Leonard writes: I would like a manual for Windows 7, where can I find one?Now before any of you say, "it’s in the Help and Support section of Windows 7", this is true – but that assumes Leonard actually has Windows 7, which he may not. Some people would prefer to download a detailed manual before buying a license of Win7 or buying a new...

In Windows 7 (and assumedly Vista), if you search for anim, the beginning of the word animation, the option to "Turn off unnecessary animations" pops up:Click this brings up the Ease of Access Center portion of the Control Panel. If you scroll down, there’s the check box "Turn off all unnecessary animations (when possible)":I...

Windows 7 users may be familiar with the hardware performance score the OS assigns to your system called the Windows Experience Index. You can view your system’s current score by going to Control Panel > System. If you want to impress your friends with a freakishly high score, you can easily edit your system’s rating: WinSAT saves the scores in...

For those of you who do a lot of Windows 7 installations, creating a slipstreamed installation disc with the newly released service pack 1 already included can really save you a bunch of time. The process of actually creating a slipstreamed disc is very easy and for step-by-step instructions, check out this article. To get started, you will first need to create...

When you run Windows 7, you periodically are forced to reboot because of automatic updates. There are methods to stop that however. Disabling forced reboot for current session 1. Open a Command Prompt using ‘Run as Administrator’ 2. Type sc stop wuauserv, press Enter, done. What this does is turn off the reboot nag notices for the current logged-in...

Windows 7 SP1 is now available from Windows Update. First question answered: Is there a difference between x86 and x64 SP1? Yes, the installer will be specific per your architecture:What this means is that if you intend on doing offline installations of SP1 for varying x86 and x64 systems, you will need to download the appropriate release. What’s the...

The title of this tip is taken from a recent post The Windows Club which addresses this very question. The article is short and sweet and a recommended read for anyone who has ever pondered this question. To get right to the “meat” of it: Now it is very important to understand one thing! The Aero interface is rendered by the graphics card in your...

Yesterday I ordered a new DVD Burner for my PC from NewEgg. It’s a simple drive and nothing special, however the choice of drive I had to go with directly related to the OS I was running: I’m running Windows 7 64-bit. Originally I was going to buy one brand – which had a lot of positive reviews mind you – but something in my head said...

In Windows 7, you sometimes have the need to open a program as the administrator to perform system level modifications. While you can right click on the program and select "Run as Administrator", another shortcut which can come in handy is Ctrl + Shift + Click (or double-click when needed) which also opens the program as the administrator. That’s...

One of my oh-so favorite "PowerToys" that goes back all the way to Windows 95 is Command Prompt Here. This was later changed to Command Window Here for XP’s PowerToys, but did the same thing. Command Window Here is a very simple right-click context menu option. You right-click a folder, select Command Window Here and a Command Prompt launches...

The jump list was a UI feature introduced in Windows 7 that many people use daily. These lists extend the functionality of the taskbar by allowing much quicker access to specific files and folders on a per-program basis. The Windows Explorer (not to be confused with Internet Explorer) jump list does allow for “pinning” specific folders directly to...

In the Windows 7 environment there are certain programs that use the ribbon interface. At one point I hit my ALT key by mistake and these letters in boxes popped up in the menu. I didn’t know what they were until I realized they were the replacement for keystroke command indicators. To the best of my knowledge, all programs that use the ribbon interface...

In Windows XP, if you want to change a system font, you do the following: 1. Control Panel 2. Appearance and Themes, Display (Category View)or Display (Classic View)3. Appearance tab, Advanced button.4. Pick an item where you want to change the system font, such as Icon, change to suit, OK.In Windows 7, this is in a different place. You get the same...

One of the really fantastic features of Windows 7 is the “previous versions” functionality which allows you to restore, guess, previous versions of or deleted files (even if they have been deleted from the Recycle Bin). In order to take advantage of this function, you just need to have System Restore turned on and allowed to consume a fair percentage...

The previous versions of Windows included a useful function in their Quick Launch toolbar called “Show Desktop”. As you probably know, when clicked this minimizes all your windows and displays only the desktop. At first glance, it would seem this is missing from Windows 7. Of course this function is included in Windows 7, but the location is not...

The ability to select multiple files at once using the Shift and/or Ctrl keys are a well know shortcut. The only problem is one mishap with your fingers can cause you to deselect all your items. To remedy this problem, Windows 7 offers you the ability to select multiple files at once with check boxes next to each file. To enable this:Open the Windows Explorer...

One of the features hiding in plain sight which many people do not realize is included with Windows 7 is the ability to easily hide all your desktop icons and gadgets. To do this, right click on an empty area of your desktop and go to the View menu and select either ‘Show desktop icons’ and/or ‘Show desktop gadgets’. As you can guess, to...

I should be clear that the only 64-bit desktop OS I have used is Windows 7 (Pro), but I can honestly say I have been running the 64-bit version with zero issues for the past 4 months. In fact everyone in our office, albeit only 5 people, have been using it exclusively as well with no compatibility issues with software. We run the usual MS Office 2007 suite as...

If you make extensive use of Windows Explorer to move/copy files, a tool you might want to take a look at is Windows Double Explorer. Windows Double Explorer manages two or more Windows Explorer in one application. Also you can add your favorite folders with drag and drop to the toolbar for quick access. Not only does this tool allow split pane views, it...

I utilize middle click shortcuts in my browser all the time. By middle clicking a link, it opens the location in a new tab and by middle clicking a tab, it closes it. So when I ‘accidentally’ did this on my Windows 7 taskbar I was pleasantly surprised to see that is works (almost) exactly the same. By middle clicking on an item in the taskbar, it...