Set up the start menu in such a way that you have everything at hand (Tips for WINDOWS WINDOWS XP,VISTA,7)

The shareware tool Start Menu 7 offers a good alternative to the standard start menu; this can be downloaded from startmenu7.com. 

                  According to the developers, Start Menu 7 runs on both XP and Vista in addition to Windows 7 as its name suggests. For installation, double-click on the downloaded file in Windows Explorer and follow the instructions given by the setup wizard. You have to have a user account with administrator rights during the process as the setup routine involves accessing important system files. Once the installation is complete start the Program using the command ‘Start I All programs I Start Menu 7 Start Menu 7’.

                Now, when you click on ‘Start’ you will not see the usual start menu provided by Windows, but instead, a

menu that has an extensive collection of links: It has a different visual effect and enables direct access to all the programs and files on your system in an alphabetically sorted sub-menu format, for instance ‘Programs’, ‘My Documents’ or ‘Computer’. In addition to this, the various entries use additional sorting and display tools. Thus, for instance ‘Program’ offers the structure known as ‘All programs’ as seen in the usual Windows Start menu and on the other hand, the ‘Program’ links can be found under headings such as ‘Quick start’ and ‘Autorun’. You can add your own menus and commands using the option ‘Add entries to the menu’.

              Click on ‘Options’ and ‘Configuration’ so as to complete the experience as per your own taste. Use the option ‘System integration’ and remove the tick in front of ‘Start the Start Menu 7 with Windows’ if you do not wish to activate the tool automatically at every system start. You can add more power management buttons in Start Menu 7 using the option ‘Buttons’; this is done to turn off the computer, to restart it, or to enable the use of power management commands in a time-controlled fashion. For this, click on the corresponding button in the Start menu, select the desired function in a menu, for instance ‘Turn off the computer’, and define the period for action in a simple and an intuitive dialog. Finally, click the ‘Start’ button to save the settings.

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Use word processing for publishing content in blogs(Word 2007, 2010)

               You write new articles for a blog now and then. For this, most of the times you first type in the article in Microsoft word and then step by step copy it on to the form given on the relevant website.
               The standard Word supports direct publishing of an article onto a blog. For this, you will first need to set up the necessary access data and then begin writing a new blog article using the suitable template of your choice. For this, you just need to have a blog set up. You can do this via services such as Wordpress, Blogger, etc..

                Now, go to Word and follow the path “File | New”. Select the option “Blog Post” from the available templates and then right-click on “Create”. A new window will open, wherein you will get a dialog for registration. Here, click on “Register now”. In the next step, select the name of the blog service you signed up for, for example, “WordPress” in the combination field and click on “Next”.
               You will now be provided with a link in the next dialog. Edit the entry for “Blog Post URL” in such a way that it will be displayed as your own blog. Just make sure that the suffix “xmlrpc. php” remains unchanged, otherwise the registration would fail. You will also need to add the login data in the “User name” and “Password” fields. Next, activate the option to “Save password” and confirm this step by clocking on “OK”.
                In case an error message pops up check the spellings in the access data as well as the exact form of the URL. In addition to this, the access over the API must also be stated in the blog. Now, you can simply write and save the blog article in the same way as you would save a Word document. You can directly publish the article on to the blog by clicking the “Publish” button available in the “Blog Post” tab. You can even manage the blogs over “Manage Accounts” tab when you want to manage more blogs. You can even edit the already published articles comfortably over the “Open existing” option.
Note: It may so happen that Word cannot be accessed at all times when there are changes at the server end at the blog providers or updates in Word. At the moment there isn’t any general solution found for this problem. In such a case you can switch to a special blog editor like say Windows Live Writer.

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Delete appointments prior to a specific date in one go(Outlook 2010)

             You want to remove all the appointments prior to a specific date from your personal “Calendar” in order to make some space in the Outlook PST database (Personal store).

              All the appointments that are set prior to a specific date can be deleted quickly and when displayed in a tabular format. It displays only the appointments and does not give out the days, weeks and months individually. For this you first need to activate the calendar by clicking on the “Calendar” tab from the Navigation field. Then go to the “View” tab, click on the “Change view” button and select the entry “List” in the following menu.
               Now the next step is to sort the displayed appointments in accordance with the beginning or end period. Check whether Outlook has correctly sorted the appointments in a descending chronological order and if necessary click one more time on the column heading till it is arranged in a correct order. Now, look out for the first entry of the date in the list where you would want to delete the appointments prior to this date and mark it. Then keeping the “Shift” button pressed mark the last entry. All the appointments in between the first and the last selected entries will be automatically selected when the shift button is kept pressed during the selection.
             Now, delete these appointments by pressing the [Delete] button. With this, Outlook automatically moves the deleted appointments to the folder “Deleted Items”. You can still restore the deleted appointments if this folder is not emptied.

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Highlight the active cell in Microsoft Excel(Excel XP, 2003, 2007, 2010)

              It is often difficult in large tables to find the active selected cell. You want to configure Excel in a way that this cell always and automatically stands out from the rest of the sheet.

              When working on large tables, it becomes difficult to find the active cell. To solve this problem you can download a free add-in named RowLiner, which can be downloaded from http://www.cpearson.com/excel/rowliner.htm. Double click on the file to install it. Once installed, it can be accessed form the “Add-ins” tab from the menu bar. Once activated, it will highlight your active cell. To change its settings, click “RowLiner” in the “Add-ins” tab and select the “RowLiner Setup”. Here you have different options for rows and columns, as to where these are shown and how they should appear. To the right, you can control the structure of the active cell. Then confirm the configuration with “OK”. However, the “Undo” function is not available in active RowLiner. In case of extensive entries, you should deactivate RowLiner temporarily. For that, click “RowLiner” in the “Add-Ins” tab and deactivate the “Draw Lines” option.

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Accentuate active folder in Explorer/Registry structure(Windows Vista, 7)

              For better orientation in the Explorer or in the registry keys, you would like the currently open elements to appear differently since there is hardly any difference in the icons in the standard setting.
              In the system, there is no direct setting for the used folder. But since Windows differentiates between the states, different icons can at least be assigned for this through the registry.
              Type ‘regedit’ in the search field of the Start menu and press enter. Confirm the query of the user accounts manager with ‘Yes’ or ‘Continue’. Then, navigate to the key ‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer’.
              There, search for the sub-key ‘Shell Icons’ or create the same with the command ‘Edit | New | Key’. Now, open this and in there add the value ‘4’ with the command ‘Edit | New | Character string’. That is the internal key for the system icon of an open folder. Double click on this new entry for editing.
               As ‘Value’, you can assign any icon you wish. For example, use ‘shell32.dll,-46’ here. This entry points to a folder symbol within the library with an additional green arrow. You can add an even more conspicuous symbol like ‘shell32.dll,-290’ or any other. But remember to always put a minus sign in front of the index number of the symbol. For searching for an appropriate symbol, you can use a tool like IconsExtract. Confirm the entry with ‘OK’ and close the registry. When you start Windows Explorer or the Registry editor the next time, the change will become effective.

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Sort last used documents chronologically(Windows Vista, 7)

              In the Start menu, the entry ‘Recent items’ makes quick access to recently used documents and files easy. However, Windows does not sort the entries in chronological order.
              The sequence of the icons shown in the Start menu cannot be changed. However, a small detour through the Windows Explorer can help you in your search for particular files, for example, in order of last modified. For this, right click on ‘Start | Last used’ and select the context command ‘Open’. The folder ‘Recent’ appears in Windows Explorer and there you can see last used files and folders like normal links. ‘Recent’ is the memory location for the menu ‘Last used’.
               Click on ‘Change view’ and select ‘Details’. Then, click on ‘Date modified’ in the sub-menu in order to sort the entries chronologically according to when they were last changed. After this, you will find the last edited Excel tables or the last written Word file higher in the list.
               By the way: You can determine the number of files shown in the Start menu in the registry with the DWORD value ‘MaxRecentDocs’ in the key ‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\ExplorerAeroSnap’.

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Add elastic shadows for the taskbar(Windows 7)

              While windows in the Aero theme are provided with surrounding shadows, this is missing for the taskbar as a standard. You would like to add this design element. The small free tool ‘Taskbar Shadow’ adds this design element. You can download it for free under tinyurl.com/6e8r983.

               After unpacking the ZIP archive, start ‘Shadow.exe’. With right click on the displayed shadow you can control the darkness of the shadow with the command ‘Opacity’ and confirm with ‘OK’. The command ‘Exit’ or a double click on the shadows ends the small game. If you want the shadows to be visible always without having to do it every time, you can place a link for it in the autorun folder.

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Now use mouse gestures in Windows Explorer(Windows Vista, 7)

                You love the useful mouse gestures in your Web browser and now you want them for working in Windows Explorer also. You would like to know if that can be done.

                Operating Windows Explorer can be improved with mouse gestures. For this, you will need, for example, the free tool Gest (www.bambi4.co.uk/programs/gest/gest.php). For installation, start ‘Gest.exe’. After a short while, the tool will be available in the notification area. After the automatic program start, confirm the question with ‘Yes’. You will then go to the configuration dialogue. Even if no changes are required, take some time to get to know the predefined gestures in the secton ‘Gestures’ for controlling by mouse movements. The alphabets stand for the sequence of the movements, whereby ‘L’ is for left, ‘R’ for right and ‘U’ for up and ‘D’ for down. The ‘O’ means a circle. However, you should avoid this, since a circular mouse movement is mostly interpreted as a result of individual movements. All the entries can be changed. Several possible gestures for the same action are separated by commas. Besides ‘New Window’, click on ‘Select folder’ and decide in which folder the Explorer windows thus started will be opened, if the standard view of the Libraries is not wanted. Besides special folders like ‘My Computer’ or ‘Control Panel’, you can also define another folder through ‘Other Folder’. Finally, apply the changes with ‘Apply’ and ‘OK’. You can again open the configuration dialogue if needed with the key combination [Ctrl]+[Shift]+[F2] or with the mouse gesture ‘DUD’, i.e. a movement ‘down-up-down’. For running a mouse gesture, keep the right mouse button pressed and execute the desired movement. A blue mouse trace illustrates the sequence. In addition, the ‘Gesture
Box’ in the upper left corner shows the recognized movements. In case the result has not yet been defined as a
gesture, you can do it in the dialogue box presented. Besides, mouse gestures also function in windows similar to Explorer, including the Control Panel.

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Call up user account control dialogs without interrupting Windows(Windows Vista, 7)

                When the user account control dialog pops up, the screen automatically darkens and Windows deactivates the currently running process. You would like to turn off this irritating behavior.

                In order to change the system behaviour when the user account control is called up, an entry in the registry is necessary. For this, open the registration editor with the key combination [Win]+[R], followed by the command ‘regedit’ in the dialogue ‘Run’. Then, navigate to the key ‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies\system’. Now, in the right side of the window, open the entry ‘PromptOnSecureDesktop’ for editing.
               Set the value from ‘1’ to ‘0’ and confirm this with ‘OK’. The change is effective immediately without having to restart the system. You can try it out by starting the Registry editor again because the user accounts manager kicks in every time with this. To activate the standard settings again later, just change the value from ‘0’ to ‘1’.

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Center the icons of running applications in the task bar(Windows Vista, 7)

               Windows places the icons of started applications in the task bar just to the right of the ‘Start’ button. You would like to place the shortcuts in the middle for quicker access.
               Windows cannot really display the icons of applications in the center of the taskbar. However, if you tweak it a little bit, you will get what you want through another way. You will need a new folder which you can place anywhere on your hard drive using Windows Explorer. For this, click with the right mouse button in any empty space on the right side of your screen and select ‘New | Folder’. Overwrite the name suggested by Windows with a suitable name like ‘Task bar icons’. In this folder, save links to all the programs which you want to access through the taskbar in the future. Then, click with the right mouse button on a free space on the taskbar and deactivate the option ‘Lock taskbar’ if necessary. After this, again open the context menu of the task bar. However, this time select the menu command ‘Toolbars | New toolbar’, new toolbar with the links you had saved in the folder earlier. Take the mouse pointer to the left edge of the toolbar. As soon as it changes shape, press the mouse button and keep it pressed. Drag the toolbar toward the left until it shows the icons in the center. Release the left mouse button.
                If you find the title and the description in the new toolbar to be irritating, you can remove it by clicking on empty space in the toolbar and in the context menu remove the ticks before the options ‘Show title’ and ‘Show text’. Finally, activate the option ‘Lock taskbar’ that you had deactivated earlier by ticking the corresponding entry in the context menu. The icons centered in this manner work like regular links. If you click with the right mouse button in Windows 7, you will see just the normal context menu and not a jump list.

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Hide user names while logging in to Windows(Windows 7)

               Windows shows all the user accounts on the welcome screen and in this way gives away the names of the users even to unknown and curious third parties. You want to prevent that from happening.

               In order to prevent unauthorized persons from having to guess just your password, click on ‘Start’ and type ‘regedit’ under ‘Programs’. Windows shows the results of the search directly in the Start menu. Double click under ‘Programs’ on ‘regedit.exe’ to start the registration editor. If you are working under an account without the administrator rights, you will have to first get them. For this, click with the right mouse button on ‘regedit.exe’ and in the context menu select ‘Run as administrator’.
               Navigate in the tree structure on the left side of the application to the key ‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System’. Now, on the right side, you will find the value ‘dontdisplaylastusername’ among others. Open this with a double click for editing and in the following dialogue box set its ‘Value’ to ‘1’. Confirm this entry with ‘OK’.
               From now on, you will have to enter the name for the user account in addition to the password on the welcome screen. In this way, you make it harder for unauthorized users to start your system since they would need to know or guess the name of the user account also besides the password.

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Define and execute surveys(Outlook 2003, 2007, 2010)

             You want to ask friends about a topic via email and want to specify “Yes”, “No” or “May be” as optional answers.

             You can gather votes easily with the help of the vote buttons. Draft a new message and select the recipients. In the menu bar, click on “Options” tab and check “Use voting buttons” in “Voting and Tracking” options. Select one from the three default options like “Approve/ Reject”, “Yes/No” or “Yes/No/Maybe”. You can even custom-define responses by giving the options separated by semicolon one after the other. Formulate the suitable question in the email text and send the message to the desired recipients. The recipients will be notified of the voting option at the top of the message. They can click on “Vote” to reply. They can reply immediately using the set replies or change it and send it by clicking on “Ok”.
              The sender can view the results of the answers in a summary and need not read or edit each reply individually. Instead, the sender can open his original email in the “Sent items” folder and click on “Tracking”. He will be able to see an overview of the results, followed by a list of the individual replies. However, this method of voting functions only internally via various Outlook versions, but not with other mail programs like Thunderbird.

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Automatically extend the list of safe senders(Outlook 2003, 2007, 2010)

               When you write a message to a person, Outlook should enter this recipient automatically in the list of safe senders in order to relieve them of the maintenance of this list.

               You can direct Outlook to gather all the recipients of your message in the list of a certain sender. For this, go to "Tools | options" in the 2003, 2007 version. Under the “Preference” tab click on “Junk e-mail”. In case of Outlook 2010, mark the “Junk e-mail” folder in the navigation bar on the left side of the application. Click a received message classified as junk-e-mail and open the command “Junk e-mail | Junk e-mail options” in the context menu.
                 In both the versions, select the "Safe Sender" tab and check the box next to “Automatically add people I e-mail to the safe sender list" and confirm your selection with “OK”.

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Use Windows’ reliability test for active troubleshooting(Windows Vista, 7)

                 Windows occasionally goes through a system crash or responds very slowly. But the innumerous entries in the event display hardly help you in troubleshooting.

                 Since Vista, a reliability test has been available hidden in the Control Panel. To start it, first click ‘System and Security’ and then ‘Action Center’ in the Control Panel in Windows 7. Open the ‘Maintenance’ by clicking the arrow icon to the right, and then click the ‘View reliability history’ link below it. In Vista, click ‘System and Security’ and ‘Performance information and performance tools’. To the left, select the ‘Other tools’ category and follow the link ‘Open reliability and performance control’. Now select the ‘Reliability control’ to the left.
                 A diagram will now show you at a glance the system stability chronologically with icons in different lines, showing which warnings and errors have occurred. With the ‘Days’ and ‘Weeks’ links to the left, you can define the period for which you can browse through. For more exact specifications on the detected problems, click in the time column in question. Windows will display all relevant individual events as a group. By clicking the ‘Technical details’ link, you will get further information about the relevant program, its path or the erroneous module.
                 This is how you can identify the events relevant for system problems a lot quicker than in the detailed event display. However, the solution for that will have to be found out by you. The ‘Look for solutions for all problems’ link, which requires information from Microsoft, is helpful. Otherwise, you should look through Google, forums or magazines to find a suitable remedy.

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Integrate weather-related info into the Windows taskbar(Windows 7)

            You always want to be up to date about the latest weather developments. The gadget you have been using is usually hidden, so you have to keep bringing it to the foreground.

            If you aren’t content with the partly hidden weather gadget in the Windows sidebar, you can try out the free tool WeatherBar that integrates quick information on weather in the taskbar. The tool is available from the website weatherbar.codeplex.com.
             To configure it, click below on the gear icon. Then change the ‘Update interval’ to the minimum, e.g. to ‘10’ minutes and change the format to ‘Metric’ to view the temperature values in degrees Celsius. Confirm with ‘OK’. Click the pen icon near ‘Location’. There, enter the name of your city and again confirm with ‘OK’. If you can’t find your city in the list, select the nearest big city. You will now see all weather data and forecasts.
              To avoid manual start-up each time, you can attach the WeatherBar to the taskbar for permanent availability. But that causes an error: only the storm icon appears continuously. To avoid the error, execute the program via the autorun (Startup) folder.

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Superimpose Outlook data directly on the desktop(Windows Vista, 7)

               You use Windows’ desktop gadgets to always have important information like time or climate in view. Now, you also want to view the latest information from your Outlook mailbox.
              The free gadget Outlook Info gives you the most important information from Outlook in a very compact manner directly on your desktop. You thus stay informed without having to switch to the program; the installation file is available from gallery.live.com. Open the file by double clicking it. Confirm the opening of ‘Outlook.gadget’ via ‘Windows-Miniapplications’.
              Now start Outlook. The gadget should display the information shortly. To adjust its settings, hover the mouse pointer over it and click the superimposed setting icon. Even the number of displayed items for every field can be changed there. Besides, you can adjust the structure and the Outlook folders used. As the gadget requires a working copy of Outlook, you can let it start automatically via the option ‘Outlook startup’ using the ‘Start Outlook program’ option. For flawless operation, Outlook from version 2007 onwards is required. Version 2003 functions with a few restrictions. Clicking the icons to the right will take you directly to the relevant field in Outlook.

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Block unmanageable Windows updates temporarily(Windows Vista, 7)

               It sometimes so happens that an update is not installed properly, which delays the system startup. This problem often occurs at the time of a restart. You want to work faster again.
              Totally deactivating automatic updates is the wrong method, since you will then be taking unnecessary security risks. Instead, you can find out in the settings for updates as to which individual element causes problems and leads to delays when you try to install something. This update can then be blocked specifically.      

For that, click in the Control Panel on ‘System and security’, on ‘Security’ and then ‘Windows Update’.
               Follow the link ‘View update history’. In the ‘Status’ column, check which updates have ‘Failed’ and then check whether the relevant update with the same name (KN number) has been reported further up in the list as ‘Successful’. If an update has failed several times and if it is also the latest entry, there is clearly a problem, and you can block this update.
               For that, again switch to the ‘Windows Update’ page. Click the links ‘optional updates are available’ and then ‘important updates are available’. In the lists displayed there, search for the entry of the problematic update. As soon as you find it, right click it and select the context command ‘Deactivate update’. In future, Windows will not try to install this update automatically. If you however want to access it later, click the link ‘Show deactivated updates’. Then activate the desired entries clicking the link on the relevant checkbox followed by a click on the ‘Restore’ button. You will then have to confirm the User Account prompts.

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Upgrade Media Player with useful additional functions(Windows XP, Vista, 7)

              You use Media Player 11 to play your music files, but you still miss some functions, like the option to edit tags of the individual files comfortably.
              Despite its varied menus and functions, Windows Media Player does lack some useful features. These can be obtained with the free Media Player Plus plug-in. It is available for free download from www.softonic.com.

              To install it, close the Media Player and then start the program file ‘WMPPlus- 2.1.exe’ by double clicking its entry in Explorer. Follow the instructions of the setup wizard and then start Windows Media Player. You will immediately reach the settings of the new plug-in, some of which are already activated by default. In the ‘Library’ category, you will find the activated option ‘Enable find as you type’, with which you can directly type a search query like modern browsers. Besides, activate ‘Disable group headers in the Library Pane’ to view a continuous ungrouped list as in Media Player 10. In the ‘User Interface’ category, the display of the current title is already activated in the title bar, and can be individually configured here via variables. In the ‘Context menus’ field, all elements should be activated. With that, you will have access to an extensive ‘Tag Editor Plus’ in the Media Library in the future via a context menu.
              Furthermore, you can activate the ‘Restore last active playlist’ option in the ‘Restore Media at Startup’ category. The program properties can then be controlled more precisely with the other activated options. With that, the Media Player continues playing the files at exactly that location or a few seconds before the last ending point, when you start it next. This is mainly useful in case of videos and films, but can somewhat delay the start time. ‘Party Shuffle’ finally delivers a party mode with selectable random playing of files. Confirm the configuration with ‘Apply’ and ‘OK’.

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Turn the screen contents upright for more effective working(Windows 7)

               At times, the default landscape format of the screen is very impractical. That’s when you wish you could turn the screen and thus the picture by 90° to have a full page of text visible.

               If your monitor has a rotatable stand and if your graphics card supports it, you can easily work in a vertical view. If you tilt the screen, your desktop obviously looks lopsided and mouse control becomes a complicated test of patience and skill. So you will first have to configure the desktop by right clicking a free area and then executing the context command ‘Screen resolution’. In the ‘Orientation’ combination field, select ‘Portrait’. Confirm with ‘Accept’ and ‘Save changes’. The desktop tilts to one side. You can now rotate the monitor by 90 degrees.
Note: If your monitor can rotate only to one side and the screen becomes upside down, use the ‘Portrait (flipped)’ option instead. Otherwise rotate the screen by 270 degrees if the mechanism allows this.

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Automatically update the time and date(PowerPoint 2003, 2007)

              In PowerPoint, you can automatically update time and date for every slide.
              If you regularly use the same presentation, but want to keep it updated with the current time and date then you can easily do so. Instead of doing it manually, you can change the settings to auto. To configure PowerPoint so that it automatically updates the date and time, go to ‘Insert’ menu, click ‘Date and Time’. Then on the ‘Header and Footer’ dialog box that appears, click on the ‘Slide’ tab. Here ensure that the ‘Date and time’ check box is selected. Select the ‘Update automatically’ option and here from the drop-down list, select the required date and time format that you want to show in your presentation. Also, select the ‘Don't show on title slide’ check box if you do not want to display the date and time on the title slide. Finally, click on ‘Apply to All’. The date and time will be updated whenever you reload the PowerPoint document or begin a slide show.

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