Windows Tips

There are many usability tricks that even professionals do not know about. The are also several important setting in windows that are too important to be buried in some page devoted to a particular component of Windows.

• How to turn off Welcome screen. Open User Accounts in Control Panel.  Click Change the way users log on or off.
• To quickly access the computer management console, right-click My Computer and choose Manage.
• Windows 2000 does not have the MSCONFIG program but you can "backport" the Windows XP  version of MSCONFIG. Copy the file msconfig.exe from the c:\windows\system folder to the Windows 2000 c:\winnt\system32 folder. 
• The Windows logo key is the shortcut anchor for several command:
• Windows: Display the Start menu Windows
  • + D: Minimize or restore all windows Windows
  • + E: Display Windows Explorer Windows
  • + F: Display Search for files Windows
  • + Ctrl + F: Display Search for computer Windows
  • + F1: Display Help and Support Center Windows
  • + R: Display Run dialog box Windows
  • + break: Display System Properties dialog box
  • + shift + M: Undo minimize all windows Windows
  • + L: Lock the workstation Windows
  • + U: Open Utility Manager
• Looking for ways to improve your Windows 95 system? Don't overlook Power Toys for Windows. Although not part of Windows and not supported by Microsoft, Power Toys is a great collection of utilities you may find very useful. Some of the power toys will run on Windows NT 4.x as well.
• Quote Screen Saver v4.0.37b
• To stop Windows from automatically playing a music CD, hold the SHIFT key down while inserting a CD in the player.
• Quick Launch Bar and other Task Bar Properties. The Quick Launch bar makes it easy to access frequently used programs.

To display Quick Launch on the taskbar

•  If the Quick Launch bar is not displayed, right-click an empty area on the taskbar and click Properties.
•  On the Taskbar tab, under Taskbar appearance, select the Show Quick Launch check box and click OK.
• You can unclick Hide inactive icons to see all of them (I prefer this way)

Old News ;-)

[Nov 14, 2009] CodeSnippets Windows' command prompt How to DEFINITELY change default codepage

Want to use WinLatin1 (1252) instead of DOSLatin1 (850, default when cmd.exe is started) ?

You want to apply the new codepage to :
- the current opened command prompt
 

C:\> chcp 1252

- all the opened command prompt in the future
 

Start->Run->regedit
Go to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Nls\CodePage]
And change the "OEMCP" value to "1252"

You need to restart your computer to see the changes.

So you'll be able to display extended characters (such as accents and so on)

==

Don't know how to check the command prompt's codepage ?
 

C:\> chcp

[Oct 24, 2009]  A Tale of Two Windows 7s

Slashdot

Windows 7 improves things *just* enough for me to have little moments of 'ooh, that's nice', which is something missing from XP and Vista.

• USB device recognition: Fast. Very fast.
• Multi-monitor support: Slick. Unobtrusive. A no-brainer.
• UI interactions: Rapid. Responsive. Highly configurable. -- I tend to turn off all the animations / slide effects. Me click close gadget = window gone instantly. Thus my productivity goes up a small percentage.
• Hardware support: Inconspicuous. Works just like magic. -- My Nokia N97 (with or without installation of Nokia's Ovi application suite) works exactly as I need it to when I hook it up.
• Firewall: I will never need a 3rd-party firewall. Windows 7's firewall (once you get at its interface) is nothing short of perfect.
• Networking: Again, it just works. No need to faff about with it. Even recognised my nForce 4 based motherboard's
• Nvidia ethernet port. Not just recognised, but supports TCP offloading. Not that I needed to know this, but I went poking around ;)

For the first time ever in a new Windows installation I didn't feel compelled to immediately set up my video drivers. Everything worked smoothly enough. Of course, I did eventually load them up, but it didn't even require a reboot. Needless to say, I'm very pleased with Windows 7 so far.