Useful Windows 7 Tips n Tricks Part6

# Mouse Gestures

Windows 7 has not only brought gestures for those who use touchscreen devices, but for mouse users too. So, instead of right-clicking a Taskbar icon to access the jump list, you can hold left-click and drag upwards to smoothly call it up. In addition, clicking and dragging down the address bar in Internet Explorer will open the browsing history. There might be more gestures yet not discovered.
# Configure Your Music Favorites

If you’ve already fixed the Windows Media Center, now you might think of ways to improve your experience with it. The Media Center creates a list of favorite songs based on how often you play them, your ratings and date you’ve added them. If you aren’t comfortable with the way they thought it out, change the way it sorts your favorites by going to Tasks -> Settings -> Music -> Favorite Music.
# Turn Off Recent Search Queries Display

Windows 7 holds and displays the recent search queries by default. This can often prove to be irritating. No need to stress though because it can be disabled. Press the Windows Key, type gpedit.msc, then go to User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Windows Explorer and double click on “Turn off display of recent search entries”.
# Advanced Disk Defragmentation

Fortunately, Windows 7 offers much better defragmentation than Vista and also lets you configure it a bit from the command line. To do it, press the Windows Key and then type CMD. You can defragment your hard disk from the command line by typing “defrag” and you have the following options: /r will defrag multiple drives simultaneously, -a performs a defrag analysis, -v prints the report, -r treats files with at least 64 Mb of fragments like are not fragmented, -w will defrag everything. An example is “defrag C: -v -w” to defrag the whole drive C.
# Make Internet Explorer 8 Load Faster

If you want Internet Explorer 8 to load faster, you need to disable the add-ons that slow it down, so go to Tools -> Manage Add-ons and check the load time for each one. You can choose for yourself the ones you can live without and ones that would increase the load speed.
# Media Center Automatic Download

Windows Media Center 12 allows you to schedule data downloads, so it can be done without disturbing you. To do it, go to Tasks -> Settings -> General -> Automatic Download Options and you can configure it to start and stop the download whenever you want.
# Remove The Sidebar

Windows 7 doesn’t seem to feature the sidebar anymore, but it still exists and runs in the background, being launched automatically at startup. So if you want to get rid of it, there are two ways. The easier one is to press the Windows Key, type MSCONFIG.EXE, click the Startup tab and clear the Sidebar box. The hard way is to press the Windows key, type “regedit”, find and delete the registry key at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run. This can save you some RAM consumed with no use.
# Volume Tweaking

Don’t you like that Windows 7 automatically reduces the volume when it detects PC calls? You can turn off this feature by right-clicking the speaker icon in the taskbar, go to Sounds -> Communications and get rid of it.
# Run A Program As Another User

Windows 7 comes with the possibility to run a program both as an administrator or another user, by right clicking on the executable or shortcut while holding down the Shift key. Then you have to select “Run as another user”.
# Use Virtual Hard Disk Files

You can now create and manage virtual hard disks files in Windows 7 as if they were real disks. This can allow you to use a live Windows installation on the virtual disk without the need to boot the virtual Computer. To create a virtual disk you have to press the Windows Key, right-click on Computer, then go to Manage -> Disk Management -> Action -> Create VHD. There you can specify the location and size of your virtual hard disk file.

To attach the virtual disk file, press the Windows Key, right-click Computer, then go to Manage -> Disk Management -> Action -> Attach VHD and you have to specify the location and if it’s read only or not.

To initialize a virtual hard disk, press the Windows Key, right-click on Computer, go to Manage -> Disk Management -> Action -> Attach VHD, specify the location, click Ok, then right click on the virtual disk and click on Initialize Disk. Select the partition style you want to use and then right-click on the unallocated space and click “New Simple Volume” and follow the instructions wizard. Now, a new hard drive appears in Windows Explorer and you can use it as a real partition.