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Category: Windows 7 Tips

  • Disable system Restore_win 7 tips

    The System Restore feature in Windows 7 is essentially a backup created at specific points in time of all your computer’s settings. It is not–as some might think–a complete backup of all the data on your computer, but rather of important settings such as drivers and hardware configurations. Occasionally, you may find a need to disable System Restore–either for bug-fixing purposes or perhaps because the restore points are taking up too much space on your hard drive. Fortunately, Microsoft has made it relatively simple to accomplish this task.

    This article will help you to disable the Windows 7 system restore feature.
    Instructions

    1. Open the “Start” menu and select “Control Panel.”
    2. Click “System and Maintenance” followed by “System.” This brings up a new dialog box on your screen.
    3. Click the “System Protection” link in the left portion of the window. You may be prompted to enter your administrator password–if you have one on your computer–at this point. Do so, then press “Enter.”
    4. Click the “Turn off System Restore” checkbox next to your hard drive in the next window. This disables System Restore for that hard drive. If you have multiple drives, repeat this step for each drive.

  • Install a Wireless Printer_win 7

    As wireless connectivity technology has become more reliable and capable of carrying more traffic, printers have joined the list of wireless peripherals. This means that all of the computers on your network can share a single printer without a print server or USB cables. Windows 7 makes it simple to connect to a wireless printer by providing a wizard that guides you through the installation.

    This article will help you to connect a wireless printer on windows 7.
    Instructions

    1. Turn on the printer. Be sure that it is set up to connect wirelessly — check your printer manufacturer’s user guide and documentation for information about your specific printer model.

       

    2. Click on the “Windows” button to display the menu. Select “Devices and Printers” on the right-hand panel.

       

    3. Select the “Add a Printer” button from the menu bar of the Devices and Printers dialog window. The currently attached printers are displayed; review them to ensure that the new printer is not already attached through some other network connection.

       

    4. Click the “Add a network, wireless or Bluetooth printer” option. Windows searches for available printers; it may take a few minutes to discover the new printer.

       

    5. Choose the printer that you want to add from the list of network-visible printers. Click the “Next” button. Windows searches for the appropriate driver for the printer. If the operating system has a driver installed, you can choose this option, or follow the steps provided by the manufacturer to install proprietary software.

       

    6. Add a name for the printer or accept the name provided by Windows. Click “Next” to install the printer.

       

    7. Decide if you are going to share the printer through this machine. If the printer is available through the wireless network, it will be available to other users in the same fashion, precluding the need to share it.

       

    8. Click “Finish” to complete the installation of the printer.

  • Add New Hardware_Win 7 tips

    In the past, new hardware drivers could be installed by way of the Windows “Add Hardware Wizard” But user errors and miscues prompted Microsoft to delete this manual wizard for Windows 7. Instead, automatic Windows-operated downloads for device recognition and driver downloads are now the standard. Some hardware will still require user installation, but most other installs are handled by the Windows automated system of downloads and installations.

    This article will show you to add new hardware in Windows 7.
    Instructions

    1. Connect or confirm your connection to the Internet.
       
    2. Connect the hardware device to your computer.
       
    3. Wait for Windows 7 to automatically detect and identify the hardware and download the necessary driver.
       
    4. Insert the software disc that came with your hardware, if Windows 7 was unable to download the driver and prompts you to insert the disc.
       
    5. Follow the Windows prompts to complete the driver installation of the new hardware.

  • Create System Recovery Disc_win 7 tips

    Windows 7 comes with the built-in ability of being able to create a System Repair Disk that can be used to recover from major issues.

    The same recovery features can be found on the Windows 7 installation disc, but if you don’t have an installation disc, or your was lost or damaged, you’ll need this recovery disc to access the Windows 7 recovery features in case your system becomes seriously corrupt or unbootable.
    This article will help you to Create a Windows 7 System Recovery Disc.

    Instructions

    1. To begin the process of creating a System Repair Disc, Click Start > Control Panel > System and Security >Backup and Restore.

      Click “Create a System Repair Disc“
       

    2. If you have multiple optical drives installed in your system, select your preferred CD or DVD burner from the drop down. Place a CD or DVD in the optical drive tray and click “Create disc.”

       

    3. A progress bar will be displayed on the screen. Creating the disc should only take a few minutes. When the process is done, click “OK.”

       

    4. You’ve just created a Windows 7 System Recovery Disc to use in case of a major computer emergency.

  • Win 7 Tips- Split Screen

    Split Screen– Windows 7

    Information

    This article will show you how to easily split your screen in Windows 7. This split screen feature is new with Windows 7 and lets you view 2 screens side by side. Both screens are active so you can just move your mouse from screen to screen to work. Being able to view two documents or web sites side by side is an excellent feature in Windows 7.

    This article will help you to Use Split Screen In Windows 7.
    Instructions
    1. Open the documents or web sites you want to view side by side. If you want to look at two web sites side by side you will need to open 2 separate browser sessions not just have 2 tabs open on the same browser. That means you need to click the browser icon to open another browser session.

       

    2. Go to the screen you want to view on the left. Hold the Windows icon key down. This is the key that has the windows 7 logo on it. It is usually in the bottom left of your keyboard. Hold the left arrow key at the same time you are holding down the windows icon key. This will move your first window to the left.

       

    3. Go to the screen or document you want to display on the right. Repeat the steps above. Hold the Windows icon key down and the right arrow key at the same time. This will move your second open window to the right.

       

    4. Hold the Windows icon key down and the up arrow key at the same time to maximize your window again. You will need to put your mouse on the screen or document you want to maximize and then press both keys down simultaneously.

  • Change File Associations_win 7 tips

    Have you ever tried to double-click on a file only to find it always opens in the wrong application? Sometimes when you install an application, it will covertly change the file association of one or more file types to use the new application. Or maybe you just prefer to use on program over another.

    Here’s how to change file associations in Windows 7 so that the program you want to use will open your files by default.
    Instructions

    1. Browse to the folder location of the file that you’d like to change.
    2. Right-click on the file, scroll down hover your cursor over “Open with.” On the fly-out window to the left, click “Choose default program“.
    3. In the “Open with” window, check Recommended Programs section for your desired program. If you don’t see the program you’re looking for, click on the downward caret symbol to the right to reveal “Other Programs.”
    4. If the desired program still does not appear, click the Browse button and browse for the desired program. It will likely be found in the Program files directory.
    5. Once you’ve selected the desired program, be sure to click the “Always use the selected program to open this kind of file” box, then click “Ok.”
      All files with the same file extension will open with your desired program now that you have changed the file association in Windows 7.

  • Disable Auto Update Restart_win 7 tips

    Windows 7 automatic updates help to keep your computer secure and up to date with the latest bug fixes and security patches. It highly recommended that you have it enabled, but can be really annoying when it continuously nags you to reboot your computer. The good news it is very easy to disable the auto-restart using Local Group Policy Editor.

    This article will help you to disable Windows 7 auto update restart.
    Instructions

    1)Click the Start menu and type “gpedit.msc” (without quotes) in the search line and press the enter key. This will launch the Local Group Policy Editor.

    2)On the left side of Local Group Policy Editor, expand to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components. Then scroll down and select Windows Update.

    3)Double click “No auto-restart with logged on users for scheduled automatic updates installations” option. In the properties window that appears, change the option from “Not Configured” to “Enabled“. Click “OK” and close Local Group Policy Editor. Windows will no longer prompt you to restart after automatically installing updates.

  • Windows 7 Tips- Disable Aero Snap

    Disable Aero Snap (and Switch Among Open Windows More Quickly)

    Sometimes, automatic actions that are meant to be helpful can turn out to be frustrating if they aren’t doing what you are really trying to do.

    Likewise, you might want to disable Aero Snap—the feature which automatically snaps windows to a certain size and position when you drag their title bars on the desktop.
    Instructions

    1) Click the Start button to open the Start menu.

    2) Type ‘mouse‘ in the Search Files And Programs box.

    3) Select Change ‘How Your Mouse Works‘ from the list of items that are found.

    4) Select the checkbox for the option ‘Prevent Windows From Being Automatically Arranged When Moved To The Edge Of The Screen‘.

    This way we can disable Aero Snap.

  • Windows 7 Tips – Vista Style Sidebar

    Add the Vista Style Sidebar Back to Windows 7


    INFORMATION:
    This article will show you the way to get the Vista style side bar on your Windows 7 PC.

     

    Copy Files from Vista

    Note: In this example we are using 32-bit versions of Vista and Windows 7. Make sure you are logged in with Administrator credentials.


    If you have a Vista machine running, we can copy the Windows Sidebar files over to the Windows 7 machine. On the Vista machine navigate to C:\Program Files and copy the Windows Sidebar folder and all of its contents over to a flash drive or network location.

    On the Windows 7 machine go to C:\Program Files and rename the Windows Sidebar folder to something like Windows Sidebar_old.

    Now copy the Vista Windows Sidebar folder into C:\Program Files.

    Now you will have both folders…Windows Sidebar and Windows Sidebar_old in your C:\Program Files folder.

    Right-click on the desktop and select Gadgets.

    The Original Vista Sidebar is back and will act as it did in Vista.

  • Hide Drives – Windows 7 Tips



    If you’ve got drives in My Computer that you never access, such as a USB Flash drive that you are using solely for ReadyBoost, a floppy drive, or a network drive only used for a particular piece of software, then you might want to simply hide the drive from your computer.



    This tip will only hide the drive from being displayed, applications and the command prompt will still have access to it, and you can still manually browse to the folder if you type in the path.
    Now what’s that floppy drive doing there?

    Configure the Hidden Drives
    Open up regedit.exe by using the start menu search box, and then browse down to the following key.
        HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
    If the Explorer key does not exist, you can right-click on Policies, select New Key and name it Explorer.

    The NoDrives key most likely does not exist by default, so you’ll need to create it with right-click \ new 32-bit DWORD and name it NoDrives.
    This value is a 32 bit number, and the bits are arranged in reverse order with a value of 1 hiding that drive.
    Converting 100001 to decimal we end up with a decimal value of 33 or a hex value of 0×21, so if you double-click on the key in the registry editor, choose Decimal and then enter 33 into the value field.
    In order to see these changes, you’ll need to restart explorer.exe, which you can do easily from Task Manager or the longer way by just logging off and back on.