All PC Tips

1. Add Search Providers to Windows 7 Windows 7 allows you to search remote website databases from your desktop, using open standards like Open Search and RSS. Here are some of the popular and useful search providers you can add to Windows 7:     * Bing (via Chakkaradeep)     * Flickr (via Long Zheng)     * Twitter (via Chakkaradeep)     * YouTube     * eBay     * Google News     * Digg     * Deviant Art You can install these and additional connectors from Windows 7 forums, or get a pack with multiple search providers here. These search connectors work even within Windows Common Dialogs, such as the Insert Picture dialog from PowerPoint or any other application. You can even drag and drop Flickr images from Explorer search results to copy them to your desktop, without opening any web browser. 2. Single Click Screen Lock You can lock you...

* Windows key + Left: docks current window to the left side of the screen. * Windows key + Right: docks current window to the right side of the screen.     * Windows key + Up: maximizes and/or restores foreground window.     * Windows key + Down: minimizes active window.     * If you want a more Vista-esque taskbar rather than the superbar (why anyone would revert is beyond me), right-click the Taskbar, go to Properties, check the ‘Use small icons’ option, then change the “Taskbar Buttons” option to ‘Never combine.’     * Windows 7 now burns ISO files themselves instead of making users grapple with third-party applications.     * For those lucky people with a multi-monitor setup, Windows + SHIFT + Left (or Right) will shift a window from monitor to monitor.     * Gone is the “Add Font” dialog. It’s been replaced with a much nicer system. Download a font and double-click it (you’ll be g...

Unlike the Windows of old, Windows 7 uses an icon-only Taskbar. If you find this difficult to use, you can return the buttons back to the way they used to be so that the button displays a label for the open file or application. 1. Right-click on an empty portion of the Taskbar and select Properties. 2. Go to the Taskbar buttons section and use the dropdown to change it from Always combine, hide labels to Never combine. 3. Click the OK button.

Step 1: The checks First off, you would want to make sure your existing hardware can support Windows 7. Windows XP has been out for a long time and your hardware might not support the newer and comparatively more demanding versions of Windows like Windows 7. These are the official system requirements:     * 1 GHz processor (32- or 64-bit)     * 1 GB of RAM (32-bit); 2 GB of RAM (64-bit)     * 16 GB of available disk space (32-bit); 20 GB of available disk space (64-bit)     * DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver You can use the Windows 7 Upgrade advisor to see if your computer will run Windows 7. Once you are sure that you are good to go, hop up to the next step. Step 2: Backup and Migration It is always a good idea to have backup of your important files and settings that you worked so hard to create. We have shown you various applications to backup your files and settings in the past. If you w...

Windows 7 doesn't show AM/PM symbols in system tray clock. Also it shows the time in 24 hour format i.e. 18:03 If you want to get back the AM / PM symbols, then this tutorial will help you. 1. Type intl.cpl in RUN or start menu search box and press Enter. It'll open Regional and Language Options window. 2. Now click on "Addition Settings" button. 3. Go to "Time" tab and you'll see the value of "Long time" will be set to HH:mm:ss. Just add tt at last of the value, i.e. change the value to HH:mm:ss tt 4. If you want to show the time in 12 hour format (06:30 instead of 18:30), then change the value to hh:mm:ss tt 5. That's it. Click on Apply button and you'll get the AM / PM symbols back in system tray clock.

Aero Glass Transparency Effect one of best features of Windows Vista is also extended to Windows 7. However the hardware requirement to enable aero in windows 7 is much higher then average users can have. 1. Click on Start and type regedit at run 2. Now Navigate to the following registry key:    HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM 3. In the right details pane, create following Three DWORD (32-bit value) entry UseMachineCheck, and set its value to 0. Blur, and set its value to 0. Animations, and set its value to 0. 4. Close Regedit 5. Click on Start and type CMD with administrative Priviliges 6. Now type following command Net Stop uxsms Net Start uxsms Above command will stop and start Desktop Window Manager Session Manager. 7. Now Attempt to Enable Aero by right clicking on desktop-> Personalize ->Windows Colors. This Registry Hack to enable Aero in Windows 7 can also be used on Windows 7 install on Virtual Machine like Virtua...

Windows 7 Taskbar Thumbnail Previews Windows 7 Taskbar is completely different from Windows Vista and XP. Windows 7 taskbar also know as super bar .It has bigger icons, no more title text of windows, thumbnail preview, jump list, pinning option etc. Since most of the windows 7 users are not comfortable with taskbar thumbnail previews feature why not disable taskbar thumbnail preview. 1. Click on start and type on search bar gpedit.msc and press enter 2. Now navigate to User Configuration, Administrative Templates, and Start Menu and Taskbar in left pan of Group Policy Editor 3. Locate “Turn off Taskbar Thumbnails” in right pan of Group policy editor and double click on it. 4. Select Disable click apply and Press ok 5. Now check your Taskbar, it shouldn’t show Thumbnails Preview . Please Note: Taskbar Thumbnail Preview only works when you have Enabled Aero in Windwos 7.

Windows 7 by default has only few themes available for customization. There is some hidden themes available for certain regional countries such as Australia, Canada, Great Britain, United States and South Africa. To get those do the following steps 1. Open Windows Explorer and click Organize. 2. Select Folder and Search Options and navigate to the View tab. 3. Select Show hidden files, folders and drivers and uncheck Hide protected operating system files (Recommended). Click Yes, if prompted for confirmation. 4. Click OK and now browse to the folder: Windows\Globalization\MCT . 5. There are five folders here with the name with format MCT-XX (where XX is AU, CA, GB, US, or ZA) which represents globalization settings for each region. Go into the folder that you want to activate its theme. Note that AU, CA and ZA regions have the same themes. 6. Open the Theme folder inside the selected region folder. 7. Double click on the XX.theme file to apply the theme to the Window...

To do this, navigate to Windows Explorer in the Start Menu (it's in the Accessories folder). Then edit the properties and change the target to read: %SystemRoot%\explorer.exe ::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}

Get Quick Launch toolbar back    1. Right-click the taskbar, choose Toolbars / New Toolbar.    2. In the folder selection dialog, enter the following string and hit OK.      %userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch    3. Turn off the "lock the taskbar" setting, and right-click on the divider. Make sure that "Show text" and "Show title" are disabled and the view is set to "small icons".    4. Use the dividers to rearrange the toolbar ordering to choice, and then lock the taskbar again.