu bar in these programs when we can. And if you’re a new recruit to Windows 7 straight from XP, the missing menu bar might be outright unnerving.
To keep the menu bar always visible in Internet Explorer 8, first hit the Alt key to bring up the bar (comprising File, Edit, View, Favorites, and so on). Then, right-click on the menu bar itself. On the context menu that pops up, you’ll see that the Menu Bar entry (the topmost in the list) is not checked off. Left-click on Menu Bar to check it, and that should lock the old-school bar back in its familiar place:

In Windows Live Mail, the process is a little different. On the right side of the topmost icon bar, you’ll see an abstract “menu” icon. (It’s between the paint-brush and question-mark icons.) Left-click it once, and select the Show menu bar option with a left-click:

Your File menu and its menu friends will be back where they belong. (You can deactivate them in the same place.)

Drag around maximized windows without resizing them first

In Windows 7, Microsoft finally fixed a recent pet peeve of some Windows users: the need to first resize a maximized window before it could be dragged around. This was a speed bump encountered often by users of multiple monitors, who are often in the habit of dragging windows from one display to another.
In older versions of Windows, if a window was maximized, you needed to hit the resize button in the upper right corner of the window (the box between the minimize and close buttons) to “downsize” it before dragging. In Windows 7, it’s possible to simply grab the title bar of a maximized window, and drag it around right away, no fuss. Just grab the circled area and go:

It’s a subtle thing, but a welcome revision and one that you might not notice is possible for some time, because habit would keep most of us from even bothering to try. The ability to drag windows around more freely also relates to our next tip: Aero Snap, which also provides new window behaviors (auto-resizing, in its case) when dragging a window around.

Aero Snap: Use the Windows key and arrow buttons to rearrange windows

Much has been made of Windows 7’s Aero Snap feature, which automatically resizes and arranges program windows when you drag them to the top or sides of the screen. It’s a great feature, to be sure, and particularly handy for making use of larger and wide-screen displays while multitasking.
For example, if you drag two windows to opposite sides of the screen, you get an arrangement like this, with each window auto-arranged side by side:

But as easy as it is to drag windows around with a mouse and have them magically snap into place, many users, particularly the more keyboard-inclined, will find this simple set of keyboard shortcuts invaluable once they try it: Hold down the Windows key, and press any arrow key. The mouse method will soon seem so…antiquated? (If it's possible for a brand-new feature to be antiquated...)

Hitting the Windows key and the up arrow maximizes your currently selected window, down arrow minimizes it, and right or left arrow docks the window to the side of the screen, where it conveniently resizes to take up just half the width of the screen. Those using multiple monitors will also be able to shunt windows between screens by repeatedly arrowing over while holding down the Windows key. A few seconds using this shortcut can turn a jumbled mess of windows into an organized layout that will improve your productivity.

Document processes and (troubles) easily with the Problem Steps Recorder

If you’re the perpetual tech-savvy friend who’s always asked to troubleshoot, Windows 7’s Problem Steps Recorder will be your favorite Windows 7 feature when something goes wrong. It’s an exceedingly simple way to visually record the steps that lead to any problem within Windows 7.
Simply type PSR in the search bar on the Windows 7 Start menu, and hit Enter to launch the app. Click the Start Record button, then click away through whatever task it is that causes the problem. Problem Steps Recorder automatically takes screen captures of every step you take. At any point, you can click the Add Comment button to add your own notes to the process. When you’re finished documenting the problem, click Stop Record, and you’ll be asked to give a name to a ZIP file that will be saved to the desktop for easy e-mailing. The ZIP file contains an MHTML document like this one; it opens in Internet Explorer to reveal a neatly organized list of all of the steps you just recorded:

You can scroll through it like a Web page or view it as a slide show. Clicking on the Additional Details link reveals version numbers for whatever software was used in the problematic process, as well as other details—even whether you single- or double-clicked on a given window.
Master the simple Problems Steps Recorder, and you’ll never have to struggle to explain a Windows-based software problem again. The only Windows problem this app won’t help you with is the notorious Blue Screen of Death. But we haven’t seen one of those in Windows 7 since running the beta, anyway.

Dock the taskbar to the side of the screen

In earlier versions of Windows, it was possible to reorient the Windows taskbar vertically. But the way XP and Vista rendered the vertical taskbar (and sometimes sliced off the icons) made it feel like a half-finished, tacked-on feature. With Windows 7, all the taskbar icons and pinned programs cascade nicely if you turn the taskbar vertical.
If you have multiple instances of a program open (such as multiple Office documents), having the preview pane tile vertically makes finding the right window seem easier, at least to us. See the screen shot below for what we mean; we're displaying multiple open thumbnails of IE:
 

Docking the Taskbar on the side of the screen is also a great option for netbook users stuck with lower-resolution screens. On a netbook, gaining a bit more vertical space on the Windows Desktop can save a serious amount of scrolling on Web sites.
To move your taskbar to the side of the screen, simply right-click on any space on the bar that isn’t occupied by an icon and click Properties. In the Properties box that pops up, you’ll find a line labeled Taskbar location on screen. You can choose Bottom, Left, Right, or Top:

Give the Left dock a try. It definitely takes a day or two to get used to, but once you do, you just might like it enough to leave it there.

Do serious math with Windows 7’s advanced calculator

It may sound humdrum, but Windows 7 has really upped its game when it comes to its calculator functionality. Now, instead of just standard and scientific functions, you can also do programming and statistical functions, as well as make short work of real-life tasks such as juggling mortgage numbers, computing hourly wages, and figuring out gas mileage.
The Calculator resides in the Start menu. (If it got shunted off the first level of your Start menu by other items, check under Accessories.) Use the View menu to switch among Standard, Scientific, Statistics, and Programmer modes. (Only the first two were available in Windows XP and Vista.) Plus, investigate the options further down the menu to address everyday calculation scenarios, such as adding and subtracting time in terms of dates. You can figure out, for example, how many days there are between now and Christmas—not typical calculator fare:

The final option in the menu, Worksheets, unfolds to show some additional calculation templates (figuring out payments on a vehicle lease, for example).
We also love that the new calculator includes a converter for units of measurement. These tweaks won’t change your life (and some of them Google can do for you), but now that you know they’re there, you’ll get some use out of them.

Shift-click (or middle-click) to open another instance of a program

At times, you want to open a completely separate, second version of a program, as opposed to an additional document window or tab within a single instance of a program. You may do it for ease of window organization, or for one of a host of other reasons. You can, of course, simply hunt up the program in the Start menu and launch it a second time, but there’s a much easier way, new in Windows 7.
Simply hold down the Shift key and click on the app’s icon in the taskbar—a second instance of the program will pop up. Or, if your mouse has a middle button (that is, a clickable scroll wheel), pressing that accomplishes the same task. Anything that replaces a meandering jaunt through the branching Start menu with a simple click is a very good thing, in our book.
Note that in some apps, and depending on how you have your taskbar set up (especially if you tweak it with the help of some of our tips), telling the difference between a second copy of an app that’s open and merely a second open window within a single copy of an app can be tricky. If your taskbar is set up to group like windows together, you may not see a second, discrete icon for a second, open version of the program, even though it is open. So rest assured: If you Shift-click and only get another grouped window under the original icon, you didn’t do anything wrong.

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Windows 7 Tips, Tweaks, and Secrets (11 - 20)

Download Windows Live Essentials to restore common Windows apps

If you’re a Windows XP user who has just migrated to Windows 7, you’re likely to notice a few old friends missing: notably, a mail client (Outlook Express) and Windows Movie Maker. And if you’re using Vista, the Windows Mail, Movie Maker, and Photo Gallery apps might be conspicuous by their absence in 7.
In Windows 7, Microsoft has moved these programs off-OS and made them part of a downloadable package of apps called “Windows Live Essentials.” (Why, if they’re “Essentials,” they’re not included as part of the OS is another story, though.) This is the Live Essentials page; the download link is below (click the page image to go there now, if you like):

You’ll need to sign up for a free Windows Live account to download the lot. (You may well already have one.) You may or may not need Live Essentials, depending on the e-mail client you tend to use and whether you already own some favorite photo- and video-editing software, but we think the download is worth the trouble, regardless. For one thing, the Windows Photo Gallery app has been bulked up a bit from Vista’s; it now has more editing functions, so it can be a time saver versus launching a full-featured photo editor. And Windows Movie Maker, as in Vista, incorporates the ability to burn a DVD Video direct from the app, so no need to fire up Nero, Roxio, or another big burning app for straightforward jobs. Check out the Live Essentials pack at http://download.live.com.

Fix the Column views in Windows Live Mail

Here at ComputerShopper.com, some of the editors migrated their home PCs from Windows XP or Vista to Windows 7, and we encountered a little glitch with Windows Live Mail that drove us bananas for the better part of an afternoon. We’d like to save you the same grief.
Our e-mails imported fine from XP’s Outlook Express, but we found that in the “Sent items” view in Live Mail, it was impossible to tell at a glance to whom we sent our mails. That’s because the columns in the default view didn’t include the one for the “To:” field. (Your mileage may vary. The missing “To:” field didn’t happen in another install we performed, but the next step—the grey-out issue—did.)
Simple enough, we thought—it’s easy to customize the view to show the “To:” field. You’d just hit Alt, go the View menu, choose the Columns item, and…hey wait a minute, the Columns menu option is greyed out! Hmmm. All we wanted was to restore this little column:

An afternoon of tweaking and searching later, we discovered that, strangely enough, repositioning the preview pane (the region of the screen that shows you a preview portion of a selected e-mail) was the only thing that would “un-grey” the Columns item on the View menu. This is likely a bug, and we’d expect it to be fixed before long. But how to work around it, for now?
In your Sent Mail view in Live Mail, hit Alt to bring up the menu bar, click View > Layout, and in the Layout dialog box, change the Reading pane (Mail) entry to At the bottom of the message list. (You can also uncheck the Show the reading pane box if you’d like to get rid of the pane altogether.) Hit OK, and you should be able to access the Columns entry in the View menu to tweak the columns that are displayed.

Pin frequently used files or folders to taskbar program icons (Jump Lists)

Windows 7’s taskbar rethink means that a large number of the tips and tweaks here involve this thin bit of real estate, but here’s another taskbar-related tidbit that’s nonetheless invaluable. It’s been possible to set up shortcuts to frequently used files or folders on the Windows Desktop for ages, of course, but accessing them requires minimizing or otherwise moving around windows to uncover them. Windows 7, however, allows you to “pin” files or folders you use often onto relevant program icons in the taskbar for easy access, always keeping them above the desktop-window fray.
For example, say you often work with a spreadsheet file called “TAXES.XLS” in Excel. Launch Excel, then find the file “TAXES.XLS.” Left-click or right-click on the file itself, then drag it onto the Excel taskbar program icon. You should see a message to “Pin to Microsoft Excel”; when you do, release the mouse button.
The file will be added to what Windows 7 calls a Jump List, a list of frequently accessed files, folders, and actions that you can get to right from the taskbar via the program’s icon. Here's a sample Jump List for Microsoft Word:

For a Jump List to be at hand, the program needs to have been launched, however—or its icon permanently pinned to the taskbar.

Master Jump Lists to access files, folders, and tasks fast

As mentioned in the previous tip, you can “pin” your favorite files and folders to a taskbar icon for instant access via a quick-to-click shortcut list, called a Jump List. (That’s one of Windows 7’s marquee user interface improvements.) Some programs also, by default, pin common tasks to their Jump Lists. For example, Internet Explorer 8 allows you to open a new tab or launch InPrivate browsing from its Jump List.
You can launch Jump Lists in one of two ways. If you right-click on a program’s taskbar icon, the Jump List will pop up, showing any default tasks and your pinned items. (Incidentally, if you left-click on the pushpin icon situated next to any Jump List entry, you can remove it from the list.) But there’s another, less obvious way to launch Jump Lists: Left-click on the program’s taskbar icon, and sweep the mouse cursor upward. The Jump List will pop up. Bonus for doing it this way: Your cursor will be in the perfect position to click on the shortcut item you’re looking for. This handy move is for anyone performing repetitive tasks and interested in maximum mouse efficiency.

Another Jump List tip: You don’t have to pin a file, necessarily, to the program that created it or to whose file format it’s native. You’re welcome, for example, to pin a .TXT file you created in Notepad to the Microsoft Word program icon. Later, if you click that file’s Jump List entry that’s attached to the Microsoft Word icon, it will open that particular TXT file in Microsoft Word, even if, at the system level, the TXT file type is associated with another program.

Pin frequently used apps to the taskbar

Here’s another taskbar shortcut, following from our Jump List tips. Jump Lists are great, for sure, but they only come into play if the program’s icon is actually on the taskbar. It’ll appear there if you launch the program, of course, but you can also pin the app itself permanently to the taskbar, which makes its Jump List available at all times.
Essentially, pinning an app to the taskbar simulates the old Quick Launch bar in earlier versions of Windows. (Quick Launch was the series of little program icons on the left side of the taskbar; it disappeared with Windows 7.) Pinning a program is easy: Either right-click on a program’s icon on the desktop or Start menu and choose “Pin to taskbar,” or drag the icon onto the taskbar itself in the desired position.

Plus, you can rearrange these pinned shortcuts on the taskbar, even intermingling them with the icons representing open applications. Simply drag around the icons of open programs and pinned apps alike, into any order you choose. Try it. It sounds minor, but you’ll use it plenty once you know it’s possible.

Let Windows tune your LCD for top text legibility

Windows 7 is the first Windows OS for which, at its introduction, LCD monitors have truly been the overwhelming display standard. (They were well on their way at the time of Vista’s introduction, but the trend has accelerated with the ascendancy of laptops and the wholesale move to LCDs on desktop PCs.) The new OS includes a dedicated LCD-tweaking wizard that lets you improve the look of text on your screen. It’s called the ClearType Text Tuner (CTTT).
You access CTTT from the Windows Control Panel; click on the Display item, and, in the resulting dialog, click on Adjust ClearType text. That will launch the wizard. Make sure on the first screen that the box next to Turn on ClearType is checked, and follow the prompts. Windows 7 will first check that your monitor or monitors are running at their native resolutions. (Native resolution generally delivers the best possible text legibility.) Then, it will take you through some comparisons reminiscent of a vision test at the eye doctor. The wizard runs a series of visual tests, asking you which block of text looks clearer to you, like this:

When you’re done, chances are you’ll see a noticeable difference in text quality. After you’ve run CTTT, you may wish to return to the Display Control Panel and tweak the size of default Windows text. Under the subhead Make it easier to read what’s on your screen, try tweaking the setting from Smaller to Medium or Larger if that’s more comfortable for you. If you do indeed decide to change the default text size, however, we recommend running CTTT again so your screen is optimized for the new size.

App switching made easy with Windows key + T

The keyboard shortcut Alt + Tab is the ancient Windows standby for switching between apps. And those of us immersed in Windows Vista (on a PC with the enhanced Aero interface active) have seen Aero Flip, Vista’s flashy means of task switching, in which the Windows key + Tab combination lets you cycle through three-dimensional planar renderings of your open windows.
Aero Flip and old-reliable Alt + Tab continue to work in Windows 7. But the new OS introduces yet another means of task switching, which stands apart because it lets you cycle in turn through not only all open apps but also see grouped windows within each app. It’s tied in, once again, with the taskbar rethink in Windows 7. It’s the shortcut Windows key + T.

Repeatedly hitting this combination will scroll you through the different apps that you have open, popping up thumbnail previews above each program’s icon in the taskbar. If you have multiple windows open for a given app, you’ll see all of the windows grouped as a set of thumbnails. Same behavior with Internet Explorer 8 (though, interestingly, not with Firefox): If you have multiple tabs open in a browser, you’ll see each tab displayed as a discrete window thumbnail. Releasing the keys with a particular app thumbnail active, interestingly, doesn’t launch the program but leaves the thumbnail suspended; you need to click it or hit Enter to bring up that program. (That’s unlike with Alt + Tab or Aero Flip; with those, releasing the keys brings the window to which you’ve cycled to the fore.)

And, as mentioned earlier in a previous tip, there’s a hidden new option with these thumbnails: You can close any window via its taskbar thumbnail by clicking on it with your middle mouse button. You don’t necessarily have to navigate to the little red “X” in the corner of the thumbnail.

Launch or maximize programs with the shortcut Windows key + 1, 2, 3

Windows 7 certainly isn’t hurting for new shortcut keys, and this one can be applied in a number of ways, including some we probably haven’t thought of yet. With it, you can launch a program from the keyboard—or bring its minimized or buried window to the forefront—so long as the program is showing live or pinned icons in the taskbar.
Each program icon in your taskbar, whether pinned there or representing a launched app, gets assigned a virtual number, starting with “1” for the leftmost icon and increasing by one as you go right. If you tap the Windows key in combination with a numeral, it will launch or bring forward the program corresponding to it in the taskbar. So, for example, Windows key + 1 will launch the leftmost taskbar program icon.

Why is this useful, as opposed to using one of the many other window- or task-switching options in Windows 7? We can think of one good application: If you pin a series of frequently used programs to the left side of the taskbar, you can launch them in sequence shortly after bootup (or at any time you choose) with a few brisk keystrokes.

Easily switch the active window to a second monitor

For some years now, we’ve been ardent advocates of using two monitors on our desktop PC. And if you’ve discovered the pleasures of using an extended desktop spread across two side-by-side LCDs, you’ll agree that it’s hard to go back to just one screen once you’ve made the jump.
You’ll also probably agree, though, that with two displays, you spend a good deal of time pushing windows around when working in multiple programs. Notably, sometimes you just want to shift a window that’s in your way over to your other monitor, without necessarily minimizing or covering it.
In earlier Windows versions, that was a two- or three-click process: If the window was maximized, you’d hit the resize icon in its upper right corner to downsize it for moving. (A fully maximized window couldn’t be dragged.) You’d then drag it by the title bar over to the other display, and then perhaps maximize it again.
We’re used to the routine, but in Windows 7 that rigmarole has been reduced to a key combination: Windows key + Shift + Left Arrow (or Right Arrow).

Hitting this combination moves the active window over to your other monitor in the same relative position. This exposes (hopefully!) the window you were looking for beneath it, while leaving the shifted window still visible. It works with more than two monitors, too.

Aero Shake: Mass-minimize windows by shaking the mouse

If you didn’t read about this tip here or elsewhere first, you’d probably only discover it in the midst of a fit of frustration sometime down the road. If you grasp the title bar of a given window, then shake the mouse rapidly while still holding down the left mouse button, you can minimize all windows except for the shaken one. (This feature is called, unsurprisingly, Aero Shake.) Grab the window here, and shake:

Aero Shake is handy for reducing onscreen clutter, and if you happen to own a touch-sensitive tablet PC or other touch-enabled computer, Aero Shake is especially satisfying to use. And if you don’t have a touch screen at your fingers or your mouse in hand at the moment, you can also perform the same operation from the keyboard, by hitting the combination Windows key + Home (not nearly as fun, alas).
To restore the window arrangement as you had it before, just repeat the action: Shake the title bar again (or hit Windows key + Home again), and your other windows will pop back up in the same positions as before.

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