Posts Tagged ‘Windows 7’
Visualize your HDD space usage on Windows with Disk Space Fan
Of course you can view your disk space usage with the tools and statistics that Windows itself gives you, but if you want a closer and more detailed look at it, then try out Disk Space Fan. Disk Space Fan is a free-ware utility that shows not only how much space you have used on your disk but also what kind of software you have on it, and on top of it, it presents the information in a nice fan-shaped diagram:
You can also go deeper into the categories to gain an even more detailed view. Download Disk Space Fan on http://www.diskspacefan.com/download.html
Disable Windows Explorer Search Query Saving (Windows 7)
This is usually useful if you are not the only one using the computer you are working on and want to hide the keywords you searched for on the Windows Explorer. The way to do it is to open the Local Group Policy Editor by entering gpedit.msc into a Run… prompt, browse this key on the left frame: User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Windows Explorer and left-click it once to see its values on the right frame. Look for Turn off display of recent search entries in the Windows Explorer search box.
Double-click and enable it. The recent search queries will now no longer be displayed in your search bars.
Problem Steps Recorder in Windows 7
It can be really hard to solve computer problems if the only thing you’ve got is a description and nothing else. This is why Windows 7 integrated a Problem Steps Recorder which, if activated, records every action the user of the computer takes with a screenshot and a brief description of the action. Open it by typing psr into a Run… prompt:
The record is saved as a zipped mhtml file, usually only readable by Internet Explorer but also in Firefox if you install the proper add-on (it is called UnMHT, find it here). It displays all the descriptions of the steps taken along with the screenshots made and is also not too large in size, making it easy to share it with someone who might help out with a problem.
Disable Updates on Shutdown in Windows
To disable Windows from installing updates when you were about to shut down your computer and have some tea there are two options available in your Local Group Policy Editor. Access it by entering gpedit.msc into a Run… prompt. On the left side you will have a large directory listing where you have to browse Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Windows Update.
The two top options are the ones you have to enable by double-clicking, enabling and applying. Windows will then no longer pester you with updates on shutdown.
Set a custom boot message on Windows 7
On Windows 7 there is an option that displays a text message to the user of the computer on system start-up. This message is configurable in the Local Security Policy which you can access over the start menu’s program search bar. Once in there, expand Local Policies on the left frame of the window and select Security Options. There, find the two entries named message title for users attempting to log on and message text for users attempting to log on.
As the names say, the value of the title message is later displayed as the title, same goes for the text. The text can hold an infinite amount of lines and approximately 94 characters in one line. Close the window after you have specified your desired entries.
Both of these settings are also available in the Windows Registry. To find them, open the registry by typing regedit into the Run… prompt and browse the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\System key. There, the legalnoticecaption and the legalnoticetext values are stored. These are the registry storages for the values you entered in the Local Security Policy window.
Disable “Send to” Option on Windows
When you right-click any object on a Windows system, there is the option Send to which is able to literally send objects to other computers by automatically opening a new mail and attaching the chosen file as attachment, process them with other programs selectable from a list, or just moving the file to a different location (hold the Shift key when right-clicking to enable more options to Send to). The common user however does not use this function really often, in fact, he may also find it annoying since it might cause short freezes on slower computers if one accidently hovers the mouse over it and thus makes it load a list of applications. But as for every other problem on your computer there is also a solution for this one, disabling the Send to command with the registry.
To do that, open your registry by entering regedit in to a Run… prompt and direct it to the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\Send To key.
Now the default value that is found in that key is
{7BA4C740-9E81-11CF-99D3-00AA004AE837}
If you ever want to revert your setting the easiest way is to just save this value somewhere safe, since the thing you need to do to disable the Send to command is to double-click the value and remove the string so that it is empty. Leave the registry afterwards and the command should no longer appear on right-clicking.
Shortcuts for creating System Restore Points on Windows 7
On every Windows system able to create system restore points that undo any configuration changes made after their creation, there is also the possibility to create simple quick-link icons, consisting of a few line of code, that enable you to create restore points with a double-click. On Windows XP this is achieved with only two lines of code. Learn in this post, how it is done. In Windows Vista and 7 however, there are a few problems that stand in the way of our (automatic) one-click system restore point. First one is, that the script we need to run to create system restore points can only be run with administrative powers, so we need a way to get those. Second is the annoying User Account Control that asks as if we really want to run that script. This would not be such a great deal, but if you are the kind to create restoration points quite often or after a time schedule, the UAC may become a great pain.
To start with the administrative rights, there are more than one way to get those. The probably least complex one is to add the Run as administrator option to the menu appearing upon right-clicking the script:
This is done by adding the appropriate keys to the Windows Registry. To open that, open Run… by entering run into the Windows search bar in the main menu and clicking on the program. Type in regedit into Run and the Windows Registry will open. It consists of two columns, one on the left, containing the key directories, and one on the left, showing the keys’ values. Take on the left column and browse the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\VBSFile\Shell directory. Right-click it and select New > Key. Name it Runas and leave its values as they are (there is only one). Now right-click the Runas key and again select New > Key. Name the newly created key Command and leave the values as they are. Right-click the Command key and select Export…. Give it a name and save it somewhere you will find it. Go to the directive you saved it and open it with notepad. Erase all of its contents and paste this:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\VBSFile\Shell\Runas\Command]
@=hex(2):22,00,25,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,52,00,6f,00,6f,00,74,\
00,25,00,5c,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,00,57,00,\
53,00,63,00,72,00,69,00,70,00,74,00,2e,00,65,00,78,00,65,00,22,00,20,00,22,\
00,25,00,31,00,22,00,20,00,25,00,2a,00,00,00
Save the file and double-click to merge it with the registry. The Open as administrator option should now be available to all Visual Basic Scripts (you can use the one from the linked XP tutorial with this option enabled).
However, this option neither is automatic nor does it circumvent the UAC. An option that enables creating a restoration point on double-click (but still, without disabling UAC) is to alter the script that you use for this. Open a new notepad (it has to be notepad) and paste the following code:
if wscript.arguments.count = 0 then
set objshell = createobject(“shell.application”)
objshell.shellexecute “wscript.exe”, wScript.scriptfullname & ” run”, , “runas”, vbnormalfocus
else
getobject(“winmgmts:\\.\root\default:systemrestore”).createrestorepoint “Automatic Restore Point (Win7 Script)”, 0, 100
end if
Save the script as *.vbs and make sure to select All files from the dropdown menu before saving! With this, you have enabled administrative rights beforehand every time you run the script. Now there still is a slightly circumstantial method to also disable the UAC prompt. To achieve this, you need to have a desktop shortcut pointing to a scheduled task that runs the script with highest privileges grantable. To access scheduled tasks, browse Menu > Control Panel > System > Administrative Tools > Scheduled Tasks. Create a new one without any trigger, executing your script (be sure to remember the task’s name, you will need it once more) and check the Run with highest privileges box on the first tab.
Now right-click your desktop and create a new shortcut. Let it point to following location (enter your own task-name in the last option):
C:\Windows\System32\schtasks.exe /run /tn “EnterYourTaskNameHere”
Upon opening, it should execute the script without asking for anything.
Free Your Windows 7 Desktop While Drag&Dropping
There is a feature added to the Show Desktop panel in the bottom right corner of the screen that enables you to free the desktop of all windows instantly if you want to drop an item upon it. To do so, just drag the desired item on the panel, hold it a split-second and all open windows will minimize, allowing you to drop the item on the desktop.
Speed Up Boot in Windows 7
There is a simple option on Windows Vista and Windows 7 for multi-cored systems that allows you to greatly decrease the time that your Windows system needs to boot. This is accomplished by dividing the process up on more than one core. To use this function, open Run… by searching for it in the search bar and run msconfig through it:
The System Configuration window will open. Go to the Boot tab, select your Windows partition and click on Advanced Options…. Check the box titled Number of processors and select the number of cores you would like to use for booting in the dropdownmenu (I have only one core on the machine I am using, that is why there isn’t any option on the screenshot).
Afterwards, click OK on every window left open and the next time you boot, you should do it a lot faster than before.
How to change the update frequency in Microsoft security essentials
Microsoft security essentials is the free antivirus software from Microsoft for Windows 7. Unlike other antivirus tools which update their signatures every few hours, Microsoft security essentials is updating its antivirus signature database only once in 24 hours. But the update frequency can be changed in the Windows regestry and the following tutorial will show you how.
1) Open the registry editor by executing the following command on the windows console
regedit
2) Go to the key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/Microsoft Antimalware/Signature Updates
Then click on “Signature Updates” > “Permissions” >”Advanced” and go to the “Owner” Tab. There click on the administrator group and click OK. Now your back in the “Permissions” Window, select the “Administrators” Group and enable the checkbox which is labeled with “Full Control”.
You have changed the permoissions now so that your administrator user can edit the keys. The next step is that you doubleclick on “SignatureUpdateInterval”, select “decimal” and enter the update interval. The interval is set in hours from 1 to 24.
For security reasons, you should then change the permissions back from “Administrator” group to “System” group and close the registry editor.
Microsoft security essentials will now update its signatures in the interval you set in the registry.
Please be aware that a MSE update will reset the interval back to 24 hours. As a alternative approach of updating the signatures, you can create a scheduled task which executes the command:
cd “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Security Client\Antimalware”
MpCmdRun.exe -SignatureUpdate
The commnd should be executed as “SYSTEM” user.