The "Best Windows Tip You Know" Thread

[Victor V.]

I usually do that aswell, Mint, but I never hide the file extension, I do't want to be caught by a virus named porn.jpg.exe =P

[DomZ]

Windows Key + E = My Computer

Alt + Print Screen = Screenshot of your current window

[Blazkowicz]

hi, it's been a while since I've looked up here.

Some useful windows features are non obvious, almost look like they're hidden, like the drag'n'drop with right button.

one I discovered very recently : if you're in the file explorer and want to deal with the current directory, you usually go up one level in the file hierarchy. but instead you can right-click on the very top left icon (the one that gives the windows 3.1 style menu for restore, move, close etc.) and get the context menu for current directory! so you can copy it, get properties, do other things through windows shell extension ("play in winamp", virus scan..) without moving from the directory.

it also beats selecting everything and doing "properties" to know the directory's size.

this is the support for the " . " directory I was missing. (if you know the DOS/windows and Unix command line)

[Oneder]

Viewing/Changing File Associations

You can run a command session and type "assoc.exe" press enter and you'll see the association assigned for that extension?

You can likewise change the association for it by entering "assoc.exe=txt" or whatever you would like to assign to it.

Or enter "assoc.exe=" and it'll have no association at all.

To set it back correctly: enter "assoc.exe=exefile".

That works on all other extensions as well of course.

To check all your assigned associations enter "assoc|more" and you'll get them all.

A list with the first 20 or so may just show up with "...more..." at the end.(on my pc anyways)

Just keep pressing or hold enter to make the list scroll aphabetically.

[Slim ManDjango]

Been through about five pages and haven't seen these so sorry if someone's mentioned this already...

1. In Firefox, Cntrl+page up takes you to the previous tab and Cntrl+page down takes you to the next. IE doesn't do it.

2. A friend showed me this: if you ever want to easily drag files from one My Computer window to another, select the one window from the taskbar, hold Cntrl and click on the other window. Now both will be selected. Right-click on one of them (still on the taskbar) and select Tile Horizontally or Tile Vertically. Now you'll always be able to see both windows. Naturally you can still adjust their sizes. You can do it with any two windows so it could be used for copying text from the Internet to a Word document or whatever you want. :)

[deactivated01032015]

It would be great if all that tricks were collected on the front page. Can be done?

[mhc]

Here's a registry hack that will make the dialog boxes in Windows XP use the font of your choice (in this example, Verdana):

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\FontSubstitutes]
"MS Sans Serif"="Verdana"
"MS Shell Dlg"="Verdana"
"MS Shell Dlg 2"="Verdana"

Save the above in a file (call it FONTSUB.REG), then import the file into the registry with REGEDIT.EXE. Reboot, and voila, all your dialog boxes, including those in pre-XP programs, will now use the Verdana font.

[solardog]

Here's a registry hack that will make the dialog boxes in Windows XP use the font of your choice (in this example, Verdana):

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\FontSubstitutes]
"MS Sans Serif"="Verdana"
"MS Shell Dlg"="Verdana"
"MS Shell Dlg 2"="Verdana"

Save the above in a file (call it FONTSUB.REG), then import the file into the registry with REGEDIT.EXE. Reboot, and voila, all your dialog boxes, including those in pre-XP programs, will now use the Verdana font.

Im gonna try this with the new Segoe font...love that one. Thanks.

[Almightiness]

In Firefox:

Hold down shift then use the scroll wheel on your mouse. This is a shortcut for moving back and forward between pages.

NICE!!!! this tip is awesome!

[Prince Charming]

It's a windows Vista thing (Actually, there was a tool that could do it on XP I believe), but mklink gets some certain wins. Lets you create a folder that points to another location on the same drive, another drive, or a network location. Very handy with a bit of imagination :)

Because it works transparently, I used it to redirect the output from Xchat's logs to a folder where I wanted them; you can't do this within xchat, but I made the folder xchat logged to a symbolic link to another location.

[ShaolinDreams]

Great thread! got some useful ones to remember :yes:

heres my 2 pence worth,

To make Shutdown and Reboot icons (then you can pop them on your quicklauch bar)...

right click on desktop, New, Shortcut. In Location paste/type:

%windir%\system32\Shutdown.exe PC (for shutdown)

%windir%\system32\shutdown.exe -r -t 00 (for reboot)

Then i suggest right clicking on the shortcut and changing icon to a good looking lcon symbol.

:rolleyes:

[whocares78]

brillinant, i luv it, tip of the year

[dud]

Changing all MenuShowDelay values in the registry to 40 instead of 400. It allows you to zip through menus with no noticeable pause (setting to zero is annoying, though, because it makes all the menus open instantly)

[whocares78]

shirike:

Next time you need a screenshot of a error message, do Alt+Ctrl+"PrintScreen" to get a screenshot for the current window, don't have to capture the whole desktop then crop it anymore. :D

it's actually just ALT and print screen

[Tutankamun]

Wow the things one learns.. this is not really a trick and I'm sure everyone knows it. I still have found no practical use to it but to bug my boss when he goes take a leak.

Alt+Ctrl+ any directional key...

to get back to normal just do Alt+Ctrl+up

[Tutankamun]

ANY OTHER TRICKS ??? I'M HOOKED NOW

[Tutankamun]

Just found this one out in the address bar put the name of a .net site press shift+enter it will fill the http://whatever.net

[whocares78]

Wow the things one learns.. this is not really a trick and I'm sure everyone knows it. I still have found no practical use to it but to bug my boss when he goes take a leak.

Alt+Ctrl+ any directional key...

to get back to normal just do Alt+Ctrl+up

this only works on certain video cards.

[Tutankamun]

this only works on certain video cards.

What's it for anyways ?

[whocares78]

What's it for anyways ?

flips the screen around, i.e it may look sideways, upside down etc, good for messing with people or if you want to stick your monitor on it's side

edit:hang on a sec. yuou made the first post, did you not know what it did or were you just testing me :) did i pass

oops now i get it, you want to know a practical use for it :) sorry.

say you havea wide screen monitor and want it to display length wise instead of width as you want more lines of text on the page etc, or you have multiple widesreens you want to stick together to make one big screen. the truth is it's not really that useful, whcih is why not all cards haev it :) but as you said good for messing with the peoples minds

Edited November 9, 2007 by whocares78

[TigerFX]

This was mentioned once but it's so amazing I'm going to mention it again.

If you've ever been in a situation where you wanted to leave a field blank, but the computer insisted you put something in? The common example is on registration forms that want your contact information, etc. If you've ever tried putting some space in there you'll find it doesn't work.

But aha! All is not lost! There's a little-known symbol that looks like a space, but officially isn't a space, so virtually all programs accept them as "real data".

To get it, hold down your alt key, and then on your number pad (not the number row above the keyboard - the pad to the right) and type 0160. Let go of alt and it'll appear. Use this everywhere. You can even rename "My Computer" on your desktop to this "ascii space" and clean up the look of your desktop a bit. Do it with all your desktop icons by putting one ascii space for one icon, make another one 2 ascii spaces, etc. I love this.

One cool thing is that you can get all kinds of symbols this way. Like quickie bullets are 6663: ?. Or this cool little middot symbol (0183) that looks really nice to seperate phone numbers with: 800?555?1234. Neat little double arrows (0187) ?.

There are tons here: http://www.freelancedesigners.com/tools/as...ml_encoding.cfm. Use the number on the left, so » is really 0187.

[pijo]

I used to hate the fact that I could remove all the Windows standard desktop icons EXCEPT for recycle bin - until I found this trick...

create a registry file with the following info:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\Folder\RecycleBinOnDesktop]
"RegPath"="Software\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Explorer\\HideDesktopIcons\\NewStartPanel"
"Text"="Show Recycle Bin icon on the desktop"
"Type"="checkbox"
"ValueName"="{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}"
"CheckedValue"=dword:00000000
"UncheckedValue"=dword:00000001
"DefaultValue"=dword:00000001
"HKeyRoot"=dword:80000001

Save it with the name of your choosing, then run the file and merge it with your registry. Afterwards, you'll have an checkbox in Folder Options View tab to show or hide the recycle bin

[Evolution]

#1 Tip: Don't listen to anyone on forums

#2 Tip: Read the technical documentation meant for admins etc. i.e. whitepapers, they really give you insight into features that you might be interested in.

[Abhishek kapoor]

I used to hate the fact that I could remove all the Windows standard desktop icons EXCEPT for recycle bin - until I found this trick...

thax for sharing good info .........

[+Xinok Subscriber²]

This is a visual basic script file which you can use to quickly create a new system restore point.

Open Notepad, and paste this into it:

rp = "Manual Restore Point by " & WScript.ScriptName

GetObject("winmgmts:\\.\root\default:Systemrestore").CreateRestorePoint rp, 0, 100

Then save the file with a .vbs file extension, e.g. "systemrestore.vbs"

I put this file in my startup folder so I get a new restore point every time I reboot my PC.