The "Best Windows Tip You Know" Thread

[kroll]

This is somewhat like the trick Andrew-DB postet: you can create the link toolbar, drag it off the taskbar and youll end up with a nice toolbar that has drop down menus for the folders

[PurplePeopleEater]

WinKey+L = C+A+D Enter (ie locks the computer, for WXP and W2K3 only)

Win key + L locks on XP+

crtl,shift,esc task manager on xp- win 7 (without option dialog in vista+)

Win tab.alt +tab (my fav) switch windows quickly or in style

alt + f4 (press it it's fun)

CTRL + W closes tabs

Learned this a couple of months ago... Firefox has been so much easier since. :pinch:

IE7 taught me that, found it works on all browsers cntrl t opens blank tab too

[sbrads]

I haven't seen these 2 mentioned for XP, apologies if I missed them......

1. PLACES BAR.....

I bet most XP users haven't heard of this, but it's the 5 folder location icons on the left that are offered to you most times when you go to save/load a file, the defaults being

* My Recent Documents

* Desktop

* My Documents

* My Computer

* My Network Places

These can be modified, making them much more useful. TweakUI can do the basics, but for a fully editable method, use gpedit.msc like this..

1. Open the Group Policy Editor (Start > run > gpedit.msc)

2. Click on......

User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Explorer > Common Open File Dialog

3. Double-click on 'Items Displayed In Places Bar'.

4. Click on Enabled option.

5. Modify it with your favorite locations to save files to/load files from.

2. RUN 2 PROGRAMS (OR MORE) WITH ONE DOUBLE-CLICK.

Basically, a short text file is written in Notepad and given a .BAT extension. If I wanted to run Azureus and Peer Guardian together ALWAYS then the batch file would look like this......

start "Title" "C:\Program Files\PeerGuardian2\pg2.exe"

start "Title" "C:\Program Files\Vuze\Azureus.exe"

Save this as Azureus&PG2.BAT (or whatever you want of course, just make sure the extension is .BAT).

Make a shortcut to this .BAT file. Run the shortcut and both programs run.

[stevember]

Turn your computer off overnight, it will save you about ?15 a month.>

Forget your ego and your uptime.

[jokeripa]

Turn your computer off overnight, it will save you about ?15 a month.>

Forget your ego and your uptime.

And forget unshaped traffic from BT

I haven't seen anyone say that Ctrl + Tab in Firefox changes tabs. (add Shift to go backwards) (CTRL + 1-9 will take to a specific tab) (mentioned already but CTRL + W closes the selected tab)

Jump whole words with arrows keys within a text document: Ctrl + Left or Right

Highlight whole words at a time with arrow keys: Ctrl + Shift + Left or Right (just holding shift will select single characters)

One which really astounds me that little people know of (if my office is anything to go by.. an outsourced tech company..) is Win + L will lock your desktop. Another real time saver is Win + R for run.

And more more from the top of my head that saves me time everyday-

If your waiting for a command to finish within the command prompt and you want to cancel it (taking too long or suspect it wont work) then hit CTRL + C and it will cancel it (then type exit to instantly close it)

[sw1tch..]

Windows 7 Tip

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Hold the windows button on your keyboard and press a number (1-5). This will quick launch an item that is pinned to the task bar.