These are the 100 best Windows 7 tips and tricks - credits to windows 7 tip originators are interspersed throughout.

Windows 7 Tips – Top 10 

Create a System Repair Disk – Strongly Recommended. Type ’system repair disc’ in the Start Menu search box, and use the utility.

Aero Shake – Hold down a window by its top border (or any other part) and shake your mouse to minimize all other windows. Alternative Shortcut:  Win + Home.

Aero Peek - Hold your mouse icon over a program icon in the TaskBar to get a preview of the program (if it’s running). then move your mouse and hold it over this icon to bring up the actual window itself. Click to bring this window up permanently or just move the mouse away.

Install Windows 7 without a DVD drive – Look at this post on installing windows 7 without an optical dvd drive. You could also use a flash drive (courtesy Tim Sneath) -

I took a spare 4GB USB 2.0 thumbdrive, reformatted it as FAT32, and simply copied the contents of the Windows 7 Beta ISO image to the memory stick using xcopy e:\ f:\ /e /f (where e: was the DVD drive and f: was the removable drive location). Not only was it easy to boot and install from the thumbdrive, it was also blindingly fast: quicker than the corresponding DVD install on my desktop machine.

Add a shortcut for a website on your Desktop – Right click on any blank space on the web page and select ‘Create Shortcut’.  Choose ‘Yes’ in the dialog and a shorcut will get added to your desktop.

Circle through all Open Windows of one application - Hold down the Ctrl key while clicking on the program icon in the TaskBar.

Shortcut to launch Explorer – Win+E.

Problem Recorder – A screen capture tool that lets you capture the steps that lead to a problem. Then a tech help person or friend can look at it and help you.

Press the Start button (windows logo button on bottom left of the screen), then type in psr in the search field and press Enter to run it.
You could also go to the Control Panel and choose ‘Record Steps to reproduce a problem’.

In the Problem Steps Recorder click ‘Start Record’, then do the steps that are causing a problem. You can add comments at any time.

When you are done click Stop Record. The Problem Steps Recorder has taken snapshots of the steps you took.

Multiple Instances of Same Program – Hold down Shift and Click a taskbar item to start a new instance of that particular application without having to go to Start Menu.

Add XP’s Run Command to the Start Menu – right click in the Start Menu (not on a program icon), then Properties, then Start Menu, then Customize and check “Run Command”. 

90 more great windows 7 tips below …

 

Windows 7 Tips – SuperBar (the new TaskBar)

Start or switch between Taskbar programs – Use Win+1 to switch to (or start) the first Program in the TaskBar (the first icon). Win+2 for the second, and so on. You can also move the icons around for running and non-running programs. This includes icons in the System Tray. 

Access a Program’s JumpList – Alt+Win+1 for 1st application, Alt+win+2 for second application and so on.

Access Jump Lists via Left Mouse Button – You can left-click and drag upwards from an application’s icon to access the Jump List Menu.

Aero Peek - Hold your mouse icon over a program icon in the TaskBar to get a preview of the program (if it’s running). then move your mouse and hold it over this icon to bring up the actual window itself. Click to bring this window up permanently or just move the mouse away.

Add a website to your Taskbar – Take the favicon (tiny image on the left of the website address in the address bar) and drag it to the taskbar. You can also drag it to the desktop to create a desktop shortcut. 

Circle through all Open Windows of one application - Hold down the Ctrl key while clicking on the program icon in the TaskBar. 

Walk through SuperBar/ TaskBar – Press Win+T to move focus to the TaskBar. Now you can use arrow keys to select a window or group and press Enter to launch it or switch to it. Press Esc to get out of this mode.  

Pin your favorite folder to the TaskBar – Hold down right click button and drag the folder to the TaskBar. It gets added to the Explorer Jump List.

Multiple Instances of Same Program – Hold down Shift and Click a taskbar item to start a new instance of that particular application without having to go to Start Menu.

Get the Quick Launch ToolBar back -

Right-click the taskbar and choose Toolbars, and then New Toolbar.
In the folder selection dialog, enter this path: %userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch , where %userprofile% is your user name (the one you’re logged into).
Turn off “lock the taskbar” setting.
Right-click on the divider.
Disable “Show text” and “Show title”.
Set the view option to “small icons”.
Set the order of the toolbars using the dividers.
Lock the taskbar again.

Pin Favorites to JumpLists - First, right click on program in taskbar or press  Win=Alt+1/2/3/etc. to bring up the Jump List. Then, hover your mouse over the item you want to pin to the jumplist and a little pin icon will appear next to it on the right. Click the pin to pin that item to the JumpList.

 

Windows 7 Tips – Window Management

Simplify with Aero Shake – Hold down a window by its top border (or any other part) and shake your mouse to minimize all other windows. Alternative Shortcut:  Win + Home. 

Peeking at the Desktop – Win+Space lets you see what you have on your desktop (without closing or minimizing the window). 

Window Management – You can minimize, maximize, and dock windows.

Dock a window to the left or right half of the screen – Drag it to the Edge of the Screen.
Shortcut: Win Button (button with windows logo) + Left Arrow to dock to the left side. Win+Right Arrow to dock to the right side. (Both buttons must be kept pressed).

Maximize a window – Drag it to the top of the screen OR Win + Up Arrow.
Restore/Minimize a window – Win + Down Arrow.

Mazimize the Vertical Size (while keeping horizontal width the same) – Win+Shift+Up Arrow OR double-click the window’s top or bottom border.
Minimize the Vertical Size (or restore it) – Win + Shift + Down Arrow.

Switch Windows between Monitors (when using multiple monitors) – Win+Shift+Left Arrow to move a window to the left side monitor with the same relative location on the screen. Win + Shift + Right Arrow to move it to the monitor on the right.

Gadgets on Top – Win+G to display gadgets in front of other windows.

Gadgets Below Windows – Alt+G to Disable Gadgets on Top of other windows. 

DeClutter: Win+Home to Clear all but the active window.

Minimize Everything – Win+M. Note: You cannot bring back all windows at once if you do this. Its different from Win + Space.

Display on to a Projector – Press Win+P and then choose one of the options. Press Win+P again to circle through the options. Also available by running displayswitch.exe.

Turn off ‘Windows Smart Arrangement’ – Press Windows Key, then RegEdit, then go to ‘HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop. The setting to change is WindowArrangementActive – set it to 0 to turn it off.  You must restart to kick this into effect.

 

Windows 7 Tips – Windows 7 Shortcuts

Create Your Own Shortcuts for any program – Right click the program icon and select Properties, then Shortcut tab, and then enter a keyboard shortcut in the Shortcut Key field.

Shortcut to launch Explorer – Win+E.

Display or Hide the Explorer Preview Panel – Alt+P. 

Disable Gadgets on Top of other windows – Alt + G.  

Auto Arrange Icons – Keep F5 pressed down for a few seconds.

Shortcuts in Windows Explorer – Alt+Up to go to Parent Folder, Alt+Left Arrow to go back, Alt+ Right Arow to go Forward. 

Minimize Everything – Win+M. Note: You cannot bring back all windows at once if you do this. Its different from Win + Space.

Access the Jump List of an Application – Alt+Win+1 for 1st application, Alt+win+2 for second application and so on.

Lock the screen – Windows + L.

Lots More Shortcuts

1. Win+Home: Clear all but the active window.
2. Win+Space: All windows become transparent so you can see through to the desktop
3. Win+Up arrow: Maximize the active window
4. Win+Down arrow: Minimize the active window or restore the window if it’s maximized
5. Win+Left/Right arrows: Dock the active window to each side of the monitor
6. Win+Shift+Left/Right arrows: If you’ve got dual monitors, this will move the active window to the adjacent monitor
7. Win+Shift+Up Arrow: Maximize the vertical height of the window.
8. Win+Shift+Down Arrove: Minimize or Restore the vertical height of the window.
9. Win+T: Shift focus to and scroll through items on the taskbar.
10. Win+P: Adjust presentation settings for your display.
11. Win+(+/-): Zoom in/out.
12. Win+G – display gadgets in front of other windows.
13. Alt+P – Display/Hide the Explorer preview pane.
14. Shift+Click a taskbar item: Open a new instance of that particular application.
Preview Photos in Explorer - Alt+P.  
Desktop Magnifier – Win+ Plus Key (’+') to zoom in, and Win+Minus Key (’-') to zoom out.

 

Windows 7 Tips - Improve Your Experience

Adjust  Text Contrast – Run cttune.exe to adjust ClearType Text and the contrast between type and the screen.  This is also available in the Control Panel. 

Calibrate your screen brightness – Run dccw.exe to adjust the gamma.

MP3 Bug Fix for Media Player and Media Center – Download the fix from Microsoft to prevent mp3s getting their beginnings cut.

Make Internet Explorer 8 faster (by turning off slow plug-ins) – Click ‘Tools’ and the choose ‘Manage Add-Ons’. Scroll Right to see the load time of various plug-ins and ‘disable’ the ones that are very slow.

IE 8 Address Bar Tip - Press the left mouse button and while keeping it pressed ‘drag down’ to access related entries, browser history and favorites.

Get Back the Run command that XP has – right click in the Start Menu (not on a program icon), then Properties, then Start Menu, then Customize and check “Run Command”.

Launch a program with Admin rights – Slow Way: Right click and choose run as an administrator. Fast Way: Hold down Ctrl + Shift and then click on the icon. 

Run As Another User – In addition to run as admin, you can run a program as another user. Hold down shift and right click on any program icon to get the option to ‘Run As …’ and then choose what user you want to run as.

Launch another instance of a program (that is already running) – Hold down Shift and Click on the icon of the program you want a second instance of. You can also middle-click (use your mouse’s third, middle button). 

Add any library or folder to Favorites – Navigate to the library or folder in Windows Explorer, right click Favorites in the left hand navigation pane, then selected ‘Add current Location to Favorites’. 

Avoid Disturbances with Presentation Mode – Win+X to get to Windows Mobility Center. Then turn on Presentation Mode to disable screensavers, switches IM clients to ‘do not disturb’ etc.   

Open a Command Prompt in Any Folder Location – While in a particular folder, press down the Shift button and right click to get ‘Open Command Prompt Here’ option. 

 

Windows 7 Tips - New Features and Improvements

Burn any DVD or CD .iso image to a disc – Double click on the .iso file and a ‘Burn Disc Image’ applet will pop up.

Sticky Post-It Notes - Press Windows button and type StikyNot.exe to create post-it style notes.

Encrypt a USB drive – Right click on the removable drive and choose ‘Turn on Bitlocker’.

Display Empty Removable Drives – By default Windows 7 hides empty drives when you open your My Computer view. To see empty drives, choose Tools, then Folder Options then View and uncheck ‘Hide empty drives in the computer folder’. 

Automatically Changing Wallpapers - Right click on the desktop screen, then Personalize, then Desktop Background. Hold the CTRL key down while chossing images (click on them). Then you can choose time interval and random or sequential display.

Advanced Calculator - Click on ’View’ to bring up new options i.e. 

There are 3 new calculator modes – Scientific, Statistics and Programming. Shortcuts: Alt+2, Alt+4, Alt+3.

There are worksheets for Mortgage calculations and vehicle leases.

You also can do Unit Conversions and Date Calculations. Shortcuts: Ctrl+U, Ctrl+E.

Improve Your Start Menu – Microsoft has a well detailed page showing you how to make the Start Menu better for you.

Change the Function of the Shutdown Button – You can change what the Shutdown button in the Start Menu does -

Click the Start button, then click on Control Panel. clicking Appearance and Personalization, and then clicking Taskbar and Start Menu.In the Control Panel, choose ‘Appearance and Personalization’, then Taskbar and Start Menu. Then click the Start Menu tab.

In the Power button action list, click an item (whatever action you want the Shutdown button to take), and then click OK.

Run IE8 in Compatibility Mode – Click on the Page menu item in IE8 (top right, next to Safety and Tools). Then click on ‘Compatibility View’ to view the current website in compatibility mode. You can also select ‘Compatibility View Settings’ in the Page Menu to choose websites that are always viewed in compatibility mode.

Web Searches from your Desktop - You can download various connectors that let you search directly from the desktop. More on this later.

Expand Send To Options – Shift and right click on a folder or file to get expanded Send To options.

Install Fonts Easily – The font viewer applet has a ‘Install’ button that you can click to install fonts easily. Lots of other features that the Font dialogs will show you. Windows 7 also adds the Gabriola Font from Tiro Typeworks. Its rather pretty.

 

Windows 7 Tips - Advanced Windows 7 Tips 

These are mostly more advanced windows 7 tips and tricks. Leave a comment if you run into problems with any of these windows 7 tips

Run Windows 7 in Windows XP Mode (Release Candidate) – Please see the Windows 7 Team Blog for the links and instructions.

App Locker - Press Win button to bring up Start Menu, then type in gpedit.msc into your search bar and press enter. This brings up the Local Group Policy Editor and then Lazy Admin has great instructions and screen shots.

International Wallpapers – Browse to C:\Windows\Globalization\MCT. There is a wallpaper directory per country, with different wallpapers. You can also go to the Theme directory to select wallpapers.

Use Virtual Hard Disk Files – To Be updated.

Optimize Power Usage (useful for Netbooks and Laptops) – Press Windows Key, then type “POWERCFG -ENERGY -OUTPUT <path\filename>. Then look at ‘energy-report.html’ in the folder you chose in 1 to 2 minutes.

Start Explorer at ‘My Computer’ by default – In the Start Menu go to Accessories, then right click on Explorer and in properties change the target to %SystemRoot%\explorer.exe /root,::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}

Advanced Defragmentation – Press Windows, and then type in CMD to get a command prompt. The command defrag can be used with these options -

/r defrag multiple drives simultaneously.
-a performs a defrag analysis
-v view the defrag report
-r do not defrag files that have 64 mb or larger fragments
-w defrag everything

Hide your desktop searches – Press the Windows button and type in GPEDIT.MSC, then select User Configuration, then Administrative Templates, then Window Components, then Windows Explorer, then double-click “turn off display of recent search entries. Click Enabled > OK to confirm the changes.  

Make Windows 7 Faster – Press the Windows Key or Click the Start button – then type RESMON and press Enter to launch the resouce monitor. You can now go through the CPU, Memory, Disk and Network tabs and see what’s slowing things down. 

Customize your log-in screen image – Courtesy Rafael Rivera of Within Windows.

Create a DWORD value named OEMBackground in the HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI\Background key. Set its data, of Boolean type, to 1 for enabled (0 for disabled).
Note: You might have to create the registry key if it does not exist.

Find a folder named %windir%\system32\oobe\info\backgrounds (%windir% will usually be C:/windows/). If it doesn’t exist, create it. Now put your desired background image in the folder – Name must be backgroundDefault.jpg and size must be less than 256 Kb.

Customize your log-in screen buttons – Again, courtesy Rafael Rivera.

Go to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI and add a DWORD value named ButtonSet. The supported integer values range from 0 to 2, with each value defined below.

0 – Lighter text shadows, darker (more opaque) buttons (Windows default)
1 – Darker text shadows, lighter (more translucent) buttons (for lighter backgrounds)
2 – No text shadows, opaque buttons (for darker backgrounds)

Change how Windows Media Center starts up – Courtesy Missing Remote. Go to Start, then All Programs, then Windows Media Center. Right Click on it, then select Properties, and then change the target field -

Target Field will probably be %windir%\Ehome\Ehshell.exe (where %winhome% is probably C:\windows\).
Simply add one or more of the following choices at the end of the existing target field -/nostartupanimation – stops the startup sound and Windows Media Center logo “pebble” going off into the distance
/noshutdownui – removes the “shutdown” item from the tasks menu
/mediamode – starts in media only mode (no close/minimize/maximize options in top right corner)
/widescreen – start in widescreen mode, even on 4:3 display (windowed only)
/nochrome – display windowed mode Media Center but without the window chrome
/playallmusic – plays all your music instantly
/playfavmusic – plays all your favorite music
/playfavslideshow – plays your favorite slideshows only
/playfavslideshowwithmusic – plays your favorite slideshow with music
/playslideshow – plays all slideshows
/playslideshowwithmusic – plays all slideshows with music
/screensaver – starts the Media Center screensaver
/configuress – starts Media Center at the “configure screensaver” screen

To get something like %windir%\Ehome\Ehshell.exe /nostartupanimation /noshutdownui /mediamode

Finally, to start MediaCenter in LiveTV, use – %windir%\ehome\ehshell.exe “/mcesuperbar://tv?live=true”

 

Much thanks to Tim Sneath for his ‘bumper list of windows 7 secrets’ and to all the people linked above and others who’ve been finding and sharing windows 7 tips.

Please do leave a comment if you have questions or a windows 7  tip or trick to share.

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