Top 10 tricks for Windows 7
Windows 7 has become the fastest selling operating system in history, ahead of Windows XP. The system is already present in more than half of the world's computers. Microsoft has announced that its sales reach the not inconsiderable figure of 630 million copies sold. Without doubt, this is a fairly complete and stable, which also has a huge amount of tricks that can help improve the use and performance. Here is a list of the top 10 tricks for Windows 7.
1. How to create a shortcut to a folder or external drive
The taskbar is a very useful tool to access the programs you use and even to anchor some file that we use often, such as a text document or presentation. However, not so easy to pin a shortcut to a drive or folder. To perform this trick, the first thing to check is that when displaying filenames Windows also displays extensions thereof.
To do this, we go to Windows Explorer and click on the "Organize". Then on "Folder and Search Options" and in the list of options look for the next "Hide file extensions for known file types." Should we remove is checked.
Now we can perform this trick. Anywhere on the screen we click the right mouse button, select the "New" and then "Text Document". We changed the name to one that we want, with care to always add the ". Exe" to the filename. Once done, drag the icon for this new document and had the desktop to the taskbar. The first step is to change the icon to one more attractive than the one in the picture. To do this, we press the right mouse button on the icon, then again right click the file name and properties (appear similar to the image).
In the Shortcut tab click on "Change Icon" and choose the desired image. After twice and accept if the step has run see how you change the icon. Now we return to do the same steps to get to the properties and the shortcut tab change the addresses of "Target" and "Start in" with the letter of the drive or folder path followed by a colon and the bar side. Like, for example, "C: \" or "C: \ My Documents". Then we can delete the file we created on the desktop, and we will have our unit anchored to the taskbar.
2. Discover the secrets of the calculator
At first glance it may seem that Microsoft has repeated the calculator functions available to it Windows Vista. However, behind the design of the basic view of this tool are hidden advanced multiple views including interesting features. If you click on "View", we can set the desired view. On the left the view of the calculator "traditional" (which may be basic, scientific, programmer and statistics) and to the right a view of unit conversion, date calculations and spreadsheets among which includes a mortgage calculator.
In short, a set of functions that go beyond what is expected of a traditional calculator and waiting to be discovered.
3. Photos rotate on desktop
Windows 7 has built a series of background images that the company has grouped by themes such as landscapes or architecture. These images are designed to fit the right way to our screen resolution, and the process of establishing one of these pictures as wallpaper is easy. But after a while can become tedious seeing the same background. To prevent this from happening, Windows 7 introduces the ability to customize a slideshow.
To do this, we click on the button right on the desktop, then "customize" and click on the option to "wallpaper" on the bottom. We can choose different image collections default Windows 7 (if you click on the name is automatically selected all the images in the collection). Or choose a folder with our own tightening images on "Browse". If we choose only some pictures some use the Control key and then we click on the desired images.
4. How to organize your notes in the form of Post-It
There are many occasions when it is necessary to point out some data that we want to remember or keep on hand. Typically in these cases is to use Notepad or Word itself. However, there is a simple and visual that can help in this regard. This is the application "sticky note" with which data can point several small notes in the form of Post-It.
To use this tool simply go to Start Menu "All Programs" "Accessories" Quick Notes. Simply select on the note and start typing. The color of each note changes if we click on it with the right mouse button and then the desired color. If you want to write a new note we press on cross-shaped symbol, and to remove the X. If we exit the program by right clicking the icon on the taskbar of the notes and "Close window" the notes are saved until you return to open them.
5. Extend the hours of your laptop battery
Windows 7 includes a series of advanced energy options that can help improve the life of the battery of a laptop. Default Windows offers two options: the "saver plan" and "performance plan". To change the configuration of the plans or create a new one, go to the Start menu and type "power options". We choose one of the plans (or create a new one) and then you click on "Change plan settings".
In the next window to push back on "Change advanced power settings." Through the window (shown in the picture above) we can change the way the system behaves as disk devices or ports USB, plus video presentations or desktop wallpaper. In this case, it is important not to touch values that do not know well.
6. Discover and ends the program that chokes your computer
Normally when searching for processes that are active and consuming more resources we use the task manager. However, Windows 7 has an application called "Resource Monitor" for managing these processes more advanced. To start go to the Windows startup and you type in the shortcut bar "resmon". Once inside, we manage various system resources and see values such as CPU usage, the description of the processes or the use of the disk takes place. By pressing the right mouse button on one of the processes we can finish it or put it in suspension, in case you are consuming many computer resources.
Just do not forget that this is an advanced tool that can be dangerous and manage system processes that do not know.
7. Tired of Windows 7 alerts?
One aspect that may be heavier when working with Windows 7 are throwing alerts the system when you open a program. Fortunately, we can manage alert levels and reduce the number of these notices through the Windows control panel. To access this menu, we can do this in two ways. The fastest is to go to start menu and type in the search bar "audit". The first option that appears is the "Change Settings of User Account Control."
If we use the more traditional way, go to control panel, look through the options (we recommend using the large icon view or small) and then "User Accounts". Once inside we click on "Change Settings Control user accounts. "There are five levels, from one that does not throw ever notices (many users will be tempted to turn this level) to notify whenever a program tries to install on your computer or any change in the configuration of Windows 7.
8. Take advantage of free tools such as WordPad
If you do not want to checkout for payment using the Office suite, there are several alternatives. One is the free tool WordPad that comes with Windows itself. It may be more than enough for current needs when open and write documents. One of the novelties of this version of Windows 7 is the ability to save documents in more formats than the typical RTF. In WordPad can open and create Office documents (in. Docx). To save files in this format, we just have to go to menu "save as" then choose "Office Open XML Document".
Incidentally, for those users who do not want to pay for Office also very useful free tools on the Internet. Microsoft itself offers Office Web Apps . And Google makes competition for some time with Google Docs . A suite that works over the Internet and increasingly incorporates more options.
9. Extends the multimedia capabilities of Windows 7
Although the version of Windows 7 includes a media player called Windows Media Player that improves the performance of previous versions, you can still have problems when playing some video or audio files. In order to improve the performance of Windows 7, the best thing to do is download a player that incorporates the necessary codecs to play most media files circulating on the Internet. Some of the recommendations that Free can offer better performance are the VLC Media Player or the K-Lite Codec Pack .
10. Enables full control mode
Windows 7 has a neat trick that allows you to organize all the configuration options in a single folder. The expert mode or Full Control is to create a folder in the directory you want with the following name: expert mode. {-8E54-465E ED7BA470-825C-99712043E01C}. In fact, the "expert mode" principle can be changed by any desired name, provided that mantegamos the second part of the name with the whole string of numbers and letters.
Then we can anchor this folder to the Start menu by simply dragging the folder icon and place it on the Windows Start button. Through this folder you can access all configuration options of Windows 7, which is organized through a list. Of course, we must take into account that change some Windows settings without knowing them can be dangerous.
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