Microsoft In 2019

Windows 7: Set a New Windows Explorer launch Folder

When you open Windows Explorer, it always opens to the Libraries folder showing you the default libraries. That is absolutely perfect if you are using Microsoft’s default file organization, which designates Libraries as the overall container of your folders. But if you don’t want Windows Explorer to open your Libraries you can make Windows Explorer to open different folder of your choice. Here is how:

1. Right click Windows Explorer icon   in the taskbar and then right click Windows explorer icon from the list as shown below:

2. Choose properties from the list and move to target field as shown below:

3. Change the value of the target field to folder of your choice as if I want to open a specific folder say C:\softwares, then change the value in the target field as %windir%\explorer.exe C:\Softwares.

4. Change the value as per your liking but make sure that you leave the space between %windir%\explorer.exe and C:\Softwares.

5. Now, if you want Windows Explorer to open special, pre-set system folders then you want to enter special syntax in the target field.

• Computer: %windir%\explorer.exe ::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}
• My Documents: %windir%\explorer.exe ::{450D8FBA-AD25-11D0-98A8-0800361B1103}
• Network: %windir%\explorer.exe ::{208D2C60-3AEA-1069-A2D7-08002B30309D}

6. After you have changed the target field, click OK. Next time you launch Windows Explorer, it will open the folder of your choice.

Search the Internet from Start Menu

The start menu search box is convenient way to search through PC – but you can also use this search box to perform double duty by making to search the internet from well within the Start menu search. To enable this log on with an administrator account and perform this:

1. In the Start menu   search box, type ‘gpedit.msc’ (without quotes) and press enter to run the Group Policy Editor.

2. Go to User Configuration –> Administrative Templates –> Start Menu and Taskbar.

3. Double click “Add search internet link to Start Menu”, and then from the screen that appears, select Enabled. Then click OK and close the Group Policy Editor. See the figure for details":

4. From now on as soon as you type the item in the search box, a ‘Search the Internet’ link will appear. Just click on the link to launch the search in your web browser with the default search engine as shown in figure:

Build your own internet Search Connector: Windows 7

Windows 7 has a very useful new feature called a search Connector that lets you search through a Web site from right inside Windows Explorer. With it, you type in a search term and select the search Connector for the site you want to search, Windows Explorer searches the website without having to open the Internet Explorer and the result appear right inside Windows Explorer. Click any of the result to head there using your default Web Browser.

Normally, you’ll need to get each search connector from the Web site through which you want to search, and very few connectors are available, but you can create your own by this simple trick. Sites normally stick to OpenSearch standards in order for their connectors to work.

The search connector uses Windows Live search as a kind of go-between. You Don’t need to know any code for this, Just follow these steps:

1. Copy the following text and paste it into notepad. The text you will need to change is in bold:

2. Save the file in notepad, choose UTF-8 from the Encoding drop down list near the bottom of the Save As screen and give it an .osdx extension.

3. A sample search connector (searching Wikipedia) has the above modified code as:

4. In Windows Explorer, right click the .osdx file and select Create Search Connector. The Search Connector will be created.

5. You can now use your Search Connector. To use it go to Your_User_Name –> Searches –> Connector.

Windows 7 Explorer Tips: Use Check boxes to select multiple files

Windows Explorer is the heart and soul of Windows interface ad overall it works quite well but you can make it much better.

In order to select multiple files for tasks such as copying, moving, deleting, in Windows Explorer, you generally use the keyboard and mouse, CTRL-clicking every file you want to select. But if you are a mouse centric, there is a way to select multiple files in Windows 7 using only your mouse, via check boxes. To do it:

1. In Windows Explorer, click organize, and then select ‘Folder and Search Options.’

2. Click the View Tab.

3. In Advanced Settings, scroll down and then check the box next to ‘Use check box to select items’ and click OK.

4. From now on, when you would hover your mouse over a file in windows explorer, a checkbox will appear next to i; click it to select the file. Once the file is selected, the checkbox remains next to it. If you uncheck it, the box will disappear when you move your mouse away. For details look at the screenshot below:

Get a Power Efficiency Report: Windows 7

This is a must if you are using your laptop and you are puzzled that why your laptop’s battery drains so fast. Windows 7 includes a built in hidden tool that will examine your laptop’s energy use and then make recommendations on how to improve it. To use it follw these steps:

1. Run the command Prompt as an Administrator. To do this , press Start button   and type cmd and when the cmd icon    appears, just right click on it and choose “Run as Administrator” as shown below:

 

2. Provide the confirmation and then in the command prompt type  powercfg –energy –output \Energy\energy_report.html

Note: Here there is a space between powercfg and –energy and similar space exists between –energy and output and also with –output and \Energy\energy_report.html. Here ‘Energy’ is the name of the folder which is present at C: drive and Energy_report.html is the name of the file that would be generated after windows check the power settings.

Make sure that you don’t type the complete path, like if you are making a folder ‘ABC’ at root of C: drive, then make sure to mention the name of the output folder as \ABC and not as C:\ABC, otherwise Windows would interpret the output folder as C:\C:\ABC and not C:\ABC. For further reference see the figure:

After the efficiency report is generated, the Command Prompt will notify you to see the energy report at the pre-set location. From this energy report, you can follow the recommendations for ways to improve the power performance of your computer.

Force activation of Aero in Windows 7

If you are experiencing problems with activating and run Aero in windows 7,you can try the Aero Peek hack for Windows 7. Read more to learn how. 

1. Open the registry (Write regedit in run)

2. Navigate to the following registry key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ DWM
If the DWM key is not found in the registry, right click on the Windows folder and pick New -> Key and calll it DWM.
3. In the second detail window to the right, a new DWORD (32-bit value) has to be made, with the name UseMachineCheck, this has to be set to 0.
4. In the same detail window to the right a new DWORD (32-bit value) is created with the name Blur, and this has to be set to 0 as well.
5. In the end a new DWORD (32-bit value) has to be made with the name Animations, this again has to be set to 0.
6. Restart Desktop Window Manager Session Manager in Services in Controlpanel: Write services.msc in the Run field (windows button + r) or use the following commands in a command prompt with administrator rights.

net stop uxsms
net start uxsms
7. You can now try to activate and use Windows Aero in Windows 7. Restart the computer if needed.