Bring the Recycle Bin icon to the taskbar and keep it visible there(Windows 7)

              The Recycle Bin is mostly hidden somewhere on the Desktop and is thus only rarely used. Pinning it to the taskbar makes it directly accessible always. However, Windows refuses this.
              The simple pinning of the recycle bin on the taskbar has many practical uses. It can be reached through the Explorer jump list, but that takes just as long as opening it from the desktop. To use the Recycle Bin as a real life waste bin in which you can drag and drop objects with the mouse, it should be available directly, for example, in the taskbar.
               Since Windows does not directly support the pinning, you have to create a new link for it which you can then pin. For this, right click on the empty space on the desktop and select ‘New | Shortcut’. Enter ‘%systemroot%\explorer. exe shell:RecycleBinFolder’ as the target and click on ‘Next’. Change the name and confirm the dialogue with ‘Finish’. Now you can even replace the standard icon given by the Explorer. For this, click with the right mouse button on this shortcut and select ‘Properties’. In the register ‘Shortcut’ click on ‘Change icon’. The program ‘explorer.exe’ already contains some icons, from which you can sensibly select the waste basket and confirm with ‘OK’. However, you can also use an icon from another source, like for example the file ‘shell32.dll’. In the following dialogue, click on ‘Apply’ and then ‘OK’. Finally, the finished shortcut can be attached to the taskbar by dragging and dropping it and pinning it there on the taskbar itself.

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Look for certain elements specifically in large documents(Word 2003, 2007, 2010)

              Every now and then, you look for the next table or the next footnote in larger files. For that, you either have to go through the trouble of advanced search for formatting or special formatting.
              Word has a highly efficient special search option that is hardly known to many people. The icon for which is very inconspicuous and is placed right below the scrollbar, in the form of a circle icon with two double arrows above and below it.

              First click the circle icon and select what you are looking for in the dialog that pops up. From here you can quickly access the “Go to” and “Search”, options. While with the help of the other icons, you can specifically search for graphics, tables, fields, footnotes or endnotes. Furthermore, you can search for editing or comments in the text, and browse through the contents section by section or page by page.
              After selecting the mode, you can now search forward or backward for the next suitable element in the document using the respective double arrow icons. The navigation also functions with the keyboard with the [Ctrl] key pressed using the scroll keys. This type of browsing between sections, pages, graphics or other elements allows for a very efficient navigation, especially when working on larger documents.

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Display DLL files with separate icon(Windows XP, Vista, 7)

               As a standard, all DLLs are given a single icon by the system. You would rather like to use a unique icon contained within each DLL file for display in the Explorer.
              With a small change in the registry, you can change the appearance of the standard icons. In order to change the DLL icons, type ‘regedit’ in the search field of the start menu or in the ‘Run’ dialogue and if necessary confirm the query of the user accounts manager with ‘Yes’ or ‘Continue’. Then, navigate to the key ‘HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\dllfile\defaulticon’. On the right, the character string ‘Standard’ is defined which symbol is used by the Windows system for display. For editing this, double click on this entry. Change ‘Value’ to ‘%1’ and confirm with ‘OK’. Through this parameter, the particular file will itself be referred to for the icon. Then, close the registry and open Windows Explorer.
               In the future, you will immediately recognize in the Explorer if a certain DLL contains any icons at all. All other DLL files will only get an standard empty icon.

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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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Divide your Windows desktop into functional areas(Windows XP, Vista, 7)

              You are using up more and more of your time to delete unwanted desktop icons, to group the rest and to move them together in a specific area of your screen.

              For Windows XP, Vista and 7, the program Fences supports you in dividing your desktop into areas and grouping the various icons. Download the tool on your system directly from www.stardock.com. Start the installation by double clicking the file in Windows Explorer and then follow the instructions of the setup wizard. For that, you will definitely require administrator rights. However, if the user account control does not open automatically, right click the file and select the context command ‘Run as administrator’. After the installation, click ‘Start using Fences’. This option will help you in the configuration of the tool. Experienced users can also select ‘I want to create my own Fences’ and configure without help.
               In the next step, Fences offers two choices. ‘Create different Fences’ generates two empty fields on your desktop. The icons will initially be located near the area on the desktop before they can be individually placed in them via drag and drop. For that, the ‘Sort out my icons’ option arranges your icons in the new generated fields. Then give the application the final touch via ‘Open Fences settings’. You can also access this dialog later by right clicking the desktop and via ‘Configure Fences’ context command.
                You can move the icons from the desktop to a field or between two fields via Drag&Drop. You can generate a new field by right clicking on the desktop, keeping the key pressed and dragging the space. Then select the ‘Create new Fence here’ command in the next context menu and give it a name. You can change the position and size of the fields as in Windows dialogs. If you want a different name for a field, right click in the desired area of the desktop and select the ‘Rename Fence’ context command.
                Double clicking any empty area on the desktop will now hide all Fences, and double clicking again will reveal them.

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Providing drive icons with level indicator(Windows XP)

             Since Vista, Explorer immediately shows you a graphical view of how much space has been occupied on the individual drives. You wish you had this optical aid even in XP and look for a setting to get it.

             Windows XP only shows the space utilization of a drive in the context menu. But you can also copy the new design in XP with the small free tool Vista Drive Icon, so that you do not have to execute a command first. That is available at drvicon.sourceforge.net. At the time of installation, follow the steps in the wizard. In the end, start the program.
              A user interface as such does not exist, but the tool can be integrated in the Windows Explorer and started automatically instead. The level indicator is displayed by graduated individual icons for system drives and removable drives. The icons are available by default in the ‘C:\Programs\Vista Drive Icon\Icons’ folder. If you want, you can also change these icons individually with the help of a normal graphic program. To remove the small program, simply use the provided Uninstall tool.

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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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Minimize programs in the taskbar or the info field(iTunes)

             You play music on iTunes 24x7, but you don’t like the fact that the icon of iTunes occupies space in the taskbar even though you seldom access it.

              In the program options, you can configure a setting so that the icon is automatically minimized in the info field of the taskbar. You can also decide with the functionality of Windows whether the icon should be displayed or hidden. For this, select the command 'Edit | Settings' and click the Advanced icon in iTunes. Activate the 'Display iTunes icon in taskbar' option there. This is deceptive because the icon is still displayed but the option moves the display in the info field. Then activate the 'Minimize iTunes window in the taskbar' option.
             The next time the program window is minimized, it is visible only in the info field and disappears from there after some time. If you want to see the icon, click the small triangle there and then the “Adapt” link. Search for the “iTunes” entry in the list and change the setting to “Display icon and messages” in the relevant combination field to its right. The icon will be visible after you click “OK”.
Note: The mini mode of iTunes is a practical alternative. For this, minimize the program window and right click a free place in the taskbar. Then select the context command “Toolbar → iTunes”. Both these space saving variants are however mutually exclusive. You see a mini control bar that gives you direct access to the important playback and volume functions instead of the program icon only if iTunes is normally minimized.

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