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Category: Tips & Info

Tips & Info Category

Windows Tip of the week: How to keep your desktop clutter-free

cluttered-desktop-screenshot

Clean up your desktop:

There’s nothing wrong with a messy desktop, but at some point you might need to impose a little order on the chaos. Cleaning the piles of paper and junk from your real-life office might take a weekend of labor. Fortunately, cleaning up the Windows desktop is considerably simpler.

If you like the convenience of using the Desktop folder as a temporary storage place, you can hide the clutter in seconds: Right-click any empty space on the desktop, click View, and then click to remove the checkmark from Show Desktop Icons.

All your desktop shortcuts and files are still there, but they’re no longer covering up your carefully chosen background image. To get to those files, open File Explorer and type Desktop in the address bar. Even quicker: Pin a Desktop shortcut to Start.

Other options on the desktop’s View menu allow you to change icon size (warning: The Large Icons setting is really large) and to align those icons to a grid so they snap neatly into position.

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Windows Tip of the week: Keyboard shortcuts that work for all major browsers

browsers

Keyboard shortcuts that work with every major browser:

The major browsers might have different rendering engines and user interface designs, but they have at least a few things in common. And surprisingly, keyboard shortcuts are on that list. Regardless of whether you use Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, or the new Microsoft Edge, the following keyboard shortcuts will work:

Ctrl+D?Add current page to Bookmarks/Favorites

Ctrl+J?Open Downloads list

Ctrl+H?Show history

Ctrl+I?Show Bookmarks/Favorites

Ctrl+T?Open a new tab

Ctrl+W?Close the current tab

Ctrl+Shift+T?Reopen most recently closed tab

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Windows Tip of the week: Create a system image backup

systemImageRecoveryWindows

Create a system image backup:

The surest way to recover from a data disaster, such as a system drive failure, is to restore that drive from an image-based backup. You’ll need an external hard disk–at least as large as the amount of space in use on the system drive and ideally the same size as your system drive.

The capability to back up and restore a system image is in the Windows 7 Backup And Restore program. That same program is also in Windows 8, 8.1, and 10, although it’s somewhat hidden. (In Windows 10, you can find it by typing backup in the search box.)

To start the program, press Windows key + R to open the Run box, type sdclt, and press Enter. Click Create A System Image from the column on the left, choose your external hard disk as the location where you want to save the backup, and click Next. On the following page, all partitions on the system drive should be selected. Just click Next and then click Start Backup.

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Windows Tip of the week: Benefits of the Shutdown command

The surprisingly useful Shutdown command:

shutdown

If you want to shut down a PC, you can always use the Power menu on Start. But the Shutdown command, which runs from a Command Prompt window, can help with a few tasks you can’t do from any menu.

To see the full syntax, open a Command Prompt window and type Shutdown /? Here are a few options you might find especially useful:

  • Shutdown /i – Show a graphical interface (note that this does not include all options available via command-line switches)
  • Shutdown /s – Full shutdown
  • Shutdown /r – Full shutdown and restart
  • Shutdown /h – Hibernate the local computer
  • For UEFI-based Windows 10 PCs, you have two extra options that can be invaluable:
  • Shutdown /s /fw – After a full shutdown, opens firmware user interface on next start
  • Shutdown /r /o – Restarts and displays the advanced boot options menu

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Windows Tip of the week: Reduce clutter with a mouse gesture

Shake the clutter away:

Windows-Macbook

On a modern Windows PC with gobs of memory, it’s easy to have dozens of windows open at one time. But all that multitasking can create a distracting mess of overlapping panes that makes it difficult to concentrate on the task at hand.

The solution is a little gesture that debuted in Windows 7. Bring the app you want to focus on to the foreground, point to its title bar, hold down the left mouse button, and make a gentle left-right-left shaking gesture. It doesn’t need to be violent; just make sure you move the window an inch or so in each direction. Do it right, and every other open window is minimized to the taskbar. Shake again to restore all windows to their previous position.

Want to minimize every window, including the current one? Aim for a narrow strip at the end of the taskbar, just to the right of the system clock, and click once. Click again to restore all windows.

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Windows Tip of the week: Keyboard tricks for switching between programs

Keyboard tricks for switching between programs:

windows-switch

Do you know all the program switching techniques for Windows? The more programs you have open, the more you can benefit from these keyboard shortcuts.

Here are three worth memorizing:

  • Alt+Tab: This is the classic shortcut, the one most Windows users are likely to know. Hold down the Alt key and tap Tab to see a list of running programs as thumbnails. If you continue holding down Alt and keep tapping Tab, you’ll cycle through all of them.
  • Alt+Esc: Use this shortcut if you want skip the thumbnails and just cycle through the actual programs. Keep holding down Alt and tapping Esc until you reach the window you want.
  • Ctrl+Alt+Tab: Most people don’t know this one. Press this combination and you get the same thumbnails as with Alt+Tab, with one crucial difference: When you take your hands off the keyboard the thumbnails remain visible. Use the left and right arrow keys to move through thumbnails. To choose one, tap the spacebar or press Enter.

And one last secret: Add Shift to any of these shortcuts to move in reverse.

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Windows Tip of the week: Get additional Snap Assist options

Get additional Snap Assist options:

Most users are familiar with the Snap Assist function in Windows 10, where dragging a window to either side will snap that window into one-half of the screen. However, many users are unaware of how the Snap Assist function has been enhanced for Windows 10.

Not only can you drag and snap to one-half screen—now, if you drag a window to one of the four corners of the screen, it will snap to fill one-quarter of it. This means you can easily position four windows to be open at once, as shown in Figure.

Figure

h10quicktips

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Windows Tip of the week: Remove Windows.old

Remove Windows.old:

Hard drive storage is not as costly or as limited as it once was, but that doesn’t mean you want to waste space if you don’t have to. If you upgraded to Windows 10 from Windows 7 or 8, you probably have a folder on your hard drive that contains the old version of Windows. On the assumption you are never going to revert back to Windows 7 or 8, you can delete that folder and regain the storage space on your hard drive.

To delete the folder, open File Explorer, navigate to the hard drive where Windows 10 resides (typically this is the C drive), and right-click it. Now, click the Properties menu item to get to a screen similar to the one shown in Figure. Click the Disk Cleanup button to start the scan and then click the Clean Up System Files button.

Figure

g10quicktips

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Windows Tip of the week: Create a custom shortcut folder

Create a custom shortcut folder:

If you use the Windows 10 Start Menu to get to your apps, this next advanced tip may be for you. You can create a custom Start Menu folder to contain shortcuts to any apps, documents, etc., that you care to include. You can then pin that folder to the Start Screen or the Taskbar.

Begin by opening File Explorer and navigating to this folder (Figure):

C:\Users\mark.MRKM11X\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

Note: AppData is a hidden file, so you will have to select the Show Hidden Files check box on the Ribbon. Of course, your username will be different from mine.

Figure

f10quicktips

In the Programs folder, you can add your own subfolder. In my example I used the folder name A_Custom_Start_Folder so it would display in the “A” section of the Start Menu. You can put any shortcuts to apps in that folder you want.

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Windows Tip of the week: Change the location where apps install

Change the location where apps install:

Many computers these days are shipping with a combination of SSD and large capacity mechanical data drives. A great idea, but it does require a bit more management, particularly when it comes to where to install new apps. In most cases, you will want new apps installed on the data drive, not the smaller capacity solid-state boot drive.

To change the default drive for apps, click the Start Button and navigate to All Apps | Settings | System | Storage. You should see a screen similar to the one shown in Figure. From this screen you can change the default locations for apps, documents, music, pictures, and video.

Figure

e10quicktips

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