SUMMARY: Clean up the display of icons> 

If desired, to clean up the Desktop of your Windows 7 machine, you can remove the labels of the Computer and Recycle Bin icons:

1. Right-click>
2. Replace the icon text by pressing the space bar>However, if the icon is a shortcut (you may see an arrow>Alt key while pressing 2 5 5>Enter. The label should disappear.

SUMMARY: If a svchost.exe image is using a lot of memory or CPU time, view its related services to help diagnose problems.

The Windows 7 Task Manager is useful to manage processes and services, check the CPU and networking usage, and shut down stuck programs that don’t want to end. While using this tool, you may have noted many svchost.exe processes that act as Host Process for Windows Services. Curious about which services are related to which processes, especially if>svchost.exe process.

(If you don’t know how to access the “Windows Task Manager”, right-click an empty area of the Taskbar and select “Start Task Manager”.)

2. When the pop-up menu appears, select “Go to Service(s)”.

Selecting “Go to Service(s)” for a svchost.exe image

3. The “Services” tab is now selected. Related services are now highlighted.

Viewing services related to a svchost.exe image

SUMMARY: Several ways you can make a seemingly-hidden or off-screen Windows 7 application or window appear in view.

In Windows 7, have you ever opened an application or window, seen it appear in the Taskbar, yet the window or application is not visible>A. Access the “Move” menu via the keyboard

Moving a window that has been hiding back into view>

1. Click>Alt + Space, then M.

3. Press and hold down the left cursor key for a few seconds. Try the up cursor key. This should move the window back to a visible position>B. Restore or maximize the window

While right-clicking the Taskbar icon itself does not pull up a “Restore” or “Maximize” menu item, right-clicking>Restoring a hidden window via a right-click menu of its thumbnail preview

C. Move the window

1. Click the Taskbar icon.

2. Then, hover over the icon to display its preview.

3. Right-click the preview.

4. Select “Move” from the pop-up menu that appears.

5. From here you may be able to use the cursor keys as mentioned above to move the window back to the displayable area.

D. Using the keyboard Windows keys

Windows 7 lets you dock, maximize, and minimize windows via keyboard shortcuts. Use this to your advantage.

Click the Taskbar icon representing the hidden window. Then press Windows + Left-Cursor or Windows + Right-Cursor a few times, and the window should reappear>Making a previously-hidden Internet Explorer window reappear>

SUMMARY: To prevent a crash in> 

Normally when you open folders in Windows 7 via Windows Explorer, the folders are all opened in the same explorer.exe process. While this reduces memory usage, if>explorer.exe process>This will increase your memory usage and may require paging information to disk if you run out of real memory and must use virtual memory. Thus this tip could slow down your machine.

Case-by-case

Hold down the Shift key. Right-click a folder and select “Open in new process”.

For all newly opened folders

1. Click the “Start” button, type folder options and click the “Folder Options” link that appears.

Accessing Folder Options from the Windows 7 Start button

2. When the “Folder Options” multi-tabbed dialog box appears, click the “View” tab.


3. Underneath “Advanced settings”, scroll down and check “Launch folder windows in a separate process”.

Forcing Windows 7 to open Explorer Folder windows in a separate process

4. Click “OK” to close the dialog box.

SUMMARY: Quickly minimize all other open windows in Windows 7 by shaking the> 

While working with multiple applications and windows in Windows 7, have you ever found the screen too cluttered? Perhaps you’re mainly working in>After shaking a window in Windows 7 – Firefox, Notepad, and other windows are minimized

Release the mouse button and perform the windows shake again, and the minimized windows will reappear.

SUMMARY: Determine which processes should get the most attention in your Windows 7 system.

Is a particular program or process running too slow>Note that changing process priorities should be a last-ditch resort. While this may work, it also can cause your system to become unstable and possibly crash. Save all open files before trying this, and be sure to read the disclaimer.

2. Select “Start Task Manager”.

(Or skip steps 1 and 2 and just press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open the Task Manager.)

3. The multi-tabbed “Windows Task Manager” should appear. Make sure the “Applications” tab is selected.


4. If the process you need to change is linked to an application, right-click it and choose “Go to Process” from the pop-up menu that appears.

5. Otherwise, click the “Processes tab” to find a process you need to change.

6. Right-click a process and select “Set Priority”. If you cannot find the process that needs its priority changed, click the “Show processes from all users” button. You may have to confirm your action via User Account Control.

7. From here you can select from the following possible priorities (highest to lowest):

* Realtime
* High
* Above Normal
* Normal
* Below Normal
* Low

Changing the priority of a process running>

8. If you are sure you want to change the process priority, click the “Change priority” button when prompted.

Confirming changing a process priority

Note the warning! “Changing the priority of certain processes could cause system instability.”

Note that depending>

SUMMARY: If Windows 7 fails with a Blue Screen, prevent the system from automatically restarting so you can view debug information.

If Windows 7 fails and displays a Blue Screen (possibly due to a driver error), this includes some debug information. More detail in a kernel memory dump is written to the system hard drive, and then the machine reboots.

While servers for the most part need to automatically reboot upon system failure so they can more quickly restart and handle requests, desktop computer users may not need this functionality. By reading the>

Accessing Windows 7′s Startup and Recovery settings

7. The “Startup and Recovery” dialog box appears. Underneath “System failure”, uncheck “Automatically restart”.

Configuring Windows 7 to not automatically restart when it detects a system failure

8. Click “OK”>

SUMMARY: When creating selection rectangles> 

SUMMARY: Prevent Windows 7 from animating the taskbar thumbnail previews. This will also disable other Start Menu and Taskbar animations.

Depending>
3. In the left pane, select “Advanced system settings”.

4. If the User Account Control dialog box appears, click “Yes”.

5. The “System Properties” multi-tabbed dialog box appears. Click the “Advanced” tab.

6. Underneath “Performance”, click the “Settings” button.

Accessing Performance Settings in Windows 7

7. The “Performance Options” multi-tabbed dialog box appears. Make sure the “Visual Effects” tab is selected.

8. Click the “Custom” radio button if it is not already selected, then uncheck “Animations in the taskbar and Start Menu”.

Preventing Windows 7 from displaying animations in the Start Menu and taskbar, including thumbnail preview animations

9. Click “OK”>

SUMMARY: If you are used to seeing a menu bar when working with Explorer folders, enable it in Windows 7.

If you have worked with earlier versions of Windows such as Windows XP and previous, you probably used the menu bar when working with Explorer folders.

By default, Windows 7 disables the menu bar as most all functionality is easily available via other>Displaying the menu bar in a Windows 7 Explorer folder

On a temporary basis:

Press the Alt key to temporarily show the menu bar. After you make a selection it will disappear.

Permanently:

1. Click the Start button, type folder options and click the “Folder Options” link that appears.

Accessing Folder Options from the Windows 7 Start button

2. When the “Folder Options” multi-tabbed dialog box appears, click the “View” tab.


3. Underneath “Advanced Settings”, check “Always Show Menus”.

4. Click “OK” to close the dialog box.

This tip was written for Windows 7 RC. Screenshots and information are subject to change between this and the official release of Windows 7.