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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Reduce the waiting time of taskbar preview considerably(Windows 7)

               When the mouse pointer hovers over an icon in the taskbar for some time, Win7 shows a preview of the relevant window(s) in Aero style, to simplify correct selection.

               The window preview in the taskbar normally appears with a delay of 0.4 seconds so that it does not open with every inadvertent movement of the mouse, though this makes the system feel slow. At least on a fast computer, you can reduce the waiting time without problems. An additional Registry value makes it possible.
                To modify it, enter ‘regedit’ in the search field from the Start menu and press [Enter]. Confirm the question of user account permsiions with ‘Yes’. Then navigate to the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced’. With ‘Edit | New | DWORD-value’, now create the new entry ‘ExtendedUIHoverTime’ and open it for editing by double clicking.
                As ‘Basis’, select the ‘Decimal’ option. Then enter the desired ‘Value’ in milliseconds. ‘100’ milliseconds are sufficient on a fast computer. At the same time, you should increase the value to at least ‘1000’ on a slow laptop or netbook. The default 400 milliseconds set by the system are only an arbitrary basic setting.
               Confirm the new specifications with ‘OK’ and close the registry. The change will take effect after restarting the computer.

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Deactivate the new Windows function called Aero Shake(Windows 7)

               Shaking inactive windows away with a couple of clicks is a practical feature, but it is annoying when you accidentally activate it when moving windows around.

               Windows does not have an option to disable Aero Shake. You can however still manage this by means of an additional entry in the registry. For this, enter ‘regedit’ in the search field of the Start menu and press Enter. Confirm the user account control query with ‘Yes’. Then navigate to the ‘HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced’ key. Click in the right part of the window and go to ‘Edit | New | DWORD Value’. Enter the name ‘DisallowShaking’ and press Enter. Now open the new entry for editing by double clicking it, set the ‘Value’ to ‘1’ and confirm the change with ‘OK’. Now close the registry. Aero Shake is now completely deactivated and can no longer be called up with usual key combination [Win]+[Home] either.
Note: If Aero Shake is activated, you can also restore the windows that you have accidentally shaken away. For this, just shake the active window or press [Win]+[Home] again.

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